A/N: I'm so sorry it's been so long! I'll try my best to get the next one out faster!
Companion track:
The Joy Formidable, "This Ladder Is Ours" -
www . youtube watch?v=Y_t4s-HX3z0 [remove spaces]
Chapter Five - You Take Form With Ink and Blood, Part Nine
A light sleet pattered sloshily against the windows of the Hogwarts library. Hermione sat hunched over a haphazard stack of aging parchment, a small, single lantern illuminating her table from the left. She'd been trying to distract herself from that damn letter she'd received for hours now, but it was awfully hard to accomplish when her method of distraction happened to be research that was quite probably related completely to the exact subject she was adamantly trying to forget to begin with.
It was tiring, just going over it, and she sighed gently, tucking and retucking tendrils of hair behind her ears, failing to keep them back for more than a sparse few seconds at a time. The weather was doing a number on her curls, and she couldn't be bothered with all of the necessary steps to sleek them down.
She sniffed, and her eyes fell on the rolled up note tossed carelessly to a nearby chair, as if nearly out of sight was good enough. She could see, as if through x-ray vision, his achingly familiar handwriting, inside the loosely bound scroll, without having to open it.
Of course she couldn't reply to him, as much as she longed to reopen communication now. She knew it was wrong, possibly damaging to imagine...
She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and with an unsteady breath, returned her focus to her work. Memory charms. Dark magic. Potions used as drugs to induce memory loss or confusion-
The large, main oak doors into the library creaked open far across the expanse of books to her left and she flinched, eyes towards whoever was entering.
And even in silhouette, she knew it was him.
Sucking in a breath, she did the only thing that she could on impulse: she leapt silently from her chair and dodged away from his eyeline as he strode slowly forward, launching herself into the depths of the library shelves, holding her breath.
But there were two gentle sets of footsteps, and she closed her eyes in the muddy blackness of the back rows of dusty tomes, to listen.
His mind was a tornado.
As if he knew she would be there, familiar and used-to-be-comforting to see her sitting by lantern light over a pile of dusty volumes, curls falling into her face.
They pushed through the Hogwarts library doors, Harry first, Ron's throat constricting at the silent warmth of the room... gloomy, wintry mid-afternoon through the tall, paned windows ahead. And as they walked, he saw it - books and papers and Hermione's twisted, beautiful handwriting marring the pages. Even from metres back he could see.
"God, she's here," Ron half-muttered, Harry glancing over his shoulder briefly before approaching the table directly.
"Look," Harry said softly, and he reached for a scrap of parchment curled against the seat of a chair beside a small scattering of Hermione's neat notes. But this one stood out, in Ron's own scratchy penmanship.
"She did get it!" Ron nearly whispered, ripping their letter from Harry's grasp and studying it, as if it contained some clue as to why she hadn't replied.
Harry sighed gently and avoided looking at Ron as he cleared his throat, glancing around at the mess of books and notes that littered Hermione's table.
"Maybe it's really for the best," Harry said, at last, cringing. Ron could not reply, because he was still warring with his own desire... and his own logic.
What did it really matter now? Months had passed.
And that was when he heard it - a tiny whimper, like a suppressed cry, deep down a long row of ancient texts. His head turned at the sound, peering into darkness.
"Ron, don't," Harry whispered, loosely grasping at Ron's jumper sleeve. But he made only a half-effort as Ron ignored Harry's attempted words of warning, easily pulling free of Harry's grasp and heading down the aisle into the dull black of unlit shelves.
Harry sighed again behind Ron, feet glued in place as Ron put more and more nervous distance between his backup and his destination.
And as he turned right, clearing the end of a seemingly endless row of books, he could feel her presence, though he could not see her amidst the darkness, blinking rapidly. He swallowed and heard her take in a sharp breath, shuffling away from him, he was certain. But he spoke more solidly than he'd thought himself capable of, and she froze, all noise ceasing from her direction.
"Hermione?"
She sniffed and he planted his feet permanently to the floor.
"What do you want?" a calculated reserve in her tone, holding back any signs of her recent tears. He wasn't stupid. He knew her better than she remembered.
"It was selfish," he replied. "We needed your help. If you didn't want us to come, why didn't you answer our letter?"
There was a long, stretched pause, and Ron felt all at once covered and completely naked in the darkness, unable to see her, wondering if she could see him... if her eyes had already adjusted to this spot...
"Harry begged me," she said, softly. "He begged me to protect you from- Was I supposed to just forget what I'd promised? I wanted to write back. I really did. I couldn't stop thinking of it, since I received your letter. But how could I let you back into my life like that? Not because I didn't want- Oh, God. Where's Harry?" she pleaded, and he could feel her falling back from him a bit, tucking her honesty back as far as she could.
"It isn't like that," he tried, swallowing as hard as he could, in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the gigantic lump that had formed in his throat. "We-" but he had to stop himself.
What the hell was he doing?
"Hermione?" and Ron jumped half a foot into the air at Harry's voice, suddenly so close behind him. Harry held a lantern, which revealed Hermione's face in yellow-orange shadow. Her eyes were bloodshot, face flushed and blotchy, and she tried to hide a bit from the light, blinking to excuse herself, on the grounds of it being too much of a shock to stand in this brightness after so much time in the dark.
"I know what I said," Harry continued, without waiting for her to reply, "but this is different. We actually need your help with something that has nothing to do with the pair of you... But you can tell us to piss off and-"
"I'll help you," she cut in, voice tiny, yet oddly firm and audible.
And so it began. Just like that.
She brushed past Ron; though not close enough to touch, far too close for him to feel. Her mind set on a problem to solve, she escorted Harry, leading the way back out from the depths of the library, to her small table, full of books and notes and wisdom. They spoke, and Ron hardly seemed to notice.
He'd, perhaps, given up something in this. In knowing he was going to be around her, to see her here as they worked together - like leaving the past to rot. Acceptance wasn't nearly as easy now that it was done, now that her back was towards him, her nose buried in a book.
He slowly moved, sliding a chair from a nearby table, slouching into it, a bit too far away to properly belong to the other two. But it was time to forget hushed voices, blinking too quickly, holding his breath...
It was time to learn the truth, good or bad, and face what came next.
Hermione told them everything she knew - how she'd learned of experiments illegally performed centuries ago to try and unlock the key to memory tampering in a new, untraceable way. It was, of course, mostly theory, lists of Azkaban sentences... St. Mungo's patients.
From there, she dove into more unfamiliar territory...
"I've been studying something called 'repressed memory', in which an individual subconsciously buries a memory that is too difficult to confront, or too traumatizing, and later begins to feel the effects of it in their daily life, to the point that they may seek help in recalling what they once repressed," she said, looking away for a moment and tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. "I admit I was more inclined to believe that I'd subconsciously wiped away a terrible memory of what I'd d-done than I was to believe I could have ever obliviated myself, knowing what the consequences would have been for the two of you..."
Harry studied her for a moment, taking in what she'd explained. It was definitely a much more plausible scenario, that she hadn't nonsensically cast a memory charm on herself, knowing that she'd only be left to deal more thoroughly, and all over again, with the consequences... but that her mind had simply been unable to deal with her grief, later on. Though it honestly didn't fit with Ron's memory of her with Paul... the way she'd been towards Ron afterwards... the things she'd said... So callous and uncaring...
It didn't matter. Either option felt unlikely, and Harry wasn't so concerned right now with dragging them all back down that road. Thankfully, he could tell that Hermione was not keen to either. Though he had to ask, as he found himself too curious now not to...
"Have you gone to someone to try and call up your memories?" She wouldn't meet his eyes and he felt sure he knew the answer.
"A Muggle doctor, yes," she said, softly. "I was put under hypnosis about a week ago."
"Hyp-what?" Ron asked, voice raspy from lack of speaking over such an extended period of time. And it was almost as if he'd faded away from them, Harry even jumping slightly at the unexpected sound of Ron's voice...
"It's a harmless procedure, really," she tried to brush off. "It's just a way to put you at ease. You relax as the doctor speaks to you, and he tries to take you back through your mind, in a way, to see if your memory goes in order, following a path that makes sense, or deviating off of what should be linear..." She nearly sighed, adjusted her back against her chair and averted eye contact with anyone. "But that's not what we're here for," she continued, clearing her throat. "I only mentioned it because I thought the theory might be worth adding to your own research, just to be completely thorough, you know."
And they were thorough. Exhausted, even, by the time it was late enough to call it a night.
"You're staying here?" Harry asked as they all stood from their littered table, stacking books and stretching.
"Yes," she shrugged. "I imagined I'd get more work done, and without my parents at home yet..."
"Still no word?" Ron asked, a hint of thinly veiled concern rising to the surface.
"No," she swallowed, and she said no more on the subject, neither Harry nor Ron speaking up to push her.
They walked silently upstairs to their dormitories, Hermione pausing between the boys' and girls' sides to look back at them.
"Goodnight," she said simply.
But she'd turned and climbed up the stairs away from them before either of them had had the chance to respond.
Thursday, December 31st, 1998...
He'd had no new dreams, and distance from it had led him down a path of wondering if it was possible he'd somehow altered his own mind, the Muggle way Hermione had described, in some sort of self-destructive attempt to force himself to believe there could be a rational reason, an excuse, to see her again. It was bizarre, and nonsensical, but it was the only theory he'd managed to add to the short list of equally mysterious options they'd come up with so far.
But after another day of research, and a full stomach from dinner, Ron wanted nothing more than to retreat to the common room and settle into a settee with a gentle fire and a hot cup of chocolate.
And so, he did, followed closely by the other two, who had taken his lazy night request as their own excuse to do the same. He almost smiled because he knew they were more than happy to let him be the one to take the fall for a night of unproductive lounging.
He claimed his spot directly in front of the fire, watching Hermione out of the corner of his eye as she tucked her wool sock covered feet under herself as she made herself comfortable in the armchair to his left. Harry collapsed beside Ron, almost suspicious enough in his placement between Ron's eyes and Hermione's curling toes to be intentional.
Ron tossed him a nearly irritated look that Harry didn't catch, or chose not to... before Ron returned his attention to his hot chocolate.
The soft crackling of the fire and the way the weave of the rug felt beneath his bare feet made Ron oddly nostalgic, almost drunk in the glow and sounds and tastes...
Hermione reading a book in her favourite chair, half blocked by Harry as he cracked his knuckles and stretched his legs...
Time ticked past in comfortable silence, lulling him nearly to sleep.
"You've won a lot of chess in this room, Ron," Harry chuckled, a long while later, obviously feeling the same melancholy of being here, being alone... together.
And Ron found himself, despite what he should do, catching Hermione's smiling glance directly at him, swallowing past the lump in his throat as she licked her lips and returned to her reading.
"Hermione's read a lot of books in this room," Ron said, without thinking.
"Reckon you know about how many?" Harry asked her, tilting his head to the side as she rolled her eyes.
"A fair few more than the two of you," she half-grinned, still staring down at the open page before her.
"Oh!" Ron cut in, abruptly, shaking his watch. "It's nearly midnight."
"Goodbye, 1998," Harry yawned. And as he stretched and stood, Ron had to wonder... would he break his promise? Would he leave them alone here, together?
Did Ron want him to?
Yes. Of course he did. And that was what ultimately moved Ron's legs to bend, body to stand tall, chocolate finished and forgotten... to follow in Harry's footsteps as he turned away for the dormitory stairs.
But he could not resist one last glance, her eyelashes dancing patterns across her cheeks from his position high above her, her fringe glowing in firelight.
"Happy new year, Hermione."
Let's sit and talk and slow things down
Just be our old selves again finally
Let's take this walk
Let's take a walk to somewhere pretty
Jump through from the past
This is where everybody turns out right in the end
Can you play that part?