Chapter 3: I'm Sorry for the Things I've Done
When Ginny came into the library Hermione was sitting at her desk. She'd conjured a small portable fire in the middle of it and was feeding it photographs one at a time.
"What's got into Ron?"
"We've had a row," Hermione responded mechanically.
"No, really? I hadn't noticed." Ginny looked at her. "What are you doing?"
"I have to burn these."
Ginny sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk. "Are you alright? What's happened?"
Hermione looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes. "Ron found some pictures from a vacation of sorts I took with Viktor years ago."
"He's got his knickers in a twist over holiday pics?"
"They're rather graphic," Hermione said softly.
"Ooh, those sort of pictures." Ginny grimaced, and then smiled. "Still, how bad could they be?"
"We were in Amsterdam."
Ginny drew in a sharp breath through her teeth. "But –"
Hermione flicked a picture at her across the desk.
Ginny flipped it over. "Oh my," she said, and then stuck the corner of the picture into the flame. "Alright, then. Well –"
"Do you have a low point?" Hermione asked in a hollow tone. "A time when you've sunk so low you don't know how you ever got back?"
"Yes." Ginny drew in a ragged breath. "As I recall, you among others ended up petrified during my lowest point."
Hermione looked up at her, tears in her eyes. "But you were just a child and possessed by an evil wizard, what's my excuse?" She fed the last of the pictures into the flame and dropped her face into her hands.
Ginny sat back in her chair. "I don't know, what's your excuse?"
Hermione shook her head. "I don't…have one. It was just such a bad time."
Ginny sighed. "You know it's easy to relegate what I did to an innocent seduced, but that doesn't change the fact that it still took a long time before I could look in the mirror and not hate who I saw."
Hermione closed her eyes and pushed her hair back. "But no one else hated you."
"That's probably true," Ginny smiled. "But at the time it felt like everyone else hated me as much as I did."
"But they didn't really, in my case, they really did. No one sent owls. No one sought me out. It was months before I heard from anyone."
Ginny nodded. "When you left? I'm sorry Hermione, but Ron was in such a state - "
Hermione laughed, but it was anguished. "He was in…oh…he was." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "You and Harry make it look so easy."
Ginny laughed. "It only looks easy from the outside. Come on, Hermione. He was destined to kill the wizard I was once possessed by, you think that doesn't make for a weird relationship dynamic?"
Hermione looked at her, and wiped the tears off her cheeks. She shrugged. "Yeah, all right, I can see how that would be weird. Still, Harry doesn't have Ron's temper."
"Maybe not," Ginny countered. "But he does have one. You should see what happens when I slip and say Tom instead of Voldemort. He goes positively mental."
Hermione grimaced. "Well, yeah. I can see how that would upset him."
"Well, sure," Ginny said, "but I don't do it on purpose." She sighed, "Look, I don't know what lead up to what I saw in that picture, but I know that's not like you, and Ron will too, as soon as he calms down."
"Fifteen days."
"What?"
"It was fifteen days after Ron broke up with me. Viktor showed up here. We'd had dinner a few times before that, but when he showed up here, he…the season was over, he asked if I wanted to go to Amsterdam. He knew some people there. He was into the whole intellectual decadent movement that was going on after the war." She pressed her fingers against her temples in tight circles. "I hardly remember any of it. I don't even know when these pictures were taken. Until Ron threw them at me, I'd forgotten they even existed. He's never going to speak to me again." The tears started again.
Ginny shook her head. "That's not true. He's plenty mad, but it'll boil off and then you two can talk this through."
Hermione looked up at her incredulous. "How do we talk this through?"
Ginny shrugged. "You just do. Ron loves you. He lost you once and it liked to kill him, I can't imagine he'll be eager to go through that again, especially over something you did ages ago."
"But when are we supposed to talk?" Hermione cried. "I've got to leave in a few minutes to go to work."
"That's good. It'll give him time to cool off and you two can talk when you get home."
Hermione let out a frustrated sigh. "I won't be home for a month. He can't even see me for two weeks." She passed her wand over the portable flame and it disappeared.
"What?"
"I'm part of the World Cup preparations. The grounds are locked for the next two weeks."
Hermione pushed her fingers back through her hair. "This couldn't possibly have happened at a worse time. I could just kill Viktor. I'm sure he put those photos there on purpose."
They sat for a long time in miserable silence.
"I didn't know you were an Animagus," Ginny finally commented.
Hermione looked up at her. "Gin, I know you must know by now what it is that I do."
Ginny cleared her throat. "Well, I know you work at the Ministry, but no one ever seems to say at what, so I assume you're an Unspeakable."
Hermione nodded. "There is very little in the way of magic that I can't do."
Ginny smiled. "Memory charm?"
Hermione leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Ginny nodded solemnly.
