Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, all right?! Just let me cry to myself in peace…Oh, and I don't own the references to Friends or When Harry Met Sally either. But without further ado…
Chapter 5 The Morning After
Hermione unlocked the door to the flat she shared with her two best friends and entered without announcing her presence. As she headed purposefully toward the kitchen, her mind was too preoccupied to notice her traveling cloak join Ron's on the floor in a rumpled pile near the base of the coat rack. Seating herself at her usual place at the table, she removed the neatly clipped stack of sealed manila envelopes from her briefcase and placed it gingerly on the placemat in front of her as though it were an armed bomb due to detonate at any moment.
This is it, she told herself. The point of no return. She stared intently at the first envelope, aware of its contents and how irrevocably it could change her life. Hermione was never one to do things by halves; it was either all or nothing, and after a lifetime of denying herself, she felt this was a long time coming.
Down the hall, Harry was distracted from his perusal of his Defense books when it occurred to him that no greeting had followed the closing of the front door. Convincing himself that he was only taking a well-deserved break, Harry cautiously approached the kitchen. He cringed remembering their incomplete morning conversation-even with all the hours he'd had to prepare for it, he was still unsure of what to say. It had gone a little along the lines of…
"Good morning, Hermione," he said, attempting to mask the hesitancy in his voice with some false cheeriness. He winced knowing that she would see through him in a heartbeat; no one would believe for a second that he had suddenly become a morning person. "Er, sleep well?"
She shot him a dirty look, thinking that he was teasing her. Then she replied, "Like a baby," putting great emphasis on every word and watching for his response from the corner of her eye. While the description wasn't entirely accurate, she was still a bit miffed from her argument with Ron the night before.
He choked a little on his tea but otherwise gave no indication that he'd heard her. This was honestly the most awkward morning-after discussion, or rather lack of discussion, he had ever experienced, and there hadn't even been any sex. Bad luck, mate, Ron's voice seemed to say from within his subconscious. He ran a hand through his mutinous morning hair and stared at his best friend's troubled profile at where she stood gazing out the kitchen window.
With a deep but inaudible breath, he took the plunge. "Ron says he's sorry."
There, he'd brought up last night without any unplanned or embarrassing declarations. He was mentally patting himself on the back, or rather, sighing in relief, when he realized Hermione hadn't answered. He tentatively walked up and stood beside her.
She angled her head toward him and smiled slightly. "It was probably good that you stopped our argument when you did. Two more words out of his mouth and he and Luna would have to be looking into artificial insemination."
He returned her smile, but said seriously, "I don't think I've ever seen you that angry. Even that time Ron threw that party and used your room as the, er, coatroom."
She wrinkled her nose in disgust and muttered, "My wand was temperamental for days after all the cleaning charms I put it through." Hermione looked suddenly weary as she said, "The funny thing is that Ron had a point, in all that waffle he was letting out."
"That's a first," said Harry, feigning offhandedness as he poured himself a cup of boiling water. He was rummaging in one of the cupboards for tea bags when the penny dropped.
"I never did ask you specifically how you felt about all this," she said, watching him steep his tea bag with greater care than was necessary. When he didn't answer immediately, she said, "I'm sorry for that-I hadn't thought about how me having a baby would affect your personal life, or should I say, your dating schedule."
He closed his eyes and paused in the stirring in of his sugar. He turned around to meet her gaze and told her sincerely, "Don't apologize. You and I both know that there's practically no dating schedule to speak of."
She shrugged a little and again faced the window. "But I should have been more considerate of your feelings," she pressed. A few moments passed where only the faint hiss of the tea kettle was heard. She mentally rolled her eyes at herself. Just ask him, her conscience urged. "And, erm, what are your feelings?"
"Well," said Harry, thinking fast, "I-"
"Potter!" came a voice from the living room.
Harry, who had whipped out his wand at the sudden noise, replaced it in the pocket of his dressing gown and looked apologetically at Hermione. He fled the kitchen, knowing that he was only postponing the inevitable conversation, and entered the living room to find Kingsley's head floating in the fire. He sighed; it looked like an early shift again. Hermione was not going to like this.
And now, hours later, he struggled to contain the waves of uneasiness pulsing outward; things like that were an automatic tip-off to his ultra-sensitive best friend.
If he was honest with himself, he hadn't expected Hermione's announcement at all. He mentally kicked himself for thinking she'd needed some counseling over some resurfacing trauma she sustained while helping to defeat Voldemort. But a baby? He knew without understanding quite how that she'd be an excellent mother-caring, compassionate, kind. Hell, she'd probably already started knitting a whole supply of shapeless woolen booties.
Harry's thoughts were interrupted when he reached the doorway to the kitchen. Sunlight poured in from the windows behind Hermione, bathing her in a strangely ethereal glow. At that moment, Harry thought he'd never seen anything so beautiful.
Movement from the doorway startled Hermione from her reading and she looked up to find Harry regarding her sadly. When he noticed her eyes on his, his expression clouded over to be replaced by something unreadable. Harry looked down at the three stacks of paper in front of her and quirked an eyebrow.
"They're divided up into yes, no, and maybe piles," Hermione explained, breaking the silence. She forced a smile and beckoned Harry to take the seat across from her. He slid into his chair and, with her unspoken permission, picked up the paper that Hermione had just discarded. His features gave nothing away as she observed him carefully.
"So, you're really going to do this, huh?" he asked finally.
She felt her apprehension of Harry's reaction gather rather unpleasantly in her throat, restricting her speech. It wasn't clear to her why Harry's opinion was of the utmost importance, but she tried to write it off as his being the only one of the few people she'd told that hadn't clearly expressed his view. And to be honest, her confidence was still smarting from her argument with Ron the night before. Though Harry hadn't defended her, he had stepped in and prevented her from quite possibly putting Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex to shame, so no one could say he was completely uninvolved.
But as her best friend, she trusted him to be honest with her-to tell her if she was being ridiculous to want this now with so many other opportunities out there for her, or to encourage her to do what she believed in and maybe even accompany her on shopping excursions to load up on baby necessities. Grinning at the image of Harry surrounded by large, fluffy stuffed animals, she replied, "Yes, I guess I am," before returning to the paperwork.
Some silence passed while Hermione methodically worked, reading and making some notes on each file before placing it in the properly designated pile.
"So these are the profiles on each of the donors?" Harry asked with an assumed air of nonchalance. Hermione nodded but didn't say anything. "Well, who've you got so far?" He leaned toward the pile of what appeared to have passed the first inspection, struggling to bury his feelings of hurt and disappointment deep down.
On the other side of the table, Hermione was fighting to maintain a natural exterior. Inside she was screaming at Harry to give her some indication of what he was thinking, but no, he was intentionally closing himself off. But why? she demanded of her conscious. Why is he keeping quiet on this?
She passed him the contents of the 'yes' pile. "I haven't been through all of them yet," said Hermione with a hint of weariness. "Their profiles are simple, just basic details: height, weight, siblings, hair and eye color, and minimal background information. It's almost a resume, I suppose."
"Hermione," began Harry uncertainly, "Are these wizard or Muggle, er, donors?" He choked on the last word, but Hermione didn't seem to notice. She had paused and made quite a business of straightening the 'maybe' pile, stalling for time. Her anger was building but she wanted to be sure that she had understood Harry's question correctly.
"They're wizard. Do you think that sort of thing matters?" She fought unsuccessfully to keep her voice even and her eyes on the table.
"Well, no. It's just, I don't really know how all of this works. You know, biologically. If the baby's father was a Muggle, wouldn't it increase its chances of being a Squib?" Harry knew before he'd finished the question that he might have touched a nerve. Hastily he tried to backtrack. "But you're right, it wouldn't make a difference. We would love the kid just the same, magic or Muggle."
Hermione was seething, her heartbeat quickened and her breathing rapid. Never in her life would she have believed that Harry of all people would hold a child's heritage against them. Hadn't she put up with that almost her whole life? Hadn't seeing her constantly battle prejudice for being Muggle-born teach Harry anything?
It was his next comment that halted her thoughts. He hadn't meant anything cruel at all. She berated herself for jumping to conclusions, wondering if this new emotional streak was just practice for how she would be once she was pregnant. Damn hormones.
Bringing her gaze up to meet his, she asked, " 'We?'"
"What?" he asked, confused. He sighed in relief at what was obviously a crisis averted.
"You said 'we would love the kid,'" she pressed.
He smiled widely and reached across the table for her hand. "Of course we would. You, me, Ron, the Weasleys, everybody."
She blushed and pulled her hand away. That was not the way she'd interpreted it, and felt embarrassed and strangely disappointed by his answer.
"You know," Harry said, a small smile gracing his lips, "I always pictured you with a dark-haired bloke myself. It says here that this one is blonde," he stated, waving one of the passing profiles. He felt slightly drunk on his own daring, hoping simultaneously with every fiber that she would and would not pick up on his conspicuousness.
She blinked a few times before asking with a smirk, "You pictured me with someone?"
He laughed quietly as she placed her elbow on the table so that her hand could support her head. Looking into her sparkling eyes, he told her seriously, "Yes, it was sort of a therapeutic exercise to help me through the war. I can't remember who put me onto it, but it really helped me deal with some issues during some of my lower points."
He paused, invoking the details of exactly how he visualized Hermione's bright future. "I imagined everyone's lives after the war, to give me something to look forward to when I thought I might not make it. Their jobs, their marriages, their kids. All of it. Fuel for the fire, you know?"
This time it was Hermione that reached across the table, taking his hand in hers.
"Can you tell me about mine?" she asked quietly.
They locked eyes for a moment. Her eyes glittered with the same sort of light as when she would carry an armload of books back from the library during school-the light of possibility, of potential. Any one of them could hold the answers she was looking for, just like how the insight of a best friend could aid her in her quest.
"Of course," he whispered. He closed his eyes, knowing that they would betray his true feelings with their transparency, that with every detail of his hopes for her future, he secretly harbored the same ones for himself. Standing at the kitchen counter, he gazed out the window at the blankness of the adjacent building and used it as a backdrop for his mind's eye on which to project his ideas of Hermione's life.
Slowly he began to describe it, trying to retain as many details as possible.
"You fall in love," he started, "I don't think I ever decided if it was someone at work or not, because I think I had you pegged for entering the Ministry and taking S.P.E.W. further."
Hermione's laugh came from only a few feet away as she joined him by the window. Harry turned to her and continued, her eyes misting over as she too pictured his words.
"You get married. Small wedding and too much publicity for your taste, but you look beautiful, and I know Ron really enjoyed the crab cakes. You move out into a great house in the country, where Ron and I continue to bother you with frequent visits. You like to sit by the huge pool in your backyard. And you have one of those signs that says, 'We don't swim in your toilet, so don't pee in our pool.'"
Hermione laughed and playfully swatted his arm, "We do not have one of those signs!"
"Of course you do, it was a house warming gift from Ron."
Shaking her head at his silliness, she looked back at the table where the blonde's file had caught her eye. Her smile faded but she did not tear her eyes away from it. Harry frowned and watched her facial movements with concern. Eager to distract her, to make her laugh again, he kept talking, "Then you get up from your lawn chair to hand your husband a towel. Instead, he hugs you to him and you shriek about getting wet. So he turns around and uses the towel to scoop up all three of your kids at once, swinging them around in circles while you watch."
There was silence when Harry was finished and he realized with a pang of guilt that Hermione had tears coursing down her cheeks. She tried to compose herself before ripping her eyes from the file.
"Oh Harry, am I doing the right thing?" The trace of loss and desperation was clearly evident not only in her voice, but in the pleading of her eyes. He stared into them a moment before answering.
"Only you can decide that, Hermione. This may be the easy thing to do, but the wrong time. Or the right time, but you're going about it the wrong way. I can't be the one to tell you what to do. Sooner or later, we all have to make this choice."
She still looked uncertain and her eyes began to tear up once more. Harry pulled her to him in a rare initiation of affection.
"Hermione," she whispered into her hair. At her grunt of acknowledgement, he pulled away and looked down at her. He treaded lightly with his next question, not wanting to upset her more. "Are you only doing this because of what Madame Pomfrey said?"
A storm cloud seemed to pass over her face and she stepped back a few paces. She answered in a shrill, defensive voice, "I've already told you this, Harry. This is the only way to fill that gaping hole in my life, to be happy! Do you want me to continue on as I have been, distracted by families of children passing by in Diagon Alley or plagued by odd dreams that disrupt my sleep patterns?! I'm not getting any younger, Harry-I'm going to be forty!"
"In fifteen years!" Harry shook his head in confusion.
"Yeah, so? It's still there, isn't it?" But she was less certain of everything now. Harry's vision had sparked a new, unfamiliar feeling within her. She didn't know what she wanted, but she knew that she couldn't stand her life staying the same.
Harry watched her the emotions wrought of her inner struggle play across her face, approaching her cautiously.
"It's not the only way to be happy, Hermione," he told her.
Their eyes met and held for several moments before he spoke again.
"I just wish I knew how to tell you what is."
And with that enigmatic admission, Harry strode passed her and out of the kitchen.
A/N: Just one more crazy chapter left! This was actually the second chapter that I wrote, so I had to tweak it a lot to have it fit in with the others. I was really tired after work yesterday ( I stopped keeping track of the number of shirts I folded after fifty. If you are ever a customer at a clothing store, I beg of you, don't mess up every single shirt in a pile just because you can-someone always has to fold them! Just a little suggestion, hehe), so if this is crappy, there is my ready-made excuse.
Please leave me a review to point out any inconsistencies or make some suggestions before the final chapter. Thanks for reading!