Chapter 3. The Tale of the Fruit Smoothie
Officially, she was on holidays but Hermione spent the rest of the day working away in her office at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. There was tedious paperwork to complete, research papers to write, grants to submit, proposals to review and going 'away' on vacation was about the only way she could get most of it done.
After Voldemort's demise it was quite clear to her what it was she wanted to do for the rest of her life. It was peacetime; life for wizards and witches was back to the 'good' kind of normal. After graduating from Hogwarts, Hermione chose to attend the Dilys Derwent Academy of Healing and in three years time, she was staff Healer at St. Mungo's.
While healing was her duty and she was adept at it, research was her passion. Early in her tenure, she quickly established herself as a forward thinking Healer who recognized opportunities to improve curative practice. Her most recent work of redesigning common potions in use was known through out the world and garnered her accolades from the International Healers Association (IHA).
She was invited to the Annual Symposium of Magical Researchers in Toronto, to speak about her work but had to decline for personal reasons. The Chief Healer of IHA, Lana Hama, sent her a personal note mentioning that the Healing Mission she had signed up for that was booked months ago and to take place at the same time as the conference was indeed more important than any speaking engagement. The invitation to speak was extended to the following year.
Actually, several fellow Healers had volunteered to go to the Mission instead of her. She wondered what lame excuse she could come up with for next year's meeting. Hopefully by then, the organizers would have gained the common sense to move the conference somewhere else. In her opinion, the crazy person who came up with the idea to hold the meetings every year in Toronto during winter ought to be sent to Azkaban for cruelty to fellow researchers.
The absolute truth was Hermione would rather not go to Toronto ever again.
A knock on her door interrupted her. A short, mousy haired man appeared from behind the door. It was her research assistant, a Hogwarts schoolmate and fellow Gryffindor.
Dennis Creevey looked younger for his young age. He looked not a day over twenty and while elsewhere this may have been a good thing, this was a bane because a lot of witches and wizards in research thought him too young to take his ideas seriously. Unemployed and desperate, he came to her begging for work. She hired him a couple of months ago for his bubbly exuberance and unlimited energy, to replace her former assistant who had gotten married and decided the hustle and bustle that was the pace Hermione worked at was not going to work for her.
"Strawberry and banana," Dennis said as he came in with a tall glass filled with a pinkish concoction and gave it to Hermione.
"Thanks, I was about to get one," she said to him, taking and sipping from it. Fruit smoothies, she found out, was their shared vice. In her lab, they had set up a blender in their mini-kitchen and their fridge was stocked with fresh fruit all the time. Dennis made sure of that. They would sometimes joke that that was the real reason she hired him. She figured she could work and get along with anyone who had a passion for fruit smoothies.
"Are you sure you're not going to Toronto?" he was one of those who thought her insane to decline.
"Toronto or Mexico, should I really take time to think it over? I'm packed for warm weather and I leave in three days."
Aside from the three afternoons she was to spend in clinics for the underprivileged, she was actually looking forward to some mornings on the beach, under the sun, reviewing research proposals…
"If you change your mind…"
"I won't," she interrupted. Definitely not.
"Mexico does sound like more fun," Dennis replied. He was going to Toronto. "I have to meet Colin at the theatre. He found us dates. You don't mind if I leave early today, do you?"
Colin Creevey was his brother, also a Hogwarts alumnus.
She shrugged, "Not if I'm not really here."
"Thanks!"
A blur later Hermione was certain he had left. His interruption had forced her mind to go into a break, no compulsion to continue until she had savoured the last bit of the smoothie in her hand. Strawberry and banana smoothies used to be her favourite and it had been a while since she made one.
She remembered exactly when and where she made it last. It was about a year ago, in his kitchen.
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February 11, 2006 - The Phoenix Towers in Downtown London
In pink pyjamas and bunny slippers, she walked without a sound down the corridor and settled in front of Suite 1808, a grocery bag in one hand and a wand in the other.
"Alohomora!"
Hermione let herself into Harry's apartment knowing he was working the night shift and quickly disabled his home magical security devices. It was six in the morning and she needed to borrow his blender, emergently. The one she and Ron had in their place three doors down had processed its last smoothie and had gone to blender heaven.
She started emptying the ingredients into his blender, going through the recipe in her mind.
Vanilla yoghurt…
Skim milk…
Ten pieces fresh strawberries…
She paused, thinking she heard something. After a moment of silence she continued.
Two bananas chopped in small portions…
As she was about the peel the second one, she heard a noise again and it was coming from within his bedroom. This time it persisted.
Her pulse quickened. A burglar? But it sounded like someone was in agony. She grasped her wand tightly in one hand as she approached his bedroom cautiously, praying that she could still remember how to duel. She had not been in one since the day Voldemort was killed millenniums ago. Hoping to find out more about what she was going to be up against, she leaned and lightly pressed her ear against his door and heard something she really didn't expect.
"Harry, oh, yes…yes, right there…"
He was in there, with a woman. A moaning and groaning woman. There was more panic within her than earlier. This could be very embarrassing, for all of them. At least it would be for her.
"Ahhhh…Harry!"
She hastily pushed herself away from the bedroom door, already thinking about a quick exit, only to realize too late that what she was leaning against had been ajar all along. The door flung wide open, causing her to loose her balance and fall on her hands and knees onto the floor of his bedroom, startling Harry and his companion on his bed in a, um, compromising position.
"I'm so sorry, Harry," her face felt flushed as she quickly apologized, trying her best not to look at him as she got up. It was hard. No, she didn't mean his…, though she kind of looked and it was. What she meant was it was difficult, considering it was simply bad manners to not look someone in the eye when apologizing, but where else does one look…
"Hermione, what are you doing here?" Harry sounded miffed and had grabbed one of the fluffy pillows to cover himself as the woman had taken all the sheets and pulled them up against her chest.
"So you're Hermione," the woman said, as if she discovered the answer to some mystery.
Hermione did not notice as she continued to talk to Harry, still unable to look him in the eye so she stared at the pillow in front of him instead, "I just wanted to borrow your…"
No, don't look there either! He must think you're a pervert trying to see through that! Try somewhere else, like your hands. Why are you holding a…
"Banana."
Huh? In her haste to check out the noise she had forgotten to put down the banana that she had in her other hand.
What did you just say?
"You wanted to borrow my what?" she heard him ask, not noticing he was as red in the face as she was.
The woman, who she hoped did not know her at work or socially, was laughing hysterically.
"I meant your blender. To blend…the banana with some strawberries…Harry, pillow…lower please. But I'm going to leave now," she was rambling on, backing up and just become acutely conscious that she was brandishing the banana, "Again, sorry for the interruption. Um…continue…I mean, if you're not done yet… unless you are done but you want to do it again…in that case, you should, but…"
Harry kind of saved her but a bit too late, "Hermione, it's okay. Don't say anymore."
"I'm sorry," she waved at the still laughing woman who waved back.
Stop waving the banana! She left his bedroom, shutting the door behind her, exhaled and tried to tidy up his counter top as quickly as she could so she could leave. Before she could finish and just as she was about to empty his blender, Harry came out from his bedroom and joined her.
"Well, that was embarrassing," he stated the obvious.
He was barefoot, clad in worn out jeans and an orange shirt with a Chudley Cannon's symbol on it. It was probably one of his team issue ones from when he was their Seeker some years back. An image of his nakedness just a few brief minutes ago replaced the real Harry and she wondered if that was going to be a recurrent problem.
"I think more so for me than anyone else in that room," Hermione stopped cleaning up and replied sheepishly looking into his emerald eyes, which hopefully would not be as distracting. They were always warm and kind but lately guarded, especially when they talked. Even their talks since her engagement to Ron six months ago were few and far between.
Sometimes she wondered if there was something troubling him and was tempted to ask. She would eventually talk herself out of it. He did not need a mother. She wasn't his mother. He made that clear years ago. He said he would ask for her help if he needed it. And she was probably imagining things. They were probably just too busy.
She continued, jokingly saying in a low voice thinking the woman might overhear, "My God, Harry, what were you doing with that poor woman?!"
"Actually, I was just asking myself the same thing," he answered her rhetorical question and Hermione felt a sudden sorrow wash over him. Whatever it was it was painful. His eyes momentarily said it all.
Before she could ask him what he meant, footsteps made them both turn to his girlfriend who was now fully clothed.
"I'm going," she said to them, more to him.
With the brighter lights in the living area, the woman did not look like what Hermione expected. She was about a head shorter than Harry, a decent but imperfect figure, with dark brown hair and black eyes, and from how she dressed, a career person. She was not the leggy beautiful model type he usually went for. Maybe, he was aiming for a bit of variety last night.
"It was nice meeting you, Hermione," the woman said.
She couldn't really say the feeling was mutual. It bugged Hermione that she knew her (Hermione's) name and without knowing her name, there was only one thing to say.
"Bye."
Meeting a Harry Potter girlfriend was among her least favourite experiences as it almost always brought about a mixture of contrasting emotions within her. There was hoping that he finally found the one that he was going to stick with; that was a long shot knowing Harry chose ones he knew would not last. Then, she always thought whoever it was they were not good enough for him; she was always right. There was also the frustration that Harry did not seem to want to change his ways and her feeling insecure each time she found out he had a different girl. The latter was an emotion carried over from years ago that she dared not introspect too much about, preferring to let sleeping dogs lie.
Hermione watched as Harry walked her to the door, feeling sad for him. Maybe it was pity. Maybe both. The fact that he had not introduced them confirmed she was a one-nighter.
She objected to Harry's risky dating practice and that was not the only thing she disliked about the Harry that came back to London after a year with the Cannons. For if somebody asked her what went wrong with Harry Potter after Voldemort's death, she would answer, 'Quidditch'. Or more specifically, professional Quidditch.
With Voldemort no longer in the picture and Hogwarts a thing of the past, Harry and Ron had the same decision to make about the rest of their lives as she did. While it seemed that both were waiting for the other to decide what to do, it was a harder decision for Harry to make. The attention around his career choice was overwhelming and it worried her at that time that he would just get fed up with everything and not make a decision at all. If only everyone would leave him alone.
The choices available for a hero was boundless and he could have done anything that he wanted. Ron did too by extension. It came down to attending Auror Academy, which was thought to be the natural choice for someone who defeated the Darkest Wizard of their time, or joining any one of the fifteen professional Quidditch teams interested in acquiring the biggest draw in history imaginable. They went after him and Ron. It was really pathetic what grown wizards and witches are capable of doing particularly if it had something to do with Quidditch.
Ron and Harry had asked for her opinion and her answer was always to follow their hearts. Sure, she could have listed for them the pros and cons of all the choices, but ultimately, they had to trust how they felt.
Finally, they chose Quidditch. She did not feel they made the wrong decision. There were not a lot of Dark Wizards to catch anymore and Harry pointed out that after seven years of Voldemort, he needed a break at least. She totally understood what he was saying. Despite that, Hermione had a feeling that Harry was swayed towards Quidditch because of Ron; they were being offered unimaginable salaries and Harry was very sensitive of Ron's family not having enough all the time.
And of course, it was a no-brainer that they would sign up on the same team. Their choice was Ron's favourite, the Chudley Cannons, the worst team in all of Europe for a number of years with naturally the worst spectator attendance. They had a new owner and their revamped motto was to 'win a cup at all cost or if not, get rich trying'. Having Harry Potter on the team was a guarantee the latter would happen. And to make the offer difficult to refuse, both Harry and Ron were going to be starters for the new look Cannons.
The downside was she would not get to see much of them as they trained, travelled and competed all over Europe. After years of tension and seemingly pushed by their impending separation, Ron finally confessed his love for her. Why he would pick such a time to do this was beyond her but she had been expecting it for quite a while. Harry's seemingly annoyed reaction to it was a bit unexpected but then she figured that what they crammed into the one week they had together before Ron was to leave would have robbed anyone of their sensibility. They were probably less shy about the physical aspect of their relationship around Harry.
After three months at training camp, their rookie season finally started and was fraught with challenges, to say the least. First of all, with six teenagers on the starting team, they were really no good. They were overpowered and outwitted by the more experienced teams. It took five games for Harry to catch the Snitch and he was just so happy he found it, he did not realize that they were so far behind, they actually lost the game. They lost their first ten games by huge margins.
Hermione tried to be at their games as much as her schedule would permit to be supportive and Ron had always said having her there made a lot of difference. Of course it would to him because that was the time when they started sleeping together. They lost their virginities after one particularly nasty game, which on hindsight she wished happened under a more pleasantly memorable circumstance. She was there for Ron, for comfort and to talk with, and between Ron and her studies, she did not notice that Harry was not doing well at all.
The team loses affected Harry more than anyone else, including the owner. As angry witches and wizards lambasted him with ugly comments about wasting their hard earned money and how terrible a Quidditch player he was, his confidence and self-esteem took a real beating. The Cannons management had hyped the team up; season tickets were sold out years in advance and they got what they wanted at his expense. He felt responsible for the robbery that was taking place each and every game they played. His conscience did not give him much respite.
If there was one thing in his life that he had never thought he would fail in it was Quidditch, and his belief of that all came crashing that first year with the Cannons. He felt he failed Quidditch when in truth Quidditch failed him. Harry discovered ways to cope with the frustration and to break the sinking feeling of always losing. With his other young immature team mates, he turned to women and alcohol, both being ubiquitously available in professional sports.
She was so incensed at Ron for not telling her about it until it was too late. Harry resigned. Actually, he was forced to retire from Quidditch two games before that first season ended. A major sporting accident left him in serious condition at St. Mungo's for weeks. And more tragic was the fact that he had lost the ability to fly a broom despite wanting to.
While the truth was kept away from the public by the powerful wizards who wanted to protect Quidditch, his inner circle knew that the reason for the accident was because Harry was so drunk during the game he fell off his broom from a mile up, and if not for Ron seeing it happen, the fall would have been fatal. It was described in the Prophet as Ron Weasley's best save of the season.
As Ron rejoined the team the year after, Harry was sent home from St. Mungo's almost physically healed but emotionally a mess. He was no longer the Harry she knew at Hogwarts, not really.
Hermione had expressed her disapproval of his Quidditch off pitch lifestyle when she first found out about it as he started dating again. Never in her mind did she imagine he would be capable of having sex for the sake of sex. Because that was what it was really about, wasn't it? She had to say something about what she considered was his moral decay. That was when he told her she was not his mother so she should stop acting like she was. Again, that was new.
Deeply offended, she let him be. And besides, at that time, there were other more pressing concerns about him than his preference to have meaningless sex with any consenting woman. He needed her as a friend, not a judge, to battle his ongoing depression and help him overcome alcoholism. Really, he could only fight so many battles at once and those were the two he chose to fight. Since being told off, she never said another reprimanding word about it to him again.
Yes. Quidditch was to blame for the significant change in her best friend.
As Harry walked back and sat in front of her, she asked him, curious, "How can she possibly remember my name just from hearing it once?"
He shrugged. Little did she know that across the counter Harry was answering her question in his mind.
You would too if the man you were having sex with whispered that name in your ear and it wasn't yours.
Harry steered the conversation elsewhere, "I don't know about you but I could really use a smoothie."
He smiled at her and she smiled back, unashamed as she asked him, "Can you wash your hands?"
There was no point arguing with her that he already did. He had to laugh.
"I thought you were working nights this week?"
She was finishing what she had started and talking to him with their backs turned away from the other, as he washed his hands in the sink. Years ago, after a brief role as an overpaid Quidditch player, he joined the Ministry as a Hit Wizard.
"The guy we've been following turned in early last night so we figured at least one of us should go home," he replied. "Dean was with him last night."
He dried his hand on the hand towel hooked up to the fridge beside him and turned around. His kitchen was small, having no real need for it because he rarely cooked. He found himself standing about a foot behind her, checking her out.
It was Saturday, and if she wasn't dressed at six that meant she was not scheduled to work. Her bushy brown hair was tied back casually and he liked it that he could imagine this was where she lived. His eyes followed the stray brown locks that fell on the back of her neck, finding the sight of her usually covered flesh stimulating. And she was in pyjamas this morning, which meant Ron was not home.
He wondered if she realized he could tell from how her breasts looked she wore nothing else under the pink printed top that she had on, and that her dark-color lace panties were visible through the thin pyjama bottoms. He felt his jeans get tighter and fought off the impulse to step closer, kiss the length of the back of her neck, feel her body against him and make love to her right there on his kitchen counter. He did ponder if she would allow him.
His mind answered him quickly enough. Of course she wouldn't. She loves Ron. Not you. She's marrying Ron. Buzz kill.
She had placed a glassful of the strawberry and banana mixture across from her where he was before. He walked around and immediately used a chilling charm. As he drank most of it, he felt some needed relief.
"I heard you're going to Toronto," he had to keep his mind off wanting to have sex with her.
"Research Conference starts today," she replied, giving him a refill and without hesitation took some bagels and cream cheese from his fridge. She magically toasted the bagels lightly and spread a thin layer of cream cheese on them, handing him one, as she continued, "I'm hoping that Ron's quarter final match tomorrow will be short. Win or lose we're having friends over after the game. With the time difference, I figure I can stay until five a.m. Monday morning, Dissaparate to Toronto and get some sleep. I can catch the last three days of talks. You are coming tomorrow, right?"
"I'm working but I'll try," he wasn't quite sure what the Squib's plans were but hopefully he would be in prison by then. They ate and drank as they talked. "All set for the wedding?"
A lump formed on his throat and no amount of smoothie could get rid of it.
"I don't think we'll ever be ready," she answered. He knew how stressed she had been lately. She wanted everything to be perfect. "When I get back from Toronto I'm taking time off before and after the wedding. Really, we should have just gone to a planner."
He smiled, teasing, "Maybe next time."
She smiled back, saying, "Ha, Ha. Very funny."
I wasn't trying to be funny.
Out of the blue, a frown formed on her face. He had to ask her.
"What?"
"Nah, never mind," she wanted to say something but backed out. Intrigued, he pressed her.
"It's me you're talking to. Just go ahead."
"I had a question and I need a man's opinion."
"Is Ron not man enough?" he chuckled.
"Harry! It's one of those things I can't ask Ron about," she explained.
You're marrying him. What question can't you ask him?
"What is it?"
"It's all hypothetical, of course."
"Of course."
It took a while, as Hermione seemed to search for a way to ask the question. After quite some time, he noisily snored feigning sleep.
She was laughing at his antics. He was going to miss this. They were moving to a house in Richmond after the wedding.
"Okay, I'm ready but don't take this the wrong way," she finally said, "Say, you're about to get married. You know your fiancée has never been with any other man but you. She comes to you and asks if it's okay for her to have one meaningless fling before your wedding. What would you say?"
Harry had to concentrate as the words came out from her mouth, not really expecting such a loaded question. Here he was thinking she was going to ask him his male perspective on whether she should wear black lingerie on their wedding night. The answer would have been a definite 'yes'.
Somehow, that answer would not work for the hypothetical question she just asked.