Bridges
Chapter Ten: Toll Bridge
A crack split the night as Harry Apparated into the alley just across the way from Hermione's building. Ron followed so closely behind that the sound of his Apparation was almost an echo. Harry saw a light come on in one window, and he hoped that he wouldn't have to deal with Muggle police on top of everything else.
Feeling a heavy dread squeezing at his lungs, he began to sprint unevenly toward the building.
"Harry! Mate - Harry, wait!" He turned in annoyance at Ron's call.
"What?"
"I'm - if you'll hold on half a second - I'm on Hermione's wards. We can Apparate straight up. I'll Side-Along you."
"I'm not on her wards?"
Ron gave him a Seriously, Harry, what do you think? look.
"Reckon she's never been keen on surprises," he said, somewhat diplomatically. He stepped alongside Harry, and wrapped one long-fingered hand firmly around Harry's bicep. Harry unconsciously held his breath, waiting for the rubber-tube sensation, and they were gone as quickly as they'd come.
When they reappeared, they weren't actually in the cozy living area that Harry had seen earlier, but out in the dimly lit hallway, which, Harry noticed with some distant portion of his brain, had a sort of shabby chic look to it. Ron put a finger to his lips and drew his wand; Harry's was already out.
Hermione's door was ajar. The hair on the back of Harry's neck prickled. He balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, and then lunged - but without warning, the soles of his shoes left the worn carpeting, and there was an arm around his neck, firm enough to impede, without cutting off his air supply.
"I know you know better," came a low voice in his ear. And the arm removed itself.
"Ron, what the hell?" Harry said in a disgruntled hiss, straightening his robes with an air of affront.
"Merlin only knows how much Hermione means to you," Ron said heavily, looking thoroughly unapologetic for his assault. "But she happens to mean rather a lot to me too, and we're still going to go about this by the book. There are reasons procedures are to be followed."
"Bloody hell, you even sound like her," Harry muttered, but made no further attempts to enter the apartment, wand blazing. Instead, they edged up to the door, flanking either side of it, and when Harry nodded that he had Ron covered, Ron sent a surreptitious Detector charm beneath the door.
It zipped back into the tip of his wand with a white gleam, only a millisecond later.
"Clear," Ron mouthed. Harry swung the door open silently, and stepped inside, his stomach clenched into knots of terror. It did not soothe him much that no one was inside the flat, because, while it meant no threat was present, it also meant that no Hermione was present either.
It meant that neither of them had the faintest idea where Hermione was.
The flat was dim, lit only by a small electric table lamp on a hallway stand, clearly used just to keep the darkness from being absolute. Even the faint lighting could not hide the fact that the flat was an utter disaster. Hermione's desk had been apparently emptied of every conceivable thing it contained, and those contents now seemed strewn from pillar to post. The bookshelves had been haphazardly rooted through, and many books littered the floor in scattered clumps, bindings creased and pages bent. Her bedding had been torn apart, and drawers had been pulled out and left hanging. Harry tried not to notice the white lacy something that dangled from one.
Harry cast the same charm he'd used at Callaghan's place, and the room was instantly lit in a variety of glowing colors.
"Whoever it was hasn't been gone long," he observed, visibly just managing to strangle the urge to tear
off down the street in the hopes of catching the culprit.
"Maybe your Thor-the-God-of-Apparation act scared him off," Ron observed dryly.
"Do you think he - they have her?" Harry ignored his comment, phrasing his question with an astonishing amount of calm. Our daughter is alive, Hermione, alive! The back of his throat stung with repressed tears.
Ron poked his ginger head into the tiny front closet before replying,
"I don't think she ever was here. Her cloak's not in here, nor her handbag. And you know the first thing Hermione would do is put away her things. She could've been surprised at the door, maybe, but I doubt it."
Harry was scanning the front entryway, and grunted in agreement with his friend.
"No, there's no sign of hex-work at the door, just an Unlocking spell. Good one too - smashed right through her wards."
"I told her to revamp those last winter," Ron griped, and Harry smiled. Even while the regret sliced through him like a whetted knife, he was glad that she had had someone here - glad that Ron had looked after her, even though Hermione would be the first to loudly sniff that she didn't need looking after. She did that night, almost eleven years ago, a voice inside him reminded, and you weren't there.
He rubbed one hand absently over the vague ache in his chest, and thought of Annemarie - Lily Catherine - in that hospital bed. Show me yours, she'd asked, and suddenly he felt something fierce and primally protective well up inside him.
My daughter, he thought, mine! Mine and Hermione's…dear God…
"Do you have any idea where she might go?" Harry asked, hating that he had to rely on Ron for this, when it had been he who had once known Hermione so well.
"Actually I think I might," Ron remarked, slanting a knowing look at Harry, apparently cottoning on to where Harry's thoughts lay. "She's never gone back that I know of before, but these aren't exactly normal circumstances, are they?"
And even as Ron spoke, Harry knew. She'd gone back to the flat they had all briefly shared; she'd gone home.
"I'll get the MLE on this one too - only a break-in, but since it looks to be related…" Ron shrugged. "I'm afraid your little secret isn't likely to be one much longer."
Harry felt a strange apathy about the disclosure, which rode on a wave of fatigue.
"'Sokay," he said. "Make sure Tonks knows about the mediwitch - that it wasn't suicide…"
"Absolutely," Ron answered. "We'll need Hermione to look and see if anything's been taken too…" He looked up, but Harry was already gone.
Harry paused for only a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and then resumed his uneasy prowl around his spacious room. His hands were driven deep into his pockets; his rangy shoulders were rigid triangles. It was that frantic feeling again, the one he'd felt at the Burrow, the panicked smothering sensation that life was moving on and he'd missed the boat.
If I stand still, I'll drown.
Just go ask her. Is it so hard?
I can't. She's leaving today.
She'd stay if you asked her.
I know she would. I don't want to do that to her. I don't want her to stay.
Don't you?
The party had been nice, and Harry would have enjoyed it, had it not been for the entire reason for having the party in the first place. Hermione was leaving - Hermione wanted to leave. It was unthinkable, unbearable -
ASK HER.
"Hermione, I want you to go on holiday with me." He actually said the words aloud, rushing them together in a manner reminiscent of the Yule Ball invitation that he'd extended to Cho. He shook his head in frustration at the inanity, the inadequacy of the words. Go on holiday? It was so much more than that --
"Go on holiday?" He imagined Hermione arching her delicate brows, her forehead crinkled in confusion. "But Harry, don't you know I'm leaving? The internship starts next week. I've got to go."
She's got to go, he told himself dully. Of course she does. Her life has been put on hold long enough.
What about your life?
He recognized the absurdity of feeling defensive in response to an internal question.
My life is just fine. I've got money - and time before training begins. There are plenty of people my age who would adore the position I'm in.
It means nothing without her, and you know it.
The voice would not be dissuaded.
He heaved a sigh of what might have been surrender, and walked toward her room, preparing to knock, but pausing when he saw the door was open slightly. Hermione was hovering over her trunk, as if assessing the contents. His movement outside her door must have caught her eye, for she looked up and smiled, waving him in.
"Hi, Harry," she said brightly, and something uncomfortable shifted in his stomach. He couldn't do this.
"Hi…" he forced out, plastering a smile across his face. There was a beat of silence that sloshed awkwardly around the room.
"Can you believe it? Only two hours until my Portkey activates!" She sounded chipper and excited. She closed her trunk with a snap and used her wand to fasten the latches. "Harry, are you okay? You look ill."
"I don't want you to go." The words tumbled from him in an ungainly rush, and he felt himself go crimson. Something leapt in her eyes so briefly that he thought he must have imagined it, and her forehead furrowed in confusion, before she smoothed it out and pasted on a smile that was probably similar to - and as sincere as - his.
"I know that everything's changing, and that's never easy, but…"
"It's not about that! I - I just don't want you to leave like this."
"Leave like what, Harry?" Her tone had the slightest edge of ice. "I'm hardly sneaking off in the middle of the night."
"I don't know what I'll do without you." He thought he'd finally gotten a sentiment out without sounding like an idiot, but she was still misinterpreting him.
"Look, I wouldn't be able to help you with your coursework in Auror training anyway, now would I? I know - I know you think you need me around, but - but you're just - you're used to me, Harry, and everything is different now, so you're … clinging to what you know, and - "
Harry felt his irritation rising. She was talking to him like he was an errant child.
"Clinging?" He arched his brows sarcastically. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Hermione flushed to her hairline, and she turned away from him, her fingers idly playing with one hasp of her trunk. Click, click, click.
"We agreed that we weren't going to let that be an issue between us," she said in her precise voice - Prefect Hermione.
"Well, guess what, Hermione? It is! It is an issue between us. Can you honestly sit there and pretend that everything is normal, that everything can go back to the way it was? It's not going to go back to the way it was. We've messed up everything. Don't you see?" Harry was almost shouting now, his voice fringed with hysteria.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," she replied dully, sinking down onto the bed like he'd pulled a Lockhart and removed her bones. "Maybe we made a mistake, but I can't - I can't regret it, Harry. I - "
"I never said - "
"I only ever wanted to help you, Harry. I'd like to think I have. But I can't be this crutch you are always leaning on when it suits you - or when you can't find anyone else. Had you ever even thought about me in a romantic way before that night? Maybe it was just sex, Harry, but … I can't be someone you settle for because you don't like change."
"It wouldn't be like that," he protested, wondering what exactly had happened, and feeling as if she were slipping away before his eyes.
"Wouldn't it?" She seemed to be waiting for something, and he felt the lead weight in his stomach increase.
Just say it.
Why? Because she's responded so favorably to everything else I've said?
If you told her, she might take this more seriously.
I … can't.
"What about Australia?" she asked, when it appeared he wasn't going to say anything else.
"What about it?" It came out much more rudely than he'd intended.
"Have you decided what you're going to do?"
"Hadn't yet," he answered her laconically. "But there doesn't seem to be much reason for me to stay now, does there?"
"Harry…" her voice broke in the middle of the word. "Don't do this, please."
"Don't do this? Don't do what, Hermione? Upset your well-ordered little world? I'm sorry - Harry's temper tantrum wasn't on your daily planner, was it?"
Hermione flinched as if he'd struck her, and he felt guilt leap atop the mountain formed by his fear and anger and pain and love.
"I think you should go to Australia," she said, not petulantly.
"England isn't far enough away from Prague?" His voice was bitter. "Don't worry, Hermione. You've done more than enough on my account for seven years. I'll let you get on with your life. You'll not have to worry yourself over me anymore."
"Harry - " But before the word could completely escape her lips, he had Apparated away with a thunderous crack that rattled the pictures in the hall.
Without consciously intending to, he ended up just outside the grounds at Hogwarts, on the far side of the Lake. In that utter solitude, he was able to pace and curse and shout and cry and rail against Hermione's stubbornness and his own cowardice, and wonder what in the hell he was supposed to do next.
After an hour or so of that, he had come to the conclusion that he was totally and besottedly in love with her, and that there was nothing to be done for it, but to swallow his pride, go back to London, apologize profusely, and explain that he would do whatever she wanted, if it just meant that they could have a chance. He knew her desire that night was not feigned - surely it could not be just physical. Surely the affection that she felt for him could grow into something stronger…
As he Apparated back to their flat, he thought that perhaps he should have stopped somewhere and gotten her flowers or something…
But Ron was sprawled out on the sofa, eating from a large bowl of crisps, and listening to a Quidditch game on the Wireless.
"Where's Hermione?" he asked stupidly, hearing no other sounds emanating from elsewhere in the flat.
"She left early. Didn't you say good-bye? She said you had."
She said you had.
And with those four words, his hope had turned to ash in his mouth.
"Right…" he said to Ron, whose attention had already gone back to the game. After a moment's hesitation, he strode down to his room, studiously refusing to even glance in the direction of Hermione's room, knowing that its emptiness would only serve to further crush him.
He opened Hedwig's cage, and fed her owl treats with his left hand, while he scrawled a brief letter with his right. He rolled up the parchment, almost crumpling it in his haste, and tucked it safely inside the small leather pouch for Hedwig to deliver.
"Take this to the MLE office in Sydney."
There was a barrage of emotions for Harry as he arrived at the flat that he had not seen for almost twelve years. It looked nothing like he remembered - Ron had taken most of the furniture for his new flat, with Harry's permission - and what remained had been generously swathed in charmed dust covers. The kitchen and living area were shrouded in darkness, but at the end of the hall, a light glowed from under a door.
The door to his old room, the room they'd shared once - not hers.
Harry tried to dredge up some faint surprise at this, but could not. Had he really expected anything else? He felt like this was something inevitable - something deferred, but, at the same time, a long time coming.
"Hermione?" he called out, as he made his way down the short corridor. There was a rustle of movement as he opened the door, and he caught Hermione, straightening from her position at the window, obviously trying to compose her features.
"Checking up on me?" she asked, without looking at him.
"Someone broke into your flat," he said. "We were worried when we couldn't find you. But Ron seemed to think you'd be here." He spread his hands wide in an and here you are gesture.
"Someone broke - is everything all right? Why would - how did you know?" She had come upright from her position propped in the windowsill, and was headed for the door, when Harry grabbed her elbow.
"We knew… because it had to do with the attack on Annemarie Ludlow - and the murder of Alan Callaghan." He was surprised that his voice sounded normal; his tongue felt thick and unwieldy in his mouth.
"What does that have to do with me?" She asked faintly, groping behind her for the edge of the sill, and leaning back against it.
"They also killed Calista Hieronymus. They were going after everyone who was there that night - the night she was born."
"They?"
"The Ludlows, we think. I wouldn't be surprised if the MLE ends up raiding the manor before dawn."
"That's horrible," Hermione murmured. "How could they kill their own family -their brother? And what they did to Annemarie… how could they? Why would they? What do I have to do with any of this?"
Harry took a deep breath before replying.
"We think they put their plan into motion when they found out I was her father."
He gripped her arms above both elbows, forcing her to face him, and his gaze bored mercilessly into hers. He did not trust himself to say anything else without breaking down completely, and so he waited - waited for her to understand it.
It did not take long.
Her knees gave way beneath her, and she would have fallen, if he had not been holding on to her arms. Her mouth trembled soundlessly around words that were never spoken.
"She - she's - Lily Catherine?" Hermione finally managed, almost incoherently. Harry released her arms, and wrapped his own arms around her trembling form, pulling her to him. She did not resist. He pressed a kiss to her hairline, near her temple, before saying,
"Our daughter is alive." The last word broke and came out only as a whisper, nearly lost in Hermione's sob.
"It was Alan?" There was a note of betrayal in her voice.
"He probably thought he was doing you a favor," Harry conceded. "He took advantage of the fact that you were young and alone. Who knows why he started blackmailing Peter? Maybe he was having money trouble. But when he found out that I was involved - he upped the ante. And the Ludlows found out."
"Is she safe? Will they try - ?"
"She's got round-the-clock guard," Harry said flatly. "And we just doubled it." There was something in his eyes that faintly chilled Hermione, as if he really would have liked to have seen the Ludlows attempt something.
There was a long silence, in which both of them thought of the myriads of things that could be said, and wondered if it had been too long to say them. She realized he wasn't letting go of her, and he realized that she wasn't moving away.
"Do you think I'll have any trouble getting her - getting her back?" Hermione finally asked unevenly, sniffing loudly.
"If it turns out that the Ludlows are responsible - then we're all she has. You were a victim in this, Hermione - a pawn. None of this was your fault."
Hermione did not miss his use of the plural pronoun.
"It is my fault," she insisted. "If I had told you - if you had been there… you would have been there?" There was a faint note of uncertainty in her quasi-question.
"I would have been there, Hermione," he said in a low voice, infusing as much meaning as he could into the simple promise. "It's as much my fault as anything else. If I hadn't left so suddenly that last day - we didn't have a chance to resolve anything. I loved you so much that it scared me, and I didn't know how to handle it. When I - when I came back, you were gone - left early, Ron said."
"I just couldn't take being in that flat any longer. Without you. I though you despised me - saw me as some sort of cavalier slag, when I was just … compartmentalizing everything, so I didn't have to face how being with you made me feel, how you made me feel. I Flooed to Diagon Alley, and prowled around the bookshops until my Portkey was ready."
"And when you - when you found out you were… why didn't you tell me?" Harry's voice was tender and gentle, as if recognizing that the time for hurling angry accusations had passed.
"I was so shocked when I found out," she said quietly, her gaze distant, as she recalled the past. "I didn't see how - it was just once, and I'd cast the spell, but - I didn't want to believe it at first. And - and you - Ron told me you'd accepted the Australian offer, and you were gone without so much as an Owl. When I hadn't heard from you at all, I - I - I thought you didn't even deserve to know, and I - I didn't tell you… it was childish of me, Harry… I'm - I'm sorry."
"I was still so angry at you - and at myself… Everything just ended so badly, and I was terrified that most of it had been my fault, and… I was sure you'd write, and everything would be friendly and normal, and when that didn't happen, I just - I just couldn't put quill to parchment yet … but your letters never came. I knew from Ron that you were regularly writing to him, so… I figured it really was over, that I'd ruined everything. It just became easier to not write than to explain why I hadn't written in so long - or to risk actually writing, and then never receive a reply."
"I did write you," Hermione whispered, in a barely audible voice. "I - I just couldn't send them. And then, after she di - after I thought she was dead, I figured I'd dodged a hex, that she was gone, that her existence had been so brief that it wouldn't matter to you, and you need never know."
The silence between them was poignant and regretful, as they thought of all the ways it could have been different, if they had been honest, if they hadn't been afraid, if they hadn't let themselves be manipulated - the taste of twelve lost years with Hermione and their daughter -his family - was bitter in Harry's mouth. Yet he had grown up while in Australia, and this time, he realized, he had the chance to say something, to seize the chance while it was before him, instead of assuming and wondering and misunderstanding until it was gone. Slowly, he became aware of their proximity and of the clean smell of Hermione's hair.
"We've been fools, Hermione," he said heavily. "We've been at cross purposes for nearly twelve years. It was so easy to love you…"
"And do you still?"
"You know I do. If only I hadn't - "
She didn't know with what words he'd intended to complete the sentence, but she could see from his face that the time wasted between the two of them was difficult for him to come to terms with.
Heart pounding so loudly that she felt sure he could hear it, she pressed her index finger to his lips in a wordless command for him to hush.
"I think we've had enough of `what if' and `if only' to last us the rest of our lives," she said, feeling the air rush wheezily from her lungs as his lips contracted slightly against her fingertip in a kiss. "Don't you?"
He didn't answer her question, saying only,
"I love you," with a heartfelt directness that made her grateful for the strength of his chest and arms beneath her hands. "And I promise you'll never have to wonder about the way I feel again."
"I love you too," she inserted. "And I promise to worry about what's best for you only in context of how much I love you."
He leaned closer, and his eyes flickered from her eyes to her mouth, and then over her shoulder. When she twisted her head to peer in the same direction, out the window overlooking the city, he laughed softly, an unexpected and rather un-Harry-like sound that did flip-floppy things to her stomach.
"This is where I first kissed you, remember?"
Her mouth curled gently, but her eyes remained solemn, all too cognizant of what they had nearly lost again.
"I remember," she whispered. The lights of London twinkled in her hair and in her eyes - before she closed them - and he kissed her again. And his mouth was on hers, warm and more experienced and yet delightfully familiar, and somehow richer with the long absence and the bittersweet tang of regret.
Harry felt his soul soar as her mouth moved in tandem with his, and he knew that this time he was not going to make the same mistakes, the same assumptions, the same thinking with his head instead of his heart. No one is going to decide what is best for Hermione and me, except for Hermione and me.
Almost immediately on the heels of that thought came another, The two of you aren't the extent of this family anymore.
They broke apart almost simultaneously, breathing heavily, pressing foreheads together.
"Harry?" Hermione's voice was tremulous, questioning, and utterly unlike herself. He smothered a smile in her hair, but had to wonder if she was reading his mind as she added, "Can we go see our daughter?"
TBC
Here is the next installment…. I hope everyone enjoys it. I had some trouble with the final confrontation between Harry and Hermione twelve years ago, but there you go…
About one more chapter to go, I think. You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.
lorien
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