GLOSSARY:
... = scene break
*...* = POV Change
*.* = flashback or dream sequence
*MARCH, 2021.*
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What Hermione really needed the day she'd had...hell, after the last six months she had... was a large glass of expensive wine, some soothing scented candles and a hot bubble bath. However, as she was now a single mother supporting herself, a mortgage, and her two children at school, she had absolutely no money for such luxuries. She settled for a bit of firewhiskey before bed.
After having a lengthy discussion with Ronald, they had decided to end the long, unhappy marriage and call it even. She hadn't heard from him in a few months; last she heard he had found some young Witch fresh out of school (well, maybe not fresh... she was somewhere between twenty and twenty five, she knew.) and was living in a flat with her somewhere in London.
Hermione didn't want him, of course, but it had still stung when she heard of this. Unavoidable, she supposed, with a bitter sense of loneliness—quickly smothered by the burn of the firewhiskey down her throat.
Now Hermione wasn't one to drown her problems with a bottle, but today, understandably, she had allowed herself this one cliché. Why? Simply put, she had gotten herself into a rather complicated situation.
After the past six months, she had begun to adapt to the absence of Ron in her life. She had gotten used to not waking up beside him, not cooking him breakfast, not falling into the toilet early in the morning because the daft man couldn't put the damned lid down (this was one of the more heavenly of changes in her opinion) and while it all seemed unnatural and strange, it wasn't what she would say, uncomfortable. During this time of adapting to the single life and changing paperwork and drowning herself in work—she had left out a small detail in the letters she sent her children while they were away at school…
That's right. She hadn't told them she and their father had gotten a divorce.
It hadn't been a conscious decision, mind. She just didn't really pay much attention to it. The letters she sent to Hugo and Rose were usually filled with praise for their accomplishments and replying to things they told her about—she didn't talk about herself or home at all, usually, and it simply hadn't managed to come up. Truth be told, the only time she honestly felt an unpleasant tingle, enough for her to actively think about her current situation, was when she would happen to notice the silence of the house around her, noting, inevitably and innocently, how empty and solitary it all was. Then, and only then, she felt alone… and she would do her damnedest to stifle the rising ache within her chest—because with that ache, came thoughts of things she didn't want. Thoughts, in particular, about the person she wished was with her, instead of that oppressive feeling of silent, heavy, empty air.
Hermione would tell herself she was being silly. It didn't work, usually… and her mind would wander, despite her best efforts, and always… always, end up at the same place.
Minerva.
The woman she loved for so long—the woman she thought was dead—was alive, well, and so close… so painfully close. A simple floo away.
There was so much she wanted to say to her, and so much that she needed to hear… but she couldn't do it. Not only had Minerva looked at her with such hatred, such sorrow, but the woman had plainly stated she wanted nothing to do with her.
On top of the pain of losing Minerva, again, she had been so enraged that the Scottish witch had spent so much time with her daughter, that she had almost destroyed the relationship between herself and her oldest child.
Or perhaps she had destroyed it, Hermione pondered briefly, looking down at the bit of firewhiskey left in the bottle.
She hadn't heard from her little Rosie in months. Not since she had sent her daughter a letter pouring out her heart—all the apologies she should have said before the girl had left for school, all the words she had been too angry at the time to say.
Rose hadn't replied, and Hermione felt a painful stab within her heart every time she recalled this fact.
As she tossed the almost empty bottle into the trash, she caught sight of the calendar posted on the refrigerator.
They would be home in a few weeks... and then she'd have to tell them. Perhaps she'd be able to find a way to do just that before then.
Suddenly, she felt very sick... but she knew it wasn't from the firewhiskey.
