Stripped Bare

Chapter One: Goodbyes Are Never Easy

"So, you were just going to leave then? Not say goodbye?" Hermione tensed as the irritated voice of Ronald Weasley reached her. A silent Harry Potter stood a few inches behind him. His green eyes stared at her as she sat in the uncomfortable seat at London Heathrow Airport. The people passing by paid no mind to the three friends. Ronald's blue eyes burned in barely contained anger and hurt. "If you're going to abandon your friends you could sat least say goodbye!" Hermione's eyes flashed.

"I'm not abandoning any of you. You all have a cellphone with my number programed into it," she answered. Her tone never rose. She simply sat in the airport seat and stared up at her friend that was content in making a scene. His red hair now matched the redness of his face. He shoved a fallen lock of his shoulder length red hair out of the way and stepped closer to the woman.

"It's not the same if you aren't here!" Ronald hissed. Hermione was tempted to stand and hug him as the old feelings she had for the man rose to the surface. Her heart shuttered as she ignored them. Their time together had long past been over-two years over. A bitter smile threatened to rise to her lips.

"Ron, I'm home!" She had called as she pushed open the door to their flat. They had moved into the two bedrooms, one bathroom apartment home shortly after the "glory" of the war had died down. It had taken only a few months, not even six. It only took three.

Hermione was content to spend the rest of her life with the man inside. She was, until she opened their bedroom door to put her bag filled with papers that needed to be graded down. She froze. The bag fell from her limp hand.

Ronald Weasley and Lavender Brown sat on the bed that Ron and she had occupied just the night before. Although, the activities the two in bed were committing was different from the simple sleeping they had done. All activity stilled at the thud. Then, it exploded.

Lavender gasped. Ronald cursed and struggled from underneath the covers. It would have been comical had the situation been different. All Hermione could do was stand and watch as the young red headed man tumbled from the bed. She refused to make a scene. She simply walked past the blubbering Lavender and the shell shocked Ronald. She opened the closet drew and charmed all of her things into a bag. She was aware of Ron's attempts at speech. She said nothing and gave no indication he was even there.

An hour later, Hermione Granger showed up at Harry and Ginny Potter's residence. Her brown eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall. Ronald Weasley didn't deserve them any longer. No matter how many times she told herself he didn't, it still hurt.

"Besides," she continued on as if she hadn't heard her angry friend or been assaulted by the still painful memories, "I'll still be working for the Ministry, I'll just be in America on call. It's not like this is goodbye."

"So why does it feel like one?!" Ronald demanded. His hands had shaken in the effort to hold back his emotional pain. Hermione sighed as her flight was called. She gathered up her two suitcases and stood from the seat.

"That's me," she had stated as she stood solemnly before them. It was a somber scene to many of the people passing. A small gasp had escaped her lips as Harry Potter yanked her into his arms.

"Be careful and call frequently," Harry demanded. Hermione smiled against the black shirt he had on. With a heavy heart, she slipped out from his arms. They fell back to his side. With a small sigh, Hermione turned to Ronald Weasley. The redhead seemed to have begun to shake harder. Ronald didn't understand.

"Goodbye, Ron…" Hermione mumbled as she walked past him. His shoulders gave a slight heave and a choked noise that resembled a pained wail threatened to push to the surface. Hermione's eyes once more filled with tears as she forced herself not to turn around.

With a small sigh, Hermione Granger climbed aboard the airplane bound for the United States. With a small frown on her face, she looked out toward the airport. The tears she fought to suppress threatened to spill over when she saw a grim-faced Harry Potter and a stony looking Ronald Weasley.

"Harry," Hermione called in a tiny voice. No one had told her. No one had wanted to hurt her. Now, all Harry Potter wanted to do was strangle his dense best friend. The wedding invitation fell limply from Hermione's hand.

"You are cordially invited to attend the wedding of Ronald Weasley and Lavender Brown." It wasn't lost on either of the friends that Ronald had chosen that his middle name not be written on the invite. Ginny picked up the invite as it touched the tile of the kitchen floor.

It had been nearly a year since their spilt, but when Grangers loved they loved hard and faithfully. Ginny and Harry scowled as they looked down at the invite Ginny had set on the table. They jumped as the invite caught fire.

"I take it you're not going, then?" Harry asked as the last of the invite disappeared into thin air. Hermione pressed her lips harder together and gave no answer.

A small gasp escaped her as the American Airlines plane left the runway. She winced as her ears popped violently, but she did not look away from the airport as the plane climbed higher and higher into the sky. The memories of her life, the one she was leaving behind in England, ran free in her mind.

The twenty-two year old witch closed her eyes and forced herself not to regret her decision.

Much to the shock of friends and the Weasleys, Hermione Granger attended the wedding. She didn't object when the preacher gave the cue; instead, she sat and watched as the man she loved was married to another.

"Be happy," Hermione had wished the couple as she left the reception. It was a double edged blessing. It delighted the two newly wedded couple; yet, it also made them feel extremely vile.

She kept her silent promise to Molly and Arthur Weasley. She attended every Saturday dinner as a family member would. Ronald Weasley would not run her away from her second family and the only one that remembered her.

About two years after the wedding, Lavender burst through the front door of the Burrow and cheerfully announced that Ronald and she were having a child. Hermione didn't miss the way Ronald's eyes darted to her. The whole Weasley family seemed to be waiting for a reaction. Hermione simply forced a smile to match Lavender's genuine one.

"That's great," she had said. Her voice was soft. "Let me know when you find out the gender and we'll go shopping."

"And I'll help you decorate the room," Ginny added, not willing to leave Hermione the only one offering. Lavender had beamed and looked between the two girls before squealing and embracing them in a chokehold like hug.

Hermione forced another smile and returned the embrace awkwardly. The night had passed quickly. Hermione was grateful for she had an early flight in the morning.

Harry James Potter was hurting, really hurting. A constant in his life had just boarded a plane bound for New York. When his back was against the wall, she had been there; but when she needed him, he hadn't been able to help her.

With that thought still firmly in his mind, he spun on his heel and left Ronald Weasley standing there. Suddenly, Harry felt that he couldn't be in his brother-in-law's presence.

He held onto his anger as he entered the men's bathroom. London Heathrow Airport was the busiest airport Harry had ever been in, yet the bathrooms were always empty. With a quick turn, the man was gone.

Ginny Potter jumped as her husband appeared in front of her with a sharp pop. One look at his crumbled face told her that he had found Hermione. Ginny sighed.

"That bad huh?" Ginny asked. Harry shook his head. Ginny furrowed her brow in worry as her husband's face fell even harder. His lips tightened together and his nose was being to turn red. Her husband was fighting tears. Ginny set down the magazine she had been flipping through and stood. The moment her hand touched her husband's shoulder, Harry Potter fell to his knees before her. Ginny's blue eyes were wide as she looked down at her husband. "Harry? Harry, you're scaring me…" Scenario after scenario ran through her head. All of them ended in a funeral march.

Ginny Potter fought off her fear to the best of her ability and ran her hands through her husband's messy hair as he clung to her midsection with all his might. She could feel the tears soaking through her green blouse and knew that the fabric of her shirt would be badly stretched by the time Harry let go. Small tear tracks made their way down Ginny's face as her husband's sobs effectively broke her heart.

"She's gone…" He croaked once. "She's gone. She's gone." His broken repetition of the sentence caused Ginny's heart to ache more. Fear began to shake her hands as they roamed through his hair.

'Gone,' repeated over and over again in her head. Ginny swallowed before gathering the courage to ask the question she so desperately wanted to know the answer to.

"Where did she go, Harry?" Ginny had found long ago that keeping Harry talking was usually the only way to heal him. She waited patiently as he took a few deep breaths. Ginny helped him stand and together, they both sank onto the couch. All the while, her hands never left his upper arm.

"New York. She didn't say where she was going from there…I went to her apartment that morning. Why did I tell you that? You knew that already…" He shook his head. Ginny smiled softly, lovingly at her husband and waited for him to continue. "The landlady met me at the lobby. She said that Hermione had left the apartment building and went to the London Heathrow Airport."

"How did you figure out where she was going?" Ginny asked gently. Her own emotions had been shaken by the news of her 'sister' leaving so suddenly.

"I asked the woman at the desk. Ron had been searching the airport for her while I asked. I suppose he hoped to talk her out of leaving. I suppose I hoped that it would work."

"And I had hoped to give her the news in person…" Ginny mumbled. Harry looked over at his gentle eyed wife. The confusion on his face had her grinning, despite the sadness that coated the room. "Harry, you're a daddy."

Her reward was a blinding smile. For a moment, the pain they had felt ran from the room. Only to return minutes later, as if called back by Ginny's small whisper:

"I want to ask Hermione to be the Godmother…"

Hermione sighed and sank even deeper into the first class seat. The nearly empty room gave her a sense of comfort that she had been missing.

The flight, her leaving: it had all been prearranged. Half of her banking account had been converted into Muggle money and transferred to a bank in the states. That half of her banking account amounted to 23, 000 dollars. She had another thousand in one hundred bills in her pocket.

The trip had been planned thoroughly. She would go from the JFK International Airport in Queens, New York to Williamsburg International Airport in Newport, Virginia.

She would take a taxi to a car dealer lot in Newport and purchase a car. From there, she would drive to Quantico and buy a house with two bedrooms and one spacious bathroom there.

Hermione let a small smile drift onto her face before taking the blanket from the overhead compartment. She wrapped the navy blue cloth around her, set the seat back, and attempted sleep.

When sleep finally lulled her in its gentle arms, she dreamt not of the past or of the present but of the future she was so looking forward to that would rewrite her well laid plans.