A/N: Part deux of this little saga, but don't worry, it probably won't reach ten chapters. I have stuff to do. This chapter is more angst, nothing really important happens, but it's linked to all important drinking episode. Heh, enjoy.
Disclaimer: As if she would ever write this, she is much too cool.
*~***~*
An Evening at the Pub
Harry was not back by the time they were appointed to go to the pub that evening. Hermione, who had not been holding her breath, who had been more than expecting something like this, was not surprised. But still, as she searched through her closet for something "pub-worthy", she could barely resist the inexplicable urge to cry.
Why this time, why this summer more than the others was she bothered by this, she could not tell. But she was.
After his big smile and big announcement and the hints of his big plans, he was off at work and she was home alone. It was like last summer, and the one before that, and if she thought about it, every vacation in-between when they should have been together and were not. Could she really seriously consider him her "best friend" when they only saw each other at special Ministry-hosted events, Christmas and when it could be "scheduled"?
It sounded more like he was an acquaintance; she had a closer relationship with Ron.
She stopped going through the closet and released a loud, exasperated sigh. She was not his girlfriend or his wife; she had to get a grip.
The closet was empty, and Crookshanks was half-buried under a pile of clothes on her bed. The fat little bundle of orange fur was not happy… as if his mistress noticed.
She had nothing, absolutely nothing in her closet that didn't scream "swot". No wonder Harry knew she would have no plans for that evening, a Friday of all days. No wonder Witch Weekly completely ignored her existence, even when going over stories from the war that she was directly involved in. No wonder she was always alone.
But she didn't date Viktor Krum and was assaulted by Cormac McLaggen because they pitied her.
Drawing her wand, she lazily commanded, "Pack!" and watched her clothes fly off the bed and back to their positions in the closet, sorted by season and colour. Then she summoned the bag from yesterday's shopping trip she had stashed under the bed. She was wrong when she thought she would never wear the cocktail dress. Well, that was, once she had added some changes, like a shirt.
Crookshanks gave her a reproachful glare from the bed. She pointedly looked away, and muttered, "I'm not going on a date. It's just the pub and I need to look like I do this often…."
The cat refused to acknowledge her.
The regulars were just beginning to file in when Hermione finally arrived at The Fire-breather's Lair forty-five minutes later. She was still alone, but now dressed in jeans, a jumper and indigo robes, and doing her best to melt into the crowd. It was a cool night out in London, and the streets of Diagon Alley were crowded. The cocktail dress here would have been far too conspicuous.
It may have been four years since the war's end, but Harry would flip if he found out she had drawn unnecessary attention to herself.
Neville and 'the others'-Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, Luna Lovegood, Ginny, the Creevey brothers, Dennis and Colin, and Ernie Macmillan-were already there at what looked like a reserved table at the back of the pub. She had to wonder how often they came to this pub to have that. Away at Hogwarts the only options she had were The Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head Inn. And the former was usually heavily populated by students, while the latter had too many dubious inhabitants to be frequented safely.
Besides, having tea with Hagrid and Fang was always fun.
The first to spy her was Neville, round-faced, slightly plump and cheerful, and he waved her over with a smile. At his movement the others looked up, and she released an internal sigh of relief when instead of frowning they all smiled brightly as well. She smiled back then and quickly weaved her way through the gathering patrons-puffing away on their pipes, or downing glasses of firewhiskey like water-to their booth.
She made a point of ignoring their faces when they realised that she was unaccompanied by a certain wizard.
Under a magical poster of the Irish National Team and a homemade dartboard from a Wanted poster of a Death Eater she recognised as Macnair, the ten had squashed themselves into a lounge chair round an old rectangular table. If it had been magically expanded or had been made that way, she could not tell, but they did all look comfortable.
The Creevey brothers were at the ends facing each other. The closest to her, Colin, sat next to Dean, who was seated next to Parvati, with Lavender beside her, then Seamus, Neville, Luna, Ginny, Ernie and finally Dennis. It didn't look as if they had started ordering their drinks yet, but Ginny and Lavender were both nursing something. With the addition of her, and Harry, when (if) he arrived though, it didn't look likely that they would be able to so comfortably move around as the butterbeers worked on their systems. Yet when she got to the table, the others shifted, and she slid in beside Colin with ease.
At once Ginny started in on her, (after the introductory chorus, "Welcome back Professor Granger!") "Where's Harry, he arranged this little welcome party and he's not here?"
"Kingsley called him this morning, something in Bristol," Hermione explained, quietly. She was glad to see them again, she really was, but she didn't quite feel… in the mood to discuss Harry.
Oblivious to her mood though, and undeterred by her tone, Ginny continued, "How was your year? We've all been waiting to hear about it, well, they have, I was doing my best not to tell them."
"Oh really? Who's Paisley, Hermione?" asked Seamus, and Ginny glared at him.
Hermione forced herself to smile, as Ginny confessed, "Well… not to tell them everything. But you can't expect us not to be excited about this; we kind of always knew you would be a teacher."
"Actually… I wanted to be a Healer," said Hermione.
"Oh no, being a teacher is much better. I was just telling them about my books, I finally had a chance to go through some of them last night and you would not believe the stuff I have to learn before the end of this year!" replied Ginny, and then launched into a detailed explanation.
Quite unintentionally, Hermione tuned her out and turned her attentions to the others. It was not long since she had last seen them, Christmas, was it, and still they looked as if they had grown older. Or maybe it was just her, the constancy of young faces and much, much older ones polluting the images of her friends in her memory.
Harry never aged though. Oh no, not him. He had to grow old before her eyes, and not in the gaps in time between their meetings.
Colin, Ginny, Luna and Dennis, at twenty and nineteen respectively, looked a full year older than they were. For Ginny and Luna she would blame exhaustion. The work of a Healer-in-training could surely be blamed for the lank, messy look of Ginny's fiery red hair and the slight bags beneath her cinnamon brown eyes. Her still relatively new position as her father's employee at The Quibbler, and the task of raising a rambunctious, nearly four year old, almost stubbornly on her own clearly had made Luna's straggly dirty blonde hair even stragglier, but somehow made her wide pale blue eyes brighter. But she had more pronounced bags under her eyes, a decidedly wan complexion and an apparently put-on smile.
She made a mental note to visit and take little Gemma off Luna's hands more often.
As her eyes adjusted to the lighting though, she was happy to find that the Creevey brothers, one, a photographer for the Daily Prophet, the other just out of Hogwarts, looked much more eager-eyed and on the cusp of life.
Depressingly, she thought, the war had not gotten to them, but life soon would.
Seamus, Neville, Dean, Lavender, Parvati and Ernie, all had shared a year with her, and then indirectly, a war. Gone off now to their new careers, Seamus and Dean in training to be Aurors (why weren't they in Bristol?), Neville in study to be a Herbologist, Lavender and Parvati (as expected) to Witch Weekly, and Ernie to the Ministry, they had become serious, wearied and bore slightly hardened looks though they were not yet her age. What each would not give for a chance to redo their school years stress free?
What she, and they, would not give to be free of being haunted by Harry?
Ginny was speaking to her again, "-so you're going to be on your own tomorrow."
"What?" asked Hermione, suddenly alert, and feeling rather confused.
Parvati smiled pityingly, "You need to get out more. You were daydreaming in company."
Hermione forced another smile, and shook her head, "I'm just… really tired."
"Of doing what?" asked Ginny, sceptically. "According to Mum you spent the entire day at home, and you brought Avril back early."
"I was reading, and trying to put together lesson plans for next year. I see you all don't know the merits of finishing work early so you'll have plenty of free time later," replied Hermione.
The others exchanged glances, Ginny sighed, and said, "As I was saying while you were 'out', you and Harry will be on your own tomorrow with Ron. I'm not going to explain why, but you are."
Automatically, Hermione responded, "Oh, that's okay; we haven't spent that much time alone with him like we used to. And besides, it's not like if he knows who's there or not anyway."
She did not voice her thought though: but I do, and if it's just Harry and me, I might as well go alone.
*~*~*
Why was he here?
No, not why was he alive, he knew that one. To save the Wizarding world, had his name down for it since Voldemort decided he wanted to live forever and rule the world while he was at it. After he defeated (read: killed) him, he realised that he would not be completely victorious until he stopped his most hardened supporters too, and so joined the Aurors.
The question he wanted answered was why was he in Bristol?
By the time he had arrived there that morning most of the rebels had been rounded up and a small street fire put out. There was practically nothing for him to do, and if he thought about it, no reason for Kingsley to call him out of the house. It was not like those times when he needed rescue from a bad date or a way out of an awkward Weasley family dinner.
Kingsley though, had had him stick around for interrogations he only witnessed, and processing it was not necessary to involve him in, and even after Harry pointed this out.
But then those interrogations revealed the details of a planned raid in Greater Hangleton, and since he was already there, why not kip over and give some of his colleagues a hand? It was not like he had anything better to do, and surely Hermione would understand if he was a little late. She was not his girlfriend or his wife.
She used to be the former… he wished she would be the latter….
Of course, the "raid" in Greater Hangleton just had to be an ambush, so that when he and the others got there they were pounced on like a lioness on a too-slow wildebeest. They put up a good fight under the circumstances of course. And though only surviving on breakfast Harry managed to hold out until their leader was captured and dragged from the house in a Full Body-Bind.
So the day wasn't a complete bust, was it?
But, it was then that he realised that he was bleeding, and had been doing so for quite some time.
Oh, Hermione was going to kill him. As soon as she had gone over him herself, just to be sure that no serious damage had been done and a trip to St Mungo's was unnecessary, she was going to kill him. He might as well admit it now, send away the Mediwizard currently attending to the seven-inch long slash in his side, dump the last of that Blood-Replenishing potion and go home to his fate.
Though she had been the most supportive of his decision to join the Aurors after the war, he knew she was only half-joking when she said she would "finish what Voldemort started" if he ever got hurt.
With a bit of luck though, he would be home and in bed before Hermione got back from the pub. She was no heavy drinker, nor one to be out late, but she hadn't seen their friends in a long time.
The Mediwizard had just left him sitting on a park bench as the last of the Magical Reversal Squad were finishing up with the Muggles, when Kingsley approached. Harry looked up at him; the tall black Auror with the gold hoop in his ear gave a nod in greeting, and asked, "Flesh wound?"
"I hope so," Harry replied, lazily. The pain-relieving charm the Mediwizard had used had an effect like morphine, making him sleepy.
He blinked twice, rubbed his sleepy eyes and stifled a yawn. Kingsley looked him over with a furrowed brow, and said, "You should go home; I forgot you were on vacation."
Oh really, so what was all that this morning?
Harry shook his head weakly, "No, it's okay; I want to know what this was all about."
And then, just out of the blue, Kingsley asked the last question Harry thought he would, "Don't you think Miss Granger would have a problem with that?"
Harry looked up at him at once, surprised, and Kingsley continued, "Just go home, Potter. We'll see to them, unless it's something very serious you're on vacation."
Harry grunted his concession, exhaled heavily, forced himself to stand and staggered away to find a safe point to Disapparate. He was too weak now to figure out what Kingsley meant.
*~*~*
Hermione had just walked into her room to change, lazily kicking away shoes as she went, when she heard the flat's front door open, and the sound of Harry stumbling in. At last, at long last he was home… and just in time to completely miss their pub outing.
Without really knowing why, her anger flared up again and she hurried back into the living room to him.
"Where have you been?" she demanded, angrily.
He looked like a deer in headlights, or more appropriately, a naughty child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. His messy hair was now filled with clumps of dirt, there was something that looked frightfully like dried blood at the hem of his robes, and he looked wearier than she had ever seen him. After his initial surprise at seeing her something settled in his eye that was clearly unabashed gawking… and then it was gone.
"Goodnight, how was your day Hermione?" he asked lightly, doing his best to disguise a limp as he walked to the sofa.
"I had to go to the pub alone! I haven't seen them in months; do you know how many times I must have embarrassed them? It was so awkward, I needed you there, Harry!" she nearly yelled, overreacting.
Why was this bothering her so much, why oh why was this bothering her so?
"Well, Kingsley needed me too!" he snapped, irritated by her behaviour.
"Dean and Seamus are Aurors, and they were at the pub!" she declared. "The disturbance in Bristol couldn't have been so bad if they were there!"
There was no way he was going to admit that she was right, "They're still in training-"
"If the situation was serious enough to call you out of vacation, shouldn't they have called them out too?" she cut him off, heatedly.
Harry was not going to sit there and be yelled at, she was being ridiculous. He made to get off the sofa, but his recently charm-healed flesh was still sore and he could not strangle a groan of pain as he moved. He valiantly tried to cover it up, masking it as a groan of frustration, but Hermione Granger was no fool. In an instant she was beside him and forcing him back into the sofa's cushions.
He could not help but think about a time when something like this was for an entirely different reason.
She did not hesitate to yank his shirt from his pants, and pulled it open, sending buttons popping. His flesh exposed and the thin line where the cut had been revealed, she reached a hand to examine it. And then Harry's lower stomach region twitched nervously, and he immediately held her hands away from him.
For a moment she looked up at him as if she understood the problem, but then she was angry again and demanded, "What happened?"
"Death Eater, and a well-placed Severing Charm-it's only a flesh wound," he grumbled, disgruntled at being caught out.
Hermione did not agree with him, and, as if on cue, her face crumpled and her eyes filled with tears. His anger melted away instantly.
He hated weepy girls; he truly did, for he did not know how to handle them. But a weepy Hermione, a moody Hermione, an anything but happy Hermione was someone for whom he would make exception. More often than not it was his fault… such as now.
But Hermione hated being weepy too, and pushed him off as he rose to comfort her, slipping his hands round her back.
"No Harry, I'm so sorry, you're hurt and here I am yelling at you for no good reason. Did they give you a Pain-Relieving potion? I might have some in the cupboard, I'll get it…"
He once again took hold of her hands, but this time to keep her where she was.
"It's okay Hermione; the Mediwizard knew what he was doing. I'm just a little sleepy… now… that's all."
For emphasis he yawned, and lay back unto the sofa. She studied him for a long tense moment, and then he felt her relax and lie back with him. If he looked down at her though, he would find that her eyes were still shining with their unshed bounty.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," he said, with meaning and began to stroke her hair. "I'm so very, very sorry."
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