Unofficial Portkey Archive

A/N: Okay, do me a favor and power through the two following this chapter. They are somewhat similar to the last one in terms of progressing the canon events, but they are still heavily H/Hr-centric given the mindset of the characters. As for this one…I feel a little bad in writing this one because the events that occur are almost solely for a very simple purpose, which is revealed in the next chapter I think. I'm not all that pleased with it, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. But again, please stick through the next two!

Thanks to justduck, kinikeens, auror_lumos09, UKwildcat820, and anyone else who reviewed!

Chapter 27: Try

In the weeks that followed, Hermione made a strong effort to appear as happy as possible. She interacted cheerfully with Ron and her friends, behaved pleasantly when she visited her parents, and was positively chipper at work.

It was good practice, after all. Harry and Ginny had been in France on their honeymoon for multiple weeks now, so she hoped that by the time they returned she would be able to pull off a believable façade.

Maybe she would even start to believe it after a while.

But it did get exhausting after a time, which is why Hermione had elected to bring home the office reports she had to write. She really had no desire to deal with her coworkers today.

When she arrived back at her apartment, she plopped the fairly thick stack of parchments on her desk and sat down. She pulled one report towards her, glanced at it, then pushed it back with distaste less than five seconds later. She apparently had no desire to deal with reports, either.

She thought for a moment of seeing what Ron was up to, but dismissed the idea immediately: Ron was still intensely involved with his Auror training almost everyday, so disturbing him wasn't an option.

Even when she picked up a novel she had been intending to read she put it back down without even completing the first page. She felt unusually restless, and had no idea why.

Just as this thought was running through her mind, she heard a ringing from the living room. Hermione had purchased a cell phone quite recently to make correspondence with her parents easier. She still wrote letters to them regularly, but it was usually quite a hindrance for her mother or father to contact her without an owl of their own.

She picked up the phone from the table next to the doorway and flipped it open.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hermione?"

Her mother had only spoken four syllables but Hermione knew instantly that something was wrong.

"Mum, what is it?" she said, her voice perhaps sharper than she had intended in her anxiousness.

Hermione heard her mother sob and felt a part of her already mangled heart break.

"Is Daddy okay?" she asked, her voice taking on an almost childlike quaver. It felt like an eternity before her mother choked out a reply.

"No, sweetheart, he's not."

**********

Harry threw himself down on a towel next to his wife. He was sopping wet from swimming in the ocean, while Ginny had mostly remained on the sand getting a tan. As he had become accustomed to doing, Harry had magically disguised the mark on his chest, which still had not improved significantly.

He lay there for a few seconds, catching his breath, before turning on his side and looking at Ginny, whose eyes were closed.

Harry crept forward slightly and used the edge of his towel to brush at her stomach.

"The archaeologist removes a thin layer of sediment from the form," he said, putting on a strong Australian accent. "Oh my, would you look at how well this fossil is preserved. It must have been here for centuries, lying completely and utterly dormant as life around it moves on -"

"How would you like an ancient curse, pal?" Ginny said, not bothering to open her eyes.

"Come on, Gin, don't be a spoilsport! You should go swimming with me."

"Tempting, but I'd really like to get a tan for once in my life."

"You can get a tan just as easily out in the water," Harry replied. "Or just get a sunburn like you usually do."

Ginny cracked open one eye and sneered at him. "Is that a crack at my skin-tone?"

Harry nodded apologetically. "Fair skin and sun just don't mix. You've been burned to a crisp multiple times already and you're not all that much darker."

Ginny sat up slightly, wincing as she did so. "Curse my genetics. At least I got the looks in the family. I don't know what happened with Ron."

Harry chuckled. "You don't give him a break, do you?"

"I never got a break, and it just so happens that he's the easiest target. Fred and George always had Percy covered."

"True," Harry said.

"So when d'you think Ron and Hermione will tie the knot?" Ginny said, propping herself on her elbow.

"Er…" Harry said, feeling uncomfortable.

"I mean, it's really just a matter of time now."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because we got married," Ginny said pointedly. "Ickle Ronikins isn't one to let himself be shown up. Especially by you."

"That's ridiculous," Harry said. "It's not like if I jumped off a bridge Ron would too."

Ginny didn't immediately reply, instead getting a dreamy far-off look.

"Well?" Harry said after several moments.

Ginny shook her head and refocused on Harry. "Sorry, I was just visualizing Ron jumping off a bridge."

Harry laughed again, but refused to be led off topic.

"So you really think that he's going to propose just because we got married?"

"Of course he's not going to propose because of it, but I would bet a good many Galleons that he's going to speed up the process as a result."

Harry tried to sound neutral. "How soon do you think?"

"Months. A year max," Ginny said. She smiled brightly at the thought. "I can't wait for Hermione to join the family! She's smarter than Ron…she's nicer than Ron…she's more talented than Ron… wow, Ron's kind of pathetic."

Harry remained silent as Ginny abused her brother good-naturedly, and then spoke after a moment.

"Has Hermione talked to you about any of this?"

"Um, not really," Ginny said, settling back again in the sand. "She was helping me a lot with the wedding, after all. She was acting a bit odd the closer we got to it, though. I think she's been thinking a lot about her relationship with him."

"That makes sense," he said, nodding jerkily.

"What about you?" Ginny asked. "Has Ron talked to you about anything?"

"Nothing," Harry said, staring out at the water. "Like you said, we've all been busy with the wedding…and the fact that he's started Auror training doesn't help matters. There's not really a lot of room for conversation when you're blasting spells at each other."

All of this was true, but Harry rather doubted if Ron would tell him even if he were planning to propose. After all the trouble with Greyback's spell, Ron seemed to have little desire to discuss Hermione with him at all…not that Harry could blame him, really.

Harry's reveries were cut short, however, as something small hit him hard in the back of his head. Swearing and rubbing his head, he turned around and was met with the tiny form of Pigwidgeon.

Harry pulled back slightly to distance himself from the owl's wildly fluttering wings and then snatched him out of the air.

"What are you doing here, Pig?" he asked.

The owl hooted importantly.

"I see," said Ginny, who had sat up to stroke the little bird's head. "He says Ron wants to be an obnoxious prat and disrupt our blissfully peaceful honeymoon." She took the bird into her own grip. "Pigwidgeon Weasley, you should be ashamed of yourself for participating in such a ruse."

Pigwidgeon cocked his head confusedly at Ginny.

"Geez, you've been around Ron too long," she said sadly.

Harry pulled off the small scroll attached to Pig's leg and unrolled it. Ron's handwriting seemed particularly sloppy today:

Harry and Ginny,

I'm sorry for putting a damper on your honeymoon, but I figured I should tell you before you got back. Hermione's dad passed away yesterday. She's upset, of course, but she's getting through. She's staying with her mum for a while.

I hope you're having a great time in France.

Ron

"What is it?" Ginny said, seeing the distraught look cross Harry's face. She released Pigwidgeon, who hopped a few paces away and observed the bikini-clad women dispersed along the shore.

Harry swallowed loudly and then wordlessly handed the note to her.

She gasped softly as she finished it. "Oh no," she murmured, putting a hand across her mouth. "Poor Hermione…she must be hurting so much right now."

Harry stood up almost unconsciously and began to pull on his shirt.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Ginny said, furrowing her brow.

He didn't reply until he had finished clasping the last button in place. "I need to go check on her," he said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

Ginny frowned, staring at him with an unreadable gaze, and then finally turned away.

"Give Hermione my love for me, will you?"

"I will," he said, and without bothering to pick up any of his other possessions he Apparated from the beach, leaving Ginny to glance around nervously to see if any other beachgoers had noticed his disappearance.

************

The next few hours passed in a daze.

Hermione felt as if she were in a state of paralysis, although logically she knew that this wasn't the case. Almost as if from a third-person perspective, she watched herself jot down a note to Ron, explaining what had happened and that she was going to her mother's, and attach the note to Marcellus' leg. She also observed herself as she methodically packed a suitcase with about a week's worth of clothing, contacted the appropriate people about taking a few days off of work, and finally as she had Apparated from the apartment.

Why was she always like this? She felt as though something similar had occurred to her at Harry's wedding. When her heart was in greatest pain, screaming at her to sit down and cry before she bled to death from the pain of it, her brain took over, manipulating her motions and ensuring no such thing happened.

Her mother had greeted her at the door, her face swollen from crying, and embraced her daughter desperately, sobbing into the shoulder of the only person who could possibly understand a fragment of her grief.

Hermione fought back the majority of her own tears, hugging her mother back just as desperately. After several minutes, Katherine had relinquished her hold on her and directed Hermione into the kitchen, where she set about fussing over tea. Hermione had quietly pushed her mother into a chair and made the drinks herself. Crookshanks had then leapt into Katherine's lap - it seemed as though the cat hadn't left her side at all that day.

Once Hermione had placed a steaming cup of tea in front of herself and her mother, Katherine had told her wearily of what had happened to her father.

Benjamin Granger had died of an aneurysm earlier that morning. When Katherine had wakened him to go to work, he had complained of a fierce headache. Katherine, thinking little of it, had simply given him an aspirin and kissed him lightly on the forehead before going to the office herself.

When she had returned to her house at around noon to check on him, she had found him collapsed in the middle of their bedroom.

Hermione's cup rattled loudly in its saucer as her hands shook furiously. Neither she nor or her mother had taken a single sip. They had sat silently like this for a long time, before Katherine had suggested they both go to bed. Hermione had retreated to her own bedroom, which was kept mostly the same, and she knew that her mother had gone to the guest bedroom.

She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, feeling emotionally drained, and awoke early the next morning. When she walked once more down to the kitchen, she found her mother sitting silently at the table; her eyes were dark-rimmed from lack of sleep.

Close relatives began to arrive as the day wore on, expressing their condolences and leaving a vast arrangement of casseroles, pies, and other dishes. Hermione really didn't understand why this was such a customary tradition. Oh, you're father died?

Here's a mince pie to make it better. She knew that she had no appetite whatsoever, and if her observations were correct, neither did her mother.

The relatives generally stayed for about half an hour, assured Katherine that they would be attending the funeral the next day, and left. Hermione was always relieved when they left, but the feeling of loneliness permeated the house the instant the door shut.

Without the presence of the familiar brown-haired, bespectacled man, the house felt abandoned. Hermione kept expecting to see him in every room she entered: drinking coffee at the kitchen table, reading his newspaper in his favorite chair, exiting the back door to tinker in his wood shop. But the fact remained that he would never grace these locations again, and each time she thought of this her stomach ached.

She sat with her so-uncharacteristically-silent mother as the afternoon wore on. No one else had indicated that they would be coming over, so they had escaped the stifling house to the less-stifling porch. His presence lingered here as well (perhaps even more so), but somehow it felt easier here.

Hermione examined the porch passively, focusing on minute details. The swirls of knot-holes in the wooden planks, the creak of the porch swing, the rattle of the screen door in the wind…

"Hermione?"

The voice that came from the yard was very soft, but Hermione recognized it instantly and she turned her head to look at their visitor.

Harry stood on the stairs with a concerned expression on his face. He wore a button-up shirt over a pair of long shorts. Hermione noticed that he had tanned considerably and that his hair was wet.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sadness in his tone.

She barely registered her mother stand up from the swing and enter the house.

She was only acutely aware that Harry was here.

Harry's question hung in the air, and Hermione felt herself break down.

"No," she said shakily, finally feeling her resolve crumble. "I don't think I am."

Harry crossed the last few feet to her and hugged her to him as the tears came in torrents. She sobbed into his shoulder uncontrollably, and he caressed her hair tenderly, every now and then planting a soft kiss on her head. She did not know how long they sat like that - minutes, hours…?

Even after her tears began to subside, he still held her. She noticed that his skin and hair smelled salty, and could feel that his hair had dried.

Finally she pulled away from him, knowing that he would not do so. She felt as if she should apologize for disrupting his honeymoon, for causing him to abandon his wife on some beach in France, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to discuss that at all.

Harry remained quiet. He spoke not a single word of condolence and Hermione hoped he knew that they were unnecessary.

Impulsively, she reached out and placed her hand gently on the side of his face. If he was at all shocked, he didn't show it.

"Thank you," she said softly.

He reached up and placed his hand over hers. He took her free hand in his and kissed it.

The moment felt intensely...intimate (there was no other way to describe it), and Hermione loathed to see it end. But she finally stood up, and Harry followed suit.

"You should go back," Hermione said.

Harry nodded, but made no move to leave.

"Ginny's waiting for you," she murmured, her eyes downcast.

Reluctantly it seemed, Harry pulled Hermione into one last hug, and planted one last kiss on the top of her head.

"I'll be back soon," he said.

Then he released her, stepped through the house to offer his sympathies to Katherine, and Apparated back to Ginny.

Hermione remained on the porch after Harry had gone. After fifteen minutes or so, Katherine joined her once more on the swing.

After a period of silence, her mother finally spoke: "Hermione, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, though the note of coolness she used suggested that she knew exactly what her mother meant.

"Harry," Katherine stated simply. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything, Mum."

"Which is exactly my point! You've been consistently depressed for almost a year now - ever since Harry got engaged."

"I have not!" Hermione protested.

"Yes, you have. Sure, you've gone through the motions of being happy, but I can tell you're not. And it's not fair."

"To whom?" Hermione said in a polite voice dripping with venom.

"To everyone!" Katherine said, her voice rising. "It's not fair to Ginny, to Harry, to Ron, or to yourself!"

Hermione suddenly felt very angry. She stood up abruptly and faced her mother.

"I can't do anything about that!" she said furiously.

"You haven't tried!"

"How do you know I haven't tried? I've tried harder than you can possibly imagine!"

Katherine gazed up at her daughter in sadness. "Hermione, it's over. He's married. And as long as he is, there's no point in dwelling on it. It's only going to cause you more pain."

Hermione felt hot tears spill onto her cheeks. She didn't bother to brush them away.

"What about you, Mum? Do you ever wish you'd never loved Daddy just so you didn't feel this pain now?"

Katherine looked as if Hermione had physically struck her. She raised a shaky hand to cover her eyes.

"No," she said finally. "Not for a second."

"Then you can understand that it's not that easy to simply stop loving someone." Hermione turned away to gaze at the spot where Harry had appeared earlier. "I can't even bring myself to wish for that."

Hermione felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I understand that there will most likely always be a part of you that cares for Harry that way," Katherine said softly. "But you have a relationship of your own - a life of your own. Don't neglect it because of Harry - I know he wouldn't want you to." She paused. "I know your father wouldn't want you to."

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