Seasons of Love
Disclaimer: I don't own HP or any of these characters. That belongs to JKR, Scholastic Books, Warner Brothers, etc. This is just something to pass the time while waiting for the next book.
Chapter Fourteen : Confessions
Dinner had been horrid. Hermione had not spoken to her husband throughout it, which unfortunately encouraged Mr. Weasley in his advances. As a result, she wound up shackled to Ginny's side, which wasn't a good way to encourage a romance between her and Remus. Normally, she would attach herself to her husband as a means of escape, but she didn't want to do that now. Not after learning that he didn't trust her as much as she thought. She had managed to make her escape soon after the last course had been placed on the table, complaining of a headache. Everyone had been solicitous of her and had been all too ready to excuse her. Hermione had taken her chance and fled to her room.
Yet now, as she waited in bed for sleep to come, she realized her mistake. She had not fled to her room, but their room. The one they shared. The one she had always slept in ever since her marriage. Hermione had her own chambers nearby, but she had never used them. She had standing orders with the House Elfs for them to dust the room twice a month, though she thought it was a waste. Hermione was so tempted to leave this room and go to that one. She didn't feel as if she were ready to face Harry at this juncture. Her pain at his lack of faith in her was too new, too fresh for her to want to have to face him and any apology he might try to make. And she didn't want to worry about the secrets he was keeping from her and what they might mean to their relationship.
At the same time, however, she thought it would be a bad precedent to make. They had always shared the same bed, even when they were quarreling. But she had never been hurt so bad by him as she was earlier. And it was so hard for her to hold back her tears, when she thought of everything she had lost just a few short hours ago.
Hearing the doorknob turn, Hermione closed her eyes, feigning sleep. She didn't want to leave, but she didn't want to have to see him, to have to speak with him either. She heard Harry softly tread into the room and was glad that he didn't leave right away. She heard the familiar rustling of him changing out of his clothes. The bed shifted towards his end as he climbed into it, taking his place beside her. He sighed heavily, before turning to place a kiss on her forehead. "I love you," he whispered gently.
Hermione opened her eyes to look at him. "I know that, Harry," she said. "I know." She focused her attention at the curtains behind him. She knew he loved her, but she also knew that he didn't love her as much as she loved him. It shouldn't hurt so much, that piece of knowledge. It shouldn't hurt to know that he wasn't as attached as she was, she should be happy with what she had, but . . . she wasn't.
"Hermione . . . about earlier. Those memories, they aren't happy. Far from it. The opposite, in fact. So please don't—"
"I don't think I want to have this conversation again, Harry. I fear it will only upset me." She turned away from him, leaving him speaking to her back. She didn't need her heart to be broken twice by the man she loved in one day.
"Hermione. I . . . I only want to spare you the pain," he said pleadingly.
"Spare me pain?" She laughed bitterly. "How chivalrous of you. But you have an odd way of going about that."
"Hermione." He settled his hand on her shoulder. "How many times do I have to say it? These are not things you want to know, trust me."
"How do you know that?" she asked. "And why should I trust you when you so blatantly do not trust me?"
"I do trust you," he said, his voice rising in volume. "I trust you more than anyone else in this world. I—"
"If I am the person you trust most in the world, you must lead a sad, sad life. For you do not trust me at all."
"Hermione." This time, his voice was not as gentle. He pulled her to face him. "How can you say that?"
If he had been expecting to see tears, he was disappointed. Hermione was no longer on the verge of those, but rather she was growing angry. Angry at the fact that he did not only not trust her, but he couldn't be honest about it. "How can I not say it? There is nothing that I hide from you. I have always been honest with you. You, however, have not done the same with me. You have your secrets and you have your pain – and you hide them all away from me, pretending to love me and—"
"Do not ever say that I am merely pretending to love you." His eyes glittered in the darkness. "I love you more than you could possibly know."
"I find your love to be a pale, weak thing if you cannot trust me," she said.
"You are being unreasonable here. My secrets, they are not like your secrets. They're darker than yours, more painful than yours. And I do not know how you would see me if you knew."
Hermione, however, only heard the first part of his words. "That's a lovely assumption to make. I like how you degrade my painful memories, as if they are of no consequence—"
"Hermione! I never said that!"
"But then everything that I went through during those years could hardly compare to everything that happened to the Boy-Who-Lived," she continued, ignoring his protest. "I suppose Mr. Weasley was right about you in that regard."
Hermione knew she had gone too far with that statement, but she was past the point of caring. Harry got up from the bad, mustering all the dignity that he had. "If that is your sentiment, my lady," he said. "Then I will take my leave. I am sure that Ron will be more than willing to entertain you here." He turned to exit the room, but before he could take a single step, Hermione had grabbed his pillow and threw it at him, hitting him squarely in his back.
"You bastard!" she raged. "I don't want him or anyone else I want you! I want you to love me like I love you, to trust me like I trust you, to need me like I need you. But you don't and you can't and you don't even care that—" To Hermione's absolute horror, she couldn't continue for she was gasping for air.
"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed, and in the blink of an eye, he was by her side. "Love, calm down. It's not good for the baby for you to be so—"
"And don't you dare patronize me as if I were some child!" she shouted at him, swatting his hands away from her. "Because there's little that I hate more than that, but for all your confessions of love, that's exactly how you treat me, and you don't know how much it hurts when you don't trust me." Hermione had to stop there, once again needing the pause so she could breathe. Somehow or another, she started to hiccup and she couldn't hold her breath to stop them, for she was out of breath as it was.
"Hermione, I trust you. I do." Harry took a deep breath. "But I don't want to upset you, especially not now, when you're with child."
"You're doing a bloody bad job of that!" Hermione told him in between hiccups.
"I know," he said quietly, as if to himself. "But I did not think it would do you good to know that you had married a murderer."
That stopped her hiccups. She stared at him. "I cannot fathom how you would think that I did not know how things ended. Of course, I know that you killed that . . . that thing. And I know you had no choice, for otherwise it would have been you who had died."
Harry smiled grimly. "That's a nice tale to tell small children, isn't it? But I am afraid that's not the truth. Dumbledore wouldn't risk the life of a student like that, if he had any say in the matter. The truth is that Voldemort was trapped, lured into a sense of false security after Dumbledore's death, never sensing the spell the old man had laid to strip him of his defenses, leaving him vulnerable to the sleeping draught that Snape had slipped him the night before." Hermione stared at Harry. She had never seen him in a mood like this that was almost macabre. He spoke as if he hated himself. "And yes, your logic has lead you to the right conclusion. I killed Voldemort in his sleep. And no, you can't pretty it up by saying that wasn't the way I would have chosen for it to have ended. I was dead scared that I was going to die that night. To be given the chance to end it all without having to risk my life – I took it gladly."
"I . . . ." Hermione started to say, but trailed off. She hadn't expected such a grisly confession from him. It made her understand why he wanted to keep it from her. Yet at the same time, she didn't love him any less.
If it were possible, she loved him even more, for having to go through that, to carry that additional burden – and then being brave enough to try and share it with her.
"I still love you," she said when she finally found her voice. "It's not a thing to be proud of, what you just said. It makes more sense now, the way you never want to be thanked for it." She sighed. "And it's a bit sad, to think that you had to be his executioner like that. For make no mistake, he deserved to die. Not for what he had done, though plenty would have been happy to kill him for that, but rather for what he would have done." She smiled up at him hesitantly. "I would not be here today if you hadn't done that. And I'm so sorry that you had to do that for all of us. Truly I am."
"I don't want you to be sorry for me. I'm not. I—"
"Then perhaps you should be. I think it's all too easy for you to be too hard on yourself." Hermione tugged at his arm, trying to pull him in to bed with her. "Please," she said. "I want to hold you when we talk."
"You didn't want to a few minutes ago," he grumbled, but he complied with her wishes. Probably because he didn't want to upset his pregnant wife further, but that was all right. There were more important things to deal with now.
"I love you," she repeated herself. "Despite your past, maybe because of your past, I don't know. I love you. Both the boy that you had been, the man that you became. The parts of you that stayed the same and are unchanging, and the parts of you that have been shaped by what happened. And no matter what you said, you had no choice in the whole matter. Some would say it was fate, though I wouldn't be so quick to label it as such." Hermione snuggled closer to him. "I don't care what you've done, you're still the man that I love."
"I thought you said you hardly knew the boy that I was," he reminded her. "And I . . . that's not everything."
"I figured that out." Hermione sighed. It had been so difficult for him to admit that to her. It didn't frighten her much, not after she was able to reason her way out of it. But she had been unreasonable before. If he wasn't ready to face things, then she shouldn't force him. And if he didn't want to reveal to her all of his secrets, that was his prerogative. All she could ask of him was for his love and that would have to be enough. "I'm sorry," she said. "For getting so angry. I wasn't being fair, was I? Just because I want to share everything, just because I can share everything . . . that doesn't mean that you can do the same or that I should expect that from you. I should respect you more than that. I should trust you more than that."
"No . . . I . . . there's so many—" And then, it was he who started to cry, relieved that the fear that had ridden him all for too many years – that Hermione wouldn't love him if she knew the truth of how it had ended – was finally laid to rest. Hermione simply held him, vowing to love him better than she had before.
Ginny waited nervously in the foyer. Dinner last night had been a disaster, with Hermione clearly upset with her husband for some reason. It was all Ginny could do to not smack her brother on his head for being so gleeful through the entire ordeal. However, neither Hermione or Lord Potter had appeared for breakfast, leading Ginny to believe that they had resolved whatever issue had divided them the night before. The down side was that they still not present, and she had been pressed into service by one very insistent house elf. Miss Lovegood was due to arrive soon, and Ginny had to substitute for Hermione, though she hardly knew the house. Ginny supposed there was the chance that Miss Lovegood would not come, but that would be even more humiliating. She would have to search for another option, and frankly, Ginny thought Miss Lovegood was the best bet. It would take a very odd witch to actually want her brother Ron.
A faint pop sounded in the air, signaling the arrival of Miss Lovegood. She blinked owlishly as she appeared in the room – portkeys were always unsettling at best. Hermione had once said that her husband absolutely despised traveling that way for some reason. Thinking of what Hermione had said made Ginny frown. This was Hermione's house after all. She was the one who should be greeting Miss Lovegood and making her comfortable. But Ginny couldn't refuse when one of the House Elfs pleaded for her to take Hermione's place. The poor thing had been blushing so hard when she had asked Ginny that Ginny didn't have the heart to say no.
"Hello, Miss Lovegood," Ginny said, stepping forward to greet the other witch. "I trust your travel was pleasant enough."
"It was, Ginny," was the response she received. Ginny repressed a wince. Miss Lovegood had an unfortunate tendency to use her first name, thus making it seem as though they were closer than they actually were. It was no wonder that she was considered a little odd. Between her tendency to gravitate towards the use of given names and that strange paper her father wrote – that insisted there was news outside of politics, sports, and society columns – she was a most unusual witch indeed. This was only proven further by her next sentence. "Where's Ron?" she asked.
Ginny reflected that at least she and Mr. Lupin wouldn't have to push her at Ron. All they would need to do was point her in his general direction, and she would know what to do. "He isn't here," she said.
"I can see that," said Miss Lovegood. "And please do call me Luna. Miss Lovegood sounds all stuffy and formal. It sounds too distant for someone who will be my sister."
Ginny held back a sigh and instead thanked the other witch. It would be an advantage for Miss Lovegood to think that they were close. If she thought that way, maybe she would listen to some of Ginny's advice. For one, Ginny thought playing hard to get would work better on Ron than following him around like a lost puppy. Certainly, he had always seemed to be annoyed when Miss Lovegood made an appearance.
Apologizing for the fact that she didn't know where her brother was, Ginny offered to take Miss Lovegood on a short tour of the house, to which she readily agreed. After leaving Miss Lovegood's luggage in the capable hands of the House Elf, they started their tour. Ginny first showed her the library, looking around in vain for Mr. Lupin.
"Are you searching for someone?" asked Miss Lovegood.
"Huh? No, just checking to see if anyone else was in the room so I can introduce you to the other guests," said Ginny.
"There are other guests? How many?"
"Just one actually, besides me and my brother. You will meet him eventually, I suppose."
"Him?" Luna tilted her head and regarded Ginny. "Do I detect a special interest you have for him?"
Ginny turned bright red. "Hardly. He is much older than the both of us. Nearly twice my age as it is. But let us continue on."
"That hardly makes much of a difference—" Miss Lovegood started to say, but Ginny rushed out of the library and into the hallway, leaving her little choice but to follow. Ginny knew that was rude, but speaking about being attracted to Mr. Lupin was not a subject she wanted to discuss.
The tour continued on, though Ginny hardly knew any of the history of the place and Luna would comment on the strangest of objects. They gradually made their way to the front of the house, to the grand staircase that sat opposite the front door. It was on that staircase that they met Hermione at last.
"Ginny! Miss Lovegood!" Hermione paused to catch her breath. "I am exceedingly sorry that I did not meet you earlier, but I'm afraid I lost track of time. Please do accept my apologies."
Ginny glowered at her friend. It hadn't been comfortable for her to play the hostess while Hermione was off doing something else. Miss Lovegood, however, simply smiled. "I expect that being a wife comes with all sorts of duties," she said. "And that your first loyalty must be to your husband, and not to silly girls like me."
"I never said that you were a silly girl," Hermione replied sharply.
"No, you did not. But you always thought that or so it seemed to me," said Miss Lovegood. "And thank you very much for the invitation. I promise I shan't get in your way."
"Miss Lovegood, in all honesty, I do not think you could be a bother if you tried," said Hermione. "And Ginny, please stop glaring at me. I know it wasn't right for me to leave you to do my duty like I did, and for that, I am sorry. There isn't much else I can do except to promise that it won't happen again."
"It had better not," Ginny muttered under her breath. She sighed and was about to accept her friend's apology, when a House Elf—Ginny could never differentiate between them—appeared to announce the arrival of a guest.
"Mr. Draco Malfoy is here," the elf managed to squeak out before the front doors were thrown open. Both the Gryffindors had to refrain from cursing, while Miss Lovegood merely watched the scene. Draco Malfoy strolled through the doors, surveying his surroundings as though he ruled them all.
It was little wonder that Ginny always felt like decking him. And she knew how to hit, unlike Hermione. Her brothers had made sure of that.
"Lady Potter," Mr. Malfoy drawled, glancing her up and down dismissively. He nodded at Hermione, a slight if Ginny ever saw one before turning to face Ginny. "Miss Weasley." He smiled. "It has been so long since we two last met."
"Not long enough," said Ginny through gritted teeth.
"Yes, I do agree dinner would be more appropriate," the infuriating man went on to say. "Where we can sit and discuss old times together. But really, Miss Weasley, I could hardly just show up then. It wouldn't give Lady Potter any notice to set an extra place for dinner."
"And what makes you think that I will do so now?" Hermione snapped.
Even though she was standing on the stairs and therefore, was higher up than him, Malfoy still managed to look down his nose at Hermione. "Because it is only the polite thing to do," he chided her mildly. "Didn't your Muggle parents raise you right? Or did they teach you none of the manners proper to society?"
Hermione scowled fiercely and walked towards the annoying ferret. "Scum like you," she said, her voice intense with hatred, "do not deserve any courtesies to be shown to them." She stopped in front of Malfoy and pointed at the door. "Now get out. Before I make you."
Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her. "Need I point out, Lady Potter, that this is hardly polite?"
"Need I point out that I hardly care?" she shot back. "I will not have the likes of you around my estate or my children. I care not what society thinks of me for not putting up with a conceited, prejudiced little snot like you. So get out and stay out." Hermione smiled chillingly. "Not that you have much choice about either. I was always better at hexes than you—and you need not take my word when I say that Harry is excellent when it comes to setting wards to keep nuisances out."
Faced with Hermione's ultimatum, Malfoy had little choice but to leave. Ginny forgave her friend then and there for her earlier actions. Hermione getting rid of that ferret, that always seemed to be there to annoy her, more than made up for anything she could have done earlier.
Ginny only hoped that Malfoy would stay away. She didn't feel up to dealing with him or his advances once again.
After showing Miss Lovegood to her room so she could freshen up and making sure that Ginny wasn't still upset with her, Hermione proceeded to find her husband. She wouldn't put it past Malfoy to try and find a way in, so it would be best for all those concerned if Harry put up those wards right away. She found him in the Gold Room, along with Remus and Mr. Weasley. Remus was between the two other men and looked distinctly uncomfortable, but Hermione dismissed that. There were more important things to take care of.
"Harry, we have a problem," she announced as she entered the room.
"Another one?"
"Yes. Guess who just decided to drop by for a visit?"
"No one I would want to see is my guess," said Harry. "Just tell me, Hermione."
"Draco Malfoy."
Harry cursed fluently, only to be surpassed by the vitriol coming from Mr. Weasley. Normally, Hermione would frown at the use of such language, but at the moment, she was too busy frowning at the standards that stopped her from using it. For if there was anyone who ever deserved to be cursed, it was Malfoy. For he had delighted in tormenting Gryffindors while they all were at Hogwarts. Hermione especially hated him for all his remarks about her lack of a magical heritage.
"I have managed to take care of him in the mean time," said Hermione. "But I think he will be back, even though I warned him not to. So I need you to set wards to make sure that he cannot set foot on to the estate."
"Hermione," reproached Remus. "That is hardly polite."
"Malfoy is a right bastard who doesn't deserve polite treatment," scoffed Mr. Weasley.
"I do not care what is polite and what is not," said Hermione, looking Remus straight in the eye. "I remember how he treated me and all the other Muggle-borns at Hogwarts. And he still holds those attitudes, with the way he dismissed me and expected me to accede to his demands for an invitation. And I will not be having with such treatment. I will not accept him being here. I will not bow my head and not speak up against such prejudice simply because society would frown upon my doing so." She bit her lip before continuing. "And I will not settle for having to explain to James and Alex, while they are still so young, why some people hate their mama and their mama's parents."
"Nor should you have to," said Harry, walking forward to be by her side. "Don't look at me like that, Remus. I know you disapprove. But you didn't have to go through seven years of listening to that bastard and his diatribes about anyone who wasn't Pureblood." Harry took Hermione's hand in his. "If you two gentlemen will excuse us, my wife and I have a few wards to set." The two of them left. Oddly enough, this time around, it was Remus and not Mr. Weasley, who thought poorly of their departure.
Draco clenched his fists as he walked into his newly acquired house. That hadn't gone well at all. He had barely greeted Ginny when that little Granger bint had kicked him out. Trust a Muggle like Granger to not be able to control her emotions when she was beset by all the hormones witches experienced when pregnant. She was lucky that he didn't take her up on her word. Draco doubted she could have bested him in a duel, but he didn't think it would impress his bride-to-be if she saw him defeating an obviously pregnant witch. So the better course of action was to leave and to accept Granger's apology gracefully when she did give it.
"I did not expect you back so soon," said his mother as he entered the dining room. Narcissa only needed one look at his stormy complexion to know that he was upset about something. "How did it go?" she asked anyway.
"That Granger bint nearly tossed me out of the manor," he snarled.
Narcissa sadly shook her head. "That is Lady Potter to the likes of you. She has been married now for several years. You should remember that," she told him. "And I hardly think the countess would be so rude if you didn't give her reason to be."
"Me?" He looked innocently at his mother, but she wasn't fooled. "Fine. I might have slighted her in my greeting . . . and I might have invited myself over to dinner. But that was only because she wasn't offering! And she should have offered to invite a new neighbor like myself over."
"My son, if you were rude to her like that, you only gave her cause to be rude to you," Narcissa said. "If your purpose was to procure an invitation, you would have better served it by being polite. That rings especially true given how much reason the Gryffindors have to despise you."
"They can despise me all they like, Mother, but they can at least be polite about it," he protested.
"Listen to yourself! You are hardly making any sense. These are Gryffindors we are speaking of. If they were Slytherins . . . then yes, they would invite you and treat you politely, while hating your guts every second. Though I must admit, that is hardly satisfying." She sighed dramatically. "Being able to say what you really think must be enjoyable."
"Well, I really think that I—"
"Made a mess of things," his mother finished for him. "And do not try that glare on me, Draco. I am your mother, after all. To me, that is a pale imitation of the glare your father had." She looked down at her hands, saddened by that thought. "But enough! It will not do for you to hold on to his philosophy when it has so clearly lost. Make your peace with the Potters if you wish to court Miss Weasley."
"That is going to be a difficult task, given that the countess threatened to have wards to prevent my setting foot on their land."
Narcissa's jaw dropped. "What did you do? What did you do for her to make such a threat?"
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Draco caught the look his mother was giving him and knew it was no good. He couldn't fool her. "Fine. I insulted her parents and said that a pair of Muggles wouldn't know proper manners." His mother buried her face in her hands, and Draco felt affronted all over again. "And stop that! I admit it wasn't prudent of me to say that, but she was being rude as well."
"As a gentleman," said Narcissa, "you must take extra care to be polite to a lady. Even if that lady is being rude to you. And as someone seeking an invitation, you should not have insulted your potential hostess like that."
"I know, Mother. It is all a moot point anyway, as I doubt Lady Potter will have me over now." He sprawled into his favorite armchair. "I might as well start searching for another bride. Because the reception I would receive at the hands of the Weasleys would only be worse."
"A search that will undoubtedly land you back in Italy for several more years as you decide you like none of the girls currently leaving the schoolroom," Narcissa remarked. "You will not give up that easily, Draco. It would not befit you or your family for you to turn tail and run at the first difficultly. Besides, all is not lost. You have your mother here." She smiled. "And fortunately, I think I can wrangle an invitation where you failed to do so."
A/N : I'm just going back trying to fix the formatting on some of these chapters. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, especially the formatting being sketchy. I do have a yahoo group where all the files are as they should be if you'd rather read them there. Thanks once again for reading my fic.