Where's My Little Girl

Chapter 2

When the door of the hospital room clicked open, it became evident that the Grangers had missed all the action. The delivering mediwizard was wrapping the tiny newborn in a periwinkle blue delivering blanket. Hermione was lying back on the cot, flushed and out of breath. Harry was stroking her forehead in a comforting way and smiling at her. The bum.

"Oh!" Mrs. Granger cried. "Oh, Hermione, I'm so happy for you!" Harry smiled wider at Hermione as he relocated his strokes to her trembling hand.

"Well," Mr. Granger barked, fighting back to harsh tears of revelation that threatened to overpower him. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Hermione turned to look at her father. Her pale, sweaty face sent a chill to his spine. When had she grown up this much? No longer was she the little eight-year-old who sat in the waiting room of 'Granger and Granger Family Dentistry' hour after hour on Saturdays, reading because she had nothing better to do. She was a woman, a MOTHER. "It's a boy."

The nurse was coming back with Hermione's son. Well, if he HAD to have a grandson at forty-six, he had might as well make the best of it. The boy's name would be George Stanley. No questions asked.

He cleared his throat loudly as Harry and Hermione stopped secretively conversing. Just he was about to tell them what the child's name would be, Hermione called to the nurse with the pen, "His name is Simon, Simon James Potter."

Mr. Granger was outraged! He muttered the boy's *real* name under his breath. "Now, Stan," his wife murmured to him. "Simon is their baby, and they'll name him what they want."

Glaring, Mr. Granger took a seat in the hard chair in the corner. From thence he watched Hermione and that stupid wizard husband of hers fuss over minute Geo- er, Simon.

Mrs. Granger put her hand on the arm of her husband's chair. "You know, Stan, I always wondered why you hated Harry so much. They're so happy together. How could you curse your daughter's happiness?"

Mr. Granger cringed. "He stole her away from me. He took my daughter. She's not even nineteen, and she's a married mother! And he did that..."

"Her life makes her very happy, Stan," she answered. "There's nowhere in the world either of them would rather be than here. There's no one either of them would be happy with aside from each other. They love each other, Stan. Look at them, just sitting there in awe of the life they've created." Tears now shone in Mrs. Grangers eyes. "They make EACH OTHER happy."

Mr. Granger swallowed the lump in his throat. He still hated Harry, but if Hermione was happy with him...Mr. Granger was still completely numb with the shock of what was happening. She had grown up, and he'd not been there to see it. Now, he just... wanted his little girl back. He ducked out of the room and shed his long suppressed tears.