She is always shocked to find that she is still relatively the same person.

Sometimes - like right now, in the dead of night, as she lies next to her husband's sleeping form - it feels as if for all those years she had been living someone else's life. She can almost imagine a different Hermione Jean Granger still out there somewhere, studying English and Psychology and German and art and maths and Merlin knows what. God knows what. That Hermione would say "God knows what", and probably believe it too. That Hermione might still bless herself before bed. She wouldn't have seen quite as much, lost so much faith.

Hermione muses on this: the idea of the girl she could've become. The ordinary, boring life she could have led. The people she could have met, and the ones she could have avoided. It's likely that that other Hermione would never know death as intimately as this one. Never know torture, or war. Never know a fear so enormous and enveloping it became a safety net of sorts, a common cloak that held everyone she loved close and warm. Never know, Hermione thinks idly, love as truly and as simply as she has had in this lifetime, never experienced such burning loyalty and devotion.

She hugs her bump tightly, ignoring the sudden pain that shoots through her body and lingers somewhere in her lower back for a moment or two. It's not as bad as she expected, honestly. She has felt worse than this. She shudders at the memories that threaten to surface.

The dark night is soft and sleepy, the kind of night that lends itself to long and winding trains of sentimental thought. So she thinks of them instead, the ones she loves. The family she has found in this new and strange world. Of Ron Weasley, snoring gently beside her.

Ron, with his flushed cheeks and ridiculous temper and calloused palms. Ron, and that first kiss in the middle of that last battle. Of the first kiss that followed it, and how the air around them was cool and quiet and no longer tinged with fear, but alive with electricity. She thinks of his face, freckled and scared, drawing closer to closer to hers as if there was no way to stop it. The moment before, where they lingered in each other's personal space and wondered briefly what it would be like to live there. There was the heat, the warmth of him radiating even where they did not yet touch. There was the sound of mindless chatter somewhere below them. There was the breath in between, and then there was Ron.

Gritting her teeth, she shifts in the bed, as if trying to squirm away from the pain.

And Harry. There was always Harry, in a different way. A softer way, a quieter way. Harry was always the comfort she needed, always secure. He is a ridiculous man, she knows, as brave and loyal as he is stupid and reckless, but then she wouldn't have him any other way. Wouldn't ever forego the horrors of her formative years for this, her present, where she can knock down to Harry and Ginny's and bring scones and drink peppermint tea and talk about the baby kicking inside of her. Where she can look at them both, at their beautiful son and their house with the pebbled garden and know that they made it.

Another shock of pain ripples through her body. It is followed rather closely by a gush of warm wetness that soaks both Hermione and the bed.

"Ron," she says quietly into the dark. It is sometime after two. She is warm, content even, and her body is heavy and tired, but she can no longer deny the ripples of pain shuddering through her. She runs her hands over the swell of her bump. Strangely, there is no panic. She feels… serene. "Ron."

"Hm? You okay?" he murmurs half-asleep, then his eyes bolt open. He jerks his head up from the pillow and Hermione almost laughs at the worry in his face. As if he should be the panicked one. "Is it the baby?"

"She's coming."

"No. No, she can't, it's not bloody time - "

"It's only two weeks off the due date. The Healer said we should be prepared for any time this month."

"Are you sure about that?" Ron asks, leaping out of the bed and pulling on a ratty pair of pyjama bottoms thrown across the chair in the corner of the room. His face is flushed and Hermione can feel the jumble of fear and excitement radiating from him. "Really sure? As in...sure sure?"

"My uterus is contracting, causing me increasingly ridiculous amounts of pain. If you come over to my side of the bed you'll find a lovely wet patch where my waters have just broken. So, yes, Ron, I am bloody - ow. Ow ow ow, Merlin buggering fuck, ow."

"Hermione!" She feels his big hands, one gripping her shoulder just a bit too hard, the other resting on her thigh. "Are you okay?"

"Just get the bloody Floo powder," she grinds out between clenched teeth, rubbing the underside of her swollen belly gently, as if to tell the little one in there to please hold on.

"Floo powder, yeah, okay. You stay right here, I'll be back in - "

"Go! Now!"

"Yeah, sorry, going." She can still hear his attempts at reassurances echoing in from the sitting room. "But you know, if our little girl can shut you up already then I think she might be my new best friend. Stuff Harry, what use has he ever been?" he calls from the sitting room. It's a familiar routine, his attempt at humour in a moment of panic. She feels a fondness flutter in her heart at the almost-hidden panic in his voice.

"If only she could do the same to you," she mutters to herself, shaking her head.

"What was that?" Ron asks breathlessly, practically throwing himself around the doorframe. "You alright?"

Hermione rolls her eyes. "Let's just get to St. Mungo's before I ban that question altogether."

"Yeah," Ron says, "yeah, sure. Just – c'mere, put your arm over my shoulder, I'll carry you as far as – "

"I am not bloody crippled, Ronald! I can walk."

Ron laughs sheepishly. "I know, I'm just trying to help. I don't exactly know what I'm doing."

Hermione laughs then, gripping his wrist as she removes herself awkwardly from the bed. "I know. Me neither."

The floorboards creak in protest as Hermione shuffles from the bedroom. Ron guides her towards the fireplace, Floo powder already staining the fire green. They step in together, Ron's arm secure around her shoulders, and he says, "St. Mungo's," with an audible smile in his voice.

She takes one last look at the sitting room as the emerald flames consume her and imagines, there in the corner, that other Hermione. Curled up, lost in a book. No Ron, no baby - perhaps some other man, some other baby. A different life, a different ending. A different Hermione.

Sighing, she drops her head onto Ron's shoulder. "I love you."

He smiles down at her warmly, presses a soft kiss to the messy hair on the top of her head. "I love you, too."

The world before them begins to slow and slow before finally grinding a halt.

"Let's go have a baby," he says.

"Our baby," she breathes softly. "Our little Rose."

Arms linked together, they step out of the fireplace, Hermione suddenly overcome by the sense that in that single step they have begun an adventure unlike anything they have faced before - and the following sense that it will be absolutely, disgustingly, sickeningly perfect.