The Naming

"I had an ultrasound scan today, Ron," Hermione said, looking up at him from her armchair. "It confirmed the result of my own magic test. The baby is going to be a boy."

"Great!" Ron said, his face beaming. Then he hurriedly added: "Of course, I'd have been just as pleased if it had been a girl."

Hermione smiled. She could read him like a book, but she wasn't going to make an issue out of his obvious preference for a boy. For one thing, little Rose could hardly have a more doting father.

"We need to start thinking about names," she said. "I suppose we really ought to call him Fred."

"I think it might be better if we didn't. Even now, whenever Mum hears the name it brings her to the verge of tears. It could be his middle name, though."

Having put forward the name that she had felt duty-bound to suggest, Hermione felt that she was now free to indulge herself. "How about Hugo?" she suggested.

"Hugo? Yes, I like the sound of that. Do we know anyone called Hugo?"

"I don't think so, but it's quite a common name among Muggles. And your parents seem to have been happy to use common Muggle names for their own sons."

"OK, Hugo it is, then."

Hermione smiled once more. Most wizards and witches had only a limited education in non-magical subjects, since they did not study them beyond age eleven. She knew that she could never have got away with suggesting the name "Victor", but she had been confident that Ron would never have heard of the French writer Victor Hugo.