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“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
-C.S. Lewis
“I’ll never understand why you don’t knit with magic like Mum,” Ron commented as he threw himself down on the couch next to his wife. Hermione made a noncommittal noise like she hadn’t really heard him and resumed her precise needlework, which looked far too complicated to Ron to be done without magic. It was currently shapeless--could’ve been a sweater or a sock for all he knew. He watched the fast pattern a bit longer before feeling queasy and laying back with his eyes closed. He grunted.
“What’s that, dear?” Hermione asked sweetly but distractedly.
Ron grinned before glancing back at her. He loved the way her curls fell around her face, how she stuck out her tongue when concentrating. “Sure you aren’t reading a book over there? That’s your book-reading face.” He bounced his feet up and down, work out but still running on the adrenaline of the day.
Hermione glanced up, looking decidedly teary-eyed. Ron flailed and gaped, not sure exactly what he’d done wrong, but ready to remedy it. He said her name softly and pressed his palm over her knee, reassuring. He gulped.
“You know I have a book-reading face,” she said adoringly. Then she sniffed and went back to knitting as if the tears were a figment of Ron’s imagination.
He shook his head while he tried to recall any chapter in that witch charming book he’d bought for him and Harry when they were seventeen. Coming up blank, he stared at Hermione’s profile and willed an explanation from one of those stray curls. They also seemed unwilling to share.
“We, er, chased down that wizard today who’s been bewitching muggle cars. Had to obliviate all the victims; poor blokes went almost bonkers when the cars kept crumbling. Crumbling, ‘mione, he charmed them to turn into car-shaped cookies. I dunno what even compels a man to do that, I really don’t… Well, maybe the holiday cheer, could be it… I’m rambling, you know, and I love the way you smell today, er, really every day, and I’d love to know why you’re crying so I can get to fixing that.” Having finished his speech on one breath, he took a big gulp of hair and waited.
“I’m not crying,” Hermione said simply, like it was the answer to a quiz. “I’m p-perfectly fine.”
“Sure, and I’m not covered in cookie dust.”
“Ronald!” Hermione said sharply. She sighed and placed her knitting in her lap. “Nothing is wrong.” A pause stretched on while she collected her thoughts. She looked sternly at her lap but avoided his incredulous eyes. “Why don’t you take a shower and go to bed?” she suggested finally.
Glaring, Ron stood and ground his teeth together. “We said we’d never go to bed mad at each other,” he reminded her, also feeling like he was talking to the brick wall in Diagon Alley with no knowledge of the entrance combination. “Especially on the day before Christmas Eve?” he tried placatingly. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, already certain this was a battle he would not win.
He was correct. Hermione resumed her needlework with an eerie calm. “I’m not angry. Are you?” Ron gaped for a moment before snapping his jaw shut. He answered with the most truthful-sounding “No” he could muster before crossing the room to stomp up the stairs, trailing cookie bits through the house. He could hear Hermione charming the broom to sweep up before he slammed the bathroom door shut.
Once he was undressed, he tentatively padded out to the hall and peeked through the stair railing from the top of the stoop. “You wanna maybe join me?” he asked. He cursed when his voice squeaked; Ronald Weasley, master seductor. “I’m busy!” she shouted back casually. Like he was an optional homework assignment. Actually, he decided as he stepped into the hot water, that was more likely to get done.
He went to bed with the bed empty beside him, feeling rather empty inside. At least tomorrow was Saturday and he was off; he and Hermione would be able to talk this out like rational people in the morning. “Bloody hell!” Hermione cursed at what Ron assumed was still her knit project. So she was staying up to finish that whatever-it-was. He shook his head and buried his head in the pillows, bracing for a restless night.
Ron woke with the bed cold and he wondered if she had even come up to bed. He really hoped she hadn’t slept on the couch, because that would make him guilty, frustrated, and knackered, which would be a catastrophic combination for the conversation they’d surely be having over lukewarm bowls of porridge. He yawned, stretched, cracked his back. What a way to start the Christmas weekend.
He donned Hermione’s floral robe just for the hope of making her laugh, then descended the stairs in his own slippers. The pink, he decided, really matched the bright orange. He was so distracted by that awful color clash that he didn’t notice the smell of pancakes until he saw Hermione in the kitchen making them.
Cooking was a task she always did with magic, just like Ron. There were quite the pair at dinner parties, and guests always said the meal was wonderful. Ron gave Hermione the credit, she gave it to him, and they always bantered pleasantly over the cleanup, also done with magic. When Hermione had explained a dishwashing machine to him, Ron had screamed.
“Good morning. I’m almost done, if you could set the table, dear,” she requested. Ron only stared, dumbstruck, and jumped when she sent some napkins flying out onto the table.
“I’ll get the rest,” he mumbled, and pulled out his wand. Witches, he decided, were really the biggest mystery of his life, and he’d had to hunt down horcruxes for an entire year.
They finished in silence, Hermione sending pancakes and syrup through the room to land neatly on the plates Ron had magicked into place. Although he was enjoying the blissful couple routine, he was cautious of the brewing storm. And he wanted to get ahead of it.
Hermione kissed him on the cheek before they both sat. “Thanks, ‘mione,” he said, because the pancakes smelled excellent, and he wanted to soften that storm. He looked away from the silverware he was clutching and up at her face.
She was nervous. Brave, bloody brilliant Hermione was nervous, which made Ron nervous, which made him ramble. Again.
“So I missed you last night, ah, not just because of the shower thing, which I mean would have been nice but it’s fine, I understand, I um, I wish you’d come to bed, also not for that just to clear, I… I like holding you? Uh. I’m not angry, though, so I won’t yell o- of course, so there’s no way I’d yell--”
Hermione was laughing at him now. Ron was so confused he thought he might be back in Potions class. “I’m not scared you’ll yell at me, Ron. Look at your plate.”
Thoroughly confused, Ron looked down as he was told, expecting to find the enormous stack of pancakes he’d put there in his nervousness. Instead, they had vanished, only to be replaced with something soft, red, and knit.
He picked it up and it fell into two pieces. He panicked, thinking he’d broken it, before he realized there were two projects there. A tiny hat, round and perfect, and an equally well-executed pair of socks. They were human-shaped, he saw, but too small for anyone who lived here.
“Are we getting a house elf?” he asked.
Hermione rolled her eyes like she thought he was joking. He dreaded asking for clarity, so he shut his mouth and waited. Still smiling, his wife gently replaced the knitwear on the table and then held his sweaty hand in her own. Then, with a bit of flair, she stood and placed his palm over her stomach.
“I’m pregnant ,” she whispered.
Ron leapt up and scooped his giggling wife into his arms, twirling her around and around and shouting at the pancakes, “My wife is pregnant! Hermione’s pregnant!” Midway through his travels he met her eyes and asked faux-seriously, “It’s mine, right?”
“Ronald!” she exclaimed, but the mischief was unmistakable. He laughed, unable to resume the act, and picked her up.
“WE’RE HAVING A BABY!”