Chapter 29. The Journal
Breathing fractured, chests heaving, they clung on to each other tightly, not wanting to let go, feeling the pounding of their hearts. Did he hear her right?
His mind raced through different scenarios in a somewhat least to most desired order.
She said it to Roy Hunt.
She imagined Roy was someone else, maybe Ron.
He imagined it. She never said it.
She knew he was Roy and the words were meant for him.
Okay. So that last part bordered on delusional. If Hermione knew he was Roy, he would have been jinxed by now, many times over.
He couldn't believe that she was in love with Roy. How could she feel that strongly about someone she just met and barely knew? Personally, he did not believe in love at first sight and as far as he knew, neither did Hermione; especially not Hermione. But there were already so many things he knew of her that she proved wrong in the past few days, including doing what they just did, when they did and where they did.
Harry pulled back and looked into her eyes, puzzled. If she said and meant the words, was this why she was so mixed up about making the decision to marry or not marry Ron, the thing she couldn't tell Ginny or him about?
"Did you just say…um…that you loved me?"
That took a lot to get out. Her eyes met his and she had a perplexed yet amused expression.
"Why would I say something like that?"
A bucket full of ice cold water just splashed all over him.
"I was asking myself the same thing," he admitted, red in the face but was almost sure he heard right. "I must have imagined it."
Definite awkward moment.
"You must have," she concurred then suggested, "We should get dressed."
"You're right," he moved away, pulled his boxers and pants back up as she found her wand and undergarment, "Jimmy might walk in and think this is part of patient management."
Right beside him, still flushed and weak-kneed from what she just did with Harry, Hermione didn't think that it necessary to share with him that she sent the intern on a wild goose chase. She had hoped she could be alone with him long enough to give them a chance to talk and him the opportunity to confess, if he wanted to. Neither the talk nor the confession happened, although, she was quite surprised at the swiftness they got to home plate.
So, that was what it was like with him. Indescribable, unimaginable, beyond belief. She would have never thought it possible that such a feeling could ever exist even for a brief moment, and just thinking about it made her insides flutter pleasantly. And like after any other amazing experience, the question that begged to be answered was when would it happen again.
Hermione had to keep her wand hand from trembling as she removed tell-tale signs of what just took place, unsecuring the room to the way it was before, feeling enormously guilty about Ron and about breaking so many institutional and moral rules in that one act. It was foolish to do it, to risk it, but the moment screamed at her and there was no holding back. That reason was definitely not one that would hold up in an inquiry.
She didn't mean to say the words out loud but she lost it when she heard him say her name. It was a good thing Harry thought he imagined it for the last thing she really wanted to have right now was a conversation with Roy Hunt about what she just couldn't keep to herself.
This farce that they were engaged in was getting to be quite troublesome. For a second she contemplated outing him, and just dealing with it once and for all but she restrained herself, thinking it better if they talked about it when Harry was good and ready to do so. If she felt guilty about this she could be sure he did, too, and if she were concerned about Ron he would be, too.
Out of the blue, she heard him ask.
"Why are you still engaged?"
"Why do you care that I am?"
"What makes you think I care? I'm just a stranger you met at a bar."
"Not anymore, you aren't," she couldn't resist pointing the truth. "If this isn't the one time thing that you thought it would be, what do you think is it?"
"Is it not obvious?" he replied.
"No, not really, and I'd rather not jump to conclusions. What do you want out of this?"
Now wasn't the time to come up with theories.
"I…"
Harry was disrupted by the sound of the swing doors into Exam Room 13 clashing against the hard wall. It made them both jump, and Harry, she noticed, had taken out a cigarette. She couldn't help but think the time for having one was definitely past.
She looked at their intruder and wasn't sure if she would laugh or be angry for his interruption. It was Jimmy the intern, at least it looked like him behind a stack of books hovering precariously in front of him obstructing his view. So, he was resourceful, figured the answer out and armed himself to prove he was right. It was only a matter of time before…
Crash!
"Sorry," he muttered as he tidied up the fallen books on the counter. "I was looking into your question…"
She interrupted, "Later, Mr. Jingle. I'm at the end of Mr. Hunt's um… physical assessment."
That drew a grin from Harry. It was, in a way, true. Summoning his chart and flipping randomly through the notes, she was unable to concentrate on the task at hand.
Unflinching, Harry reminded her why she was there, "So, am I fit enough to be discharged?"
Hermione replied poker-faced, as she signed him out, "Fit as a race horse."
She figured she should make her exit. His piercing gaze was so uncomfortable and she was fighting the urge to kiss him once more. It was a good thing the intern was there.
"Would you like to see me again?" he asked.
"Do you think it's necessary?" she answered him with a question, probing, thinking if they were going to see each other again, that decision was not going to be hers.
Seriously, he replied, "I rushed you through that examination I kind of feel bad. I know you like to be thorough."
"Don't worry about it, Mr. Hunt," she assured him. Why did he have to be so considerate? "I think we both got what we needed."
"But what if I still need to see you?" Harry insisted.
She searched his face, pondering the many probable reasons why Harry as Roy would want to see her again. This meeting tonight, she figured, was unexpected. The fact that he sought help at St. Gregory's made her even wonder if he was trying to avoid her. But surely, he couldn't think this sham should go on forever. Or was he offering her the same service he had provided her twice now, the extent he was able to give?
Once before, Hermione had questioned his intention. She could not do that anymore, not after seeing in his eyes the inner conflict and desperation that she also felt. To openly want her as Harry was filled with complications. He may have still been considering if it was worth it. Ron would be devastated and he was probably waiting for the Quidditch finals to end, too, before doing anything about it. Impatience had always been Harry's weakness.
"I suggest giving it a few days, it could pass," she said to him.
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then, you know where to find me."
Maybe she shouldn't have encouraged him like that, but her hormones were doing the talking. Already, her need to be with Harry was as strong as it was earlier, unquestionably fuelled by his obvious desire to do what they just did again. How foolish of her to think that once with him was going to be enough.
She scolded herself for acting like a self-control challenged, hormone-crazed, teenager. This fleshly yearning that she had suppressed for a long time and thought dead was at near obsessive levels. It would be tragic if, after all this time, the definition of their relationship would come down to just that.
This wasn't right. What they were doing to Ron and to each other was not right. She never would have thought in a million years she would allow this but this was stranger than fiction. She should really start looking at the forest and not the trees. For while she somewhat understood the conundrum Harry was in, how many more times would it take for her to say that enough was enough and to start questioning just how much he really cared about them if he continued to willingly deceive her. She felt compelled to do something to prevent them from going down that path, thinking that if they were going to do this, they had to do this right.
Her answer to Ron's proposal, which had been obvious from the moment he mentioned it, was a definite 'no'. After the Finals, she would tell Ron and then summon all the Gryffindor courage she could, to take the chance that she wasn't sure Harry would ever take. She would confront Harry about whether or not he wanted them to have something beyond the platonic relationship they had.
That was all it would take - a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. She wanted to know exactly what he meant when he said he was wrong thinking it was a one-time thing. Just thinking about it made Hermione remorseful for she knew that they would definitely hurt Ron. She hoped Harry would have the foresight never to tell Ron he was Roy from Toronto.
With that thought, she handed his chart over to the intern and told Jimmy to carry out her order. There was only one, and it was to remind Mr. Hunt not to use other potions with the muscle strengthening concoction.
As Hermione left Exam Room 13, she looked at the non-stranger who had been staring at her all night, fantasizing about a normal, open and loving relationship with him. She could only hope that if Harry indeed wanted to make amends for their recent hurried 'examination', he would not do so as Roy Hunt.
XXXXXXXXXX
21 February 2006
Forty-eight hours later, the need to see her would not pass.
Harry had been avoiding her, immersing himself at work, where Kingsley had ordered him not to be at, with the little concentration he could afford it. He was bursting to tell her not to marry Ron, move in with him and snog her senseless, not necessarily in that order.
Having her see Roy again was not a good thing, adding to the lies he would need to hide from her. He had a feeling this would end badly. She asked Roy what he wanted out of this and he could only have made matters worse had the intern not interrupted, for the moment she walked into the room, he wasn't totally in character.
It bothered him that Hermione did what she did with Roy. Yes, he realized how hypocritical that was not thinking it before and during, but it hit him hard after he left the hospital. Her interaction with Roy had a raw feel to it, almost instinctive and unprocessed, as if she was allowing her basic impulses free reign around him. Knowing Hermione for so long, he had not seen this coming, and wondered; after what they did at the hospital, what was it that she wanted out of him?
He hoped it was about the same thing that made her go out with Roy in Toronto for the thought of her wanting more from him was downright scary. He shouldn't have stared and wanted her so overtly. He shouldn't have said to her that he was mistaken to think Toronto was a one time thing or pestered her about the possibility of seeing her again. She didn't want to but in the end left it open; and she left it for him to make that decision.
It was very tempting. Her lack of inhibition and candidness with Roy was addictive; her touch, the feel of her against him, her scent, her lips on his and everything else, intoxicating as he had never experienced before. He was dying to find out if she would be the same way with him.
His alter ego was bent on acting without conscience buoyed by the fact that Hermione found him attractive and responded to his amorous advances. While Harry desperately wanted and needed to be with her, he felt that each time he did that as Roy, the lies brought them farther apart.
I love you.
A whisper now deeply etched in memory…was it real or merely a figment of his imagination?
For a moment, he allowed himself the fantasy that she did say it and that the words were indeed meant for him. Maybe it was premature to think she wouldn't be interested in him after Ron. Maybe talking to her as Harry, asking her point blank if she had any romantic feelings for him, without mentioning Roy, would be the way to go.
The Quidditch game was in a few days. Harry would only have to deal with chance hallway meetings and Ron's invite to have dinner with them tomorrow night. The limited interaction would make things easy enough and he should be able to manage this compulsion to touch her. He would try to be good, be an exemplary model of patience and stay off the juice.
He willed his attention back to work. A small picture of Floyd was on page 4 of a Toronto daily. He had been arrested after a scuffle in a pub and was in a Toronto jail awaiting trial for the post-Valentine's Day incident at the Ghoul. No mention of at-large accomplices, no mention of any potions. As far as the London Auror office was concerned, the Toronto case was closed.
As for the Waxball's employer and her goons, Mr. Quincy and Mr. Hughes, a scan of known criminal elements in Britain did not turn up anything. Their search for that room he was taken to and escaped from was unproductive.
The link to Lestrange, while informative and useful for when they ever captured her, was hollow without evidence of this purple potion ever existing. From the time Harry Dissaparated from Floyd and his minions to the time he was able to get in touch with Kingsley, the number of living Squib and Muggle witnesses to Floyd taking the potion at the Ghoul dropped to zero.
The cover-up was complete. If only Legilimency and Veritaserum were approved methods for Squib interrogation, but Floyd knew his rights only too well.
It was late. He was tired but ached to get a glimpse of the woman he wanted to be with the rest of his life. He stopped by at St.Mungo's and watched her for a bit from the gallery, what ifs eating him up as he saw her leave the Emergency Room with Ron.
XXXXXXXXXX
She felt like a traitor, sitting across from Ron, who was telling her how his day had gone. He had dropped by to remind her to take a break and while physically she was with him, the rest of her wasn't. It was two days after the Exam Room 13 incident and it was quite difficult to not think about Harry.
Hermione had intended to steer clear of Harry like he had the plague. Much to her chagrin, Harry had not really sought her out, making her avoidance of him insignificant. No, she did not want to see Harry, really, but it would have been nice if he wanted to see her. Argh! She hated this feeling thinking she was a bit too old to be having it. How she wished she could talk to Ginny about this.
There was always work. She completed her alternative potion research proposal and submitted it to ethics. Unfortunately, it was against St. Mungo rules to work everyday of the week so she couldn't work after tonight. With Quidditch and her supposed wedding day close she was not on schedule anymore. Once again she had so much more to think about. Ron had given her another surprise.
Hermione had to hand it to Ron for knowing exactly what to do to work her up to what he wanted to happen. He revealed another of his pre-nuptial presents earlier that day and she should have insisted that she did not want it.
"You have a diary?" Hermione asked, still groggy, an old book with a faded orange cover in her hand.
"Not a diary," Ron corrected, "A journal."
She did not bother to tell him there was no difference. It was just so unlike him to be jotting down anything on a regular basis and never saw him do that.
"Since when?"
"Since we got together," Ron was amused by her reaction, knowing it was truly a surprise, "Go ahead, open it and read it."
"But, Ron, this is private."
Hermione wasn't sure if she really wanted to know. She was going to break up with him.
"I want you to know everything there is to know about me," he reiterated, "I don't want anything private."
"I appreciate the offer, but 'no', really."
"Please," he insisted, and turned the cover over for her. "So, you can understand me better."
First the Cannons, now this. Maybe she should just tell him right now.
"The first one is about how I felt when we first kissed, do you remember that?"
He smiled and it too brought a smile to her face. How could she forget? It was just before he and Harry were to go to Cannon Camp. She just moved in and he was helping her set things up when he made his move in the kitchen. The kitchen. They joked, saying it was appropriate that he would do it in his favourite room. The subsequent passages brought her back in time. They were young, in love and it was so long ago.
"I didn't write in it everyday," he explained, "Just during extremes of emotion, particularly when I felt or thought something that I couldn't tell you. There are a lot of my feelings about you and Harry in there."
She wasn't really up for another one of their Harry fights.
"Ron, I know all about that. We've certainly discussed Harry and I like a broken record over and over again."
"You don't know everything."
Ron said those words with such surety that it jarred her. How could he know for a fact that she didn't know everything that had to be known about that? She let him turn to the page dated about a year into his Cannon career. She was in Healer school and Harry was in the hospital. They had a big fight when she told him she would be at St. Mungo's to help Harry recover from his injuries, his alcoholism and his depression. He didn't want her there; she did it anyway. He sent her a Howler in essence telling her he was going to break up with her if she insisted. He was pretty miffed about the fact that she called his bluff and ignored his tantrum.
Hermione couldn't understand why he was so jealous of Harry. Harry was their best friend and he needed them during that difficult part of his life. She was not doing anything wrong. How could Ron even suggest to her not to do everything that she could to help Harry out. It was so unreasonable she thought that if Ron was going to break up with her because of that then she wouldn't want to be with him anyway. Ron never followed through on his ultimatum.
But as she read his words in the journal she found out where the jealousy was coming from.
"He asked me if he could go out with you, like on a date, before we became a couple," Ron said as she got to the very same passage in the journal.
Hermione opened her mouth to say something but didn't find the words. Did he just say what she just heard and read?
"I said 'no', and all this time with you I've been expecting him to tell me how he shouldn't have asked me or listened to me then. I know you two have grown closer over the years and I keep on telling myself that, as you said, there's nothing to be jealous about. I can't help but think that every time he sees you as that one person in his life who is there all the time, he'll clue in and want you to be that someone he once thought you could be. I can't compete with him, Hermione, and I don't want to lose you."
"Ron," Hermione finally found her voice, feeling horrible for him, "That was so long ago."
She didn't know what to tell him, really. All she knew was that he shouldn't have felt that way all this time up until a few days ago because there really was nothing going on between her and Harry. But now? What could she tell him that would be truthful and not hurt his feelings? She seemed to have acquired a sudden case of thought paucity.
"And then there was what happened to your Mum and Dad. I couldn't ask when we argued about them before your left for Toronto, afraid of what your answer would be. But I've often wondered if Harry asked you, would you leave me to be with him."
Silence followed, begging for a filler, something like the Jeopardy jingle but longer and less annoying. While he wasn't asking a question she felt pressure to respond, to reassure.
Hermione figured she had a few options. She could say something like 'Harry would never ask' or just blurt out something insensitive like 'within a heartbeat.'
"Ron, if I were to leave you it won't be because Harry asks me, okay?"
Ron thought about her answer before replying, "Okay."
She knew that wasn't much of a reassurance.
Ron left her to go through the rest of his journal but her mind was stuck for a while on his revelation. Did Harry really want to date her? Was this what this was about for him? Wanting to find out if he was missing something before she and Ron got married? And the one time wasn't enough?
He said he couldn't compete with Harry, and that he didn't want to lose her. How could she tell him that he was right about the former and the latter had already happened some time ago? She would have to be such a horrible person to be able to say something that, even if it was the truth.
Ron was right. There was a lot about Harry and him that she did not know about, events during their year as Cannons, a lot of them quite disturbing, particularly the ones leading up to Harry's early Quidditch retirement. Ron wrote about the night Harry was injured with details neither of them told her about, and looking back, she understood now why Harry was the way he was after and why he and Ron never talked about it.
It was ugly, Ron's jealousy. There was no other way to describe it. Each time Ron expressed his envious side it was always followed by remorse, a realization that what he had just felt, thought and perceived was wrong.
Hermione cried reading it and could still vividly remember one dreadful line Ron wrote during Harry's time at St. Mungo's.
'I wonder if she'll give me the same kind of attention had I been the drunk and depressed, moron that Harry is. Maybe I should do a Potter during a game and find out.'
She confronted him that morning about it, wanting to know if that was true. Laughing, Ron brushed it off, saying that was so long ago. He was so young and was an idiot then, pointing out what Hermione already noticed, that most times each ill emotion passed quickly and some admonition about how stupid it was to feel that way followed.
It wasn't funny, not to her. Somehow, Hermione was not comforted; thinking the worst of what could happen if she ended up with Harry.
"I invited Harry over for dinner tomorrow."
"Huh?"
"Harry is coming for dinner tomorrow," he repeated. "And Delilah, too."
"Delilah?" The flirtatious bimbo?
"Yes. She said she wanted to get to know Harry better."
I bet she does.
"I know you'll probably be tired. We can just go out…"
"Oh no. I'll cook." I wonder if she's allergic to anything…
"Are you sure?"
"Uh-huh." I'll make certain it's in everything I serve…
"So, what do you think?"
"About what?"
"About Harry and Delilah."
You don't really want to know. "Oh, that. I don't think it would work."
"Why not?"
For one, he'll never hear the end of you teasing him about dating a Dogooder. "She's tall and she's blonde. It won't last," Hermione knew she was right about this. "Does Harry know you're setting him up?"
He shook his head, grinning, "You know he told me to stop doing that years ago. I'll tell him it's your idea. He wouldn't mind if it comes from you."
It does make perfect sense to have the man I love date someone else. It wasn't worth an argument.
"He's not seeing anyone nowadays, is he?"
Seeing? No, not really. "Not that I know of."
"Great!"
"Great. I'll see you tomorrow."
Hermione went back to work.
Ron's pre-wedding gifts were driving her insane. He gave up the Cannons, looked past her Toronto transgression, and bared his soul by having her read his journal. Breaking up with him was going to be more difficult than she ever imagined it could be. How could she even think of going out with the real Harry now knowing that was the one thing Ron was so afraid would happen?
Knowing this made her uneasy for all the talk about love being able to conquer all, she now cared more for how Ron would feel than being personally happy. After reading his journal, she could not, in good conscience, brush aside Ron's deep seated envy and hope he'll be okay, at least not in the immediate future.
Hermione thought about Harry, how she wanted to talk to him about taking their friendship to a different level, quite upset that it would have to wait until she was sure Ron would be fine with it. And if Ron never would be…he would eventually, for sure. If only she had not read the journal.
Throughout that night at St. Mungo's, during lull moments, she questioned how true her love for Harry was if she was willing to give him up for Ron.
A/N. I know - give up Harry for Ron? Is she nuts? In her defense, she did spend 10 years of her life with Ron.
Any thoughts on why Ron made her read his journal?