Senses

lorien829

Rating: PG13
Genres: Angst, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 08/11/2008
Last Updated: 16/10/2010
Status: completed

Two marriages slowly disintegrate, and, with their unraveling, two friends find renewal in unexpected places.

Chapters

1. Sight

2. Smell

3. Hearing

4. Taste

5. Touch

6. Balance

1. Sight

Senses

Sight:

They enter the pub from a blustery street, blowing in with a gust of icy cold air. She immediately moves to smooth her locks, and he shakes his windblown hair out of his eyes. Even in the noisy exuberance of the half-sloshed crowd, he sees them right away. They are in their usual booth, one tucked back into the corner, sitting on the side that faces the door. The light in the pub is golden and honey-rich, and it glints off of her hair like caramel.

Neither of the two in the booth has noticed their arrival. She is looking to the right and down, away from her companion. Her jaw is tight, and her face is pale, her brows and lashes like inky streaks on her face.

She is angry. He can tell by her thin lips, by the way her face moves, brittle and compressed, as she speaks without looking at him. Her husband is hunched forward, elbows sprawled across the table, his red hair gilded as he bends his head, trying to look at her. When he finally lifts his gaze heavenward in utter annoyance, his face is a glowing scarlet.

“Looks like they're at it again.” His wife's voice is a dry drawl, playfully mocking. He looks down at the dark sleeve of his coat, to see her slender fingers, tipped by delicately painted nails, resting there. Her hair is burnished copper, and she flashes a smile to someone in the crowd that he doesn't see. He remembers how that smile used to affect him, used to make him feel light-headed, as if he were flying without a broomstick.

It has been a long time since Ginny has taken his breath away.

He tells himself that it is the pungent aroma of alcohol that burns his nose, rather than irritation with his wife. But people have started to notice their presence, and he hastily threads them through the clusters of witches and wizards toward the booth in the back. His peripheral vision picks up a camera flash.

“Hello, you lot,” he manages to say in a mostly cheery way, as they slide into the booth across from Hermione and Ron, who have been so twisted into knots of their own making that they have missed the entire approach. Both of them instantly try to pretend that they weren't arguing. Hermione's smile is plastic, and does not reach her eyes, as she flickers them upward briefly to acknowledge his presence.

Ron nods at him and tries to smile. He is less successful than his wife, but he has always been less able to capably wear a mask. He looks very tired, once the brilliant color has faded from his face and ears.

“How's it going?” Ron asks, hesitantly, as if casting about for something natural to say. “Hear from the boys?”

“Al has Owled a few times, generally about his latest O. James Owled when they arrived at Hogwarts, but we haven't heard from him since.” Ginny is all pride, but her beaming smile barely makes a ripple against the undercurrent of tension that Harry has noticed.

“Probably too busy getting into mischief to Owl anyone.” Ron attempts joviality, and Harry manages to grin in response.

“They do have quite a legacy to live up to - minus the evil Dark wizard part, of course!” he jokes back.

“If I know the two of you, you're giving them tips,” Hermione inserts, with a touch of her trademark asperity. “You won't believe what I've caught George trying to send Rose. I would think that both of you would have had enough trouble to last you a lifetime, but you're trying to have it vicariously through your children!”

“For the love of Merlin, Hermione,” Ron puts in. “Give it a rest. You just aren't happy, unless you're harping on someone about something!” He takes a long quaff of his ale, and Harry watches the hurt flash briefly in Hermione's face. The remark wasn't exactly rude, but there is something in Ron's tone that concerns Harry… apathy toward his wife.

His eyes trip from Hermione's face to Ron's. He wonders how long they have been having trouble - and how much his two friends are concealing from him.

The waitress arrives to take their orders, bringing them both a tankard of ale as she does so. They order without too much interest - nobody seems to have much of an appetite anymore. They are here for the company, not the food.

Or they usually are anyway, Harry reflects. Tonight seems very stilted and awkward. He is all too conscious of the strikingly beautiful woman beside him, and he can tell from the Weasleys' tense posture that they'd rather be anywhere else. He knows that their friendship is something that he can always depend upon, but Hermione and Ron just look fatigued, weary as if they are at the end of some rope and tired of clutching it.

“Are you okay?” he blurts suddenly, directing the question at Hermione, and startling everyone at the table. Ginny sets her mug down on the table with too much force, and ale slops over the rim.

Hermione titters a high, false laugh of surprised bewilderment. Silly Harry!

“Of course, Harry, never been better. You've certainly got more than enough to deal with, without unnecessarily worrying over me.” Her eyes seem to be pleading with him - please don't do this here, don't ask me here, I can't…

Ron is watching him intently, and Ginny is as rigid as a wire. Harry's eyes trip between the three of them, his gaze ricocheting uneasily. Why did I even say that? He wonders.

“It's just - I - I'm sorry, I guess I've overstepped,” he mumbles, trying vainly to find a way in which to extricate himself. “You look tired.”

It is true, and yet not true. She looks sad and pale, and there is a strain that seems to have been wrought into her bones, twisting and dwindling the forceful persona that he'd always known so well. It is as if the facade of domestic bliss is too much to continue to bear; she is staggering beneath the burden. There are shadowy circles beneath her eyes, like smudgy fingerprints, and yet she smiles at him.

“As if you could ever overstep, Harry,” she teases him. “My God, how long have we known each other?” The glint is back, but she cannot hide what she is trying to hide - not from him. “Work has been a bit crazy, but I'm holding up fairly well.” She holds her hand up as if taking an oath, well knowing his penchant for over-protectiveness. “I promise.”

Her smile hits him in the gut, looking a little more real this time, and for some odd reason, he feels like he has missed a step on one of Hogwarts' moving staircases. Ron still seems sullen, but as the refills of ale keep coming, he is able to carry on a reasonably civil conversation about Rose and Hugo, and they move on to the topic of some mad second cousin of distant Weasley ilk.

Ginny and Ron become animated enough in this discussion that Harry sees Hermione's face wilt again a bit, as if she's realized it is safe to drop her guard for a moment. He knows that a whispered hiss across the table will immediately draw the attention of their respective spouses, so he reaches out with one foot instead.

He doesn't want to kick her, so he moves slowly, finally feeling her foot, and sliding his ankle slowly past hers. She has on low heels, and he can tell by the slick way their lower legs brush that she is wearing nylons.

She jerks her gaze up to him, startled, and her fork clatters noisily onto her plate. She stammers a little, as Ron and Ginny glance over at the noise with moderate curiosity, and her fingers are trembling as she tries to pick up her fork. She is trying to be nonchalant. Ron is distracted by the approach of the waitress, and decides to order dessert.

Harry is a little concerned that he has upset her somehow, and he is not exactly sure why his nudging her under the table should have garnered such a response. There are two brilliant spots of color in her cheeks.

Now he's embarrassed her.

All he wanted to do was make sure she was okay.

I'm fine, Harry. He hears it ringing in his head softly, and it is his turn to be surprised. She obviously knows exactly what he'd been trying to do. He risks focusing on her face again,

Are you sure?

Her gaze drops again; for a long moment, she appears intensely interested in her shepherd's pie, and he thinks it is because she doesn't want to lie to him. He watches her for a moment, covertly, and then he gets a mental image of a favorite cafe of hers, with a question of

Lunch, tomorrow? floating in his mind.

He is left with one immediate thought: she has just invited him to lunch, in response to a question of how she is doing, which means that she is, in fact, not fine. Then there is also the fact that she obviously does not want to discuss anything about it in front of Ron.

He can feel the worried concern radiating out of his face, and he knows she can see it too. She is silently pleading with him to drop the subject, and he has never been able to refuse her anything, so he does.

Ron is still conversing with his sister, and Harry wonders at the walls that seem to crisscross their little booth. He remembers a simpler time, longs for the light-hearted laughter that used to punctuate one of these gatherings. He wonders if it has always been a cover for something else, something deeper and more painful.

Ron asks about the new Snitches. Firebolt has expanded their line, and these are supposed to be faster and fifty per cent more maneuverable.

She eats her shepherd's pie, and listens politely to the conversation, but it occurs to Harry that she has never before seemed so isolated from them all.

***

When he arrives at Gisele's the next day, she is already there, seated at a small table that is jauntily covered in a checked cloth, at the rear of the cafe. Her menu is closed, and a steaming cup of tea sits in a saucer before her.

“Hey there,” he greets her, trying to sound cavalier as always. His stomach is in knots though, and he is so afraid of what she is going to tell him, and wondering how he's going to react to her. You're crazy, he thinks to himself, as if he'd ever have trouble thinking of Hermione platonically.

“Hi yourself,” she responds with a quiet smile, and she seems to be taking her cue from him on how to behave.

He hesitates for a fraction of a second before perching uneasily on the dining chair, and giving his drink order to the waitress hovering nearby.

“So…” he says, drawing out the lone syllable, wondering how to bring up the topic, wondering what topic it is that they're meant to be discussing, sans Weasleys. “What was going on last night?” he finally asks, deciding to throw down the gauntlet and have done.

She doesn't beat around the bush - but then she never has.

“Ron and I are getting a divorce.”

His jaw swings open as if on a hinge. He has sucked in one great noisy gasp, and there appears to be no air left in the entire cafe. He cannot possibly have heard her correctly.

“W - what?” he finally stammers.

She lifts her shoulders and watches the steam curl up from her tea. You heard me, her gesture seems to say.

The silence is penetrating, deafening, smothering. For some reason, he thinks of his foot sliding past hers underneath a table.

“And you - you knew this last - last night? And you didn't say anything?” He winces as his voice comes out so incredulously that it cracks.

“What was I supposed to say? `Hi, how are the children? By the way, I'm divorcing your brother-in-law and your other best friend.'” Her voice is sarcastic, but then it softens. “It's been coming for quite some time, but I didn't know how to tell you.”

“I'm just - I'm just shocked is all. I - I had no idea that - I thought you - ” The guilt tears at him; she had been hurting, and he had been so wrapped up in his own sorry mess that he hadn't even noticed that anything was wrong. And now, even now, she is still watching out for him. He flounders for a moment, and finally says, “When did things get so bad?”

“I'm not even really sure,” she admits with a watery smile. “How pathetic is that? It's been dismal for so long that I just got used to it. After - after the war, I thought we'd just come through something traumatic, and it - it would take time for everything to settle down properly, and then … then things were okay for awhile. But you and Ginny had James, and - and Ron started pressuring for children, and - and I don't - I didn't not want children, but he - he - he should know that I'm not Molly Weasley, but I think he has always expected me to want to be…

“The children were enough of a distraction for awhile, but…” she shakes her head, grimacing at the thought of calling her children `distractions'. “Now that Rose is off at school, and Hugo will be soon… there's just this empty, empty house, and when we're not fighting, we're just silent, and - and I think I bore him, Harry. He wants to go out, and I want to stay in, and - and just be, but that's not enough for him. We both get so angry, and we say things we don't really mean, but - but how can it be good when I know that every interaction I have with my husband is going to end in screaming and name-calling and tears?”

She reaches the end of her composure, and dabs tears away with a serviette, looking slightly embarrassed and more than slightly guilty that she has unleashed all that upon him. For a moment, he is dumbfounded, trying to figure out how Ron can treat Hermione that way - when he would have hexed anyone else who did.

“So - so you're leaving him then?” he asks.

“He's moving out,” she says. Her fingers dance nervously around the delicate handle of her cup.

“So he knows?”

“It's been the only topic of conversation between us for the last nine days. He - he isn't happy, but he understands… I think.”

“Why now?” he wonders. “You've been with him for over nineteen years. Did something happen?”

She takes a quick sip of her tea, and he thinks it is to keep from answering right away. He notices with surprise that the waitress has brought his coffee, but he has no idea when she did so.

Hermione is looking teary again, and Harry is fearful, a knot tightening slowly in his stomach.

“Did - did Ron - did he do something to you?” he says slowly.

“It's not important, Harry,” she inserts quickly, as if to ward him off.

“Like hell it's not,” he retorts. “Because if he - ” he hesitates, trying to reconcile what Hermione is telling him with his own perception of enthusiastic, easygoing Ron.

“There - there have been other women…” she tells him slowly, and ludicrously, he is almost relieved, having been worried that Ron had hit her. His world has been so rocked off its axis by her announcement that he no longer knows what would or wouldn't be ridiculous. “Two that I know of, and - and maybe more…”

Harry puts his hands on the edge of the table, as if to push off of it and rise, but Hermione places a placating hand on his. Her skin is smooth and warm, where she has been holding her teacup.

“Harry, don't…”

“How could he - ?”

How could he hurt you? How could he lie to you? How could he throw away the best thing that ever happened to him? The thoughts careen through his mind so quickly that he isn't sure which one should be given voice first.

“He's - he's not like you, Harry. He's - he's always been insecure, never able to - to rest in my love, like you could with Ginny. He - ”

“I can't believe you're defending him,” Harry snorts.

“I'm divorcing him. That's hardly a defense,” she replies icily.

“Aren't you angry at all?” He is curious. “I'd like to hex him into next week just for upsetting you.” Upsetting you… he allows himself a sardonic smile at the inadequacy of the word.

“I was angry…at first,” she muses. “I felt betrayed, rejected - still do, a little. I've wondered why I wasn't good enough, what I'd done wrong.” She buries her face in her hands, for a moment, sighing, and then clasps her fingers together in front of her chin. “He says that I'm always picking at him, that he can't ever do anything right, that I can't ever let anything go, and he - he just wanted to - to feel … like `a man again'.” A small sob escapes her lips, but she represses the ones that want to follow. “And then I think that I've - perhaps I've been emasculating my husband the entire time we've been married, and I didn't even know I was doing it - and he - he found what he needed somewhere else, because he couldn't find it with me.”

He watches her for a moment.

“None of that excuses him, Hermione,” he says. “He chose you; he married you. He should - he - ” He can't put his finger on what exactly Ron should do, but he knows that Ron shouldn't be making Hermione feel this way.

“We're not like you and Ginny, Harry.” It is almost as if she is pleading with him to understand. “We never have been. It was always about the - the clash… whether in love or dissent. You and Ginny seem so steady, so settled, so … in sync with each other. Even in the good times, Ron and I never had that.”

Harry laughs into his coffee, and he is surprised at how bitter it sounds.

“Ginny and I…” he snorts, and then stops, not wanting to say more. This is supposed to be Hermione's time; he is here for her, to support her and listen to her.

But it is too late. She pounces on his words and tone and bitter laugh with mongoose-bright eyes.

“What's wrong?”

“It's plastic.”

Hermione is staring at him. He figures that it is in much the same way that he gaped at her when she told him of the divorce. Rather than being completely bewildered, though, a faint shadow of understanding glimmers in her dark eyes. She says nothing, but sips her tea without removing her gaze from him. She is waiting for him to elaborate, so he does.

“The whole bloody thing is plastic,” he repeats, a kind of impassioned fervor warming his tone. A swatch of dark hair falls across his forehead as he leans forward, trying to make her see what he sees, understand what he experiences. “Cardboard cut-outs… shiny, happy people… Inferi…”

Hermione's lips part in horror.

“Harry…” she breathes.

“To all appearances, there isn't a bloody thing wrong. She's this dazzling bit of arm candy whenever I need her to be. She waves and smiles and loves every minute of the attention. She's never failed to make me look better than I actually am. She knows exactly how I take my coffee and what kind of sheets I like to sleep on, and she never forgets an appointment or an engagement. The house is always immaculate, meals are fabulous, parties are a roaring success… but it's like she's this lovely…attendant, who's somehow forgotten that I'm a person, not a name. Sometimes we've exchanged barely five words in five days. It doesn't appear to bother her at all - and when I bring it up - when I bring anything up as a point of contention, she - she laughs, and says, `Harry, darling…' and changes the subject.” He mocks Ginny with air quotes and an over-exaggerated society sneer.

“There's nothing real there. I've found myself searching her eyes for some flicker of affection or attraction, a remnant of the way she used to look at me once, but it's just…”

“Plastic,” she finishes for him.

“Yeah,” he whispers on an exhalation.

They sit in companionable enough silence for a long while, as their beverages grow cold, forgotten. Hermione watches a succession of emotions parade across Harry's face and wonders if he is thinking the same things that she is: the children, how they will be affected by decisions made in a world where they largely have no control, what their friends and families think, and - above all - how they have fallen to this, they who were once the epitome of young, happy, ambitious, courageous success, the pinnacle of rising wizarding potential.

She knows that they had been happy once: all four of them. How and when had they lost it? Why hadn't they noticed that it was gone?

He drags his gaze up to meet hers again, and when she reaches across the table to sympathetically touch his hand, she has the feeling that she is reaching through the bars of a cell. Crazy, she thinks with self-reproach.

“I just…” he sighs, but cannot finish.

“I know.” She wants him to understand that she feels as hollow and breakable as he does, though maybe for different reasons. She doesn't give voice to the trite hope that they will weather this, as they have weathered so many hardships before.

She removes her fingertips from the back of his hand. His gaze is still far away, the green in his eyes looking like the bleakness of a distant moor.

His image wavers and shimmers before her, as she blinks back tears.

TBC

A/N: Well, here is a new one - perhaps something to tide everyone over, while I am wrestling with a very uncooperative “Shadow Walker”. This is a little different - will be five chapters long - and more “vignette-y” than plot-driven.

Hope you enjoy.

You may leave a review on your way out if you like.

lorien

-->

2. Smell

Senses

Smell:

The odor of the Burrow is always the same, an amalgamation of all things pleasant and homey: warm laundry, fresh air, lemon cleaner, baking bread, crackling fire, old books, and worn leather. Harry breathes it in as the door swings open, unable to hold on to all of his discontent here. This place has meant more to him than any other building in Britain, save Hogwarts perhaps.

“I'll just go give Mum a hand,” Ginny murmurs in his ear, and she flits off to the kitchen, her stylishly cut red hair swishing around her collar. She doesn't wait for any sort of acknowledgement on his part, but there is a curious flooding sense of relief that she is gone, even just temporarily. It surprises him, and he wonders how they have fallen so far, so fast - or has he just been unaware all this time?

He turns his attention to the bustle of the ramshackle and beloved old abode. Just as the place is rarely pristine, it is also rarely quiet. A new generation of largely ginger-haired mischief makers can usually be found in great quantities here, especially at family gatherings like this holiday dinner.

His eyes trip through the blurs of motion and noise - his own children have quickly dispersed among them. He spies Rose…and then Hugo. Ron is here then. He wonders whether or not Hermione is, and is not sure how either possibility makes him feel. Oddly enough, the first emotion that comes to the forefront is abandonment. He snorts at his own ridiculousness: as if Hermione has gone and left him to be married-to-a-Weasley all alone.

He nods to George, folded over on the sofa, explaining something - probably nefarious in nature - to two of Bill and Fleur's boys. Charlie and Arthur are discussing something in the Prophet that the older man has unfurled across his lap. In the kitchen, he can hear the clank and clatter of dishware. The laughing shrieks of more children filter in from the back garden. And almost as if his own thoughts have conjured him up, Ron suddenly appears in from outside, ambling through the back door with a lanky and casual almost-grace that suggests forever fifteen. He stomps the snow off of his boots, and unwinds his scarf.

“Harry…” he half-nods in acknowledgement. His hands are in his pockets, shoulders hunched up, ostensibly in defense from the cold and snow, but Harry has known him long enough to see through the put-on air. Ron's features are pinched and tense; he appears to be nearly all angles and corners.

“How's everything?” Harry asks, once he has moved close enough to his best mate to speak in a low tone.

“Mostly dreadful,” Ron says candidly. “Rose hasn't spoken to me since she got home from Hogwarts and found out I'd moved out.” His voice is sort of bleakly matter-of-fact. “We - we didn't want to Owl her about it and ruin her last days of term - seemed sort of cruel. As it was, she got a nasty shock once we got home.”

Harry nods sympathetically. He had noticed the awkward reunion at the station, and had steered his brood away from it on purpose, hoping to give everyone the time and space they needed to continue adjusting.

“How's… Hermione?” he says carefully, testing for conversational land mines. Part of him is still angry at the unfaithfulness, but the two men have never discussed it - indeed, Harry has no idea whether or not Ron even knows that he knows.

Ron heaves a great sigh that manages to go unheard in the cheerful babble of the house. Harry can smell melting caramel, and wonders if Molly has green apples as well.

“I reckon almost anybody'd know that better than I would.”

Harry shoots Ron a quizzical look.

“You haven't spoken with her?” His eyes darken with alarm as a thousand horrendous possibilities launch through his mind at light speed. “You haven't checked on her?”

“I brought the kids here, didn't I?” Ron laughs, but it is mirthless and brims with regret. “Believe me, she is not so shattered over losing me that she's any danger to herself. You've always worried about her too much.”

You've never worried about her enough, Harry thinks, but wisely chooses not to speak those words aloud. He has been trying his best to stay neutral in this conflict, a difficult task considering his numerous in-laws and to whose side they naturally aligned themselves.

“You know how she is - how she's always been,” Ron continues, speaking in an almost reminiscent tone. “She's got a persona for every situation - something she's researched and honed to perfection… dons them like bloody dress robes. There's Work Hermione and Mum Hermione and Hermione With A Cause. Turned On Hermione, now… there was an impressive one…when I got to see her, that is.”

“Good God, Ron, I don't - ” Harry pleads, feeling almost sick, as he thinks of the other women Hermione mentioned. He half-turns away, only to see Ginny come to a stop just behind him, proffering a goblet of a dark wine. Her teeth flash white, as he accepts the drink and leans down to kiss her cheek. Their movements are perfectly coordinated, but she moves away wordlessly. Absently, he watches the sashaying movement of her hips beneath the material of her green skirt.

We're like a bloody magazine cover, Harry thinks, and he has to tamp down a rising tide of raging despair. Ron is eying him curiously, and Harry has a fleeting worry that his best mate has noticed something.

“So I have to watch you ogle my sister, but you can't listen to me talk about my wife?”

“Ex-wife,” Harry corrects thoughtlessly, and then winces with Ron's flinch. “Sorry.” He takes a too-large gulp of the wine, and nearly chokes, clearing his throat awkwardly. “You were saying?”

“Hermione was perfectly cordial tonight, when I picked up Rose and Hugo,” Ron says. “She was brisk and efficient, and was dealing with me like she does with any unpleasant but necessary duty. We were friends once, friends for more than twenty years. And it's like - we were - I was an unwelcome stranger she found on her doorstep. It used to be my doorstep too!” Ron is frustrated and scared, and this change has obviously loomed large and all too real over him. He is like a child realizing that he has actually broken his favorite toy, and that it is irreparable. Harry almost feels sorry for him, until he remembers Hermione in the cafe, nervous, sad, fiddling with her teacup.

“P'raps you should have thought of that before you cheated on her.” The sentence comes out before Harry can stop it. Ron freezes, and color begins to rise silently in his face like mercury in a heated thermometer.

The warm smell of yeasty bread does nothing to stop the bile from rising in the back of Harry's throat, as he watches Ron with a half-wary, half-challenging gaze. In the kitchen, the oven door bangs, and there is an excited clamor from the Weasley grandchildren. The aroma of sugar cookies wafts into the room.

“She told you.” It is a statement of fact, not an inquiry, and it escapes through Ron's clenched teeth.

“Did you think she wouldn't?” The question is a gentle barb, subtly reminding Ron of Harry's historical closeness with Hermione.

“I thought she hadn't.”

“Because you're still alive?” His words are light, but he is both joking and not joking, and Ron knows it.

“In a manner of speaking,” Ron replies dryly. The two men measure each other for a moment. Ron seems to be assessing where Harry's ultimate loyalties lie. Harry is gritting his teeth, hoping to keep unwise words back, words that may severely harm, without doing any good at all.

“How could you, Ron?” He finally says, has to say. “If anyone - if anyone else had hurt her - you know - we'd do time in Azkaban to pay them back. We swore to protect her when we were all still kids ourselves. And you - the one - even more than me - you're the one who - ” His words are garbled, nearly incoherent in his effort to articulate the disbelief, the betrayal that he insanely feels on her behalf, while trying to stem his rising temper.

“You don't know how it was,” Ron manages to say evenly. “Merlin knows I'm ashamed of myself, but - but she - ” Both of his hands run backward through his hair, clenching briefly in frustration. “She has these - these preconceived notions tricked out in her mind of the way things are supposed to go… and - and when they don't - when I can't live up to them, she - oh, the nagging and the carping and the stony silences. You should try living with her. No one could ever survive up on her pedestal except you, anyway.”

Harry wants to argue with him, wants to point out any one of the myriad of times when he disappointed her, but something in Ron's words hits uncomfortably close to home.

You should try living with her.

A yearning surges up within him to have the opportunity to do just that, and it startles him badly. Ginny and her mother come out from the kitchen then, and Harry feels sure that his guilty impulse is parading itself across his shocked face.

“Couldn't you have talked to her? Let her know how you felt before just hopping into bed with whoever was convenient?”

His words are louder now; a little too loud, perhaps, as Charlie glances their way, and Ginny watches them, curiously and pensively tense. Ron's face is glowing. Chairs scrape across the scarred wooden floor, as the family begins to be seated. Delectable smells of roasted meat, hearty gravies, and steaming vegetables mingle deliciously.

“You can stand there and lecture me all you want to, Mr. Perfect Marriage,” Ron hisses. “It doesn't change the fact that Hermione, who can do no wrong in your eyes, failed at something, and that's what really chafes at you.”

“You have no idea what you're talking about, Ron,” Harry fires back, feeling backed into a corner. “I've never said I thought Hermione was perfect. But she didn't fail at this, she was sabotaged. By you.”

Mrs. Weasley is talking more loudly than necessary in an attempt to cover their angry exchange. The children are bouncing around the room like happy pinballs, scrambling to sit by their favorite cousins, and do not seem to have noticed anything amiss. Ginny crosses the room, and loops her arm through his.

“Come on, Harry. It's time for dinner,” she says, as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on. The smell of the food nauseates him. He pictures Hermione, sitting in her empty house, alone on Christmas Eve, and yanks his arm out of hers, more roughly than he intends. She stumbles a little, caught off-guard. The family is staring at him, and he feels the heat rise uncomfortably into his face.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbles at her. He cannot meet either her gaze or Ron's. “I'm not hungry.”

The front door has banged shut behind him, before he realizes what he is doing. The night is crisp and star-studded, serenely silent under its new blanket of snow. The air is cold, and burns his nostrils as he inhales. He hunches his shoulders against the chill, and thrusts his hands deep into his pockets. For a fraction of a second, he is unsure what course of action to take. Should he go back inside, pretend that everything is all right? Should he stay out here until he is numb, perhaps in every sense of the word, or until Ginny sends James out to look for him?

He looks over his shoulder at the homey little cottage, the clamor of the meal muted and distant, light spilling like honey out into the snowy garden.

He Apparates away.

***

She lifts wide, startled eyes to his when she opens the door. She is already dressed for bed, in comfortable, soft, knit pajamas, and her hair is scraped back into a haphazard ponytail. The scents of coffee and popcorn seem to hang in subtle clouds around her. Soft Christmas music is playing on the wireless, and he can hear the resonant sound of unfurling paper, as presents are wrapping themselves.

“Harry?” She stammers a bit, the what are you doing here coming across in the way she speaks his name.

“I'm sorry,” he apologizes, although he's not sure what for. Her eyebrows crinkle together.

“Why?”

“I - I shouldn't have come - you're all ready for bed, and - ”

“I'm fine, Harry.” There is soft amusement in her tone. She holds the door open for him, and as he slides into the house, he can smell the fresh shampoo scent of her hair. He spears her with a glance, and she challenges him with an almost arch look. “Isn't that why you've come? To check on me? To make sure I'm not sobbing all alone in my dark bedroom on Christmas Eve?”

He begins to feel discomfited. It sounds rather ridiculous when she puts it that way.

“Ron and I had words,” he blurts suddenly, and then she is concerned. Her fuzzy, red socks are barely peeping out from underneath her baggy pajama pants, as she shuffles across the room and turns off the wireless. Behind her, a bow ties itself jauntily atop a gift, forgotten.

“About me?”

The power of speech seems to have abandoned him temporarily. He nods, and she sighs.

“And then you stormed out, and came straight over here?”

Another nod. Another sigh.

“Oh, Harry.” It is the plea of a much put-upon mother.

“I just can't - I can't stand to see you in - I can't stand to know he - I - ”

“You can't protect me from everything, Harry. You can't shield me from life.” She pours him some coffee from the carafe on the counter, and hands him the mug. He cups it in his hands, savoring the warmth, and inhales the strong aroma; he imagines that the richness of it shores him up inside, fortifies him.

“I wish I could,” he says, in a heartfelt voice, and she smiles at him. “You've always been there for me - and now - now there's nothing I can do to make this better.”

“I'm a big girl, Harry,” she needles him gently. “I've been alone before, and this - this isn't your mistake to rectify, your battle to fight. I don't want you to - I don't want to cause problems in - with your - with the family.”

“You're my family too,” Harry counters stubbornly, sipping the coffee. “I would certainly hope that Ron doesn't think that's going to change - or Ginny either,” he tacks on as an afterthought.

Hermione sets her coffee down with a soft chink on the countertop.

“I don't want to cause problems,” she repeats, more firmly. She doesn't say `between you and Ginny', but Harry knows that's what she means.

“We've been best friends since we were eleven,” Harry snorts. “Why on earth would there be problems?”

They are silent for a moment, a long-ago jab resounding in both of their heads. Don't pretend as if you know anything about Quidditch… Ginny has always been edgy regarding Hermione's relationship with Harry, though the two marriages seemed to have tempered it somewhat.

“Well, Ron is her brother, Harry,” she says matter-of-factly. “It's only natural that the Weasleys will side with him.”

The detached way she pronounces the surname stabs at him; she has already assumed the mantel of an outsider… no longer one of them.

“You're still the mother of our nephew and niece. Still the mother of Weasley grandchildren,” Harry points out. “That won't change.”

She sighs a bit in concession of his point, and directs the wrapped presents into position under the tree. Her wand arcs gracefully through the air.

“I even got him something,” she says in a non sequitur. “Stupid, isn't it?”

“It's not stupid at all,” he dissents softly. “You were married for fifteen years.”

She tries to force her trembling lips into a smile, and shuffles to the armchair, sitting abruptly in what could nearly be called a collapse. She slumps forward, folding over onto herself, and an escaped segment of hair swishes past her cheek, blocking her face.

“I miss him.” The admission is so quiet and breathy that Harry almost doesn't hear it at all. He moves over in front of her, and kneels down, clasping her warm hands in his. He tucks the recalcitrant locks behind her ear, so he can see her, so she can see how much he aches for her, how readily he would ease this burden for her, if he could.

“Of course you do. You can't just…erase…the years you had with him.”

She is just barely touching the backs of his hands, her fingertips like feathers, whisper-light, but she is not looking at him. Even though they are so close that he can detect the cinnamon in the coffee she was drinking, her gaze is distant.

“I wonder…” she muses. “If I've - I've gone about everything the wrong way round. If I just wanted so badly for Ron to be what he's not, that I never - I never appreciated what he was.”

“You want to reconcile with him, then?” His voice stays casual, but something inside him twists at the words, at the thought that she would take Ron back. He cannot identify why this would be so profoundly disturbing.

She smiles at him a little, and shakes her head.

“It would never work. Maybe we shouldn't have ever - but then we wouldn't have the kids, and - well, they're worth all of it, really. We might be happy again - for a while - but it wouldn't be long before we fell back into our old routine, the yelling and the slamming doors and the - God, the things we've said to each other.” Her head droops down into her hands again.

The heavy silence is smothering, and Harry inhales a deep breath through his nose and teeth.

“You should come back to the Burrow with me.”

She doesn't raise her head.

“Don't be stupid, Harry.”

“You're family,” he reiterates. “You were family before the ring and the piece of paper, and you're family still. And if they can't see that, if they can't see how - ”

He stops suddenly. She has lifted her head, and is gazing at him, eyes shiny-wet with unshed tears, lashes stuck together in starry points. He isn't sure how he was planning on completing that sentence, but somehow, he is certain that it would have been ridiculous and dangerously revealing.

Revealing what? That you're alone in this house on Christmas Eve with your best friend, and she's divorced from her husband and you're disenchanted with your wife, and you need to haul arse out of here before you do something really, really stupid, a snide inner voice says in one panicked breath.

“Thank you, Harry,” she murmurs, her voice raspy and tear-clogged.

“For what?” he asks, having become thoroughly separated from his train of thought.

“For saying that. It means a lot, really. And even when you can't see me as much anymore - or if you don't - I mean, I'll know that - ”

“You will always be my best friend, Hermione, even if you divorce a thousand Weasleys.”

She laughs then, and he is glad. He stands up, disengages his hands from hers, and backs away, groaning in chagrin over the creaking in his knees. When he reaches the front door, he stands with his hand on the knob, at a loss, knowing he should leave, but desperate to stay, here - with her - in this quiet haven, where he feels like a real person again.

And something like that must be evident in his face, and he is able to tell the moment she recognizes it for the potential it has. He sees her eyes widen and her lips part slightly. Her hands tremble, and the coffee cup that she has just picked back up slips from her fingers and shatters on the hardwood floor. Coffee blooms across the floor in an abstract splatter.

“Oh, look what I've done,” she complains, but her voice is high and uncertain.

“Let me help you get that,” he offers, but she turns him down.

“No, no,” she says, too fast. “I'll clean it up.” Even as she speaks, she has mopped up the spill with a swish of her wand, and the chunks of ceramic are realigning themselves. “You should go.”

There is a double edge in her words, a warning in her dark eyes. He knows that she has become aware of this newly-born, nameless thing, arising nebulously from the ashes of his disintegrating relationship with Ginny, and that she is afraid, afraid of what ruin may come, where the ever-widening ripples of her wrecked marriage may lead them all.

“Yeah, they're probably wondering where I am.” He deliberately misunderstands her, keeps his words light, even though he is lying. He is sure that Ginny and Ron, at least, know exactly where he is.

She follows his lead.

“Thanks for stopping by,” she says brightly. “Happy Christmas.”

He looks as if he'd like to say one more thing, but decides against it, forcing a smile in response to her well wishes. After one final hesitation, he grips the door handle and wrenches it open, plunging through the gap like a cliff-diver finally leaping from the precipice, and shutting it decisively behind him.

He lingers on the stoop for a moment, his hand still clenched tightly around smooth metal, his face so near the door that the piney scent of the Christmas wreath fills his nostrils.

There is silence from inside for a moment, and then she has turned the wireless back on. He reluctantly unwinds his fingers from the door knob, and clomps down the steps, thinking to himself that the smells of coffee and popcorn will never again separate themselves from thoughts of her.

TBC

A/N: I was very excited by the response to this little story. I was sort of partial to it, and liked that it was more “sensory” than action. I hope you liked this next installment too. The chapters are shorter and simpler (trying to keep it to 2 scenes per chapter), so it should be updated fairly quickly.

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like!

Cheers,

lorien

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3. Hearing

Senses

Hearing:

“Ginny, I want to talk to you,” Harry says, hoping his deep breath dispels some of the trembling uncertainty in his voice, as he steps into their dining room. Sunlight is pouring through the arched window, adding a high gloss to the antique furniture and glinting blindingly from the facets of the ornate chandelier. His wife is giving instruction to one of their house elves - freed, of course - while a clipboard hovers in midair, quill racing across it without a writer. Over on the enormous sideboard, there is a chorus of metallic rings and rattles, as the silver polishes itself.

“Of course, sweetheart,” she says automatically, eying the clipboard critically. A swirl of her index finger sets the quill in motion again. “But the Wizengamot convenes in fifteen minutes. It'll take you at least that long to get through the traffic in the Atrium.”

“It can wait.”

Something in his tone snags her attention now, and she turns more fully towards him, dismissing the elf.

“Is something wrong? Was it the quiche? That was a new recipe, but Hannah recommended it, and she's such a good cook that - ”

“Ginny!” He almost-shouts, interrupting, and the name echoes cavernously off of the vaulted ceiling. She stops speaking, wide-eyed, and waits. “Have I really been that much of a monster?”

“A monster?” She doesn't understand, and lets out a little laugh, confused. “Of course not, Harry. What are you - ?”

“We haven't spoken in three days, except for your telling me where we're supposed to be when. And when I finally come in to talk to you about something, you immediately assume I have a complaint about lunch?”

She is flustered, and she grips the back of a dining chair, absently running her fingers along its carven back.

“I'm sorry. I - ”

“For God's sake, Ginny! Stop apologizing for every bloody thing!”

She freezes, stricken. He can see the muscles in her slender neck convulse, as she swallows, struggling for control. His hands are shaking, and he tucks them away in his pockets, unnerved by how deranged and desperate he sounds, wondering if he will actually be able to go through with his plan.

“What happened to you?” he asks, and his voice is a hoarse whisper, scraping at his tongue and palate on its way out.

“Happened to me?” She echoes him with incredulity. “Harry, it's the Equinox. You know the Wizengamot won't meet again until Midsummer. They'll all - ”

“Sod the Wizengamot!”

“Harry, it's irresponsible…” but her last word trails off, and is nearly incomprehensible, as if her reasoning is half-hearted and without teeth. He has disconcerted her badly.

“You used…” he begins, smiling crookedly at her, and then stopping as his voice cracks on the word. He starts over. “You used to - you were this spunky little thing, once you finally stopped being Petrified around me. It's what drew me to you at first. You'd seen me at my worst, and liked me anyway. You gave as good as you got - how could you not, growing up with Fred and George and Ron? You used to tell me when I was being a prat. We were - we - remember that first flat we lived in? Do you remember the night when that bloke's bathtub overflowed, and leaked all over our ceiling? We thought we'd just gotten it under control, when my spell overloaded, and all that soggy paperboard stuff came down on top of us - and we just stood there, drenched, laughing…”

“You were cursing a blue streak,” Ginny corrects him dryly, and then sighs. “Harry, why would you want to remember that rat hole? I hated it.”

He sighs. She is missing his point.

“It was - it was simpler then. We were just Harry and Ginny then. You and me against the world. No political aspirations, no life in the public eye - ”

“You've always been in the public eye.”

“But we used to tell the Prophet it could sod off. Don't you remember that? Remember the night we got drunk and jumped in the fountain?”

“The night we got engaged,” Ginny says dully. “It was on the front page. I was so embarrassed.”

“But you weren't sorry you did it, were you? Were you?” he prods.

“Not then,” she admits, drawing her words out grudgingly.

“So what happened to us?”

“Because we don't jump into fountains anymore? Because we wanted to live in a nice country house, instead of in a walk-up tenement? We grew up, Harry.” There is the barest hint of acid in her voice.

Harry throws his hands up into the air in exasperation, and walks in a small circle to vent excess energy. The heels of his shoes clump hollowly on the polished wooden floor.

“I'm not saying we should run around acting ridiculous. I'm saying we used to live life on our own terms, not anyone else's. We didn't worry about what anyone said; we didn't worry about what headline the Prophet was going to print next.”

“The public's perception of you is important, Harry. You may not have asked for it, but you are the Boy Who Lived, and you always will be. As a symbol - ”

“I'm not a bloody symbol, Ginny! I'm a man!” The last sentence actually is a shout now, and the panes in the picture window rattle just a bit. “We may have grown up, but somewhere along the line, you became my manager - my - my PR person - and you stopped being my wife.”

That stings her, and she is blinking back tears. Her hands are clenched so tightly around the top of the chair that her knuckles are white. Perversely, he is glad to see any kind of emotional reaction from her, even a negative one.

“I've always - ”

“We painted James' nursery together, remember? Just us. I stepped in the paint tray, as I came off the ladder.” Vague amusement tints his voice with warmth. And yet, the remembrance of past oneness pains him, makes the aching absence of it now all the more noticeable and agonizing. “It took us two hours of Scourgifying the new carpet to clean up the shoeprints.”

“It was like a little Quidditch pitch,” Ginny says dreamily, a wistful smile making her look even younger. “He had a mobile made out of Snitches.”

“Last month, did you paint the parlor that color because you liked it, or because that was what the decorator said to do?”

“With all of the dark wood, she said that it would highlight the - ” She stops abruptly, as she realizes what she's said. He presses his point.

“It's as if your goal is to make sure that people approve of us, that we dress and behave appropriately enough for the cover of Witch Weekly. It doesn't matter whether or not we're happy.”

“I am happy. And I want you to be happy,” she vehemently protests against his claim. “Aren't you happy?”

He makes himself meet her gaze, and when he doesn't speak up right away, he knows that she knows what his answer is.

“I'm not.” His voice breaks a little on the words. He wants to stagger under the burden of the heavy, heavy silence that ensues, but he manages to remain upright.

She sucks in a sharp breath at the implications, and slumps over the chair, clearly using it as a crutch to keep herself from completely collapsing. She has always worked to stay fashionably thin, but here, she seems all shoulders and bony joints underneath her jersey dress, as exquisitely wrought and as breakable and fragile as an ice sculpture.

“What can I do?” She is grasping for a modicum of control. He half-expects her to begin scrawling notes on the clipboard.

“I don't know, Ginny. I don't think this is something that can be solved with a Floo call to the right people, or - or a consultation with - with some expert. You've - you've given me everything I've ever wanted, but - but not the things I needed.”

“Why - why didn't you say something before?”

Frustration causes a swear word to bubble out from between his lips. Ginny appears to be studying the pattern in the expensive Oriental rug with intense interest. He can hear the high-pitched babble of the house elves bustling about the adjacent kitchen, cleaning up from lunch, with the rush of running water and the gentle clang of pots and pans meeting his ears.

“I've tried. I've lost count of how many times I've tried. Even today, when I first brought it up, you tried to hustle me off to the Council meeting.”

“Well,” she manages briskly, after a long sniff, blinking back tears. Her management mask is settling back into place; Harry can almost see it meld into the bone structure of her face. “Now, you've told me, and now I know. Now I can fix things. I'm glad we talked.” She waits a bit, and then offers tentatively, “If you hurry - ”

“I want a separation,” he says quickly, the words falling over each other in his attempt to push them out before he loses his nerve. “I want to move out.”

“But we've only just discussed - you haven't even given me a chance to - ”

“I think it's too late for that, Gin.” There is terrible solemnity in the short sentence. His voice is gentle, regretful, and he forces himself to maintain eye contact.

Her knees actually do buckle then, and he finds himself suddenly beside her, hooking his hands beneath her elbows, helping her to remain standing. He feels horrible, almost sickened by himself, like someone nasty and selfish, who has everything, and still cannot find it within him to appreciate it, to be happy. Ron's going to kill me, if Bill doesn't beat him to it, he thinks.

“Oh - oh, Merlin, I - I can't - I - ” She is speaking in queer, catchy little gasps. One hand is splayed across her sternum, as if she is making sure her heart is still working.

“It's only a trial - only to - only to see - ” he finds himself saying, even though he knows it is more than that. Finality is more than he can do to her right now, even if false hope is cruel. He is not sure she believes him anyway.

“Do - do you know what people are going to think… what - what they're going to say? What is this going to do to my family? To the children?”

Her singular possessive irritates Harry, as does the order in which she lists her concerns. He moves away from her.

“If you had only reversed the order of what you just said,” he says, shaking his head. She has made him doubt his decision, but his determination flares anew. “`Your' family has been my family for over twenty years. Ron was the very first friend I ever had. If you think that I haven't thought about what this does to them, that I haven't agonized over this for months… then you really don't know me at all. And the children - they're the most important people in the world to me, and that isn't going to change. I plan to just as accessible and available to them as I always have been. I know - I know it's not going to be easy for them, but - but if we - if we make this amicable, as much as we can - then - ”

“Is there someone else?” She asks, suddenly, and he stares at her like she has just sprouted a Snorkack's horn; it takes him a moment to realize what she means.

“No. No! There's no one else - there's never been anyone else.” Hermione flashes through his mind briefly, and he thinks guiltily that what he said is, at least, mostly true. “It's not about that.”

“I know - I understand - that - that with celebrity, it might be harder to - I mean, there would be opportunities…” Ginny's eyes are innocently wide; she sidles toward him, keeping her tone placating, trying to offer him forgiveness for uncommitted sins.

“Bloody hell, Ginny! You really are unbelievable! You would really rather think that of me, than shoulder any of the blame for this? Would it make you feel better if you could go crying to the Prophet about being the wronged wife?”

“Of course it wouldn't,” she mutters, bracketing her forehead with one hand. “Nothing could make this any better. I just thought - ” She seems to consider her options, whether or not her thoughts should be given voice. In the family room, there is a series of musical chimes indicating an incoming Floo call. They both ignore it. The distinctive crack of elf-magic snaps from the kitchen, as one of them goes to take a message.

“Tell me, Ginny, what did you think?” There is light sarcasm in his voice that he is not quite able to edit out fully. She takes a deep breath, seeming to gird herself up for what she is going to say next.

“Well, you seemed fine with everything - with the way things were - until - until Ron and Hermione - ”

“You think that Hermione and I - ?” The righteous indignation in his tone is believable, although her words do hit him a little too close to home. He has seen Hermione only twice since Christmas, and both times the visits were awkwardly and carefully cordial. Ron had been easier; Harry had apologized for his behavior on Christmas Eve, and the two best mates had been able to nimbly avoid any further use of their marriages as topics of conversation.

“No. I don't think you'd do that to Ron,” she says pointedly, making sure Harry realizes that she did not say, I don't think you'd do that to me. “But I do think you might have talked to Hermione - you two have always been as thick as Slytherins - and maybe together, both of you realized what a perfectly brilliant idea it was to sever ties with these terrible Weasley spouses once and for all.” Bitterness drips thickly from her voice like venom.

“Ginny - ”

“Did you talk to her about it - about us - before it ever even occurred to you to let me know that something was wrong?”

“I - ” Her eyes are piercing, demanding the truth, and Harry can't help but think that she does deserve that, at least. “Yes,” he finally sighs.

“Get out.” The ultimatum comes before the sibilance of his admission has even died in the acoustics of the room. Her words are quick, sharp, fired at him like two expertly aimed projectiles.

“Oh, I'm going,” he assures her, his temper flaring up to match hers. “But - ”

“Yes?” She arches her eyebrows impersonally, and Harry suddenly understands what Ron had said at Christmas about Hermione's business-like manner with him.

“Hermione had nothing to do with any of this. This is our mess, our failure. No blame needs to be placed on her - or on anyone else. I just want to make sure you understand that.”

“You always do look out for her, don't you?” Ginny's statement is acrid, and Harry feels his nostrils flare, as he meets her gaze evenly. Perhaps he deserves that, but he has had enough. He feels a sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to wash away his problems with Firewhiskey.

“I'll Owl you about letting the kids know - Merlin knows we'll owe them a face-to-face explanation - and I'll send Dobby to get my things,” he says shortly, turning on one heel and making for the Apparation point at their front gate. As he crosses the threshold, he hears one small, harsh sob, obviously torn from his wife against her will. There is an almost infinitesimal check in his gait; his eyes close briefly, as his stomach clenches in self-recrimination and loathing.

He is nearly down the front path, when he hears the sound of something - several somethings - shattering in quick, explosive succession. He wonders if it is their wedding china. A kind of wistful satisfaction wells up in him then, as he remembers the firebrand that Ginny used to be.

There's my girl.

***

Harry has lost track of exactly how long he has been sitting there, crunched into half a person - feeling like half a person - elbows on knees, forehead resting on the smooth, flat wooden back of the pew in front of him. The cool, gray interior of the church is soothing; the silence so intense and total that it is nearly audible. It seems to coat his skin like a tangible presence.

“Are you all right?” The voice, with a kind of muted resonance there in the empty church, surprises him. He jolts noticeably, and casts a wary look over one shoulder. Recognizing the voice and verifying its owner's identity does not help him relax.

“For now,” he hedges, and sits up, scooting further down the empty pew, allowing his father-in-law to take a seat.

“I'm not here to cast any Unforgivables, Harry,” Arthur chuckles slightly, but there is regret lurking beneath. He leans into the corner of the pew, and stretches his other arm along the back. The wood creaks in protest at its joints.

“Did - did Ginny tell you - ?” Harry swallows noisily, almost afraid to hear the accusations and recriminations that are surely coming from the man he has long looked on as a father.

“Not in so many words. She came barreling through the Floo with Lily, all soot and tears, collared Molly…” The older man mimes tackling someone. “…and then Silencioed the kitchen. She was - she was pretty much hysterical, Harry. Nothing she said even sounded like English, even before the spell went up.”

Harry understands what Arthur is doing then. He is giving Harry the opportunity to give his side of the story, to explain things without fear of bias.

“Who has Lily?” He asks first.

“She's with George.”

Harry inclines his head a bit in acknowledgment, then clears his throat. The sound bounces around the house of worship, and Harry fixes his gaze on the flickering candles scattered throughout, hoping to find some kind of inspiration. Colored light, dyed from its journey through the stained glass windows, is splashed about the stone floor.

The filtered sound of outside traffic barely reaches them; Harry ponders with a kind of detached amazement that people are still going about their business, absolutely ignorant of the state of his marriage, but knows that it can't last. He wonders if he could just stay in here forever. Sanctuary! He thinks of the Hunchback in the old story. Despite his careless front to Ginny, he is aware of his status as a “hero” and role model, and he has consciously striven to live up to it. He feels as if he is letting everyone down in one grand and dramatic gesture. At least I'm efficient, he thinks grimly.

“I'm moving out,” he offers abruptly, and then waits, not knowing what else to say. He is surprised by how much it hurts. Arthur sighs and nods, as if Harry has given him confirmation. “I'm sorry. I know this - I - it makes it hard - I never wanted to hurt Ginny, but there was - it had gone on long enough. We're like strangers… or - or employer and staff. I - I think it's really over.” Again, he is caught off guard by the physical pain the admission brings him, like a fist in his gut.

“I can't think how I - how I misjudged everything so badly, how it - we were happy once.” He turns almost pleading eyes to the Weasley patriarch, as if he needs someone to validate it, to prove that he has not, in fact, imagined his erstwhile ease with Ginny. “How can I not pinpoint when it was lost? Why didn't I realize it when it happened? Didn't I miss it? Or did I never even have it in the first place - just an illusion?”

“Ginny was ten when she met you at King's Cross,” Arthur says. “She was already eager to go to Hogwarts because of her brothers, but - but after she met you, it was all she talked about.” Harry shifts in the pew, uncomfortably. Ginny's schoolgirl-dream-come-true has been a frequent topic at Weasley gatherings. “Molly was thrilled when you and Ron became friends - I think, even then, she was hoping…” He sighs gustily. “I'm not saying that you didn't - or don't - love Ginny. I think you did - maybe still do, on some level. But ever since you were introduced to the wizarding world, you've had to shoulder all these expectations… and you've always fulfilled them to everyone's highest standards. Falling in love with Ginny was expected of you…marrying her was expected of you.” He lifts his shoulders slightly in a voila gesture. “And so you did. Got rid of Voldemort, married your best mate's sister, and everything's wrapped up all nice and tidy.”

The misery in Harry's eyes is all too apparent.

“I'm sorry, son. You'd been through so much in those days, and - and perhaps we burdened you with our dreams and desires, without even realizing it.”

“Arthur, I was legally an adult. I'd been making my own decisions for years. I wanted to marry Ginny. I just - somewhere along the line, we changed. She - she can't see past the image anymore, and I - I'm tired of trying to catch her attention.” He finishes lamely, feeling soul-weary.

“Had you up there long enough, has she?”

“Sir?” Arthur's inquisitive observation has astonished him.

“On your pedestal,” he answers. “I can understand, Harry. It makes me - makes me ache for my little girl, but I do understand.” Arthur's voice creaks a little, and it reminds Harry how much his father-in-law has aged since the loss of one of his sons with the end of the War. A warm rush of gratitude flows through him.

“Thank you, Arthur,” Harry says. “I was afraid - ”

“Of course, you - you understand that we'll - we'll have to be looking after Ginny right now, supporting her in all this - and - and the children, of course.” Arthur sighs again, shaking his head slightly. “First Ron, and now Ginny…”

Harry can discern what Arthur is not saying. He is on his own. Perhaps, given enough time, the wounds might heal, but - no offense to Harry - the Weasleys' first priority is to their own. He thinks of the Burrow at Christmas, the happy glut of people tumbling over one another, voices and goblets raised, and feels as if he has been shut up under the stairs once again.

“I've - I've already gotten more than I thought I would with just your understanding. I - I certainly don't want to cause Ginny - or anyone else - undue hardship, given everything that's already happened.”

Arthur smiles at him, and it is a real smile, and this both heartens and hurts Harry. The older man grips Harry's shoulder with the hand extended along the back of the pew, in a gesture of support. He seems sorry that he can't do more.

“How did you find me?” Harry wonders suddenly. He supposes that it wouldn't a masterful deduction, to search for him here at the church where he and Ginny were married, but he is surprised that Arthur thought of it.

“I Flooed Hermione,” is Arthur's simple answer, and it knocks Harry's world -misaligned as it is - even further awry. He hears himself laugh, and it is a pathetic and nearly hysterical sound, coupled with a wheezy breath from his lungs and a tense knot in his stomach. He is leaving damp fingerprints on the back of the pew in front of him, where he is clenching it.

It is so like her to instinctively know where he'd gone - he wonders if she came to this place too; she was married here only eight months after he was - and yet it startles him at the same time. He is not sure why, afraid to analyze it too closely, but hope is faintly gilding the horizon of his despair.

The aged wooden pew creaks again as Arthur rises. Another squeeze of Harry's shoulder, warm and comforting with latent strength.

“I'd best be getting back,” Arthur says softly, and Harry takes a stricken moment to appreciate this as the end of an era for both of them.

Up in the belfry, the clock melodically chimes the hour.

TBC

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4. Taste

Senses

Taste:

His children range opposite him like stair steps: three heads, two dark, one ginger; two bent contentedly over strawberry ice cream, one pointedly looking as unhappy as possible. Harry shifts uncomfortably on the aluminum picnic bench, grateful for his Charm-tinted glasses, as the sun mercilessly glares off of the table's shiny surface. He squints down the pathway that leads to the reptile and avian houses, and wonders how much longer they must stay at the zoo to be able to call it a day. He stifles a sigh, and shoves the tip end of his own ice cream cone into his mouth, crunching it satisfactorily and enjoying the way the half-melted ice cream oozes through the cracks. The nutty flavor of the cone helps temper the almost cloying sweetness of the cream.

James is spooning the last liquid dregs from his cup, having made the decision that an ice cream cone was beneath his dignity and maturity. He tosses his utensil and container into a nearby waste bin without looking, and leans across his brother to playfully tug his sister's pigtail.

“Mind your cone, Lil,” he admonishes her. She is not fast enough for the warm afternoon, and her cone is dripping copiously over her already sticky hand. Albus nudges against James in irritation, and James leans in again just to annoy him further. “What's your problem anyway?”

Al's pointed look across the table is telling. Harry sighs, and swallows the remnants of his cone too quickly; the jagged edges go down his throat almost painfully. He stifles the urge to cough.

“What should we go see next?” he asks, determined to keep up the facade of a happy family outing, even as he feels a headache tightening its grip around his temples.

“C'mon, Lily,” Al says, as if Harry has not spoken at all. “Let's have a look at the snakes.” The taunt is not at all subtle, delivered with the heavy-handed cruelty of a wounded almost-teenager, but it still stings. Lily appears oblivious to the undercurrents of tension, and, standing, happily takes her brother's hand.

“We'll be right behind you,” Harry says, but drops his head forward into his hands, as soon as his two younger children have passed out of sight around a bend in the walkway.

“Al's being a prat,” James points out the obvious. “But he'll get over it.”

“Have you?” Harry asks him suddenly.

James does not answer right away, but after a moment of pondering, his head cocked slightly to the side, his dark hair a brushstroke across his forehead, he responds with an expansive shrug. “I - I dunno, Dad. I reckon I'd change it all back, if I could, but it's—it's not like …”

“Not like what?”

“Not…like I didn't see it coming,” James says hesitantly, then drops his eyes. Harry reaches for Lily's mostly empty cup of lemonade, more for something to do than because of any real thirst. He slurps noisily through the straw, but the drink is bitter and unsatisfying after the sugary ice cream.

“H—how?” is all Harry can get out.

“I don't know. `M not sure it's anything I would have noticed if things had just kept on going, but you - you started looking … twitchy. At the photo ops and things. Like you wanted nothing more than to bolt for the nearest exit and never look back.”

Harry is mildly surprised at his son's perceptiveness. It feels odd to be talking to him like he is an equal, even as Harry is aware that James is on the cusp of adulthood.

“I'm sorry, son. I can't help feeling that I've done you… and your brother and sister… a disservice, that perhaps I should have - “

“I want you to be happy, Dad. You've done so much… for everyone - and never asked anything for yourself. Al will come round…eventually.”

Harry sighs, and tosses Lily's cup into the bin as well.

“I wish I was as sure of that as you seem to be.” He hopes that any propensity for holding grudges that his younger son might have will not be a direct reflection of the Potions Master for whom he was named. “He seems to utterly hate the sight of me.”

“He's twelve,” James says, and the fond nostalgic tone in his voice, as he looks back from all of three years away, amuses Harry. “All twelve year olds think their parents are at least hopelessly out of touch, if not deliberately stupid.”

Harry ponders what James is saying. He could understand Al's behavior if `being twelve' were all it was. He and Ron could commiserate over the melodrama and overreaction that go part and parcel with raising teenagers. He sighs, allowing himself to briefly wonder if he and Ron will ever commiserate about anything again.

His best friend had launched one prompt Howler at him, after the news rippled with lightning-quickness through various Weasley channels, and Harry has not heard from him since, a time stretching to nearly six months now. Harry is still not sure whether or not he is relieved or dejected by this, but he does know that the absence of the Weasley clan has punctured something inside him, something that sends a poison dart of pain through him from time to time, generally when he least expects it.

He has not dared to seek out Hermione. He tells himself that he is not capable of analyzing anything involving his other best friend at this time. The times his mind skirts close to thoughts of her, he pictures her in her comfy pajamas and he can practically taste the bittersweet warmth of the coffee she poured for him on Christmas Eve. In this direction, there is danger, he reminds himself.

“Dad? Can I - can I ask you … something?” James jolts him out of his introspection, and the worried tone fully snags his attention. He raises his brows expectantly, and waits. “You … you won't get mad or anything, will you?”

“For asking me a question?” Harry's tone almost laughs off the prospect. “You know you can always - ”

“Did you cheat on Mum?” James shoves the words out quickly, before Harry can finish his sentence. For a moment of silence, broken only by distant birdcalls somewhere down the footpath, Harry is not sure he has heard his son correctly.

“What? Where did you hear that?” Harry sputters, belatedly realizing that he has not actually answered James' query.

“Richard had a copy of the Prophet… you know, the day after the - the story broke, and it - it said - well, something in that direction, and I - ”

“James, I took my marriage vows very seriously. I did not cheat on your mother, and I never would have.”

Relief floods James' face so quickly that Harry feels horribly guilty. The attitude of nonchalance has obviously been carefully crafted by his son, but inside is a boy just as undone by the divorce as Al. Thankfully, Lily seems largely unaffected, too young to realize the ramifications, perhaps, and too grateful for any time that she has with him to harbor grudges.

A thought occurs to Harry, and he poses his own tentative question.

“Has your mother said - ?”

“No - it was strictly that article, obviously rubbish. Mum is - she's - ” James face betrays the struggle for proper words. “She's trying to take the high road. And she's keeping herself busy.”

Harry thinks of Ginny, with her lithe figure, perfectly manicured nails, and hair aflame, ordering the house-elves about, making sure her shoes match her handbag, dashing off to this engagement or that.

“She's always been good at that,” he remarks, half to himself. His tone almost makes it out of bitterness, but not quite. He supposes that he is not really `taking the high road', and he darts an apologetic look at James.

“I think - I think she misses you.” James is tentative, but Harry can hear the unfurling, little-boy dream in his voice. “I wish - I wish that - ” His shoulders droop. “I know it's stupid, but sometimes I still hope…”

“James…” Harry sighs. He supposes he can understand - he certainly has had no real desire to get involved with anyone, and he can see how a child might hope that this is a temporary situation, some kind of colossal misunderstanding that might eventually work itself out. Even though his situation is no longer an estrangement - the ink on the divorce parchment has been dry long since - he can appreciate the feeble lost-cause kind of hope that seems to spring eternal, despite evidence to the contrary.

And it's not that he has no inclination to date anyone, he thinks ruefully, but that the one whom he might be inclined to approach is as untouchable as the moon - as Diana the huntress herself.

“You've - you've fought before…” his oldest son offers. Harry leans on one elbow to cup his son's shoulder lightly with his other hand. A small insect drifts down to sample a sticky patch of strawberry ice cream that Lily has dripped.

“This is - this is not one of those times,” he says gently. “Your mother and I are over. But we're always going to be linked… through you and your sister and brother. And we want to work together to raise you - just as we always have.” His words sound stilted, and he reflects that `working together' should be a term used somewhat loosely. He has not seen Ginny since the day the divorce was finalized, and they have generally corresponded through assistants and solicitors. He has been cut off from nearly everyone that ever used to matter to him, and something of his loneliness shows on his face. His son notices.

“It doesn't - it doesn't seem fair,” James admits, belying his earlier words and letting his true feelings glimmer through the cracks in his confident demeanor, and then flushes slightly at the unintended petulance in his voice. He peers up at his father through the dark fringe of his bangs. He has Ginny's eyes, rimmed by Harry's long lashes, and Ginny's jaw line, set rather mulishly at the moment.

“Son, you'll find that life isn't - ” Harry does not get the chance to finish the aphorism.

“You're the hero, right?” James plunges ahead, his voice raised slightly with emotion. “You saved the day; you get the girl. Everyone lives happily ever after, right? Isn't that how it's supposed to go?”

Yes, but there were two girls at the end, son, Harry thinks. What happens to happily ever after, if the hero chooses the wrong one?

***

Harry arrives back at his flat, exhausted physically and emotionally. He tosses his jacket over the arm of the sofa, and eyes his flat dispassionately. It is all black and ivory, stainless steel and sleek, clean lines: the personification of the wealthy, working bachelor. He has had neither the time nor the inclination to add any personal touches, save a couple of framed pictures of his children.

They seem to hate the place, of course. James and Lily tread lightly throughout, as one would when one is a guest in someone's home. They clearly have not begun to come to terms with the fact that, while `their' home is no longer `his' home, `his' home is sometimes `theirs'. Al makes himself almost too comfortable, sulking all the while, as if hoping that poor behavior will get him sent home. Harry has been sorely tempted at times, but has never done so - partially because he believes that it is what Al wants, and partially because he feels that Al's rudeness is something he has brought on himself, a penance he must pay.

He is still hot and thirsty from the trip to the zoo, and he moves immediately into the kitchen, reaching into a cabinet for the decanter of Firewhiskey and a glass. He dashes the liquor across ice cubes, and quaffs it quickly, appreciating the way it numbs his tongue and burns down his throat into his stomach. He tosses the ice in the sink, and drinks the next glass neat, as he opens the refrigerator, which is mostly empty save for a jar of mustard, olives, and a half-loaf of nearly stale bread.

He recalls a pair of steaks in the freezer, and pulls them out, casting a Defrosting Charm on them, as he decides to slow the drinking down and switch to butterbeer. A singularly good Marinating Charm later - he'd learned it from Molly Weasley, and this brings him a pang of sadness - and the steaks are on the broiler. He has finished his first bottle of butterbeer, Banishing it to the bin, and Summons a new one from the refrigerator without looking, as he pokes at the steaks with a fork.

Shattering glass startles him, as a fine mist of buttery liquid sprays his glasses and shirt-front. He has misjudged the trajectory, and the bottle has crashed into a small support column that separates the kitchen from the sitting area. He curses to himself, as he removes his glasses and attempts to clean them.

At the same time, his front door bursts open, revealing a concerned Hermione Granger, who is halfway through the room before she realizes that she has entered without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Harry, are you all right? I heard glass breaking.” She offers as an explanation.

“Misaimed Accio,” he replies succinctly. “Fancy seeing you here.” The tone is light, teasing, when in truth, he cannot believe that she is actually here, despite what his senses are telling him.

“I was just in the neighborhood,” she murmurs inanely, pretending not to know that Apparation has made that an obsolete reason for visiting.

There is more silence, not awkward exactly, but tentative, broken only by the sound of sizzling meat.

“That smells good,” Hermione remarks, at the same time that he says,

“There are two steaks on. D'you want to stay for dinner?” She laughs at their congruity, and he blinks at her, surprised at himself for so casually offering a meal. And why shouldn't it be casual, he wonders, we're best friends, have been for years.

Hermione does not answer right away, but has occupied herself by perusing his refrigerator.

“This is a disgrace,” she says. “Your icebox is empty, but your liquor cabinet is full.” She is dancing the fine line between teasing and serious.

“I've had a rough year,” he says bluntly, darting a disgruntled look at her.

“Haven't we all?” Her tone is cryptic. “I'll be right back.” She pops away with a suddenness that recalls their erstwhile comfort around each other. Harry tends the steaks, and tries to think of how he will carry on a normal conversation with her. He probably made his feelings about her laughably clear at Christmas, even though they are still somewhat nebulously defined to him, and now they are both… free - he hesitates to even think the word - in the eyes of the world, but not in the eyes of the Weasleys, or of their children. Indeed, to those parties, they may never been seen so. Their position seems dangerous, their status tenuous, and he eyes the precipice dubiously.

When Hermione arrives again, Harry has cleaned up the broken glass and the spill, and the steaks are ready. She drops a canvas tote bag on the countertop, and begins fishing items out of it.

“I can go grocery shopping,” he reminds her.

“I know you can,” she returns, just as snippily. But you don't is implied, but unspoken. “I didn't go to the market. I just popped back home and nicked a few things.” She withdraws the fixings for a salad, buttered rolls ready to be heated, and what looks like some kind of cream-topped dessert.

“You don't need to go to all this - is that Molly's vinaigrette?” He loses his train of thought as she removes a small ceramic, cork-stoppered carafe. She smiles at him conspiratorially, seeming to highlight their ex-Weasley status.

“I saved the last bit, and reverse-engineered it. I think I came pretty close.”

“I can't wait to try it.” His comment leaves his mouth in a completely innocent way, but it lands oddly in the room, and they both flush. Hermione clears her throat, and turns to set the table. Harry shifts his weight from foot to foot, and turns to retrieve a bottle of wine from the well-stocked cabinet.

When they are seated at the small round dining table, wine poured and food served, Hermione broaches the topic of how his children are doing. Bring up the divorce, he thinks ruefully, a sure way to head off the possibility of a burgeoning…well, anything. He is genuinely unsure whether to be irritated or grateful.

He sighs in response. “I don't know. Lily's all right, I suppose. James acts like he's fine, but today, I find out that he's secretly holding out hope that Ginny and I will get back together. And Al … Al has made it his personal mission to make my life as difficult as possible.” He smiles in a c'est la vie kind of way. “How about yours?”

“They're doing pretty well, all things considered,” she replies, taking a sip of her wine before continuing. Harry finds himself wondering how the red liquid would taste on her lips, and mentally shakes himself away from such thoughts. “They weren't as… blindsided… as yours were, I think. Ron and I - we - we fought a lot, Harry. More than you even knew. Rose and Hugo were upset, of course, but … in a way, I think they were almost relieved. Ron is - Ron is somewhat more tolerable in smaller doses.” Her smile is bitter over the rim of her goblet.

“How is Ron?” He asks; the ache of missing his friend is not unlike the pain of a missing limb, he thinks. He takes another bite of his steak, which he has not really enjoyed, despite the meat being tender and perfectly seasoned.

Hermione knows that he is referring to Ron, as he pertains to his and Ginny's divorce, without Harry having to say so.

“He was pretty angry at first. Ginny was in a bad way, and that upset him even more. He sent that Howler.” She seems almost sheepish. “I told him not to, but you know he doesn't often listen to me. He just - just doesn't mention you much. He seems sad, but matter of fact about it, almost like you've died quite some time ago or something. He sees the kids pretty often, and he has sought me out once or twice, but - ”

“Sought you out for what?” The words stomp clumsily over the rest of Hermione's sentence, and Harry is mortified.

She colors slightly, but laughs at him, sipping her wine with twinkling eyes.

“Not for that. Honestly, Harry! He just wanted to talk, to … reminisce, of all things. I think it was sort of his awkward way of reaching out… a cease-fire between us, as it were.”

Harry reflects that he'd like to crawl under the table and die, but instead, he stabs chunks of tomato and cucumber from his salad, and crunches on them vindictively. The vinaigrette explodes with tangy flavor on his tongue, and he lets out a groan of satisfaction.

“Hermione, this is marvelous!”

She squirms a bit under his praise, but demurs.

“It's probably not exactly - “

“When have you ever not been able to do something you set your mind to? It's delicious, Hermione, the best I've ever had. Molly Weasley wishes she could make something that tastes this good.” His praise is, perhaps, over-effusive, but he means every word, and is quite startled when he finds Hermione's eyes filling with tears.

“Did I say something wrong?” She half-laughs at the look of vague horror on his face, and then he understands. Ron has obviously compared her with his mother - possibly during the entirety of their marriage - and she has always been found lacking, always come up short. He feels a wave of disgust rising within him, and it is similar to the feeling he had when she admitted Ron's cheating to him.

“He was a fool, Hermione, if he never realized what - ” He reaches out to touch her hand, as he speaks, intent on offering comfort, support, but the moment the pads of his fingers make contact with the back of her hand, he loses his words completely. He is surprised that he does not actually see a blue arc of electricity shoot from skin to skin. Hermione's lips part, as she hisses air in through her teeth, and she instinctively withdraws her hand, as if his touch has seared her. The abrupt action knocks over her goblet, which topples onto the floor and shatters. The wine creates a bloody wound across the ivory tile.

“Dammit,” Hermione swears weakly. He gets out of his chair, and squats down to pick up the glass, over her mumbled sounds of protest. He does not know why he feels compelled to clean up the Muggle way, but perhaps it is merely to be closer to her. His hand rests on the edge of her chair to support himself.

“Harry - ”

“It's not a big deal, Hermione. I've got other glasses,” he replies laconically, thinking she is still talking about the spill. The tinkle of glass is almost musical, as he gathers it up and sets it in his empty bread plate.

“Harry, I don't know what to do.” That arrests his attention, and he looks up at her. For Hermione Granger, any admission beginning with I don't know is a feat in itself. She doesn't even have to specify; he knows to what she is referring.

“Neither do I.” His voice is rough with emotion in the near total silence of the room. His knees give out and sink down to the floor. He is grateful that he has not knelt on any glass, but he can feel the wine seeping through the knees of his trousers. “But I know us. I trust in us. I always have.”

Hermione's lips tremble, as he reaches up with his other hand to caress one wayward strand of her hair from her face. “Yeah…” Her voice is a wobbly almost-whisper, and her breath catches in her throat at his touch.

The distance between them closes, as he inclines his head upward and she leans down simultaneously. Harry's heart is pounding; his blood is roaring in his ears. He feels as ridiculous and giddy as a schoolboy, half-disbelieving that now - in his late thirties - he is going to do something he has never done before. He is going to kiss Hermione Granger.

The kiss is hesitant at first, but her lips are pliable and his are hungry. After a moment, her ardor rises to match his, and he discovers that the commingled essences of wine and vinaigrette are vastly different on her tongue than they are on his own. He draws her closer, and his fingers snag in her wild curls. The salt of her tears makes him slow down; his mouth moves over hers more tenderly, as if he can soothe away years of insecurity and fears of inadequacy.

“Harry…” Or does she say hurry? The word is an almost inaudible intake of air. He pulls back and drinks in the sight of her: her tear-wet cheeks, her well-moistened mouth, the way desire and apprehension war in her dark eyes. Desire… for him… his blood is like quicksilver in his veins, like lightning, like fire. He feels as if he has collided into her at Quidditch-flight speed and propelled them both over that precipice. He is drowning in her gaze, and he knows that there can be no going back - not for them.

The knock at the door startles both of them. Harry curses under his breath, and Hermione's fork clatters across her plate when her hand collides with its handle. The sharp sound has the effect of casting a Freezing Charm over the entire tableau.

“Who in the hell…?” He mutters, as he braces one hand on the table to get to his feet. He straightens his glasses, rakes one hand through his hair, and tries to regulate his breathing as he moves toward the flat's entry. He feels as if the imprint of Hermione's mouth is branded on his.

Ron is at the door.

Harry immediately arrests the door's motion, and tries to stand in the half-meter gap, leaning on the edge of the door with one elbow crooked near the top of his head. Ron's stance is mostly relaxed, and his ears are their normal hue, so Harry figures his erstwhile best friend is, at least, not spoiling for any kind of a fight… yet, he thinks.

“Ron?!” His voice is too loud and sounds exuberant rather than surprised. He winces at the way it almost thunders through the room; he is overdoing it. Ron crinkles his eyebrows at him in puzzlement.

“You blocked me from your Floo,” is all he says, although more as a statement of fact than in accusation. Harry lifts one shoulder.

“Instinct of self-preservation.”

“Could you blame me?”

“Maybe a little.” The pointed reference to their Christmas Eve conversation makes it Ron's turn to flinch.

“All right, I'm perfectly willing to admit that neither of us are saints here. Can I just come in and - ” He stops and rises up on his toes, as something over Harry's shoulder catches his eye. In another instant, he has brushed Harry out of his way, and fully entered the flat. Harry turns, and takes in the entire scene the way Ron would: the table set for two, the steak, the wine, Hermione looking thoroughly kissed and now - Harry sees - horribly guilty.

“Hermione?” Ron says, squinting at her as if she is someone he thinks he might have known once.

“Ron,” Hermione says primly, as she stands, clasping her hands in front of her and moistening her lips anxiously.

“So, this is how it is.” Ron's voice is almost natural, conversational, but Harry can see the banked fire flickering in the depths of his eyes.

“This is nothing, Ronald,” Hermione says. Harry thinks that she would be somewhat more convincing if her voice were in its usual octave.

“It doesn't look like nothing.” He still sounds normal, and it is making Harry nervous.

“She stopped by, and I invited her to stay,” he offers.

“For what?” Ron's eyebrows rise to his hairline. The innuendo drips from the edges of his voice.

“For dinner.” Harry's mounting indignation hones his voice into something sharp. Ron is taking this … this fledgling thing between him and Hermione and … sullying it, turning it into something secret and sordid and… He is only doing what everyone is going to do, thinking what everyone is going to think when - if - this ever comes out. But he is Ron, their Ron, and there was once a day where he wouldn't have been one of the maddened horde, cavorting with unholy glee once the hero has toppled from his pedestal. Perhaps those days are gone forever.

“How long has this been going on?” Ron's ire is starting to make itself known. Harry cocks an eyebrow at him.

“About an hour?” There is more truth to the statement than Ron knows; it has indeed been about that long since Hermione and Harry finally ceased dealing with hypotheticals and possibilities, when she came crashing through his door. Ron is assuming that Harry is insisting on referring to the meal, and gives him a dirty look.

“Were you - “ he turns to Hermione now, and gestures between her and Harry, “ - while we were still married? After all the grief you gave me about that one… indiscretion with Cecilia?”

“One indiscretion?” Hermione sort of screeches, while Harry says,

“You slept with my assistant?!”

“I'd say this trumps that, wouldn't you, Harry?”

“We haven't done anything, Ron! Do you really think Harry or I would have done that to you, to Ginny?” Hermione is pacing in small circles, her voice approaching ultra-sonic levels. Harry notices absently that the wine on the floor is beginning to congeal.

“I thought I knew both of you, but I was obviously wrong,” Ron says nastily. “Do you really think that the divorces mean things are over? Things will never be over long enough for the two of you to be together? Can you imagine Mum, Dad… Ginny ever accepting this? The kids? First cousins, now step-siblings? It's ludicrous, it's - it's like something out of a bad novel. The press will have a field day!”

Harry lets his eyes slide shut in weariness. Ron is verbalizing all of his own fears in one long, sputtering tirade. He can't even argue any of Ron's points, because he is horribly afraid that Ron is right; even though, in mentioning step-children, Ron is putting the carriage far ahead of the thestral.

“So you get to do what you want, right, Ron? Yes, Hugo told me about your letting that harpy from Hogsmeade `sleep over'. You can go out and start looking for what makes you happy, but I can't - I can't?” For the first time since he walked in, Ron looks more uncertain than angry.

“I didn't say that, Hermione. I - I just - ”

Hermione takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. Then she does something that surprises several years off of Harry's life. She takes a handful of steps, closing the gap between them, and tucks herself beneath his arm, wrapping that hand where her waist flares out to become her hip, and leaning onto his shoulder. He tenses up at the contact, and is more or less waiting for Ron to hit him, but he does not move away from her.

“And what if Harry makes me happy, Ron? What if Harry is what I want? What then?”

“The kids'll - ”

“I'm not asking about the children right now, Ron. I'm asking about you. If I'm standing here telling you that this is the way things are, are you going to be able to handle that?”

Harry is letting his cheek lean against the top of Hermione's head before he even realizes he's doing it. He is thinking of the way she felt and the way she tasted, and he wishes heartily that Ron would leave - indeed, that he had never come at all. Ron's eyes are darting back and forth between them, hands fisted into his pockets, looking for all the world like he is trying to process something that is unexpectedly upside down or backwards.

“No,” he finally says. “I - I - no, I can't. The two of you… together? Like that? Out of nowhere? If—if it were anyone else, I - but, no.” He almost looks apologetic, but doesn't quite achieve it. “And Ginny - Ginny will - ” He seems at a loss to describe exactly how terrible Ginny's reaction will be. “Nobody will believe that you weren't fooling around with each other before all this, nobody.”

Harry is still holding himself stiffly and uncomfortably, but slants a look down at Hermione's defiant profile, and suddenly wants nothing more than to snog her senseless. He looks up to meet Ron's eyes, and the odd look on his best mate's face tells him that something of that desire is showing in his face.

Hermione hitches a jagged breath, and lays her hand on Harry's, interlacing their fingers. He can tell from her stance that she is girding up everything within her that is Gryffindor.

“It won't matter what anyone else says or thinks,” she proclaims. “Because we know the truth.”

Ron's face is shuttered from them; he looks tired, weary, almost lost, as if the world as he knows it has suddenly revealed itself to be altogether different. Harry thinks that it might have been easier if Ron had hit him, or yelled, or thrown things. He finds himself musing with trepidation about what Ginny will do, what Arthur and Molly Weasley will do, what Al and James and Lily will do.

Ron heaves a sigh, his shoulders lowering as if the weight on them is too much to bear. Harry wonders if a hypocrite is worse than a traitor.

“I'll be at the Burrow, if anyone needs me.” Ron's voice is not threatening, but the promise is implied. Ron will be keeping no secrets. Hermione's soft,

“Oh God,” is lost amid the slamming of the door.

And they stand there, still touching, feelings newly realized and radically augmented, the memory of her kiss, her taste - heady and tart - still fresh in his mind, locked in the knowledge that - for good or ill - nothing will ever be the same again.

-->

5. Touch

Senses

Touch:

He ducks his head slightly to miss the edge of the low-hanging, striped awning as he passes under it. The metal of the door handle, smoothed by years of customers passing in and out, is cool under his fingertips. He leans into the door gradually, using first his hand, then his arm and shoulder, and enters the small shop. A tiny bouquet of Charmed blue bells tinkles delicately to announce his presence.

There is a redolent aroma in the air, and the entire atmosphere of the shop seems tinged greenly. Vines loop and arch around the walls and the beams of the ceiling in festoons. Plants adorn every conceivable surface. Upon racks of cut flowers, Harry can see the blue tint of a Chilling Charm. There are shelves and shelves of herbs, powdered, dried, and fresh, everything meticulously arranged and labeled. He drums his fingers against the polished surface of the tall counter where transactions are made, and waits on the proprietor.

“Harry!” There is welcome in the voice, and Harry turns to greet his old school chum.

“Hi, Neville!” The handshake is warm, and involves some shoulder clapping as well. “I'd like to place an order.”

“Of course, Harry, of course! It's good to see you again. It's been awhile, hasn't it?” Neville's voice is lively, as he unrolls the charmed cellophane wrapping and withdraws a few small vials of Nature's Essence Livelong Potion in preparation. “Flowers or herbs?”

“Oh…er, flowers.” Harry has been absently running his fingers along a knife scar in the worn wood. He tries to force himself to focus. “Sorry.”

“I think you had the arrangement of tiger lilies last time, eh?” Neville prides himself on never forgetting a customer's order. “You said they were the color of - sweet Merlin, Harry, I'm sorry.” He looks stricken.

“They're still the color of her hair, Neville, whether we're married or not.” The barb is gentle. Harry's friends have been treading gingerly around him, and, while he appreciates the reasoning behind it, he wishes they would understand that it is not necessary.

“So, what are we sending?” Neville asks briskly, deftly walking the line between businessman and old school mate. He already has parchment and quill ready; the pen's shaft is a feathery fern frond.

“Erm… something simple, I think… clean lines. Like… tulips maybe, or…” Harry looks down at the counter. His hands are shaking, and he jams them into his pockets, fingering his loose sickles and jingling them lightly. The coolness of the coins is quickly leeched away by his sweaty palms. “There were some white flowers that she liked - they were in her wedd - maybe that wouldn't be a good idea.” He is inwardly cursing himself as six kinds of a fool. He is being ridiculous, silly… like a child finally working up the nerve to pass a note to his crush. This is Hermione, he wants to scream to himself, she is bigger, more important than this nonsense. But he still worries, that what is acceptable behavior from Harry might not pass muster coming from someone in - in his new role.

“She does like the stargazers,” Neville remarks quietly, watching his friend with some amusement, and not a little compassion. Harry looks back at him, startled.

“What?”

“Stargazer… lilies. The white lilies in Hermione's wedding bouquet. Yeah, I'm not sure I'd send those.”

“I guess you've read the Prophet, then.” Harry's gaze has become more guarded. Neville slants a look at him, tapping the nib of the quill against the edge of the parchment.

“Reading it and believing what it says are not the same thing, Harry.” Harry supposes that Neville is right, and sighs. The Wizarding media has gotten him seeing betrayal over every ale tankard, in every owl, every friendly eye. “Unnamed sources” from places he frequents or who claim to know him well have made him more than a bit wand-shy.

Ron's departure from Harry's flat last month had set off a Weasley firestorm, as Harry had known it would. Even though Weasleys at their most irate are not generally in the habit of airing their dirty laundry out in the Wizarding media, the pressure of the inevitable Harry Potter-induced microscope had been enough to keep them rather more circumspect than usual. Besides, there had been plenty of Weasleys, Weasleys-in-law, and Weasley cousins to whom frustrations could be vented. And yet, gradually, whispers had begun to get around, rumors of what could have caused the breakup of two marriages, mere months apart; old stories of Hermione's historic friendship with Harry had been dredged up again. The Prophet had even reprinted that old article of Skeeter's, involving Viktor Krum and the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

“We've not - there isn't - ” He stammers a bit, unsure as to what the truth actually is. Neville's expression is neutral, but his eyes glint sympathetically. He twirls the end of the fern frond between his fingers. Harry runs his hands through his hair in frustration. “Merlin's Beard, Nev. I haven't done this in more than twenty years. And with her, of all people. We must be mad to think anyone will ever accept… “ He trails off, and his eyes grow distant. “Maybe I can't handle this. I can't even send her flowers without utterly second-guessing myself.”

Neville is watching him carefully. He plays with the corner of the still unmarked parchment, dog-earing it. It makes a raspy scrape against the ball of his thumb.

“Surely you've sent her flowers before,” he suggests mildly. Harry shoots him a suspicious look, realizing full well that Neville remembers exactly what he has or has not sent Hermione.

“Of course I have,” he says, after a beat. “When she had Rose and Hugo, when she finished her internship, when she turned thirty... But that was different, that - “

“Why?” Neville demands, cutting him off. “Why is it different? This is Hermione, Harry. You've known each other for years.”

“But my feelings for her are different now. Our situations are different. Maybe her expectations are different. We weren't happy with - we weren't happy before. What if - what if we can't be happy now? What if we ruin…” everything? The word is evident in his melancholy sigh.

“I think you matter too much to each other for either of you to let that happen,” Neville muses.

“Ginny mattered to me,” Harry points out, sounding more defensive than he'd like. Neville cocks his head, taps his fingertips against his mouth in contemplation.

“I didn't say otherwise, Harry. But you and Hermione are… different. Your friendship - well, I've never seen anything like it. And I think you both realize it's worth too much to let anything happen to it. Whether the romance works out or not.”

“That's just it, Neville,” he says, and now he leans across the counter on his elbows, his dark hair tumbling over his brow in his fervor. “Deep down, I think it will work out fine - better than fine, actually. I found myself seriously contemplating marriage the other day - marriage! I've not even been divorced six months. It all feels so right and so amazing that I wonder how I could have missed it the first time round, and it scares me half to death! It shouldn't click this way; there must be something I'm missing! Maybe it's the baggage we both have - Merlin knows the children are none too happy, and then there's the press…”

Neville is chuckling, as he moves toward a towering shelf of cut flowers, and he gently runs his hands over several, carefully inspecting them for imperfections. Harry is miffed.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You, Harry!” Neville says candidly. “Standing in here Petrified because your relationship is so good that you must be overlooking something horrific?! As for the children… they love both of you; most likely they'll come around in time - and the press? Well, I've never known you to give a rat's arse what they think. Have the two of you even been out together yet?”

“No - it's supposed to be this afternoon,” Harry gestures toward the shelves, and Neville finishes his sentence.

“Hence the flowers… I see.” Neville moves around the end of a shelf, and passes momentarily out of Harry's view, but he returns quickly, holding three small sunflowers. Without asking Harry if the flowers are to his satisfaction, he moves back behind the worktable, and begins wrapping them, Summoning coordinating ribbon from a nearby shallow drawer, and bundling them securely.

“Sunflowers?” Harry is dubious. “Those seem a little… perky… for Hermione.”

“Trust me, Harry.” Neville's chuckle is confident. “It's not the flowers themselves; it's what they mean.”

“And what do they mean?” Harry digs in his pocket for the correct amount of Galleons, and Neville waves him off. Harry ignores him, and lays the coins on the counter anyway. It is a dance they have performed many times over the years.

Neville's mouth twists up in a friendly smirk, but his eyes are gentle. He hands the bouquet to Harry, and for a moment, the crinkle of the cellophane is the only sound in the shop.

“Hermione'll know,” he says.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry places his hand on the small of Hermione's back without really thinking about it, as they move through the stifling rear passageway of a greasy nondescript pub. She doesn't look at him, as she sidesteps a precariously stacked cluster of milk crates, and he begins tapping a pattern on the well-worn bricks with his wand. However, he feels the barely restrained shudder that moves through her at his touch, even though he has touched her that way countless times, and he is reminded of his conversation with Neville earlier. They truly have moved somewhere new and provocatively different.

The bricks slither around of their own accord to form an arched opening, and they step into a bustling sunlit alley lined with shops. Vendors with wheeled, umbrella-shaded carts hawk their wares, as witches and wizards flit hither and yon with purpose. At the far end, there is a large statue of an imposing looking wizard with a horned helmet, long braids, and an impressive beard.

“Harry, this is lovely!” Hermione is enraptured.

“I figured it'd be better than Diagon Alley… further removed from things…” he murmurs, and they both look pensive for a moment. Presently, Harry adds, in a more jovial manner, “I still can't believe you've never been here before.”

“I always meant to come,” Hermione shrugs. “You know how it is. Time just gets away from you.” She eyes him sideways, a slight smile playing on her lips, almost as if she is having trouble believing that she is here…with him. She has been doing it since he gave her the flowers, and Harry takes a moment to mentally curse Neville for not telling him what the sunflowers meant.

“Snickelway Gate is definitely something to experience.” Harry squints up at the cloudless sky, where the spires of York Minster are black against the sun. “Dennis Creevey's just opened up a new restaurant here; I hear it's marvelous. And it has the premiere - ”

“ - bookshop in all of Northern England. Perfect for any magical bibliophile.'” Hermione finishes for him saucily, and Harry lets out a hearty laugh.

“Of course, you've read up on it.” He takes her hand, interlinking their fingers without looking at her, in an affectedly casual way. He gestures with their joined hands. “It's about two blocks up that way. Shall we?”

So far, they have attracted no odd looks from any other patrons. Harry feels himself relaxing, even as his stomach flips and soars every time he feels her fingers lightly move upon his hand. He marvels at the incongruity of their situation, where they are experiencing the thrill of “first”, but also have the comfort that comes with long association. Harry watches her profile, and cannot believe how lucky he is - thinks that all of the hardship and heartache and awkwardness and tension and scrutiny are worth it, if the end result means he gets to be with her. He opens his mouth to speak, but is afraid that he might say something foolish like I love you, so he bites his tongue, casting about for something more innocuous to say.

“James made an O on his first Potions exam,” he blurts, and then has to squelch a flinch. He had not wanted to talk about the children. He loves them dearly, both his own and his niece and nephew, but they point the way to ex-spouses and angry, hurt in-laws, and he desperately wants today to be happy.

Hermione pauses to skim the fingers of her free hand through a sheaf of griffin feathers hanging outside an apothecary. A few downy particles drift downwards, sparkling in the sun. Her enthusiasm is sincere.

“Harry, that's wonderful! Rose says he's quite the good student - best in his year.”

“He's definitely better than I was. I was always rubbish at school - or, at least, I would have been without you.”

“I don't know, Harry. You seemed to do decently enough; you'd have probably been stellar if you'd applied yourself. And I always thought you'd have done well in Potions, if it hadn't been for Snape."

“Mum had a deft hand at Potions,” Harry says, with a nod to her too-generous opinion of him. “So you might be right, but I guess we'll never know.”

We'll never know…the words are poignant, almost tantalizing, but he will not allow himself to tread that road. He knows they cannot change what has gone before; they can only play with the hand they've been dealt and accept the consequences of the way they arranged their cards.

“There it is,” Harry says, gesturing again with their joined hands. He feels Hermione's thumb tracing a pattern across the back of his hand, and the simple caress causes him to inhale sharply through his teeth. He toys with the idea of snogging her right then and there, but refrains, thinking that, even though they're away from their usual stomping grounds, there's always a chance someone with a camera could be watching.

“I've never seen a bookshop this big.” Hermione is taking in the enormous and sprawling store, taking up an entire end of a side street up ahead. Her eyes are sparkling, and Harry can practically see her calculating how many books she can shrink and fit inside her bag. He is thinking how much he utterly adores her, when she looks back at him. What is apparently evident in his eyes causes her lips to curve upward in a trembling smile, and the air is alive with an electric feeling that Harry cannot believe the other shoppers don't notice.

“The - our - that is, we have reservations at Dennis' place in an hour.” Harry has difficulty collecting himself enough to speak. “So don't make me have to Summon you out of there!” His eyes twinkle, and hers soften. She reaches up to trace his hairline, brushing aside the relcalcitrant fringe that just will not stay in place. Her finger tips leave trails of fire in their wake.

They amble through the front entrance of the shop, barely aware of their surroundings.

“Where will you be?” she asks, in a voice rather more throaty than normal.

“Oh, wandering in here somewhere,” he says lackadaisically. She releases his hand with apparent reluctance, and flits away into the rabbit warren of shelves.

His hand feels clammy and cooler away from the smooth warmth of her skin, and he feels strangely bereft, already missing her presence. His progress through the store is aimless, just another anonymous shopper, skimming the books of Quidditch stats, the new releases, and the periodicals section. A splash of bright yellow on a sale sign catches his attention, and makes him think of Hermione's sunflowers.

Trust me, Harry, he hears Neville's voice saying. He suddenly lifts his head with purpose, scanning the placards for the Herbology section. It takes him a moment to find the sign, as he is standing almost directly beneath it, but in short order, finds himself flipping through a glossy book, brimming with full-color photographs, on flowers and their meanings.

Sunflowers… the heading jumps out at him. There is a picture of a field of sunflowers captioned Kansas, USA, innumerable blossoms bobbing and nodding their heads in a gentle wind. He reads more: “Helianthus annuus; inflorescent, annual, phototropic. Native to the Americas.” He scans the paragraphs discussing their magical properties, their growing season, and their connotations of cheeriness and sunny disposition to get to the information for which he'd been searching. “The very appearance of the sunflower calls to mind the life-giving Sun, even as it also watches the star in worship, and so the flower has long been associated with the sentiment of adoration and longevity.”

Adoration… hadn't he just used this very word to describe how he felt about Hermione? Neville had said she would know what they meant. Had she known?

“I knew,” comes a husky whisper, right in his ear. He feels chill bumps rise on that side of his neck. He jumps and whirls, shutting the book with a one-handed snap. The bewildered look on his face causes her to chuckle. “You were talking to yourself, Mr. Potter.”

“I didn't - I didn't know,” he breathes, stammering, gesturing with the book by way of explanation. “But he - he was right, Neville was right. You know, I - I can't say I'm sorry for how long it took us to get here, because that would mean regretting the kids, but - but I can tell you how glad I am that we're here now. Because I do, you know?”

“You do what?”

Harry takes her shrunken parcel of books and put it in his jacket pocket. They have been walking toward the front of the store, but they stop before reaching the openness of the front entryway, which resembles a miniature atrium.

He scoops her toward him, rather abruptly, with one hand about her slender waist. He feels her handbag bump against his leg, as she collides with him in enticing places.

“I adore you,” he answers her question simply, and is entranced by the way the heat creeps up into her cheeks. A distant part of his mind is aware that they are still standing inside a somewhat crowded bookshop, but no one has paid them any mind at all today, and he is beyond caring, even if they had. His fingers light gently against the point of her chin and tilt her face upward towards him.

Like a sunflower, he thinks, only half-coherently, and then realizes that he has it backwards. Only it would be me, not her. It would be me, watching her, worshipping her, following her path… His poetic flight of fancy is evidently taking him too long, because Hermione wends one hand around the nape of his neck, her fingers half in his collar, half in his hair, and yanks him down to her.

He makes a muffled grunt of surprise that is quickly lost in the collision of lips. Distantly, he can hear the bustle and murmur of others, but it is as if he and Hermione are the only two people in the world. He thinks that he could stand here for the rest of his life, feeling her mouth dance beneath his.

The sound of several flashbulbs popping jolts them forcefully from their mutual reverie.

“Bloody hell,” Harry mutters, raking one hand through his tousled hair and trying to regulate his breathing, as he turns. The unwelcome intrusions have exploded the light of the real world right in their faces again, bringing the fresh reality of kids and exes and in-laws back to the forefront. There is a throng of reporters clustered near a display table at the front window across the lobby from them, and most are staring avidly. The sudden flurry of action has caught the attention of many of the customers as well. Harry can see the frenzied blurs of Quick-Quotes Quills in motion, and he swears again, leaning against a bookshelf with one hand. He can feel the metal bracket pinching into his palm.

“How did they find out we were here?” Hermione wonders, self-consciously raising the back of her hand to her smeared lipstick. She tilts her head back to look over her shoulder at Harry, who has suddenly gone pale.

“Oh no….” he says. The exclamation of dread is barely audible.

“What - ?” She begins, but stops as she sees what he has seen. Through a gap in the flock of reporters, she glimpses a poster affixed by Sticking Charm to the front of the table, a familiar figure waving and smiling in living color.

“How can my luck possibly be that bad?”

And then, there she is: in the flesh, striding toward them, her face composed, but her eyes reflecting some of the fire of her hair. A smile wreathes her face, but it is an untrustworthy smile, an insincere smile, a publicity smile. Harry recognizes it immediately, even as he moves slightly in front of Hermione.

“I really can't believe you would sink to this level, Harry,” his ex-wife says. “And that you would go along with this…” She rakes Hermione with a glance of thinly veiled contempt.

“Ginny, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I'm on my book tour. I'm signing copies of my book today here at Magnum Opus. And I'm sure you had no idea, and that it is a complete coincidence that you are here today… with her.” She flings her arm toward the table as she speaks the phrase “my book”, and Harry hears more flashbulbs. He imagines the latest headlines, Author's Ex-Husband Crashes Book Tour to Snog Sister-in-Law.

He catches a better look at the poster, as well as the stacks of glossy hard-covers on the table. The cover is white, with embossed gold lettering and a fabulous photograph of Ginny gracing it. The poster proclaims the title in larger letters of the same font, and Harry sees it fully for the first time.

Why, oh why had they not noticed this when they entered the store?

Book-Cover Ginny is shaking her head, as she shrugs her shoulders, empty palms up, and looks chagrined. Losing the Snitch: From Courtship to Dissolution with Harry Potter.

“That's the name of your book!?” The flabbergasted question bursts out of him, louder than he intends. “Your agent said it was a memoir about the war!”

Ginny lifts one elegant hand and smoothes the shoulders of her robes.

“The war's in there.”

“I can't believe you would attack me in print! Do our children mean nothing to you? It's bad enough that everything I do is automatic front page fodder, without your adding fuel to the fire!”

Ginny blinks placidly at him, cocking her head to one side.

“I'm not the one who left them, Harry. I'm not the one who threw our marriage vows aside like yesterday's rubbish. And I assure you, sweetheart - “ the word drips with venom - “I've told no lies in my book.”

Harry is still standing partially in front of Hermione, hoping to shield her from the photographers and deflect any of Ginny's ire, but he has not let go of her. Ginny's gaze goes down to their clasped hands, and something unidentifiable flickers in her gaze.

“I assure you I had no idea you were going to be here today, because we could have definitely arranged to be somewhere else,” he tells her smoothly. Ginny inhales a shuddering breath, and brackets her forehead with one hand, shaking it slightly.

“This is really embarrassing,” she says. But Harry's compassion can only stretch so far.

“Save it, Gin,” he snorts. “You're loving this, and don't try to pretend you aren't.”

“I'm loving it?” She is incredulous. “Yes, it's been such a joy to be dumped by your husband, who's claiming he's never been happy with you, and then to have him immediately take up with your sister-in-law… I'm nearly giddy.”

“Oh, you love the attention! You know that anything Hermione and I do is going to be immediately suspect, and the fact that our divorces happened so close together only means that everyone will think that things were going on during our marriages, even though they were not. You get to be the martyr, the wronged wife, the poor pitiful victim. You end up smelling like a rose, while all the shit sticks to me. You're eating this up with a cauldron ladle.”

“Harry, how can you say - ?” There are tears beginning to sparkle in her eyes. The intermittent flashes are starting to give Harry a headache. “How can you blame any of this on me? You chose to have this fling - surely you knew there would be consequences…”

“Yes, I knew there would be consequences. I knew that people would be hurt, but that hurt would also happen if I continued living a lie. This is not a fling. It never was. I wouldn't risk the children's well-being over something I wasn't sure about.” His conversation with Neville buoys him up, gives him confidence. He is committed now.

“You can't be serious!” Ginny's voice is a dramatic hiss of disbelief.

“I am completely serious,” Harry echoes, and takes a deep breath. He feels Hermione squeeze his hand in reassurance. He lifts their hands just enough to recall Ginny's attention, “This is the way things are, Ginny. It would be easier for everyone involved, if you just accepted that. I'm - I'm … in love with Hermione. And I think,” he flicks his eyes at her questioningly, and she nods. He can feel the side of her face move against the shoulder of his jacket. “I think she loves me too. So yes, this is serious. You should know me well enough to know that, at least.”

“Sweet Merlin!” Ginny steps back from them without her usual grace. Her high heels click coolly on the tile floor. They still have an audience; though no one got noticeably close, Harry is still not certain what has or has not been heard. “Well…” Her chin is thrust forward, her shoulders stiff and her head high. The publicity smile is back in full wattage. “I hope the two of you will be very happy.”

Only Harry would notice the subtle clog of tears in her voice.

“Thank you,” Harry goes along with her charade. “Now, we'll just be going. We're late for our reservation, and we've already disrupted your afternoon enough.”

He relinquishes Hermione's hand to wrap one arm around her shoulders, and plows his way through the crush of people who have congregated between them and the door. The cameras are flashing as if they've had Rapid-Fire Charms cast on them, and the shouted questions are mostly unintelligible. Harry ignores them, and Side-Alongs her to Dennis' restaurant, as soon as they're safely outside.

Hermione is smoothing her hair, as the maitre d leads them to a secluded booth in the very back of the restaurant. As they both sit, Harry leans his head against the cushioned back of the booth and sighs tiredly, closing his eyes. When he opens them, Hermione is watching him.

“I'm so sorry,” they say in unison.

“You shouldn't have had to see that,” he tells her.

“You wouldn't have even been there, if it hadn't been for me,” she reminds him.

“I feel for the children. I thought Ginny and I had become old hands at keeping our rows out of the papers.”

“It was bound to come out sooner or later. You - you don't regret it, do you?” She looks uncertain; her hands are folded tightly in her lap, but he reaches across the table with his palm up, until she nestles her delicate hand in his.

“Regret what?” His thumb is stroking up and down the length of her index finger.

“What you said back there…about - “

“About being in love with you? No regrets, Hermione. It's the God's honest truth. I'm in this for the long haul, if you'll have me.”

Hermione's eyes are misting over, and she is having trouble speaking, but she nods enthusiastically. He supposes that, as proposals go, it's not terribly romantic or even very official, but they both understand what has not been said.

He lifts her hand, and touches the back of it to his lips.

Author's note: Okay, this is not the end. I was looking for one more chapter, wondering if there was a suitable expansion to my theme. I was thinking about ESP or something magical sense, but none of that seemed to fit. Then I found equilibrioception. Google it or look it up on Wikipedia. When I saw what it meant I squealed out loud. I think it makes a perfect final chapter, don't you??

I know activity on this site has been down, but I really hope everyone will review. I was a little discouraged with the small number of reviews on “Shadow Walker” especially compared with the hits. Those reviews really do encourage an author to keep plugging away, and are much appreciated!

lorien

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6. Balance

Senses

Balance:

“Equilibrioception or sense of balance is one of the physiological senses…”— New World Encyclopedia

“Balance is the result of a number of body systems working together.” - Wikipedia

It has been over a year since Harry has been to that pub, and little has changed. The same noisy exuberance greets him when he opens the door; the same yellow warmth is splashed about the worn wooden floors and paneling; the air is filled with the same aromas of liquor and greasy food. He shakes snow out of his dark hair, and winces, as some of it trickles beneath the collar of his cloak.

Little has changed, and yet, everything is different. Things have been altered in such profound and fundamental ways that he is at a loss over how to define them. He is almost surprised to see the same people laughing and enjoying their evening, realizing that the monumental shift in his life has affected them not at all.

He sees the familiar flash of red hair, in the same booth in the back, but this time, Ron is alone - and so is he.

Harry weaves through the crowd, unwinding his scarf, and clears his throat awkwardly as he arrives at the end of the table, standing at the elbow of the youngest Weasley son.

Ron flicks his eyes upward at Harry; something indefinable flashes in them. There seems to be an insurmountable wall between them, or a fathomless chasm… or perhaps both at once.

“Harry.”

“Ron.”

The silence stretches out like some kind of molasses candy. It is so absolute that Harry feels like the noise from the rest of the pub is assaulting him, pounding against all of his senses until he is overwhelmed. His fingers tremble as they move to rest against the table top in what he hopes is a casual way. He hopes Ron has not seen the outward signs of his nervousness.

He waits momentarily for an invitation, but then sits anyway, once it becomes clear that Ron is not going to give him one.

“Where's Hermione?” Ron asks succinctly. Harry manages to make his shrug and the removal of his cloak part of the same gesture. He folds it over the back of the booth behind him, and a few pieces of ice slide off of the material and fall to the floor, melting quickly.

“I don't know,” he adds unnecessarily. Ron's look of disbelief is eloquence itself.

“She's never late.”

“I asked her to be late. I needed to talk to you first.”

This catches Ron's attention. The glance they exchange is teeming with unspoken conversation. Ron slings one arm along the back of the booth; his lips twitch bitterly. The other hand gropes restlessly for an ale that has not yet arrived.

“Bloody hell.”

Harry drops his gaze. His hair wants cutting again; the fringe of his bangs flops over the edge of his glasses. He feels the color rise into his face, as the blood pounds in his ears. He is going to need a Headache Potion after this night is over; of course, Ron knows; it must be written all over my face, and when in the hell did this pub get so loud?

“When?”

The abrupt question jerks Harry's attention back in Ron's direction. He doesn't need to ask to what Ron is referring, and so he doesn't dissemble.

“I asked her yesterday.”

Ron swears colorfully under his breath.

“Listen, Ron - “ Harry's voice is beseeching. He spreads his elbows wide on the table's surface, which is worn to a shiny smoothness by years of use. His posture is one of near-supplication.

“Listen to what, Harry? What could we possibly have left to say to each other?”

“We were friends once…” Harry flinches at the sound of his own voice. He is pleading, and this irritates him. His throat is tight, and his head is really beginning to ache. He lifts his head to catch the eye of a nearby waitress, flicks his fingers in their direction, orders two drinks.

“Once,” Ron concedes. “And that was before you decided to get involved with my wife.”

“Ex-wife.”

“It hardly matters - “

“It absolutely matters! You aren't married to her anymore!”

“She was out of bounds, Harry! Our families were too close, too interconnected, and you - you went and broke my sister's heart, and went after Hermione. You could have any woman in the world, and you went after Hermione.”

Harry is miserable. The anger/rejection on Ron's face is stabbing at him like a thousand icy needles. This building is not a haven from the wintry chill outside. He mumbles something that Ron does not catch.

“What was that?”

“I said, I didn't ask for any of this to happen. I can't explain how, only that it did. Believe me, I realize how much easier it would have been had I fallen in love with anyone else in the world besides Hermione. If it could have been different, Ron, I swear - ”

The waitress brings the tankards, sets them down on the table with two solid clunks, slides one in front of each of them. The two men barely notice.

“That's rot, Harry. Both of you made it pretty clear what you wanted that day in your flat. To get shut of the entire Weasley clan as fast as you possibly could. No matter what the fallout would be.”

“That's not true,” Harry's voice rises with each word. “You were the other part of us. We didn't want any of this to happen. But I love her, Ron. I. Love. Her. And we can't change that, can't undo it, can't erase it. It simply is. She's one of the best things that has ever happened to me. And… and…” Harry seems to run out of steam, and takes a healthy gulp of his ale.

When he speaks again, his voice is very quiet, his eyes impassioned. He wants Ron to understand, but is not sure that he ever will.

“Ron, we're getting married. It's going to happen. Do you think we'd go back now - after this media circus, reporters camped out in the bushes, spying on us wherever we go? We told the children last night. And they were already starting to come around - well, everyone except Al. My kids love Hermione, and Rose and Hugo have always liked me. It shouldn't be so hard.”

“That's exactly why it's hard, Harry! How d'you think it makes me feel - knowing that you were once my brother-in-law, and now you're going to be their stepfather? You're going to see them more than I am! You're going to - you're going to sleep with my wife!”

Harry clears his throat in a strained manner that indicates that the future simple verb tense Ron has used may no longer be accurate. He leans his forehead into one hand and sighs, as his fingers toy with the stainless handle of his mug. He has only had half of the tankard, but the stress and the noise and alcohol are combining to make him light-headed.

“Perhaps you should have thought of that, before you cheated on Hermione. I highly doubt that any of those women were excessively worried that they were going to sleep with Hermione's husband.”

“You can try to blame this all on me, Harry.” Ron's smile is bitter. “But you can't explain away the fact that you dropped Ginny like a weighted Bludger as soon as Hermione was free. How long were you in love with her? How long had you been waiting?”

“I… I don't know, Ron.” But he shakes his head to negate Ron's knowing smirk. “Ginny and I had been slowly self-destructing long before I knew about your and Hermione's … problems. It would have come to an end sooner or later, whether you and Hermione divorced or not. And I never lied to you. That night in the forest with the sword - I told you I loved her like a sister. And it was true…then.” He quaffs the last of his drink. “But she's not really my sister, is she, Ron?”

“She never was,” Ron points out, still trying to make him admit to something covert.

“No,” Harry sighs. “I suppose not.”

“You'll see how it is,” Ron continues after a moment, his voice casual and conversational, the most natural he has sounded up to this point. “You'll see - this wasn't all me. She's not perfect - there are things - you'll start to drive each other mad, just wait.” He points a sage nod in Harry's direction.

“Ron, I know `how she is'. I've known her since we were eleven. And all of those `things' - they're part of what makes her Hermione. You knew them all going in, same as I did. There - there's a difference between loving someone in spite of their differences, and loving someone because of their differences. I'm not here to serve as an indictment of your failed marriage, Ron, any more than Hermione is the reason for mine. But I love her very much, and I want to row with her,” he mimes using oars, “not against her… you understand?”

There is a quiet clearing of a feminine throat, and they both look up to see Hermione standing there, hands clasped over the patent leather handle of her bag. How long she has been standing there utterly unobserved, Harry has no idea, but her eyes are shiny with unshed tears, and she looks at him with a look that is all for him. She is still dressed for work, wearing a crisp white blouse and a skirt of a tiny black and white hounds-tooth pattern that makes Harry's eyes cross to look at it too closely. He thinks that maybe he shouldn't have anything else to drink, but the waitress is right behind Hermione, bringing seconds without having to be asked.

Harry slides over to let Hermione sit next to him, and helps her remove her snow-damp cloak, laying it atop his. His hand lingers on hers, his thumb brushes across her knuckles, and the quick glances she slants at him up through her eyelashes is enough to make him dizzy. He struggles to remember that Ron is present, and perhaps they should try to be sensitive.

Harry knows he has failed at being circumspect, when he looks up to meet Ron's gaze, which immediately drops to the ring newly adorning Hermione's hand. It is an antique setting, bearing three central diamonds surrounded by smaller matching stones and set in some kind of emerald inlay. It is a far cry from the diamond chip Ron gave her more than fifteen years ago, the one she'd refused to get rid of, even when they could finally afford something fancier. Ron's face has always been an open book, but is now curiously hard to read, a volatile mixture of betrayal, jealousy, and regret.

“How is everything going?” Hermione asks the loaded question, after she orders a butterbeer. Her eyes move from Harry to Ron, gauging the tension level, testing the waters.

“Congratulations on the upgrade,” Ron says snidely, over the rim of his tankard. It is unclear whether he is talking about the ring or the husband. High color washes over Hermione's cheeks, and Harry's shoulders shift suddenly. Ron figures he is holding her hand underneath the table.

“Ron…”

“Spare me the over-protective bit, Harry. I've seen it before. “ He stands unevenly, using the table to brace himself, and slides sideways from the booth. “Allow me to wish you all the best… from a distance. I can't handle it, okay?” He is addressing Hermione now. “I couldn't handle being married to you, and I can't handle your being married to someone else - especially if that someone is Harry. I'm sorry.”

He sounds sorry. And the three of them look at each other as one, each of them thinking the same thing: so it has come to this. The Trio that rumor, celebrity, lies, attacks, terror, flight, fear, distrust, and war could not break has been torn asunder.

Ron turns away first, and moves toward the exit with a curt nod of farewell. Harry follows his movements through the crowd for as long as his pounding head can stand it. Hermione murmurs a broken “Good-bye” after he is much too far away to hear it.

The noisy pub almost seems like a sacrilege.

***

They pull apart when the soft tapping on the door heralds its imminent opening, but Harry knows Ron has seen them as he enters, has seen their worry, their weariness, their self-blame. Harry feels as if he has aged a decade in three hours, feels that his wife is the only thing keeping him upright.

There is an awkward pause, as the two men contemplate each other for the first time since that bitter parting at their old pub. Ron's eyes flicker down to the silver band on the fourth finger of Harry's left hand, but he does not comment.

“George took the other sprogs down to the cafeteria,” he informs them in the same breath that he asks, “How is she?” His blue eyes are watery and gentle, his gaze drifting over to light on the stark, white hospital bed like thistledown. His nostrils flare slightly, taking in the astringent odors of medicinal potions and Sterilizing Serum. Harry supposes that even magic cannot keep a hospital from smelling like a hospital.

Harry's face is white with strain, and his jaw works as he struggles to formulate a response. Hermione's arm is still wound through his, and he draws strength from the contact.

“She hasn't awakened yet. The burns were third-degree. The Healers say there may be permanent damage to her right hand. She may never have full use of it again. And they don't know how much of her sight she'll retain in her right…” A sob begins to knot itself up in his throat, and he can't complete his sentence. To cover his emotion, he stands too quickly, and sways on his feet, his eyes closing as the dizzy spell washes over him and ebbs away.

He moves to the side of the bed, and gazes down at the prone form of his little girl, the right side of her body swathed in potion-soaked bandages, her hair a vivid sunset brushstroke across the barren whiteness of the pillow. She shimmers beneath his gaze, as though he is seeing her at the bottom of a clear pool of water. But that thought dances too close to death, and his knees nearly buckle, as he clutches at the metal bed rail for support.

“What happened?” Ron's voice is low with horror. His glance darts between Harry and Hermione, and it is she who takes up the narrative.

“We - “she stumbles awkwardly over that telling word. Her eyes are a tawny gleam beneath her lashes, as she darts an earnest glance at Ron. “We'd taken the children to the carnival… you know, the one that rotates through Diagon Alley every summer? Hugo and Lily wanted to watch the show… something went wrong - a spell exploded. Part of the awning caught fire, and - and fell…” Restlessly she stands, and paces in a small circle, twisting and wringing her handkerchief in her tense fingers.

“It wasn't your fault,” Harry interjects gently at her obvious agitation.

“I should have been there,” she whispers, her voice high and clear, though brittle with her effort to keep it under control. “I shouldn't have left them.”

Harry moves to her side. His hand skims over her hair, her cheek, her shoulder, her arm, and lingers briefly over her mid-section before he seats her in the chair she has vacated. He whispers something in her ear, and it is as if Ron is not even in the room.

“Hermione wasn't feeling well,” he explains. His eyes meander over to Lily again, and he seems very far away, seeing the cacophony and the chaos of the carnival, the whirling sections of color and sound, the overwhelming smells and ceaseless bustle, before it all turned into terror.

“There was a bin at the back of the crowd. I got dizzy… and hot. I thought I might get sick.” No one is sure to whom they are trying to make justification. “I was only steps away. I could still see both of them.”

“You couldn't have cast Aguamenti faster than anyone else did.” Ron tries to absolve her.

“The awning was charmed to be waterproof in case of rain. The flames were magical. It took entirely too long to get her out from under it. James, Al, and Rose wanted to go their own way, and Harry was changing some galleons for them. I was supposed to be watching - ” She is almost babbling now, her gaze distraught and distracted. Harry makes an involuntary move toward her, but checks it. The tension oozes into the room, basilisk-like.

Ginny enters the room, sliding inside with hardly a sound, the way a swan glides noiselessly through a lake. She takes in Harry and Hermione with one contemptuous sweep of her eyes, and goes to her daughter's bedside. Harry watches her features quiver like disturbed water, as her hands lightly skim over the bandages of her face, her shoulder, her arm, afraid to touch them, afraid of hurting her further.

She does not look at Harry, but asks him,

“Is she out of danger?” Her shimmering hair falls across her cheek, a veil, a barrier between her and the man she had once called husband. Harry reflects that the temperature in the room seems to have dropped considerably.

“For now.” He has to clear his throat, before he can speak. “Barring infection or side effects from the potions - she's on quite a few.” He repeats the bleak information about Lily's hand and eye. Ginny bites back a sob.

Harry feels Hermione fidget in the chair, and knows she is only seconds away from fleeing the scene entirely. He places one hand across her arm, willing her to realize that this was not her fault.

“Can I expect this inattention to resolve itself after the honeymoon period is over, or are visits to St. Mungo's going to be the norm now?”

“Ginny - !”

“Spare me the excuses, Harry!” She spits the words at him like bile.

“It was an accident. There was no way anyone could have known the spell would ignite.”

“From what I understand, there was not an adult within arm's reach of Lily… an adult who could have moved her away, or cast a preventive spell. What kind of parent allows that to happen?” Her cutting glance at Hermione needs no additional explanation. Harry has not seen Hermione look so lost since that Christmas even when she admitted she missed Ron, but he also knows that she is not one to crumple so under fire, unless she too believes that Ginny is right.

“I see we've been doing our research.” His voice is caustic and biting, and he sees the protest flit across Hermione's face, as if she is not worth fighting for.

“The well-being of my children is very important to me.”

“I never said it wasn't!” He glances at Hermione's tense face, and then down at Lily. The Weasleys watch as Harry visibly tries to calm himself, and he is rewarded with some subtle relaxation in Hermione's countenance and posture. For her, Harry adds, “You've always been a good mother.”

His ex-wife blurts a startled, “Thank you,” before she can stop it. The hostility in her brown eyes melts into curiosity as she regards the two of them. Harry can feel her probing gaze, as she tries to suss out what draws them together. See? He wants to say, like a triumphant five-year-old in a schoolyard tiff. There is no anxious subservience, no pedestal, but no exuberant, trampling disregard either. The scales do not tip too far in either direction. Hermione and I - we… balance.

“Mrs. Potter,” the healer jolts Harry from his introspection, as he enters the room with his attention focused on the leather-bound folder in his hand. He nudges the door closed with the heel of one foot.

Hermione and Ginny respond in unison, and Hermione colors violently at the healer's puzzled reaction. Ginny looks almost murderous, and Hermione face flames even more vividly, when it becomes apparent that the healer is referring to the second Mrs. Potter, handing her the file on recent Burn Reversal Spell developments from down in the Experimental Magic department.

Hermione almost looks contrite, as she takes the portfolio, her eyes dropping to the toes of her comfortable walking shoes. It is so utterly unlike her that it sort of shatters Harry all over again, as if the little girl in the bed weren't enough all on her own. Heedless of the Weasleys, he takes her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, and pulling her adjacent, so the support can be mutual.

A mediwitch bustles in, the very epitome of no-nonsense efficiency, and refills some of Lily's potion vials, while the healer - Harry has blanked on his name - gives them further instructions, as well as both positive and adverse signs to watch for. The part of Harry's mind that can function under duress is filing the information away somewhere, but the rest of him is focused on listening for each steady breath from his daughter, feeling Hermione's fingers fidget nervously between his, and watching Ginny coolly watch his wife.

When the healer and his assistant exit the room, it is as if they have taken a Tension Dispelling Charm with them. Ginny lays one hand on Lily's fiery head, stroking it lightly.

“I don't want her around my children. It's obvious that she doesn't have enough regard for them to give them the same care she would her own.” Ron and Harry sputter in angry unison, negating the vile implication.

“This could have happened to - ” Harry begins, but Ginny cuts him off.

“Nothing happened to Hugo.”

Ron throws his hands up in the air. “I don't believe this, Gin! You're picking this fight now? Look at them, for Merlin's sake!”

Hermione is visibly struggling to keep her composure, and when she weaves on her feet, Harry disentangles her other hand from the bed rail, and walks her back to the chair. As she sits, he is watching her, with carefully measured concern that has not -quite - crossed into alarm.

“That's right, she's not feeling well,” Ginny bites. “What's wrong with her?”

Harry says nothing, not trusting his own emotions if he does speak, but just stares at Ginny, arching his eyebrows. He crosses his arms over his chest, and does not break the gaze, until she sodding well gets it.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” It is Ginny at her most withering, and Harry reflects that he has seen this Ginny quite often since the divorce, and he wonders where she was when they were married.

“Ginny, d'you think that you could - maybe just for today - you know, grow up a little. This is your daughter here, you know.” This, surprisingly, comes from Ron.

“That's rich coming from you, Ron. When was the last time you saw Rose and Hugo?”

Ron is incredulous. “Yesterday!”

“Can both of you please - ?”

“Mummy?”

The small, lost voice has the effect of a Petrificus on the four adults. Hermione comes back to the bedside, watching Lily with near-trepidation, as if she fears censure from her as well.

“I'm here, angel.” Ginny forces a smile, though tears clog her voice. Lily has to crane her neck; Ginny is standing on her blind side.

“We're all here,” Harry adds roughly. Lily carefully rotates her gaze around the bed, taking in each of them in turn.

“Uncle Ron,” she smiles, as he playfully tweaks at her toe beneath the sheet. “Hermione. Daddy.” The fingers of her left hand snake their way in between their clasped hands, so that they are sandwiched over Hermione's and under Harry's. She winces as she tries to shift her position slightly. “Where are James and Al?”

“They're with Uncle George. They'll come and see you in a bit.” Harry thinks his voice almost sounds natural, but he doesn't think Lily is fooled.

“Did the fire hurt my eye?” She moves as though she'd like to explore the bandage with a hand, but her right arm is immobilized, and her left hand is clasping his. Harry feels his throat tightening painfully around a sob.

“Yes, love, but you're going to be just fine,” Ginny asserts tremulously. Lily's eyes are fluttering closed.

“'M glad you're all … here,” she sighs, and is asleep again so quickly that it makes Harry's heart stop, until he sees her even breathing.

And four pairs of eyes lift in unison and roam from one face to the next, as four vertices on a square, four cardinal points on a compass. The components are the same, thought the alignments have shifted, and it is clear that -whether they'd like to or not - they cannot escape each other.

… between what is right, and what is easy, Harry thinks wearily. And it seems that his ex-wife has read his mind, because she suddenly stammers,

“I'm sorry for what I said, Hermione. It was uncalled for.” Hermione smiles and offers a nod of acknowledgement, clearly not trusting herself to be able to speak tearlessly.

Harry's eyes widen in surprise, and he manages a gruffly sincere, “Thanks for coming, Ron,” to cover his emotions. Ron's face creases with the barest hint of a smile, as he watches his sleeping niece.

“Thanks for letting me know.”

The tension has not gone, but it has eased somewhat.

It is a beginning.

The End

Hope you enjoyed it. This chapter got a little more talky than I would have liked, but there you go. You may leave a review on your way out, if you like!

--lorien.

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