Chapter 12 “ Feels Like Forever
“We've seen our share of ups and downs
Oh how quickly life can turn around
In an instant.”
- “My Sacrifice” by Creed
----
“Hey sweetheart,” Ron leaned over the counter, planting a kiss on Hermione’s lips. “How was your day?”
As he spoke, he took of his cloak, brushing the snow off and hanging it on a pin over by the doorway.
“It was…interesting.”
He turned back around to see Hermione had turned her back to him and was once again working on dinner, her wand waving over the various knives and pots as a sweet aroma filled the kitchen.
“Interesting?” He walked up behind her with a smile, placing his arms around her waist from the back and leaning his chin on her shoulder. “How interesting?”
She seemed tense to have him this close and he frowned at the thought. Was he still in trouble for that fight two weeks ago? No…he racked his brain to see what else she could be upset about.
“I left work early,” she said simply, cutting up carrots with her wand and directing them to a pot.
He kissed her neck and felt her shiver a bit. “How come?”
“I…I had to go to the healers.”
Ron froze for a second, thinking she would immediately contradict the statement, but she didn’t. “What?” He gently turned her around by her waist and looking at her seriously. There was a glistening tear in one of her eyes that she hastily tried to wipe away, but he reached up and grabbed her hand before she could. “Why did you have to go to the healers? Are you sick? What’s wrong?”
A thousand and one scenarios flashed in his mind and he felt himself unconsciously holding her closer, his eyes becoming soft and caring as he saw her hesitation.
“You’ll be mad,” she whispered, looking away from his eyes, tears beginning to well up in his eyes.
He began to worry even more. Hermione never cried, about anything. She didn’t cry during those sappy love movies, she didn’t cry when they fought, she didn’t even cry when he proposed to her. The last time he remembered her crying was at Dumbledore’s funeral and that had been over ten years ago.
“Hermione,” he reached down, lifting up her chin so that she had to look at him.
She gazed at him, teary eyed for a few moments before she reached down, grabbing his hand that was still around her waist and moving it to rest on her belly.
“Ron…I’m going to have a baby.”
His eyes widened as his hand on her stomach suddenly felt very warm. His hand under her chin moved up her face slowly, wiping away the tears that had fallen down her cheeks and she dropped her gaze from him again, more and more tears falling.
“We hadn’t planned on it, I know,” she murmured. “It’s awful timing with my firm just opening up and your championship game coming in just a few months and we weren’t planning on having kids for another year-“
“A baby?” he whispered, cutting off her words.
She looked up at him suddenly and he hoped his face could convey every feeling of joy, happiness, excitement and love that he was feeling at that moment. It must have dome something, for he felt her relax a bit in his arms and she nodded, hesitatingly.
“Boy or girl?” he asked breathlessly.
“I…I didn’t find out.” She sniffed, managing a weak smile that barely touched Ron’s ecstatic glow that emanated from his face. “I kind of wanted it to be a surprise.”
He nodded. “So do I.”
Finally he swept her up into his arms, both of them beginning to cry and laugh at the same time, Ron’s words becoming garbled as he tried to speak.
“Oh, Hermione this is so…you have no idea how much this means…” He set her down, looking her square in the eye. “I love you.”
She smiled through watery eyes. “And here I thought you were going to be mad.”
He shook his head. “Never.”
And he sealed his promise with a searing kiss.
----
Two more days till his fate would be decided.
Ergo, an eternity.
Harry waved his wand nonchalantly, causing the lock on the giant gates to twist away, allowing him access to the long trail leading up to Hogwarts.
A group of chattering students surrounded the front doors, apparently frittering away the time between breakfast and their first class. Harry ducked through them quickly, not wanting to spend time answering questions or refusing to sign autographs, and met his appointment in the entrance hall.
“My, you’re up early,” Remus said with a grin, turning and giving Harry a knowing smile. “When’s the last time you got here early enough to have breakfast?”
“Probably when I was a student,” Harry agreed. “But unfortunately, I actually having things I want to get done today, so I thought maybe we could get this over with sooner rather than later.”
Remus grimaced. “Still haven’t found Ron?”
“I have no idea where he is,” Harry admitted, frustrated. “Hermione’s back at her house now, but he hasn’t been home, according to Trixie, and none of his brothers know where he is.”
“What about Ginny?” Remus asked with a raised eyebrow.
Harry’s upper lip twitched at the name. “She’d tell me if she knew where he was.”
“He’s still going to the practices every day, though?”
“Yeah, that’s the only place I can find him. Our conversations are pretty much the same every day, though. I try to talk to him, he ignores me until I insult him and then he yells at me and storms away…He’s so bloody stubborn.”
Remus looked at him curiously for a moment before clapping him on the shoulder and starting to lead him up towards Harry’s office.
----
“Mr. Leonard, thanks so much for coming.”
“Any time, Remus, any time. I’m glad you actually thought of me for this case. I was glad to receive your call.”
Harry reached out, shaking the lawyer’s hand cautiously, but politely. Christopher Leonard was a skinny, tall man who looked to be in his 60s. He smiled as he shook Harry’s hand.
“An honor, Mr. Potter,” he said cheerfully, nodding his head towards Harry respectfully, a move which Harry despised people doing, but tolerated, especially for a man as cheerful as this.
“Shall we take a seat?” Remus suggested, motioning to the two chairs that Harry had set out for them. Harry himself sat behind his desk, which was cleaner than usual, but that was probably because he hadn’t actually been to his Hogwarts office for so long and the house elves took it upon themselves to clean it for him.
“You seem very optimistic,” Harry commented as they sat, looking over at Leonard.
“Oh, I’d like to think so,” Leonard said jovially, winking over at Remus. “If all this information is true that you sent me yesterday, Remus, this boy will be out of trouble before the Quidditch game on Saturday!”
Harry stiffened a bit at the reference to Saturday’s game, but began to pick up a bit of Leonard’s good mood. “Won’t we have to go to court?”
“Not if I have anything to with it,” Leonard answered, pulling some papers and files out of his briefcase. “Rules and regulations of Unforgivable Curses state that the client requires at least two testimonies of his innocence, background check of the last five year and 30 minute interrogation under veratiserum to be proven innocent. After his innocence is proven, he is monitored for a space of time, usually between two and five months, and after that the charges and all knowledge of the case are dropped.”
“Well, the two testimonies we have easily, me and Remus,” Harry said thoughtfully. “But how in depth do they have to be? Remus said he told you about the unbreakable vow?”
Leonard nodded.
“Will we have to reveal that detail?”
Leonard looked skeptical. “It’s hard to say. It really depends on the interrogator. On top of a written testimony you will both give, you will be questioned under veretiserum for three minutes and in that time they are able to ask any question relating to the client or case. But without any knowledge whatsoever about the vow, it’s highly unlikely that they will bring it up.”
“That’s another thing,” Remus said, leaning forward. “Why do they still use veretiserum? It’s been proven to only work fully when the person is under a great deal of stress.”
“They don’t worry about it a whole lot with the witnesses because on top of that they’ll have bewitched the documenting quill to be anti-lie. With the defendant, it gets more complicated. To ensure the validity of his testimony, for the 12 hours before he takes the test, he will undergo serious mental and physical stress so as to make him vulnerable during the interrogation. Most clients who want veretiserum agree to undergo the procedure because they know they’re innocent. Those who are guilty are caught even before it starts because they refuse to go through with it. What nobody knows before hand is that all the stress is fake, magical memories and such that will disappear after the veretiserum leaves their system.”
Harry and Remus looked at each other with some hope. “So you’re saying this thing won’t even get to court?” Harry asked.
Leonard nodded. “It probably won’t go any farther than the cells in the DMLE ministry wing.” He stood, gathering his papers and preparing to leave. “I’ve got to go talk to some more people and make the arrangements with some Aurors, but I’ve asked Remus for you two to bring Draco to the ministry this evening at six. If we start early we should have everything done by tomorrow night. The background checks are already being compiled by my staff and we’ll hand our findings over to the DMLE tonight and give them time to do their own investigating.” As he put on his hat, he turned to Harry with a slight smile and held out a hand. “They won’t find anything, will they?”
“I highly doubt it,” Harry replied with a grin, shaking his hand thankfully.
----
The large, empty rooms of the Weasley house seemed hollow and dark to Hermione as she walked towards the stairs, a small bag over her shoulder and a hand resting on her oversized belly. Her shoes made a loud clicking sound that echoed through the entire house, each step slower than the next.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, a young house elf’s head peaked out from around the top of the stairs and beamed at the sight of her.
“Mistress Weasley! You is coming home again!”
Trixie rushed down the stairs, flinging herself onto Hermione’s legs and hugging them tightly. “You is home, you is HOME!” the house elf cried for joy.
“Hello, Trixie,” Hermione said warmly, feeling strangely dizzy all of a sudden but managing an encouraging smile down at the house elf who was now looking up at her with watery eyes. “I’m sorry that we both left so abruptly and didn’t tell you anything. I hope you weren’t too worried.”
“Trixie was worried, Mistress, but Trixie said to herself, she said, ‘Mistress Weasley and master Weasley is just taking a break and they be back soon’.”
Hermione smiled at Trixie’s reasoning. “Your exactly right, Trixie.”
“But,” Trixie looked around, “where is Master Weasley being?”
Hermione pursed her lips at the mention of Ron. “He’s just taking a longer break than me.”
Trixie seemed to accept this with joyful innocence and immediately took Hermione’ bag from her and led her by the hand back up to her and Ron’s room, jabbering all the way about everything she had done while they were “away”.
“And I kept the kitchen tidy, ma’am, just like you always like Trixie to do and did the laundry on all the beds, even in the guest rooms…”
Hermione had to smile at Trixie’s excitement. She had never thought that she would be the owner of a house elf, ever. But Ron had put up a good argument about getting Trixie, especially since Hermione became pregnant and was unable to do as much work around the house. Hermione had suggested getting a human maid, but Ron had blown that idea out the window.
“What’s the point of getting a college witch who will probably just hate her job anyway and want a bunch of money when we can find some wacko House elf who will work for half of what we’d pay anyone else?”
Hermione had smacked him around the head for saying that, but in the end she had agreed, as long as they found a house elf who would accept pay. It hadn’t been easy, but they ended up finding Trixie at Hogwarts and brought her home at once. They weren’t the only ones who had been pleased with the arrangement, though. Trixie adored both Ron and Hermione from the moment they brought her home and despite Hermione’s insistence, she only let them pay her three galleons a week, though Hermione often slipped more into the house elf’s bed at night.
They reached the room and Trixie began unpacking Hermione’s small overnight bag and continued to jabber away about this and that. Hermione, feeling a bit exhausted and still strangely dizzy, sat down on her bed with a sigh, keeping a smile on her face for Trixie.
“Master Harry called just last night and he says to Trixie, has I seen Master Ron? But Trixie hadn’t, so she just says that he must be with Mistress Hermione…”
Trixie’s voice seemed to start fading in and out in Hermione’s head. The room began to spin slightly and Hermione put and hand on her head and a hand on her stomach, closing her eyes to get a bearing on herself. When she opened her eyes again, the room was spinning worse than before and Hermione found here eyes watering and Trixie’s voice became garbled.
And without another warning, the room suddenly went black.
----
A small vibration in Ron’s pocket startled him almost to the point of making him fall of his broom. Thankfully, he got a hold of himself and managed to get back on the ground quickly, ignoring the shouts of his team members about what was wrong.
He frowned slightly, wondering what in the world the vibrating was. As he searched through his pockets, he pulled out the only thing that he ever carried anywhere with him.
It was a small muggle cell phone, a gift from Hermione’s parents to them at their wedding, which Hermione was ecstatic over. She constantly reminded Ron how much easier cell phones were than floo, but he had never gotten the hang of them, so Hermione let it go as long as he promised to keep it with him at work in case she needed to get in touch with him for a dire emergency. (Even Ron admitted that floo was not the best communication on a quidditch field.)
Cursing his ability to handle muggle technology, Ron fingered the small vibrating instrument and flipped it over a few times, wondering where all the buttons were that he was supposed to press. Finding a groove, he stuck his fingernail in and was able to flip the phone open, revealing a small screen that read “HERMIONE CALLING” in blinking letters and “accept” or “decline” underneath. Ron frowned, wishing now that he had remembered to listen when Hermione was explaining all of this to him.
He tried pressing the screen where it said, “accept”, but that did absolutely nothing. The phone kept vibrating.
Biting back a few course words and wondering why Hermione was even trying to talk to him anyway, Ron started pressing all the buttons right underneath the screen until one of them beeped and the phone stopped vibrating. Wondering exactly what he had done, Ron brought the phone closer and squinted his eyes at the screen, but before he could do anything else. Trixie’s squeaky voice blared from the muggle device.
“Master Weasley, Master Weasley! You is needing to come! You is needing to come NOW!”
Ron frowned. What on earth was Trixie doing with the phone? She was only supposed to use it if Hermione was…was…
Ron dropped the phone in the grass, not looking back at his team as he rushed out of the field, stopping only to grab his bag before he passed the apparition line and disappeared.
----
“If I live through this, I’m quitting the Auror squad.”
Harry chuckled, pounding Draco on the back encouragingly. “I’d say that’s a good goal.”
They both were walking up the narrow alley towards the Ministry telephone booth, no one else around and not a sound to be heard, even though it was only 5:45 in the evening.
“When are you both going to give your testimonies?” Draco asked quietly.
“Probably tomorrow morning at sometime. We’ll schedule it when we get there.”
Harry saw Draco nod nervously out of the corner of his eye. The blonde’s stiff posture and tense jaw gave away his obvious reluctance to actually go through with this procedure, but Harry had explained to him long and hard about how this really was his only option.
“Did you find Weasley today?”
“No, he wasn’t at practice when I went. His team said he rushed out of there at about two in the afternoon, not saying anything to anyone.”
Draco didn’t seem surprised. “Sounds like he’s finally cracked.”
Harry just smiled, but didn’t honor his biting remark with a reply. Sometimes he knew it was better to just let Draco act like a smart arse rather than always try to “make” him good. It was especially important in times like these, when he was stressed and scared, even if he didn’t fully show it.
They rounded a corner and saw Remus leaning against a wall, waiting for them by the empty phone booth. He managed a smile as they approached.
“Chris is waiting for us inside,” Remus explained, letting them step into the booth before him. “As soon as we get in, Draco, you’re going to be arrested by the Auror squad, but we’ll meet you down at the holding cells within a half hour and get the wheels to start turning, okay?”
Draco nodded, but he looked a little paler than usual, which was saying a lot. Harry knew that Draco hated the thought of being in a jail cell, it made him seem like his father, but he also knew that Draco would do the right thing in the end.
“Also,” Remus said more seriously, looking at Draco, “don’t try to fight them at all. If you do they could use that against you and try to bring this into a court case and we really don’t want to have to deal with that.” He raised an eyebrow at Draco. “Understand?”
“Yeah.” Draco’s voice cracked a little, but Harry could see him gearing himself up for the inevitable.
“All right, boys,” Harry said, handing out the badges he had just received from the phone booth. “Let’s go get Draco arrested.”