Chapter 3: The Other Shoe
Ron/Hermione (with H/Hr subtext) - PG -13.
The usual HP disclaimers apply. Many thanks to my wonderful betas, HystericalHystorian and tome_raider, for their excellent advice on this story as well as the rest of my writing.
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I've been wondering when it would happen. When the other shoe would drop. I guess it's happened now.
Over the years, Hermione's relationship with me has evolved from friend to girlfriend to lover and finally fiancée. We're engaged to be married in less than a month. She ought to be focused on our wedding, our honeymoon, our future as husband and wife. But she's not. Never was, if I'm honest with myself. Somehow, in the back of my mind, this doesn't really surprise me as much as it should.
Because she's still focused on him.
I've tried to be understanding, tried to ignore her fixation on Harry. But it's got in the way of my relationship with her.
Our friendship, among the three of us, has always been complicated. I thought things would be easier after Harry got rid of - when it was over. He'd go back to Ginny, and Hermione and I would finally have a real relationship. Harry would be happily paired up, so Hermione would stop worrying about him.
Only he didn't, and neither did she.
Harry never went back to Ginny. Said he'd realised that he was just lusting after Ginny back then. He didn't really love her, even told her that she deserved someone who did.
Hermione couldn't stop worrying about Harry, even when everything settled down. That would have been like expecting her to stop breathing or raising her hand in class. I wouldn't have minded if she'd ever seemed as worried about me as she did about him. Oh, she did during the war, when we were hunting Horcruxes. But when it came time for Harry to go and fight You Know…Voldemort…by himself, Hermione kissed him on the cheek, watched him leave - then cried for the next half-hour.
When he came back carrying the nasty old bastard's wand, she'd like to have squeezed the air out of his lungs. The way she kissed his neck and the way he clung to her like he might never let her go…well, if I were smarter I would've put two and two together. I'm not so smart, though, so I didn't figure it out right then.
But now I have. And oddly enough, it doesn't sicken or hurt me nearly as much as it ought to.
^*^*^*^
It was Friday night, about half-eight. Hermione wasn't home yet. She was off somewhere, working.
With Harry.
They were partners, of course, and it would've been wrong for me to complain about that.
"The Auror Division pairs people based on aptitude, skills and the Ministry's needs," she'd explained, smiling and patting my arm as she told me how they'd been selected as partners. "It's an efficient system. I'm very lucky my partner is Harry and not some smarmy old git."
Very lucky for him, I thought, but said nothing. I just smiled at her. Thought she might recognize it as a fake smile, but I reckon she didn't.
Now I sat in the kitchen, nursing a firewhisky, wondering if something had happened. When she popped in through the Floo a few minutes later, she looked wrung out.
"Are you okay?" I said, getting up to hug her.
She nodded. "It's just been…a very long day," she said. Her voice was quieter than usual. Her knees were scraped and her Auror uniform was dirty and torn. I wanted to fold her in my arms, hold onto her, kiss away her troubles. I tried to kiss her, to make things all better. But she turned away and my kiss landed on her ear.
"What happened?" I asked, wondering what had kept her at work so late.
Her eyes went big as saucers. "I…er… we were on a stake out, in Elephant and Castle. We had a tussle with the suspects we were surveilling. It was more physical than we usually deal with. I got bounced around a bit, that's all. Nothing too serious."
"You were down there all this time?"
She hesitated before answering. "Yes."
"Harry okay too?"
Another hesitation. "Yes. He's fine. Nothing to worry about."
My turn to hesitate. Something in her words was not on. She was telling only part of the truth. "Right. Good. Then I won't."
No reason to worry about Harry, except that my fiancée had come home from work three hours late after a long, dangerous day with him, and she smelled like sex.
No reason to worry at all.
^*^*^*^
The weekend was extremely weird. Hermione seemed to be in her own little world, with no room in it for me. I wanted to believe it was pre-wedding jitters but now I realise we were both avoiding - avoiding the thing that we weren't going to discuss, whatever had really happened Friday night.
I should have known something really serious was going on the next morning. It was Saturday, and usually Hermione and I would have a bit of a lie-in. Sometimes we'd sleep in until half-nine, then we'd have a slow, lazy shag. That morning, though, when I woke up, her side of the bed was empty and the sheets were already cold.
I found her sitting in the kitchen, wrapped in her dressing gown. She was staring out the window with a mug of coffee in her hand.
"Morning," I said. No response. I tried again, a little louder. "I said, good morning, Hermione," I repeated, sitting down beside her.
She turned her head slightly, so that I could just barely look into her eyes. They looked empty and the rest of her face was blank, like she was trying to avoid feeling something. If I had to put a word to her expression, I'd say she looked lost.
"Morning," she finally croaked back at me.
"Want to tell me what's bothering you?"
Hermione shook her head slowly. "Nothing, really," she said finally in a flat tone.
Her words said "nothing" but everything else said "something big." I put my arm around her shoulder to console her. She flinched.
I suppose that should have told me something was really off.
"Okay," I said, trying to lighten the mood, which seemed heavier than a sack of Galleons. "I missed you in bed this morning. Want to come back after breakfast and play?"
I looked at her hopefully, turning on the charm.
"I'm … I'm not in the mood, Ron. Sorry."
She took a long sip of her coffee, then stared at a photo on the wall over the sink. It was a picture of her and me and Harry, taken about a year ago. She was in the middle, and I had my arm around her. Harry stood on her other side, a bit apart from the two of us. She and I were smiling at the camera and I noticed a blush rising in her cheeks. I looked more carefully and saw that her pinky finger was locked with Harry's. He wasn't smiling - but he seemed to be blushing too.
Funny, I never noticed any of that before.
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Hermione never seemed like herself during the weekend. She stopped seeming so blank, which was a good thing. But there was no nagging, no bickering about little things, no fussing about little details. It was like her body was there, but her head was somewhere else. I stopped asking what was bothering her; I reckoned she would tell me if it really were something important.
Every few hours I would ask if she wanted to make love. I think I was polite about it. I was trying to take her mind off her troubles, but maybe she thought differently, because she kept begging off. By Sunday night it had been an entire week since we'd made love, which was unusual for us. I wanted to shag her something fierce, but I was willing to settle for something less than a shag, just to reassure myself that she still wanted me that way.
About two hours after dinner, I found her in her study, reading some fat book. Tiptoeing across the room, I stopped behind her chair, wrapped my arms around her shoulders and kissed her delectable neck. She stiffened and continued reading, acting as though nothing had happened.
"Come on, Hermione, please," I breathed into her ear, nibbling on her earlobe. She usually loved that, but this time she twisted around in her swivel chair until her face was directly under mine.
"I'm trying to work, Ronald. Perhaps you didn't notice the book, or the stack of papers on my desk."
"Can't we just have a snog and play a little?" I pulled her up until she was standing in front of me, then pushed the chair away with my foot.
Her face was stony. "I'm really busy right now. I need to catch up on my reading and I've several reports due in the morning. You know I bring work home on the weekends. I've been distra - remiss this weekend and left everything until this evening." She tried to pull her chair back, but I caught her arm. Holding her wrist with one hand, I swept the book and papers off the desk and leaned her against the edge of the desk.
"Ronald!" she protested, though I couldn't tell if she was more upset about the books or my attempt to romance her.
"I used to hate when you called me that," I answered. While I dragged my lips up her neck, my free hand roamed up and down her side until it found the hem of her short, flouncy skirt. Hermione squirmed against me. I wanted to believe she was enjoying my attentions.
"Please, Ron," she grunted as my hand slipped under her skirt and slid up her thigh.
"Come on, sweetcakes, you want it too, don't you?" While that hand roamed higher, my other hand clutched her bum.
She squirmed again, pushing herself out of my grasp.
"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted in my face.
"I want to make love to you, dammit," I shouted back. "We're engaged. We're going to be married in less than a month. We've been shagging for years. Why is a little nookie a problem now?"
"Because I told you, several times, that I'm not interested tonight!" She looked as angry as she sounded.
"Not tonight, not since last weekend. Are you ever going to be interested again?"
"Not until you stop treating me like a piece of meat!"
She pushed me away so hard I almost stumbled.
"Yeah, well, maybe I've lost interest in you too," I snarled at her, making to leave.
The book she'd been reading just missed my head.
*^*^*^*
I reckon my last comment was what made her avoid me the rest of the evening.
When I went to bed around half-past ten, she was still in the study. She'd not come out the rest of the night. I expect she was reading that big, dusty book or working on those reports she'd managed to skive off all weekend. The fact that Hermione had skived off something work-related was puzzling in itself. That was even stranger than her not wanting to fool around.
I fell asleep alone.
The next morning I must not have felt her get out of bed, if she ever came to bed that night. Maybe she'd slept in the study. She did have a nice, comfy chair in there, and sometimes I'd find her curled up on the chair, asleep with some big book in her lap. Sometimes I thought she loved her books more than she loved me. Anyway, she was up and gone before I got out of bed. I tried not to think much of it. She was probably still upset about the night before. I imagined she'd left the flat early so she could continue avoiding me.
I went to work at the usual time. The twins were off in Italy on a buying trip, so I was in charge of the shop. Five o'clock came; I closed up and was home before half past five. What I found when I arrived at the flat was something I'll never forget.
Hermione had come home early. She was lying on her side on the sofa, curled up in a ball. Her hair was a complete mess, and her face was red and blotchy, like she'd been crying for hours. I walked to the sofa quickly and put my arms around her.
She shrank away from me. Her eyes were wild.
"He's gone. He's gone. He left. He's not coming back. They don't know where he is. He's gone. He's gone. I'll never see him again. I don't know what I'll do. I can't…he's gone…don't want to be… can't be…he can't be gone…"
The words tumbled out so fast I barely caught them. "Hermione," I said quietly, petting her hair, "what's happened? Who's gone?"
"It's Harry. He's gone. He left and nobody knows where he went, and he's not coming back!" she wailed. Gigantic sobs wracked her body as she pushed me away from her again.
It was then I knew. I understood. The other shoe had finally dropped.
"Harry's gone?"
She nodded. Gigantic tears clung to her eyelashes as her chin trembled.
"He went away? And no one knows where he is? But-"
I didn't need to ask why. There could be only one answer, only one thing that could have made her best friend, and mine (or so I'd thought all those years) run away like that. Only one thing that could make him willingly leave the two of us.
Betrayal.
And since I knew I hadn't betrayed him, he must have betrayed me.
The only way he could have done that was with Hermione.
Now I understood why she'd been such a wreck all weekend. They had betrayed me together. She'd been acting guilty about betraying me with him. Now she was out of her mind with grief because he was gone.
It had to be something really big. I didn't want to believe it. But what else could it be?
"When?"
She sat up slowly, rubbing the tears out of her eyes. "When what?"
"When did you shag him?" There, it was out.
Her eyes went as wide as they had done a few nights ago.
"That's it, isn't it? You and Harry shagged. And the son of a bitch couldn't face what he'd done so he ran away." I got up and paced, my head buzzing with rage. "Fucking son of a bitch! I'll kill him."
At my outburst, the waterworks started again. It was a heat of the moment comment, but it sent Hermione into another round of sobbing; for the next five minutes she remained slumped on the sofa, crying her eyes out. Then she suddenly seemed to pull herself together as though she had made a decision.
"It wasn't planned, Ron. We didn't mean to hurt you."
"But you did anyway."
"Yes. We did." Her face was somber.
"Want to try to explain it to me? Not that I'll feel less betrayed, mind you. I just want to know."
I didn't really want to hear it, but I knew she would tell me anyway. I was just making it easier for her.
She nodded, gathering her thoughts. When she finally started talking, it felt like she didn't stop for ten minutes.
"We'd been on that stakeout in Elephant and Castle, as I told you later. That much was certainly true. We both got a bit tossed around, and Harry said he had some bruise-reducing salve in his desk. When we got up to his office, I sat on the edge of his desk while he was rummaging through the drawers. I must have had my legs crossed or something; I suppose my skirt was riding up a bit higher than normal. Suddenly he began to stare at me, at that part of me, in a very - " her voice broke slightly - "a very sexual way. I'd never seen him look at me that way before. It was a bit scary, but…I don't know what happened, really…well I do…I don't know how or why, but suddenly he was kissing me and we couldn't keep our hands off each other. It was like being consumed by a smoldering fire that suddenly burst into flames-"
She stopped, looked up at me. I reckon she could see the pain in my eyes; I wasn't trying to hide it. "Go on," I said, unable not to listen, unable to look away.
"It was…" She looked pained again. "It was passion like I've never felt before. And the next thing I knew I was on my back on his desk and he'd pushed his clothes away, and mine, and he was inside me and I couldn't…I couldn't not respond."
My fists began to clench while she talked. "Did he force himself on you?"
She shook her head slowly. "No! No, it was nothing like that. I didn't plan for it to happen, but once it started to happen, I didn't want to stop." She looked up at me, her eyes full of sadness. Was that sadness because she'd betrayed me? I really couldn't tell.
"Would you want to shag him again?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to. The way she responded to Harry's disappearance told me everything I needed to know.
"You love him, don't you?" I said. The words almost wouldn't come out of my mouth.
Her lower lip trembled. "Yes, of course I do. He's my other be-"
"Don't give me that shite, Hermione!" I screamed. I could barely keep from shaking her. "I love him too. He's like my brother. But you -- you're in love with him, aren't you? Aren't you?"
She nodded. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "But I do love you, Ron, you know that."
"Yeah, I know you love me. But are you in love with me?"
Those big brown eyes stared at me for what seemed like forever. Then she said simply, "No. I'm not in love with you. I'm in love with Harry."
I needed to know, needed to understand. "Because of one shag?"
"No, dammit!" Now she yelled at me. "Because of eleven years of caring for him more than I've ever cared for anyone else -- including you."
The final clue. The final dagger to my heart.
The whole scene should have been much more dramatic. I should have yelled back at her, advanced on her, shaken her where she sat. I should have told her no, you don't mean it, it's not possible. You could never love him that way.
Except I knew, as soon as I heard the words from her lips, that what she'd said was true.
My brain flooded with memories of all the times Hermione had put Harry before me. She was my girlfriend, we were living together, but no matter when he contacted her - at dawn, during dinner, or the middle of the night - she always rushed off to deal with whatever he wanted. I'd told her I resented it, resented him intruding on our time together. She brushed off my concerns every time with "But it's Harry; he needs me."
That's what it all boiled down to -- Harry needed her more than I did. And if I was honest with myself (not that I wanted to be), I knew that she needed him more than she needed me.
When all these thoughts finally stopped racing around inside my head, I said, very quietly, "I reckon I knew that. Just never let myself think about it too much, for obvious reasons."
She sat up on the sofa and nodded, biting her lip. With her feet crossed primly at the ankles, she motioned for me to join her. I sat down about two feet away from her. No way I would sit any closer, now that I knew it was over between us.
"So, what are you going to do now?" I asked cautiously.
Hermione raised her eyes to mine. Not surprising, they were puffy and red, but she wasn't crying any more. In fact, a look of resolve had settled on her face.
"I'll leave here, of course." I nodded. "I'll find another place to live, at least temporarily. Then I suppose I'll go find Harry."
Of course.
I don't know what else I had expected. It was exactly what he would do if she had run away.
"Maybe you should pack now." I reckoned she might as well leave as soon as possible. "You don't want to be here anymore, and to be honest, I don't want you here."
A strangled little sound came from her throat. She rose from the sofa and crossed the room, then turned back toward me. "I'll leave as soon as I can pull my things together," she said in a scratchy voice.
I nodded, unable to move or look at her.
"And Ron, thank you for not hating me," she finished as she opened the bedroom door.
"Who says I don't?" I mumbled, once she'd left the room.
^*^*^*^
Hermione left about two hours later. Her belongings were neatly packed; Crookshanks sat mewing in his wicker cage. I was at the kitchen table, nursing a large glass of firewhisky, when she came in and put one hand on my shoulder. I flinched. Turnabout was fair play.
"I'm going now," she said softly
"You do that," was all I could say.
"Oh, Ron." Maybe I heard a note of regret in her voice; I'm still not sure.
"Just go. Please." If I were a girl, I probably would've spent the past two hours crying. Instead, I was sitting in my own kitchen, getting good and sloshed.
She backed out of the room slowly. "Goodbye, for now."
I nodded, starting into my glass.
She was gone two minutes later.
I drained that glass of firewhisky pretty quick, had another, then took out some parchment and a quill and wrote a note to Mum and Dad. I didn't give them all the details, only that Hermione and I had decided to call off the wedding. I knew they would handle the rest.
No need for them to hate my best friends too.
One day, I'll look back on this and laugh. Well, maybe not laugh, more like not want to pull my hair out and drown myself in alcohol. I might even stop having homicidal thoughts about Harry. Maybe it was for the best. Because, really, when I think of it, Harry and Hermione were an affair waiting to happen.
I just wish their affair hadn't happened to me.
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