Chapter 61: I Like Warm Hugs

Hermione Apparated back into her and Ron's bedroom. Leaning against the doorjamb, she buried her face in her hand and wept. Allowed herself to come apart for the first time all day since Harry had called her.

There was a sudden, second CRACK! and she jumped, nearly screamed. And there was her husband, fussing with his magenta WWW robes. "Great day..." he was muttering to himself. "Inventory stocked... Skiving Snackboxes sold... oh, evening, love!" Then Ron did a double-take and paused. "Hey... are you OK?"

Hermione pursed her lips, shaking her head as she tried in vain to blink back the tears, and threw herself into her husband's arms, coming apart on his shoulder. Ron hugged her back, rocked her gently, as if it was second nature. And some of it was. "Hermione...? Babe, you're scaring me..."

"We... we have... a beautiful, beautiful niece, Ronald Weasley. Do you have any idea?"

Ron chuckled. "I should hope I do. But which niece, love? There are..." he paused as he did the mental count in his head. "Eight of them. And two of them are part Veela, for Merlin's sake!"

Hermione hiccuped through a laugh, and leaned back, her arms draped around the nape of his neck. "Your goddaughter."

"Lily?" Ron frowned. "What about Lily? What's wrong? Is she all right?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "She fell into Harry's Pensieve by accident; he was out of the room taking a business call. She... she saw Malfoy Manor."

Ron leaned back, his eyes wide. "Bloody hell! How much?"

Hermione bit her lip, and echoed Harry's words. "All of it."

Ron swore fluidly under his breath. "That git! That absolute idiot! She's three, for heaven's sake!"

"Now, don't blame Harry; it was an accident! Apparently, she was trying to stand on his desk chair, and it tipped her back."

Ron rested a fist on his chin, brooding. Finally: "How did she look? Bad?"

Hermione shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory. "She was hysterical, Ron. Didn't seem sure I was safe until she could touch me. And she said..." her voice broke. "She said if Harry and Ginny had had her back then, she would have wanted Bellatrix to torture her instead."

Ron let out a long, low breath. "She has too much of her grandmother in her." And he wasn't talking about Molly. There was a silence as Ron and Hermione both pictured the scene in their mind's eye: a flash of green light, a woman with red hair going down with a scream. Fighting for her child until the bitter end.

Ron now began pacing methodically around their bedroom. Hermione watched him anxiously. Slowly, his breathing began to calm and his countenance began to deflate, as every muscle in his body began to come untensed. If not with relaxation, then at least... acceptance.

"OK, let's just try and keep this in perspective. Lily's gotten scared of things before - more so than some of the other little ones. Like, she got scared of those ruddy Oompa-Loompas in Wally Wanker once..."

"Willy Wonka, Ronald," Hermione corrected in amusement.

"Yeah, and she had to sleep with Harry and Ginny for a week! Heck, Hugo had to sleep with us after freaking out over spiders..."

"No, that was you," Hermione corrected, the smile unable to hide itself any longer.

"It was both of us," Ron reluctantly amended.

"Because Hugo got scared of the spider in his bedroom, and then you got scared of it, and I had to kill it! I remember, darling. He was two."

The pair laughed. Then Hermione clapped a hand to her forehead. "Merlin's pants! I forgot I phoned Audrey to collect Rose from school, and watch Hugo, just before I left. I heard them in their rooms."

Ron simply pointed to the parchment on the nightstand, which upon further inspection conveyed that Audrey had stayed long enough to make sure the children went down and then slipped out. Satisfied, the couple changed and climbed into bed together.

"Maybe you could talk to Harry next time he comes by the shop?" Hermione pinged into the darkness. "He was really shaken up about it. I made him promise to call us if anything else happened with Lily."

"Mm-hmm. I'll talk to him. And make sure he puts a damn lock on his Pensieve."

Hermione kissed his cheek.

Harry stood in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom, watching her play with her stuffed animals. Most nights, getting Lily ready for bed was an enchanting experience. She talked to her plush hippogriff, her teddy bear. But tonight, she was chattering far less than normal, her tone more subdued and far too... adult for Harry's liking. Why couldn't magic make time stand still, and not just make it go backward?

"Auntie's gonna be all right, Roosevelt" she said to the teddy bear. "... Auntie's very brave and pretty."

"Yes, Auntie is." Harry pushed himself off the doorjamb. "She's also very smart," as he sank onto the coverlet of her bed, "and wants you to be a good little girl and go to sleep. Don't worry about it anymore."

Lily frowned out of the fur of her teddy bear. "The bad witch..."

"... with the wild black hair is all gone, and won't hurt you or Auntie or Daddy anymore," Harry rumbled gently. His heart broke with how wary she still looked. Desperate, he fished around the pile of toys. Heidi the Hippogriff? No... Mr. Tickle-Pants the Toy Pygmy Puff (Ginny wanted to wait till Lily was Hogwarts-age to get a real one)... no...

"Ah-ha!" Harry triumphantly plucked a white little snowman from the archaeological dig. Holding it in front of him, he threw his voice. "Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" The character was from her favorite Disney movie (or, as Ron mispronounced it, "Dizzy") and even better, had been a present from Hermione. But Lily just rolled over sadly, facing the wall. Harry lowered Olaf dejectedly. He'd always considered himself rubbish at this. To the shock of everyone else, Ginny was the natural comforter of the family. "Come on, Lily Bear. Help me out here. You know I'd do anything to get that beautiful smile back on your face..."

Lily craned her neck around. "Like singing Let It Go?"

"Except that," Harry deadpanned. Though he smiled, encouraged.

Lily pouted. "Uncle Ron sang it in the shower once."

"And Uncle Ron doesn't need to know that I have that on tape," Harry muttered. Ron always maintained how he hated, to use his words, "that damn song." Huffing, Harry swung himself the rest of the way onto the mattress, laying down beside his daughter. Instinctively, she curled into his side.

"I'll be right here, love... go to sleep..." And within moments, father and daughter both were.

Lily's screams woke the whole house hours later.

Harry did everything he could think of to get her to calm and quiet down. Hold her. Rock her. He even swallowed his pride and hummed the first several measures of that bloody 'Let It Go.' Nothing worked.

"Damn it," Harry swore under his breath as he bounced a screaming Lily. "There, there, love... damn you, Adele Dazeem or whatever your bloody name is!"

Minutes passed, and Ginny came in from where she had been sleeping in the guest room, her wand lit.

"What's happening?"

"She keeps screaming for Hermione. Nothing I've done can make her stop."

"Can I help?"

"All the power to you," Harry grumbled, stressed. The door creaked open, and Albus appeared, bleary-eyed, in the doorway.

"Wha's goin' on?" he slurred sleepily.

"Sssh. Go back to bed, Al. Please," his father implored.

"How?" his son got through a yawn, hands over his ears.

"Al! Go on, I said."

Albus half-stomped from the room.

At a loss, Harry swung Lily up into his arms. "I'm taking her over to Ron and Hermione's."

"In the middle of the night?" Ginny stared.

Harry shrugged. "They'll understand." He hustled downstairs, threw some powder into the furnace and hissed, "17 Cherry Wand Lane, Ottery St. Catchpole!" With a whoosh of green flames, they were gone.

The minute Harry and Lily stepped out of the fireplace, the alarms went off. A light came to life on the landing above, and Ron - in nothing but a bathrobe and slippers - staggered down the stairs, wand out. Recognizing the intruders, he pulled up short, flicking his wand so that the alarms died away.

"Oh, it's you."

"Yeah," Harry breathed, shifting Lily on his hip. "She had a nightmare. 'Bout Hermione. I'm sorry to bother you like this, but it's an emergency. I do hope I didn't wake Rosie and Hugo."

Ron cocked his ear and listened for rumblings coming from his children's bedroom. "Nope. Come on up."

Harry followed him up to his best friends' master bedroom. Hermione was sitting up in bed, eyes wide with concern.

"S'all right, love; it was just this jackass." When Lily wasn't looking, Harry halfheartedly flipped Ron off.

Upon seeing her aunt, Lily squirmed and reached for her, flying onto the bedclothes and clambering into Hermione's lap, her godmother running her fingers through her red hair.

"Can she stay with you tonight?" Harry pleaded. "I know it's a lot to ask, and I probably did wake the kids..."

Hermione eased him with a smile. "They're heavy sleepers. It's the Weasley in them."

"Oi!" After a moment, Ron relaxed. "Course she can. But if Hugo comes in here and we start playing a game of So-They-All-Rolled-Over-And-One-Fell-Out..."

"I'll come back and get her," Harry laughed. They both knew that wasn't true: Ron would sooner sleep on the floor. "Thanks, mate!" He kissed Lily's forehead, then Hermione's cheek. "I'll be by to pick her up in the morning." He left, and Ron sank onto the mattress beside his wife and niece, Lily snuggling into both of them.

"You seriously gonna make me give her back if Hughie comes barging in here?" Hermione sighed sleepily.

"Nope. She is my favorite Potter."

"Oi!" Harry poked his head back into the bedroom, pretending to be annoyed. Ron threw a pillow at his head, and missed.

"Get out of here, you prat!"

Harry departed. Ron watched for a moment as Lily cuddled into Hermione's nightdress, fascinated.

"She likes you," he murmured. "I can tell. She's never taken such a shining to Audrey or Angelina or Fleur."

"Well," and Hermione's cheeks turned rosy pink in the darkness around her shy, affectionate smile. "I did nurse her. Those first few weeks after she was born - I still had leftover breast milk from feeding Hugo - and Ginny couldn't even pump."

Ron nodded. "I remember. Poor thing would burst into tears whenever Lily tried to latch on; Harry nearly went mental trying to find alternative formulas..."

"... and then Neville saved the day when he invented that Breastfeeding Draught - essence of flobberworm and some gillyweed, I think the ingredient was?"

"Bloody brilliant," Ron mumbled, flopping his head back into the pillow. "Did he ever patent that?"

"Mm-hmm. My office signed off on the papers."

"Neville is a very rich man," Ron chuckled, rolling over so as to envelop both girls in a hug. "I love you."

"Right back at you... Won-Won."

"If you ever teach our niece that, I'll..."

"You'll what?" she challenged with a gawking smirk.

Ron flushed. "Nothing."

"That's my good boy."

The door banged open in the wee hours of the morning, and a reddish blur jumped on his parents' bed.

"Mummy, Daddy, I had a nightmare and..." Hugo trailed off, frowning as he felt one more lump than he should have. He squinted, eyes adjusting to the light as he peered closer. The form cocooned next to his mummy was far too small to be his sister... "Lily? What are you doing here?"

"Piss off." Lily swatted at her cousin, still half-asleep. Ron had the good sense to wince, even as he raised his eyes to find his wife glowering at him.

"Don't say another word," Hermione growled.

"Say anything?"

"Ronald -"

"I didn't say anything! Did I say anything?" he asked of his son. Confused, and only half-awake himself, Hugo shook his head. Ron mumbled something unintelligible, before grabbing for his pillow and an extra blanket. "Here. Hugo, lie down next to your cousin. I'm sleeping on the floor."

"For the rest of your natural life..." Hermione muttered through clenched teeth, as a fuming Ron awkwardly tried to get comfortable on the hardwood. Though she knew, by the next night, she would let him back into their bed.