Once again, merci pour les revues. The flamers made my day; they had my sister and myself howling for a very long time. Thank you for those as well, because they made what seemed to be a boring morning enchanting. Now that the house keeping's been taken care of, on with the rest of my lovely story…
Clarity
It was now or never; Harry knew that he couldn't avoid the topic for much longer. They'd been playing a game of don't ask, don't tell ever since she'd pulled herself away from him and demanded that she be immediately be discharged by Luna.
They'd hurried to the Burrow where Hermione had thanked Molly for watching the girls and had proceeded to beg her daughters' forgiveness for her crazed behaviour. After being satisfied that the girls hadn't banished her from their hearts, she began inquiring on their health and wanted a full recap of their day spent without her.
She'd probably expected to hear that they had spent the day baking truckloads of cookies with Mrs. Weasley and making their Get Well cards. If she had been shocked to hear that they had gotten so acquainted with their father that they not only spent the night with him but also had a fabulous bedroom and exciting new clothes to show her, she was very good at hiding this fact. Instead, she spent the rest of the afternoon stuffing herself with white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and drinking hot chocolate. When finally, it was apparent that she could no longer hide under Molly's robes, she announced that she and the girls would be heading home and agreed to come round for Sunday dinner.
"Mum, could we please not go home tonight?" Jane asked.
"I agree," Lily joined in.
"Then where do you propose that we stay?" Hermione asked.
Harry had wondered whether or not he really had disappeared into the corner that he had taken up residence in ever since they had arrived at the Burrow.
"Daddy's house!" Jane replied.
"And we can show you our fur coats!" Lily clapped her hands excitedly.
If Hermione had anything to say about the fact that her own flesh and blood actually owned real fur, she said nothing. Furthermore, why she agreed to return to Harry's house that night was also beyond him. Even more absurd was the fact that all throughout the grand tour of the twin's wonderland, she didn't have as much as wrinkled brow or show any other signs of disapproval. Whatever happened to his Hermione?
He never got his question answered though, Hermione put the girls to bed at exactly nine p.m. and after telling him that she was exhausted from everything, excused herself to the guest bedroom, which luckily, he had thought of decorating as well.
He was quite surprised when she came bursting into his room a few minutes later demanding that they talk. He knew that he shouldn't be however; Hermione never reacted like a normal person. She liked to keep things bottled up until they exploded; sort of like someone else that he knew.
*~*
Hermione stared at him as he stirred his tea. She didn't know whether to slap him or burst into tears.
"I'm sorry," he finally managed.
"For what?" Her eyes darkened. "For having me believe that you were dead all these years? For leaving me all alone when I needed you the most? For making me feel like a dirty whore when everyone ridiculed me for carrying the Saviour's children and not his best friend's? Have you any idea what I've been through in the past few years because of you?"
Harry sighed. "For all of the above. If I'd known that you were pregnant, I would have come back. I read the Daily Prophet you know, I just didn't start until a year after I disappeared. You'd already had the girls by then, so I never saw a story about it."
"Just forget all of that Harry, I've spent four years trying to get passed it." Hermione pushed her tea away.
"And you obviously haven't," Harry said to her.
"And who are you to tell me anything? You've been gone remember? You wouldn't know about the ways in which I have changed."
"You haven't changed one bit, Hermione," Harry calmly replied. "You've just made yourself distant and cold by bottling things up."
"And can you blame me? My best friend was dead. My boy friend was dead. My mother was dead. Who did I have to lean on?"
"Hermione, I'm sorry."
"Well sorry is not enough, Harry!" The teacup sprung up and smashed the wall. I an instant, Hermione had whipped out her wand and fixed the damage.
"Can we just please be civil?" Harry asked. "We can't be acting around our children like this you know."
"My children," Hermione said.
"What?"
"My children," she repeated. "Donated DNA and fancy fur coats don't suddenly make you a father."
"I didn't know that you were pregnant!" He screamed. "I would have come back if I had known!"
"Then why did you leave in the first place?!"
"Because!"
"Whatever Harry!" Hermione jumped up from the table and began to walk out of the kitchen. "I'm taking the girls, and I'm leaving."
Harry used wandless magic to close the door and placed an anti-Alohomora charm on it.
"Alohomora!" Hermione screamed.
"You know that it won't open," Harry replied.
Hermione turned and pointed her wand at him. "Let me out, Harry."
"Or else what?"
"I will hurt you, I swear I will."
Harry laughed and put his foot up on the island in the kitchen. "I guess that Lily and Jane will be orphans then."
"You wouldn't dare hurt me," Hermione replied.
"And neither would you."
She said nothing. Instead, she lowered her wand and fell unto the floor. Sniffles emerged from her corner a few seconds later and to Harry's complete horror, she began howling as she shook violently.
Almost as if it were a natural reaction, Harry was down on the floor cradling her. To his surprise, she didn't pull away. She didn't hold him either.
"Hermione," Harry began. "Please don't cry. I know that what I did to you was unforgivable, but I promise that I'll try and make things better."
"You can't make me better, Harry," Hermione sniffled. "I'm a horrible person."
"No you're not."
"Yes I am!" Hermione screamed. "I had sex with my boy friend's best friend."
"Hermione, we didn't intentionally have sex and you know it."
And Harry was right. The night before Harry had defeated Voldemort, Harry and Hermione had gone back to Grimauld Place. They were both depressed and fell asleep in the room that Ron and Harry had shared almost immediately. In the middle of the night, Harry had awoken to Hermione crying the same way that she'd been crying on his kitchen floor. Not knowing what to do, Harry held her until her sobs became controlled.
Eventually she seemed to go limp in his arms and thinking that she was asleep, Harry had bent down to kiss her cheek. She wasn't and when she turned her head towards him, their lips met instead. Both of them had been searching for comfort in the late hour of the night, and it wasn't until everything was all over that any of them had realized what occurred.
Harry was gone before she woke up, and Hermione never heard from him again. She knew that he had gone off to seek out Voldemort in his hiding place and when he failed to show up after the War had ended, she assumed what the rest of the wizarding world had. Harry had died saving them.
"That still doesn't make me feel any less of a whore," Hermione moaned. "Everyone was right; thank Merlin Ron and Ginny had been dead."
Harry had wanted to tell her to stop beating herself up, but he couldn't. He had spent many a sleepless night thinking the same thing. Guilt ate him alive whenever he reflected on the way that he had betrayed Ginny.
"I-I didn't want them at first you know," Hermione whispered.
"What?"
"The girls," Hermione said. "I knew that I was pregnant within less than a week. Women always know when they're pregnant; we carry ourselves differently and for some strange reason our hands always go to our stomachs. Anyway…I knew that I was pregnant and I-I…" Hermione dissolved into tears.
Harry held her, unable to do anything. He had no idea what it must have been like for Hermione, and he knew that his attempted words of comfort would fail her.
"What kind of mother contemplates not having her children?" Hermione wailed.
Harry knew the answer for this one. "The kind of mother who was frightened and faced with the things that I left you to deal with alone."
"I could never have terminated the pregnancy though," Hermione eventually whispered.
"I'm glad that you didn't," Harry replied.
"Oh Harry," Hermione cried into his chest. "Do you think that Ron hates me?"
"I think that if he knows about it, he probably got angry and tossed things around-"
Hermione cut him off by laughing.
"-but eventually he calmed down and looked at it from our perspective. I think he's at least happy that it was someone that he trusted that you had the twins with rather than some prat who only likes you now because you're part of The Trio."
Harry wasn't so sure if it was Mrs. Stewart who was talking for him, or if he was doing the talking himself. He just knew that it felt right and that Ron probably thought the same thing if he'd somehow found out about how Hermione had gotten pregnant.
Hermione said nothing in response. Instead, she pulled away from Harry and stood up. Harry watched as she said a simple spell, which fixed her dishevelled appearance. She then walked over to the island and took up the teacups. He didn't move until a fresh pot of tea had been brewed and she was once again seated at the island waiting for him to join her.
"I'm sorry for the way that I behaved earlier."
"There's no need for an apology," Harry said firmly. "I couldn't have expected you to react any differently."
"But I can't keep letting my emotions get the best of me," she insisted.
"Would you rather bottle up your feelings for another four years and then never be pulled out of the past when you have another breakdown?" Harry asked.
Hermione didn't reply. Instead, she sipped her tea. Harry felt safe to do the same and neither of them said a word until their cups were drained. It was Hermione who spoke next.
"Why did you leave, Harry?"
"I was scared," he replied. "I was depressed. I was confused. I didn't want to be figuring myself out and what to do with the rest of my life with the Daily Prophet pounding at my door for an interview. I wanted to take a week or two off to clear my head. But at the end of those two weeks, I was the same. I thought that you would hate me for what happened. I thought that Molly would hate me for getting Ron and Ginny killed. I thought that those who lost loved ones would hate me for taking too long for getting of Voldemort. I couldn't return. Then two weeks turned into a month, and before I knew it, it had been a year. I was scared to return after being away for so long, so I eventually bought a house in Kent and settled into a life of misery."
When Harry looked up from his empty cup, it was to find Hermione with tears in her eyes. Before Harry could react, she had thrown herself across the table and was practically strangling him with her embrace.
"Harry!" She squeezed tighter. "I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of that on your own. Molly doesn't blame you for Ron and Ginny's deaths any more than I would have hated you for what happened! You do realize this, don't you?"
Somehow, Harry managed to nod.
"And as for the stupid prats who think that you too long killing Voldemort, I would love to see them do everything that you've been doing since the age of eleven no less!"
Harry wasn't so sure that he wished that on anyone.
"Hermione?" Harry eventually managed.
"Yes Harry?"
"I can't breathe."
Hermione immediately released him and started to apologize.
Harry smiled. For some reason, she looked rather cute. "That's okay."
"You know," Hermione said. "That's the first time that I've seen you smile since Ginny died."
Her hand immediately went to cover her mouth, but Harry shook his head.
"She's dead, Hermione. I've got to realize this eventually, don't I?"
"But don't you think that by moving on, you'd have somehow insulted her memory?"
Harry could tell that she was speaking more on her own behalf than his.
"If I forget about her, then yes, I'd be insulting her. But if I don't think that Ginny would want to see me miserable for the rest of my life any more than I think that Ron would wish the same for you."
Hermione's eyes went wide, a thing that always happened whenever she was shocked that he'd been able to read her mind. It also meant that she was fearful.
"I don't think that Ron would want me to be miserable, but how would it look if I just up and fell in love with someone else so soon?"
"So soon?" Harry was surprised by what he said next. "It's been four years, Hermione. I think that it's time to put away the mourning clothes, don't you?"
**~*~*~**~*~*~**
A/N: I know the chapter wasn't super long. But I usually have chapters that approach different topics, and so now that I've gotten this point across, I've ended. Hopefully it wasn't terribly disappointing.
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