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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Hermione held out her hand, stretching it past the awning of the porch just far enough to catch some of the misty rain in her palm as it fell.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked from behind her. He'd been silent since he'd followed her out, hovering just behind her.

"Memorizing it," she murmured, rubbing the wetness between her fingertips. "The feel of it. How tranquil it is right now, with just the sound of the rain falling," she said, forcing herself to stifle the part of her that wanted to add and the sound of you to her thought.

She'd known, after all, that the day they'd been bonded was the day the count down had begun, their borrowed time rapidly flowing toward a close with each moment that passed. She'd once thought it a punishment that she'd been married to him at all. She now knew that the true punishment was the fact that she'd wasted that time hating him and not knowing him, when every inch of him was now more precious to her than her own life. It felt almost perverse, now, how the moments of happiness she'd stolen during this time had felt like a sacrifice in the face of all they fought for, only to become the biggest sacrifice of them all.

He stepped closer until he could wrap his arms around her from behind. He was warm, warmer than she'd thought he could be where they stod outside, exposed to the cool spring breeze. Yet despite the breeze, all she felt was him through his thin jumper, his heat leaking through her own. "I know when you're lying," he said. "I can feel it, even when you don't want me to."

It was one thing she hadn't accounted for — their bond growing stronger over time. Their affection slowly tearing down the walls they'd erected between themselves, love blossoming in the form of an explosion that tore the walls down nearly completely. It almost hurt, now, to shut him out.

"Can you feel it?" she whispered. "Harry wasn't wrong." It was intangible yet ever present, the knowledge that the war was rapidly drawing close to its climax, the end they'd predicated their beginning upon.

She felt the slow release of his breath as warm air fanned over her neck. "Do you want to run?" His fingers tightened fractionally around her.

"Yes," she breathed, the words only barely audible to him because his ear was next to her mouth. The wind carried it away a second later, and she forced her eyes closed, pretending she hadn't spoken the word at all.

"I know," he said. "As well as I know that you'd never actually do it."

It was what hurt the most. First she'd imagined a perfect world, them sneaking off to capture the few souls left on this earth that they cherished more than each other, stealing away somewhere far beyond the war's — far beyond the world's — reach.

She twisted in his arms suddenly, curling her fingers in the fabric of his jumper. "I used to think that I was ready — but now all I can think of is you." Her hands slid upward until she could cup his cheeks, searching his eyes as thoroughly as he searched hers.

He pressed his lips to hers, lips soft and probing as he kissed her gently. She sighed into the kiss, her head swarming with her desperation to relish in the moment alongside the pain of realizing that each moment felt like a countdown—

They were interrupted by the screen door opening across the porch from them. Kingsley stepped out, scanning the way they were tangled together for a moment before he moved toward them. Hermione pulled away from Draco, but he kept his fingers curled tightly around hers even as the space widened between them.

"I'm tired," Hermione said. It wasn't what she had meant to say, but even as she processed her words, the vicious rebuke she'd been prepared to say retreated from her lips and dissipated.

Kingsley paused a few steps away from them, and she was surprised to see a small smile ghost across his features. "As am I," he said. His voice was an octave deeper and gentler than it usually was, exhaustion commingled with something she couldn't place lacing it.

"I have many words for you," Draco said slowly, "but I'll give you one chance to leave now and reserve them for a later date."

"Your mother asked for you," Kingsley said, his voice still gentle. "She returned to her safe house to await you there."

Hermione squeezed his fingers as she caught the way his eyes flashed at Kingsley. "Go to her. I'll be alright."

Draco moved only to search her eyes, and it was a drawn out second before he gave her a tense nod and retreated. Hermione watched him until he disappeared into the tree line, looking over his shoulder several times as he went. Even after she could no longer see Draco, the silence between her and Kingsley stretched.

Kingsley let out a slow sigh as he turned to lean against the weathered railing, looking out toward the trees beyond them. "I never intended to become your enemy."

"We don't see your intentions, only your actions," she answered stiffly.

"I know."

His words were spoken in a tone so profoundly laced with resignation that Hermione paused and analyzed him. It had been months since the first time she'd seen it, but she now once again spied the puckered scar that twisted down his neck and into his shirt, evidence of a deep wound that hadn't been properly healed. She could almost see the intangible weight of his duties hanging over him, forcing down the tensed sag of his shoulders as he tried to hold himself upright.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" she murmured. "Carrying the burden on the war on your shoulders."

Kingsley let out an empty sound that was almost reminiscent of a laugh. "I'm not sure I understand pain anymore. Only duty."

Hermione found herself echoing the same noise he had, an edge of derision tinging it. "Is that what you call what you've done to us?"

"It wasn't a utilitarian decision, although I suppose that would be the natural conclusion of the burdens I've put upon you throughout this war."

"You don't even look at me," she said, watching the way Kingsley tensed at her words.

"Hermione —"

"Don't call me that!" she seethed. "Not now. Not after you've pretended I didn't have a name at all for this long. Was it Dumbledore that told you about the loophole that would allow you to force us into becoming your assassins? Or was it you and Moody who decided upon it one day, bent over your maps and strategizing while using us like nothing more than pawns to shift over your map?"

Kingsley's eyes were still firmly upon the tree line. "Does it matter?" he said lowly.

"Have you ever thought of me as a human being? Even for a moment?" she snapped, thinking back to the time when she had known Kingsley only for his kindly smile and peaceful demeanor despite the demands of his position as an Auror.

It was then that he finally looked at her, pain radiating through his features as he searched her eyes for a long moment before speaking. "I always did."

"Lies." Her hands had long since curled into trembling fists that she forced to stay planted against her sides. "Is that one of the many things you try to tell yourself so that you can sleep better at night?"

Kingsley straightened, giving her a sad smile. "I know it means little in the light of all that has transpired," he said softly, "but I am sorry."

"I think I'll hate you forever," Hermione started slowly. "I think I'll hate you forever not because of what you did to me — because I knew that in choosing not to run that I would be sacrificing many parts of myself. But what you did to him —" Her eyes burned as they met Kingsley's, ablaze with all the vitriol she'd held within herself over the months. "What you did to him is something I will never forget. You promised to protect him and instead you did this to us. And for that — no matter how noble your intentions of protecting the greater good are — for that, there will never not be a part of me that wants you rot in hell."

X

She'd stormed back into the house, anger propelling her forward until she'd stopped short in the sitting room, hit with the sudden reminder of how foreign being among the Order once again had become. It was only moments into her debating whether to return to Andromeda's alone before she heard the telltale noise of footsteps coming down the hall.

Panic clawed at her chest as she recalled the derision she'd seen in Hannah's eyes, the blank stare in Parvati's, the cautious acceptance at best from all the others who had attended the meeting—

She found herself rising, legs carrying her quickly toward the opposite entrance to the room as she feld. She banged into something the second she stepped through the threshold, the clattering sound of metal hitting tile as a haphazardly thrown together pile of pots and pans scattered along the ground created a sudden cacophony of noise. She stopped short as she looked around at what she now realized was the large, dimly lit kitchen, panic short-circuiting her brain as she realized that she should never have come back into the safe house at all.

Fred, George, and Bill Weasley were crouched over a series of maps spread out on the long wooden table, all three blinking up at her in the aftermath of the noise. The stifling silence suspended in the air for several long beats, and then —

"You never fail to make an entrance," George quipped, his mouth lifting slightly at one corner despite the exhaustion she saw reflected in his eyes.

There was a scrape of wood on tile as Bill pulled out a seat and gestured toward her with a small smile. "Come," he said, the stark whiteness of the scars that marred his features stretching as he smiled at her, "sit."

Hermione's brain processed the words slowly, her knees locked into position even as she tried to comply. She stayed awkwardly in the doorway instead, barely registering the sound of the pots and pans clattering together as someone spelled them back into place.

"Hullo," Fred said, his voice soft, devoid of the boisterous energy she'd grown used to over the years. She might have placed his tone as almost concerning, but the intangible barriers she'd erected had her forcing herself not to think too deeply about what remaining friendliness may or may not have been lingering there beneath their stilted greetings.

"So," Bill said, clasping his hands before awkwardly letting them fall to his side, "how have you been?"

She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Almost. Instead she remained frozen, eyes sliding to the floor, tracing the smudges of dirt that had accrued over time. Their niceties were lost in the chasm that distance and awkwardness had formed between them. They'd once been family, and now —

"Hermione— about the shop—" George started before faltering.

At that, Hermione's eyes shot up, her voice finding itself in one fell swoop — "We broke in, I'm sor—"

Her sorry was swallowed as Fred uttered the same word. Hermione blinked up at him in confusion, seeing the guilt that shone in his eyes.

"We're sorry," George repeated, his voice hoarse. "The wards — they were designed not to hurt you, but the powder had to be kept under stronger curses. It's been stolen for worse uses before and…" He cut off, his eyes flashing with guilt as he looked at her.

"Not to hurt...me?" Her words were slow, clinging to her tongue like thick molasses as she tried to process what he'd said. It almost pained her, how ironic it was that she'd brought the very person they'd likely been trying to keep out back inside. But — but he'd also said — "I don't understand," she said, her voice barely an octave above a whisper.

"Hermione," Fred said, standing and starting to cross the room slowly, tentatively, watching her carefully as though she would scurry away at any moment. Perhaps he wasn't wrong to do so. "You're family. Why wouldn't we be sorry?"

"Family?" She started trembling, her heart doing something that was the opposite of shattering that was equally painful nonetheless. "Sorry for—?"

"The curses wouldn't have hurt you," Bill repeated. "I inspected them myself. The wards would have recognized you, so they shouldn't have set anything off. But when you brought someone else, and then touched the powder— it set some off. Not the nasty ones, but—"

Blood pounded in Hermione's ears as she processed their words, her head twisting in slow increments as she looked around the room. "I don't— I don't understand," she said softly, their words slowly connecting in her head. They'd designed the wards not to hurt family.

Not to hurt her.

"Oh," she breathed.

There was a sharp intake of breath, but she couldn't differentiate which of the twins it had come from through her blurring vision. "Oh, Hermione—"

"—you didn't think—"

"We never stopped thinking of you as anything but—"

She couldn't cry. She truly couldn't— something in her had dried out long ago, leaving her able to only let out dry, choked sobs reminiscent of what she'd shared with Seamus earlier. She was silent now, her teeth nearly cutting into her trembling lips as she pressed them shut.

But as the three Weasleys wrapped her in their arms, drowning her in whispered words of love and reassurance— she knew she would have, if she could.

Another quieter chapter, but things will be ramping up again very soon. I apologize for delivering this a day late - I had to do a last minute overhaul for a pacing hangup. Next week's chapter is still scheduled for Tuesday evening. xo

Thank you so, so much to every reviewer - I cherish every one of you so very much.