Author: Miss Tangerine
Title: Undercurrent
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything associated is property of JK Rowling, no offense or copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: Implied character-death and swearing. Possible grammar and other small errors which you can feel free to correct.
Feedback is loved and adored, though don't feel obligated. Happy reading!
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When Ron walks in through the door, looking ashen, and tells her Harry is dead, Hermione doesn't as much as blink. She doesn't say 'what?', because she heard him the first time, and she doesn't say 'I don't believe you', because she does. She simply puts down her coffee mug and nods.
Ron sits down at her kitchen table and tells her the war is over. The Order had no idea what Harry was planning, he tells her. There's going to be a ceremony on Sunday. He tells her that several times like he needs to hear himself say it, and then he cries a bit. Then he goes home. Hermione watches him go through the kitchen window, then she makes a fresh pot of coffee.
She doesn't attend the funeral itself, but she hovers outside the church at the end of it for reasons she can't quite explain. The Weasleys leave in a tight group led by Mrs Weasley, who is wearing a faded black dress and a very ugly hat with a long veil. Hermione doesn't bother to greet them, but Ron sees her and leads her off without questions.
Mrs Weasley won't stop crying, and between sobs she chokes out again and again how she can't understand and how she blames herself. Hermione doesn't understand why; she was the one who found the spell and taught Harry, and she tells them so later. Ron's mouth drops open, and Mrs Weasley stares at her for a very long time from underneath her silly veil. Then she raises a plump hand and gives Hermione a ringing slap that makes her stagger backwards.
Outside it has started to rain, and Hermione's cheap black shoes fall apart on her way home. She unlocks the door to her small apartment and goes in without switching on the lights. The phone is ringing angrily in the next room. Hermione closes her eyes, and her heartbeat sounds like complicated morse code in her ears. She hasn't eaten or slept much for the past couple of days, so she's not surprised when her legs give in and she slides down the wall onto the wet floor. The phone keeps ringing until the early morning.
On Tuesday Ron comes to see her. He knocks on her door instead of using the bell, and Hermione thinks he looks ill but she doesn't bring it up.
"It's not your fault," is the first thing Ron says to her. "You couldn't have known."
Hermione just looks at him.
"I know you only did what you thought you had to," he says, and leans down to embrace her. He holds on to her much too tightly and his fingers tangle rather painfully in her hair. "I understand," he whispers, and then he leans in to kiss her neck. "Hermione," he says shakily, "do you-"
"Go home," she mutters, and he lets go of her, stepping back with that hurt puppy dog expression he does best on his face. She locks the door when he leaves.
Hermione calls in sick on Wednesday, but otherwise nothing happens. No one comes to see her or take her away to Azkaban. She feels a little cheated.
On Thursday she goes to work. Her employer stops by her office but doesn't come in. Standing in the doorway, he tells her she didn't have to come, that everyone would understand if she needed some time off. When she doesn't react he asks her if there's anything she needs. Hermione tells him she's out of colored post-its and if he'd be so kind to look into it. Then she kicks the door shut in his face.
On Friday she doesn't even bother to call in sick. She goes out, once, to buy cheap wine, then she goes home and spends the rest of the day getting drunk. When she feels she's about to pass out she casts a sobriety spell on herself, then she starts over. Hermione has never tried getting drunk before, but she's been told it's the right thing to do in a situation like this.
Ginny calls her in the middle of her sixth sobriety spell, standing with her wand to her temple like a suicidal case with a gun. When she answers the phone she's in a state somewhere between piss-drunk and painfully sober, a generally unpleasant place to be. After the first awkward minute Ginny finally says hi. Hermione mutters something in response and pulls the half-empty bottle over.
Ginny as usual takes it upon herself to fill up every available silence with incessant talking. She talks about her studies, her part-time job, her ex-boyfriend, Hermione's job, Hermione's love life or lack thereof, and eventually, when she feels she's broken the ice enough, about Harry.
"I killed him, you know," Hermione informs her when Ginny asks her opinion about the ceremony Hermione never went to. There is about five secons of dead air, then Ginny starts talking about Ron.
"He tells me he dropped by some days ago," she says, a bit too loudly.
"Yeah," Hermione replies. "He wanted a pity fuck or something."
Ginny hesitates as if she's only now starting to realise how drunk Hermione is.
"Would you like me to come over?" she asks gently.
"Why?" Hermione mutters. "I thought only Ron was into murderers. Does in run in the family, do you suppose?"
Ginny calls her an ungrateful bitch and hangs up. Hermione sees it coming, but she moves too slowly and the exaggerated sound of the phone being slammed down makes her right ear ring for the next ten minutes. She pulls a blanket down from the couch and falls alseep on the floor.
She sleeps most of Saturday away, only resurfacing to consciousness when the phone rings a couple of times. At one point she thinks she hears someone at the door, but she's not sure and she doesn't give a damn anyway. She gets up briefly in the evening to finish some cold left-overs and the rest of the lukewarm wine, then she goes to bed again. She has a strange dream of a crow getting into her room. It keeps flying into the window, trying to get out again. She tries to catch it, but her hands have turned into useless, fingerless lumps of clay, and the panicked bird pecks them to blood. It hits the glass one more time with a nauseating, dull thud, then it falls to the floor. When she wakes up, the blanket has gotten twisted around her legs and her neck hurts from sleeping on the floor. She has to turn on her radio just to find out what day it is.
It's weekend, and though it's a rainy and foggy day she still expects to run into some late or habitual visitors at the graveyard. She's quite surprised when she only sees Colin Creevey, and he leaves when he sees her coming up the entrance path. She considers if she perhaps should have remembered to change her clothes.
Harry's grave is a mess of fresh and withered flowers and soggy cards. You can barely make out the grey and silent gravestone underneath all the junk people have left there. Hermione unceremoniously kicks most of it away and simply walks over the rest with a satisfying crunching sound. This whole sacred last resting place is a joke anyway. Like there was enough left of him to bury. She feels stupid for coming at all.
She more senses than sees the figure heading up to her, mainly because she refuses to turn around. "Push off," she says by way of greeting, but apparently he doesn't hear her.
"Miss Granger. I thought I might find you here," says a gentle and familiar voice at her side. Hermione's eyes dart briefly to his face, then she fixes her gaze on the grave again. She doesn't have to talk to him, she tells herself.
"Death is only the way of life," he continues, without waiting for her to speak. She's not sure if he's talking to her or to Harry. "Though all sacrifices are painful, there are none so hard as those you make on behalf of a loved one. Harry is not the only hero."
Hermione mutters something that may have been 'thank you' or possibly 'fuck you', and then she turns away. "Goodbye, professor Dumbledore," she says quietly, without meeting his eyes. Titles are for stupid little schoolkids who are still daft enough to believe in fairy tales and heroes, but she doesn't know what else to call him.
When she comes home she unplugs her phone.