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Hermione knew something was wrong the minute she walked into her kitchen and saw her son staring blankly into space—this, despite the towering sandwich made with last night’s Christmas turkey that was threatening to tip over on the plate in front of him at any moment. But it may as well have been a pile of dragon dung, for the amount of attention he was paying it.
Curious, indeed.
Hugo had inherited Ron’s infamous appetite, and at fourteen, he could put away at least three—maybe even four—of these sandwiches in one sitting and still be hungry enough for dinner just hours later. But there it sat, nearly drooping from the sheer amount of meat that he’d stuffed into it, and not once had he even looked down on it, much less taken a bite, in the last few minutes.
“Something wrong, darling?”
Startled, he gave a little jump in his seat, knocking the sandwich over in earnest; Crookshanks immediately pounced onto the table, no doubt hoping to catch a few morsels.
“Go on, have it then,” said Hugo, pushing the plate towards the cat, then he looked up at Hermione. “Nothing’s wrong, Mum... Just not very hungry, that’s all.”
She eyed him sceptically, but kept her grin to herself and pulled out a chair to sit down beside him.
“Well, that’s a first.”
He blushed—the same furious shade of maroon that she often saw on her husband—and she knew then that there was definitely something more to this than met the eye.
“So what’re we all talking about, then?”
Rose had burst into the kitchen, pink-cheeked from having spent the last hour blocking bewitched Quaffles to keep her Keeper skills sharp over the Christmas holidays. She hopped onto the kitchen counter and reached for an apple.
“Nothing,” said Hugo, but the tips of his ears went red as he said this, which was practically an invitation for Rose to start her interrogation. She wasn’t the type, after all, to leave anything to mystery.
“A likely story,” she said, breaking into her father’s cheeky grin. “C’mon now... I’m your big sister—who else can you talk to if you can’t talk to me?”
“Mind your own business.” Hugo’s ears now blended perfectly with his hair. Hermione was torn between continuing the line of questioning that her daughter had started and respecting her son’s privacy.
Right now, it seemed like a rather impossible choice.
Rose jumped off the counter and made her way towards the table, eyes suddenly alight with mischief. “Oh, I get it,” she said. “You’re all tied up in knots about the Slug Club Valentine’s Day party.”
“Oh, Professor Slughorn’s throwing a Valentine’s Day party?”
Hugo, who looked as though he wanted the earth to swallow him whole, suddenly became fascinated with a loose thread on his jumper, winding it around and around on his finger before finally muttering, in what seemed like one gush of air, “Yeahiheardsomethingaboutthatbutwhoknows.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He hasn’t officially announced it,” said Rose. “But apparently he’s told a few of the seventh years. And...” She paused dramatically, then went on with noticeable glee, “We can bring a partner.”
She looked at Hermione and wiggled her eyebrows. Fortunately, Hugo was too busy playing with the frayed ends of his cuff to notice, or Hermione would have had quite a job of refereeing on her hands.
“I see.”
Silence stretched; Rose took an unnecessarily loud bite of her apple, then offered the core to a very enthusiastic Crookshanks.
“Well, personally, I don’t understand why you’re so wound up about it, anyway,” she said breezily. “Just ask her already and be done with it.”
“Her?”
Hugo groaned and sank a little more deeply in his chair. Rose rolled her eyes and turned to her mother.
“Siobhan Finnigan,” she explained. “He’s fancied her for a while, but he won’t ask her out.”
Hermione couldn’t help but bite back a smile; this sounded very much like another boy she used to know.
“It’s not that simple,” Hugo protested.
“What’s so complicated about it? You like her, she likes you. I bet she’d be over the moon if you asked her to the party.”
Hugo let out another strangled moan and buried his face in his hands. Rose punched him playfully in the shoulder.
“Oh, stop being so dramatic about it,” she said. “C’mon, it’s like Dad said—all it takes is some initiative.”
Hermione arched an eyebrow. “Your dad said that, did he?”
“Yeah,” said Rose. “He said he had to take the initiative with you.”
“Really...”
“He said he asked you out right after the war ended, because he was tired of you both dancing around your feelings.”
Hermione didn’t know whether to be amused or intrigued. “What else did your dad say?”
“Well... after he kissed you at the Battle of Hogwarts—”
“He kissed me?”
“You know, in the heat of the moment. There was chaos all around and you could have died at any moment, and he just couldn’t help himself...”
By now, Hugo had emerged from his cocoon and was listening with rapt attention to his sister recounting this story.
“Anyway, he said that after he kissed you, he could tell you liked him back, so...”
“Go on.”
“So he finally asked you out.”
Rose seemed to take Hermione’s shocked silence as a sign that something was a bit out of order.
“Isn’t... isn’t that what happened?”
“I have a slightly different recollection of those events.”
“Oh,” said Rose. “Well, you know Dad—he has got a habit of embellishing some of the details sometimes, hasn't he?”
“Yes, he does seem to excel at that,” said Hermione, and in spite of herself, she couldn’t help but smile. At least, she thought, Ron had managed to come up with a somewhat endearing story about the beginnings of their relationship.
Even if it was a complete misrepresentation of it.
* * *
“So Professor Slughorn’s apparently putting on some big to-do for Valentine’s Day,” said Hermione casually in bed later that night, as she slathered lotion on her hands.
“Is that old bloke still teaching?” Ron was still engrossed in the latest issue of Quidditch Weekly and didn’t even bother to look up. “What is he—about five hundred years old now?”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Give or take a few years.”
Ron chuckled, then flipped to the next page.
“Hugo’s in a right state about asking out the girl he fancies.”
“Yeah, poor kid,” said Ron. “He’s absolutely terrified. Can’t say I blame him. Girls—not an easy territory to navigate as a fourteen year old.”
“Oh yes, I remember that all too clearly,” she said. “But apparently... all it takes is some initiative?”
Ron blushed immediately.
“Told you ‘bout that, did they?”
She nodded, hoping fervently that the smile she was trying desperately to fight wasn’t somehow making itself manifest anyway.
“Well, I was just trying to do the right thing and offer him a bit of fatherly advice. You know, steer him in the right direction...”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, and he asked how I made things happen with you, and... well, before I knew it, I’d, you know... told him.”
“You mean you misled him on what happened.”
“All right, I may have taken a few liberties with some of the events.”
Hermione stared back at him, no longer bothering to mask the amusement on her face. “You don’t say?”
Ron shrugged. “It is all true, innit?” he said. “More or less...”
She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could get a word out, he headed her off at the pass.
“I mean, I wanted to do all of those things... to show you my true feelings much earlier than I did. I just... hadn’t plucked up the courage yet, that’s all.”
And there it was. That earnestness that always seemed to catch her completely off guard, making her melt when she should otherwise be annoyed with him, making her want to kiss him when really, he probably deserved to be swatted on the arm.
Making her fall in love with him all over again, even though logic would have told her otherwise.
“I s’pose that’s really what I was trying to tell Hugo,” he said. “That he just needed to ignore the fear and make the first move anyway. Because someday he might regret not having made it.”
It was then that she noticed her cheeks were sore. She’d been smiling.
“You’re really lucky you’ve got that Weasley charm, you know.”
He brightened into a smile of his own.
“So, does that mean I’m forgiven, then?”
“Maybe.”
He leaned over and pressed up against her, his after shave making her swoon.
“I’ll tell ‘em the truth tomorrow,” he said.
At least, that what she thought he said. She couldn’t quite register his words with him this close and her wanting this badly to kiss him.
Amongst other things.
“Well... I suppose the important thing is the moral of the story,” she said. “Not so much the story itself...”
Ron grinned, knowing full well he’d scored a (narrow) victory.
“Thought you’d see it my way—”
She was sorely tempted to silence him with a smack to the back of the head, but instead she did it with a kiss. Really, she couldn’t fault him for taking the initiative this time.