Chapter Text
Lily Luna is an excellent walker and a voluble talker. She's even reached the point where most of her sentences are coherent enough to follow and she's quite determined to make her internal monologue an external one. It's for those reasons, and possibly her own muddled thoughts, that Hermione doesn't realize how far from the Burrow they've wandered until the silvery, misty form of a stag patronus nudges its way between them.
"Dinner soon," it tells her in Harry's voice, and then stays with them as she walks Lily in a very large half-circle to get her turned round, because she knows better than to ask her directly to do anything at this age.
Harry meets them halfway back, Hermione grinning guiltily at him. "Sorry you were made to come fetch us; she's a terribly enthralling conversationalist."
Harry snorts, flicking his wand to nudge the stag about ten feet ahead of them. Lily abandons them to chase after it, as Harry no doubt intended. It won't go any further than Harry wants it to and, therefore, neither will Lily. The patronuses are familiar companions for all the children—Roxie used to love following George's magpie around, though she's at the age now where she'll deny ever having thought it was cool; young Molly went through a phase where she would to refuse to nap without Audrey's arctic fox curled up beside her; and ever since learning otters hold hands when they sleep, Prem and Priya won't stop trying to do the same with Hermione's.
"Gives me a chance to ask you this privately," Harry says as he falls into step with her.
"That's an ominous beginning," Hermione says, and it doesn't at all come out as lightly as she'd meant it to.
Harry knocks into her with his shoulder. "It's just we haven't seen much of you the last month or so, and when you are here you're… dunno. Distracted, I guess."
"Don't take this the wrong way, Harry, but if you've noticed…"
"Everyone else has too," he confirms. "They're worried, but nobody wants to corner you. Well," he adds after a minute, "Ron does. He wanted to be the one to have this conversation, but even I know that's a short road to disaster."
Hermione laughs. "Well, then, I'm obliged to you for the rescue."
"He's convinced you and Neville are trying things out, you know."
Hermione groans. "He's not going to drop that until Neville starts dating someone else, is he?"
"Or you," Harry shrugs. "How's Viktor?"
Her gaze snaps to his. "How could you possibly—" she splutters.
The blank look Harry gives her throws cold water over her confusion. "His dad, I mean. Isn't that why he missed the party?"
It takes her a minute to recover from the knowledge that Harry isn't accusing her of secretly dating Viktor. And while she stares mutely at him, his expression changes to one of surprise. "Don't tell me you and Viktor—"
She claps a hand over Harry's mouth before realizing that will only make him more certain there's something to his suspicions. Her palm muffles his laughter.
"Can't say I expected that when I came over to chat to you."
"We're not, really, except we sort of are, but it's—complicated." Hermione tries to think of how to put it into words without betraying any confidences, and just contemplating it exhausts her. "Harry, I don't think I want to talk about it, not yet."
"All right," Harry says, seeming perfectly content to let that be the end of it.
So, of course, Hermione's mouth keeps moving without any input at all from her higher reasoning. "It's just… a lot of things changing all at once, and I know what I want, but I'm afraid it's for all the wrong reasons. And I'm—really not quite sure how it'll go over with everyone."
"Ah," Harry says. After a very long silence, he adds, "You'll figure it out. You always do."
Hermione laughs, catching his arm long enough to lean in and kiss his cheek. "Thank you, Harry, you've been absolutely no help."
"Never said I would be," Harry says with a shrug, and then they're both laughing.
The group, as they draw closer, sounds much louder than she remembers it being when she and Lily wandered off. There's a paper being passed around—evening edition of the Prophet, most likely—and voices raised in heated debate.
"Oi, Granger!" George hollers across the lawn. He snatches the paper from Ginny and, with a swish of his wand, it flaps over to her like a very ungainly bird. "You know Krum best, what's the word on all this?"
Ginny smacks him upside the head. "You know Rita makes things up just to start shit." She glances over at Hermione. "I mean, all that stuff's public record, right? Someone could fact-check her in a second."
Hermione's blood goes cold as she pulls the paper from the air. Which article they're discussing is immediately apparent by the headline, and, aware of the many eyes on her, she forces herself to stay outwardly calm. Falling back on habits unfortunately perfected during her school years, she reads the article first for content and then once again for what's not been said. Distantly she can hear a few whispers, but for the most part all attention is on her.
"It's rubbish, George," she says, looking up at everyone except Harry. "I can promise you there are no birth certificates at Mungo's with Viktor Krum's name on them."
"Yeah, but you can't really tell us that, can you?" Ron says, and it takes a terrifying half-second before Hermione realizes he's not suddenly an extremely adept legilimens. "Patient-healer whatsit."
"It doesn't apply in this case, Ronald," she says tartly, "because, again, you have to actually be a patient for patient-healer confidentiality rules to apply. Viktor certainly hasn't," she references the headline again, "fathered a secret lovechild with someone on the Tornadoes staff, so stop being ridiculous."
"But his leave started the same day that mediwitch went into labor!"
Ginny rolls her eyes. "Gosh, Ron, ever heard of a coincidence?"
"Yeah, but what about that clerk in the portkey office, the one that said he's been coming and going from Bulgaria? She gave dates and everything!"
"You can't seriously believe people get close enough to him to know if he smells of baby powder!" Hermione cries.
Ron scoffs. "'Course they do, Hermione, people are absolute nutters about quidditch. I bet that's the least weird thing they do to him." He glances around and seems to notice he's losing his audience. "You've got to admit it's strange! He hasn't got a girlfriend here, has he? Why else would he come and go instead of just stay there?"
Hermione doubts even Ron really believes what he's saying; all that stuff from Yule Ball is, quite literally, years in the past. Ron and Viktor are friendly now, if not particularly close. Viktor happily indulges his desire to talk about league statistics and sometimes give him little insider tidbits before they reach the papers. Ron cheers on the Tornadoes if they're not up against his beloved Cannons or anyone who needs to win to help the Cannons' standing, and, on occasion, she's even overheard him talking in the same starstruck way he did as a teenager when Viktor does something particularly noteworthy on the pitch.
But whatever his motives are now, she hasn't got time for this, so she opens her mouth and—
"Is this because I called him fit a couple weeks ago?" Padma sounds incredulous. "Let the man have a private life."
"Thank you, Padma," Hermione says over Ron's protests, deeply thankful for the unintentional misdirection. Feeling a bit better, she rolls the paper tightly in her fingers and addresses the gathering at large. "This is just Rita's usual nonsense. You can all confidently put it out of your minds."
Though this refutation seems to satisfy everyone—or, at least enough to drop the subject for now—Hermione does not rest easy through dinner. If Harry and some of the others had thought her distracted before, she's certainly doing nothing to prove them wrong now. The only thing that keeps her in the seat is the knowledge that it would be extremely suspicious if she left before eating with nothing but the article to explain her abrupt departure.
She ends up leaving a little earlier than usual anyway, citing a need to be the office early the next morning. This isn't a new reason for her to cut out early—in fact, she's left on numerous occasions simply to handle a patient in labor—so the only odd look she gets is from Harry. He looks torn between starting another conversation with her or leaving the matter be, and she gladly takes advantage of his indecision to breeze through a goodbye and depart before he can make up his mind.
*
When Hermione lets herself into Viktor's house moments later, she has one thing and one thing only on her mind.
When she finds him, that number changes to two. She knows which deserves priority, but she finds herself pausing on the threshold to the kitchen anyway, soaking in the very lovely sight within. Viktor makes no outward indication that he's aware of her presence, but of course he must be; his security's far too tight to allow someone in his home without him knowing.
It hits her all at once that he hasn't responded to her being in his space because, perhaps, he's begun to think of it as her space as well. That he feels like she belongs here, as she has been trying not to feel for weeks now, fearful of overstepping.
"Viktor…" she begins.
"Hmm?" He doesn't turn around.
"She doesn't splash about that much, did you really need to be shirtless for this?"
She can hear a sly smile in his voice as he says, "You say that as if you mind."
And indeed she doesn't, eyes tracing over his broad shoulders and down the defined muscles in his arms. "You know perfectly well I don't. What did she do, spit up on you?"
He waves vaguely in the direction of the kitchen table as he continues bathing Rose in the sink, as if that explains everything. And she finds that it does—not spit-up, then. She casts a quick cleaning charm on the shirt before enchanting it to float itself down the hall and into the laundry basket. The diaper he must have already dealt with.
When she makes herself comfortable on the empty stretch of counter beside the sink, Viktor leans in, cheek presented for a kiss. She obliges him, not that it's a hardship, and notices at the same time that she probably doesn't need to ask the question on her lips.
The answer's all over his face.
Still: "I take it you've seen this evening's Prophet, then."
He nods. "Was just about to call my agent, when…"
"It's late—later, there."
"True, but she will be more angry if I wait until morning. Do you think there's anything that can be done about Skeeter? To keep her quiet, I mean."
"Well," Hermione hedges, "I'm sure your people will have an opinion, but I think if you or they tried to approach her about it she'd just see it as a confirmation that she was onto something. She'd keep digging, she always does, or she'd make up something worse to see how you reacted." She tickles the tip of Rose's nose and resists the urge to hop down from the counter and start pacing. "She's awful, Viktor, I can't believe the nerve of her—I should have left her in that jar," she adds savagely. "I should have… if anything happens because of this, I swear to you I'm turning her in to the Ministry for being an unregistered animagus."
Viktor's watching, a touch of amusement on his face. "Not that it is not very sexy to see you so angry on my behalf…"
"Not helping?" she asks.
"Not to find an answer for this, no." His grin is very charming nonetheless. "We should start with Milena. Maybe she will think of something we have not, or know something we don't. I have not yet found a situation she cannot handle."
He scoops Rose out of the water and places her on the towel laid out for this purpose. Hermione takes over patting her dry as he continues, "Do you suppose she knows more than she has let on in the article?"
That one, Hermione knows for certain. "Viktor, no. If she knew the truth, she'd have printed it in the worst possible light. This is guesswork… uncomfortably good guesswork, but that's all it is. Can you—thank you." She takes the fresh diaper. "Do you think… that thing about how you smelled. People don't really get that close into your personal space, do they? I mean, strangers?"
He hesitates, looking uncomfortable.
"But that's appalling!" Hermione cries, and then absently pets Rose when she makes a noise.
"You see now why I want no hint of scandal about Rose," he says darkly, wrapping one arm around her waist and peering over her shoulder.
"Viktor, you never had to justify that to me."
"I know," he says, kissing the top of her head. "Come. This will not be fun but I do think you will find it entertaining. Her English has gotten very good, and someone even taught her all the bad words."
*
All Hermione knows of Milena Ivanova has been picked up through passing references over the years. She was once Viktor's captain, although Hermione isn't certain if it was on the Vratsa Vultures, the Bulgarian national team, or both, and upon retiring became a sports agent, representing not just Viktor but a number of other players in Eastern Europe. Hermione even once saw her play in the 1994 Quidditch World Cup, though she has no specific memories of her.
Milena answers the Floo call with the warmth and familiarity of long acquaintance, and from her position on the couch, Rose on her lap, Hermione listens as she and Viktor exchange pleasantries in Bulgarian. She doesn't seem surprised by the late call, but neither does she seem worried—it's impossible to tell if she's heard the news.
Then she hears her own name enter the conversation, and Milena looks up as if seeing her for the first time.
"Of course," she says, speaking more slowly now, as if she has to think more about the words. "Hello." This is directed toward Hermione, but then just as quickly her attention is back on Viktor. "Is this to tell me what I think it is?"
Sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, Viktor ignores this and asks, "Do you have this evening's Daily Prophet yet?"
Milena frowns at him. "How many times have I complained about their international distribution schedule? You know I don't. I may begin paying someone on that godforsaken island to Floo me one every Sunday."
Wordlessly he hands his copy through the flames, folded open to the relevant page. "We can discuss my fee later. Read now, please."
She doesn't even look down at it, shaking her head with a smile. "The team contacted me hours ago, since you are on leave. I told them to tell the paper to go to the devil and that you would never do such a thing. I suppose they already sent it off, so don't tell me you've called to make a liar of me."
"No. But yes."
She narrows her eyes. "Vitya—"
Viktor stands, taking Rose from Hermione. He kneels down beside the fire once more, presenting her, and says, "The article was wrong about her mother."
Milena says nothing for a long moment, then looks to Hermione, appealing, "Tell me he borrowed your child for a joke, please."
"Her name is Rose Viktorova Krum," Viktor continues doggedly, "and I believe now is when you say 'congratulations, Viktor, she is lovely'."
Milena stares, and stares some more, and then tilts her head forward a little. "Do you see this?" she demands, pointing. "I was young, once, and then I met you. You are every single one of these gray hairs."
"Your son has nothing to do with it, I know."
"No, Anzehlo is well-named. You, on the other hand—" Milena can't keep up the facade. Hermione sees her expression crack into a smile as she shakes her head fondly. "Viktor, she is beautiful. I can't wait to meet her, but when we are out of crisis mode you and I are going to have words about this, do you understand me? I can't help you keep your private life private if you hide something this big from me."
"Sorry," he says, snagging Rose's basket from a few feet away and placing her gently in it.
Milena laughs. "Don't start lying to me now. We'll let the team deal with this other woman, but I need details about this." Her eyes flicker to Hermione and back to Viktor. "Tell me at least she is the product of a secret relationship and not a surprise."
"Very much a surprise. A wishbaby."
"Shit."
"Language," Viktor admonishes, reaching forward to cover Rose's ears.
She snorts. "Have you been waiting fourteen years to turn that back on me?" When Viktor just grins, she tsks. "And you the one to teach me such terrible words."
"As if I knew this would happen."
Milena exhales for a very long time through her nose. "Yes, well, if I had to bet on any of my players receiving a wishbaby—Viktor, can you just once, for the sake of my health, consider being ordinary?"
Hermione laughs to see the way his mouth twitches, almost a smile. "Keeps you young."
"Hm," she says. "You know I need more information and I need it now."
Viktor spends the next few minutes filling her in about Rose's arrival and the tactic used to delay obtaining a birth certificate but, Hermione notices, not the why. Milena nods through it, asking few questions but listening very carefully, and Hermione has no doubt that she's noticed Viktor's said nothing of Rose's mother.
When he finishes with an emphatic underlining of his desire not to refute this article by announcing Rose's birth, Milena considers this for a moment and finally says, "Viktor, you know I have always been the first to defend your right to privacy…"
"I remember," he says gravely.
"…so please understand that I do not ask this as your agent, but your friend. You remember how it was for me when Anzhelo was born, how long do you truly expect this to last?"
"A little longer. Please."
"A day? A month? That's when your leave is up and it was very clever of you to get an extension for filing the certificate, but what's left to it—a week?"
He rubs his hands over his face, exhausted in a way that cannot be explained by being a new father. "Just over."
"Right. If you want any hope of managing the way this gets out, we need a statement ready to release at the same time."
Viktor makes a face. "If I promise not to punch anyone, will you let me have longer?"
Hermione's attention had been wandering slightly, but at that she looks over at them. It's a strange, un-Viktor thing to say—she can't imagine him punching anyone if she tried—and Milena seems to understand it at once. She only laughs before saying something very fondly in Bulgarian, from the sound of it another bad word. "No. Tonight, think very carefully about how you want to proceed. We'll talk when you return tomorrow—I'll come to the hospital, if you don't think your father will kick me out at once."
Viktor half-smiles. "He might welcome someone who will not fuss and speak kindly to him."
"Then I will be at my most irritating," she promises, "and keep him young. Five minutes, Viktor, that's all. You know it must be done."
It's clear Viktor isn't happy with this, but he only nods and says, "Yes."
As Milena ends the call, Viktor groans and sinks his head into his hands. "Tell me," he says, mostly to his palms, "tell me you have found some amazing solution in a book somewhere, and were waiting only for my most desperate moment to share."
"If only I could," Hermione sighs. "Viktor… I don't think we were ever going to find an answer in a book."
She's left the opportunity wide open for him to lighten the moment with a joke, Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger, but he only lifts his head and watches her. She becomes aware all at once of the utter stillness in the house, the only sound the crackling of the fireplace.
Before her courage can desert her, she continues, carefully, "I think we've known all along there was only ever one solution. It was always just a question of who."
He doesn't seem surprised by this at all, just gazes at her steadily. "Yes."
The only thing more difficult to bear than the tension in the room is the distance between them. Hermione unfolds herself from the couch and crosses over to settle beside him. He doesn't meet her halfway as she'd expected. "Based on your criteria," she muses, not quite looking at him, "your options are limited. Cho's a lifelong Tornadoes fan, but last I heard she's happily married. If you caught Ron on the right day you might be able to persuade him, but I imagine Padma would have something to say about it. Gabrielle's a bit young for you, but you're out of the running in any case for simply not being her type."
The puzzled look on his face lifts. "Too handsome," Viktor agrees with a growing smile, as if he's not met at least one or two of Gabrielle's endless string of girlfriends over the years.
Heartened to have something of her Viktor back, Hermione presses on, "So if you're dead set on Rose's mother having been a champion's treasure that really just leaves one viable option." She finally meets his eye and asks, "What do you think?"
The smile fades from his face. "I think," Viktor says, sounding as if he's considering every word that leaves his mouth, "that I would want her to be very certain before she made the offer."
For a month now Hermione has been waiting expectantly for the moment when Viktor will stop being patient and move boldly toward what he wants, and she understands for the first time why it has never come. For all that Viktor has been the one to reach out a hand over and over, gently but determinedly nurturing the development of their relationship from friends to lovers, this final step is one he cannot—will not—take for her.
It can't be a convenient solution to his problems.
It has to come from her.
Still, reaching forward to take his hand feels like stepping out onto a precipice and handing him the power to let her fall. "Viktor," she says steadily, maintaining eye contact, "I have never wanted anything more in my life."
She will never again conjure a patronus without thinking of the way his face changes in this moment—the transformation from solemn to joyful—and the leap in her heart as he surges forward to kiss her. Time and again she has seen friends locking eyes at the end of an aisle and parents meeting their newborn for the very first time. She knows what it felt like to witness their love and imagined that meant she knew what it felt like to experience it, too, but nothing could have prepared her for the intensity of it, reaching every part of her.
"Are you certain?" In her voice Hermione recognizes the uncertainty of Viktor a few weeks back and knows she's feeling the same helpless desire for the decision to be taken out of her hands.
He's much more merciful than she'd been. "Yes," he says, no hesitation at all. "But this is not just about her. Us, too. Your career, mine, where we will live—endless questions, all of them difficult."
"I know," Hermione says, because she, too, has thought of little else for the last month. "And I don't think I have the answers for them, because they have to come from both of us—but, Viktor, I think we're going to spend the rest of our lives feeling like we have more questions than answers. Let's at least do it together."
"Must truly be love," Viktor comments with a smile.
"Are you surprised by that?" Hermione asks, because surely he knows.
"Only in the way that Rose was a surprise," he says, drawing her closer. "Unexpected but always wanted, and always, always, welcome."
*
Hermione spends the rest of the night unable to bear Rose out of her sight for any amount of time; Viktor teases her with all his month's more experience, but she doesn't care. Rose is a miracle given life, something she'd given up on having a long time ago, and if she wishes to do nothing but gaze upon her daughter and her tiny nose and perfect fingers and chubby cheeks and sleepy eyes, who is Viktor to tell her she can't?
If asked beforehand, she might have thought they'd talk long into the night about the next step, and what Viktor was to tell his agent, but it's rather less complicated than that. In the end, Hermione makes a suggestion, Viktor proposes a small change to it, and a bargain is struck. She doesn't imagine every one of their many unanswered questions will be resolved this simply, but it feels good nonetheless to be so far onto the same page for their first decision as Rose's parents.
It's harder than she expected to part with Viktor the next day, but he floo-calls from his parents' house just after supper to say that his father is officially home from the hospital and that there is a nurse staying with his parents to help for a few weeks.
"Good timing."
"Best timing," he agrees. "First thing to go right in months. He already told me to go home to my family, that I was not needed here."
My family. He says it so casually, but Hermione knows his expressions well at this point. Even through the flickering flames she can see the smile on his face, and as she watches it only grows larger.
So does hers. "Well, we do miss you."
"I want to stay one more day, but then I will be back until we return to visit with Rose."
"How did things go with Milena?"
"I have been thoroughly scolded, and looked so pathetic about it that she gave in and agreed to our terms. We have until the certificate is filed to be left alone."
Hermione smiles. "You're close to her, aren't you?"
Viktor nods. "We have known each other a long time. I think…" he looks away for a moment, as if toward something out of view of the fire. "I hurt her, I think, by not telling her earlier. Not that she would ever say. And I had no way to explain it without telling her about the locket, but…"
"Yes," Hermione says, because she has a feeling they're about to navigate that exact gauntlet with everyone else in their lives very soon. She doesn't regret the secrecy, viewing it as necessary, but she can regret the way it will be perceived by the people in her life—especially those who will never have all of the details.
"It will not last forever," Viktor declares. "We are too old friends for that. Still, it is a price I am sorry to have paid." He passes through the flames a folded piece of parchment—their statement, Hermione finds, unfolding it. "The minute that goes out, it will start. And it will not stop, not until something more interesting comes along…"
"…and what's more interesting than a wishbaby?" Hermione finishes grimly.
"We must hope at least the World Cup."
"Well then, it's only your duty as a father to make certain Bulgaria makes it to the finals."
"For Rose," Viktor agrees solemnly.
*
"Before I give you this," Viktor says, "you must promise to remember that she means well."
Hermione looks at the very faint pinkness to his cheeks and then at the small, rectangular parcel in his hand. Attached to the paper wrapping is an envelope bearing her name in spindly, unfamiliar handwriting. "Your mother?" she guesses, only mildly concerned. She makes no promises, but when she holds out her hand he gives her the parcel anyway.
"Job openings at hospitals in Bulgaria for you," he explains as she opens the envelope.
"I suppose I should have been expecting this, although the speed—" she blinks at it for a minute, "—and the thoroughness, wow."
List isn't the word for it. Compendium, more like. Research, obstetrics, teaching; anything Hermione might possibly be qualified for and what seems like a few others besides. She skims the list, wondering if perhaps one day quite soon, one of these potential jobs will become her reality, before setting it aside and unwrapping what she can only suppose is a book.
She's right. Specifically, it's an introductory guide to learning Bulgarian. Flipping through it, Hermione sees that it's been heavily annotated in the same handwriting as the list of jobs.
"She said it was the least worst one," Viktor says. "I think she was just bored. The nurse is very efficient, they will probably end up killing one another."
"She can't have done all this in just a couple days."
"No," Viktor admits. "The list, yes, but the book I believe she began right after you met."
Hermione absorbs this for a moment before venturing, "I suppose it's safe to assume she's… supportive, of this decision?"
"Very much so, once she stopped being confused. I had to correct her misconception, I hope you do not mind her knowing."
"No, Viktor, of course not," Hermione says. In truth she's mostly just relieved she doesn't have to have that conversation. The words come easier now, almost as if by rote, but have the unfortunate tendency to stir up the same old emotions, and sometimes even the kindest, most well-meaning reactions can have their own difficulties. "I think I'll just be glad she's so willing to ignore the conventional understanding behind the locket."
She spends a few minutes leafing through the pages as Viktor turns his attention to a pile of laundry that needs folding. After a few moments of companionable silence she says, "It does makes you wonder, though."
Viktor makes a noise to indicate he's listening.
"If perhaps this has happened more often than we know—one of the names being missing, I mean. After all, we assume that every parent on the birth certificate is also on the locket, but with how infrequently wishbabies arrive, who can really say?"
"I thought you said the healer will look at it before signing."
"Well, yes," Hermione says, "but it's not as if they take a photo or anything. There's just a little box they initial on the certificate—in England, anyway, I'm not sure about elsewhere."
To her surprise, Viktor's frowning hard as he concentrates on the laundry. "How many turns on a time-turner to go back thirteen years?"
Caught off-guard by the change in topic, she laughs. "What?"
"Would like to give twenty-year-old me a good kicking," he mutters. "Tried so hard to respect your wishes I would not even ask what they were."
"I imagine seventeen-year-old me would have a few things to say about that," Hermione agrees, "but Viktor, we're here now and that's all that matters."
She can afford to be magnanimous about it, after all—she has everything she has ever wanted. It doesn't matter anymore how long it took to get there.
Viktor evidently disagrees. "Years of wishing I were different, that you were different—we were not so incompatible after all. If only I had asked. Would things be different?"
"We can't ever know that, and you know that."
"If I had asked," he repeats, stubbornly.
She sighs, setting aside the book and sitting up. "And if I had been more willing to speak openly about it, instead of letting people rely on their assumptions about my career and my goals to keep those questions away… what's this really about?"
"I only… want you to be sure. Of her, and of me. I want her to have come to us both, that we were already together, that there would be no question of whose name is on the locket because we already would have known, it would have been obvious. Would not have even needed to look."
Something strikes her. "Could it be that obvious?"
"What?"
The familiar sensation of a realization taking shape makes her sit up straighter. "Only that—we assume that the names are on the locket before the baby arrives, but what if it's much simpler than that? Could it be that the names that appear are just the people who assume responsibility for the child? Did you question for a second that she was yours when you first saw her?"
"No, but—"
"And when you did look, your name was there," Hermione says, breathless with the excitement of several things falling neatly into place, "because you'd already accepted she was yours! Perhaps that's why it's taboo to look if you're not a parent. Maybe… maybe this knowledge was known once but it was lost, and all that's left of it is the superstition." She pushes herself up from the couch. "Viktor, where's the locket now?"
He doesn't look at all enthused about her theory, but she can feel the rightness of it all the way down to her bones.
"Please, where is it?" she presses.
"Come with me," he sighs. She follows him into his bedroom, where he removes it from a drawer—but he doesn't hand it over right away, first asking, "And if you are wrong?"
She eyes it. "Viktor, if you say ancient and mystical phenomenon…"
There's another pause before he seems to give in. "Together, then," he says, and sits down on the bed with one arm open in invitation. It's only when she's settled herself against him that he hands her the locket, already made warm by his skin.
With clumsy, excited fingers, Hermione unclasps it. She stares down at it eagerly, waiting to see the words magically engrave themselves in the empty space, certain that any second now…
She doesn't know how long she's been looking when Viktor's hand comes up over hers, closing the locket. It falls somewhere on the floor near them as he tilts up her chin, thumbing away the tears that have been spilling down her cheeks.
"It was a beautiful theory," Viktor says gently, and, oh—she hadn't been expecting the wave of grief that sweeps over her, not at all. But for the first time since that very terrible moment in the infirmary all those years ago, she has someone to hold her through it.
*
Many hours later Hermione finds herself on the floor in Rose's dark nursery, watching her sleep through the slats of her crib and waiting only for the moment she wakes so she can hold her again. She senses more than sees Viktor in the doorway.
"I don't actually care what the locket says," Hermione tells him fiercely, and goes back to her vigil. When he says nothing, only settling himself in the armchair, she adds, "Come to say I told you so?"
His lack of reaction makes her immediately ashamed.
"I'm sorry, Viktor, that's not fair at all. I just..."
"Wanted it to independently confirm what we already know," Viktor finishes. "I know."
She nods and turns back to Rose, who sleeps on—unaware of this upheaval, and utterly unaffected by it as well. "The magic," Hermione says. "There's a logic to it, I know there is, but not necessarily a human logic. When I was a child I think I enjoyed the challenge of working out what rules governed it, but now… I don't know when that stopped being true. When it stoped behaving as I wanted it, maybe?"
"I wanted to see your name there, too," Viktor admits. It eases something that's been clenched tightly around her heart.
"But you didn't think it would be," she says, looking back toward him. "Is it strange that I'm glad you didn't stop me?"
"As if I could," he says, sounding very fond indeed. "You would not have been easy until you saw for yourself."
"No," she admits with a small smile, already feeling better. "I was very enamored of my theory. But what if… Viktor, what if there is some logic to it? Something we don't understand, and one day someone else's name will be in that empty space—the person truly meant to be her mother. I don't think I could bear it."
For the first time she realizes what a fool she's been to think the loss of either of them wouldn't devastate her.
"If that truly worries you, we will never open it again." He comes to her, then, and pulls her up from the floor. He presses a kiss to the top of her head and says, "Listen to me. There are things in life we can do nothing about, and what that locket tries to say is one of them. But if we had no magic, and could not see the names, would you doubt that she came to the both of us?"
She knows the answer that surfaces immediately, but takes the time to consider it. With fresh eyes she goes over the past month: the way Viktor turned immediately to her for help; the way she's been lying to almost everyone in her life without a second's thought to protect Rose; the way her relationship with Viktor escalated so effortlessly that looking back, it seems almost fated.
Six weeks ago she couldn't have imagined being held by Viktor like this; now, she can't imagine any life path that does not lead them, eventually, here.
"Not anymore, I wouldn't," she decides. "I wouldn't question it at all."
"Then she is ours."
*
"Special delivery for Healer Granger," Penelope says cheerfully from the doorway. "No prizes for guessing what."
Hermione waves from where she's buried facefirst in her filing cabinet. "Feel free just chuck them on the desk, thank you!"
"And ruin my absolute favorite flower combination? I think not. I'll be abusing my authority and inviting myself in, if you please."
Before Penelope can get more than a few steps into the room, Hermione flicks her wand to remove the last bouquet from its vase; with another spell she's drained them of their water until they're brittle to the touch but perfectly preserved. Penelope smiles at the magic as Hermione eases them down to rest on her desk and pulls out her own wand to refill the vase with clean water and place the fresh flowers inside.
Hermione shuts the cabinet and studies her latest bouquet. "I know the red, but what about the white?"
"It's not so much what the individual colors mean, but the combination," Penelope tells her, arranging them just so. "Unity, isn't that marvelous? But you can't tell any of the partners here that—they always think red is the height of romance."
Hermione reaches out to brush her fingers against one of the buds. Unity. Someone to grieve with her, to share her life with as they raise another—and, quite soon, someone to proudly stand beside as they share their good news. Her beloved friend Viktor becoming, quite simply, her beloved.
She has known for a very long time that people are stronger together than they are apart, and now, it seems, Viktor knows that too.
Penelope clears her throat, redirecting Hermione's attention.
"Hermione. You know I don't mind switching shifts around as long as staffing needs are covered, but you've been doing it an awful lot lately." She doesn't look angry or even annoyed, but something about the way she's so simply laying it out makes Hermione realize just how dramatically she's rearranged her priorities. "If you need a permanent change to your schedule, we need to sit down and have a conversation about it. Is that the case?"
"It might end up being so," she says, because this question has not proven as easily solved as some of their others, and won't be until they can speak more freely about Rose with their friends and family. "But I won't know for sure until the end of the week."
Penelope studies her. Hermione forces herself to relax, because today is day thirty-seven, and if Penelope figures something out a little ahead of schedule, what's the harm? It's likely she's more than halfway there anyway, what with the flowers and Hermione's mysterious friends and her sudden interest in wishbabies.
Penelope's sharp—not just with books, but with people, too. As a prefect, catching a second year running through the halls, she would have been perfectly justified in ignoring what Hermione was so worried about and only reprimanding her, but instead she'd listened and trusted and pulled out a mirror. That snap judgment saved both their lives, and Hermione has never forgotten it.
It's that very fair-mindedness Hermione is hoping to be able to count on on three days' time—but there's always the chance that adhering to procedures will tie Penelope's hands.
"I see," Penelope says, and Hermione has a feeling she truly does. As she turns to leave she adds, "Enjoy your flowers, Hermione. I'm certain you deserve them."