So here's the fluffy ending everyone's been nagging me about for two years. Finally! I got around to writing it. And then I turned it into a multi-chapter monster. Just two deliveries… I hope. That's what they say about people of my country: "si llegan, se pasan".
In my defense: this fic's natural ending was the angsty one, and one needs space to maneuver when one's to turn around the story at the very last moment.
I still stand by the previous ending. And its sequel. Which has a happy ending too, if delayed. But you know, this one has its merits. And it was fun to write.
Though it got too long, and now I must divide it. You get the first part today, second part on the weekend. All scenes are sketched but they can be improved with your help, between now and then.
First in my heart
London was crying loudly and drenching them in the process. Nothing could be spotted beyond a couple of steps. Nearly all you could hear, was the mud squelching underfoot. Percy sneezed and applied an impervious charm over himself, then called for Harry to stop, but he was too far away. Ron ran right by his side. They could almost see the other portkeyers to Australia, and in their mind's eye, a second would mean life or death to her.
They should have known.
He must.
Harry must have listened to his gut.
Hermione always wrote. Even from the other side of the Earth, she would have kept writing. Even while focusing on finding her parents, she would have. Erratic as her mail was, its stopping was a sign. It had been.
But to people, the boy-who-barely-lived was overreacting. Molly had said it was natural, after looking after each other for so many months. Someone had hinted at PTSD. Ginny had wondered, and Harry could see it in her eyes: the question. They were just starting to dance around each other, and it was too frail to endure such a suspicion. So he had dismissed his worry. It was an echo of the war. Everyone said so.
Except it wasn't.
Harry had known it the instant they had been called. That something was wrong. It didn't surprise him to learn that she was in a hospital, unconscious. Had been for weeks. They wouldn't know more regarding the witch's health until reaching her physician. They learned instead that she had been found with no ID, that only after weeks and only by sheer luck had she been recognized, and that their hearing of it had been further delayed by matters of confidentiality and legality and diplomacy. However, there might be health decisions to be taken, and she had no family to take those, except for them. So once it was decided that they were to be informed, everything had been taken care of: the both of them were to take the next portkey -Percy was escorting them to it, in representation of the Ministry, as if they needed a nanny- and someone in Australia was already waiting to take them to the hospital.
"Harry Potter" the portkey officer stated, his voice monotone as he left the umbrella levitating over him to cross his name from the parchment, "and Mr. Weasley" he added looking at the red in this one's hair. Beyond the instant recognition, nothing in him hinted at the fact that he was today escorting someone important. Some of the other travelers looked dumbfounded, but not enough to demand an autograph under a climate such as this.
Percy finally arrived, gasping. Hands to his knees, he had no energy left to stare accusingly at Harry.
"We are complete" the officer said impersonally. "Portkey will activate shortly"
Back then, Harry had barely heard the obviously prepared speech, designed to appease. While Ron yelled, in worry and angst and sheer indignation, he had remained silent, his own mind filling with images of the girl: the warrior, the student, the friend. The wizard's mind projected her wand raised, hair flowing with the sudden movement, lips forging a spell; he felt the familiar twinge of pride and admiration. Then he saw the witch on a hospital bed, as she had been when he had first realized she wasn't immortal: when she was petrified.
He had rarely felt an anguish such as the one he experienced now. Worry and pain and guilt, coming as an enemy army after a truce longer than most, but too short anyway. They were ten times stronger, now.
Was she even alive?
The bluish light of the portkey heralded the change of climate. The last drop of rain felt cold on his skin, and then he felt the hook, then, the sun. It was all the same to him.
Why hadn't he gone with her? Hermione was his friend, she had been with him through hell, and the least he could do was help her find her parents, the parents she had sent away to help him first. He must have traveled with her. He would have, had she given him a choice. She had disappeared instead, while England swallowed its hero whole. And he had let her.
He had let her.
(Guilt was easier to manage, than the images of her, immobile).
Would his being here have made a difference? Probably not. He was rather useless, in comparison to her. That was of no consequence. He must have come.
What if she died?
Harry couldn't breathe at the mere thought. He had to hope. Had to.
Yet, his shoes grew winds as he ran to the guy that held a piece of parchment with his name.
What if he arrived too late?
Both wizards ignored the shocked look of their guide as they dripped on the sign. The sun would dry them anyway, though when they arrived to the hospital, someone still pointed out that they weren't allowed to leak on hospital corridors. Wind blew, aroused by their sudden movement. Healers frowned at them while holding fast the pieces of parchment they were writing on and their passing disturbed. At times, one of them went ahead of the guide. Harry was the first one to arrive to the witch's doorstep, though what alerted him to her presence, he wouldn't know. Then a mediwizard opened the door while leaving the room and he could see her.
She was too pale.
Too thin.
Harry had forgotten how beautiful she was.
"Are you..." the professional checked the folder in his hands "Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley I assume?" His gaze went to the guide that panted beside him, who nodded, apparently having no breath left for extra explanations. "I'm mediwizard Henry Soulwaker. Please do follow..."
The green-eyed wizard walked beside him, but the professional stepped in his way, with vague protests of what was regular and proper. Hermione was like a light to a moth, but Soulwaker was firm. He derived the travelers to an office nearby. Harry's eyes rarely left her door.
"What's happened to her?"
"Will she be all right?"
"How long...?"
"Why...?"
The mediwizard raised his hand and kept it up until the questions stopped by simple frustration: he would answer none until silence was granted.
"You must know that I was against calling you. There was a time... But now it's past. Miss. Granger has stabilized, and she has given signs of waking up soon. Your presence is now nearly useless, except to provide moral support, and I wonder if she wouldn't much prefer anonymity and confidentiality, given the circumstances. The hospital policy should have supported my claim regarding this, and I care not about your name and heroics beyond the seas, as they do. So you are being given the barest of facts."
"She'll wake"
"She has given signs" the elder repeated. "No one here applies divination to actual healing, Mr. Weasley"
Read extended from Ron's hair to his ears and cheeks and neck, but he asked again:
"What happened to her?"
"The patient was admitted with a concussion. No traces of harming magic were found. Her sugar levels were very low, we suspect she just fainted, it's not unheard of for women in her condition. That she hit her head might have been simply bad luck. We'll know more when she wakes up."
"Condition?"
The professional blinked at Ron, and deafening silence followed.
"I'm not free to share more information. When she wakes up..."
"We can see her, right?"
It was the first time Harry has spoken alone. Soulwaker turned to him and examined him closely, lips fusing in a pale line that reminded him of her.
"I must allow it" the professional answered; the tone implied that he would do otherwise If he had any choice on the matter.
So before another word was spoken, Harry was back on the other side of the corridor.
The boy-who-lived could look at his friend through the glass window at the door while waiting for the medic. He could see a part of her face, and the lines drawn there squeezed his stomach. But she'd wake up. The doctor had said as much. They -he- had another chance. The girl was thin, but they'd -he'd- make her eat better; she was pale, but they could go to the beach, together, Australia had nice sunny beaches, right? He knew little about taking care of someone else, but he would, this time. Now standing by her chest, as close to her head as the night table would allow, Harry scrutinized her: pale face resting on hair that wasn't nearly as bushy as it should be, chest disappearing under a plain white sheet that covered the rest of her body, except for the arm that rested on it, where a needle fed her fluids. He hated the needle. Couldn't stand the signs of her mortality.
"Harry" Ron whispered in a guarded tone.
The green-eyed wizard turned to his friend absently. It took even longer for him to focus, despite the alarming scarlet light in the redhead's eyes. Déjà-vu. He followed the redhead's gaze to Hermione's hand and then to her middle, where it rested. Far higher than any of them would have expected. Ron was standing right beside it, and Harry could see his closed fists tremble. There was an obvious conclusion, but Harry couldn't believe it until Ron spoke.
"She's… pregnant?!"
And then his eyes were the ones that narrowed as he turned again to the other man, who looked straight back to him. It's not mine, both of their gazes said, in mutual, poisoned accusation. Oh, how I wish it was. It was also an answer, and a defense. They knew each other too well to not read the truth in each other.
"She's too far along" Ron spelled, dry-mouthed. "It must have been during the war"
Harry's feverish mind wandered to any third possibility, and his eyes narrowed to her abdomen.
"I want that thing dead"
"What...? Harry!"
But he was not there. He was back in Malfoy Manor, as she screamed above them. "Delicious girl" a Snatcher had said. Had Greyback been granted a bite sooner than expected? Had they mistaken the kind of bite he wanted? How long had they been down there? Long enough? He searched his mind for clues, moments without Bellatrix's screams, disarray in someone's clothes, anything.
"You cannot mean for the baby to be killed..."
"It's NOT a baby!" Harry screamed. "It's some death eater's...!"
He breathed in, as Ron's wide eyes and gaping mouth showed he had begun following his reasoning.
"If it's not yours" Harry explained, for good measure, "then she must have been..."
The word wouldn't make it past his throat.
How dearly had Hermione paid for his mission?
Soulwaker just watched them from the other side of the bed, both hands crossed in front of the patient's clinical history.
"She was locked with both of us in a tent, Ron. Except when we were all taken. There's no other way"
He still considered Shell Cottage, but at the end he shook his head. It was too recent. Besides... The boy remembered their dance, and what he recalled was: her lips, calling to him as a siren's, as they stood face to face, and how he hadn't dared, and how the enchantress had turned around at the end. With no other explanation at hand, he assumed it had been out of love for Ron. If that was true, she wouldn't have gone to another the moment she had set foot in Shell Cottage. And though he didn't know much of these things, she seemed to be too far along for it to have been later on.
He looked to the girl's face. She seemed so young, yet so mature, much more than when he had last seen her. It made her even more beautiful, as a bud that was opening wonderfully. He wanted time to go back. He was willing to relive that year of the war, if he could only keep her safe through it. That it was not possible was a gaping wound on his side.
"Even if the hospital allows you to decide over the pregnancy" the mediwizard explained, "the fetus is viable. We could have it removed alive"
"Dead, I said. Burned. No remaining link to what happened. When can you get it done?"
"Reckon she'll wake up soon enough" Ron insisted.
"How little you care about her" he snapped, "that you'd preserve that for even one more night?"
Ron looked as if he had aged centuries in the last seconds, but he answered:
"Harry, aren't you trying to fix your mistakes by killing her child?"
"It's not a child!"
"It's what it is regardless of the father, and it's from her blood. She must have known, and she..."
"... kept it alive because she's too damn kind for her own good!"
"When were you taken?" the mediwizard interrupted.
"March"
Then he shook his head.
"That wasn't it"
Harry let himself fall to the chair at her bedside, hands to his eyes. He was shaking and felt as boneless as if Lockhart had used his spell on his whole body.
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I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Oh, Hermione...
Alone in her hospital room, sitting on the chair he hadn't left in the entire afternoon, his friend talked to her. Mostly in his mind. Even with his hands covering his eyes. Because he was ashamed, and the witch knew all of this, anyway, so what would be the purpose of him speaking out loud? However, as Ron grabbed something to eat at the cafeteria, he allowed the words to flow from his mouth as well, though he still couldn't look at her quiet form for too long.
I let you come alone, I didn't follow...
And before that, I didn't see...
And before that... I let it happen, right? You should have been far away, safe...
But no, I was helpless without you. I won't taint your sacrifice by saying it was pointless. If you had not stayed, we wouldn't have won. You were the true hero here. I just played the part. I should have been able to play it alone.
And you paid...
You are still paying...
The man eyed her paleness, avoiding purposely the sight of her belly, and knowing fully well that she'd hate that at least as much as being contemplated as a belly with legs. So I'm pregnant, so what? The witch would say.
I bet you took this far better than we did.
Hell, you carried this secret... You literally carried it, inside of you, kicking and weakening you, and you stood it, and you still fought that war... And then they say I'm the hero!
The man-who-lived-thanks-to-her snorted.
And who am I to demand why you didn't tell me? We were only your useless best friends, who can't even stand the sight... If we were so clueless to the existence of this elephant, so oblivious to the change in you, then we weren't worth the clue.
But oh, how I wish you had told me.
The wizard reached for the woman's hand, now so frail, despite the strength she possessed, then let it go as if scared. Or unworthy. Or both. Then he sighed. In response, he saw her chest rise and fall, cut against the moonlight coming through the window; a sigh of her own.
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She heard his voice.
It was almost a reflex for her, to answer to that voice.
It was warmth in winter.
Hermione thought she could smell summer.
She felt he was sad, and wanted to run her fingers through his hair…
… and hold his head against her chest…
She cracked her eyes, seeing through her eyelashes.
He wasn't looking at her, but at the window. Moonlight reflected in his iris. From this angle, darkness and the eerie light annulled the presence of his glasses. She saw him as he was.
As he had been, before.
She ached for his smile…
… for the warmth of his body on hers…
… of his lips on hers…
She no longer remembered, but sometimes… sometimes… she almost could… As a ghost trying to sample food.
She wanted to laugh with him...
… wanted his hand where it had been, on her belly…
… near their daughter...
She ached for him…
… but she was so tired…
… so tired…
She let his voice lull her into oblivion.
It was safe now, to let go.
It was safe with him.
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"Miss. Granger's awake" the mediwizard whispered, making them both jump from their seats though they weren't given another shred of information until he finished taking notes. Harry didn't wait, running along the corridors only to find Hermione surrounded by healers that wouldn't let him come into the room. He went back to the waiting room, where they had been since hospital politics had demanded them to leave for the night.
"She's disoriented and slightly scared" the mediwizard was saying "and frankly, I have reasons to believe she didn't want you to learn about her condition" namely the fact she hadn't told them herself, "so I won't be letting you into the room before preparing her, it would upset her even more. However, you must be ready to come should she want you there."
From that point on, the waiting was endless. The boys didn't know what to do with all the nervous energy. They walked up and down the corridor until they were commanded to stay still under threat of being escorted out. Then they were forced to stay there, still and silent, which was sheer torture. Ron said he was doing to the cafeteria. Harry hadn't eaten a bean in Australia, and couldn't swallow anything much thicker than water.
It was five fourteen in the afternoon when the mediwizard and his guarded look told him she was ready to see one of them.
"She asked for Mr. Weasley" he informed.
Harry dropped on his chair. He wondered why he had been hoping to be called first.
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Hermione had plans.
They were not of her own making. Circumstances had crafted most of them.
But each time she had agreed, the next step had already been set into motion.
Harry's obliviation had been, of course, the turning point.
After that, there was only her own to take care of.
But there had been this pregnancy.
Their daughter.
And she had had to postpone it.
Australia had been the obvious next step. She had to go find her parents anyway. What a better way to hide consequences.
This way, nothing had to change in any of their lives.
She would go back to her life.
To Hogwarts.
And he was free.
She had been smart…
… strong…
… realistic…
She couldn't direct her entire life based on fleeting feelings from a week that never should have happened…
… a week none of them could really remember. Little more than a dream.
She had focused on finding her parents.
It had taken time.
But she had found them.
They were happy.
… together…
They had a clinic.
Their life was full.
Except for a daughter they didn't know existed, but missed anyway. (Obliviate wasn't perfect.)
The witch was postponing the bringing back of their memories, until delivery. As planned.
Each other day, she'd disillusion herself and apparate in their back garden, as her mother took care of the roses or read quietly. Or in the living room. She had once apparated in their dining room, and sat in an empty chair. It had felt like old days. She almost had spoken aloud, forgetting she was not visible. It was too risky. They would be together soon enough.
Meanwhile, it was lonely.
She was doing everything right, as usual.
But she was sad.
Nostalgic.
Sometimes she sat in the room she had rented, a silver-blue flask in her hand, and wondered about the kisses she could no longer remember. She knew she had been happy. Intensely so. She knew, because she wouldn't have taken away the misery. His warmth was in the very absence of coldness. She would think of him, and her spirit would delicately touch the scars where those memories should be. She had opened the flask once, but hadn't dared. The future of the both of them was in her hand, as surely as their past was. She couldn't choose to love him again. Wouldn't be that selfish.
But she was terribly curious, as to the things she should remember.
She thought of their daughter, occasionally. Maybe she should be selfish for her. So she'd know her parents. But it was unlikely that it would improve her life. To be raised by teenagers. Harry was barely eighteen. The result depended heavily upon his reaction to knowing he had a daughter. It was safer for her too, to be raised by others.
Hermione had her plans.
Plans had been broken.
People knew.
She had to stitch some sort of explanation, before questions got wild and answers got too close to the truth.
Now, what was she supposed to say to her best friends?
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"Ron" she whispered guardedly.
The boy, whose back was still turned to her as he closed the door, took a breath before facing her, his best fake smile on his lips. She was waiting for him, sitting, pillows supporting her back.
"You scared the hippogriffs out of us"
The witch looked seriously at him until he dropped the act.
"I must warn you that all bickering is forbidden. So here we are, deprived of our favorite hobby"
Her eyes rolled, but there was a slight smile on the corner of her lips.
Then the girl stared at her mattress, grasping its edge slowly and nervously as she lost the smile. Her belly was the proverbial elephant in the room, but a quite literal one. Ron didn't know what to say that wouldn't make her feel bad or start a fight.
"I know you might have had... plans... for us..." she whispered. "I am not apologizing. I have done nothing wrong. Yet I want you to know that I never intended to lie to you, or to hurt you"
His ears reddened slowly.
"It's not fair" he answered at last. "I can't scream to you while you are... like this... You are taking advantage."
"I could not let months pass with that unsaid. So imagine we bickered for three days, and jump to the conclusion"
He sighed, then. His gaze went to the woman's belly, as if magnetically attracted to it, for so long that she uttered:
"Honestly, Ron… My eyes are up here…"
"Sorry" he muttered. "It's just… so… disconcerting"
The redhead didn't manage to look up for any long period of time, so the witch rolled her eyes and grasped her wand to cast a glamour over herself.
"Should you be doing that?"
"It's just an illusion, Ron…"
"Right"
The boy shifted in his chair, eyed her belly –now displaying its former capacity- and then her shoulder. He didn't dare look into her eyes as he muttered:
"I bet I dug my own grave when I left you with him in that forest."
There was some alarm in her eyes, but he didn't see it.
"I truly liked you, you know" Ron confessed. "Like. Present. I just don't know what to do of a baby. I wouldn't even if it was mine. It's probably irrelevant if there's someone else"
"It has always been way too soon to speak of future with you... Or anyone else... The girl was to be put up for adoption"
"Wow" he exclaimed. Then, after a while: "a girl?"
"I know you were to ask something else"
"Stressing you is still forbidden. And its being a girl does make it easier to swallow, somehow. Centuries of conditioning, I suppose."
"I'd rather not have an undercurrent of conversation running under the one I'm having aloud. That stresses me more. I know you were to ask if I ever were to tell you. The answer is no, I was to leave all of this behind, long before starting anything with you"
"So kissing me was not starting anything"
"I didn't know about her at the time. And during the battle it was... Inertia, I suppose... That one was out of place, given the... unresolved issues... I recognize it might have lead you on, considering..."
He breathed deeply.
"How's him?" the witch asked then.
There was a telling redness on his ears.
"Driving himself nuts with the possible father. We both excluded, he thinks that you were... attacked... because of him."
"Oh, God..." the girl exclaimed, forgetting the wizarding equivalent as she covered her face with her hands.
"Were you?"
She shook her head without uncovering her face.
"Thought so. You might want to tell him soon"
There was a long pause. They could hear the steps beyond the closed door. A woman came with dinner, took a look, delivered a tray and left with no words. They both ignored her. When the door closed, they were still silent for some minutes.
"How has he been... before?"
The wizard looked straight at her for seconds before answering.
"The last couple of months, we all have been... Dealing... Nightmares and stuff, but in comparison with what I have heard -even from my sister- war wasn't that bad to us: we weren't tortured -except for the cold-, forced to crucio others, we didn't see many butcheries beyond that of the last battle. Harry... sometimes overreacts but again, we thought he was overreacting to the lack of news from you, and as it turned out, you were in a coma. So I'd say he's on the careful side of normalcy."
The girl remained silent. Waiting.
"He's rebuilding his life. Hasn't started dating, yet, but there are hints, and it's everyone's assumption... Well, as with us" he pointed at the two of them.
"Ron..."
He suddenly stood.
"I'm sorry. I'm... Apparently I can't hold my tongue. I should take a break and send him..."
"No!"
Silence. Ron's brow furrowed.
"I need more time... Before..."
"What's...?"
"She must be tired" the mediwizard stated as he came into the room, his gaze scolding Ron severely. "Had I known you were to exhaust her like this, I wouldn't have allowed..."
"Ron" she called after him just before he disappeared behind the door.
He stopped, and after two seconds, managed to look back, to her.
"We keep being friends, right?"
He remembered she was not to be distressed. The mediwizard's look was a reminder, even if he himself didn't. And he knew enough to know that three days from now, his answer would be:
"Yeah. Don't think that'll ever change"
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"You can't go in now" Ron said while holding an arm across Harry's chest.
This one's gaze followed the arm and then went up to Ron's blue eyes. Confused. Belligerent.
"She's… not allowed more than a visitor each time" the redhead explained before taking both hands to his pockets. "Sorry, mate"
"How's she?"
"Charmed. No one would know she has been sleeping for weeks. She was actually picking up a fight…"
"You didn't…"
"No"
Harry scrutinized him before looking down the corridor, to her room. He must know something was off, but was it? Ron didn't get her reasons for not wanting Harry to go in. Well, maybe she didn't want any of them to go in to begin with, but thought he needed an explanation or… something? Yet again, she had been clear that she was not apologizing. He grunted, frustrated.
"Did she tell…?"
"No rape" Ron answered.
Whatever relief he was to feel, was tempered by the use of the word, that made him cringe.
"You sure?"
"She said so" Ron shrugged. "She didn't really seem to be lying"
That added some weight to the doctor's words, but Harry was yet to speak with her. How much could they make him wait?
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The patient pretended to be asleep.
The mediwizard pretended to believe she had fallen asleep.
And then he left, and there was silence.
Silence, and her brain.
What was she to do now?
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Harry watched the owl fly away as Ron began reading for him as well. Everyone was worried. They sent good wishes. And chocolate. They must floo to tell them how Hermione was. Molly asked them to eat and rest, despite the circumstances; nothing good could come from getting sick as Hermione recovered. Ginny sent her love. They all knew to whom particularly.
Harry, hands in his pockets, let his head fall back against the wall, as he marveled at how far away everything seemed. They were not just in Australia. They were on the other side of Hermione's life. (Far, far away from everyone's expectations for her, for him, for all of them; some of which would obviously never be fulfilled).
And Ginny's "love" meant nothing.
The wizard wondered if he'd ever recover that thrill, if this lack of feeling was momentary, if it extended beyond Ginny, if it was simply caused by too much shock in too short a period of time. What was the role of Hermione in it.
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"It's visiting hours" Harry pointed out, barely refraining from pushing the doctor aside.
"Not all patients are allowed visitors every day"
"Is she worse?"
The naked despair in his voice gave the mediwizard pause, then he answered:
"No, but she needs to rest. And, if you'd excuse my boldness, you both need a bath, and proper meals"
Their guide had reserved a room for both of them. A room they hadn't even seen. Harry went first, an hour later he was back. There was no way he was gonna miss any news regarding Hermione.
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You can't keep him like this. Hermione turned the piece of paper. No signature. No explanation.
Not that she needed one.
The handwriting was Ron's.
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Hermione had a plan. As perfect a plan as one should expect.
And then, she had lost consciousness.
And they had been summoned.
And now…
Now they knew she had a daughter.
Harry knew.
Inertia had helped her keep the secret, back in Hogwarts, as they walked side-by-side, alone. But she had another chance, and this time, inertia was pulling on the opposite direction.
He knew, and it would be so very easy to tell him the rest.
Before, the brunette had wanted to preserve things as they were between the three of them; but the moment they had learned of her pregnancy, things had changed. As surely as they wouldn't get pregnant, ever, but they both had the ability to leave her so.
It would always be there.
The question.
Too big a secret for their friendship to remain untouched.
The girl had wanted to protect Harry, too. The future he had been building before that week, a future he had chosen, a future he had a right to. Her plan had worked perfectly so far. Ginny was healing. They were coming back together, or so she had grasped from Ron's words.
But there was this nagging feeling, that she didn't have a right to choose for him. To hide from him the very existence of his daughter, was letting him decide under false pretenses. A future supported on a lie. Right, he had asked to forget; but he didn't have another choice at the time, things had been so different. Had he really hoped they both would survive, had he foreseen a moment in which being with Ron wasn't safer for her, or joyfully anticipated by all Weasleys starting with his mate (a moment like this one), would he have chosen the same? Would he have burned all bridges?
He wouldn't have.
In fact, he had not. The wizard had forgotten, but knowing she'd keep her memories. He had trusted her decision.
'He has a right to know'.
But how to know if he'd want or nor this information, without even recovering her memories?
Or even with them?
She grabbed the flask she now kept attached to her neck.
Dared she face him and tell him nothing?
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There was a blue light. Healers ran in the opposite direction. Quite a spectacle. Harry saw mediwizard Soulwaker leave the room in a hurry, dropping a muggle pen into a pocket of his robe as he left Hermione's clinical history carelessly lying on a desk.
And he was alone.
To his left, a folder with everything he had never been allowed to know about her health.
To his right, her room.
What would anyone do, in his case?
He opened the file.
Lines and lines of notes he couldn't understand; in a handwriting he couldn't really read. At least he didn't read 'critical' anywhere. Or 'cancer'. Or anything he would have recognized as really bad.
There was a date, though. October the eight. He assumed it was the expected delivery date. But he couldn't remember anything particular happening nine months before.
Leaving the folder as he had found it, he went for the door. Looked through the glass, first. Hermione was reading. That was the first time he smiled in what felt like centuries and was probably more than half a week.
Then he entered.
Hermione looked up from her book, surprised, and suddenly there were his eyes. No time for trepidation, she had nothing prepared yet there was only calm as grasped her wand to weaken the lights. He was, at the time, closing the curtains and casting a muffliato, what left her free to cast a glamour over herself. Just in time, for he had come to hug her every bit as tightly as she used to months ago. Summer came with him. Warmth. That smell of spearmint she loved. And before she knew it, she was crying on his shoulder, and he had sat to hold her even tighter, not minding the belly he couldn't see but could surely feel, nor the kicks of its temporary guest.
She had forgotten… this.
"Hermione…"
It's Harry, she thought, and chuckled between tears.
"Don't mind me" she said. "Hormones"
Why had she feared this so?
(She didn't realize her very lack of fear might be the answer. The dropping of all defenses. How was she supposed to be rational, while having felt his arms around her?)
A siren was heard somewhere, red lights projected on the wall, then there was silence and the occasional talk outside. He had turned his head, she wondered if he knew he was breathing on her neck. There she was, eyes opened, still sobbing once in a while, all the time wondering if it meant anything.
"You scared the hippogriffs out of us"
"You're spending way too much time with Ron"
"Four days and counting"
This was easy. Just them being them, being each other's friend.
The girl finally dared withdraw from his embrace, though she wanted nothing more than to stay there. He was still way too close. His eyes were bigger than the moon, and a part of her was distracted, looking for an excuse to take those glasses from him.
So he'd be her Harry again.
(Which was ridiculous and infantile. She knew it. Yet she couldn't find enough resolve to send him to sit on the chair.)
She chuckled nervously and pinched his arms:
"You've grown muscles"
"Well, you've grown breasts" he replied before thinking, then blushed, and she chuckled, blushing in turn.
Surprisingly, it detonated nothing. (Except a slightly drunk thrill not significant enough to have a downside).
"We missed you" he said; she felt his breath on her chin, too close indeed. "I missed you. I didn't know how much until I knew…"
"It has been lonely without you" she dared interrupt.
"We should have come with you"
Her mouth was dry. She moistened her lips, and he automatically looked…
… better not to think of it…
His hand had found hers. The one with the needle. He looked at it, for too long.
"When you stopped writing, I knew something must be wrong"
Then he looked up, straight to her eyes. What she saw there made her toes curl, though she had no name for it.
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(Have you ever tried to write a fanfic while having a child on your back playing with your mouth? Trying to throttle you? Hell I'm amazing)
Today, and only until Saturday, you have a unique opportunity to improve this fic: to review before I finish the next chapter. That way you can participate in the creation of something you like (I assume you must like it since you are still reading it), for which you get credit, and you also might get a review or two if I like your fics (I assume we must like the same if you're reading my things, I just write what I like to read).
What do you think should or will happen? How and why she'll tell Harry? Will she, tell Harry? Will he recover his memories by himself? Or just fall for her all over again? Questions, questions…
So, be amazing (like me) and review!