Chapter Four

Ordinary

"Whose eyes am I behind?

I don't recognize anything I see

Whose skin is this design?

I don't want this to be the way you see me

"I don't understand anything anymore

In this world that I'm tired of

Is taking me right up these walls to get to your story

It's anything but ordinary

"And when the world is on it's knees with me it's fine

And when I come to the rescue I get nothing but left behind

Everybody seems to be getting what they need

Where's mine?

'Cause you're everything I need so very

But I'm anything but ordinary

"Can you save me from this world of mine

Before I get arrested with expectation?

You are the one

Look what you've done

What have you done

This is not some kind of joke

You're just a kid

You weren't ready for what you did...

"I think I've been trying to save the world for you

You've been saving me too

We could just stay in and save each other"

"Ordinary"—by Train

I am hiding behind the morning edition of The Daily Prophet. My eyes are black... My eyes are black. Yeah... 'The-Boy-Who-Survived-Seven-Times-Without-A-Scratch' has two black eyes (and a quite impressive bruise on my jaw, I might add) from women. I always knew that I was more scared of Hermione than little Tommy Riddle for a reason.

"Harry, you can come out from behind there." I feel the table shift as Ron sits across from me.

I lower the newspaper slowly and see Ron trying to fight the smile that has already spread across his lips.

"Umm..." he laughs. "Uh... Well..."

I sigh. "Go ahead. I deserve it."

He laughs again. "It's not as bad as it could be, mate, honestly." He keeps laughing.

I want to reach over and give him two black eyes and a quite impressive bruise on his jaw, but I refrain and shrug. "I guess."

There is a moment of awkward silence before he speaks. "Still making the front page?"

I scoff. "Yeah..." He grins at the picture of me, sprawled on the floor holding my jaw. "'Photo by Colin Creevey'..." I read from the paper. "Well, at least one thing's the same..."

Ron motions for drinks and drums his fingers on the table. "Look, Harry," he says finally. "I know that a lot of things have changed. I understand that you're confused. Why else would I be here? Hermione'll have my head if she finds out... She's... erm, not exactly, thrilled with you being back." He twists his wedding band nervously.

I put a hand to my jaw... Quite obviously. "So... How long did you say you've been married? A year, two?"

Parvati comes over to us, sets two bottles of butterbeer in front us and winks at me. "The usual, Ron?" she asks him. He nods and she turns to me. "Harry?"

"The same," I tell her, not really knowing what the usual is, but I don't care. I just need to hear the answer to my question. I take a drink.

"Eight."

I spit the butterbeer into his face. "What?"

"This past November," he says quietly, "it was eight years."

I am shock. "But I left nine years ago this June. You waited five months? Unbelievable..."

"We thought you were dead," he explains simply.

"And that makes it okay?" I almost yell. I can see the tips of his ears turning pink. "She was my girlfriend!"

He grips the table so tightly that his knuckles are white. I know the one thing that will make him snap. The one thing that's always been an issue with us... I lean toward him. "And you were jealous, weren't you, Ron?"

He slams his fist on the table, his ears glowing, but he says nothing. He stares over my head and breathes deeply. "She—" Breath. "We had our reasons, Harry. Believing you to be dead was only part of it."

What does he mean 'only part of it'? "What? I told her I would come back! She gave up after only five months? What kind of logic is that?"

He shrugs. I am seeing the matured side of Ron. Something about these last eight years has made him grow up immensely. "We had it on very good authority that you were dead. We had proof. The Order turned up everything. The only thing they lacked were eyewitnesses... They might have even found those if the Death Eaters hadn't all been kissed."

"So, you thought that Voldemort and I had both died?" I ask him.

He shakes his head. "No... Hermione said that since you were dead Voldemort was still alive. Some prophecy or some sort..."

I start. "She had no right to—"

He sighs. "You think she told me? Yeah, right. Wild horses couldn't drag it out of her. You know how she is. 'It's just... And, that means... but it couldn't mean... I need to go to the library.'" He laughs mirthlessly. "You told her you would come back to her. That you would never leave her by choice and if you didn't come back..."

"It was because I couldn't," I finish his sentence, muttering the same words I breathed to her that night on the Astronomy Tower. "She told you that?"

"I strung it together..." He traces the rim of the bottle with his finger. "She believed you. She said that you had promised her... And, when has Harry Potter ever broken a promise?" He snorts. "Until then at least."

"But..." I'm still confused. "Why only five months? Why not longer? A year..."

"And then another, and then another, because that's the way it is with her. She always trusted people too much. Look, I'm not trying to justify what we did, but you have to understand that there were reasons."

I raise an eyebrow at him. "What were they? And they'd better be good." I'm getting angrier and angrier as this lunch progresses. It's something in his inflection. It's ridden with that 'I'm-Better-Than-You' air, and I refuse to believe that.

He shakes his head. "I can't tell you. You have to talk to Hermione about that one. She'd really be cross if I— Hey, wait! Where are you—"

I have jumped out of the booth, thrown a Galleon on the table and almost run Parvati down in my haste to get out of the pub.

Ron follows me and blocks the path to the door. "Where are you going?"

"You told me that she'd have to tell me, so I'm going to talk to her," I try to get past him.

He pushes me back by the shoulders. "No, no, no, no, no... You can't talk to her!"

"Who says?" I reply like a three-year-old.

"I did!" he retorts, flushing bright crimson.

I glare at him. Surely, Hermione doesn't let him push her around. He said just two minutes ago that she'd kill him if he told me the 'reason'. "She lets you govern her like that?" I'm sorry, but I'm almost positive that Hermione was never one of those 'Women-Submit-To-Your-Husband' females... Met an English teacher in the States that preached that... She's independent... And she's got one hell of a right hook.

"If you didn't look so pathetic, I'd hit you again..." He glowers at me. "But I think I'll let Hermione have the pleasure... Again..."

I brush past him and into the alley behind the pub. I Disapparate, silently cursing him.

I arrive at the Burrow moments later and am still angry at Ron. I storm into the kitchen muttering under my breath and see Hermione and Ginny sitting at the table. Hermione's eyes are quite red and puffy, but a smile is painted on her lips. She looks at me and then down to the child with wind-blown red hair and blue eyes. He is without a doubt Ron's child.

Ginny reaches for the child's hand and leads him out of the room. "Where are we going, Aunt Ginny?" he asks, twisting to look at me. "Who is that?"

"Well," I hear Ginny begin. "That's an old friend of your Mum and Dad's..."

I look at Hermione. "W... Your son? Ron's son?"

Hermione stands and crosses her arms. "Yes."

She's not going to offer any more information than she has to. "Well, does he have a name? Does he know who I am? How old is he?"

"Yes, he has a name, it's Harry James." Her eyes fill with tears, but I think they're from anger.

"You... you named him after me?" I ask, dumbfounded. "Wh... Why?"

She shrugs. "We thought you were dead."

That phrase seems to be coming up a lot lately. "Yeah, I know."

"We wanted to pay homage, but I'm reading up on magical name changes!" she replied acidly.

"Hermione, why are you doing this?" I ask her, quietly, reaching over to touch her cheek. "I still love you, you know. Don't you still love me?"

She blinks once. "No. I quit loving you a long time ago." Hermione calls to her son and he clings tight to her as she Disapparates. As the image of the little boy waving to me fades, so does that last glimmer of hope I had.