Pain by MisCard

Rating: PG13
Genres: Drama, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 6
Published: 30/03/2006
Last Updated: 30/03/2006
Status: Completed

What happens when you finally admit to yourself that the person you thought was the love of your
life really isn't? And then when he finds out you love another, he hurts you, physically?
Hermione finds out and goes to the one person that she knows will help and protect her, but will
she have the courage to admit her feelings for him? And what if he doesn't return her feelings,
will their friendship be ruined forever? A one-shot written awhile ago during one of my
writer's blocks.




1. Pain
-------


~A/N> Two posts in one day, don't faint :p I found this while browsing through my story
files. I wrote it a while back and posted it on my personal live journal, but I never posted it
here. It's just a short one-shot that came to me one day and took me a couple of hours to write
(if you've read Kindred Spirits, Bound Souls you know I have dealt with physical abuse in my
childhood). I wish that all stories like this in real life ended this way and had heroes like
Harry, but unfortunately they usually don't. Oh, and the Justin in this story isn't Justin
Finch-Fletchley.


"Harry?" Hermione's trembling voice called from the fireplace in the flat the boys
shared together. "Are you there? Oh God, please be there."

Harry had been in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich after just getting home from a long day
of work at the Ministry. Ron, arriving home from Quidditch practice around the same time, had
immediately gone to take a shower. Hearing Hermione's faint voice, Harry made his way from the
kitchen to the sitting room with a smile on his face, happy to hear his other best friend's
voice. He hadn't seen her in a while and he had just been thinking about flooing her to arrange
dinner for the three of them. Since they had finished Hogwarts, the boys had gotten a place of
their own while Hermione moved in with her boyfriend, Justin. Neither Ron nor Harry had been happy
with her decision, but they knew better than to try and talk her out of it. Hermione was obstinate
and determined to do as she chose, so he and Ron had decided to respect her decision.
Unfortunately, with them living apart, they didn't see each other as much as Harry would have
liked.

Walking toward the fireplace, Harry said, "Hey Hermione, what's..." and stopped
abruptly when he saw her face. There was something...different...about the way she looked. It was
true that when talking through the floo one's facial features looked different, but there was
just something...unnatural...about the way hers looked at the moment.

Glancing quickly behind her, Hermione turned back and whispered, "Can I come through Harry?
I...I really need to get out of here."

"Of course," Harry answered, confused. "You know you don't have to ask,
you're always welcome here."

With a ghost of a smile on her lips that quickly disappeared, Hermione's head disappeared
and then two ticks later she was standing in the sitting room in front of Harry. With her head
bowed low she said, "Thanks. I couldn't stay there any longer and I had no idea where else
to go."

Harry watched her closely, his auror instincts immediately picking up on the tremor in her voice
as she spoke, and he was disconcerted when she wouldn't look at him. This wasn't his
Hermione; his Hermione was strong and self-assured. The woman standing in front of him looked frail
and scared...two words he never thought he would ever associate with his female friend. Even when
facing Voldemort together with Ron, her confidence never wavered and she never showed an ounce of
fear. Her current behavior alone was enough for him to realize that something was seriously
wrong.

"Why don't I go get Ron and we can..."

"No!" she replied vehemently, grabbing two fistful's of his shirt while looking at
him for the first time.

What he saw caused him to gasp and drop the sandwich he had been holding. "Oh my hell!
Hermione, what happened to you?" he asked, his own voice shaking with emotion.

His eyes roamed over her once beautiful face and took in all the bruises that now covered most
of it. He reached out his hand as if to touch her cheek and she flinched and took a quick step away
from him. Taking in her battered features, he saw that her right eye was swollen shut and there
were cuts over her left eye and on her left cheek. Her right cheek had a red mark that looked like
an imprint of a hand, and as he looked into her left eye he was sickened at the raw fear he saw
there. On instinct, he reached out and took her into his arms protectively, letting go quickly when
she sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed her left side suddenly. Looking into her good eye with a
sympathetic look, he reached out slowly and took hold of the hem of her shirt. As she cautiously
moved her hand, he carefully lifted the shirt up a little bit and said, "Oh my God," when
he saw the nasty looking bruise that covered her entire left side. Fearing that she may have a
broken rib, possibly more, he suggested, "I think you should go to St. Mungo's Hermione.
You could have some serious injuries." When she shook her head no he said, "What about
letting Madam Pomfrey examine you. I'm sure she would gladly do it for you..."

He stopped talking as she continued to shake her head no. Sighing, he said, "Will you at
least tell me what happened?"

Hearing a door open down the hallway and knowing that it was Ron, she quietly asked, "Can
we go to your room Harry? Please? I...I just don't want Ron to know about this yet, he'll
just overreact and I don't need that right now. I-I just want to talk to you. Please
Harry."

He had never heard Hermione sound so scared in the nine years he had known her, and it was
starting to worry him now. Without saying a word, he carefully wrapped his arm around her waist and
helped her to his room, which was on the other side of the flat from Ron's. After closing the
door behind them, he walked her over to his bed and watched as she gingerly sat down. Pulling out
his wand, he walked up and knelt in front of her and said, "I was never good at healing charms
and you're the one studying to become a Healer, so why don't you tell me which ones to use
so I can take some of your pain away."

As she told him which ones to use and explained how to do the wand movements, he could see her
body relax a little as the pain subsided. She taught him how to do the spell that indicated whether
a bone was broken or not and thankfully none of her ribs turned out to be broken. Unfortunately the
bruises only faded to a nasty yellowish-brown color, and her eye stayed swollen and bruised. The
only good thing was that besides her eye, her face looked almost normal again. Knowing that was all
that could be done, he sat next to her and took her hand in his. Sitting quietly like that for a
little while, Harry took a deep breath and asked, "Please tell me what happened."

In a very un-Hermione-like gesture, she turned and buried her face in the crook of his neck
while wrapping her arms around his waist. He could feel her body shaking and felt the wet tracks
her tears made as they ran down his chest, under his shirt. He held her and let her cry, all the
while feeling desperate to help her and wishing he knew what to do for her. Finally, after
sniffling and wiping the tears off her right cheek she whispered, "It was Justin."

"What?" Harry asked, unable to hear her barely audible confession.

"It was Justin," she said a little louder.

The only emotion Harry felt in that moment was intense hatred. Justin was the man Hermione had
given her heart to and who she had trusted enough to move in with. Justin had raised his hand to
her in the same violent way the Dursley's had to him. His hatred and anger became all-consuming
and suddenly the lamp sitting next to his bed flew across the room and slammed into the wall,
falling to the floor in a broken heap. Hermione jumped at the loud noise and just as Harry was
about to apologize for his uncontrollable burst of magic a knock sounded on his door and Ron
called, "Harry, are you all right mate?What was that crash?"

"I'm fine Ron, sorry about the noise. I knocked over my bedside stand and the lamp
broke," Harry explained lamely.

"Oh, right then. Are you ready to go grab some dinner? I'm starved," Ron
replied.

Quietly cursing himself for forgetting about their dinner plans, Harry said, "I-I'm not
really feeling too well right now mate. Could we possibly go tomorrow night instead?"

"Sure," Ron answered, his voice taking on a tone that said he didn't believe
Harry's weak excuse. "I'll just go then and check on you later. Feel better."

"Thanks," Harry replied, waiting to talk again until after he had heard the faint
'pop' of Ron apparating. Looking down at Hermione he said, "I really don't like
lying to him."

"I know you don't, and I don't either, but we both know that he would go completely
mad and beat Justin to near-death," she said.

"Why are you so sure that I won't go after Justin?" he asked, with a hint of
disgust coming through in his voice as he said Justin's name.

Hermione's body stiffened and she looked up at him with both eyes red and swollen, her good
one looking that way from crying. As she took in the angry look on his face, one so deadly that it
scared her, she replied, "Because I'm asking you not to. I'm not going back to him
Harry...there's nothing between us anymore, and I'm not sure that there ever was."

He studied her silently and then asked, "But you were so sure about moving in with him. You
told Ron and I that you felt so deeply for him that you couldn't imagine not living with him.
And now you're questioning how you felt about him?"

Hermione sighed, letting go of him, and he immediately felt the loss of her warmth. Sitting up
next to him she said, "I had some doubts right after we finished school." When Harry
opened his mouth to say something she quickly added, "I know, I went on and on about how much
I loved him and how I knew he was my soul mate. But I wasn't being entirely truthful with you,
or even with myself. There was someone else that I had feelings for, but I was afraid that he would
reject me so I took the easy way out with Justin. I'm not proud of my decision, but I was so
desperate to feel loved after Voldemort...killed my parents."

Surprised by her confession, Harry asked, "You know that Ron and I will always be here for
you no matter what Hermione. You shouldn't have moved in with him if you were having
doubts." After a moment of silence Harry quietly asked, "Was it Ron you had feelings
for?"

"Ron? Maybe I felt something for him during our sixth year, but no, it wasn't
him," she replied.

Harry sat pondering her answer for a few moments and then asked, "So what caused Justin
to...attack you the way he did?"

Fidgeting nervously she replied, "Things haven't been that great between us, and
I've found myself thinking about the other guy a lot lately. Today, Justin just did something
that set me off and I yelled at him how I never should have stayed with him, and how I should have
admitted to the guy I truly loved how I felt for him. He asked me who it was and I just...blurted
out the name." Seeing Harry's shocked look she said, "I know, I can't believe I
said it either. It just came out and before I fully understood what I had said, Justin had...hit
me, and kept hitting me until I curled up into a ball on the floor and that's when he kicked me
in the side. It was then that he admitted to putting veritaserum in my drink because he thought I
was cheating on him. The first chance I got, I grabbed my wand from the floor where it had fallen
and stunned him...and here I am." She was quiet as her eyes filled with tears again, and as
she brought her hand up and gently touched the swollen skin around her eye she said, "I still
can't believe he attacked me that way, I never thought of him as being a violent man. It's
made me realize how badly I messed up by not telling the other man how I felt. I was a coward...I
never should have settled and if I would have just confessed how I felt maybe everyone would be
happier now."

"So you've seen this other guy? You know he's not happy either?" Harry asked,
feeling a strange sense of disappointment in his chest. Why should he be disappointed when Hermione
might have a chance at the happiness she deserved? If it was this certain guy that made her happy,
then he should encourage her to follow her heart, right?

"I'm not entirely sure," she replied slowly. "I've only seen him a couple
of times, but I know he's never had a serious relationship." Taking a deep breath she
looked at him and asked, "Do you think I should tell him how I feel?"

"I...I don't know," he replied, his gut twisting at the thought of losing her
again to another bloke. "But how can I lose what's not mine?" he mumbled thoughtfully
to himself, not realizing he'd said it out loud.

"What have you lost?" Hermione asked, confused.

He looked up at her, at her swollen eye and her bushy brown hair, and something suddenly clicked
inside his head as his heart began to beat just a little bit faster. If Ron had seen Hermione when
she first arrived in their flat, he would have immediately left to pummel Justin for hurting his
friend. But when Harry had seen her, hurt and distressed, the first thought he had was to make sure
no one else could hurt her. Ron would have left in anger because he would've wanted revenge for
hurting someone he considered a sister...like the way he went after anyone who dared show interest
in Ginny. But Harry didn't give a rat's ass about Justin...the moment he saw Hermione he
wanted to take her into his arms and never let her go again. The thought that she had been hurt
broke his heart, and all he wanted was to take her pain away. Where Ron would've thought with
his head and reacted with anger, Harry had thought and reacted with his heart and soul, and that
realization slammed into him with the force of a bludger to the gut. Hermione was more than a
friend to him...she was much, much more and it had taken him this long to fully realize it.

"What have you lost?" Hermione repeated, watching him curiously as a myriad of
emotions played out on his face.

"Uh, n-nothing," he replied with an unconvincing smile. "Just thinking out loud.
What were you saying before?"

"I had asked if you thought I should tell this other person how I feel?" she repeated,
watching him closely.

Thinking of what a fool he'd been, and how he was going to lose her yet again to some lucky
bloke because he was going to keep his own feelings secret, he replied, "Yes, I think you
should tell him. Any bloke would be lucky to have you love him, and if that's what will make
you happy, then you should finally admit your feelings to him. Be true to yourself Hermione,
don't worry about everyone else like you always have before. This time, make sure that your
happiness comes first."

A dazzling smile broke out on her battered face and he watched stunned as she moved closer to
him on the bed and placed her hands on either side of his face. Leaning down, she gingerly pressed
her lips to his and kept them there for a few seconds, relishing the moment. When she slowly pulled
away she looked into his eyes and said, "I'm in love with youHarry, and I'm sorry I
didn't tell you sooner."

Harry stared at her, stunned, and then smiled as her words penetrated through his shock.
Bringing his hand up to cup her cheek, he let his thumb glide gently across the bruised skin there
and replied, "I'm not sure how long I've felt this way since I've just realized
it, but I love you too, and I swear on my life that I'll never let anyone ever hurt you
again."

"I don't doubt that for a moment," she replied, leaving her arms wrapped around
his neck and he left his arms around her waist. While he held her carefully she placed her lips
near his ear, causing heavenly shivers to run down his spine and said, "It's time for the
both of us to be happy. We've been through so much, we've earned our happily ever
after."

Pulling back so that he could look into her beautiful brown eyes he replied, "I
couldn't agree more." And with a smile that spoke volumes, he leaned down to capture her
lips in a soul-searing kiss...just the first of many that they would share in the years to
come...as they finally allowed themselves to be completely, truly happy for the first time in their
lives.