Hermione's Little Secret

June 4th, the trio graduated with the entire Weasley clan there to cheer on the youngest son and his new wife, and the fiancé to their only daughter. It helped that she barely showed. With Slughorn retiring again, Hermione was offered the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts, which she would take over after the Christmas holiday so she’d have time to wean her daughter and set up her new home. Ron had inherited an aunt’s home near his parents, which the two of them had gotten set up for their new, growing family. No one other than Harry and Madame Pomfrey and the couple knew that the child was someone’s other than Ron.

On August 29th, brown haired/ brown eyed Adrianna Hermione Granger-Weasley was born, screaming all through the Burrow. Ron fainted to the laughter of his sister, while Molly hovered over the birth of her first grandchild. Hermione looked into the girl’s eyes, looking for signs of Malfoy, but she was too young to tell.

“Hermione, she’s so little.” Ron whispered as he lay next to her, holding the infant gingerly in his arms. She smiled at her husband. He was in complete awe over the child, and she didn’t have any more worries that the three of them could be a family.

DADA was being taught by Severus until she started, then he returned to his potions. She brought the baby to the school and everyone got hooked immediately, including the greasy git himself. When no one looked, he played with the child and made her laugh with his magical antics. He docked almost 400 points from his own House when they laughed after seeing him burping the baby.

Rianna grew into a healthy two year old, loved by her uncles, mother, father and aunties, including the teachers at the school. Three days after her second birthday, Harry showed up at the school, grim faced, standing in the doorway of the teacher’s lounge. He gave Rianna a loving look, and Snape a look of remembered loathing, although they had the child in common now, so he tried to keep from showing how he really felt about the man. Hermione smiled at the sight of her friend, and then frowned when she noticed that he was alone. She stood and covered her pregnant stomach protectively, knowing that whatever news he brought wouldn’t be good.

“Mione. You need to get to St. Mungo’s. Don’t bring Adrianna. Ron. Ron was cursed and poisoned.” He closed his eyes, but the tears squeezed out from under the lids. Snape held the toddler’s attention, while listening to Potter. He watched Hermione sway and conjured a soft chair for her to fall into.

“Is he…..cognizant?”

“For now, Hermione. But we need to hurry. Professor, can you keep an eye on Adrianna?”

“Of course. Hurry, Madame Granger-Weasley. You’re needed elsewhere. I’ll inform the Headmistress of your whereabouts.” He hugged the child as her mother left with Potter. MacGonagall would need to find a substitute for a few weeks while the widow recovered.


She heard the screams as she entered the wizard hospital, running toward the source, past her mother in law and Ginny, heavily pregnant and crying. She found Ron lying on a white bed, half his face dissolved away from the bone, his entire left side practically gone, and his right hand being held by his father, Arthur Weasley sweating and crying along with his son.

“Ron!” She went to his right side, kissing his remaining cheek, tasting the sweat, the blood, and the tears that had dried there. Arthur wrapped his remaining arm around the girl and hugged her tight. “Oh, god, where’s the healer?”

“There’s nothing they can do. It’s eating away at him. We….we hope it gets his heart soon, Hermione. Else he’s in for more torture. And they’ve used every pain relief potion and charm. Nothing’s working.”

“Mione!” Her name came out almost normal as he turned to her, his cries of pain suppressed as he looked on his wife. She was too young to be a widow, to raise two little children all alone while there were still a few Death-Eaters out there.

“Oh, Ron, my love. I’ll contact Severus. He’ll know something, some wa—“

“Too late. Love you, Mione. Love Adrianna. Baby.” He gagged on some of his own blood, swallowed and struggled to get words out. “Go back to her. Don’t want………you…….here….for……this. Promise.”

“No!”

“Dad, please.” He looked at his father pleadingly.

“I am not leaving, Ronald. I can’t go and leave you alone.”

“Don’t want……you….to...see this. Make Gin…..go too.” He opened his mouth to talk again, convulsed and screamed, his mouth opening wide to let the sound out.

“Don’t make me leave, my love. You were with me every day when I was frozen by the Basilisk in second year.”

“You….weren’t………scr……..screaming. Silent…..for a….change.” He joked through his pain. She laughed and cried together, burying her face into Arthur’s shoulder. It wasn’t fair. They’d danced around their adolescent hormones for years before finally finding themselves together, brought together by a pregnancy not caused by him, but with a daughter loved by him just as much as if his seed had been sown in her. They should have had more than two and a half years together. He should have been allowed to watch his son grow up. And she’d just found out that the baby was a boy.

“I love you so much, Ron.” She put her free hand over her rounded stomach. She was definitely showing more with her son than with Adrianna. At four months, she looked like she had at seven with her daughter. He glanced down at her stomach, a question in his eye. “Your son will know about you, Ron, no one will let him or Adrianna forget.”

Then Ron started crying, from the pain, from the injustice of his death, the few months of happiness he’d had with the woman he loved; he hated fate for taking him away before he could look into his firstborn son’s face, see his daughter start her first year at Hogwarts, or even start elementary school in the Muggle village in a couple of years. He’d never make love to Hermione again, and remembered seeing her as he had when he’d left this morning. They’d made love quietly, not wanting to wake Adrianna, kissing leisurely, slowly through their peaks, his hands rubbing her rounded stomach as she rode him to completion. “Love……..you……Mione….now get…..out……please…..for me?” He gasped. He could feel the curse eating him from the inside. He always thought he’d die next to Hermione as an old wizard with great grandchildren.

Crying, she bent to kiss him again, then let go of Arthur, staggering out to her in-laws outside. Harry was holding Ginny protectively, crying into her red hair, while Molly was encircled by five of her remaining sons. Charlie was on his way from Bulgaria and would arrive within the hour with his wife, Belinda. Everyone looked up at her expectantly.

“Ginny, Ron asked that you go home, for the baby.” As Hermione figured, the younger woman shook her head vehemently. Harry tightened his grip on his young wife. Hermione sat in the chair behind the family and covered her face with her hands, wiping the tears away angrily. She felt Molly sit next to her and put one arm around her shoulder. She leaned against her mother-in-law’s shoulder and sighed. She knew this was going to be a long vigil and that the tears would come back again.


Sorry, that part always makes me cry and I hated submitting it, but the muses made me write it. More soon

Marti