When Hermione was a little girl, she had learned mythology amongst other things. It always seemed so simple minded to her then; of course there was a right and a wrong way to do things and the people in the tales are so silly, oh yes they are, how could they not see it? How could Persephone eat the seeds, such a stupid girl. When Hermione was a little girl, things clicked. Snap! A problem solved. No mess, no fuss. Her mind had worked it out with a few skips as logic wove the various pieces together. Math, science, history; it all made sense. Mythology though, the Greeks, Norse, Chinese all with their mythologies to put the world in order and their parables for how one should act. Who really needed that? It all fell into place. Things were easy to comprehend and act upon if a basis of logic was applied.
Persephone stepped amongst the flowers, painting the roses red.
Then, Hermione went to Hogwarts. Hogwarts with its soaring staircases and classes of magic beyond the logical mind's grasp. So, she threw out the logical parts that didn't work. The parts of her that cried lies when she was saved from a troll by boys who hated her. The parts of her that died when she stole from a teacher to save the boy with the untidy hair and the lopsided smile. She washed her hands of little girl black and white and simple and clean and uncovered the shades of gray that the adults loved to revel in.
Hades looked up from his deathly cavern cold and saw beauty beyond compare and vitality sublime.
Somewhere in there, a war happened. Somewhere in the carefully wrought sense of morality crept a sense of mortality. Hermione was hurt, tortured, and chased across the winds of the world to get at the boy she loved as a sister a brother, as a mother a son, or a pining lover her completion. For him, she set aside her own carefully crafted mythologies and embraced the subtleties of gray. For him she set the world aflame.
The earth pushed forth her son, sending up a black chariot to grind the flowers below the wheels and steal the beautiful one to bring color to the bleak world below.
And, when the war ended and Hermione felt more a hollowed out tree of wisdom left bitter with knowledge then a human being, The One, who had never been The One for her, went off into the sunset with his darling, his fiery goddess. And there Hermione stood, rooted to the gray of action and inaction. Of reliving the choices that had beguilingly led her off the path of her childhood. She poured over histories and mathematics and magical theory and anything she could get her hands on. Anything that made sense.
Persephone cried as she left the earthly paradise to descend to Plato's domain, weeping for herself and her mother. Plato drove the horses all the faster.
She was employed, flitting through jobs as fast as they could employ her. She sought extra hours like a dying man water. She could not think, could not ponder the happenings of yesteryear with the dying shrieks and bloody smears of red like ribbon linking fate and truth, come to a trailing end left to fray. Hermione worked on elfish rights with a single-mindedness that few understood to be a by-product of unfinished idealism. Reminiscent of a time when she knew what it was that needed to be done.
Plato loved Persephone as he had loved nothing else in his long existence and hid her away from the world. Wilting in the darkness of the underworld Persephone walked the halls of the dead in an effort to live.
She met with friends and family, attended the holiday gatherings and sipped tea with ankles folded demurely beneath her seat, slightly to the side. She memorized how to act in situations. Regurgitated questions of polite interest and declined alcohol as she recited algorithms and dates in her head, her own personal mantra for sanity as she waded into a world not her own. Her's was a thing of books and long nights spent solving problems, writing articles on this and that theory to be published in the journals. Those things she understood intimately. The hollowness of heart palpitations as The One and his love to end all loves shared a kiss upon announcing their soon to be firstborn child was dismissed as impossible. Scientifically speaking her heart and mind and soul had not just wailed like a dying thing as it was consumed by flames burning, burning, burning.
Demeter searched the world over upon finding her daughter gone, railing against life itself when she could not find her Cherished One, leaving the earth to become barren and the people to die.
When the babe, not yet in arms, died in childbirth it was in black that Hermione came to the hospital, a bouquet of flowers clutched in her hand as it was her wand to be wielded as she battled the demons of unrequited love and a sick jealousy to know that there had been a babe for them at all. It seemed right to her that her only black dress was so faded from years of disuse that it was more slate gray then the deep black had once been, a remnant of too many funerals so long ago. Her flowers were accepted with a wan smile, eyes a dull shade of jaded green reflecting the dark smudges of too little sleep below.
Giving a nod in the direction of the hallway, she follows him and out of the grief soaked room of black fabric stretched thin and bobbing red hair like lanterns in the dark. When his arms wrap about her frame and she shakes from the sobs of the man who looks more and more like the lost boy she knew all those years ago she feels boneless as she returns the embrace. It seems like a twisted wish granted but she can recall no djin, no lamp to have polished, and certainly no fairy godmother to wipe away her tears and give her a beautiful gown of dreams fulfilled. When he buries his head into the crook of her neck and his breathe hot and wet stirs the frizzy curls that tickle her skin her mind shuts down. No mantra of nonsensical facts can keep back the tears as she cries desperately into his shoulder as her world shatters. She cannot help, she knows no spells to heal this wound, she can do nothing to comfort the one her life has always orbited around like so many particles of solar dust lost in the pull of celestial light. She has failed at something so fundamental, something all her journal articles and jobs have been but a veneer for.
At the core of her being, beyond morals, beyond beliefs, beyond pain and loss lies the heart of her being. A single truth. A single emotion that has driven her to the highest highs and the lowest lows. She loves Harry. Loves him as a human being. Not as a star seeker, hero, vanquisher of evil, average student, excellent auror, lover and husband of one Ginny nee Weasley, or anything else. She loves him. It's as simple as that and at the same time, that truth has driven her to the edge and beyond. Into sleepless nights and wistful mornings. And now, to see her beloved cry and the pain in every line of his body so visible is like lashes to her flesh laid bare. When he eventually pulls away and offers her a watery smile, she ignores the passive way her limbs fall back into place and gives her own heartbreaking smile in return. He never has to know that she is not weeping for his child only but like Echo has wasted away into a voice in the wind for a love denied.
The people cried out to the gods to take mercy upon them, offering up all they had left to ease their suffering in the face of an eternal winter.
When the announcement that Harry and Ginny had agreed to divorce comes fifteen years later Hermione plucks idly at her threadbare blouse and resolutely goes about reading her latest novel on the variations in common potions that held promising new avenues for magically related infections. She sends the obligatory owl offering her condolences and painstaking scratches out that she is always there should Harry need an ear to listen. When her fireplace turns green and spews out the man she is both desperate to see and avoid it is with a resigned exhale that she gathers up her courage like so many folds of a gown and rises to meet him. Somewhere between black and white, death of a child and death of a marriage, that she had retreated into the background. Slowly missing family functions with the adopted family of her childhood until she was left in a perfect peace. No heart palpitations to offset her balance in her constructed world of work. No smiles shared between a family that feels so distant they're more fiction then real. She has settled into her home with her new cat, Crookshanks having passed a few years back, to keep her company and a pot of tea constantly set to boil. Somewhere along the way she learned to severe the connection like a limb caught in a snare, painful but necessary for one's survival. To see Harry now, with crow's feet just dusting the edge of his eyes and white hairs scattered sparsely about his mop of jet black is like a punch to the gut.
"Harry, I'm so sorry for you. Let me make you some tea, sit down." She tastes the words on her tongue and teeth, like a bitter aftertaste that has her retreating to the kitchen as her mind scrambles to seize onto something to steady itself.
"Hermione, what happened?" Harry is following her into the kitchen, she notes belatedly, craning her neck to see him as she charms the pot to boil.
"I'm afraid I don't know Harry, do you want to talk about it?" Pouring the tea into mugs she sets the sugar on the table and collects the cups.
"I'm not here to talk about Ginny." The last word comes out as more of a croak then anything, leaving her to seat herself tiredly at the table, waiting for the point to come full circle. "I'm here to talk about why you never come anymore. You ignore owls, you skip weekly meals, you don't even come for Boxing Day now. What happened Hermione?"
It is not the first of these conversations; it is just one in a long string of queries made by concerned Weasleys and their significant others. Somewhere along the way the excuses became a bit too obvious, a bit too much to be just work. Somewhere along the way it all became telling and she can't give a solid reason. Can't tell them that the great Hermione Granger is petrified of people. She studies them, works for them, loves them but she can't be around them. Can't see beyond the mirk and grime of war and political maneuverings that leave her bitterly alone. She can't tell them that she has been used up like a book with the pages ripped out one by one. A page to her potions professor that died in his own blood, a traitor only in their minds. A page to her headmaster who played a fine game of chess, she being a pawn to be moved accordingly. A page to Bellatrix and the long nights when she can feel the aches of torture and madness snaking up her body. A page to battles fought. Too many pages. She's been left hollow and it does little to comfort her sitting around those that she did it all for when she knows she does not share in their great triumph.
"Harry, I work. The Elfish Society is a new thing and I can't just leave it. I've been working on journals that need to be published, I'm a research fellow, and to top it all off I moonlight at the ministry. I just don't have the time. You know that. I just can't drop it all when I want to have a night out, people are depending on me." Stirring in her sugar she can almost avoid the accusations in his eyes as they bore into her as she babbles on. "Really, I'm doing some fascinating work with the ministry on legislation that could really improve the lives of people suffering from lycanthropy and I really think that if I just push through the committee members that have been around for positively ages I could swing it in favor of goblins and centaurs too. It just takes time and shaking the right hands. I had to go to a ministry function just the other day where I met a woman who must have been related to Umbridge, she was horrified to know I had been bringing up the issue of wizards magical supremacy as a historical campaign against other magical beings. It's people like her I have to get around to really give things a fair shot at being better. It just takes time. Something I always seem to be in short supply of these days." The ending joke falls flat, a slug of morbid humor dropping from the table to plop on the floor.
Self consciously she pushes a chunk of brown curl behind her ear and out of her eyes. Suddenly aware that she can no more hide behind her lies to him then she can grasp the depths of the ocean between her hands.
"Hermione, that is bullshit and you know it." He says it quietly but the anger can be heard in the sharp and even way he says the words. He always has been quicker to anger then most, never on the level of Ronald but Hermione can remember enough school day arguments that left her sobbing bitterly at the hurtful things said. Her Dear One is not perfection made flesh.
"Harry, I'm sorry but that's just the way it is. I need to do this." Pushing out from the table she leaves her mug half drunk and the space between them seems a gaping chasm.
"Why? Why do you need to do it? You're killing yourself with work Hermione! We never see you anymore and when we do it's not the same person. What happened?" The ebb and flow from anger to confusion and back again leaves her dizzy in her solid wooden chair.
"Harry, I don't know what you mean. I've always been this way, you know that! Why is this all so surprising to everyone that I want to work? I do like books, you know. This is my life and I'm happy with it." The words feel forced and heavy, too worked over to possibly be true.
"Are you happy with work or are you happy without us Hermione?" The question is piercing and coupled with the lowness of the voice speaking it serves to send her heart racing. It's too much, much too much. He's much too close, even across her scratched up kitchen table that seems her sole defense now.
"That's just... that's just silly. I love you all. How could I be happy without you?" Feeling borderline hysterical Hermione rises to pour more tea. Anything to create space. Anything to divert this conversation and how painful it is to admit these things aloud. He exhales slowly, loud enough for her to hear. It sounds like dying hope, a Promethean task left unfulfilled. Through the mist of oolong as she pours the tea she can see him studying her, like some painting he's not quite sure what to make of.
"I want to help people. I need to help people. This is all I've got Harry, this is everything." Gesturing to the bookshelves, the cramped kitchen counter overflowing with mugs and coffee paraphernalia, past the cat sleeping in the window box, and finally to the shelf of old photos lovingly made dust free she lets the arm fall finally as she sets the tea pot down. "This is all I've got to give the world, Harry, that's all I've ever been able to give the world. My work, my time. I don't have much else. My parents died years ago now, I still have nights I can't sleep, and I'm tired. I'm just so tired of it all." That is all she can give to him, all the truth left in her wrung out body and mind and soul. All the mathematics, science, mythologies, histories, languages she knows all boils down to a desperation to give. She's frantic with need to share something, anything because it hurts to keep it all in.
Wordlessly he rises and reaches out to her. Like a child she toddles to him and fits herself somewhere between the scent of his cologne, the scratch of his jumper against her nose, and the whispers of his voice in her ear. She's crying before she even realizes it, shaking against the strength of his arms and chest as he grasps her tighter. Somehow, they end up on her couch. Arms clasped about one another's body as if by sheer strength of will alone they can keep the other from falling apart. Charming the couch into a bed and the magazine on her coffee table into a blanket, they fall asleep together. Nothing is fixed by it. No words are spoken as hands clasp under the blanket warding off the cool night wind that blows through the apartment. She knows this in some dusty corner of her soul. This is merely examining the wound. Prodding at the flesh to see if it is healable. With all of her being, she hopes that it is.
Zeus and the other gods heard the cries of the people and petitioned Demeter to show pity and give back life and warmth to the earth. Demeter was unmoved and demanded the return of her daughter, only then would she allow plants to grow and yield crop for the people to flourish once more.
When Hermione shows up at the Weasley doorstep for an extended family dinner a month later, no comment is made. Hugs are heaped upon her though, food pushed on her plate with firm instructions to eat it all, and if the children made the mistake of asking who the woman was, they were quietly hushed and told to go play. All in all, a success her mind calculated. Only a few moments spread like petals in the wind where she had felt hemmed in. As if the being of her childhood and herself are like sandpaper rubbing away at the other as she longs to see the twins cobbling together some mayhem to entertain the children but instead finds one man with one ear and a wistful look to his eyes watches the children pranking the adults. She sees the faces before the war. Before the loss of life and scars the litter the warriors of the Weasley clan. In each face she sees a double, fresh and young. She feels a bit like she imagines Odysseus to have felt upon returning home. Similar but off, like a picture warped as the sun wears it away day after day as the color is bleached out.
After a time, she leaves. She promises to return once a month and is smothered to Molly in a fierce hug that leaves her feeling warmer and lighter then she can remember being in some time. Perhaps it is time to let the past go. Let the dead rest and the corded scars be what they are. It is a thought for another time, a baby thing that needs time to take root and grow in the mechanical nooks of her mind. But for now, she takes comfort in the slap on the back Charlie Weasley gives her before returning to the house. It is a start. This human comfort away from her world of books and work and always being needed. Perhaps it is time to need another again.
Agreeing to find her beloved daughter, Zeus sent Hermes to scour the world to find the girl. The god crept amongst the heavens peering at the stars, moved amongst the rocks and crags of earth before descending to the depths of the underworld searching.
Sometimes she eats lunch with Ron at the ministry cafeteria, twistedly amused by his eating habits. They talk about light things, never straying too far from work or the pleasant parts of Hogwarts as they carefully edge their way back into friendship. His relationship with Lavender is glossed over, as is her spinsterhood. There are just some things that she has no interest in dredging up.
Their kiss before the battle had been a thing of desperation and a need to feel connected to something as she flung herself into the abyss of war. Once they had come out the other side, a painfully awkward conversation had been the byproduct where they agreed that while they made good friends, a relationship could never work. And that was that. Two years later Lavender joined the Weasley clan. Hermione still wasn't quite sure how many of the red headed brood at family dinners was whose but she suspected Ron to have three children, two she knew to be his and a third that seemed attached to his side. While Ron had never been the best quidditch player, student, or head boy at school he had found his calling in parenthood. It was obvious in the way children clustered around him, the smile that lit up his features when they learned something new, or just the quiet look of peace that was clear even to her halfway across the room as she watched the chaos of so many bodies in the ever cramped Weasley home.
Sometimes, she can see him as he was, when he gives her a particularly large grin or rolls his eyes when she begins talking about her work. It's nice then, to feel like it's not all gone. Stolen by time bygone and her own fear that drove her away. There is something to reclaim from her past, some last scraps of happiness to wrap around her bruised heart that never healed despite her best efforts. They squabble over who should pay the bill and promise to return once every other week. Slowly, slowly her social calendar is filling up. The first time she has to tell her boss she can't work overtime the women gives her a befuddled look which sends Hermione into a fit of laughter, self-deprecating laughter but laughter all the same. She had let it go so far, hadn't even noticed she was losing touch of everything that mattered. But, she would get it back. Slowly, painfully, she would claw her way up the mountain of Dante, through the circles of atonement and hope that her burden she pushed was not the rock of Sisyphus, damned to always try and never attain peace.
Hermes looked upon the sole thing of brilliance in the gloom of the world of the dead as she sat in a garden of nightshade and knew he completed his quest. He sought her lover to convince him to let the beautiful one return to the world of flowers and birds.
It is with Harry though that her actions are the most awkward. The most miniscule of comments can send their pleasant conversation into a length of jilted silence, hanging in the air like a crow's deep black eyes giving a slow blink. They try meeting for lunch only to be approached by people eager to see two thirds of the golden trio together again. Harry handles it well, politely thanking them for their interest and letting them know that the duo want to finish their meal. It seems fame has grown on him, a forced mantle to a reluctant king. Hermione on the other hand is shaken by the whispers just there on the edge of hearing.
"Didn't Harry divorce Ginny a few months ago? And he's already going around with another woman. But then, she always was the first to jump into bed. Shameful, just shameful." She doesn't turn to see who says such things. Only sits. Only listens as Harry continues on about his day, oblivious by now to the comments. It has been awhile for her though. Time out of the spotlight. Time away from people. Time away from the petty gossip and the ringing denunciations of her. Of course she's the scarlet woman. Of course. And some part of her agrees, what is she doing out with this man who loved another as if she were his Helen? With eyes only for her, always for her. It upsets her as if she is young all over again and Viktor Krum is pursuing her and the papers drag her through the mud and no one seems to care that she's only a child.
She gives an excuse, anything, anything, to get away. She can't even recall what she says but she feels Harry's knowing eyes even as she closes her own for the next week and a half. She reads the paper, feeling dirty and a bit too stupid for even letting it affect her when she tosses the Daily Prophet into her fireplace. Watching her picture and the text decrying her as the new woman, the fact she is undeserving of the position seems to be a given according to the author, curl in on itself and blacken.
She has always been a part of the golden trio, during functions she knows that is the name that precedes her but after enough time, people have let it go after seeing she has made no effort to use it to deepen her political interests. It is a side-note, a given but unrelated matter to her work on the rights of magical beings. Other than that, her contact with the world at large had been trimmed down to be so bare as to hardly cover trips to Diagon Alley, paying someone to collect her things instead.
When Harry comes through her fireplace after some time, it is accepted that there will be no going out to lunch for now. He makes idle comments on how the paper should have better things to write about and how she mustn't think such things. She nods her head, yes, yes they should write about other things. And yes, she shouldn't think such things. But, she does. She is not the Hermione Granger of Hogwarts. She is still self-conscious as she was, true. She has no more illusions about people coming around about her though. Doesn't believe that in the end, people are basically good. She believes in the muck of mud, a polluted mix of good and bad. She believes in people believing what they want to believe and acting as they want to act. It is easy to defame her so they will. Somewhere along the way the twinkle of Dumbledore's eyes ceased to mean love to her and turned to cold calculations. And if her belief in the Headmaster-Philosopher-King has failed her, she knows of little that speaks of hope.
When Harry places his hand on hers though in a silent show of support and maybe, maybe a commitment to this born-again friendship it stirs her like a gale, sweeping out all thoughts of newspapers and what people would think. This is what she wants, has always wanted, and even if it is just these rare quiet moments of understanding she would take it. Snatch it up like precious gold left on desert sand.
Hades knew he could not defy the will of all the gods but bargained for three days before he permitted his Precious One to be taken. Hermes agreed and returned to the nimbus of divine Olympus.
It takes a year for Hermione to be coaxed back out into public with Harry, a result of his constant wheedling whenever he dropped in for tea, or dinner, or a movie. Somewhere along the way, tea just didn't seem enough, her apartment ringing empty after he left. So, she invited him to stay for dinner, trying to pass it off as the most casual thing in the world. The grin he had given her had been enough to have her smiling dazedly off into the distance for a solid week. Slowly, over the months he had become a frequent house guest. Starting off an infrequent presence popping through the floo without prior announcement roughly every other week. Recently, it had been an every other day occurrence, staying longer and longer as they chatted about whatever came to mind.
Somewhere along the way it had gotten better. Somewhere between Weasley family dinners, lunches with Ron and the hesitant invite to his home for a meal with his family which had turned into a slightly awkward but successful night, and the slow process of getting to know co-workers she had finally begun to peer outside of her self constructed shell. She found Harry to be the sledgehammer that was constantly pounding away at the defenses though as he unwittingly demanded entrance into her life. Permeating her home with his smell, making her plain black mug into his own, and generally forgetting his things. A pen here, a tie from work there after he had to dress up for meetings with muggles. It was all so slow that she couldn't even stop it. The way they had a routine now. She would make the tea; he would set out the mugs and spoon in the sugar. It was what kept her going, past the nights where sleep just wouldn't come. Past the pangs of loss that still struck when she caught sight of the worn looks that would appear every so often on a friend's face when the conversation drifted a bit too close to the war. Past the feelings of mourning for Tonks and Remus who would never know their son who was excelling at life but suffering a partial transformation every full moon and joking about it afterwards while turning his hair bubblegum pink.
It had been bad on the anniversary of Harry's divorce. A sulky silence over tea that had left her rubbing at the scar from Bellatrix, a sort of low boiling anger that left her shifting in her seat eager to leave it. When she had hesitantly asked if he had wanted to talk about it they had somehow descended into a shouting match, screaming abuse at one another until the woman from the apartment bellow had pounded so hard with her broom that Harry had stormed out, not even bothering to floo. Dashing at angry tears she had cleaned her apartment by hand until she forgot all that was said. That she wished he would never come back. That he said she had no idea what he had gone through, had no reason to be sulking after all these years. She had scorned him, enraged that she had given up everything she ever loved for him and he couldn't even bother staying happy with his wife no longer his. Somehow he had come around to admitting that Ginny had never been the same after their first child's death. The subsequent miscarriages had left her a hollowed out shell, fragile and bedridden. Somehow, the fights between the two had become too much, he too much of a reminder about the loses for her to bear. So, she demanded a divorce and was living with Bill and Fleur, a ghost of herself but improving. He missed her. Terribly. And it broke Hermione Granger. Broke every last hope and dream of what could be that had begun to again take shape in her mind. Just like that, her last leg to stand on had been taken and she was falling into despair. She had shouted at him to leave then, leave to his wife who he loved. If she was just a pass time for him, a convenient placeholder until his Dear One came back, he should leave. Watched him turn and do just that as she stood waiting, filled with a desperate hope that he would turn, stop at the door, and hold out his arms to her. He didn't. So, she scrubbed everything, trying to erase marks that could never be seen. She called into work sick the next day for the first time.
A short note had arrived by owl two days later. Messy handwriting spelling out sorry. He had come back a few days after that, the subject was never broached but if his fingers seemed to twitch to take her hand she ignored it. Stamping out the rekindling hope before it could once again form. Since then their relationship had been a careful thing. Slowly toeing their way back into tea and dinner. Their subjects skirted around her happiness and his marriage and for a time that worked. Eventually he asked about her parents, she hadn't told anyone of their passing and hadn't felt the need to announce it to her newly rediscovered friends now, she asked about the children that he had never truly had. It was a slow thing, the sharing of a life all over again. Of letting someone in so completely that they see you, every weakness as well as every strength.
When they went out for dinner months after what Hermione privately called their blowout, it was to a muggle pub just down the road from her apartment. Nothing fancy, nowhere they would be recognized, and struck her as a very Harry choice. He had never liked the feasts thrown in his honor, had never been a man to turn up his nose at simple fare. So, they sat and enjoyed their meal tossing back drink after drink. She didn't tell him that this was the first time in years that she had drank anything even remotely related to alcohol. As she gulped down her third long island could feel her iron grip relaxing. Slowly, hesitantly she was pushing out from her safe harbor of always being in control. Of always being able to react. By her fifth drink she came to fuzzily realize it had all been an illusion. All of it. She had so little control over things as to be laughable, her fear has controlled her for so long. Driving her away from friends and family, losing them piece by piece until she was trapped in her own mind, alone. Sipping on her sixth drink she came drunkenly to a conclusion, she didn't want to be alone anymore. Didn't want work and work and work. Wasn't content with hyperventilating at night when it all became too much and why, why weren't they still alive?
"Harry, I just want you to know…" she paused to giggle as his head lolled over to look at her, exuding happiness and something else her muzzy mind couldn't quite get a grip on, "I've decided I don't want to be alone now. Isn't that fantastic? I mean, it took me years. Really, brightest witch of the age my arse." She snorts with laughter, slapping the table at how positively silly the entire situation really was. Nigh on twenty years for her to conclude she didn't want to be alone. She decided then that anyone who called her the brightest witch of the age now was going to have to be told they were horribly mistaken and it was in fact Fleur, the silly love struck French twit that she had never quite gotten over her instinctual dislike of for so utterly ensnaring the male population and still having the mind to not be dismissed as a bobble-headed pretty face.
"That's fantastic Hermione. It's about time you came around!" Harry signaled over the waitress for a celebratory round before swinging back to face his drinking partner for the night. Her heart, that unscientific creature, was doing things again. Not the twist of pain she was used to but a light pattering against her ribcage as if a summer rain had come. He must have seen her look because suddenly his hand was covering hers. A warm weight that rasped against her skin when he moved his thumb along her inner wrist, sending tendrils of feeling zinging up her arm and through her body already pleasantly lax from the drinks, making her feel both sleepy and wide awake. Her skin itched with the need to do something. She longed to move closer, to make whatever it was that was happening continue. She wanted to bury herself in his smell, his voice, in the feel of his skin on her skin.
The waitress doesn't even register when she returns with their drinks, a mere blip on the radar. They walk home later in a daze, his arm snuggly against her back as she grasps his waist to keep themselves upright, that's what she tells herself. When he departs by floo there is no goodbye kiss though Hermione thinks there should be. Wants there to be. He gives her a long look instead before bobbing his head in way of a goodbye and like that he is gone.
Hades offered his Queen tasty morsels, fine fruits, and delicate wines as parting gifts. She refused them all except for three small pomegranate seeds.
When they kiss half a year later it is not some grand thing. The day had started simply, he coming over after work. Setting his things down and helping her with the tea, peppermint. There is something poetic about the way his hair hangs in his face she notices, unruly black hiding the scar that has so defined his life. Seized by a sudden desire she stops stirring the tea leaves in and brushes back the hair to see him better. It is like Psyche looking upon the face of her lover by light of candle, all is illuminated. He too stops what he is doing and watches, watches her face as her hand ghosts down the planes of his cheekbones, up the border between forehead and hairline, and smoothes her thumb over his scar before dropping down to brush his nose. He does not move as she silently feels her way along his face. Lightly tracing the outline of his ear as she pushes more hair back to really see this man that she has loved since she knew how to love. Bringing her other hand to join the perusal she steps closer, always closer to him. Skimming her fingers across the arch of his cheeks she can feel the scratch of five o'clock shadow he hadn't bother to shave off in the morning. Letting the hairs tickle her finger tips she draws in a breath as his hands rise to rest on her hips, tracing slow circles through the denim of her jeans. Letting her hands fall to his shoulders she allows him his turn as his hands next touch down on her shoulders before moving up her neck, brushing back the long curls that spill over her shoulders. The junction of neck and jaw is measured by the length of time he runs his hand along the underside, turning his hands to cup her cheeks. She looks at him, really looks. Takes in the boy she knew, visible still in way his eyes shine with a deep sense of life behind the lenses of his glasses. Overlays it with the knowledge of the way he looks when sleeping, angry, scared, happy, lost, drunk, brave, and every other shade of emotion and physical state in-between. Summing up into the person that stands with her now as she leans into him, a subconscious drawing nearer that she can't be bothered to think about.
And then, she kisses him. Pushes herself up on her toes and closes her eyes, taking one last leap of faith. She can only hope this one does not leave her as broken as before. She doesn't know if she can rebuild again. To gather together the shattered pieces and sweep up the dust of Pompeii. When his lips meet hers, it feels right. There are no fireworks or declarations writ large in the sky, they aren't necessary. Instead, there is a spark of happiness. Of genuine joy lighting the kindling within her body that has her burying a hand into his hair and pressing against him. When he tightens his grip on her and deepens the kiss she knows her leap has paid off, even if only in this moment. They will have to discuss it later, have all the conversations about what it is that they are, evaluate if this moment was a fluke to forget and bury. Her logical mind is lost in the trail of kisses he litters down her neck. There will be time to think on it later.
When Hermes comes to collect the girl in three days time he is greeted with the news that she has eaten food from the kingdom of the dead. She must abide in the underworld or perish.
Hermione starts counseling after she wakes form a lie-in with Harry so startled that she nearly blasts him through the wall had he not woken in time to throw himself off the bed. Her wall is scorched beyond magical repair though she scourgifies in between sobs as Harry shushes her, holding her and rubbing patient circles into her back. He confides in her later that he too has nights like that, nights where nothing is better and he's still running from a lunatic that is killing off his precious people one by one. For some reason, it only makes her cry all the harder. Cry because this is the first time in years she almost hurt someone, cries because it's the first time in years that someone has been there to hold her. It just isn't fair she shouts in her mind, shouts in the courtyard of the gorgon where the frozen specters of past deeds still remain.
She doesn't tell Harry when she checks herself into a muggle psychologist for post traumatic stress disorder, her clinical mind already knows what's wrong. Has diagnosed and reasoned but can't seem to bend back to fix itself. She goes once a week, keeps things vague and safe. Talks about running through the woods being hunted like prey, of being tortured by a woman made mad by a lifetime of fanatical supremacy, and of losing her parents slowly as she became more and more embroiled by a world that was never theirs. Slowly, the questions the psychologist asks become a bit too detailed leaving no room for evasion and Hermione tells her everything. Dredges it all up and dissects herself sitting in an armchair opposite her conscious that knows horror, the thing of her childhood she gave up to survive in the blood soaked path of a mudblooded girl amidst a purging war. When she has to obliviate her after a few months she doesn't feel bad, Hermione Granger has always been able to put morals aside to do what is necessary, a morality based around practicality. Her psychologist, Mrs. Undergrove, had started to take on the same wan look Hermione has seen countless mornings in her mirror. The one that speaks of too much truth and too much beyond one's control. So, she gives Mrs. Undergrove her life back. Erasing all memory of one Hermione Granger and her problems from the banks of her memory.
It had helped though, even she can see it. Her steps come a little lighter, her smile a little less forced, and the long scar marking her chest seems a little less of a burden and more a mark of battles fought and won. And really, that improvement is all she could have dreamed of. She's not too far gone. She can improve and that seems like the greatest gift in the world, something the now unwitting Mrs. Undergrove gave.
Zeus is enraged by the trickery of his brother, lightning forking the sky, and could no longer reclaim the girl completely. A bargain is struck between lover and mother, each shall have her for six months of the year.
When Ginny Weasley does finally return for family dinners, she is greeted jovially with Mrs. Weasley who wipes at her eyes with her apron while shooing the children from the kitchen before enveloping her daughter in a bone crushing hug. To Hermione sitting by the fire it seems as if all warmth has been sucked from the room. The bottom drops out of her stomach as she sees Ginny giving a timid smile to Harry who, moments ago, had been sitting near the fireplace discussing all the mischief they, the golden trio, had gotten into at Hogwarts to the younger children. Now, he walks to his once upon a time wife and embraces her. Her heart gives a painful twist before it evens out to the melody of oh Merlin, no, oh Merlin, no, no, no, no.
She knew this day would come, knew it from the way he would gaze off sometimes, quietly thinking as his hand that had once been stroking hers would drop off to rest limply at his side. It was in the swing of his arm when he would walk. The arch of his feet. There is no Harry Potter without Ginny Weasley. It's written in his very DNA she thinks sometimes, in the double helix linking and bridging the gap. She forces herself to stay the full evening. Drinks whatever is handed to her by Ron who seems a trifle knowing in the way he lays his hand on her shoulder for just a second before he disappears off again. It burns its way down her throat and leaves her blinking owlishly at these people who she seemed to know so well but now realizes she's been a play go-er. She's deluded herself into thinking that she too was part of it all. And now, the play is over and she's staring at the dropped curtain as the actors resume their real lives. This is not her family. Hers died years ago. Harry is not hers. These children that cluster around her feet have only just gotten used to her. It seems the greatest deception she has played upon herself yet. She thought her finest was believing she wanted no one. She knows now that her true masterpiece of self-deceit was believing she could reclaim it all. Reclaim friends lost, reclaim sanity, reclaim happiness. She borrowed it all.
That is where the seasons come from; when Persephone is with her mother the earth warms and is fruitful, when she is with her lover Demeter leaves the earth to perish anew until her loved one returns to her side.
When Harry and Ginny remarry that month, Hermione attends the wedding. She buys a dress of pale lavender silk and ties a red ribbon in her hair. She wants the memories to be close to her, wants the mosaic of her life to come round and feel complete. Ginny is smaller then she used to be, looks a touch fragile still even in her long gown of white beads that glint in the candlelight of their evening wedding. When Hermione comes to her before the ceremony and wordlessly hands her a necklace of pale blue-white pearls, the look Ginny gives her is enough. She does not need to know that it is the necklace from her mother, meant to be worn on her wedding day that will never happen. To Harry, she gives a small vial of memory. A single moment. It is their previous wedding, a younger Harry and Ginny looking at one another with such love that she, Hermione, smiles.
She stays for the ceremony bathing in the light of a love shared. It is not hers to have, Harry loves her true enough. She knows that much now. He does not love her as his Helen though, would not launch a thousand ships to reclaim her. His love for her is that of Harry Potter for Hermione Granger. There are no epic poems that echo down from time bygone. It is a bond forged by schoolyard adventures, reinforced by battles fought, and adorned with the give and pull of misunderstandings leading way to true knowing of the other.
She knows that she has a long way yet to go to happiness, a lifetime to spend making peace with what happened and accepting it all. She has made the first steps though. Helped along by friends new and old, giving her the courage needed to be okay. It will be a lifetime of failure and success fighting but seeing the look of thanks in Harry's eyes before he leaves her with a parting hug, it will be worth it.
Persephone walked again amongst the bluebells and the crisp air of the above before returning to her lover's side. She would forever step between worlds, making peace between the life she knew and the one set before her now.
I was inspired by a fanfic about Zuko and Mai, one that revolved around a tongue twister that Mai repeats to herself throughout the story, anchoring what is happening to simple lines. The story of Persephone is one of my favorites from Greek mythology; I hope my small retelling of it does it justice. I wanted the story to speak to what Hermione was going through, but modified. Harry is not her Hades. Hades and the underworld come to represent the internal death she must go through so she can be reborn. She is pulled into darkness by war, unrequited love, and her own insecurities. She lets it all take her over and control her. The new world Persephone is taken to and forced to live in then for Hermione is the problems she will never quite get rid of. But, it's not a hopeless story. It's about her coming back to some semblance of happiness. No one can be perfectly happy all the time, half a year simply means that Hermione will no longer be completely lost and depressed like she was. She's working on it. Something I tried to stress was a slow process, all together taking her twenty years to get to the point where she watches the second wedding of Harry and Ginny and knows that she wants to work on it. That truly living is worth the pain of dealing with her demons.
Also, I'm not sure if it was easy to pick up, my little shout out to Lavender was her dress at the second wedding and Ginny is represented by a red ribbon in her hair. By wearing something to represent both of the women that are with Hermione's old love interests, it's to let the men she loved go. A sort of acknowledgement that they aren't hers, that's what's coming full circle.