Chapter 89

Hermione huffed.

Ron looked up from his scan of the Daily Prophet. He'd skipped straight to the back pages where the Quidditch results for the past week were listed as well as team lists for the next round. Nothing else interested him these days unless he wanted to know about the 'secrets the Minister doesn't want you to know' or some new band that was taking the wizarding world by storm.

Hermione had one hand on her back and another outstretched as she attempted to pick up the pieces of paper she'd just dropped on the floor.

A smile crossed Ron's lip as he watched the struggle. Merlin, she was adorable.

She huffed again, another attempt to pick it up, but her belly got in the way. Ron was caught up in marvelling at how beautiful she was that it took him a moment to snap himself out of his admiration and say, "Why don't you use your wand?"

"Oh, why didn't I think of that, Ron?" Hermione snapped. "I've been using magic for how many years now? And yet I forget that I have a wand?" She stood up and glared at him with flushed cheeks and a little bit of sweat running down her face.

Biting back a laugh, Ron stood up and bent to pick up what she'd dropped. "What is it, anyway?" he wanted to know.

Hermione snatched the bits of paper from his hand before he had the chance to read what was on it, and tucked them under her arm. "If I wanted you to know, I'd tell you, wouldn't I? And why are you laughing at me?"

"Because I'm going to miss this." This time, he allowed the laugh to escape him on the last word.

Hermione's eyes narrowed.

"You're adorable," Ron pressed. "Never been more beautiful. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait for the baby to be born, but… I will miss you —"

"Struggling?" Hermione said. "Waddling around and taking forever to get places? Waking up drenched in sweat in the middle of winter? Having my ribs and all my organs used as play things? No, thank you."

"A bit over it, huh?" Ron said.

Hermione huffed, slowly making her way back to the breakfast table. Apparently she didn't think he deserved a dignified answer.

"It's only two more weeks," Ron said. He sat opposite her, shifting the newspaper to the side.

"And it feels like all the clocks have been slowed," Hermione complained. "This is awful. Truly awful. I hate it."

"Don't tell our daughter that when she asks one day." Ron smiled, but his joke wasn't appreciated. Hermione kicked him — hard — under the table.

"Ouch."

"You wouldn't be laughing if this was you," Hermione said. "I'm carrying around about ten extra pounds at the moment. Or so it feels. Why do you have to be so tall? This baby is huge, and it's all your fault."

Ron laughed out loud again, watching her affectionately. "Merlin, I love you," he said.

"Stop it," Hermione said.

"Stop loving you?"

"Stop laughing at me."

"It's only because I think you're adorable."

"Well… I'm not. I'm big and sweaty and just plain unattractive right now."

"No, you're not."

Hermione looked at him, her glare softening ever so slightly. Then she shook her head. "These last two weeks are going to go so slow. It's not helping with the fact that I now have nothing to do but worry. I can't believe Malfoy is in charge of the office. Maia is scared of him, you know? And he knows it, he'll bully her the whole time I'm away. Maybe I should just drop in on Monday and —"

"Hermione."

"— make sure all is going smoothly. You know, I really regret hiring him. I should have looked at the bigger picture before looking at the person with the most knowledge. You did try to —"

"Hermione."

"— warn me. But, no, I had to go and do what I wanted. As usual. Now look at it. I've made a mess of —"

"For Merlin's sake, Hermione, it'll be fine. It's not your problem anymore. You're done for now. You need to relax. It's not good for the baby. And, if it's gone to shit when you get back, well, you'll have an excuse to get rid of Malfoy, won't you?"

Hermione's mouth closed tightly, but she no longer looked annoyed. She just sighed, lent back in her chair with her hand resting on her belly and said, "I hope this baby comes early."

Ron was so excited for the arrival of his daughter that he hoped so, too. He was always on alert for any indication from Hermione that the baby was coming. He watched her intently, studied her every move. Every time she winced, or paused, he'd ask if she was okay. But it was never anything more than some normal and common pain related to pregnancy. He wasn't even sleeping well at night, on alert to every movement she made.

Now that it was so close, he was as desperate as Hermione was for it to all be over. He was ready to meet his little girl.

"Why don't we go for a walk?" Ron suggested.

"Ron, I can barely stand up, I don't think walking is going to work."

"It's supposed to help, though, isn't it? They say — at least, I read it in one of those books of yours — that long walks are supposed to help bring on labour. So, why don't we go for a walk? It might help."

Hermione was looking at him very strangely.

"You're surprised I read the books, huh?" Ron said, offering his hand to pull her to her feet.

"I'm surprised you had the time…"

"Well, I'll be honest — I only read a little bit of one. It just happened to be that part."

"Any reason?" Hermione questioned. She was curious, Ron could tell. They walked into the hall toward the front door. There were coats hanging on two hooks on the wall beside it. They both shrugged them on, and Ron opened the door. It wasn't snowing, but the sky was overcast and the day was extremely cold.

They headed down their driveway. It was a slow pace, Ron having to make sure he kept his steps small so that Hermione could keep up. She struggled at the best of times, always complaining that he walked fast, but now it was worse. Her back ached, she felt heavy, and her feet became sore after a short while.

Ron didn't think he'd like to be pregnant. It didn't sound fun.

They reached the pavement of their street before Hermione spoke again. "So, why did you read a book?" she asked.

Ron smiled. "To be honest, Hermione, the closer it got, the more I started to panic about having absolutely no idea what you were going to go through when the time came to have the baby. I kind of read it so I knew if I'd play a part or anything. Or maybe just to get a better understanding of it. I don't want to mess up my first job at being a dad."

Hermione smiled, already struggling with the walk. "You're going to be there, right? I mean…" A sliver of panic crossed her features. "I just assumed you would be, but I realise now we've never actually spoken about it…"

"Do you want me there?" Ron asked. "Because I'll be wherever you want me to be."

"Please, Ron." Hermione spoke with a hint of desperation. "Please don't go anywhere."

"Alright," Ron replied. "I'll be with you. The whole time, if you want. The book said my job was to be your support. I can do that. I think, at least. I guess we'll see on the day. I may completely freak out, just so you know. I know it hurts to have a baby, and I don't do well with seeing you hurt."

"I don't think you will freak out," Hermione said, and she sounded extremely confident. More confident than Ron felt, himself. Whilst he'd do everything he could to be the best he could whenever the time came, the idea of seeing Hermione in pain absolutely terrified him. It was his greatest fear — as the Boggart all those years ago had shown him. Ever since that time at Malfoy Manor, he couldn't bear it.

"We'll see," he replied.

"No, Ron, you're always the voice of reason in those instances. Trust me, you will cope — even if it's hard, you will."

Ron felt the need to remind her of a few weeks back when he'd completely panicked in a baby store, but decided not to bring that up. He still felt embarrassed over it, and it brought him a lot of self doubt still — despite Hermione's assurances.

They walked slowly down their street, Ron always finding himself unintentionally getting ahead and having to pause to allow his wife to catch up to him. Their street wasn't all that long, but by the time they reached the end, Hermione was red-faced, a little breathless and falling further and further behind.

He turned to face her, smiling. "Want to head back?" he asked.

"Oh, God, Ron, I don't know how people do it," she said by way of answer.

Ron responded with a puzzled look. "Do what?"

"Being pregnant."

"You've done a pretty good job," Ron said. "Besides, you're extremely adorable in the way you can't reach for things, and your mood swings, your snappishness…"

Hermione sighed as Ron turned her around and they began making the short journey back to their house. "I just mean… some people — your sister is a good example — managed to stay so alert, energetic, active until the day she gave birth to James. To be honest, I thought I'd be like that, too, but it's just… stopped me. I feel so tired, I can't really think straight most of the time, and I feel so frazzled and all over the place. Apparently being pregnant doesn't agree with me. I didn't think I'd ever have to finish up work two weeks ago. I honestly thought I'd go until Christmas."

"Yeah, well…" Ron shrugged. "What can you do? It is what it is. The most important thing is our baby is safe and well, right? She's doing all right, and in a few weeks — maybe hopefully a few days — she'll be here and you'll have your body back to yourself again."

"I just never expected it to be so draining. No one ever talks about that side of things. Everyone always talks about all the good things, talks about feeling great, grateful, that stupid 'pregnancy glow'."

"The pregnancy what?" Ron questioned, laughing at the word.

"Glow," Hermione repeated. "How you're supposed to look radiant when pregnant. Beautiful…"

"I think you look beautiful," Ron said.

"I certainly don't feel it."

They'd almost reached their house now and while Ron thought of something to say next, Hermione ploughed on. "I'm excited for her, but I really hate this side of it. It's… hard."

Again, Ron said nothing as they walked up their driveway to the front door. He wasn't sure what he could do or say to alleviate her worries. He'd not really been aware of the fact that she was feeling this way. He knew she wasn't enjoying the later stages of her pregnancy, but he'd always thought it was normal for people to feel that way. He remembered Ginny making complaints as the weeks dragged on, saying how big she felt, how she couldn't wait for the baby to be out.

But for Hermione, it seemed to be more than that. She seemed really down on herself and he wasn't really sure how to change that.

"Well," he said as he unlocked the door, "I stand by what I said before. I think you're beautiful. I always have."

"Thanks, Ron. That's… I needed to hear that."

He set his keys on the table by the door and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry for laughing at you earlier. If I'd known… I wouldn't have laughed. I just thought you were irresistibly adorable. And I thought it was strange you didn't have your wand."

"I left it upstairs," Hermione confessed. "I want to be able to do things without it, but I might just have to give in and rely on it for a few more weeks."

"You are a witch," Ron reminded her. "Use it as much as you want."

"I just hoped I wouldn't have to." Hermione collapsed onto the sofa in the living room, the short walk having completely drained her of energy. A moment later, she laid down and fell asleep without a word.

Ron stood watching her. He was going to let her sleep as much as she needed, but he also wanted to do something more for her. Who's idea was it that men couldn't take on some of the discomfort? If he could, he'd take it on for her. Wouldn't it make more sense that they could share the responsibility? After all, the baby was half his.

He left the living room so Hermione could sleep in peace and immediately set to work on cleaning the house. They'd both been pretty slack with it over the past weeks, too busy working out the finer details of the baby's impending arrival. While they did some superficial cleaning, it wasn't at a standard that it had once been. Even with the help of magic, they'd let it slide.

He pulled out the cleaning products in the kitchen, charmed some wipes and sponges to start scrubbing, opened the oven and did the same, and then set to work by manually cleaning out the fridge.

That last one, he realised, was desperately needed as he began pulling out containers of food that were weeks, maybe months, old. Some things were even unrecognisable as they'd changed colour or smell.

He grimaced. This one was probably on him. He'd gleefully put last night's dinner into a container with the full intention of taking it work the next day, but then he'd been in such a hurry to leave that he'd walked out without it. By the time he got home, he'd forgotten all about it ever being there. This had happened more than once.

Once he'd disposed of all the old food, cleaned the shelves and taken out the rubbish, he moved on to the bathrooms. There were two — one upstairs with a shower, bath and toilet, and another downstairs, containing just a toilet.

He got out some new wipes, brought the cleaning products with him, and once again charmed them to scrub everything thoroughly. By the time they were done, the toilets were sparkling clean and the shower had not a speck of dirt on it.

He smiled, pleased with himself. He couldn't do much, but he could at least make sure that Hermione could have a shower in a clean bathroom whenever she needed to.

He went into their bedroom next and pulled off a thick book from the small bookshelf in the corner. Domestic Spells for the House was something he'd not really looked at before. He could Stun someone, bind someone, defend himself, but he didn't have the first clue in spells that could potentially keep their house clean. Did one even exist? Perhaps not, otherwise wouldn't Hermione have used it? She did have this thing about doing things 'the proper way' at times. Maybe that was one of them.

He flipped through to the chapter that read Simple Cleaning Spells. There were ones for immediate cleaning such as Scourgify, but after flipping through and reading three pages thoroughly, he realised that not a single spell existed for keeping bathrooms tidy. What was the point? There were spells for instant cleaning. They didn't exert any energy to use them and took only a few seconds to perform.

"I'll have to remember to use these," he said to himself. He was just returning the book to its place on the shelf when a shadow along the floor alerted him to Hermione's presence.

"Are you… cleaning?" she asked.

"Don't sound surprised. I clean."

"Yes, but.. Without magic?"

"No," Ron said. "I used magic. I made the sponges and wipes do the work. But I just discovered a whole lot of spells that can get that done in less than a minute." He tapped the spine of the book. "Conveniently hid that from me, huh?"

She smiled.

"Do you feel better?" he asked, coming over to kiss her.

"A little. I think… I think I'll just feel tired no matter how much sleep I get. All part of it."

"Have a shower," Ron said. "No, wait, even better. I'll run you a bath. You can stay in there as long as you want. In my browsing of that book, I found a spell to maintain the temperature of bath water."

"That sounds lovely…" Hermione suppressed a yawn, so without further prompting, Ron turned her around and guided her towards the bathroom. There, he set about running a bath, practicing the spell a few times before he was satisfied that he could do it, and then left Hermione to her own devices.

He went downstairs to start preparing dinner. All he'd done was perform a few spells, walk up and down the stairs a few times, and he felt completely wrecked. He'd not done so much at once in a very long time. It was a different kind of work to his Auror work — even on days he was out on the field. Was this how Hermione felt on a day to day basis? Just walking from one place to another?

Once again, he was amazed at what the whole process of growing a human involved. And also, again, guilty that he couldn't do more.

By the time Hermione came back down from the bath, wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown and her hair wet and combed, Ron had dinner just about ready. Hermione looked a little brighter and went to the cupboard to take out two plates.

"Feeling better?" Ron asked her.

"Yeah… I am. I… fell asleep again in the bath, but it was relaxing. Thank you for suggesting it."

"It's the least I can do," Ron assured her dismissively. "I can do it every day if you'd like. Twice, three times." He kissed her gently, tucking some of her wet hair behind her ears. "Feel like eating?"

Hermione smiled and nodded, placing her hand over her belly. "If I'm not, then she is. She gets so excited at the smell of food. I swear she can smell it herself."

Ron touched her tummy as well, feeling the strong kicks of his daughter. She was rolling around, perhaps in anticipation for the food she was going to get soon. "I can relate," he said. "I love you," he then added, smiling into Hermione's eyes. "Both of you, I mean. You make me so happy."

"I know," Hermione replied. "You've done so much for me — us — over the last weeks. Cooking every night, cleaning the house, getting me things when I ask… I appreciate it."

Ron shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the one trying to grow a child for the better part of a year. A bit of cooking won't kill me." He kissed Hermione again, feeling the baby kick between them. He laughed. "Alright, alright," he said. "We'll eat. Put you out of your misery. I hope you like my cooking tonight."

A little domestic fluff before we reach Rose's birth! I hope you all enjoyed!