The healer said she was pregnant. Hermione shook her head at the words.
"I can't be pregnant," she said simply.
The healer chuckled at the look on Hermione's face, which she must have misinterpreted as shocked joy.
Hermione repeated her words. "I can't be pregnant." The healer was starting to look confused.
Hermione stood up and left the room, barely aware that the healer was calling out after her.
Out on the street, she walked through the rain, not really aware of the path on which her feet were taking her.
"I can't be pregnant," she kept repeating in her head. She couldn't be.
He said he would stay. When he proposed, Ron said they would be together forever. "You won't be able to get rid of me even if you want to," he had said. She wanted to believe him.
He said he would stay. When he stood up in front of friends and family and declared himself bonded to her, Ron said it would be for life. She wanted to believe him.
Hermione was a scientist. Of course they didn't use that word in the wizarding world, but she knew enough from her years as a Muggle to know that's what she was. She believed in fact; she believed in logic. She based every decision in her life on what she knew, rather than what she felt. Except one.
When he proposed Ron said they would be together forever. She wanted to believe him but she couldn't. She wanted to believe him so she told herself he would stay with her. She said yes. She couldn't believe him but she said yes. She was a scientist, she knew what the facts told her, but she said yes.
He hadn't left yet. He had been with her every day since he promised, but he promised once before…
"We're with you, Harry," he had said. If he had lied to Harry, if he had left Harry, if he had abandoned Harry in his darkest hour, how could she know he wouldn't abandon her?
And he hadn't just left Harry that night. Though years had passed, Hermione still remembered every detail as though she were watching it for the first time. She remembered the look on Ron's face, twisted, distorted, grotesque, as he accused Harry, yelled at Harry. She remembered the exact moment her heart broke, when Ron asked if she was coming with him. She felt it, like a physical injury, when she decided to stay with Harry. She remembered calling out after him, unable to comprehend that he had left them, that he had left her.
In the weeks that followed, she didn't sleep, didn't eat. She felt so weak—she was a scientist after all. She listened to her brain, not her heart. She shouldn't be letting something so trivial as a boy who wasn't her boyfriend let her destroy herself like this.
When he came back, she was angry. She wanted to be angry. But he stood there, hopeful, tall and gangling, freckles splattered across his familiar face, and she couldn't be. When she attacked him that night, they thought it was because she was angry at him for leaving, and she was, but she attacked him because she was angry at him for being him. She was a scientist, after all. She thought with her brain rather than her heart, and what Ron did was unforgivable, but she knew she had already forgiven him. She attacked him because she hated the feeling of being so easily swayed by the mere presence of him. She attacked him because she needed to regain the feeling of being in control. She attacked him because she couldn't be a scientist when he was involved.
When he proposed, Ron said they would be together forever. She wanted to believe him but she couldn't. She wanted to believe him so she told herself he would stay with her. She said yes. She couldn't believe him but she said yes. She was a scientist, she knew what the facts told her, but she said yes.
They were married. They lived happily together. Sometimes her love for him overwhelmed her at the oddest moments: While he was shoveling Molly's food into his mouth; while he was talking about Quidditch with George; while he scratched his nose when he was unsure of something. Sometimes her love for him overwhelmed her, but sometimes other thoughts did too.
Mostly at night, while Ron slept beside her, she found her heart suddenly beating violently, her breathing fast and anxious, her head pounding, and her hands shaky. What would she do if he left her again? He had done it before, what would stop him from doing it again? He had made a promise, but he had broken promises before. She was a scientist, but science couldn't explain why she felt her heart would stop beating if he left her again.
The healer said she was pregnant.
"I can't be pregnant."
She didn't tell Ron. She told Harry. Harry was there, always there. She went to his house that afternoon while Ginny was out and he played with his six month old son James. She was a scientist, but as she looked at James grinning on his father's lap, she felt betrayed by the way it made her feel. Would her child look like Ron? Would he be tall and gangly, with red hair and violent freckles? She wanted to have a baby with Ron. She wanted herself and Ron to be combined into one person. She was a scientist, but she wanted this anyway. But she couldn't. What if he left them, her and their baby?
"I'm pregnant," she told Harry.
"Brilliant," he yelled, jumping up and hugging her, expertly keeping James in his arms as he did. She gave a half hearted smile.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, seeing right through her veneer of happiness.
She could tell him, probably, and he might understand. After all, Ron had left him too. She came intending to tell him.
"No," she said simply, "I'm just nervous."
"Of course you are," he said. "Don't you remember when Ginny first found out she was pregnant? She was so scared she wouldn't know how to be a mother, I had to drag her to the hospital for all of her appointments. As soon as James was born though, she was fine. Things change once you see his little face for the first time."
Harry looked fondly at his son, and Hermione couldn't help but picture that look on Ron's face.
"But that was different," Hermione said, and it was. Ginny had normal fears of motherhood, but Harry was there to help her through them. Ginny could count on Harry. She could trust him to stay there no matter what. Hermione didn't have that. Hermione had the facts.
"It will be alright," Harry said, giving her a one armed hug as she prepared to leave. Hermione got the feeling that he knew more of her thoughts than she had shared. She wished she could believe him that it would be alright, but she was a scientist after all. She knew what the facts told her.
Hermione arrived home hours later to find Ron already asleep. She was relieved that she wouldn't have to tell him yet.
She crawled into bed with him and, without waking, he wrapped his arms around her. She was cold from walking, but his arms did little to warm her. She would have to tell him soon, she knew.
The tears that began to fall on her cheeks burned her frostbit skin. She was a scientist. She wanted to believe him, but she couldn't.
A/N: I'm thinking about expanding this into a series of one-shots about all of the more subtle suffering caused by the war for different characters (not the obvious stuff like guilt over death, but the "little" things). Let me know if you think it's worth doing (or not).