Surprise

Surprise
part two

"Molly, I'm exhausted," Hermione whispered.

Molly Weasley patted Hermione's head as it lay on her forearms. "Of course you are, dear. Twins are tiring."

Hermione lifted her head only slightly, eyeing Molly warily. "How did you manage it?"

"Oh, Fred and George weren't my first children. I had three others by then and was functioning on permanent exhaustion." Molly then laughed and jiggled the fussing baby in her arms. "And I wasn't trying to do it all by myself. Will you move in here?"

With a sigh, Hermione sat up and stretched. The twins were three months old now and she felt like a zombie. Alexander, her son -- Harry's son -- was generally quiet, but very demanding of her time. Devin, her daughter -- Ron's daughter -- was only quiet when she slept, but was relatively easy-going. However the two of them rarely were asleep at the same time.

Hermione eyed Molly suspiciously. Molly had kept the boys in the dark about how to contact Hermione since she left their house nearly four months prior. Hermione had not planned to contact anyone after leaving the boys, had not wanted to be the burden Harry seemed to think she might be, but then she went into labor. Though she had a plan in place, fear kicked in at the last minute and she fire-called Molly. Molly was by her side during labor and delivery, delighting in witnessing the birth of her grandchildren -- for that's what she called them even though Alex wasn't biologically her grandson. Hermione also appreciated that she took it in stride about the twins having different fathers.

"Yes, I'll move in here," Hermione said softly.

Molly grinned widely, then grabbed Hermione's arm and, with her free hand, led her to Ron's old room. The garishly orange Chudley Cannons posters had long-since been removed, replaced in spots by Montrose Magpies posters featuring Harry. The resulting effect was that the walls looked disconcertingly naked.

"You mind if I do a bit of redecorating?" Hermione asked Molly wryly.

Molly's lips twitched. "No, not at all." She glanced around the room. "Are you going to need assistance to move?"

Hermione shook her head. "I haven't really ever unpacked, so there are only a few boxes that need to be done." She sighed once again, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Molly, are you okay with this deception?"

"A little late to be asking now, isn't it?" Molly retorted, taking a seat next to Hermione on the bed, shifting Devin to her other shoulder.

"Probably," she replied, toying with the hem of her dress, "but I keep running the decision I made about the boys through my mind and all that comes back are more second thoughts."

Molly sighed and, with one arm, gathered Hermione close. Stroking Hermione's hair, she murmured, "You'll always have second thoughts. The problem will come when you can't live with them." Pulling back, she looked down at Hermione. "Can you live with them right now?"

"Yes," Hermione murmured. "It's just been a very long year."

Molly nodded. "So when are you moving in?"

With a laugh, Hermione answered, "How does by the end of the week sound?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I'm telling you, Harry, George said he saw baby stuff here last week."

Hermione woke slowly, the familiar voice rousing her consciousness. Automatically, she checked the twins, delighted to find them both sleeping. Glancing at the clock, she groaned upon discovering it was nearly noon. Though Molly and Arthur had finally convinced her to quit her job -- they insisted they didn't need her income to support themselves, her and their grandchildren -- she still preferred to be awake by eight. Alex, however, had different ideas and had kept her awake all night.

"You have several nieces and nephews, Ron. Are you sure George wasn't mistaken?"

Ron and Harry. Ron and Harry are arguing in the hallway.

Hermione almost didn't recognize the sensation filtering through her as panic since she hadn't experienced it in so long. The twins were nearly six months old now and her contact with their fathers had been the last instance of pure panic she'd felt.

She was preparing to get out of bed when Ron's voice stopped her. "No, none of those nieces and nephews are in nappies. George specifically said he saw nappies."

Damn George. George had stopped in to the Burrow -- the Weasley family residence -- last week and discovered Hermione and the twins to be the only ones home. She talked with him for a long time after making him promise not to tell the boys where she was. I should have been more specific.

She had just pulled on her dressing gown when the door opened.

Frozen, she stared at the doorway. Ron stood as if Petrified, staring right back at her -- until Harry pushed past him, muttering, "Budge over, you prat."

Hermione found their nearly identical pole-axed expressions amusing. Harry's voice woke Alex and he began to whine in a way Hermione knew would wake his sister if she didn't interfere.

Ignoring Harry and Ron, she hurried to Alex. Cooing softly, she lifted him to her shoulder. He quieted almost immediately. Hermione then turned her attention back to Harry and Ron.

Ron recovered first. "Hermione?" His voice cracked with disbelief and she was struck by the similarities between then and six months prior. He swallowed visibly. "How...how long have you been at the Burrow?"

Shifting Alex, she sighed. "Three months." There was no point in hiding now.

"Three months?" Harry repeated, slightly breathless.

Hermione looked between them. "Yes, three months." Before she could elaborate, Devin woke. Devin, unlike Alex, never woke quietly. Her cry split the air, making Hermione groan. She walked to Devin's bassinet and pulled her out, lifting the baby to her unoccupied shoulder.

"Hermione?" Harry began, his voice cracking now.

She turned to them, her arms full of their children. "Yes?"

"Are they...those our children?" When Hermione only raised her eyebrows in response, Harry smacked his forehead. "Of course they are."

He stepped closer, glancing askance at Ron, who was still shell-shocked.

Alex began fussing even more. She thrust Devin at Harry, then took Alex to the changing table. With quiet efficiency, she stripped Alex down, changed his nappy, then dressed him once again. Exchanging Alex for Devin from a stunned Harry, she did the same thing.

Once finished, she collected her son, pushed past the two of them and headed downstairs. She was in the kitchen before the boys awoke from their trance.

"Hermione!" Ron yelled, thundering down the stairs as if fifteen years younger.

She was just latching Alex into a bouncy seat on the table when she turned to Ron. Harry followed not far behind. "Yes?"

Ron sank heavily into a chair while Harry stayed in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She met both pairs of eyes briefly, then turned to begin breakfast.

"Wait, you can't cook," Ron said.

She pinned him with a glare, then cracked eggs in a skillet. "It was learn or starve."

Harry moved from the door to the chair next to Ron. After cracking eggs and setting sausage on, Hermione took two teething biscuits from the cupboard and handed one each to Devin and Alex. They'd both started teething a month ago, but Alex was cutting a tooth -- hence the reason he'd kept Hermione awake the previous night.

"What do you mean, Hermione?" Ron asked quietly, staring at the twins.

Devin was going to have strong hints of the Weasley hair. Her soft tufts were already a strongly reddish-tinted brunette. Her facial features were more indistinct yet, but Molly repeatedly told her that Devin had Hermione's eyes.

Alex, on the other hand, could have been anyone's child except his eyes. Even at six months, they were green and unmistakably Harry's.

She turned to the boys. Hand on hip, she demanded, "What do you think I did while I was gone?"

Harry and Ron exchanged one of those looks that conveys a wealth of information in seconds. Harry couldn't look at her, preferring instead to duck his head and rub the back of his neck. Ron met her steady gaze.

"I don't think we thought much about that," he admitted.

Hermione turned back to the cooker, suddenly both angry and sad. "I meant that much to you?"

"That's not what he meant, Hermione!" Harry protested.

"Then explain it to me," she retorted in a low voice.

"You can be so infuriating, Hermione," Ron muttered. She concealed a grin. "We were shocked by what had happened, despite having thought about it. Then you vanished. Fifteen years of friendship and you vanished after one night in bed."

"I don't think we made it to the bed, did we?" Harry asked.

"Shut up, prat!" Ron barked. "You aren't helping."

"So I vanished," she began. "Did you try to find me?"

"Not for the first couple weeks," Ron admitted. "It wasn't odd for us not to see each other for a week or so and we didn't think about it until two weeks had gone by."

She had to bite her lip at that, tear pricking at her eyes. She said nothing, however, merely dished up three plates and set one in front of each Harry and Ron, then sat between the twins happily munching on their biscuits.

"After two weeks we got worried," Ron continued after swallowing a forkful of egg.

"Thought something might have happened to you," Harry added.

"So we looked at your flat..."

"...only to find out you'd moved."

"We checked with Ginny and Neville..."

"...even with Rosalie," Harry interjected, naming Hermione's detested sister-in-law.

"We went to your parents and in-laws," Ron continued, biting his lip and toying with the food on his plate.

"No one had seen you since the night you left." Harry waved a sausage at her for emphasis -- then was shocked when Devin grabbed it and stuffed it in her mouth. Hermione rolled her eyes and plucked it from the child, giving her a bit of egg instead.

Harry just gaped until Hermione barked, "What?"

"Just difficult to see you as a mother," he murmured.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "So you didn't look for me until two weeks had passed. Even then, you didn't look very hard." It was hard not to be bitter despite the fact she had been avoiding them for months.

"We talked to everyone who knew you, Hermione," Ron replied shortly.

"Knew me? Did you think I was dead?" She knew she was being irrational about it, but lack of sleep and stress at seeing Harry and Ron had frayed her nerves.

"It crossed our minds," Harry said softly. Her head shot up. "You disappeared so thoroughly that we contemplated reporting you to the Muggle police as a missing person. Mrs Weasley prevented us from doing that, assuring us that you were still alive and well."

Ron narrowed his eyes at her, making her blush and turn away. "You were in contact with my mother, weren't you?"

"Yes," Hermione whispered.

Silence fell until Alex broke it with a cry. Without a word, Hermione rose and fixed two bottles, giving one to each child.

"So...um...these are our children?" Harry asked.

"Yes." Hermione moved around the table until she was between the two.

As if their gazes held weight, she could feel them watching her, feel their eyes on her body. Heat rose within her, unbidden and unwanted, at the memory of the last time she was between these two.

She reached for Devin, unstrapping her and handing her to Ron. He took her gingerly, as if he were afraid he would break her.

"That is your daughter, Devin Rose," Hermione said quietly.

Before Ron could say anything, she reached forward and unstrapped Alex. Harry took him with a look of awe.

"This is your son, Alexander James," she told him.

Fighting back tears, she backed away from her makeshift family. Before either Ron or Harry could stop her, she was on the rear porch.

She knew this day would come, the day when Harry and Ron would discover her and their children, she just hadn't realized it would be so soon. She had expected she would have time to prepare herself, time to prepare the boys. Instead, thanks to George, it was an immersion in fire.

It's how we seem to work best, though, she reminded herself. Thrown from one thing to another while in school, then when Harry came out and the world was horrified.

She just wished she knew what the next step was. She had returned to England with the hope of beginning some sort of non-platonic relationship with her best friends. They had dashed that when they offered her their guest room. Where do I go from here?

"Hermione, what are you doing out here?" Molly asked, moving behind Hermione.

"I needed a bit of space," she rasped in reply.

Molly was silent for as long as it took her to take a seat on the porch swing. "Feeling threatened?"

Hermione spun about. "What?"

"Threatened."

She tucked her hair behind her ear. She'd kept it short but still had the habits of having long hair. Sighing heavily, she sat next to Molly and pushed at the floor with her foot, setting the swing to rocking.

"Yes, I suppose I do," Hermione admitted softly.

"Natural enough," Molly allowed.

"Is it? I've run away from them twice, Molly. Now they've found me...and the twins."

"You knew you wouldn't be able to hide here forever."

Hermione gave a shaky laugh. "I think I did, in the back of my mind. That if I could avoid them long enough I could avoid the talk I need to have with them."

Molly reached over and patted Hermione's knee. "I love you like a daughter and you might have been the smartest witch to attend Hogwarts in a long while, but sometimes you're very stupid."

Hermione gave a mirthless laugh. "Yes, I know."

Molly stood and looked down at Hermione. "Are you coming inside?"

Hermione looked up. "Soon. I need a few minutes alone first."

Molly nodded, then went back into the Burrow. Hermione stayed outside, rocking gently in the porch swing.