Disclaimer: If this was mine, I'd be awfully rich, and we would be happy for HHr happening.
A/N: My reply to the "You can't take my child" challenge by Natsky, you can find it here: http://talk.portkey.org/index.php?showtopic=26363&st=0 . I hope you'll like the story, and I feel I need to alert you, Ginny won't be particularly likable here. I don't think that's a problem, but anyhow, I told you beforehand, ok? lol. Now, on with the story…the confrontation all of you were waiting for takes place here, but be warned, it won't be exactly fluffy…
Credit for the original plot of the story goes to AnasellaEmm, who wrote the story A Wonderful Caricature of Intimacy on fanfiction.net.
Fight for Custody
Chapter Four: Request for Help
"How longer were you going to avoid me, Hermione?"
Hermione couldn't believe her eyes. There in front of her stood one of her best friends, one of the many people she had left behind when she had decided to vanish almost six years before.
"Harry…" she whispered.
"Oh, you remember my name? I wouldn't have bet on it, seeing how you never replied to my owls in these years" he sarcastically spat, never moving from her door.
Hermione glared at him. "I've my reasons for having left that way, Harry, and I don't need to justify myself with you. Now if you were so kind to move from my door, I want to get my things and go home"
Harry shook his head. "No, Granger. You've had it your way for over five years, making it impossible for any of us to find you, and you can't even imagine how anguished me and Ron have been in this time. I think it's time for you to explain your reasons, now" he said, glaring back.
"My reasons are not your fucking business, Potter" she snarled, and in a flash her wand was out. Harry's was out just as quickly.
"So is this where you want our friendship to go? A duel in a pre-schooling centre?" he sadly said, and hoped she wasn't serious. He was a skilled duellist, he had even defeated Voldemort for Merlin's sake, but the idea of duelling with Hermione frightened him.
"Just. Get. The. Hell. Out. Of. Here" she growled, not lowering her wand.
Harry finally sighed, lowering his own. "This is not finished, Hermione. You will have to tell me, soon or later" he said, before Apparating away.
As he was gone, Hermione let her wand fall to the floor, slumping against the wall, her shoulders rising and falling with her silent sobs.
--
"Daddy!" Beatrice squealed when he arrived home, and despite being sad for how the confrontation with Hermione had gone, he couldn't help smiling at his daughter, and picked her up.
"Sorry I couldn't get you from school today, munchkin. I hope you've been a good girl for Uncle Ron" he said, and the redhead nodded.
"A true angel, I tell you" he said, mussing the little girl's hair, while she blushed.
"Bea, why don't you go reading that book your teacher assigned you, while me and Ron exchange a couple words?" Harry suggested then, and let her scurry back to her room.
As the two adults settled in the living room, Butterbeers in their hands, Harry gave a long sigh.
"So, mate, can you tell me what you had to check today? Does it have something to do with Hermione?" Ron asked.
Harry nodded, tiredly, recalling her downright furious face during their confrontation.
"I've found her, Ron. She's little Bea's teacher" he blurted out after taking a sip of his drink.
Ron was speechless. "You've had her so near for more than a month now, and you never knew it?"
Harry nodded. "I had some suspicions, judging on what Bea told me of her, but I never asked her the teacher's name. I guess I was afraid to get my hopes destroyed if it wasn't her. Then the other day I managed to get a glimpse of her hair as she retreated into the building when I went to pick Bea up. I knew I wouldn't be able to spot her from the courtyard so today I snuck inside the building few minutes before lessons ended, and waited for her to go to her office and get her things"
He paused, and Ron patiently waited. When Harry didn't give signs of wanting to continue his story, Ron urged him on.
"So?"
"So, she's bloody mad at me for finding her and told me her reasons for leaving are not my business. I don't reckon she wants to get back to us anytime soon" he muttered darkly.
Ron was confused. Why wouldn't she want to go back to them? Why had she left in the first place?
"Do you reckon I should go see her?" Ron asked, and Harry shook his head.
"I think we should give her time to decide for herself if she still wants to be friends or not" he mused, finishing his Butterbeer.
Ron wasn't convinced, but agreed nonetheless. "If you say so"
Ten minutes later, the redhead said his hellos to both Harry and Bea, and then Disapparated away to the flat where he lived with Luna.
--
One month had gone by since Harry's meeting with Hermione, and the raven haired wizard hadn't made other attempts to contact her, for which the brunette witch was more than grateful. Seeing him again after so long had brought back feelings she thought she had buried forever by now. She still wasn't ready to face him and be in his constant company, she simply didn't trust herself to not do something stupid.
However, her hopes to not have to face him again for a long time would be squashed that afternoon.
--
Few minutes after he had accompanied Bea to school and had Apparated to the Ministry, Harry received an owl. It was from that person he had contacted about the custody of Bea.
Reading the parchment, Harry blanched. This couldn't be true.
Harry,
I've dug all what I could on the Ministry
procedures for giving custody of a child
to divorced parents. Both you and your
ex wife Ginny will have to go through a
six months time where you will be watched
and judged by Ministry officers of the
competent department. However, the Ministry
seems to rely on the idea that a parent who can
provide the child with a complete family, thus
being married, is going to be the best parent in
the end. Making a long story short, you may be
the best father in the world and Ginny the worst
mother, but because of Ginny's recent marriage,
she's going to get full custody anyhow, unless you
can find yourself a wife in three weeks time, when
the "probation" time will start.
Frank
"Bloody Hell" he swore under his breath. What was he going to do now? He couldn't lose Bea, she meant too much to him! Damned Ministry and his bigotry, a single parent could be as good as two, even better in some cases and he was sure he would be way better as a parent to Bea than Ginny and her new husband!
But unless he found himself a wife on such short notice, he would lose her. His heart broke at the mere thought, and so he decided to take a day off, he wouldn't be able to concentrate anyhow, and reflect on what he was going to do while being at home.
It was several hours later, just before he had to pick Bea up from school that a desperate thought entered his mind.
"Hermione!" he thought. "She might be able to help me" he reasoned.
Finally, he headed to the school, asked Bea to wait for him a couple minutes in the courtyard, and made his way to Hermione's office, finding the door open and her inside, preparing herself to go home.
"Harry" she coldly acknowledged him, trying to not betray her true feelings on the matter. She had missed him all those years, it was impossible to deny, and she wanted nothing more than to hug him tightly like she used to do in school. Especially seeing his broken expression.
"Hermione, I'm not here to ask you again to explain things to me. You will when you're ready, if you will ever be. I'm here to ask for your help. Ginny wants full custody of Bea, I can't understand why, possibly for the money I'd have to pay her every months if she succeeds, and the Ministry is full of bigots that think a married parent is automatically the best one. She got married again a couple months ago, so I'm going to lose Bea if I can't find myself a wife in three weeks time, and the probation lasts six months" he said.
Hermione was speechless. She wondered how could someone be so greedy to want custody only for the money, and yet she knew from the information she had been able to gather through the years that Ginny had always despised Beatrice, and had finally left Harry because of the little girl which in Ginny's opinion "was a stop to their social life, something she wasn't ready to give up yet, after all she was too young to be a mother". Inwardly rolling her eyes at the shallowness of her former friend, she waited for Harry to go on. He still hadn't told her how she could help him.
"Hermione, will you pose as my wife till the probation is finished?"
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