A/N: It's short, but it's mostly a filler chapter. Hope you like it anyway, and leave review. Even if it's just to say "it's okay."


Chapter 5
- Orange Autumn -

Ron had been meeting Hermione with Nicole three times during the next two weeks. This time the meetings were planned. They had met in the park and walked around and played with Nicole. Poor girl, she had no idea that the funny hero of hers was her father.

The summer was now slowly turning into autumn, leafs were turning orange and red and the weather grew colder and more windy.

It was Wednesday and Ron was once again in the park with Hermione and Nicole. Nicole had become more used to him and was soon babbling to him about everything and dragged him with her to show him things.

"Can't you move a little faster?" she asked as she dragged him with her by the arm.

"Faster, huh?" he asked her playfully and without warning he had lifted her up started spin her around. Her scream soon turned into laughter. God, it was just like hearing Hermione laugh. "Faster, faster!" she yelled.

When he thought the girl had got enough head-spinning for one day he put her down. "Fast enough?" he asked her, smiling.

"Well," she seemed to be considering the matter seriously, "It was ok." She nodded enthusiastically.

At the end of the day Ron was walking Hermione and Nicole over to the corner where they always parted, Ron guessed they lived up in that street. He refused to believe that they had lived there the entire time tough, because then he would probably have seen her around before. But he didn't ask, he wasn't sure she would answer.

Ron and Hermione walked casually on the street with Nicole hanging behind them, kicking rocks as she went.

"Did you know each other in school?" Nicole suddenly asked them.

"Yes, I told you that remember?" Hermione reminded her, Ron thought he saw something change in her face but he must have been imagining it because when he looked at her again, she looked normal.

"Yeah, but were you guys… you know-" Ron could practically hear her smile, "were you together?" the question was so sudden and so casually asked that Hermione didn't seem to really take it in at first but then she stopped and now Ron was sure he saw something flicker behind her eyes, sadness and, could it be, regret?

"What makes you ask that?" Hermione said, and soon continued walking, not looking back at Nicole. Ron felt Nicole's eyes in the back of his head.

"Were you or were you not?"

Hermione sighed, and stopped. She turned around to meet her daughter. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to answer. Ron knew Hermione still thought of their whole break up thing as her fault, thinking about it; it was in fact she who broke it off, but he had definitely led her to it. To spare her the pain in talking about it he kneeled down to Nicole's level.

"Yeah, a long time ago we were," he said. Hermione smiled gratefully in the background.

"Why aren't you anymore?" Merlin, this girl was forward, he thought, though a little amused.

"Well…" he said, turning his head to look at Hermione. She wore a sad expression but quickly hid it when she saw him looking. Ron turned back to Nicole and was once again strongly reminded of Ginny, he shook it of and said; "it just didn't work out. For certain people it just don't." he paused. "But you're mum found a new bloke, didn't she? And that is working fine, isn't it?"

Nicole nodded silently. "Brett's nice," she said.

Ron chuckled, "I bet he is."

"But he got scared when I accidentally put his hair on fire," she said, sounding angry. "He doesn't like it when I do magic. He says that 'till I can control them I must try not to do it…" she made a face and looked down at her shoes.

"I think he's right." Ron said, "You should try not to use it much. I bet you read much about it, though."

At this Hermione chuckled and Nicole looked at him in disgust, "I don't read." She simply said. "Reading's for geeks." she seemed to be thinking, "like Mum," she added smirking.

"Nicole only reads about – well, about Quidditch." Hermione said from behind them. Ron looked at Hermione, raised his eyebrows and mouthed, "Is there anything of you in there?" She just smiled and shrugged.

"Well, sometimes reading could be a nice thing," he said, turning back to Nicole "it makes you smart. But you have to be careful with it though; it could turn you in to a know-it-all." He smirked and winked at her. Hermione glared at him from behind.

"Whatever you say." Nicole simply answered. "Well, are we going or not?" she started walking along the street again.

Hermione glanced at Ron. "Well, we better get home." She said, "I'll – I'll see you later, ok?"

"Yeah," he looked at Nicole, she was spinning around beneath a tree; leaves were flying around her.

"I guess the next time I'll see you are for Christmas?" Ron asked Hermione. "You're coming, yeah?"

"Of course we are," she answered, looking nervous.

"Hey," he laid a hand on her shoulder, "it'll go fine. No one will be mad at you."

She snorted, apparently not believing him for a second. Then she smiled weakly, "I'm really sorry you haven't met her sooner. You do believeme when I say I'm sorry, right?" she looked truly concerned.

"Yeah, I do. I haven't said I have forgiven you yet. It might take some time…"

"I understand." She whispered, "I don't blame you…" They both looked down at their shoes as an awkward silence fell.

"Well, goodbye then." Hermione said after a few seconds. She put on a pair of white gloves then started moving towards Nicole to get her out of the bed of leafs she had decided to lay down in.

"Bye…"