RP: Things change
Date: 22 September 2001
Characters: Neville, Hermione
Status: Private
Summary: Neville catches up with Hermione.
Completion: Complete
( This isn't the Leaky I remember! )
Characters: Neville, Hermione
Status: Private
Summary: Neville catches up with Hermione.
Completion: Complete
( This isn't the Leaky I remember! )
Neville brightened at the opportunity to talk about plants. "The conference was fantastic!" he began. "I learned so much, and met so many people, and I have new customers and business contacts, and everything. I have new seeds and bulbs to plant, and..." Neville stopped with an effort, giving Hermione a rueful smile. "But you probably don't want to hear about every lecture and discussion, much less in detail."
He looked at the menu, deciding on the shepherd's pie and butterbeer. "I stayed a little longer than I thought I would. One of the other attendees invited me to Calais, and since Kenneth is doing such a great job supervising for me I said yes."
Neville looked up as a server arrived to take their orders. "I never got to travel much when I was younger, either."
He knew he was leaving out quite a bit, and nobody had even mentioned Ron yet.
"So, um, have you seen or talked to Harry or, um, anyone else lately?" he asked, feeling awkward.
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She smiled. "I don't mind listening to you talk about the lectures. It sounds fascinating. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. You really deserve to have fun with work."
"I heard from Harry on my birthday," she answered, not sure if she should mention Ron or not. She didn't want to make Neville feel uncomfortable. "It sounds like he's doing well. We're planning to get together for lunch soon. Things are still a bit awkward for me considering our fight and some of the things said, honestly, but that's the past and I probably deserved it."
"As for anyone else, I heard from several people on my birthday, which was nice. I thought people wouldn't remember," she admitted. "I'm glad that Kenneth is doing a good job for you. You definitely needed the help. Your accounts are doing wonderfully."
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"Of course people would remember your birthday!" Neville exclaimed. "Why wouldn't they? I'll bet you got some really nice notes and presents, too." He made a wry face. "At least you didn't spend it in bed with a summer cold like I spent mine!"
"I should owl Harry sometime soon. It's been awhile since we got together, not since he and Draco were in San Francisco and Ron and I..."
Neville took a deep breath and forced himself to look across the table at Hermione. "This must be so awkward for you," he said miserably.
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Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. I nearly forgot, so I expected others might. It's never been a very big deal for me, you know? It's just another day, really, and the boys never got me presents when we were younger. It was nice to get owls, though, and meant a lot."
"It's not awkward, Neville," she said. "At least, no more awkward than things are when two people you care about are hurting. Relationships are tricky and complicated, though, and I know from experience that there's no quick-fix. I'm here and willing to listen without offering my opinions should you feel a need to talk. Otherwise, we're just two good friends catching up over lunch."
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"I don't know how it can't not be awkward," Neville said. "You must be biting your tongue something fierce."
The rest of Hermione's words finally registered in his brain. Neville stared at her in disbelief. "Ron's hurting?"
That made no sense at all.
"What exactly did he tell you?" Neville couldn't help but ask. He might as well hear Ron's version of events before he went any further.
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Hermione sighed. "He told me about the woman who claimed he was the father of her baby after it was in the Prophet. That he'd shagged her early last year when you two were still seeing other people and that she approached him with the news of the baby. I know that Harry helped him find her and he found out that he wasn't the father. He said you were upset, which I understood and assumed was one of Ron's infamous understatements. I didn't realize how bad things were, though, until my birthday, when I found out you'd left."
"And, yes, he's hurting," she said quietly. She honestly couldn't blame Neville for leaving, regardless of when Ron had shagged the woman, mostly because she didn't approve of Ron not being honest as soon as he found out about the possibility of him fathering the baby, which had been after he and Neville were seriously involved. However, she wasn't in the situation and didn't know all the facts, wasn't even sure she really wanted to because she was trying to stay neutral and give them both her support, so she knew there were details she didn't know. Ron was also not the most emotionally aware man she'd ever met and his logic was often confusing, which probably just made things worse.
She reached across the table and took Neville's hand. She squeezed it gently and sighed. "And you're hurting, too," she said simply. "We can change the subject if you'd rather. I don't want to make things worse or make you think about things you'd rather not."
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Neville sighed and set the bottle back onto the table, grateful when Hermione took his hand and squeezed. Squeezing back, he said, "I don't know how you can make things worse than they already are, and I can't stop thinking about what happened, so you're not making me do anything."
Shrugging half-heartedly, Neville's fingers tightened around Hermione's. "I don't know why I left like that. I mean, I do, but it wasn't just because he shagged some groupie and accidentally almost got her pregnant. There were other things too, and when I saw the article in the Prophet I guess I snapped. Told him that everything was more important to him than us and that I was tired of being second best. He didn't deny it, so I left."
Reaching again for the butterbeer with the hand not entwined with Hermione's, Neville took a long pull. "He sent a couple of owls after that, apologizing for not telling me before the article was printed, but nothing about anything else. I told him not to write again, and he hasn't." He bit his lip, wondering if he should order another butterbeer before the food arrived. "I kind of wish I hadn't done that, but I was still upset with him."
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She sighed and took a drink of her juice. It had been a delicate situation that had obviously been made worse by a lack of communication. There was an urge to try to fix everything, but she remembered all too well how her trying to help Draco had gone horribly wrong and she'd lost Harry for months. So she listened and felt terrible but kept her mouth shut.
"I'm sorry, love," she said, squeezing his hand firmly. "I didn't think it was just because of the groupie or that article, but I assumed they were important factors since you actually moved out. I mean, it wasn't just a fight or something you obviously thought you two could work out."
"Is there any chance at all for you to get back together?" she asked. "I know you've broken up, but if you two still love each other...I don't know. It might not be easy, but love isn't something that everyone finds, so it might be worth trying to talk and seeing if you can fix things. If you don't love him anymore, though, then I guess it's better to just move on and not look back."
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Waiting until the server had moved away, Neville continued, "Ron probably wouldn't want to talk to me now anyway. I did a pretty thorough job of burning my bridges while I was in France, between not answering his owls and...and other things." He thought of Mireille. It hadn't been cheating, it hadn't. He wasn't sure Hermione would see it that way. He knew Ron wouldn't.
"I don't know if love is enough," he said softly, picking at his food. "It's not that I don't love him, or miss him. I do. It's...it's just that I can't keep taking him back over and over again without any reason other than the fact that I love him and miss him, or else nothing will change. I don't know what else to do."
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"Neville, I'm not an expert on love. Until Charlie, I never really knew what it was, and I spent years isolating myself because the idea of loving someone scared me. Random shagging was one thing, but the concept of sharing every aspect of my life with another person, of giving them the power to hurt me, of making myself vulnerable in that way...it wasn't something I wanted or needed," she said quietly. "When I met Charlie, that changed. I changed, I guess. But it's not just love because, really, that's an emotion the same as any other."
She shook her head and smiled wryly. "I'm not very good at this," she admitted. "What I mean is that it takes more to make a relationship work than emotion. There's communication, respect, compromise, understanding, lust, anger, and often jealousy, annoyance, and frustration mixed in, too. You can't make all the compromises, though, or it's not a balanced relationship."
"If you love him and you think that your relationship is worth saving, you need to talk to him. I don't think you should take him back, not yet, because there's obviously a lot of things you two need to work out. His attempts to protect you by keeping you in the dark, your belief that he considers you second best even now after all these months together, the lack of communication that let things escalate to this break up, really, needs to be resolved before you two try again. If you take him back without talking and resolving things, you're right: nothing's going to change."
She shrugged and squeezed his hand. "However, I'm not an expert on this at all, so what I'm saying could be wrong. I just know what I'd do, in the situation, and that's probably not helpful at all."
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Hermione's mention of jealousy, however, had him dying a little inside. Neville had mostly left the shared living areas of the house untouched when picking up the rest of his things, concentrating his efforts mostly to his home office, the conservatory, and what he'd missed the first time around in their bedroom.
He'd taken the sketch Adrian had drawn for him, because it was in his office. He'd left the painting Ron had bought when Neville had left St Mungo's, because it hung in the lounge above the fireplace, and Neville hadn't taken anything from that particular room. Looking back, he could imagine what Ron would have thought.
Burning bridges, indeed.
"He probably wouldn't talk to me now," Neville said, disheartened. "I probably wouldn't either, if I was him. Maybe in a few weeks, or months, or however long it takes that Weasley temper to cool down."
Always assuming Ron hadn't found someone else by then.
It was time to change the subject before Neville became too depressed.
"One of my coworkers had an extra ticket to the opera tonight and asked if I wanted to go," he said, taking a bite of his shepherd's pie. "I think I might, even though it's not my favorite kind of music. It'll be good to get out for a bit. What about you?"
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