So, I debated a long time whether I should post this chapter alone, or wait till I'd have chapter 7. In the end, you deserve to know I still write this story and chapter 7 is coming very soon.
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. Obviously. Enough said.
After The End
Authors Note: What words would be more eloquent than I'm sorry? This chapter… was a never ending struggle! And, I could explain, but seriously? You probably just want to read the chapter!
So, if you clicked the link again after so long. Thank you. I apologise for such a long wait. And now, I'll apologise again, in advance, for this being such a short chapter. But it has to be! The story cannot go on if this chapter doesn't happen, and as it is, this is all that has to happen in it. That makes it very particular because this story has evolved, to my surprise, developing a life of its own, and this chapter was very hard and excruciating but now that's done, I'll thank one of my latest influences, Betsy Beers and Shonda Rhimes, producers of Grey's Anatomy. Shonda said this, which kind of envelops what this chapter is about:
"The one thing you want to give Izzie is some closure. And I love hearing Denny say 'Nothing is ever going to be the same again. I love you. Bye.'"
Now, I've never been to New Orleans. But I love it. And, I guess at first, I didn't mean this chapter to make such a big deal of New Orleans, and I hardly kept in mind that it was the anniversary of the hurricane while I wrote it… but I love New Orleans, and it breaks my heart that it's had such a hard time. With all my love, to New Orleans in thanks, for the greatest deal of imaginative resources it's given my creativity since I first read about Garden District.
I'm sorry if you get the feeling that nothing happens in this chapter. I would understand.
Chapter Six: Breaktown
"Are you ready to quit?
Are you ready to learn?
Are you ready to find the spark inside and let it burn?
I'm the walls that close in
I'm the words you won't say
I'm the voices you choose to keep inside
And lock away every day
You keep it all to yourself
You're just like everyone else
So take a good look around
Now, welcome to Breaktown"
~Hanson
New Orleans was always warm.
An exceptionally warm and pleasant difference when compared to the coldness of the snow clouded London that they were coming from.
The warmth in the night was almost intoxicating and for a moment, as she stared out the glass French door that led to the balcony while elegantly holding back the velvet curtain, she thought she could live there. The warmth that she could see outside the window intensely flooded the room and increasingly felt like expensive liquor down her throat. Like one holiday summer afternoon in Paris when she was a kid, or a sunny morning in the grounds of Hogwarts.
She wanted to savour New Orleans. She wanted to savour New Orleans like the southern beauty it was. She wanted to savour the night like it was not going to end for them to go resolve their so inevitable resolution.
She wanted to savour New Orleans like the colourful blend of old and new that it was. She wanted to savour New Orleans in the same way she longed to savour the freedom she and Harry were so eagerly expecting.
She sighed as she opened the French doors and stepped out in the balcony. The breeze that blew over Garden District wasn't sharp and cold as it was in London but inviting and refreshing as she breathed it in. It softly blew away the hem of her silk nightgown, and gently caressed her hair, producing a pleasant tickling against the back of her neck.
She took a deep, silent breath; her hands resting against the tasteful wooden balustrade that enclosed the small balcony overlooking the luxurious Garden District.
She could imagine herself living there. Admiring the Mardi Gras parades from that very balcony, walking down those classical European streets, living in that stylishly graceful house. She could have lived there and she almost smiled to herself.
She was thrilled by the impossibly appealing mystery of the city. A thousand secrets and old hidden and forgotten stories that had taken place in that fabulously splendid place. The mystery of the unknown that was hidden everywhere waiting eagerly to be discovered almost made her envious of the people that inhabited a place of such extraordinary and old exquisiteness. The lights, still glowing from inside the living rooms and bedrooms; the Christmas lights that nearly spoke to her in the dimness of the bluish night that shadowed Louisiana. Everything spoke to her, telling her about walking people and the distant sound of jazz music.
Everything, from the faint glow in the sky, to that fantastic smell that was somewhere between old magnolias and fresh lilacs, it was everything the way she had read it in the books. Everything was as she had imagined it, while reading the mysterious, epic stories of love, betrayal, power, humanity and lust that countless times had constructed the passionate, intense southern novels she had loved to read.
She could have fallen in love with that city. Maybe one day, she and Harry. Maybe, once this was all over.
She turned around and looked into the darkened bedroom that they were occupying in the stunning Federation house in Garden District. Harry was sleeping tight in the large bed, his exposed back almost shining in the warm darkness of the room.
She smiled.
She felt an impulse to lay on top of him, her chest against his back, and her face hidden in the crook of his shoulder kissing his temple before joining him in his peaceful sleep.
She closed her eyes and her bare feet almost moved by themselves to approach the bed. She opened her eyes and stared at him with longing, enjoying the rough vulnerability of his sleeping form. Vulnerability. And that ethereal sensation that overpowered her and exposed the undeniable truth of him to her. That moment of verifiable trust with which he allowed her to see him just as he was; no masks, no carefully devised concealment, no skilfully developed reflexes. No heritage from the war that he could easily hide behind, not even the covers that were thrown below his waist were meant to conceal a part of him from her.
There was a real, considerate honesty in that exposure. That naturalistic beauty that she saw in this reality that he showed her, in a surrendered display of sincerity that made her heart swell and gave her a tickling shivering inside her chest.
She tiptoed back inside, quietly closing the glass French doors behind her.
She leaned against the door, the heavy curtain cushioning the cold glass at her back. She took another look at Harry, his breathing steady and his position unwavering. She turned to her left and stared at the impossibly old wooden desk. A thousand sheets of parchment that countless times delivered a thousand letters of love, anger, hatred and regret through rivers of ink, all creeping under a thick shining layer of modern varnish attempting its best to seem old.
She sighed.
Neat, fresh parchment laid on top of the desk, silently expecting the moment when she would conjure a floating lamp above her head and write out what was so painfully caught up in her throat since their arrival.
A strange, unexpected feeling of unease overpowered her, and she hesitated. An almost bitter hesitation that she didn't understand and was convinced she didn't want to feel. A hesitation that was stubbornly telling her that whatever she was going to write in that letter was the epilogue of the old book that was to precede the fresh chapter of the new one she had been so eager to open.
She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, steadily and sensitively coaxing her mind into dominating the hesitation.
It was the time; it was time to embrace the bittersweet ending that was to bring both the undisputable disgrace and the absolute happiness. She opened her eyes and in a short series of movements, she was ready.
Under the incandescent, warm light of the conjured lamp above her, she dipped the quill in the ink and touched the paper with it. Her hesitation vanishing into the air.
"When we were kids, Helen and I loved to play a game. We sat on the train from London to Manchester in the early summer every time we went to visit Granny. We sat there and looked around at the people. We made up lives for the people in the train. We stared at people and made up their lives. If we saw a beautiful woman in an elegant suit, we figured out she was a successful businesswoman, working for a fancy company. If we saw a lively young girl, we imagined she worked on a music store and had a handsome boyfriend named Franco, from Italy. We once saw this woman, who was nothing but fabulous, and we imagined she was French, and owned a fashion store in Paris. We loved it, we loved it badly, it was the best part of going to Granny's. It was an odd game to play, especially for a couple of 8 year olds but we loved it so bad it almost hurts to remember"
She sighed, raised her head and concentrated on the sound of her sigh, of how the air vibrated as it came out of her lungs. She stared at the wall in front of her before taking a deep breath and went back to writing.
"Then, I went to Hogwarts and many things changed then for us." She sighed again. "Along the road, the three of us did many things. Some we will always cherish, some people wouldn't imagine, and some I'd prefer they didn't. We shaped each other in ways that we can't understand, and all three of us, some unexplainable way, came out alive. Yet for some reason, I always remembered that game Helen and I used to play. That feeling, of setting our imaginations free to take a wild walk around the train and the way we loved it and enjoyed it. We loved it! We loved it in the same way in which our minds unconsciously deciphered a code that veiled the way we as 8 year olds imagined our own lives would turn out to be.
I don't remember exactly, but I must have been about 20 the first time I wondered. I had just gotten engaged, and I took the train to Manchester to see mum. There was this girl sitting across from me. The memory of her braided hair and her bright green eyes is so painfully clear in my mind still. She wouldn't take her eyes off of me. And out of nowhere, out of the blue, it occurred to me that this girl, who was about 8, was doing with me, the same thing Helen and I so casually used to do to people.
The girl kept trying to figure me out, and I realised in an anguished moment of absolute truth, that I didn't know how to figure myself out. I cried when I met with mum at the house that was my Granny's.
And that pain, that horrendous feeling of disorientation, has walked around with me for longer than I wanted to admit.
I used to avoid the thought. I used to avoid it like it was an annoying detour I took to avoid an uncomfortable street I didn't want to walk down. I avoided it when I had the engagement party, and at the wedding rehearsal. And even though I cried that morning, I avoided the thought the day we married.
I have an inevitable tendency to avoid anything that I can't understand to the point of intentionally ignoring its existence. And I couldn't understand why something within me told me, that however perfectly happy I convinced myself I was, if young Helen and Hermione were to see me on the train they wouldn't have thought of me as a successful businesswoman, or as a dynamic and happy dancer.
The fact that I so terribly tried to avoid followed me everyday up until now. Avoiding my situation only made it worse, because as the days, the months went by, it never got better and that fact destroyed my expectations of it all being nothing but a thought induced by a long forgotten memory."
Hermione sighed again and started a new sheet of parchment.
"I lied to myself. And this lie that I made up when I first took notion of my wrongs, has eaten me away. So much that I reached a point where I learned to take that lie as a habit. And I lied to myself, to you and everyone in my life, thinking and making believe that I was happy.
I was unhappy.
So terribly unhappy.
And I realise how selfish it may seem to acknowledge it just now, when I've had so much time to do so. I am sorry. So sorry! Because I wish I knew before! I wish I had been brave, and I wish I had been able to get this across to you. But I couldn't! I couldn't do it, and I realise how badly I've hurt you. I never meant to.
I didn't stop lying, and even though sometimes I felt I was drowning in my agony, even when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, I shook my head and shed some tears before I lied again and told myself it was just normal to have moments of total disorientation because that's what life's made of when you have the baggage we have.
I'm sorry because for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I never stopped to consider how wrong it all was instead of shaking the thoughts off my mind. I never stopped to consider that there might be a way out until some time last year.
And all these things, these underlying things that I never admitted to you or myself, I need you to know them now. Because you'll have questions, I know you will, and I intend to answer them, even though I know I probably don't deserve your sympathy or your attention.
I was unhappy.
I don't mean to sound like a victim, but I must admit that I never took the time to analyse the signs of my misery, and that a part of me blames you for not noticing either. Because sometimes I wondered! There were times when for a moment or two, I looked at the situation and saw something out of place! I wondered why the slightest thing made me cry and how come I was so totally unable to prevent that from happening. I did wonder. But I never questioned how come you didn't notice I cried myself to sleep the night that Neville and Helen got engaged. Or that I couldn't sleep the night before Harry and Ginny's wedding, and I cried my heart out in the shower the next morning, carefully casting a Silencing Charm so you wouldn't notice.
I was dying! I was walking, eating and sleeping but I didn't know why I kept doing it.
I know it's unfair, but I've been living half of a life since we were in sixth year!
And I realise, I swear I realise this is a terrible thing to say, but the only time I've felt truly loved, truly complete and understood has been during my time with him. He's me! He's meant for me, we are meant for each other! And I'm so sorry Ron!
He's home for me! He makes my life possible. He's the reason I still know how to breathe, and I've come to understand that I am the reason he still breathes too! This is so cruel! It shouldn't have been like this and I shouldn't have to hurt you this bad, but I must do this because I've been dying every night for a long time and so has he!
And we don't deserve this. We don't deserve this mean despair and the inevitable guilt that we've felt because we wanted to be happier. We sacrificed too much already, and as sad as it may seem, that includes you.
It happened because it was waiting to happen. It was a gigantic monster inside both of us that was eating away at our souls, and it was only waiting to make its appearance and attack us when it made sure we were off guard.
The fact that it's been going on for more than a year isn't the important part because what really matters is that we've been in love since we were little kids who had no idea which way the world turned. I've loved Harry every minute of my life since I met him. And my love for him has grown up with me, and has shaped to our circumstances and the events in our lives. And, I swear this isn't a lame attempt to throw the guilt at someone else, and specially not a way to pull Harry's hero card. But, you must know, that if the war hadn't played us the way it did, none of this would be the way it is being.
I've loved him for always. But I gave him up to that war because I knew it was what had to be done, and even though I never prepared myself for it, however I could say I had; I still don't know if I could have gotten through without him.
He says he did get through because of me, and I believe him. I believe him because I am lost without him! I can't see straight without him, and I wouldn't know which way is up if it weren't for him.
I love him. And he loves me too.
Our unhappiness is the product of our stupidity. Of the blindness with which we ignored the fact that giving this up for the war, was not the same as giving it up once it was over.
I was blind when I married you. We were exhausted and confused, in a blur of images and happenings, we didn't realise that the implications of what we were doing would chase after us sooner or later. But I was blind, very blind when I married you. And for all the right reasons, I wish I hadn't. Because I wish I didn't have to hurt you the way I'm doing so. And because even when I wished - because I did - I could love you the way I love him, the undeniable truth is that I can't.
When I did, when I married you, I had every intention to make it work. I wanted us to be happy, and I thought I could be happy with you, making a life out of little moments in time that would make me look forward to the upcoming ones. And I was sure we were going to pull it off simply because there wasn't anything I wouldn't do.
But my heart was never in this marriage. And you can't make love just happen.
One afternoon on The Burrow's porch, we looked into each other's eyes, and the world shifted. I knew what I was missing. I knew what my unhappiness meant, and why I was so excruciatingly eager for something else.
I knew that the reason I couldn't love you more was that I had always loved him. I loved him first and more than anything.
I knew why I was so envious of Neville and Helen. I knew, with painful agony in every bit of knowledge, that I could be honest with myself only with Harry, and that the life I had tried to construct wasn't strong enough because it had eaten me away and had become a façade I couldn't live with anymore.
And my time with Harry, it has only been the way we've gathered our strength to break ourselves free from this lie that we built around ourselves and that we can't hold anymore.
I can't lie any longer.
I wish I could go back in time and make this less painful, back to that day in sixth year when I gave Harry up to the war he had to fight, and so we wouldn't ever have gotten the hope to make a lie this big work.
But as much as I wish I could fix all the wrongs we've made, only one truth makes it all seem right. Harry and I are in love. We've made each other, and we belong together. I will not lie to you and this truth, is the one truth that holds every other truth I may believe in. It's the time for me to be honest and come clean with myself and with you.
It's been a long time since I was able to live the life that you and I constructed.
I didn't cheat because I had an affair with Harry. I cheated on you when I let you think I could have my heart into this. I'm sorry but I can't. I never could.
I have to make sure that you are aware of the fact that we didn't help the situation simply because we couldn't do it! And that, as hard as it may seem, I swear is true.
We are deeply sorry Ron. I love Harry. I've always loved him and let me say that though I understand this is hard and possibly even cruel, loving Harry is not what I feel sorry for.
I'm sorry because you became the victim of our fear and cowardice. We struggled; I swear to Merlin, we struggled. But we won't anymore. We know we can't fight it, and the struggling would kill us if we keep it up. But please don't think for one minute, that we didn't try not to do this to you because we did try.
Believe it or not, we've been trying to make everything better. I know you're angry, but I hope you can forgive us. It turns out; sometimes you have to do the wrong thing. Sometimes you have to make a big mistake to figure out how to make things right. Mistakes are painful, but they're the only way of finding out who you really are.
You and I were over before we began, I'm sorry to say, because I was his before I knew I was. I was his before I convinced myself I could be handed over to you. I was always his.
Love,
Hermione."
She placed a firm dot after her name and stared at it for several moments before his voice could be heard in the room, making her turn around.
"How long have you been up?" he said kindly. She turned to find him sitting in the bed, his glasses on and his eyes, that she could dimly see with the light from the lamp, fixed on her. His question was not an accusation, or a pointed finger. It was an actual, kind and honest concern.
"Just a couple of hours," She said smiling slightly. "How long have you?"
"Some 15 minutes." He answered.
"15 minutes?" She repeated in a surprised awe. "What have you done so quietly for 15 minutes?"
"I've been looking at you." He said with a smile, his voice had no trail of mocking. He had been staring at her. "You were writing. And I was looking at you."
She gave him a small smile and turned to look out the window. It was probably around 3 in the morning. The moonlight was very bright and the night outside the window didn't seem dark or shadowy but sparkling and clear.
"I like it here," she whispered. She turned to him and her shoulders shrugged slightly almost by reflex as a faint smile escaped her lips. "I could love it in here!" She took off her glasses and got up from the chair.
She walked slowly to the window and once again held the curtain to look outside. She was enthralled by Garden District and its beautiful Spanish houses.
She could feel Harry's eyes on her. It was a warm, comforting feeling that was like a small fire inside her chest, something that kept her warm from the inside against the cold on the outside.
She let her eyes wander around the street, focusing on the bright and colourful Christmas decorations that so perfectly matched each other along the street.
She had bought Christmas decorations that very weekend on Hannah Abbot's store in Diagon Alley. She had wondered, if Hannah thought something about Hermione Granger who lived in a small flat, buying lights and decorations for a large house. But she didn't care. She bought lights and decorations for Godric's Hollow, and she intended to use them. The sooner the better, she told herself.
She sighed loudly and turned to look at Harry. His green eyes stared at her behind his glasses and an expectant intention of his stare gently caressed her.
"Tell me," he said in a low, gentle voice.
She turned her head again and her eyes stared at the brightened street.
"It'll be Christmas in three days"
"I know", he said. Of course he knew, she was not stating anything unknown.
She turned to him.
"I want to be with you." She said firmly, making sure there was kindness in her eyes instead of fierceness. "On Christmas, we will be together. We'll have a tree and decorate it and spend Christmas Eve and Boxing Day at home. At home, in Godric's."
His face showed no response for a few agonizing moments.
And during each of those agonizing moments, the inner insecure girl in Hermione feared that Harry would flat down reject her.
Yet his eyes sparkled with a smile and his whisper was joyful when he spoke.
"I'd love that."
She smiled broadly at him and received an equally bright smile in return from him. Unexplainable happiness floated inside and around her. She felt like she was 9 years old, and was opening a deeply longed present on Christmas morning. She nearly chuckled when she considered that there was every chance it felt even better than opening Christmas presents.
"Come to bed," he said, his smile intact. "I'm dying to hold you." He said warmly.
She walked to him slowly, taking pleasure in the luxurious feeling of her nightgown's soothing caress against her legs.
She sat on the bed and stared at Harry's exposed chest, the lust that erupted within her almost pushed her into kissing his chest right then. But she gracefully sat closer to him and leisurely placed her palm on his chest slowly taking it to the spot she loved where she could feel his collarbone under her fingers.
"You know what it means, don't you?" he said tenderly. "That we want to spend Christmas together?"
"That we have tomorrow to sort it all out?" she said distractedly.
He didn't answer. She figured she didn't even need an answer. She started to run her hand lovingly up and down his chest. He reached out for her and wrapped his arm around her waist his hand rubbing circles in the low of her back.
They were silent for a moment. A confident silence that gave her comfort and pleasure. They didn't look in each other's eyes, merely settled in the comfort of their touch. Hermione concentrated in enjoying Harry's warm hand on her back and the feeling of touching his chest that was warm with the heat of sleep.
The short distance between their bodies nearly made her shiver with anticipation.
It was Harry who broke the silence.
"You were writing to him."
His tone was not an accusation or a hint of jealously. Something about him wanted to make sure she was not hesitating. She smiled; he still had his inner insecure kid, just like her.
"Yes, I was." She said looking into his eyes. He tightened his arms around her and sighed.
"He'll get over it," he whispered.
"I know,"
*~*~*
"2 am and she calls me
Cause I'm still awake
Can you help me unravel
My latest mistake
I don't love him
Winter just wasn't my season"
~Anna Nalick
*~*~*
"Mum," Hermione said as quietly as her quivering voice allowed her. "This is the part where you react to what I've said by saying something."
"Well," her mother said. "Do you want me to be surprised?"
"I want you to be honest." Hermione said with her heart beating twice as fast and pumping somewhere in her throat.
"Hermione," her mother said calmly. "You showed up at my door in the morning, wearing your designer dress from last night, begging for me to help you move out of your flat so you can move in with Harry into a house you two secretly renovated. You tell me you don't love Harry the way you ought to love an old time friend but instead, you're in love with him and the pursuit of your happiness entirely depends on your marriage being finished." She stopped and sighed. "And you want me to be honest and I…" she sighed again. "Have only two things to say to you."
"Mum-"
"I have no idea what you've been waiting for." She said with her best comforting mum tone.
A Disarming spell wouldn't have done better, for her mother's words utterly and completely disarmed Hermione. The beauty of her mother's honesty, and the comforting warmth in her voice were the precise comfort and warmth that Hermione had gone after. All the way to Manchester, to her grandmother's old house, seeking, not so much for her mother's help to move out but for her approval.
But little did she expect to be so downright surprised by her mother's reaction, for with her words and with the kindness in her eyes, she told Hermione that she knew, as usually mothers did, that her marriage was over before it even began.
"Mum," Hermione cried in an anguished whisper. Tears clouding her view of her shoes as she lowered her head. She shook her head slightly and bit on her lower lip then raised her head and stared into the brown kindness of the eyes that were just as her own. "You've never said a word." She said simply, in a tormented whisper that held together all the questions she desperately wanted to ask.
She sighed, walked the few steps separating her from her daughter and wrapped her in a tight embrace. "You wouldn't be standing before me and your determination wouldn't possibly be so unwavering if I had."
A moment of silence went by and then her mother let go of her and turned the kettle off. She poured the hot water in two mugs with tea bags in them and then sat on the table, signalling Hermione to sit in front of her. Hermione sat and wrapped her hands around her mug, resting them in the hot porcelain of her Granny's old hand painted Chinese porcelain.
"Before your fifth year," her mother said with a sigh. "You cried yourself to sleep one night and I stood outside your door, tears in my eyes as you sobbed against your pillow. You had loud music in the radio so we wouldn't hear you, but I did." Teary brown eyes met Hermione's and with a warm tear down her cheek she remembered that night, using the music to muffle her sobs. "And I was just about to go in and comfort you when I heard you speak his name between sobs. And I froze and knew! I knew that he wasn't just your friend Harry, that a deeper, stronger and inevitably gigantic part of yourself you had given to that young man whose sorrow was already your own." She sighed again and sipped her tea. "He's owned your heart since you were kids, Hermione. There is no fighting that."
Her mum reached her hand out on the table and grabbed Hermione's.
"Hermione," she said with a bossiness Hermione knew, was also her own. "Stop crying. You don't need me to help you move out, what you need from me, I already gave it to you. Drink your tea. Stop crying."
Hermione squeezed her mum's hand and with her free hand wiped her tears away, blinking once and smiling at her mum.
They remained quiet for a while, drinking their tea and reassuring each other gently in the silence, then Hermione sipped the last of her tea and staring at her empty cup thought of something.
"Mum, you said you had two things to tell me?"
Her mother smiled warmly and got up the table, picking the cups and carrying them to the sink.
"It's 8 o'clock on Christmas night, I'll be waiting for the two of you."
"Thank you mum."
*~*~*
"Sweet the sin
Bitter the taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing"
~U2
*~*~*
Her eyes were staring at the ceiling and her back was against the comfortable mattress covered in the cotton sheets that she had gotten herself; her head resting in her soft pillow. But she wasn't really there; she was drowning in an ocean of her own device, for she had hidden a thousand feelings under dusty carpets all around her and for the first time she had faced them and taken over them.
She remembered with excruciating agony her first night there and the pain of feeling stupid and small in her unhappiness. She had felt so childish, so silly and disoriented. A distressing feeling that she couldn't understand, twisting inside her chest and running warmly and cruelly down her cheeks as she cried.
She wiped her tears away with her fingers, trying to clear the blurriness in her eyes. Not to really focus on the ceiling, but to make sure she was seeing clearly.
She had finally released herself from all the chains that she made sure had tied her up to that place. She was making sure she'll forget that she had ever been in that bed, she was putting behind all the sleepless nights in which she had counted the number of nails in her ceiling boards to keep herself from thinking about her unhappiness and the burning hunger for satisfaction that she so eagerly ignored.
She was forgetting that she had bitten her lips closed to keep from screaming Harry's name. She was picking up all the dead small parts of her heart that were scattered in that bed. And still, for some reason, the memories flooded her mind and she couldn't think straight, couldn't breathe, couldn't keep staring at the ceiling, couldn't keep herself from hiding her face in the pillow that was not going to be hers anymore.
She was drowning painfully in her sorrow. And it had nothing to do with packing up the musical box her mother had given her before she went to Hogwarts. It had nothing to do with wrapping in soft cotton fabric the first edition of Alice in Wonderland that Harry had given her in her 18th birthday. She was waking up to the world around her all over again and for some unexplainable, surprisingly unclear reason, she couldn't stop crying.
It was as if her dad had died all over again, and Harry had gone to war and she had been left again in the small, grey and white hospital room with Helen and she was floating on a cloud, watching herself cry in the bed she had once shared with Ron.
She felt unspeakably hurt by what memories she had tried so willingly to hide from herself. Her marriage was over and it was suddenly terribly sad. It was over and suddenly she found herself to be in a surprising amount of pain. And her relief was a distant feeling in the back of her heart, because the more relieved she felt, the heavier the relief felt on her shoulders.
She was going to leave! For real, finally, she was going to leave, and that was the very last time she was going to lay her head in that pillow, and touch those covers, and stare at that ceiling. She was crying her heart out, occasionally covering her mouth with her hand to stifle the sound of her sobs. She was shaking and her bare feet twisted desperately against each other.
And the feeling of floating in a cloud above her intensified as she watched herself cry and grab the sheets while closing her fists with her face grimacing in pain. She couldn't breathe. And feeling very much like a child, she wanted to hug her pillow and bury her face against it, to cry until she would fall asleep.
She was in such an unexpected and surprising agony that her heart was oppressing her chest and closing her throat. She turned around and giving into her compelling need, buried her face in her pillow, feeling the soft caress of her hair against her shoulders.
Somewhere between looking around for her things and documents, and packing up all of her belongings, she had realised that she was really leaving that flat. Forever, she was releasing herself from the imprisonment that it on her. She was producing her freedom, and Harry was going to come anytime now to pick her things up and before the night was over, they would walk out together.
She had packed up her life in suitcases that Harry would be picking up before sunset and now it was time to pack up all the scattered emotions that she had hidden in all the secret places of that bedroom. And to her agonizing surprise, that was taking much more energy, strength and courage that she had expected.
Somewhere between the anticipation of her upcoming happiness and the liberation of her oppressing past, she was finding what she didn't think she needed. Her tears and pain were closure.
Closure, for when she stopped crying, she felt liberated. She didn't realise how long it took, but Harry was there when she realised that the tears in her unknown need for closure had a reason. Some wounds are so deep, so profound that there's no way to repair what was lost and when that happens there's nothing left to do but wait. And as the night fell upon them and the only light in the room came from the faint glow of the windows nearby, she had no doubt that they had waited. Enough.
She took his hand, got up from the bed into his arms, his body warm against her. It was time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time.
*~*~*
Author Notes:
~In a rather spectacular exhibition of my guilty pleasures, the title for this chapter came from a Hanson song I'm not even supposed to have.
~Three quotes in this chapter come from three fantastic episodes of Grey's Anatomy, which seems to be one of my latest influences.
"Believe it or not, we've been trying to make everything better. I know you're angry, but I hope you can forgive us. It turns out; sometimes you have to do the wrong thing. Sometimes you have to make a big mistake to figure out how to make things right. Mistakes are painful, but they're the only way of finding out who you really are." Is from episode 3.04: What I Am
"Some wounds are so deep, so profound that there's no way to repair what was lost and when that happens there's nothing left to do but wait" is from Episode 3.09: From a Whisper to a Scream.
"Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time." Is from Episode 3.01: Time Has Come Today