Author's Note: Written for Round 11 of the QLFC
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Beater 1
Beater 1 Prompt: Write about a budding friendship on a spring day(s) OR losing a friend on an autumn night(s)
Prompts Used:
9 (word) muffle
10 (emotion) melancholy
12 (colour) yellow
Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 2234
Author's Note on content:
Writing under the assumption that H.J. Granger's parents memories are not returned to them. I am unfamiliar with The Cursed Child and any future changing that the story provides beyond the epilogue to The Deathly Hallows.
Also, please allow me to give credit where credit is due —the title of my work is lifted directly from the first line of John Keats' "Ode to Autumn."
With many thanks to my betas, Story, Please, and Fragilereality.
A Season of Mists
Hermione Granger had gotten everything she had ever wanted; and she was miserable for it.
It had not been her intention to drive all the way to Wales; she only ever meant to get as far away as the Colne Valley to get some space; some air. She needed the soft loam under her feet and the song of birds overhead. She wanted the muffled sound of dormice foraging beneath the leaves and scurrying away as she approached; the soft murmur of a stream running toward some unknown destination. Before she became a witch, before she received her invitation to Hogwarts, she had known magic; it was between the pages of a book, and under the canopy of a forest.
When she got in these moods, the last thing she wanted was to cast a spell or wave a wand, so instead she drove. She hopped in her car, sped away from the city, and found a forest to get lost in; Lee Valley, Surry Hills, even as far as Chiltern. She enjoyed the drive and always seemed to be able to sort it all out under the shelter of the pines or traipsing through the dull yellows and browns of fallen oak leaves.
Today, though, she'd gotten on the M4 and just kept going.
Everything she had thought she was protecting had fallen apart despite all she'd done They'd fought a war, buried their friends and loved ones, and still, when it came down to living a "normal" life, that had proven to be the hardest task of all.
Truly, she'd always known they'd been ill-suited to each other, but somehow, she'd always hoped it would work out.
The first few years were just fits and starts as they each began to deal with their grief and loss. Ron had never been the most effusive with his emotions unless under the influence, and that only became worse in the wake of losing his brother. Hermione watched with envy as Harry and Ginny only seemed to grow closer together while she and Ron forever seemed to be on different pages.
They were all together that night—the Golden Trio plus one; the night 1999 became 2000 and Harry got down on one knee. Hermione and Ron were on a break, but he had grabbed her and kissed her at midnight, saying he hoped they would spend the next year together. It was romantic, in that clumsy sort of way that Ron had made into an art. One might suppose it was his personal version of charming. The engagement only ramped up his amorous mood and Hermione found herself agreeing to pick back up with her sometime beau despite her reservations.
It was only later that year, while Ginny was in the throes of wedding planning, that Hermione first even broached the subject with Harry.
"I don't think it will work. Not long term," she said sullenly, her grip tightening around her mug of tea. She and Harry were getting in a rare afternoon visit that Saturday. The new normal usually involved Ginny running all over London tasting cakes,shopping for dresses, and generally driving people a bit crazy with all her plans.
"Yeah, well, I've heard this particular tune before," Harry answered, nonchalantly. At this point, he refrained from getting worked up about Ron and Hermione breaking up. They'd done it so many times before, but always seemed to end up back together.
"I know," she sighed, "but we aren't you guys. We just don't have what you and Gin do."
"What do we have that you and Ron don't?" Harry asked, earnestly concerned.
"I don't know how to describe it, but you just—I don't know—click. You want the same things, you value the same things…" Hermione trailed off, feeling more hopeless than when they had started. Wasn't it obvious?
"I never did see what you saw in Ron while we were in school," Harry said, "but I trusted your judgement. I trusted that you really cared for him. And, despite his absolutely blockheaded way of going about it, he cares for you. I was content that you were both happy with each other."
Hermione was stunned silent. It was so simple. Her friend trusted her, the way she trusted him. Of course he could see their differences, but it never bothered him because he knew Hermione. Harry knew, all too well, that once Hermione had set herself to a task, it was as good as done.
What was I trying to prove?
She tried to think back to their days at school. Why had she fallen for Ron? It was almost as if his blatant disinterest kept her doggedly trying to prove him wrong, the way she had done so many times before.
But now, when she thought about a real life—about career and marriage and children—well, she just couldn't envision it with Ron. So, as they stood there in the small parish church at Godric's Hollow, their fingers intertwined, witnessing his sister and her best friend make vows of lifelong commitment, she could feel the sweat slipping down her back. She determinedly kept herself from looking over at Ron, even when she felt his grip tighten a bit, and his thumb gently caressed her forefinger. She knew he was getting caught up in the emotion of it all, and was likely to do something rash; like ask her to marry him. And she knew what she should say.
The problem was all that she would lose. It wasn't just Ronald; she was sure they would weather that. No, it was his family, too. The Weasley's had become her family when her parents no longer remembered her. Beyond that, they had already been a constant source of comfort and support as she navigated the magical world. Ginny, too, had become her first true female friend; someone she could confide in without hesitation or worry of judgement. How could she survive having to give them all up?
And losing all of it is what it would amount to if she and Ron ever called it off for good.
All of these worries were completely eclipsed by her greatest fear; the thought of losing Harry. Certainly, he would protest and swear that they would remain close, but Hermione knew better. It would be awkward and awful to try and share his time. She would either have to pull him away from his family or she would have to endure continually being in the Weasley orbit with all the uneasy silences and sullen glances.
It would be impossible. She would end up as a loose thread needing to be cut, no matter how much Harry protested.
So, when the happy couple had finally cut the cake, and Ron had had enough to drink to stumble onto his knees, Hermione smiled and played along. It never felt so much like an acceptance as it did a resignation. She did it selfishly so she would not have to give up the only life she had. By the time it came to it, she already felt like there wasn't much of a choice.
Hermione wished she had realized the truth sooner.
The first few years of her marriage made it all seem worthwhile; she had everything. Her best friend, her surrogate family and support from her husband in her career. Ron was nothing if not self-deprecating about her superior magical talents, and he encouraged her to pursue lofty professional goals. While he wasn't one to engage her intellect of an evening, or even settle down next to her to read a book, at least they had a few laughs.
But even before the children came, Hermione knew it was already changing.
Harry and Ginny had their own marriage to tend to while trying to keep themselves together as Ginny traveled the world with the Harpies and Harry was still—well—Harry Potter, with all that entailed. The drift was inevitable; it was part of growing up.
Even their friends' first baby hadn't truly prepared Hermione for the growing hopelessness of her situation until they put Rose in her arms.
Trapped. It was all she could think as she lay in the darkness of her maternity room staring at the ceiling. She had known it from the moment he proposed; even before then. She had settled from the time she decided she couldn't bear to lose the family she had cobbled together for herself out of the ashes of war and loss. She had signed up for this a long time ago when she was just a child herself.
And it wasn't as if Ron was abusive or cruel. It was never that simple. Only neglectful, and selfish, and utterly everything that made Ron the Ron she had always known. He never complained as her hours at the Ministry got longer; only submersed himself in more sport on the telly. He always only did just enough to get by and never initiated a singular chore unless coerced. He was completely content in his slovenliness and disarray. His life was simple and he cherished it for its simplicity; and his brightest spot was their daughter.
It was the only thing that consoled Hermione when she found herself pregnant again.
"Won't it be wonderful for Rose to have a brother?" he said, his head in her lap, face firmly pressed to her as-yet swollen belly as they sat together on the couch.
Hermione could only regret that she would have to cut back on the wine for so long.
"There isn't much there," she said, rubbing absent-mindedly at her expanding stomach as she stared out the shop window. She was still trying to find a way, any way, around the inevitable. It would seem, however, that Harry would need to be led down the primrose path.
"I know that life with kids, plural, is hectic, Hermione; believe you me! But it is also wonderful! I don't know that I've ever been so happy," he said, his eyes following the waiter arriving with their tea and sandwiches.
He took a huge bite and continued. "Sure, things aren't the same as they were when we were just two," he looked up and gave her a wry face, "but they are just as good. Maybe better. Just, you know. Different."
No. Not different. Exactly the same. What I always knew they would be. Ron, barreling head-first and ass-backward into something without one iota of forethought, and me, being ignored and disparaged even though I know him better than he knows himself.
No, it hasn't changed since the day we met on the train all those years ago.
Hermione sighed aloud and Harry, mistakenly taking it for agreement, smiled and busied himself with his lunch.
The summer before Rose was to start Hogwarts was a flurry of activity, and the most Hermione had seen of Harry in years. They all shopped for school items together in Diagon Alley and enjoyed a relatively quiet lunch—or as quiet as lunch with five children could be.
The day warmed up in the late summer sun, and the families parted ways agreeing to meet up on September the first to put Rose and Albus on the train together. As Harry moved away, Hermione could not help but watch him retreat, absorbed in the glow of his family and his own little world, and she turned back to her own knowing that, no matter what she thought she was saving, she could not prevent the march of time and how it had changed them all.
As they left Platform 9 ¾ that day, she pulled Harry aside.
"Three years," she said.
"Three years?" he asked.
"Until Hugo joins his sister at Hogwarts. That is when I'll leave."
"Oh, Hermione. Not this again." Harry removed his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. It wouldn't be the first time they'd talked about her leaving Ron.
"You're right," she replied, "not this again. This will be different. This time, I mean it."
He shook his head, ruefully and walked away. He never even looked back once he'd caught up to Ginny and Lily.
Hermione didn't even have tears left to cry; despite it all, she had lost him long ago.
And that's what she was thinking of as she wended her way along the tall cliffs and narrow paths of the coastline. The sun was pitching downward already; evening fell so early in these late autumn days. Yet, she had no intention of trying to outrace the sun back to her car in Penycwm. She was still looking for solace and her search was not complete.
As the trail dipped down into a valley, Hermione spied a gap in the grasses and gorse. Carefully, she picked her way around unseen obstacles until an abandoned path toward the rocky beach revealed itself. She made swift progress toward the shoreline.
She sat, watching the sun go down and listening to the sound of the waves crash along St. Brides Bay. Her breathing slowed to the rhythm of sea. She was calm.
She patted the pocket of her coat one last time. Her letter was there; safe.
While the clouds rolled in and over the coast of Pembrokeshire, she let her coat fall away from her shoulders and walked toward the sea.