Guilty

by Ydream08


Chapter 3

It was one of their fights again. There were three kinds that you could choose from: "I'm not ready for anything more, Ginny.", "I aim higher than Harpies so I won't sit around, Harry." or "You're never with me, Ginny.".

First few times when Hermione sensed Harry and Ginny's relationship wore down, Hermione had made her scarce to let them argue it out. They had put silencing charms for privacy so aside from the seldom strain to their presences, Hermione tried not to mind.

The palpable silence of the two lovers hardly ended in favour of Hermione, though.

Harry would always come looking for her in the aftermath. She would either be in the library or in her room, and it would be a scare to know her best friend arrived by his slam of the door.

"She thinks about herself!" he had cried out once. It was one of the arguments Hermione hadn't been privy to—before they skipped the use of Mufiliato to get on each others' throats. "Only herself, Hermione!"

Hermione felt like an intruder when Harry vented to her, instead of shouting in general in the library, requesting only her presence. These moments she felt like he asked more of her: to mend his broken heart, to lessen the tension in his shoulders, to soothe him that he could choose what he wanted for his life for once.

"I don't mind Quidditch! She could join the Harpies, rise to the international platform all I care, and make a career for herself! I wouldn't mind—she is already disappearing on me for weeks with practices. I can handle that. Sure, she is busy. I'm busy, too, sometimes!"

Closing her book and putting it aside, Hermione would rise to stand beside him.

"It's not only that, though," he would whisper when he felt her touch on his shoulder. His fire would extinguish just like that. "It's other things… whenever she is upset, it's about Fred. I try to comfort her- but I can't the way she wants. I just—I really can't- not now, you know. And she persists, something is wrong with not- not—she's been nothing but selfish!"

Hermione only now knew that Harry and Ginny were arguing about the physical part of their relationship the most. While the grief and burden from the war was still fresh with only two months since the funerals, Harry has been reclusive and avoiding. He barely talked some days, let alone accepting a hug in consolation. Ginny was the opposite. Having grown in a loved family, and being at a point in her life that she wanted something more than familial love, she coped with grief differently. The more this conflict put distance with their relationship, the more Harry had become stressed.

He loved her, truly.

"Also small things, you know," he would continue. By then Hermione would be playing with his hair, having sat down in the couch. He let her touch him that way, just the barest of brushes on his hair that let him know she was there. "I want somebody to care for me beyond the-Boy-Who-Lived. How can she care about me if she forgets to tell me about a day out with friends? Doesn't even ask me later how I spend my days! Auror business this and that, she says. Little things like that. It feels like we're living separate lives."

Hermione tried to tune out the fight this time, but it easily reached to her room on the second floor of Grimmauld Place, because the two lovers opted to shout at the top of their lungs.

It had occurred to Hermione that perhaps she could put charms around her room instead, to make it soundproof, but she had never done in the end.

She knew the reason why.

Not just out of curiosity, her action was. It was just that… when it came to Harry, she had to know.

She had tried her hardest to stand aside from Harry and Ginny's relationship- she really had.

The shouts stopped. Hermione heard angry steps climbing stairs. Her door was open and slammed shut just as quickly. At the look of total break-down in Harry's emerald eyes, Hermione closed her book and straightened her lounging on her bed.

She just couldn't. Couldn't stand aside.

He walked to her and sat beside her. He heavily breathed for moments that felt like hours. Then he crawled to lie down, his head in her lap, and heaved.

Hermione didn't once stop caressing his black strands.


One week after Harry's unravelling, he had quit Auror training and become a free man to rise whenever he desired.

When Hermione woke up, he was whistling to a tune, a spatula in his hand and cooking breakfast.

"What's the occasion?" Hermione asked. Unemployed and not yet back to school, she could be a mess in the morning. Her hair in disarray, not out of her chequered pyjama bottoms and simple flannel. But to see Harry in such state was impossible. Thus why her surprise. It didn't go with his tune, either.

His hair was messier than usual, more than a few strands sticking out. His glasses were crooked, and he kept correcting them with the hand that held spatula. Luckily he wasn't spreading the egg around his clothes. They looked worn out without being dirty. Actually, was that a tear in his black shirt? Close to his collar?

"Occasion?" Harry asked, confused for a moment. Then he grinned. "Not something grand, I suppose."

Hermione perched on her chair and stretched out a, Mmmmhmmmm.

Just when she was fed up with this suspicious happy mood Harry had, in entered a redhead wearing Harry's grey shirt.

Hermione's eyes popped out of their sockets, to say the least, as she blushed at the white legs Ginny displayed courageously.

Her red hair was rumpled in a way that Hermione had seen Lavender used to have when she sneaked back to their dormitory room late in the nights. Back when she saw Ron.

There was a pang in Hermione's heart, and the squeeze seemed to last forever even after Ginny rose to her tiptoes and pecked Harry on the lips.

If it weren't for Hermione, they would keep on from where they had left off, apparently.

Hermione stuffed the silly urge to cry, and concentrated on her breathing. Her eyes itched. Maybe she should leave.

Leave, she did.


Dear Headmistress McGonagall,

I'm pleased to hear the option of returning to repeat our missed seventh year in Hogwarts, however, I was wondering if there was a possibility to sit the exams without coming back—

Hermione stalled her writing. Perhaps she should go to Hogwarts. She has become an extra here. With how much time Ginny was spending around the past two weeks, it could perhaps be better she dislocated herself from their lives- Harry's life.

He came to sit with Hermione time to time. When he wasn't with Ginny that was. But Hermione just couldn't talk with him as they used to. Couldn't be in his presence as she used to. Although he came searching for her and patiently waited for her to take a notice of him, Hermione stubbornly tried to put a distance with Harry.

He huffed and left eventually.

Lately, he stayed shorter if he came at all actually. But it was for the better, Hermione knew. The reason why she felt so trapped and worthless here had become clear on the day that Harry and Ginny made out in front of her.

Hermione… well she…she l-lo… she loved Harry. More than a best friend should. Unlike a best friend should.

That was why she couldn't stand that Harry and Ginny were moving on with their relationship. They looked like they had found a common ground, both relenting a bit on their principles. And it felt wrong for Hermione to intrude that. To strip Harry from that chance.

Hermione cleared her thoughts from that and opted to concentrate on her letter. She had intended to take the exams from outside, and move out to her parents' house in the mean while, but thinking again, perhaps going back to Hogwarts could help her bury these unwelcomed feelings.

She would come back a year later as a proper best friend to Harry, having moved on.

Crumpling the offensive letter, Hermione wrote again.

Dear Headmistress McGonagall,

I'd be delighted to come back to Hogwarts to repeat my seventh year. I can as well come earlier to help with the reconstruction. I'll be waiting your reply.

Sincerely,

H. J. Granger

Hermione gave the letter to the owl. There were only two weeks left of the start of the semester, but it would do no good to linger about.