Chapter 2: Wish I Had Known

Katie Bell couldn't help but feel slightly impressed with herself at the moment. Her hair was tied up in a sexy tousled bun, and the new pajamas she had purchased the day prior were small and left little to the imagination.

Not that she had anyone to impress tonight, but it didn't hurt to boost the ego a little. It was her first full day off in nearly two weeks, and Katie was planning on enjoying every last moment of it. She'd gone shopping earlier with Alicia, Angelina, and a few other girls they had attended Hogwarts with, and ended the day with a round of firewhiskey at The Three Broomsticks. And now, she was enjoying some peace and quiet with George's patronus and the last fairy cake Alicia had made her. Katie's eyes squinted in confusion, her mouth open and hovering over her treat. 'Wait, what is George's patronus doing here?'

"Katie! Please, I need your help! I need you to come to Hermione's house here in Coatham!"

It had been years since she'd last heard so much anguish in George's voice, let alone seen him use such drastic measures to contact another member of the Order.

"And for the love of Merlin's wand, please DON'T tell anyone about this!"

With those last few words, the animal twisted back into a glowing cloud before dissolving completely. She knew the right thing to do would have been to contact her mentor and had her meet her there, but she knew that if George had that kind of time, he would have flooed or Apparated straight to St. Mungo's. With one last longing look at her chocolate treat, she buttoned her cloak and left with a small pop!for Hermione's.


Her body felt relaxed, warm and better than it had in years. It was darker than she had imagined, almost pitch black, though she really didn't know what quite to expect.

"Go back, Hermione."

The tone in his voice was flat and he sounded almost… annoyed. Hermione turned in her spot but could barely make out the face she was nose to nose with.

"Didn't quite expect to see you here. Although, I use the term 'see' loosely," she whispered, still in shock.

"We could say the same for you." That voice. It couldn't be…

"Like I said before, go back! Taking the easy way out won't get you where we are. It'll keep you here, in the darkness. Besides, I've already managed to get George to find you. It's only a matter of seconds before he stops crying long enough to remember the proper spells to revive you."

The forms of several people next to him were barely visible, no matter how hard she tried to focus on them. She could only guess at the guests in attendance. 'So, I'd be alone, even in the afterlife,'she thought, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Yes, but no one ever said you'd spend your livinglife alone. Out of self pity, you came to that conclusion on your own."

Hermione looked in the direction of the voice in surprise. He had heard her thoughts, but in doing so, had sparked hope within her.

"Experiencing great loss is an unfortunate part of life. It's something we must all go through. And just because one love has ended for you Hermione, doesn't mean no others can start. All is not lost, but you have to stick around long enough to see that."

The last voice belonged to a woman whom she could not recognize, but knew her somehow. She felt her body being pulled from behind and knew that George had remembered the spell. In a weird way she felt proud of him, figuring it must be out of habit from times when Harry or Ron remembered spells without her help. What little she could see of the figures faded away quickly. The last thing she thought of was how sad she was knowing she'd never remember any of this happening.


Regretful wasn't a strong enough word to describe how she was currently feeling at the moment. She had somehow underestimated how close to the door she'd need to be and ended up on the side of the house. On the sand, barefoot, and in the rain.

"And Trainers; a simple thing and I couldn't remember it," she grumbled. "Not even slippers!"

Katie cast a shielding charm around her as she made her way around to what she hoped was the front of the house. The lights of the room beside her seemed to be on, but were dimmed by the closed curtains in the windows. Jogging quickly around the corner, the porch came into view as well as a faint light from the doorway. Katie assumed that the wind from the storm must have kept the door open. When she reached the porch, she quickly cleaned her feet before stepping up to the open doorway.

"Bloody hell."

The young healer's voice was a whisper and was carried away quickly with the wind.

The sight before her could only be summed up in one word: disaster. Katie felt all the wind being knocked out of her, thoughts of coming home during the days of the War flooded her mind. Katie quickly ran down the steps of the porch in an attempt to get a better look at the house as a whole. Her eyes immediately darted for the roof, looking for any sign of the Death Eater symbol floating above.

Nothing. It only made her feel slightly better.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Katie ran back up the steps and straight into the house, closing the door behind her. Seeing the damage up-close scared her. 'What happened here? Oh, Hermione. What have they done to you?'

"Katie?"

George's voice rang through the house from her left somewhere, the pain still evident.

"George? Where are you?"

"Bedroom! Hurry!"

Katie made her way to the bedroom at the end of the hallway, the only other room with light. The floor had become a giant puddle of water. She was getting more and more confused by the second. 'What the hell is going on here?' Her eyes followed the trail of water to its origin and found George clutching a gagging, naked woman, who was currently moving out of his arms to vomit.


There was a burning sensation coming from her throat as she tried to take in air. She could still feel remnants of water in her nose and lungs.

"Mind tellin' me what the fuck has exactly been goin' on here, George Weasley?!"

'Who is that? Oh god…'

Hermione felt like her jaw was going to be dislocated from her head. She could feel the stomach acid inching its way slowly up and out of her, along with the many pints of wine she seemed to have digested. It made her even more sick to be so sick and the feeling would mirror itself once more again. She ultimately felt like a failure. All throughout their traveling before the War, she had criticized herself for not having figured out everything about the horcruxes sooner. After her and Ron ended, she hated herself for not even amounting to "enough". She could officially add "cannot commit suicide properly" as another failure on what seemed to be a growing list.

"I c-came to bring her food. Fuck, Katie. FUCK! You cannot tell a-anyone about this. She's still too common of a household name. Oh, for a-all the bloody fucking galleons in the world! Of course thisis what I walk into. This is punishment isn't? Merlin…"

The mumbling behind her continued on for what felt like another lifetime as she fought for control over her stomach. Hermione felt like the only things left to regurgitate were her organs, and when only air and spit would come out she realized she hadn't anything left in her. Her knees hurt from the hard surface beneath her. There would probably be bruises in the morning, but it didn't matter much. She dared to open her eyes to see the damage before her and was caught off guard when all she saw was sparkling tile.

She didn't deserve the help she was getting. She had tried unsuccessfully at ending her life and they wouldn't stop helping her. Her arms started to hurt from the weight it carried and let herself collapse onto the floor. More and more of the night's events were starting to come back to her; destroying the kitchen after finding his half-full bottle of butterbeer in the back on the fridge sending all the frames in the front room crashing to the floor, spelling the pictures inside of them to rip themselves in half, letting the water devour her completely, Ron's words to her the night he…

"Why did you save me? Why couldn't you have just let me die in peace? WHY WOULDN'T THEY
TAKE ME, TOO?!"

Hermione hated them. She hated everyone that she ever knew. She hated Ron for leaving her, hated Harry for taking his side, hated the Ministry for being as screwed as they were, hated George for saving her and calling Katie, and hated Katie for showing up. Hermione wanted to spat her thoughts of hatred towards them, but all she could do was cry and feel herself die a little more inside.


George knew that as much as he had accomplished tonight, he was still considering himself useless. No sooner had Katie arrived, then Hermione twisted out of his hold and began to heave on the floor in front of the sink. She kept heaving until it turned to coughing, and the coughing to crying. Not being used to these sort of situations, George promptly buried his face in his hands and let the saline run. Waves of various emotions hit him; sadness, pity, happiness, relief, panic, anger.

He felt the water beneath him quickly evaporate, as well as the smell of the various food and drinks Hermione had consumed recently. George had taken in deep, rapid breaths to help regain his composure.

"You ok?" Katie's back was turned to him while she reached into the bath to drain the water.

"I've been better, but thanks." George turned to Hermione, whose pain wracking cries seemed to fill the household. "What do we do now?"

"Wearen't going to do a thing until we get at least a dressing gown on her. You're going to go into the kitchen and front room to clear out that mess. I'm going—"

"—No. I want her to be the one that cleans that up."

George heard a small gasp behind him as he stood up. All of this seemed unnaturally familiar. What he knew was that Hermione was going to have to confront what happened if she was ever going to move forward from here.

"George, I highly doubt she'd be able to—"

"When Fred died," he spoke over her, "I did nearly the same thing she did tonight, only worse. Do you remember?"

When Katie diverted his gaze and shifted uncomfortably he knew that his point was coming across clearly to her.

"I destroyed our room at the Burrow and tried to take my life by my own wand. Bill, Percy, and Lee cleaned the room and nothing was ever mentioned again. Then, I smashed every vial in our research room at the store. You, Alicia, and Lee found me with nearly every pint of blood outsideof my body. You did the best you could to retrieve all of it and, once again, Lee had cleaned up the evidence and it wasn't spoken of again. The final straw was somewhere after the free falling incident when my dad and Charlie forced me to see what was going on and what I was doing to everyone around me.

"Six times I tried, Katie! Five times it was cleaned up and ignored, and each time after it got worse and worse. It was a long time before I was able to see beyond the grief and find a reason to live again. I understand that losing a family member isn't the same as being dumped, but obviously it means a great deal to her if she's willing to just give up and die!

"No, in the morning she'll be given something for her hangover and she'll deal with the aftermath. With the way she is with magic, it'll end up taking approximately 3 seconds no matter what. If you could put her in some clothes, I'll stay the night with her. I'll owl Verity in the morning and let her know that I won't be in for a few days. I can trust you to keep this silent for a while, yeah? The last thing she needs is her moment of weakness spread all over the Daily Prophet next to the never ending news of her break-up with that tosser."

Katie fidgeted uncomfortably in place, but she simply nodded in agreement and headed for Hermione's wardrobe for some clean clothes to wear. George turned towards Hermione and watched as his friend curled into the fetal position, mumbling between tears about things only she could hear. He squatted down behind her, his hand hovering above. George wanted to console her, let her know that she wasn't alone, but the words never came.

George thought back to his time in the darkness and realized that there were no words that would ever make him feel whole again, and that was when the source of Hermione's pain came into clear view.

"Took me a minute to figure out where everything was, but I've got 'em," Katie told him as she came back into the room.

George moved around Hermione to lean against the sink, giving Katie ample room to navigate in. He looked on as she lifted an arm here, a leg there, and suddenly Hermione was dressed. He heard the young healer mutter a few spells with her wand poised over Hermione and watched as the tip turned various colors. Katie rubbed and squeezed Hermione's arm gentle before talking softly to her.

"Alright love, all dressed now. George is going to take you to your bed now. You didn't do any permanent damage, but its best that you get some sleep tonight. I have a feeling sleep won't be coming easy for a while."

Katie stepped out of the way as George bent down to pick up Hermione. The blank, numb stare behind her eyes worried him. Had he looked like that once? Had that stare evoked the same fear in his friends and family that he felt within him at this moment? George gently slid his right arm under Hermione's back and his left under her knees and carried her to her room with Katie in tow.

"I'll stop by again tomorrow night and make sure to bring some food with me."

He heard Katie Apparate home behind him and let out the shaky breath he had been holding. 'I never want to do this again. I apologize wholeheartedly for committing the same crimes.' George looked around the room and weighed his options. 'Sleep beside Hermione and risk bodily harm in the morning, or find a nice chair to sleep on?'

Deciding that losing one ear was the most he was willing to give up for one lifetime, George transfigured a pencil he had found on her nightstand into a very comfortable chair and collapsed into it.

George looked over at Hermione once more and found brown eyes staring back. There was emotion behind it again, and George took advantage of the silence to observe her. She looked lost and scared, like she hadn't a clue what was going on and needed him to give her answers he couldn't give her.

"Will you stay?"

Her voice was small, and George couldn't tell if it was his lack of an ear or because she barely had the strength for those three small words. There were a million things George thought of saying to her. Catchy things that the men in stories would say to the damsel in distress, things Fred might've come up with.

'Wouldn't dream of it love!'

'Until the darkness is gone forever.'

'I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.'

"Yes."