"Are you sure about this, Hermione?" asked Harry looking at his adopted sister seriously. "Are you really sure you want to move you and the twins all the way to America and away from everything the three of you have ever known?"
"Yes, Harry," Hermione assured him, "I'm sure. I've thought about this a lot over the last three months and I'm positive this is the right move for me. Moving to America doesn't mean I won't be back to visit all of you frequently, probably every few weeks and you are of course, welcome to visit Spencer and I, but I truly do love Spencer and I know he really loves me too. I never expected to fall in love after what happened between Ron and I. Actually I expected to be unattached for the rest of my life, but apparently someone upstairs thinks enough of me to give me a break."
"I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again and that is Ron is an idiot." Harry said vehemently. "To let the best thing in his life just walk away."
"We both agree that Ron can be irresponsible and a bit childish as well as immature," Hermione agreed calmly, "but even if we had gotten married it would have ended in divorce sooner or later, probably sooner, so it's just as well that it happened like it did."
"I suppose," Harry said not looking as sure as Hermione sounded. "Well, if you are truly sure that you love this Spencer Reid then I won't try to stop you, although I would like to meet him first just for my own peace of mind."
"You'll get your chance, before the wedding," Hermione promised him, "and believe me if I wasn't 100 percent sure of my feelings for him I wouldn't uproot Harold, Hugo or myself from the only home we have ever known, since moving somewhere new can be scary."
"In that case, I'll make arrangements to make sure your part of the Potter fortune is accessible to you in America since Virginia or somewhere close by is bound to have a branch of the bank, because as far as I know Gringotts is the only wizarding bank in the world," Harry said.
"It is," Hermione confirmed.
"Ginny and I will expect you to keep your promise and visit often and not to lose contact just because you are moving to another country," Harry said.
"I won't," Hermione promised him.
"I wish you were staying in England, but I also understand that you have to follow your heart," Harry said, "and I freely admit that it's been so nice to see you much happier in the last few months then you have been ever since you and Ron broke up over six years ago now."
"I would never lose contact with my best friends and that's a promise," Hermione assured him. "When you meet Spencer you will like him immediately, as you will instantly see that he is one of the most intelligent, sweet, caring, compassionate, and most grounded individuals you will ever meet. He hasn't let being a genius go to his head like a lot of really intelligent people do, even me sometimes."
"No! Really!" Harry smirked unable to resist teasing Hermione a little.
"All right, fine, so sometimes, I'm a bossy, know-it-all," Hermione admitted hitting Harry lightly on the arm, "but you didn't have to point it out to me."
"Sorry, couldn't resist," Harry apologized, still smiling.
Hermione didn't respond and just shook her head at him.
"So have you told your fiancé about magic and that you are a witch?"
"Yes, I did and immediately after he proposed to me. I told him there were some things he needed to know about me before I accepted his proposal and he accepted that magic was real once I had given him a practical demonstration, something spectacular enough that it was impossible for his scientific mind to refute it."
"You did warn him that any children you have will likely have your magical ability?" asked Harry.
"Yes, I did and he seemed fine with it. Of course, I didn't get around to telling him that any children we have will be going to Hogwarts once they reach the proper age, but I figured he had enough to absorb."
"Are you sure they will be invited to Hogwarts since you will be living in America?" asked Harry uncertainly. "You know there are several good schools in that part of the world."
"I already checked with Minerva and she has assured me that the twins as well as any children I have with Spencer that display magical ability will be invited to attend Hogwarts when they turn 11, if only because the Grangers are originally British. Of course, even if I wasn't from England my children could still get to go there, just so long as the current head of the school and one of the parents had a meeting to decide if they would be accepted. It has happened in the past, although not in about a fifty years, but then birth rates dropped off sharply about then, at least in the British isles thanks to Voldemort, which explains why no foreign students have been accepted in over five decades."
"I didn't know that," Harry said in amazement.
"Well, it is a little known fact, but it did used to be commonly done, until the rise of Voldemort put a halt to it," Hermione said. "There are only a few magical schools in the world after all and there have always been more magical children then places to educate them and that will only get worse thanks to the baby boom that has been occurring ever since the end the war 8 years ago. Now a great many families can't afford to send their children to a topnotch school such as Hogwarts and so they are taught at home."
"Isn't there some kind of fund for poor children so that they can get a good education?" asked Harry.
"There used to be during Tom Riddle's time, but not anymore," Hermione said. "Even if there was a great many families would be to proud to accept using it even if it was offered."
"Maybe I can endow a fund," Harry mumbled thoughtfully. "I can certainly afford it."
"That's a good idea," Hermione said. "I'm sure there are a great many poor families in England that would appreciate a chance to send their children to Hogwarts to get a first rate education. So to change the subject how are James, Art, Lily, Josh, and Vivian doing?" asked Hermione. James, Art, Lily, were the three older children of the Potters even though not even James as the oldest son was old enough to start Hogwarts yet as he was only seven and had been born after Harry and Ginny had been married less then a year. Art or Arthur was the same age as James since they were twins, although fraternal ones, since one had Harry's black hair and the other Ginny's brilliant red. Both however had inherited Harry's brilliant green eyes. Lily on the other hand was just about three years younger then her brothers and had her mother's red hair and brown eyes looking almost like a carbon copy of her at the same age. As for Josh and Vivian, they were also twins, both with their father's messy black hair, but Ginny's brown eyes and had been born just two years ago. Unsurprisingly Ginny was pregnant again as Harry had always said that he wanted a large family and Ginny was more then willing to oblige him since she loved children too. What was surprising however, was that Ginny was carrying another set of twins instead of just one and both Potters had often wondered what they had done right to get three sets of twins, especially back to back even if they did tend to run in family lines. Ginny had already promised that if the birth of her third set of twins went well she would be willing to have more four or five years down the road of course, as she was plenty young enough to have another three or four, even if they weren't twins since witches could give birth up until their mid-fifties, due to their magic keeping their bodies reproductive organs going for much longer than a Muggles. Most witches had their children while they were young as birth did after all put a strain on the body that was easier on a young person and not so easy on an older one.
"They are fine and growing like weeds every day," Harry told her, smiling proudly. "I know you haven't seen any of them in a few months, but both James and Art seem to change constantly and are as eager as a pair of puppies to start at Hogwarts even though that is almost five years away. As you know James looks more like Ginny in body shape, except he has my black hair and green eyes, while Art looks more like me in that way, except for having Ginny's red hair. Unless you are already aware if it people are going to be astonished that that two of them are twins since they look so dissimilar."
"Doesn't make it any less true," Hermione said. "Besides, just because they were born at the same time doesn't necessarily mean they need to look alike or even similar like what happened in this case. It's obvious to me anyway that Ginny produced one egg one time and then another egg another time probably within less then a week of each other, since the two of them were basically the same size and length at birth. In other words one of them wasn't noticeably smaller, therefore, making it obvious that the two eggs weren't fertilized more than a week or two apart for if they had been seeded say a month apart believe me the size of both your sons at birth would have been considerably different and the smaller of the two would probably have had to spend some time in an incubator as his lungs probably wouldn't have been fully developed."
"You sure do know a lot about it, Hermione," said Harry even as he blushed because of his sister's bluntness.
"Well, you know I like to research things and I did just that after I saw how different your two oldest sons looked from each other," Hermione explained.
"So have you and your fiancé talked about children?" asked Harry.
"We have and Spencer wasn't sure if he wanted to risk having one, but finally said he would like at least one and if we had more he wouldn't object," Hermione said.
"What do you mean risk?" asked Harry.
"It's just that his mother has schizophrenia and it is inheritable. Spencer could still get it, although he has only a few more years before he is past the age that it is likely to develop. People who are extremely intelligent are more likely to get this disease, especially if it already runs in your family. If it ran in my family as well that would increase the chances of any child we have developing the disease, up to 50 percent, but since it doesn't the odds remain at about 13 percent."
"What precisely is schizophrenia?" asked Harry and Hermione immediately explained.
"So it is a disease of the mind and tends to hit intelligent people, but is more likely to develop if that person is weak minded or of they have something else already wrong with their brains," Harry summarized and Hermione nodded in confirmation.
"I can see why he might not want to risk having children them," Harry admitted after a moment, "although I'm glad you convinced him otherwise, since I would love to have some more nieces and nephews."
"I didn't really have to work to hard to convince him as he told me he always wanted a family, but since he is very awkward where women are concerned he figured he'd never be able to have one, unless he adopted. He did think about adopting, but with his job he figured that no social worker would consider his application seriously and so he had given up on ever having children of his own."
"So he wanted children, even though he was afraid the would develop his mother's disease?" said Harry.
"He did and he just had to decide if he was willing to risk having any of his own blood because of the schizophrenia that runs in his family. I told him that I believed that any child we had would be to strong minded to develop the disease since neither one of us could be considered weak in that department. Despite his upbringing Spencer really is one of the strongest minded individuals I have ever met."
"Why don't you come spend at least a couple of hours with the children before you head back to America," Harry suggested. "I know they would love to see you."
"Alright, sounds like an excellent idea since Spencer is out of town at the moment for work," Hermione agreed.
"What precisely does your fiancé do for work. You never did say" asked Harry.
"He works for the Federal Bureau of Investigations the Behavioral Analysis unit to be precise or BAU for short and trust me this unit is only for the elite. He was accepted into the unit right after he finished training and was the youngest member ever, as usually you have to have 8 to 10 years with a least one other department in the FBI before being accepted."
Hermione went on to explain how her fiancée had gone to college at the age of not quite 13 and had graduated by the time he was 20 with three PhDs and two BAs."
"Wow! He must really be intelligent to go to college so young and graduate with so many degrees," Harry said impressed.
"Oh he is a genuine genius with an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory, which means he can never forget anything he has read or seen. He would've have had to be exceptional in order to be accepted into the BAU so young. Jason Gideon was the one that recruited him for his unit knew that he wouldn't do well in other departments because he isn't very athletic and from what he has told me a lot of the other agents in other departments think he is a joke and that he doesn't even deserve to be in the FBI much less in a unit that is made up of the elite, although his teammates certainly don't share that opinion and consider him a younger brother. You know what is ironic though, although personally I think those FBI agents in those other departments deserve to have their noses out of joint."
"What's ironic?" asked Harry.
"Just that technically anyway, Spencer's above them in rank and can order them to do something if the situation required it and they would have to do it or risk getting a black mark on their records. The BAU agents are known as supervisory special agents while the other departments just have special in front of the agent."
"Ah! So that's what you meant when you said that you thought a lot of the other agents deserve to have their noses out of joint," Harry said now understanding what Hermione had meant by her comment of a minute ago. "Since the BAU is for the elite I'm assuming that a lot of agents resent the fact that your fiancé was accepted into the unit right after he finished his training while they were rejected."
"Exactly," Hermione said satisfaction in her voice and on her face. "In a way, those agents remind me of how some of the snootier purebloods resented me, just because I did so much better then them in class and yes, I realize it is not quite the same thing, but it is similar enough that the comparison still makes sense. Personally and although I have never met them I think Spencer succeeding where they failed is nothing but justice, even if they are to arrogant and full of themselves to see that."
"I can't wait to meet your fiance and I know that Ginny can't as she has told me so on more then one occasion," Harry said with a smile.
"You will love him, just not in the same way I do," Hermione promised him and Harry wasn't about to disagree since his friend was usually right about such things.
~~~Spencer and Hermione~~~
"Do we have to move to America mama?" asked Harold looking upset at leaving all his friends and Hugo didn't look any happier. It was only a month later and she and Spencer were going to be married in just six days. Thanks to all the help she'd had in planning her wedding and also the fact it was going to be relatively simple allowed it to be planned so quickly.
"Can't we just stay here forever?" added Hugo.
"Think of it as an adventure," Hermione suggested gently to her sons. "The reason I was gone for so many months was I met someone and started falling in love. I didn't mean for this to happen and I certainly wasn't expecting it to happen, but it did. You will love Spencer I promise you and as much as I've told him about you he already loves you, even though you have yet to actually meet. We will be back for visits often as it only takes a few seconds by Portkey so you will see all your friends and family frequently and you will still be going to Hogwarts when you turn 11 in 5 years."
Neither twin looked convinced at this and Hermione added, "Wouldn't you like to explore a totally different side of wizarding culture? The American wizarding world is a lot different from the English one, you know. I'm also sure that you will make a lot of new friends over there are well as the American's actually have a school for magic users to young to go to a magical school unlike here in Britain where children are mostly home taught until they turn 11."
The twins perked up at this for they loved to learn, just as she had at their age and Hermione had trouble coming up with things to teach them that were appropriate for their ages because they absorbed information like sponges again just as she had.
"Wouldn't the two of you like a new brother or sister?" asked Hermione.
"Yes," both twins answered immediately as they had been begging her for another sibling for the last year.
"Well, not even your Uncle Harry knows this, but I'm pregnant," Hermione told her twins softly.
Molly who had been listening from the doorway looked startled at this and looked as if she was about to comment, when Hermione looked at her and shook her head.
Molly got the message and she knew she could wait a few minutes to get the whole explanation from the young woman she considered a daughter.
"You are?" asked Hugo excitedly.
"I am," Hermione told them. "Spencer and I are going to be married in less then a week and we just decided to let whatever happened, happen, so in about eight months you will get your wish."
"Yay!" both twins cheered and Hermione smiled at their enthusiasm.
"Now we are going upstairs to pack up all the stuff you've brought over here and then the three of us will be on our way to where I am staying in America until after Spencer and I are married on Saturday. Your Uncle Aaron has been looking forward to meeting you as well and he has a son of his own who is several years younger by the name of Jack. Now why don't the two of you get started on packing up your belongings while I have a word with your grandmother, okay?"
"Alright, mama," Hugo agreed heading for the rickety stairs that led up to the upper levels of the Burrow, Harold following.
Molly appeared back in the doorway then and asked the question that had been hovering on her lips for the last few minutes, "You're really pregnant?"
"I am," Hermione admitted blushing. "Spencer and I just decided that we weren't going to use any protection as we wanted a child right away and since we were only planning on a simple straightforward ceremony knew I wouldn't be showing by the time we did tie the knot, not that the gossips won't be able to do the math between when we got married and when the baby is born. I guarantee you that I never would have allowed myself to get pregnant if I hadn't been going to marry him and I never would have agreed to his marriage proposal unless I was positive I loved him or vice versa."
"Yes, you are to sensible to let yourself get pregnant twice unless you were sure of your feelings," Molly admitted, as she thought of her son the famous Quidditch star who barely acknowledged his own sons existences.
"When I got pregnant by Ron I truly thought he loved me and I just knew I loved him, but I was wrong at least about his feelings for me. At that time I truly did love your son, but before I had sex with him I should have taken his immaturity into account and that was my mistake, one I promise you I will never make again. I am older and wiser now. Spencer Reid is a different sort of man from Ron, one who is mature, intelligent, compassionate, gentle, but a little awkward around most people at least until he gets to know them. However, he treats me like a princess. Besides nobody is perfect. Trust me, you'll love him after you meet him."
"I'm looking forward to the wedding and seeing some of the America while I am there, since Arthur and I have never been out of England," Molly said.
"You'll love it," Hermione promised her. "There's so much to see and do in Virginia alone that you won't have time to see it all before you leave even with a guide."
"So do you want another boy this time or a girl?" asked Molly.
"Well, I would like at least one girl and I'm really hoping I get my wish since I already have two boys. Spencer doesn't care either way so long as I have a healthy child and we are planning on at least one more after this so if we get a boy this time then we have another chance."
"Are you and your fiancé looking for a house? I'm sure you realize that raising so many children in a flat just isn't practical," Molly said
"We are," Hermione admitted. "We're looking for somewhere that is close to where Spencer works so he won't have to long a commute as he is a Muggle, since for me it doesn't really matter since I can Floo or Apparate anywhere I need to go."
"What will you do about a job?" asked Molly.
"There are plenty of jobs in the Virginia/Washington area as both cities have fairly large wizarding sections and I'm sure I can find something that I am happy with, but I have to much to do to worry about it at least until after Spencer and I get married and get back from our honeymoon."
"I'm going to miss you and my grandsons so much, but I also know that if you didn't follow your heart you would be miserable, so I do understand."
"Don't worry, I meant what I said about coming back to visit frequently so you will still see us quite a bit," Hermione promised the matronly woman.
"Still, I won't see you every few days like I used to," Molly sighed.
"I know, but things can't always stay the same no matter how much you might want them too," Hermione said philosophically giving Molly a hug. "Now I had better head upstairs and make sure my sons are packing like they should be."
Hermione then disappeared in the direction of the stairs leaving Molly staring after her.
~~~Spencer and Hermione~~~