A/N: Everything except the stuff you don’t recognize belongs to JK Rowling and her utter genius. Many of these characters, however, are of my own creation.
*To avoid confusion: All of these scenes are happening simultaneously*
Forgiveness
They left in the silence with seven consecutive pops! And they all ended up at Malfoy Manor. Hyatt, Phaedra and Odile immediately looked at their cousin…cousins. “You’re married?” they asked in perfect unison.
At the same time, Draco and Hermione looked at their daughter with wide eyes. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes,” Patrick told his cousins.
“And yes,” Medea told her parents quietly. “I found out yesterday.”
Silence surrounded them for the space of several seconds before they all started talking at once. It was total chaos.
“Stop!” Patrick finally yelled and waited for them to calm down. “One question at a time, please.”
Medea intertwined her fingers with her husband’s and smiled. “Let’s go inside and we’ll explain everything.”
“Yes, you will,” Hermione said firmly with the smallest hint of a smile and followed her husband through their front door.
Medea moved to follow but Patrick pulled her back while the others filed in.
“We’re really going to have a baby?” he asked softly, taking her face in his hands.
She smiled, covering his hand with hers and turning to kiss his palm. “Yes, we are.”
Pure affection showed in his eyes as he pulled her into his arms. “I love you,” he whispered. “You’re so amazing.”
“You helped,” she laughed. “Come on, let’s go inside. We have a lot of explaining to do.”
The others had congregated in the library along with Zofia and Jarrett. The growing but still small boy had crawled into Draco’s lap and was happily chatting away to the crowd of new faces. He had a cute, round face like most boys of seven, and he was the spitting image of his father at that age save for the mop of brown hair atop his head.
Once the pair stepped into the doorway, Zofia immediately pulled them into a warm hug. “I’m so glad you finally told,” she whispered. “I hate keeping secrets from your parents.”
Medea pulled back, opened mouthed. “You read”!”
Zofia put her hands up in mock surrender. “You were acting suspicious and I was worried.”
“You two better have a good reason for getting married without us!” Odile wasted no time in saying.
“I know,” Patrick said apologetically as they sat down. “Would you believe me if I said I just really wanted to marry her?”
“Yes,” Draco said immediately without hesitation, earning a smile from his wife and daughter. All the same, a slight blush crept up his pale cheeks.
“We didn’t tell you because we wanted to have a real wedding with all of you there. That’s why we just told you we were engaged,” Medea explained.
Patrick looked at his cousins. “We all knew how our family would react.”
“And I hadn’t a clue how you would feel,” Medea told her parents.
“What’s going on?” Jarrett asked his dad in a loud whisper.
“Well,” Draco said and pulled his young son a little closer. “Dea got married.”
“Married? Like you and mummy?” he asked brightly. The whole room was smiling at him.
Draco chuckled. “Yes, like me and mummy.”
He seemed content with that answer; he relaxed against his father’s chest and watched the scene unfold.
“Can you all forgive us?” Medea asked quietly, looking at each of her family members.
“’Course,” Hyatt said lightheartedly. “Who are we to stand in the way of fate?”
* * * *
Ginny crossed her arms and looked up at her husband as her family members started to disapparate. “I’m not talking to you.”
“I’m not talking to you either,” he countered.
Her eyes narrowed and she walked away. The place needed to be cleaned up after all.
“Wait!” Harry exclaimed after a few seconds. “Why aren’t you talking to me?”
“Because you’re being stubborn and unreasonable,” she replied quickly.
His mouth fell open. “You knew she was carrying on with him!”
She whirled around. “And you’re still holding it against her after over twenty years!” She stared at him, nostrils flared before she noticeable sagged. “She was our friend, Harry.”
Harry slowly walked to his wife and ran his fingers through her silky, auburn hair resting his hands on her shoulders. “We’re not doing a very good job at not talking to each other, are we?”
She smiled slowly. “No.”
He inhaled slowly, trying to get a hold on his emotions before he went on. “She knew who he was and she didn’t say anything.”
“Dumbledore knew, too,” she reminded him. “She couldn’t have changed anything, you know that.”
He sighed. “But she didn’t.”
She couldn’t disagree with that. “And you don’t think she beat herself up about it constantly? You know they didn’t get married for six years? Hermione didn’t even go back to him after we all abandoned her.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“Zofia,” she said simply. “We worked on the same floor for years.”
“Oh,” Harry whispered. He hadn’t known any of that.
“And it’s not like she cheated on Ron,” she continued. “She’d left Draco when he she thought he’d chosen Voldemort over her.”
He scoffed. “And then she went back to him?”
Ginny rolled her eyes. She loved her husband, but sometimes he was an outright git. “I think he learned his lesson. Didn’t you see him today? He’s a completely different person.”
Harry raised a dubious eyebrow and set about cleaning up some of the mess.
Ginny quietly watched her perturbed husband get rid of the decorations and pondered the situation that had transpired over twenty years ago. “How much they must have loved each other,” she mused.
“What’re you saying?” he mumbled and moved a table back to the corner.
“They had so many valid reasons to hate each other and yet they fell in love anyway and they made it work.”
“What’s your point?”
She shook her head pensively. “Medea is completely right,” she whispered. “It was easy for us. Everyone did expect it and want it.”
“And why is that a bad thing?”
Ginny joined her downcast husband and pushed her arms around his middle. “I’m not saying that it is. I just think we shouldn’t hold it against Hermione because it wasn’t so easy for her. She made mistakes, yes, but her intentions were pure and it’s not as if she became a Death Eater for him. In fact, I’m sure we have her to thank for Draco fighting with us.
He rested his chin gently on her head. “I’m sure you’re right,” he whispered.
“I miss her, Harry,” she whispered pitifully. It was clear that she was crying.
He was still loath to admit it, but he did too. Hermione had been with him through what could be called his formative years; she had helped shape him into the person he had become. Even in the too few times he had seen her over the past twenty years he could tell that she hadn’t really changed. Her name was different now, but she was still Hermione Granger. “I suppose I ought to talk to Ron tomorrow so we can finally clean up this whole situation.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s getting talked to as we speak. Did you see Gabrielle’s face?”
Harry nodded. “I did and I know exactly what she was thinking.”
“Well, once they work everything out and we talk to him, we’re all going to Malfoy Manor and apologizing. After all, we apparently have a daughter-in-law that we’ve never met.”
Harry scrunched up his face and looked down at his wife. “I’m going to be a grandfather and I’m barely forty!”
* * * *
Gabrielle Weasley slowly looked up at her husband with her pretty nostrils flared and her eyes bright with unshed tears. Then she was gone.
Regret had never come to Ron Weasley so swiftly, but in that moment he regretted every minute he had ever been angry over Hermione. But more than that, he regretted every missed opportunity that he’d had to tell his wife that he loved her more than anything else in the world. Because he did.
She was sitting on the sofa with silent tears running down her cheeks when he appeared in their salon. It broke his heart.
Her eyes slowly met his. “Are you still in love with her?”
Tears sprang into his blue eyes as he kneeled in front of her, his hands coming to rest on her knees. “No,” he whispered, fervently hoping that his sincerity showed in his eyes. “There is no one in this entire world that I love more than you. I should have told you that every morning I’ve woken up next to you.”
Her beautiful eyes lightened and she took hold of his hands. “Then why are you still so angry? You scare me, the way you are when anyone breathes her name.”
He inhaled deeply. It was still his least favorite topic. “Because she was my friend and I did love her at the time,” he explained. He’d never actually been so honest with himself. “It hurt me deeply”what she did.”
“I still don’t even understand what she did.”
He pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “She fell in love with the wrong person and she choose him over everything else, even what she knew was right.”
“He was a Death Eater, yes? And she knew?”
He nodded.
“And he would have gone to Azkaban if she would have turned him in?”
“Of course.”
The smallest of smiles played at her lips. “If I did something that would send me to Azkaban and you were the only one who knew, would you turn me in? Send me to that terrible place?”
He couldn’t answer right away because the first response that entered his mind was a resounding NO! Yet, he still couldn’t bring himself to admit that he understood the actions that had hurt him so deeply. At first he had been angry because he had loved Hermione, but the moment he had met Gabrielle again that reason had become obsolete.
“I know you, Ronald,” she crooned softly. “You wouldn’t.”
He hung his head. “You’re right. I couldn’t.”
“Then why are you still so angry that you would throw out our daughter because she became friends with her daughter?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered in stark honesty and looked up at her. “Can you forgive me?”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him slowly. “I love you, Ronald, but I am not the one who needs to forgive you.”
Fatum Amoris...The Fate of Love by Nicole_Riddle
Chapter Notes: All of the events in this chapter happen simultaneously.