'The Dead Boy': Part I(c)
Continued from I(b)
In January, Ginny gets a part-time job on a subdivision of the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee - she’s always been a good liar - and in February, with a loan from Fred and George, a burst into Ron and Hermione’s flat, many cries of ‘I did it! I did it!’ and much waving around of Muggle contracts, she moves into her own house.
A little while after Ron’s twenty-second birthday, Hermione explains to him that she cannot breathe around him anymore, voices are raised, perhaps one or two plates are smashed, and then she packs her bags (with magic, of course - she’s not going to waste her time just for sentimentality and symbolism) and she moves out. When it comes to relationships, Hermione is not the most experienced witch in the world, but even she knows that when all you can think about is a man who is not your boyfriend, you are in trouble.
*
Hermione did not see what happened at the beginning of the end, but from what she pieced together afterwards, it went like this:
Harry was standing in the middle of the room in Grimmauld Place, midway through a sentence, when he clutched at his head and collapsed on the floor.
He writhed and shouted for nearly a minute before Ron could shake him out of it. Ron asked him immediately what Voldemort saw.
‘It was ... old stuff,’ said Harry. ‘Old memories. He can’t have found out about Ginny. But I don’t know, it all went by so quickly ...’
A minute later, a piece of parchment appeared with a bang.
Harry grabbed it, read it, dropped it and ran from the room.
Lupin chased him outside, only to see him Disapparate from the front step of the house.
Ron read the note. In thin handwriting, it said:
Gringotts is the safest place in the world for anything you want to keep safe - except maybe Hogwarts.
Ron handed the note to George and ran after Lupin. They collided in the corridor.
‘He’s gone,’ barked Lupin. ‘Disapparated. What did it say?’
‘He’s gone to Hogwarts,’ said Ron. ‘He knows.’
‘But Flooing’s faster -’
‘I’ll go,’ said George, running out into the corridor. ‘You stay here in case Harry comes back to use the Floo -’
‘Get them out,’ said Ron. ‘Get Ginny and Hermione out.’
George ran back into the room and jumped into the fireplace.
Just as Madam Pomfrey, from between Ginny’s legs, pronounced ‘Definitely head first’, George burst into the hospital wing.
Hermione spun around from where she was squatting by the bed, her wand drawn for combat, only to drop it when she saw George. ‘What is it?’ she barked, wiping her hair from her face, before turning back to Ginny.
Ginny chose that moment to scream; she hadn’t noticed anyone enter the room.
‘Not long now,’ said Madam Pomfrey. ‘Give me a good push, Weasley.’
Hermione squeezed Ginny’s hand. ‘In and out,’ she said; she had said those words so many times in the last hours that she felt certain she would never be able to say anything else again. As Ginny started breathing, Hermione looked back over her shoulder at George: he was standing stock-still and staring at Ginny, his eyes wide. ‘Well?’ she snapped at him; she didn’t care about him watching, but he could at least have the grace not to stand there like a lemon.
George blinked. ‘He’s coming,’ he said. ‘You-Know-Who’s coming.’
It was at that moment that Hermione felt most firmly that she was in a dream; she felt that there was no way that this situation could be the truth. She became aware of Madam Pomfrey breathing heavily behind her. She tried to work out how they were going to get out of there.
‘He got into Harry’s head,’ said George, stepping forwards, hands outstretched uselessly. ‘He - he -’
‘When? When?’ Hermione shrieked.
‘You have to make a Portkey -’
Hermione got up and stumbled over to the shelves of potions at the end of Ginny’s bed and grabbed an empty glass flask - what was the spell? Her view of her feet seemed to be from oddly far away - was this an out-of-body experience?
‘You can’t Portkey her!’ screeched Madam Pomfrey.
‘Floo!’
‘You think she can get into a fireplace?’
‘Fred? George?’ screamed Ginny. ‘What the fuck? WHERE’S HARRY?’
‘He’s -’ started George with desperation, before he seemingly saw something out the window next to Ginny’s bed and stopped mid-plea.
Hermione looked at what he was looking at and dropped her flask.
Slowly, she walked forwards until she was standing next to George.
‘They’re coming,’ said George slowly.
Running up the path to the castle’s front doors was someone Hermione knew was Voldemort, though she had never seen him before, with his black cloak billowing behind him. About twenty feet behind him was Harry, running as fast as he could, his legs stretching further than Hermione had ever seen human legs stretch. As they watched, Harry shot a spell at Voldemort, who dissolved it away into nothingness with a wave of his wand.
‘Voldemort’s coming?’ Ginny shrieked. ‘Where’s my wand, get me my wand, I’ll kill that fucking bastard -’
‘Get out,’ said George abruptly, turning to Hermione and grabbing her shoulders. ‘Floo from McGonagall’s office - I told Ron - we’ll hold the fort here -’
‘No,’ said Hermione; she didn’t need to think about it.
‘Here,’ said Madam Pomfrey, thrusting a huge and stained book into Hermione’s arms open on a page in the middle. ‘It’s an old protection charm. You,’ she directed at George - ‘secure the door. And you,’ she said to Ginny, ‘count to twenty and then push.’
‘But what if they Apparate?’
Hermione spun around to face George with a hysterical snarl. ‘You can’t fucking Apparate into or out of Hogwarts!’
Without a word George ran to the door and started conjuring planks of wood, which nailed themselves over the door with loud crunches.
Hermione ran her eyes over the instructions for the charm. ‘In and out, Ginny,’ she gabbled as she started the spell. ‘Pertae extradis - pertae ...’
It was as Madam Pomfrey was saying ‘All right, Ginny, take a deep breath and then push’ that Hermione heard the bang of the doors to the Entrance Hall and footsteps running across the flagstones.
‘Pertae extradise - extradis, pertae extradis,’ she babbled, jabbing her wand fiercely, and despite the fact that the thumping of her heart was louder than Ginny’s screams, something huge and blue blossomed from the end of her wand and wrapped itself around the three women.
‘Crowning,’ muttered Madam Pomfrey, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around her; her surroundings could be seen only in the wideness of her eyes.
And then, the door blew open; George was blasted into a corner and Hermione stared through the blue sheen at Voldemort, framed in the doorway and raising his wand with a sneer.
Despite the last year, despite her life since she’d met Harry on a train, Hermione had never stared death in the face; and it was almost inappropriate, she would think later, how much Voldemort looked like death. But before Hermione could face her destiny, something wiry and black came hurtling out of the corridor and threw itself onto Voldemort’s body.
It was Harry, of course: Harry bore the Dark Lord down to the floor and then they both dropped their wands with clatters and together they rolled over and over - they were wrestling.
‘Granger!’ barked Madam Pomfrey. ‘Get up here and hold her hand!’
Hermione half-ran, half-crawled over to Ginny and, clasping her nearest hand in both of hers, she whispered, ‘It’s going to be OK, Ginny, it’s going to be OK.’
‘One last push, Ginny!’
‘In and out, in and out ...’
The blue vanished.
‘PERTAE EXTRADIS!’ Hermione screamed, jabbing her wand into the air, and the blue blossomed from her wand again but this time it was much darker, and Hermione knew that this time the spell was stronger -
‘I have the head!’ cried Madam Pomfrey. Hermione looked and there it was: the tiny red-purple head of a baby emerging from Ginny’s vagina. ‘Stop pushing, Ginny!’
Ginny was sobbing, but Hermione thought it must be with pain; Ginny didn’t seem to know what was going on.
Hermione chanced a glance behind her and saw that Voldemort had pulled a small silver dagger from his robes. She cried out a warning but her cry turned into a scream as the dagger was thrust up into Harry’s ribs.
‘All right, push! Granger, focus!’
Voldemort’s right hand was on Harry’s neck, his body pinning down his arms and his left hand was reaching, reaching for his wand - his fingertips touched it -
‘Accio wand!’ Hermione cried, but the spell didn’t work through the protective bubble. ‘George!’ she shouted, but he probably couldn’t hear - maybe he was unconscious, maybe he was dead -
A dark, dishevelled figure appeared in the doorway. He walked into the room and stood behind Voldemort; Hermione could hear nothing, but she knew the man in black must be making no noise to be heard, because Voldemort was not turning around.
Harry’s eyes in his red face widened with recognition but Hermione couldn’t see who it was; couldn’t see who it was, that is, until the man withdrew his wand and she recognised him as Severus Snape, the Severus Snape she hadn’t seen since April, when Harry had finally caught him.
Snape waited for an eternity, his wand pointing at Voldemort’s back and his eyes on Harry’s suffocating face. Then the room flashed green, Voldemort crumpled onto Harry and Snape turned on his heel and swept from the room.
‘Time of birth, ten thirty-three,’ said Madam Pomfrey; Hermione turned back to the bed to see the nurse wrapping a tiny red baby up in a cloth and wielding a pair of scissors. ‘It’s a girl.’ The matron looked up: her mouth went slack as she saw the crumpled heap of bodies at the door. She raised her wand and said, ‘Pertae intra.’
The blue fell away and Hermione ran forwards to the bodies. Heaving Voldemort off and hurling him as far away as possible, she freed Harry; to her overpowering relief, his face twitched up at her.
‘Is he dead?’ he croaked.
She heard George coughing in the corner. ‘George?’ she called.
‘Hermione? What’s -’
‘Harry’s been stabbed,’ she said tremulously. This was all she could think about; if she focused on anything else, she’d fall apart. ‘The Clotless Curse won’t have worn off - George, he’s still a haemophiliac - you need to get a Healer -’
‘Right,’ said George, and he got up and ran from the room.
She looked back down at Harry. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘I wish I’d killed him,’ he coughed out.
‘You did,’ Hermione whispered in what she hoped was a soothing tone, ‘remember, in April? You forgave Snape. You let him go.’
But Harry had stopped listening.
*
When Hermione is twenty-four, she grows tired of her job with the Wizengamot and requests to be transferred to the Being Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; about the same time, she breaks up with her boyfriend (William Corbin; the International Magical Trading Standards Body, Department of International Magical Cooperation; very intelligent, and lovely thick hair) because she realizes he is still in love with his ex. For the first time, she feels Ginny’s anger at Harry, because if Harry had never died, she and Ron would still be a couple and she would never have wasted her time on William; but then again, she reflects, if Harry had never existed, then she and Ron would probably never have happened. And she would be in exactly the same situation she’s in now. She shakes her head, buys a wooden tub of ice cream from Florean, and goes to see Ginny.
‘The thing about men,’ Ginny says with the authority that comes with half a bottle of nettle wine, licking her spoon, sitting on the floor, her back against the sofa, ‘is that they are shit.’
‘I hate them all,’ says Hermione. ‘All. I wish I was a lesbian.’
‘I’d do you,’ says Ginny. ‘In a second.’
Hermione’s head falls onto Ginny’s shoulder.
‘You know,’ says Ginny, ‘Ron’s single.’
‘Don’t, Ginny.’
After a second, Ginny says, ‘I reckon it would be worth a try.’
‘Ginny, we’ve barely spoken since we broke up. I’ve seen him about twice in two years.’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’
Hermione blinks sleepily. ‘It tells me that Ron and I don’t make very good platonic friends.’
‘Exactly! When two people can either be having sex or be not speaking to each other, that means something.’ Ginny nods firmly.
‘No, no, no,’ says Hermione. ‘That doesn’t mean anything. How often - in real life - does it happen that people become good friends with people who have been their ...’
‘Lovers?’ asks Ginny, waggling her eyebrows.
‘No!’ Hermione shrieks, laughing. ‘Ron was not my lover. He was my ... boyfriend.’ But the word doesn’t seem right, and she wrinkles her nose as she says it.
‘I prefer the term “lover”,’ says Ginny. ‘“Boyfriend” is so ...’ She waves her spoon around vaguely. ‘I hate having to tell people Harry Potter was my boyfriend.’ She starts trying to scrape ice cream from the long-empty tub. ‘It’s so lightweight. I think I might start telling people I’m his widow. That’s what I feel like.’ She grins salaciously. ‘But I do like calling myself his lover.’
Hermione laughs. ‘How many times did you two actually ...’
‘Once,’ says Ginny. ‘But it still counts.’
‘Ginny ...’ Hermione starts. ‘The thing is ... Ron and I don’t work without Harry.’
Ginny puts the ice cream tub on the floor. ‘Hermione ...’ she says, turning to look at her; she is smiling sadly. ‘Haven’t you realized how rare true, requited love is?’ She shrugs a shoulder. ‘If you and Ron had that, then don’t you think that’s worth fighting for?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ says Hermione.
Ginny sighs. ‘Really?’
Yes, really, Hermione thinks.
‘Hermione, I’m not -’ Ginny swallows. ‘I’m not trying to tell you to count your lucky stars,’ she says quietly. ‘That’s not what I meant to say.’
Hermione stares at the tufts of the carpet. At least he’s still alive. Harry died, but Ron lived.
‘I’m not bitter,’ says Ginny. ‘I’m not even particularly jealous. Let’s be realistic,’ she says, picking up the ice cream tub again. ‘If Harry had lived, what would have happened? We’d have moved in together, we’d have been all right for a few years ... probably would have got married, I suppose, to keep my mother happy ...’ She stares off into space. ‘We probably would have had more children way too early, so there wasn’t too big an age gap ... I bet Harry wanted loads of kids ...’
Hermione says nothing: she is too morbidly transfixed by Ginny’s picture.
‘So I would have ended up with three kids by the time I was twenty, or something,’ says Ginny with an abrupt semi-smile, returning to the ice cream. ‘He’d have been working full-time as an Auror, and I would have been stuck at home with our ten children. We’d both have gone crazy. We’d probably have got divorced by now.’
Hermione doesn’t say anything. She knows that Ginny would prefer Harry alive as her divorcee, only seeing his children every other weekend, than dead as a perfect memory.
Knowledge can be a burden.
‘Ron and I are very much over,’ says Hermione. ‘I used to think that Harry’s death was what broke us up, but I think maybe it was just his ... his non-existence. His not being around.’ She says it again. ‘We don’t work without him.’
*
Or maybe, maybe it all went wrong on the October night. The night started with Harry mumbling something about some ‘business’ he had to ‘take care of’ and telling them he would be back in the morning. Ron had started to raise objections but Hermione had mouthed ‘Godric’s Hollow’ at him from across the tent and he had shut his mouth and let him go.
Peering out through the crack between the flaps of the tent at the rainy night, Ron said, ‘Going to a graveyard in the dark is a little morbid, even for him.’
Hermione busied herself with the pots and pans. They were staying in a real tent, that week, for Perkins’ magic one had blown up recently in what Ron was referring to as ‘an unfortunate Death Eater incident’, and Mundungus could not get them another wizarding one until the next Tuesday. ‘I’ll wash, you dry,’ she said.
Ron came and sat down next to her as she soaked a saucepan in a plastic bowl of warm water. ‘You know,’ he said, as she passed him the soapy pan, ‘I know I’ve said this before, but we do in fact have magical powers.’
‘Here’s a tea towel,’ she said, conjuring one and handing it to him.
After a moment, he said, ‘So ... why are we doing this the Muggle way?’
‘I felt like it,’ she said.
Two pans later, he said, ‘Do you think we should have gone with him?’
She stopped washing. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Me neither.’
‘He’d probably have asked us, if he wanted us to,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, putting down the tea towel. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. So ...’ He looked up at her slyly. ‘Since he’s not here ... what do you want to do?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Unless you want to wash up all night?’
‘Depends what you’re offering,’ she heard herself say.
‘Hermione ...’ She looked down at her lap. If she looked up their faces would be an inch apart, and it scared her.
He came closer, closer, closer, and then his lips were touching her cheek, and then he had kissed her ear. ‘Hermione,’ he whispered.
‘Are you obsessed with my name?’ she whispered tremulously.
His hand touched her chin and turned her head up to face him. She was glad he was taking the lead; she was too terrified that it was finally happening to work out what to do. She hadn’t kissed anyone in two years, for goodness’ sake.
Then he kissed her and this was what kissing Ron was like; it was foreign and strange and somewhat wet.
They broke apart. His lips were wet. ‘Is this ...’ he started hesitantly, ‘what you want?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and as she said it, she knew it was true; truer than anything else, ever. ‘Yes,’ she said again, and then a beautiful, sexy, adorable half-smile spread across his face and because of that she threw her arms around his neck and climbed onto his lap.
‘Woah,’ he said, but she ignored him and kissed him again, and kissed him again and kissed him with her tongue and twisted her fingers into his hair; he growled at that and she squeaked at his growl.
They stopped and just looked at each other. Hermione realized that she was straddling him. She was straddling Ron in a tent.
‘When will Harry come back?’ she asked.
‘Don’t care,’ said Ron. ‘He can bugger off.’
She giggled. Then she started to slide her hands under his jumper.
‘Fuck, Hermione,’ he groaned.
‘Shh,’ she said, and nipped at his lower lip.
‘Fuck,’ he said again and she pushed him down so he was lying on the floor. He grabbed her by her top and pulled her down and kissed her, and then he rolled them both over so he was on top. ‘Hermione, Hermione, Hermione, Hermione,’ he whispered as his hands copied hers.
*
The sixth anniversary of the end of the war is likely to be the most bearable yet, thinks Hermione. The dinner has been replaced by a buffet; the unendurable speeches and the official toasts are at a bare minimum; the focus of the evening seems to have shifted to a string band grinding out ropy covers of old Celestina Warbeck songs.
Ron is not there and with that realization earlier Hermione had to quash a tiny disquiet in her stomach that this evening was not going to be one she’d remember forever - not that she’d been counting on that, of course. Ginny is not there, either - ‘I am never hosting a child’s birthday party again,’ she said from her position of lying on the floor half-asleep when Hermione went to see her earlier - but Neville and Dean are, and so is Fred, and there are quite a few professors - she’s already had a long chat with McGonagall about her proposed redevelopment of the Centaur Liaison office - and there are many of her colleagues from the Ministry. It’s going to be a perfectly lovely evening.
She’s perched on the edge of a table - she’s had a little bit to drink but not that much - at the side of the room and is watching the guests. She’s staring at Gwenog Jones and thinking of Viktor Krum’s assassination by Bulgarian Voldemort sympathisers when she hears her name. ‘Hermione?’
It’s Ron: he’s standing to her left in black dress robes, holding a Butterbeer.
‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she says. What does this mean? He’s just arrived and he’s come up to talk to her - even though she hasn’t seen him since - what, around Christmas? She didn’t even see him at his birthday - but the first thing he’s done is come and find her and he wants to talk to her. Does he know? Does he know what she’s been thinking about since that conversation she had with Ginny when she broke up with William? Has he had a similar conversation with Ginny? Has he -
‘I thought I might not make it,’ he says. ‘I had a load of paperwork to do.’
‘Oh, are you -?’ she says at the same time he says ‘Yeah, I just got made -’
There is an embarrassed pause.
‘Yeah,’ he says after a second. ‘I’m an Auror now.’ She cannot help but notice that he does not sound too gleeful about it.
‘Are you -’ she starts saying, but then she stops. She was going to say Are you happy? in the way that he did when he turned up at Florean’s that time, that year, but it seems very silly - she wouldn’t be able to pull it off - and he probably doesn’t remember, and anyway, they’re a bit too old for asking deep philosophical questions. At the beginning of conversations, anyway.
‘How are you?’ he asks. ‘I heard you moved departments?’
‘Yes,’ she says with a bright smile that she hopes doesn’t look too forced. Why doesn’t he know? Hasn’t Ginny told him? Is he pretending? ‘I’m in Magical Creatures, now.’
‘Like spew?’ he says with a smile.
‘Something like that, yes,’ she says, and as his smile fades and his polite party expression returns she knows she said the wrong thing. ‘Of course,’ she hastens, ‘the badges are more expensive, nowadays.’
There is a moment; then, his eyes twinkle and Hermione’s heart thuds so violently that she thinks she might faint. ‘Well, that’s Ministry interference for you,’ he says.
Say something, idiot! her brain screams at her, but part of her is happy to just stare at the blue of his eyes and smile helplessly.
‘So, were you here at the beginning?’ he asks.
‘Yes, of course,’ she says. ‘I’m never late.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘I distinctly remember you being late to this once.’
‘Lies,’ she says. ‘It’s all lies.’ The reason she wasn’t late today - the reason she isn’t late for most things - is that she’s grown up and knows how to dress herself. Her dress is nice; her hair is behaving; she knows how to apply make-up; her shoes fit. She looks good, she reminds herself. Now stop acting like a dithering idiot.
‘Well, how was it?’ he asks, glancing at the decimated buffet table. ‘No sit-down dinner, this time?’
‘No,’ she says, trying to pull herself together. ‘So less toasts. And only one speech.’
He nods with understanding. ‘Not bad.’
‘No, it wasn’t that bad.’
He jerks his thumb back over his shoulder at the ornate doors leading out on to the patio. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’
Her stomach twists. He wants to go for a walk. ‘OK,’ she says slowly.
He puts his Butterbeer down on the table and together they walk around the dancers and out on to the patio.
It’s very dark outside and thankfully there are no other people; it’s cold for July. Of course, the Ministry is underground, so this entire outside-feel is just the result of a very clever Atmosphere Charm, she reminds herself, but it doesn’t stop the cold from biting.
The light spilling out through the windows makes half his face glow yellow; the other half is as black as their surroundings. He’s looking out at the fake horizon, his hands in his pockets.
‘So,’ she says, wishing he would look at her while hoping he doesn’t, ‘have you missed me?’
All her hopes and wishes are granted: he eyes her from the side without turning his head. ‘What do you think?’
Hermione turns to look at the fake horizon herself. ‘I’ve missed you. A lot.’
‘Same,’ he says. ‘So, how was the speech?’
‘I phased out, for most of it,’ she admits ashamedly. She feels like she’s admitting to cheating on her NEWTs.
‘Promise me,’ he says, ‘that you’ll never toast Harry.’
‘Done,’ she laughs.
A silence passes that Hermione is not entirely comfortable with, and then he asks, ‘Why do we keep coming to these things?’
She has an answer prepared. ‘Because even if you know you’ve failed an exam, you have to look at your mark.’
‘Our failed exam,’ he says with a humourless snort.
‘Ron,’ she says as if they’ve had this conversation a thousand times before - maybe they have - ‘Ron, we didn’t fail at - at - I mean, there are a hundred things we could have done differently, but there’s no one thing that if we’d done, everything would have been different -’
He shrugs. ‘Not for you, maybe.’
‘Ron -’ She takes a small step towards him. ‘You mustn’t -’
‘If I’d grabbed him,’ he says blankly. ‘If I’d grabbed him and stopped him from Apparating out of Grimmauld Place.’
For a moment, she cannot think of any reply, but then - thank God - she remembers the answer. ‘Ron, if Harry had never got to Hogwarts, Voldemort would have killed me and Ginny.’
He meets her eyes. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Snape might have got there in time.’
‘No, he wouldn’t have.’ She shakes her head. ‘My protection charm wouldn’t have held that long. Harry ...’ She’s loathe to say it; can’t help but think how Harry would have hated to hear it; but, really, aren’t the living more important than the dead? ‘Harry bought Snape time. And,’ she adds, ‘he saved my life. Mine and Ginny’s.’
In the silence that follows next, Hermione knows that this is her chance - this is the reason she dressed well tonight - she has to say something - ‘Ron -’
‘Ron,’ says someone else, and Ron and Hermione turn to see a petite and pretty brunette - a woman who owns the kind of hair that makes her deserve the term ‘brunette’ - standing at the door a little awkwardly. ‘There you are! Hi, Hermione,’ she adds, smiling. ‘Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen you since Hogwarts!’
Oh my goodness this is going to get embarrassing quickly if I don’t - wait a minute - turnip?
‘Lisa Turpin!’ says Hermione with relief. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, good,’ says the ex-Ravenclaw with another wide smile. ‘I’m working at Gringotts, I’ve been travelling a lot the last few years - you’re at the Ministry, right?’
‘Yes, the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures - house-elves and goblins, that sort of thing,’ Hermione jabbers in a dismissive way she doesn’t usually do about her work on principle but why won’t she go away?
‘Oh, lovely!’ says Lisa. ‘Ron, come and dance.’ She reaches out a hand to him.
‘Not yet, I haven’t had enough to drink,’ he says as her hand touches his.
No, thinks Hermione. No.
‘Please, Ron, I really want to dance.’ Their hands entwine.
‘Fine, fine,’ he says, rolling his eyes in an insufferable manner and Hermione hates him and she hates Lisa Turpin but most of all she hates herself.
There is something in his eyes when he turns to look at her, his hand still holding Lisa’s, that could be an apology, but probably isn’t. ‘See you soon, yeah?’ he says. ‘We should catch up.’
Hermione smiles brightly. She’s too old for canaries; she has to make do with smiles. ‘Definitely. I’ll owl you.’
The two of them vanish into the party without a backwards look.
Abandoned out in the cold and dark in her pretty dress and her nicest shoes Hermione starts crying before she realizes what’s happening; for a second, she contemplates just standing there until everyone sees that she’s crying and Ron knows what he’s done, but then, overcome with something between self-pity and self-loathing, she turns away from the light.
She bites her lip and tries to hold it in but this just makes her shoulders shake - she wishes Ginny was here - people are going to see her shaking through the windows, she has to stop ...
She wishes her life hadn’t turned out like this.
She walks backwards until her back hits the wall, and then she slides down until she’s sitting on the floor; there, no one can see her.
*
Ron burst through the doors of the Hospital Wing, Healer in tow, and stopped abruptly when he saw Hermione kneeling at Harry’s side.
‘I’ve got a -’ he started, jerking his head towards the Healer behind him, but Hermione shook her head.
Ron turned and yelled down the corridor, ‘Harry Potter! Harry Potter’s injured! We need Healers!’
Ron and the Healer crouched down on Harry’s other side and the Healer started to check Harry over.
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Ron. ‘Hang on, mate; you’ll be fine.’
‘He’s been stabbed,’ said Hermione again. ‘Stabbed by Voldemort. In the ribs. And he was hit with a Clotless Curse.’
‘When?’ asked the Healer, unbuttoning Harry’s robes.
‘About five hours ago.’
‘I’m not going to last long,’ he said with a smile that didn’t suit him.
‘What’s this?’ asked the Healer, peeling sodden and scarlet bed sheets off Harry’s chest.
‘Bandages,’ whispered Hermione, ‘I tried to make bandages -’
The Healer threw the bed sheets off; they landed on Hermione’s lap. She touched the hilt of the dagger and Harry hissed with pain.
‘He can’t be moved,’ said the Healer.
‘We need some more Healers,’ said Ron fiercely. ‘Where the fuck are they?’
‘There’s just been a battle - it’s still going on, in fact -’
‘This is Harry Potter!’
‘You can’t Apparate -’
‘Ron,’ said Harry in a horrible, wracked rasp, ‘I’m dead.’
‘Shut up,’ snapped Ron.
Hermione looked behind her: Madam Pomfrey was standing at the end of the bed, holding the baby - the baby was crying - and Ginny was sitting on the stone floor. She appeared to have slid off the bed. Her hair was matted, her white T-shirt was soaked with sweat and her thighs were spotted with blood. She was staring at the four people by the door but she did not appear to understand what was happening.
‘Mi - o - nee,’ Harry croaked; Hermione turned back to him. He was having trouble speaking: his face was covered in sweat. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes,’ Hermione whispered again, stroking his forehead. ‘Dead.’
‘Gi - nny?’
‘She’s - here,’ said Hermione; out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the Healer had shuffled backwards and Madam Pomfrey had crept forwards. They had given up. ‘And your baby. It’s a girl.’
Harry looked almost amused.
‘I can’t fucking -’ Ron made a jagged movement. ‘I have to get more Healers.’
‘Ron, you - you mustn’t leave.’ Hermione clenched her fists to stop them from shaking.
The Healer had pressed her hands to her mouth; she seemed to have realized what she was seeing.
‘Ginny,’ said Hermione, spinning around, ‘Ginny, come here.’
Ginny crawled forwards.
‘Baby?’ Harry coughed.
Madam Pomfrey handed the now quiet baby to Ginny; Ginny took her and stared down at her in confusion.
‘Huh,’ coughed Harry. ‘I have a baby. A baby. I’m sorry.’
Ginny’s lips looked as if she were about to say something, but no noise came out.
His eyes sharpened. ‘Call her something colourful,’ he said seriously. ‘OK? OK?’ But before anyone could answer, something dark passed across his eyes; it seemed that something was warring with his soul.
Hermione’s shoulders started to shake. ‘Harry,’ she whispered - he couldn’t hear her - ‘no, no ...’
‘Take good care of my baby,’ he rasped, and then he started to wheeze with horrific, deranged laughter.
‘Harry?’ cried Ron.
‘It’s - it’s from a song - a Muggle song -’ Hermione shook out.
‘Harry?’ said Ginny in a quiet voice.
His eyes rolled back into his head and bloody bubbles blossomed at his lips.
He took one great, rattling breath, and then he fell very still.
‘Oh,’ said Ginny, ‘oh, oh -’ But the noises she was making weren’t those of grief: Hermione looked up just in time for Ginny to thrust the baby into Hermione’s arms and fall backwards onto the stone floor.
‘Push,’ said Madam Pomfrey, grabbing Ginny’s arm, ‘push.’
This went on until Ginny collapsed on the floor. Hermione couldn’t look at Harry. She saw something huge and red sliding down Ginny’s legs.
Ginny sat up and stared down at herself. ‘The placenta?’ she asked.
Madam Pomfrey nodded.
‘It’s done?’ she asked. ‘It’s all finished?’
Madam Pomfrey nodded again. ‘It’s all over.’
Then Ginny crawled over to where Harry was lying and lay down next to him. After staring at his face for a moment or two, she curled up around his body and closed her eyes.
The baby in Hermione’s arms started wailing again.
‘She wants feeding,’ said Madam Pomfrey helplessly, ‘she needs food,’ and that was when Hermione started to cry.
‘Give him back,’ she whispers into the fake night, arms wrapped around her knees. ‘Give him back to us.’
*
‘I’ll meet you at Florean’s’, Ginny said, Hermione remembers, ‘I’ll meet you at Florean’s on Sunday at two’; and then, at half one, an owl: ‘Can we push it up to quarter to four?’ Florean’s shuts for the afternoon at four, as Ginny well knew, and on a Sunday it doesn’t reopen for the evening, but Hermione agreed. When, at four, Ginny still hadn’t shown up, Hermione got into a conversation with old Florean, and then when he told her he was hurrying to get to his granddaughter’s birthday, she offered to lock up.
When someone banged on the door, she opened it.
And that is how it comes to be that at five past four on a Sunday in October she is standing in a kitchen she used to work in every day watching Ron Weasley watching her with his hands in his pockets.
His gaze is darker than she remembers it. Maybe he’s changed, but worse, maybe she’s remembered him wrong.
‘Ginny sent me to tell you that she’s sorry,’ he says, looking over her shoulder, ‘but she’s “snowed under with a billion things to do” and can you reschedule.’
‘She sent you here to tell me this?’ she asks.
‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘I mean, I popped round and she was panicking about the time, so I offered ...’
‘Right,’ says Hermione. ‘Well, erm, I’m just locking up for Florean, he had to be somewhere ... It shuts at four on Sundays ...’
‘Right,’ he says.
She looks around for something to occupy herself with, but there’s nothing to do, not even any dirty dishes to set to washing themselves; on a rainy day in October there isn’t much call for ice cream, and the waiters have already washed up and gone home.
So she goes over to one of the glass cabinets and starts counting crockery, hoping he’ll think that’s what always happens at the end of the day; at the same time, she hears him start to walk around the room.
After she’s counted everything in the cabinet twice, she stands still and hopes he’ll think she’s doing something busy and important.
Eventually, he says, ‘So you used to work here?’
She admits defeat and turns around. ‘Yes.’
He’s peering at the notice board. ‘What happened to that Italian bloke you used to live with?’
‘His name was Finn,’ she says.
‘Well?’
‘Bowel cancer,’ she says tightly. ‘He died about two years ago.’
The time she spent in this dark kitchen seems to belong to someone else’s life. Everything is different now, and yet she cannot think of a single factual, technical detail of her life that has changed. She thinks of the last year of the war: what did she do? She destroyed Horcruxes, she lost her virginity, she witnessed the murder of her best friend and delivered his baby. What has she done in the six years since then? Changed Ministry departments?
She looks up at Ron: if he’s feeling cowed by what she told him about Finn, he isn’t showing it.
She grabs a clean sundae-dish and a dishcloth and starts to polish it pointlessly. ‘What do you want, Ron?’
He shakes his head with irritation, but he doesn’t claim he’s only there at Ginny’s bidding. ‘I thought maybe we should talk.’
She works on the stem of the dish.
‘But clearly I’m annoying you already.’
‘You’re not ann-I just want to know why you’re here,’ she says.
‘I’ll never stop pissing you off,’ he says abruptly. ‘My very existence pisses you off.’
She slams down the sundae-dish. ‘No, you know what pisses me off?’ she snaps. ‘Your behaviour.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Am I about to get a lecture?’
‘Fine,’ she says, clenching her fists. ‘Fine, dismiss everything I have to say. Come and see me to “have a talk” and then just dismiss everything as a lecture, it’s what you’ve always done after all -’
‘No, I haven’t, that’s not - that’s not what it was like,’ he says rather oddly. ‘I didn’t dismiss you. And I’m annoying you now and I clearly annoyed you at the anniversary thing, but I’m not trying to annoy you -’
‘Then don’t flirt with me when you have a girlfriend!’ she snarls.
After a second, he says, ‘You left me. You left me.’
‘What?’ she shouts. ‘What has that got to do with anything? And anyway,’ she adds, ‘it was practically mutual!’
‘In what way?’
‘Because - because -’ she starts, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to say, but it’s probably about Harry, about how they never spoke about Harry even though his presence was always there, twisting his cold fingers into everything she thought and said and did. Suddenly, she is hit with the overpowering urge not to talk about Harry.
And so no one says anything, and the drip drip of the tap into the kitchen sink is the only sound they hear.
She throws the dishcloth she’s still holding into the sink. He puts his hands back into his pockets.
‘Me and Lisa are over,’ he says.
‘Is that what you’re doing here?’ She makes a disgusted noise and turns to face the window. ‘I should have known. Just - get out.’
‘What?’
‘Get out.’
She looks at him: his expression is fixed. ‘You don’t mean that,’ he says.
She would ask him if he doubts her capability of knowing her own mind, if despite not having spoken to her in two years he thinks he knows what she’s thinking, if he agrees that when a woman says no she means yes, but the thing is, saying Yes I do mean it will mean that he leaves, will mean that she won’t see him again for months and months, and will mean that she is lying.
So she folds her arms and says nothing.
‘Why do you have to do this?’ he explodes. ‘I’m trying to talk to you but you’re so fucking cold -’
‘I’m not cold,’ she says, tears blinking suddenly in her eyes, which is a bit embarrassing but it’s just that it’s an old insult - cold Hermione, frigid Hermione, uptight Hermione - and who cares anyway, because goodness knows Ron’s seen her cry enough times.
‘Hermione,’ he says in a low voice that makes her close her eyes and fight the jump of her heart. ‘Hermione, I didn’t ...’ All of a sudden he’s close: she doesn’t open her eyes because she knows that if she does all she’ll see is him. ‘I don’t want to talk about Ginny or Lisa ... or your old flatmate.’
‘I know you don’t,’ she mutters fiercely. ‘All you care about is yourself.’
She can feel his breath; she can feel his infuriating smile. ‘That’s not true.’
‘Yes it is,’ she whispers.
‘No,’ he whispers seriously. ‘It isn’t.’
She opens her eyes. He’s so close: it’s unbearable.
‘I care about at least one other person,’ he says.
She clenches her fists to stop her from touching his chest. Don’t do this, Ron, she thinks firmly. It would be a mistake. And by the way, I’ve put you behind me. Also, you’re on the rebound.
‘To be honest,’ he says in his low voice, ‘I didn’t really come here to talk.’
‘You’re - you’re -’ She doesn’t know what she’s trying to say and so realizes that she has to get out of there now, right this minute. She turns and tries walking away but he grabs her shoulder.
‘Hermione, don’t - please -’
And instead of throwing him off her and hexing him all the way to Thailand, she grabs the back of his head and kisses him.
They kiss like that, she on tip-toes and pressing their heads together, he bending down and hands slack, for several moments. Then with a clack of teeth he winds a hand into her bushy hair and kisses her the hardest he’s ever kissed her - the hardest she’s ever been kissed by anyone. She twists her hands into his Muggle shirt as her body falls against his and he walks her backwards until her back hits the crockery cabinet.
Without warning, he picks her up in his arms; she gasps as her feet leave the ground and their bodies press together. He places her on the kitchen counter. She wraps her legs around his waist and when his mouth moves to her neck her head falls back.
And as a large and long-missed hand bruises its warm way up her thigh, Hermione knows that this has nothing to do with Harry Potter.
Concluded in Part II
In January, Ginny gets a part-time job on a subdivision of the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee - she’s always been a good liar - and in February, with a loan from Fred and George, a burst into Ron and Hermione’s flat, many cries of ‘I did it! I did it!’ and much waving around of Muggle contracts, she moves into her own house.
A little while after Ron’s twenty-second birthday, Hermione explains to him that she cannot breathe around him anymore, voices are raised, perhaps one or two plates are smashed, and then she packs her bags (with magic, of course - she’s not going to waste her time just for sentimentality and symbolism) and she moves out. When it comes to relationships, Hermione is not the most experienced witch in the world, but even she knows that when all you can think about is a man who is not your boyfriend, you are in trouble.
*
Hermione did not see what happened at the beginning of the end, but from what she pieced together afterwards, it went like this:
Harry was standing in the middle of the room in Grimmauld Place, midway through a sentence, when he clutched at his head and collapsed on the floor.
He writhed and shouted for nearly a minute before Ron could shake him out of it. Ron asked him immediately what Voldemort saw.
‘It was ... old stuff,’ said Harry. ‘Old memories. He can’t have found out about Ginny. But I don’t know, it all went by so quickly ...’
A minute later, a piece of parchment appeared with a bang.
Harry grabbed it, read it, dropped it and ran from the room.
Lupin chased him outside, only to see him Disapparate from the front step of the house.
Ron read the note. In thin handwriting, it said:
Gringotts is the safest place in the world for anything you want to keep safe - except maybe Hogwarts.
Ron handed the note to George and ran after Lupin. They collided in the corridor.
‘He’s gone,’ barked Lupin. ‘Disapparated. What did it say?’
‘He’s gone to Hogwarts,’ said Ron. ‘He knows.’
‘But Flooing’s faster -’
‘I’ll go,’ said George, running out into the corridor. ‘You stay here in case Harry comes back to use the Floo -’
‘Get them out,’ said Ron. ‘Get Ginny and Hermione out.’
George ran back into the room and jumped into the fireplace.
Just as Madam Pomfrey, from between Ginny’s legs, pronounced ‘Definitely head first’, George burst into the hospital wing.
Hermione spun around from where she was squatting by the bed, her wand drawn for combat, only to drop it when she saw George. ‘What is it?’ she barked, wiping her hair from her face, before turning back to Ginny.
Ginny chose that moment to scream; she hadn’t noticed anyone enter the room.
‘Not long now,’ said Madam Pomfrey. ‘Give me a good push, Weasley.’
Hermione squeezed Ginny’s hand. ‘In and out,’ she said; she had said those words so many times in the last hours that she felt certain she would never be able to say anything else again. As Ginny started breathing, Hermione looked back over her shoulder at George: he was standing stock-still and staring at Ginny, his eyes wide. ‘Well?’ she snapped at him; she didn’t care about him watching, but he could at least have the grace not to stand there like a lemon.
George blinked. ‘He’s coming,’ he said. ‘You-Know-Who’s coming.’
It was at that moment that Hermione felt most firmly that she was in a dream; she felt that there was no way that this situation could be the truth. She became aware of Madam Pomfrey breathing heavily behind her. She tried to work out how they were going to get out of there.
‘He got into Harry’s head,’ said George, stepping forwards, hands outstretched uselessly. ‘He - he -’
‘When? When?’ Hermione shrieked.
‘You have to make a Portkey -’
Hermione got up and stumbled over to the shelves of potions at the end of Ginny’s bed and grabbed an empty glass flask - what was the spell? Her view of her feet seemed to be from oddly far away - was this an out-of-body experience?
‘You can’t Portkey her!’ screeched Madam Pomfrey.
‘Floo!’
‘You think she can get into a fireplace?’
‘Fred? George?’ screamed Ginny. ‘What the fuck? WHERE’S HARRY?’
‘He’s -’ started George with desperation, before he seemingly saw something out the window next to Ginny’s bed and stopped mid-plea.
Hermione looked at what he was looking at and dropped her flask.
Slowly, she walked forwards until she was standing next to George.
‘They’re coming,’ said George slowly.
Running up the path to the castle’s front doors was someone Hermione knew was Voldemort, though she had never seen him before, with his black cloak billowing behind him. About twenty feet behind him was Harry, running as fast as he could, his legs stretching further than Hermione had ever seen human legs stretch. As they watched, Harry shot a spell at Voldemort, who dissolved it away into nothingness with a wave of his wand.
‘Voldemort’s coming?’ Ginny shrieked. ‘Where’s my wand, get me my wand, I’ll kill that fucking bastard -’
‘Get out,’ said George abruptly, turning to Hermione and grabbing her shoulders. ‘Floo from McGonagall’s office - I told Ron - we’ll hold the fort here -’
‘No,’ said Hermione; she didn’t need to think about it.
‘Here,’ said Madam Pomfrey, thrusting a huge and stained book into Hermione’s arms open on a page in the middle. ‘It’s an old protection charm. You,’ she directed at George - ‘secure the door. And you,’ she said to Ginny, ‘count to twenty and then push.’
‘But what if they Apparate?’
Hermione spun around to face George with a hysterical snarl. ‘You can’t fucking Apparate into or out of Hogwarts!’
Without a word George ran to the door and started conjuring planks of wood, which nailed themselves over the door with loud crunches.
Hermione ran her eyes over the instructions for the charm. ‘In and out, Ginny,’ she gabbled as she started the spell. ‘Pertae extradis - pertae ...’
It was as Madam Pomfrey was saying ‘All right, Ginny, take a deep breath and then push’ that Hermione heard the bang of the doors to the Entrance Hall and footsteps running across the flagstones.
‘Pertae extradise - extradis, pertae extradis,’ she babbled, jabbing her wand fiercely, and despite the fact that the thumping of her heart was louder than Ginny’s screams, something huge and blue blossomed from the end of her wand and wrapped itself around the three women.
‘Crowning,’ muttered Madam Pomfrey, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around her; her surroundings could be seen only in the wideness of her eyes.
And then, the door blew open; George was blasted into a corner and Hermione stared through the blue sheen at Voldemort, framed in the doorway and raising his wand with a sneer.
Despite the last year, despite her life since she’d met Harry on a train, Hermione had never stared death in the face; and it was almost inappropriate, she would think later, how much Voldemort looked like death. But before Hermione could face her destiny, something wiry and black came hurtling out of the corridor and threw itself onto Voldemort’s body.
It was Harry, of course: Harry bore the Dark Lord down to the floor and then they both dropped their wands with clatters and together they rolled over and over - they were wrestling.
‘Granger!’ barked Madam Pomfrey. ‘Get up here and hold her hand!’
Hermione half-ran, half-crawled over to Ginny and, clasping her nearest hand in both of hers, she whispered, ‘It’s going to be OK, Ginny, it’s going to be OK.’
‘One last push, Ginny!’
‘In and out, in and out ...’
The blue vanished.
‘PERTAE EXTRADIS!’ Hermione screamed, jabbing her wand into the air, and the blue blossomed from her wand again but this time it was much darker, and Hermione knew that this time the spell was stronger -
‘I have the head!’ cried Madam Pomfrey. Hermione looked and there it was: the tiny red-purple head of a baby emerging from Ginny’s vagina. ‘Stop pushing, Ginny!’
Ginny was sobbing, but Hermione thought it must be with pain; Ginny didn’t seem to know what was going on.
Hermione chanced a glance behind her and saw that Voldemort had pulled a small silver dagger from his robes. She cried out a warning but her cry turned into a scream as the dagger was thrust up into Harry’s ribs.
‘All right, push! Granger, focus!’
Voldemort’s right hand was on Harry’s neck, his body pinning down his arms and his left hand was reaching, reaching for his wand - his fingertips touched it -
‘Accio wand!’ Hermione cried, but the spell didn’t work through the protective bubble. ‘George!’ she shouted, but he probably couldn’t hear - maybe he was unconscious, maybe he was dead -
A dark, dishevelled figure appeared in the doorway. He walked into the room and stood behind Voldemort; Hermione could hear nothing, but she knew the man in black must be making no noise to be heard, because Voldemort was not turning around.
Harry’s eyes in his red face widened with recognition but Hermione couldn’t see who it was; couldn’t see who it was, that is, until the man withdrew his wand and she recognised him as Severus Snape, the Severus Snape she hadn’t seen since April, when Harry had finally caught him.
Snape waited for an eternity, his wand pointing at Voldemort’s back and his eyes on Harry’s suffocating face. Then the room flashed green, Voldemort crumpled onto Harry and Snape turned on his heel and swept from the room.
‘Time of birth, ten thirty-three,’ said Madam Pomfrey; Hermione turned back to the bed to see the nurse wrapping a tiny red baby up in a cloth and wielding a pair of scissors. ‘It’s a girl.’ The matron looked up: her mouth went slack as she saw the crumpled heap of bodies at the door. She raised her wand and said, ‘Pertae intra.’
The blue fell away and Hermione ran forwards to the bodies. Heaving Voldemort off and hurling him as far away as possible, she freed Harry; to her overpowering relief, his face twitched up at her.
‘Is he dead?’ he croaked.
She heard George coughing in the corner. ‘George?’ she called.
‘Hermione? What’s -’
‘Harry’s been stabbed,’ she said tremulously. This was all she could think about; if she focused on anything else, she’d fall apart. ‘The Clotless Curse won’t have worn off - George, he’s still a haemophiliac - you need to get a Healer -’
‘Right,’ said George, and he got up and ran from the room.
She looked back down at Harry. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘I wish I’d killed him,’ he coughed out.
‘You did,’ Hermione whispered in what she hoped was a soothing tone, ‘remember, in April? You forgave Snape. You let him go.’
But Harry had stopped listening.
*
When Hermione is twenty-four, she grows tired of her job with the Wizengamot and requests to be transferred to the Being Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; about the same time, she breaks up with her boyfriend (William Corbin; the International Magical Trading Standards Body, Department of International Magical Cooperation; very intelligent, and lovely thick hair) because she realizes he is still in love with his ex. For the first time, she feels Ginny’s anger at Harry, because if Harry had never died, she and Ron would still be a couple and she would never have wasted her time on William; but then again, she reflects, if Harry had never existed, then she and Ron would probably never have happened. And she would be in exactly the same situation she’s in now. She shakes her head, buys a wooden tub of ice cream from Florean, and goes to see Ginny.
‘The thing about men,’ Ginny says with the authority that comes with half a bottle of nettle wine, licking her spoon, sitting on the floor, her back against the sofa, ‘is that they are shit.’
‘I hate them all,’ says Hermione. ‘All. I wish I was a lesbian.’
‘I’d do you,’ says Ginny. ‘In a second.’
Hermione’s head falls onto Ginny’s shoulder.
‘You know,’ says Ginny, ‘Ron’s single.’
‘Don’t, Ginny.’
After a second, Ginny says, ‘I reckon it would be worth a try.’
‘Ginny, we’ve barely spoken since we broke up. I’ve seen him about twice in two years.’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’
Hermione blinks sleepily. ‘It tells me that Ron and I don’t make very good platonic friends.’
‘Exactly! When two people can either be having sex or be not speaking to each other, that means something.’ Ginny nods firmly.
‘No, no, no,’ says Hermione. ‘That doesn’t mean anything. How often - in real life - does it happen that people become good friends with people who have been their ...’
‘Lovers?’ asks Ginny, waggling her eyebrows.
‘No!’ Hermione shrieks, laughing. ‘Ron was not my lover. He was my ... boyfriend.’ But the word doesn’t seem right, and she wrinkles her nose as she says it.
‘I prefer the term “lover”,’ says Ginny. ‘“Boyfriend” is so ...’ She waves her spoon around vaguely. ‘I hate having to tell people Harry Potter was my boyfriend.’ She starts trying to scrape ice cream from the long-empty tub. ‘It’s so lightweight. I think I might start telling people I’m his widow. That’s what I feel like.’ She grins salaciously. ‘But I do like calling myself his lover.’
Hermione laughs. ‘How many times did you two actually ...’
‘Once,’ says Ginny. ‘But it still counts.’
‘Ginny ...’ Hermione starts. ‘The thing is ... Ron and I don’t work without Harry.’
Ginny puts the ice cream tub on the floor. ‘Hermione ...’ she says, turning to look at her; she is smiling sadly. ‘Haven’t you realized how rare true, requited love is?’ She shrugs a shoulder. ‘If you and Ron had that, then don’t you think that’s worth fighting for?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ says Hermione.
Ginny sighs. ‘Really?’
Yes, really, Hermione thinks.
‘Hermione, I’m not -’ Ginny swallows. ‘I’m not trying to tell you to count your lucky stars,’ she says quietly. ‘That’s not what I meant to say.’
Hermione stares at the tufts of the carpet. At least he’s still alive. Harry died, but Ron lived.
‘I’m not bitter,’ says Ginny. ‘I’m not even particularly jealous. Let’s be realistic,’ she says, picking up the ice cream tub again. ‘If Harry had lived, what would have happened? We’d have moved in together, we’d have been all right for a few years ... probably would have got married, I suppose, to keep my mother happy ...’ She stares off into space. ‘We probably would have had more children way too early, so there wasn’t too big an age gap ... I bet Harry wanted loads of kids ...’
Hermione says nothing: she is too morbidly transfixed by Ginny’s picture.
‘So I would have ended up with three kids by the time I was twenty, or something,’ says Ginny with an abrupt semi-smile, returning to the ice cream. ‘He’d have been working full-time as an Auror, and I would have been stuck at home with our ten children. We’d both have gone crazy. We’d probably have got divorced by now.’
Hermione doesn’t say anything. She knows that Ginny would prefer Harry alive as her divorcee, only seeing his children every other weekend, than dead as a perfect memory.
Knowledge can be a burden.
‘Ron and I are very much over,’ says Hermione. ‘I used to think that Harry’s death was what broke us up, but I think maybe it was just his ... his non-existence. His not being around.’ She says it again. ‘We don’t work without him.’
*
Or maybe, maybe it all went wrong on the October night. The night started with Harry mumbling something about some ‘business’ he had to ‘take care of’ and telling them he would be back in the morning. Ron had started to raise objections but Hermione had mouthed ‘Godric’s Hollow’ at him from across the tent and he had shut his mouth and let him go.
Peering out through the crack between the flaps of the tent at the rainy night, Ron said, ‘Going to a graveyard in the dark is a little morbid, even for him.’
Hermione busied herself with the pots and pans. They were staying in a real tent, that week, for Perkins’ magic one had blown up recently in what Ron was referring to as ‘an unfortunate Death Eater incident’, and Mundungus could not get them another wizarding one until the next Tuesday. ‘I’ll wash, you dry,’ she said.
Ron came and sat down next to her as she soaked a saucepan in a plastic bowl of warm water. ‘You know,’ he said, as she passed him the soapy pan, ‘I know I’ve said this before, but we do in fact have magical powers.’
‘Here’s a tea towel,’ she said, conjuring one and handing it to him.
After a moment, he said, ‘So ... why are we doing this the Muggle way?’
‘I felt like it,’ she said.
Two pans later, he said, ‘Do you think we should have gone with him?’
She stopped washing. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Me neither.’
‘He’d probably have asked us, if he wanted us to,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, putting down the tea towel. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. So ...’ He looked up at her slyly. ‘Since he’s not here ... what do you want to do?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Unless you want to wash up all night?’
‘Depends what you’re offering,’ she heard herself say.
‘Hermione ...’ She looked down at her lap. If she looked up their faces would be an inch apart, and it scared her.
He came closer, closer, closer, and then his lips were touching her cheek, and then he had kissed her ear. ‘Hermione,’ he whispered.
‘Are you obsessed with my name?’ she whispered tremulously.
His hand touched her chin and turned her head up to face him. She was glad he was taking the lead; she was too terrified that it was finally happening to work out what to do. She hadn’t kissed anyone in two years, for goodness’ sake.
Then he kissed her and this was what kissing Ron was like; it was foreign and strange and somewhat wet.
They broke apart. His lips were wet. ‘Is this ...’ he started hesitantly, ‘what you want?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and as she said it, she knew it was true; truer than anything else, ever. ‘Yes,’ she said again, and then a beautiful, sexy, adorable half-smile spread across his face and because of that she threw her arms around his neck and climbed onto his lap.
‘Woah,’ he said, but she ignored him and kissed him again, and kissed him again and kissed him with her tongue and twisted her fingers into his hair; he growled at that and she squeaked at his growl.
They stopped and just looked at each other. Hermione realized that she was straddling him. She was straddling Ron in a tent.
‘When will Harry come back?’ she asked.
‘Don’t care,’ said Ron. ‘He can bugger off.’
She giggled. Then she started to slide her hands under his jumper.
‘Fuck, Hermione,’ he groaned.
‘Shh,’ she said, and nipped at his lower lip.
‘Fuck,’ he said again and she pushed him down so he was lying on the floor. He grabbed her by her top and pulled her down and kissed her, and then he rolled them both over so he was on top. ‘Hermione, Hermione, Hermione, Hermione,’ he whispered as his hands copied hers.
*
The sixth anniversary of the end of the war is likely to be the most bearable yet, thinks Hermione. The dinner has been replaced by a buffet; the unendurable speeches and the official toasts are at a bare minimum; the focus of the evening seems to have shifted to a string band grinding out ropy covers of old Celestina Warbeck songs.
Ron is not there and with that realization earlier Hermione had to quash a tiny disquiet in her stomach that this evening was not going to be one she’d remember forever - not that she’d been counting on that, of course. Ginny is not there, either - ‘I am never hosting a child’s birthday party again,’ she said from her position of lying on the floor half-asleep when Hermione went to see her earlier - but Neville and Dean are, and so is Fred, and there are quite a few professors - she’s already had a long chat with McGonagall about her proposed redevelopment of the Centaur Liaison office - and there are many of her colleagues from the Ministry. It’s going to be a perfectly lovely evening.
She’s perched on the edge of a table - she’s had a little bit to drink but not that much - at the side of the room and is watching the guests. She’s staring at Gwenog Jones and thinking of Viktor Krum’s assassination by Bulgarian Voldemort sympathisers when she hears her name. ‘Hermione?’
It’s Ron: he’s standing to her left in black dress robes, holding a Butterbeer.
‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she says. What does this mean? He’s just arrived and he’s come up to talk to her - even though she hasn’t seen him since - what, around Christmas? She didn’t even see him at his birthday - but the first thing he’s done is come and find her and he wants to talk to her. Does he know? Does he know what she’s been thinking about since that conversation she had with Ginny when she broke up with William? Has he had a similar conversation with Ginny? Has he -
‘I thought I might not make it,’ he says. ‘I had a load of paperwork to do.’
‘Oh, are you -?’ she says at the same time he says ‘Yeah, I just got made -’
There is an embarrassed pause.
‘Yeah,’ he says after a second. ‘I’m an Auror now.’ She cannot help but notice that he does not sound too gleeful about it.
‘Are you -’ she starts saying, but then she stops. She was going to say Are you happy? in the way that he did when he turned up at Florean’s that time, that year, but it seems very silly - she wouldn’t be able to pull it off - and he probably doesn’t remember, and anyway, they’re a bit too old for asking deep philosophical questions. At the beginning of conversations, anyway.
‘How are you?’ he asks. ‘I heard you moved departments?’
‘Yes,’ she says with a bright smile that she hopes doesn’t look too forced. Why doesn’t he know? Hasn’t Ginny told him? Is he pretending? ‘I’m in Magical Creatures, now.’
‘Like spew?’ he says with a smile.
‘Something like that, yes,’ she says, and as his smile fades and his polite party expression returns she knows she said the wrong thing. ‘Of course,’ she hastens, ‘the badges are more expensive, nowadays.’
There is a moment; then, his eyes twinkle and Hermione’s heart thuds so violently that she thinks she might faint. ‘Well, that’s Ministry interference for you,’ he says.
Say something, idiot! her brain screams at her, but part of her is happy to just stare at the blue of his eyes and smile helplessly.
‘So, were you here at the beginning?’ he asks.
‘Yes, of course,’ she says. ‘I’m never late.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘I distinctly remember you being late to this once.’
‘Lies,’ she says. ‘It’s all lies.’ The reason she wasn’t late today - the reason she isn’t late for most things - is that she’s grown up and knows how to dress herself. Her dress is nice; her hair is behaving; she knows how to apply make-up; her shoes fit. She looks good, she reminds herself. Now stop acting like a dithering idiot.
‘Well, how was it?’ he asks, glancing at the decimated buffet table. ‘No sit-down dinner, this time?’
‘No,’ she says, trying to pull herself together. ‘So less toasts. And only one speech.’
He nods with understanding. ‘Not bad.’
‘No, it wasn’t that bad.’
He jerks his thumb back over his shoulder at the ornate doors leading out on to the patio. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’
Her stomach twists. He wants to go for a walk. ‘OK,’ she says slowly.
He puts his Butterbeer down on the table and together they walk around the dancers and out on to the patio.
It’s very dark outside and thankfully there are no other people; it’s cold for July. Of course, the Ministry is underground, so this entire outside-feel is just the result of a very clever Atmosphere Charm, she reminds herself, but it doesn’t stop the cold from biting.
The light spilling out through the windows makes half his face glow yellow; the other half is as black as their surroundings. He’s looking out at the fake horizon, his hands in his pockets.
‘So,’ she says, wishing he would look at her while hoping he doesn’t, ‘have you missed me?’
All her hopes and wishes are granted: he eyes her from the side without turning his head. ‘What do you think?’
Hermione turns to look at the fake horizon herself. ‘I’ve missed you. A lot.’
‘Same,’ he says. ‘So, how was the speech?’
‘I phased out, for most of it,’ she admits ashamedly. She feels like she’s admitting to cheating on her NEWTs.
‘Promise me,’ he says, ‘that you’ll never toast Harry.’
‘Done,’ she laughs.
A silence passes that Hermione is not entirely comfortable with, and then he asks, ‘Why do we keep coming to these things?’
She has an answer prepared. ‘Because even if you know you’ve failed an exam, you have to look at your mark.’
‘Our failed exam,’ he says with a humourless snort.
‘Ron,’ she says as if they’ve had this conversation a thousand times before - maybe they have - ‘Ron, we didn’t fail at - at - I mean, there are a hundred things we could have done differently, but there’s no one thing that if we’d done, everything would have been different -’
He shrugs. ‘Not for you, maybe.’
‘Ron -’ She takes a small step towards him. ‘You mustn’t -’
‘If I’d grabbed him,’ he says blankly. ‘If I’d grabbed him and stopped him from Apparating out of Grimmauld Place.’
For a moment, she cannot think of any reply, but then - thank God - she remembers the answer. ‘Ron, if Harry had never got to Hogwarts, Voldemort would have killed me and Ginny.’
He meets her eyes. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Snape might have got there in time.’
‘No, he wouldn’t have.’ She shakes her head. ‘My protection charm wouldn’t have held that long. Harry ...’ She’s loathe to say it; can’t help but think how Harry would have hated to hear it; but, really, aren’t the living more important than the dead? ‘Harry bought Snape time. And,’ she adds, ‘he saved my life. Mine and Ginny’s.’
In the silence that follows next, Hermione knows that this is her chance - this is the reason she dressed well tonight - she has to say something - ‘Ron -’
‘Ron,’ says someone else, and Ron and Hermione turn to see a petite and pretty brunette - a woman who owns the kind of hair that makes her deserve the term ‘brunette’ - standing at the door a little awkwardly. ‘There you are! Hi, Hermione,’ she adds, smiling. ‘Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen you since Hogwarts!’
Oh my goodness this is going to get embarrassing quickly if I don’t - wait a minute - turnip?
‘Lisa Turpin!’ says Hermione with relief. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, good,’ says the ex-Ravenclaw with another wide smile. ‘I’m working at Gringotts, I’ve been travelling a lot the last few years - you’re at the Ministry, right?’
‘Yes, the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures - house-elves and goblins, that sort of thing,’ Hermione jabbers in a dismissive way she doesn’t usually do about her work on principle but why won’t she go away?
‘Oh, lovely!’ says Lisa. ‘Ron, come and dance.’ She reaches out a hand to him.
‘Not yet, I haven’t had enough to drink,’ he says as her hand touches his.
No, thinks Hermione. No.
‘Please, Ron, I really want to dance.’ Their hands entwine.
‘Fine, fine,’ he says, rolling his eyes in an insufferable manner and Hermione hates him and she hates Lisa Turpin but most of all she hates herself.
There is something in his eyes when he turns to look at her, his hand still holding Lisa’s, that could be an apology, but probably isn’t. ‘See you soon, yeah?’ he says. ‘We should catch up.’
Hermione smiles brightly. She’s too old for canaries; she has to make do with smiles. ‘Definitely. I’ll owl you.’
The two of them vanish into the party without a backwards look.
Abandoned out in the cold and dark in her pretty dress and her nicest shoes Hermione starts crying before she realizes what’s happening; for a second, she contemplates just standing there until everyone sees that she’s crying and Ron knows what he’s done, but then, overcome with something between self-pity and self-loathing, she turns away from the light.
She bites her lip and tries to hold it in but this just makes her shoulders shake - she wishes Ginny was here - people are going to see her shaking through the windows, she has to stop ...
She wishes her life hadn’t turned out like this.
She walks backwards until her back hits the wall, and then she slides down until she’s sitting on the floor; there, no one can see her.
*
Ron burst through the doors of the Hospital Wing, Healer in tow, and stopped abruptly when he saw Hermione kneeling at Harry’s side.
‘I’ve got a -’ he started, jerking his head towards the Healer behind him, but Hermione shook her head.
Ron turned and yelled down the corridor, ‘Harry Potter! Harry Potter’s injured! We need Healers!’
Ron and the Healer crouched down on Harry’s other side and the Healer started to check Harry over.
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Ron. ‘Hang on, mate; you’ll be fine.’
‘He’s been stabbed,’ said Hermione again. ‘Stabbed by Voldemort. In the ribs. And he was hit with a Clotless Curse.’
‘When?’ asked the Healer, unbuttoning Harry’s robes.
‘About five hours ago.’
‘I’m not going to last long,’ he said with a smile that didn’t suit him.
‘What’s this?’ asked the Healer, peeling sodden and scarlet bed sheets off Harry’s chest.
‘Bandages,’ whispered Hermione, ‘I tried to make bandages -’
The Healer threw the bed sheets off; they landed on Hermione’s lap. She touched the hilt of the dagger and Harry hissed with pain.
‘He can’t be moved,’ said the Healer.
‘We need some more Healers,’ said Ron fiercely. ‘Where the fuck are they?’
‘There’s just been a battle - it’s still going on, in fact -’
‘This is Harry Potter!’
‘You can’t Apparate -’
‘Ron,’ said Harry in a horrible, wracked rasp, ‘I’m dead.’
‘Shut up,’ snapped Ron.
Hermione looked behind her: Madam Pomfrey was standing at the end of the bed, holding the baby - the baby was crying - and Ginny was sitting on the stone floor. She appeared to have slid off the bed. Her hair was matted, her white T-shirt was soaked with sweat and her thighs were spotted with blood. She was staring at the four people by the door but she did not appear to understand what was happening.
‘Mi - o - nee,’ Harry croaked; Hermione turned back to him. He was having trouble speaking: his face was covered in sweat. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes,’ Hermione whispered again, stroking his forehead. ‘Dead.’
‘Gi - nny?’
‘She’s - here,’ said Hermione; out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the Healer had shuffled backwards and Madam Pomfrey had crept forwards. They had given up. ‘And your baby. It’s a girl.’
Harry looked almost amused.
‘I can’t fucking -’ Ron made a jagged movement. ‘I have to get more Healers.’
‘Ron, you - you mustn’t leave.’ Hermione clenched her fists to stop them from shaking.
The Healer had pressed her hands to her mouth; she seemed to have realized what she was seeing.
‘Ginny,’ said Hermione, spinning around, ‘Ginny, come here.’
Ginny crawled forwards.
‘Baby?’ Harry coughed.
Madam Pomfrey handed the now quiet baby to Ginny; Ginny took her and stared down at her in confusion.
‘Huh,’ coughed Harry. ‘I have a baby. A baby. I’m sorry.’
Ginny’s lips looked as if she were about to say something, but no noise came out.
His eyes sharpened. ‘Call her something colourful,’ he said seriously. ‘OK? OK?’ But before anyone could answer, something dark passed across his eyes; it seemed that something was warring with his soul.
Hermione’s shoulders started to shake. ‘Harry,’ she whispered - he couldn’t hear her - ‘no, no ...’
‘Take good care of my baby,’ he rasped, and then he started to wheeze with horrific, deranged laughter.
‘Harry?’ cried Ron.
‘It’s - it’s from a song - a Muggle song -’ Hermione shook out.
‘Harry?’ said Ginny in a quiet voice.
His eyes rolled back into his head and bloody bubbles blossomed at his lips.
He took one great, rattling breath, and then he fell very still.
‘Oh,’ said Ginny, ‘oh, oh -’ But the noises she was making weren’t those of grief: Hermione looked up just in time for Ginny to thrust the baby into Hermione’s arms and fall backwards onto the stone floor.
‘Push,’ said Madam Pomfrey, grabbing Ginny’s arm, ‘push.’
This went on until Ginny collapsed on the floor. Hermione couldn’t look at Harry. She saw something huge and red sliding down Ginny’s legs.
Ginny sat up and stared down at herself. ‘The placenta?’ she asked.
Madam Pomfrey nodded.
‘It’s done?’ she asked. ‘It’s all finished?’
Madam Pomfrey nodded again. ‘It’s all over.’
Then Ginny crawled over to where Harry was lying and lay down next to him. After staring at his face for a moment or two, she curled up around his body and closed her eyes.
The baby in Hermione’s arms started wailing again.
‘She wants feeding,’ said Madam Pomfrey helplessly, ‘she needs food,’ and that was when Hermione started to cry.
‘Give him back,’ she whispers into the fake night, arms wrapped around her knees. ‘Give him back to us.’
*
‘I’ll meet you at Florean’s’, Ginny said, Hermione remembers, ‘I’ll meet you at Florean’s on Sunday at two’; and then, at half one, an owl: ‘Can we push it up to quarter to four?’ Florean’s shuts for the afternoon at four, as Ginny well knew, and on a Sunday it doesn’t reopen for the evening, but Hermione agreed. When, at four, Ginny still hadn’t shown up, Hermione got into a conversation with old Florean, and then when he told her he was hurrying to get to his granddaughter’s birthday, she offered to lock up.
When someone banged on the door, she opened it.
And that is how it comes to be that at five past four on a Sunday in October she is standing in a kitchen she used to work in every day watching Ron Weasley watching her with his hands in his pockets.
His gaze is darker than she remembers it. Maybe he’s changed, but worse, maybe she’s remembered him wrong.
‘Ginny sent me to tell you that she’s sorry,’ he says, looking over her shoulder, ‘but she’s “snowed under with a billion things to do” and can you reschedule.’
‘She sent you here to tell me this?’ she asks.
‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘I mean, I popped round and she was panicking about the time, so I offered ...’
‘Right,’ says Hermione. ‘Well, erm, I’m just locking up for Florean, he had to be somewhere ... It shuts at four on Sundays ...’
‘Right,’ he says.
She looks around for something to occupy herself with, but there’s nothing to do, not even any dirty dishes to set to washing themselves; on a rainy day in October there isn’t much call for ice cream, and the waiters have already washed up and gone home.
So she goes over to one of the glass cabinets and starts counting crockery, hoping he’ll think that’s what always happens at the end of the day; at the same time, she hears him start to walk around the room.
After she’s counted everything in the cabinet twice, she stands still and hopes he’ll think she’s doing something busy and important.
Eventually, he says, ‘So you used to work here?’
She admits defeat and turns around. ‘Yes.’
He’s peering at the notice board. ‘What happened to that Italian bloke you used to live with?’
‘His name was Finn,’ she says.
‘Well?’
‘Bowel cancer,’ she says tightly. ‘He died about two years ago.’
The time she spent in this dark kitchen seems to belong to someone else’s life. Everything is different now, and yet she cannot think of a single factual, technical detail of her life that has changed. She thinks of the last year of the war: what did she do? She destroyed Horcruxes, she lost her virginity, she witnessed the murder of her best friend and delivered his baby. What has she done in the six years since then? Changed Ministry departments?
She looks up at Ron: if he’s feeling cowed by what she told him about Finn, he isn’t showing it.
She grabs a clean sundae-dish and a dishcloth and starts to polish it pointlessly. ‘What do you want, Ron?’
He shakes his head with irritation, but he doesn’t claim he’s only there at Ginny’s bidding. ‘I thought maybe we should talk.’
She works on the stem of the dish.
‘But clearly I’m annoying you already.’
‘You’re not ann-I just want to know why you’re here,’ she says.
‘I’ll never stop pissing you off,’ he says abruptly. ‘My very existence pisses you off.’
She slams down the sundae-dish. ‘No, you know what pisses me off?’ she snaps. ‘Your behaviour.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Am I about to get a lecture?’
‘Fine,’ she says, clenching her fists. ‘Fine, dismiss everything I have to say. Come and see me to “have a talk” and then just dismiss everything as a lecture, it’s what you’ve always done after all -’
‘No, I haven’t, that’s not - that’s not what it was like,’ he says rather oddly. ‘I didn’t dismiss you. And I’m annoying you now and I clearly annoyed you at the anniversary thing, but I’m not trying to annoy you -’
‘Then don’t flirt with me when you have a girlfriend!’ she snarls.
After a second, he says, ‘You left me. You left me.’
‘What?’ she shouts. ‘What has that got to do with anything? And anyway,’ she adds, ‘it was practically mutual!’
‘In what way?’
‘Because - because -’ she starts, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to say, but it’s probably about Harry, about how they never spoke about Harry even though his presence was always there, twisting his cold fingers into everything she thought and said and did. Suddenly, she is hit with the overpowering urge not to talk about Harry.
And so no one says anything, and the drip drip of the tap into the kitchen sink is the only sound they hear.
She throws the dishcloth she’s still holding into the sink. He puts his hands back into his pockets.
‘Me and Lisa are over,’ he says.
‘Is that what you’re doing here?’ She makes a disgusted noise and turns to face the window. ‘I should have known. Just - get out.’
‘What?’
‘Get out.’
She looks at him: his expression is fixed. ‘You don’t mean that,’ he says.
She would ask him if he doubts her capability of knowing her own mind, if despite not having spoken to her in two years he thinks he knows what she’s thinking, if he agrees that when a woman says no she means yes, but the thing is, saying Yes I do mean it will mean that he leaves, will mean that she won’t see him again for months and months, and will mean that she is lying.
So she folds her arms and says nothing.
‘Why do you have to do this?’ he explodes. ‘I’m trying to talk to you but you’re so fucking cold -’
‘I’m not cold,’ she says, tears blinking suddenly in her eyes, which is a bit embarrassing but it’s just that it’s an old insult - cold Hermione, frigid Hermione, uptight Hermione - and who cares anyway, because goodness knows Ron’s seen her cry enough times.
‘Hermione,’ he says in a low voice that makes her close her eyes and fight the jump of her heart. ‘Hermione, I didn’t ...’ All of a sudden he’s close: she doesn’t open her eyes because she knows that if she does all she’ll see is him. ‘I don’t want to talk about Ginny or Lisa ... or your old flatmate.’
‘I know you don’t,’ she mutters fiercely. ‘All you care about is yourself.’
She can feel his breath; she can feel his infuriating smile. ‘That’s not true.’
‘Yes it is,’ she whispers.
‘No,’ he whispers seriously. ‘It isn’t.’
She opens her eyes. He’s so close: it’s unbearable.
‘I care about at least one other person,’ he says.
She clenches her fists to stop her from touching his chest. Don’t do this, Ron, she thinks firmly. It would be a mistake. And by the way, I’ve put you behind me. Also, you’re on the rebound.
‘To be honest,’ he says in his low voice, ‘I didn’t really come here to talk.’
‘You’re - you’re -’ She doesn’t know what she’s trying to say and so realizes that she has to get out of there now, right this minute. She turns and tries walking away but he grabs her shoulder.
‘Hermione, don’t - please -’
And instead of throwing him off her and hexing him all the way to Thailand, she grabs the back of his head and kisses him.
They kiss like that, she on tip-toes and pressing their heads together, he bending down and hands slack, for several moments. Then with a clack of teeth he winds a hand into her bushy hair and kisses her the hardest he’s ever kissed her - the hardest she’s ever been kissed by anyone. She twists her hands into his Muggle shirt as her body falls against his and he walks her backwards until her back hits the crockery cabinet.
Without warning, he picks her up in his arms; she gasps as her feet leave the ground and their bodies press together. He places her on the kitchen counter. She wraps her legs around his waist and when his mouth moves to her neck her head falls back.
And as a large and long-missed hand bruises its warm way up her thigh, Hermione knows that this has nothing to do with Harry Potter.
Concluded in Part II