Promise to the Past | 🐾 ᴍᴀʀᴀᴜᴅᴇʀs ✓

Epilogue IV: A House Restored

 ̶«̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ・☽ ༓ ☾・  ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶  ̶̶̶̶

-- 1.5 YEARS AFTER THE WAR 

Hermione Granger never imagined her life the way it turned out. There was the glaring matter of her being thrown back over twenty years into the past and living out her life with the newly acclimated role of godmother and aunt to her best friends. But even then, there were certain expectations she had for the unconventional life she'd found herself with. Despite Sirius's enthusiastic proposal, they'd agreed to have a long engagement. Hermione was determined to accomplish more in her own right before she was married. She had goals she wanted to achieve. As Sirius incredulously pointed out, what could be more of an accomplishment than time-traveling over two decades and taking down the darkest wizard of their age? However, when the dust settled and people went back to their lives, Hermione found herself craving normalcy as she'd once known it. Granted, her definition of such was a little skewed to begin with given her yearly life-threatening adventures with Harry while they were growing up. But she was determined. She would establish a career. She wanted to write her own history book of the wizarding war. She wanted to train in wizarding law and legislation. 

But as fate would have it, Hermione was doomed never to get her way quite as she wanted it. 

In the end, their long engagement was brought to a stuttering halt when they realized Hermione was pregnant. How? They couldn't tell you. She was on the potion, and they still used the charm nearly every time. Yet, even with double the protection, the healer at St. Mungo's told her with no shadow of a doubt that she was pregnant. The spell created a yellow light, you see. If there weren't a life form in there, it would be a white light. 

Ultimately Hermione suspected it had something to do with her magical links to Sirius. Perhaps their affinity to each other's magic overrode any barriers between them- intentionally erected or otherwise. 

Sirius was just as shocked as she was. However ready he was for their life together, children were a whole other adventure. But at the end of the day, it didn't take much effort at all for him to convince Hermione to move up the date of their wedding. As much as she'd wanted to wait, that was no longer an option. And while Hermione had no inhibitions about being a single mother, she also had no desire to prolong the inevitable unnecessarily. 

So they were married, in a relatively intimate wedding ceremony a little over five months ago. Hermione was already beginning to show slightly by the time she walked down the aisle. But Sirius insisted that it made her glow even more than usual. Arthur had been surprised when Hermione asked him to walk her down the aisle instead of Albus. But the man had immediately softened when she reminded him that he was like a second father to her in the wizarding world while she was growing up. Fabian and Gideon nearly fought for the honor, but Molly beat them away with a stick. She warned them that if they wanted to be in the wedding so badly, they could be the flower men. Baby Harry took a serious issue with that.

And now, laying in her bed at St. Mungo's, Hermione couldn't help but think she wouldn't have things any other way. Life was certainly unconventional, to say the least. But the part of her that held on to arbitrary timelines of the order of her individual accomplishments and when she should start a family faded away as she grew fiercely protective of the life inside her. It was the most bizarre yet natural process in the world. And as with everything else, they found their way to deal with the surprise. Hermione agreed that her time out of work after giving birth would be well spent finalizing her book. Up until then, she'd merely been doing contract-based work and consulting for the rebuilding ministry. Sirius promised her he'd take time off after her leave so she could comfortably re-establish her career- whatever she decided that would look like.