A/N: Hi there. Let me first say, that the eleventh chapter to Knights of Walpurgis and the next chapter of Untitled are going to take a while. This can't be helped. However, while you wait, you wouldn't mind this little drabble, ficlet or whatever this really is do you? I hope not.
Okay, I have to warn you that it begins H/G and R/Hr but this very quickly changes. Also, it came to me as a dream. Imagine having a dream that you were reading a fanfic, and this is what this is. Hope you like it.
Disclaimer: If only I had dreamt up the plot to Harry Potter years ago, it would have been mine. But I didn't, so it isn't. Damn.
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The World and the Way it Should Be
Harry and Ginny's daughter, Gillian, had dark red hair and hazel eyes.
Ron and Hermione's daughter, Alexandria, had chestnut hair and her father's blue eyes.
Harry wondered what his and Hermione's child would look like.
Of late, as the days drew nearer to its debut it was all he could think about. What would their child, be it son or daughter, look like.
Would he or she have his black hair and her brown eyes? Would he or she have her bushy hair and his green eyes? Would they be tall and skinny, or small and round? Would they be athletic like him, or bookish like her, or both or neither?
He couldn't help himself, he had to wonder.
After the war the first to marry were him and Ginny. Mrs Weasley was thrilled, almost all of Wizarding Britain turned out for the event, and he and Ginny found their wedding photographs plastered across the front page of every newspaper and magazine for weeks.
They were called the "Perfect Couple", claimed "A Match Long Prophesised", and declared "Fated Love". They were showered with gifts from anonymous well-wishers the world over, they were feted to free dinners and fancy banquets every time they went out and almost immediately the countdown began to the day they announced they were expecting their first child.
That came in the September of the same year, three months after their marriage, a week after Ron and Hermione's wedding.
Seven months later, on March 7th, 1999, the world greeted Gillian Meckenzie Rose Potter with an impromptu celebration that lasted three days. The Minister of Magic himself presented her with a gift, there was talk of making her birthday a national holiday and almost every baby girl born within a month of that day was named "Gillian" or "Meckenzie" or "Rose".
But almost immediately after Gillian's birth, Harry and Ginny began to have problems.
Harry, despite growing up with Dudley, had actually been an only child, and quite lonely through his childhood. He had secretly always wished he had a sibling, someone to play with, someone to depend on, and someone who wouldn't tease him, and bully him and beat him up. He wanted more children, Ginny, despite growing up with six brothers and enjoying it, did not.
He had been reasonable, of course. He did not press her on the issue until Gillian was six months old and they had just introduced her to her newborn cousin, Ron and Hermione's daughter, Alexandria May Weasley. But she had considered it vastly unreasonable.
As they prepared to go to bed that night, he simply blurted it out, "I want us to have another baby… preferably as soon as possible."
She had been seated at her dressing table brushing her hair; she stopped as he spoke and looked at him through the mirror. He smiled at her.
She did not return it, and instead replied, "I… Harry… I don't want to have another baby…."
For a long moment he sat staring at her, shocked, and then asked, "But… I always thought… I don't want to have just one child…."
She turned on her seat to face him, "Oh, but Harry we won't. I mean, my brothers are someday all going to get married and have children, there will be so many children coming into this house to play with Lily, it'll be like we have twice what my parents did…."
"Those children will go home to their parents at the end of the day and Lily's going to be here all by herself. When I first came to your house I saw all of you together, so happy, the house was noisy, messy-though your mother did try to stop that-and generally… it was much better than the one I left. I know you'll probably say that I don't know what it was really like, and you would be right, I don't… but Ginny, I want that…" he told her.
She had listened silently through the entire speech, and now sat back and sighed. After a moment she turned back to her mirror again and said, "I don't."
And so they had argued and fought and quarrelled for the next few months until two days before Gillian's first birthday. More than once did he threaten to leave, and sometimes did, more than once did he come home to find the house empty and her and Gillian gone, but they always came back to each other. It was just a foolish little thing after all, just a foolish argument that would pass.
But it didn't.
And then on that morning, two days before their daughter turned one, Hermione and Ron filed for divorce.
It had taken everyone, including the Weasley family, by surprise. No one had known that they were having problems; everyone was too caught up in what was going on with Harry and Ginny. Both of them had declared the split mutual, and when Harry went to see her Hermione had reassured him of that fact.
She was packing when he came in, Alexandria fast asleep in crib, Ron out, gone to work. For a moment he hung in the doorway looking at her, watching silently as she sorted through what she would take and what she shouldn't, and then he asked, "Where are you going?"
She did not look up, "To my parents."
He leaned off the doorway immediately, and said, slightly alarmed, "But they're… in France…."
"I know," she replied, still not looking up. "I need to get away for a few weeks, Ron's going to stay with his parents too, and we're selling the house."
"Are you coming back?" he asked, choking on the words and not entirely sure why.
Then she looked up, "Of course, Alexandria has to go to Hogwarts someday, I work here, Ron has to see his daughter…. I won't do that to him, we didn't work out but he's her father."
He let his eyes wander to the cradle, and the infant slumbering peacefully within, and then asked the last thing he thought he would, "What happened?"
She started packing again, "We fell out. We've always argued, since we first met we've argued with each other. I almost left six weeks after we got married, then when I was eight months pregnant and then two days after Alexandria was born. We can't do this to each other any more; we don't love each other… I don't think we ever did…."
He took a step into the room, unsure of what he was going to do, and then said, "I… I think that…. Take care of yourself… and Alexandria okay… and if you need anything, just Floo… send an owl… I'll be there…."
She stopped packing again to look up at him and smile, "I know… you have a 'saving-people-thing' remember?"
He ended up staying until she finished packing and locked up the house, and then he drove her and Alexandria down to London and saw them off at Heathrow.
He didn't know why then, though he knew she was coming back, that he felt as if a piece of his heart had been torn away.
The morning of Gillian's first birthday, celebrated at the Weasley house with their family and Ron, he woke up knowing what was going to happen. For all of the last day, while he helped Ginny prepare for their daughter's birthday he had agonised over it until he could deny it no more. And though they smiled and laughed and enjoyed themselves, he could not conceal the pain as he waited for the moment when it would happen. He had never thought his life would go this way, but it had, and all there was left to do, was face it.
When they got home that night, and Gillian was put to bed, long asleep before her party ended, he told Ginny simply, "I think we… no… I want a divorce."
She stopped halfway through her trek to the closet with yet another of Gillian's presents-again sent by hundreds of anonymous well-wishers-and asked, "What?"
"I think… I thought-no, I tried to… t-to understand… but this is it. I'm done," he replied.
She still did not move, did not look as if she was going to cry, but she just stood there staring at him in shock. And then finally she summoned the strength to ask, "Where is this coming from?"
He began the speech he had been rehearsing in his head all that day as if she had never spoken, "We never talked, you know, before we decided to do this… get married. We hadn't seen each other in months, but we just got back together anyway and decided to do it. But we should have talked, about a lot of things… about our careers, about each other, about children…. Because this especially is one thing that I can't compromise on, that I won't compromise on, and you won't either. I want a divorce."
When she spoke again she was furious, "Is this about Hermione?"
He looked at her confused, shocked, "What does this have to do with them? This is about us, I want more children, I have always wanted a large family, and you don't. I know everyone is probably going to say that this is no reason to end it all, but what about all the other things we haven't discussed? Don't you want to be a Healer anymore? I certainly want to be an Auror, I'm nineteen years old and I know I've got my whole life ahead of me, but why should we wait?"
Ginny refused to be sidetracked though, "I should have known… I saw how the two of you were after the war… how she wouldn't leave until she was sure you were alright in St Mungo's…. My brother asked her to marry him while you were still unconscious and she didn't say yes until the morning of our wedding…. I should have known…. This is just an excuse isn't it?"
"What?" he asked, even more shocked than before.
She continued as if she hadn't heard him, "You suddenly realise that I'm not good enough, she probably promised you everything you wanted, that her body was yours to use and abuse-"
"-now look here-" he tried to protest.
"-and you just come up with this to get rid of me…? Is she pregnant? Is that why she went off to France? I know you saw her before you left; Witch Weekly has a lovely picture on the cover of you kissing her and Alexandria goodbye. How could you do this to me? How could you two do this to my brother?" she demanded, tears at last running freely down her cheeks.
Harry was furious, "HOW DARE YOU? How dare you accuse me of something like that? I would never… I have never… I was not having an affair with Hermione, I don't know why they broke up and I don't care. This is about you and me and what we should have done and what we didn't. We never talked, not even when we were together the first time, and maybe if we had this would not be happening now. I want a divorce Ginny. It's over."
Any protest she was going to make was interrupted by Gillian's cry, and when she came back to their bedroom, Harry had moved out into a guest room.
The next morning, after the most uncomfortable conversation he had ever had with the Weasleys, he filed for divorce.
The shock to the Wizarding world lasted only as long as it took the tabloids to start speculating. Rumours of affairs, an arranged marriage and even that they had been pressured into it by the Ministry of Magic flew wildly, Harry's request for privacy was ignored, and by the end of the first week he desperately wished that he could just run away.
But he didn't.
He stayed and gave Ginny the house, moved out, and made arrangements for them to share custody of Gillian. He didn't spend as much time as before with the Weasleys, deciding it not necessarily a good idea when Hermione finally returned and Ginny started fussing about the fact that Harry met her at the airport with Gillian and Ron. He began to consult with Ron and Kingsley Shacklebolt about joining the Auror Department, and considered an invitation from Professor McGonagall to take up the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. And most of all he tried to spend as much time with Gillian as he could, hoping that she would not be too badly affected by the divorce.
Two years would pass before Harry would think about getting married again, despite his desire for a family.
He had in that time become an Auror, he was living in a new house in Godric's Hollow, and once more, as she had been at Hogwarts, and especially during the war, Hermione became his closest confidante.
He told her everything, the problems of being the most easily recognised Auror in the department, the vengeful Death Eaters who, on more than one occasion, threatened his daughter and ex-wife, and the ups and downs of being a single father. She in turn, managed to tell him all about her new career as an Unspeakable… or rather, as much as she was allowed to, about her attempts to teach her daughter and ex-husband French and how she had managed to set up Ron and Luna Lovegood after seeing them together at a dinner party. They never went out, only seeing each other, at first, at events that they were both invited to, at Christmas, birthdays and at their daughters' play-dates.
Eventually, they had slipped so easily into their new relationship, or whatever it was, that Harry found himself making it a rule to Floo Hermione every time he got off work, or at least expecting her to do the same. He was never surprised when he came home sometimes and found her there with Gillian and Alexandria, attending to his laundry or preparing dinner. He considered it absolutely normal when sometimes, when they both had the children, that they would spend the entire two weeks together at his home. And he thought nothing of letting Gillian go with her on shopping trips to Diagon Alley, or to sleepovers with Alexandria, or even once all the way to France to visit her parents.
He didn't think anything of it… until one day when he was walking with Gillian through Diagon Alley and stopped before a jewellery store to look in at a ring in the window. It was of pure white gold with a pattern of Celtic knots set with six tiny marquis-cut diamonds and a large deep blue sapphire in the centre. And the moment he laid eyes on it, sitting in its tiny velvet cushion as the centrepiece of the window display, he thought of how much brighter it would sparkle on Hermione's hand.
He froze.
He couldn't believe what he had just thought. Could he really… could he ever… could they… would she say yes?
It was not that crazy to think that she would ever want to marry him. They had always been very close. They had always had more of a meaningful relationship with each other rather than those termed their "significant others". And, in fact, over the past two years it had actually developed into what his marriage to Ginny should have been. It was not that crazy then, not that impossible to fathom, if just for a second, that maybe they could marry, that maybe they could become… more than just "best friends".
For a time he stood staring into that shop window, watching the way the ring sparkled as the light caught it, and then he made his decision.
That night, when Hermione brought Alexandria over she would be greeted at the door by Gillian holding out a small dark blue box.
"Hermione, Daddy told me to give you…" she said and presented it.
Hermione set down Alexandria, "Your Dad told you to give me a box?"
"It's a ring," Gillian told her.
Hermione froze with her hand just above the child's outstretched one. She recovered quickly though, and dropping to her knees before Gillian, took the box and opened it. When she saw the ring she gasped, and Harry quickly stepped into her line of sight and asked, "Um… I was wondering… you know… if you don't mind…. Um… could I ask you to marry me…? No, no, I mean, would you marry me?"
She looked up from the ring to him and then down to the box in her hand again. Alexandria rushed over to her to peer in too, and after taking a moment to study it herself turned to her mother and said, "You have to say thank you."
Hermione smiled, looked up at Harry again with tears just beginning to pool in her eyes and said, "Thank you. Yes, Harry, I'll marry you."
This time when Harry got married, the invited guests were considerably smaller though Ginny and Ron stood up for them, Mrs Weasley cried-torn between disappointment and joy-and when they returned from their honeymoon two weeks later, the Minister of Magic presented them with a framed portrait of their wedding. Hermione put it up in the dining room and laughed at the fact that, shortly after the photograph from which they got this pose was taken, Gillian and Alexandria bathed themselves in chocolate cake.
Because they already had a child each then, the countdown to their first child did not immediately begin. He and Hermione were able to carry on as usual for an entire year before they started.
In that time they attended Ron and Luna's wedding, saw Ginny get involved in a serious relationship, with Neville Longbottom, and witnessed the birth of another Weasley grandchild-this time Bill and Fleur's second, Angevin, a younger sister to their son Jacques. They celebrated their daughters' fourth birthdays, Harry got a promotion and Hermione redecorated the interior of their home to get rid of the stuffy Victorian décor Harry had bought it with.
And then one afternoon when Harry got home from work, Alexandria greeted him in the doorway with a dark green envelope.
"Good evening Lexie… what's this?" he asked, as she shoved it to him before he could remove his cloak.
"Mummy said to give this to you," she replied and gave her brightest grin.
He opened the envelope at once, smiling down at her all the while, and then nearly dropped it.
It was a letter from Hermione's Healer, and she had underlined only one sentence: "Let me be the first to congratulate you Mrs Potter, all tests came in alright and given that this is your second child, I expect a trouble-free birth in seven months."
When he looked up Hermione was standing in the doorway smiling at him, fighting a giggle at his expression.
And so, that brought him to now, sitting beside Hermione while their daughters played in the pool he had had installed at their and Hermione's insistence.
They had come so far, though to him it seemed more as if they had just been waiting on each other that he had to be forgiven for this one thought.
And then Hermione looked at him and smiled, while absently massaging her swollen stomach. Standing before the French doors leading to the backyard pool, she was basking in the sunlight, deciding that her back pains today were too painful to lie down with. With every turn of her wrist her ring sparkled, as he suspected it would, but her smile and eyes were brighter. He liked to think sometimes, that she only smiled like this for him.
He smiled back then, just as Gillian called, "Ugh… Daddy, Lexie's found a frog…. Eek, get it away!"
"It's a toad," corrected Alexandria, pushing it to her.
Hermione let her laughter free, her giggles filling the backyard, but between them she managed, "I think you should go save her, I'm fine today."
He gave her his most theatrical bow, an exasperated eye-roll in the direction of their children, and then stepped out into the backyard to rescue Gillian.
When he was born, two days later, Harry's son, Elliot Andrew Potter, had bushy black hair and his father's eyes… and Harry felt like he was finally getting the little piece of his heart that was missing, back.
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