AN: As with most of my fics, chapter titles will often come from song titles or lyrics. Both the title for this fic and the chapter one title are from the Rise Against Song Savior. My plan is to update this fic every Monday.

Disclaimer: I do not own or profit from Harry Potter or its related properties.

If This Isn't Love

Hermione falls in love with broken people. It's a thing she does. A thing she's always done. She can't really explain how or why it happens, but it does. As much as she prefers things to be neat and tidy, she likes her people (and relationships) messy.

She collects broken people. It's a thing she does. A thing she's always done. She loves each in their own way- as family, as friends, as mentors, as mentees. And, occasionally, as lovers. She likes to try and piece people back together. She doesn't know why.

Hermione is a broken person. It's a thing she is. A thing she always has been. She has never truly felt like all her pieces fit together the way they are supposed to. Her scars make more sense to her than the unblemished parts of her skin. The imperfect bits match how she feels on the inside. She found herself searching for someone with compatible damage to hers. Once she thought she had found that someone, but she'd been wrong.

It absolutely killed her to know that as much as she had claimed to have forgotten the colour of his eyes, they were burned into her memory in stunning shades of blue flecked with the slightest grays. It tore her apart to feign surprise at the revelation of each scar she'd memorised on his skin each time he revealed a new one to his family. It broke her heart over and over again to see the wrinkles begin at the corners of his eyes and know that tears did not slide down his imperfect face the way they slid down hers every time she recalled a time when he had been hers. It killed and it hurt and it was hard. And she couldn't forget. She couldn't forget a single night, even all these years on. She had thought they balanced each other, but she'd been wrong. They simply had not worked, she could see that now, even if she hadn't seen it then.

It had been a messy break. No chance of reconciliation and no time to pinpoint exactly how things had gone so spectacularly wrong. There was never enough time for anything that could have saved them. No precious seconds to give. So they'd fallen apart. And they'd failed one another, each in their own way. And they'd built wall after wall the other couldn't break through until the relationship they'd once had all but disappeared.

It had been messy. It wasn't love they'd been feeling, but something not dissimilar. They'd been too young to know how to escape the hell they'd put themselves in. One morning there had suddenly been clarity. She did not love Ron and he did not love her. And they never had, at least not in the way they thought they had. Friends yes, but not as lovers. They'd been trying to save each other, but it wasn't clear from what. They couldn't find answers in themselves, so they'd looked to each other, only to find more confusion and questions. Never any answers. So they'd parted ways in a hurricane of quiet tears, neither of them left with enough passion to truly try to fight one another, not for something neither of them wanted anymore. They talked late into the night, morning breaking with the crushing weight of lies revealed. It was as if they'd woken up from a hazy dream they'd been living in for far too long. And that was that. The life she'd known since leaving Hogwarts was no more and she found herself starting over at twenty-five, just when most everyone else around her was firmly establishing who they'd be for the rest of their lives. And even though she didn't love him in that way anyway and hadn't for some time, she could still remember the first few months of their relationship and how wonderful it had been before they had to learn to live with one another for real and not just with the ideas of each other.

The conversation had not devolved into screaming the way she had initially thought it would. He'd been calm and measured, something out of character for him and made more evident by the resigned way in which he admitted he didn't love her anymore and, perhaps, never had. The way he'd told her was kinder and more thought out than she would have expected from him. As much as he'd grown up, she couldn't let go of who he'd been in school and maybe that was part of the problem. The messiness had come later when they'd had to split up their belongings and decided who kept the flat that was in both their names. Ultimately, she'd decided she couldn't live in the memories and she'd packed her things and left. She wasn't all that surprised when several weeks later Harry informed her that Ron was subletting the flat, unable to live with the ghost of their failed relationship.

She didn't hate him. She couldn't. She knew he thought she did because she found herself unable to be in the same room as him or respond to his attempts to remain friends. She knew it put a strain on Harry, but she couldn't pretend anymore. She didn't hate Ron. She hated herself. She hated that she'd stayed so long with someone who was so very obviously not suited to her. She hated that she hadn't loved herself enough to admit the relationship had been over for a long time. It took him admitting he'd started to have feelings for someone else, feelings that he was struggling to ignore. He'd never betrayed her. She believed him when he said he'd never cheated even though he'd been tempted to. It still felt like a lie to her. Mostly because they'd continued to have sex for months after he realised he didn't love her anymore. It made her feel slightly used, though she knew that wasn't entirely fair. She'd instigated sex just as often as he had. She hated herself for it. She should have left, but she hadn't. And that was why she couldn't hate him, because she could have prevented her own heartache if she'd only been paying attention.

Now she found herself sitting alone on the beach with her bare toes buried in the sand, wondering how exactly she'd ended up here. She'd packed everything and moved not too far from Shell Cottage, having decided a change of scenery was definitely in order. The eldest Weasley brother and his wife hosted her fairly often and called upon her to babysit whenever they didn't want to disturb Molly. It kept her fairly well connected to the goings on back in London. Bill didn't mind keeping her abreast of any interesting news or gossip he picked up from Gringotts or his occasional lunches at the Ministry with Percy. She'd taken an extended sabbatical from her own Ministry work to focus on personal writings, having picked up the creative endeavor to help deal with her stress after the war. What had started as a small side project had developed into its own full time undertaking the more time she spent away. She wasn't sure if she'd ever return. She didn't exactly need the money and she'd been so tired of politics and long hours when she'd put in her request for temporary leave. She was meant to return by the end of the summer, which was still several months off or resign her position.

It wasn't that she'd disliked working in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, it was actually quite the opposite, it was the politics of it all she found absolutely exhausting. She'd spent all of school and the war fighting people and she didn't want to do it anymore. She hadn't wanted to fight with anyone so badly that she often didn't tell Ron when she was angry because she simply just didn't want to deal with it. Especially not after spending hours of each day debating in meetings about the rights of various magical creatures. When things were going well she absolutely loved speaking to people and creatures from all backgrounds to inform her policy initiatives. There was still so much ignorance within the Ministry itself, however, that she often felt she was beating her head against a wall. She tired of the people around her quickly, not wanting to speak to anyone for days at a time outside of work if it could be avoided.

She'd hermited herself away, for the most part, preferring the solitude of her little cottage and her writing over the bustling social lives of her friends and chosen family. Aside from her need to recharge her separation from everyone was partially because so much of her life had been built around Ron's and she'd never quite figured out how she related to his family and their shared friends now. While Harry and Ginny had, thankfully, not taken sides in what had been a mostly uncontentious split, some of their friends definitely had. Neville didn't seem to know how to talk to her now, despite the fact that she'd been his friend before Ron, and that made her interactions with Hannah a bit strained. Luna was just as spacey as she'd ever been, though she didn't play favourites with them and she appreciated it. For the most part, the Weasleys had taken the split well, though Molly had cooled to her when it became clear she was not likely to ever marry into the family. She was amused to still receive the occasional owl from Percy keeping her in the loop both on work matters and office gossip she might find interesting. She didn't have the heart to tell him that most of his stories she'd already gotten from The Daily Prophet or from Bill.

George, in particular, had surprised her when he'd started writing her with increasing frequency. She'd never noticed how often the two of them had spoken following Fred's death until the first owl had arrived with a letter asking after her. They had been sporadic at first and read very much like an awkward conversation at a party might sound. Not totally unlike the seemingly mundane conversations they'd had at family parties. When he'd taken to drinking heavily for a time after Fred's death, he'd occasionally corner her at family parties to gush about how much he admired her brain. On one memorable occasion, he'd gone on at length about how beautiful he found her hair. She hadn't believed him and the whole episode had upset Ron, but she remembered it with some fondness. He'd seemed so sincere that she nearly believed him.

Over time, the letters had become much more frequent and relaxed. She'd been surprised to find that George was quite the reader, making recommendations and sending her clips of magazine articles he'd found interesting when something caught his eye. She couldn't remember ever having seen him pick up a book at school unless forced, but maybe reading for leisure was different than reading for school work. To her, the two were often the same thing, though she supposed they probably wouldn't be to him. His appreciation for plays had been the most surprising. She'd thought his references to Shakespeare had been accidental at first, until he'd commented that her owl was named for the same play she was. After that, they'd often discussed the bard in their correspondence.

She was folding and unfolding the most recent missive as she stared out over the water. Instead of offering his usual updates and reviews, he'd asked about coming to see her.

She had not expected it. While their writing had definitely increased over the last few weeks they didn't generally speak when they saw each other in person. She occasionally still attended Sunday lunches at The Burrow, but usually only when she knew Ron wouldn't be there. Usually, she'd get a polite greeting from George, but they didn't get many chances to speak alone. Now that he was long out of the habit of getting blotto at family gatherings she was no longer finding herself cornered in the kitchen by his enthusiastic storytelling.

She worried at her bottom lip as she rolled over the possibilities in her head. It could be that he did actually want to speak to her, but found it difficult under the judging eyes of their friends and family. It could be that he was checking up on her for Molly or Ginny and wanted to be able to report back that he'd seen where she lived and it wasn't the hovel they feared. It could be that he just needed to get out of London and away from family. She was the furthest out of the way of his acquaintances while still being close enough to family that his mum wouldn't worry. That must be it she decided, letting the sand sift through her toes one last time before sighing heavily and making her way back to her cottage. If what he needed was a break far away from things, that was certainly something she could provide for her friend.

In the months she'd lived in her little cottage by the sea, no one had been inside her home. Whenever she saw Bill, Fleur, and baby Victoire she'd always done so at Shell Cottage. She'd very intentionally kept people away so that this place could be just hers, unready to share the space with anyone else. Ginny, in particular, had been concerned about this and spent a good deal of time badgering Harry about it if his letters were to be believed. Bill's occasional mention of his mum's confusion about her lack of entertaining there told her that Ginny was also complaining to her about it. Part of her very much wanted to see George. They'd written so often that she could almost hear his voice in her head when she read his messages now and she was itching to speak in person.

Some days they might send ten or more notes in a row. She was grateful he used a different shop owl with each additional letter so they didn't wear out her own owl, Emilia. She resolved to allow him the visit if only to satiate her curiosity as to why he suddenly wanted to see her in person. And, deep down, so she could hear his voice for real and not just in her head.

She sent Emilia off with the note and set about cleaning her little home. It didn't exactly need it, she was almost obsessively neat since moving out of the flat she'd shared with Ron. He had been such a slob that she was determined to keep her new home as spotless as possible. Besides the occasional toy mouse, Crookshanks' favourite source of amusement, in a walkway or tucked under a random piece of furniture everything was almost always in order.

She checked the guest room, opening the French doors to let in fresh air and sunlight to combat the stale smell that came with the disused room. At one time she'd thought about just using the space as an office, but deep down she knew she'd eventually want to have someone to stay for a time and had decided to keep it a bedroom in the end. Unlike Shell Cottage, which opened directly onto the beach, the French doors off each bedroom opened onto a back deck with a set of steps down to the sand. She liked the slightly higher vantage point and had set up a hammock where she could read or nap in the ocean air when she didn't feel like going down to the beach. She hoped that any guests might like the little set up and find it as relaxing as she did.

She smiled to herself as she remembered the state the house had been in when she purchased it. The real estate agent had almost refused to show it to her, wanting to show her much nicer properties that better fit her supposed status. What the agent had not seen in the little cottage that Hermione noted immediately was its potential for eventual expansion. The current footprint included two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, a small entryway, and a large living room. For the time being, that was all she needed. She liked the idea that a second floor could be fairly easily added. She'd always liked the oddly patched together look of The Burrow and the way it seemed to have grown with the Weasley family. That was something she wanted to have someday for herself, a home that grew along with her needs. With just her and Crookshanks at the moment, the small space was all she needed. Even with adding George for a few nights there should still be enough room for everyone without feeling like they were right on top of one another.

Since she'd opted not to have an office she usually spread her writing across her coffee table and listened to the wireless as she worked. She hoped that it wouldn't bother him too much. She'd been on a roll lately and didn't want to set her projects aside while he was visiting. There wasn't much to do in the surrounding area, though she assumed he'd want to visit with his family at least once while he was there. Otherwise, she hoped quiet company and access to the beach would be enough. She herself didn't often swim, but she knew he enjoyed it and thought he might get to make good use of the upcoming warmer weather. Before she could dwell too much on the thought of George in swim trunks, Emilia returned. She sat down in the hammock and read the surprisingly long piece of parchment. She laughed a bit to herself when she realised it was mostly a barrage of questions of what he should bring and if she minded if they went round to have dinner one evening with Bill and Fleur as he hadn't see them in several weeks.

"Right then, Crookshanks, looks like it's settled. We're going to have a visitor over the long weekend. George is going to come to stay with us after he's off work tomorrow." She explained to the cat that was now sunning himself on the deck. He twitched his tail slightly, but otherwise didn't seem to acknowledge her announcement.

She summoned her writing supplies and scratched out answers to his questions, narrating for Crookshanks all the while.

"I think I may be going mad, Emilia." She sighed as she tied the reply to the tawny owl's leg and offered her a few owl treats from her pockets. With as much letter writing as she did now, she was always sure to have some on hand.

"Though I suppose speaking to an owl is about as mad as speaking to a cat…" she laughed nervously at herself as she turned to busy herself with cleaning her already clean home in anticipation of her friend's arrival.