Author's Note:
Disclaimer: JKR owns HP ; T-Swizzle owns "The Best Day" ; classic but slightly modified Lilo and Stitch quote at the bottom
Written for the QL competition (round one, chaser two: "glitter" ; "tickle/ish" ; "below") ; Inspiration Strikes Challenge "Rose Weasley and a broom" ; Disney Character Competition "Pacha" ; Off the Block Competition "Freestyle Hard" ; Platonic Relationship Competition "Easy #17: sugar" ; Crayola Challenge "19. burnt sienna" ; Hedley Song Challenge "I Won't Let You Go (darling)"
Plot prompt from the lovely Lana (Anrheithwyr). For Princess Buttercup (TheNextFolchart) because she wanted a happy (oops) Weasley fic which sounds a lot like 'Wesley'.
Beta'd by the marvellous Melody, the wonderful Waffles, and the magical Maggie. Happy early Mother's Day in America.
8 May 2014. Word Count: 2,107
"I want to go home."
The Best Day
[-]
- Gin? Mind doing me a favour? -
- Of course I don't mind. What do you need, Hermione? -
- Just a few hours of an empty nest. Ron and I need to . . . talk. -
- Oh, is that what you kids are calling it these days? -
- Hush, you little tart. Erm, so may I leave Rose in your care until eight tonight? -
- Take as long as you need. Harry and I love having her around. -
High heels clickclickclick on the marble floor. The clickety-clack of the footsteps heads in the direction of the cupboard below the stairs, where an eavesdropping redheaded girl has been sitting quietly in the dark. There's a soft knock, and then the door slowly opens. Hermione is smiling softly at the irony that a cupboard underneath the stairs was the bane of her best mate's existence while her daughter willingly chooses to tuck herself away into the safety of any dark enclosed space in the house.
"Rosie? You're going to spend the afternoon with Aunt Gigi. Won't that be fun?" the brunette woman says earnestly.
The three-year-old solemnly shakes her head, her curls tumbling in a riot of tangled scarlet and crimson.
"Of course it will be," the woman tells the toddler. She reaches into the cupboard and grasps her toddler gently. Rose immediately latches on and wraps her arms around her mother's neck. "Aunt Gigi will bake some biscuits with you, and you'll finger-paint, and don't tell Daddy but Aunt Gigi might let you help James de-gnome the garden. You're going to have a lovely time, Rosie."
She shook her head in response and burrowed her face further into her mother's neck. "Don't wanna go," she mumbled.
"But think of all of the fun you're going to miss out on!"
"Don't wanna," Rosie repeated.
Hermione buries her face in her daughter's sweet-smelling hair and whispers softly: "Please, Rosie? Do it for Mummy?"
There's a whoosh from the den's fireplace, and out steps Ginny Weasley. She dusts herself off before making her way over into the entryway where Hermione and Rose are. "Hey, pumpkin," Ginny greets her niece.
"Hi, Aunt Gigi," Rose whispers before shyly turning her head away and snuggling closer to her mother.
"You ready to come over to have tonnes of fun at Grimmauld Place with me today?" Ginny asks Rose in a bright voice. Hermione smoothly transfers her child over to Ginny who balances Rose one-handedly on her left hip.
"I want Mummy," Rose immediately says and scrunches her fingers open and closed as she reaches for Hermione.
"Mummy has to go away for a while," Hermione tells her daughter. "You get to spend lots of special time with Aunt Gigi."
The toddler frowns in thought. "Okay," she acquiesces after a long pause. "Is Unca Harry gonna be there too?"
Ginny nods. "He wouldn't dare miss having a playdate with you, Rosie-Posie." She lowers her voice conspiratorially. "Who knows? Maybe he'll tell you all of James' ticklish spots to get back at the little rascal for slipping an ice cube down your collar last Sunday." Rose's blue eyes light up at the prospect of revenge and both Hermione and Ginny laugh at the facial expression that is so reminiscent of the Weasley twins.
"Give Mummy a kiss," Hermione says in parting and offers her cheek to her daughter who plants a sticky smooch on it. "Love you, darling."
"Love you," Rose repeats and then she and Ginny are Side-Apparating away from the Granger-Weasley home to Grimmauld Place where hours of fun and adventure await them.
x
- Ginny? I've got a Hearing that went overtime and Ron's off in Albania on an Auror mission. Do you think you could pick Rose up from primary school and bring her over to Grimmauld Place for a while? I don't think the case will take longer than a couple more hours, but I want to be on the safe side. -
- Don't worry, Hermione. It'll be Harry's and my pleasure. -
"Where's Mummy?" a five-year-old Rose asks her aunt when she sees that Ginny is the one to pick her up from school that day instead of her mother.
"She's working, pumpkin. You get to come over to Grimmauld Place with me today." Ginny buckles Rose into her car seat and then makes the long Muggle drive over to central London.
Rose lets out a puff of air that blows her wispy bangs out of her face. "Mummy's always working," she sighs morosely and hugs her big coat closer to her body. It's the fifth time this chilly October that she's gone to Grimmauld Place after school instead of home.
Ginny glances at her niece in the rear-view mirror as she switches car lanes. The late afternoon sun is illuminating the sky in a brilliant glittering gold, and Rose is trying to catch the sunlight in between the strands of her hair. Ginny stays quiet until Rose falls asleep in the car on the way home. "I know, pumpkin," Ginny says and tries to cover up the sad edge tingeing her voice. "I know."
x
- There's a staff meeting that's running a wee bit late and I hate to leave Rose and Hugo alone without supervision... -
- I've got you covered, Hermione. -
- Thanks, Gin. You're the best. I don't know how I'll ever repay you for all the things you have done for Ron and me over the years. -
- It's what friends and family do. Don't fret. -
"Mummy's working again?" Rose asks but her voice is flat which makes Ginny think the question is rhetorical.
Ginny nods - more for Hugo's benefit than Rose's - and leads the two over to the fireplace so they can Floo over to Grimmauld Place. As she prepares the children to use the network for the first time, she absent-mindedly wonders where Ron is and why he isn't helping Hermione parent their kids. It's not really her business, but Ginny has the strangest sense of foreboding that Hermione's and Ron's marriage is slowly deteriorating. She hates to see how it is already beginning to affect Rose and Hugo.
"Aunt Gigi, why do all of the trees change colours in the autumn?" Hugo asks as soon as he wipes the soot off of his face and dashes over to the bay window over-looking the back garden. He presses his freckled nose up against the glass and then looks questioningly at Ginny.
Rose rolls her eyes. "Next you'll be asking her why the sky is blue. Stop with the silly questions, Hugo." She drops her rucksack by the troll leg umbrella stand and stomps up the stairs.
"Is she mad at me?" Hugo asks Ginny with wide brown eyes and a quivering lower lip.
"Shh, of course not, Hugo," Ginny reassures him and leads him outside so they can study the natural magic of the colour-changing autumn leaves up close. "Posie just misses Mummy."
"She has a funny way of showing it," Hugo replies and catches a leaf that falls down from the treetops. "Posie scares me sometimes. She doesn't scare you, though, does she? You're not scared of anything at all, Aunt Gigi."
Ginny laughs, and Hugo looks up at her with an adoring smile. "Thank you, sugar."
Hugo nods self-importantly, looking proud with himself the way only six-year-olds can. "It's true. And thanks for letting me and Posie come over all of the time. I had the best day with you today."
x
- Ginny, I need some time off from parenting to talk to Ron. -
- Uh-oh, that sounds serious. Is everything all right? -
- Yeah . . . it should be. Give us a few days free of the kids? -
- Are you sure that's best? -
- Please, Ginny. -
"Rosie-Posie, you'll be spending winter holidays at Grimmauld Place," Ginny tells Rose when the First Year steps off the Hogwarts Express. Rose does a decent job at masking her disappointment that her parents aren't there, but Ginny saw her initial reaction before Rose could cover it up.
"I want to go home," Rose says quietly, echoing the petulant tone of herself eight years ago. However, her words are lost to the shrill whistles and merry chatter in King's Cross as they lug Albus', James', and Rose's trunks into the boot of Ginny's car before they pile in and drive to London.
James and Albus loudly carry on the conversation during the entire drive. A few times, they make Rose laugh, and Ginny thinks that maybe everything will be okay with the eldest Granger-Weasley child. But then after an hour or so, Rose angles her body away from her cousins and stares pensively out of the window, and maybe everything won't be okay.
Ginny bites her lip and keeps glancing at her niece in the rear-view mirror - she can see the faint glitter of tear tracks sparkling down Rose's cheeks. For the first time, Ginny wonders if she is doing the right thing by isolating Rose and Hugo from Hermione and Ron all of the time.
x
"Aunt Ginny?"
"Yeah, pumpkin?"
"Happy Mother's Day." Rose and Hugo present a chirping pink pygmy puff to her with wide, hesitant smiles on their faces.
"Oh, Posie," she says and clutches the pygmy puff happily to her chest. "Hugo. Thank you, sweethearts." She gathers her niece and nephew into her arms and squeezes them tight, the pygmy puff in between them all. "But shouldn't you be celebrating Mother's Day with your mum?"
Rose nods jerkily. "We got her something, too," she says stiffly.
"We just thought we should give you something too since you are more of a mum than she is," Hugo interjects with a well-intentioned grin. "Mummy's smart but you're smarter and the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. We love you more."
(Before then, Ginny hadn't known it was possible for a person's heart to melt and break in a single moment.)
x
- Gin . . . Ron and I are getting a divorce. I don't know how to break the news to the children. Would you mind coming over for moral support? You're so much better at understanding them than Ron and I ever were. -
- Hermione, I - I can't. You and Ron need to spend more time with Posie and Hugo. They miss you, you know. -
- I didn't know. They seem so happy . . . -
- I'm sorry. -
- Ginny, please. -
- You have to tell them yourself. -
x
There's a knock on Grimmauld Place's front door. "Aunt Gigi?"
"Coming!" Ginny yells from the kitchen and dusts the floury sugar off of her hands and onto her apron. She opens her door and says: "Hi, may I help you - oh." Rose and Hugo are standing on her doorstep with two duffel bags stuffed full of their personal belongings. Rose is holding her Gravity 18 broomstick which answers Ginny's question of how they managed to travel to Grimmauld Place. "I'm guessing they told you, huh."
The Granger-Weasleys nod.
"Do your parents know that you're here?"
Again, they nod.
"We didn't know if you knew," Rose began hurriedly. "So we wanted to take this chance and say that we've always had our best days with you and that we love you so much. Please, Aunt Gigi, please let us stay with you?"
"Please?" Hugo echoes with his trademark puppy dog eyes.
"It'll only be for a while," Rose insists, unknowingly echoing the words Hermione would always promise Ginny. "This is home, Aunt Gigi. Please don't turn us away."
Ginny looks at a fourteen-year-old Rose but sees in her mind's eye a little girl with messy curls hiding below the stairs and desperately clinging onto her mother. Ginny then looks at Hugo but instead sees a boy in the back garden from six years ago who liked raking burnt sienna leaves into piles before jumping into them. They're still so young, she thinks as she looks at their present-day selves. They're too young to feel this type of pain. Oh, Hermione and Ron, what have you done?
"Of course," she says in a wobbly voice. She discreetly wipes her eyes so that the children do not see her tears. "Stay as long as you like. You're family and always welcome in my house. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten." Ginny guides her niece and nephew into her house, and the door leading into Grimmauld Place closes gently after them.
[-]