A/N: Death to the Good Ship. Long live Independent!Hermione.
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own HP. If I did, this fic would not be necessary since I would never throw together two such ill-suited characters that so clearly need untangling.
There's a Fine, Fine Line
There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.
They have been living in this apartment playing at how they think adults live. They dust furniture, and buy groceries, and do laundry like adults. They argue almost daily, making biting, caustic comments that cut so close because they've known each other since they were 11, and have been learning what buttons to push ever since. Then, when they have torn each other to shreds, they come together and, with the flush of anger still lingering in their cheeks, they fuck. They've been all over the apartment- the buffet in the dining room, the cold marble kitchen counters, the rumbling washing machine.
This is love, she thinks, because it must be. This is what she's been after since she was 15, or at least that's what everyone tells her righteous indignant anger signified. She loves him, she is assured, and they are perfect together. She's never wrong, this can't be wrong, because it's what she wanted, isn't it? Him, this apartment, passionate arguments and subsequent reconciliations?
It's all terribly grown up.
There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.
She tells herself things like this everyday. Because the efficiency embedded in her bones will not let her entertain even the slightest doubt that this is it. Because if it isn't, then she has flushed 5 years and more down the toilet of time. If it isn't, then the thousands of cruel retorts and cool criticisms were not foreplay- they were just as mean and petty as they appeared. If it isn't love-
It is easier to accept that love hurt like this sometimes (a lot of times) than to contemplate that it might not be love after all, so she keeps playing house.
There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of your time.
She reads articles about the two of them sometimes and tries to see the life she is living in the romance described… childhood friends… unresolved sexual tension… pursuing each other in spite of the war raging around them… finally succumbing to their mutual passion as they aided their other friend in defeating the worst evil of their time… living together now, but expect an engagement announcement any day now…
It's like reading about perfect strangers.
She remembers sarcasm… tears in her four poster at night as she wondered how ugly she had to be if her best friends couldn't even realize she was a girl… lofty, cooing comments from Lavender about her wonderful boyfriend, and wasn't it sad about Hermione?... anger… and finally confronting Ron one night as she desperately scrambled for something human to cling to, to save herself from the vortex of inescapable grief that Hagrid's death had unlocked.
Harry had gone off on his own as soon as Hedwig had arrived at their small hut in the forest north Godric's Hollow, his face completely inscrutable. Harry was always alone. Ron had made some comment about "stupid half-giants" and the tears brimming in his eyes damned his words as lies, but she had yelled at him anyway because yelling felt good. She wanted to yell, needed to yell, to let out her anger at the world, let Ron have it all. At some point shouting tumbled unpredictably into snogging, and she indeed let Ron have it all that night.
Everyone said it was love but Ron. She was sure he loved her, even if he hadn't said it. He must, though, because everyone knew he'd been in love with her since they were children, he just hadn't said it yet. He was waiting for the right moment.
And they'd get married someday. As soon as she got past the uncomfortable lurching she felt in her gut every time Ron mentioned how she'd leave her job as soon as the babies came and the vague sense of nausea that came over her every time someone told her how much they reminded them of Molly. Eventually Ron would see how much she loved her work, and see she wasn't his mother, would see, like she did, that there was no reason that any children they did have couldn't attend a nice muggle daycare and primary school while she continued to make the world safe for them by hunting down the baddies.
She was sure of it. She was positive. He would see, one of these days and then everything would be perfect.
And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...
What am I doing here? What was she doing? Why was she sitting here justifying the behavior of her boyfriend, who assumed she'd quit her job and have his babies even though he couldn't even bother to tell her he loved her? Why was she planning on marrying a man- wishing to marry a man- who saw insults as a major form of foreplay? Why was she letting everyone but herself tell her how she felt?
How did she feel? She loved him, certainly, but the idea of spending the rest of her life with him, fighting, arguing, and insulting each other 'til death did them part…
After she finally washed the taste of vomit from her mouth she started packing. She had always been the strong one; she'd have to be the one to save them from themselves.
She's always been the picture of efficiency and from the time she finished retching it only took her two hours to be collect her things (magic is useful sometimes).
There's a fine, fine line between together and not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...
She doesn't like to let herself think of those years as wasted. For one thing, she can't even definitively state how many years it would be- the two of them had danced on that line for so long that it was impossible to pinpoint the beginning- only how long since they had added sex to their long practiced song and dance.
She does not rush to a new relationship. She can feel herself coming back to herself as she thinks contrarily that she has no need of a boyfriend: she is Hermione Granger, the Brightest Witch of Her Age. She is friggin' fabulous!
Ron never really told her that. She could see it in his eyes sometimes- like when she had received her OWL scores- but it had always been followed by a threatened inferiority that it had never been particularly affirming.
But now, on her own again, she is remembering how it felt to be sure that you were brighter and cleverer and quicker than everyone around you. It felt good to walk with that lift in her shoes again. She'd forgotten. She'd forgotten a lot of things.
She'd forgotten that she was only 21, and had decade upon decade ahead of her. She'd forgotten that she needn't take anything she didn't want. She'd been so busy playing house that she'd forgotten to be young and vicarious and adventurous. She'd forgotten that with most of her adolescence eaten up by defeating a murderous megalomaniac, that maybe she still had some maturing left to do. She'd forgotten how to listen to herself.
So she pursues what she wants whether it be a promotion, a book or a hot guy in a smoky bar and she does it with all the vim and vigor she has always invested in everything she does.
There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.
She doesn't think of wasted time. She only goes forward determinedly, self assured and free of self doubt. There is an entire world out there and everyone's waiting.
There's a Fine, Fine Line is from the musical Avenue Q.