"Where are we going?" an impatient Hermione asked, being tugged along by one arm of a thought-to-be-extinct Weasley.
"I don't know yet" she explained.
"Pub?" Hermione questioned, hoping that it didn't seem like she was asking her to sneak off for a pint. Thankfully Ginny understood.
"They'll look for us there, ah, I know" and with a crack they had both apparated. They were sat on a hill, at the edge of a woods that overlooked a small town. Hermione instantly recognised a jumbled stack of lights she knew as the burrow. And a few roads up, she saw Harry's bedroom light on. "So…" Ginny started, not knowing where to begin. She sighed heavily. "Sorry, first" she said. Hermione "Hmm'd" in response.
"You should be" She nodded again.
"I, don't know where to start" she sighed again quietly.
"Start with why you left us all like that" Hermione said. She was fully understanding at how hard it was, but still was finding it hard to sympathise with the girl, who was now a woman, who had caused her so much uneccesary grief.
"Well, I thought. I thought you hated me because of, how you reacted to what I did." She trailed off lightly.
"Don't even TRY to put this on me" Hermione insisted, a caustic tone in her voice.
"No, I wouldn't. But I couldn't imagine having to avoid you wherever we went, or not being loved back and everything." She sighed again. "It would have been hard. But that's just one reason" she said, recalling with tears streaming down her face, which had barely aged.
"Ginny that's so irrational. Some of my best friends had died, and I didn't know if the living ones were going to live through the night. I'd loved you for years, but you seriously could not have picked a worst time."
"You loved me?" Ginny said, biting her lip.
"Yes I did." Hermione stated matter-of-factly
"Do you still love me?" Ginny said, pushing it.
"I honestly don't know" She said equally matter-of-factly. "Carry on" she sighed.
"I'd considered that, I considered every outcome. I've had eight years to think about it" she sighed quietly.
"You're not the only one!" Hermione cried. "I have lost sleep about whether or not you knew I loved you before you died. Whether you died alone, and lost. If you were scared. I spent hours trying to remember that kiss…" she trailed off, getting hysterical. She stated in a much calmer tone. "It was for nothing. And as much as I'm thankful you're still alive, part of me hates you for that." She said an air or morose melancholy drifting around her words.
"I wasn't sure how I should come back to everyone…" she said quietly.
"So you decided to fuck me first and see what happens?" at Hermione's last statement, Ginny's hair turned shoulder length and dark brown, and her eyes flickered blue. "Stop doing that" Hermione noted.
"I can't help it, it makes me feel better. That's how I noticed I was an animorphmagus" she nodded. "I'd had a hard day at Hogwarts, and I'd locked myself in the girls toilets. I looked in the mirror and my hair had gone green. I found out I could be anyone I wanted. I could make myself pretty if I wanted" she sighed.
"Ginny. I might hate you right now. But you've always been beautiful as you" she said, giving Ginny a reassuring squeeze of the hand.
"I made up different disguises for characters I could look like. There were a few, I enjoyed pretending to be Lucy the most. It wasn't anything serious obviously. I knew they were just imaginary, it was just a more magical way of playing dress up really. And that's how I practised." She sighed.
"Is that why you decided to be Lucy?" Hermione enquired.
"Yeah, I knew I couldn't be seen, so I transformed a few seconds after it happened" she said quietly.
"It?" Hermione gently nudged the conversation towards Ginny's past.
"I, erm" she stumbled on her words. "I killed someone, I murdered someone." She repeated. "Someone who didn't deserve to die" she stated again.
"Who?" Hermione asked tentatively.
"Draco" she sighed.
"It was you!" Hermione said, somewhat shocked. "They've always wanted to know who it was, no one came forward though"
"Are you saying people are happy about it!" she cried. "He didn't do anything wrong. I shouldn't have" she said.
"Yes, he did. He aided in Dumbledore's death, he assisted the Death Eaters countless times, he leaked things about the order that he had acquired from Snape."
"I didn't kill him for that" she sighed.
"Then why?" she questioned again.
"He was teasing me. Physically, mentally. He bullied me for years" she said quietly. "I didn't let it get to me at first, but he stole my diary not long before it all kicked off" she sighed. "It had things about you in it, my feelings, that I was an unregistered animorphmagus, personal things" she sighed again. "He had been sending me anonymous owls, awful ones. Really awful" she said crying. "I saw him on the battle field as I was stood over Percy. He came over, and said he was glad Percy was gone, and he was a disgrace to a pure blood. Then started teasing me about you, saying he saw me kiss you, and how upset I must be that even you didn't want me. That nobody wanted me" she cried more, as Hermione gently rubbed her shoulders, unsure of what to do.
"Then he…erm, her kissed me." She said quietly "and said that he wanted me, and he was only being mean because he was in love with me" she said, tears streaming. "I didn't know what I felt, then he crucio'd me, and it was horrific. He was doing that and telling me how low life and awful I was. Then something in me just snapped. When he finished I used cruciatus on him, I taunted him, I kicked him, I was no better than him. He told me that I could never be loved and I should just leave, Ironically I listened to him, I cried, and he bragged about how he was a death eater, and how when they found out what I did they'd kill me. He showed me his dark mark and everything." She exhaled slowly. "He started to dig at you, and Percy and Ron again, and I snapped. And I killed him." She finished. Hermione was bound by the horror, it now seemed excusable that she had left. Hermione sat and did nothing but look completely apologetic.
"I thought I'd be under threat, I thought I'd be hated by you, by everyone. I fought until the end, and once everything calmed down and Voldemort was gone, I apparated. Somewhere, not sure, where. In my mind I pictured the last place anyone would look. And I stayed there." She continued. "Sorry, I'm getting on a bit!" she laughed. Hermione smiled through quiet tears and nodded to her to continue. "I lost consciousness after that, an energy drain, and a kick to the head. I woke up in hospital. I said I was a homeless girl and had been for two years. A really nice family took me in, but I never got too close, I missed mum and dad." She smiled in recollection. "I caught up on muggle exams, and it was a hard adjustment! I can tell you I wasn't used to not using my magic." She laughed. "Made a few friends, never really saw them, went to uni, got a job, and eventually bought that pub last year. I'd been living away though, managing another of my friends pubs until now, which is why you haven't seen me, well, Lucy." She sighed. She let it sink in for a few moments, and when Hermione didn't offer anything she prompted her. "You?"
"Well" Hermione stated. "I finished Hogwarts, did my training under the ministry, I am now head librarian at the ministry, which I can assure you is fascinating. I lived on my own until I was twenty five, then lived on and off at the Burrow, when I got lonely. I moved in with Harry a few months ago." She said, hurriedly.
"How is he?" Ginny remarked like an old friend asking about someone they hadn't seen for a few weeks, let alone eight years.
"Good. Well, he's isolated. He can't deal with company well, has a lot of problems with himself, but I think he dealt with your loss the best. He's used to it I imagine" she sighed.
"What about Katie?" Ginny asked, being especially cautious.
"Ahh" Hermione laughed in a strange way. "I hoped you wouldn't ask" she smiled "Well she works in the Library with me. The only other person who was boring enough to train to work there! I met her last year when she was studying, we were friends, then one thing led to another, and well, we are more than friends now. But we're not going out." She added hastily. "But I do like her, a lot" she stated again. "we are kind of seeing each other I suppose." She concluded.
"Oh" was all Ginny could manage.
"Sorry" she sighed, not sure what she was apologising for.
"No it's alright. What did I think would happen? I suddenly return after deserting you all for years and say – "Hey Hermione, I kissed you once eight years ago, yeah, we're all set"" she laughed. Hermione tried to laugh with her.
"It was easier when you were Lucy. Then you just reminded me of Ginny, why I loved her. But you're Ginny now, and it's real and it's scary. And I think I love Katie, and right now I don't even know if I can forgive you, or how you fit into my life. We'll just have to see how it goes." She smiled.
"I spoke to Katie" Ginny said. "Before I came to look for you, I floo'd her, telling her I admitted it and it was really me, and I needed to talk to you, so not to worry if she couldn't find us, or when they find out you've escaped. "
"Oh right. Was she ok?" Hermione innocently enquired.
"She was lovely. You're really lucky" she sighed.
"Who are you going to tell first?" Hermione said after a dangerously long pause.
"Harry I suppose. Katie will have probably told him why you were missing." She rationalised.
"Good plan. We'll apparate"
