Title: Shift of Focus
Author: Sabine
Rating: NC-17; this chapter R for language.
Genre: Romance, Angst.
Author notes: Thanks to three amazing men: XochiLuvr, Darth Lamblike, and Aurabolt for beta. They're all perfect,
so any mistakes are mine alone.
This is my first H/Hr fic, and I'd really appreciate knowing what you think of it! This is not a WIP, it's a finished story of six chapters.
---Prologue
When Hermione looked up from the most grueling, traumatic week of her life, she was amazed to discover it had all happened in the space of 48 hours. She had vague memories of healers and nurses, family and friends, movement, tests, worry... but it all had settled into one big blur in her mind. She felt guilt more intensely than any physical aches or pains that were the results of the battle she'd helped fight--the same battle that had brought Ron to St. Mungo's.
She'd been at his bedside the entire two days, which had felt like a lifetime. She'd stared at his face, held his hand and prayed for a sign he was going to be ok. The healers weren't sure what kind of curse they were dealing with, and had to take a wait- and-see approach after exhausting all their tests. Harry had sat with her a majority of the time, only leaving at her insistence that he be checked out himself. He'd come through his defeat of Voldemort relatively unscathed, for which Hermione was indescribably thankful. She didn't know how she could've coped with sitting at the bedsides of both her friends.
As she walked along the halls of the hospital on her way to the apparation point, she tried to analyze her feelings, but had a difficult time of it. Emotions were something that were unpredictable and hard to pin down, and just didn't take to analysis very well, especially when there were a million and one different emotions all crammed into her mind.
Hermione felt responsible for Ron's condition since he'd pushed her out of the way. The curse aimed for her struck him instead, which added to the incredible sense of guilt she already felt from the argument they'd had hours before. They'd been in the middle of a discussion about their relationship, and she'd told him that she didn't care for him the way he cared for her. She'd known she had to be truthful with him from the beginning if she wanted to maintain any kind of relationship with him, whether it be friendship or something more, but it didn't make it any easier to say. Nor was it any easier to live with the memory of the look of misery on his face as she'd said it. It was a horrible way to have to leave a conversation, but they'd had no choice. The fight against Voldemort and his minions--the last fight--had begun.
When Ron had finally wakened, he'd smiled when he saw her at his bedside. She and Harry had let out collective sighs of relief, though she knew his was for a completely different reason than hers. She'd tried to chastise Ron for pushing her out of the way, but he'd just smiled at her and pointed out that she'd have done the same thing for him. Since it was true, she could only smile back at him and try to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. Finally sure he was going to be all right, she'd allowed Harry to talk her into going home to rest.
Back at Grimmauld Place, after talking with her parents for a good hour, Hermione dropped into bed and tried to clear her mind of all thoughts. Analyzing was good for a while, especially after having spent so little of the past few days thinking of herself, but it wasn't conducive to rest. Relaxing and thinking nothing-thoughts was enough to let her doze off, but it was a desperate sleep, not a comfortable one. Even while she slept it, she hated it because it wasn't the reprieve she needed.
Before she knew it, sunlight streamed through the windows onto her face. Her room faced South, so it had to be midday. She turned over in bed, trying to talk herself into sleeping more when she wanted nothing more than to get up and get back to St. Mungo's. Seeing that she wasn't alone in the room nearly caused her to jump three feet out of the bed.
"Harry, what on earth are you doing?" He had a strange look on his face and it immediately struck a white-hot spark of fear within her. "Is Ron okay? What's happened?" She hurried out of bed and knelt on one knee in front of the chair at the end of her bed where Harry sat, unspeaking and unmoving.
"Harry! Has something happened to Ron?" She took his shoulders and jostled him a bit, looking him in the eyes when he finally met her gaze.
"No, no, nothing's wrong, Ron is fine. I just came from there; he was resting. Mr. Weasley was with him, I didn't leave him alone."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to soothe her frayed nerves. "What're you doing here then, watching me while I sleep?"
"Yeah. I mean no. I mean... I was waiting for you to wake up. I, uh, have some errands to run, and wanted to, uh, let you know before I left."
She hadn't seen Harry tell such a blatant lie since Hogwarts, when he'd tell her anything he could think of to get her off his back about homework and the like.
"Tell me what's really going on, Harry," she said as she tightened her grip on his shoulders and took deep, calming breaths.
"Nothing, Hermione, I promise. I just wanted to see you before I left."
Something about the way he said that made the hair on the back of her neck prickle with unease. She couldn't think of anything to say, so she got up with him when he stood, stepped back as he left the room, and watched as he pulled the door shut behind him. It wasn't often she didn't know what to say, and it usually didn't last long. The present moment was no exception. She hurried after him, her tongue trying to grasp any one of the million questions zipping about her head.
He was standing just outside her door with his head down. She could see he was fiddling with something in his hands and it struck her an almost physical blow when she realized what was going on. She latched onto his shoulders at almost the same instant he activated the Portkey.
---
---Chapter 1
Harry's head was spinning by the time he and Hermione landed on a very hard surface somewhere. He was laying on his stomach and agony was clouding his vision and making it hard to breathe. He looked down to find his right leg bent up at an awkward angle under his left leg. Nothing seemed broken, but he thought his knee might be sprained. Hermione was lying haphazardly across his back, her light weight making it even worse, though he could tell she was trying to get up. Once she was up, he tried to turn over but moving caused a throbbing pain to shoot up his leg. It was horrible, more than he could bear, and he was swallowed up by beautiful nothingness.
---
"Harry? Harry, wake up!" Hermione's voice finally broke into the fog in his mind. He slipped back into consciousness slowly and carefully, testing the waters that were his injured knee. He realized Hermione had straightened his legs out while he'd been out; he felt only moderate pain. Compared to earlier, he decided he could probably make it.
"Harry? Are you all right?" He opened his eyes to see Hermione crouched before him in the faint light with a worried frown on her face.
"Yeah, I think so."
Ignoring Hermione for the moment, he sat up and started to examine their surroundings. They were in a small, dim room containing only the barest of furniture. There was a kitchen-like area in one corner, which consisted of a sink, a cabinet with a small electric stove underneath it, and a table with two chairs. On the opposite wall there was a small sofa; in the back corner, a bed next to a window and, in the last corner, a small room he hoped was a bathroom. He and Hermione were currently sitting on a large rug in front of a door that he assumed led outside.
He'd known the Portkey was going to send him into some kind of seclusion, but he'd had nothing more specific. Of course the seclusion was dependent upon him actually Portkeying by himself; Hermione's presence was something he'd neither desired nor planned for. In fact, it was quite the opposite of what he'd wanted when he'd made the decision to use the Portkey Dumbledore had given him long ago. What exquisite torture this was going to be, he thought.
"Where are we?" Hermione asked as she forced him to look at her with a hand on his chin. He jerked out of her grasp and looked at his hands in his lap while he tried to think of an explanation that wouldn't make it obvious that he was running away like a coward.
"I'm not exactly sure," he answered slowly.
"What do you mean you're not sure? How on earth... why would you even consider using a Portkey if you weren't sure where it was going to take you? Where did you get it? What if it'd been some kind of a trap--"
"It's not a trap. Dumbledore gave it to me a long time ago."
That seemed to throw a wrench in the gears of her mind; she was quiet a moment. He sighed as he considered the situation. He'd thought it a crazy idea at first, but when he'd remembered the Portkey, getting away from magic for a month had sounded like a great gift. Getting away from people had seemed like a blessing, especially after the events of the past few days. Watching Hermione at Ron's bedside had become more than he knew how to deal with.
"Oh," Hermione said, breaking into his thoughts. "Why did you want to come here then, Harry?"
"I just needed some time away!" he almost yelled at her. It wasn't much of an answer, but maybe it'd be good enough to satisfy her for at least a few minutes.
"So... okay. When do you want to go back?" she said meekly, drawing back from him and his ire.
He sighed and looked up at her. She was sitting across from him on the rug, watching him intently.
"I don't know. I'm not sure I want to," he said in a tone of voice that left no doubt about how angry he was. He wasn't even aware he was going to tell her the truth until it had spilled out of his mouth. Surprisingly enough though, she didn't seem to be very shocked.
"Do you want me to leave then?" she asked, hurt evident in her voice.
This was the part he'd been dreading since he'd felt her hands on his shoulders. He looked away from her direct gaze; he didn't want to know her reaction to what he was about to say.
"Well, um, that's just the thing... you can't." He wasn't as angry as he knew he sounded; it was just so hard to get out of that frame of mind once he'd gotten started in it.
She was quiet a moment.
"What?"
"You can't leave. Not yet anyway. Neither of us can, actually. The Portkey is set to activate again in a month, and this house is warded just like Hogwarts. Dumbledore conjured them himself."
"You don't know where the wards end?"
"No idea. I've never been here before."
"Okay then. Well. I guess we'll just have to make the best of things. Come on, I'll help you up since you seem to have sprained your leg or something." Her voice spoke of courage he couldn't see in her face as she got up and dusted her pants off. He hated when she treated him nicely, as if he hadn't been snapping her head off the entire time they'd been together. It deflated a good part of his bad humor, leaving him numb and distracted.
"Say, can't you turn on some lights? I can barely see you," he said as he took her hand and struggled to his feet. He bit his traitorous tongue; it kept letting thoughts out of his mind that he'd intended to keep to himself.
"What?" She froze, causing him to have to stop as well since he was leaning on her to keep from putting much weight on his sore leg. He sighed as he resigned himself to admitting to her what was going on. He wouldn't have been able to hide it from her for long, anyway.
"There's something I didn't tell you...."
"Yes?" Her gaze never left his face as she leaned in to remove his glasses. That done, she began to look at his right eye almost like a doctor would, moving his eyelids up and down. He tried not to lose his temper again; he'd been poked and prodded far more than enough at St. Mungo's.
"Er, well, before I actually got to Voldemort the other day, I got hit with a curse."
She didn't respond, just moved on to the left eye.
"Hermione!" The petulance was back, and she flinched at the sound of it in his voice. "Stop it!"
"What was the curse?" she asked, continuing to examine his eyes despite the heat that had to be rolling off of his face.
"I don't know; there were lots of them flying around."
"You don't know?" she asked incredulously, stepping back from him.
"No, Hermione, I don't. Besides, I've already had this discussion with the Healers." He sighed and squinted as he watched Hermione fidget. His fury had suddenly gone, leaving him feeling hollow without it again.
"You mean you've known about this for days and not said anything to me?"
"You seemed to have enough on your mind at the time, what with worrying about Ron and all."
He took her momentary inability to speak as a chance to prompt her to help him move to the bed, where he sat heavily.
"Tell me what the Healers said," she said in a demanding voice as she sat next to him.
"They didn't really have a lot to tell me. Just like with Ron, they'd never seen anything like it before. They were researching it last I heard."
She looked at him expectantly, as if she thought he wasn't finished. He just looked back at her.
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"God, Harry, I can't believe you didn't try to find out more! Don't you realize what's happening here? You're losing your sight! It's somewhere around noon, Harry. This room is bright with sunlight!" She sounded slightly hysterical, which he didn't have the patience to deal with.
"Yes, Hermione, I know," he said as he fell back on the bed and closed his soon-to-be-useless eyes.
---
When he awoke from a sleep he didn't remember entering, Harry could detect a very faint light coming from somewhere, but couldn't see his hands in front of him. He looked around for Hermione but when he found he was unable to see her, he immediately felt the stir of panic. Just because he'd known it was going to happen didn't make it any less scary. That was another reason he'd decided to leave; he couldn't stand the thought of anyone seeing him weak and scared.
"Hermione, where are you?" He tried to stand, but dizziness and his still painful knee caused him to fall back onto the bed. His inability to move made the terror worse. "Hermione!" he nearly screamed.
"Harry, I'm right here, calm down! It's ok!" Finally she was looming in the darkness in front of him, taking his hands and wiping his fringe away from the sweat on his forehead. "It's ok, Harry. Everything's going to be ok." He could hear fear in her voice despite the confidence she was trying to project. He tried to calm himself, but it was like he had no control over his body. He was breathing in great gulps of air and it felt like his lungs were going to explode.
Hermione pulled him to the edge of the bed and pushed his head toward his knees. She sat beside him with one hand on his arm, and the other rubbing his back. After a few minutes, his breathing returned to normal and he had the sense to know he'd been hyperventilating.
"What am I going to do, Hermione?" he asked without moving He didn't want her to see him crying like a baby.
"You're going to be fine, Harry. I'm sure there's something we can do," she said in a soft voice. "We just have to... figure out what. I wish we had access to a library here." The hand that had been on his back was now running through his hair; he briefly thought that if she stopped touching him, he would get lost in the darkness. They were both ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room: worry that, by the time the Portkey was set to take them back, it'd be too late to do anything. For the first time since remembering the Portkey, he questioned the wisdom of running away. He was always acting without thinking.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Promise you won't leave me, please?"
"You know I won't, Harry."
He felt weak for wanting her with him, but he couldn't help it. An indescribable fear was claiming his mind and reason and he couldn't find the rage he'd clung to so inappropriately. He was suddenly so glad for her presence, and wondered what kind of miracle had caused her to be there with him.
"Rest, Harry. I'm going over to the table to finish sorting through some potions I found, ok? I'll only be a few steps away, so if you call for me, it'll just take seconds for me to get to you." He didn't really want her to leave him even to go across the room, but he nodded his head and she helped him lie back on the bed.
Before too long, he was sleeping fitfully. Several times through the night, he was vaguely aware of Hermione soothing him from nightmares. At one point, he thought he felt the bed move as if she'd lain down with him. Only half awake, he took comfort in her closeness, which anchored him in space, and his sleep was more peaceful.
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