Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
I stare out the window at the rain and wonder how it came to this, this unfortunate turning in my road--not precisely a crossroads, but certainly not the sharply delineated path that everyone perceives it to be. I'm not even sure how I arrived at this place where no answers can be found in any book and no spell can show me the right way to go. I'll tell you my story, shall I? Perhaps in the telling I'll discover the signpost I missed somewhere back...there.
After we defeated Voldemort--yes, I know the papers all said it was Harry that defeated 'The Dark Lord' and truly, he had to be the one to strike the final blow--but he'd never have made it to that point without Ron and me. I suppose to be fair everyone in Harry's life played a part in getting him there, even his horrible aunt and uncle and that fat lump of a cousin, but that's neither here nor there at the moment. After Voldemort's defeat, we set about living the rest of our lives. Harry and Ginny married and began working on a proper family right away. Tonks finally wore down Remus Lupin's resistance and hauled him in to the nearest Registry Office for a quick exchange of vows. Though Fred showed all the signs of confirmed bachelorhood, George and Katie Bell surprised everyone by eloping and then by providing Molly and Arthur with their first granddaughter barely six months after the wedding. In fact, with the rash of weddings and christenings in those first two years, everyone's dress robes were in near-constant use.
So it was a source of puzzlement that Ron and I dragged our feet when it came to taking that plunge ourselves.
Oh, there were very good reasons to wait. Ron went for Auror training and was reluctant to take a wife he couldn't support until that was done. I went about working my way up the Ministry ladder starting in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Then there was the minor matter of all the fighting. Ron and I have always bickered. It's only natural with two such disparate personalities as ours. Unfortunately, our fights always seemed to have the worst possible timing. It took Ron three months to find a time to propose because one of us was always angry with the other. Towards the end of our freakishly long courtship, simple inertia kept us in the holding pattern of engaged-but-not-setting-a-date. In the end it was an outside force in the shape of a rampaging chimaera that finally moved 'us' forward.
I was sent to Cyprus to investigate claims of a rogue that was harassing tourists who'd wandered off the beaten path. Ron had some leave due so he came along. Conclusive evidence of the chimaera proved difficult to gather and we were left with loads of opportunities for the usual holiday activities. Ironically enough, the damned thing attacked us as we slipped off to a secluded spot for some 'together time'. My fault, really. My attention wasn't on my job at that particular moment. With my wand tangled up in my unmentionables and just out of my reach, it was left to Ron to save both our lives by tripping and then stunning the creature--not before it had broken three of my ribs with a vicious kick and then bitten me, though. I know what you're thinking. How could Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age be caught off guard by a simple chimaera after surviving a troll, a basilisk, Dementors, Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort? The only thing I can offer in my defense is that Ron Weasley can be a powerful distraction when he chooses to be.
The first thing I saw upon waking in the Dai Llewellen ward at St. Mungo's (and yes, I have already heard every pathetic excuse for a joke you could possibly come up with on that score, so keep your gob shut) was a pale and worried, freckled face. The first thing I heard was his panic-roughened voice, praising Merlin and demanding that we wed before another day passed. Shaken as I was by my near miss, I agreed and I went straight from hospital to Registry Office. In just under a week, a plain gold band joined the diamond solitaire on my left hand.
Marriage didn't stop the squabbling, though, and all too often our relationship took a back seat to our careers. Molly made no secret of her desire for more grandchildren and before long Ron was chiming in on the chorus. Surprisingly, for someone so well-read, I couldn't seem to adequately explain my reluctance to start a family. Eventually it became easier to keep and take my contraceptive potion at the office and express bewilderment when month after month I proved not pregnant again. I'm not sure if Ron began to suspect my duplicity or if he just got tired of trying. After a couple years, he stopped making noises about kids. A few years after that, the sex began to wane in quality as well as quantity.
At first I tried, I really did, to recapture the intimacy that somehow slipped away while we were busy with Ministry and Auror business, paying the bills and keeping up repairs on the house we'd bought in Hogsmeade. It's difficult to be truly intimate when one is keeping secrets, though. Silence gradually replaced the spats that characterized our whole relationship. I realized a month after the fact that our twelfth anniversary had passed without either of us mentioning, or apparently, noticing it.
When Viktor started writing to me again, it was a welcome distraction from the mess my personal life had become. In the intervening years, he'd sustained a career-ending injury from a spectacular simultaneous collision with both Bludgers. Coaching had proved unsatisfying; the reminder of all he'd lost too much to face day after day. He'd married and divorced a Muggleborn Bulgarian girl. After that, he'd gone to work for the Bulgarian Magical Law Enforcement. He wrote to me at first asking my advice on a case involving house elves. Personal notes tacked on the end of official correspondence grew longer until his case was concluded. By then, though, I was enjoying the contact far too much to stop answering his owls.
I don't think either one of us intended for things to go as far as they did. We were both lonely, and friendship quickly developed into something more. What, I couldn't, or wouldn't, define, but I found myself looking forward to each Floo call and owl-delivered parchment with an eagerness that was impossible to hide. Ginny noticed, cornering me one Sunday afternoon at the Burrow while Ron and Harry took the kids for rides on their broomsticks.
"Something you'd like to share, Hermione?" she asked archly.
I blinked at her, uncomprehending. I'd been thinking about Viktor's last owl, lost in his descriptions of Varna and his side trip to the Stone Forest. "Share?"
"Oh come on. You're distracted, dreamy, secretive. You're finally pregnant, aren't you?"
I admit it. I panicked. I had no idea my feelings were that plainly written on my face. Ginny was off the mark with her assumption, but I couldn't have her guessing closer to the truth. I needed to make my escape, and quickly. "No, Ginevra," I said in as icy a tone as I could muster. "I am not pregnant. And I'll thank you not to bring that subject up again." I stood abruptly and went out in the garden, calling out to Ron that I was going home and making some excuse about a report that needed to be finished for an early meeting the next day. After that, I avoided Ginny and Harry as much as possible. My supposed rift with Ginny gave me the perfect excuse to skip visits to the Burrow as well.
..I'm just so tired of living up to everyone's expectations. It wasn't so bad when those expectations included getting top marks at school and saving the world from Dark wizards. Now all that's expected of me is to pop out a baby every other year and live vicariously though my offsprings' accomplishments. I wrote in my next owl to Viktor.
What do you want? What does Hermione expect of you? he responded.
I didn't have an answer for him then.
The week before my birthday was the International Conference of Vampires and Nosferatu and I was selected as the Ministry delegate. It wasn't supposed to be an honour. Non-vampires were only invited as apologists for the policies of the various wizard governments they represented. Nevertheless, I researched the current laws and polished my Translation Charms. And I sent an owl to Viktor to let him know I'd be in Transylvania. We agreed to meet in Bucharest my third morning in Romania.
As it turned out, the vampires only required my presence the first two nights of the conference. When I met up with Viktor, I had three full days left to spend as I wished in Eastern Europe. Quite honestly, I wished to spend that time with him. Nothing untoward happened between us, though the sexual tension was so thick, it would have taken Gryffindor's sword to slice it. I know. It doesn't take Legilimency to see the question you're dying to ask. How could I be attracted to Viktor Krum when I had Ron Weasley waiting for me at home? All I can tell you is that looks aren't everything, and being appreciated for my brain as well as my body is, for me, the definition of seduction.
On the last day, Viktor saw me to the International Portkey Office in Bucharest. In the lobby, waiting for my Portkey to be called, he took my hands in his.
"Vhere do we go from here, Hermy-own?"
I didn't waste his time pretending not to understand what he meant. "I don't know, Viktor. I've come to rely on your friendship more than I can say. I care about you a great deal. I think I may be falling in love with you. But I still care for Ron. The thought of hurting him breaks my heart. I don't want to be unfair to you, but I truly don't know what to do."
He kissed my wrist. "You must take time and search your heart. I vill vait for you. But I vill not vait forever. You understand that you and I cannot be 'just friends'. One year and then you must be free to be vith me or ve must part." He bent his head and brushed the barest ghost of a kiss across my lips. Then he stepped back, gave me that very correct little bow, turned on his heel and left.
The year Viktor gave me is nearly gone and I am no closer to making a decision than I was that September morning. I can only think of one way to answer my dilemma. Ron and Harry told me of the Mirror of Erised they encountered our first year at Hogwarts. It's supposed to show your heart's deepest desire. So I've arranged to stay at the school for a few days, ostensibly to research some obscure parchments. I'm careful to be seen in the library enough of the time that no one suspects I might actually be on a very different sort of quest. I finally found the Mirror in a dusty and disused storeroom behind the old History of Magic classroom.
I'll go tonight and look into the glass, but right now I couldn't tell you what I hope to see. For now, I sit in the window seat in the empty Gryffindor common room and stare out at the rain-drenched Quidditch pitch. I remember the swotty little girl I was all those years ago, and yearn for those simpler days when my greatest worry was writing a Potions essay that would meet with Professor Snape's approval. I'm not a little girl any more, though. I'm a grown woman. It's time I took charge of my own destiny instead of waiting for the next crisis to sweep me along. It's time to leave the past behind and take my first deliberate steps into a future of my own choosing.