My Christmas Miracle

Chapter One - Christmas At the Burrow

Hermione knocked on the door, it quickly opened and she was pulled into the arms of Molly Weasley. After Molly tightly embraced the witch, she felt tears coming to her eyes briefly as she thought back on all her past memories with the Weasley matriarch; especially the cooking lessons and hours of talking over tea.

“It’s so good to see you dear,” Molly whispered.

“Thank you, Molly,” Hermione said.

Molly reluctantly released Hermione and looked at her quietly for a moment while placing her hand on her cheek. Then she realized what she was doing and her face broke out in a smile. “Go ahead and join the rest in the lounge.”

She nodded her head and she smiled at her second mother with tenderness in her eyes.

Hermione walked past her and went farther into the kitchen and was embraced by of Fleur Weasley, who had been welcomed into the family after Bill’s attack, “’Ello ‘Ermione. Victoire will be so happy to see you again.”

After their heartfelt greeting, she also greeted Angelina and Katie; the wife’s of the twins; along with Penelope, who married Percy.

When she walked into the hallway she was stopped by children running past her, the majority of them redheads. Some of the children were going up and down the stairs chasing and playing with each other. When she turned her head back around, she ran into George. He greeted her with a hug and whispered, “My little brother and his wife are here.

She forced a smile on her face as she looked up at him and said, “It’s all right George, he is happier now than he ever was with me.”

“No! Not truthfully,” he disagreed. “He still loves you and he’s still a git for leaving you.”

“I love him too, but we hurt each other too much to go back to what we had. Besides, she gave him what I never could and I am happy for them; you should be too.

“I know, but you will always be a member of this crazy family.”

Hermione thanked him with a kiss on his cheek and walked closer to the lounge. She timidly peeked inside, hoping that the occupants wouldn’t noticed her yet. The Weasley‘s were scattered all around the room.

On the right of the room, she saw Bill and Charlie sitting on two mixed matched chairs talking. Harry was sitting with Ginny and their youngest daughter, Dawn, on the sofa. To the left, Fred and Percy were sitting on the floor, playing chess with James.

And in the middle of the room sitting on the floor in front of the fire place was Ron, his wife Lavender, and their little boy, Ryan.

Ron looked up and noticed her, and Lavender followed his eye sight after he didn‘t respond to her, and saw Hermione for the first time. Lavender watched their silent interaction nervously, but Harry also noticed the exchange and had walked up to greet Hermione. He squeezed her tightly and spun her around the room. The other occupants laughed at her screaming for Harry to released her. No one noticed how Ron watched them with a bit of regret in his eyes, while faking a smile on his face.

Harry ushered her over to the sofa to visit with Ginny and Dawn. After she sat down, Dawn quickly moved onto her lap. She wrapped her arms around her little goddaughter and kissed her on top of her hair, but Dawn had other plans, as she started to play with the lace on Hermione’s shirt.

As Hermione listened to everyone talk around her, she was drawn to the day that changed her outlook on life. Oddly, it wasn’t the day when she pushed Cedric Diggory out of the way and got hit with an unknown curse at the Department of Mysteries. It wasn’t the day when she kissed Ron in the Room of Requirement before the final battle and it wasn‘t her wedding day when she married Ron so long ago. It wasn’t the years of trying to have children, or the tests and tests trying to figure out why she couldn’t have them.

It wasn’t the painful day when Ron left her for Lavender, it wasn’t the day when Ron married her or the day seeing Lavender pregnant with Ron’s child.

No! This day goes to the day when she visited Harry in the hospital the night this beautiful child, Dawn, was born.

That was the day her painful outlook on life began to change.

***Flashback***

Late at night, inside a private room in the maternity ward of St. Mungos, Hermione Wea...Granger was sitting next the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, as she watched the happy dad beam quietly at the small bundle in his arms, obviously delighted at the miracle his wife gave him again.

Ginny Potter was sleeping now, out of pure exhaustion after bringing their fourth child into the world and adding to their growing family.

Ginny and Harry clearly loved each child they had. Hermione slightly envied her friends and their newest addition. Of course she was happy for them, but she couldn’t erase the pain tightening up deep within her heart after seeing each one born, bittersweet reminders of her failed marriage. Well, her failed attempts of giving Ron the miracle of his own child, which resulted in her failed marriage.

After years of failing with fertility potions and consistently having sex to conceive a baby, not knowing why she couldn’t bring life into this new world that she so furiously fought for along side Ron and Harry, she nervously went to the Healers. Test after test after test, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. She suspected that the unknown curse that Dolohov silently hexed at her had to be the cause for her unknown problems.

She begged and pleaded for Ron to get tested. When he finally relented, however, he wouldn’t let her go with him, he was so ashamed of himself; a Weasley possibly unable to have kids was unheard of. After the test results, he sadly confirmed that he was still able to have kids, clearly making it her problem.

Although she knew they were growing farther apart, she was in denial that her marriage was suffering. They were hurting so much they couldn’t be around each other anymore. Ron finally had enough and left; several months later he started to date his ex-girlfriend, Lavender Brown. Needless to say, not long after their marriage, Lavender was carrying Ron’s child. That was the hardest day of her life, and she had almost died of shock right there on the spot. Seeing quite plainly that her body was not complete, but full of damage was very hard on her.

“Hermione,” Harry whispered as he slightly nudged her, breaking her out of her thoughts.

She quickly looked from the bundle in his arms up to his eyes. “Oh sorry, what were you saying?” she asked.

“I was asking if would you like to hold her.”

Hermione froze; it was bad enough he insisted that she came to visit, but only after she insisted on visiting when it was way past visiting hours. By now, she knew most of the Healers on this floor and they would never stop her from visiting so late at night to try and avoid a chance meeting with her ex-husband and his joyous, annoying, and very pregnant wife.

Could she brave the pain to be able to hold the little miracle before her?

Harry’s demeanour changed; his laughing smile vanished into a frown when he realized Hermione’s lack of movement as well as her silence.

“Please, Hermione,” he pleaded. “You’re her godmother after all,” he reminded her. “She will only be this tiny and precious for so long; you know you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“Oh, alright, Harry.” She couldn’t stop from smiling at his blackmailing efforts. She carefully arranged Dawn in her arms; she was painfully familiar with babies. It seemed like everyone around her was having them or had them. Several of their married classmates had them; the Longbottom’s, the Finnigans, the Thomas’s, even the Malfoy’s recently had their second child. The only Weasley who hasn’t had one yet was Charlie; well, that she knew of.

She was looking at her new goddaughter, Dawn Potter, the tears gathered roughly in her throat, and she had to choke them down before she cried all over Dawn. She moved back the blanket to take a good look at her goddaughter; she was beautiful, she still had a pink tint to her, which would fade in a day or two. Hermione placed a finger in Dawn’s hand. She had the tiniest of hands, wrinkled and pink wrapped around her finger in a firm grip, seemingly strong for such a tiny baby. Hermione glanced downward at her tiny feet, which had very long toes.

She so wanted to see if Dawn had any hair under her cap, but had read many books on babies, all of which said that they lose their body heat the quickest out of the top of their head. To prevent her from losing anymore of her body heat, she was okay with not knowing.

Her goddaughter was so perfect, so tiny and precious. After she wrapped the blanket back around her, she turned her bleak, smiling face to Harry, but she stopped when she saw the sorrow in his eyes.

“Hermione, hear me out please,” Harry pleaded. “I have some upsetting things I need to tell you.” He slowly took a deep breath, holding it in for a second and released. “I…it breaks my heart sitting here, watching one of the greatest women I have ever known, knowing what a wonderful mother she would be; should be.

“How?” she interrupted him. “The best I can ever be now is a godmother,” she said. “I’m not technically their aunt anymore.” Tears quickly pooled in her eyes as she blindly pointed to the bundle in her arms. “Besides, the one man who loved me left me because I couldn’t give him one of these.” Then she poked at herself in the heart. “I know I’m damaged goods. Please leave it alone.”

“That’s not entirely true, Hermione,” Harry said as he shook his head, reaching over to wipe the tears from her face.

Hermione was speechless; she forgot to breathe for a minute, stunned while looking at him, lost for words. ‘What was he thinking, he knows that I can’t have any kids.’

“Hermione,” he whispered. “I…it was so hard watching your marriage crumble, your life crumble along with it,” he paused. “I’ve talked to Ron some time ago and I heard some….”

Hermione looked away from him and back to Dawn; she tenderly glided her finger along her tender, soft check. She was afraid of what he was going to say, but she was concerned at the same time. “What’s wrong, Harry?” she asked.

“One night, after sitting down to dinner with Ginny and Lavender,” he started, but Hermione closed her eyes, flinching at the sound of her name.

“Throughout dinner, Ron was troubled about something and the girls wouldn’t stop talking about babies. We heard enough and we had to take a break, so we went flying,” he said. “But Ron was a bit off on his flying and I pressured him to tell me what was bothering him. Mione, he looked horrible, just like when you guys were trying to have a baby. I asked him why the glum face, and he would only talk if I promised not to hurt or kill him.

“What he said, mind you, I am still angry with him,” he paused and looked away from her in deep thought.

“Harry…” she asked, she tried to get his attention.

“I just stood there waiting for him to continue, and after several minutes he explained how first off, I couldn’t tell any of the Weasleys, especially Ginny. I knew it was bad if he didn’t want me to tell Ginny, and he asked me not to tell you. I told him that if it concerned you, he better tell you or I would. I would tell you if he didn’t get the nerve to do so. He thought it over and slowly agreed- he desperately had to tell me.

“After he told me…this is so hard to say.” He stood up and walked over to the cot. After picking up a small stuffed toy, he turned to face her. His eyes held such anger and sadness. “H…he said that the baby Lavender is carrying isn’t his after all.

He rushed on before she could stop him. “One night while he was away, before their wedding, Lavender Glamoured herself and went to Charlie, slipping him a Lust Potion and had unprotected sex with him…that the child was Charlie’s, not Ron’s. I asked him could it not be his, I… asked him about the test he had taken.”

Harry walked back to Hermione, lowering himself back in his seat, looking at her hold Dawn in his arms. He looked her straight in the eyes. “Well, apparently he never went to the Healers.”

Hermione quickly handed Dawn back to Harry, before she dropped her. She couldn’t sit anymore, she started pacing around the room, clasping and unclasping her hands. She looked around the room for something to throw, then she remembered that she was in the room with Ginny and the baby. She felt like giving up; she dropped to the floor on her knees crying and wrapping herself around her arms.

She collapsed onto the floor, pounding on it with her hands. Her chest hurt, she couldn’t breath anymore, she tried to breathe but it hurt too much. She couldn’t feel anything anymore, her legs where numb, she couldn’t feel the tears, the sobs in her throat, the pain in her hands as she pounded the floor. She felt someone sit her up and place his arms around her in a hug while they coached her to keep breathing.

When she finally calmed down, she couldn’t remember how long she sat there sobbing. She wondered if she was dreaming- no, if she was having a nightmare.

“No,” Harry answered her.

‘Oh, I must of said that out loud,’ she thought.

***End of Flashback***

Hermione was disturbed from her thoughts when Ginny nudged her, saying dinner was ready. Dawn rushed off her lap to go find a seat at the table before the older children beat her to the best seats.

Hermione watched as everyone started to leave the room. Harry reached for his wife’s hand pulling her close to him, kissing her on the nose before they walked out together, arms wrapped around the other/each other. After standing up, Ron expertly took Baby Ryan from Lavender’s arms and gave her a hand. Fred and Percy were arguing about their chess game with James as they left while ruffling the young boy’s hair.

Then her eyes fell on a tall, dark haired man that clearly wasn’t a Weasley. This man had love and tenderness in his eyes for her. Her heart stopped for a second when he gave her a brilliant smile. She pulled herself to her feet and walked toward him. He lead her out of the room before she could change her mind.

----------
author's note: This has not been re-beta'ed since the first corrections. That is only in a few spots at the beginnig of the chapter and that the end, after the flashback. I couldn't wait to post it somewhere. I am not done with it yet, but I wanted to get it posted to see if anyone would read it.

Thank you for taking time to read this.