A/N: I am so terribly sorry for the length of time between the previous update and this one. When I started this story, I had no intention of making my readers wait so long or of taking so long to write this story. (I didn't know it was going to be so long, either!) Please forgive me for leaving you all hanging. You're all lovely readers, and I am so thankful to have you along for this story. Unfortunately, I can make no promises about the speed of updates in the future.
Chapter is named after the same-titled song, with the version sung by Doris Day in mind.
Note: I am still working out the chronology of this story, so I reserve the right to modify the timeframe as mentioned in this chapter. If I do so, I will let you know in the author's note for a future chapter.
Happy New Year!
In the days after her mission to Theodore Nott's uncle's home and before Blaise's return from his Ilfracombe mission, Hermione accompanied Cho Chang on a brief mission. She and Cho were passing an alley in a Muggle city when Hermione saw it happen. A masked young man was training a gun on an elderly man, who visibly trembled as he held out his billfold. Hermione acted without thinking. She drew her wand, and an instant later the gun sailed out of the robber's hand. As both men swung their heads in her direction, Hermione stunned the masked man. He hit the ground with a heavy thud and was quickly followed by the old man, caught deep in a slumber spell.
Hermione glanced around quickly before stepping into the alley. No Muggles had witnessed the incident. After a moment's hesitation, Cho followed her. She stood silently as Hermione checked the masked man for further weapons and, finding none, retrieved his gun from the pavement. Hermione turned it quietly over in her hand, thinking. Since the moment she had faced the Auror in the vault at the Ministry of Magic, she had longed for a backup form of defence should she ever find herself wandless. She never again wanted to experience the awful, exposed desperation she had felt as she stared at the Auror's wand while her own lay somewhere out of reach. Since that day, Hermione had been vigilant about training to be physically prepared should she ever need to employ her hand-to-hand combative skills again. But she knew her physical ability would be useless in a situation in which her enemy was across the room. Looking at the robber's gun, Hermione thought that here, at last, was the answer. It was meagre defence against a wand, to be sure, but it was something. She wouldn't be completely weaponless the next time her wand was Expelliarmus'd from her hand if she had a gun hidden on her person.
But was it right to take it? Her eyes drifted down to the robber. He was young, maybe her own age. She wasn't very well going to leave the gun with him. He might use it for further nefarious purposes. Her mind made up, Hermione pocketed the gun. Cho's eyes met hers as she did it, but Cho offered no comment, and Hermione offered no explanation. Instead, Hermione bent over the masked man and began to obliviate him. Cho watched quietly before suddenly brushing past Hermione and bending down to obliviate the elderly man.
Hermione knew there were members of the Order who would not have liked her interfering in "Muggle affairs". They would say the old man, sleeping there and peacefully clutching his billfold, was none of their business, nor was this young miscreant lying here. They would say she had compromised the Order, risked the mission, even jeopardised Harry to deliver this bit of justice in the street. Zabini would say it. Diggle would say it. Maybe even Dumbledore would have said it. But Cho said nothing, made no judgment. And Hermione thought that here was another person she had underestimated, misread, missed the chance to know. Another friendship she could have had if she had learned (and risked) to step beyond the familiar bounds of Ron and Harry and Ginny. What had she been doing all those years at Hogwarts? Cho and Zabini and Hannah Abbott and even pathetic Draco Malfoy and too-far-gone Theodore Nott. They had all been at Hogwarts together and yet they had never really known each other. They could have. They could have helped each other, saved each other even. Instead they all went their separate ways. Cho was heartbrokenly trying to soldier on in the world; Zabini by some miracle had chosen the right side even though he had no ties to it; Hannah was dead; Malfoy was living a whimpering existence with the Death Eaters; and Nott was supposedly an up-and-coming new Death Eater thriving in his last year at Hogwarts under Snape's leadership.
Later, when the mission was successfully completed and Cho had escorted Hermione safely back to the Burrow, Hermione hesitantly asked Cho if she would like some tea before she left. Cho accepted, and they sat together on the porch, sipping tea as they watched the sunset. They talked about Cho's job and the difficulties she faced as a closeted Order member. Neither mentioned Cedric, though Hermione thought, judging from the flashes of pain that crossed Cho's face whenever the subject wandered too near him, that the hurt of the loss still lingered. They talked about easy things—at least, easier things than death and torture and double crossing and the missing Chosen One. And sometimes they didn't talk at all, just watched the sun sink lower in the sky, but that was all right.
"Cho?" Hermione asked.
The other girl shifted to look at her. "Yes?"
"We could have been good friends at Hogwarts." The words lingered in the air as the girls searched each other's faces and Hermione's hands curled around her cup. Cho's shoulders slumped as she exhaled. "We should have been," continued Hermione. "I don't know why we weren't. We have so much in common. You could have balanced out all that male companionship I had, and I…could have been there…"
"It's all right," said Cho, saving Hermione from ending a sentence she'd never really meant to finish. "But you're right. We could have been friends. I guess you just don't see what you need in other people until your eyes have been opened by hardship." Cho looked down at her cup. "There were people at Hogwarts who really weren't worth the time I spent on them. I wish I could have all that time back, so I could spend it with people who really mattered." She looked up and squared her shoulders. "Life is too short to waste your time doing anything else."
"I'm sorry I overlooked you," apologised Hermione.
"I'm sorry, too." Cho held out her hand. "Friends?"
"Friends," Hermione confirmed, squeezing Cho's hand.
As they finished their tea and the shadows lengthened on the Weasley lawn, Hermione considered Cho's words and realised that hardship had opened her own eyes as well. Now that her chances of living to see a happy, peaceful future seemed slim, Hermione valued even more those things she had always thought most important—friendship, bravery, loyalty, love. She was learning to recognise those qualities in persons she had once quickly dismissed in her younger days. Cho was right. Life was too short to miss out on those things, no matter what form they came in.
They finally received an owl. It was cryptic, coded, and vague, and the bird itself was nearly dead from exhaustion. They brought the note to Hermione, who knew both boys best and would understand, more than anyone, what they were trying to say. She held it with trembling hands, the fear that had accumulated in their absence nearly incapacitating her as she faced the final word. The note said that the boys had been tracked by Death Eaters and had been unable to send an owl; they had been captured; they had endured who-knew-what; and they had escaped. Now they were following an urgent lead for a Horcrux in Romania and would be in touch with Charlie Weasley. There was no time to come back for her. They would be all right.
Hermione felt the need to sit down and stumbled into a chair at the table. She stared at the small, dirty scrap of paper with the words for which she had waited one month, three weeks, and five days. Ron and Harry were alive. After all this time, they were still alive and free. She could scarcely believe it. Relief crested before her in a wave, and she was afraid to open herself up to it lest the next message should bring worse news. The boys had been captured by Death Eaters and they had escaped—how had Harry managed to survive that ordeal? And how had they managed to escape without her there to help them? Now they were trekking across Romania without her. They were going to do it all alone. And she would be here, trapped in the Burrow, unable to help, unable to solve problems and puzzle out mysteries, unable even to hand them a quill from her bag if they needed it. She was powerless to assist them.
But they were alive and well enough to owl headquarters. And suddenly relief came crashing over Hermione and she leaned forward onto the table and wept. All the nightmares of the past two months fled before the words on that tiny piece of paper. The guilt she had carried since she woke from her illness to find that the boys had been forced to leave without her lessened, faced with the fact that they had not died because she could not be there to help them. The shame that she had felt for every happy moment she had experienced in their absence lightened. And with the dulling of that heavy, heavy load, Hermione was able to breathe more freely than she had in two months.
Frantic voices came into focus. "Hermione! Hermione, what's happened?" Hands were touching her back and shoulders. She could feel the fear in their contact.
She raised her head and met Blaise's dark eyes watching her silently across the room. "They're all right," she said. And she told them what the note said. The distress in the room was replaced with concerned relief. And eventually they moved on, went about their business, and left Hermione alone. She sat and clutched the note and thought.
Days later, Hermione realised there had never been a moment of truth about her relationship with Ron. There had never been a time when she thought, "I love him, and I may never see the love of my life again." It had been the distress of friend for friend—a bitter draught in itself, but less than the hysteria she would have felt once. She did love him; she loved him and Harry equally, and had done so for a long time. Either of their deaths would desolate her, because the three of them were so closely knit. But the time for blushes and anger and jealousy and giggles was past. She would stand by them and fight with them and perhaps die for them, but she would do it for friendship. Theirs were her most treasured friendships, and she would love Ron and Harry until the day she died. But her heart was free.