Disclaimer : The Harry Potter characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling. Many thanks to her for letting them roam about in the world I created for a bit.
A/N – This is an outtake from Please Remember Me and would've taken place between Chapters 12 and the Epilogue. This is for you Avanell 'cause you said you would've really liked to see some Hermione – Lavender interaction! And I really tried to tone down the angsty-Hermione but of course a pregnant woman is gonna have to have a good cry.
Hope you all enjoy it!
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Hermione sat at the large wooden table in the kitchen of the Burrow, sipping from a cup of tea and listening to the eerie sound of nothingness that filled the normally busy and noisy house. She looked at her watch to find that it said that it was approaching ten o'clock. She knew that the time piece was still set on Boston time, so with a quick calculation, she realized that it was nearing three o'clock in the morning on Christmas Day here near Ottery St. Catchpole. She took another sip from her tea, hoping that the chamomile in it would help her sleep.
Now sitting in the silence of the house that she'd felt the most at home in, Hermione wished that she hadn't taken the nap that afternoon. But sitting wrapped in Ron's arms on the settee watching Daniel and Emma playing with Bill and Fred, Hermione had felt the most relaxed that she had in months and had quickly dozed off listening to the sound of Ron's heart beating. He didn't awaken her for nearly three hours, when Molly had set the table with the evening meal, so she had felt incredibly refreshed. However, as Ginny, Harry and little James had departed and the other occupants of the Burrow began their ascent upstairs to bed, she cursed Ron for letting her sleep so long.
It had been nearly three hours now since Ron, the last conscious soul besides herself, had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room. Since then Hermione had been reading through some old spell books trying to familiarize herself once again with magic. It had only been a few minutes ago that she had decided to give her eyes and brain a much-needed rest and had made herself some tea. As she took another sip from her cup her eyes fell upon the photo album, sitting at the other end of the table, that Molly and Lavender had been looking through earlier.
Hermione sat down her teacup and picked up her wand. She hesitated a moment before she pointed it toward the book and said, "Accio photo album." A smile beamed across her face as the album slid gently along the tabletop and came to rest in front of her. Part of her felt like she was eleven years old again and had just completed her first spell. She was still smiling as she began flipping through the pages looking at the photos of the Weasley children at much younger ages.
She was about halfway through the album when she was startled by the sound of someone else entering the kitchen behind her. She half-expected to turn to find Ron stumbling in to find her after awakening alone in the living room. Needless to say, she was surprised to find that it was Lavender.
The other woman jumped a bit when she entered to find her former classmate sitting at the table. "Hermione! What are you doing up at this hour?"
"I could ask you the same thing." Hermione smiled mischievously, but faltered when she noticed that Lavender looked a bit uncomfortable. "Couldn't sleep. I suppose I'm still on Boston time. That and the three-hour nap didn't help either. You?"
"Oh, you know, couldn't sleep either." Lavender poured a cup of tea for herself and sat down in the chair across from Hermione. She finally flashed a nervous smile before continuing. "Pre-wedding jitters, I guess. It's really been a bit of a whirlwind romance, you know."
"Yeah, that's the way it sounds. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't completely shocked. I honestly think it would've been easier to understand, not necessarily to accept but to understand, if it was Ron that you were engaged to."
Lavender blushed and chuckled nervously. "Well, Fred and I have a lot in common. I mean we've both lost so much."
Hermione nodded solemnly. "Ron told me some of what happened. I'm really sorry about Padma and Parvati, and your parents."
"Thank you. Like I said, Fred and I have both lost a lot. We ran into each other one night at a war survivors support seminar and got to chatting each other up. Well one thing led to another and here we are. He's really made me happy for the first time in a long time."
"That's great, Lavender." Hermione tentatively patted the other woman's hand. "And that Weasley charm really has a way of turning women to mush, too." She laughed and smiled.
Hermione was happy that she was able to finally elicit a natural smile out of her former roommate, even though the other witch didn't look up from her cup of tea. Hermione had noticed earlier that even though Lavender seemed genuinely happy to see her, she was also quite nervous and distant after the initial excitement had worn off.
Lavender sounded almost dreamy when she said, "Yeah that Weasley charm. It's really amazing how much Fred reminds me of …" She stopped abruptly and shot her eyes up toward Hermione.
It was Hermione's turn to smile nervously as she avoided Lavender's shocked stare. Her voice was barely a whisper when she finished the statement. "…of Ron."
The two women sat in an awkward silence for what felt like an eternity, but was actually only a few seconds. It didn't surprise Hermione in the least that it was Lavender who broke the silence.
"I'm sorry, Hermione."
Hermione took a deep breath and, as nonchalantly as possible, she looked up and said, "Oh, it's okay, Lav, don't worry about it. All those Weasley boys are quite dashing."
"That's not what I meant. I'm sorry for back at Hogwarts…for sixth year."
Hermione was so shocked that she couldn't even form a reply. She had partially blamed Lavender for her misery that year, but to actually hear the woman apologizing, was something else completely. Hermione couldn't understand why Lavender thought that she had anything to be sorry for. After it was all said and done with, Hermione realized that Lavender ended up just as hurt as she had when her relationship with Ron had ended.
Lavender continued, obviously taking Hermione's silence as a need for further explanation. "I knew how you felt about Ronald…how you had felt about him for years…but I still threw myself at him. I was so jealous and I wanted to hurt you."
Hermione finally found her voice and asked, "Jealous of me?"
"Yes. At the welcoming feast that year, Seamus had made some comment about how good you were looking after the summer holiday, and I couldn't help but think 'Great! Now she's not only got brains and Harry Potter as her best friend, she's going to get all the boys as well.'"
Hermione couldn't help but scoff at the last comment. "Oh, please."
"Then about the second or third day of classes, I overheard Seamus talking to Dean about Ginny, and he asked if Dean thought that Ginny could get you to agree to a date with him."
Hermione was now sitting with her mouth gaping.
Lavender chuckled lightly and said, "Yeah, that's kind of how I felt as well." Both women smiled at each other, but Hermione, still feeling quite uncomfortable about this conversation, looked back down at her now cold cup of tea.
"You know how much I fancied Seamus, so I was a little upset, to say the least. I'd always envied you for being so smart and knew that there was no way I could ever compete with you there. So I decided to compete with you the only place I thought I could."
"With Ron?"
"Yes. For a long time, I thought that I wasn't going to be able to compete there either after attempts at flirting and getting his attention seemed to fail miserably. Then I heard through the grapevine that you'd finally plucked up the courage and asked him out and Ron had all but agreed to accompany you to Slughorn's party. I had just about decided to give up on him, but suddenly Ron's attitude toward you changed and when the opportunity presented itself after the Slytherin match, I took it."
Hermione felt like her heart was constricting. She could remember that evening like it had just happened, and she felt herself fill with the heartache it did back then. Now, though, it ached even more because the whole Ron-Lavender thing had been about hurting her. Ron had wanted to hurt her for making him feel inadequate and in a way that was the same reason Lavender wanted to hurt her as well.
"Hermione, you have to know how sorry I am. I…I…"
Hermione just shook her head trying to communicate to the other woman that there was no reason for her to continue. Hermione was thankful that Lavender didn't continue at that moment. Hermione needed to calm herself because she was at the point that she didn't know if she wanted to cry or scream. She kept trying to remind herself that all of that had happened so long ago and things were so different now, and she had Ron…Ron was madly in love with her. Hermione was really thankful that Lavender seemed to be trying to compose herself, allowing her the time to excuse herself. However, Hermione was once again stunned by the words that came from Lavender's mouth.
"I fell in love with him."
Both women just stared at one another until Lavender swallowed hard and looked down.
"That was never my intentions. I never expected to stay with Ron. I just wanted to hurt you and to have a little fun with him. You know, maybe even make Seamus jealous for once. But after a few days, I started to see what you saw in him. I thought we could probably have a pretty good thing together. We were both quite passionate and the way he would kiss me, even though he wasn't very practiced, made me weak in the knees."
Hermione was shaking her head profusely. "Please, Lavender, don't…"
"No, Hermione. I need to say this. Actually, I think you need to hear it as much, too." Lavender took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No matter how I felt about him, his heart always belonged to you."
Once again Hermione looked the other woman in the eyes, only this time her brow knitted in confusion. "Excuse me?"
"I think in my heart of hearts I always knew it. I knew there was no way I could compete with Hermione Granger. I was stupid for trying to, especially when it came to a boy who had been obviously head over hills for you since our fourth year."
Hermione actually blushed at that information. She had always had an inclination that Ron fancied her a bit after the way he got so jealous over Viktor, but to actually hear someone else say it, embarrassed her a bit. She almost felt like a bloody schoolgirl again.
"At first I was able to fool myself that things were good between us and then like I said, I fell in love with him. You know, when you think you're in love with someone, you can make yourself believe a lot of things that aren't necessarily true. Looking back now, I feel like such a fool." Lavender buried her face in her hands.
"Lavender, it's okay. Love makes us all do some really stupid stuff."
Another deep breath and Lavender was continuing. "I guess you're right. I think what I did makes me a complete idiot though."
Hermione was shaking her head. "Lav, what makes you think that? So you fell in love with a boy who didn't love you back. That doesn't make you any different from hundreds of other girls."
"Yeah, but I stayed with him and still loved him even when I realized that it wasn't me that he was thinking about when we were together."
For some reason, Hermione's heart rate increased. She didn't know why she felt so affected by Lavender's admission and wasn't sure that she wanted anymore details from this very uncomfortable conversation, but she couldn't seem to stop herself from asking, "What do you mean?"
"The night of Slughorn's party after you had left with Cormac, Ron and I were sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fire, you know…" Lavender was actually blushing and had Hermione not been blushing herself she may have had a chuckled at the other woman's expense.
"…snogging…" Hermione supplied, again in a voice just above a whisper.
"Yeah. Well, he was really into it and I was just beginning to get lost in him when he moaned your name."
Hermione gasped. That just couldn't be so. At that point, Ron was still being almost cruel toward her. Wasn't it that same morning that he had made fun of her in class? Suddenly, Hermione felt sympathetic toward the girl she had loathed for nearly two school terms. It was one thing to worry that the man you are with isn't thinking about someone else when he is with you, but to actually call out another woman's name when you are being intimate. "Why did you stay with him?"
"Well, like I said. I was a fool. When I questioned him about it, he said that he had said something about his knee and he shifted me on his lap and continued what he was doing. I just told myself that if he didn't really care for me, then he would've been with you at that party and not in the Common room with me. Pretty pathetic, huh?"
Hermione gave Lavender a sad smile and said, "Not at all. Honestly, had the roles been reversed, I probably would've done the same thing. You're right. Love does make us do some pretty stupid stuff."
"Well, at least now you know why I had kittens when I saw you and Ron coming out of his dorm together all those months later. I knew that you were who he wanted and I just assumed that he had finally decided to claim you."
Hermione laughed. "Not hardly. Actually in the end, I think it was me who finally claimed him. He can be a bit thick, you know."
Lavender finally laughed and smiled. "That he is!"
"Well, do you feel better now that you've been able to get that all off your chest?"
"Not really. There's still one more thing."
Hermione felt her stomach churn and she knew that it had nothing to do with the baby.
"After the war, Ron and Harry went looking for you."
"Yeah, they told me."
"After they returned back to England without you, I came across Ron in the Three Broomsticks one night drowning his sorrows in a bottle of Ogden's. I was still pretty numb over everything that had happened, and when I saw him sitting at the bar alone, I remember how good he had made me feel for that small time that we were together. So I sat down next to him and started chatting with him. He was still pretty depressed over not being able to find you and over the loss of his brothers. He said he couldn't even go back to the Burrow yet because of all the memories."
"He actually finished the entire bottle of Fire Whiskey on his own saying that it was a good thing that he had rented a room from Madame Rosmerta. I offered to help him up to his room, and at first he declined. However, when he stood and nearly fell over, I literally jumped at the chance to…er…help him. As soon as I got him inside his room, he collapsed on the bed, and I crawled in next to him."
Hermione could feel bile rising in her throat and decided that it was a good thing that Lavender was looking quite embarrassed because had she been looking smug about what she had done, Hermione would've had to practice her rusty hexes on the witch.
"When I started kissing him, he tried to tell me to stop, but I told him that he was hurting and I was hurting and we could make each other feel better. Apparently he agreed and started kissing me feverishly; however, when my hands started to roam, he pushed me away and said that he just couldn't do it…couldn't betray you."
Lavender, who had already had tears streaming down her face, choked back a sob as she continued. "So you see, Hermione, even when he was drunk and hadn't been with a woman in years, he still couldn't betray his love for you or your love for him. He always has been and always will be yours."
At this point in the conversation, Hermione's entire body and mind was numb. She was absentmindedly shaking her head with tears finally threatening to make an appearance. "Lavender, I don't understand why you felt that you had to tell me all of this."
"Because, Hermione, when you didn't come back with him three months ago you broke his heart and he was a shell of himself…worse than he was when he didn't know where you were. I understand that you had your reasons and that he was just as stubborn in not being willing to make sacrifices. But it nearly crushed him. You're the only woman he's ever loved and you needed to know the extent of that love so that if you were ever tempted to hurt him again, you'll really know exactly how much you'll be breaking his heart."
Hermione was filled with more emotions that she could begin to name. She was shocked and hurt and even a little bit angry. In the end, sorrow won out and she started sobbing. Damn pregnancy hormones! She stood up abruptly which caused Lavender to jump out of her chair as well. Hermione made her way around the table toward the other witch, who took a few steps back in shock or possibly fear.
Hermione wasn't sure what had possessed her to do it, but suddenly she had pulled Lavender into a hug. For her part, Lavender had begun to sob almost as hard as Hermione. "I'm sorry, too, Lavender. I'm sorry you had to get hurt through all of it as well."
"It's okay. I just hope that you won't hate me. We're going to be family now…well as good as it, unless Ron finally grows the bollocks to actually make you an honest woman…and this is the only family I have now, so I don't want there to be any animosity."
Hermione pulled away, wiping her face with her hands, and sat down in the chair next to the one that Lavender had just vacated. Lavender returned to her seat. "I hate to ask but I need to know. Do you really love Fred or is he just a substitute for Ron?"
"I love Fred with all my heart, and for once, I love a man that loves me back."
Hermione took hold of Lavender's hand than and gave it a little squeeze. "Then I think that things between us will be just fine. What's in the past is just that…in the past. I guess we've both hurt each other and we've both been jealous of each other, but I can move beyond that if you can." Lavender nodded enthusiastically. "Good, because the Weasleys are the only family I have as well."
Hermione grabbed her wand and conjured a handkerchief for each of them. They sat in silence for a moment. Hermione was processing all the information that Lavender had given her, knowing with certainty that she was most definitely where she belonged and that she'd do anything in her power to live the rest of her life with Ron. Hermione assumed that Lavender, too, was processing all the information that she had divulged and hoped that the woman would feel as if a weight had been lifted off of her chest.
Again, it was Lavender that broke the silence. "Well, I think that I'm finally tired, so if you'll excuse me, I think I'll head back up to bed." She smiled at Hermione and stood to leave the room.
Just as she was about to exit the kitchen, Hermione said, "Hey, Lavender." She waited for the witch to turn around. "This weekend Molly is going to watch the twins so that Ron and I can go back to Boston to pack up my stuff. Would you and Fred like to come along? It'd give you a chance to get away from all the wedding stuff for a bit and I'd love to show the two of you around the city."
Lavender smiled and said, "I'd like that. Of course, I'll have to run it by Fred, but it sounds fun. Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
Hermione watched Lavender turn and leave. She was glad that she had grown up enough to offer the olive branch to a woman that she hoped that one day she would be able to call her sister-in-law.
That is if Ron finally grows the bollocks to make me an honest woman.
Hermione chuckled a bit as she pulled the photo album over toward her and quickly flipped through the remaining pages. On the last page was a photograph that Mrs. Weasley had taken of Ron, Harry and Hermione a few days before they had left for their sixth year. As always, Hermione was wedged between the two boys and they had their arms around each other's shoulders. Hermione was surprised to find that even though it was a more recent photo than the others in the album, it was much more worn. As if it had been removed several times from the book. Perhaps it even made a trip around the world some years ago.
Looking at the photo closer, Hermione noticed that every so often Ron would glance down at her out of the corner of his eye and then smile a little bit bigger. She could see it there…what Lavender had been talking about. He really had loved her as long as she had loved him. They had both made so many mistakes in the past and their relationship, even their friendship, had always been a lot like that photograph…a little worn around the edges. But just like the photograph, they were now both back where they belonged and she had no plans to ever leave.
FIN