Written for the SSHG prompt fest on Livejournal for Summer 2015, the artists/authors have been revealed so I can now post it here.

Prompt by iqeret can be found as a final author's note. Many thanks go to HikoriChan and AdelaideArcher for beta work as well as to KrissyCits for cheerleading. Without those ladies this my very first work of fanfiction would never have been.

On the Shores of Sotkajärvi

Prologue

Four Months after the Final Battle

"Miss Granger?" the Mediwitch called.

Hermione rose from her seat in the waiting room at St. Mungo's and walked towards the door the Mediwitch was gesturing to. "That's me," she said.

"Right this way, my dear," said the Mediwitch, a short dumpy blonde woman with startling green eyes. The way they sparkled reminded Hermione of Harry's eyes. She led Hermione into a small room with a raised padded bench against one wall. Two chairs, one on wheels, sat to each side of a desk. "Have a seat."

Hermione sat in the wheelless chair as the mediwitch pulled a scroll towards her and glanced at it briefly. "According to your chart, you're here to get some fertility testing done. You've reported some irregularities with your menstrual cycle. Can you give me some more details? Then we will get you up on the table and do an exam."

"Well, after the Battle of Hogwarts I noticed that my cycle was very irregular: it came nearly every other week, then it lasted for three weeks straight and was the most painful cycle of my life. After that it stopped. It hasn't come in about six weeks now." Hermione fidgeted nervously in her seat as she explained all this to the Mediwitch, who took a few brief notes on Hermione's chart.

After describing her symptoms, Hermione took off her robes and put on the dreaded paper hospital gown. She climbed onto the bench and waited for the Mediwitch to finish making her notations on the scroll of parchment.

"Let's do a few diagnostic spells and see what's causing this problem. Have you been sexually active during this time? Is there a chance that you haven't had a cycle because you're currently expecting a baby?" She waved her wand over Hermione's abdomen as she spoke and the results showed in shimmering black letters in the air before being transcribed via another spell onto the parchment.

"Yes, we had sex a couple of times, my boyfriend and I, but we haven't in few months since there was never any way to tell if I would start bleeding," explained Hermione. "Those two times that we did engage in intercourse we always used a contraceptive potion and spells. I know my boyfriend wants children, but with all the chaos of rebuilding we knew that it just wasn't the time for an unplanned pregnancy. What do those results mean?" she asked hurriedly at seeing the crestfallen look on the Mediwitch's face.

The Mediwitch cleared her throat and said, "It appears that you are unable to conceive children, my dear. I am so sorry. There has been some serious damage to your uterus. It is impossible to tell what it was caused by - it could have been dark magic from the Battle of Hogwarts, or a repercussion from the effects of You-Know-Who's vanquishment - but most of your uterus has been destroyed. I expect what you thought was menstruation was the dissolved portions of your uterus. There is only a very small amount of your uterus left. I recommend that we remove what is left of the tissue now so that it doesn't necrotize and cause you any more pain or sickness. Is that alright with you, my dear?"

Hermione's face paled and she nodded slowly, feeling dreadful about having to tell Ron she could not be the mother of his children. Her chance at being a mother and therefore a proper wife in Ron's eyes just went out the window. "Sweet Circe, uhm... remove the remains... oh gosh yes, do what needs to be done," Hermione mumbled with tears in her eyes. She clutched at her hair and looked at the Mediwitch in distress. "I'm sorry, so this means I can never have biological children? I must say this is well, uhm, unexpected, and…" Hermione burst into tears. "It's probably the end... Oh I shouldn't tell you these things. Forgive me, I'll keep quiet now and allow you to perform the procedure," Hermione gasped through her tears. Hermione had never felt that drive that so many women feel to have children; but she knew she was young and maybe when she was closer to 30 she would feel some sense of loss at her inability to biologically have children. Perhaps she would look into magical adoption of a Muggleborn witch or wizard to keep them out of an orphanage. She filed the idea away for further perusal later, and lay back and put her feet in the stirrups.

A few waves of the Mediwitch's wand later and the last remnants of her destroyed uterus were disposed of. She dressed, thanked the woman, and left in a daze.

At the hospital Apparation point, she turned on the spot and Disapparated. She appeared again in the storeroom of Weasley Wizard Wheezes near the stairs going up to the twins' apartment above the shop.

She slowly climbed the stairs, disabling the wards on the apartment door by rote, and called out, "Fred, George, are you there?" She searched the apartment and didn't find either of them. She assumed they were downstairs in the joke shop and that it must be busy for both of them to be there so early in the morning, but that could be expected due to the rush of students wanting to buy joke supplies before the school term started on the fifteenthth of September. It was third of September, two days after the school term would have normally started, but some of the more major repairs to the castle had taken longer than Professor McGonagall had thought they would.

Hermione sat on the sofa in their sitting room and bawled, finding it hugely cathartic to get out all the emotions she was feeling. She knew her relationship with Ron was essentially over from this day forward, but she still had no idea how she would going to tell him what had happened at St. Mungo's today. Sobs were still wracking her small frame when the twins came upstairs for lunch.

They rushed to her and gathered her up in their arms. "What's wrong?" Fred asked.

"Who hurt you?" asked George at the same time.

"I just got back from S-S-S-St . Mungo's, I h-had my examination today. M-m-my uterus was-" she heaved a huge shuddering sob, "destroyed in the final battle and the remainder of it had to be r-r-removed immediately to keep me from-" she gasped for breath, "developing more health problems." She slowly stopped sobbing and George brought her a cup of tea exactly how she enjoyed it.

Hermione had thought to go straight to the twins as they had become her confidantes. She wasn't always comfortable telling Ron all her feelings, and sometimes it was better to vent her frustrations with him to his brothers than to the source himself. Ron had a good habit of turning things around and making Hermione feel guilty about the things he had done wrong. Fred and George understood their little brother's shortcomings and were happy to provide a safe place for Hermione's emotional outpourings. It had all started when she began helping them with some of their more difficult ideas for shop items. She also helped them with those items aimed specifically at female jokesters, such as lip balm that changed colour with the wearer's mood and another variety that was meant to give to someone else as a joke to expand their lips, similar to the Ton-Tongue Toffee.

She sipped her cup of tea. "Could you please not tell your brother? I need some time to come to terms with how to tell him. He's going to be so devastated," she said. Once she'd calmed down, she hugged them both and Apparated home.

Hermione stood wringing her hands and pacing the length of her small flat. Dinner of roast potatoes and chicken was waiting on the table for Ron to arrive. He'd asked her to prepare a romantic dinner for Friday night to be ready at six. He'd said to dress nicely and she was wearing a black Rockabilly style dress with white polka dots and a faux corset closure. The white of the petticoat peeped under the hem of the skirt as she whirled around and paced back towards the door. Hermione Granger was nervous about this dinner: it wasn't often that Ron asked her to make dinner for them. He usually prefered to eat at the Burrow, saying he prefered his mother's cooking.

At five past six Ron finally knocked on the door to her flat. "I cooked dinner and we need to have a chat," she told him after she had invited him inside, hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

"Okay, come on, then, let's eat," said Ron, going straight to the table and piling food onto his plate. He didn't even wait for Hermione as he started shoving food in his mouth.

Hermione sat across from him and served herself some of the food. She looked at him and thought that maybe their talk should wait until after dinner, or at least until he had finished shoveling himself full of the food she offered. She picked at her dinner and Ron didn't even notice.

When he finished he said, "I'm glad you called me over. I've had something I wanted to ask you for a while now." He got down on one knee next to her chair and pulled out a small box. "Hermione, I love you. I want you to be the mother of my children. Will you do me the honour of being my wife?" He held up a ring with a small ruby set into a white gold band, and then slipped it on her finger.

Tears filled her eyes and he smiled brightly up at her. "Are those tears of joy?" he asked hesitantly. She shook her head.

"I have important news that you need to hear and then if you still want to be married to me, then yes, I will become your wife." She took his hand and led him to the sofa. "Ron, I went to the hospital last month to get tested, to find out why my womanly problems have been worsening and then stopped altogether. The results were bad. I can... I can never have children Ron," she choked. "The final battle destroyed my uterus and the remains of it were removed. There was nothing that could have been done to save it. I am so sorry to tell you that even if we were to get married, I could never give you the children you desire."

Ron stood up, his face like a thunder cloud. "WHAT?" he shouted. "Why didn't you tell me this immediately when you found out? Why wait until I've spent all that money I was saving on a ring for you? Did you think you could get away with it, trick me or something, marry me and then tell me later that you couldn't have children? We're through! If you can't have children and don't have the decency to tell me right away when you find out, then I have no use for you! I want children Hermione - lots of children - and that means I need a wife who can provide them. I never want to see you again." He spun on his heel and Apparated away with a loud pop.

The next morning Hermione received Howlers from Molly and Ginny Weasley accusing her of trying to trap Ronald into a childless marriage. She didn't understand his reaction and she had barely stopped sobbing from the night before. Sure, she hadn't immediately told him, but she had told him as soon as he proposed. Too little, too late, she supposed.

As the weeks after she and Ronald broke up went by, it became increasingly obvious to Hermione that she must leave Wizarding Britain. It seemed no matter where she went, she met a Weasley son or daughter-in-law and the lot of them made her life a living hell. The only ones on her side were the twins. Harry wanted to remain her friend, but was heavily swayed by Ginny and Molly, the love of his life and the only mother figure he had ever known.

After two months of this treatment, Hermione could not take it anymore and she decided to look up alternative places to live with a magical community. She came across a brief reference to Mägikylä on the shores of Sotkajärvi in Lapland in Finland and she decided to set out and see if it was there. Hermione had read a book called Magical Communities Past and Present in the Hogwarts library during the summer after her sixth year. She was trying to ensure they didn't camp anywhere near magical folk when they were going to be on the run during their seventh year.

Two months later she arrived, in the middle of a raging blizzard, after finally finding her way there and through all the magical protections surrounding the place. She bought a building that had a store in the front and a small but cosy apartment in the back and set about creating a life for herself. There was maybe one hundred inhabitants in the small village; most were magical or the squib children of magical parents.

Hermione used the storefront to sell hats and other knit and crochet goods, calling it The Needle Village Shoppe.

A/N: Sotkajärvi means Duck Lake in Finnish.