So last night, I finally gathered up the courage to watch the Gilmore Girls series finale online. I have no idea why it took me a year and a random moment, but it made me extremely emotional and so in that time I took the advantage of writing the next chapter.
**
"I've got a package," said Lily.
Harry barely had time to glance up from his work, before he was bombarded with the sight of his mother as she flung what he knew was Hermione underneath the wide brimmed hat and sunglasses. It was no surprise that his mother had a look like she could kill. Nor that Hermione had landed in the chair directly across from him.
Heads peered over their desks trying to get a glimpse of what was going on that had caused their boss to be in such a bothersome state. Harry didn't let his anger venture over towards the subject though as he looked up at his mum wondering why she had even begun to get involved.
"Fix this," she commanded sharply. "And after you do we need to have a long discussion, followed by an appropriate reason as to why you won't be attending dinner tonight and instead working on this case. And then after that…"
"I've got it covered," she sniffed.
Lily gave her son a final look before she turned around closing the door, leaving Harry alone with Hermione. He couldn't go back to his work no matter how hard he tried. Harry felt as if he were the one being put set up as it looked like a big conspiracy theory.
Women talked to each other.
And from his lunch with Luna he could only guess that she found his mother. And his mother, the smart woman that she was had gone off to find Hermione. He could tell from her state as she sat in the chair despondent from him that she had no intentions of speaking with him.
And it wasn't the fact that she was sitting there that bothered him to the point where he could only sit and ponder his next move. It was the noise that enveloped the silence, as she made subtle noises of sniffling as if she had been crying earlier.
He wondered how long this could stretch on, but even he hadn't predicted it as seconds stretched into minutes and soon it was half an hour that he sat there simply picking a spot at the wall and waiting for it all to stop.
And he found himself on the brink of telling her to say something, or get out, and before he opened his mouth she did.
"Are you proud of yourself?" she asked. Hermione left a gap for him to answer, but the question had caught him so off guard that he couldn't answer. She stared at him behind sunglasses before she continued slowly. "Because I've been in Lily's office for the past hour having her lecture me on the fine points of a relationship. Of course that was after she tracked me down as I was following your instructions. But definitely not before she told me about how Luna Lovegood had stopped by and regaled her with a lunchtime tale."
"That wasn't how it happened," he said through gritted teeth.
Hermione smiled knowing that was what he would say. And she didn't know if the information was true or not, but she was hurting on the inside.
"I'll tell you what happened," she told him. "Lily dragged me from my solitude and brought me here of all places, under the guise of some widow who's husband was…it doesn't matter. Anyway, she spent about an hour telling me about you. She brings a whole new meaning to the mother-son relationship."
Hermione felt her own tone rising, and while she would normally pull herself together, she felt the entire conversation spilling out of her memory as if she were staring through a pensieve.
"I'm not married to Lily, Harry. I'm married to you, and I don't think I'm wrong or evil for wishing that half of the things that I heard in an hour I could hear from you in five minutes. And I think she was practically begging me to see things through your eyes and hopefully understand what it's like to lose a father at a young age."
"And you don't," he interrupted in a dangerous tone.
"Yes, I do," she shouted.
This brought on another period of silence longer than the first. Her throat ached from both speaking and the shouting that she had never truly exercised. And his ears rang replaying those three words as they had come spewing from her lips.
"You're not talking, and I don't even want to be here," she observed, quietly. "It just hurts because all we do is go around in circles. Screaming and shouting isn't going to get us anywhere, and neither is keeping information from each other that we both need to know. It was a mistake coming here…"
Her words broke off, and Harry considered adding something useful to the conversation, but she probably couldn't hear it. She sat for what was most likely a moment longer before she finally got up from the chair so fast that the hat flew from her head revealing her chestnut hair flying free as she ran out of the door.
And it was evident as he watched her retreating form that everyone was wondering what had exactly happened in his office. Harry like the other spectators was wondering the exact same thing. If Hermione's goal was to make him uncomfortable she did.
And he had a strong suspicion that if she had stayed he would have wished to be feeling then what he was feeling right now.
**
Hermione felt betrayed.
And betrayal was a mixture of several feelings, that left her not only overwhelmed but exhausted. She wasn't angry at one person, but she could single out people that she didn't want to see at the moment. And that list included Harry, Luna, and Lily.
It also left her pulling at odd straws, and turning towards someone that she never imagined she could talk to at the moment. But in time of need he was there, and that proved that friendship was everlasting. He had barely opened the door when she flung herself into his arms.
Hermione understood that he was taken aback for a moment, but it didn't take long before he was escorting her inside the Burrow. Ron instructed her to sit on the couch, and she did while he got her a cup of hot water.
"Whatever you're thinking about, it's not as horrible as it seems," he offered.
Hermione gave him a small smile before she accepted the mug from him. She wanted to tread lightly on this newly opened boundaries of friendship, but it was just begging to be tested. Ron sat across from her on the small coffee table just waiting to be told whatever was troubling her.
"I made a bad situation, worse," she offered as an explanation. Upon looking at Ron he gave her the go ahead to expand further on the subject. She nestled the cup in her hands as she comfortably began to relate the story back to him.
"He feels bad enough as it is," said Hermione. "Harry can be dense sometimes, but he's not some cold, unfeeling person. I just know he has to be tearing himself up about it, but I just had to go on and provoke him. What was I thinking bringing up his dad?"
Ron stared at her willing himself to change the direction of their conversation.
"What did you and Lily talk about?"
"She did the talking," she quipped. "It just felt like she was apologizing for Harry, during the entire conversation. We've both known Harry for a long time, and we know what makes him tick. Death hasn't always been kind to him, nor has it left him unharmed. I don't expect him to write sonnets, but I would appreciate it he'd give a sign that he cares."
"Harry loves you."
"Luna loves you."
"When are you going to let that go?"
"Never," she smiled.
It was brief before it finally faded. Hermione reached out to touch his hand softly getting him to look at her, while she balanced her mug in the other hand. She smiled gently at him, deciding that she wasn't going to wait to put another relationship into jeopardy.
"It's not that I didn't want to tell you," said Hermione. "And it's not that I didn't trust you, but I just find it hard to talk about that part of my life. At Hogwarts all I really wanted to do was just leave that part of my life behind. And so when Ginny…"
"I get it," he said stopping her. He could see the strain that it already put on her, and he smiled knowing that she had at least tried to convey the message that he had finally realized. They were friends. Best friends. And even though they had carried on this grudge for years he was ready to let it go. "And so will, Harry."
She didn't know when it happened, or how often but Ron had gotten wiser. Hermione shook her head as she finished off her now lukewarm water. No one else was here. Ron had conveyed that his mother was off shopping, and his father and sister at work.
**
"I thought it would be gone," he said.
Hermione froze as she picked up a stuffed bear that had found its way out of the cardboard box that she had been assembling. She had been surprised on entry that she had in fact been able to enter Grimmauld Place.
She didn't hesitate to turn around, but quickly realized that her coming here did have a price. It was no doubt that either he had been here all along or had simply been alerted when she had intruded. And she wasn't about to debate whether she was or wasn't.
"No," she whispered. "It's not."
Hermione thought about turning around to resume her packing, but she thought as if fate had brought her to this moment with Harry. She wasn't in either her bedroom or Harry's, but instead in theirs. And she could say that she had enough memories in here that she could almost see herself reliving them.
"In the moment, I thought that if I destroyed the necklace. That if I got to everything that resembled Ambrosia. And if I could somehow attack everything that kept you tied to it, that life would snap back to how it was before you left."
"You can't."
"I know that now."
Harry looked around the room for the first time in an extremely long time. Things were covered in dust and he had to admit that just being in here for a few minutes he fought the urge to cough. And he wondered exactly how she did it.
Regardless he moved around and sat on the edge of the bed. It made him feel vulnerability, and for the first time she showed confusion on her face as he sat there simply looking at her. Hermione looked back though not afraid of backing down from what appeared to be a challenge.
"Don't go."
Hermione looked absolutely speechless, her mouth dropping successfully. He could see her eyes practically bulging as she processed it in many different ways. But he wasn't a person to accept no as an answer. Harry grabbed her hands taking the stuffed toy that she had in her hands and throwing it into some random corner of the room.
He took her hands in his own.
"Don't go," he repeated.
She couldn't breathe.
And perhaps that was the feeling that she had been waiting to overtake her when she looked into his eyes, rather than simply staring into green orbs that just were. Hermione could feel herself beginning to warm up towards the idea, but not completely as she turned her head away.
She needed a clean perspective that wasn't led simply by temptation. It was a mixed bag as she felt everything begin to flood back into her mind as to all the reasons why she found him both insufferable and yet endearing.
"Alright."
His eyes widened at her response. Harry never expected her response to be a positive one, but it was obvious as she let go of the strong hold she had on the item she currently held that she meant it. And what surprised him further was when she let it go completely in favor of a hug.
It was strange.
A/N: Reviews are good for the soul
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