Hello lovely reader! This is my first Potter based fic so please be nice while I get my voice. Enjoy!
Chapter 1-
The end is just the start
'Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship… everything has its time. And everything ends'
For everyone else the end of the war had meant moving forward with their lives and loves. But not for Hermione. Though on the outside Ron and she were a couple recovering from the struggle of the war, but in reality their relationship was not recovering and certainly was not moving forward. In front of the others, it was as if they were just playing parts in their own secret play. Every touch, every glance it was just for show, the moment they were alone the false affection just fell away to silence. It wasn't as if they had even fallen out, no, they just had nothing to say to one another, no love for one another. She felt they just clung to one another in some way to just hold on to what they had felt although that had long passed. Hermione had growing suspicions that they had never truly loved each other, they were just drawn together by the need they both shared to have someone hold them and tell them it was all going to be ok during the war. And it just kind of stuck and became habit.
Then another voice rose inside her mind, it thought they had loved not long after the end, the feeling of hope in the new world was thick over everyone, she's moved to the Burrow to be with him. To have him hold her while she slept. She thought that they were in love, and felt it would last. They would talk for hours sat up on the hills around the Burrow until the sun left them in darkness. The way he used to look at her made skin tingle with anticipation and Hermione could see that he felt him the same. Though eventually without anything specific happening to change a thing between them, it did, their talking slowed and stopped and after that he stopped touching her when they were not playing the happy couple. The change was so subtle she's barely noticed it at the time but bit by bit their relationship just stopped.
But it only worsened the night Ron turned to face her took her hand and kissed the back of it lightly before holding it in both his larger hands, looking in to her large brown eyes. She knew what was coming; but that made it all the worse and tears began to threaten to expose her emotions brewing beneath the sufface. "Hermione, I…" His eyes closed taking in a steadying breath, "You and I both know ... We can't… I can't d...do this anymore." He squeezed her hand as a tear rolled down her reddened cheeks but he did not stop it. "I want out." He said his voice stronger with certainty and an edge of finality.
She was frozen her hand still in his, the tears had stopped but the pain raged on inside of her permeating through every pore and leaching in to the air around her like a thick fog. She felt so much, so much she didn't know was even there before that moment. Love for him, love that had always been bubbling under the surface lying in wait for him to return it to her. Then a gut wrenching tearing in the pit in her stomach as her heart ripped apart. All of this emotion sent her head swimming as a small part of her was fighting through the fog, it was growing dragging her back to the moment and out of her thoughts. She was still staring in to his eyes, she'd lost all concept of time and she could well have been like that for hours the amount of ground she had covered in her head.
Then suddenly instinctively, without even a moments though Hermione slapped him hard around the face, he stumbled backwards. "Get out," She hissed.
He didn't move, Ron just stood wide eyed with his palm pressed to his cheek in disbelief, then she screamed "GET THE FUCK OUT RONALD WEASLEY, GET OUT!" She threw her stinging hand towards the door and turned her head away from him unable to look at him though her sudden outpour of tears that soaked her features. She felt the whole house stop. The door slammed. She didn't really want to slap him but she needed Ron to feel some of her pain, the pent-up anger and grief at the loss of their relationship. The guilt from her action joined the tight knot of emotions that hung in her chest pushing against her ribs as it grew. The recollection of their first kiss pierced through her memory dragging the guilt, of what she had just done, to the forefront with it. She could smell it the damp stone of the chamber, she could feel it her wet clothes clinging to her warm skin, her pulse hammering through her veins as the gap between Ron's face and her own disappeared. The moment their lips met Hermione felt a fresh weight of emotion land on top of her laced with pain and guilt and heartbreak and hate both for herself and for Ron.
A need grabbed her then, a need to leave, to get out, to go away, to hide and to not be found. She ran across the room to the large wooden drawn that sat under the window. Hermione dug through the draws, searching, clawing through the draw full of socks, various pairs falling to the floor and flying frantically around the room. She stopped momentarily as her fingers found the beautifully beaded bag. Recklessly she began yanking open every draw and cupboard around the room grabbing at her possessions and shoving them into the enchanted bag. Her treasured books were last to go in and with these she took more care; 'Hogwarts: A History', Dumbledore's 'Tales of Beedle and The Bard' and many other beautifully leather bound books. Before she put the last book in to the bag, her last possession left unpacked, she held it pressed to her chest silent tears began to roll falling on to the gold edged pages as a wave of pain hit her sending her crumpling to the ground, as the reality of what she was doing hit her square in the chest.
Footsteps pounded the stairs, they neared the top where Ron's room lay; they snapped her from her reverie instantaneously. Hermione pushed the last item in the obliging bag. She stood. She slung the bag over shoulder. Grabbed for her wand which lay on the now empty bedside cabinet. The door flew open Hermione stared straight in to Ginny's gasping face. Then with a loud crack she was gone.
So how was it? Please let me know what you thought with a review,
Em x