A/N: Nothing you recognize is in any way mine. Nor shall it ever be.

All my thanks to Phx-Songbird; bbmetater; knitchick for their reviews and to everyone who has decided to give a new story a chance. Here we find Harry and the Weasley's reactions to Hermione's attack, and just who else knew things at home with Ron wasn't the sweet fairy tale it seemed? I do hope you stick with me, and this story that has burrowed into my brain. Sorry we see no Severus in this chapter, though I promise to bring him back for the next one!

End transmission

-me

Harry sat there where his old Potions Master had left him mentally kicking himself for not seeing the signs sooner. He really was so self absorbed. After the war he had tried so hard to just be happy, make a life he wanted. He had Ginny, and little Teddy. Life was far from perfect. He didn't sleep, the nightmares would likely always be with him, be with most people he figured. He had considered packing up his little family and moving, what did it matter really. Ginny was never home, the Harpies kept her busy between training and quidditch matches she was rarely around. Home on Tuesdays and every other Thursday, it wasn't really what Harry thought married life would be like, but she was happy, who was he to begrudge her her dreams. Harry had taken every loss during the war personally. He had tried so hard to be a positive force in the wizarding world, working on the rebuilding of the school and Hogsmead. When he was given access to his family vaults after the war he had promptly feinted away. He thought the vault his parents left him was all there was, and that was more than enough for two lifetimes. Then when Sirius had fallen through the veil he had left everything to Harry, and the Black fortune when combined with Harry's vault was likely enough for ten lifetimes. However, when he returned to Gringotts, and after being told that the Goblins had seen to it to remove a small fortune from his vault to pay for the damages he caused, and to replace the dragon he stole 'Just Business, you see' he was given the key to a new vault, the Potter family vault. Part of him had wanted to find Malfoy and laugh at him, call him a pauper. After the blood wards had recognized him as the true Potter Heir Harry had walked into a vault larger than anything he ever could have imagined. It wasn't just gold, and jewels. How they had gotten an entire ocean liner into that vault was beyond Harry, but sure enough a ship reminiscent of The Titanic, from that movie his Aunt Petunia had liked so much, sat at the rear of the vault. It was filled with all sorts of vehicles and artifacts. Harry spent weeks going over the family ledgers, learning about his ancestors. He had found the Potter Family Tree and had enjoyed putting faces to names. Here was a scrap book full of old prophet articles going back to the 16th century that had to do with the Potters. He was learning so much about his family, mostly he learned he was rich, beyond rich, and in the muggle world as well. Apparently he had an ancestor who had married a Duchess who was the last in her family line and came into a fortune in the muggle world. There was so much. He had promptly sat down and transferred funds all over the place, some to each of the Weasley's, and a rather sizeable chunk to Ron and Hermione as a wedding gift. He helped to pay for the restorations at Hogwarts, and funded a scholarship foundation that would purchase new books and robes for families who couldn't afford it otherwise. He had financed much of the rebuilding in Hogsmead and Diagon, and paid to rebuild the Burrow. It was never enough. He set up a fund at the ministry with Kingsley that would offer reparations to those who had been affected by the war. None of it made a dent in his vaults, and none of it made him feel any better.

He realized now that he had become what everyone always thought he was; a self aggrandized savior of the world. He spent more time doing press for his charity work and his foundations than he did doing his job, or looking after the people that really mattered in his life. Apparently while he had been busy trying to fix the world and erase all the pain the people that mattered the most to him were falling apart at the seams. How could he have missed it all? The drugs, the beatings. Ron was his partner, and he never noticed, or he pretended not to. Now his best friend was lying in a hospital bed, she had lost her little miracle baby. How she would survive the loss again he wasn't sure, and if Ron truly was the cause he didn't know how to cope with it.

Harry was pulled out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see the solemn faces of Arthur and Molly. "Harry. How is she?" Arthur asked as he took a seat next to him and motioned Molly to his side.

"I haven't seen her, I, I couldn't. Snape was here, he was the one that found her. It isn't good." Harry didn't want to do this. He was tired of all the tragedy.

"The baby? Is the baby okay Harry? My little grandbaby?" Molly looked like she already knew the likely answer but didn't want to hear it.

"I am so sorry Mum. She was still born. They had to do an emergency C-section or something like that. There was nothing they could do. Snape said she was a right bloody mess when he found her." He didn't notice he was rocking back and forth in his seat. These were the only parents he had now, and he had to tell them their own son had likely been the cause of the death of their grand daughter, and it wasn't even certain if 'Mione would make it out of this alive yet. "I am so sorry. I should have known"

"Harry dear, this isn't your fault. We just, we don't understand. What happened, where's Ron?" Molly didn't know. Kingsley apparently hadn't told them much. Just bloody great, he thought.

"Kings didn't tell you?" They shook their heads.

"He told us about Percy. And that Hermione was in the hospital, that there had been an attack, we didn't give him much time to talk after that, we were through the floo before he could get in another word. Why, where's Ron? Is he with her now?"

"Oh, bugger it all to hell Mum! Sorry, I, I don't, I how do I say this. Mum, Dad. We, we think Ron did this to her, he's missing right now." Their sharp gasps broke his heart. He hated Ron for doing this to his wife and their family. "I am so sorry. Snape says she's been buying bruise salves regularly from him for nearly a year now. Likely he's been beating on her all along. Today, I don't know, I think he freaked when Percy implicated him. "Mione isn't looking good, she, she may not make it."

Molly placed a hand over her heart. "No, no, no. Not my Ronnikins. No. I don't believe it. Snape is wrong; he is lying to you Harry. Maybe it was an accident. What, what happened to her? What has happened to my family?" She was sobbing into Arthur's chest.

"What happened Son? I don't want to believe Ron had anything to do with this, but we need to know what has happened to Hermione. She is our daughter." Arthur was holding it all together for his wife, but the pain was etched into his face. They both looked like they had aged twenty years. This war had cost them so much already. One son was already dead, now another was in custody, suspected of atrocious acts while allied with the Death Eaters, and now a son was being investigated for the brutal attack, rape, and subsequent death of a child. Harry wasn't sure there was much more these poor people could handle, but they needed to know. They needed to know what their son had turned into. As much as Harry wanted to believe in his friend some part of him knew Snape's words to be true.

"He raped her. He kicked her head in and beat the bloody shit of her. She's having some half muggle brain surgery thing right now, and I don't know, Snape knows, but he's gone. Snape looked like he was gonna lose his lunch, and with everything he has lived through, everything he has had to do himself, for this to have had that affect on him, it cant have been good. I wish I could say I don't believe Ron did this, but I think we have all been blind to what is going on with him. I think he has been using those drugs Percy got mixed up in. I think that's what set him off today. I should have known, I should have seen it, I am so sorry. I am so sorry Mum, Dad, I didn't know, I didn't know." Harry broke down then and cried. He slunk to the floor in between Arthur and Molly and put his head on Molly's lap, taking comfort and giving it all the same.

"No, poor boy, it isn't your fault. You have the weight of the world on your shoulders already. Raising poor Teddy by yourself, and trying to fix the world on your own. The world isn't your responsibility Harry. If, Merlin forbid, Ron is responsible for this, if he is, that is on him Harry, not you. You are a great man Harry, we are so proud to call you son, but you are just one man." Arthur's words served to sooth Harry, but he stayed on the floor, letting Molly run her fingers through his hair. He had let it grow out. Usually he wore it pulled back in a ribbon, but now it was a mess, a tangle of black he could hide behind, and Molly's fingers working through the tangles worked wonders on his frayed nerves.

That was how Healer Plackett found the trio some time later. "Ehem. Mr. Potter."

"Yes, Healer Plackett how is she? Can we see her now? These are her in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley."

"You can see her soon. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, I am so terribly sorry for your loss. We did everything we could for your daughter in law and the baby, I wish we could have done more; she was in such a state when she was brought in. In Mister Snape still here?" The old healer looked so worn, his brown eyes shone with tears he wasn't allowed to cry for one of his many patients who should have never found their way to his hospital.

"Snape's gone, yeah. So we can see her, how is she, how was the surgery?" Harry gave no one else the chance to talk, the words just came pouring out of him.

"You may go see her, though if anyone else shows up for her, I would prefer to keep her visitors to a minimum, four at most. Immediate family only. And Mister Snape of course. I will warn you now, she won't be awake for some days at least, and we still have no way of knowing if she will retain her mental faculties. While the procedure to repair her skull was a success there was so much brain swelling, and with all the other injuries and the extent of her blood loss there is still a chance that she may not recover." He led them to the room and showed them inside. "If there is anything you need, that cord there will call for a nurse or myself. I will leave you be for now. There isn't much else we can do but wait and see."

After the healer left and shut the door Harry turned his attention to the girl on the bed and a part of him broke. She was so pale and small looking. "At least, she won't have to worry about that lion's mane for a while now." He didn't really mean to say it out loud, and knew it was wildly inappropriate, but looking at her there, without a hair on her head, all the bruises still yellow against her skin, and the healing potions would need more time to completely remove the physical reminders of her ordeal. There was now a long straight scar running along the right side of her head, it started just above her brow and curved around back towards her ear. Harry figured that was where the skull had to be repaired. She hardly seemed alive. Looking at her all he would think of was the tables in the Great Hall after the battle, all the bodies lined up, so still and pale in death. She looked like a twisted and broken angel, cast out of heaven and stripped of her wings and beauty. He turned quickly but didn't manage to make it to the sink on the other side of the room before he retched all over the floor. How could Ron do this?

"Oh darling." Molly cooed from her seat next to her bed. She held her daughter in laws hand and placed a gentle hand on the curve of her belly, where just that morning a child had been growing. Molly had been overjoyed when Ron had come home and told him mom that all the potions she had been taking had worked, and that a healer had confirmed that she was indeed pregnant, and that the egg had successfully implanted in the womb. He had seemed overjoyed at the thought of being a father. He ran around calling Molly Grand mum ever since. She remembered the first time Hermione had spun around in the kitchen and grabbed her hand away from her dinner preparations and placed it on her side where the little one was using her as punching bag. She had been knitting up an entire layette in yellows. She thought she heard Harry say it was a girl; they were going to wait until she was born to find out. They wanted a surprise. Arthur had helped them paint a nursery in their flat, and he had restored one of the old bassinets that they had used with all their children, and had painted it a nice soft green. Now, her son was wanted, and her daughter, for that's what Hermione was, long before she had married Ron, she was theirs, they loved her fiercely, she was so sick looking, so frail. Molly wept and rested her head on the bed next to Hermione's murmuring words of comfort no one else could make out.

Arthur was steadily pacing the room, shaking his head back and forth. He was mourning the loss of his grandchild, and of his son. He knew it was Ron. He had seen the bruises once before, when he had been helping Hermione at the flat with the nursery. She had made the excuses for his son. 'He didn't mean to. It was an accident. He is just under so much stress at work, and helping George out at the shop when he can. I said the wrong thing, I know I shouldn't have, it was my fault really. We are all so messed up tight now. Please dad, don't hate him for this, he loves me he does. It, it really was an accident.' Arthur had left shortly after that, and tracked his son down at the Ministry. He marched right into the Aurory, cast a silencing spell and punched his son in the nose. He had never before struck one of his kids. He was a gentle man who abhorred violence. Ron had it coming though, and Arthur snapped, and broke his son's nose. Ron cried, and confessed to hitting his wife. He swore it was just the one time, and that he was truly sorry it had happened. He said much the same she had, and after crying on his fathers shoulder for nearly two hours, talking about Fred, and the war, and his fears about the baby Arthur fixed his nose for him with a quick 'episky' and told his son that he had better work at getting his act together, and to get home to his wife and grovel at her feet. That had been months ago, now the guilt was heavy. He should have paid more attention.

"Oh Molly. What has happened to our family? He did this Molls, I knew, I knew and I did nothing. Well that's not true, I broke his nose."

"You what?" Molly knew her husband; she couldn't believe he had hit anyone, let alone one of her boys.

"He hit her Molly, I saw the bruise, they both admitted to it. I punched him square in the nose, broke it clean. I thought I got through to him after that, I thought it was just that one time, I should have been watching, I should have gone to talk to him more at work, make sure he was doing alright. Oh Molly." Arthur's guilt was a palpable force in the room.

"Oh, not you too dear. You love are not responsible, we did everything we could by our boys. There isn't a thing you or Harry could have done to change this. We just have to be there for Hermione now. Find a way to start really healing. Maybe all of us have been hiding the pain away for too long, we already lost so much." Honestly Molly wanted to rise up and scream at her husband for not telling her, for not doing more, for not stopping this, for letting their little grandbaby die. But she knew there was more than enough blame to go around, and yet all of it was on the man who did this to her and more and more she was having trouble denying the fact that it was her son.

"OH BLODDY HELL 'MIONE!" The three in the room turned to see George Weasley in the doorway, still wearing his Weasley Wizarding Wheezes robes, and remnants of whatever it was he had been working on before leaving work.

"George dear, keep your voice down."

"Sorry mum. What happened. Aurors came by the shop looking for Ron, and wanting to talk to Verity. The said 'Mione was attacked, didn't give 'em much more time to talk, told Verity to close up shop after talking to them, let them know Ron had been around this afternoon but that I hadn't seen him since and apperated over here. God's what happened to her? Who? Was it a Death Eater? Oh gods the baby!" George was shaking; he had grown to be really close with Mione and Ron. Ron had been helping him out when he could at the shop, and Mione usually stopped in for lunch during the week while Ron was at work. They had really gotten to know each other since the war; their flat was so close to the shop. He often popped in for dinners with them; it would have been so lonely without Fred around if he hadn't had those two to keep him company all the time. He couldn't wait to teach pranks to his little niece or nephew, he had been busy working on a line of baby themed products for the shop.

"Oh, Georgie, come, sit down." George looked murderous as they relayed the story to him and told him about the baby and everything they had learned since arriving.

"Oh 'Mione. Why didn't you tell me? Lunch almost every day and you didn't tell me. I am so sorry Hermione. So sorry."

Harry stood up and made for the door. "I'm gonna send an owl off to Ginny, she'd want to be here. Then I am going to see if I can get word from Dawlish, maybe they know something by now. I'll be back shortly; hopefully we will have more news soon."

Harry left and sent off an Owl to Ginny.

Gin –

Hermione is in the hospital. She lost the baby. It isn't good sweetheart. There is too much to say in a note. I love you, my darling, I love you. I miss you. Come if you can, we will all be at St. Mungo's for some time, she isn't expected to wake for at least a few days. Send word if you cant get time away. I love you.

Yours truly,

Harry

Once he had that sent off he went to floo back to the ministry and see if he could find any answers. Before he stepped in to floo he punched the brick wall finding satisfaction in the sickening crunch of bones breaking in his hand.