InsaneJournal

Footprints (Charlie/Hermione, G)
Title: Footprints
Characters: Charlie/Hermione
Rating: G
Word Count: 350
Warnings: None.
Summary: Hermione has tried everything to get the paint off the floor.
Notes: For inell, who requested Charlie/Hermione, footprints, kiss. Can be seen as a sequel to Just Like A Woman, which I also wrote for the wonderful inell.

Though she'd tried to be careful, there were footprints on the floor. Blue footprints. No--River Mist footprints, to be precise. Charlie had grumbled that it was a stupid bloody name for a paint colour, but he'd liked it well enough, and he was the one who insisted the nursery be painted blue. So. Regardless of stupid paint colour names or who'd insisted on what, it stood that there were three half-formed River Mist footprints on the planks of the nursery floor, and magic was not getting them up.

She was not going to cry. Regardless of the stupid footprints on the stupid floor or her stupid huge belly that got in the way of everything these days, she was not going to cry. She wasn't, even though the tears came so easily now as her son moved inside her.

She placed a hand over her belly. "You're making your mum cry, and you're not even here yet," she said with a little laugh as she wiped away a few tears that had managed to escape despite her resolve.

"And who are you talking to?" came Charlie's cheerful voice from the doorway. She hadn't heard him come in, and her gaze automatically flicked to the footprints and her wand which she had discarded nearby.

"They won't come up," she said, defeated, her shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry." She hated saying those two words.

Charlie frowned at the footprints. "Did you try—"

"Yes. I've tried everything." She hadn't meant to cut him off, but she was exhausted and she just wanted to get in the tub and close her eyes for a while.

He sat down next to her. "Then we'll just have to put his cot here," Charlie said, "Instead of under the window."

Hermione looked up at him, grateful, a little smile starting to cross her face.

"Now why don't you get in the tub and wash the paint off yourself," he suggested, "Especially your feet."

She laughed and kissed him and told herself she was silly for thinking Charlie would be anything but wonderful about the footprints.