It's the aftershocks that always get you, true of anything in life, isn't it? It's only been an hour since I found out Ginny and her sons were in danger, and it's just hit me now. Three months ago, this would have incapacitated me. A year ago, I wouldn't have been able to even process the concept; I don't want to remember what this would have been like six months before that.
I thank God for Draco Malfoy every day. He and Harry are the only reasons I got back on my feet. Malfoy came, and he told me that I had to start fighting again, that I'd missed the war, and he'd been out doing it. That it was my turn now. He made Harry come see me, talk to me, deal with the fact that Ron was dead and gone. Something I don' t think either of us was ready to know. He gave me my life back.
I'm so haunted by idea of Ron still, though. The idea of our life together pops up at the strangest times, but not as often as it used to. It's just the aftershock. I think more about what life should be like with Draco now than I do about what it would have been like with Ron. The images are frighteningly different. Loving Ron was simple, it was what I did; it was the role I was playing in the story we were telling. Feeling whatever it is I feel for Malfoy is different, it's the second time around and I feel like I can see what's coming half the time, and then he changes the playing field all together. We aren't even playing the same game we were playing last month.
"Hermione?" Harry said, stepping into the room. I was sitting on my bed, dressed and waiting for he or Draco to come get me. "You're sure you want to do this?"
"It's Ginny," I replied, getting up to stand in front of him, "I love her too."
"I know that, but Hermione…" Harry trailed off and shrugged. "I worry."
"I know you do. But you know that I need to do this, and you know I'm safer if I'm with you and Malfoy than I am anywhere else in the world," I told him, standing on tiptoe to look him in the eyes. Harry's gotten so tall now, he towers over poor Ginny and I'm only up to his shoulders.
"Do you still find it as strange as I do thinking of him as one of the good guys?" Harry asked, taking my arm and pulling me towards the door. This is how it's always been between us. We have an understanding, and once it's there, it stays. Harry and I have an understanding that we are never going to fall in love with each other and another understanding that I will be his children's godmother. We've never said anything about it, but we both know. And now we have an understanding that I will fight beside him again. Maybe for the last time, but in a good way; perhaps this will really be the last fight.
"I find it stranger, I can promise you that," I said, and he nearly smiled.
"You know, Hermione, if you and Malfoy ever decided too…" Harry trailed off again, shrugged, and proceeded. "Do something, I'd be OK with it."
"No, you wouldn't. You'd throw a fit on principle and you know it," I replied, but on the inside I was ecstatically. I'd known Harry wouldn't mind, of course, because it's the sort of thing I know about Harry, but to hear him say it was something entirely different. It seems pathetic and juvenile seeing as I'm almost twenty and I've spent most of the past year and a half hoping to die, but it does say that he's probably interested in me. And that makes me happy, which wasn't an accomplishment until recently.
"You could do so much better," Harry agreed, again, almost smiling. "I, um…"
"I know."
"Potter! Granger! Stop dawdling and get down here, would you?" Malfoy called up from the entrance hallway of the house Harry had built here for the Order.
"Coming," I called back. "Interrupt a moment, will you."
"It's what I live for, Granger, to ruin your mushy moments with Potter. You've no idea how exasperating you two are," Malfoy snorted, at the same time holding my coat out for me. "You doing alright, Potter?"
"I'd really like to kill something, actually," Harry answered. That's good. I hate seeing him so depressed, I want Harry to act. It's just what he does. Harry's the hero, and he's got to go fix it. And of course, he will, because saving people is most simply what he does. He has a bit of a thing about it I think I once said.
"Your lucky day, then. I'll even let you have this one, if I get to punch him first."
"You two are terrible," I told them, as I did up the buttons on my coat quickly, watching Harry do the same and Malfoy buckle his cloak. He's the only one of the three of us who wears wizarding clothes; really, Harry and I don't anymore, not since school.
"Would you prefer we hugged? I could hug him," Malfoy said, dead serious. "It would be touching."
"I'll cast an Unforgivable on you if you try," Harry told him, promptly. "You're fine though, right?"
"Such tenderness," Malfoy commented, "But yes, I'm fine, shocked and murderous, but fine. And I've no doubt you would cast the curse."
And with that, Harry slid his arm back into mine, and Malfoy opened the door, and we headed out like the heroes we like to pretend we aren't.