Chapter Text
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She does not know she ended up here.
“My condolences,” Headmistress McGonagall states. Wrinkles her nose too. “On you and Mr. Weasley – I cannot say that I’m not surprised or sad at this sudden turn of events.”
Hermione’s mouth curls slightly. She takes a seat in front of the desk, crossing her legs at the ankle. Her hands smooth over her skirt. “No condolences necessary,” she says quietly. She shrugs. There’s a pang of guilt; no one is surprised at the break up. “I feel like many people were more surprised at how long we were together as it is.”
The older woman takes the seat next to her, then her hand. “My poor girl,” her former professor states. “As much as I would delight in a I told you so, I just don’t that’s why you’re here as it is.”
She nods. Hermione doesn’t linger. “I’m not going to come back.”
The words are easy: in fact, the easiest part about all of this is sitting in the Headmistress’ office and thinking to herself that she really hasn’t ever sat here, this way, without any sort of death threat, weight, or impending concern of doom. It’s even stranger to be back at Hogwarts’ for this conversation, trying to ignore the blast of triggers that suddenly crawl up her throat and threaten to dissolve into tears or burst of anger. Hermione does not have a particular poison. Ron has his anger and the intensity that he’s thrown himself into the limelight, the heat of his Auror training, and his family. Harry hides behind the limelight with select appearance and the startled confusion that appears when he’s faced with being able to make his own choices.
“I’m not going to come back,” she says again, sighing. Her shoulders sink back and she offers a half-hearted smile, biting her lip. “It would be silly of me to say that I had every intention of coming back, finishing my education, but –”
“You have things to take care of first.”
Hermione nods. McGonagall’s face is almost grim.
“Something like that,” she murmurs.
The Headmistress sighs. “To be honest,” she offers, leaning back in her chair. They both stare at the large desk in front of them. “I assumed we’d be having this conversation at some point – I just want you to know, dear girl, that this always a place for you to come back to, no matter the time or the need.”
“I know.” Hermione laughs a little, bring her hands to her face. The heels of her palms press into her eyes and she swallows her tears. “I think a large part of it is that I’ve outgrown all of this, of needing this kind of safe space. It’s not that I don’t want it. Actually, I desperately want to take you up on everything you’ve offered me…”
“Do you know where they are? Your parents?”
Hermione is quiet. She doesn’t bring her hands away from her face.
“I did,” she says after awhile. “I have a pensieve. I’m going to look into it again, to make sure, I suppose. I’ve read over the charm again too, but the pensieve will have better answers. Professor Vector kept it for me, away in her office. I needed to give it to someone they would never had –”
“It’s alright, dear.” McGonagall reaches for her hands, peeling them away from her face. “You don’t need explain. Will Mr. Potter be going off with you?”
Hermione can’t hide her surprise, confused. The older woman laughs, squeezing her hands. She stands then too, straightening. Her hands brush over her robes.
“Darling girl, just don’t be surprised,” is all she says.
Harry finds her later.
By now, the sun is starting to set and most people occupy the hotel bar somewhere behind her. The music is a dull hum. A couple walks by her, heading towards the water with drinks in hand. She’s sitting on a chair, legs propped up and against her chest. She cannot stop thinking about her mother’s face.
“I don’t want to ask how it went,” Harry admits, sitting on the edge of the beach chair and by her feet. His hand smooths against her knees. “Do you want me to?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“What can I do?”
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” she says. Her throat feels a little tight. “Part of me thinks I should just leave it alone. They’re happy. They’re healthy. I’ve watched the pensieve in my bag, you know, probably to torment myself.”
“Hermione.”
She looks up, her expression sharp. “Harry,” she counters. She pulls herself back. “Sorry,” she mumbles. Her hands cover her face and she groans. “I’m just not okay.”
“You have to stop it,” he says, and he’s fast, faster than she expects him to be, wrapping his fingers around her wrists and pulling at her hands. She fights him half-heartedly. “I’m bloody serious, Hermione,” he nearly snaps. “This isn’t like you, wallowing in your guilt. You would have made the very same decision to fix this, no questions act.”
“I’m not wallowing.”
“You are.” He peels her hands back some more. “You’re wallowing and you hate yourself for wallowing because you know that you cannot predict the consequences, given that you did the best you could for an impossible situation. I don’t know what I would have done if I were you. I know for a fact that I certainly cannot be that brave.”
He does not let go of her hands and she tries to pull them back. Get up and walk away, she tells herself. She’s angry; it fumbles inside of her, growing, pulsing, aching into knots in the pit of her stomach. He’s right, she tells herself too.
“I’m scared,” she hisses, and squeezes her eyes shut. “I took away a choice. I was just as bad as everyone else – do I even deserve to have them back? Do I even deserve to see them again?” Her eyes burn. “Do I even deserve you?”
She’s not crying – she’s cried enough, too much maybe, but her exhaustion starts to hits her in a way that it hasn’t before. She feels it in every part of her body – her shoulders, down her back and along her spine, to her feet. Her hands wrap back around Harry’s hands, her fingers digging into his palms. He reaches over, framing her face with his hands, then resting his forehead against hers.
“No one deserves anyone,” he says quietly. “There’s no price. There’s no competition.” He smiles sadly. “I can’t tell you how to feel and I most certainly cannot tell you the answers. When I can say is that you tried to do the right thing, no matter what – and oh, hell, I’m rambling, but you did. You did try to do the right thing and maybe, maybe they might not see it, but you did try to do the right thing, Hermione. The only thing you knew how to do at the time.”
She stares at him. His eyes are bright. She has no idea what to say; part of this, part of all of this, is that she has spent too much time knowing what to say, what the right thing is to say, and what she would do to protect people she loves. Her mouth feels heavy and hot. She wants to cry again, but there isn’t much left in her.
“I’m scared,” she says again. She shakes her head, her eyes darting down. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“I know.” He pulls back a little, smoothing his fingers against her face. “I understand.”
“I know.” She leans into his fingers. “Thank you.”
She kisses him first, this time; mostly, there’s nothing else to say. She kisses him and pours herself into him slowly, sweeping her tongue along his lip into his mouth. He makes a muffled sound and she thinks she might’ve sighed, dragging herself to be closer because, then and now, she never seems to be close enough to him. She thinks this can’t make me sad anymore and it’s easier said than done. There are consequences. There will be consequences. It might be that she’s ready to take them all on.
“I’m sorry I’m crazy,” she murmurs against his mouth, running her fingers against his face, then through his hair. Thank you for coming, she wants to say. Thank you for being you, she should say. There are no more words. She feels sharp and heavy. She feels sad. It’s grief, she may think later. This is what this is. But there’s nothing left to it.
Harry smiles at her.
“I wouldn’t have you any other way.” His fingers push some of her hair back. He’s a little hesitant, shy even. “I just want you to learn how to forgive yourself,” he says too.
It feels like a lesson.
It takes her another day to write a letter. And a few hours to have the courage to write down their names. She will never send it, she decides.
Harry is asleep in the bed and she is sitting by the window, on the floor, watching the beach through the bars of the balcony railing.
“Dear Mum,” she whispers, out loud, “and Dad.”
The pen starts to spin between her fingers. She stares at the hospital stationary that rests against her knees.
Dear Mum and Dad, she writes. I wish I had the right thing to say. In fact, you may laugh at this part – Hermione has always had something to say, right or wrong. Our daughter has always had the answer, right or wrong.
“But I don’t,” she says. Her pen stops and starts again. “I wish I had the answers. I wish I could tell you why I decided to do what I did in that moment – maybe it was to protect you. Maybe I thought I was protecting you. You see, the two of you never questioned my decision to push to go to Hogwarts or when Professor McGonagall showed up at our home, saying that I was special and I needed to go to a school that could help me understand myself and my kind… you were okay with that. You just wanted me to be happy.”
The piece of hotel stationary is starting to curl against her skin. In the bed, Harry turns to sleep on his side away from her at the window. The words are appearing on the bag though; the pen feels a little funny against her fingertips.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs, pushing the pen. She feels the tip pressing into her skin. The paper feels a little thin too. “I miss you guys,” she sighs, and the words start to form onto the page. “I miss you and hate that I miss you because I feel like I don’t deserve that. And no matter how ruthless or rational I think I am, no matter how many reasons I think I can come up to justify my choice, you are still my parents and I—”
She stops herself.
Is this really about forgiveness, she wonders. Did she think she’d ever get to this point? No, no. Probably not. She thinks she’s at this point though, where she comes face to face with her motivations and the lack accountability that she tried to charge through. She looks to the bed, watching Harry as he stretches, just slightly, in his sleep. His chest rises and falls. She softens. I would do it again, she thinks, and it hits her slowly, painfully, and in a way that words seem totally inappropriate for.
I’m sorry, Mum and Dad. I love you.
The letter includes a time and a place.
She’ll try and hide it in the morning.
“I want to take you on a date.”
Hermione is sitting on their bed, staring at Harry in surprise.
“A date,” he repeats, blushing. He rubs the back of his head. “I think that might be nice since we only have a couple more days here.”
She can feel the laughter in her bubbling up, both confused and surprised. Harry wears a genuine expression, full of both interest and a shyness that she’s never seen directed at her. He’s serious, she thinks. But then he’s always serious.
“You could use a distraction.”
Her lips curl. “Do you have a plan, then?”
“I might have a few things,” he says, moving to sit next to her. The bed sinks under his weight and he leans in, brushing his lips against her shoulder. “You did bring a pretty dress. Might as well put it to use. I’ve got to start learning more than your favorite color too.”
“What are we twelve?” Her face feels hot. “And you found my dress?”
Harry chuckles. “No, not quite.” He reaches for her hand, lacing their fingers together. “I just think that we need to do something has nothing to do with any of this. Even if we’re just going to go grab cheap food and a walk along the beach. I just want to do something where I get to know you like… we haven’t spent years growing up with each other, fighting a war, and obviously making out with people that aren’t each other.”
“When you put it like that,” she says dryly.
He laughs again, blushing. “You know what I mean.”
She stares at him. He’s right, she thinks. They should do something fun. They’ve always come along in more than just a pair; there was Ron, then there wasn’t Ron, there was Ginny, and then there wasn’t Ginny. There were other people in between, but she knows that they don’t count and they shouldn’t.
She nudges Harry. “Sure,” she says. “Okay.”
The distraction might be nice.
“Harry.”
Hermione looks up from her eggs. Her mother is standing next to the kitchen table, her work bag in hand. Her head is tilted to the side.
“It’s Harry, right?” She reaches forward, brushing her fingers in her hair. She tucks some strands behind Hermione’s ear. “The one you like.”
It’s like the world stops: Hermione stares, wide-eyed, and it’s suddenly written into her face. Her breathing feels a little stilted. Her mother laughs a little, shaking her head. No, Hermione wants to say, should say. Not Harry.
“I won’t say anything,” her mother promises and it’s silly, really, considering that Hermione has made her decision already. Her eyes blur with tears and Hermione is already sliding her arm around her waist. She presses a kiss to Hermione’s hair. “I won’t say anything,” she says softly, again. “It’s our secret.”
It’s almost funny how she forgets this part.
The dress is pretty.
It was supposed to be for the wedding, made out of this soft linen that was supposed to be for hot summer nights. The dress is a peach color and sits just above her knees in the way that she can almost hear her mother say Hermione Jean to tease her like there’s some kind of scandal behind it. She wears her hair up, messily pinned back into a makeshift bun. She’s blushing too, only because she occasionally catches Harry staring at her, his eyes darting to her neck and bare shoulders.
“Where are we going?” She asks, sliding her hand into Harry’s as they leave the elevator. He stands a little straighter, tugging her closer. “I am kind of hungry,” she admits.
“Not far,” he promises. He grins a little. “I’m going to start the twenty questions though.”
Hermione groans, rolling her eyes. “Harry.”
“Favorite color?” He asks, teasing her. “Favorite film because I already know that you don’t have a favorite book, you have a couple that you read pretty obsessively because it’s a comfort thing, but no real favorite book. Which should be weird, considering it’s you, but I find that rather endearing about you? I don’t know.”
She stares at him, amused. He’s blushing.
“You do pay attention,” she murmurs. She looks out into the city in front of them, watching as the street lights switch into their early evening mode. It paints a pretty glow, the sky setting into an array of pastels and the reflection of the light causing the nightlife to become brighter. She’s starting to notice more shops around them, small lines out of bars and restaurants, and people laughing and walking along them.
“Favorite color,” Harry asks again, but she swears that he already knows.
“Blue,” she answers. “I think. Although, I am a fan of golds and oranges. Depends on the situation, I guess.” She smiles, genuinely, up at him as he snorts. “It’s hard,” she defends herself. “I’m a girl. I used to love green when I was little. We grow out of colors. When you get older, you start thinking about how they wash you out and don’t.” She leans in, brushing a shy kiss against his shoulder. “I actually don’t know what my favorite film is, weirdly. My parents used to go through phases. I think I really liked Blade Runner at some point? And When Harry met Sally?”
“Blade Runner?” He looks confused. “We’ll have to watch that one,” he says and she laughs.
“It’s hard to answer, I guess. Remember, I’ve spent the better part of these last couple years in the Wizarding World. Movies are kind of an afterthought. When I was home and with family, we were more out and about. We’d go on vacations to the beach or hike or lots of trips to the botanical gardens. I really love the botanical gardens.”
Her expression lights up as she starts telling Harry about all the flowers she’d see with her mother – this was something they’d used to do between the two of them, the gardening and traveling to see all the different gardens. It’s an odd thing that she never took to Herbology, but now, here that she thinks about it – flowers and gardening, those small things, were always intimate and personal to her. For someone who has always been viewed as insanely practical, there was a lot that Hermione never wanted to share.
“I really love peonies,” she says, blushing.
“I’ve never seen them.”
“There in my mum’s garden too. I’ll show you when we go home. They’re really pretty at the start of spring. The smell is really lovely too.”
They’ve stopped, now, at the front of a restaurant. It’s a seafood place with a small view of the water. There’s no crowd and Hermione feels herself breathe, just a little bit better. Harry is watching her and his expression is mixed with curiosity and worry. It’s an odd moment: there is so much she wants to say to him, here and there, and so much more that she thinks he deserves to hear. Thank you. You don’t have to be here. But she doesn’t.
Instead, she stands on her toes, pushing herself to remain steady against him. She brushes her mouth over his and kisses him lightly, smiling, really smiling, for what feels like the first time in a really long time.
“I love you,” she says and it’s steady, still gently, still shy. She pulls back to look at him, running her fingers against the collar of his shirt. He smiles at her and nods. Doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
For the first time, the world feels like it’s shifting.
“I think,” she says later, as they pick at dessert, “I’d be a doctor.”
He blinks. Harry seems curious. “A doctor?”
They haven’t touched her parents in hours. Admittedly, it feels nice.
“A doctor,” she repeats, pushing around a piece of cake. She smiles a little. “Everyone has this idea about how ruthless I am, you know. That I would step on everyone and anyone to get where I want to be… I just… I don’t know. No one ever acknowledges the fact that being in the Wizarding World is a little different for me and others like me.” She shakes her head. “Sorry, that has nothing to do with anything. Yes, I’d be a doctor. I think I’d be good at helping people and the human body is really interesting.”
Harry snorts. “Hermione, there’s a lot to unpack in there.”
“I start therapy when we get back,” she counters, grinning a little.
“I was almost in Slytherin too,” he says. “The whole sorting thing haunts all of us too.”
“You’d make a hot Slytherin.”
Harry looks at her, surprised. He laughs delightedly, stealing the piece of cake that she’s been pushing around with her fork.
“Noted,” he teases. He studies her a little. “I could see you as a doctor. I think you’re pretty fearless, actually. More than you give yourself credit for.”
“I’m going to have to be, given the list of horror films you want to watch with me.”
He pouts. “For the dates, you know. To make it authentic.”
Hermione laughs. “Always.”
“What about healing?” Harry continues. “Would you go into that?”
Her head tilts. “I thought about it,” she admits, slowly. “And I know everyone teases me – I even thought about Minister of Magic. I thought about going into law too. I know that there’s quite a bit that I really good do if I wanted to.” She sighs. “But I think I need a break and I need some time. I don’t really want to give anything to anyone. I don’t like the parties. I don’t like the fanfare. I don’t like the fact that we’re corned and expected to regale everyone we meet of stories when –” She stops herself, sighing.
“I know,” Harry murmurs. “I know.”
A watery smile lifts the corners of her mouth. She forgets, a lot, how the two of them end up finishing things for each other – sentences, thoughts, plans. Ideally, they should have both seen a lot of this coming. Two pieces of the puzzle. They have similar ambition, she thinks. Sometimes it’s seen, sometimes it’s not.
“What about you?” She leans in, wiping some chocolate from Harry’s mouth. “I thought you were dead set on being an Auror.”
Harry shrugs. “Me too.” He’s quiet, hesitant. His expression becomes distant and he disappears – it’s just a split second, but something that feels timeless. She’s noticed it since their travels, since they were locked together in the woods. Harry would go and come back, maybe to hide. Maybe not. “I think,” he says slowly, “I tried to convince myself that it would make the most sense, going to something that would exactly how I lived my life up to this point – not stopping, always surrounded by people, always surrounded by death.”
“They wanted you to go into –”
“Yeah,” Harry cuts her off. “More chasing dark wizards. More seeing the worst of the worst. They told me I’d make Head Auror in about two years.”
Her eyes are wide. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” he says. He laughs softly. “You’re the only one that’s asked me that too.” He rubs his face with a hand. “No, I don’t want that. I don’t want people continuing to think that they have the right to plan my life either.”
There’s plenty to say in all of this. She knows that. He knows that. The only thing she can do, however, is reach over the table and grab his hand. She laces their fingers together slowly, thoughtfully, holding Harry’s gaze as if to anchor him back to her. He smiles back at her, really smiles back at her, and she thinks she’d like to understand what brought them here, to this point. But she won’t touch it – it’s enough, really, to say that they are in love, that love will grow and they will grow, moving forward and on together. She’s going to stop expecting answers, she thinks. Putting things into boxes, neat or otherwise.
This must be what growing up is like.
“I want you to be happy,” she says quietly. Her sigh is heavy, rolling back her shoulders. She listens to her bones crack. That’s real weight, she thinks too. “You deserve to be happy, Harry. In fact, you deserve the world.”
Harry laughs. She thinks she loves the sound.
“So do you,” he says too.
The walk back to the hotel is quiet. Admittedly, she does feel better.
They could talk for hours too – it’s beyond what her favorite color is, what his favorite book is. Harry tells her he wants to travel. She tells him she’d like to go with him. Maybe that’s their next adventure. Maybe not. But it’s nice to dream, to really dream, about things that are attainable and within reach. She thinks it’s nice to start to heal with someone else.
She’s going to have to make peace, she decides too. She’ll stop by her parents one more time. See if she can see them. If they’re happy and safe, it might be right to leave them happy and safe. At least, she got to see it. At least, she did what was right in that time. I was a child making an adult decision, she admitted finally, at dinner, and maybe I had no right to – but I have to learn to own it. That was the most honest she’s been about any of this to anyone, including to Harry.
“Hermione.”
Harry’s stopped. His grip on her hand tightens. He’s staring ahead and she looks up, confused as he nods forward.
“What?” She asks, confused.
“Hermione,” he says again, and points forward, past them.
It takes her a minute: there is a small crowd of people at the valet station, waiting for cars. There’s a small family arriving at the hotel. The lights from the doors are aggressive too, shining on the sidewalk and pushing the glamour of the hotel for everyone to view. She doesn’t spot them right away, until her father turns, his expression unreadable and tired. He’s wearing a light jacket and from behind him, her mother steps with their dog. There is a piece of paper sticking out of his pocket though and she spots it, her mouth dropping open.
“Harry,” she says, wide-eyed. What did you do, she doesn’t say. Her heart is pounding in her ears and he doesn’t look sorry. “How did you –”
He shakes his head. “I’m right here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says too.
There are about a thousand things going through her head in that moment, too many to reconcile and straighten out. Her ears start to ring. She almost starts to beg herself to step back and run away, but Harry’s hand is anchoring her to her stop. You are braver than this, he seems to tell her. You can do this.
And then her mother looks up, right at her.
Hermione will never be able to say how she knows. She will never be able to say how it happened either; the charm was the charm, irrevocably strong, the strongest, she was told and will take to her grave. But her mother’s expression goes from confused to devastated to understanding in what feels like forever and a second, so much so that Hermione is shaking and too rooted to the ground in front of her. Was it always this easy, she thinks. Then stops. Was it supposed to be this easy?
“Go on,” Harry says softly, his hand letting hers go. He grabs her carefully by the shoulders, walking her forward. “Go on,” he says again. “I’m right here.”
Magic has no answers. This is the first lesson she learned, not at Hogwarts, but mostly coming to terms with herself. It was never going to have any answers. She could obsess over the mechanics of the spell, could pour over books and ask the right questions – she could all of this, but she forgets it immediately. They are here, she thinks. She takes another step and then it’s her father, staring directly at her and Harry, that sort of sends her into a run. It’s messy, but she throws herself into her mother’s arms, uncaring of how she looks. Harry is saying something – it’s kind, most likely, a greeting, more likely. She feels small and dizzy and the dog is jumping at her legs. She hears herself begging in apologies. I’m sorry. I don’t know. I didn’t know. Her fingers fist in her mother’s jacket and she feels her father stand over her, close with a hand on her back. He’s talking to Harry and she doesn’t hear anything anymore.
Her mother’s arms lock around her, trembling. Hermione begins to cry.
The world finally stops to wait.
It was always about forgiveness, in the end.