The funerals were held that day and despite knowing this family for so many years, she can't help but feel like an outsider. But she belongs here, she knows it, because she belongs with him and this is his home. The Burrow, that she always known so warm and welcoming, feels empty and dark. Everyone is trying to overcome their grief and she is not allowing herself to grieve Fred or the others, she needs to stay clear minded to help Fleur carry that family into the aftermath of the war, into the next stage of their lives.
Earlier, George sparked the fireworks to honour Fred's life. His brothers and Harry lit a small bonfire. Everyone sat down, remnants of the fireworks still in the sky, and she had wanted to get away, let the Weasleys rejoice and grieve over stories carrying Fred's spirit. Selfishly, she wanted to run to the bathroom and weep until her body emptied all the tears she needed to shed. Just when she was about to get up, his eyes found hers, silently imploring her to stay. She couldn't refuse.
She hasn't been by herself more than a few minutes since the end of the war. She longs but also dreads that moment when she will finally have more than five minutes for herself and will have nothing else to do but think.
It happens in the shower. In the previous ones she's taken since the end of the war, she was always in a rush, needed somewhere or by someone. Not today. So when she's done and drying herself, she takes time to actually look at her naked reflection in the mirror. She doesn't recognise herself, she knows it's her but the body she sees, bruised and with more scars than anyone her age should have, looks foreign. Her fingertips traces the mark on her neck, her hand goes lower, following a path she wishes wouldn't exist and finds the dark bruise on her sternum that never really left after the battle in the Department of Mysteries during their fifth year. As she scans her body, she notices more cuts, marks, bruises, she doesn't really know when and how she got them, they'll disappear as soon as they'll have healed. Then, there is the scar on her arm. Mudblood. Swallowing the heavy lump in her throat but letting the tears fall freely on her cheeks, she allows her finger to trace the angry scarring. This one will always be there, she is sure of it.
She wraps a towel around herself, sit on the tiled floor against the tub, and let her emotions lash out. She's bawling, overcame by grief and hurt and anger. She is so angry. At the war, at her pain, at the dead. Her body, ravaged by sobs, is shaking and she welcomes the feeling, because as low as she feels right this moment, unable to process her pain, she is alive.
Later, when she comes out of the bathroom, freshened up and fully dressed, eyes puffy red and body hollow, Ron is sitting in the hallway across her, gazing at her with a certainty that knock the breath out of her body. She sits next to him on the hardwood floor, and from this closer position, she can see the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. They have many storms to go through and they are starting their relationship on the eve of a new world. She grabs his hand, anchoring them to one another. As long as they get through it together, they will be alright.
...
The first time she feels Rose kick, a real kick, not those bubbly movements she's been feelings for a few weeks now, no, a strong kick, an arm or a foot pushing against the wall of her womb, it's a short week before the anniversary of her torture. When she realizes it, she cradles her belly protectively, Mudblood clutched against the covered skin of her stomach, and she cries.
She should have died that day.
Maybe Harry wouldn't have beaten Voldemort. She wouldn't have known the elation of being in love with Ronald Wesley, of bearing his child. She should have died, forgotten by her parents forever. All her accomplishments since that day would have not existed. As her brain continues to speculate on what ifs, her body fails her and she sobs uncontrollably against the cold tiles of their bathroom floor.
That evening, Ron finds her sitting on their couch, eyes red and fixed on an imaginary point ahead of her. She doesn't know how she managed to get up from the bathroom and move herself to the living room, she doesn't even flinch when Ron enters their home. The house is dark and silent, diner uncooked and the Daily Prophet of the day still lying on the diner table since she read it at breakfast that morning.
«Hermione?»
She doesn't answer.
«Love?» The worry clear in his voice.
«I should be dead.»
«Wha - huh no!- wait! Did something happened today?» Ron asked, obviously confused at his wife's current state, but then as an answer, she slightly brushes the scar on her forearm with her fingertips, sensing the irregularity of her skin, and her gaze finds his, at last.
Breathe, Ron thinks fleetingly.
It's been years, but it still puts them on edge whenever they see the other one affected by their memories.
«You're okay. We're okay. She's...We're going to have a daughter and she'll be brilliant and beautiful, and strong, just like her mother.» As he uttered those words, his hands come to rest protectively on the soft swell of her stomach.
«I felt her kick.» She says softly. Then I remembered the Cruciatus curse cursing through my veins, she thinks drily but doesn't say. Does it make her a bad mother? She felt her child kick for the first time and the first thing that runs through her mind are memories of her torture.
Ron's face lit up though, apparently oblivious to her inner turmoil.
«She did?» A genuine smile on his face.
Hermione nods slightly, fighting against the tears that threaten to fall once again, she doesn't want Ron to see how afraid she is. Her mind is once again filling up with «what ifs» and possibilities and she just wishes it would stop.
She doesn't want Ron to see, but she knows she cannot fool him, they've known each other for too long and soon he'll realises that she's trying to fight her own thoughts. Her memories. Most of the times now, it feels like another life, a distant souvenir that has become less painful than what their body and mind remember in their most vivid nightmares. Once in a while though, something will spark in their head and in its on accord, their mind will trick them and decide to recollect the events of the war, but it'll be more than just remembering, they relive the past. All of it. The pain, the wounds, the cuts and the bruises, the fear, the anger, the constant shaking.
When it happens, they grab each others hands, just like Ron is doing now, as he comprehends the inner turmoil currently unfolding inside Hermione's mind, and anchor them back to the present. She breathes unevenly but Ron acknowledges the telltale signs on Hermione's face as she manages to let the clouds of her memories rejoin her past. She feels her daughter kick again, another anchor to the present. Swallowing the heavy lump in her throat, she lets herself feel the moment and her hands clench Ron's tighter. As long as they get through it together, they will be alright.