Into the Dark

Chapter III: Life in Retrospect

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“The Past - the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf -the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?” -Walt Whitman

“I—I just don't know where the bloody hell she is… I've searched everywhere, even called in an embarrassingly large amount of favors with my ties at the Auror department so they'd help, but nothing,” he groaned, running a hand through his hair and taking a rather deep sip from his whiskey. “What do I do, Ron?”

Ron sat dumbfounded as he watched one of his best mates sit there, absolutely lost. He was irrevocably befuddled, perplexed as to how and when everything became so damn discombobulated. It Hermione and Harry for Merlin's sake, the two were a super duo, never meant for such a hellish fate. The earth was upside down, he concluded, that was the only thing that could give some sense to this whole nonsensical affair.

“Ron?”

“Um… what? Right… sorry, I was off… just you know…. Woolgathering…”

“Woolgathering?”

He shrugged. “Luna says it rather often, I picked up on it, I suppose. But, anyway, are you absolutely sure you searched everywhere?” the look he received in response to that question was so volatile that even trying to describe it still sent chills down his spine. “Right… well, then—ugh, I don't know what the hell to say, really,” he bluntly admitted.

Harry groaned, throwing his head down onto the table with a resounding sound that made Ron wince. “Fuck,” he heard his mate mutter, face still plastered to the table.

“Um… mate?”

“Yeah?” the muffle reply came.

“Well… if you don't mind me asking and all, what the fuck were you two arguing about this time?”

Harry shrugged again, a reaction that only received an eye roll from Ron, before he finally lifted his head up a bit, but only so much so that he could look at his friend properly as his chin still stayed propped up against the table. “The usual.”

“Being?”

“Nothing… but somehow everything all at once, how fucked up is that?”

--

“He… he was my everything. It's pathetic, I realize that, but true nonetheless,” she spoke, not sure where the words were really coming from, but from the second she sat in the chair, downed that potion and allowed herself to be strapped down she found herself reiterating every memory, every feeling she had about Harry and all she could say was that it hurt like a bitch.

“From the second I saw him I loved him, maybe not in the romantic sense, but surely in a platonic one… I could see a partner in him, solace… oasis. I looked at him and immediately just saw someone that I knew I would be able to connect to on a wholly different plane and it thrilled and scared me all at once… it was brilliant really, once in a lifetime feeling to be sure.”

She sighed, pausing for a second before beginning again. “He didn't quite seem to reciprocate that little epiphany though—he nor Ron, come to think of it. It actually took guilt and anger to get them to really notice me—Ron's, very late, guilt over having made me cry and, inadvertently put me in danger, and Harry's anger over Ron's cruelty… and the inadvertent repercussions of it. After that they seemed to accept me… but, at times, I still can't help but wonder what would have happened had that giant never come… had—had they never seen what taunts could do to a person…”

“You think they wouldn't have been your friends were it not for that twist of fate?” she heard an anonymous voice ask her, from where she didn't know, but it just seemed to act as a cloud over the memories she was reliving in retrospect, guiding her from memory to memory it seemed.

“No… I think they would have gone on ignoring me save for when they needed help with homework, maybe…”

“Mhm.”

She had never thought that a simple hum could hold such clout until that very moment.

--

“I—I got an odd report today…” Harry murmured as he stumbled into Ron and Luna's sitting room looking absolutely lost.

“Is it about Hermione?” Luna asked worriedly.

“Yeah,” he numbly answered.

“Well that's great, mate, first news in three days now. That's spectacular, a relief, really.”

“No,” Harry shook his head adamantly. “Not a relief.”

Luna furrowed her brows. “What is it, Harry?”

“One of the blokes down at the Auror department was tracking her financial records for me, checking for any new withdrawals or credit card uses… she's put down a first and last payment for some apartment in Notting Hill…” he told them as he threw himself onto the chesterfield, eyes wide as he stared at the wall before him, heaving.

Luna gasped and Ron bellowed: “what?!”

--

“I was the bookworm of the lot and for a while I honestly thought I was content with that title… I mean the fact that I was useful in that respect was undeniable, I'd been saving their arses from first year and on with the help of my books, but, in the end, it wasn't enough. Despite how hard I worked for my intellect I hated that that's all I'd ever be recognized for. People noted Ron and Harry's bravery, but never mine, it was as if I didn't exist, and at that time I never expected Ron to come to my defense—he wasn't exactly the most gentile of blokes back then nor a good mate of mine, really—but what killed me was that Harry never noted it either, not once.”

“Did anyone ever notice you then?”

“Yes… Neville did. He… I don't think anyone realized how close the two of us were, for a long time I considered him a far superior friend to Ron and Harry, he came first for so long, but no one ever noticed that, they only noticed Harry and Ron, ergo they only ever noticed me when I was with them, assuming they were my only mates then since they didn't see me when with anyone else. But Neville… Neville always saw me, he was always interested in what I had to say, thought, or worried over. He cared.”

“Are you two still friends?”

“Best of… Ron and Harry only even noticed the extent of it a month ago really.”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“Tell me about your friendship with Neville, what was his role, explicitly.”

“Like I said, he was the one that cared. Ron and Harry noticed me when they needed me—that not really ever changing until we finally reached seventh year… Neville was surprisingly intelligent, maybe clumsy and forgetful, but beneath the surface was one of the most profound individuals I'd ever met… and he really… he just cared,” she reiterated—not even sure why when such repetition as usually so unlike her, but all she knew was that she needed to… felt compelled to.

“I see.”

--

“So this is it?” Ron asked, blowing into his hands in a futile attempt to keep them warm, as they arrived at a posh little brownstone that was red whereas all the others were pale yellows or some oddly named shad of white—it was very Hermione, he had to admit, original…

“Yeah,” Harry nodded, looking up at the building, even cocking his head to the side a he silently observed it, at a total loss as to what to do next; he still couldn't grasp how the hell she could just up and leave like that. What made Notting Hill so much better than their shared place in Kensington anyway?

“Want to go in?” Ron asked after a moment's hesitation.

“Can we?”

Ron shrugged. “Worth a shot, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “I suppose you're right, let's go.”

--

author's note: so I was initially going to make this chapter much longer [it's only 1173 words, not including this note] but after mulling it over I decided to split this chapter and combine it with the next as I realized that this one was so packed with information in the first half that what Hermione said in the second half was really just oversdhado3wed by these initial revelations so it somehow felt off.

Anyway, please review; tell me what you think, honestly.

Thank you for reading and happy holidays!

p.s. this chapter hasn't been viewed by my beta yet [or, at least, not that I know of] but since it's been so long I decided to post and then replace this chapter when she got it back to me.