Just Perfect
“Oh Hermione, it’s you. Goodness, I’ve never heard you Apparate that loud before. I thought something exploded here.”
Hermione just shook her head at her mother and rushed to her bed, pulling the covers over her head in one motion, like a child fleeing from her most rabid fear.
“Hermione? Is something wrong, hon?”
“N-nothing, Mum. Please”” Hermione choked.
“Hermione, you’re here. I thought I heard a cracker. So how was your Healer check-up with Ron?” her dad said next.
Hermione’s control snapped and her sobs broke out of her like a storm.
“Oh, my. Another row, dear.”
“Well, they’re getting married, so we better get used to this.”
Her parents chuckled as they left her alone.
Under her summer blankets, Hermione wept.
No, we’re not getting married anymore.
♥ ♥ ♥
“A Healer check-up? Why on earth do we need that for our wedding?”
“Well, this is what you get for delaying. It’s only routine. It’s been in place only for weeks but has been welcomed quite warmly. One of the Healers”” Ginny winked “”had this idea of getting an engaged witch’s and wizard’s medical examinations out of the way so that they won’t be bothered by it when they go places during their honeymoon, as this Healer herself had experienced. After the examination, they give you a certificate of health, one for the Wizarding world and one for the Muggle world.”
“Oh, I see. That’s not so bad then, Ginny.” Ron grinned over at Hermione, who sat mashing carrots for little James, Ginny and Harry’s toddler.
Only routine. And they had gone through it with no second thoughts, unaware of its deadly implications, which brought Hermione where she was now, a weeping woman in her bed.
♥ ♥ ♥
Her parents began to worry in the morning when she didn’t get up and refused to talk. In the afternoon, when Ron still hadn’t come over to make up with her as usual, her parents demanded outright for answers. But Hermione remained stonily silent.
For a week, it went on. Hermione didn’t even eat. The only time she spoke was when she told her parents not to let anyone know where she was.
Mr and Mrs Granger could only nod at her directions, dismayed and afraid of what could have happened.
Only the week before, Hermione had been silent as well, but with roses in her cheeks and diamonds in her eyes to match the sparkling thing she wore on her finger. It was the silence of too much bliss.
Right now, it was the silence of too much misery.
♥ ♥ ♥
She was awakened by the gentle hold of an arm around her waist. With a cry, she moved away from him and hastily stood up. Before she could reach the door however, she heard it sealing itself magically. She groped in her pockets for her wand, but Ron held it up for her to see in the moonlight bathing her room.
“You’re not running away from me again, Hermione. And I’ll let you know, I’ve had help from Minerva to turn your room Apparition-proof at the moment. You gave us all a scare, disappearing like that and telling your parents not to tell us you’re here. Luckily, they quite adore their future son-in-law and let me in when I begged.”
“What do you want? Your ring? Here, take it back.” Her voice sounded as if it didn’t belong to her. And she saw the diamond scintillating in the scant light as it flew to the bed where she had thrown it.
“Damn it, Hermione!” In an instant, Ron was in front of her, shaking her. She let him. But he let go and gasped at what he’d done before taking her softly into his arms.
“Let go of me,” she whispered, though she made no struggle.
“I won’t.”
“Why? I’m letting you go. You don’t have to marry me anymore.”
“But I will, I love you.”
“How can you assure me of that after leaving me alone here for ages? And the look on your face when we found out””
“Hermione! Merlin! What did you expect?” He gave her another shake. “That Healer dropped us a bomb and you expect me to smile and say ‘it’s nothing’?”
“It’s not ‘nothing’, see? That’s why you don’t have to marry me. You’re free to look for another woman. You have choices enough. They’re practically lined up outside your door even after we announced our engagement””
She cringed. He was still clutching her wand and fiery red sparks had shot out of it. He was actually baring his teeth at her.
“Stop talking like that! Stop acting like you’re the only one who has the right to be devastated by what we found out!”
His furious face blurred in her vision as tears flooded and flowed from her eyes. He wiped them away, with angry tenderness, and she noticed how badly his fingers shook.
“We’ve always dreamed of a lot of children, you know that. You even have their names already, don’t you? So did you expect me to laugh it off when that Healer told us you can’t have babies?”
Hermione’s knees unlocked and she fell to the floor sobbing. Ron took her in his arms, rocked her gently and sobbed a little himself.
“This week has been hell for me, Hermione. I kept seeing and hearing that Healer in my mind. I almost want to kill her. I wish we’d never gone to that examination.”
Hermione stiffened again. “You’re right. That’s why I’m letting you go. You can have as many children as you want. You don’t have to tie yourself to me.”
“Merlin, Hermione, how could you still think that?” he shouted again. "Look at me!”
He tilted her head back so that their eyes met. He gritted his teeth as he searched for words. His hold on her arm tightened and loosened, like a frantic pulse. “I don’t have a choice. Can’t you see that? I’m only furious because you don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve this, Hermione.”
He kissed her on the forehead.
“I was furious with Dolohov. I went to Azkaban. I waited for a special permission approved by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to curse him.”
She gasped at that.
“Don’t tell me off, I could have killed him.”
Hermione just shook her head, and allowed herself to go limp in his arms for the first time.
“Ron, you do still love me? You won’t blame me when””
“Listen to you”this really makes me even more furious. You’ve lost your marbles. I’m the one who always thought I’m not good enough for you. Of course I do still love you! And I won’t ever blame you. What have you done wrong? Nothing. You’re perfect. Still.”
Hermione let his words sink in, but still the tears flowed.
“I just hate this. I can’t live with this. I’ll feel like I failed you.”
Ron shook his head and tried to grin through their problem. “You shouldn’t feel like that. We’ll have enough nephews and nieces anyway””
“Exactly! You’ll be left behind by your brothers again.”
“Just how? Are their wives the cleverest witches in England?”
Hermione burrowed her head on his shoulder. “This is a nightmare.”
Ron kissed her hair and held her away so he could do the same to her eyes, nose, forehead and lips. “So was the War, Hermione. But we got over it, didn’t we? We’ll get over this, too. So we have a problem”everyone has one, too.”
“You’re being awfully eloquent.”
“What does that mean?”
Hermione just shook her head and didn’t move away from her secure place in his shoulder even when he carried her to bed.
“Listen, Hermione, I’ll always be sorry. I’ll be sorry that you won’t experience being pregnant, that you won’t have those brains of yours handed down to a child with my name, that I won’t see you with your belly all big with my child and nor will I see you breastfeeding. I’ll be sorry for all that.”
He cuddled her closer when she sobbed anew.
“But I’ll never be sorry for marrying you,” he added hastily. “I’ll be happy that you bear my name, that you belong to me. You’re enough for me, okay? I was just shocked, that’s all. You should have seen it when Ginny clobbered me with Mum’s heaviest saucepan to get me to talk. I’d rather have you than kids who don’t have you for their mother. I won’t love them as much. I won’t even like them. Merlin, I can’t even imagine having them.”
Hermione laughed shakily and nodded into his chest. “Thank you, Ron. I love you.”
“There’s nothing to thank me about. I’ll be the one thanking you, if you wear this ring again. It cost me some dozen galleons, you know.” He shifted so that he could hold the ring poised over her hand.
“I’m sorry. I only thought you’d changed your mind.”
“That goes to show that even the cleverest witch in England has her stupid moments.”
Hermione scowled. Laughing a little, he slid the ring on her finger again. “But that just makes you even more perfect, Hermione.”
♥ ♥ ♥
“Is it true we’ll go anywhere, anywhere I wish?”
“Yes, James. Anywhere you like. Not so loud though, please. It’s giving me a headache.” Hermione scrunched her nose at the boy, now eleven years old and poised to enter Hogwarts in September.
“Yeah, don’t wet your pants, Jimmy-jim.”
“Uncle Ron! I’m too old for that! Both of that!”
Ron and Hermione laughed at James’s indignation.
They were in their living room. Ron had just arrived with James. He and Hermione had this tradition of taking one of their nephews and nieces with them somewhere before that kid went off to Hogwarts. Last year, they had taken Eugenie”Bill and Fleur’s second daughter”to Egypt. And now it was James’s turn.
“I want to go to Egypt, too. Eugenie kept prattling on about the tombs. I want to see it for myself.”
“Something wrong, Hermione?”
Hermione jumped a bit and smiled at her husband and nephew. “Oh, nothing, it’s just this dull headache. I think I’ll go take a nap, since I won’t be getting that much sleep when we go to Egypt again.”
She got up and the world tilted.
“Hermione!”
“Auntie!”
She had swayed when she stood. Ron and James both caught her, and were both eyeing her wearily.
“Sorry. Sorry, darlings. I’ll sleep this off, don’t worry. It’s been a dog-hot summer. James, don’t touch your bags, please. You have enough clothes in your room. We’ll be here only two days before we’re ready for the trip. And yes, your uncle has his own set of gobstones. Play with that. Don’t unpack. I don’t want a mess when we leave.”
She assured Ron with a smile and walked to their bedroom.
When she next woke, it was a quarter past six in the morning. She bolted out of bed. But when she entered the kitchen, Ron and James were already there, and grinned at her wryly, munching Muggle cereal from their bowls.
“You let me sleep that long? What have you been up to?” She sat down beside them and put a hand each on the side of their bowls. “Cold milk?” She let them look frightened for several moments before she grinned. “I think I’ll have some, too.”
Ron sighed with apparent relief and fixed her some of the cereal, and then poured cold milk on it.
“That long sleep was good for you. You look gorgeous today, Hermione.”
“Don’t I always?” She flicked an eyebrow at him as she spooned cereal into her mouth. “And you only let me sleep so that you and James could have free rein and turn the house into””
Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth and ran to the bathroom.
Ron was with her in a heartbeat, and he rubbed her back as she vomited into the sink.
Hermione rinsed out her mouth, grimacing. “Okay, I’ll definitely never eat cereal with cold milk again after not eating for twelve hours.”
“Oh, Merlin, why didn’t I think of that? Sorry, Hermione.”
She smiled at him and turned to lace her arms around her neck. “What have you done wrong? Nothing. You’re perfect. Still.”
Ron smiled and gave her their morning kiss.
“Eew!
They laughed as they heard James running back to the kitchen but didn’t break the kiss.
♥ ♥ ♥
Hermione woke up the next day feeling heavy, as if someone was sitting on her head. With relief, she saw that Ron was no longer beside her. It left her free to rummage in their bedside table for their Feeling-Under-The-Weather Potion. She couldn’t be sick today. Not when they’re taking their favorite nephew to Egypt.
She waited in bed while the potion took effect. And then she got up and dressed as quietly as she could. All their bags were ready. She shrank them and then placed them in Ron’s dressing table so that he could pocket them when he was dressed.
With no surprise, he saw uncle and nephew passed out on the floor of James’s room, covered in blankets, with some gobstones beside them still spewing puffs of smelly smoke. She rolled her eyes and waved her wand at the mess.
She cleared her throat and pointed her wand at her neck. “Sonorus.”
“James Sirius Potter! Ronald Bilius Weasley! If you don’t get up and dress this instant, we’re not leaving and you’re getting something horrific in your lazy backsides as well.”
Ron and James jumped. And then they grinned and threw off the blankets, revealing that they were already dressed, from head to foot.
“Tricksters!”
♥ ♥ ♥
They had barely been in Egypt for an hour before Hermione was sick again, and she wasn’t even quick enough to reach the bathroom of their suite this time.
“Scourgify!” Ron pointed his wand at the floor before hurrying to Hermione in the bath. “Hermione, are you alright?”
“Tell James the beef is bad.”
“James, don’t eat the””
But James had followed them already, and he still held the sandwich he had just bitten into. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Auntie, it’s nice.”
“Hermione””
“No, I won’t. You know that, Ron.”
“But we need to find out what’s wrong with your stomach these days!”
“I’m not going to a Healer!” And then she turned back to the john and vomited again. When she surfaced, she accepted the glass of water James had fetched her, smiling weakly.
“Mum’s a Healer, Auntie.”
She looked at James and at the pleading look on Ron’s face. She had to swallow her trauma.
“Alright, then, James. Don’t worry, we’ll stay here for your vacation. We’ll just call your mum.”
♥ ♥ ♥
“You’re fine, Hermione. Nothing to look so scared to death about, Ron. James, you behave, alright? You two, give me the name of the medi-witch you went to on your last examination.”
With these cryptic words, Ginny left.
When she popped her head into their suite’s fireplace a day later, she shrieked Ron awake.
“I could kill you, Ginny! Hermione’s still not well and you shriek like a mad banshee in the middle of the night! What do you want?”
“Do you know that Krum had a stepsister?”
“What? So what? I don’t care, I’m going back to sleep, Ginny.”
“And this same stepsister apparently had a thing for him. But as we know, Krum never really got over Hermione. And up to this day, he’s still a surly bachelor.”
“Ginny, I don’t give a””
“And this said stepsister’s name is Katarina Berova.”
“”damn about his family”what? But that’s the same Healer we went to.”
“Indeed.” Ginny smiled widely now. She was holding several aquamarine parchments, apparently St. Mungo’s documents. “Hermione still sleeping? We’re both being loud, aren’t we?”
Ron was still shaking his head in confusion at what his sister told him. “Yeah, she’s very sleepy these days. Must be those potions you gave her for her headaches.”
“I didn’t give her any healing potions. They’re not advisable for someone in her condition. I only gave her vitamins.”
“Vitamins”what condition are you talking about?”
Ginny squealed in delight and stopped the pretense of being extremely interested in the sheaf of parchment. “Since you’re still too daft to guess by now, I’ll tell you straight out. Our dear Hermione is with child.”
Ron sank onto his haunches before the fire. He had been kneeling, but now all his joints seem to have lost their function. “With what?” he barely whispered.
Ginny heard him though, and now she had tears in her eyes even as she grinned widely. “With child, Ron. Pregnant.”
Ron made a little noise in his throat. Ginny disappeared from the fire and reappeared a moment later, but this time, she stepped out of the hearth, and embraced her weeping brother.
♥ ♥ ♥
Hermione felt an arm gently sliding around her waist and she opened her eyes to smile at Ron.
“What’s the matter? Did you and James spend the whole night playing Exploding Snap again? You look like an axe murderer. Go to sleep.”
Ron laughed. “I’m alright, Hermione.”
Hermione hummed. “I feel good today, too, though I could already feel my morning nausea again.” She wrinkled her nose and burrowed her face into Ron’s chest.
“Hermione, how long have you been having this morning sickness?”
“I don’t know…maybe a month. It began some time before the kids came home for the summer.”
Ron laughed again, but shakily, as if in amazement.
“What? What’s so funny or scary? You’re acting odd, Ronald Weasley.”
“Do you remember Krum?”
Hermione gaped at him. What a way to start a morning, bringing up his bitterest rival. “What’s this about, Ron?”
“Well, he has a stepsister pining for him, and it seems that stepsister knew you, and sprang at the chance to give you some pain when she saw it.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s just amazing though.”
“Ron, I’m going to jinx you if you keep this up much longer.”
Ron sighed, but he still had that grin. “From what Ginny found out, Katarina Berova just tweaked the results of our examinations to make you miserable. I have a low sperm count. That’s why it took us this long to have a child.”
Hermione gaped at him, bewildered. And then his words sunk in. She gasped and shook her head, feeling tears start in her eyes. “Ron, don’t joke about a thing like this.” When he shook her head and smiled at her tenderly, she gripped his shirt in her fists and cried like little Lily when she skinned her knees last month at the Burrow, sobbing aloud.
Ron let her cry, smiling and kissing her hair. After a few moments, she calmed down again, and she smiled brightly up at him as he wiped her tears. “Is it true? We’re having a b-baby? I’ve had suspicion of course, but I didn’t allow myself to hope.”
“No chance of being let down now. You are pregnant. We can trust Ginny, can’t we? If we went to her for our examination, we could have saved us a lot of heartache.”
Hermione smiled and showered his face with kisses. “No, I don’t think so. You would have run away from me if we found the truth from your sister ten years ago. And since you’re so stubborn, much more stubborn than me, I might not have convinced you I still want you to be my husband without actually dragging you in a Full Body-Bind to the ceremony. Have you thought of that?”
Ron looked stunned. It was his turn to have tears in his eyes. Hermione cuddled his head on her bosom. “You have been crying all night, haven’t you? Merlin, Ron, don’t. Forget it. We’re having a baby!”
Ron plucked the collar of her cotton nightgown to wipe his eyes like a child, rubbing his eyes in circles and hiccupping. Hermione laughed.
“Yeah. A baby. Wow, Hermione.” Ron kissed her. “See, I told you, you’re perfect.”
Hermione smiled and hugged him “As you are, Ron. As you are.”
"The perfect person doesn’t exist,
There are only people perfect for each other…
That’s why it’s called magic,
When those two people find each other."
~lucilla joanna