The Prophecy of Descendants

She placed the dishes in the sink a bit more forcefully than she had intended, glaring at his back as he took his second helping of pancakes to the table.

"Really, Hermione, Mum will kill you if you break the china. They've been in the family for generations," Ginny advised gently, taking the remaining plates from Hermione's shaking hands.

"I doubt it, Gin. Mum won't touch a hair on her head, the state she's in now," Ron muttered around a mouth full of pancakes, gesturing with his fork at Hermione.

"Ron-" Ginny started, but was silenced by a fierce look from Hermione.

"You know, Ronald, I thought better of you than this," she said, striding confidently towards his seat at the table and bracing her hands firmly against the tabletop. "After seeing you through seven years of Hogwarts, repairing your cuts and scrapes after uncountable Quidditch matches, and saving your arse against Death Eaters more times than anyone in this room realizes, you continue to repeatedly insult my character. Some best friend you are," she said firmly, resisting the urge to lift his glass of Pumpkin Juice and dump it over his head. She turned away and carried her figure stiffly out the back door.

His mouth fell open and he stumbled looking for the right retort.

"Good luck fixing it this time," Ginny commented, turning on him. "I swear, Ron, these are the times when I wonder if you're more like Percy than you'd like to admit."

"Just can it, Ginny," Ron replied, pushing off from the table and following his friend out the door.

She sat on the cold picnic table, her elbows resting on her knees and her hands tangled in her hair. He walked up behind her and cautiously placed a hand on her back. "I'm sorry."

"You should be."

"I am," he said again. It had taken many years of practice for Ronald Weasley to be able to so readily apologize and there were still only two people he could say it to, one of which was sitting in front of him.

"You never came up to talk last night."

"I was waiting downstairs for Viktor to apparate in. Get him set up on the guest cot down in the den."

She turned and peeked out at him from between her locks of hair. "You were waiting to scream at him, weren't you?"

"No screaming. Everyone would have been asleep and screaming would have woken the house. I had been thinking more along the lines of silent pummeling."

She sighed. "Ron-"

"Hermione, don't try to talk me down from feeling this way! It's not right that he left you like this. It's not right that you haven't gotten an owl from him the entire time we've been back at the Burrow. He shouldn't treat you like this and it makes me livid that you continue to be with him when--," He didn't continue, his rant cut off by two words from her.

"I'm not."

"What?"

"I'm not with him anymore, Ron. We broke off months ago," she said. "Is this why you were upset last night?"

"Well, yeah. So you and he aren't--"

She chuckled. Apparently he and Harry had both caught the same affliction that prevented them from saying 'together' or 'pregnant.'

"No. We aren't. We haven't been together in a while."

"So he's not the father?" Ron asked, pointing at her stomach in a vague, uncomfortable gesture.

"No."

"Then who is, 'Mione?"

"That's just it, Ron. I don't know."

"You don't know? How do you not know?" he asked, his voice rising with confusion.

"I don't know because I haven't been with anyone in years, Ronald," she stated clearly. "I don't know how I got pregnant, but it certainly wasn't the old-fashioned-way, as your mother liked so much to remind me last night!"

He plopped heavily down onto the bench at her feet and took a deep breath just as a remaining winter-winds whipped past them. A dark and dangerous thought entered his mind. "So, the baby, could be...?" he trailed off.

She sighed and allowed her fingers to run through his hair in a familiar gesture. "Yes. This could be bad; very bad."