Disclaimer: Same as before.
Author's Note: A Shout-out to everyone who reviewed! Thanks so much! Please keep doing that - it motivates me like you wouldn't believe :) And onward!
Chapter Five
Morning found a bleary-eyed Harry Potter hastening to the side of a wildly screaming infant. All sleepiness vanished,
however, as soon as he caught a whiff of Emerson's diaper.
"Uh, what the hell," he groaned as he carried the baby to the bathroom. Not knowing what to do, he placed a towel on the floor and lay Emerson on it. She did not like that, and Harry gripped his hair and stared at the angry, red face before stumbling back to his room and grabbing her bag.
He thought desperately of owling Hermione then decided against it. Was he or wasn't he a Gryffindor?
'Besides, she was here till late last night; she deserves some rest. And if I don't learn to do this now, I never will,' he thought as he listened to the baby's yells. Taking a deep breath, he set to undressing his unhappy daughter.
"Come now, Em. It's not that bad," he murmured as he opened her diaper. "Yowza! I take that back! It is that bad! What the hell have you been eating? Smells worse than Snape's worst potion. Gah!" He quickly wrapped the smelly diaper and banished it to the wastebasket.
Emerson seemed to have calmed down somewhat, hiccuping slightly now, and Harry figured he'd be upset too if he had to lay about in nasty stuff like that. "You are only human after all, huh?" he said as he gently brushed her hair from her forehead.
Leaving her on the floor, he started the water running in his tub to give her a bath, aware of that now familiar feeling of panic rising in his throat. Was it only yesterday he got her? What if he dropped her? What if he made the water too hot? Dammit, why couldn't he just wave his wand and make her clean?
"Why, indeed," he said aloud, jumping up and grabbing his wand. "Only one way to find out." A quick Scourgify and she was fresh as the driven snow again and needless to say, Harry was quite pleased with himself.
Another Scourgify and some quick swishing and flicking and the bassinet was a carrier again. He dressed her, fed and burped her (with a towel on his shoulder, thank you very much), then he set the carrier in the middle of his bed. All this was accomplished with much fumbling and exaggeratedly slow movements. Except for the swishing and flicking, of course.
He grabbed an ultra-quick shower, dressed and carried her into the living room. After making himself a cup of coffee, he sat down beside her and father and daughter stared at each other.
"What are you thinking, little girl? Are you wondering who I am? Where your Mummy is?"
Emerson waved her arms and made a soft cooing sound. Harry grinned. "You're trying to talk to me, aren't you? Aren't you?"
She smiled and Harry's heart melted. He picked her up tenderly and kissed her small forehead. "Emerson. I'm your father. Harry Potter. So you're Emerson Potter. Emerson Rosewater Potter. That sounds funny, doesn't it?"
The baby gurgled and touched his cheek with one tiny hand and Harry knew in that moment that he could conjure the world's best Patronus. My daughter. My... daughter...
"You have your mother's smile," he told her. "In fact, I do believe you look exactly like Julia except for your eyes. Those are mine. I wonder how Julia is. I wonder if she's already... gone."
His heart suddenly heavy, he put Emerson down and picked up the packet of papers. On the baby's birth certificate, he noted that the "Father's Name" was blank. How will he get his name put on it?
There was a 'pop' behind him and he turned to see a strangely fresh-faced Hermione heading straight for Emerson. "That's right. Ignore your best friend of the last 15 years. Typical. The elders get no respect," Harry muttered in mock bitterness.
Hermione laughed which in turn made Emerson smile sleepily and coo.
'Great Scott, she's beautiful,' Harry thought, staring at his best friend. 'Why did it take me so long to notice? How could I had even looked at other women when she was right there under my nose? Right there beside me?'
She was murmuring nonsense words to Emerson when she looked up suddenly and caught his eye. A strange expression flitted across her face and she looked away quickly, a faint blush evident on her cheeks. For some reason, Harry found himself blushing as well and he jumped up and pretended to refill his mug. 'Don't weird her out, you idiot!' he silently berated himself. 'She has a boyfriend. She doesn't feel that way about you.'
"So you weren't kidding when you said she'd be up a couple times," he told Hermione, trying to dispel the awkward atmosphere. "She was up twice last night! The first time she had to cry for a while before I remembered that I did have a baby in my room and wasn't just imagining the sound. She was not happy about that, let me tell you." He ran his hands over his face as if washing without water.
"Shh," Hermione whispered, and they watched Emerson fall asleep. Harry picked her up and laid her on his bed with a kiss on each plump cheek.
Once the door was safely shut and the appropriate charms put up, Harry turned to Hermione. "What do I do now?"
She looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. "Have you eaten?"
He shook his head.
"Well, let's make some breakfast, then we can talk."
**************
Hermione watched Harry wolf down his bacon and eggs and smiled inwardly. There were times when she caught glimpses of the boy he had once been, and they usually emerged at completely mundane moments. Afterall, how many times had she groaned at his and Ron's table manners in the Great Hall at Hogwarts? There was nothing special about seeing Harry eat; she had observed that so many times, yet she never could stop watching him. There was that way he had of softly closing his eyes as he savored a particularly tasty morsel. And he had an oddly endearing habit of shaking his fork after every bite, as if to dislodge something on it. She's pointed it out to him once and he'd been adorably perplexed. He didn't know he was doing it and so couldn't stop.
It took her a moment to realize that Harry had stopped eating and was staring back at her. She mentally cursed her fair skin and hastily pretended to be busy cutting her kippers. After a sufficiently long moment, she looked up again. He was still staring at her, something he'd been doing a lot lately.
'You're one to talk,' a small voice retorted in back of her head. 'He's probably staring wondering why you're staring at him.' Mainly to shut up her traitorous thoughts, Hermione blurted "So are you going to keep her?"
Harry blinked. "Keep.. wha- oh, Emerson. Yeah, I'm going to. I have to, don't I?"
"No, you don't," she found herself saying. "Julia's family could take her."
Harry frowned. "You don't want me to keep her? She's my daughter, Hermione."
"Yes she is, but you don't have to keep her if you don't want to." Hermione looked up at Harry who was looking at her like he had never seen her before.
When he spoke, his voice had gone cold. "I thought you of all people would understand what this baby means to me. I've always wanted a family, you know that, and this might not have been my first choice for going about it, but there you go. She's my daughter and I love her. I want her and I'm going to keep her because even though I've had her for less than a day, I can't bear the thought of my life without her. Now that I know her, I can't just- what?"
Because Hermione was smiling. She reached across the table and took his hand. "Oh, Harry. That's all I wanted you to say. That you want to keep Emerson because you love her, not because you have to."
Harry mouthed like a fish before grinning sheepishly. "It sounded that bad?"
She nodded. "It did."
"I love her, Hermione. This morning when she smiled at me for the first time, this beautiful, tiny, little creature - I felt like I had seen God or something. Like I would do anything to make her smile again." His voice was filled with wonder and Hermione squeezed the hand she was still holding. She was happy for him, she really was, yet a small part of her was envious - was wishing that she, Hermione, was the 'she' Harry was talking about.
Hermione remembered the sense of complete panic she'd experienced when she got Harry's note the night before. Her fertile imagination went into overdrive, imagining all kinds of horrible reasons why he needed her over here urgently. When one has gone to hell and back with someone and survived that hell, you're not only a survivor but you're a scarred survivor. And as such, you have to deal with the psychological ramifications of surviving. The guilt, the nightmares, the paranoia. So she hightailed it to Harry's flat with her heart in her throat, mentally preparing herself for the worst.
Suffice it to say, even her hyperactive imagination hadn't envisioned the sight of a terrified Harry Potter trying to comfort a hysterical baby. Once she got over her shock, the memories of summers spent babysitting various bratty kids flew to mind and she knew what to do. She got the baby calmed down then set about changing Harry's child. Because of course she knew. One look into those green eyes was all it took and she knew. You don't spend 15 years admiring someone's irises without recognizing others exactly like them.
It soon became obvious that Harry was being his usual oblivious self, though, so Hermione tried to pretend that she hadn't recognized Emerson as his daughter. And admittedly, a small part of her was hoping she'd been mistaken. She hoped (secretly, of course) that any children of Harry's would be hers too.
As luck would have it, she wasn't mistaken and she was dying of curiosity to know how Emerson came about. But Julia's letter came as a shock and having lost her own mother to breast cancer, Hermione was overwhelmed. At least she'd had 22 years with her mother before she lost her. Poor little Emerson wasn't even six months old and was already motherless. Julia had literally given her life to give Emerson life. She felt a strange kinship with the other woman. It was obvious to her, from the letter, that Julia had loved Harry and Hermione understood that completely. She loved Harry too, though she would never have a chance with him.
Harry refilled their mugs, banished the dishes to the sink and they sat across from each other again. He pulled out the birth certificate. "I noticed my name isn't on this. I'll have to figure out how to go about getting her down as mine."
Seeing an escape from her melancholy thoughts, Hermione perked up. "Well, I was looking up some things last night and-"
"Hermione, did you sleep at all last night?" Harry interrupted, gaping at her.
She waved her hand dismissively. "Of course I did. But listen, since she was born in America I'm not sure what the laws are for getting your name on the certificate after the fact. Besides, that's her Muggle certificate. For her to be recognized as your daughter in our world, you have to take her to the Ministry of Magic and do the test." She said all that very fast.
"What test?" he asked, looking aghast.
"The Patrius Charm Test to determine that she really is your daughter. They just say the charm over the both of you and it determines how the two of you are related, if you are. Of course if you were just adopting her, that would be a whole other procedure."
Harry groaned. "I'm definitely not looking forward to the press finding out. Take her to the MoM? I might as well put out a front page announcement in the Daily Prophet. Can't we just camp out here until Emerson's ready for Hogwarts?"
Don't tempt me. Hermione hid a smile. "Don't be silly," she said briskly. "What're you going to do about Quidditch?"
"Shit! Quidditch. I need to get in touch with Oliver. I'll have to quit for a while. And only yesterday I denied that I was going to. Dammit."
"You don't have to," Hermione said for the second time that morning and once again Harry looked at her like she had suddenly sprouted another nose.
"What? Of course I have to! I need to take care of Emerson. Remember Emerson?"
She took a deep breath and made her pitch. "I can stay home and take care of her."
Harry's eyes bulged behind his spectacles. "Hermione, are you feeling quite alright? Because I think you might be going senile. Stay.. what.. what about your job?!"
Hermione was the assistant to the Chief Researcher at St. Mungo's. Her job was strenuous and demanding but to everyone, she seemed to thrive on the busy schedule. Lately, they had been making well-publicized progress on a cure for Prolonged Cruciatus Curse victims. They'd been working non-stop for the better part of three years, and a breakthrough was said to be imminent.
She was definitely excited about that, finally seeing some fruit from all those labors but she had a secret. Everybody thought Hermione Granger was on top of her game. She had a great, exciting job with numerous opportunities for advancement. She had many friends - chief among them the great Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. She had a more or less successful love life, having been involved with her current beau, Ian Boynehill, for almost a year.
But what people didn't know - not even her very best friends - was that Dr. Hermione Granger, top of her class at Hogwarts and again at Excalibur Wizarding and Oxford Universities, was fast approaching burn-out. She was tired of her job, tired of the endless disappointment, the constant 60+ hour weeks. She was tired of dating men half-heartedly when she knew none of the relationships would ever go anywhere. She entered all of them with a piece of herself held back - the piece that was stubbornly in love with her best friend. Hermione had tried fruitlessly to let go of these feelings for Harry Potter because she knew he didn't feel the same way and she was terrified of damaging their friendship unnecessarily.
She knew most people thought she was a relentless and ambitious career woman, intent on reaching the top without a thought or care for family or children. Au contraire. Lately she'd been having dreams of little bushy haired children, all with startling green eyes. And what do you know, but here was a little child - minus the bushy hair, sure - with the green eyes, belonging to the man she loved and she wanted a chance to soothe that ache within. She hadn't even had to think very long before she'd convinced herself. She was 26 years old, for godsakes. Harry needed her help. And it didn't hurt that Emerson was the most precious baby she had ever laid eyes on...
But Harry was still talking. "I can't let you do that, Hermione. You've worked too hard to stop now. What about Dr. Garg? I doubt he'd be in any great hurry to let you just stop now. I thought you guys were close to a breakthrough?"
"It'd only be for a little while, until you got something worked out. I have vacation time stored up, anyway," she muttered, not meeting his eyes.
Harry snorted. "Some vacation! Getting your eardrums imploded and cleaning poopy diapers. I'm telling you, Hermione, judging from the smell they could use that stuff to make a nuclear bomb."
They laughed companionably, Harry shaking his head. She sobered first and looked up into his eyes. "Just think about it, Harry? Please?"
He looked at her oddly but only swallowed and nodded. "I'll think about it. But in the meantime, I'm going to take some time off. I need to take her to the Ministry to do that test you mentioned. I need to learn her schedule and get to know her, right? Then there's shopping and I should probably read a couple books so I at least have some idea of what's going on."
"And talk to Molly," Hermione added.
Harry groaned again. "And Ron. How am I going to tell them?"
She smiled sympathetically before shifting through the papers again. A flash of color caught her eye and she fished out a photograph. It was a Muggle snapshot of a lovely young woman with long, wavy dark hair. She was wearing a sleek maroon gown and holding a wine glass, smiling sensually into the camera. You got the impression that this was a woman that made men do double takes and women feel insecure simply by being in the same room with her. Hermione felt a pang of jealousy. She didn't consider herself ugly, not by any means, but she was certainly nowhere as stunning as this woman in the picture. I haven't a hope in heaven of being with him - not when he can get women who look like this.
"What's that?" Harry asked, indicating the picture.
She held it up. "Is this Julia?"
He took the picture, stared at it for a long moment before he nodded. "She was so beautiful," he said softly, almost to himself. "Emerson looks just like her, doesn't she - except for the eyes."
Before she could stop herself, Hermione blurted out "Tell me about her."
To her surprise, Harry grinned. "I wondered how long it would take you to ask that question."
Hermione blushed.
"It's ok. I want to talk about her. I need to talk about her." He blew out a deep breath and stared at the picture he still held, seemingly lost in thought. Hermione leaned back in her chair and waited for him to begin.
He did.