Rain

2. TEARDROPS

Day in day out my tearstained face
Pressed against my windowpane
I search the skies, desperately for rain
Cause raindrops will hide my teardrops

(The Temptations, I Wish It Would Rain)

Work was dreary. Actually, I'm almost certain that work was almost as boring as it was the day before, and the day before that, but when someone was served trouble for breakfast, his taste buds can hardly stand lunch.

Unfortunately, Harry arrived promptly on time as he did everyday. During the Second War, he had sustained eye injuries broke and therefore had abandoned his glasses for some modern Muggle eye-opener, but I still hadn't gotten used to seeing him without his spectacles. That, in addition to the fact that he was wearing a Disillusionment Charm, made him look odd. He was beaming as if he had just won the Quidditch World Cup. I didn't bother to ask him about his upbeat expression, or his life, or even his bleeding day. I probably didn't even speak a word. In fact, Harry, who happened to be walking alongside me, was the farthest thing on my mind.

"Diane reckons that we try the new restaurant in Diagon Alley--where Ollivander's used to be," he said as soon as we left the building.

I stared at him, completely puzzled. "What's a Diane?" I wanted to know.

He returned my look of bafflement but merely chortled in reply. Not another word passed between the two of us until we were seated in "the new restaurant in Diagon Alley," ironically called Serene.

Once we began eating, I felt that I could explain to my best mate why I was a million miles away.

"Hermione practically begged me to shag her this morning," I said simply.

Harry almost choked on his food. "No! No way in bloody hell!" He leapt out of his seat so quickly that the chair fell flat unto the ground. As I gave him a look of surprise, he pleaded, "Ron, don't do this to me. I'm your friend and all, but I don't want to know the details of your, erm, bangs."

Finally, realization dawned. "Put a bleeding sock in it," I suggested. "I didn't oblige."

The expression on his face was somewhere between relief and worry. "Are you ill?" he wanted to know.

"And she wasn't too happy about it either," I concluded.

Harry's chair stood up--clearly evidence of wandless magic--and my best mate sank into it to return his attention to his lunch. "Well, tell her you weren't thinking properly, because you clearly wasn't, and then ravish her." After years of knowing both Hermione and me, Harry probably dismissed rows as regular occurrences between the two of us.

And they should have been. But for some reason, I felt that there was something much more behind the last argument. Instead of alerting Harry to my odd premonition, I simply said, "I don't want to."

Harry dropped his fork into the middle of his plate and faced me with a serious expression. "Ron, you've been driving me mad the last few months. Someone needs to, erm, bonk you, and it might as well be your wife."

I suddenly felt the need to change the subject. "Does Ginny ever get wet?" I asked. Harry had been dating my little sister for years and, besides the fact that they were living together, it was obvious that they had done more than shagging.

Frankly, I thought he had swallowed his tongue. "WHAT?!" he cried, along with a few other obscenities that I'd rather not repeat.

"You're talking about sex like it's You-Know-Who. How do you ever perform?"

Harry turned three shades of crimson. "This isn't about me performing; it's about you turning down a blatant offer!" he barked, causing a few of our neighbors to crane necks in our direction.

"Do you remember Fleur?" I asked, lowering my voice.

He was a bit stunned at the sudden change of subject, but he recovered just long enough to sarcastically mutter, "Not really."

"No, I mean, do you remember what she said last night? At the Burrow?"

"Fleur said a lot of things," remarked Harry.

"Well, one of the things she did say was that Hermione was fat."

"Hermione is fat!" he insisted.

I huffed angrily. "She's pregnant, you git! Anyway, it might have hurt Hermione. Now she thinks I don't want her."

"There's one way to solve this, Ron: go home right now and 'have fun' with your wife. Work on your performance."

I honestly feared for my sister.

After lunch, I ignored just about everything Harry had said and headed back to work. When I thought on it, I could always see Hermione afterwards. She had probably been home, or at the Burrow, all day.

Almost as soon as I entered the Wiz.Net building, I ran into--quite literally--a petite blonde woman. She smiled as she dusted herself off. "Ron, an owl came in a while ago," she said.

I wasn't sure why I was staring at her, blinking obscenely. Maybe I was supposed to know this person.

"An owl," she repeated. "For you." So this was Diane, and she was my assistant. (I probably should have stored that information somewhere in the back of my mind.)

"Oh, alright," I mumbled before idly walking up to my office. As soon as I swung the door open, I caught a glimpse of the owl and recognized him. Pigwidgeon. Over the years, Hermione and I had never bothered to get a new owl, especially since Pig learned to behave himself. Most times.

He flew towards me, obviously anxious after waiting, and dropped the piece of parchment he carried into my arms. I didn't even have to orient the paper to understand the word that was scrawled across it: Flynn's.

Flynn's Hospital had been erected on the same spot that St. Mungo's had rested before the Second War, which I felt was a decent improvement. I hadn't been disturbed when the old hospital had been decimated when the Death Eaters invaded London--especially since St. Mungo's stopped healing goblins, werewolves, half-giants, veelas, and just about anything or anyone that would be considered different. Hermione once said that we couldn't blame people for being afraid, since most of the groups had joined the Dark Lord, but the apartheid St. Mungo's had practiced was unforgivable. Healers were supposed to heal.

The next few moments were a blur, but I can probably come up with a timeline of events: Apparated to Flynn's. (Took a second, I'm sure.) Was ignored for over an hour. (Okay, maybe about a minute.) Finally found Hermione's room. (She was asleep.) Met her Healer, Fisk. (Ugly bloke with dark hair and glasses who talked a lot but said nothing. Reminded me of Harry.)

Apparently, our son--yes, the baby was a boy, as the birth of a girl is next to a phenomenon in the Weasley family--was born early and was suffering from lots of trauma as his organs hadn't been fully formed. I wished that I could do something for him, but even with all the magic in the world, he had to fight on his own.

I later went to the hospital's tearoom and somehow, as my mind was fully awake, I fell asleep. When I woke, I headed down to Hermione's room where I couldn't have been happier to see my wife.

The rest of her looked as if she had encountered death and managed to survive, somehow, but her eyes were ever vigilant. "You look horrible," she told me.

"And you look beautiful," I said, planting a kiss on the top of her head. "That's fair, isn't it?"

She smiled slowly, but lowered her eyes as the smile vanished. "Ron, I . . . I think . . . the baby . . . How is--"

I silenced her by putting a finger to her lips. "I don't know," I whispered, "Fisk wouldn't tell me much. Don't worry, Bryce will be alright."

"Bryce?" Hermione tested out the name in confusion. "What are you--" Then her face lit up in recognition. "Bryce! We have a son, Ron." As if there had been any doubt.

I nodded as she wrapped her arms around me, squealing with glee. I pushed our argument to the back of my mind, hoping that it wouldn't resurface again. Hermione, on the other hand, seemed to have forgotten all about it. "Our son, Ron," she told me. "William--" Even without the forewarning, I knew that our baby was named for Bill, who had been injured severely in the Second War. He hadn't died, however; he had been simply been knocked unconscious and never reawaken from his stupor. He was now a permanent member of the Longbottom Ward at Flynn's. "--Bryce Weasley. Can you believe it?"

As Hermione ranted on, I heard the door open and as I glanced over my shoulder, Fisk stepped into the room with a heavy sigh. He paced about the room slowly as we watched him warily, careful not to speak lest we break the spell that reeked of overwhelming dread. I could tell that something was wrong with the way he was looking at us in distress.

Finally, Fisk opened his mouth. "Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley," he said slowly, "I'm afraid I have some very bad news."