Chapter 36 Bring Her Home

My love,

I guess you could say this is the big one. The letter, the confession; the deepest, darkest little pieces of my soul that have caused us both so much unnecessary pain. Things have been hard here, the land is dark and the people are scared and they have reason to be, we all have reason to be. We've seen it.

I know I should say that it's not fear that's driving me to write this. But it is, it's the very real fear that this time around I might not be one of the 'lucky ones'. It feels like there is a malevolent force that's walking behind me, whispering at me that I've run out of chances. If it's true, if my time is running out, I owe you an explanation.

So it is the fear, it's the fear that you might never understand why I did what I did, that if anything happens to me I'll never have the chance to tell you, to make you see. It's the fear that you could spend the rest of your life thinking that what we had was a mistake, that it was less than it was. It's the fear that you'll spend the rest of your life hating me. That scares me more than anyone, or any thing could.

On the morning of my 11th Birthday I woke up to a letter that changed every step of the path my life would take. The letter you got promised you that you would follow every ancestor through the hallways you'd been hearing about your whole life. The letter I got told me I was part of a word which had been nothing but fantasy and fiction to me and everyone I knew.

I have never felt so lonely or unsure. I read like my life depended on it, I devoured every fact I could find, I taught myself everything I could about magic, and nothing at all about being a witch. My parents loved me, but they didn't know me, no one knew me, I didn't know myself. In my mind I walked alone.

Out of the black and the tears came two little boys, heroes to me then, and heroes to me now. Our lives fused together as one and I defy anyone to have seen where one ended and the other began. I know there is something magical about our friendship, and I know you know what I'm talking about. These people saved my life in every way just as James and Remus saved yours.

For the years that we were together we fought and fled and laughed and played together. We lived lives you wouldn't believe unless you'd been there, seen it, understood. I didn't fall in love with Ron slowly, it was immediate and ridiculous and it took us almost seven years to admit it. For the next two years the world carried on turning, people fell, people I loved, and the world kept on turning because of Ron, and Harry. But it was Ron that held me at night; that kept me real, tethered down when sometimes I wished I could just float away.

My life began and ended with my two boys, we were three, we were always, but we weren't were we? One day we were two. One day Ron and I woke up and made love in the shower and promised forever, and he slipped a ring on my finger and told me I was everything. He made me feel like everything. That was the first night I went to sleep without him, the first night I went to sleep alone, like I've done every night for four years now.



Do you know how terrifying an empty house is? One that was filled with the sounds and smells and treasures of love for so long? I wanted to tear it down, I wanted to burn the bed we shared and scorch the garden that we grew together, but I couldn't. I held on because I could not make my hands let go and every day that I went back to that house I lived surrounded by ghosts and guilt.

Harry grew up and I'm so proud of the man he is, but for years it just reminded me of the man Ron never would be. Every day it killed me a little bit more inside.

I'm not claiming I would be whole and well adjusted if he was still here, after all the reminders of what happened are etched on my skin. Do you know the glamours don't work anymore? I wonder what that means, I fear I already know. But I felt, for so long, that I'd lost the person that made me.

And then into my life you waltzed, bright and brash and beautiful and you knocked me off my feet completely. Almost immediately I sought you out, I reached for your hands and I learned how right it felt to press my body against yours. And it terrified me.

I kept myself away from anything resembling love for so long Sirius. I didn't even think I did it on purpose, I just assumed I'd had my love, I'd lived my life. Poor Draco never stood a chance, and Remus knew who I was, and knew himself too well to imagine he could ever be in love with anyone but his wife. Nevertheless I know I was cold when sometimes he needed warmth, I know I was gone when sometimes he needed company and I knew what I was doing at the time. He was my friend before anything but I let myself believe that our sex life entitled me to create a distance between us, one we are crossing towards each other now, finally, you and I are so lucky to have such a dear friend.

It's a failing as old as time, the idea that you can't mourn for something you never had, that you can control your own emotions. I have a strong mind Sirius, I'm capable of arguing my way into, or out of, almost anything and I direct that skill at myself as much as anyone. I talked myself away from you, I squared my shoulders and walked away every time I caught that look in your eyes and I repeated with every step; it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, none of it matters.

I tried to protect myself. I honestly believed that losing someone else like that would finish me off, I'm not sure I don't still believe it.

You know all of this of course. You could have told me before I realised it. But what you don't know is that one day I woke up and it hit me, so hard, the value in life is in living. I want to live my life, I want to grow old with the people I love. If I can't grow old I want to know that I lived this one short life with everything I could. I can't protect myself from pain, well maybe that's not quite true. I can protect myself from the pain I've caused by turning you away.

I've tried to be so steadfast in my belief that I can win you back but I have to admit that sometimes I'm not sure I'll get through and the thought that I might have lost you forever takes my breath away. It's like a knife cutting through me.

I never told you that my nightmares started again after our fight, to tell you they'd started would probably have involved telling you that they'd stopped in the first place. I think you did that, I think it was how comfortable I felt with you, how safe, how close.



Do you know I have no desire to take drugs anymore? This pain I've felt from losing you, somehow it's made me feel more alive than I have in years and I don't want to turn it off. It reminds me who I was, what I wanted, how I fought for it.

And I'll fight for it again, I'll fight for you and I'll fight against anyone who threatens you or anyone else I love. I'll fight against anyone who tries to scare children in the dark or cast that shadow over our world again.

I'll fight because I'm living again.

I'm living because of you.

Because I love you.

So this is it, the ball is now officially in your court. I'll wait to hear from you. I've said some of these things to you before, some I haven't, but they all come together to form the story of my heart and the way it beats.

It's a fragile heart Sirius, and it's yours, please treat it kindly.

I love you

Hermione

The letter was on the floor and his bag was open on the bed, it was the easiest decision he'd ever made.

Harry met him at the foot of the stairs and raised an eyebrow at his bag and cloak.

"Going somewhere?"

Sirius squared up and stared Harry in the eye; he wouldn't be stopped this time.

"Malfoy and Bill are on their way, they'll be staying here now. I'm going Harry, I'm going and that's it."

Harry took a step back, opening a path to the door.

"Bring her home Sirius, please, bring them both home now."