9. A Letter
Hermione's eyes refused to open up. She had just woken up a few minutes before, but her mind was still clouded. Suddenly, her eyes went wide open as the memory of last night's events came into focus.
Quickly, she turned to her side expecting to find a certain messy-haired wizard next to her, but he wasn't there.
Hermione sighed. "Well," she thought. "At least, he saved me the awkwardness of waking up next to him." A shy smile came to her lips. She could not believe what had happened.
Harry and her…
But she had enjoyed it, perhaps more than she was supposed to. "We're just friends!" she told herself. "Friends don't sleep with each other."
"But…" said another voice in her head. "You're also married to him."
"If you can call that… married!"
Hermione shook her head, trying to ignore the voices in her head. She took a deep breath and relaxed her body in the comfortable bed. A few minutes went by, and then she started to wonder where Harry could be.
The door leading to the bathroom was wide open, which only meant he wasn't there. She tried to strain her ears for any noises outside the bedroom. She wondered if Harry could've gone to the kitchen.
"Perhaps he's fixing us some breakfast," she thought.
Deciding to go join him, she threw the blankets aside. Her face blushed when she realized she was totally naked. Fighting a fit of giggles, she searched the floor for the shirt Harry had taken off of her. Once she put it on, she walked out of the room.
She sure was glad Dobby had stayed over at Hogwarts.
When Hermione finally made her way into the kitchen, she found it was empty. "Where can he be?" she thought. She walked back to the main hallway and called his name out. There was no answer. He was gone.
She went back to his room. The dirty clothes he had on last night were scattered in the floor, just as hers. Then, she saw something she hadn't noticed before. His wardrobe was open. Slowly, she went to the bed and sat at the edge.
She didn't know what to think. This was even more surprising to her than what had happened the night before.
"Why did he leave like this? Why didn't he wait?" she thought.
Her mind was desperately trying to explain his behavior. She thought that perhaps he had been called to the Ministry. After all, he had just come back form a mission. Perhaps the mission wasn't even over yet. But if that was the case, he could've woken her up to let her know or at least write her a note.
"What if he didn't have time?" she asked herself, but quickly pushed that idea aside. If he had had time to get dressed, he surely could've woken her up to tell her he had to leave.
No. That definitely wasn't his reason for leaving. It had to be something else.
Then, another thought came to her mind. "Of course," she said as she slapped her forehead. "He regrets it! He saw me sleeping next to him and he didn't want to stay and face the situation. He regrets what happened between us."
She stood up and turned to face the bed where she had been in Harry's arms. As she stood there, tears filled up her eyes. She grabbed hold of the poster next to her and swallowed the lump in her throat, trying her best to hold the tears in.
"He must've felt horrified to run away like this. He didn't even want to see me."
A sob escaped from her chest, but she quickly placed a hand over her mouth. "Alright then," she thought as she wiped away a tear that had escaped her eyes. "If he doesn't want to see me… then he won't."
She went to her room, got dressed and, as quickly as she could, gathered her things and disapparated out of there.
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By the time Harry got back to his house, Hermione was gone. If he could, he would've kicked himself. He was such an idiot. Focusing in his own confusion didn't let him see that Hermione was bound to feel the same way.
And now she was gone.
Lupin was right. She was going to think the worst of him and he couldn't blame her. He would feel the same way. Unfortunately, if things had already been messed up, he had messed them even more by disappearing like that.
He slowly walked around the room, taking in the details. His bed was undone, the sheets all wrinkled. Their clothes still littered the floor. One by one, he began to pick up the garments. A smile came to his face as he noticed they were all over the place.
Then walking to the other side of his bed, he saw something black in the floor: Hermione's delicate, little thong. He looked at the it for a while. Finally, her grabbed it. The lace felt so soft in his hands.
Unconsciously, he closed his eyes bringing the garment to his nose as the image of her wearing that delicious item came to his mind. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide as he realized what he was doing. He quickly extended his arm to open the drawer of the night stand near him and threw the item there.
He stepped away, taking a deep breath, and wiping his suddenly-sweating forehead as if he had just survived a terrifying ordeal. He then realized was going to need a cold shower.
Minutes later, he seemed to have regained control of himself. Harry knew he should just go to her house, talk to her and explain why he had left like that. But there was something stopping him.
"And what the hell am I going to tell her?" he thought. Nothing would come to his mind. Talking to Lupin hadn't done much for him. He still felt quite confused and troubled.
He had just decided he'd go to see her after taking a much needed shower when he heard some soft knocks on his window. Turning his face, he saw a grayish owl flying outside his window.
Quickly, he hurried over to open the window for him. Búho, the owl, belonged to the young Auror he usually was partnered with on abroad missions. Harry untied the note Búho delivered and ripped the envelope open.
"Damn it!"
Something had come up. They had left a few things pending last night and Harry was supposed to meet Victor in an old, dirty pub in the filthiest part of the city. He didn't have time to stop at Hermione's first because he just knew a conversation with her was going to require more than just a few minutes.
He let out a sigh, not quite admitting to himself that he was glad to have an excuse to avoid seeing her. He just wasn't ready for that.
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Later that night, Hermione was sitting on a bench in her backyard patio. She had waited for Harry all day long, but he hadn't shown up. She had hoped that a part of him would make him come talk to her.
It hurt her to see that he didn't have the guts to face her. They were supposed to be friends, to trust each other, to feel confident enough to accept when they'd made a mistake.
Hermione stood up, looking up at the full moon. It was such a beautiful night, but Hermione couldn't enjoy it at that moment.
Even when she was upset with Harry's attitude, she somehow understood him.
She had tried all morning to explain to herself how on earth they had ended up in bed. What force had pulled them together like that? Especially, when they didn't feel anything for each other. Or… did they?
Hermione had fancied Harry before. Then again, who wouldn't? He was a good-looking young man, who happened to be the famous Boy-Who-Lived, the powerful wizard that had rid humanity of the threat Lord Voldemort represented. He was strong, courageous, loyal, intelligent, funny… No woman in her right mind could be able to resist such a charming man.
Hermione had always used those excuses to explain to herself why it was natural for her to feel some attraction towards her best friend. Eventually, she pushed those thought aside and decided to focus on their friendship only.
Besides at that time, Harry had just started his career as Auror and Hermione hers as a writer. There were many other important things to take care of than such nonsense. As the years went by, their lives took them through different paths forcing them to be away from each other often for months at a time.
And then, Charles came back into her life.
Charles had changed a lot since the last time Hermione had seen him. He was educated, intelligent, such a gentleman, always polite with everybody. Once again, Hermione found herself feeling pulled to another charming man.
When she found out Charles was getting married to Sally, she got very upset. But what was the real reason? Was it the fact that Charles was marrying someone else or was it Sally's betrayal?
Now that she was thinking about it, she realized that the thought of Charles being with someone else - whoever the someone would be - no longer hurt her. She could now see that what she had thought was love for Charles in reality was only admiration. She was impressed by the imposing figure of the man before her.
The truth was that Hermione felt alone. During all those years, she had focused solely in her career - something she didn't regret. She had been able to make a name for herself and had even been able to buy a little house. A place she could call her own.
Seeing Charles treating her with such regard made her feel special, wanted. She had forgotten what it felt like to be admired by a guy. To feel the color rising to her cheeks and the butterflies tickling her stomach when a guy would tell her she looked nice.
She had been so anxious to be in love and mostly to be loved, she had tricked her own mind into thinking she was in love with Charles. And she had focused all her energy into believing that.
But now Harry had waken up feelings she thought were long gone. She realized she had only been kidding herself. Those feelings had never really left or disappeared, as she thought.
They had been waiting patiently, deep inside her, to be released.
The time Harry kissed her at their wedding something had woken up inside, but she ignored it. She didn't want to admit it. But now that she had been in his arms, that she had been his, she couldn't deny it.
The worst part of it all was that Harry didn't feel the same way. Sure he had spent a night with her, but that didn't mean he had any feelings for her. That night had been just about… well, she wasn't sure how that had actually happened.
She knew it had not been out of love, at least not from Harry's part. He had been in a very susceptible state of mind, with the events of the previous days and his physical injuries that he had no control over his actions at that moment.
She did. She had total knowledge of what was unfolding at that time, but had decided to ignore it. If there was anybody to blame, for sure it was her. For that reason, she had hoped that Harry would come; to let him see that she didn't blame him for anything.
But he didn't come. Hermione knew that if Harry didn't want to see her was because he didn't want to admit to her face that their encounter had meant nothing to him. He didn't want to be in the position where he'd have to say he didn't have any feelings for her, not in that way.
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That Sunday night, at the same time Hermione was sadly looking at the moon, Harry also contemplated the same beautiful night sky. The difference was that he was miles away from London, in the beautiful city of Dublin, Ireland.
Thanks to a last minute tip they had received from one of their underground contacts, Harry and Victor had been able to find the hideout of Mr. Lamarcus, the wanna-be Voldemort that had caused them so much trouble lately.
Knowing a few tricks with his wand and having some muggle bullies on his side had made Lamarcus believe he could outsmart the Aurors. He had not been the first one to hire muggles to hunt Aurors down.
Since Aurors, as any other witch or wizard, were not allowed to use magic against muggles, people like Lamarcus often sent muggles to "teach the Aurors a lesson." However, they didn't know that Aurors had to take physical combat as part of their training.
Harry was leaning on the wall, looking out the window of the hotel room where he was staying. He sure was glad this Lamarcus ordeal was finished. They just had to transfer him to headquarters for processing, submit the not-very-fun-to-do paperwork, and it would be over.
He was anxious to get some free time and take care of the unfinished business he had pending with Hermione.
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That moment finally came on Tuesday. Harry got up early and took a long shower. He was preparing himself for what seemed like a battle. He was almost certain Hermione was going to be fuming at him, with fair reason.
When he finally made it to her cozy, little house in a muggle neighborhood, Harry stood at her front door for a few seconds. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the doorbell button. A couple minutes later, Harry heard footsteps approaching.
Then, the door opened. They both looked into the other's eyes and remained quiet for a while. Finally, Harry seemed to regain the ability to speak.
"Can I come in?" he asked softly.
For all answer, she stepped aside. After two long days of waiting for him, she didn't know what to say to him now that he was there. They went into the kitchen as Hermione offered him something to drink.
Hermione busied herself pouring homemade lemonade into two glasses. Harry, not able to stay still, was pacing around the kitchen island. She came up brining the glasses and placed them on the island.
Trying to push the inevitable talk as further as possible, Harry took a few sips at his drink, quietly. Hermione sat on a stool and motioned Harry to do the same. Out of politeness, he imitated her.
"How you've been?" he asked to break the awkward silence.
Hermione responded with a simple, "Fine."
"Oh, Merlin!" Harry thought. "This is going to be harder than I thought. Hermione's not going to make things any easier for me." He took her silence for anger or resentment.
That was not the reason for her silence, though. In reality, she was out of words, something not so common on her. Besides, she wanted to hear what he had to say first before saying anything.
"I hadn't been able to see you," he finally said. "This last mission got kind of complicated, I reckon you were able to see that Saturday night," he said pointing at his now healed right hand.
At the mention of Saturday night, a slight change of color in Hermione's face happened. To hide it, Hermione quickly grabbed her glass and brought it up to her lips.
"The thing is," he continued talking, not quite meeting her eyes. "…I've been very busy this last two days. I wanted to come sooner to see you but we got a…"
At that precise moment, the doorbell rang. Hermione immediately got up, glad with the interruption, but didn't notice that Harry had followed her into the hallway. She opened the door and found an old, chubby man with a briefcase and a clipboard in his hands.
"Miss Hermione Granger?" the man asked, reading her name from the clipboard.
"Yes?" she replied, not sure of who this man was or were he was coming form. Looking at his attire, she could tell he was a muggle.
"I have a letter for you," the man informed her. He pulled his briefcase open and extracted a white envelope. He made some scribbling into his clipboard then handed it to Hermione. "Could you sign here?" he said pointing at a line.
Hermione took the clipboard, but before signing it she asked the messenger who the letter was from. Making a sound of frustration, as if answering her would make him fall behind in his busy schedule. He looked at the letter still in his hands and read the senders' name.
"Mr. Charles Kensington."
"Oh!" was all Hermione could say. She hurried to sign her name, after the messenger began to top his polished shoe on the floor, and handed the clipboard back to him. Before she could say thank you, the messenger was gone.
She closed the door and turned around to find Harry staring at her. His expression had totally changed. When he had arrived at her house, he seemed relaxed and willing to talk. Now his eyes were fuming and he seemed upset.
Ignoring him, she started walking back towards the kitchen, but he was blocking her way.
"Charles sent you a letter," he said in a sarcastic way, as if she didn't already know that. Hermione said nothing.
"You want to tell me how is it that when he's supposed to be enjoying his honeymoon, he finds time to write you a letter?" But he wasn't really expecting her to answer him. He immediately threw another question at her.
"And can you explain to me why this idiot addresses a letter to you as Miss Hermione Granger? He knows perfectly well that you are now Mrs. Hermione Potter. He was the one that got us married in the first place!"
Hermione had remained silent, looking at the angry man before her. All of a sudden his attitude had changed. He was once again the sarcastic, ironic man she had seen at Sally's wedding.
"Well?" he urged her to respond.
"I don't know," she finally said. "What could make his attitude change?" she thought. "I reckon hearing Charles' name reminded him of Sally and what she did to him."
She sighed and made a move to leave, but Harry was not done.
"Why is he writing to you? Aren't you going to read the letter?" he said grabbing Hermione by her upper arm.
"I'll read it later," she said. "And I have no idea why he's writing to me, but if what you want to know is if it says anything about Sally, I'm not going to tell you."
She pulled away out of his grip and took a couple steps away from him. It angered her to see that thanks to Sally's doing Harry had turned into his angry person she didn't like much. Harry turned his back on her and seemed to be trying to calm himself. Suddenly, he turned to face her.
"You know what… we'd better leave this for other time." He walked to the door and before leaving he looked at her one last time. "I'll see you around."
Hermione was pretty sure that wasn't going to be anytime soon.