A/N: So originally, I was going to have Hermione use Theo to get to Ron; basically a giant love triangle mess that has been done a lot. But instead I ended up writing something completely different from what I had planned (which happens a lot and doesn't even surprise me at this point). Frankly, I'm glad that this happened, since I didn't particularly like the old idea, but at the same time, I now have to work around this new one.

This chapter and another far in the future, were ALSO originally one chapter, but I changed it to two since the point of each part was a bit different. And I like the symmetry of the chapter titles I came up with. So there's that.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Title: The Past Does Not Define Us

Rating: T

Pairing: Theodore Nott/Hermione Granger

Summary: "I'm sorry." Those two words shot like an arrow through his soul and Theodore found that there was nothing he could do to stop himself from falling.

Warning(s): Mentions of child abuse and suicidal thoughts.

Chapter 14: The Girl

Don't pick at your food, she's watching.

Theodore's eyes shifted to the bushy haired girl in front of him, silently eating her chocolate cake. She had frowned when one of the house elves, Tinky, practically tripped over himself to bring it to her, but from what Theodore could tell, she was enjoying it (he preferred vanilla, but today was for her, not for him).

Her eyes were still red, but she seemed better than she had been when he found her. A steaming cup of hot chocolate sat beside her plate, already half finished, and the cake was slowly disappearing.

However, there was tenseness in her shoulders; Theodore could see it in the way she hunched over, in the way she struggled to put each bite of the dessert in her mouth, in the way that the silence enveloped them totally and utterly, despite the hustle and bustle and noise that surrounded them from the house elves at work, preparing for the evening meal.

It made his toes curl, the silence, like ants climbing up his back – his father staring at him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, not saying a word – it brought back memories that Theodore squashed quickly today was for her, for her, he could forget about his father long enough to make her happy again.

He should probably say something.

He needed to say something.

"… Do you like the ca-?"

"I'm sorry!"

Granger's head had snapped up, cutting him off leaving the two staring at each other, mouths hanging open. Her face turned red.

"Were you about to say something?" She backpedalled. "Of course you were about to say something, I just cut you off! I'm so sorry!"

"I-It's alright," he replied shrugging it was nothing, if she had something to say, than she had every right to speak, more so then him. Granger's eyes flashed, but she settled down; Theodore noticed that her hair followed her example (he would never say how cute he found it to be to her face though).

For a moment, the silence engulfed them once again.

"I am sorry, you know," she said quietly.

"It's not your fault," Theodore replied, slowly. What was she apologizing for? He couldn't think of anything that would warrant an apology. Except, perhaps, the war. But the war was not her fault. The treatment he faced afterwards was not her fault. She wasn't at fault for anything that had gone wrong with him, and he wanted to let her know that but he didn't know how.

She shook her head, moving the now empty plate off to the side next to the finished cup of hot chocolate.

"I'm sorry for how I have been treating you."

Theodore's brow furrowed in confusion.

"It wasn't right!" Her brown eyes narrowed and she gripped the wooden table between them with both of her hands.

She wasn't looking at him.

"At first I thought that I was just being friendly, that I-I just wanted to help, but then somehow along the way I kept finding ways to spend time with you, to always be around you, and I didn't realize that I was just… just… making up excuses for myself! That I'm here, by myself, and that I was just making up for the fact that Ron and Harry aren't here, that I'm lonely and selfish and… and…"

She gulped.

"And that you didn't deserve me treating you like… like, a means to an end, a way to stave off my own loneliness! You didn't deserve that! I enjoy our talks, I love spending time with you, but I didn't realize that I just liked having someone who didn't look at me like a hero! Like… like some goddess in human flesh!"

Her eyes snapped to his then, brown meeting blue, and he blinked upon seeing the intensity in them – he couldn't look away, even if he wanted to which he didn't.

"Then you left me. You left and I was left alone and I couldn't be without you; I stalked and followed and tried to get you to talk to me, but you wouldn't and I realized that you had figured me out! You had to have figured me out, why else would you leave me alone? I was lonely and I wanted someone to talk to, and you were there and I took you for granted without even realizing it until you left and I knew. I knew that you had me figured out before I knew it myself."

Granger breathed heavily, her forehead meeting the table. The plate and cup rattled from the impact.

"I'm sorry for just realizing it now," she murmured. Despite the movements of the elves, Theodore could hear her almost as if she were right next to him. "I'm sorry for being an idiot. I know that you're just pitying me – why else would you have given me that handkerchief? Why else would you have put up with my crying?

"You can go. I won't stop you."

Theodore wasn't sure what to do. She was breathing quietly to herself, muffled sobs coming out in shaking gasps. He could only sit stock still and stare as the sounds of the elves around them tapered off into a distant drone.

Was that what she thought?

That he pitied her?

Such a statement could never be more false.

But there she sat, a girl forced into adulthood early due to war and hardship, struggling with insecurity and doubting the fruits that had come about from her labour. A normal person, who had the same doubts and fears as he, driven by the same loneliness that drives him, the same irrational fear for acceptance.

Hermione Granger, just like Theodore Nott, was affected by the war's outcome – while he had to deal with the scorn from the masses, she had to deal with the overwhelming praise and publicity following her everywhere she went, never leaving her alone, but at the same time, isolating her.

How had he not seen that before?