Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter Eight: Bond Sundered

Harry became dimly and gradually aware of the muscles in his neck pulling uncomfortably, even as his cheek rebounded off of his shoulder and propelled his head unceremoniously into an upright position.

"Ow…" he muttered to himself, rubbing at the offending musculature, and taking a half-second to remember where he was. Judging by the pearly gray light outside the window and the utter hush in the rear of the flat, it was nearing dawn, but still quite early. He tried to recall what time Hermione usually got up in the mornings - whether he was awake ahead of her usual daybreak routine, or whether he should be concerned about possible effects of yesterday's news.

He stood up slowly, rolling his shoulders and stretching out the kinks that came from spending the night semi-upright on a sofa. He cursed under his breath, wishing he had recognized how sleepy he was and Flooed back home before he had gotten all crunched up. He padded down the hall in his sock feet, and availed himself of Hermione's loo, hearing nothing from the cracked door that showed only a sliver of a darkened room.

Harry checked the clock in the kitchen, decided that he would give her ten more minutes, and puttered around in her cabinets, putting the coffee on and pulling out the sugar, bread, and marmalade. He had returned to the sofa with a cup of tea, and the intent to search for the missing mate to his right shoe - toed off at some point during the night - when the Floo blazed up, casting a sickly green-gray light over the dim living area.

"There you are!" He said with an air of triumph, as the tips of his fingers caught the heel of the shoe under the sofa and fished it out. He uncurled himself to look straight up into Ron Weasley's bewildered -- and increasingly irate - face. Harry's eyes darted from the fireplace to Ron to his cup of tea to the kitchen, where the sound of percolating coffee bubbled clearly, to the shoe dangling in his left hand.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Ron was all rising belligerence.

"Putting on my shoes?" Harry shot back.

"At half six?"

"Was I supposed to wait until seven?" His voice was purposefully snide, and he could just imagine Hermione's disapproving frown as he let his irritation get the best of him. Ron said something that he would never have uttered in front of his mum.

"Did you - after I left that day?" Ron sputtered. He wasn't more specific, but he didn't have to be. "Tell me the truth, Harry. If you were ever my mate, tell me! Did you and Hermione ever - ?"

"Ron, you are unbelievable! The amount of faith that you have in us is staggering, truly. I know what you saw - that night we got the sword - but I thought it was from that dark corner of your mind, you know, one of those thoughts you hate yourself for even thinking, the ones the Horcrux wanted to exploit. But you're still thinking that - without even any murderous evil wizard's magic to blame!" He shoved his feet into his shoes, without untying them, and stood up to face Ron. "If Hermione and I fell in love, why do you think we would keep that from you? Why do you think we would decide that misleading everyone and lying to all our close friends and family would be a good idea? And don't you think that around nine months from the time you left that people would start noticing something?"

"Surely you didn't spend all that time in the Gryffindor Quidditch locker room and not figure out that there are ways to cover those things up? As innovative a witch as Hermione is…"

"Didn't. Happen." Harry's voice was flat, refusing to let himself be sidetracked. "I know Hermione had to have explained it to you - about the hospital, the genetic engineering, the…material that was taken from us. I know you're not so thick as to be standing here in the flat of my best friend and your fiancee, calling her a liar."

Faced with such a bald statement, Ron was clearly flummoxed. Harry could see that he did not really think that Hermione was a liar, that he would never call her one, that he would hex anyone who did… but he was unsure what to do with the paradigm shift that meant the whole bizarre story was true.

He took a step closer to Ron, gripped his shoulder, shook it slightly. His green eyes met Ron's conflicted blue ones as squarely as he could make them.

"This changes nothing." Ron flinched at Harry's unwitting echo of Hermione. "We're not cutting you out to start our own family. I'm not making any moves. Through an insane set of circumstances, Hermione and I are parents. We are trying to act in the best interests of an abused child. You - and Ginny - are adults. You need to act like it."

"Is it really in the girl's best interests?" Ron asked, regaining enough equilibrium to ask legitimate questions, though the undertone was still somewhat confrontational. "To live with a single bloke in his early 20s? I know you have a good job, but who's going to watch her while you're at work? Hermione's hours are ridiculous. Why not give her to a nice Wizarding couple who are married and settled down and ready for children?"

"I may be a `single bloke in his early 20s', but I know how to cook and my flat isn't a health hazard. I've kept Teddy on my own loads of times! I was thinking Molly could watch her like she watches Victoire for Fleur and Bill, but if not, then I'll hire someone… After the childhood I had, I think I am pretty well-versed in how not to treat a small child. Don't you remember - don't you remember how it felt when Bill and Percy tried to talk you out of going through Auror training, especially after I quit? The training's been hard, hasn't it? But won't it be worth it in the end? I can do this, Ron. She's my daughter. I want to do this."

Harry suddenly noticed Hermione standing quietly in the hallway, smiling mistily at him and dabbing tears out from under her eyes. Ron was standing in the wrong position to see her peripherally, and so muttered,

"Fine, you want to do this. But do you have to drag Hermione down with you?"

"Drag her down where?" Harry cried in exasperation, but his words were mostly lost under the first frenzied words of Hermione's tirade. She marched toward them resolutely, her corkscrew hair flying wildly behind her, eyes flashing, and looking pretty damned intimidating for someone in Mickey Mouse pajamas.

"Ronald Weasley! I am not a piece of luggage to be dragged anywhere! Why do you persist in believing that I am not doing any of this of my own free will?"

"Because you're not!! You're doing this because it's Harry. If it was anyone else… But Harry - I don't know, he's got this hold over you or something. It's just like when we were looking for horcruxes. You stayed with him."

"You have got to get over this inferiority complex about Harry! It's so… it's so damned …" Hermione shook her head wildly in frustration, angered into incoherence, tears streaking down her flushed cheeks. Ron crossed his arms and looked resolute, though his ears were on fire.

"If it comes down to me or him, you choose him. You always have chosen him. And this time is no different."

"Have you ever stopped to consider, Ronald, that I have `chosen' Harry in these situations because he is right? You don't care at all about the reasons I chose to side with him; you simply can't stomach the fact that I chose to side with him! It's a funny attitude to have considering he's your best friend! And you've neglected to mention the times I did choose you, the most important time being when I agreed to be your wife!" Harry's gaze zig-zagged back and forth, as if he were watching a Quidditch match with two sides of particularly adept Chasers. He wondered if he could make it into the kitchen undetected, but then figured he'd still be forced to hear everything from there anyway.

"I'm sure it was only because Harry didn't ask," Ron snapped, and his voice was so cutting that Harry was completely taken aback. Hermione staggered backwards three or four steps, mouth agape, and one hand spread over her breastbone. Harry made an abrupt motion toward her, but then arrested it, fairly sure that he would only make things worse.

"It - I can't be - believe - how - how - you - " Hermione squeaked out disjointed words, and looked like she was only seconds away from hyperventilating. Harry had never seen her so angry; he thought she was wringing her hands, until he saw her right hand acting on her left with an almost violent jerking motion. And then she was flinging something small at Ron's head. It whizzed past his ear, bounced off the wall, and landed in front of the fireplace with a musical ping.

Harry and Ron realized what it was at the same time, and Harry watched his best mate's face melt into ineffable regret. Hermione wrapped her arms around herself, hunching her shoulders with wracking sobs, and whirled away from them. She wrenched open the door to her bathroom, plunged inside, and slammed it with such force that two pictures fell from the wall in the hallway.

Harry was following her path before he really knew what he was doing, managing to twist the doorknob in the millisecond before she cast the locking spells on it. He heard the hardware inside the knob crunch together loudly, as her magic collided with his, and felt the handle almost fall off in his grasp.

Hermione was sitting on the lid of the closed toilet, folded almost in half, wild hair flowing over her knees and completely obscuring her face from view. Harry opened his mouth to say her name, guilt for the whole situation hammering painfully in his chest, but he was interrupted by an anguished pounding on the door.

"Hermione," came Ron's voice, obviously agonized, even when muffled. "Hermione, please…"

Harry made sure his wand was easily accessible, and turned back toward the door. He opened the door gingerly, as the door handle was decidedly no longer serving its purpose. He kept his face impassive as he looked at Ron, well aware of the other man's half a head advantage over him in height.

"I think you should leave now."

"Harry, I didn't mean - you've got to let me fix this - "

"You've done enough, Ron."

"And what gives you the right to - " As quickly as Ron's anger had abated, it began to rekindle.

"Being her best friend gives me the right! I've known her for as long as you have… and I have never made her cry like that." Even in the midst of the argument, he felt an inkling of sympathy for his male best friend, and made a concerted effort to soften his voice. "You should go. Before anyone says anything else to make this situation worse. Let everyone just calm down… and we can revisit this later." Harry suppressed a cringe; he sounded like that annoying Mind-Healer that Molly Weasley kept insisting that everyone talk to after the war.

The fight seemed to drain out of Ron, and leave him completely emptied. He looked as defeated as Harry had ever seen him.

"Fine…" he said, and repeated an even more subdued, "fine… I'll go. I'll - I'm so sorry, Hermione." He directed his last sentence over Harry's shoulder, and it echoed cavernously off of the tiled walls. Hermione's whole body was still vibrating with sobs, and she did not appear to hear him at all.

Harry smiled at Ron, a tight, not particularly wholesome smile, and then he gently, but firmly, closed the door in Ron's face. He made no move toward Hermione, but stood silently by the jamb until he heard the noise of the Floo.

As soon as the whoosh of the flames faded away, he turned toward his other best friend, her cries now dwindled to soft sniffles and hiccups. He handed her a tissue, as he knelt beside her, watching with pained eyes as she wiped at her swollen, wet face and runny nose.

"I guess I'm not engaged anymore," she said, in a broken, wistful voice that was a shadow of its normal self.

"Now, wait! You don't know that. There isn't anything that's beyond repair. You know that Ron doesn't really think that - "

"Then he shouldn't have said it!" Hermione rapped out sharply. "You shouldn't say things that you don't mean."

Harry abruptly changed tack, half-wondering why he fell back into his old habits of defending Ron. He reached up one hand to pull her snarled curls away from her face, then rested it lightly on her back.

"I'm so sorry he hurt you." He spoke as sincerely as he knew how. "I caused this whole situation, and I am heartily sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous, Harry," Hermione sniffed. "You didn't do anything."

"I decided to keep Eleanor. I didn't think about how it would affect the people closest to us. I just assumed that you would help me, as you always have. I just - I keep bloody well needing you, and dragging you into my problems, and - well, it's nearly gotten you killed before, and now, when you should be able to live your life on your own terms, here I am again, throwing your life into utter disarray."

"I am living life on my own terms. Those terms include you. They always will. And if they include you, then they include your decisions - your choices - and they include Eleanor. No questions asked, not anymore."

Harry bowed his head, one elbow in her lap, one on his raised knee, hands clasped. He could still see the flutter of gold - like a Snitch - as Hermione's engagement ring arced across the room; he could still see the sickened, gray look on Ron's face as he realized what he'd said, what he'd done.

"Harry… Harry, look at me…please…" Her fingers were beneath his chin, trying to force his head to tilt up. He resisted the first couple of attempts, but the tears were back in her voice, and he'd never been able to stand seeing her upset. He relaxed the muscles in his neck, and let her move him.

She smiled through her tears when she could meet his eyes, and he wondered if she was reading his mind.

"You didn't do this. You didn't cause Ron to react the way he did. You are not the reason he is unable to face a future where he might not be my first priority. You did not make me act like a complete child, and throw my ring… We are adults, you know. Even when we don't act like them." Her dark eyes grew distant and sad, seeing through him, past him. "And when we make our decisions, we have to face the consequences." It all sounded so final. Panic was a vise around Harry's heart, a drumbeat in his temples.

"Please don't break up with him because of me." It was a question borne of quiet desperation, of deeply embedded guilt. He felt that he had been forcing people in directions they would not go, if left to their own devices, and sometimes to their detriment, even death, ever since he was a child.

"Honestly!" She said it without any of her usual heat. "This isn't about you. I had to - I had to tell… Ron… the very same thing yesterday." She swallowed hard, and he saw her jaw quiver with repressed tears. "This is… it's about what Eleanor needs; it's about what I need. I'm not - I won't shut the door completely on a relationship with Ron, but he - he is going to have to seriously think about what he truly wants from one. And … and it's not as if this is a walk in the park for me… or for you! And Ron just instantly focuses on how things are difficult for him, and I - " Her voice rose in volume and timbre, as her ire began to overpower her regret. And, just as quickly, the house of cards that was her recovered composure collapsed, and she seemed to wilt. "I could just kill him right now. I hate him for making me feel this way."

Harry reached for her then, and she came into his arms without hesitation. He shifted so that he was sitting on the floor, his back against the cabinet and his legs outstretched, and pulled her into his lap. He kissed the top of her head, leaned his cheek against it, as she sniffled into the shoulder of his shirt.

"Ron is an idiot," he said frankly, and an unbidden laugh slipped from her mouth into the crook of his neck. "But he's our idiot. And deep down, you know he loves you. And I love you. So - so we'll think about Eleanor… we'll focus on her. And we'll face this together, like we've faced everything else in the last twelve years."

"You're right," Hermione said hoarsely, sitting up a little straighter, and smearing her tears across her face with the crumpled tissue in her hand. He could practically see her mentally assembling an action plan. "I can do this. We can do this." He kissed her again, this time hitting her temple, and she closed her eyes at his touch.

"The coffee's on." He maneuvered to help her stand, and then stood up himself. "I'm going back to my place to take a shower, and then - should I come back here? Or just meet you at St. Mungo's?" At the thought of bringing Eleanor home, his eyes alit with a kind of nervous energy. His stance was twitchy; he was balancing most of his weight on the balls of his feet.

Hermione darted a hesitant look at him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

"Why don't you come back here? We can have breakfast. It feels - it feels right to start this together… since we're in this together." Harry's resulting smile reached his eyes for the first time since Ron came through the Floo.

"Sounds perfect." He cupped her cheek with one hand, dandling his finger tips at her hairline briefly, before sliding his fingers down to chuck her chin. "Half an hour?"

"Make it an hour."

He heard the shower turn on as he closed the door, the sad knob hanging by one wobbly screw. A Reparo spell shored it up a bit, but Harry figured the whole thing would have to be replaced. A metallic gleam caught his eye, as he tossed the Floo powder into the flames, and he reached down to pick up Hermione's ring, forgotten where it had landed on the edge of the hearth. He picked it up, tucked it into his pocket, and headed home.

He whistled a bit as he stepped out of the Floo, taking care not to inhale any leftover soot. It did strange painful things to his heart to see Hermione so undone, especially when she was usually so strong and independent. But the impending visit to Eleanor, and the anticipation of her reaction when she found out she was going to have a home, a real home and a family, was starting to drive the rift between Hermione and Ron to the back of his mind.

The jaunty tune died on his puckered lips, when he saw his girlfriend curled up in the wing chair, looking as if she had been there for awhile. He could feel the weight of her gaze move the length of him, taking in the rumpled clothes that were the same ones he'd worn the day before. Her eyes were unfathomable, and Harry incongruously felt like he'd been caught out doing something wrong.

"I came to talk about it," Ginny said.

AN - Eleanor will be back in the next chapter. It would have been this chapter, but Ron and Hermione will insist on fighting all the time!

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