He was quite enjoying spending the day back at home, The Burrow home, that is. Fall was just beginning to set in, but that didn’t stop Ron from lying out on the wilting grass with Harry beside him, both just breathing in deeply the smell of the falling leaves.

"Mate?"
"Mmmm?" Ron murmured.
"Do you ever worry about the future?"
"All the time."
"Do you worry about it more now?"

Ron flipped over from his back to his stomach, eyes stretching up to the white cloud dotted sky above him. It seemed like a simple answer, but it wasn’t. It was never a simple answer when it came to the future.

"Harry, you’ll be fine. You’re going to be a wonderful father. You vanquished Lord Voldy, I think you can handle parenting."
"You really think so?" The raven-haired man asked.
"Of course. Mate, your kids are going to love you. Mine on the other hand…"

Harry’s snort of laughter made Ron break out into a grin of his own, sitting upright as the leaves from the trees blew down more forcefully, the red ones blending in with his hair well enough.

"Ron, your kids are going to love you. If you and ‘Mione are anything like your parents…it’ll be great."
"Thanks. Still doesn’t mean I’m not scared out of my bloody mind."
"Yeah. I still have six months to be scared. Right now its just worry."
"Oh," Ron laughed, "The worry never goes away. The worry gets worse, and then it’s combined with the fear of making a mess of things, combined with the sudden realization that all the stuff you’ve done in your life you never want your kids to do, too."

As silence settled over the two men, Ron was left to think about his impending future with fatherhood. No matter how many times Hermione, or Ginny, or Harry, or his parents told him, he never could quite get over the paralyzing fear about becoming a father.

It was by far the biggest, and scariest thing he had ever done in his life. Bigger than facing Voldemort, scarier than asking Hermione to marry him, and defiantly bigger and scarier than any of his Auror missions. But that wasn’t to say he wasn’t excited. He was. Ron was looking forward to being able to hold their child, Hermione’s and his child, in his arms for the first time.

He was looking forward to rocking them to sleep, teaching them to play Quidditch, and showing them the secret hiding spots in their grandmother’s’ home. Ron was looking forward to taking them to Cannons games, to teaching them how to get one over on their Uncles Fred and George, although he supposed that would be nearly impossible. He smiled at the thought of playing chess with them, sharing bedtime stories from his Hogwarts days that Hermione would surely frown at, and finally sending them off to the castle itself for their own adventures.

Although, he couldn’t imagine what he would do if they got into the same trouble he got into.

"Hey Harry?"
"Eh?"
"Suppose, that once both the girls have the babies, and they’ll let us out of their sight with them, how about we take them to a Quidditch game?"
"As long as it’s not a bloody Cannons game." Harry laughed.
"Oy! The cannons are doing quite well this season!"
"Whatever you say, mate. I’ll be taking my kid to a Quidditch game to support a real team."
"Sod off Harry, you wanker."
“Prat."
"Git."
"Arse!"
"And they say that we’re the immature ones, Georgie my old boy."

The twins seemed to find great amusement in Harry and Ron, the two materializing out of thin air and taking their seats down on the grass.

"Dare we ask?" Harry asked.
"Lets just say," George smiled, "That our lovely wives met your lovely wives in Diagon Alley, and when the words 'baby booties' were mentioned, we were out of there."
"Speaking of your wife, Ron. When’s she supposed to pop?"
"FRED!!!!" Ron hollered.
"It was just a question!" The twin exclaimed, hands up in defense.

Ron fell back against the grass, shielding his eyes with one arm, the other being used to render a rather rude gesture to Fred. There was something in his stomach that was making the red head queasy, trying to take deep breaths. It was funny; it really was funny what Fred had said. But not today. Not so close to Hermione’s due date. Not when he was becoming more and more afraid of being a father.

"Ronnie?"
"What?" He spat.
"Whoa! Calm down little bro'." Fred said.
"We mean you no harm, Ron. Just- what’s going on? You’re awfully moody."
"Sort of like Hermione." Harry mumbled.

Ron was expecting himself to snap at Harry, but raising his arm and opening an eye to look at his best friend, he just grinned. Hermione was moody. And Harry had been on the receiving end of her temper this morning when he had asked if she needed help carrying a bag into the Burrow. Ron chuckled to himself thinking of the way her voice had reverberated off the walls inside the house before his mother and Ginny had managed to calm her down.

"Ron? What’s so funny?" Harry inquired.
"Nothing. Just thinking about this morning."
"Oh, that was hilarious." The raven haired man sighed, "Your wife almost strangled me to death."
"Ah! Another near Hermione strangling!" George laughed.

They were all being immature prats, and as Ron sat up and began to laugh, listening to the stories the three others shared about his wife’s pregnant tendencies, he felt better. There were going to be fewer moments like this when the baby was born, so Ron just relaxed and enjoyed the moment of sitting with his brothers.

"I made the mistake of mentioning S.P.E.W once."
"Bloody hell!" Ron shook his head, "Worst thing you could do!"
"Tell me about it." Fred sighed darkly, "It was two hours before I was able to excuse myself from the room."
"Honestly Ron. You picked a right nutter woman."
"Funny of you to say Harry! Wasn’t it just yesterday that Ginny was ranting about your hair and how she was going to tame it if it was the last thing he did?"

Harry sulked under Ron’s raised eyebrow, finally shrugging his shoulders. Fred and George meanwhile had managed to sprawl themselves out on the grass, patting their brother-in-law on the back.

"There there mate. We understand."
"Fully." George smiled wickedly.
"To the greatest extent."
"Which is why-"
"Georgie and I-“"
"Have come up with-" The twins looked at each other and smiled.
"The most-"
"Amazing-"
"Stupendous-"
"Bloody brilliant-"
"Not to mention downright useful-"
"Product any male could ever want." George finished finally.

Both Harry and Ron exchanged a look with each other, and then came to stare at the twins who were both looking quite similar to children in a candy store. Which Ron figured, was probably pretty accurate considering they were talking about inventing something.

"Well," Harry paused, "Go on!"
"Certainly, dear chap."
"Well, Freddie and I were talking one day after Hermione went on one of her tirades, and it sort of came into our minds that we needed to help the world-"
"The male race really."
"The male race, from the raging hormones of pregnant women. So with a bit of thinking, and some testing, and some stealing of DNA-"
"Whose DNA?" Ron asked.

The twins once more exchanged a glance with each other, and Ron had known both of them long enough to understand that glance. Fred in particular seemed quite nervous, fidgeting while as George just smiled brilliantly.

"Hermione’s of course! Only pregnant woman around right now. Although," He shot a glare at Harry, "That’s not the case anymore."
"Oy! I thought we’d been over this!"

The only non-Weasley outside threw up his hands in partial frustration. It was common knowledge that all the Weasley brothers had given Harry quite a hard time when he first began to date Ginny, then married her, and now impregnated her.

"Just kidding, mate. You know we all think you’re the best man for the job."
"Yeah," Fred smiled, "If you can get along all this time with Ginny and not have her hex you into oblivion, you deserve to have her. And all of that."
"Lovely. But back to the product?”"Ron asked.
"Of course! Anyways, we stole a bit of Hermione’s, not DNA maybe, more like hormones, played around with them a bit-"
"And let me tell you it wasn’t easy!"
"And we finally came up with a sort of patch."
"Patch?"
"Patch. It’s designed to try and counteract the hormones that make pregnant women go nutters on you. Try to stabilize things out a bit. For the benefit of all fathers-to-be in the world. We're going to be rich!"
"Uh, George," Fred paused, "We already are rich..."
"We're going to be richer!"

Fred and George looked immensely proud of themselves, the latter dusting his nails on his shirt as Harry and Ron both just looked at them. It was one thing, Ron supposed, to create joke products. But it was a whole other thing to be making patches to try and balance out women’s sodding hormones.

Not that it wasn’t a brilliant idea. Ron would have given anything for one of those patches a few months back, when Hermione was absolutely off her rocker. Maybe he wouldn’t have slept on the couch so many nights. But the thought of the twins inventing these types of products scared him into a right state, especially considering they used HIS wife’s hormones to invent it.

"What? Pixie got your tongues?" George drawled.
"You two are bloody out of your minds!"
"Harry!? We thought you’d be delighted to know you won’t have to suffer through what Ronniekins and every other male has had to!"
"No," Harry sighed, "I’m not. Firstly, the two of you are off your rockers for even THINKING Ginny would agree to use something like that. You both know that if she has to suffer then so do I. Secondly, isn’t part of becoming a father going through hell? So when you have kids you’re already prepared? Thirdly, have you given a thought to what HERMIONE is going to do to you both when she finds out what you did?"
"Oh, she won’t find out though."
"Sure of that?"

Ron was smirking now, quite enjoying the wash of fear that passed over his older brothers. They weren’t afraid of much, except obviously, pregnant women. And Hermione was a pregnant woman, and as cruel as it was, Ron was taking it under consideration to tell her.

"You wouldn’t!"
"Want to see if I would?"
"No!" George shouted.
"Come on, Ron. You value our existence don’t you?"
"Maybe." A smile played on his lips.
"What do you want?" Fred sighed, "Name it and it’s yours."
"Never use my wife again in experiments. Or me. Or my children."
"Hey! What about me?" Harry asked.
"Fine." George spat, "All Potters and former Grangers, partial Grangers by means of blood line and Ron are herein exempt from all product testing and such. Happy? Because this means we're going to have to test on Bill and Fleur and their kiddies now, and you know how much bodily harm Fleur is going to do to us if she finds out we've used some of her Vela genes..."
"'Course. I look forward to being around when she hexes both of your bits off." Ron chirped, "Up for Quidditch?"
"Always, little brother, always."

It was amazing how easily everything could be forgotten with the mention of Quidditch, the four men standing up. Sure, there weren’t enough of them to play, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t fly around and toss a quaffle back and forth. Brooms in hand, Ron lagged behind a bit, thoughts reverting back to Hermione, and his impending fatherhood.

"Oy! Bill! Charlie! Up for some Quidditch?" Harry shouted across the field at the two elder brothers making their way out of the Burrow.

Caroline and Fleur were standing just outside the door of the Burrow with several red-headed and silver haired children running around them; At the sight of Fleur the twins cringed as Bill and Charlie gave a quick wave to their wives before turning towards the broom shed.

"Always!"

Ron smiled to himself, jogging to catch up with the twins and Harry. The scene unfolding would be one that Hermione would roll her eyes at, scoffing something about ‘Weasley’s and Quidditch’ and retreat to the tree to sit under and read.

"And Ginny would put up an awful fight about not being able to play."
"What?" Ron stuttered, being broken out of his thoughts.
"You were muttering about Hermione," Harry laughed, "And how she always acts when we play."
"Oh."
"Ah, don’t worry about it mate. Give it ten years, and we’ll be able to have full fledged games. Potters against Weasleys."
"As much as I don't like the mental idea of what you're doing with my sister to produce an entire Quidditch team, I can’t wait." Ron grinned.

Yet just as the wind was blowing back through his hair, lobbing the quaffle to Bill across the field, Ron’s attention was diverted downwards. His lack of interest suddenly in the game seemed to alert the five other men, all diving down to hover just about the ground around Molly Weasley, her hands ringing her apron as she shoved a note into Ron’s hands.

"It just arrived!"
"Wha-"
"JUST READ IT!" She screeched.
"Blimey!"

Ron for one couldn’t understand the panic in his mother’s eyes as he un-crumpled the note, obviously from being held so tightly by Molly.

Ron,
St. Mungo’s. Now. Hurry. Please? Baby!!!!

-Hermione.

And I don’t care if you’re playing sodding Quidditch; you get over here RIGHT NOW!!!!!

For a second Ron just stared at the piece of paper in front of him, thinking about how well Hermione knew him, and what he did on lazy afternoons.

And then he promptly fainted off his broom.