Cold Feet

Meanwhile, Ginny’s romance continued to blossom. The following week, she had her third date with Mr. Wonderful and, yes, Harry and Hermione were babysitting again. It seemed to have become Harry’s new favourite pastime.



Francis was asleep when Ginny dropped him off this time. She put the Moses basket down in the spare room as though it was full of fragile crystal figurines, then crept out of the room backwards like a woman who had just stolen an egg from beneath the smoking nose of a dragon.



“How has he been?” Hermione asked.



“Fine, fine. His poo’s not been particularly runny today,” Ginny said, getting straight to the point. “I changed his nappy just before he went sleep. You may get away with it altogether. I’ll be back at half eleven. Or, um… midnight?” she ventured.



Francis squawked in indignation before Hermione could.



“Okay, half eleven it is. Shit, he’s waking up. Just… um, bounce him for a bit, will you?” Ginny suggested. “Or get Harry to do it. He seems to have the knack. He’ll go back to sleep in a minute.”



Whatever happened, she wasn’t hanging around. The Ginny who was too nervous to leave her baby in their care was a very distant memory.



Hermione waved her off, then closed the door and headed back into her warm flat, where Harry was already sitting on the couch with Francis in the crook of his arm.



“Who’s my favourite baby?” Harry asked him. “Who’s going to play Quidditch with his Uncle Harry when he grows up?”



Looking in from the outside, it was a very cosy start to a particularly cosy, low-key evening. Exactly the kind of evening she was fine to settle down to, she thought as she warmed the first of the bottles Ginny had prepared. In a few years’ time, things could be exactly, comfortably, the same as this. Her handsome husband sitting in the living room, perhaps a baby of their own in the crook of his arm. She didn’t really envy Ginny heading out into the night on her date, she told herself. She didn’t envy anyone still out there in the wilderness, looking for love, spending their weekends trawling the smoky bars or bungee-jumping their way around the world in an attempt to convince themselves that they were having fun when all they really wanted was to stay in with something special.



Hermione herself had never done a bungee jump. But flinging yourself off a bridge on a piece of elastic was hardly the kind of life experience she was sad to have missed. She’d done everything she really wanted to do.



Except fly on Concorde. But it was too late for that now, and she’d heard it wasn’t very comfortable anyway.



Or climb Uluru. But that wasn’t politically correct, now that no one called it Ayers Rock anymore. She should be glad she hadn’t ever done that and enraged the Aboriginal Gods.



Or sleep with one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers… Hmm…



A moment of fantasy about the lead singer’s magnificently tattooed chest was cut short by the gentle vibration of her wand as Francis’ dinner reached perfect temperature.



In any case, there was no reason whatsoever why she couldn’t do the few things she hadn’t ticked off her list after she and Harry got married. Except the Red Hot Chili Peppers thing, of course. She was sure Harry wouldn’t mind too much if she decided that she still had to paint their bedroom bright orange, or learn to speak Spanish, or see the Taj Mahal, or get her motorbike licence…



She glanced through the open door towards the living room where Harry was still engaged in one-sided conversation with the baby. “And in 2003, the English Quidditch team thrashed the Germans, and…”



Francis was transfixed. Then, Hermione heard the phone ring. It was Harry’s mobile. He dug down the side of the armchair to find it.



“Hello?” she heard him say. “Oh, hi.” His voice immediately softened. “Wait a minute.”



He got up from the chair with Francis still tucked under one arm and closed the living room door to make the call.



What was going on? Hermione paused near the kitchen door and found herself straining to hear. Not only had Harry closed the door, he had lowered his voice as well. But from the few noises that escaped the living room and the distinct lack of loud exclamations, she guessed he was talking to a woman.



She waited until she heard the volume on the television turned up again before she strolled into the living room oh-so-casually with Francis’ milk.



“Hey, what’s up? Was I too noisy for you?”



“Hmm…?”



“You closed the door while you were on the phone. Was I making too much noise?”



“No. No, not really.” He couldn’t seem to understand why she was asking. “Is that for my favourite little man?”



He took the milk from her hand. Francis beamed. Harry didn’t have any trouble getting him into the right position for a feed this time.



“I’ll just give him his bottle, yeah? What a greedy lad!” Harry exclaimed as Francis sucked the milk down. “You’re going to grow up to be strong enough to lead the England Quidditch team, aren’t you? Or at least be Gryffindor captain, just like your Uncle Harry.”



Hermione sat down in her chair and watched her fiancé playing ‘dad’ out of the corner of her eye. Who had he been talking to? She decided that it was probably just one of those irritating marketing calls. Harry never put the phone down on someone who was selling something. “They’re only doing their job,” he always said.



“Do you want to wind him?” Harry asked her when Francis had finished his milk.



“That’s okay. You seem to be doing just fine.”



*



Ginny’s third date with Connor was equally magical. They’d been ice-skating on an outdoor ice rink.



“So, what did you talk about this time?” Hermione asked her as she gathered up Francis’ things and prepared to leave.



She jumped straight down Hermione’s throat. “Hermione, give me a chance, for the love of Merlin! I’ll tell him about Francis, of course I will. But tonight just wasn’t the right time, either. We were ice-skating. We were too busy trying not to fall over to talk about anything a bit serious. When the hell did I have the opportunity?”



“But—”



“I know. I’m not stupid. I do realise that if this is going to go anywhere, it’s best that I tell him sooner rather than later. I don’t want him to think I’m the kind of girl who would deliberately mislead someone. And if this isn’t going to go somewhere, then best get it over with as soon as possible, right?”



“He’ll be fine about it,” Hermione said as confidently as she could.



“Sure.” But the serenely happy expression that seemed to have been a permanent fixture on Ginny’s face since that first date with Mr. Perfect was gone. “I hope so.” She chewed her lip. “Hermione, I just can’t think how to bring it up,” she admitted eventually.



“Why don’t you send him an owl?” she suggested.



“But that’s so impersonal.”



“Not really. It’s the way your relationship started. You’ve got a history of sharing things that way.”



“Our favourite animals, colours and bands. Not the secret history of our lives. You can’t really get serious in a letter.”



“I don’t agree,” Hermione pushed on. “It’s acceptable. Job applications, wedding invitations, birth announcements… everything can be done by owl. And he might actually be grateful to hear the news that way rather than face to face. It’ll give him a chance to react honestly and really think about his response.”



Ginny nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’re right.”



“But you need to do it soon. Very soon,” Hermione stressed. “Before you see him again.”



“I’ll do it before I see him again,” she agreed.



“Which is?”



“Friday night. Don’t worry, Mum and Dad are babysitting. Don’t want you to think I just see you as an unpaid nanny these days.”



“Harry seems to rather enjoy it.”



“Will you help me write the letter?” Ginny asked.



“Of course. You can owl me a copy at the office before you send it.”



*



An owl was waiting outside her office window as soon as she got into work the next morning. Shaking her head with a smile, Hermione retrieved the letter and read through it.



'Dear Connor,



It was so great to see you last night. I don’t think I’ve had so much fun in ages, though my knees are both black and blue with bruises and I suspect I may have broken my back. I haven’t been ice-skating since my schooldays! Can you walk properly again yet? Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing you on Friday, but before we make arrangements, here are three things you don’t know about me.



1. I really have never used a dating agency before. I know you can’t believe it, but you’re my first!

2. I hate Chinese food.

3. I have a son.



That’s right. You really did just see that last sentence. I have a child. Feel free to stop reading right now. But if you haven’t snorted coffee all over this letter in horror and already threw it in the bin, please let me tell you something about him. His name’s Francis. He’s just six months old. His father and I aren’t in contact at the moment – we broke up before he was born – but I hope that he’ll show an interest in his son in the future. After all, Francis is the most wonderful baby on earth.



Connor, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you all this face to face. I hope you’ll believe that I haven’t had very much practise at dating as a single mother – in fact, I’ve had none – so I’ve never had to broach the subject before. And I hope you’ll be flattered to know that I’ve been having such a wonderful time with you, I simply didn’t want reality to intrude. I really didn’t want anything to ruin it. I hope that whatever happens, you’ll be able to forgive me for that.



I look forward to hearing what you think.



Lots of love,



Ginny'



A lovely letter, Hermione thought. Nancy, who had trained as a relationship counsellor to help any viewers who might come on the show, agreed that it was pretty well written – just the right combination of humour, flattery and seriousness.



“Perfect. I hope he realises what a great girl he’s got there.”



“I hope so, too.”



That day, Hermione’s entire office waited with breath bated for the next owl from Ginny. There was a collective sigh of relief when news finally did arrive, just as they were getting ready to leave for the night.



“He says that it doesn’t matter to him at all. He loves kids. He still wants to see Ginny on Friday night and he wants to meet Francis as soon as he possibly can.”



Elle started the round of applause.



“Thank Merlin,” Nancy smiled. “Romance isn’t dead.”



*



Hermione, however, wasn’t feeling very romantic.



When Nancy said the words, “Romance isn’t dead,” her thoughts immediately flew to Harry’s eyebrows. Somehow, Harry losing all his body hair and made her focus on how she felt about him physically. Since the first time he kissed her, she and Harry hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. For at least six months, they were one of those embarrassing couples that couldn’t stop necking, not even in the queue at the post office. After that, things calmed down slightly, but until very recently, they definitely had more sex than the average couple. Would they be able to get that back? Now that Harry had lost his hair, it was suddenly much easier to picture him as an old man, having lost his hair permanently. He didn’t have a particularly attractive head shape. It shouldn’t have mattered, Hermione knew. But she found herself resenting him half the time and resenting herself for being so damn shallow the rest.



It was in this frame of mind that Hermione tried to be happy for Ginny, but overall, she was in a foul mood and couldn’t shake it off. When her mother called to talk about the wedding again – could she invite the daughter of a couple she and her father knew from the surgery? – she found herself getting bad-tempered within minutes, smashing her mother’s previous record for taking Hermione from “Hello” to carpet-biting rage. She cut the conversation short in case her mother heard he huffing and sighing and thought that it had more to do with her than usual. She still hadn’t mentioned Harry’s frightful appearance to her mother.



The thought that Draco Malfoy would be back in her studio so soon didn’t help. Every time an owl swooped into the office, she hoped it would be him, saying he couldn’t make it after all, that there had been some kind of emergency. Parents were always having child-related emergencies. The rest of the time, she was ashamed with herself for hoping that so much a sneeze should afflict poor Alexandra to keep her father from going on air.



The night before he was due on the show, Nathan sent him an owl to confirm the time they could expect to see him.



“Can he still come in?” Hermione asked.



“Of course.”



*



After dinner that night, Harry went downstairs to play Exploding Snap with Mrs. Smith.



Harry had cooked. It was Hermione’s turn to wash up. She took off her engagement ring and placed it in the misshapen pottery dish on the kitchen windowsill where it sat every time she cleaned the dishes, which wasn’t often. Hermione was, of course, a talented witch and could have easily done the dishes with magic, but she found it quite therapeutic doing it the Muggle way, and she really needed something calming to occupy her right now. She ran hot water into the sink until the bubbles were as high as her nose.



Scrub, scrub, scrub. She scrubbed as if each pass of the scourer would get rid of some of the crazy chatter inside her head as well. She had gone over that conversation she’d had with Draco so many times, trying to remember the exact tone of his voice, checking each sentence. He had obviously been flirting with her. And she had flirted back. Why else would he have sent the flowers? Now, she was working on another scenario. What was she going to say when she saw him again? Should she mention the flowers? Did he want her even more because she hadn’t responded? That definitely seemed his style – Draco Malfoy always most wanted what he couldn’t have. She scrubbed harder, punishment for even thinking that last thought. It didn’t matter whether he wanted her or not. She absolutely didn’t want him. She had someone better now. Harry was the polar opposite of Draco Malfoy, and he was a better person because of it. Even now, he was in the downstairs flat, bringing a little bit of happiness into the life of a lonely old witch.



When she saw Draco again, she would be civil. That was all.



Draco represented a single parents’ charity, which only went to show how much he had grown from that nasty, spoiled brat she had met when she was eleven years old. Fatherhood had mellowed and softened all those hard edges of his, and he took his responsibilities seriously these days.



She was comparing Harry and Draco, and she couldn't work out who was coming out on top.



She looked into the kitchen sink like Professor Trelawney looking into a teacup. As the bubbles popped and disappeared, Hermione could foresee nothing but danger. She couldn’t meet Draco again. The way she was feeling, it was too big a risk. She had to pretend to be sick tomorrow morning. So what if Elle knew what she was really doing? How could she ever prove, short of Veritaserum, that Hermione had lied to stay at home and stop herself from potentially making a terrible mistake?



As her hand reached for the small ceramic bowl, it seemed to jump out of her slippery fingers. The extremely handmade-looking gift from one of Harry’s hero-worshipping little child fans smashed into four pieces on the tiled kitchen floor. And Hermione’s engagement ring broke into two.



“Shit,” she muttered as she picked up the platinum band in her left hand and the diamond between her right index finger and thumb. “How the hell did that happen?”



She looked at the band. The shiny prongs that held the diamond in place didn’t seem crooked or moved, and yet, here was the stone, loose of its moorings and looking small and unremarkable against the pink skin of her wet palm.



“Christ.”



After casting a quick “Reparo!” on the dish, she walked slowly to the bedroom, carrying the two pieces of the ring like the body of a dying bird with its tiny heart still fluttering. As she walked, she realised that part of her still felt guilty, as though she had deliberately dropped the ring on the floor. She remembered how the dish had seemed to jump out of her hand, and how the ring seemed undamaged, yet still remained in two separate pieces, and her treacherous mind reminded her of how some wizards and witches could perform unconscious wandless magic when feeling strong emotions. Horrified with that thought, she quashed it and tucked the band into the slot in the velvet cushion of the ring box and placed the diamond beside it. It was too precious, too fragile to try fixing herself with her wand.



As most people knew, Hermione wasn’t given to believing in omens or signs, but this looked like a big one.



Harry came home just as she was closing the ring box and knew something was wrong the second he looked at her.



He wasn’t angry. The ring could be mended, of course. It was clearly the case that the ring was faulty rather than Hermione being particularly clumsy. Harry would take it back to the jewellers in Redmead tomorrow morning, before work.



“As long as the ring’s back in time for the wedding,” Hermione said quietly.



But later, when Harry went out to the shop to buy some milk for the following morning, he came back with a jewellery box.



She opened it to find another ring. It wasn’t real, of course, but a child’s dressing up toy.



“They had some left over from Christmas,” Harry explained.



“You shouldn’t have.” Hermione looked at the chip of glass set in gold lacquer-painted plastic. “Really.”



“It’s cubic zirconia,” he said in a posh voice. “Lasts longer than diamonds.”



She gave a small snort of amusement.



“I hate you the idea of you not having a ring at all.” Harry was quite serious when he said that.



“I could have lasted a week, Harry.”



“Yes, but I don’t think I could get through a week without knowing that all you have to do is glance down at your hand to be reminded that I love you. It feels strange, seeing you without my ring after all this time. It’s as though I’m leaving you unprotected.”



“You mean unmarked.”



“I mean unprotected,” Harry repeated. “Try it on.”



But this romantic equivalent of a post-it note saying, ‘Sorry, boys, this one’s taken’ didn’t fit her engagement finger or even her thumb. Perhaps it would have looked delicate on the little finger of a twenty-stone nightclub bouncer named Bruce. She could almost have worn it as a bracelet.



“You could wear it on a chain around your neck,” Harry suggested.



“It might make my skin go green. I’ll keep it in my purse.”



Harry nodded a little dejectedly. As she watched him walk into the other room with his shoulders slumped, she knew that she had done it again. He had gone out of his way to make her smile and she had stuck another needle into his heart. She didn’t know why she did it but she seemed to be doing it all the time these days. Scathing words just popped out of her mouth. Not so long ago, she would have happily worn that stupid fake ring until her real one was ready again. By acting so insensitive now, she wasn’t refusing to wear a symbol of ‘ownership,’ because Harry just didn’t think like that. Instead, she was refusing to wear the team colours. *Their* team.



“I’ll wear it around my neck, Harry,” she called after him.



“No. I don’t want you to get an allergic reaction.”



Hermione didn’t push it, and told him she was going to have a shower. He didn’t offer to join her. But later in bed, he rubbed his nose against her hair and told her he loved how soft it was. And she felt guilty because she knew exactly why she’d given herself a deep-conditioning rinse for the first time in months.