Ron Apparated into the kitchen to find Hermione eating dinner alone, save for a large pile of paperwork. His seven-year-old son, Hugo, stepped into the room at almost the same moment, carrying a plate.

"Hey, Dad! Mum, can I take some more food?"

"I suppose, but that's your third helping! You must be hungry tonight."

"Uh-huh," he said, already filling his plate from the food on top of the stove. "Bye!"

He ran out of the kitchen. Ron frowned at him.

"Why isn't he eating here?"

"Well, Rose is eating in hers, so he said this was only fair."

Ron grimaced as he took his own plate from the counter and sat down beside her. "She's still under the weather, then?"

"Well, it's the oddest thing. She doesn't have any problem keeping her food down, and she's not feverish. But she's still red all over and breathing strangely. I can't figure out what's wrong with her."

"Hmm." Ron chewed thoughtfully. "Actually...it sounds a bit like last year, remember? When she had a sleepover with that friend with all the—"

He froze, his fork stopping halfway to his mouth. Hermione looked up from her paperwork, frowning, then put the pieces together herself.

Hugo barely had time to hear his bedroom door unlock before Ron and Hermione burst into the room.

"AGH!"

He threw a blanket onto the room's other occupant, then jumped in between it and his parents, spreading his arms wide.

"Don't come in! I'm—naked?" It was a pretty weak lie, given that he standing right in front of them, fully-clothed.

"Hugo Wendell Granger Weasley, have you been hiding a dog in your room?!"

"...No?"

Ron rolled his eyes and gave his wand a forceful wave. The blanket immediately flew into the air and then then fluttered back onto Hugo's bed, revealing a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. For its part, the dog was too busy licking Hugo's plate clean to pay much attention to these proceedings.

Hugo looked panicked for about two seconds before falling onto his knees and throwing his arms around the dog's neck. It kept eating as Hugo let out a desperate wail.

"YOU CAN'T TAKE FANTASTIC PRINCESS SPARKLES OMEGA! I LOVE HER!"

Ron covered his face. "Merlin's pants, he's already named it. Ridiculously."

"Hugo, we have told you a thousand times, we cannot have a dog. Your sister is allergic. That's why she's been in her room, sick for the last two days!"

"That's not a problem!" Hugo said with a pitiful sniffle. "We can give her most of the flat, and Rose can just stay in her room except when—"

"NO."

"But she'll starve!"

Hermione sighed. "Hugo...we cannot have a dog. That's final."

"As for starving, you must have given her a lot of our food," Ron mumbled. "Look how fat she is."

Hugo's face brightened. "That's because she's full of babies!"

Ron and Hermione exchanged a nervous look.

Hugo was still crying as he walked through Diagon Alley, Ron patting him on the back.

"Now, now, calm down, Hugh. Mopsy will take good care of Princess and her puppies."

"Fantastic Princess Sparkles Omega," Hugo grumbled.

"Look, we're going to buy you a new pet, alright? Anything they have at the pet shop, as long as it's not a dog."

Hugo looked up, his lip still trembling. "Even a manticore?"

"They're not going to have manticores at the pet shop, Hugh."

"But if they do?"

"...Fine."

That perked Hugo up a bit. He ran ahead as they reached the door to Magical Menagerie, already scanning the cages as his father stepped in. There were no manticores. Hugo swallowed his disappointment and decided to make the best of it.

"Dad, look at these cats!"

"We already have a cat," Ron noted as he joined him.

"I know, but...hey, what's that?" Hugo asked, pointing to the cage above them.

"It's a Streeler," said the woman behind the shop counter. "Pretty, isn't it? But I must warn you, they need a lot of care. Their slime trails are rather poisonous."

"COOL!"

Thus began the hour-long process of pet shopping. Hugo's attention turned from the Streelers to the snakes to the exploding rats to the ravens and then back to the exploding rats and then back to the Streelers, then to the owls and then to the Fwoopers. Ron had a mild panic attack when Hugo caught sight of the Fire Crabs; he quickly declared that Hugo would have to replace anything that his pet future destroyed out of his own allowance, and after a lot of internal debate Hugo turned his attention elsewhere.

Ron was examining the Auguries, thinking that they might be interesting enough for Hugo despite their general safeness, when Hugo gasped loudly from ten feet away.

"Dad, come here! I found what I want!"

Ron rolled his eyes indulgently as he walked over to see what it was. Instantly his smile faltered.

"He likes me," Hugo said, cooing over the monster in the tank. "See? When I put my hand on the grass he reaches out like he's trying to touch me!"

Ron cleared his throat. "Did you—see the nice Auguries? Or maybe we should check out the exploding rats again."

"But you said I couldn't show them to my Muggle friends! I want this one," he said, pointing to the tank.

"...You can't have that one, Hugh."

He spun around. "But you said I could have anything I wanted!"

"I know, but..." Ron looked around desperately, as though hoping an excuse would present itself in one of the other cages. Then he looked back at Hugo and saw that he looked close to tears again.

Ron's face turned pale as he looked back at the tank. "Er..."

"Mum! We're home!" Hugo called, running out of the fireplace with the tank pressed tightly against his chest.

Hermione smiled. "Well, someone's in a better mood," she said, though she paused when she saw Ron following behind him. At first she thought he was smiling, but it was actually more of a rictus grin, top wide and too horrible to belong anywhere but on a corpse.

"Uh-huh! Guess what Dad bought me?" Hugo said, holding up the tank for her to see. "It's a giant spider!"

Hermione blinked, glancing. at her husband. "Oh. Really?"

"Yeah! The lady said that they used magic to blend a tarantula and a great huntsman," he said, as though reading from a note written in his mind, "which is like a tarantula but has longer legs. He's just a baby now but he could grow up to be a foot long!"

Ron kept grinning, but a soft moan escaped from the back of his throat.

Hugo was still blathering. "He can live in the tank until he's older, and he's magic so he's not gonna grow for a really long time, but one day we might have to let him out and to run around the flat. Which is cool, because he'll hunt down any black beetles or lizards that are running around! I still miss Fantastic Princess Sparkles Omega a lot, but I can already tell that he and I are gonna be best mates. I'm gonna name him 'Ron,' after Dad, since he bought him for me. Or maybe 'Murderfang,'" he said, peering thoughtfully into the tank. "Anyway, I'm gonna go show him our room!"

He ran off. Hermione approached Ron cautiously.

"I told him he could have anything he wanted, as long as it wasn't a dog," Ron said, barely moving his lips. "I love my children so much, Hermione."

"Yes, but are you sure—"

"SO much!"

She patted his arm. "I know, dear."

Hugo's door was ajar. Hermione gave it a token knock before stepping into the room. Hugo had set the tank on his bedside table and was now attaching a note that said Merderfang Ron Weasley in large, careful writing.

"Getting him all settled in, then?"

"Uh-huh!" Hugo said, waving her over to bend down and watch the spider climb around the tank. "Can we feed him one of the beetles that we bought? The lady said he doesn't even need a web to kill them!"

"In a minute. But you know, I'm not sure the tank works over here by your bedside."

Hugo frowned. "Why not?"

"Well—spiders like places that are dark and out of the way. I think having him here, right next to your window and the lamp, might actually be scaring him a little bit."

Hugo looked grave. "Oh."

"I have an idea." Hermione bent down and picked up the spare blanket that Hugo had thrown over Fantastic Princess Sparkles Omega the previous day. "Why don't we put this over the tank? That way it will be nice and dark for Deathfang—"

"Murderfang."

"—but you can still peek under and see him whenever you want?"

"Hmm...okay!"

She helped him set that up, then headed back to the kitchen. She paused in the doorway, watching as Hugo ducked under the blanket and marveled at his acquisition.

Ron was drinking tea to calm his nerves.

"Alright. You don't have to be afraid to go in his room anymore," she said, her tone just a bit mocking.

He snorted. "Says you. Do you honestly think that he'll keep that blasted thing in its tank? No matter how much we tell him to?"

For the first time, Hermione looked scared herself. "...Oh. That's not likely at all, is it?"

Ron's hand shook as he put his teacup back on the saucer.

Author's Notes: Is it better without that last scene? I dunno, but I wrote it so there ya go.