RP: Things change

[neville_inbloom]

Date: 22 September 2001
Characters: Neville, Hermione
Status: Private
Summary: Neville catches up with Hermione.
Completion: Complete

Comments

[bossy_brunette]

"Well, I don't know the whole story and I love you both, so I'm trying to be here for both of you," she said honestly. "I certainly don't want to make things worse, and I don't intend to choose sides because I just want you both to be happy. I hate that you're hurting and I can't fix it, but relationships aren't something that can be fixed by research, really, so all I can do is be here if you need me."

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."

[neville_inbloom]

"He just told me it had happened before we left for Greece last summer." Neville turned the butterbeer bottle in his hands, watching the light catch on the glass. "He said he meant to tell me all along, once he knew whether or not the baby was his. Said he was trying to protect me."

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."

[bossy_brunette]

"He mentioned those photographs, the nude ones? I think it happened around then," she said softly. She smiled wryly. "Ron does like to protect those he loves. It's too bad that he's not very good at thinking things through all the way, though. I love him dearly and his intentions are usally well-meaning but..."

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."

[neville_inbloom]

"I don't know," Neville admitted. The server arrived with their food and he took the opportunity to request another butterbeer. He didn't usually drink like this in the middle of the day, but considering the subject matter he thought he could make an exception.

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."

[bossy_brunette]

"Love on its own isn't enough," she said. She didn't know what had happened in France but wasn't going to ask. If he hadn't offered more than 'other things', she probably didn't want to know. She took another drink of her juice and tried to figure out the words to say.

"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."

[neville_inbloom]

"No, that actually makes sense." Neville gave Hermione a tiny smile to show he understood what she was trying to say. "It's probably the first sensible thing I've heard since before I left for the convention."

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?"