"So what's the problem? It sounds like things are great," Oliver said walking to stand next to Harry.
"Are you sure you want to talk about this? It could take awhile. We might need to sit down," Harry told him.
They walked over and grabbed their bottles of water and sat on the benches by the field. Harry took a deep breath. "I know I said that I could talk to her about anything. While it's completely incredible…. it's also part of the problem. I want to tell her everything; about my parents and those old bill I had to pay before I found out about the hoard of money. …my bad decisions, but I'm afraid that once she knows, I'll lose her," he admitted.
"Harry, pal, listen. If Hermione is a great as a girl as you say she is then she's not going to care about that other stuff. In fact…she'll probably even try to help you out in anyway that she can. But that can't happen unless you tell her the truth. What about the job with the ferret ?"
Harry shook his head somewhat shamefully. " I have to take three more assignments. One was supposed to be this morning but it got postponed at the last minute by owl… then I'm done. Draco Malfoy sort of blackmailed me. I have to tell Hermione though, because I don't trust him. He was at the apartment yesterday when Hermione came over and I saw the way he was looking at her. He's not a nice guy. In the end it doesn't matter what he does to me, just as long as he stays away from her."
Harry sighed again. "I'll never regret it for one second, though. If I did that would be like saying that I regret things with Hermione. What I regret is lying to her."
"Look, tell her the truth. Tell her how much you care about her and how sorry you are for keeping it from her. If she can't accept that then maybe she isn't the girl you think she is. But you'll never know until you tell her."
Oliver was right. As scared as he was of losing Hermione, he'd have to take the risk if he wanted her to be a permanent part of his life.
***
"So, where's Ginny? I feel like I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks," Hermione commented. She and Luna were having a girl's night, sitting on the couch in their sweats as they watched a movie and talked while eating all sort of junk food.
"Oh…she's been around, you've just been too busy with lover boy to notice," Luna teased. " Seriously though, she's going psycho about wedding plans. There's just two months left now and she's afraid that something's going to go wrong," Luna explained.
Ginny was a bit of a perfectionist. Well, that was actually a gross understatement. Ginny was a nightmare when it came to perfectionism. Especially when it had to do with the wedding of her dreams. She had everything planned perfectly. The minute shy, retiring Neville had proposed, she'd called and booked the church and reception hall for a date that was exactly a year and two months away. She'd insisted that it would take her that long to finalize everything. She'd already had everything planned in her mind for several years. Now it was about putting it together.
Hermione had laughed and mocked Gin behind her back for sometime until she'd realized just how much planning a wedding took. Having a whole year really was a good idea. Hermione wondered now how long she'd need to plan hers and Harry's wedding.
As soon as she thought this, she stopped herself. Whoa. Where had that thought come from. She and Harry had only been together a little more than a month. That was definitely jumping the gun there. Wasn't it?
Trying to reign in her thoughts, Hermione refocused on Luna. "So is everything starting to come together for her?" she asked.
"Yeah…I mean I haven't heard her get upset about anything for awhile. She did tell me that we need to go in for another dress fitting. She wants us to try on our dresses when she tries hers on. She says she wants to make sure that we aren't going to distract others with our dresses." Luna just looked away wistfully... "As if that's even possible."
Hermione giggled.
Their eyes were drawn back to the TV screen then as the scene in the movie switched. Their favourite actor was about to take his shirt off. Luna was just starting to drool when the door wards buzzed.
Hermione quickly got up to answer it. She was pleasantly surprised to find Harry standing in front of her.
"Harry…" she said, leaning up to kiss him hello. "What are you doing here?" she asked with a smile. " I thought you were going out with your friend Oliver tonight."
He only gave her a partial smile in return. "I needed to come talk you about something, something important."
Hermione took in his nervousness and hesitancy and began to worry. Something was up. "We can talk in my room," she told him, aware of the curious looks they were receiving from Luna.
He nodded and let her take his hand and lead him. He gave Luna a brief hello before he and Hermione disappeared into her room.
He stood there in the doorway for a moment, taking it all in. It wasn't the first time he'd been in her room, but it might be the last. He turned his attention to Hermione. She sat on the foot of her bed, starring up at him, a worried expression on her face.
"Harry…is something wrong?" she asked, her voice quiet. She looked so vulnerable, sitting there in her oversized sweats, that he almost lost his nerve. He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want to lose her. He knew his life would go back to what it was before, boring and monotonous, just going through the motions. He didn't want that. He wanted to feel…the way he always felt with Hermione, like everything was new and exciting.
He sat down next to her on the bed, taking her hand in his own. He was silent for a moment as he brought her hand up to his lips, kissing it ever so gently. "There are some things I need to tell you about myself, things that are hard for me to talk about. It's taken me a long time to work up the nerve…so uhm, here it goes." He paused, looking up at Hermione. For a moment his heart stopped at the love and support and encouragement he saw there. It gave him some hope that maybe this would turn out okay after all.
She gave his hand a squeeze, urging him to start and so he did.
"When I was…oh seventeen, I was to inherit my parents fortune…everyone in Godrics hollow knew my parents had a vast amount of wealth accumulated, by various stock and deals…However what we didn't know was that most of the money they had put aside for me, had been taken many years before by Lucius Malfoy, the father of the wizard you saw at my apartment the other night..There had been a mole of sorts, in my fathers financial circle and they had been feeding off him like vultures unbeknownst to him…
"Oh, Harry…Merlin's beard, I am so sorry. For everything… I..." Harry could see tears forming in Hermione's eyes. He felt a pang in his heart to see that she was hurting now because of the way things in his life had gone. He'd never meant to make her sad.
"Hermione, it's not you fault. It's just the way life goes sometimes." He took a deep breath. He had to go on, he couldn't stop now. "After all the upheaval and my mothers own early demise, my Dad died of a broken heart I was pretty much on my own. I decided that my mum & dad would have wanted for me to move forward. So I went back to school. But I still had to find a way to pay the hospital bills. I should have just waited on school and got another job. All I could think though was that the sooner I finished school, the sooner I'd have money to pay those bills." Harry took a deep breath and looked up at Hermione.
"You have to understand that I was desperate and not thinking clearly. I made the biggest mistake of my life because I was looking for an easy way out."
Hermione took in the regret that was clearly written all over Hermione's face. "What…what is it, you can tell me."
"I took a job that I'm not very proud of. But it paid a lot of money and before I knew it, the bills were getting paid and I still had some to live off of and I had time to keep up with my schoolwork & pay an investigator to track the Malfoy's accounts & try and recoup what my parents had lost yrs before... I…"
Hermione began to worry. Was he involved in something illegal? Was it drugs?
"I was……a Male Escort. I took women on dates for money," he finally said.
For a second Hermione was so relieved that she almost laughed. That was hardly illegal. But the wheels in her head began to turn. The implications of what he'd said…and how it included her came together in her mind quickly.
"Oh...Merlin! That's why you took me out isn't it?" she said, dropping his hand like she'd been burned.
"No…I mean… yes… I mean that's how it got set up. ''Luna & Ginny didn't know I now give all my money to the orphanages, as I had eventually had a lot of success in tracking down Malfoy's stocks and the wizarding council over ruled the Malfoy's counter claims.'' ''I am now, as it stands, a very rich wizard Hermione, but I have another secret. I took on a dangerous task by training as an Auror. I am undercover Hermione.. I am on a mission now tracking the young Malfoy's businness transactions as we at the ministry, fear he is dealing in Dark Art antiquities… but were not sure''Hermione quickly wiped at the tears that were falling. She wanted to believe Harry…and she did, but that didn't take away the hurt that she was feeling right now. Hurt that came from Harry lying to her… from Luna lying to her.
"Harry…I uh, I need some time," she told him. "I have to think."
Harry nodded. " I understand. I … I just wanted you to know the whole truth. And I'll be waiting…whenever you're ready." 'But please realise, Malfoy is my superintendant Hermione'', & I have no other choice if I want to bring him down, but beware, he is watching you ,as he likes me to suffer greatly''….
Hermione gave a nod, indicating that she understood what he was saying, and turned away.
Harry watched her, feeling defeated as he turned and walked out the door. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but this hurt him…because he'd never intended to hurt Hermione.
After Harry left looking defeated and like he'd lost his best fried, Luna decided that she'd better do her duty as best friend and check on Hermione. She knocked and when she didn't hear an answer, she went it. She found Hermione sitting on the bed crying into a stuffed owl that Harry had given to her on their third date.
"Mione?" she asked softly.
Hermione looked up and when she saw Luna, her eyes flashed with anger and she immediately jumped off the bed. "You lied to me," she said, the hurt and anger in her voice was evident.
"What?"
"You lied to me. On my Birthday. You didn't tell me that you hired Harry to go out with me, that you had to pay him to date me."
Luna immediately felt guilty.
"Hermione…listen, you have to know that we didn't mean for things to happen the way they did. We just wanted you to have a fun night. We didn't expect your date to be an Adonis and we didn't expect for him to take one look at you and fall in love. We didn't expect for you to fall for him either. He…. he wouldn't even keep any money . I never realized that it would go this far. I never expected any of this. I just wanted you to start dating and I stuck my big nose into everything…and now …and now…"
By then Luna was in tears and Hermione just stood there, staring at her bumbling friend. Luna was obviously very sorry for what she'd done. But that wasn't what Hermione was focusing on.
Harry hadn't taken any money for the date.
For some reason, it relieved her to know that.
Hermione eventually calmed Luna down and they were able to talk about the situation rationally. Luna wisely let Hermione do all the talking, knowing that her status as a friend had already been questioned once that evening. She didn't need to jeopardize things any further by opening her big mouth and saying the wrong thing.
As Hermione continued to talk about the situation and to try and understand Harry's point of view, she began to realize how hard this must have been for him. And yes…she was angry with him for lying to her, but she'd been more hurt than anything. Her pride had taken a huge blow at his admission, because it had taken hiring an escort service to find her a date. That didn't exactly do wonders for her self-esteem.
Hermione put Harry's shirt on to wear to bed, and as she was surrounded by his scent she thought back to all the incredible moments they'd shared. She knew that he hadn't been insincere. She could see that he wasn't purposely trying to keep things from her. She'd never pursued the issue with him either. She sighed…. she could still feel what it was like to kiss him, to have him touch her the way no one else had ever touched her. With these things all lingering in her mind…Hermione made a decision. She knew what she had to do.
***
Harry tossed and turned the whole night. He couldn't get the hurt look on Hermione's face out of his mind. He never wanted her to hurt and here he was, the one that caused it. He wasn't worthy of her and he wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to see him again.
He was staring at the ceiling watching the way the shadows receded as the sun came up for the day when he heard knocking on his front door. Glancing at the clock he saw that it was a little after six am. He quickly pulled on a t-shirt and went to answer the door.
He opened it and was surprised when a petite brown haired figure rushed into the room. Hermione. He could only stare at her. She was wearing his t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair looked like she'd hastily pulled it back into a ponytail. There were tired lines under her eyes. He'd never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life. He could hardly believe that she was standing in front of him.
She looked so sad and serious. This couldn't be good. He didn't care though. If this was the end that at least he'd gotten to see her this one last time…
His thoughts were interrupted by Hermione's voice.
"Don't say anything. Just let me talk," she started. " I just have to get this all out. Then you can have your turn. I…I'm upset that you kept the truth from me. It's hard to build a relationship when there isn't complete honesty. It made me wonder if any part of our relationship was real or honest." She looked up at Harry and he swallowed hard. This was it. This was what he'd been trying to prepare himself for; it was time for a well-deserved rejection. He couldn't even look at her as she began to speak again. He didn't want to see her face as his heart was breaking.
" I thought about it all last night and I realized that the most honest thing about our relationship was the way we felt about each other. The way we still feel." At this Harry looked up. She wasn't rejecting him. She wasn't telling him to go to hell. She was…she was stepping closer to him.
He took a deep breath and had to fight the urge to kiss her breath away.
She looked up at him, her eyes full of love and understanding. " I'm not mad at you, Harry. I'm hurt that you didn't tell me the truth right away, but I understand that it was very hard and that this situation was beyond your control. You did the right thing by telling me everything because we couldn't have moved forward until you did. And the things is…I want to be with you and I don't care about your past & any mistakes. All I care about now…is our future." ''If there is anything I can do to bring Malfoy down for you, let me help''..
Harry stared down into the face of the woman he loved and pulled her to him, practically crushing her. "You really mean that?" he asked. He could hardly believe that this was happening. He'd been so sure that he wasn't worthy of Hermione or her forgiveness that he hadn't dared to imagine that it could work out this way.
Hermione nodded and tightened her own hold around Harry. " I really mean it," she whispered. And to further prove her self, she stood on the tips of her toes and took his face in her hands, bring it closer to hers and kissed him. With that kiss she conveyed everything…her forgiveness, her trust, her understanding and most importantly…her love. He could feel it and eagerly returned the sentiment by reciprocating the kiss. When they were finally forced to pull apart for air, Harry leaned his forehead against Hermione's, settling arms around her wait. "Thank you," he told…his felt his eyes start to water… "For everything.
Hermione shook her head. "No…thank you, for wanting me enough to take a chance." She smiled up at him so
beautifully then that he had to kiss her again.