Disclaimer: You know, if you think that the person who wrote the Harry Potter novels is the same guy who wrote this fanfic...then you have a very high view of this fanfic indeed. You also have an incorrect view of this fanfic. I wrote it. JRK wrote the books, and owns the stuff.
Chapter 7
-OR-
"Mrs. Hermione Potter"
The party continued for hours, but Ron only halfheartedly joined in. He found that he had very little to say to his friends and family, and their conversations about current events, work, politics, and Quidditch meant little to Ron. He forced himself to wear a smile for the next few hours, but he realized it was more for his family's sake than his own. By the time Ginny and Neville, the last guests, said their goodbyes, Ron was absolutely exhausted.
"You poor thing," said Hermione, in her strangely maternal tone, "you look beat. You couldn't even stand yesterday. You should take a shower and get to bed!" Ron offered no argument. As he moved towards the stairs, though, Harry grabbed him by the arm.
"Ron, I know this is tough for you. If you need to talk to me..." he said, with an oddly intense look in his eyes.
"Of course, Harry. Sure thing."
"No, Ron, what I mean is..." Harry paused and looked to see that Hermione had left the room. "I just want you to know that I'm still the same old Harry. Your best friend, you know?" He held eye contact with Ron, unblinking, until Ron finally shook himself free from Harry's grasp.
"Yeah. Thanks." He trudged back up to his room.
Back in his room, Ron barely slept. The event of the past two days weighed heavily on his mind--time travel, Hogwarts under attack, ancient arches, his friends and family all grown up--Ron felt like he was staring at the ceiling for hours. When he finally managed to fall asleep, it was a fitful, light doze, marred with nightmares.
He was back at Hogwarts, but the halls were in disarray: pictures destroyed, tapestries burning, and statues broken. Smoke made it hard for him to see further than a few feet, but he could see flashes of light coming from classrooms and down the hall. He heard an angry roar and the rumble of destruction and instinctively started to move down the corridor towards it. When he got to the end of the corridor, he was back in the Room of Requirement with the machine looming over him. In the shadows, he saw something move slightly; Ron drew his wand and started to move towards it. Before he could get there, another door opened and Harry walked in. It was the younger Harry, the Harry that Ron knew--lanky, with disheveled hair and serious look on his face. Voldemort, the figure in the shadows leapt out and hit Harry with a jet of light that knocked him over. Hermione (where did she come from?) helped Harry to his feet, and when he stood, Ron could see he was now the older, tired Harry of the future. Out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw another shape moving, and as he turned to see who it was, he found himself back in the smoky hallway. He couldn't see who it was through the smoke, but he started to follow anyway. At the end of the hall, Ron saw Ginny, fifteen years old, but wearing her Cannons uniform, mount a broom and take off. He grabbed another broom from the ground and took off after her. She wove through Gateway after Gateway, and each time he passed through one, the scenery changed: from Hogwarts to the Ministry of Magic's courtyard to the Burrow to the Forbidden Forest to the Quidditch field at Hogwarts. As Ginny hurtled towards the far end of the field, where the goalposts had been replaced with Gateways, someone hit her with a jet of red light. A now adult Ginny fell to the ground, and Ron turned his broom to see who attacked her. Malfoy. He laughed at Ron, taunting him. Ron accelerated the broom towards him and flung himself off the broom at Malfoy...
...And landed with at resounding thud on the bedroom floor. He jerked back into wakefulness. Slowly picking himself up, he noticed that he had cut his hand on the broken glass from the picture. The pale moonlight reflected off the broken glass on the floor, throwing a spotted pattern of light on Ron and the wall behind him. He could just make out the figures of the people in the pictures, all of whom were peacefully dozing--all, that is, except for Mad-eye, who was twitching nervously even in the picture. As he moved back to bed, his door cracked open. Ron had to squint against the relative brightness of the light. After a moment, he adjusted and recognized the form in the doorframe as Dobby's.
"Is the Wheezy alright, sir? What happened?" Dobby squeaked.
"It's nothing, Dobby. I just fell out of bed." Ron tried to hide his cut hand from the house-elf.
"You is not all right!" said Dobby, "is you wanting Dobby to get Harry Potter and..."
"No, Dobby, really, I'm fine. I promise," said Ron, wrapping his hand in one of his many pillowcases. "I just had a bad dream, I think. That's all."
"Is there nothing Dobby can do for you, sir?"
"No, Dobby, I'm fine. Don't bother Harry and Hermione." Ron met Dobby's gaze for several seconds, trying to convince the eager house-elf that he really was fine. Finally, Dobby nodded.
"Sleep well, then, sir. Dobby will see you in the morning."
Dobby shut the door behind him as he left, leaving Ron in the darkness of the room. The pillowcase stuck to Ron's hand, but it seemed like the bleeding had slowed. He opened the door as quietly as he could with his good hand, and snuck down the hall to the bathroom.
He ran the tap for a minute before putting his hand under it. The warm water stung a little bit, but the bleeding had stopped. As he was washing the blood off his hand, there was a light, tentative knock at the open door. Hermione poked her head in.
"Ron, are you okay? I heard this crash...Oh, look at your hand!" she blurted. She rushed over to examine Ron's palm. "Hold on a sec," she said as she reached for her wand. She touched it to his hand, and the wound promptly sealed up. "Ron, what happened?"
"It was nothing, really. I just fell, that's all."
"How did you cut yourself falling out of bed? You were asleep a moment ago..."
"How did you know I was asleep? What're you doing up? It's..." He looked for a clock, but found none. "It's late. Why aren't you asleep?"
Hermione paused before answering. "I just couldn't sleep, that's all. Lots of excitement, I guess." She shrugged. "C'mon, Ron, let's have a drink. It'll calm us down." She turned and headed for the kitchen. Ron wordlessly followed.
"What'll you have?" she asked, as she set a teapot of water on the burner. "I don't think you're a coffee drinker, but we've got tea--decaf, of course--or hot chocolate..."
"Chocolate would be fine, thanks," said Ron. He settled into a chair at the table and let his eyes adjust to the light.
Hermione sat next to him a moment later and handed him a steaming mug. He took a few sips, watching Hermione over the top of the mug as he did so. Her eyes were red...
"Hermione, are you okay?" he said.
She looked at him, giving him a strained smile. "I'm fine, Ron. Why..."
"That's the second time you've given me that answer, Hermione, but you don't seem 'fine,'" said Ron. "Your eyes are red. Have you been crying, or...?"
"I'm fine, Ron. OK? You don't have to worry about me!" Hermione seemed impatient this time.
"Hermione, tell me what's wrong!"
"Ron," she started. She held his gaze for a moment as her jaw moved up and down silently, then finished lamely, "I can't. You wouldn't..."
"DON'T say I wouldn't understand, Hermione!"
"Shhhhhh!" Hermione hissed. "Don't wake Harry." Ron glared at her. "Listen, I can't...it's..." She sighed heavily. "Ron, is this what you thought it would be?"
"What? Is what what I thought it would be?"
"This," she said, pointing around the room, "all of this. Life. Us. Me. Did everything turn out how you thought it would?" There was again impatience in Hermione's voice, but this time it was an eager impatience. She wanted to hear what Ron had to say.
"Well, I dunno. It's different."
"Different how?"
"I dunno. I mean, I guess I always saw myself in the future, right? So that's different." Hermione smiled as Ron continued. "And my dad, Minister of Magic--that's really weird. Not bad, but just not what I thought. And I guess Ginny and Neville surprised me...so I guess you could say that no, the future isn't what I thought it would be."
Hermione nodded, deep in thought. "What about me and Harry? Are we what you thought we'd be?"
"Well, I guess so. You are--teacher and all, I guess I can't picture you anywhere but Hogwarts," he said. "But Harry...Harry's different. I can't figure out what I think of him..." He looked at Hermione, who was still nodding slightly, eyes closed. She opened them and looked at Ron.
"That's the problem," she said, choking back a sob. Ron's stomach lurched. Did I say the wrong thing?
"Harry is different, Ron. Well, I guess I can't really say that he's different, because he's changed less in the past ten years than in the six before that...How well do you remember the day we found the first Gate?"
Ron wasn't expecting the question. "I remember it pretty well, Hermione. It was two days ago."
"Oh, right. Well, then, you probably remember it even better than I do. But Harry...he was different that day, wasn't he?" Ron recalled the maniacal gleam Harry's eyes as he tried to operate the archway.
"Yeah. He was crazy, when he recognized that archway...and then he was all sad and..."
"Yes, Ron, thank you!" Hermione's eyes lit up. "That's what I thought, too. It wasn't the normal Harry. But after that day--that became Harry's normal. He was always angry or sad or tired or just plain down. I've seen him really happy only a handful of times in the past ten years-- isn't that awful? But after you died--well, sort of died, anyway--he was obsessed. We thought he was obsessed with that damn Gateway when all he had lost was Sirius. When you went, too, it was unbelievable. And only I could really reach him, Ron. You and I were always the only ones, and with you gone..."
Ron really wasn't sure what to say. "Hermione, you don't think Harry's...off-kilter a bit, or anything, do you? Not dangerous?"
Her instantaneous laughter both relieved and annoyed Ron. "Of course not. He may be a bit less happy with his life, but he's still, at the core, the Harry we both knew."
"So what," asked Ron, "is the problem, exactly? Why are you so upset?"
"I'm tired," she said, "that's all."
"Tiredness? Why didn't you just say..."
Hermione interrupted him and continued as if he had not spoken. "I'm tired of taking care of Harry. Ever since you died or whatever, I'm all Harry's had. Think about it. No parents. No godfather. No best friend. About the only constant in his life was Voldemort, and that was just because the two were destined to kill each other. I wanted to help Harry, I really did. I cared for him. I loved him. But it's been ten years, Ron, ten years of having to be his mother, his sister, his friend, his lover, his teacher, his student, his listener, his comforter, his nurse." She paused only long enough to catch her breath. "He's the most famous wizard of our day--maybe ever. He's the 'Boy Who Lived.' But that's all he had, Ron. His fame, his reputation, and you know him well enough to know that he didn't care about any of that. He needed all the things a family and friends could give him. And suddenly, one day, I was the only part of that left. I tried to meet all his needs. And you can see how fine a job I've done of that."
Her shoulders sagged and she began to cry. Ron frantically searched for something to say, but he found nothing. He looked from Hermione, who was trying to hide her tears by pouring another mug of chocolate for Ron, to his own reflection in the window. I look so childish, he thought. Of course, I'm not sure I'd want to look like Harry now. He looked back to Hermione.
"So...what are you going to do?" he finally managed to ask. "I can't really see what you want to do..."
"Nothing," she said, rubbing her ring absentmindedly. "I'm going to do nothing. I love him, Ron. He's too much to handle, sometimes, but I love him anyway and I am going to keep trying to be everything he needs...but I can't help but feel like this isn't the way it's supposed to be. That's why I asked you. Your point of view would be different. Am I wrong, Ron? What should I do?"
Caught off-guard by her questions, Ron stammered, "I don't really know. I mean..." he thought for a moment. "I mean, I guess I can't really tell you what to do, because I can't imagine what it's like to be in your shoes. It's like McGonagall today. When she mentioned me going back to Hogwarts, I was mad or something, because even though it made sense, it didn't to me, you know?" He paused. "Did that make any sense at all?"
Hermione slowly smiled. "I really have missed you, you know that?" She forced eye contact. "Whenever Harry was hurt, or off on some adventure, or going crazy, I could always talk to you about it. I really missed that, you know?" Ron felt his ears burning again.
"Glad to help, then," he said. An awkward silence settled over the room. Hermione pointed towards Ron's bloody pillowcase.
"Ron, what happened to your hand?"
"I was having a dream..." he started, "and I was sleepwalking or something. See, in the dream..." His eyes widened. "Hermione, what happened to Draco Malfoy?"
Hermione hesitated before answering. "What's the last you've heard of him? I mean, how much do you know?"
"You told me he let Voldemort and his cronies into Hogwarts. That was all."
"Well," she said, a resigned look on her face, "during the attack, while Harry was locked away and the teachers were trying to protect the students, some of the members of the DA went on the offensive--it was stupid, but we were mad. That's when your sister and Neville became heroes. I, on the other hand, hunted Malfoy for the entire day." When she said his name, her face contorted into a mask of fury, a face Ron had never seen Hermione wear. She continued, "I never found him. He escaped. The Ministry wasn't able to account for all of Voldemort's Death Eaters and such, and they never found Draco. I don't think they thought much of him one way or the other.
"So we don't know if he's dead or alive?"
"No, we know he's alive. Or Harry and I do. So does Luna Lovegood, but she's not really in any position to tell..."
"That's the second time I've heard her mentioned. What happened to her?"
This time, there was no mistaking the hesitation on Hermione's face. She started to speak, though. "In the years following Voldemort's fall, Harry and I kind of went our separate ways. I mean, we saw each other lots- -we were both in country and all. But we didn't marry right away or anything. I mean, when we left Hogwarts, we were only 18, right? So while I went on to teach, Harry threw himself into Aeternus Gate research. Luna was helping him--she really believed that Harry's ideas held water. I didn't, then, but I didn't know how to tell Harry he was wasting his time. It was, after all, the only thing he could think about. So Harry worked on the mysteries of the archway, and Luna was his lab assistant, so to speak." She saw a question forming on Ron's lips and cut him off. "That's all they were. I know that for sure." Ron closed his mouth.
"That's the way things were for over three years," she continued, "I taught, and Harry and Luna traveled the world over looking for information on Gates, or Gates themselves. They were so excited when they found a gate that could work! Luna got her father to carry a story on it and everything. The two of them thought they had worked out a way to get the Gate to work, so they made the preparations."
"Preparations?"
"Opening a Gate--and getting it to work--is tricky business. There's a lot of long-term spellcasting involved. They got me to help--that's when I first really learned about the things. Unfortunately, on the day of the event, we had a problem."
Ron's eyebrows arched.
"Malfoy," she said. "Draco--I don't know where the hell he came from, or where he had been--ambushed us. Somehow, he had learned when Harry and Luna were planning to open the gate. He thought it would be a perfect opportunity to return to a time before his master died and try to save him."
"How did he find out? And how did he think he was going to be able to use the gate?"
"Luna was under the Imperius Curse," she said. "Malfoy had gotten word of her experiments, so we guess he ambushed her and put her under the Imperius Curse. The actual day of the opening, though, Malfoy showed up at the Gate and tried to use me as a hostage instead. He thought--correctly, as it turns out--that Harry would be more likely to cooperate with Malfoy if I was in danger, rather than Luna. When he, ah, attacked me, Luna was able to break free from the Imperius Curse. Unfortunately, doing so drove her insane. She ended up like the Longbottoms." Ron gulped. He knew that the Longbottoms, Neville's parents, were tortured with the Crucatius Curse to the point of insanity.
"So Luna's at St. Mungo's?"
"We visit her every Christmas," said Hermione. "As she broke free, Draco's attention was divided, so Harry attacked. He and Draco fought each other—that's when Harry got that second scar. Well, in the end, Harry won, but not before Malfoy almost killed me."
"You? Or Harry?"
"Me. When Malfoy saw that he was beat, he attacked me, knowing it would distract Harry. While Harry tended to me, Malfoy escaped--he apparently had a Portkey as an escape route."
"So Luna's insane, Malfoy's gone, and you're hurt?"
"I hate to be melodramatic, but I was worse than hurt. I was just about dead. Harry nursed me...that's when he hired Dobby, you know. It was so he could spend more time with me. I guess that's when we realized how much we meant to each other..." she looked down at her ring, which she had subconsciously been rubbing, and smiled a little. "I suppose that sounds silly."
Ron felt his ears burning and stared down at the floor and shrugged. "No, not really. I'm sure that was a tough time."
"Yeah..." Hermione's voice trailed off as she cleared the table. "Ron...thank you."
"Huh?"
"I can already tell that having you back will be a good thing. For both me and Harry, really. I just hope you get along okay--not that I'm worried." She leaned over and gave Ron a hug. "Sleep well, Ron."
Chapter 7
-OR-
"Mrs. Hermione Potter"
The party continued for hours, but Ron only halfheartedly joined in. He found that he had very little to say to his friends and family, and their conversations about current events, work, politics, and Quidditch meant little to Ron. He forced himself to wear a smile for the next few hours, but he realized it was more for his family's sake than his own. By the time Ginny and Neville, the last guests, said their goodbyes, Ron was absolutely exhausted.
"You poor thing," said Hermione, in her strangely maternal tone, "you look beat. You couldn't even stand yesterday. You should take a shower and get to bed!" Ron offered no argument. As he moved towards the stairs, though, Harry grabbed him by the arm.
"Ron, I know this is tough for you. If you need to talk to me..." he said, with an oddly intense look in his eyes.
"Of course, Harry. Sure thing."
"No, Ron, what I mean is..." Harry paused and looked to see that Hermione had left the room. "I just want you to know that I'm still the same old Harry. Your best friend, you know?" He held eye contact with Ron, unblinking, until Ron finally shook himself free from Harry's grasp.
"Yeah. Thanks." He trudged back up to his room.
Back in his room, Ron barely slept. The event of the past two days weighed heavily on his mind--time travel, Hogwarts under attack, ancient arches, his friends and family all grown up--Ron felt like he was staring at the ceiling for hours. When he finally managed to fall asleep, it was a fitful, light doze, marred with nightmares.
He was back at Hogwarts, but the halls were in disarray: pictures destroyed, tapestries burning, and statues broken. Smoke made it hard for him to see further than a few feet, but he could see flashes of light coming from classrooms and down the hall. He heard an angry roar and the rumble of destruction and instinctively started to move down the corridor towards it. When he got to the end of the corridor, he was back in the Room of Requirement with the machine looming over him. In the shadows, he saw something move slightly; Ron drew his wand and started to move towards it. Before he could get there, another door opened and Harry walked in. It was the younger Harry, the Harry that Ron knew--lanky, with disheveled hair and serious look on his face. Voldemort, the figure in the shadows leapt out and hit Harry with a jet of light that knocked him over. Hermione (where did she come from?) helped Harry to his feet, and when he stood, Ron could see he was now the older, tired Harry of the future. Out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw another shape moving, and as he turned to see who it was, he found himself back in the smoky hallway. He couldn't see who it was through the smoke, but he started to follow anyway. At the end of the hall, Ron saw Ginny, fifteen years old, but wearing her Cannons uniform, mount a broom and take off. He grabbed another broom from the ground and took off after her. She wove through Gateway after Gateway, and each time he passed through one, the scenery changed: from Hogwarts to the Ministry of Magic's courtyard to the Burrow to the Forbidden Forest to the Quidditch field at Hogwarts. As Ginny hurtled towards the far end of the field, where the goalposts had been replaced with Gateways, someone hit her with a jet of red light. A now adult Ginny fell to the ground, and Ron turned his broom to see who attacked her. Malfoy. He laughed at Ron, taunting him. Ron accelerated the broom towards him and flung himself off the broom at Malfoy...
...And landed with at resounding thud on the bedroom floor. He jerked back into wakefulness. Slowly picking himself up, he noticed that he had cut his hand on the broken glass from the picture. The pale moonlight reflected off the broken glass on the floor, throwing a spotted pattern of light on Ron and the wall behind him. He could just make out the figures of the people in the pictures, all of whom were peacefully dozing--all, that is, except for Mad-eye, who was twitching nervously even in the picture. As he moved back to bed, his door cracked open. Ron had to squint against the relative brightness of the light. After a moment, he adjusted and recognized the form in the doorframe as Dobby's.
"Is the Wheezy alright, sir? What happened?" Dobby squeaked.
"It's nothing, Dobby. I just fell out of bed." Ron tried to hide his cut hand from the house-elf.
"You is not all right!" said Dobby, "is you wanting Dobby to get Harry Potter and..."
"No, Dobby, really, I'm fine. I promise," said Ron, wrapping his hand in one of his many pillowcases. "I just had a bad dream, I think. That's all."
"Is there nothing Dobby can do for you, sir?"
"No, Dobby, I'm fine. Don't bother Harry and Hermione." Ron met Dobby's gaze for several seconds, trying to convince the eager house-elf that he really was fine. Finally, Dobby nodded.
"Sleep well, then, sir. Dobby will see you in the morning."
Dobby shut the door behind him as he left, leaving Ron in the darkness of the room. The pillowcase stuck to Ron's hand, but it seemed like the bleeding had slowed. He opened the door as quietly as he could with his good hand, and snuck down the hall to the bathroom.
He ran the tap for a minute before putting his hand under it. The warm water stung a little bit, but the bleeding had stopped. As he was washing the blood off his hand, there was a light, tentative knock at the open door. Hermione poked her head in.
"Ron, are you okay? I heard this crash...Oh, look at your hand!" she blurted. She rushed over to examine Ron's palm. "Hold on a sec," she said as she reached for her wand. She touched it to his hand, and the wound promptly sealed up. "Ron, what happened?"
"It was nothing, really. I just fell, that's all."
"How did you cut yourself falling out of bed? You were asleep a moment ago..."
"How did you know I was asleep? What're you doing up? It's..." He looked for a clock, but found none. "It's late. Why aren't you asleep?"
Hermione paused before answering. "I just couldn't sleep, that's all. Lots of excitement, I guess." She shrugged. "C'mon, Ron, let's have a drink. It'll calm us down." She turned and headed for the kitchen. Ron wordlessly followed.
"What'll you have?" she asked, as she set a teapot of water on the burner. "I don't think you're a coffee drinker, but we've got tea--decaf, of course--or hot chocolate..."
"Chocolate would be fine, thanks," said Ron. He settled into a chair at the table and let his eyes adjust to the light.
Hermione sat next to him a moment later and handed him a steaming mug. He took a few sips, watching Hermione over the top of the mug as he did so. Her eyes were red...
"Hermione, are you okay?" he said.
She looked at him, giving him a strained smile. "I'm fine, Ron. Why..."
"That's the second time you've given me that answer, Hermione, but you don't seem 'fine,'" said Ron. "Your eyes are red. Have you been crying, or...?"
"I'm fine, Ron. OK? You don't have to worry about me!" Hermione seemed impatient this time.
"Hermione, tell me what's wrong!"
"Ron," she started. She held his gaze for a moment as her jaw moved up and down silently, then finished lamely, "I can't. You wouldn't..."
"DON'T say I wouldn't understand, Hermione!"
"Shhhhhh!" Hermione hissed. "Don't wake Harry." Ron glared at her. "Listen, I can't...it's..." She sighed heavily. "Ron, is this what you thought it would be?"
"What? Is what what I thought it would be?"
"This," she said, pointing around the room, "all of this. Life. Us. Me. Did everything turn out how you thought it would?" There was again impatience in Hermione's voice, but this time it was an eager impatience. She wanted to hear what Ron had to say.
"Well, I dunno. It's different."
"Different how?"
"I dunno. I mean, I guess I always saw myself in the future, right? So that's different." Hermione smiled as Ron continued. "And my dad, Minister of Magic--that's really weird. Not bad, but just not what I thought. And I guess Ginny and Neville surprised me...so I guess you could say that no, the future isn't what I thought it would be."
Hermione nodded, deep in thought. "What about me and Harry? Are we what you thought we'd be?"
"Well, I guess so. You are--teacher and all, I guess I can't picture you anywhere but Hogwarts," he said. "But Harry...Harry's different. I can't figure out what I think of him..." He looked at Hermione, who was still nodding slightly, eyes closed. She opened them and looked at Ron.
"That's the problem," she said, choking back a sob. Ron's stomach lurched. Did I say the wrong thing?
"Harry is different, Ron. Well, I guess I can't really say that he's different, because he's changed less in the past ten years than in the six before that...How well do you remember the day we found the first Gate?"
Ron wasn't expecting the question. "I remember it pretty well, Hermione. It was two days ago."
"Oh, right. Well, then, you probably remember it even better than I do. But Harry...he was different that day, wasn't he?" Ron recalled the maniacal gleam Harry's eyes as he tried to operate the archway.
"Yeah. He was crazy, when he recognized that archway...and then he was all sad and..."
"Yes, Ron, thank you!" Hermione's eyes lit up. "That's what I thought, too. It wasn't the normal Harry. But after that day--that became Harry's normal. He was always angry or sad or tired or just plain down. I've seen him really happy only a handful of times in the past ten years-- isn't that awful? But after you died--well, sort of died, anyway--he was obsessed. We thought he was obsessed with that damn Gateway when all he had lost was Sirius. When you went, too, it was unbelievable. And only I could really reach him, Ron. You and I were always the only ones, and with you gone..."
Ron really wasn't sure what to say. "Hermione, you don't think Harry's...off-kilter a bit, or anything, do you? Not dangerous?"
Her instantaneous laughter both relieved and annoyed Ron. "Of course not. He may be a bit less happy with his life, but he's still, at the core, the Harry we both knew."
"So what," asked Ron, "is the problem, exactly? Why are you so upset?"
"I'm tired," she said, "that's all."
"Tiredness? Why didn't you just say..."
Hermione interrupted him and continued as if he had not spoken. "I'm tired of taking care of Harry. Ever since you died or whatever, I'm all Harry's had. Think about it. No parents. No godfather. No best friend. About the only constant in his life was Voldemort, and that was just because the two were destined to kill each other. I wanted to help Harry, I really did. I cared for him. I loved him. But it's been ten years, Ron, ten years of having to be his mother, his sister, his friend, his lover, his teacher, his student, his listener, his comforter, his nurse." She paused only long enough to catch her breath. "He's the most famous wizard of our day--maybe ever. He's the 'Boy Who Lived.' But that's all he had, Ron. His fame, his reputation, and you know him well enough to know that he didn't care about any of that. He needed all the things a family and friends could give him. And suddenly, one day, I was the only part of that left. I tried to meet all his needs. And you can see how fine a job I've done of that."
Her shoulders sagged and she began to cry. Ron frantically searched for something to say, but he found nothing. He looked from Hermione, who was trying to hide her tears by pouring another mug of chocolate for Ron, to his own reflection in the window. I look so childish, he thought. Of course, I'm not sure I'd want to look like Harry now. He looked back to Hermione.
"So...what are you going to do?" he finally managed to ask. "I can't really see what you want to do..."
"Nothing," she said, rubbing her ring absentmindedly. "I'm going to do nothing. I love him, Ron. He's too much to handle, sometimes, but I love him anyway and I am going to keep trying to be everything he needs...but I can't help but feel like this isn't the way it's supposed to be. That's why I asked you. Your point of view would be different. Am I wrong, Ron? What should I do?"
Caught off-guard by her questions, Ron stammered, "I don't really know. I mean..." he thought for a moment. "I mean, I guess I can't really tell you what to do, because I can't imagine what it's like to be in your shoes. It's like McGonagall today. When she mentioned me going back to Hogwarts, I was mad or something, because even though it made sense, it didn't to me, you know?" He paused. "Did that make any sense at all?"
Hermione slowly smiled. "I really have missed you, you know that?" She forced eye contact. "Whenever Harry was hurt, or off on some adventure, or going crazy, I could always talk to you about it. I really missed that, you know?" Ron felt his ears burning again.
"Glad to help, then," he said. An awkward silence settled over the room. Hermione pointed towards Ron's bloody pillowcase.
"Ron, what happened to your hand?"
"I was having a dream..." he started, "and I was sleepwalking or something. See, in the dream..." His eyes widened. "Hermione, what happened to Draco Malfoy?"
Hermione hesitated before answering. "What's the last you've heard of him? I mean, how much do you know?"
"You told me he let Voldemort and his cronies into Hogwarts. That was all."
"Well," she said, a resigned look on her face, "during the attack, while Harry was locked away and the teachers were trying to protect the students, some of the members of the DA went on the offensive--it was stupid, but we were mad. That's when your sister and Neville became heroes. I, on the other hand, hunted Malfoy for the entire day." When she said his name, her face contorted into a mask of fury, a face Ron had never seen Hermione wear. She continued, "I never found him. He escaped. The Ministry wasn't able to account for all of Voldemort's Death Eaters and such, and they never found Draco. I don't think they thought much of him one way or the other.
"So we don't know if he's dead or alive?"
"No, we know he's alive. Or Harry and I do. So does Luna Lovegood, but she's not really in any position to tell..."
"That's the second time I've heard her mentioned. What happened to her?"
This time, there was no mistaking the hesitation on Hermione's face. She started to speak, though. "In the years following Voldemort's fall, Harry and I kind of went our separate ways. I mean, we saw each other lots- -we were both in country and all. But we didn't marry right away or anything. I mean, when we left Hogwarts, we were only 18, right? So while I went on to teach, Harry threw himself into Aeternus Gate research. Luna was helping him--she really believed that Harry's ideas held water. I didn't, then, but I didn't know how to tell Harry he was wasting his time. It was, after all, the only thing he could think about. So Harry worked on the mysteries of the archway, and Luna was his lab assistant, so to speak." She saw a question forming on Ron's lips and cut him off. "That's all they were. I know that for sure." Ron closed his mouth.
"That's the way things were for over three years," she continued, "I taught, and Harry and Luna traveled the world over looking for information on Gates, or Gates themselves. They were so excited when they found a gate that could work! Luna got her father to carry a story on it and everything. The two of them thought they had worked out a way to get the Gate to work, so they made the preparations."
"Preparations?"
"Opening a Gate--and getting it to work--is tricky business. There's a lot of long-term spellcasting involved. They got me to help--that's when I first really learned about the things. Unfortunately, on the day of the event, we had a problem."
Ron's eyebrows arched.
"Malfoy," she said. "Draco--I don't know where the hell he came from, or where he had been--ambushed us. Somehow, he had learned when Harry and Luna were planning to open the gate. He thought it would be a perfect opportunity to return to a time before his master died and try to save him."
"How did he find out? And how did he think he was going to be able to use the gate?"
"Luna was under the Imperius Curse," she said. "Malfoy had gotten word of her experiments, so we guess he ambushed her and put her under the Imperius Curse. The actual day of the opening, though, Malfoy showed up at the Gate and tried to use me as a hostage instead. He thought--correctly, as it turns out--that Harry would be more likely to cooperate with Malfoy if I was in danger, rather than Luna. When he, ah, attacked me, Luna was able to break free from the Imperius Curse. Unfortunately, doing so drove her insane. She ended up like the Longbottoms." Ron gulped. He knew that the Longbottoms, Neville's parents, were tortured with the Crucatius Curse to the point of insanity.
"So Luna's at St. Mungo's?"
"We visit her every Christmas," said Hermione. "As she broke free, Draco's attention was divided, so Harry attacked. He and Draco fought each other—that's when Harry got that second scar. Well, in the end, Harry won, but not before Malfoy almost killed me."
"You? Or Harry?"
"Me. When Malfoy saw that he was beat, he attacked me, knowing it would distract Harry. While Harry tended to me, Malfoy escaped--he apparently had a Portkey as an escape route."
"So Luna's insane, Malfoy's gone, and you're hurt?"
"I hate to be melodramatic, but I was worse than hurt. I was just about dead. Harry nursed me...that's when he hired Dobby, you know. It was so he could spend more time with me. I guess that's when we realized how much we meant to each other..." she looked down at her ring, which she had subconsciously been rubbing, and smiled a little. "I suppose that sounds silly."
Ron felt his ears burning and stared down at the floor and shrugged. "No, not really. I'm sure that was a tough time."
"Yeah..." Hermione's voice trailed off as she cleared the table. "Ron...thank you."
"Huh?"
"I can already tell that having you back will be a good thing. For both me and Harry, really. I just hope you get along okay--not that I'm worried." She leaned over and gave Ron a hug. "Sleep well, Ron."