Lost, Without.
By GracieInGreek
Hermione was crying. Her brown curly hair was back in its usual nighttime braid, but as Hermione's body shook, however little, small fuzzy curls would escape their holds and frame her troubled face.
Harry wondered how the site of Hermione crying could hurt him so much, yet he couldn't keep from noticing how stark and beautiful she was, with the trails of her tears seeming to burn red tracks down her cheeks. Her mouth was dramatic against her skin, pink and cracked in a strait line; Hermione always pressed her lips tightly together these days, when she was worried or upset. It hurt Harry to see it, but on her it was beautiful. Tragic and painful, but beautiful.
She was kneeling in front of the small orange fire in the iron stove of their current location; they jumped from place to place so often that not one of the three of them could ever bare to call one of them 'home', especially not when the memories of The Burrow and Hogwarts were as fresh in their minds as ever. And ever since Ron and Hermione had tried, without success, to explore their oh-so-apparent feelings for one another--only to find that they seemed to care for each other less when trying to be romantic--their hiding-spots had become even less home-like and even more uncomfortable. And that had been months ago.
And related to that, Hermione looked absolutely stricken whenever one of them referred to their current residence as a 'hideout', so by an unspoken agreement every house or shack or cave that they would hold up in was referred to as the current 'location.'
But Hermione missed being in a 'home'--a real home. Hermione missed her family.
She did care about both him and Ron, Harry knew, (Ron and Hermione's friendship had been steadily rebuilt over time, both seeming happier knowing what they were truly meant to be) but they'd become the only family Hermione had. Sometimes Harry had to remind himself that her situation had never been like that before; while Ron and Hermione had been all Harry loved for some years now, Hermione did always have her parents to come home to. It wasn't like that anymore. Harry could only ever try to understand, and he did--but of course, Ron would understand better. But still, their situation was not the same; while Ron always seemed to find one way or another to stop by home at least every few months, no matter where they were, Hermione could not.
She not only couldn't put her Muggle family at that kind of risk, but she also had no way to get there; she had been careful to make sure that their fire place at home was never connected to the Floo Network years before, and it was needless to say that her parents home was likely being watched. She Apperated in there and the next minute it would be up in smoke.
They'd been at this for more than a year. That's how long it'd been since Hermione had last seen her parents.
They were part of the things Hermione needed. And what she was without.
She tried to write them, but getting letters to their door didn't prove to be much easier than making visits.
There was something in Hermione's hands as she knelt by the fire, crinkled and gripped by her hands. Harry knew what it was; Hermione's first letter from her parents.
It seemed impossible to Harry that Hermione had literally gone over twelve months without contact from her family. Oh, she got word from here or there--usually members of the Order who were keeping tabs on any Muggle casualties--so she knew they hadn't been harmed. But Harry knew she loved her parents. And being without direct contact for so long had taken its toll on her. The effect to her family, who knew very little about their mission--Hermione had wanted it that way--must have been very similar. Harry had felt something like that after losing Sirius, though he had become worryingly good at keeping it held inside. Hermione tried to do the same, Harry knew--but, in the little things, like when she slept in later some days than on other days, or retreated to somewhere alone, or the look on her face when Ron talks about Mr. and Mrs. Weasley--the ware showed on her. But she was never public with it, and almost always tried to keep it for herself.
Hermione was sad. Harry could see it. Beautiful, and sad. It amazed Harry how, usually, she could keep her focus on the mission, do absolutely everything Harry and Ron couldn't. For them--for the cause. And she did it with these things going on inside of her.
And then, there were times like this. The rare occasions where Harry caught Hermione in a particularly painful show of emotion. To his knowledge, Ron had yet to discover this Hermione. If he had, Harry wished he would tell him how he handled it--because the few times Harry had found her, she'd either seen him first and retreated into a different room, pretended nothing was wrong, or...Harry had just stared, unknowing of what to do.
Like he was now.
Harry had never known how to handle crying girls.
But...this wasn't just a crying girl. Not anymore--this was Hermione, his family. One of the only ones he loved. And, while they were here--not just here, in their 'current location', alone while Ron made one of his visits--but here, in this part of their lives, he was all she had. He was her family; quietly, he let himself into the room.
Harry didn't know what about the letter, the first letter, had made Hermione cry. He could only guess--all he did know was that they'd managed to get it to her by quietly contacting the Order, who had sent Tonks--looking something like Hermione's old neighbor, apparently--to Hermione's home. She'd given it to Mr. Weasley, who'd persuaded Ron to risk the trip home and back--before going right back home again, obviously, as he'd promised a slightly hysterical Mrs. Weasley that he'd stay home at least one week, "no matter to what expense of the research that Hermione could easily do herself!"
Mrs. Weasley had been less than friendly to the thought of Hermione since she and Ron broke up. The loss of another mother-figure had made Hermione's situation even worse.
Harry was currently less than friendly to the thought of Mrs. Weasley.
And so, there it was. Hermione had taken the letter, and disappeared into the kitchen of their current dark house, the only room with a working fire as they usually tried to keep as many lights out as possible, and Harry hadn't seen her since. That was, until he'd heard the sobs she was trying to keep quiet bouncing off the stone walls and into his ears as he passed the doorway.
Harry didn't know if Hermione had noticed him or not. He was standing on the side of her, and he knew the image of her with the light of the fire bouncing off of her wet, burning face was reflecting in his glasses.
She must have been able to see him; but she didn't give any sign of it until Harry had started to kneel down by her--she'd squeezed her eyes tightly shut, teeth biting down hard on her bottom lip--and started to roll her body in the opposite direction of him. Before even fully coming down to her level, he reached out and caught her by the shoulders. She seemed to want to struggle for a moment, but didn't have it in her. Eyes still shut but her mouth opening in a sob as she shook her head, she let Harry pull her to his chest. He seemed to have lost his inhibitions somewhere down the road as their great mission had progressed; physical awkwardness was no longer something that could keep him from protecting someone that he loved.
The letter fluttering down to their knees, Hermione covered her face with her hands and pressed it in Harry's neck.
"God, I'm sorry," one of them said. Harry wasn't of aware which of them it was.
But then Hermione's head shook side to side, more hair falling out of her braid: "It's not that I hate being here with you, Harry--" he wasn't sure if she meant 'you' as in him or 'you' as in him and Ron both, but he didn't ask. "...It's just, I miss my family." She sniffed, her voice tight.
Harry nodded--his hands pushed some hair off of her forehead when her hands came off of her face so she could breath, a move he'd never even made with Ginny. Shocking how he'd had to become so much older in the last year, while Hermione, who'd been the adult and boss of them for seven years was now reduced to a crying girl, desperate for home, being cradled in his arms. ...But maybe, they would both be better for it.
"...I miss them so much, Harry," she cried again, eyes open and staring at him now as the tears sprung anew from her eyes. "I haven't been away from them this long in my whole life--and they're just so scared and want to know what's going on, and they're starting to not accept that I can't tell them what's happening and why I had to leave and they're hurt," she said in one breath, stopping only to push her fingers under her eyes; the second time, Harry got to them before she did. She hiccupped.
"And I hate that they're so worried but all I can think about is how much I want to see them and how much I need..." She sobbed again, but tried to keep it in by pressing her lips back into her line. She let Harry pull her back forward, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Harry stayed quiet. He had a feeling she wasn't done--that this letter, whatever else it said, had finally coaxed out of Hermione all of the things she'd been trying where Harry had once succeeded: keeping it stuffed up inside.
"I just need..." she sniffed again. A small rub of her back by Harry's hand seemed to coax the rest of what she needed out of her. Voice breaking and muffled, she said, "I just need to be with the people who love me."
That statement seemed to hit Harry with more weight than Hermione's tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt; he had never said it out loud. It was amazing what you still don't know to do once you've grown up.
"I love you," he said--finally. He was sure Hermione knew that Harry knew that she loved him.
He had thought that she'd of course known that they--that he--loved her. But she must have meant those who loved her not as a member of a research team, a soldier in an army, or even a classmate at school.
It killed Harry to think that she didn't understand; that she didn't know that how they--how he--loved her was different and more than any of those things. She was his family. She was his best friend. ...She was his partner. She had always been his partner. He was lost without her.
Apparently, that was exactly what she didn't know. Pulling her limbs away from him, she pulled her sad face back from his neck--eyes wet, she looked at him and shook her head. "Yes Harry, but that's not--"
Harry shattered the distance between them by crushing his cold lips to Hermione's flushed hot ones. Mouth parted, and hands back on either side of her face, Harry kissed her with as much vigor and love that he could pull from what energy he had in him; he didn't know if she had stiffened, or ever tried to pull away, or had started kissing him back from the beginning. His hands kept her face from running anywhere.
Her tears smearing on his cheeks and his hair sticking to her forehead and his glasses tilting on his nose and a sob coming from her throat and into his mouth, she clung to him and soon they were lying back down on the cold stone kitchen floor, the weakening fire from the small stove casting shadows over them and the crinkled letter getting lost under their bodies.
And Harry knew she understood.
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