We Can Work It Out

Hermione traveled the aisles of Flourish and Blots in a section that most people would be shocked to find her in: the craft section. She had become much better at knitting than she had been when she made lumpy, ill-formed hats for the house elves at Hogwarts. She had exhausted the knitting and crotchet patterns she had and needed more. They had decided to keep the sex of the baby a secret until it was born and Draco was adamant that it was a boy. For some reason, however, she felt that she was destined to have a daughter and so she had crotched a large, pink, stuffed elephant with a yellow bow on its head. Draco had found it and transfigured it to a blue elephant with a red bow tie. She was currently looking at books of knitting patterns that heavily featured little dresses and frilly jumpers. She knew she was supposed to keep things unisex and so far everything she had knitted was either yellow or white, but she felt that it couldn’t hurt to be prepared for when her intuition was right.

Tucking the selected books under her arm she meandered into the children’s section. Draco had kept all of his books from his childhood and she hers, so their baby already had a massive library, but she thought that maybe they could use some more contemporary stories to go with all their classics. Looking through the titles, she heard a familiar voice talk in soothing tones that made her want to cuddle up on the couch in front of a fire.

“And then there’s the story of Sleeping Beauty. You don’t want that one though. No, that girl just laid around waiting for a man to come along and fix all her problems. You’re more of a take action girl, like Alice in Wonderland.” Hermione looked down the next aisle and saw Ron Weasley talking to a black haired baby tucked into a sling across his chest. He looked perfectly natural and completely at ease as he held both books up for the drooling baby’s inspection.

Unable to stop herself, she called out his name and felt her insides warm up like sunshine when his clear blue eyes landed on her and he broke out that wide grin that made her stomach flutter when they were in school. He put the Sleeping Beauty book down and walked over to her.

“Merlin, ‘Mione, you look gorgeous,” he said as he gave her a hug, being very careful not to crush the precious bundle on his chest. “You look like an advertisement for motherhood!”

She blushed and replied, “Well, I feel like a hippogriff. I haven’t gained much weight, but if this baby pushes much farther outward, I don’t think I’ll be able to fit through the floo network.”

“But your bump is beautiful,” Ron said. “May I?” he asked and she nodded for him to put his hands on her belly. She looked down at his long fingers and knobby knuckles, so unlike Draco’s hands. He smiled softly and looked up at her with his hands still on her belly. Suddenly, a very definite ‘thwock!’ was felt under his palm, followed by a series of quick taps. Her baby was kicking and stretching. Ron’s eyes lit up and she watched the three freckles that for formed a line next to his mouth disappeared into his dimples. Their eyes met and Hermione couldn’t help but smile back warmly.

“He’s tap dancing,” she giggled. She felt comfortable, like she was thirteen again.

“He? It’s a boy?” Ron asked.

“Oh drat! No. Actually, we don’t know yet and we’re keeping it a surprise. Draco’s just so certain that it’s a boy that he’s got me all confused and using gender specific pronouns.”

“See that, Lydia? If we hang around smart people, we don’t have to do any hard thinking because they do it for us. Where else is the term ‘gender specific pronoun’ going to come up in conversation? You latch on to this little tad pole when you get to Hogwarts and your homework days will be much easier.”

Instead of getting defensive, Hermione actually just laughed. She no longer felt insecure about her brains because she had someone at home who fully appreciated them. “Actually,” she began, “I feel like it’s a girl. I don’t know why, but I’m quite certain that it is. You’ll have a new playmate very soon, Miss Lydia.”

“Whatever you have, I’m quite certain that they’ll get along,” Ron said as he fussed with Lydia’s raven locks. Lydia squirmed and reached up for the hand that was petting her and pulled it in front of her face to yell infant gibberish at it, as if she were scolding it.

“She certainly has the Weasley temper if not the Weasley hair,” Hermione said, smiling. Ron only looked down instead of giving her another boyishly proud grin.

“Short tempers don’t only come from Weasleys, you know,” he said quietly.

“No, of course not,” Hermione acquiesced. “I suppose Lavender’s got quite the temper herself. She was certainly tenacious when we were in school. Lydia definitely has her eyes.”

“That she does,” Ron agreed quietly. He shifted his weight.

“I suppose she has Lavender’s brother’s hair. He had jet black hair if I recall.” Hermione let the tiny girl hold her finger. That wasn’t enough for her though and so she reached out her tiny arms and grunted as she opened and closed her fingers quickly, grasping for Hermione. “May I?” Hermione asked and Ron nodded that she could hold his baby daughter.

“Actually, Lavender’s brother had blonde hair. He just dyed it to look more mysterious and because it got him more birds,” Ron said flatly. He did smile though as he watched Hermione balance Lydia over her distended stomach and allow the little girl slobber over her neck. Lydia had realized the person holding her had breasts and that meant food, so she rooted around trying to latch on.

“Well, maybe she takes after your mother’s connection to the Blacks. Her hair is about the same shade as Sirius and Andromeda’s,” Hermione said as she let the tiny being suck on the top of her breasts. She lifted the child’s head and let her suck on her finger instead.

“They do look similar,” Ron said and Hermione noticed that he looked uncomfortable.

“Well, your family must be so pleased to have another girl. I know how rare Weasley female births are so I imagine you were quite ecstatic to get a little girl on your first try,” she said, trying to steer the conversation away from the Blacks. Maybe mentioning Andromeda had made him think of Bellatrix.

“She’s not a Weasley, Hermione,” he said and looked at his shoes.

“Of course she is! Lavender took your last name, so she’s a Weasley, not a Brown. Unless of course you two decided to hyphenate her last name.” Hermione was terribly confused. Why did Ron look like he was about to vomit?

“She’s a Weasley on paper, and as far as I’m concerned, she is, but biologically, she has no ties to the Weasley family, or the Prewetts and Blacks.” Ron spat the words out as if they burned his tongue. Reaching out, he took Lydia from her arms and placed her back in her sling, clutching her to him.

“What are you saying, Ron?” Hermione asked slowly. She could scarcely believe what her brain was telling her.

“Lavender had an affair,” he stated simply. “Some actor from the muggle world. She did an interview with him under cover for Witch Weekly and they started a relationship. She still sees him from time to time. She says she still loves me, though.”

Hermione pulled Ron over to the bean bag chairs set up in the children’s section and curled up on one with him, just holding him. “Oh Ron, I’m so, so sorry!” she said as she let him clutch at her dress as he buried his face in her neck like a child.

“I can’t believe her,” he said in a broken voice. “She was so aggressive in pursuing me and she always told me that we were meant for each other, that I was all she thought about. Now she tells me that being with Jason gives her a thrill that’s gone out of our marriage. She says she feels important when she’s with him.”

“Ron, that’s ridiculous! I know for a fact that you would never make Lavender feel unimportant to you. Everyone knows you love her. I can’t imagine why she would insinuate that you were neglecting her.” Hermione was righteously indignant on behalf of her friend.

“No, I didn’t say that she felt important to him. She felt important when she was WITH him. She’s always had a craving for the spotlight and since I gave up quidditch we haven’t been as covered by the media. I knew that she had been spending time in the muggle world, but I thought she was covering fashion trends. It made sense. I got the feeling something was wrong when she didn’t want me in the room while she gave birth. I waited in the lounge with the Weasley family tree, waiting for Lydia’s name to appear so I could know before the nurse came to fetch me, but it never did.” As he spoke, Ron cradled Lydia closer to him as if he were afraid someone might snatch her from him.

“Does Lavender realize that you know? Does this Jason person know?” Hermione held his hand and drew comforting circles on his palm with her thumb. Her heart ached for her friend and for the poor little girl who was caught up in the middle.

“Yes. She knew the moment I stepped into the delivery room. Jason ‘the prat’ Stonewell knows. He doesn’t want a daughter. He doesn’t deserve her. He quit taking Lavender out when she got too big to be seen on his arm.” Ron stared off to the right with blank eyes, but his jaw set in a grimace when he spoke of the actor.

“But he’s taking her out again now?” Hermione asked and Ron nodded. “But why are you and Lavender still together? Are you going to try and work things out?” Hermione couldn’t imagine the heartbreak Ron must be going through. It was one thing to find out your partner had feelings for someone else, but to find out that she not only slept with someone else and carried on a whole other relationship but she had a baby by this man as well was a whole new level of heartbreaking.

“I don’t think we can, Hermione. First of all, unless I start playing quidditch again or somehow do something to get my name on the front page headlines again I don’t think she’ll want me. She never wanted me. Second, I’m not in love with her. I don’t want her back.”

“Then why haven’t you started the divorce proceedings? I know wizarding divorces are very hard to obtain, but surely the fact that she gave birth to a child that is not biologically yours plus our status as war heroes would be enough to get one granted.” Hermione could not believe she had just heard Ron state that he didn’t love Lavender. They had been inseparable once and he had done all the sweet romantic things a man in love was supposed to do, like send flowers, love notes, go shopping and carry bags, wear ugly sweaters he hated because she picked them out. Things he had never done when he was with her.

“I haven’t started because I want to make certain that I get to keep Lydia. She may not have my genes, but she is my daughter. I protected her before she was born.* I painted her nursery, put together her cot, hell, I even picked out her name! Since she’s been alive, I’ve been her primary care giver. I feed her, change her nappies, bathe her, pick out her clothes and rock her to sleep. She’s my daughter and I’m going to hold on to her. Those other two don’t seem to want her; Lavender wouldn’t breast feed because she was afraid of getting saggy tits and Jason hasn’t even bothered to ask for even a picture of her. I spent nine months waiting to meet her. I’m not going to turn my back on her just because she doesn’t look like me.* I want to make certain that they can’t take her away if they one day wake up and realize what a treasure she is. I also don’t want Lydia to ever think that she wasn’t wanted and if I expose Lavender like this there will be newspaper evidence of the fact that neither parent wanted her.”

Hermione was thoroughly impressed. “Wow, Ron, you’re truly amazing. Not many men would feel the way you do, much less handle themselves with this much dignity after finding out the woman they loved is untrue. Lydia is very lucky to have such an honorable father.”

“I don’t think I was ever in love Lavender.”

“What? Yes, you were Ron. I saw the two of you in that restaurant that day and I knew you had never looked at me like that. I knew that you felt something strong and special for Lavender. I don’t think you would have met with her otherwise. You’re not the kind of man for dalliances.”

He turned crimson at her mention of their break-up and its catalyst. “I want you to know, Hermione, that I never slept with her while we were together. I never even kissed her. That was our second meeting and all I ever did was hold her hand. I shouldn’t have even done that. I didn’t fall in love with Lavender, I fell for the person she presented herself to be. She had been trying to get me to meet with her for over a year. I finally relented when she did that article on the Canon’s new uniforms and it seemed like we never ran out of things to say to each other. I felt fascinating and like I could keep up intellectually with the conversation. Looking back, I realize she had just been searching for a way to get into the limelight through me.”

“Oh, Ron,” Hermione said as she hugged her friend. “I know you would never have been dishonest with me. You and I were always friends, first and foremost. You always treated me with respect and I appreciate that. We just weren’t meant to be. We loved each other, but we weren’t in love.”

“Weren’t we? I keep looking back at our time together and the more I think about it, the more I know that I was truly happy. You liked me for who I was and not what I could do for you. I miss you, Hermione.”

Hermione was shocked. For most of her adult life everyone had put her and Ron together as a sort of new version of Molly and Arthur. Ron had made her feel secure, but when he talked about being happy together, she knew he was telling the truth. However, she knew that however happy they had been, she hadn’t felt as happy as she currently did with Draco. “I don’t know what to say, Ron,” was all she could muster.

“I know. I have no right to say these things. I guess I just want you to know that if you ever need anything, send me an owl. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he said, making baby Lydia wave her curled fingers.

They said their goodbyes and Hermione paid for her purchases. She didn’t notice the man in the chil psychology section who watched her every move and heard every syllable of what Ron Weasley had said to her.


*- Line from Nip/Tuck

A/N- Hello all! I’m terribly sorry that things have been so slow, but I have had several tragedies these past few months. I had tumors on my uterus removed and ended up having to care for my niece and nephew for two months whilst their mother was in the hospital. I’ll do my best to update quickly, but rest assured that I WILL finish these stories! I hope everyone is doing well and thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed on previous chapters!