*NOTES* Hello everyone! I just finished this chapter. It was my distraction from all the studying I have coming up. Finals are almost a week away and I'm totally freaked. Thankfully there was this lovely world I could slip into to relax me. I hope everyone is enjoying this winter season (I know I am), and I hope to update one more time before the holidays. Thanks for reading and as always please review. I love knowing your thoughts.
Hermione was alone in the Black Manor for the first time since they moved in. Harry and Ron had gone to the heart of London to do some shopping with specific instructions from Hermione to get stuff for the Manor. Now she was sitting in her makeshift spacious library wishing for something, anything, to do.
"I should have just gone with them," she sighed as she threw down the latest book she was reading. "But no I was said I was going to stay here and read. This was the stupidest idea."
For the past few days the three friends had studiously avoided each other for a couple of hours whenever the letters came up in a conversation. Hermione had found it increasingly difficult last night when she and Harry had found their way into the dinning room after a complete run through of the house (Ron was munching away in the kitchen). They saw the letters and the laughter that had been on their lips died away. Both proclaimed that they were heading to bed before realizing that they slept in the same room as each other and thus could hardly avoid one another.
As Hermione got changed for what was going to be a rather awkward night Harry spoke up. "You want to read them don't you?"
"Would it be such a bad thing if I did?"
"No, I guess it wouldn't be…"
They were sitting on the opposite sides of the bed facing different walls. She wanted it to be a bad thing opening those letters; after all she didn't want Harry or Ron to read what she wrote to them. She didn't even want to write the letters. It had felt too final writing goodbye to her two best friends, her parents, and Professor McGonagall.
The house, she thought, was too quite with her boys gone. She got up to pace the library when Dobby came in a tray of tea floating along beside him. Hermione paused in her pacing to watch Dobby set down the tea tray and pick up his knitting needles.
It always amazed her how good Dobby got at knitting so quickly. During a few long nights sitting around the table at Grimmauld place she taught him the basic stitches. Now he had far bypassed her knobble knitted hats (he still wore them though).
Hermione started pacing again as she thought of the letters. She, of course, knew what she wrote in each letter to each person, but she had no clue what her two best friends had written. And then there was the fact that they had only gotten six letters back. It had been foolish of her to think that they would have gotten all of them back, but why would their loved ones want to keep them after they knew that all three of them were safe and alive?
She remembered the night they decided to write the letters so vividly. The three of them popped into the house with barely a sound. Harry was clutching her so tightly to his chest she thought she might suffocate, but all she could think of was not being able to graduate.
It was her wish, and the one thing she had given up to be with Harry during his fight. All this past year she had suppressed her desire in order to help her friend, but now as Hermione breathed in his shirt she realized just how much she gave up for him.
Somehow her harsh breathing turned into sobs. Harry noticed her tense up and began stroking her hair to try and calm her down. It only made her mad. She knew she was being insensible, but part of Hermione knew she earned that right.
Her fist made contact with his chest, and in the deafening silence of the parlor of Grimmauld place it sounded louder than it probably was, but she hit him again as he backed away. Ron tried to pull her away and she hit him too. At this Harry's hands wound their way around her waist to pull her back to his chest once again.
"I want to graduate," she sobbed into his chest as she hit him one more time. "Do you know what I gave up for you?"
"Graduating?" Ron asked weakly. If it wasn't for Harry's iron grip on her she would have smacked Ron.
"I gave up my parents, my head girl badge, my life for you…" she trailed off only to start back up again. "I've been cursed, broken, burnt, and now I can add being snake bait, and all I want to do right now is quit. I just want it all to stop."
"You can," his whisper into her hair was so soft she barely heard him.
At this she pushed away from his grasp. It would be so easy to walk out that door and go back to her parents, but it would be so hard to give up everything. She shook her head as she took another step away from Harry, her Harry.
"I…I…Oh god," she started to sink to the ground but Ron's arms caught her around the waist before she hit the ground. "How…how could you say…Harry…" Hermione was trying to process it all.
"It would be easy wouldn't it?" Harry asked. His voice was calm, and his eyes met hers as he spoke every word.
She met his eyes, "No. NO!"
Ron's arms still cradled her as she tried to pull herself up but her legs had gone weak. Everything that had happened tonight came rushing back to her. The snake slithering toward her, Death Eaters on the outskirts, white fangs, a stunning curse being fired, Harry's arms catching her as she sunk to her knees weak from being bait, and finally Ron taking out a potion from inside his bag and the snake along with Voldemort's soul was gone.
"I have been through too much to give up now." Hermione finally gathered her strength, and she pushed herself up out of Ron's grasp. "I've been broken, burnt, and seen you two in too many bad situations to back out now." She moved closer to Harry, "and I love you too much to leave you." Hermione whispered into his ear.
"It was all too much in that moment," she said out-loud even though the only other person in the room was Dobby. "I wish Harry was here."
"Does Miss need me to go get Harry Potter?" and before Hermione could reply with a no Dobby had disapparated out of the library. That could only mean that Harry had told Dobby to get him if she needed him for anything.
It took Harry and Ron and Dobby exactly 4 minutes and 23 seconds to come barreling into the library. Their wands were drawn and their breaths were coming in shorts gasp.
"You know if you weren't so paranoid then I could have told Dobby not to go after you two, and I hope you got all the shopping done." She spoke in a sing song voice that she knew Harry and Ron hated.
Harry threw down his wand as Ron stalked out of the room. Hermione could only assume he was heading to the kitchen. As she thought about Ron Harry moved to sit beside her on the sofa.
"What are you thinking of, love?" He scooped her up and sat her so that she was sitting half on and half off of him.
"Remember when you told me I could go?"
Harry chuckled, "Which time?"
"The last time…the time I actually wanted to go." She couldn't help but avoid his gaze for a moment. Once she looked up he had stopped laughing but he had yet to stop smiling.
"I wanted you to go," Harry's voice was strong and sure of himself. "But I knew you wouldn't. You couldn't…just like you said."
"I love you too much."
"And there in lies the problem," they both chuckled at this. "I gave you many chances, Hermione, but each time you never took them."
"And I never will," she put her head on his shoulder.
They sat there in silence for a few more minutes. Hermione picked up her book and went back to reading as Harry practiced his wandless magic by moving piles of books around. It was going on two hours of silence when Harry magically started a pillow fight.
She let out a time squeal when the pillow hit her square in the back of the head. At this the pillow flew into Harry's hand and shot back out at her, but she quickly apparated on to the chair a few feet away. Hermione grabbed the pillow that was on that chair and launched herself at Harry.
"You aren't suppose to hit the girl that has decided to marry your sorry arse," she started to hit him with the pillow. She didn't get very far because Harry snatched the pillow out of her hand. Her laughing eyes met his shocked ones, "what's wrong?"
"You said that you have decided to marry me," his voice was full of wonder.
"Yes," she reached out and touched his face. "I said yes when you asked, remember?"
"But you also said you wanted to wait."
"Oh Harry," she leaned in and lightly kissed him. "Nothing is going to stop me from marrying you. Nothing. Did you think that waiting until after I took my NEWTs would make me change my mind?"
"I thought that it might change us."
"We might change but our love for each other will never change. When I'm old and surrounded by too many books I will love you probably even more than I do now. Just as like in a few days when you decide to piss me off by flying on your firebolt like a maniac I will still love you."
"I'm going to have to remember those words for when I do piss you off." The sat together in comfortable silence for a few more seconds, "Ron got all the answers for the party."
This was the first mention of the party since they got to the Manor and finished unpacking. Hermione had been true to her word and let Ron do all the planning. She had yet to even see a guest list, so the news that the party was taking place surprised her.
"When is everyone coming?"
"Saturday," Harry replied.
"Harry?" she said softly into the air.
"Yes love?"
"We need to read those letters, or else we will never be able to put the war behind us." Hermione knew what she was saying was right. She knew that those letters were part of the process and they needed to be the first step. After all they were the last step they took in giving their families' closure and that meant they should be the first step they took in finding their own.
"After the party," was all the reply she needed.
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