Disclaimer: This is very LOSELY based on "This Lullaby" by Sarah Dessen, and all the characters belong to JK Rowling, except for the ones that I make up, which are worth nothing, so if you steal them... I really won't care
Ships: R/H and maybe a bit of something else on the side, but I've not decided yet
~
~
~
~
~
~
I Will Let You Down
~
~
I was only home for a few minutes before I heard it again, that song, it made it kind of uncomfortable especially being with my FATHER. I've called him that as long as I can remember, even through the hard times when him and my Mum got into fights. But really, he was more of a Father then my biological one. The one that wrote the song for me when he found out I was born.
I shifted uneasily trying to think of a way to get up and turn the radio off without making it look obvious.
"Think I'll watch a bit of telly," I finally said jumping up.
'This lullaby
Just a simple run of chords
Hear it
lying here in this spare room
I will let you down
But this lullaby plays on...'
I clicked it off. And clicked on the television. Nothing was on. I pretended to be interested in a soap opera type show, the kind that you have to see every episode to even understand it. I remember watching shows like that before getting accepted to Hogwarts, before battling dark wizards, before leaving to go back to being plain old seventeen year-old, muggle, Hermione Granger.
"Hermione! Charlotte's on the phone," My mum called from the kitchen.
"Hey, Herm, want to go for a coke?" Charlotte asked.
"Sure," I replied.
The song was still playing when I got into the car.
'I will let you down' The deep voice crooned. I changed the station, annoyed. I drove on wondering why a father would write such a song. I will let you down. He had too, leaving when I was born, leaving my Mother alone until I was about three, before remarrying to my father, whom also adopted me, as his daughter. It made me angry. Every time I turned on the radio I had to hear that song, had to hear how my father didn't want me, that was why he left. Because of me. That my Mum would have to settle for someone else.
I was thinking about all this as I heard the shout. A long string of enthusiastic curses. I came to a halt looking up to come face to face with the offender, a very tall guy wearing a cowboy hat and dragging a trunk behind him a trunk which I had just run into. HE had a few friends with him all who were staring at me through the windshield curiously.
"Bloody muggles," One of them said shaking his head. I rolled down my window curiously. Muggles?
I had my head turned looking at one of them that had on a baseball hat and round wire rimmed glasses. Round wire rimmed glasses not unlike the glasses my best friend, Harry Potter has.
"You know what I just realized?" A low voice from the open window asked. "I have this feeling that, that was meant to be. A feeling that in a few minutes I'm going to find out that I'm in love with you," I whipped my head away from the familiar glasses wearing boy, back to the opened window, the boy with the cowboy hat on had his head poked through the window and was grinning. His grin fell immediately as it met my face.
"Hermione?" The word was choked out.
"Hi," I said taking in the face of one of the people I had run away from at the end of my seventh year. "What are you doing in muggle London?" my voice squeaked.
"Found my SENSITIVE area," Ron said flatly. I remembered back at Hogwarts after the whole battle, after Harry had won....
~
"My whole family thinks you and I have, uh, something, and so does Harry so why can't we just-"
"Ron, just because they all think that doesn't mean it's true. Besides, your not my type, we'd fight all the time and..."
"What IS your type?" Ron sounded furious.
"Ron, your great, really, it's just... I need a guy that's sensitive, artistic, someone who can express there feelings without ranting," I was trying not to cry at that point. Afraid he'd start yelling at me right then and there. But he didn't.
"Fine." He had said and then he'd left to go find Harry....
~
"Oh," I said slowly, glancing at the clock in my car.
"Hermione," Harry said knocking Ron out of the way and leaning through the window to give me a little hug.
"Hi Harry," I said into his cheek. I was getting that feeling again, the stuck one, the one where I felt like they were trapping me in a cage. It was too hard now. I still wrote them letters constantly, but seeing them in person, the way they were now, it was hard. Everyone had changed, even me.
Harry seemed sad all the time, he tried not to let on, but you could see it the depression, the fear. And Ron... We'd never gotten along REALLY well, I loved being with him in school and everything, but it was hard then, and after everything had happened, innocence lost, winning, and yet losing, it was even worse, those last few days of school, we had fought over every little thing, he was cold and cynical about everything, mostly due to lack of sleep, no one could sleep after what we'd seen. And then after a huge argument, he'd just said we should get married. And I'd had to tell him he wasn't my type and the whole bit. But I knew if I didn't leave... I'd be stuck.
"I've got to meet someone, right now, I'm a bit late, but maybe I'll see you later," I said as he pulled back. Harry looked surprised, Ron looked scandalized.
"We don't see you in four bloody months and your to busy to say hi?" He asked.
"I DID say hi," I reminded him, "And I've written to both of you at least a letter a week." Ron ran a hand through his hair as I started to roll my window back up.
"Wait!" He shouted sticking his hand in the closing gap. I rolled it back down.
"Yes?" He grabbed my hand yanking a orange pen from his pocket.
"Pens are amazing aren't they?" He asked as he scribbled something across the palm of my hand in between my thumb and index finger. He smiled at me raising his eyebrows as he did so and said "In case you want to call, that's our tallyphone number," His voice was superior as if having a phone was a great thing. It was almost endearing.
"Telephone," I corrected pushing the button to make the window go up, he shrugged, still grinning and said "Whatever," offhandedly. I waved slightly noticing that the other two people with them were Dean and Seamus.
~
"So what does he look like?" Charlotte asked sitting on the back of my car. It was strange talking to Charlotte, whom I'd just gotten back in contact with a few months ago. Already it was like we'd been friends forever.
"Hmm?" I asked leaning back on one hand and using the other to take another bite of the candy bar I had just bought.
"This Ron Weasley guy," She persisted. I watched a bird a little ways away peck at the ground aimlessly. We had driven to the field, it had used to be an old playground she and I had played on when we were little now it was just this huge open field with a rusty set of swings and a slide that had fallen over.
"He's tall-"
"Always a plus,"
"He's got this bed-head red hair,"
"Awww,"
"And sky blue eyes."
"Sounds cute," She said trying to catch my eye.
"He was my best friend, him and Harry, when I went to that boarding school," I explained. She nodded. I hadn't told her much about my life over the past seven years, just that I had gone to a boarding school.
"So what did he say? I mean when he first saw you?" Charlotte asked. I thought back, what HAD he first said? All I had really thought about was how I had to get away, put space between us, take my life over again.
The voice came back, low and playful. "You know what I just realized? I have this feeling that, that was meant to be. A feeling that in a few minutes I'm going to find out that I'm in love with you." Probably a joke that they had played with many girls. Teenage boys. You'd think by eighteen they'd grow up a bit.
"I don't remember," I answered. Charlotte looked disappointed.
"Well, when do I get to meet him?" She asked.
"You don't WANT to meet him," I said thinking of how he'd said Tallyphone.
"I haven't gotten to meet any of your school friends," She complained. "Why not just invite him to the wedding, or at least that Harry guy you told me about." My brother, or step-brother to be exact was getting married for the third time, and counting.
"There probably pretty busy anyways," I lied. Knowing Ron they were probably in muggle England to hang out and pretend to be muggles.
"You want to go to the under club tonight?" Charlotte asked after a lull. The under club, named so because people under twenty one could still get in, was one of Charlottes favorite places to go to meet new guys. Guys that she normally went on a few dates with about twelve tops before breaking up with them to find some new guy.
"I would but I promised Ethan I'd help him with some of the wedding planning tonight. I've got to get my dress fitted.
~
"Hermione you have to hold still," Ethan, my brother's, bride, Lila said as the designer, an ornery lady in her late fifties, shoved pins in the back taking it in a few inches until the material was flush with my back.
"I'm trying, but it is a bit low cut," I said hunching my shoulders over slightly. The dresses were a deep red, mostly plain, form-fitting cut that went to my ankles. Lila went around in front of me staring at the neckline.
"You don't think it's TOO low, do you?" She asked biting her lip nervously.
"Oh no, it's just, I'm not used to dresses," I said quickly. In any case it was better then his second bride Jill's bridesmaids dresses, which were shockingly pink and fairy like with a large bow covering the neckline, like a doll dress.
By the time we got done with fitting, and arrangements for the rehearsal dinner the next day it was getting late. I went up to my room, which was still decorated in the pale purple I had chosen when I was ten. My last summer sleeping in that little room. I lay back on my bed trying to put all thoughts from my mind.
It was harder then usual considering seeing Ron and Harry, not to mention the wedding. I kept thinking about what would have happened if I hadn't left. If I'd stayed with Harry and Ron.
Would Harry have ever gotten happy? Left his depression behind? Would he ever go back to Ginny, whom he had broken up with at the end of seventh year because everything was just getting to hard to bear. Would Ron and I be married like he had said? Or even going out together? Would Ron be his light-hearted self again or just that cold cynical replica left behind?
The thoughts swirled until I came to my last and only options. The one I had always clung to when things got hard, especially around the time that the dark lord had risen. I went into my closet laying down and pressing my feet against one end and my head to the other, put the headphones on and clicked the button, skipping track one and going directly to track two.
'This lullaby,' The voice started slowly
'Just a simple run of chords,' I was mouthing the words as I lay there with my eyes closed. I knew them by heart, even the parts where his voice broke, where he drew out syllables, where he clipped words short.
'Hear it' I listened closely the next part the part that hur t the most but the part I had to hear, the part that made it ok.
'lying here in this spare room' I sucked in a sharp breath waiting for it:
'I will let you down' I could feel the hot sting behind my closed eyes. I will let you down. And he had. And everything had shifted because of it, my mother had settled for Arnold Granger, who had been a loyal father. And I had realized something, maybe I'd always known it, but I had only really admitted it recently, as we fought.
That there is no such thing as real true infinite love. Either it's lovely and it's pain, or it's settling and it's comfortable. We are all just here to choose, a short painful feeling that was wonderful when it lasted, or a long tiresome commitment where neither has strong enough feelings for the other to call it love, but both are to afraid to be stuck with no one to break it off.
Tears were on my cheeks by the time the song ended with a long last:
'But this lullaby plays on...'
I climbed back into bed and fell asleep.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
There will be a lot more Ron soon and explanations to why he, Harry, Seamus and Dean are in muggle London, and just loads of other stuff which will probably be a bit obvious if you've read "This Lullaby" by Sarah Dessen, which is a WONDERUL book :)
Please leave reviews, especially if you have advice since this is my first fic.
Ships: R/H and maybe a bit of something else on the side, but I've not decided yet
~
~
~
~
~
~
I Will Let You Down
~
~
I was only home for a few minutes before I heard it again, that song, it made it kind of uncomfortable especially being with my FATHER. I've called him that as long as I can remember, even through the hard times when him and my Mum got into fights. But really, he was more of a Father then my biological one. The one that wrote the song for me when he found out I was born.
I shifted uneasily trying to think of a way to get up and turn the radio off without making it look obvious.
"Think I'll watch a bit of telly," I finally said jumping up.
'This lullaby
Just a simple run of chords
Hear it
lying here in this spare room
I will let you down
But this lullaby plays on...'
I clicked it off. And clicked on the television. Nothing was on. I pretended to be interested in a soap opera type show, the kind that you have to see every episode to even understand it. I remember watching shows like that before getting accepted to Hogwarts, before battling dark wizards, before leaving to go back to being plain old seventeen year-old, muggle, Hermione Granger.
"Hermione! Charlotte's on the phone," My mum called from the kitchen.
"Hey, Herm, want to go for a coke?" Charlotte asked.
"Sure," I replied.
The song was still playing when I got into the car.
'I will let you down' The deep voice crooned. I changed the station, annoyed. I drove on wondering why a father would write such a song. I will let you down. He had too, leaving when I was born, leaving my Mother alone until I was about three, before remarrying to my father, whom also adopted me, as his daughter. It made me angry. Every time I turned on the radio I had to hear that song, had to hear how my father didn't want me, that was why he left. Because of me. That my Mum would have to settle for someone else.
I was thinking about all this as I heard the shout. A long string of enthusiastic curses. I came to a halt looking up to come face to face with the offender, a very tall guy wearing a cowboy hat and dragging a trunk behind him a trunk which I had just run into. HE had a few friends with him all who were staring at me through the windshield curiously.
"Bloody muggles," One of them said shaking his head. I rolled down my window curiously. Muggles?
I had my head turned looking at one of them that had on a baseball hat and round wire rimmed glasses. Round wire rimmed glasses not unlike the glasses my best friend, Harry Potter has.
"You know what I just realized?" A low voice from the open window asked. "I have this feeling that, that was meant to be. A feeling that in a few minutes I'm going to find out that I'm in love with you," I whipped my head away from the familiar glasses wearing boy, back to the opened window, the boy with the cowboy hat on had his head poked through the window and was grinning. His grin fell immediately as it met my face.
"Hermione?" The word was choked out.
"Hi," I said taking in the face of one of the people I had run away from at the end of my seventh year. "What are you doing in muggle London?" my voice squeaked.
"Found my SENSITIVE area," Ron said flatly. I remembered back at Hogwarts after the whole battle, after Harry had won....
~
"My whole family thinks you and I have, uh, something, and so does Harry so why can't we just-"
"Ron, just because they all think that doesn't mean it's true. Besides, your not my type, we'd fight all the time and..."
"What IS your type?" Ron sounded furious.
"Ron, your great, really, it's just... I need a guy that's sensitive, artistic, someone who can express there feelings without ranting," I was trying not to cry at that point. Afraid he'd start yelling at me right then and there. But he didn't.
"Fine." He had said and then he'd left to go find Harry....
~
"Oh," I said slowly, glancing at the clock in my car.
"Hermione," Harry said knocking Ron out of the way and leaning through the window to give me a little hug.
"Hi Harry," I said into his cheek. I was getting that feeling again, the stuck one, the one where I felt like they were trapping me in a cage. It was too hard now. I still wrote them letters constantly, but seeing them in person, the way they were now, it was hard. Everyone had changed, even me.
Harry seemed sad all the time, he tried not to let on, but you could see it the depression, the fear. And Ron... We'd never gotten along REALLY well, I loved being with him in school and everything, but it was hard then, and after everything had happened, innocence lost, winning, and yet losing, it was even worse, those last few days of school, we had fought over every little thing, he was cold and cynical about everything, mostly due to lack of sleep, no one could sleep after what we'd seen. And then after a huge argument, he'd just said we should get married. And I'd had to tell him he wasn't my type and the whole bit. But I knew if I didn't leave... I'd be stuck.
"I've got to meet someone, right now, I'm a bit late, but maybe I'll see you later," I said as he pulled back. Harry looked surprised, Ron looked scandalized.
"We don't see you in four bloody months and your to busy to say hi?" He asked.
"I DID say hi," I reminded him, "And I've written to both of you at least a letter a week." Ron ran a hand through his hair as I started to roll my window back up.
"Wait!" He shouted sticking his hand in the closing gap. I rolled it back down.
"Yes?" He grabbed my hand yanking a orange pen from his pocket.
"Pens are amazing aren't they?" He asked as he scribbled something across the palm of my hand in between my thumb and index finger. He smiled at me raising his eyebrows as he did so and said "In case you want to call, that's our tallyphone number," His voice was superior as if having a phone was a great thing. It was almost endearing.
"Telephone," I corrected pushing the button to make the window go up, he shrugged, still grinning and said "Whatever," offhandedly. I waved slightly noticing that the other two people with them were Dean and Seamus.
~
"So what does he look like?" Charlotte asked sitting on the back of my car. It was strange talking to Charlotte, whom I'd just gotten back in contact with a few months ago. Already it was like we'd been friends forever.
"Hmm?" I asked leaning back on one hand and using the other to take another bite of the candy bar I had just bought.
"This Ron Weasley guy," She persisted. I watched a bird a little ways away peck at the ground aimlessly. We had driven to the field, it had used to be an old playground she and I had played on when we were little now it was just this huge open field with a rusty set of swings and a slide that had fallen over.
"He's tall-"
"Always a plus,"
"He's got this bed-head red hair,"
"Awww,"
"And sky blue eyes."
"Sounds cute," She said trying to catch my eye.
"He was my best friend, him and Harry, when I went to that boarding school," I explained. She nodded. I hadn't told her much about my life over the past seven years, just that I had gone to a boarding school.
"So what did he say? I mean when he first saw you?" Charlotte asked. I thought back, what HAD he first said? All I had really thought about was how I had to get away, put space between us, take my life over again.
The voice came back, low and playful. "You know what I just realized? I have this feeling that, that was meant to be. A feeling that in a few minutes I'm going to find out that I'm in love with you." Probably a joke that they had played with many girls. Teenage boys. You'd think by eighteen they'd grow up a bit.
"I don't remember," I answered. Charlotte looked disappointed.
"Well, when do I get to meet him?" She asked.
"You don't WANT to meet him," I said thinking of how he'd said Tallyphone.
"I haven't gotten to meet any of your school friends," She complained. "Why not just invite him to the wedding, or at least that Harry guy you told me about." My brother, or step-brother to be exact was getting married for the third time, and counting.
"There probably pretty busy anyways," I lied. Knowing Ron they were probably in muggle England to hang out and pretend to be muggles.
"You want to go to the under club tonight?" Charlotte asked after a lull. The under club, named so because people under twenty one could still get in, was one of Charlottes favorite places to go to meet new guys. Guys that she normally went on a few dates with about twelve tops before breaking up with them to find some new guy.
"I would but I promised Ethan I'd help him with some of the wedding planning tonight. I've got to get my dress fitted.
~
"Hermione you have to hold still," Ethan, my brother's, bride, Lila said as the designer, an ornery lady in her late fifties, shoved pins in the back taking it in a few inches until the material was flush with my back.
"I'm trying, but it is a bit low cut," I said hunching my shoulders over slightly. The dresses were a deep red, mostly plain, form-fitting cut that went to my ankles. Lila went around in front of me staring at the neckline.
"You don't think it's TOO low, do you?" She asked biting her lip nervously.
"Oh no, it's just, I'm not used to dresses," I said quickly. In any case it was better then his second bride Jill's bridesmaids dresses, which were shockingly pink and fairy like with a large bow covering the neckline, like a doll dress.
By the time we got done with fitting, and arrangements for the rehearsal dinner the next day it was getting late. I went up to my room, which was still decorated in the pale purple I had chosen when I was ten. My last summer sleeping in that little room. I lay back on my bed trying to put all thoughts from my mind.
It was harder then usual considering seeing Ron and Harry, not to mention the wedding. I kept thinking about what would have happened if I hadn't left. If I'd stayed with Harry and Ron.
Would Harry have ever gotten happy? Left his depression behind? Would he ever go back to Ginny, whom he had broken up with at the end of seventh year because everything was just getting to hard to bear. Would Ron and I be married like he had said? Or even going out together? Would Ron be his light-hearted self again or just that cold cynical replica left behind?
The thoughts swirled until I came to my last and only options. The one I had always clung to when things got hard, especially around the time that the dark lord had risen. I went into my closet laying down and pressing my feet against one end and my head to the other, put the headphones on and clicked the button, skipping track one and going directly to track two.
'This lullaby,' The voice started slowly
'Just a simple run of chords,' I was mouthing the words as I lay there with my eyes closed. I knew them by heart, even the parts where his voice broke, where he drew out syllables, where he clipped words short.
'Hear it' I listened closely the next part the part that hur t the most but the part I had to hear, the part that made it ok.
'lying here in this spare room' I sucked in a sharp breath waiting for it:
'I will let you down' I could feel the hot sting behind my closed eyes. I will let you down. And he had. And everything had shifted because of it, my mother had settled for Arnold Granger, who had been a loyal father. And I had realized something, maybe I'd always known it, but I had only really admitted it recently, as we fought.
That there is no such thing as real true infinite love. Either it's lovely and it's pain, or it's settling and it's comfortable. We are all just here to choose, a short painful feeling that was wonderful when it lasted, or a long tiresome commitment where neither has strong enough feelings for the other to call it love, but both are to afraid to be stuck with no one to break it off.
Tears were on my cheeks by the time the song ended with a long last:
'But this lullaby plays on...'
I climbed back into bed and fell asleep.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
There will be a lot more Ron soon and explanations to why he, Harry, Seamus and Dean are in muggle London, and just loads of other stuff which will probably be a bit obvious if you've read "This Lullaby" by Sarah Dessen, which is a WONDERUL book :)
Please leave reviews, especially if you have advice since this is my first fic.