`"You look good, Hermione."
She started down the second flight of steps. "What are you doing here?" she asked in an aggravated tone.
"I want what you want," he said simply.
"Then why aren't you leaving?" she asked under her breath.
He opened his mouth to say something but stilled for a moment. He squinted his eyes and asked, "Do you hate me?"
She was quiet as she descended the last flight of stairs.
"Do you hate me?"
"You know I don't," was the quiet and fast reply.
He opened his mouth again, speaking faster. "I love Hermione. Hermione, I love you. I love you. I know I've messed up in the past and I'm sorry but I love you."
She was quiet once more as she slowly walked towards him, arms folded.
He stammered, suddenly uneasy with the proximity. "I know it's not quite normal for me to-"
"Normal?" she interrupted angrily and forcefully. "What do you know about normal, Harry? We were in love; we were planning on getting married. Then you meet some girl at a party, how cliché, and after two months, we break up. After two months. After four years of being together, we break up after two months. You don't call, you don't write, you ask her to marry you and don't even invite me!"
"Would you have wanted to come, Hermione?" he asked just as angrily. "Would you have wanted to see me marry her?"
"What do you know about normal, Harry?" she asked again, ignoring his questions.
"You deserved more than me," he responded truthfully. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. "You deserved more than me. I wasn't stupid." He made eye contact. "I wasn't stupid." God, he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to ease that anger off her face with a loving kiss. "I was lessening the pain for you, Hermione."
"You have no idea what you did." She tightened her arms in their fold.
"I just wanted more for you." He knew he was right. And in the long run, he was right. He formed his right hand in a karate chop outline and moved it up and down, trying to get his point across. "It would have been so much easier and so much less painful for you to hate me than to pine over me." He raised his vision again, making contact with hers. "To hate me with everything you had. It would have been so much easier."
There was a silence and he thought she understood. "I wanted you," she said, the anger in her voice missing. "I wanted you." She shook her head, closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm so sick of you saying you didn't deserve me. That you still don't."
"I don't."
"You do, but that's not the point," she snapped. "Whether you did, do or not, I don't care. I want you. That's what love is, Harry! You love one another unconditionally. That's what love is, that's what normal is!"
He snapped completely. "Normal!? You think love is normal? You have no idea what love is then, Hermione. You think love follows some sort of path, some manual? Love has no guidelines, love has no instructions, love is just love. It drives you insane!" Love drove him insane and he wasn't going to stand there and let her tell him it doesn't and didn't. "Love doesn't have rising action and climax, love is all over the place!" He sputtered for a second and then screamed, "It's not like another one of your silly little books!"
She sneered, hurt. "Oh, aren't I lucky; the chosen one is here to make things all right once more!"
And she knew she overstepped it.
He took a deep breath, perhaps considering what he said. He licked his lips and looked to the floor. "Maybe this isn't a good time. I'll come back later." He turned around and started walking. But he stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. He raised a finger and shook it at her. "No, you know what? No." He couldn't say it any clearer. "I'm not coming back later because that's what went wrong the first time." He paused. "I'm staying here, with you. I'm not going anywhere, Hermione."
She took a breath and he held his. "Then get comfortable." She Disapparated upstairs before he could say anything else.
~~
Why was he there? Why did he suddenly want to set things right? After everything they went through, it wasn't possible for them to be together. Not after all that heartbreak. Although she would have to admit she was always curious as to why he broke it up with her. Of course, there was his entire reason of protecting her from hurting, yes. But there was another reason. She sighed. Maybe that really was all he wanted to do. Find out what happened with them. Although after that, he would want more and-
"Hermione?"
She brought her head up. Everyone was looking at her.
"Are you alright?"
She held her head on her hand. Oh God. She was in the middle of a meeting. Five members of the bookstore on the right, five on the left. Percival Brown was even there. "Um, yes, I'm alright." She was a terrible liar and they all knew it. The polite coughs said so much. She closed her eyes and groaned internally. "I'm so sorry, this isn't a good time for me, could we take a ten-minute break?"
"Certainly."
She muttered a fast thank you and ran out the door, pacing along the corridor, listening to her heels echo in the bookstore. "Merlin, Harry," she whispered, knowing she thought she'd never have to say his name in such a way. How dare he? Break her heart and suddenly come back, wanting to start over fresh. So he broke it off with Nicole, that didn't mean anything. Just because Nicole's heart was now suddenly fine didn't mean hers was. She stopped pacing and leaned against a rail, looking down at the three stories of the bookstore. Was what she was thinking even making any sense?
"Hermione. Hermione."
She turned around slowly, letting his image fade into her view. She smiled tenderly when she saw his dark blue suit and soft yellow tie. "Charles."
His eyebrows were squished in that way she knew all too well. "Hermione, are you alright?"
She nodded. "Yes, I'm quite alright."
He wasn't convinced at all. After knowing Hermione Granger for more than five years and suddenly working with her closely for the past two, twenty-six year old Charles Davis knew when Hermione was not alright. "You don't seem alright at all," he said caringly, taking out his handkerchief. "You're shaking and sweating. Here." He motioned to caress her forehead when she abruptly turned away.
"Charles, no. I can't take this. From you, I know what it means."
He physically bit his tongue. The thought of hurting Hermione in any way made him sick to his stomach. He inhaled sharply, keeping his anger inside. "Are you implicating that I'm-"
"No, I'm not," she responded quickly and curtly. "It's just…" She tried to think of a way to say it. Unable to think of a nicer way, she sighed. "I'm sorry, Charles, you know my heart belongs to-"
"Him, yes, I know." The happiness seemed to die down in his voice. He lowered it and took a step closer to her, pocketing the unwanted handkerchief. "Look, I'm not trying to replace Harry. I just want to be here for you. I just want you to know it's possible to love again. You don't have to pine over some prick who doesn't even want you."
She swallowed, remembering Harry's words yesterday. "He does want me."
"Well, he's got a hell of a way in showing it," Charles blurted out. He stopped himself once more. It wasn't like him to swear. He sighed again. "Look, I'm not here to talk about him. I want to talk about us."
"Charles, there is no us."
"Please, just consider me, Hermione. Please." He knew very well he was begging but he didn't mind. Not for Hermione. "I'm a good man, I'm smart, I'm healthy, I'm caring. Everything I'm not, I'll be it for you. Please, Hermione, give me one chance. I'm head over heels for you."
She closed her eyes. She knew he was. How could she not know? The way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her, the way he was always offering to help. But it was hopeless. He wasn't Harry. And she didn't want anyone-anyone-but Harry. "Charles."
"Look, I don't want to push you. You take as much time as you need. I just hate to see you unhappy and yearning for someone who's already broken your heart once." He backed off, physically and verbally.
But she held him back with a broken question. "It is broken, isn't it?" She refused to let the tear fall from her eye.
"Oh Hermione…" Fortunately for the very same raven-haired wizard, Harry Potter decided to Apparate close to three meters away from the almost tender moment between Charles Davis and Hermione Granger.
Turning around and sighing on sight of him, Charles turned back around to Hermione, taking the look in her eye as a request to leave. He lifted his arm to pat her shoulder but decided against it. He bowed his head and sighed. "I just want to give you the pieces back," he finished sweetly, before returning to the meeting room.
There was a pause between them as they stood there in front of one another. "I don't like him," Harry said bluntly.
She folded her arms. "Fortunately, we're not 14 anymore; I don't care what you think." She couldn't take this. He was suddenly Apparating into her bookstore now? Did he seriously think he was going to clean up this mess that quickly?
"He's not right for you."
She rolled her eyes, turned on her heel and slowly started walking towards the meeting room. "No, you're absolutely right," she called out; knowing and hearing him follow behind her. "Smart, witty, talkative, considerate, loving. What a terrible man." She reached the door and reached for the knob.
His hand covered hers when she reached it. "I don't like him despite those things."
She turned to face his, admiring her self-control; being so close to Harry James. "No, you don't like him because he's those things." With a soft push, she flicked his hand off hers, went into the meeting room and closed the door. The other members in the room slowed down their conversation and began to sit quietly as she made her way to her seat at the front of the table. Putting a strand of hair behind her ear, she cleared her throat. "I'm sorry for that little interruption." She paused her rifling of her files to give a friendly nod to Charles, who was still looking at her with a concerned look on his face. "Let's continue, shall we? Jasper?"
Jasper nodded and stood up, taking file with him. Before he could even exhale, however, the door of the room burst open.
A very angry and obviously out-of-control Harry burst in. "Are you trying to make me jealous?" he demanded loudly.
"Harry!" She was so embarrassed, she could melt.
"Answer the question!"
She was so sure she was red. "Have you gone completely mad?"
He was shaking. Not all over, but his shoulder were literally shaking up and down. "I don't know," he said truthfully, in a rather Luna Lovegood tone. He looked around the table, acknowledging everyone there. "Evening," he said politely.
"Get out," she said sternly, "I'll deal with you later."
He pointed a finger at her, a rather rude gesture, but he didn't care. "No," he said just as sternly. "I'm sick and tired of being dealt with later. I'm sick and tired of waiting around for you. For us. I've messed up enough in the past; I just want things to go right now."
She folded her arms, suddenly ignoring everyone in the room. "So that's what this is about, you wanting to finally be right?"
He shook his head, almost confused. "What? No!"
"This is about you and how you've waited enough for what you want, right?"
He analyzed her question in his head, something he often did with Hermione. Realizing what she meant, he closed his eyes and sighed. "Hermione, that's not what I meant."
"So what you're trying to say," she continued, ignoring his previous statement, "Is that you've waited, what, a couple of weeks between breaking up with your fiancée and that's enough for you to be this incredible victim that it's about time you got what you deserved, is that it?" Her voice was loud and full of hurt.
"I'm so sorry I hurt you, Hermione, but I am trying to fix this. I'm trying to fix us!" He said, desperate to have her understand.
She was quiet, her arms folded, her head held high. She glanced up and stared at the ceiling, remaining stubborn.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes, unbelieving of what he was about to say. "Maybe this is a bad time. I'll come back later." With a soft pop, he was gone.
~~
Walking through the streets, Harry decided right then and there it was about time he paid a good friend his weekly visit. Stopping at the steps outside and toying with a lovely white orchid growing in the flower pot, he rang the doorbell. Giggling was heard from inside and Harry suddenly hoped nothing sexually clandestine was happening on the other side of the door. Knowing these two, it was highly probable. But the door flung open and the redhead and blonde greeted him with big smiles.
"Evening, Harry," Ron grinned, with his left arm still on the door, his right arm perched over his wife's shoulders.
"My tea leaves told me we'd get a visit from you today, Harry," Luna smiled.
Dedication: This chapter is dedicated to *someone special* out there. I love walking in the rain with you.
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