Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hermione, of course, knows about wishbabies.

She'd be incredibly remiss in her duties as a Healer if she didn't, considering the ward on which she worked. But because she knows so much about them, she also knows how incredibly rare they are in Britain's magical community—only one in one thousand births—and so, the idea that she might come across one during her career has always felt like a distant possibility.

She has never once entertained the notion that one might show up on her doorstep.

*

It doesn't come in the usual way; i.e., floating from the sky in a gently glowing golden basket. But the basket is unmistakable, and it's in Viktor Krum's arms, and they're both on her doorstep.

There's a horribly difficult look on Viktor's face, a mix of terror and confusion that has her heart racing.

"Come in," she says before he can open his mouth, pulling him forward by his arm and shutting the door behind him.

What follows is a silence more awkward than any she's shared with Viktor in the past. He looks as stunned as she feels.

"Can you look at them?"

Hermione blinks. "Can I…?"

"To see that they are all right."

"Oh!" She gestures for Viktor to follow her into the kitchen, where she pushes aside the dishes from her half-eaten breakfast. He sets the basket down in the newly-cleared space and Hermione gets her first glimpse of Viktor's daughter.

She looks as all newborns do: pink and small and utterly fragile, though clean and dry in a way that freshly-born babies are generally not. Gently Hermione lifts her from the white linen bedding. "She's lovely, Viktor," she says as she begins to check her out. Ten fingers, ten toes. Of reasonable size and weight, no difficulty breathing, asleep but responsive to stimuli. "But you could have just brought her to Mungo's, we have a protocol there for wishbabies."

Viktor shakes his head. "No hospital."

Hermione pauses in her checkup. "She must go sooner or later, it's the only way to get her a birth certificate."

Viktor's mouth sets into a stubborn line. "No certificate."

"But you must. She looks all right to me, but I can't give her a full checkup from here. There's things that can only be done with the equipment on the delivery ward."

"Look at her locket," is all Viktor says.

She's been wondering since the second she laid eyes on them about what's inside, but it's taboo, of course, to look at it if you aren't the child's parent. Even at Viktor's invitation she finds herself hesitating. When he shows no sign of elaborating further, she nestles the baby back into the basket and reaches for the locket tied to the handle with an ivory ribbon.

Inside on the father's side is Viktor's full name—Viktor Georgiev Krum—but on the mother's side...

Hermione takes a sharp breath. "This… isn't possible."

"And yet," Viktor says.

*

"…but this goes against every known, recorded fact about wishbabies," Hermione says, at least the fourth iteration of the same statement in the last twenty minutes. She's fire-called her supervisor to let Penelope know she won't be in today, she's made her and Viktor both a strong cup of tea, and Viktor has just finished outlining the five—five!—instances of wishbabies in the last three hundred years of Krumovs and Krums.

And now they're back to the locket. The one that, in defiance of everything Hermione knows about the subject, contains only one parent's name.

"Tell me them," Viktor says.

She pauses, not entirely certain where to start. With his family tree, there are certain things she would assume he already knows, but perhaps it would be best to lay out all the facts before them, to make certain nothing gets missed. "They've been around for all of recorded history, but they're uncommon. How uncommon seems to vary by region. Muggles call them foundlings and can't see the glow of the basket or read the names on the locket. They're most often granted to couples unable to have their own children, whether that's due to infertility struggles or because it's a same-sex couple. Every wishbaby is deeply, profoundly wanted by both parents—they've literally been wished out of the sky. On the rare occasion that a baby comes to a single person, it's always been the case that the other parent's name on the locket is their deceased partner, as was the case with your grandmother being sent your father. I've never once heard of a case where one parent's name was simply not there."

"Nor have I," Viktor says, voice hoarse. He isn't looking at Hermione anymore, staring blankly into the golden basket at the sleeping infant within.

A thought strikes her. "Viktor, is—I know we're not as close as we once were, and you're so quiet about your private life, but—I mean. Was there…?"

He shakes his head, still not looking at her. "If only that were so, it would be easier to know what to do. But now…" He glances up, eyes catching hers, and squares his shoulders. "She is mine to protect, and already that would come with its own challenges. You must understand I will not allow her to become an object of curiosity, someone for Healers to poke and prod at and study."

It is only years of conscious effort to develop her bedside manner that enables Hermione to swallow the instinctive protest that no Healer worthy of their pledge would treat this baby as an oddity to be studied. Instead she says, "I do understand." Because she does, on so many levels—she understands Viktor's desire to protect his child. She understands that there are practicing Healers who are not worthy of their pledge. And above all, she knows that registering a birth certificate for a single-parent wishbaby, with said single parent being international Quidditch superstar Viktor Krum, would bring out the absolute worst in almost every reporter working in England and abroad.

"All right," Hermione says. "We'll figure something out for now."

*

"Sorry, Hermione," Ginny says after listening quite patiently to Hermione's rambling lie about a family in need. "I chucked all the infant stuff a while ago. Lily's nearly three. You might try Padma, though."

From his spot to the right of the fireplace, out of Ginny's eye line, Viktor gives her a confused look. Hermione agrees. "But the twins are five. Why would she have what you don't?"

"Well I'm absolutely certain Lils is my last, and you didn't hear it from me, but…" Ginny shrugs. "Haven't you noticed she and Ron have been extra handsy lately?"

Hermione snorts. "That would require them to ever have become less handsy. But I don't want to take from her anything she might need..."

Ginny nods along to this. "Try Neville, maybe? Willow should have just outgrown the sort of things you need, and…"

…and it's not as if she'll have a younger sibling to need them.

"Good idea. Thanks, Ginny."

"Just keep going down the list," Ginny says. "Most everyone we know has at least one." Almost immediately, she cringes. "I'm sorry, Hermione. That was—"

Hermione waves the apology away. "That was only a fact," she says with a smile she knows Ginny sees right through.

"Still."

"You are immediately forgiven," Hermione promises, and rings off. She can feel Viktor's curious eyes on her, so she opens a connection to Neville's sitting room. With any luck, he hasn't had his first class of the day yet.

*

Neville hands her a box crammed full of baby paraphernalia almost before she's finished her explanation. "Been meaning to donate it, anyway," he says with a sheepish smile. "Kept slipping my mind. That's got just about everything they could ever need for the first few months. Even shrunk her first bassinet down."

"That's the only thing we've already got," Hermione says before she thinks better of it.

Neville shrugs. "Well, they can keep it or pass it along to another family in need."

"You're a lifesaver, Neville. Give Willow a kiss for me, will you?"

"You can do it yourself, if you like," he says easily. "I haven't dropped her off at the creche yet. You're welcome to pop on over for a bit."

"I'd love to, but—" as if she's been cued, the baby begins to fuss. Silently Hermione prays it isn't loud enough to carry through the fireplace, but even Viktor's immediate and expert soothing skills—cultivated over a great many years of being an uncle—aren't enough to quiet her down again.

Neville looks momentarily surprised, but quickly a knowing smile settles on his face. "Missing everything but the bassinet, eh?" he says. "Congratulations, Hermione. Nobody's more deserving."

"She's not—it isn't what you think," Hermione says, the genuine, understated happiness in his voice like a knife to her heart. "I promise I'll stop by soon and explain, but in the meantime—"

"I won't say anything," Neville says. "But I'll hold you to that promise of a visit."

"Fair enough," Hermione says. "Thanks again, Neville. I'll see you soon."

As soon as the connection closes, she turns to Viktor and the still-crying baby. "Hungry?"

Viktor nods. "Seems so."

"Well, I think I saw a tin of formula in here. Let's see if we can't get her fed."

*

Once the baby is full, calm, and dressed in an absolutely adorable onesie with galloping hippogriffs on the front, Hermione and Viktor put the rest of their plan into action. Viktor looks a bit regretfully at the baby before disapparating to alter his security charms to allow Hermione and the baby to cross his threshold. No sooner has Hermione stepped through the Floo with basket, baby, and box of paraphernalia that Viktor establishes another connection, speaking quietly and quickly into the flames. It isn't a long conversation, and before Hermione realizes she should go do something instead of eavesdropping on a conversation in a language she can't even speak, the flames turn back to orange.

Viktor looks up at her from his kneeling position on the floor. "She says my father will have to learn to manage without her for once." There's a twinkle in his eye that tells her quite a bit about Krum family dynamics.

"When do you think she'll get here?"

"Hard to say," Viktor shrugs. He takes the box from Hermione and begins down the hall with it. "If the weather is good, perhaps two days?"

Hermione blinks. "Is she flying? On a broom?"

Viktor nods. "She prefers it. She does not like to take long-distance portkeys because she can't make them herself."

"She must be an extraordinarily good flyer."

Over his shoulder Viktor gives her a smile. "Did you think I got it from my father?" He nudges open the door to a completely empty room. "So we will have time to make up this room for the baby, and then make ready hers, too." He glances at Hermione. "If you are willing to help, of course."

"I took the entire day off, I'd be glad to help in any way I can."

"Good."

"Starting with this, Viktor." She removes the baby from her basket—carefully, though it wouldn't be the end of the world if it woke her—and undresses her down to her diaper and tiny ruffled socks. "She needs some time to bond with you. Take her into the sitting room, or your bedroom, or wherever you'll be comfortable, and let her sleep on your bare chest. The skin-to-skin contact is important." If he won't take her to the hospital, she'll bring the hospital to him.

Though he takes the baby readily, the confusion on his face is enough to make her understand this is a part of baby-rearing that has completely escaped his notice as a professional uncle. "Trust me, I'm a Healer. That's why you came to me, after all. Now get out of here for at least an hour, and only come find me if she needs something you can't figure out."

"Ordered about in my own home," Viktor grumbles good-naturedly, but his smile as he shuffles out the door with the baby tells her he doesn't mind, not one bit.

*

When she finds him again, nearly two hours later, father and daughter are on the couch. The baby is drooling a little on Viktor's chest, and his breathing is so even she wonders for a moment if he's fallen asleep. She means to step forward to take the baby from him but something keeps her still for a moment. The house around them is very quiet, the tableau before her stirring up emotions she'd like privacy to master. She has never seen Viktor so very much at peace, and she thought she'd long ago rid herself of the powerful wave of longing that crashes over her.

This could have been yours, some helpful voice in the back of her head reminds her. In another life, in a world without Voldemort, without Antonin Dolohov, without the Battle of the Department of Mysteries…

Viktor opens one of his eyes but doesn't stir. "Going to scold me for falling asleep?"

Hermione blinks. She clears her throat. "Had you?"

"No," he says, with a satisfied smile. "I am sure in the days to come… but I am not yet so tired."

This draws a half-smile from her. "Well, far be it from me to tell you to put her down, but if you want to keep holding her, flip her onto her back for a bit, or give her a pillow for a support. Her spine's quite tiny and can get sore."

Carefully Viktor shuffles himself into an upright position. With his hand protecting the baby's head, he says, "That explains why Elena would take Mitko away from me and give him back on a pillow. I just thought it was because he was the little king."

Hermione laughs. "She didn't do it for the girls?"

He shrugs one shoulder as he carefully leans forward to place the baby back in her basket. "I was at Hogwarts when Iskra was this little, and then Katya came after my transfer to the Tornadoes."

"So your practical newborn experience is a bit outdated. Eleven years old?"

"Twelve," he says, "in the spring. But that is why I called in the expert."

"Your mother, I presume," Hermione says with a small smile. "Veteran mama to two children and three grandchildren."

"And you, bossing about new parents since 2005. Now, will you show me what you've done to my house while I was on couch arrest?"

Hermione realizes only then that she hadn't told him what she was doing before she sent him away. "Of course. Would you like to see the nursery?"

*

They decide to have some lunch before tackling the guest room—together this time, Viktor insists—and they're in the kitchen good-naturedly bickering over which of the nearby Thai places is superior when a knock at the door startles them.

"Were you expecting anyone?" Hermione asks, but she knows from the deep furrow between Viktor's brows that he wasn't.

He nods toward the nursery. "Take the baby in there until I see who it is."

Surely they're both overreacting, but somehow it doesn't feel that way. Hermione follows his directions, closing the nursery door firmly—and then immediately pressing her ear to it.

Before more than a few seconds have passed she hears Viktor's voice, profoundly relieved—Майкa—and the metallic clicking of locks being unlocked. While Hermione is reasonably certain what's happened, she still waits until Viktor interrupts the stream of feminine Bulgarian pouring from his visitor with call of, "You may come out now, it is only my mother."

Hermione looks down at the basket at her feet. The baby's eyes are open, if unfocused, and impulse has Hermione scooping her up into her arms. "Let's go meet your grandmother, shall we?" she asks before opening the door.

Hermione has seen several photos of Ruzha Krum over the years, so she isn't all that surprised by what she sees—a slim woman in her early seventies, on the taller side of average, hair meticulously colored a dark, dark brown.

What she is surprised by is her own shyness. "Hello," she manages, and then—what? What can possibly follow that? She's conscious of her own position holding Viktor's daughter, as if she's anything other than his friend who happens to work on the maternity ward at Mungo's. She hadn't thought she would be here when family arrived.

"Mama, this is Hermione. You remember, she was my first friend in Britain. She has been… helping. She is a very brilliant Healer, but her Bulgarian is not so good, so while she is here—"

"Of course," Ruzha says, placing her suitcase down and advancing. Her English is better even than Viktor's, accent almost completely unnoticeable. "It's nice to meet you at last, but I won't insult you by trying to pronounce your name, dear. May I—?"

"Of course." Hermione places the baby in her arms, and only then seems to regain her tongue. "It's good to finally meet you as well. We had thought—that is, Viktor said you preferred to fly."

"True," Ruzha agrees, bouncing the baby a little. "But there's no portkey I hate more than I love my son, and certainly none I hate more than I love this little one already."

"It was good of you—"

"Yes, yes," Ruzha says, patting Viktor on the cheek as he passes. "Make me some tea if you feel guilty about it, but it was my choice to do it."

Viktor disappears into the kitchen, suitcase and all, and before Hermione knows what's happening, Ruzha has pretended to spit on Rose, tied a piece of red thread around her wrist, and placed a coin beneath the padded lining of her basket.

"Protection," is all she says to Hermione's shocked look. "Vitya has all sort of charms and spells up for security, but none of these will hurt and there's every chance they'll help. Let's go see how he's getting on with that tea, shall we?"

No sooner has Ruzha made her way into the kitchen than she's taken over the tea preparation, fussing with the kettle and the placement of the tea bags. Hermione notes with interest the way Viktor steps back to allow his mother her interference, small smile on his face as though this is quite a familiar routine to him. And then, just as she's about to suggest she step out to get that lunch they were discussing—

"Have you named her?" Ruzha asks, quite abruptly.

Viktor doesn't seem at all thrown by the question. "Rose."

Hermione doesn't miss the split-second flash of pure joy that crosses Ruzha's face, but just as soon as it appears it's gone. "Hmm. Four grandchildren, it's about time one of them was named for me. This wouldn't be an attempt to soften me up for babysitting when you return to Bulgaria next year for national team training?"

Viktor only shrugs, but there's a small smile on his face that says more than words.

"Half a day old and already he's making plans." Ruzha directs this to Hermione with a small roll of her eyes. "Do you have children of your own, dear?"

The question, though catching her off-guard, doesn't hurt the way it usually does. There's something innocuous about Ruzha's questioning, just a mother looking to get to know her son's friend, that takes the sting from it, and her customary response—prepared long ago and polished to perfection—rolls easily from her lips. "I don't. But I have the good fortune to be Aunt Hermione to a dozen little ones, and that makes for a very full life indeed."

"True. But there's nothing like your own ch—"

"Майкa," Viktor interrupts, and then the kitchen devolves into an argument Hermione can't understand. Viktor sounds annoyed but not angry, Ruzha calmly rebutting, and finally, when there's a lull in the words:

"I'm going to go get us lunch," Hermione says brightly. It stops both mother and son. "Mrs Krum, do you like Thai?"

Ruzha nods.

"Wonderful. Viktor, I'll get it from your favorite shop. Write down your orders and I'll go get my shoes on."

When she goes back into the kitchen a few minutes later, Ruzha and Viktor are back to speaking in English, something about her suitcase from the sound of things. "…several months' worth of formula like you asked and a thousand and one little girl outfits from Elena. She's been keeping all of Katya's in boxes or something, I don't know. It only took her a minute to find them, but I suppose it'll be hours to go through them. Your brother sends along his congratulations, by the way."

*

The two dozen yellow roses at the nursing station catch her eye as soon as she gets to work. "Which room are these for?" she asks Violet, their junior Healer, as she passes. "I'll take them in."

"They're for your office," Violet says with a smirk. "Isn't that interesting, hmm?"

"Very interesting," Penelope agrees, materializing on Hermione's other side out of, Hermione would swear, absolutely nowhere. "Hermione Granger, she who has never taken a sick day she didn't desperately need, calls off work yesterday and then today gets a delivery of flowers with a card that reads thank you so much for last night, or… close enough, anyway."

"I—" Momentarily speechless, it takes Hermione a second to realize—"You read the card?"

"Had to see who they were for," Penelope says innocently, at exactly the same moment that Violet says,

"Of course we did!"

Penelope rolls her eyes. "You could at least pretend, Vi."

But when Hermione locates and opens the card, it's a little less scandalous than Penelope had implied. It only reads, You left last night before I could thank you for everything. I don't have the words to say how grateful I am for all that you've done. You are always welcome in our home. No signature.

Lifting her eyes from Viktor's heartfelt words, she sees Violet and Penelope watching her with interest. "Nothing to see here," she says sternly. "Penelope, could I speak with you? Privately?"

"Of course."

Penelope follows her into her office, waiting in a chair while Hermione sets down the flowers and her briefcase.

"I'm really not sure how to begin."

"I don't actually require an explanation on how you spent your day, Hermione. I may be your boss, but I'm not your mother. You had the time and you took it."

"No, it isn't that. I have a… theoretical question to ask you. About wishbaby protocol."

Penelope's eyebrows shoot up to her curly hairline. "I'll do my best to answer it. We haven't actually had one since I took over this ward, though."

"No, I know. But just general procedure." At Penelope's nod, Hermione continues, "This came up in conversation yesterday over lunch. Some cultures have certain time periods just after the birth where the mother and baby aren't supposed to leave the house. What, then, would happen to the need to present a wishbaby for a checkup and to register the birth?"

Penelope considers this for a moment. "Well… I can't say I'd ever advise against a newborn not getting looked at by a Healer. That's just not something I can condone. But there's no reason that the family couldn't get a house call made to ensure the baby is healthy. And I, personally, would have no issue signing off on a cultural exception to registering the birth, as long as once that time frame was up they got it done promptly."

"Fair enough."

"This isn't theoretical, is it?" Penelope asks the question as though she already knows the answer, so Hermione only smiles.

"No, it isn't."

"When can I expect your friends to bring their miracle by? I'm assuming he or she's got a clean bill of health from you."

"She," Hermione says. "She's the picture of health. And you'll meet her in thirty-nine days."

"Looking forward to it," Penelope says as she rises. On her way out the door, she stops. "Oh. Don't you want to know what the flowers mean?"

Penelope's favorite thing to share with new mothers and to advise new fathers on. "Go on then."

"Joy, friendship… and new beginnings."

Chapter Text

Hermione smiles up at Viktor as she seats herself in the dining room chair he'd pulled out. She still isn't quite sure how a request to quickly check on her littlest patient turned into a dinner invitation, but she can't say she's all that upset to be eating in good company rather than alone. "Thank you. And for the roses, too, they were beautiful. But why twenty-three?"

He nods his head toward his mother, who only says, "Even numbers are for the dead." She goes on working on her crossword without looking up, and now that Hermione's closer she can see that it's in French. "But I'm surprised you noticed."

Hermione doesn't want to admit how long she'd spent lingering on the sight of them that day, so she shrugs. "Our junior Healer, Violet, she's something of a professional busybody. The flowers couldn't have arrived more than five minutes before I did and she'd already inspected them and read the card and what-have-you. It's a good thing you didn't put anything too specific on it, Viktor. How was Rose for you today, Mrs. Krum?"

Ruzha makes a face, half-annoyed and half-amused. "Please. I think you're old enough to call me Ruzha. But we had a very nice day. Rose did exactly as she pleased and her баба gave her everything she could possibly want, and we muddled along just fine. She's asleep, now, I shouldn't wake her if I were you."

"No, of course not. Viktor? How was practice?"

Viktor frowns. "It was… strange. To have such joyous news and not be able to share it with anyone… all day I felt as though I was lying somehow."

"I thought he'd miss the first half, considering how long he spent staring at Rose before he left," Ruzha says. Even though her voice is dry the small smirk on her face betrays her.

"I only wanted—"

"Yes, I know. If it unruffles your feathers I'll gladly tell you I put a mirror in front of your brother's face five times a night for the first year."

Viktor makes a face. Hermione's struck by how very like it is to the one his mother just made. "Not mine?"

Ruzha snorts. "By the time you came along I knew what I was doing."

Stubborn, Viktor mouths to Hermione.

Hermione smiles. "I brought a few things from Mungo's to finish Rose's checkup. And, well—it isn't a solution, but I bought us forty days to find one." Ruzha nods approvingly as Hermione explains the conversation she'd had with Penelope and the exception she'd arranged for.

Viktor furrows his brow. "It brings us no closer to a way to find a solution."

"I've given that some thought, too. St. Mungo's library has an exchange program with other medical libraries across the world. I could see what materials are out there, you know, really dig in to the research."

Viktor smiles at that. "I knew I chose the best person to trust with this."

She turns pink. "It would be better if I could read anything other than English, especially since the prevalence of wishbabies varies all over the world and there's certain to be more information in places where they're more common. But if there's anything that looks promising in Russian or Bulgarian, Viktor, would you…?"

"Of course."

Ruzha clears her throat. "You may add Czech, Slovak, modern Greek, Portuguese, Italian, French, and Spanish to your list. I'll attempt any other Slavic or Romance language as well, but can make no promises there."

Hermione's mouth opens in surprise. "Of course," she says, recovering herself. "I'm sorry, I forgot you were a translator."

"I'm surprised you ever knew," Ruzha says, glancing over at Viktor.

He shrugs. "I forgot I ever said."

"It was… well, I think it was before the Yule Ball. Or maybe after? We were talking about how family was allowed to watch the third task and you said you wanted to introduce me to them."

"And how come that never came to pass, Vitya? I remember you still being smitten the summer after graduation." Ruzha doesn't seem to notice Viktor's embarrassment. To Hermione she says, "I've never seen my son write so many letters."

She only smiles and changes the subject. "Viktor said that's how you met your husband."

Ruzha nods, tapping her pencil against the table. "He told you Georgi is a historian, yes? He came across some previously undiscovered documents about the very short-lived Bulgarian magical monarchy, but they were all in French, of course, since that was what the royal family spoke at home. I translated them for him, he was very appreciative, and that was that. We were married six months later."

Whirlwind even by magical standards; somehow, Hermione hadn't expected it of the Viktor's meticulous mother. "What did you like most about him?"

"Well," Ruzha says, considering this for a moment. "He was handsome."

*

Toward the end of the meal Rose begins to stir. Viktor stands, pressing a hand against his mother's shoulder when she moves to get up, but reappears a moment later with a quiet comment about how she did not want to be awake after all. He catches Hermione's eye and inclines his head toward the kitchen. "If you are all finished, can I speak to you?"

Once in there, Hermione immediately makes to take out her wand. Viktor stops her with a hand on her wrist. "I won't have a repeat of yesterday, where you clean all the dishes and then leave without saying goodbye."

"The dishes need to be done."

"And they will be. But not right now. Why would you leave like that, yesterday? Is everything okay?"

She opens her mouth to make a light dismissal, but under the scrutiny of his gaze what she says, instead, is the truth. "I wasn't needed anymore. Your mother had everything well in hand, and I would only have been in the way."

By the time Hermione had returned with their lunch, Ruzha had unpacked her suitcase, set the guest room to rights, and even rearranged some of the things Hermione had set up in the nursery.

He glances back toward the dining room and lowers his voice further. "My mother, she knows the traditions and the superstitions. You know the side she doesn't, the Healing, the research. I'm not asking you to do battle with her. I know you both too well. But I need to know both sides so I can bring Rose up with care." His mouth twists into almost a frown. "I meant—I need the books, the knowledge. Your time is not necessary."

"I understood," Hermione says with a little smile. "But you can have some of it, if you'd like. I have several free evenings a week, if you need some company, or an extra pair of hands, or just someone who isn't your mother to talk to…"

"Come any time you wish. We will always be glad of it."

She has, in theory, a similar standing invitation to the Burrow, but she's almost never availed herself of it, showing up only for scheduled Sunday dinners and parties. "Thank you. And might I… I'd like to bring someone with me one of those times."

Viktor looks alarmed. "But Rose—"

"Will be perfectly safe," she assures. "Viktor, I'm talking about Neville. He already knows enough to have gotten a completely wrong impression, and I did promise I'd correct it, and I do think you could really benefit from speaking with him, and of course I'd never suggest bringing him here if I imagined for a single second he'd ever—"

"It is not wise," Viktor interrupts. He's got that frown on, the one that says she won't be getting anywhere with him, but she persists anyway.

"However it came about, Viktor, you're a single father now. And that comes with challenges I can't even begin to understand. But Neville does, and he's trustworthy, and I think the sooner you speak to him, the easier things will go for you."

Viktor sits down on one of the stools. "Father," he says after a moment. "Every time I hear that word, it becomes new again."

She sits down beside him, well used to this moment for first-time fathers. Most of them have it at some point in the delivery process. "It's a big concept to wrap your head around, and under these circumstances quite a bit more of a shock."

Viktor nods, but doesn't look at her as he replies. "This isn't… how I wished for it to happen."

"You didn't wish for her?" Hermione probes gently.

"Not—I wanted her. All my life I wanted her. And I am so… lucky, to have her, and so happy, but this wasn't how I thought it would go. Not a miracle from the sky, but the more ordinary kind, coming to me in the usual way, from a wife. A family."

She knows this ache, an old familiar friend, and she knows that grieving the things that never came to pass can be just as crucial as grieving a loss. She reaches over and takes Viktor's hand in hers, twining their fingers together before she covers it with her other hand. "I'm sorry you didn't get to have that."

He covers her hand with his, squeezing.

The moment is interrupted soon after, when Ruzha walks into the kitchen with an awake Rose in her arms. She stops short, eyes falling down to their clasped hands and then away again, focusing on Hermione. "Is now a good time to finish your checkup? She will want to eat soon."

Viktor takes that as his cue to prepare her a bottle, and Hermione makes quick work of the rest of the exam, pronouncing Rose Viktorova Krum a very healthy little girl indeed. Viktor must see that she wants to feed her, so he offers the bottle.

At this stage of her life, Rose resembles nothing so much as a potato. Hermione can't tear her eyes from her anyway.

*

The first person Hermione sees upon entering the Burrow for Sunday dinner—running so very late that it's already after dinner—is Neville, exiting.

"Bother," she says. "I was hoping to talk to you."

"I can spare a few minutes," Neville says with a smile. He shifts an awake but tired Willow to Hermione's arms. "Especially if it's about what I think it is. Don't let her fall asleep, though."

"It's… related," she hedges, bouncing on her toes a little, out of instinct more than habit, and launches into her pitch.

*

Permission from Neville acquired, she enters the Burrow. The next few minutes is a whirlwind of hugs and kisses, small children, noise, an apologetic explanation to Molly for missing dinner followed by a polite refusal of a plate, thereafter followed by Molly's insistence that she eat 'something, for heaven's sake, you've been on your feet all day.' So it's with a plate full of Sunday roast in one hand that she wanders into the living room to find absolutely no seats left available.

"Budge up," she says to Ron, who splutters for a moment before Padma takes it upon herself to scoot half into his lap, freeing up just enough space for Hermione to squeeze onto the couch. Before they can take advantage of the increased proximity to get a bit handsy, she continues, "Neville needs an evening off. Think you can take a break in your schedule of fevered baby-making and help him out?"

Ron turns bright red, but Padma only laughs. "I think we can manage one evening, yes. Was it a particular day, or just any?"

"Is Tuesday too soon?"

"Tuesday's perfect."

"Hang on," Ron says with a suspicious crease in his forehead. "How come you're the one picking the days? Hermione, are you two, you know…?" he gestures incoherently with his hands.

"Not that it's any of your business, Ronald, but no."

"It wouldn't be a bad thing. Probably quite a nice thing, actually." Padma and Hermione exchange looks at the way he pauses, pondering. "I expect it's too soon, though. I'm not sure how long you're supposed to…"

Padma snorts. "Hermione, remind me not to go before him, to save him the trouble of figuring it out."

Hermione doesn't immediately respond, but around a forkful of potatoes, but she gives Padma a knowing look that has Ron throwing up his hands and extricating himself. "Oh no. I know better than to sit here and let you two gang up on me. Good to see you, Hermione. Can't wait to add a screaming one-year-old to the house for a night."

"It'll be good practice!" Padma calls to him as he retreats.

"So you really are trying, then?"

"Thought we'd give it another go, yeah." Padma shrugs. "If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And, well—it's not like I feel the need to advertise our sex life, but we probably would have mentioned it before now but Ron was, y'know, very Ron about it. You know how protective he can be of your feelings."

"He spent enough time accidentally trodding all over them at school, I suppose."

"Oof." Padma makes a face. "Want to go loudly discuss the Yule Ball near him? I could mention how fit I thought Viktor and the other Durmstrang students were. Those uniforms…" Padma fans herself.

"Do you want his face to turn the same color of his hair?"

Padma makes a thoughtful noise. "Might be fun to see how close we can actually get. That's the best thing about marrying a ginger, by the way. Our kids can't get away with a thing." She knocks her shoulder against Hermione's. "If I'm butting in where I'm not wanted, just tell me. But on the off-chance Ron's actually picked up on something I haven't... it's soon, but I don't think I would say it was too soon. If you want my opinion on the matter."

Hermione considers this for a minute. "It isn't unwelcome, only unnecessary. Whatever Ronald thinks he's seeing, he isn't."

Padma nods. "Is Neville okay? If he's struggling I'm sure we can sort something out. Maybe not another color-coded timetable, but something."

"No, I think he's okay." Still, she makes a mental note to check in with him when she sees him on Wednesday.

*

Once Neville and Viktor have sequestered themselves in the nursery with Rose to chat, silencing charm in place, Hermione returns to the living room. Ruzha puts her book down—the language on the cover isn't English or Bulgarian—and picks up her tea. She nods toward a second mug. "Join me?"

Hermione accepts, settling on the couch. "Viktor's told me a bit of the family history. It's really extraordinary, two wishbabies in three generations, and so many going back in the line! I've never heard of anything like it."

Ruzha waves this off easily. "He's been listening to his father. Georgi is too proud of the family name, and too good at historical research. He casts a wide net in terms of what he considers family." She thinks about this for a moment, then amends, "Though I will grant that two so close together, in a direct line, is remarkable. Georgi's mother believed he was sent to ensure the family name didn't die out, but that's only a pet theory." She glances over at Hermione, something knowing in her eyes. "I won't pretend to speculate on why Rose is here."

Something in Hermione senses danger. On the surface it feels absurd, but when she considers it she finds she doesn't want to discuss Viktor's love life with his mother. She casts about for a subject change and her eyes land on Ruzha's book. "That's Greek, right?"

"A good eye for alphabets," Ruzha says, and from there the conversation flows quite naturally for some time. It isn't difficult to keep the topics more intellectual than personal, but then there's a lull in the conversation that Ruzha fills in a most unexpected way.

"Georgi made my mind quiet."

Hermione glances over, puzzled.

"A few days ago, you asked what attracted me to Vitya's father. He's a quiet man. Calm. Being around him makes it easy for me to be quiet, too." She taps her temple. "Up here." She resettles on the couch, angling her body more toward Hermione. "My dear. I want to ask you something very impertinent. May I?"

"…Yes, I suppose."

"Your profession. It is a curious one for someone who doesn't want children of her own."

It isn't at all what she was expecting. Belatedly she realizes she'd assumed it would be something more along the lines of Are you sleeping with my son? "Did Viktor tell you that, that I don't want children?"

Ruzha nods. "The first day I was here, I asked you about your family, if you remember? He told me to leave you alone about your choices and not make you justify them."

Hermione opens her mouth, but no words come out. At the same time, the faint buzzing of the silencing charm on the nursery ceases, and she can't help but be grateful for the reprieve when Neville and Viktor step out.

Viktor locks eyes with Hermione immediately. "Neville is leaving now. Will you stay? I have… questions."

"Yes, of course." She gets up to give Neville a hug. "Thank you. You can go through to my flat and on from there."

After Neville says his goodbyes and disappears through the fireplace, Ruzha clears her throat. "Is Rose asleep? Are her feet covered?"

Viktor glances toward Hermione with amused eyes, then back to his mother. He nods his head toward the nursery. "Feel free to inspect my work."

Ruzha pats Hermione on the hand as she goes. It feel like a promise to continue the conversation later.

*

In the kitchen, Viktor is making tea. Hermione leans in the doorway and watches him. "You're becoming so British in some ways."

"Shh," Viktor says. "If my mother hears, I'll be led back home by my ear."

"I'm surprised she hasn't started lobbying for you to return yet."

He looks at her. "That's what you think."

Her heart shouldn't squeeze at those words. They've seen more of each other in the last week than in the last two years combined, and yet something in her revolts at the idea of him being twenty-five hundred kilometers away. She considers her next words carefully. "I suppose it makes sense. That's where your family is."

Viktor's eyes are unreadable. "A lot of support there," he agrees.

"I don't know if Neville mentioned it, but the DA really showed up for him after Lucy passed. Having that kind of—of village, for lack of a better word—it can mean everything."

"This little village is not so bad. My mother, you, and now Neville."

"Your chat went well, then?" She's curious about what they discussed, but old enough to know she shouldn't pry. Still, if Viktor wants to volunteer that information…

"Yes, but also… strange. I know him, but not that well. Yet now I have trusted him with the most important secret in my life."

"He's worthy of it," Hermione says. "I promise."

Viktor only nods at this. "How was my mother? Did she tell you all the embarrassing stories about my growing-up?"

"We talked mostly about languages, actually. A bit of Krum family lore, but nothing you'd have blushed to hear." She gathers her courage for a moment and clears her throat. "Viktor, did you tell her I don't want children?"

Worry flashes across his face. "Yes, and I also told her your reasons were your own and did not require her opinion. Was she…?"

"No, she wasn't pushy. It's just… I forgot that you and I had fallen out of touch when I found out, and when I was still dealing with it. By the time you joined the Tornadoes I had come to terms with it, or as much as I ever will, I suppose." A glance at Viktor tells her she's rambling, so she shakes her head a little and starts again. "It's not that I don't want children. It's that I can't have them."

"What?"

She gestures toward her stomach. "That curse from Dolohov… it did a lot of damage. A lot more than I let on when I wrote you after the Department of Mysteries. Dark magic can be so destructive. I have a lot of internal scarring that simply can't be fixed any more than it is."

His eyes drop down to her stomach and linger there a moment longer than she might have expected. Sounding almost confused, he asks, "You are sure?"

She nods. "I've known since it happened. Madam Pomfrey… she was very kind when she told me. But very certain. And that's why I focused so much on obstetrics in my independent study with her my last year in school. It was research to see if there was anything I could do… I didn't expect it to end in a career, but I'm not sorry it has." She looks at him oddly. "All this time, you thought I simply didn't want them?"

"Your friends… but perhaps I misunderstood. I suppose they never said it directly."

"No," she agrees. "They talk around it, and apologize a lot. Sometimes it can feel as if they think I'll break if I'm ever reminded of it. It’s… nice, that they care so much and want so much to respect my feelings."

Viktor raises an eyebrow. "But…"

In all the years since it's happened, nobody has ever noticed that there's a 'but' to that statement. It feels oddly freeing to say it at last. "But sometimes it makes me wonder if it’s the only thing they see when they see me."

"No," Viktor says without hesitation. "They see what I see. A loyal friend, brilliant healer, wonderful person."

The compliment warms her—almost too much. "You're awfully confident about that for someone who's only been to a handful of parties since moving to England.—Oh, and before I forget, Ginny's birthday is in a few weeks and I've been instructed to pass that along."

He nods toward the nursery. "Please send my regrets."

"I'm sure your mother—"

"Yes," he says. "I'm sure she would, too. But I should not become too reliant on her. While I am working, of course, but all the rest of the time… I need to be sure I can look after Rose alone." He gives her a look. "I won't let you change the subject. Your friends see you for all that you are, not what you aren't. And before you try to argue, remember I was just speaking to one of them."

"Yes, but not about me."

"A little about you. He said you came to the hospital when Willow was born."

Hermione hums. "Yes, well, babies are born on their own schedules, so it's relatively often that we have to arrange for magical babies to be transferred to Mungo's after they're born, if we aren't able to intervene early enough in labor." But if Neville told him the rest of the story…

"Does that involve showing up in Muggle healer robes and being bossy?"

She smiles slightly. "No. That was because nobody would give him any updates on Lucy, and—it wasn't right." She's quiet for a moment. "It's hard, as healer, to lose patients. But it's always worse for their loved ones, and the doctors in that hospital… if all I could do to help was information-gather, then that's what I was going to."

"It sounds as though you did much more than that. He said you were the one to make the schedule for his help."

She waves this away, not sure why he's pressing the subject so much. She always feels vaguely guilty when Neville and Willow come up, and to be given such praise for her contributions when she knows she could have done more only makes it worse. "I just injected a little organization into the proceedings. I wish I could do the same for you, Viktor, but I understand why that's not possible."

He studies her for a minute, then opens his arms in clear invitation. She walks right in like they've done it a thousand times before. They have hugged, of course, but mostly as hello or goodbye, never with such intimacy. His shirt smells a little like baby spit-up, but his chest is warm. "You are doing more than enough."

They stay like that until the kettle whistles.

*

The roses which arrive at work the next day are a deep magenta, so vibrant as to border on garish. Penelope smirks a little as she drops them off in Hermione's office and says, "Deepest gratitude."

Chapter Text

Viktor's home when Hermione arrives early on a Thursday morning is very still, very quiet, and clean beyond all reasonable expectations for the residence of a week-old baby. She barely has time to register the oddness of the neatly-arranged throw pillows, empty and gleaming flat surfaces, and the pleasantly distinct odor of Winky Crockett's Elbow Grease before Viktor shuffles out of his room, still in his pajamas with Rose wrapped tightly in a sling against his chest. There's a haggard, grayish quality to his face that prompts Hermione to smile.

"Rough night?" she asks, half sympathetic and half teasing. He's due on the pitch in fifteen minutes—that was the point of her coming today, at the start of her three-day weekend: so Viktor could go to practice and Ruzha could have a day to herself—but she's honestly not sure he'll make it.

Viktor looks more through her than at her and waves her toward the kitchen. Confused, she trails him in, but before she can ask what's going on, he hands her an envelope and moves toward the kettle.

The letter inside is not long, and written in a cramped hand. Viktor's pulling mugs out of the cabinet with the absent, almost automatic movements of the very sleep-deprived. Hermione gentles her voice as much as she can given how concerned she's grown. "Viktor, I can't read this."

Without turning, he braces himself on the counter and drops his head. "Right," he says, voice scratchy as if he's not used it in days. Or… well. As if he's been crying, or trying not to. "Forgot. I…"

She looks down at the signature, Петръ, and tries to remember the alphabet Ruzha had shown her last week. П looks like pi and so transliterates to P, in which case… "Is this from your brother?"

He nods. She reaches up to his shoulder to move up a piece of the baby wrap that's slipped a little and finally he turns to look at her. He looks so grave she can't help putting a hand on his cheek.

"Viktor, you're scaring me. Has something happened with Rose? Did someone find out about her?"

He puts a hand over hers. "No. This came in the night."

He looks helpless and lost, and it isn't that he can't find the words in English, she realizes. It's that he doesn't think he can speak without losing his composure, though whether he's more concerned about showing strong emotion in front of her or setting up a feedback loop of distress with Rose, she isn't certain. "Do you want me to have your mother translate this for me?"

"No." His eyes flash with distress and his hand tightens on hers, keeping her there. "My father—he is in hospital. Stroke. The healers do not know…"

All the words she has for this type of situation are healer's words, professional, sympathetic and detached at the same time, and that isn't how she wants to treat Viktor. And she can guess that Petar has written just the same in his letter. Viktor has already heard them. So she pulls him into a hug, carefully accommodating Rose as well, and simply says, "I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." He steps back after a long moment, looking more discomposed than she's ever seen him. The urge to help, to fix, kicks in.

"You're supposed to be at the pitch soon. Do you need to notify someone?"

"Done."

"When does the portkey station open?"

"Soon." He gestures vaguely toward the nursery. "She has been cleaning for hours."

Heartened by a full sentence, she continues along this line of questioning. "Do you need to pack?"

"No. She is ready." He clears his throat. "Can you watch Rose while I take her? I won't have her leave alone."

She blinks. "Of course, Viktor, but aren't you…?" The question dies on her lips as she realizes he can't, in fact, go with her. Legally, Rose doesn't exist yet. She has no birth certificate, no passport, no documentation which would allow him to travel with her by magical or muggle means—and even if they brought Rose to Mungo's this very second, it wouldn't be enough. "No, I suppose you can't."

"Petar and Elena will be there," he says. "There is nothing I can do."

Except be there. And if the healers aren't yet certain Georgi will live… "I'm so sorry," she says again. "Why don't you let me take Rose and go get dressed?"

He nods, reaching behind him to tug open the knot of the sling. "She has been screaming every time I put her down," he warns.

"A terrible fate," she says with a perfectly straight face. "Having to cuddle a newborn."

It almost gets a smile out of him. Almost.

*

With the help of a Bulgarian-to-English dictionary she finds on one of Viktor's shelves, it doesn't take long to translate the letter. It's an impersonal note, sparse of feelings and detail both. баща has had a stroke. It happened while Elena was visiting with the children. He is in hospital, but the healers cannot yet say to what extent he might recover. Please bring Майка with all haste.

Twelve years is a large gap for siblings, she knows, but Petar may as well have been writing to a business acquaintance. Viktor speaks of him so infrequently that it's hard to get an idea of what their relationship is like, but she hopes it's nothing like this letter. Growing up a lonely child who struggled to fit in, she'd longed for the companionship of a sibling—but as she'd altered her parents' memories, she'd been glad it never came to pass. One less person for her to have loved and lost.

She thinks of Ruzha's ashen face and the goodbye hug that took her by surprise, of her parents' blankly polite faces as they looked at her without recognition, of the Weasley family clustered around Fred on the floor of the Great Hall.

By the time Viktor returns from the station, she's made up her mind.

*

She makes her pitch while Viktor is feeding Rose. He frowns at her most of the way through it, and while she's known him long enough to be reasonably certain it's one of concentration and not disapproval, his silence is a little nerve-racking. She's surprised by how badly she wants him to agree; it's not new, this urge to see someone she cares about in peril and want to shift their burdens onto herself, but in this case it's an order of magnitude greater she might have expected. 

When she finishes, he's silent for a beat too long to be tolerable, so she adds, "It isn't really anything more than I was going to do today, it would just be for longer. Viktor, please consider it. I couldn't make myself say goodbye to my parents, and I… well, I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for that. I don't want you to have the same regret, should the worst happen."

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks down at Rose and then helplessly back to Hermione. "How can I leave her?"

She doesn't have any more of an answer than he does. "All I can say is that I'll care for her to the very best of my ability. And I'll be perfectly honest with you—I've never done this on my own, not outside of hospital and for more than an hour or two. I know how, of course, but my practical experience is somewhat lacking."

His mouth turns up on one side. "Still more than I had last week."

"And there's one other thing you should know." She takes a breath. "Rose is a very healthy little girl, and I have no reason to believe she would need medical attention while you're away. But if anything happens that I can't reasonably handle on my own, I will take her to Mungo's and deal with the fallout later. I want you to know that."

He meets her eyes. "Even if I would be very angry with you?"

"Yes. And I wouldn't lose a minute's sleep over it."

He studies her for a minute more, then smiles. "Good." He looks down and strokes Rose's hair. "Let me think about it."

*

Over the next few hours, Hermione becomes intimately familiar with a side of Viktor she hadn't even known existed: his indecisive one. He writes out a note stating he's placed Rose in her care should anything go wrong, makes lunch, and decides he must stay after all. An hour later he makes a list of Rose's schedule, the name of the hospital in Burgas where his father is, the address of his parents' home, and contact information for his sister-in-law—and then promptly changes his mind again. Not long after that, he disappears into his room and emerges with a packed overnight bag and a decisive set to his jaw.

"Are you certain?" he asks. There's an oddly intent look in his eye, as if perhaps he'd like for her to change her mind and take the decision out of his hands.

She smiles slightly. "More than you seem to be."

"Will she know that I'm not here?"

"It's not something that will affect her developmentally, if that's what you're asking. Some babies stay in the intensive care unit much longer than three days and it doesn't affect their ability to securely attach to their caregivers. Willow was there for nearly a month. As long as her needs are being met, she'll be just fine."

"Okay." He nods to himself and places his bag on the ground.

When she returns from her quick trip home to pack, Viktor and Rose are curled up on the couch together. He's murmuring something to her in Bulgarian, eyes only for her, and the unalloyed love in his expression drives Hermione into the safety of the guest room. No amount of stern self-reprimand eases the intensity of the ache. This is exactly what she'd been afraid of happening with Neville and Willow, and instead of keeping the same safe distance from Viktor and Rose, she's gone and made herself someone to whom Viktor feels deepest gratitude.

This is going to hurt, she knows. But when Viktor hands her Rose, so small and soft and delicate in a way that makes Hermione want to wrap her up and keep her safe from everyone who might harm her, she doesn't know what else she could have done.

*

For the most of the day, it doesn't even feel like Viktor is gone. She's spent enough time here over the past week and a half that both the house and Rose's schedule, such that it is, are familiar to her. She doesn't even really notice the quiet, the lack of companionship, because Viktor was not kidding: Rose does not want to be put down, ever. It's inconvenient when Rose is asleep, because Hermione can't figure out a way to put her down without waking her up again, always somehow managing to activate her startle response despite trying every trick she's overheard midwives telling new parents. Coming off four back-to-back days of twelve-hour shifts, she knows she should try to steal at least a few short naps to make the nighttime feedings more tolerable, but knowing she should sleep and being able to sleep are two entirely different things.

At night, though, when the house is dark as well as quiet, and she's looking down with an exhausted sort of triumph at the sight of Rose in her crib, sleeping somewhere that isn't on Hermione for the first time in twelve hours, she begins to understand the enormity of what Viktor is trusting her with.

*

By the next evening, everything which had been mildly irritating but tolerable the previous day has coalesced into one giant, insurmountable obstacle. Her lack of sleep is catching up with her; Ruzha rearranged the nursery at some point, probably the previous morning, and she's been unable to find anything; the house now feels strangely lonely, unfamiliar in a way that keeps her from being able to relax. The technique to wrap Rose against her is far more difficult than Viktor had made it look, and she's never been good at things she doesn't understand on the first try.

And Rose is still screaming every time Hermione tries to put her down. It is, she knows, nothing more than rotten luck, not symptomatic of any deeper unmet need, but no amount of calm logic will fully convince her instincts of that. She doesn't exactly mind letting Rose sleep on her, but it's hardly a good use of her time and leaves her scrambling to catch up when Rose does wake and needs something.

The brief moments of respite she snatches when Rose is asleep—provided, of course, she can put Rose down without waking up, which is only successful about sixty percent of the time—aren't enough to counteract her growing sense of being completely touched-out.

But even all of that would be, if not fine, then at least manageable, if Rose hasn't been inconsolable for the last hour and a half. Hermione has fed her, burped her, changed her, put her down, picked her up, rocked her, sang to her, turned off all the lights, walked her around the house… all without the slightest bit of success. At this point she has no doubt her own mounting stress is exacerbating the situation, but she's having even less luck calming herself down than she is Rose.

Worst of all is her certainty that if there was just another adult here she could hand Rose to, all would soon be well. But she had been so caught up in making sure Viktor was able to be with his family that she failed to realize that if she needed help, she would have none. Even though she was the one to make sure Viktor and Neville never found themselves completely alone like this.

It's not the first time she's gotten herself into a situation she can't manage on her own, and it likely won't be the last, but this time it isn't only her who will suffer for it. She's too keenly aware of the promise she made to Viktor to feel anything but crippling guilt about the way she's failing Rose.

*

She steps through the fireplace and into a hug, startled by how good it feels to be embraced by someone. It bursts through the control she'd been white-knuckling; she goes from panicked but dry-eyed to full-out sobbing in less than a second.

"There, now, none of that," Neville says, not unkindly, and takes Rose from her. He nods toward a closed door. "Go check on Willow for me?"

Rose is already a little quieter by the time she masters herself enough to leave the room. Behind the thick stone walls of Hogwarts, the sudden near-silence is such a shock she can almost hear it ringing in her ears. She settles into the rocking chair and listens to the soft, deep breathing of Willow in her crib, letting the rhythm of it soothe her into her own state of calm.

*

Her unfamiliar surroundings have her reaching for her wand when she wakes, but the impulse fades as quickly as it came. The clock says she's only been asleep for about an hour, but guilt plagues her as she slips quietly from the room. All she can hear is the crackling of the fireplace and the scratch of a quill, and, underneath it, the faint whuffling breaths of an infant.

"Good nap?" Neville asks without looking up from the papers he's marking. Rose is on the bed beside his desk, boxed in by pillows and blanket. "When did she last eat?"

"She's got another half-hour or so."

"Good. I didn't fancy rummaging around Viktor Krum's house on my lonesome. Willow's nappies are easy enough to shrink down, but her formula's for the older age."

Hermione blushes, thinking of her probably-incoherent explanation of the situation when she'd called. "I should have—"

"Packed a bag while you were at your wits' end?" Neville sets down the quill. "I've been where you were an hour ago. You handled it about as well as anyone could be expected to."

It's meant to be reassuring, she knows, but it's just another reminder of his own burdens that she's adding to. Against all rational thought comes the impulse to scoop Rose up from her makeshift bed, but she forces herself to sit down beside her instead. In sleep, she looks absolutely angelic and not at all like the splotchy, furious creature she'd been an hour ago. "I'm sorry," Hermione says finally. "For… I don't know. Showing up like this and—" she waves a bit. "Crying all over you, and—"

"Getting bogeys on my shirt? Willow does it all the time, and in greater quantities. You'll have to try harder."

She laughs a little, even though all she feels like is crying again. Something in her heart unclenches. "No. For staying away like I have."

For a long time, all she hears is the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. And then Neville turns in his chair, quite puzzled, "Have you been?"

"I…" Suddenly unsure, Hermione pauses. "I thought I had."

"Not from where I'm sitting." He gets up and leads her over to the couch, pulling her in so that her head is resting on his shoulder. "You were the one who came to hospital, and brought me tea and got me answers. And after... when everything was over, you made the arrangements to get Willow transferred to St. Mungo's and Lucy's body taken care of properly. I had more offers of help than I knew what to do with, but you were the one who turned that into a rota that kept help within reach for months. If you're worried about how often you weren't on it, you don't have to be."

"I could have done more."

"We all know why you didn't."

It's kindly meant, but it stings. That frustration she's shown only to Viktor awakens inside her to protest I am more than that, but she tries to sit with it and acknowledge that in this particular situation, it was, in fact, a large part of why she didn't. Her friends aren't always right about when it bothers her, or why, but they aren't always wrong, either. But there's more to it, too. "I think sometimes… I mean, I didn't want to give anyone reason to…"

"Yeah." He seems to know what she's trying to say even though she's still trying to untangle it in her mind. "They're a well-meaning group, our mates. But just because it would be the tidiest answer to both our problems doesn't mean it's the right answer. I don't think you want a convenient solution any more than I want to be one."

Just like that, he's brought that unsaid thing out into the light and summarily dismissed it. She finds herself wishing she'd been brave enough to broach the topic months ago. "No."

Neville nudges her with his hand, eyes mischievous. "Shall we blame Ron, then?"

She smiles in relief. "Let's."

*

It is, thankfully, the low point of Hermione's days with Rose. Neville makes her promise to stop by again the following evening after classes get out if she wants the company or needs another set of hands, and though she hopes not to have to take him up on it, she's glad at least to know the offer is open. That she's not as alone as she might have thought.

Late the next morning finds her laying on the couch, trapped under a sleeping Rose, a book hovering above their heads. She's lost in the story, moving only to flick her wand to turn the pages, when the fireplace bursts into emerald flames and Viktor appears.

He stops short when he notices them, and between the noise of his appearance and the feeling of her heartbeat speeding up—because he's not due back until the evening, so why is he here so soon?—she's certain Rose will wake up, but she only makes a snuffling noise and a sigh and doesn't stir further.

Viktor still hasn't moved. And something about the way he's looking at her… her breath catches and she can't think for a moment. All of her defenses feel so low, a combination of sleep deprivation and stress and love for the baby in her arms. 

Moving quicker than Hermione can track, Viktor ends up sitting on the floor beside the couch, eye level with them. He strokes the top of Rose's head and kisses her. When his eyes meet Hermione's, he leans forward and presses a lingering kiss to her temple as well.

She recovers her words after a second. "How is…"

"Stable," he says. "The healers are not yet sure how much function he will recover, but the danger is gone. I could not stay away another moment." He tilts his head toward Rose. "Have you been stuck like this long?"

Hermione grins tiredly. "In the industry we call it 'nap-trapped'. And yes."

"I can take her."

Instinctively her arms tighten around Rose. Her hope that it went unnoticed is immediately dashed when he raises an eyebrow. "Reflex," she says with a sheepish grin, making a conscious effort to relax her arms. "Not holding her means screaming."

He palms Rose's head, his other hand slipping under her belly, and flips her so deftly Rose doesn't even seem to notice. He pulls her into his chest but doesn't rise from the floor. Hermione should probably tease him about his over-thirty knees, but she's too busy watching him watch Rose, a front-row seat to the kind of pure love she'd hidden from a few days ago. It's just as overwhelming, but she feels better equipped to handle it today.

Viktor frowns. "She looks different."

"I didn't lose her and get you a replacement, if that's what you're asking."

He flashes a smile at her before looking back down at Rose. "I was only gone two days."

"Babies grow faster than you could ever imagine." She pats him on the shoulder and gets up. "Lunch?" she offers.

He waves absently with his free hand. "I will make it."

"You must be exhausted, Viktor."

"So must you."

She can't in truth tell him he's wrong, and he knows it too, judging by the look on his face. She surrenders. "You're as stubborn as your mother, you know."

"No," he says. "My father is much more stubborn, only nobody notices because he's quieter about it."

"Oh?"

"Yes. My mother will argue. My father just won't listen."

She decides two can play that game and follows him into the kitchen. He accepts with grace and puts her to work. It's more comfortable than she was expecting, moving around him and navigating the space as they work together. She gives him a quick run-down of the past two days and asks him more detailed questions about his father. The brain isn't her speciality by any means, but everything he tells her about the healers' treatment choices satisfy her that Georgi is being well-cared-for.

"And how's your mother doing with it all?"

"Not good," he says. "She has always been terrible with things she cannot control."

Hermione has not always known what to make of Viktor's mother, but she understands the desire to control every variable and how helpless and terrifying it is to find yourself unable to control any of them; she lived it for most of her adolescence. She can't even begin to imagine what it's like for someone who's been able to maintain control for so long to suddenly lose it, and for something so terrible to happen while she was so far away. "I moved some of the things around in the nursery last night. I was going to put them back before you returned, but—"

He waves that away. "I will fix whatever I need. I already expected I would have to. When the letter came, it was all I could do to convince her not to take my fastest broom and set out at once."

"But waiting for a portkey was always going to be faster."

"You tell her that," he says. "She knew. She just does not know how not to be busy." He's quiet for a moment, before adding, "When I was younger, she always had an answer, even when I did not want her to. I thought she was afraid of nothing. Only lately have I seen how much of what she does… the superstitions, the bossiness… it all comes from fear." As if he doesn't realize he's doing, he glides the backs of his fingers along Rose's cheek. "And one day Rose will grow up and see me as clearly as I see her."

"She's not even two weeks old. I think you have time."

"You were the one to say how fast babies grow."

She can't help but smile. "You got me there. What will you do about work?"

He waves it away. "A problem for tomorrow."

*

She excuses herself after lunch, half to give Viktor some time to privately reconnect with Rose and half because the domesticity of the situation is beginning to lull her into feeling safe to dream impossible dreams.

When he walks her to the floo, Rose sound asleep in her basket, she gives him a peck on the cheek. He surprises her by taking her waist and drawing her so close they end up pressed together from shoulder to knee. His fingers are gentle as they trail along her chin and tilt her face up, but the kiss he presses to her lips is much more assertive than that, closemouthed but not chaste by any stretch of the imagination. When she tightens her hands on his shoulders it's partly to stabilize herself under the intensity of it but mostly to press up into it, not a thought in her mind but the need for more, a response to the searching, yearning thing he's awakened in her.

Viktor breaks the kiss, and if he hadn't been holding her up she thinks she may have fallen. "Thank you," he says. "For everything."

She blinks. Her mouth opens, but it's a second before anything comes out. When she does speak, her voice is far away. "Any time."

As she steps through the fireplace and back into her quiet, empty flat, the truth of those words makes itself apparent. Less self-evident is what, exactly, she's going to do about it.

*

The next morning she spends an inordinate amount of time contemplating the rich, sunset-orange petals of her latest bouquet. She doesn't ask Penelope what they mean.

From the way she can still feel the phantom touch of Viktor's lips on hers, she's reasonably certain she already knows.

Chapter Text

The sun is lowering but not quite set when Hermione manages to extricate herself from a conversation with Luna about the medicinal properties of glumbumble secretions. Clutching her hard-won drink, she makes her way across the garden of Number 12. Neville's been tucked away on a bench swing for most of the evening, doing more observing than participating, and she flops down beside him with a sigh.

He takes one look at her and grins. "Tired already? It's not even Willow's bedtime."

"Long week," Hermione says matter-of-factly, "and everyone's been asking me about Viktor; I'm having a surprising lot of trouble keeping the story straight. Save me?"

Neville raises his arm in invitation. "Give Ron something to talk about?"

She laughs and carefully maneuvers to rest her back along his side, mindful of her drink as he wraps his arm down around her.

"I saw the bit in the Prophet about Viktor taking family leave for his father's illness," Neville says, dropping his voice. "Am I to suppose the best lies contain elements of the truth, or have you figured out a way to get Rose to Bulgaria with him?"

"Not as yet," she says, once again feeling a pang of guilt. The time she's bought them is more than half-up at this point, and she's still no closer to a solution. "It's not even a lie, really; you know his father's ill and he really has taken leave. He's just… not in Bulgaria as often as the article might have implied." She yawns. "He's been here all week; going back tomorrow for a few days, then back here again."

"And you've been working yourself to the bone to make yourself available to mind Rose?"

"Yes and no," she says, snuggling closer into the heat of his body. The multicolor flames of the bonfire are a little too far away to really be felt, though they make a pretty show. "And you're one to talk," she adds, "don't think I haven't seen you yawning all night. Sleep regression? She's about due for one, if my maths is correct."

"Already in the middle of it, my little overachiever," Neville says fondly. In a much less fond tone he adds, "Gran says she's rushing, taking after my father."

The shift is so abrupt that Hermione tips her head back to see his face, on which she finds a frown. "And that's… bad?" she ventures.

"No," Neville says, and then, "yes. She's been saying that sort of thing all along, but now that Willow's getting old enough to understand… I dunno. I wish she wouldn't. Bad enough she did it with me."

"Oh," she says softly. "I was thinking in milestones, not—"

"Growing up in the shadow of someone still alive?" he finishes with a knowing look. "It's not fun. I love my gran, I do, but I wanted things to be different for Willow. Now she's got my parents and Lucy to be compared to, and only me to stop it."

Across the yard, Ron's staring unabashedly at the two of them. Hermione blows him a kiss before patting Neville's hand. "What did your gran say when you talked to her about it?"

"Haven't yet," Neville admits. "Talking about my parents with her is… tricky. I mostly don't. I know I have to."

She hums, thinking. "Have you met Cyril Inkwoods yet? He's the new counselor on the Janus Thickey Ward. He might have some good ideas on how to approach her, or might even be able to mediate the conversation. I can have him reach out?"

"Suppose it's worth looking into," Neville says, sounding distinctly unenthusiastic about it. "How's Krum senior doing?"

She hides a small smile in her drink and decides to let him redirect the conversation. She'll talk to Cyril herself next time their paths cross, using no names, and see what help he might be able to offer before pressing Neville again. "Progress is slower than I think anyone would like, but generally forward. Given his age, it's about as good as can be expected and he'll probably be discharged soon, which as you can imagine is a relief to Viktor."

"Sure, yeah. Can't be easy to split his attention like that. How's he doing? With—everything."

"Aside from exhausted, overwhelmed, and constantly feeling like a bad father when he's not here, and a bad son when he's not there?"

Neville chuckles. "Yeah. Aside from all that."

"He's…" she trails off, thinking of every soft smile Viktor's directed at Rose the past few days, how he likes to scrunch up his face and mimc her when she gets cranky. The way he stretches out on his stomach with her during tummy time and keeps up a steady stream of Bulgarian which sounds in turns teasing and encouraging. "…happy," she realizes. "Is that mad? To be so happy when—" she winces as her brain catches up with her mouth. "I'm sorry, Neville, that was stupid of me."

His shrug jostles her slightly. "It's true, anyway. Some days I still don't get how it works, but that doesn't make it any less real."

He nods out toward the rest of the party, where almost all of the children present are playing some elaborate version of tag. It must be unique to the wizarding world, because most of the adults seem to understand the rules—Ron's even occasionally shouting something like a referee—but Hermione's completely lost. It involves what appears to be multiple secret handshakes and a lot of laughter, and watching it all unfold Hermione realizes she's known all along that it's possible for a heart to hold joy and pain at the same time.

"Have you been spending a lot of time there, then?" Neville asks.

"More than I probably ought to," she admits. "I've mostly been either there or at work. The only times I ever step foot in my flat lately is to sleep." It's not sustainable in the least; it probably isn't all that healthy either, in every sense of the word. Some days it's hard to fathom that just a few weeks ago her life was entirely different. "I've already done so much more for him than I did for you."

"Says the witch who listened to me vent for five minutes and came up with a new solution."

"Point," Hermione allows.

"Plus," Neville says, and she can hear a smile creeping into his voice, "there's always been a little more there, hasn't there?"

"I don't know what you mean," Hermione says airily.

"Only that we both asked you to the Yule Ball, but you didn't go with me."

"He asked first!" she protests instinctively, though from the gentle vibrations of his laughter it's a wasted effort. "Neville, I would have."

It's only the absolute truth, but for the first time she wonders, as she has never had cause to wonder before: would this friendship which she cherishes so much even exist if Neville had asked first? Or would Viktor have taken it as a sign that she had no interest in him and politely withdrawn? Would they still be friends, but only on a surface level, and would she ever have gotten past his protective shell of media persona and met the real man beneath?

Before this month, she'd not have worried at all. But that was before she learned he made assumptions about her, and what she wanted, that he never questioned.

"I know," Neville says easily, unaware of the shock he's administered. "And I had a great time with Ginny, and—no offense—I'm glad not to have been a part of whatever was going on with Ron that night. Just a thought."

She takes a sip of her drink as she contemplates this. "I don't want a convenient solution, remember?"

Neville drops his voice to a whisper. "Hermione, what exactly is convenient about raising a child with someone as famous as Viktor Krum?"

She takes another, much larger sip, and then: "He kissed me," she confesses before she even realizes she's going to, because she's been sitting on this maddeningly huge secret for days with nobody else to share it with. "The day after I saw you last." She tilts her head back to look at Neville, who seems completely unsurprised.

"A 'thanks for watching my secret baby' kiss, or…?"

"No. Well, yes, at first, but then not at all like that later. And then nothing since. Sometimes he gets this look, like he wants to do it again, but he hasn't and I think I might be going mad."

"What did he say when you asked him about it?"

She laughs, blushing. "No fair using my own logic against me."

A high-pitched shriek, followed by bawling, catches their attention. Willow's on the ground, red-faced and inconsolable with James standing near to her looking guilty and sorry and helplessly out of his depth. They both seem unharmed and more than a few of the adults are already making their way over, but Hermione shifts to let Neville up too. He pats her shoulder.

"Well, I expect you have two options here… talk to him, or snog him yourself and see what happens."

He's gone before Hermione can protest that it isn't that simple, thank you, it's actually quite complicated—and, in the grand tradition of interrupted arguments, she finds she can focus on little else for the rest of the party.

*

Viktor isn't in any of the main rooms of the house when Hermione lets herself in later that evening. She peeks into the nursery and finds Rose sleeping soundly. Further down the hall is the master bedroom, someplace she has not ever had cause to enter, but the door's wide open and there's a light on. Even from the hallway she can see Viktor stretched out on a thin mat beside the bed, and for a moment she thinks he's asleep—albeit in a strange position—before he cracks one eye open and smiles at her.

"Was not expecting to see you tonight," he says, sounding pleased.

"Snuck out when Neville did," she admits, and doesn't feel one whit guilty about it: she spoke with nearly everyone there, spent quite a lot of time listening to Ron and Padma's eldest, Sunita, recite everything she's ever learned from chocolate frog cards, and helped James and Al build a blanket fort.

She also, eventually, solved The Question of Viktor.

Viktor unpretzels himself and accepts the hand up she offers with a groan and an offhand remark about creaky, ancient bones.

She raises an eyebrow. "You're thirty-three."

"Geriatric in the Quidditch community," he agrees with a solemn nod. "Rose is sleeping, you will have to make do with just my company for now."

He hasn't let go of her hand, and there it is again—that look in his eyes, a restrained desire that she doesn't know what to do with. But Rose is asleep, and who is she to overlook such a fortuitous coincidence? Perhaps if she'd been awake, Hermione would have started with the talking, but as it is, she pulls Viktor ever-closer with a fist in his shirt and says, "I'm certain we can think of some way to pass the time."

When she kisses him, Viktor makes no delay in sweeping her closer; indeed, the speed with which he responds makes her certain he knew exactly why she chose to come over tonight. She might spare a moment to be embarrassed, but she's too pleased.

The physicality of him takes her by surprise—it is one thing to know he makes his living with his body and quite another thing entirely to experience the reality of it pressed against hers, the way he kisses her with a kind of languid interest that speaks not of disinterest, but of a concerted effort to draw out the moment.

She understands and is glad of it, even as she finds herself trapped between the desire to escalate things and the desire to exchange lazy, indulgent kisses until the end of time. Much as this feels inevitable, a decade or more in the making, it also feels far, far too fast.

Gradually, she becomes aware that Viktor is trying to say something, mumbling it against her lips.

"Sorry," she murmurs, not going far as she catches her breath. "You were saying?"

"Should talk," he says, voice low, and then belies his own words with a kiss. One of his hands slips up the back of her shirt, spanning her lower back, pulling her closer.

"We can do that," she whispers and they will, just after one more kiss, only one more, Hermione's sure of it. For good measure she runs her palm over his chest and curls her hand around his shoulder. She shifts, trying to get closer, closer, and when she braces the other hand on Viktor's chest she can feel his heart racing beneath his shirt. He closes a hand over her own, keeping her there as he breaks the kiss.

For a moment they just look at each other, then Viktor nods toward the bed. "Should sit," he says.

"Should I be worried?" she tries to tease, but it comes out all too serious.

Viktor frowns as they settle side-by-side. "Up to you. Have been trying to find the words all week, or else to decide so that I could tell you one way or the other, but…" he shrugs. "I do not know how much longer I will remain in England."

"Oh," she says, stunned. It's somehow not at all what she was expecting, although it makes perfect sense. "So you've made up your mind to go home, or…?"

"It is not definite, you understand. There are many things to consider, but I would be lying if I said I had not been thinking about it since I found her, and even more since my father… to be so far from my family, my friends, in such difficult times…"

"I understand, Viktor," she says when he seems to be floundering. She puts her hand in his and squeezes. "Will the Tornadoes let you go so easily? What about your career?"

"There will be consequences," he admits, "but none so important as her. I had hoped for another chance at the World Cup at the very least, but—as I said, thirty-three is old for Quidditch." He speaks as though he is trying to convince himself more than anyone.

She looks at the deep frown on his face and aches with sympathy for him. "If you must, then of course you must, but… work that fulfills you, that's a precious thing most people don't get to have."

The corner of his mouth twitches, almost a smile. "Nobody gets all that they desire. I do wish to stay. I might yet. But it was important that you knew, before…"

His consideration is touching, but wholly unnecessary. Hermione had already made up her mind before she came over, and nothing he's said has changed it: given it new context, yes, a potential deadline she wasn't expecting, but she's already in for heartbreak with Rose, so she may as well make it really count.

She puts a hand on his cheek and guides his face until they are making eye contact. "Viktor," she says, quite firmly, "thanks very much for telling me, now stop overthinking this and kiss me."

He laughs as he leans in to obey, face made almost boyish with joy, and it is with a smile on her lips that Hermione gives the last piece of her heart away.

*

"Viktor, I want to ask you something," she begins, some time later. She's not exactly sure why she feels shy about the question, considering what they just did and the fact that they're still more or less pressed together, partially draped as she is over his body. "It's a bit… nosy."

He squeezes her with the arm looped around her waist, pulling her more securely against him. "Very unlike you," he comments.

She'll take that as permission, then. "What stopped you from having a child in the typical way? Falling in love, getting married, all that. You've never—for as long as I've known you, Viktor, all your relationships have seemed so casual." Relationships was maybe a charitable term; as far as she could tell, none of them had lasted past a handful of dates, though she'd never inquired much after them for reasons which were readily becoming apparent to her. "I wouldn't have thought you were looking for something more. Was it your career that stopped you, or…?"

He makes a considering noise, his thumb stroking her waist. "Some. Not all. A serious relationship with me is a lot to ask of someone." She shivers slightly as his fingertips move along her spine. "I never met anyone whose company I enjoyed enough to ask it of them."

"I have trouble believing that."

Viktor's silent for long enough that she looks up to see his face, to judge if she might have pushed a little to hard. "Perhaps I never looked hard enough. Or perhaps… I had a standard in my mind, and never gave anyone enough of a chance to live up to it."

He doesn't look annoyed, so she chances a joke. "And what does your impossible, ideal partner look like?"

He gives her a sly look and, in a deft move she doesn't quite follow, flips her onto her back. "Intelligent, kind, caring…" he punctuates each word with a kiss somewhere different; her cheek, her neck, her décolletage. "Fluffy hair, gets everywhere. Waiting for me at bottom of the Black Lake."

She laughs, knocking him back with one push to his shoulder. He's grinning as he goes. "That all sounds very achievable," she says with mock-hauter.

"Yes, well." The mood in the room turns on a dime as he shifts up onto his elbow. He reaches out, tracing a fingertip along the skin of her torso. "The last piece was to want children. I was having trouble believing there would ever be someone to tick every box."

She catches his hand when he goes to pull it away, not understanding why but equally sure she doesn't want him to retreat. Feeling like she should have been able to figure this out on her own: Viktor won't fight battles he already knows he'll lose. She doesn't process this new information as quickly as he'd like, and he clears his throat.

"Read those papers you gave me."

And as with Neville earlier tonight, she lets him change the subject. She needs the time, too, to sort through all the conflicting emotions this almost-confession has brought to the surface.

"And?"

"Nothing," he says with a frown of consternation.

She sighs and rests her head back down on the pillow. "Nor in the English ones. It's almost astonishing how little information is out there, even for someone determined to look. Everything is so inconclusive and shrouded in secrecy, and when I asked the senior midwife she seemed to enjoy telling me it was 'an ancient and mystical phenomenon' that I would do well not to question!"

Viktor, unhelpful man that he is, laughs.

"Oh, stop that," she grumbles, unable to keep back a grin and slightly annoyed about it. "It really is infuriating! I've never done well with that sort of nonsense."

"I would never have known," Viktor says in such a grave tone, and with such a straight face that she bursts out laughing a split-second before he does. His eyes sparkle with amusement. "You want to debate the nature of magic while naked?"

She tosses the nearest pillow onto his head; he retaliates by rolling her onto her stomach. She asks, "Really, though, how hard is it to provide concrete answers once in a while? I wish—"

They both freeze, as if by remaining very still and very silent Rose will decide she does not want to be awake after all and cease her fussing. After a half-minute of this it becomes apparent that their efforts are in vain. Viktor groans theatrically, a callback to his earlier comment about old bones, and rolls off the bed. She watches him pull on pants and shuffle out of the room and wonders if she, too, should be dressed by the time he returns.

Her eyes wander around the room, not exactly certain where all of her clothes had landed, and sees for the first time atop the wardrobe an orange rose, all by its lonesome in a long-stemmed vase she suspects, based on the etchings, Viktor had transfigured out of a glass from the kitchen.

Without thinking much about it, she slips on her knickers and Viktor's shirt, crossing the room as if compelled to reach up and touch the soft-looking petals. Before she gets halfway there, Viktor returns with Rose draped over his forearm. The appreciative flick of his eyes over her is all the more thrilling because he makes no comment, only settles back on the bed.

As she rejoins them, Viktor sets about feeding Rose. Long gone is his gentle uncertainty with her; he now looks as practiced as any longtime parent, reminding her once again how quickly things can change in a mere matter of weeks. He has her propped so that she is sitting back against him—a popular technique with parents of multiples so that each hand can feed a different baby.

His reason for keeping one hand free becomes apparent when he tugs Hermione closer. "Stay tonight?"

"Of course." She scoots a little closer to brush a finger over Rose's baby-soft cheek, and then can't stop herself from swooping down to kiss the same spot. "You've been keeping one of my flowers. Was it true, what your mother said about even and odd numbers?"

"Yes, but that is not why." He nods toward the vase. "It is enchanted; whatever you do to your flowers will be done to this one also. See how there is no water? It even shortens as you cut them. I can see for myself when you will need new ones."

"That's a lovely bit of magic," Hermione says, torn between the desire to stay where she is and to get up and examine it.

As if he knows a barrage of questions is coming, he says, "An ancient and mystical phenomenon. Do not question me further."

Hermione feels quite secure in her decision to utterly ignore this, considering the smile on his face. "Did you learn it in school, or from your mum?"

"Petar," he admits. "Long, long ago, right before he and Elena got married. I cannot begin to guess who taught him."

Surprised and intrigued by this rare mention of his brother, she asks, "How old were you?"

"Twelve and only interested in Quidditch, so you can imagine how well I paid attention."

She takes another look at the rose as she makes herself comfortable against him. "You seem to have done all right with it."

"After he taught me again three weeks ago, yes. Do you need to go home to pack something?"

"It's all in my beaded bag in my jacket pocket," she admits.

He raises an eyebrow. "Confident, I see."

She sniffs, taking Rose from him to burp. "If you didn't want me to be, you oughtn't have sent me flowers with hidden messages."

"Hm." He settles back against the headboard, closing his eyes, but there's the smallest of smiles on his face. The fact that he's completely unfazed by this accusation tells her everything she needs to know about what's happening between them—that she hasn't been wrong about the way things have been progressing. Viktor's been reaching toward her from the very beginning, keeping her informed of the way his feelings were changing in a way that she could choose to ignore if they were unwelcome.

She's not certain she's been giving him the same confidence in how she feels about him.

"Viktor…" she scoots a little closer, stroking her thumb over his cheekbone until he opens his eyes again. "You know I care for you quite a lot, right?"

"You take such meticulous care of your flowers, I thought you might," he says, looking quite smug. He snags his finger in the collar of his shirt and pulls her gently in for another kiss, mindful of Rose. "Always nice to hear, though."

*

It's whilst bargaining to switch a shift with Violet to get herself another three-day stretch of days off that her next bouquet arrives. 

Red, this time.

Incandescent with mischief, Violet makes much of this fact—My, my, Healer Granger, and what's the lucky wizard's name? And when shall we be meeting him, hmm? And I suppose this shift you want to switch has nothing to do with him?—but Penelope just looks at her thoughtfully.

Her silence is more unnerving by far.

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."