A/N - I know I only updated yesterday, but I'm on holiday so I have a bit of time up my sleeve (though I should be outside, enjoying the sun…). Since I'm doing an alternate Harry's POV one chapter and then Hermione's POV the next, I needed to chuck this in there so we can see some of Hermione, and it helps see the story with Ginny. My husband will be working again tomorrow and all my friends are away so there is a good chance I'll update tomorrow as well. Will interested to see the reviews for this chapter…
Chapter 4 - The Chat of Hermione and Ginny
Hermione leaned back on the couch and shut her eyes while her hand absently stroked Crookshanks, who was curled up contently on her lap. It was good to get out of St Mungo's and back home.
"Here you go." Hermione opened her eyes and looked at her friend as she took the cup of steaming hot chocolate from her hands.
"Thanks Ginny," she said, smiling, "and thanks for coming over to look after me."
"My pleasure," Ginny replied as she made herself comfortable in an armchair, her own hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, "I wanted to make sure you were coping alright and, well, I wanted to have a chat." Hermione paused from sipping her drink as she looked at the other woman.
"A chat," she repeated, "that sounds ominous."
"I guess in a way it is," Ginny began, looking down at her own drink as she tried to get her thoughts together.
Hermione watched with interest. It was Wednesday, three days after her episode at The Burrow, and everyone had been cautiously mentioning Harry, realising his name still uneased her. He had briefly visited her at St Mungo's, a visit that had made her mind whirl with debate on how she felt and how she thought she should feel regarding him. Since then she had thought over and over about what she was going to do with regards to Harry Potter, and how his return had affected her health. She didn't want it to and subsequently made a vow to herself that she would just accept him - but not forgive him, not yet anyway.
Looking at her friend, Hermione realised that Harry's return had also caused conflict for Ginny and understood it was Harry that she wanted to discuss now. Patiently she waited until Ginny was ready.
"On Saturday, when you asked me why Harry's return wasn't affecting me much," she began hesitantly, "I began thinking. And I thought that with Harry being back that we should talk about…him and us. You and me." Ginny stopped and looked at Hermione who returned her gaze with interest.
"What do you want to know?" Hermione asked quietly, unsure of what was coming next.
"Why didn't you write to me the summer after Dumbledore died, the summer you spent with Harry and Ron at Privet Drive?"
"I guess because things got a bit crazy," Hermione replied, frowning at the memory, "we sat around talking about what we were going to do next, how we were going to find the horcruxes, making plans. I was trying to work out what was happening between Ron and I, support Harry because he was still upset about leaving you. Plus trying to spend time with my parents and not feel guilty about the lies I was telling them. I had no time, really."
"I was so jealous of you, being with him, being needed by him."
"If it makes you feel any better, Harry was annoyed with me pretty much the whole time…"
"Why?"
"Well, you'd think after six years of knowing him, I would have learnt that Harry doesn't like talking about his feelings. I was so upset about loosing Professor Dumbledore and I was sure that Harry was devastated since he saw it happen and well, the professor was more than just a headmaster to him. But Harry had already built up a wall and was placing his emotions behind it. He really didn't like me trying to expose what he was trying so hard to hide."
"I can imagine," Ginny injected with a smile, "even by the wedding he had, hardened, I guess you can say."
"Yeah," Hermione sighed, "he had all this stuff going on, and was trying to do it all alone. Ron and I had to force him to include us, emphasising time and time again that it didn't matter if he kept pushing us away, that we would never leave him. At least the wedding broke his mood, for a day any how."
"I was so upset when I saw him," Ginny continued, thinking "and when he ignored me, it hurt, it really hurt."
Hermione remembered the day Bill and Fleur got married. She, Ron and Harry had arrived the night before to a house that was full to overflowing with people. The mood in the ramshackle home varied from utter chaos (which usually involved the twins in one way or another), blissful happiness (whenever either Bill or Fleur entered the room), organised panic (Ron unknowingly eating some of the wedding feast food caused Mrs Weasley to go into such a fluster that no one dared to approach her for a couple of hours) to sombre acknowledgement that neither Percy or Albus Dumbledore would be attending.
During the day of the wedding, Ginny and Ron were often whisked away to help the Weasley family in some form and both would come back to Harry and Hermione flustered and angry - Ginny had spent the weeks since leaving Hogwarts helping with wedding preparations which had left her in a less than pleasant mood. When Neville and Luna joined the guests mulling around the Weasley garden, the group of four grew to six. And Ginny was right - Harry had ignored her completely, averting his eyes whenever she came near and only uttering what was absolutely necessary when she spoke to him. Soon she gave up trying and stole Luna away from the group so she wouldn't be alone.
By the time the ceremony happened, a reserved calm surrounded the Weasley garden and under the July sun friends and family watched the young couple get married. Hermione had sat between Harry and Ron and cried silently as the vows and rings were exchanged. She had never thought much about marriage, logically thinking it was never going to happen to her. But sitting there watching Bill and Fleur pledge their love for each other made her start to wonder, even hope, that one day she too will find a man who she loved so much, and loved her in return, that they would want to spend the rest of their lives together.
Looking back now, as she lay on the couch in her small, comfortable flat, knowing that her life was getting closer and closer to ending, Hermione reflected on the one regret she had of dying young. She was never going to be married and have a family of her own. All her life, having a family was going to be secondary to her - she wanted a career, and that was going to come first. She had worked hard to be the best so that when her schooling was over, she could be whatever she chose to be. She had still wanted a family, but later on. She was young, she had thought, she had plenty of time.
Many choices were out of her reach now but strangely it was the loss of a family which was her only regret. Still, this conversation wasn't about her and her fate but about Harry.
"He was hurting too Ginny," Hermione said finally, "and he thought what he was doing was for the best…"
"He told you that?"
"Yes, he did. It was the only time that summer when he actually talked to me about what he was feeling."
"What did he say?" Hermione looked at her friend and she once more saw the thirteen year old school girl that had spent so many nights on her bed, talking about how she felt about the famous Harry Potter and how he didn't even know she was alive. Sighing, Hermione replied.
"He thought he had done the right thing, breaking up with you, but he couldn't understand why he hurt. It had been his choice and in his mind the right choice, so there shouldn't have been any side effects. I told him he had done the wrong thing and that you wouldn't stand by when you find out that Ron and I were going with him…"
"You weren't wrong there."
"No. No, I wasn't. Well, he got a bit peeved, we talked some more and he admitted he still cared for you and that seeing you again was going to be difficult. That's when we came up with the plan that I wouldn't leave him the whole time we were at your place. And it worked."
"Always helping him, weren't you Hermione." Hermione frowned at the sarcasm that dripped off Ginny's words, her own anger disappeared when she saw the tears that had welled up in her friend's eyes.
"Yeah, I was Ginny. He was my best friend." Once again the two women looked at each other in silence, but Hermione wasn't remembering - she just waited until Ginny could get herself under control.
"I thought that if I went with him, went with you all, on the quest, that things would change - he would change, and he'd be the boyfriend he was for that short time…"
"I know," Hermione said sadly, already guessing that this was the real reason Ginny had forced her way on the search for the horcruxes, "but Harry had already changed - just not how you wanted."
"I was so stupid," Ginny continued, lost in her own thoughts, "thinking that just being with me would make him happy again. I didn't really understand what he was going through. You did though."
Hermione thought about the months they spent searching for the remaining horcruxes, how horrible the experience ended up being. Neville and Luna had also forced their way into the party, their inclusion annoying Harry no end, but they would not have found all the pieces without the whole team and Harry, Hermione and Ron definitely would not have survived.
Still, it had been difficult. Harry had become extra moody due the added pressure the presence of his friends seemed to place on him, taking his frustrations out on the people around him - Ginny found his outbursts hard to handle, Hermione hadn't. Ginny was right though, Hermione had understood why Harry acted the way he did and it was only Hermione who seemed to be able to bring him back to being the Harry that they all knew. It had all been so difficult.
"When did you know?" Ginny's tentative question broke Hermione out of her reverie, and once more she looked at her friend.
"Know what?"
"That you loved Harry." The two women looked at each other, neither seemingly wanting to break away. Hermione thought quickly about how she should reply - she hadn't admitted to anyone (even herself, part of her reasoned) about how she felt about Harry, and was still unsure whether she wanted to do so. However, the events of the past week made up her mind for her. Already her life had changed dramatically with his return, she really just couldn't be bothered with lying any more.
"When my parents were murdered," she finally replied, smiling sadly, "I still remember it vividly. I was hiding in the attic of Grimmuld Place, where Buckbeat had been, wanting to be alone, trying to get my head together."
"It was near the end," Ginny remembered, "it was horrible, the whole thing with your mum and dad."
"Yeah, it was. Everyone had tried to make me feel better, I guess, Ron failing miserably," Hermione chuckled briefly, "Harry had been so quiet, so remote, and all I kept thinking was that I needed to get through this, I needed to be strong, for Harry. I went to the attic to try and find that strength. But instead I kept thinking of was the lies I had told my parents, the way I had shut them out of my life, how they didn't even know the reason they had been killed.
"And then he came. He didn't say anything at first, he just sat next to me really close - but not touching. I could feel him, but I didn't want him to see me, to see my tears. He reached out and took my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine and said that he was sorry. That was it, I lost it and began to cry and cry and cry. I cried for mum and dad, for Hagrid and Dumbledore. I cried for the hell I had been living in for the past months, for how afraid I was that I'd loose everything, for Ron and you and…everyone. I remember he just wrapped his arms around me without saying anything more and I clung to him as I bawled. When I couldn't cry anymore, I pulled back from him…" Hermione paused as she remembered what happened next, a light blush touching her cheeks.
"Did…did you guys kiss?" Ginny asked tentatively, not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer. Slowly Hermione nodded.
"He rested his forehead on mine, ignoring the running nose and wet face from my outburst, and told me that he really appreciated what I had given up to help him, that he admired and respected me, that he could never be able to repay me for the sacrifices I had made. He said that he was glad we had found each other and that no matter what happened, I would always hold a place in his heart."
"He was saying good-bye."
"Yes, he was saying good-bye," Hermione repeated, "which just started the tears again. Then he kissed me. That's when I knew that he was more than just my best friend, and that I would be lost without him in my life. A week later he was gone and everything changed."
"Oh Hermione," Ginny sighed as she went to her friend and gave her a hug, "no wonder this has all been so difficult for you." Hermione pulled away and wiped her tears from her cheeks with the palm of her hand, noticing that Ginny too had begun to cry.
"It's okay," she said, trying to smile, "I couldn't love him then because he was with you, and I can't love him now because he deserves so much more than I can give him. Besides, he doesn't feel the same…"
"How do you know that?"
"Because he never chose me." Ginny sat back on her heels and looked at Hermione, who smiled weakly back, a few remaining tears falling down her face. Wiping away her own tears, Ginny returned to her chair.
"I thought I might talk to him," she said eventually, "explain what was going on with me then, kind of releasing the hurt I have been carrying around since he left. Neville suggested I let him know that there are no hard feelings…"
"I agree," Hermione nodded, "talking to him would be good."
"How about you? What are you going to do?"
"Well, the three of us are going to get together on Saturday and I'm going to find out why he left. That might release a few demons of my own."
Ginny left a little while later, leaving Hermione alone in her flat. Going over to the mantelpiece, she picked up one of the few photo's that included Harry - it was at the wedding and the three of them had tried to smile at the camera. She sat back down in the chair still holding the photo, seeing the lack of life in Harry's eyes bringing the sadness she always felt when she looked at the three of them. Running a finger down the side of his captured face Hermione felt the tears begin to flow and for the second time that day she cried over Harry Potter.