Title: They Wouldn't be Yours
Rating: PG-13 (for adult content)
Disclaimer: Any recognizable character or places in this story belong to JKR. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit of any form is being made from this, I only do it for fun.
Summary: Hermione realizes that she's not living the life she wants.
The dim light of the evening enveloped a very fit man – he lay, snoring, on his stomach: the plaid of the couch pressing into his face. Suddenly, his fire place, which had been popping with the last heat in the charcoal, burst into violently green flames. A young woman's head, eyes wide and hair frizzed, appeared in the flames, and she opened her mouth to yell. "Harry!"
He snorted awake and glanced at her, his glasses askew. "Hermione! What is it?" His red t-shirt was bunched around his armpits, and he shimmied it down as he crawled to kneel in front of the fireplace.
"Harry- please, come over quick! It's Dean…"
"Again." He finished her drawn out sentence for her. "Alright, just let me get some pants on, and I'll be right there." She nodded before a hand grabbed her hair and pulled her forcefully out of the fire. Harry blinked the last of the sleep out of his eyes before jumping, pulling on some pants and disappearing silently. He stumbled as he fell next to dark green couch, then ducked quickly as a plate went flying past him and smashed into a wall. He heard Hermione scream and then felt a pair of hands latch around his knees. He glanced at her quickly.
"Thank you," she whispered quietly. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was almost on end, and it looked as though her shirt was torn.
His eyes flicked up just before a fist made contact with his nose. It started bleeding and through the crimson haze, Harry reached for his wand.
"Why'd you come?" The other man bellowed. His voice was raw and he sounded shaken. Harry could smell fire whiskey on his breath. "Why do you always have to come?"
The grip on Harry's knees tightened and he heard Hermione whimper. "What do you think you're doing, Dean?" His voice was loud, but he wasn't yelling. Yet. He pointed his wand, and Dean, disoriented from the alcohol, crumpled to the floor.
"Wh…What'd you do to him?" Hermione glanced at the form across from her as Harry knelt in front of her.
"He's not dead, just knocked out." He reassured her, pushing a lock of sweaty hair out of her eyes softly, causing the dam to burst.
She fell heavily against him. "Oh Harry. If you hadn't come…Normally I'm alright, but he…He broke my wand, Harry. He snapped it in two."
"It's alright," he cooed gently as he wrapped his arms around her, thinking of home. They ended up in the living room. Both of them stood, a little awkwardly because of their previous embrace and he finally took in her entire appearance. Her pants looked as thought they had been ripped undone. One sleeve on her t-shirt was torn and gentle streams of tears were working their way down her face.
She got up slowly before curling into a ball on the couch and looked up at him with doughy eyes, hugging her knees to her chest. "Thank you. You come every time, whether you're playing, or sleeping…or…"
"What happened?"
"The usual." She sniffed, wiping her eyes.
"What did he do to you, Hermione?"
"He…He wanted to…oh, Harry, please don't make me." She buried her head in her hands, shaking it.
He sighed and ran his hands quickly through his shock of hair, resigned to stop bugging her about Dean. He was used to the lack of answers. "You should get cleaned up." She nodded and rose slowly from the plaid sofa, before walking down the hallway. She had been to Harry's so many times, she knew the little house like the back of her hand. He brushed off his pants and muttered a cleaning spell to get the blood off his face before walking to the foyer, where a large mirror was hanging on the wall. His nose was swelling; it would be purple by that night, hopefully Hermione would know a spell that could reduce the swelling. He turned away from the mirror sadly and walked to him room, wishing things had been different, grabbing a large t-shirt of his and a towel. He walked the short distance to the restroom and knocked tentatively on the door. The faucet squeaked as Hermione turned it off, so she could hear him. "I've got a towel and some clothes for you."
"You can come in."
He opened the door, his head down, and set the small pile on the closed toilet seat. He saw the pile that was her clothes in the corner and picked them up to wash them.
Hermione put a hand on his arm to stop him,"I can do that."
"It's ok," he said, trying lightly to pull his arm out of her grip.
"No, really, Harry. I don't think I can keep much of it, now, anyways."
Sadly, he dropped the pile on the floor and nodded before leaving, closing the door behind him. The water come back on, and he could feel Hermione sigh, finally able to relax. He felt wrong going to sleep without making sure she was alright, so Harry walked to the kitchen and glanced at the clock on the stove. A green 1:00 AM glared menacingly at him. He shook his head and opened the fridge, grabbing the 2 liter of milk and pouring himself a glass before sitting down at the table. Dean drank a lot. Harry never would have expected it from the boy, knowing him in school as the most passive Gryffindor in his year. But then, while Harry was vanquishing Voldemort (a task only he could do, he didn't blame anyone for not helping him) Hermione had married Dean. Harry was very happy for her, but his heart broke, a little. He had been hoping for a happy marriage to Hermione. When he came back, he joined onto Ireland's Quidditch team as their seeker. Everyone seemed quite happy with the way their lives were going. Then Hermione started coming to him. "Dean's been drinking," she would say. He never hurt her, or more, she never let him. She always held him off with a spell, but the experience shook her none the less and as a result, she would come and stay at Harry's house and get her bearings before going back home.
Ron had offered her refuge to, but his wife, a woman for Beauxbatons, was unhappy to have Hermione around their children, so Hermione just stayed with Harry. If Harry was away, playing and international game with the team, he would just let Hermione stay at his house. She had a key and happily made herself content in his room, sleeping in his bed, eating his food. Wearing his clothes. Sometimes he wished it was always like that. Once he came home from a long trip, opened the door and saw her laying on the couch. She was reading one of his many Quidditch books, wearing a Chudley Canons t-shirt Ron had given him. He wanted to drop his bags right there and make love to her. But he resisted the urge, gave a shy wave and walked to his room, wondering what Dean had done that time. It had to be hard for her, he thought. He knew Hermione had always wanted a nice family, with a house fit to raise them in. And it made him bitter that Dean wouldn't give her that. It made him even more bitter that he, Harry, could, but wasn't allowed to.
Hermione shook him from his reverie by sitting down next to him at the table. "I put some tea on," she said, "Did you want me to make some for you, too?"
"Sure," he nodded slowly, "That would be great."
She rose and put some more water in the kettle, and then settled herself back into the wooden chair. "You know, sometimes I wonder why I didn't wait."
"Wait for what?" He looked up, hoping to make eye contact, but she was staring at a stain on the table, running her fingers around the small brown blob slowly.
"You."
He was suddenly taken aback, and, without meaning to, reached out to touch her and knocked over his glass of milk. "Shit." He got up from the table and grabbed a tea towel that was hanging off the stove, wiped up the milk and put the empty glass in the sink. After sitting back down, he cleared his throat. "Why didn't you wait for me?"
"I…You were fighting Voldemort." She seemed to be fighting to get the words out, "and I didn't know if you'd be back or not. I didn't want to be alone, forever, Harry. I couldn't just sit around waiting."
"But I did. I came back. Why didn't you just wait until you knew for sure I wouldn't be back." He realized there were tears working their way down the bridge of his nose and his throat was closing tightly.
"I don't know. I wasn't thinking I guess. I wanted-" she looked at him, "You know what I wanted."
"But I could give that to you, now. Dean won't. You know that."
"He could, Harry. He wants to. But I'm not sure it I want it from him."
"What do you mean?" He asked her over the whistling of the kettle. As she stood to take the kettle off the burner, Harry could see she was nervous. Her hands shook while she poured the hot liquid into porcelain cups, placed tea bags in them, handed him one.
"Tonight. He wanted to have sex with me. Said he wanted to 'try for a baby'. I said no."
Harry stared at her, but again, she was avoiding eye contact, tracing the rim of her tea cup with her forefinger. "Why? Why did you say no?"
"Because. Because, all I could think was that they wouldn't be yours." She chanced a glance at him before looking back at her tea cup.