"Every Day Thereafter"
Mystic25
Summary: "You can't blame gravity for falling in love-" Albert Einstein Harry/Hermione. Post DH
Rating: T for language and imagery.
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"We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all"
- Eleanor Roosevelt
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The weather had given up trying to ward off the impending winter and instead embraced it with gusts of cold air and falling snow flurries that covered yards and mailboxes in a blanket of white.
The night had just begun to fall, spreading a velvet inky blackness throughout the last bits of sunset hanging on the edge of the sky. All around the neighborhood hung twinkling lights, and inside uncovered windows, Christmas trees in all their finery and decorations sat in a place of honor.
Up high, a blood red leaf tugged at the thin branch of an elm tree with branches dusted in a layer of snow. It broke free of the branch and drifted down on puffs of updrafts, sticking against the side of a black leather ankle boot.
She reached down to pluck the leaf off her boots, letting the velum thin thing drift down towards the sidewalk that was carpeted with other leaves in alternating colors of orange and yellow.
Standing back after letting go of the leaf took moments longer than bending down hand. The whole of her equilibrium tilted off center. She used her denim clad leg to brace herself up, steadying herself as the world shifted back under her control.
She lowered her arm to her side, then raised it up to reach out with the briefest moment of before laying her hand against the roundness that was protruding out from underneath her coat. A flutter of movement danced out across palm. She had grown used to this sensation, and odd feeling of tumbling and rolling and occasional pain when a foot or an elbow jabbed or kicked against one of her internal organs.
The ripple stopped and she lowered her hand slowly away again, staring up at the wrought iron fence outside the yard. Just inside the grass, hanging from the branch of a sprawled birch tree, hung a wooden swing she had helped to make when she was 8. It was before she learned that she was a witch,. She had been helping her dad hold the plywood board down on the sawhorse, listening to the grind of the electric saw as it came down and slice the board in half. But before it could reach the puddle it was about to fall into she remembered it doing the oddest thing, flipping over once like a kid doing a summersault and landing in the dry grass just because she was looking at it and thinking what she wanted it to do. Her dad had been too preoccupied with the saw to see it happen. But her voice was loud and extremely excited when she told him what had just happened. Her mom called her imagination overactive, but then at a picnic for her primary school, she kept a porcelain plate from smashing onto picnic table in the same fashion, and this time both her parents had seen it, and had ushered her home, her in the backseat talking non-stop about how what was happening to her. A few months after her eleventh birthday, a tawny owl had landed on her mailbox with an envelope sealed with a red seal bearing the Hogwarts crest.
Her gaze moved upward to the windows, looking through thin cranberry curtains that always made their appearance when October came in its full fall glory, A bright light shown in high window above small garage that looked like it was tucked into the house: the window that looked into her old room. A shadow moved across the lit brightness, her heart beat shuttered inside her as she watched the shadow move to where she knew her bed was just behind the window, watching the shadowed figure of the woman move to sit down onto the mattress.
Hermione's breath hung in her throat, caught between heartbeats, watching her mum move around her bedroom until her shadow disappear from the light. From where she stood on the street she couldn't see her mum's face, but she saw her messy hair in a shadowed blob above her head. Something felt like it was melting inside her, something that she had frozen inside to survive what she had to survive. And suddenly she was too far away from the house, from the light of that small room.
A pop that mirrored a fire cracker going off echoed behind her; the air grew heavy with a far off burning smell for just one second. Somewhere from a cluster of fur trees came quick steps moving through the grass of the neighboring yard. The figured then moved quickly to the sidewalk, the shape of a man, not much older than her, dressed in black wool, a pair of round glasses hiding green eyes, a mop of dark hair.
The quiet sound of Harry's boots crunched over the partially dried leaves on the sidewalk beside the neat white wood paneled two story house. Light streamed from the windows, a buttery yellow under the glow of dimmer street lamp midway in the yard.
Harry stood next to her, watching the way she stood staring at the house. "You okay?" He cast his eyes down briefly to her stomach, then back up to her face silhouetted in the glow of the streetlamp.
"I'm fine," she acknowledged his question but did not take her eyes off the house. A porch light came on, and then came sound of a dog barking. Something inside her tugged – she had never had a dog before, it must have been after.
Harry reached and set a hand on her arm. "It'll be alright-"
"I cast such a tangle of spells, I made it as infallible as I could-" She turned away from the house, her dark eyes hanging with the emotions that clung to her like a cold mist "what if they don't remember me?" Her voice trembled with a disbelief. "What if after all this time, I can't undo it?"
"They'll remember-" Harry reached up and set a hand against the side of her face. "There your mum and dad Hermione-" he felt her nod for the briefest of moments under his hand before he moved it down, pulling her hand into his "Come on," he tugged her towards the small gate in the fence, holding it open as they both passed through it. Their feet crunched on the layer of snow underfoot, the breeze began to pick up, setting the wooden swing to sway gently. Their shoes crunched over dead leaves in the yard as they walked past the streetlamp marking the midway point, Hermione's grip on his hand became tighter as drew closer and closer to the house.
The dog barking grew louder. The front door opened and a small white terrier with roan and chocolate colored spots shot out into the yard at a whizzing run, barking like it thought it was a much bigger dog, growling and snapping at them as they approached, until a voice stopped it.
"Hugo! Enough! —what the devil is it! -"
Hermione stopped walking so suddenly that Harry's shoulder collided against hers.
Standing on steps outside the green painted door of the house was a man dressed down in a gray sweat shirt and jeans. He was looking out over the yard with cautious eyes because of Hugo's, barking.
These were the same eyes that Hermione had last seen wrapped up in a foggy, but contradictory haze behind a double-sided mirror at St Mugos Muggle Spell Reversal Ward. He argued with Healer that he wasn't bloody ill and to release him and his wife, Eura, back home to Sydney before he called Amnesty International.
Hermione had stood there, and watched this from behind a two-way mirror, her heartbeat hammering against her ribs. She had been advised to not reveal herself to her parents too early. Because it would cause too much of a rush in their memories, because it could fracture them to know that they had a daughter, a witch daughter, presumed dead in a massive war.
But, she had received an owl message from the head Healer at the Muggle Spell Reversal Ward three days ago stating they had finally managed to undo all the Oblivation spells she had set upon her parents. But that they also warned her, that there had never been a witch or wizard who had attempted to confound Muggle memories with such a massive number of spells. Yes, they had been able to reverse them, but the residual effects on her parents' minds could leave them with permanent memory loss.
But her dad was standing in front of her now. No two-way mirror, no Healers from St. Muggo's with wands, casting hopeless glances at the Muggle parent of the 18-year old daughter who had jinxed him into oblivion. Instead, he looked out over the lawn for a burglar or solicitor he suspected caused the little dog at his feet to be on edge about.
Hugo barked again, louder, catching the smell of people it had never known, taking off in a second mad sprint across the snow dampened lawn.
"Hugo, stop!" Mr. Granger ran after the little dog. "There's nothing there boy!" His running stopped when he saw both Harry and Hermione standing there on the lawn.
Harry heard the moment Hermione's breath stopped.
The same moment of clarity came over Mr. Granger's gaze, like the layer ice cracking over a frozen river at the sight of the girl, the 18-year-old woman, standing in front of him with eyes like his own.
"Hermione?-"
The world spun around Hermione at the sound of her name. All the fear she had been holding onto for months that nothing would reverse what she had done, that she had turned herself into an orphan by conscious choice, it evaporated in a rush, a gasp of disbelief as she broke away from Harry and ran across the remaining distance of the yard.
"Hermione-!" Peter Granger ran out across the lawn, meeting his daughter out in the snow, her arms flinging up around his neck.
Peter threw his arms up around her back, squeezing her in a hug that pushed all the air out of her lungs, shouting out towards the house "Lucinda!" He turned to back to Hermione "Where have you been, love?" his voice was thick with tears, gathering massive amounts of his daughter's frame up against his gray sweats, pulling her back to hold her face with his hands "Where did you go-!?"
Hermione's face was soaked in tears, dripping off her chin. "I'm sorry –daddy I'm so sorry-" she buried her face in her father's sweatshirt, clawing her hands up his back.
"Peter-?" the front door slammed like an echo and a woman in jeans and an old sweater ran across the lawn. "Peter, what is it, what's wrong? -" Lucinda Granger's call fell away when she saw the scene on her front lawn. Her hands flew up to her mouth, a gasp left her, tangling its way in her fingers. Tears fell in a rush down her face, she ran the rest of the way across the lawn reaching her husband at the streetlamp, "Hermione-?" she said her daughter's name like it was a wish on a birthday cake candle that she had given up believing would come true.
Hermione pulled away from her father with a gasp at the sight of her mother standing there, and herself at her mother—
"Baby-" Lucinda's arms hung for just a moment in shock, before sobs overtook her and she threw her arms around her daughter. "oh, thank you god, thank you god!-" she pulled Hermione back and kissed her all over her damp face, then gathered her back up, hugging her as tight as her arms could hold.
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It was 10 full minutes before the Grangers could pull away from their daughter to lead her into the house. And it took them an additional two minutes before they realized that Hermione had not come alone, but there were more renewed tears when the realized that it was Harry and that he was also, miraculously alive.
The pair of them were led into the living room with its eggshell white couch hung with colorful throws facing a fireplace with orange flames that flickered safely behind a black iron grate. On the mantle were pictures of Hermione, placed in a crooked manner like they had been flung up there in one round.
After casting the spells on her parents, Hermione had watched all her images evaporate from behind the framed glass, leaving her parents to stand beside oddly disproportionate spaces in her absence. But, now, all the pictures had been restored with her in them, a neat row of her face, aged through her 17th birthday smiling at her.
Hermione was pushed into the couch by her mother, who had yet to fully let go of her so that she was still in her wool jacket from outside. Both Granger women's faces were a blotchy mess of tears in the lamp light, but eventually Lucinda's need to nurture her daughter took another direction and she first set Hermione firmly into the cushions of the sofa before turning around to the kitchen. She came back out with two hot mugs of earl gray tea brimming with half and half and curled with hot steam. She pressed both into Harry and Hermione's hands.
Mr. Granger stepped over to the china cabinet that stood against the wall of the dining room, opening it with a rattle of the glass doors. He pulled out a squat bottle of amber colored scotch, and two highball glasses. He twisted the cap off the bottle, and poured one glass half full, then the other walking over to the couch, holding the extra glass out to Harry.
Harry stared at the glass, then the teacup, in a question that was answered by Mr. Granger's next words:
"Go on son," he pushed the glass in between Harry's fingers.
Harry set the teacup down on the coffee with a rattle of white porcelain, closing his fingers around the etched glass filled with the dark liquor, letting it sit low between his knees.
"Hermione love, here," Mr. Granger hovered his glass over his daughter's tea cup, "Some of this in your tea will help-"
Hermione set her hand on top of her teacup, the warmth of the rising steam permeating on her palm "No, dad, I'm alright-"
"None of us are alright darling-" he waved the glass at her like he thought she was still trying to be proper and afraid to break a rule. "you're not a girl anymore-"
The weight of her dad's words sunk into Hermione as she glanced over at the fireplace mantle at the display of pictures: her in the tub, in a duck hooded bath towel, dressed in past Halloween costumes. Her old Hogwarts acceptance letter was framed next to her last muggle school photo taken at the Dragon Academy. These things now were now only memories of who she was currently – and at that moment she wanted only to be that girl again.
"Peter," Lucinda's mothering instinct had been unused for nearly a year, but now in the vicinity of her daughter, they were kicked into overdrive as she sensed the change in Hermione, the stiffening of her shoulders. She set her head atop Hermione's, rubbing her back. "You're home baby, that's all that matters, you're home."
"Harry-" Peter Granger stood over Harry, his drink in his hand, hovering it over the one he had given Harry.
Harry could see the swell of emotion in his eyes, so he raised the glass he was given and let it clink against the other, taking a pull of the dark liquid which burned down his throat.
"I'm hard pressed to be your father – but I think he would have been proud of you, for what you done-" Peter Granger looked back to the other side of the couch. "You brought our daughter back to us, you kept her safe-"
"She kept herself safe sir, and me-" Harry corrected, gaze on Hermione sitting on the sofa across from him on the chair, half swallowed up by her mother's grip. "She saved my life, on more than one occasion."
Mr. Granger couldn't help a smile that came to his face. "That's my girl."
A moment of bubbled laughter came from Hermione somewhere she had stored such things away after the Battle of Hogwarts that had nearly cost her life, Harry's life, the life of their –it was a release from nearly a year of fear and worry. With the laughter came a pull of tears that escaped her, sliding down her fingers until they became slick and she lost the grip on her cup, spilling tea down the front of her jacket.
"Oh god, darling here- Lucinda snatched a thick white paper napkin from off the coffee table. She wiped the spreading dark stain of tea soaking into the wool, tugging at the knot of the sash, reaching up and undoing the top of the double-breasted buttons "take this off before it scalds you-"
"I've got it mum-" Hermione tried to still her mother's hands she tried to still her mother's fingers on the buttons of her coat, but Lucinda's hands moved in a flurry of movement that she had used to get her into her jumper during her primary school days.
"It's okay, sweetheart," Lucinda reached the last row of buttons "I have it-" She opened the opened the front of the coat, reaching the napkin out again to wipe any stains on her daughter's clothes. Underneath the thick wool coat, Hermione wore a cable knit white sweater, and Lucinda's hands stilled when she saw it.
The sweater was a loose knit, but still form fitting enough that it could not hide the swell of Hermione's pregnant stomach.
Hermione stood there, napkin in hand, eyes shifting to her mother, then her father, watching both their gazes linger on the prominent roundness of her abdomen, traveling their gazes from it to her face.
Hermione felt the depth of their looks, the questions, the bewilderment. She looked quickly to Harry, sensing her parents follow her gaze, watching Harry for his immediate reaction. "I'm going to wash up in the kitchen-"
"Hermione-"
"Please mum," Hermione stilled her mother's words, looking down at the stain on her sweater, a very small miniscule bit of tea that had managed to soak through the heavy wool of her jacket, "I'll be right back, kay?" she walked away towards the tiled kitchen, reaching the stainless-steel sink. She turned on the water, drowning the napkin under the stream, wiping it across the small dot of a stain just above her belly.
A puff of air blew past her ankles, she looked down to see the small terrier that had followed her dad out into yard staring at her with coal black eyes. The dog regarded her with a head cock, giving a breathy bark when she tried to reach for it, but then proceeded to lick her fingers. She petted the tip of its wet nose and the animal leapt up so high against her that she had to reach out to grab it before it toppled backwards.
"Hello," she scratched the dog behind the ears.
Hugo's back paws rested on her stomach like it was a stool, and he leant up to lick her face with a pointy noise.
"Hermione-" her mother's voice made her look up from Hugo, watching as she walked into the kitchen.
From the outer edge of the living room Harry stood right in the open doorway that led into the kitchen, just a few steps behind Lucinda Granger.
Lucinda drew in a breath, like she was about to talk, then closed her mouth on her air. She was a doctor, a woman of science, she had given Hermione all the appropriate lectures when she had just reached puberty at nearly 13 in a three-page letter to her at Hogwarts, then again once she came home for the summer.
Hermione stood there wondering now how her mum could not have known it outside when she hugged her, maybe presuming it was the wool of the coat, or being too caught up in emotions to notice what she was noticing.
Now in the bright florescent light of the kitchen, she stared at Hermione, mouth in a tight line.
Hermione let the dog down, and it capered out of the kitchen with a click of its nails on the tile. She turned to face her mother head on, bracing her hands on the edge of the counter. Her gaze moving back up with her and to her mom who had yet to say anything else besides her name.
"Mum, I can explain-"
"You don't have too sweetheart," this statement came from her father who walked into the kitchen, passing Harry to stand beside his wife on the celadon colored linoleum tiled floor. "It's obvious just by looking at you-" he raised one hand to gesture at his daughter, arms falling away like his words.
"How did this happen?" Lucinda's voice was not unkind, but there was something in it that was toppling into disbelief.
"In the usual way, I suspect." Her husband answered for her, his voice had gone a notch lower.
Hermione turned to her father's gaze. "Dad, there was a war-"
"A War? Is that the excuse the kids are using nowadays? -"
"Daddy please-"
"Is this your doing?" Mr. Granger turned to Harry.
"Sir?" Harry said back.
"Is this yours? Or is it the Weasley boy that I'll be related to in a month or two?"
"No Sir," Harry answered. "I-" he shifted his gaze back to Hermione. "It's, not Ron's-"
Peter Granger's face narrowed just a bit at Harry, then over at Hermione. "Have you two never heard of protection?"
"Peter please-" Lucinda said.
"I need to know Lucy, I need to know how this happened. She's only 18 for Christ's sake!" His temper flared like embers being fanned in open air.
"Dad, there wasn't-" Hermione's voice was a breath of disbelief. "It was too late-when I found out it was too late, I couldn't do anything, I didn't know how-"
"Didn't know how? -" Mr. Granger's voice rose a level higher, his breathing hard, shaking his head at his daughter, like he was trying to wish his way out of a dream. "What's the point of all those spells they taught you at Hogwarts if you don't know how to take care of something like this!"
"We were on the run Sir," Harry spoke up. "For months, we had to keep away from wizards that wanted us dead, that wanted worse for Hermione, she thought it was the flu, after- I told her to go, I told her to go to a hospital -but she stayed to help me, it's not her fault, it's mine-"
"Your damn right it's your fault!" Mr. Granger's voice echoing around the living room, his hand waved at Harry, his whole body shook with emotion. "Everything that has cost us our daughter the past 8 years of her life is your bloody fault!"
"Peter, that's enough!" Mrs. Granger moved in between her husband and Harry, setting a hand on his arm. "They're just kids, they did what they had to do, they didn't, they didn't know what they were doing!-" she broke off and looked at Hermione. "We just got you back Hermione," how could- you're too young to have a child!" her face was twisted like her words were agony to say. "What were you thinking?"
"They were going to kill Harry Mum-" Hermione's voice was shrill, shaking, her hands tight into fists "They were going to kill him! I couldn't let him fight alone, he's my friend!-"
"So instead you let him do this? -" Peter said. "Ruin your life after you just got it back? -how is that friendship? Hermione how?"
"Dad, I-" Hermione's ears drummed with a kind of horrible white noise.
"You can't have a baby Hermione-" Peter said to his daughter. "You can't!"
"But I am, daddy," Hermione's voice was a plea. The kitchen counter was cold under her hands, she tried to hold onto the hug that she had felt from her father outside in the yard, the relief, the warmth of being near him, instead of this. "I am-"
Her father looked up at her, eyes not angry, not hateful, instead disappointed, but sad at where her life had ended up. His eyes glistened. "I know."
Hermione looked from him to her mother, seeing tears falling from her face, gaze mirroring her father's.
"I'm sorry," Her breath poured out of her in jagged pieces, encompassing them both in a watery gaze.
"Hermione-"
She walked hurriedly out of the kitchen, moving away from her mom when she tried to reach for her, pushing past her father and Harry, the later who called her name.
She broke into a run when she reached the living room, snatching up her coat that was dropped in a puddle on the floor.
"Hermione- Lucinda came around the front of the sofa, grabbing her daughter's shoulder. "Darling sit down, let's talk!-"
Hermione reached into a pocket inside her coat, pulling out her wand, moving away from her mom's touch and towards the door.
"Hermione Jean Granger-" her father's voice echoed out from the kitchen. "You're not leaving this house until we sort this out!"
Hermione's fingers pressed into the grooved carvings at the base of her wand, head swam with dizziness, she set a hand to her stomach, leaning heavily over it, a shuddered breath escaped her.
"Hermione-" her mother reached for her again, but Hermione righted herself before she could touch her.
She breathed in a jagged breath, "I shouldn't have come back-" She tore open the front door, sending it to hit hard against the wall behind it.
"Hermione!" Lucinda wiped at her eyes, running after her daughter as she burst out into the lawn "Hermione, come back!" She chased after Hermione but only managed to graze her hand along her sweater before there came a hard pop as Hermione disapperated from under her hold under the cloak of night. "Hermione!
She turned to see her husband standing in the doorway rushing out towards the grass with of the lawn, Harry only a step behind. He searched, looking around the darkness, turning to see the shocked expression of her parents. He removed his wand from his jacket, dissapperated steps behind where Hermione had, the last sound he heard was Mrs. Granger dropping to her knees to sob her daughter's name into the night.