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People who didn’t know them well sometimes wondered what exactly did the two of them have in common, except perhaps for four things - unfortunate hair, the same school, being Gryffindors and a freckled redhead for a friend. They wondered how these two clicked as a couple. She was a bookworm, he was a jock. She wouldn’t touch a broomstick if she could help it, he loved to fly. She was meticulous, he was messy.
What most people didn’t know was besides these things, Hermione and Harry had a lot more in common than met the eye. They believed in honour, in sacrifice, in bravery and above all in fighting for what is right. They also are only children who grew up friendless.
While Harry wasn’t the most academically inclined student, he did excel at DADA, flying, CoMC and charms. And though Hermione was always the class topper she didn’t lead the class in all the subjects necessarily but particularly four subjects Harry was the DADA prodigy, Neville the one who would ace Herbology even half asleep. Lavender took the top prize in divination and Padma was the astronomy wiz.
What most people however didn’t know about Harry and Hermione however was the fact that they were highly competitive people, and that side of their personalities didn’t necessarily always lead to silly or absolutely crazy things but now it was.
Ron Weasley could attest to that.
Escaping his mother and her incessant demand that he settle down and give her grandbabies was really getting to him. As if she lacked those already. Four of his siblings had already given her a bucketful of those, and so, Ron couldn’t understand why he must join the rat race too. Thus, at nearly four in the evening he escaped the Burrow and decided to drop at Hermione and Harry’s, not wishing to be alone back at his home with Susan out of town for the weekend.
The sight that greeted Ron when he stepped out of the Floo was simultaneously flabbergasting, funny, frightening and frustrating in parts.
Hermione and Harry were on all fours, tapping the floor in front of them furiously and with so much enthusiasm, that Ron was half afraid they’d dent the floor.
In front of them was his little goddaughter, Fiora Lillian Potter, also on all fours, giving a toothless smile to her parents as she giggled and looked at them with her wide green eyes as drool dribbled down her chin. A lock of her downy brown hair fell on her little forehead as she looked between her parents giggling.
“Fi, come here love, you’re mumma’s darling, aren’t you?”
“No! Fi is a daddy’s girl. She’d come to me first, won’t you sweetheart?”
Fi just giggled again, moved two steps ahead on her little hands and knees, still in the middle of both Harry and Hermione. They got excited and were almost jumping in their places.
“Fi, that’s it, come to daddy.”
“Come to mummy, Fi, you know you want to come to me.”
Ron moved quietly, still largely unnoticed and walked towards the family.
Fi was the only one who noticed him and smiled as she gave a high pitched shriek as if greeting him in her baby talk with a hello, Uncle Ron.
Ron silently laughed and as Fi was about to get to her parents, still walking in the middle and not moving towards either one of them, he waited until almost the last moment and planted himself right in the middle of his two best friends, and took Fi in his lap.
“Something tells me, Fi prefers her godfather to both her parents”, he said smugly; his amused eyes taking in his surprised best friends. Harry laughed while Hermione scowled.
Ron’s smug expression however didn’t last beyond his initial forty seconds of bliss, as Fi peed on him and then it was Hermione who laughed out with joy and Harry who triumphantly declared, “that’s my girl.”
Ron scowled at his two best friends who laughed at him, but as Fi’s chubby hands landed on his cheeks and she gave him a toothless smile; he kissed her cheeks and her delighted gurgles made him laugh and think; maybe, just maybe there was something to be considered about his mother’s desire after all.
Now, he just had to wait for Susan to get back, and ask her if she’d be down to help him out with giving his mother at least one more new grandchild. Watching Hermione leave with Fi, to feed her, Ron couldn’t find anything wrong with what his mother was asking from him at all. After all, he was pretty sure that he was one of Fi’s favourite people - even if he ranked number four on the list - behind her parents and Teddy, but imagining himself looking at someone the way Harry looked at Hermione and Fi, his heart raced in his chest. For while Ron had known Harry for nearly fourteen years now, he had never seen his best friend as happy as when he was with the two of them. Never seen either one of his best friends being as silly and carefree as they had seemed as they’d just been now egging their daughter on to crawl towards them. And while in any other circumstances if he had cheated the way he had done just now, Harry and Hermione would have been on his case like there’s no tomorrow, he’s pretty sure they weren’t exactly offended as they pretended to be. Four hours later, as he got back home, he knew he would talk to Susan about a baby of their own.