Custody Battle

“I’ve taken the boys to Star Tours because I didn’t want to disappoint my sons.” Her fingers crumpled the yellow note as she turned and retrieved the green scrap of paper that was on the coffee table, both had been waiting for her when she woke from her restless night on the couch.

“Our daughter has led an excursion with her sisters to The Tower of Terror at MGM Studios and I believed it a wise idea to accompany them as a chaperone. We are having lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater just after 1:00p.m. if you wish to join us.” The note slipped from her fingers and floated to the floor.

Hermione sighed. She’d put Caterina to bed and sat on the couch, crying into her arms until she dozed off and it seemed that morning had risen and no one had bothered to wake her. She longed for a bath and a stiff drink, or at least someone to talk to about the mess she found herself in. With a heavy sigh, she hauled herself to her feet and went to the shower. Scalding herself with the water, she did not allow herself the luxury of a lengthy stay in the spray, but rather, cleaned herself quickly, dressed, and headed out.

A quick apparation found her just outside the door to The Burrow. A very flustered looking Molly Weasley appeared in the doorway, her frizzy red hair falling all around her face, one of Ginny’s children propped up on her hip, and a batter-covered spoon in the opposite hand. “Good grief, Hermione, what are— aren’t you supposed to be in Disney World? Where are the children?”

She hung her head. “Molly, I need your help…your advice, really, I don’t think anyone can help this situation.” She muttered. The older woman sat Ginny’s youngest daughter, Esmerelda, on the ground and swatted her off toward the playroom as she ushered Hermione into the kitchen. She gathered two cups, filled them with steaming hot tea and moved into the living room, taking a seat beside the younger woman on the couch. “Thank you,” Hermione nodded.

“What’s happened?”

“Oh, Molly! I think I’ve torn my family in two!”

The maternal woman sat her teacup on the end table and pulled Hermione into her arms. “It’ll be alright, dear,” she said, hugging the girl. “Things will work out.”

‘I don’t think they will, Molly, I don’t think they will.” She sniffed. “I think Blake is going to leave me…” she slowly let the story unfold, censoring certain things, and skimping greatly on the details, sobbing into the woman’s shoulder. “And Severus doesn’t love me…”

“Oh, Hermione…” In her fifty some years of marriage she’d never once been unfaithful to Arthur. And she knew the same to be true of her husband. So she could not relate to what the younger witch was going through, but certainly sympathized with the girl. “Come on, let’s get you some more tea.”

She sniffled, wiping her eyes on her sleeve as she was guided back into the kitchen. “What am I going to do about the children? Emma’s so young…”

“For starters, you should meet your girls for lunch.”

“But Severus—”

“Wants you to be there for your daughters.” She said. “Right now you need to think about what’s best for your girls, and your two boys. It’s not going to be easy, but every little bit that you can do to show them that you still love them will help.”

Hermione frowned. “I do care for him, though.”

It was Molly’s turn to frown. “I’ll be straight with you, dear. This whole business with you and Severus is shady at best. Don’t think I don’t know that Remus saw something at Christmas,” she said and Hermione’s face flushed pink. “Now I’ve always had an inkling that Caterina was not some one night incident, but I figured it was best to let you expose that information in your own time.”

The younger witch nodded. “It just…” she sniffled, rubbing her nose on her other sleeve.

“Hermione, she’s eleven…you’re only just eleven years out of Hogwarts…”

“It wasn’t anything like that, Molly.” She seemed defensive, almost stung, as she took a sip of her tea.

“I wasn’t insinuating that, dear. I know you’ve got more sense than that.” The redheaded woman shifted in her chair. She’d always worried that Hermione had married for convenience and help with her first born, and that although love had eventually come along, and four more beautiful children with it; Molly had always known that love had come second in her marriage to Blake, and that had always worried her.

“He’d been beaten, Molly.”

“I beg your pardon, dear?”

“I was coming out of the ice cream shop in Diagon Ally, I had taken up a flat in the Ally for a few weeks, it was only about two weeks after we’d all finished up, but as I was coming out, what I saw froze me. There was a group of wizards, some who I’d just finished classes with, beating and hexing him. He couldn’t defend himself.” Her breath grew ragged, her chest tightening as memories came flooding back through her mind. “He refused my help, but he was bleeding profusely and had broken bones— I took him in, he wouldn’t let me get him proper help, but I managed.”

Molly’s hand stroked her shoulder. “Easy, dear, easy…”

“I cleaned him up, ungrateful as he was, and then—” her eyes fell closed, her body quaking. She could feel his lifeless lips on hers, his snide words still echoing in her ear. They were different from the lips that had explored her body two nights before. But her body shook as that night began to replay itself in her mind. “I— he—”

“It’s alright dear, I know how babies come about, I’ve got seven.”

Hermione flushed again. But it kept her from having to reveal the truth. She nodded. “I never told him.”

“Obviously,” said Molly. “And I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that he found out when she came to Hogwarts because of the—”

“Legalities of her last name, yes.”

“And you’ve been hashing it out ever since?”

“I don’t know how it happened! I just know that one minute he’s the farthest thing from my mind, life is good, I’m home with my children and my husband and then the next thing I know he’s everywhere, playing the perfect father role, upsetting my husband, and drudging up old feelings!”

“Surely you must have known he was still teaching Potions?”

“I didn’t think it mattered, I didn’t realize she was going to have his last name. He would look at her like any other Gryffindor, even if she did bare him a resemblance, but her last name was supposed to be Davonshire.” Hermione was frantically rambling, her tongue tripping over her words. “When I got her Hogwarts letter, I just flipped through looking for the list of things we had to get her for the term, didn’t even notice that it was addressed to Caterina Snape and not Caterina Davonshire.”

Molly sighed, and took a long sip from her tea. “Well, dear…I don’t know what good my advice will do, but I’ll give you what you asked for.” She turned, stoically facing the younger witch. “You need to forget about Severus. I know that sounds harsh, dear, but it’s the best way to make things better. I’m not promising you anything but if you want any chance at all of saving your marriage, and saving your family from ruin, you have to forget about him. He already promised you he’d be there for Caterina, and he told you he didn’t love you, so you need to let it go. You can work out some sort of custody arrangement, but you need to get back to your life with your husband and your other children.”

Hermione sat, quietly staring at Molly, tears still in her eyes. “What if Blake leaves anyhow?”

The older woman shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to tell you, Hermione. I can’t read Blake’s mind and I recommend that you don’t go trying. It won’t help matters. If he leaves you, he leaves you, that is just something you’ll have to deal with as it presents itself, but I can tell you this, for the time that he’s been in your life, I don’t see him as someone who is just going to up and abandon the family you’ve created together. He’s a good man, Hermione. It will be a shame if you lose him.”

She nodded, and sniffled, and then wiped her eyes. “I need to fix my family, it isn’t fair to my girls, any of them.” She muttered. Finishing her tea, she rose. “I’ll see myself out, thank you, Molly.”

“Hermione,” Molly said, standing and embracing the girl. “If there’s anything I can do to help, if you need me to take the kids for a while, though Caterina will be back at Hogwarts soon, but if you need to leave them here for a few days until you sort things out, please know, I’m here for you.”

“Thank you, Molly.” She repeated and kissed the woman on the cheek. Molly Weasley stood in the doorway, gazing at the girl as she retreated into the afternoon with a soft ‘pop’ hoping that the girl would go and meet her daughters for lunch.