Every fleeting moment was getting the better of her. Hermione ran an agitated hand, smoothing her cheviot skirt down over her knees. Turning to her right, she bit the inside of her lower lip, hard and vexed.
She and Ron had shared a couch incalculable many times. Sometimes over Butterbeer, sometimes Wizard's Chess training and sometimes kisses that would never begin to end. This was another of those times, only outside the snug, humble Burrow's acclimatized walls.
"Lewis Morgan. She was all smiles around him! All evening she kept talking to him and downright abandoned me at the party." Ron complained, sitting up to a defensive posture, or rather attacking. Crossing his arms over his chest, he charged at her. "Are you ashamed of me, Hermione?" After oscillating glances at his wife and their marriage councillor in turns, he sank back into the couch.
No, this was nothing like any of those couch days, which now seem to have been ephemeral. The man she had shared the recent past twenty-three years of her life and two wonderful children with, now insinuated the traits of a celestial body sitting a couple of feet away. She thought he glistened but it was only a delusion, for grime that clogged the space between them.
She let out a sigh of defeat, which went unheard.
He is a colleague, Ron, I had to say hello. And you were drunk so bad, that I had to get away for a while. You were going out of your way to embarrass me.
She wanted to shout it all out, she wanted to cry. Had they been talking about it a couple of months earlier, she would slap him until every muscle of her body gave up. She would prove her point. But they were past that. She made no effort, to make an effort. She could feel absolutely no stamina in her system to put up any more fights.
"Mrs. Weasley, you have gotten quieter today. Do you have nothing tell us?" The blue eyed French middle-aged woman commiseratively smiled at her.
After a week of her mother and Molly's joint persuasion sessions she had finally given up and asserted to the idea of marriage counselling sessions. And after five months of trifling exertion, they were standing right where had started, square one, just as she had predicted would happen by the end.
She tried her best at returning a smile at the woman who had clearly seen moments like this a million times before. Hermione thought the councilor would see it as a mere phase, but only she knew how her participation at making things better was fading. Briefly shaking her head in a 'no', she stood up. She looked at Ron over her shoulder and walked right out.
Ron stepped down the stairs to see her sitting in the car rolling her hair up in a neat bun, one that she only worn to work. After ten minutes of driving in dead silence, which was the new normal, they got to the Granger house in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. Ron drove into the garage. The senescent engine's blaring faded out. Tetchily, she reached for the door, and left. It was only when he heard her broad heels clomp away into the house that he realized he was stranded, to deal with his complexes. Complexes, which made him, turn rancid from inside. He trudged after her.
Hermione had chosen a time when her parents would not be home, so she won't have to wear that forged merry curve on her face.
She drew out her wand from her branded leather handbag, the one that Luna had brought Hermione from her last trip to America. Unlocking the door, she entered the house and held the door ajar for Ron to come in. he dragged his feet up the stairs to the door. Locking the door behind him, he following Hermione across the living room to the study, a photo frame caught Ron's attention. It wasn't just an ordinary Muggle photograph; it stood out from all the other photographs resting in the showcase, for it was from their wedding. Hermione nestled in his embrace like she wouldn't anymore.
The study encompassed the fireplace, connected to the Floo Network, which soon took them both, first Hermione then Ron, back to the Burrow.
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Son of a legend, eh? Are you Albus? So what if you couldn't grab the snitch while that Hufflepuff weakling could? So what if you did not pay enough attention and your boggart ended up looking like your own ugly self and not some vicious creature? So what if you haven't encountered one dementor yet or haven't killed one dark creature so far? So what Albus? You sure can live off your father and grandfather's fame and tales! You sure can be a parasite on the wizarding world. The days of a Potter being The Chosen One are over. If you can't, how will your lousy siblings ever be of any significance in the history? Yes Albus, you were born to merely complete the happily-ever-after of The Chosen One. Not to have your own legacy.
Albus tightened his grip on the edges of the newly installed, full-length mirror in the Fifth Year boys' dorm room. Almost seconds away from punching his own reflection. He screamed until the sound of his self-loathing deafened him. Pulling an arm back past his chest, his fingers clenched in a fist. Crying out in surrender to defeat, submission to the mainstream ways, his fist met the mirror, like an epicenter of destruction. Multiple amorphous pieces landed around his feet erratically. He looked down at them, at his multiple disintegrated reflections.
A face that no one would make a portrait of in your honor, a face which no publisher would print, for your only achievement was to have taken birth in the family of Ginevra and Harry Potter.
Albus snapped out of his train of thoughts at the approaching, corpulent footsteps. Emerging from a rather dim lit corner by the entrance, the stubby, rotund silhouette was of Russel Longbottom.
Fishing inside his robe, Russell pulled out his ten inches long, ebony wand from his trousers' right pocket. Albus, still immobile, glared at him, uncertain of his scheme. Suspecting an incoming, he moved a few steps further in the direction opposite to Russell. Raising his wand up higher, he pointed it in Albus' direction.
"You know I would never kill you, right?" Russell shot up a mocking eyebrow.
Albus jerked his head around at a vitreous clamour, to realize, the broken pieces of mirror rose up and resurfaced on the empty wooden frame behind him, under Russell's non-verbal Mending Charm. He took a few slow-paced, cowed steps closer to Albus. "You would not want the prefect to find out about your little outburst episode, Albus, so… Tell me what's wrong," his eyebrows tensed with honest concern, "I've stood by you for years now, I have the right to demand, I think."
Bending over the closest edge of his bed, Albus reached out to his wand. Holding it up to point at Russell, he incanted a jinx out loud, "Flipendo!" Russell went flying over several feet at being hit by a blue light emitted from Albus', thirteen inches long Walnut wooded dragon heartstring core, wand; his back hit the wall behind him. He slumped against the wall, hyperventilating from the Knockback Jinx. He sat with his fingers wrapped around his hurt ankle when he saw Albus approaching. Panic-stricken, he started delving around him on the floor. He found his wand behind him, a foot away. He swerved with it, in his grip, to face Albus. "Colloshoo!" He cried out. In effect, Albus fell on his face at his next step as some kind of sticky, green glue held his shoes on the floor. Russell recalled this spell from an incident his father once mentioned to him. His father had witnessed their Potions Professor under the effect of the same spell. Outraged, Albus put Russell under the Babbling Curse. Freeing himself, Albus walked over to Russell. "How many more times, Russell, do I have to beg you to keep your nosey self out of my business?" He snarled at Russell, "I'm sick of your babbling! It's time other people deal with it" his tone significantly rose.
Reaching into his robes, he tucked his wand in his waistband. Wearing a smirk on his face, he walked past hi most loyal well-wisher. Russell watched him walk out through the door and slam it shut behind him.
About ten minutes had passed from the time Albus left. And ten minutes of unconditional despondency for him had passed, when the door to their dorm room flew open, once again. The magnitude of coercion inflicted on the door made it obvious; the person behind it had to be a Potter.
Only this time, it was James Sirius, to his rescue.