Chapter Four.
Enough Rope.
"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
-William Blake
London. 2003.
Being around her hurt him in ways that he wasn't completely prepared for, and even more so that he wasn't willing to admit. It wasn't the obvious things, the small smiles or the way that sunlight could catch the corner of her eye, that put him at ill ease. It wasn't even the harmfully prolonged silences, or the catch in her breath when she said his name. What hurt, what he now had to admit, had never been the catch in her breath. It was the catch in his own.
It was the years of hoping for the rain to stop only to watch it flood him out. He had been in this place before, this ready to close his eyes and fall kind of place, and it had turned out poorly. He wasn't prepared to go through that again. He wasn't able, in body or mind, to put himself out to be slapped away. He had never been more scared of anything than he was scared of the bottom of his stomach nervousness that her smile brought out in him.
"We have some time to kill." She announced, "Do you want to do anything before we meet up with Ron and Luna?"
"Like what?"
"Well, I don't know." She rolled her eyes, "You're the one that's back in town. Isn't there something that you'd like to see again?"
"I'll think on it." He smiled.
"That's as good as saying nothing." She smiled knowingly.
"Well, it isn't exactly true though, is it?" He answered.
"How so? You still haven't given any answer to my question."
"I was in London two years ago when Ron got married." Harry shrugged, "So it's more like I haven't been here in five years, minus one day."
She dipped her fingers in her cold coffee and flicked some at him with a laugh, "That is so stupid!"
"It's true." He smiled as he wiped coffee drops from his glasses with the end of his shirt.
They sat alone in the kitchen of his old flat. Sipping coffee and chewing on the remains of the toast they had shared for breakfast. Both thinking in the same half lucid way about the minutia of being around someone with whom so much history is shared. Harry found himself wiping his hands on his thighs. He knew that in his bedroom, even as they spoke, was a bed that she had slept in. He didn't know why that should mean anything to him, he knew only that it did.
For her part, Hermione was lost deeply in pondering what it was about London that she would want to see if she had been the one to spend five years absent from it. There were the tourist sights, but like any resident of a major metropolis, those places weren't that interesting to her. She couldn't imagine what she might want to do. She began to twirl her finger through a loose strand of hair that was hanging by her shoulder.
She caught him staring at her. There was a part of her that had been wondering if the spark was still there. If that one night so many years ago had meant anything to him beyond the physicality of it. While a stare wasn't an answer, she felt it was an important part of the puzzle. Because the question she wanted, needed, answered wasn't one that could be asked without care. When Harry had walked back into her life, and she had reemerged in his, there was always the curious nature of how they had left things, and how that would effect them now.
"You okay?" She asked, the ghost of a smile on her face.
"Hmm?" He shook his head, "Yes. I'm fine. Why?"
"You were staring."
Harry looked confused, then the spark behind his eyes lit understanding across his features, "Oh!" He smiled, "I'm sorry. I was spacing out. Rough night, you know?"
"I see." She let her finger tap the side of her second mug of coffee she had finally caved into pouring herself, "Just spacing out, looking at me, but just spacing out."
"Hermione..." His eyes fell, "Don't-"
"Harry, are we ever going to talk about it?"
"What would you like to talk about?"
"You know."Her eyebrows narrowed.
"I don't actually." He answered, " I imagine we have a lot of things to talk about. We could start with us, that's what I think you're interested in, or we could start with your letter."
"My letter..." Her voice cracked, "I...I didn't mean for it to drag you back here. I was in a dark place when I wrote it..."
"Well, it did." He reached across the table and put his hand on her's, "I thought you hated me until I read that letter, 'Mione."
"Why would you..."
"How could I not?"
* * *
London. 2001.
Harry's head was spinning. He had not had anything alcoholic since he had cleansed his New York apartment years earlier. Tonight he had a glass of fire whiskey with his best friend after he had given the best man's speech. It had gone directly to his head. He had gone outside, loosened his neck tie and sat on the curb outside the venue chosen for Ron and Luna's wedding reception. He lit a cigarette and hoped that the building looming around him would stop seeming so ominous soon.
Before he realized it Ron had sat down beside him, "Those things'll kill you, you know."
"Better than them have tried." Harry smiled.
Ron's face turned serious, "That was a wonderful speech, Harry."
"Thank you."
They sat back and breathed in the night air. The company of each other the only constant in the odyssey they had both been going through since Harry had left. Ron turned to him then, a slight frown ruining the moment of peace they were sharing.
"She didn't come."
Harry nodded, checked himself for balance against his single glass of alcohol, "I didn't expect her to."
"I.." Ron smiled, "I thought that seeing her was your only reason for coming. I know it's stupid, I know that I'm your best friend, I know that I'm the one that said differently. I know this. You don't have to say it. But I thought it was all the same."
Harry smiled, "You've said my part, mate."
Ron laughed for a time before he said, "I suppose I have at that. Is the wedding the reason you came?"
"Yeah." He shrugged, "I'd be lying to you if I said that I wasn't hoping that she would be here." He paused, "Is it okay if I say that?"
Ron put his hand on Harry's shoulder, "It took me some time to forgive you. No, that's not it. To realize that it wasn't even your fault what happened between me and her. To see, to really see, the kind of asshole I had been to you. The things I said."
"It's-" Harry began.
"No, it isn't. I was so far out of line. I was coloring without motor skills." Ron stopped, took a deep breath, "I know it's too little too late here, mate, but I'm sorry." He turned to face his best friend, eyes filled with, as yet, un-shed tears, "Can you ever forgive me?"
"Of course I can." Harry pulled Ron to him, giving him the hug he had held for him for the last few years. When they broke apart, both a little more misty eyed then they would ever admit to anyone, Harry said the words he had been meaning to say all night, that he had only partly managed to say during the speech he had worked so hard on, "You're my best friend. The closest thing to family I've ever known. Everything I've ever done, I've done for you. I was this messed up kid, in way over his head, facing down this thing that was so far outside of my capabilities. I was no one going nowhere. You saved me, Ron. You told me a joke, showed me some chocolate frog trading cards and saved my life. How could..." He choked back tears, "There is no force on this planet that could ever make me stop being your best friend. There is no one that could erase what we've built."
This time Ron hugged Harry, "Thank you, Harry. Thank you so much."
* * *
London. 2003.
Ginny had taken down a photo album that she kept high on her shelf, tucked behind a row of old books with boring titles. She opened it up, breathing in the soft smell of Hogwarts which still slung to the pages. Inside the album she stored stored pictures taken by the Creevy boy, articles clipped from magazines, newspapers, books, pictures of them. The album was filled with Harry, and therefore filled with her demons. Pages and pages of a demon shaped like a boy with old eyes and a scar on his forehead.
Ginny used to have the album hidden behind a pile of stuffed animals in her room at the burrow. She would, every year at the beginning of each new term, put it at the bottom of her trunk and leave it there throughout the school year, chancing only the occasional night to look through it. She was son proud to have it, even if it was had in secret, that she was certain that some part of her soul was trapped inside it, just like Tom Riddle's diary.
Over the years it had transformed. Where it had once been the small, silent hopes and dreams of a love struck little girl, had become the realized affirmation of a girl who had gotten her deepest desire, and now it was a dark reminder. A cautionary tale. A relic of times gone by, heartbreak and despair. How she had hated him once. The cavalier way he had tossed her aside, so much used garbage. Ginny Weasly: The-girl-who-couldn't.
Tonight she looked at the pages and tried to feel something beyond the stubborn callous on her soul. She reached inside her to find the wind exposed flame that used to burn the night sky in her own name, and found only a damp spot inside herself which spelled out her past. Ron had said that he worried for Hermione. That the girl had never been able to move on from Harry Potter. Ginny had been polite. Had been quiet. Had been behaved.
Inside her a well sprang of spite. Built brick on top of brick of the way no one saw the storm rage inside of her. No one had noticed that she was the one, her goddamn it, that hadn't been able to pick up the pieces that Harry had shattered. Hermione had her work, her fling with Chaz. What did she have? She had exactly what Harry had said. Nothing.
The happy ending filled dreams of her youth had been battered with dismissive words. Her life had been ripped in too, spit on and raped before her by the one person she had foolishly trusted it with. No one cared. No one noticed. Not when Hermione was around. Not when her better shared a roof with her. She closed the book, threw it across the room and cried at the damned oblivion of it all.
* * *
London. 2003.
"I never hated you." She said finally, "I needed time."
"I gave it to you." He fell back against the chair, "I did what you asked me too. I left."
"I know."
"When you didn't show up at the wedding..." He sighed, "I honestly thought I had lost you. I thought that you were done with me."
"That's not why I didn't go, Harry." She got up and walked around so that she could put her hand on the side of his head, "It wasn't about you. It was about me."
Harry pulled away, "Isn't it always?"
Hermione recoiled, pulling her hand away as if he had bit it, "That was harsh."
He hung his head, "You're right. I'm sorry." He indicated the air around his head, "I have all this pent up aggression. Things I never got to say. I... This isn't how I wanted it to be between us."
"Harsh, but not wrong." She amended, "I did and didn't do a lot of things." She rested against the counter behind her, "I know how difficult it must be for you. I can see how..."
"I'm.." He stopped to gather his thoughts, "Let's not have this conversation. I don't want to have the conversation."
She pulled her chair around, sat facing him with one hand on his hands and the other on his face, "I think it's about time we finally did have this conversation."
* * *
London. 1998.
Harry moved across the couch, pulled her into his arms and drew her into a kiss. He was hungry for the feel of her. For the soft electric tingle of her skin against his. Her lips parted, allowing him access. He took it, greedy for as much of her as he could get. Her drying tears rolled onto his face, but he could hardly feel them. She moved her hand to his neck, pulling him to her as she rolled back onto the cushions. She forced him to her face.
He groaned as his groin made contact with her. His jeans rubbing against him he could feel the give of her flesh under her clothes. He moved his hand under her shirt until he felt her nipple hard against his palm. She moaned into his mouth.
* * *
He lay beside her as she slept. He moved her hair from her face, ran his hand up and down her naked back. He had never taken a moment to thank anyone for anything. He did that night. He thanked whoever would listen, be it God or Vishnu or what have you, for everything, every shitty horrible thing, that had ever taken him from a boy living in the cupboard under the stairs to the man laying on the wet spot next to her. His hand rose and fell with her breathing, and he marveled at it. He marveled at her.
Smart, unassuming Hermione. The woman he had never let himself fall in love with. The woman he always knew he was in love with.
* * *
She wouldn't return his owls. She wouldn't answer the door when he knocked. She barely spoke a word to him in days, except to say that she didn't know what she was doing anymore. That the night they had spent together had been a mistake. That she wished he would leave.
* * *
New York City. 2002.
Harry had leaped back onto the curb as a bike messenger had zoomed passed him at a reckless pace. Across the street Ginny had seen it. She stood, completely at a loss. It had not been her desire to see Harry Potter, let alone in New York. She didn't even know that he was there. She was visiting a friend, the first time she had seen him years. She stood there until he arrived, staring at the empty spot where Harry had stood. Finally his voice boomed behind her.
"Ginny!"
She turned, about to scream his name, but only half of it came out. Neville Longbottom had grown up in the intervening years. He stood tall, and far more slender than she had ever known him to be. His face was three days away from a razor, his hair uncombed, and his smile uncommonly kind.
"Nev..."
"Ginny!" He answered, "I thought I would miss you. I accidentally slept in."
"You look amazing."
He blushed and looked about his feet, "So do you."
"SO!" She shouted, "Why don't you show me around this giant city?"
He smiled so that the kindness lit his eyes, "I can try." He shrugged, "I've only been a few days."
"How is everything going?"
"Great! Really, really great!" He gushed, "I really feel like I've found my calling, it's so wonderful. I'm good with plants and everything."
"I'll be honest, until you said anything about it, I didn't know that Hogwarts even had the position you landed. I mean, traveling the world to find rare plants? Who knew?"
"It's a start." He smiled, "Let's get something to eat and I'll tell you about it."
They found a charming, practically empty little basement restaurant, seated themselves adjacent from one another at a booth. They ordered a lunch and spoke in conspiratorial tones. Magical folk were almost totally lost among the muggles, but in his travels Neville had become adept at fitting in.
"This gig is like a starting point for me." He explained, "What I'd really like to do is teach Herbology, but for now this is as good a foot in the door as anything. Plus, the perks are nice."
"How so?" She played with the straw in her glass, forcing herself to be charmed by the attractive young man before her. Trying so desperately not to dwell on her chance almost encounter with the Great Harry Potter.
"Well, I mean, mostly it's the ability to actually see these plants."
She smiled, "You saw them in the green house all the time."
His brow knitted, "Not really. It's hard to explain." He opened his mouth once, twice, smiled and began, "You know how when you see a bird in a cage, it's still a bird, but when you see it flying, swooping about in the clouds, it finally becomes a bird to you? It's the same thing with the plants. You don't really appreciate them until you see them out here. Growing wild."
She blinked, "I've never really thought about it that way." She chuckled, "That's a really good point actually. When did you get so smart?"
He smiled and shrugged, "I have my moments."
* * *
London. 2003.
"You were horrible to me." Harry admitted, "I don't know if I ever really got over that."
"I'm sorry." She cast her eyes down, "I know it isn't much, but I was young."
"I know." Harry cast about with his eyes, "People make these assumptions. They only see a situation as an outside observer. I never would have realized that if I hadn't grown up the way I did. People watch you make a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. But they have the benefit of knowing more of the complete story. They can see the consequences."
"And they act like you intended to do what you did. Like you are actively trying to hurt people." She finished.
"Exactly." He smiled, "I'm not looking for you to apologize. We all make mistakes. It's part of growing up. Part of being human. I didn't come here to have you explain that to me, I left so you wouldn't have to."
"Is that the only reason?" She bit her lip, "I was afraid that it was because I told you to leave."
"No." He rested his hand on her face, "I would have anyway. I was so hung up on you. I was destroyed when you rejected me. I would have left. I would have had to. To save myself."
"I was afraid of what you meant to me." She confessed, "It was only a little less than eight months after Ron and I split up. I didn't want you to be my rebound. I wanted to love you without modifiers."
"I wanted you to."
"Do you think..." She sighed, "Is there still a chance for that?"
Harry sat back, rubbing his forehead, "Okay. Wow." He blew out a cheekful of air, "That's a conversation for a different time."
"You're right." She withdrew from him slightly.
"'Mione, right now, right this moment in time, I just want to see if we can even be friends again." He pulled her to him, "We've been through some shit, both of us. We have so much to catch up on. So much to learn about each other again."
"You're the best friend I've ever had, Harry."
He smiled, "I get that a lot these days." He paused, "You think I've grown up?"
"I think you grew up before I did." She slapped him lightly on the arm, "And I have to tell you, Mr. Potter, I did not see that coming."