Chapter 8 - Season Opener (2nd Half)

Hermione picked up her now cold sandwich and was about to take a bite when a knock at her office door startled her, causing the contents to spill out onto her shirt.

"Just a minute!" she called out, dropping her sandwich with a splat as even more filling splashed onto her clothes.

Letting out a sad sigh, Hermione stood up and walked over to the coat rack in the corner of her office, grabbed a cardigan and pulled it on. It was orange and clashed horribly with the room, but it would at least cover the horrible stains for now. She then walked over to the door and yanked it open, a lot more fiercely than she usually would have, to reveal a gangly red-headed man in a wheelchair.

"Yes, what is it?" she asked.

"Hi, I have an appointment with Doctor Granger," the man replied.

"Oh, yes, you must be Ronald. Come in and please, call me Hermione," she said, ushering him into the office.

The ginger-haired man wheeled himself into the office area before pausing as if waiting for something. He had a slightly confused look upon his face as he observed her space.

Hermione looked around, and her mouth fell open in horror. She hadn't prepared the sofa area of the office to accommodate a wheelchair patient, nor had she cleared up any of the books and papers she had used that morning. The office was a mess.

"I'm so sorry, let me just clean up and make some space for you," she said, hastily rushing over to remove her books from the couch space and pushing one of the armchairs out of the way to create space for him.

The chair legs made a grinding screech across the wooden floor as she struggled to finally move it out of the way. Panting, Hermione once again gestured to Ronald to move into the newly opened space. He, however, did not move.

"Uh, you—you've put your books on the floor in my way. Also, your sandwich is still on the table," he said, gesturing at the now messy Subway Hermione had discarded there earlier.

Hermione gave a high-pitched yelp and rushed over to scoop up her books before awkwardly balancing her sandwich on top. She walked over to her desk, trying to look dignified, and placed the books on the table. The sandwich that sat atop them rolled over and fell onto the table.

Ignoring the mess, Hermione walked over to Ronald and extended a hand for him to shake. He reluctantly shook her hand before withdrawing and wiping his hand against his trousers.

Thinking this was incredibly rude, Hermione was just about to chastise him before he spoke, "You have some teriyaki sauce on your hands. Did you know?"

Hermione's face dropped again. Hastily grabbing a tissue from the desk and wiping her hand, she said, "Sorry, Ronald. I was in the middle of my lunch when you arrived. I didn't expect you so early."

"Early?" he asked with a puzzled look. "The appointment said four, and it's four now, but who eats lunch at this time?"

With a glance at the clock for confirmation, shame washed over Hermione as she realised how much time she had wasted obsessing over Cormac's social media posts again. Hermione looked around at the room, taking in the mess that was her career and imagined it being flushed down the drain. She felt the tears start to escape her eyes and almost lost control of her emotions in the middle of her office.

"Are you okay?" Ronald asked her.

Sniffing, Hermione brushed the tears out of her eyes with her cardigan sleeve and composed herself before taking a seat. There was still a chance she could recover from this.

"I'll be fine. Let's just start over," Hermione declared, reaching out her hand for him to shake again. "Hi, I'm Hermione Granger, your therapist."

The man, Ronald Weasley, flashed her a smile and shook her hand, his bright blue eyes sparkling.

"Hi, I'm Ron." He eyed her up and down, his brows furrowing. "You know, I imagined you to be like seventy-three, wearing a sweater vest and writing in a notepad."

"Why? Did someone say that I was? Who was it? I bet it was Moira," she asked, a little defensive.

"No, no. I just—I'm sorry, you look a little young to be a therapist. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

Hermione bristled at his question. Did he not know it was rude to ask such questions? She was more than capable of being a therapist. Despite her age, she was close to completing her PhD.

"Twenty-four," she answered through gritted teeth.

"Twenty-four? Wow, you must be like Sheldon Cooper," he quipped.

"Who?"

"Sheldon Cooper," he repeated. "He was a young doctor."

"Oh, does he work here? I don't think I've met him," Hermione said, trying to remember the name.

"He's not—never mind, forget it. He's from a sitcom, The Big Bang Theory," Ron explained, looking at her as if she were dim. "But aren't you a little young to be a doctor?"

Hermione chuckled nervously before answering, "Technically, I'm not a doctor yet. I wish to be, but I'm actually working on my doctorate right now."

There was no missing the look of apprehension on his face, so Hermione gave a slight cough and tried to look serious.

"This is a university hospital. It's operated by St. George's University, but I actually work for a charity as part of my doctorate," Hermione explained.

"You work for SPEW?" Ron asked, unable to hide his snigger at the name.

"It's not SPEW! It's S.P.E.W. The Society for Psychological and Emotional Welfare," snapped Hermione, irritated by his laughter.

She wasn't sure about the character of this man. He appeared to be everything she had come to expect of a professional footballer—rude, obnoxious, and immature.

"So, what patient number am I for you? How many others are there?" he asked.

His question flustered Hermione, and she stammered before answering, "I don't—I can't discuss my patient history. It's not—"

"Bloody hell, I'm your first patient, aren't I?" he interrupted.

"No. Not at all. You're completely off the mark," Hermione tried to protest.

"Second?"

When Hermione did not respond, he let out a whistle and looked concerned.

"So, how's the first patient doing?" he asked. His tone sounded casual, but Hermione could sense the trepidation behind it.

He was now digging a bit too deep into her history for Hermione's comfort, and she was rapidly losing grip of the situation. She was supposed to be the therapist and dictate the conversation, not him.

Hermione bit her tongue and carefully formulated her words before speaking, "I can't talk about that, doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Right, and this is a part of your training?" he asked, gesturing between themselves.

"It'll be part of my thesis. But, don't worry, I'm not gonna use your real name, and you'll be given a pseudonym. I'll even let you pick it if you want?"

Ron looked clearly uncomfortable but eventually nodded in agreement.

"Now that we're acquainted, let's begin our session, shall we?" Hermione asked, opening Ron's file.

She wasn't quite sure why, but the ginger-haired man somehow had a knack for constantly engaging her in conversation she wouldn't usually entertain. She felt this almost innate need to let their conversation run its course, even when the topics approached an uncomfortable territory. She would have to put a stop to this and fast.

"Doctor Randall sent me your medical file, and I'm up to date on your situation. This must be incredibly difficult, so how are you feeling?" Hermione asked.

Ron just shrugged and said nothing, but as Hermione continued to look at him expectantly, he said, "You know, honestly, I feel fine. I've actually never been calmer."

Hermione couldn't help feeling triumphant. She had successfully steered him down a conversation path she knew how to handle.

"It's a common thing after events like yours. To feel like you do, because right now, your body is in survival mode. What you're really dealing with is shock..."

"No, I think I'm just fine," he interrupted.

"...That's why you feel so calm. If you could describe it, would you say it was a kind of numbness?" she asked, continuing as if he hadn't spoken.

"No, I would describe it as feeling just fine."

"Because it's okay. Some patients will always feel—"

"I feel fine," Ron said.

"That's fine," she said before regretting her word choice. "That's great."

Hermione bit her lip, unsure of how to proceed. Deciding it was best to try a different approach, she changed tack.

"Now, I think it will be good for you to relax a bit, so I've got a little relaxation exercise for you. Why don't you move over to the sofa and lie down?" Hermione asked.

Ron looked at her as if she had grown two extra heads, his mouth hanging open.

Hermione could have kicked herself. Here she was, asking a man in a wheelchair to get up and lie down.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry. Ignore that. It was ridiculous to even suggest that," she blustered, feeling herself turn red. "We can just stay where we are and do the exercise here."

Hermione stood up and made her way over to her desk, and fumbled with her laptop. She managed to finally access the file she needed and pressed play. A slow melodic music track began to play, complete with ambience noises such as wind and rain.

"You have got to be kidding me, seriously?" Ron asked, pointing to the laptop, clearly sceptical of the whole thing.

"You've got to trust me for this to work, understood?" she fired back. "Oh, and close your eyes!"

"I must be mental because, after all this, I kinda do," Ron replied, closing his eyes and leaning back in his wheelchair. "Okay, they're closed."

Hermione was about to move on to the next step of the relaxation process when she found herself distracted by the look on Ron Weasley's face. He looked serene and content reclined in his chair, and for the first time, Hermione noticed the abundance of freckles that smattered his pale face. They were arranged with reckless abandonment, and Hermione followed a trail of several of them as they disappeared down his collar and under his shirt.

"So what now?" he asked, snapping her out of her observations.

"Now, I ask you a few questions, and you answer them as honestly as you can," she explained.

"Okay, hit me."

Hermione had expected him to put up a bit more of a fight before reaching this point, and she almost lost her train of thought. Grabbing her session plan, she rifled through it and found the list of prewritten questions she had prepared for him.

"How did it feel going home after the hospital?"

"I almost didn't want—"

"Do you have a support network that you can rely on?" she asked, cutting him off as she read the next question without looking up.

"Well, I've got a huge family and —" Ron tried to answer.

"Doctor Randall says you have a fifty-fifty chance of recovery. What do you make of that?" Hermione asked.

She was rattling off the questions in her plan, completely disregarding Ron's responses and not even allowing him to speak.

"Bloody hell, woman, are you going to let me answer or are you going to just read off your notes for the rest of the hour?" Ron snapped, causing Hermione to jump and the plan to slip out of her hand and land onto the floor.

In her haste to ask the right questions, Hermione had ended up asking all the questions at once. Taking a mental note of Ron's short temper and apparent anger, she decided to delve a little deeper into this.

"I'm sensing some hostility and anger, which is good," Hermione said, offering him a weak smile.

"I'm not angry," he snapped. He seemed to realise otherwise because he asked, "Why is that good?" in a much calmer voice.

"Because it proves you're alive. That the injury didn't take that away from you. You're still capable of feeling emotion," Hermione explained. "Whether that be anger or something else, it doesn't matter as long as you feel something."

"Wow," Ron awed, the hint of a smile forming on his face. "You just came up with that? I didn't see you check those notes of yours or anything."

Hermione found herself grinning at his apparent compliment and reached out to pat his hand with her own. Unfortunately, it was not the soft or well-meaning kind of contact she had been aiming for and instead, she had given him a rather hard smack.

"Jesus, what was that for?" Ron yelped, yanking his hand away.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione said.

"Seriously, do you beat the other patient too? Or am I just special? Poor guy's probably battered and bruised or dead at this rate."

His words broke every bit of resolve Hermione had. She had tried continuously throughout the day to recover from her snowballing problems. They had loomed over her like a murky shadow, but this is what finally broke it free. Hermione let the tears slowly fall down her face as she stared at the ground as the bitter memories of Dave came flooding back to her.

"Dave was troubled. I—I tried to help him, but he still—still chose to kill himself," Hermione whispered. "He was my first and only patient. Until you."

"Hermione, I'm—" Ron started to say, his voice stricken.

"Our hour is up. That concludes our session for today. I will see you next week." Hermione stood up and made her way to the door before opening it.

She heard him let out a resigned sigh as he wheeled himself towards the exit.

"I'm—I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I was being a dick, and you didn't deserve that. I hope you can forgive me?"

"Goodbye, Ronald," Hermione said before slamming the door shut and falling to the floor in heaving sobs.

Her day had been a calamity, and as far as Hermione was concerned, it was all Ronald Weasley's fault.