Hi sorry it's been so long - real life got in the way for a bit. Anyway, here's the latest chapter. I probably need to give trigger warnings for medical procedures.
Thanks thanks thanks to kabg01 who has been nudging me along to get on with this chapter already - I would definitely still be procrastinating instead of posting if it hadn't been for her.
Disclaimer - not mine.
They packed up the cabin quickly and in silence, Hermione making sure she added extra protective spells to the place before she once again concealed it. She tried not to notice Ron's look of longing as it vanished away – it had been an escape from reality to go there but they had to return to the real world now. Instead of wanting to linger, Hermione felt like she couldn't get away quick enough – away from the questions that she could practically feel Ron holding back from asking; away from his hand on her shoulder in concern – and back to her own space and solitude. She hadn't spent so long alone with only one other human being for company since her and Ron had been an item. It was making her feelings muddled, like paint bleeding across a wet page to blur colours together. Then and now was curling dizzyingly together and she needed to get home and away from Ron to separate out her past emotions from their current situation before she began to lose her tight grasp on the love she had locked so tightly away. They apparated together and Hermione felt an almost tangible relief when their feet hit the familiar ground on the hill overlooking Ottery St Catchpole.
They entered the Burrow to the muted sounds of conversation. Hermione looked down, brow furrowed, at the luggage by the door. A feeling of foreboding settlled over her like a mantle. Someone arriving, or someone leaving, she wondered to herself. Ron, oblivious as usual, dumped their bags down next to the strange ones, calling out, "Is anybody there?"
"We're in here love" called out Molly from the sitting room, her voice quavering with emotion. Ron gave Hermione a sideways glance before they followed his mother's voice.
Ron's parents were both there, along with Harry and Ginny and George and Angelina, all seated in the assortment of mismatched, threadbare armchairs that graced the room. Hermione's eyes darted questioningly to Harry and he - interpreting her concern – nodded his head towards George.
Ron finally seemed to pick up on the fact that something was going on, "Everything alright?" he sounded uncertain as he looked from face to face.
George stood and clapped his hand on his shoulder, "Angelina and I have decided to go away for a bit – a change of scene before the kids need to go to school. You know, see the world and what have you."
"What?" Ron scowled, "And if we hadn't come home now, would you have just gone without telling me?"
"Of course not!" George laughed. Hermione cringed, knowing this was only likely to make Ron angry all the quicker. She was immediately proved right when she saw the colour start to rise up the back of his neck, in line with the volume of his voice.
"Your bloody bags are in the hall!"
"You're the one who's been saying we need to keep a closer eye on the New York store. And we can Floo call every day. It might have escaped your notice but we can actually do magic. I can just pop to the International apparition point and be back in the shop in five minutes," George explained.
"It's not the same!" Ron shook George's hand off his shoulder petulantly.
Hermione, feeling like she didn't want to be witness to Ron losing his temper, slipped outside to sit on the back step and pulled her book out of her pocket. She was yearning for home but she felt it would be too rude to just slink away without telling anyone. She heard Ron's voice muffled through the door shouting 'we're supposed to be partners', and threw up a silencing charm behind her.
She'd barely reached the end of the next chapter, with the chilly dampness of the step only just starting to sink into her jeans when George scrambled down to sit beside her, ruffling her hair with the palm of his hand as he did so.
"Don't worry, it's all over in there now, Ronnie's just sulking quietly. I'm going to miss you, little sister. I feel like I need a lot longer to play pranks on you before you settle into being a Weasley too much."
"What about all those pranks you've played on me for the last fourteen years?" Hermione laughed, folding her book away and stowing it back into her pocket, memories of exploding telescopes and enchanted mistletoe flashing through her mind as she did so.
George shrugged, "They were just a warm up! Also I wanted to talk to you because I feel like I need to apologise to you and now I'm going away I can't put it off any longer," he twisted the hem of his sleeve over his fingers, concentrating on twisting the lumpy wool instead of meeting her eye. In the corner of the garden, Hermione watched a gnome creeping out from under the cover of a bush and make for the vegetable patch, rubbing its knobbly hands in glee.
"You've got nothing you need to apologise for," she said softly, patting George on the knee.
"I broke you and Ron up. If it wasn't for me, doing what I did, and trust me I know now how stupid that was, then you two would have never fallen out," his words were uncharacteristically forced, as he choked on regret that made Hermione's heart ache.
"George, while we were away, we had a chance to – "
"Do I want to hear this?" he held his hands up over his ears and grinned at her. Sorry or not, he was George Weasley and he be damned if he missed as easy a set up as that. .
" - Talk!" Hermione finished with mock indignation, "It made me realise that it wasn't really ever about him wanting to go and work in the joke shop. It was about his need to make his own life and he couldn't do that with me and Harry so close. And….and it was about the fact that sometimes I have difficulty in realising I can be wrong sometimes. Our relationship was wonderful but it wasn't always healthy – Ron, Harry and me were all still so dependent on each other. If it hadn't been for you, Ron would never have become what he is today."
"Percy's rival for the humungous bighead award?" George sniggered, "Did you know he started to keep a scrapbook when he started appearing in the paper on his own?"
Hermione gave a gasp of amusement, "No! What happened to it?"
"I redecorated the shop with enlarged cuttings of him and he threw it away. I may have charmed the cuttings to talk as well." George admitted with a sly grin before his face turned serious once more, "You will look after him won't you? Even an idiot can see he's falling for you harder than Harry off a broom when the dementors are nearby, even if he can't see it himself."
Hermione thought it was probably just George's guilt talking – that he wanted to believe that they would be able to get back together, to paper over the cracks and pick up where they left off because then he hadn't done any damage, that his moment of weakness didn't have any consequences.
"Does Angelina know about…you know? Your potions experiment?" Hermione asked in a low voice, checking over her shoulder that no one was within earshot.
George nodded, "We didn't stay in touch after the war. But after my "potions experiment," I decided I needed to talk to someone about Freddie and I sent her an owl. We ended up getting really drunk and I was totally honest with her. She told me if I try any stunts like that again, she'll kill me."
Ginny slipped outside "George, mum's complaining that she might never see you again and you're spending your last day with Hermione hiding outside. George rolled his eyes in the dramatic fashion that he always did when his mother overreacted and bounced up and through the door.
Hermione went to follow him but Ginny grabbed her by the arm in her patented 'time for you to spill the gossip' grip. "So?" she asked expectantly.
"Oh come on Ginny, I didn't ask you any of the details from your honeymoon." Hermione sighed in frustration, wanting desperately to avoid talking about what had happened between her and Ron in the cabin. How they had fallen asleep entwined in each others arms.
"I'll tell you if you like. There was this one day we didn't even leave the hotel room. We – "
"Stop stop!" Hermione covered up her ears and scrunched up her eyes to avoid hearing any of the details Ginny was about to tell her. During the early days of Harry and Ginny dating after the war, Hermione had been forced to call a moratorium on Ginny telling her anything that happened between the two of them behind closed doors. Knowing she had to give her red headed sister-in-law some kind of explanation, she wondered how few words she could use without being quizzed further, "We did it. It was fine."
"Fine?" Ginny challenged, crossing her arms.
"As much as you and Harry want this to be some kind of fairy story, this is real life and fine is better than I could have ended up with," Hermione huffed. She wasn't entirely honest with Ginny – didn't tell her that some bits were better than fine and some bits were worse. She didn't know what words to use to describe the way that her and Ron had fitted together like two puzzle pieces and for a moment, the past couple of years slipped away and she felt just like they always had, from that day at the Yule Ball when Viktor kissed her and all she could think was, 'why couldn't it have been you?' every time she looked at Ron. She thought that Ginny could do without knowing how much that terrified her and how she rejected the feelings when she woke up and saw his face relaxed with sleep so close to hers – just shut them down and pushed Ron away, even when the hurt look in his eyes made her heart clench. The body releases hormones after sex that made you feel like that. The same hormones could be replicated in a lab. It was just a trick of chemistry, of biology. And it wasn't going to happen again.
Hermione stood up and dusted off her jeans, "I might just go home – I'm pretty tired and this is a family party."
"Hang on a minute," Hermione thought that Ginny was going to argue that she was family and was preparing her case for why she really really just wanted to go home, have some peace and see Crookshanks, who had been most put out by her popping home for five minutes a day to feed him and top up his water bowl for the last few days; when Ginny nipped inside the house, only to return with a sheaf of envelopes, "These came for you when you were away. Don't worry, I can see from your face you're cream crackered, I won't ask you to stay."
Hermione smiled gratefully, and was just peeling back the seal on one of them when Ron appeared in the doorway, looking a little pale and carrying his own armful of parchments.
"They've made us an appointment to go to St Mungo's" Hermione read aloud, seeing Ron swallow deeply and nod in confirmation, "For testing."
"Doesn't sound pleasant, does it?"
"Nothing about this whole mess is!" Hermione spat and, ignoring his wounded expression, apparated away.
oOoOoOo
Two weeks later, they met outside the derelict department store that served as the public entrance to St Mungo's. As Hermione approached, she saw Ron lounging against a lamp post, his hands in his pockets. Despite his relaxed posturing, his face was troubled. She told herself sternly that it was nerves about the tests and nothing else that made her stomach flip over as she caught sight of him through the crowds.
"I wondered if you wouldn't come," he said without preamble or humour.
"Best to get this over with," Hermione was aware that she was using the same brisk tones that she had been using with Ron ever since they had left the cabin but she thought it was best to maintain clear boundaries between the two of them, "Otherwise, they might make it worse for us"
His hand touched the small of her back as she leaned in close to the dummy which looked more grotesque than ever, since one of its arms had worked loose and was dangling limply within the faded green nylon dress.
"Hermione Granger…Granger-Weasley, and Ronald Weasley – we have an appointment," Hermione whispered, suppressing the shiver that the unexpected contact had sent up her spine but his hand was gone before she could be sure that she hadn't imagined it. The glass melted away and they stepped into the bustling reception area. Hermione nearly tripped over the beard of a panicked looking wizard whose facial hair seemed to be growing at an inordinate rate – even as she watched, she saw new tufts sprout from the end of his nose and begin their progress to join the rapidly developing pile on the floor – before she joined Ron in the queue behind a witch covered in nasty looking purple pustules.
Once they reached the desk, Ron handed over the appointment letter to the bored looking witch on reception.
Right, you're floor six room 614 and you" she pointed at Hermione with a brightly polished fingernail, "You're in room 618, right at the end of the corridor."
Upon hearing they were in separate rooms, Hermione immediately thought of interrogations, cross checking their stories to make sure they were telling the truth. Ron's anxious glance in her direction confirmed that the same concerns were running through his head. As they got into the lift they were joined by a plump witch whose nose seemed to have turned into a teapot. The tiny wizard with her was carrying a bucket and having to keep vanishing away the tea that was spouting from her face until they exited at the fourth floor.
The lift continued its ascent until a cool female voice announced "Sixth floor - maternity ward, reproductive health and paediatrics."
As they stepped out into the corridor, which was painted in soft lilac shades, with delicate pictures of flowers rather than the usual wizarding portraits, Hermione was almost surprised that the often backward Wizarding medical community had felt the need for such a muggle form of medicine.
That benevolent feeling lasted only until she reached room 618, and with a desperate backward glance to Ron, who also seemed reluctant to go through the door of his room, she twisted the brass door handle and went in. In the centre of the room was a padded, tilted bed with stirrups jutting up from it. Hermione backed up against the door until it closed behind her with a soft click.
A healer, no older than her looked up from her notes and smiled apologetically. She did say her name but Hermione could barely hear it over the buzzing in her ears as she focussed on the device of torture in front of her. It wasn't until she felt the gentle touch of the healer's hand on her shoulder that she realised she had zoned out.
"It's not as bad as it looks."
"Really?" Hermione asked wryly, cringing down to the tips of her toes as she saw the healer slipping a long plastic sheath over the length of her wand.
"Well…" the healer smiled in apology, "It's not great but it's over quickly at least. It's a bit like one of your muggle smear tests."
Hermione attempted to mentally list every potion ingredient she knew in alphabetic order as she undressed from the waist down. As she placed her feet in the stirrups, she recalled the exact hand movements to some of the more complicated spells for human transfiguration. As the healer inserted a cold metal speculum into her and tears leaked out of the corners of her tightly closed eyes, she catalogued all twelve uses for dragon's blood and attempted to think of more. But when the healer apologised that this might sting a bit and poked deeply up to her cervix, her mind was a blank, other than a fiery rage that made the light fittings rattle and her fingertips spark with the magic that would have surely incinerated Umbridge had she been there in that moment. After that, the healer pressed the tip of her wand into her lower belly, dragging it over her skin as a fuzzy image of Hermione's organs was projected onto a screen but she was flying on a wave of incandescence and barely noticed that part. Eventually she was allowed to dress again and was led into a warm, softly lit waiting room to recover. The healer brought her a cup of tea before withdrawing silently from the room.
Once her heart rate slowed and the sparkling points of anger faded from her vision, she repeated to herself in a shaking undertone, her resolve to get the law that had put her in that position destroyed, and with any luck, the people who had brought it about too. By the time she had drunk her cup of tea, she was telling herself that she had survived true torture, won wars, and that a simple medical procedure wasn't going to upset her, with enough conviction that she almost believed it.
She picked up a pamphlet about the need to vaccinate newborns against dragon pox and started flicking through it idly to pass the time. When the increasingly frequent glances at her watch told her that she had been waiting over half an hour she began to get increasingly worried about Ron and as footsteps sounded in the corridor she resolved herself to ask whoever it was for help but just as she stood up, Ron entered the room. His face was pale and had a pasty sheen of sweat and his eyes were wide with disbelief. His hair stood up at the back and his shirt was half hanging out of his trousers. He stumbled into a seat, his knuckles white on the arm rest as he sank into it.
"What did they do to you? Are you alright?" Hermione gasped, looking frantically out into the corridor in case he was seriously ill and she needed to raise the alarm.
He gripped her hand tightly and whispered in a hoarse voice, "They made me put my tackle on a metal tray and the healer waved a wand over it and your face appeared on a screen. Then they stuck a swab right up the end of my..." he trailed off, turning a delicate shade of green, "Then I had to give a sample. You know - a sample. That was why I was so long. You try whacking one off in a room that looks like my auntie Muriel's sitting room with only a four year old copy of Play Witch for company."
"Oh that must have been awful, getting your rocks off to out of date porn," Hermione knew she sounded unsympathetic but she couldn't bring herself to moderate her tone, "Meanwhile, I've had a healer's wand shoved so far up me that I was worried she was going to charm my tonsils off."
"Ahem," their attention was drawn to an elderly lady standing in the doorway. She reminded Hermione of the shrunken head that always used to hang from the rear view mirror of the Knight bus, so wizened was her olive coloured skin. Unlike the other healers, her robes were covered in a busy pattern every colour of the rainbow and she wore a matching turban with a peacock feather pinned to the front with an ornate jewelled brooch.
"I'm Calla Madgwick," she croaked in an American accent, holding out hands weighed down with rings and bangles, as though offering benediction, "Head of the reproductive healing department. Don't worry, the worst's over with now – I honestly could hex that vile bitch Umbridge for booking you in for those tests. Just come down the way to my office for a chat, then you can be on your way."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and shuffled away down the corridor, followed by Hermione and Ron.
Her office was as colourful as she was, with squashy arm chairs and a parrot on a perch behind her desk. She seemed to have replaced the medical screens round the bed with silk scarves and her window was charmed to show bright sunshine beaming through. She flipped through the paperwork on her desk for so long that Hermione was wondering if she had forgotten they were there. However, her eyes, bright as berries, eventually lifted from the scribbled notes in front of her.
"The good news, if you can call it that, is that I will be able to report to the Ministry that you consummated your marriage. Honestly, I've not had to order one of those tests for about fifty years. What that little snot Umbridge thinks she's playing at is anyone's guess. Still, her and that slimy boss of hers have managed to persuade the Minister for Health that a hefty part of our funding be tied to this pet project of theirs, so here we are."
"We could have just told you we'd done it, you didn't need to do all that funny business," growled Ron, shifting in his chair uncomfortably. Hermione remembered the swab they had done on him and bit back a smirk.
"It wasn't a complete waste of time. The tests also show that you are both fertile and healthy."
A tiny weight that Hermione hadn't even realised she had been carrying until that moment, fell away. So the prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus hadn't done any harm. She had heard of cases where women had gone on to have problems in that department, or worse.
"Now I don't want to be teaching a dragon how to breathe fire so stop me if you know this but I'm happy to explain. Do you two need to know how to make a baby?"
"No!" they both all but shouted, in perfect unison, united in their thought that to hear this desiccated husk of a woman give them the birds and the bees talk would be cringeworthy in the extreme.
"Fair enough. You're muggleborn anyway, aren't you child? Those muggles generally make a decent hash of explaining it" She directed her beady eyes to Hermione, "You wouldn't believe what some of those pureblood old families think. No offence dearie," she reached over the desk and patted Ron's hand in a conciliatory manner.
"I know how to," Ron retorted sullenly.
"Course you do." She nodded indulgently in a way that didn't seem to make him any happier, "Well everything's fine with you both physically, which is the main thing. Hermione, I'm going to prescribe you some vitamins – I'll have an owl deliver them to you by the end of the week. Nothing to worry about, just some pre-natals."
Hermione nodded and swallowed the lump that had just grown in her throat as the word 'pre-natal' rolling a hollow knell around her head.
"Now off you go," the healer waved her hands to shoo them away, her brightly coloured sleeves flapping wildly, "Go and just do what newlyweds do and I'll see you in a month."
For those of you missing a certain Mr Malfoy...look out for the next chapter!