Chapter Two — October 2023

I'm A Survivor — Reba McEntire

"Serephina, come here please. We need to brush your teeth and get you dressed," Hermione called out from her bathroom, her own toothbrush dangling from her mouth.

"Serephina no want to. I is watching Wall-E."

"I know baby, but you have to," she pleaded. "Auntie Katie will be here any minute and you want to be ready for your fun week with her don't you?"

"No!" the toddler shrieked, making her mother look heavenward for help as her spirited daughter teetered on the edge of tantrum. "Serephina wants to go with mummy!"

Rinsing out her mouth, Hermione reached for the worn, tattered hand flannel on the vanity, her finger getting hung up on a hole she had magically repaired a half dozen times already. Conjuring a sticky-note to add to her dairy, she quickly wrote out yet another reminder to finally replace the threadbare linens she had purchased four years ago when she moved in.

Buy new towels, she silently scolded. How hard is that to accomplish?

Very, as it turned out. Despite being a simple enough item to mark off on her to-do list, it always seemed to be forgotten amongst her more time-sensitive tasks or pushed aside in favor of using the spare pounds for something more indulgent. Like an afternoon trip to see the latest animated film at the cinema that brought lunch to its patrons' seats. Or for a spur of the moment ride on one of the water taxis down the Thames to Greenwich to spend a day at the observatory viewing their planetarium shows — her almost four year old daughter currently obsessed with all things astronomy.

"Chipmunk, we've been over this," she soothed, tripping over Serephina's step stool on her way out of the bathroom. Hobbling as her toe smarted off, she bit her tongue to stop from swearing aloud, the human-parrot she had birthed all too keen to repeat things she shouldn't. "You can't go with mummy; your too little."

"No I not!"

Counting the ordered stacks of clothes and knickers atop her dresser one last time, she waved her wand over the week's worth of packing and sent it off to stuff itself into the dove grey baby bag Molly had gifted her while pregnant. Though she had no need for nappies and bottles anymore, the knapsack's bevy of pockets and dividers with extension charms was a gift from Merlin himself when it came to her twice yearly jaunts to the other side of the world. Better than that, it was something she already had on hand and didn't need to spend additional money, muggle or magical, on. Something that while she hadn't been in need of since establishing herself in her job, she still pinched as if she did. The fear that one wrong purchase would land her back to the sleepless nights brought on not by a newborn, but by obsessive and repetitive calculation of her dwindling funds while finishing her bookkeeping licensing.

Unable to use magic on the delicate technology, she collected her laptop from her bedside table where she had set aside when her alarm went off after spending the night making sure she stayed ahead on the books that needed balancing and attempting to set herself to Australian Eastern Standard Time and tucked it under her arm. Heading down the short hall of their barely one thousand square foot flat, she popped into the tiny third bedroom that served as her office and slapped the reminder note into her open datebook. Catching sight of her charger as Serephina continued to have a one-sided fight about getting to come along on her trip, she pulled the laptop's charger from the wall and headed out to the living room.

Placing the items gently on the round coffee table, Hermione lowered herself to her knees and put her hands on her daughter's small waist.

Looking into her arresting green eyes that she had inherited from her sperm donor along with his jet black hair — the two features combined with her age having solidified Hermione's decision to continue living in the Muggle World after giving birth — she sadly reminded, "Baby, I would take you if I could, but I can't."

"Why? I is good!" Serephina wailed, her distraught little voice leaving fissures in her mother's heart as giant tears started to roll down the little girl's rosy cheeks. "I be good; I be good."

Pulling her in close, she caressed her hand through the thick, puffy curls, that along with the spattering of freckles across her cheeks, her button nose, and the soft, perpetual pout of her Cupid's bow lips were all carbon copies of Hermione, she murmured, "I know you're good. You're always good. My sweet, little angel. Believe me, I would like nothing more than to have you come with me, but mummy isn't allowed to bring you."

"Why?"

Letting herself in and sparing her from having to find a way to explain the legal situation she had found herself stuck in after giving birth at the Burrow in a way that a toddler could understand, Katie exuberantly called out, "And just where is my Phi-Phi and her monster hugs?"

"Auntie Katie!" Serephina exclaimed, the hysteria of the prior moment already forgotten as she darted around her mother and launched herself into her auntie's waiting arms.

Using the low table as leverage, Hermione hoisted herself up with a groan and said, "You're a lifesaver," securing her laptop and charges into a compartment in the back of the bag before she left without them.

"Wouldn't have to be if you told that fucking wanker where to shove his Parental Equality Rights," Katie hissed over Serephina's head.

"Katie," Hermione warned through her teeth, nodding at her daughter. "She's repeating everything."

Proving her point, Serephina giggled as she was lowered back to the floor and parroted, "Wanker," skipping over to the couch to continue watching her movie and eating her breakfast.

"Ugh, I give up," Hermione decided in defeat. "I'm just going to have a four year old with a very colorful vocabulary. It's far easier than getting you to watch your tongue."

"How would you prefer me to describe the twat that contributed to her conception then?" Katie demanded coming fully into the flat, still dressed in her ducky patterned pajamas as she dropped her bag on the small table that had been where Hermione and Serephina took their meals each day since before her daughter had made her arrival.

"Katie!"

"Don't, ' Katie,' me. That's exactly what he is," she corrected. "Honestly, I don't know why you haven't called his bluff and taken him to court. You know, Molly and I would both stand witness for you and testify that he hasn't paid a single knut of child support or even tried to be in your lives if he attempts to spin it as you hid her existence from him.

"You and Phi-Phi shouldn't be held hostage on the island because he refuses to take responsibility for the two-pump ejaculation he left behind in that tent."

Looking over her shoulder and lowering her voice, Hermione answered for what was no doubt the hundredth time — their current argument one they regularly partook in especially when the time of year came for her to check on her parents in Sydney — "You know as well as I do, that what you or I or Molly say will mean nothing. That any proof I bring to contradict him won't matter.

"He's Harry fucking Potter, the ruddy Chosen One and Savior of the Wizarding World. If he goes before the Wizengamot and says that he wants custody, they will give it to him regardless of what evidence I provide to the contrary." Her stomach already churning at the very thought of her deepest fear coming to pass.

"Would things be easier if I didn't have the damn Parental Equality Rights Law hanging over my head? Yes. But I can't risk filing a petition for him to sever all paternal ties. We both know the moment I do, he will take me to court where I will lose before ever getting a chance to fight."

"Yeah, I know," Katie huffed. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." Giving her devious smile, she added, "You should tell Ron though. Maybe he and George could orchestrate a little something like that muggle Christmas story with the ghosts. Oh no,'' she corrected, snapping her fingers. "That raven, Poe bloke; whatever his name was. You know, the one with the thumping heart."

"The Tale Tell Heart," Hermione laughed, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah but instead of a beating heart, it can be a Phantom Crying Baby."

"Merlin, that would be true torture."

Meeting Katie again following the war, had been an accident. The two had quite literally run into one another at Saint Mungo's just over four years ago. Katie had been reviewing her healer's notes regarding her mandatory physical evaluation for the British and Irish Quidditch League's coming draft as she headed for the floo bank. Meanwhile Hermione — who had been experiencing uncontrollable bouts of accidental magic before finally losing it all together at the start of her third trimester — was coming out of one of the hearths.

Unbalanced as she was with her pronounced belly, the tight, spiraling travel that was the floo network had left her discombobulated as she stumbled out. Facing every pregnant woman's worst nightmare, she lost her footing and began to fall forward. Ever the chaser with reflexes like lightning, Katie had dropped the intricately ordered parchment and reached out to take a punishing grasp on Hermione's upper arms. Brought down by gravity as she was though, she still managed to send them both crashing to the reception floor, her former roommate taking the brunt of their fall before immediately hopping up to shout for the staff's assistance.

It hadn't been until Hermione was taken to an exam room — the healers rushing about to check her baby's vitals — and Katie ushered in behind her, the staff mistaking them for a couple, that the two had finally taken true notice of each other. Seeing the familiar rich chocolate eyes of Katie Bell, a new panic had grown within Hermione, sinking its claws into her as she stuttered over an explanation for her condition.

Dodging Molly's gentle probing over the conception and paternity of her baby was hard enough. Katie would prove to be impossible once she started in on her inquiries. She had always been tenacious when she sought the answer to something. And with the burden of the truth having grown heavier and heavier as her due date approached, Hermione knew right away that it would only be a matter of time before she collapsed and told the other witch everything.

As it turned out, she had lasted much longer than she had initially thought. No small part in thanks to the fact that Katie had surprised her by not pushing for answers. In fact, the witch she had plowed down in the hospital reception area hadn't asked any questions. Instead she continuously popped up in Hermione's life until she had made herself an integral part of her support network and an invaluable friend. Day or night, match or not, Katie was always a single ring of her mobile or the cast of a Patronus away. She had fit herself seamlessly into the small family Hermione had created around Serephina and had been the perfect choice — though Katie often teased the only choice — when it came time for her to decide upon a guardian for her daughter should the worst come to pass.

She had been with her and Molly through every appointment that followed their fateful re-introduction; first waiting in the reception area then in the exam room getting teary eyed each time the whooshing sound of her baby's heartbeat filled the room or her daughter's little image came up on the sonogram. When her contractions had started in earnest, Katie had walked right off the pitch mid-match stating they wouldn't make a fuss if it was one of the wizards walking out for his wife and Apparated first to Hermione's flat then to the Burrow once she had collected her and the delivery bag. And through all thirteen hours of her labor, she stayed at her side acting as her birthing partner and eventually assisted Molly in the delivery of Serephina.

Then when she was three months into being a mum and thoroughly exhausted from both the demands of having a newborn and the ever present cloud of financial struggle and worry, Katie had attacked, though not in the way Hermione had expected.

Sitting at her four person dining table with Serephina greedily latched onto her boob while she herself ate breakfast, an owl from the Daily Prophet arrived, bringing with it a salacious story about Harry Potter's love life. Fearing the worst, Hermione immediately set aside the bland but economical porridge she had been eating and tore through the sections of the newspaper until she reached the gossip columns. There in the center of all the chaos, she found a massive image of a Valkyrie-like Katie Bell tearing into Harry on the streets of Diagon Alley, going as far as to draw her wand on him and curse him for all to see.

A lover's quarrel the paper had reported, but she knew the truth.

The morning prior — mere hours before the incident occurred — had been when her avenging friend had found out how tight Hermione's finances were until she could sit the exam to achieve her bookkeeping license, having missed the most recent testing date when she had gone into labor three weeks ahead of schedule. Refusing to accept money from Katie either as a gift or a loan to help her through, the pint sized quidditch player had stormed from her flat in a whirlwind of fury. The door slamming behind her as she swore she would find the sperm donor who had contributed to Serephina's DNA and make him step up.

Looking at the paper and watching the image loop through its cycle over and over again, Hermione had realized Katie knew. Katie knew the truth of her daughter's paternity and had never once commented on it. Not until Hermione's herself had asked how she had put it together, her daughter's eyes still blue at the time and her hair hardly more than three or four sparse wisps of fuzz. In return her friend — who had been far too apologetic over her lack of success and even more indignant because of it — had given her a look she knew she often wore herself when asked a rather obtuse question and replied, "If it had been anyone other than that selfish twat, you wouldn't have banished yourself to the Muggle World." And aside from when their round and round argument over the petitioning of the suspension of his rights would pop up, that had been the one and only time Katie had ever requested the story behind how Hermione had gotten pregnant during the war.

Pulling out her phone to check the time, Hermione placed it back in the pocket of her jean cutoffs and said, "Right. So you know the drill. Money's in the top left drawer in the office; all of my little chipmunk's snacks are portioned and in the cupboard or fridge along with all her meals and meals for you; movie in the morning means no iPad in the afternoon unless the weather turns poor. She can however have more telly during dinner or once she's in bed.

"Molly and Arthur will be coming over Tuesday afternoon to take Serephina out into Muggle London and on Thursday morning, she goes to the Burrow; I've already sent the tickets to this afternoon's planetarium show to your phone as well as your cinema tickets for Wednesday, and tickets to the Sunday matinee showing of the Winnie the Pooh Musical.

"The astronaut bear has to go everywhere with you. She will have a complete meltdown without it, especially at bedtime so be sure you know where he is prior to sitting down for stories. And speaking of bed, she's been having a stretch of night terrors lately so don't be surprised if she comes to crawl in with you.

"I'll have my phone on me the whole time so don't hesitate to call me or FaceTime. And if you need anything—"

"Molly's number is already programmed, not to mention I can send a Patronus, or just pop us over to the Burrow.

"And before you start, I already have the muggle pediatrician's number and all your Sydney points of contact programmed in my phone, including your holiday rental. I also have a copy of your itinerary for the week both on paper and digital," Katie interjected.

Clapping her hands on her shoulders, she stressed, "Hermione, we go through this every six months. I've got this.

"But what about—"

"I've got this," she repeated, enunciating each syllable. "Now say goodbye to your daughter, make sure you remembered your toothbrush this time, grab your Portkey, and be on your way. And while you're at it, maybe have some fun. You remember fun. It's that thing you used to do, long ago, where you partook in grownup activities or really any activity that wasn't designed for entertaining toddlers."

"I'm going to check on my parents, not on an actual holiday."

"And what? You won't have even a few hours to go lounge on the beach or take in the sights? Merlin, Hermione this is your ninth visit since the end of the war and you've never even seen the Opera House. For once, take some time for yourself. You can't pour from an empty cauldron and Serephina deserves you at your best."

Narrowing her eyes at the none too subtle manipulation, Hermione grumbled, "You don't play fair."

"Never said I did. In fact, I'm rather well known for it in the League, but don't change the subject. We're talking about you putting your needs first for the next week.

"And speaking of your needs—"

"Oh Merlin and Jesus here we go again."

"—try and find yourself a bloke who can put your headboard through the wall and leave you walking funny long after you've booted him from your bed. I mean it's been what, nine months since you last took a nice, thick, heavy broom for a ride?" Katie swiftly corrected as Serephina snuck up between them.

"Auntie Katie, comes watch Wall-E," their miniature interloper pleaded, tugging on Katie's arm.

"Just a second, chipmunk. I'm making sure mummy's packed protection."

"Protession for what?" Serephina asked, her innocent eyes blinking up at them, sending both into a fit of giggles as Katie answered, "For broom riding."

"Mummy never gets on brooms."

"Hear that, Hermione? Even Phi-Phi knows you don't—"

"Okay, that's enough; thank you," she said, over Katie's continuing laughter at her expense.

Scooping her daughter up into her arms, Hermione peppered the chubby cheeks that had earned her the nickname, chipmunk, with dozens of kisses, nibbles, and raspberries until Serephina's high pitched, little voice was gasping for air around her giggling demands to be put down.

Giving her a tight squeeze, she put on an exaggerated voice and asked, "You're going to be good for Auntie Katie, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you're going to do everything she tells you to?"

"Yep."

"Promise?"

"Yes, mummy."

Setting her back on the floor but not yet letting go, Hermione gave Serephina several more kisses and tightened the hug she held her in for a moment longer. Then feeling her phone begin to vibrate with a reminder of the time, she whispered, "I love you very much, my girl. You know that right?"

Nodding her head with all the enthusiasm only a small child could successfully exude, she said, "I love you too, mummy."

With one more kiss to her wild curls, she reluctantly let go, wishing for the thousandth time that she had relinquished her faith and hope in the idea that Harry would come around before having decided to return to England where she would have the support of Molly. As it were, she hadn't and under the Ministry's Parental Equality Law, a trace had been placed upon Serephina the moment Hermione had registered her birth.

In many respects, the law was an excellent formed body of rules that gave neither parent an upper hand. However in her case, it served as a ball and chain that kept her and Serephina bound to Great Britain. For if she didn't petition Harry for the suspension of his paternity rights, she couldn't so much as take a holiday with her daughter to mainland Europe without his approval. Let alone take her to Australia twice a year to monitor her permanently Obliviated parents or move to another country. And since he had made it abundantly clear the vindictive and spiteful lengths he would go to if she ever revealed him as her baby's father following Katie's attack of him in the streets, she was well and truly stuck. Even more so after Serephina's hair had darkened past her own chestnut coloring to Harry's jet black and her eyes had turned a shade of green identical to his own.

With nothing to do for it now though but accept the repercussions of her actions and inactions, Hermione grabbed the wooden spoon that served as her latest Portkey to the Australian Ministry in Sydney. Then with Katie redirecting Serephina's attention to the television where Wall-E was racing to jump aboard the ship that was taking EVE away, she slipped from their flat and headed out to the building's alleyway just as the spoon began to glow. The time to be squished through a tube and brought to the other side of the world for the next week, nearly upon her.