Chapter 62: Scars

Ron watched fondly from the doorway of the kitchen leading into the sitting room as his wife played with their two young children. Of course, he loved Hermione, warts and all, but he truly he loved her best when she let her hair down and she was relaxed, as she was now tickling and wrestling with their son and daughter.

Hugo, a small and rambunctious little boy, now climbed up on the armrest of the couch as Rose and Hermione wrestled on the opposite side, mother trapping her daughter in a tickle fight. "Belly flop!" Hugo called.

Clearly, he had been aiming for the flat section of cushion left empty. But just as he flew through the air, Hermione and Rose's thrashing caused them to shift closer…

…. So that Hermione's arm landed right in the pathway of a flopping Hugo.

Hermione now let out a sharp yelp of pain. Hugo sprang off from where he had landed face and stomach first and scrambled backwards, bottom lip quivering.

"I'm sorry, Mummy! Mummy, I'm sorry…."

Dashing forward, Ron took Hugo by his armpits and set him down gently on his feet. The youngest Weasley son sidled up to his wife's side, coaxing her to bring her arm out so she could see it.

He felt along the bones, but couldn't detect any breaks. Hugo thankfully wasn't bony the way some others in his family were. However, his son had clearly landed on Hermione's right arm.

Her scarred arm. Her scarred arm which, at the moment, was now seeping blood through her white dress shirt from where Hugo's bumping it had caused some of the congealed scars to burst open, so that the letters were clearly visible.

Drifiting into her mother to see if she was OK, Rose clearly noticed how the blood was clearly shaped in letters, though thankfully not all the letters were showing and thus spelling the horrid word.

"Mummy? What's MDBLD?"

Hermione quickly cradled her injured arm close to her chest so that her daughter couldn't see. She shared a look with her husband, biting her lip; Ron's heart broke to see how there were tears in her eyes.

"Get Harry," Ron told her shortly. "I'll handle these two."

Hermione nodded, craned up to kiss him quickly before dashing for the Floo in the fireplace hearth. Rose was by now starting to cry, and she squirmed to try and get to her mummy as Ron picked her up under one arm and Hugo under the other, carrying them both to the stairs.

"Mummy….?"

Hermione turned in the fireplace with a pinch of Floo Powder and called out the destination as Godric's Hollow, the Potter home.

She arrived in the midst of Harry and Ginny playing a quiet Gobstones game with the boys, Lily watching in what might have been the role of a referee. Seeing his sister-in-law's ashen face, and the blood coating along her dress shirtsleeve and her arm, Harry stood.

"Hermione, what….?"

She shook her head, stealing a glance at her nephews and niece, who were lifting their heads out of the game and giving her funny, curious looks. "Not here." She took her best mate's hand. "Come with me." She led him back into the fireplace and they set a course back for Ottery St. Catchpole.

By the time Harry and Hermione got up to the children's nursery, Rose and Hugo were situated on their trundle beds, crying their eyes out. Meeting the gaze of his brother-in-law and his wife, Ron grimaced.

Harry took Hermione's arm and examined it. "Not broken, thank Merlin." He stiffened at the bloody, incomplete spelling of the horrid slur that monstrous Bellatrix had carved into her victim's very skin oh so long ago.

Tears were streaming down Hermione's face. "I have to tell them now…" she said softly. "There will just be questions if I don't…."

Harry knew full well her and Ron's preference to not tell the children about Malfoy Manor until they were older. Unfortunately, much like what had happened with Lily and the Pensieve, that decision was now out of their hands, thanks to an unfortunate accident. Taking a deep breath, Hermione glided over to Rose's bed and sat down on the edge of it. She gathered her babies close.

"Children: I think I'll be telling you your bedtime story a little early tonight."

Rose and Hugo both nodded, with bemused frowns. Hermione glanced to her husband, who nodded at her encouragingly, steadfastly supportive and brimming with love.

"Once upon a time, a long time ago, a very bad witch captured me, Daddy and Uncle Harry. The witch very cruelly hurt Mummy and held me prisoner….."

Rose drew a hand to her mouth. "Were…. were you like a princess then, Mummy? Like Rapunzel?"

"Worse than that…" Ron rumbled. Hermione sent him an imploring look to silence him. Ron glanced over to Harry, puzzled. "Now wait, remind me: Rapunzel's the one in desperate need of a haircut, right? And she's locked in the tower…."

"Ssssh!" Rose, Hugo and Harry all quieted him.

Hermione let out a shaky exhale. "Yes, Rose, I was kind of like Rapunzel. A captured princess in distress."

"Was Daddy the prince?" Hugo wanted to know.

Hermione smiled wanly. "Yes, Daddy was the prince. He and your uncle were both princes, really."

"Did they come and save you, then?" Rose pressed.

"They did. Daddy and Uncle Harry defeated the evil witch and saved Mummy." She let out another breath slowly. "Unfortunately, they couldn't save me, the princess, before the evil witch had carved a very ugly word into Mummy's…. Mummy's arms…"

Rose started to ask something that sounded like, 'Can we see it?', then stopped.

"It's a very bad word, and you must never use it," Hermione lectured.

"Will the bad word in Mummy's arm ever go away?" Hugo pouted.

"No, honey," Hermione told him sadly.

Ron joined them on the bed. "Sadly, your mother's right. That horrid word won't go away. But you know something, children? Mummy and I view it as a badge of honor. It shows how brave Mummy was to not give in to the evil witch. And we still love Mummy, don't we?"

Rose and Hugo scrambled into their mother's lap and hugged her. "We love you, Mummy!"

Putting his arms around his wife and children, Ron lifted his head over theirs to glance at his brother-in-law. Harry just nodded solemnly. He was proud of Hermione for keeping Malfoy Manor in such vague terms that it read almost as a bedtime story. For now, that was the most that Rose and Hugo could handle. Perhaps in time, the full story of their parents' and uncle's imprisonment could be revealed, but when they were old enough and on Ron and Hermione's terms.