Chapter 14: Why Shouldn't We?

Ron stared at where his sister was currently bound to Sirius Black's old bed, upstairs in the man's old childhood room at Grimmauld Place. It was disconcerting to see her entire body frozen stiff as well under Petrificus Totalus, all except for her eyes – blue irises that glowered at him and Harry, following them around the room.

"This is really your plan? At least until the Wizengamot can commence a trial?" Ron asked of his brother-in-law.

Harry shrugged. "I had nowhere else to put her."

"Yeah, you did – in jail!" Ron emphasized.

"I couldn't very well leave her in there once I had the money to post bond!"

"How'd that even happen, anyway?"

"Lily started a pot going with her brothers – well, James; Al was forced into it under duress, but it was still short. And then…" Harry fought hard not to blush, for fear that Ginny might see. "…. Luna made up the difference." From out of the corner of his eye, he saw his wife's eyes widen in surprise at this, almost as if she was touched by this gesture from her best mate. If only Ginny knew that Luna had lent him the money while feeling conflicted. Harry sighed. And that was even before they….

"Oh. Oh," Ron's eyes widened also in understanding. "Well, that explains a lot. So you thought after Luna came up with the money, that you'd….."

"Sssssh!" Harry hissed, making a slashing motion across his throat. Ginny might be immobilized, but she could still hear them. And then there was James to consider, whom he now listened for down the hall; he could still hear the shower water running.

Ron stepped into his best mate and whispered directly into his ear. "….You'd thought you'd return the favor by taking Luna for a ride between the sheets?"

Harry chose to ignore the judgmental tone in his brother-in-law's voice, even as he ground his teeth. "Yes!"

"Got it. Just checking."

A few moments later, James materialized, several empty bottles and tins glistening in the light from just being washed. "There. It's done. I've poured the whole lot down the drain."

"All the potions in the house?" Harry prompted his son.

"Yup."

"And any and all ingredients that could be used to brew potions…."

"…. have been ground up in the garbage disposal."

"Also, because we're Aurors and we tend to overthink things having to do with security: explain to me how exactly you're going to ensure your mother cannot leave the property?" Harry barely staved off a smirk, along with sparing a glance at his wife.

"Easy. The most impervious charms and wards – the ones Sirius and Dumbledore used during the war – have been placed on all the doors and windows. Every bit of Floor powder has been dusted and then burned away in the fireplace…."

"What a waste!" Ron tutted. "Floo powder is only getting more expensive…"

"As for Apparation," James continued over his uncle. "I will leave Mum's wand in the custody of you lovely gentlemen. Without it, she can't Disapparate!"

Ron nodded, his expression almost sad. Not because he felt in any way sorry for his sister, but because he knew the magical law of which James spoke all too well. He suddenly felt a round of PTSD coming on: he was back in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, listening to his beloved's screams and powerless to do anything to stop it. So desperate had he been to rescue the woman he loved that he had actually tried to Disapparate despite his wand having been confiscated.

"What about nonverbal magic?" Ron queried. "There are spells that can be performed without holding a wand in your hand." It felt like he and Harry were grilling James during a thesis presentation.

James thought for a moment, perhaps thinking it was a trick question. "Mum isn't a powerful enough witch to perform wandless magic. Even if she could, say, to attack one of us, she definitely wouldn't be strong enough to use nonverbal magic to counteract the wards; they're too strong! Blocking any possibility of escape is our primary concern. Whether she is dangerous enough to attack us without a wand…. Well, even if she could or did, she couldn't then flee anywhere."

Harry nodded once, satisfied. "All right, son. If you're confident – and it sounds as though you've thought of every contingency – then you may undo the ropes and reverse Petrificus Totalus. Ginny will be free to move about Grimmauld Place."

"I would still use a Silencing Charm on that fat mouth of hers," Ron cautioned his nephew. At Ginny's fierce glare, her brother simply smirked. "She can be very manipulative, so don't let her words get inside your head."

James nodded. Pointing his wand at his mother, he chanted, "Emancipare!"

The ropes disappeared from around Ginny's body.

"Reparifors!"

Ginny's muscles unclenched, and she squirmed, opened her mouth to scream or perhaps spew invective.

"Silencio!" Ron barked. Ginny gave a jerk and her mouth began to move soundlessly. Ron grinned. "Ah, that's better."

"You mind staying here tonight, Dad?" James asked. "I….. I don't want to be left here alone with only her and Kreacher for company."

"You can always go back to your flat," Harry pointed out kindly.

"Nah, I wanna help! Besides, Al could use a night alone. Fancy a game of cards?"

Harry nodded.

"Well – I'd better get going then!" Ron waved off. "I'm supposed to collect Lavender."

"What for?" Harry frowned with curious bemusement.

"I thought I'd bring her by to meet Rose and Scorpius. They'd invited me round for dinner. I…." He gulped. "I haven't told the kids yet that Hermione and I are getting divorced." He still sounded closed to tears even just talking about it. In the background, Ginny was making frantic mouthing with her lips, horrified, but the men ignored her.

Harry's brow only furrowed more. "Shouldn't you be going together with Hermione to break this news?"

"She can't – said she has a late meeting." Ron scowled. "I hope it's not with who I think it's with…."

"You really need to let those insecurities about Krum go, mate," Harry clapped Ron on the back. "Hermione's a big girl; she'll be fine. Besides, it's just business, right?"

"It better be…." Ron muttered.

"Ron, he's the Bulgarian ambassador! I highly doubt he would risk his post by trying to…. start something untoward with the Minister for Magic!" Harry's reassuring grin faded into a leery frown. "All the same…. I don't know if you should be inviting Lavender along for this, if you do plan to break the news to Rose and Scorp. You can see how her presence might be misconstrued, right?"

If Ron did, he didn't acknowledge it. "She's been really supportive of me lately! I… I need someone there to lean on. Tonight's going to be hard enough as it is…"

Harry lifted his hands in surrender, not agreeing but knowing he couldn't stop his brother-in-law either. "Whatever you say!"

"Cheerio, then, mates! Have…." Ron stole a glance at Ginny. "…. Erm, a good night!" And striding down the stairs and out of the house, Ron turned on the spot and Disapparated.

Ron had owled ahead and given Lavender the address to his daughter and son-in-law's flat. It had felt a little odd posting a letter with only a name and trusting that the owl would know how to get it to Lavender.

"Hey," Lavender greeted him with a hug, where she was waiting for him just outside. "This it then?" She took in the flat with a smile. "It looks lovely! Quite charming."

"Not bad for a couple of kids just out of school, I reckon," Ron grinned with pride. He started to move up the walk when Lavender caught his arm.

"Are you sure you want me here?"

"Lavender – I need you here. Telling the kids, especially Rose, that her mum and I are getting divorced is going to be hard enough as it is. Besides, I want you to meet her."

"That's just it. Aren't you a little worried? About how this might look?" Lavender bit her lip, eyeing him almost knowingly.

A beat as Ron thought about it. "No. You're a friend. A friend whom I would like to introduce to my daughter."

Lavender grimaced. "I still say that maybe it would be better if we just…. had a nice meal with Rose and Scorpius and then you and Hermione can coordinate telling them about the divorce plans another time…"

"It'll be fine. Come on, old girl!" Ron took her hand and half-tugged her up the walk. "Just do it quick, like a Band-Aid…." Behind him, Lavender was wincing, fearing that the emotional fall-out of the divorce news was severely hampering Ron's judgment.

They knocked on the door; Ron heard a muffled shriek come from inside – his little girl, no doubt panicking over making sure everything was just so. Like mother, like daughter….

A second later, the door opened and Rose appeared, her red bangs whipping around her face like tongues of flame. She appeared winded, breathless, but flushed with excitement. "Hi, Dad!" Her smile was bright as she pulled him into a hug. Ron inwardly squirmed as he realized that her smile would probably desert her before night's end. "Scorp! He's here, darling!"

Scorpius came bustling into the foyer while fiddling with his shirt collar. "Halloo there, Ron!" The in-laws shook hands, the gesture becoming gradually less stiff with each passing iteration. Glancing over his father-in-law's shoulder, Scorpius caught sight of Lavender. "Who is this?"

"Oh," and Ron stood aside to let Lavender into view. "This is an old…. schoolmate of mine from Hogwarts days. Lavender Brown, my daughter, Rose and her husband Scorpius."

"Hi," Lavender grinned, drifting forward, a question in her eyes. After a moment, Rose chuckled with delighted surprise and awkwardly accepted a hug from the woman, though the brightness had dimmed from her blue eyes to now display some bemused confusion. "Well…. the more the merrier! Scorpius: set an extra place, love?"

Scorpius nodded and dutifully dashed down the hall.

Rose beckoned her father and his…. friend into her little flat and proudly showed them around. "Welcome to our little love nest!"

Lavender grinned with amusement. "That's just what Seamus and I called our first place."

"Oh – so you're married, then?" There was something that might have been relief in Rose's eyes.

"Oh, not in years, dear! Divorced." Rose took this in blankly, her expression unreadable.

"Dinner is served!" Scorpius called.

The quartet sat down to eat. Watching his daughter from across the table as she cuddled and murmured happily to her husband, Ron knew what he had to say, yet was unsure how to smoothly bring it up. Maybe Lavender was right; maybe this wasn't the right time….

The looming specter of going home once again to an empty house, filled with the absence of a wife working late just to avoid coming home to him, spurred Ron forward to have out with it.

"Rosie, darling…. There's something that…. I need to talk to you about."

"Sure, Dad. What's up?" Her face fell with concern. "Is it Mum? Is she all right?"

"No, no, she's fine – working a bit too hard, perhaps, but fine. Um…." Ron chewed on his bottom lip. "You remember what we said? When Grandma's diary came out?"

Rose deflated. "About you being separated?"

"Yeah, well….. your mother and I…. we're getting divorced."

Silence. Ron cringed. Rose seemed frozen where she sat.

A prolonged beat, and then the proverbial bomb exploded.

"You said you weren't going to see other people! You promised!"

"And we're not! We agreed to that when we decided to separate!" Too late, Ron realized the trap of his own making and how he had walked right into it.

"But now that you're getting divorced, you're…" Rose's head turned on a murderous swivel to take in Lavender. Her jaw hardened. "I see how it is."

Ron's stomach dropped in panic. "Rosie…."

"You're shacking up with this harlot!"

"Rose Ginevra Hermione Weasley!" Ron thundered. "Apologize this instant! This woman is a guest in your home!"

"If I had known you were grooming her to be my stepmother, I never would have let her in!" Rose shrieked, leaping to her feet.

"Rose…" Lavender tried to interject. "It isn't like that. Your father and I are just friends. We reconnected recently…."

"Ah….. reconnected….." Rose purred sarcastically, sneering, her voice dripping with poison as she turned her head to take in her dad. "Do tell, Daddy dear: explain how this was a reconnection…."

"We were friends during our Hogwarts days…." Ron explained, keeping it deliberately vague.

Only for Lavender to then blow that up. "We dated briefly in sixth year before he got together with your mum."

Rose let out an offended little laugh. "And there it is! Oh, that is just rich! Does Mummy know about your little lady on the side, Dad? 'Just friends,' my arse!" She was steaming.

Ron felt like he was watching a bad car wreck, witnessing everything come crashing down just a little bit further, and he suddenly felt the uncontrollable urge to run. Get out of there. He decided to use Rose's abhorrent behavior as a pretext. "Lavender and I are just friends, and that's the truth! If you can't accept that at face value, then we're leaving!" He pushed back from the table, resisting the urge to grab Lavender's hand, for fear of how it might look. "Come on, Lavender…."

Lavender could only dither after him, sending Scorpius an apologetic look before rushing out to the street.

Ron was crestfallen and defeated when he and Lavender Apparated in front of his house in Ottery St. Catchpole. Tonight had been an unmitigated disaster, and Lavender was only sorry that Ron hadn't seen how wrong it could go until it was too late. She couldn't really be angry with him for what amounted to a profound lapse in judgment, though she was annoyed, if not entirely surprised. Ron had tended to leap into things without thinking; such thoughtlessness could really be credited as the basis for their relationship back in sixth year. Though, in that instance, Lavender had been the one to charge in without thinking by kissing him first, not appreciating and maybe not caring about how the dynamic of the Gryffindor Common Room at that time – and especially the dynamic of the Golden Trio – would be completely, if temporarily, upended as a result of her actions.

As she had done the other night, Lavender helped Ron to bed.

"Next time: why don't we have dinner at your place?" Ron muttered in what might have been a facetious manner, albeit tinged with bitterness. Lavender just smiled indulgently, almost ready to tease him with a quip inquiring if he was asking her out, yet she refrained. There had already been enough horrendous optics for one night.

She helped Ron into bed, helping to remove his shoes.

"Will you stay?" he implored, actually patting the empty side of the bed next to him. "Lie here next to me?" The man looked lost, untethered. Starved for company.

Lavender's heart went out to him, even as wisdom and maturity won out. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

She had to bend over Ron to draw up the other side of the comforters, much as she had bent over him the other night when pressing a kiss to his brow.

This time, Ron suddenly gripped Lavender's skull in his hands and pulled her lips down to his in a furious kiss.

"Mmmm!... Hmmmmmmm…" Lavender squeaked and wriggled, trying to get free, but then Ron's burly arms were stealing about her waist, sweeping up her lower back and he pulled her onto the bed, on top of him so that she now suddenly found herself straddling him. Shocked as she was, Lavender felt the memories of those better times in their sixth-year relationship rushing back and his lips tasted just as full as she remembered and…

…. Before she knew it, her brain had briefly turned to mush and she pressed her body down into Ron's, moaning and closing her eyes as she moved to deepen the kiss and even kiss him back. "Mmmmmhmmmmmmm….."

Only when Lavender felt Ron lifting his hips to cradle hers, pushing them up so she could feel his erection through his pants, did she get a hold of herself.

"Mmmmmm….. NO!" she yelped, wrenching free of the passionate locking of lips and springing off of Ron's chest as if burned, horrified and disgusted with herself. "Ron, we can't!"

"Why shouldn't we?" Ron reached for her; he looked almost insane, and she danced away out of reach before he did something mad and snogged her again. Before she did something mad and snogged him back…. or worse, go farther than a snog.

As for Ron himself, he was distraught and out of his head, starved for companionship, despondent over the divorce with Hermione that would come whether he liked it or not, and more than a little resentful. He thought of his brother-in-law, who was now using his wife's betrayal as permission to go and shag Luna sodding Lovegood on the side. If Harry had a mistress to keep him warm and satisfied, then why shouldn't he, Ron, have one?

"My marriage is over, Lav, whether I want it to be or not. Hell, my daughter already thinks we're shagging, so why not just leap into bed and be done with it?"

"Ron, I…." Lavender held up a hand. "You're distraught. You're confused. And I think I need to let you have a night alone so that things can look clearer in the morning…"

"Don't you want to have someone to hold you?" Ron asked her. "If anyone needs it more than me, it's you!"

Lavender sucked in a breath. "Not while you're still married. I won't be somebody's mistress, Ron – I won't do that to Hermione! I won't disrespect her again like I did when we were teenagers, and especially not after she saved my life! Helping me get a job. I would hope that you would show a little more honor towards your wife while she still is your wife!"

Her rant lurched to a grinding halt. From the darkening in his deep blue eyes, Ron appeared to have only heard the first part of what she had said. Lavender gulped. Oh, dear Merlin…. She had to get out of here. If he kept looking at her like that…. well, then she would do something that she'd regret. That they'd regret.

"What about when I was no longer married?" At Lavender's rapid blinking, Ron shrugged. "You said you wouldn't shag me as long as I'm still married to Hermione. But…. after….?" He looked hopeful.

Lavender shivered. "…. I have to go. Good-goodnight." And she fled from the bedroom, then the little cottage in Ottery St. Catchpole before she said something like, left open the possibility of saying, 'Yes.'