Title: Wonderchild

Author: LLE

Rating:T (PG-13)

Summary: From first crush to love. Hogwarts to the Order of the Phoenix. War to peace.

Throughout my entire childhood and adolescence, I have been surrounded by child prodigies of one type or another. Be it Quidditch players, pranksters, adventurers, heroes, geniuses… You name it, and I’ll tell you who it was.

My first crush was on one of these prodigies. The woebegone, somewhat tragic knight with the shining green eyes and the distinctive scar was the sun my world revolved around for quite some time, actually. I remember being convinced that I’d just keel right over and die if I didn’t end up marrying my Prince.

Ah, youth.

It took a while for me to get over my infatuation with Harry, but I managed. I even managed to get through and past it very delicately, not counting the one time during my fourth year where I got a little tipsy on some of Fred’s alcohol and snogged the poor boy. We laugh about it now, usually right before we laugh about aforementioned boy being caught with Draco Malfoy just weeks later.

My second crush was another one of the prodigies, only in the Genius section this time. I first started noticing her in a more than friendly way some time in my second year. No big epiphanies, star struck expressions or teary nights; just a brief thought that flew across my mind and vanished again almost before I registered it.

I didn’t think much of it initially, though I did have the brainpower to realize that people would find it odd to see me write another girl’s name over and over again on every available bit of parchment I had. Wanting to do that didn’t strike me as odd. I just thought she had a pretty name, and I wanted to be able to pen it out in an equally pretty way. So, how to do that without making anyone wonder?

Since I thought she was brilliant as it was, not to mention a part of the famous Trio, I decided on Wonderchild. It suited her, it didn’t give away her gender, and most people assumed that it referred to Harry. Perfect recipe.

And time passed, like it always does. My crush on Harry passed, but my feelings for my Wonderchild not only remained; they grew. It scared me at first, because witches are supposed to fall for wizards; not other witches. But I reckoned that if Harry and Draco could fall for each other, then what was wrong with me falling for my Wonderchild?

Of course, by the time I came to this realization I wasn’t 12 anymore, and she wasn’t 13. I was 16, she had just turned 17, and we were both in the Order, along with Harry, Ron, Draco and many more of our fellow students. We weren’t children anymore. Or maybe we were, and just had to grow up far too fast. War will do that.

Regardless of what had caused it, my Wonderchild and I had grown into adults. If not yet completely in body, then certainly in mind. For that same reason, ‘Wonderchild’ wasn’t really an appropriate moniker for her anymore. So, I changed it to Wonder Woman instead. Had I wanted to write in down on parchment after parchment, I could have done so. One good side to the war was that everyone was far too busy to care whether little Ginny Weasley liked boys or girls.

I didn’t write her alias all over every available scrap of parchment, of course. There was, after all, a war being fought, and the parchment we had was needed for far more important things than the scribblings of a love struck teenager. I did hold on to one small piece of parchment, though. The first one I ever wrote Wonderchild on; for the nostalgia of it, I guess. A memory of more innocent days.

I took to whispering it to myself instead, when I knew no one was paying attention, and I only slipped up once. She and I had been sent to take care of a rather unpleasant creature called a Snarfler. Snarfler’s aren’t really dangerous, per se, just annoying as all get out. Probably because their main focus in life seems to be drooling on anything and everything within range. If you’re hit by their drool, you’ll be knocked out as suddenly as a bonfire in a rainstorm. Fairly safe, but not terribly smart, since you’ll then be unconscious in the very near vicinity of a 300 pound monster with little to no hand-to-eye (or foot-to-ground) coordination.

I remember we’d managed to confuse the Snarfler enough to take it down, and I was getting ready to use a final Stupefy on it. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured the befuddled beast would swivel violently just then, and spray me with a healthy dose of the drool that was hanging from its mouth.

When I woke again, I felt as disoriented as I imagine the Snarfler would have felt. I had no idea where I was, or even how long I’d been out for. I just saw her and grinned blearily, saying something along the lines of; “Heeey! It’s Wonder Woman!” which earned me an amused look and, for some reason, a few questions on when I’d taken to watching old Muggle TV-shows.

I was ordered to take a few days to rest after that, mainly in regards to how incoherent I’d been after waking up. I didn’t mind so much, but I would rather have been doing some good for the fight, and not only because I was usually teamed up with her. She was sent out with Ron or Harry in my absence though, so I spent those few days in solitude.

Once I was allowed to return to work and school, things started to happen very quickly. She came into my room a night soon after to assure herself that I’d recovered. When I told her that I was perfectly fine; she slapped me. I must have looked like I just swallowed four gallons of Dilbert Dizzler’s Dizzifying Draught, because I know I never saw that coming. The fact that she then broke down in tears and yelled at me to never, ever scare her like that again only added to my confusion.

Well, sometimes you just can’t see the forest for the trees.

We won the war some 7 years later. It cost many lives on both sides, but in the end, the Boy Who Lived prevailed, and survived the final battle with Lord Voldemort. The younger crowd now call him the Boy Who Kicked Ass.

Tonight, I’m yet again spending my time pacing the halls of a hospital, like I did so many times during the war, for all of them. It’s been ten years since she slapped me. Ten years to the day, in fact. And she’s in there; screaming. I want to go in, but she seems just a little too fond of telling me how this is all my fault, so I think I’ll stay out here in relative safety; at least until everyone’s ready. I’m not waiting for Harry, though. He peeked in for one second and turned green right away. Poor chap.

The doctor comes out of the room and pulls that silly little blue mask off of his face. He’s smiling.

I should have figured that my son would be as punctual as his birth mother. I smile down at her and gently push the sweaty brown bangs away from her forehead before kissing her gently.

“I love you, Wonder Woman.”

She chuckles tiredly and takes my hand, twining our fingers. “I told you he’d show tonight.”

“That you did, love.” I perch on the side of her bed, and she lets her body rest against mine.

We spend a moment just sitting there, enjoying the feel of our bodies touching. I bury my nose in her hair and inhale deeply. “Remind me never to doubt you on anything even remotely connected to time again, hmm?”

She has, after all, spent the last nine months telling me that our son would arrive tonight, on the 10th anniversary of our first kiss. And I’ll be splitting Merlin’s Beard in two if she wasn’t right.

The door creaks slightly as it is pushed open, and an elderly, cherubic nurse enters, holding a tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. Hermione turns her gaze to the noise, and the look in her eyes when the nurse places our baby boy in her arms is so radiant with pure joy that it brings tears to my eyes.

She smiles tearily as our son kicks in his blanket and mewls unhappily. “He’s got that Weasley temper.” She jokes.

I laugh shakily and wrap one arm around her shoulders. “For the sake of your nipples, darling, I hope he didn’t inherit his Uncle Ronnie’s appetite.”

She sticks her tongue out at me, and then gently places our son into my arms. “Here you go, little Remus. Say hello to your Mum.”

My tiny, fragile little boy opens his eyes and gaze steadily at me. Time will tell whether his eyes will continue to match my blue ones, or if they’ll turn brown to match Hermione’s. But that’s not important.

I touch my finger to one of his tiny hands, and he grabs onto it with surprising strength, blinking and smacking his lips. I feel Hermione turn slightly and lay one arm over my midsection, resting her chin on my arm as I smile as my son.

“Welcome to Life, little Wonderchild.”

- END