Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind
Chapter One: Unspoken Words
So many things had been unsaid. Just little things that didn’t seem to matter before, but now it felt as if it had meant the whole world. Things like:
“Hey Ron, you know that Chudley Cannon’s jacket of yours? Well, see I borrowed it to wipe up something on the kitchen floor and I told you I didn’t know what happened to it, but I really threw it out because it was stained.”
Unspoken words mean a lot after someone is gone forever. It’s not like you could just, when feeling guilty about something, go up to the person and confess.
Hermione sat on the armchair in the lounge room of the Burrow. She had a letter clutched in her hand. The parchment was tear-stained and so was Hermione’s face. He had left to battle in the war and died. She had never told him something important. Something she had kept a secret for two months so she could be sure. Then he had suddenly left for the war.
His kind hearted words echoed in her mind after their last conversation.
“Ron, please don’t leave me here alone,” she pleaded. “I love you so much Ron!”
The red haired man blushed furiously, his face turning the same colour of his hair. He raised a hand and caressed Hermione softly and she leaned forwards into him as they embraced tightly.
“Hermione, I will never really leave you, I’ll always be here,” he said gently, touching her chest directly over her pounding heart. “I love you too Hermione, always have and always will.”
He kissed her passionately as the rain began to fall around them.
Her red eyes glanced down at the loopy writing on the parchment.
Dear Mrs Weasley
I am pleased to inform you that the pregnancy test you came in for was positive and you are about two months along now in your pregnancy.
If you wish to schedule an appointment for an ultrasound please contact myself or Maternity Healer Madam Perry.
Yours Sincerely,
Healer Taylor
She was pregnant with Ron Weasley’s child and he had never known.
Months passed before she told anyone. Only when she was trying on clothes with Ginny one day and couldn’t fit into her normal size did she break down in front of a surprised Ginny. Ginny would normally have been excited about being an aunty, but she held the excitement inside her and comforted a crying Hermione.
Only when she was three months pregnant and had a slight baby bump did she announce it to the whole family.
Everyone’s mouths dropped open in surprise, their forks half raised to their mouths. Molly had squealed in delight at the thought of another grandchild and began to give Hermione some helpful advice.
The Weasley brothers normally would have jumped at Ron and started teasing about it, but things weren’t normal anymore. Ron was gone and the fact that Hermione would be a single working mother sunk in. Molly of course offered to help out with the baby when it was born, as did Ginny.
Hermione nervously opened the letter from her parents. She had finally decided to tell them about her baby; after all, it was their grandchild she was having. A day after she had sent the letter, Pig had returned with a correspondence addressed to her from them.
Dear Hermione,
Your father and I are very excited about the upcoming birth of your baby; keep us informed of your pregnancy and be sure to stop around every now and then. Do you know whether it is a boy or girl, or when it is due, or what you’ve decided to call it? So many questions Hermione, dear, please stay in touch.
Your loving parents,
Hermione smiled softly at the letter and placed it neatly on her desk before getting dressed. She paused at the mirror and examined her pregnant stomach.
“Hurry up, Hermione, you’ll be late to St Mungo’s!” shouted Ginny from downstairs in the kitchen. “Your appointment is for ten o’clock!”
Hermione sighed and pulled on a coat about her, grabbed her bag, and made her way downstairs to the fireplace with Ginny.
She took a pinch of Floo Powder, stepped into the fireplace and said clearly, “St Mungo’s!”
She was whisked away in a flash of emerald fire and emerged covered in soot in St Mungo’s Hospital. Ginny slid quickly out of the fireplace, her face covered in dirt as well. She flicked her wand, irritated, and the soot disappeared.
The two made their way to the Welcome Witch desk. The woman sitting there didn’t even raise her eye when she addressed them.
“Maternity Ward, second floor,” she said, yawning. “Honestly, don’t you people read?”
A few minutes later Hermione was lying down on a bed while Ginny sat happily next to her in Healer Taylor’s office on the second floor.
Healer Taylor was a young woman in her early twenties with large blue eyes and dark brown hair tied up in a messy ponytail. She smiled warmly at Hermione and she examined her. She waved her wand over Hermione’s bare stomach and muttered something under her breath.
A picture appeared in the air above Hermione’s stomach which showed the womb with her baby inside. Healer Taylor blinked and stared closer at the picture of the moving infant inside. Hermione began to grow suspicious.
Taylor smiled brightly at Hermione and Ginny and waved her wand, the picture disappearing.
“I see Mrs Weasley will have her hands full, with the arrival of two new babies,” she said, grinning widely.
The words sunk into Ginny’s and Hermione’s minds before Hermione spoke, her words coming out as stammers.
“Y-you mean I’m having t “twins?” she gasped, her hand on her stomach.
The Healer turned around to face her desk and said, “Yes Mrs Weasley, I believe the girls will be born in around five to six months.”
But Hermione didn’t hear this comment because she had slid from the bed, her eyes rolling back into her head, and landed with a thud next to Ginny.
“Mrs Weasley was it?” the woman said brightly. “Yes, this is a spacious apartment in your price range, which will of course fit yourself and your babies comfortably. You have the kitchen right over there and the lounge room slash dinning room, the bathroom is off to the left down the hall and at the back are the two bedrooms.”
Hermione smiled slightly around at the apartment. She had decided to move out of the Burrow and into her own place. She needed to not depend on people all the time, she had to try and make it in the world herself, and if she fell then she would accept help.
“I’ll take it, Mrs. Mallory,” she said, placing a hand on her stomach.
Hermione woke with a start, her sheets damp with sweat and tangled around her. She twisted and turned to free herself. She kept going over it in her head. How could she manage to raise not one but two little girls and still work to earn money? She couldn’t keep asking Molly, even though she was their Grandmother; she was busy taking care of her own house and Ginny with her work, child, and husband.
Husband.
She could still remember the day she and Ron had been pronounce husband and wife. It was been a Spring wedding, she had always wanted one in that season. The backyard of the Burrow had been done up nicely with flowers and balloons and the wedding arch, decorated with roses.
Molly had given Hermione her own wedding dress to wear. She had passed it on to Ginny for her wedding and Hermione for her’s. It had been beautiful. Pure white in colour with sparkling studs attached and it came down to just past her ankles. Her hair had been straightened with little ringlets of locks on either side of her face.
The weather had been perfect for the occasion. Bird chipped happily in the trees and the gnomes watched darkly from over the hedge where they had been thrown.
Snapping Hermione out of her reverie, the twins kicked quite strongly inside of her and she winced. She gave a small smile after a while, a thought crossing her mind.
Daddy would be proud, Hermione thought. You two seem perfect for being Quidditch players.
She would have to be both parents raising the twins. Act like a responsible mother and a fun father like Ron would have been. He would have had them on toy brooms before they could even walk and talk and had them going for the Chudley Canons as soon as he could.
She would have to try her darn hardest to raise these children well and into a safe and loving world.