A/N: this chapter is dedicated to Maddy: hope your holiday's going well! And to BuckNC, my faithful reviewer, whose last review made me smile; I hope it's good enough for u guys!
Luv Ella xXx
Hermione let the water run over her, coursing quickly and hot, plastering unfamiliar clumps of saturated blond hair to her forehead, and her cheeks, mingling with her tears so that she couldn't tell weather it was the water coming out of the shower that was washing her or the salty moisture coming from under her closed eyelids.
She scrubbed at her head, furiously. She wasn't furious with her hair, exactly, though it did seem to be part of the problem. She was frustrated with the person that she had let herself become. She had been a good mother, she could merit herself that, but she had focused so much on that that she had forgotten the other things that came with being a good person; she had rejected Ron in the cruellest way possible, over a stupid misunderstanding. Hermione was mad at more than that. She was mad at the way that, when Ron had left the house in such anger she hadn't thrown open the recently slammed door, and chased him down the street, but rather sat in a heap on her hallway carpet, drowning in tears and unbearable, unearned self pity. She was angry with the way that, upon seeing him at her door she hadn't set him down and explained everything out to his face. She was even mad, in the end (and she hated the fact that she was thinking this way) that she had left out the picture of Jessie on her wall, after planning so deviously in every other way.
Hermione's hair wasn't changing. As much as she scrubbed and pulled at it, she couldn't get it back to the way that it had been when she had been happy. She had known that this would happen of course; she couldn't wash this out like a muggle dye, or anything like that. She needed magic, and standing under that shower for hours on end would do nothing for her but up her water bill atrociously.
Hermione turned off the tap.
Pulling a towel around her, and massaging her scalp gingerly, where she had been tugging frustrated at her hair, Hermione headed down the hallway, to her bedroom.
The walls of Hermione's bedroom were completely bare. They were white, and in eleven years of living in the house, she had never hung anything on them. She liked it that way. No past life, no current life, just her, and whoever she felt like being at the time.
In the floor of her room, under the large double bed that took pride of place in the centre of the room, was a floorboard that was so loose it could be lifted clean up off the ground.
Hermione pushed at the bed.
The tiny legs of the bed groaned. They didn't agree with being scrapped along the ground, and scratched against the wood after staying immobile for so long. She pushed harder, bending her sodden head to the ground and groaning.
The bed moved, creaking across so that the loose floorboard was revealed, exactly how Hermione had left it, the night that she moved into this muggle house, before Jessie was born. The dust that covered the top of it was the only thing that differed. Hermione had been so scared and superstitious about this part of the floor, and what was hidden there that she had refused to move the bed, even for cleaning.
Hermione hadn't been able to throw out her wand. She couldn't bring herself to sacrifice every remainder of her past life; and she would have had to destroy it if she had had to get rid of it; she could have a muggle finding it in her rubbish bin or anything like that. It would have had to be completely gotten rid of, and that brought on a sort of finality that she couldn't bare. Hermione had, therefore, taken a wooden box, much like children keep their pencils in, and filled it with the last few relics of her life as a witch; her wand, being accompanied with some old, tattered pictures, which she had been tempted very much to uncover on lonely nights, or after returning from a particularly bad date. She had never succumbed to this temptation, until now. Now the loneliness was too much to handle.
Hermione stared at the outside of the box. The wood seemed to have darkened, and the box appeared to be smaller than when she had left it under her bed, all those years ago. Maybe she had grown. Maybe her memory of it had made it so massive and wonderful in her dreams that whatever the reality was was bound to be a disappointment.
She slid back the lid. It didn't come easily. It staggered and stopped until it slid off, and Hermione let it clatter to the floor noisily.
And finally, there it was. Pictures scattered on top of it; one of her, Ron, Harry and Ginny at Harry and Ginny's wedding; one of her, Harry and Ron on their graduation day; one of her, Hagrid and Harry; one of her and Ron, smiling awkwardly, in sixth grade. So many memories coursed through her at that moment that she felt as though she were about to explode, however, when her hand brushed over the slender, wooden wand at the bottom of the box, Hermione's jitters were comforted immediately, and a warming, tingling feeling rose all the way through her, starting from her right fingertip and ending at the tips of her toenails.
When you are a wizard for a long time, you begin to forget what it is like the first time you touch a wand. The feeling of magic growing inside of you becomes as common and comfortable as walking, sleeping or breathing. Hermione, however, hadn't felt that particular sensation for quite some time. She was taken back, instantaneously, to the moment when she purchased her wand in Ollivander's wand shop, when she was eleven.
Hermione knew what to do now, This was much more intuitive for her than living as a muggle was; perhaps that was why she was so horrible at using the kitchen appliances (at least this is what she told herself) but she knew what to do when she had a wand in her hand. Everywhere else she felt lost.
Pointing the wand at her own head, Hermione said the incantation.
Standing up, she walked to the mirror, and grabbed at her new hair, softly, grabbing huge chucks of it in her fist, and watching her smile in the mirror at the same time. From the curly, thick, brown hair to the wand that rested in her hand elegantly, she really was Hermione Granger.
"O Harry, you haven't seen Ron, have you? He went off in the fiercest of tempers…"
"Mrs Weasley calm down…"
"I don't know why on earth he's gone there or why he would get so worked up over the mention of a spark plug- well, of course it wasn't the spark plug on the poor things mind…it was that Katie woman leaving him…"
"Katie didn't leave him…he-"
"Of course she did! Why else would he have been moping around the Burrow for a fortnight? The nerve of that girl-"
"Mum!" Ginny cut in, walking over to where Harry and Molly Weasley were standing, Mrs Weasley panicked and jittery. She had just watched her soon vanish into a fire grate, which, admittedly, was less alarming than if she hadn't been a witch, but either way, she had no idea why he wished to go to Australia, so panicked, with no explanation to his father.
"Mum, calm down…" Ginny soothed, putting a hand on her mothers shoulder. "Now, what happened?" she shared a weary glance with Harry, and the three of the sat down on the couch in Harry and Ginny's living room.
"Ron. He was staying with us for a while, you know that of course, and then today he just got this look on his face (I didn't know of course, this is all from what Arthur was telling me) and he threw his floo powder into the fire grate and whooshed off to Australia!"
Harry gulped, and Ginny grinned. She didn't want her brother to be in so much pain, but she did want all the lies to stop, and quickly. It seemed that now they had.
James made a zooming noise as he played with his toy Knight Bus in the corner of the room.
"What are you smiling at?" Mrs Weasley interrogated her daughter. Ginny looked incredibly guilty.
"Harry. Do you think that we should…"
"I think so. Ron knows now anyway."
"Knows what?" Mrs Weasley asked, curious and impatent. Harry sighed.
"I don't want you to think any less of us. We couldn't have said anything if we'd wanted to. By the time we found out it was too late for us to tell Ron; he wouldn't have taken it very well if we'd told him with a confrontation…all year we've been coming up with scenarios, trying to work out a way that Ron could figure it all out for himself. I know that once he calms down he'll see it from her perspective. I did, after a while."
Harry knew he was telling the story back to front, but if he had told it the other way then Mrs Weasley might not have given him a chance to explain everything.
"And it seems that the situation pretty much created it's self, when we were at Hogwarts. All we had to do was make sure that Ron was left alone with her and everything fell into place; if he hadn't been so determined not to see what was staring him in the face."
"I don't understand any of this Harry." Mrs Weasley told him gently. It seemed that Harry was talking to himself, more than the rest of the room. Harry shook his head.
"You will. Listen, back eleven years ago, Ron and Hermione Granger, well, we'd all been waiting for them to get over themselves and get together, and they finally did. On the night of our wedding. The next night, a friend of Ron's turned to him to comfort her when she was in a sticky situation. Hermione saw them together and assumed the worst."
Ginny took over, when Harry looked to her for support, "She couldn't believe that after seven years of going after him that he would run off after just one night, and she ran. To Australia."
Mrs Weasley began to catch on to he story now, and she seemed to be pleased by that. She nodded her head for them to continue.
" Ron tried to contact her, but she had cut herself off completely. She didn't want to be a witch anymore." Harry explained. "She changed how she looked, and who she was, and then…"
Harry turned to Ginny. Ginny shook her head, scared. Mrs Weasley's eyebrows rose. She wanted to hear the end of the story…
"She discovered that she was pregnant." Harry finished. "And, well, Ron has a daughter."
Mrs Weasley rose from her seat quicker than anyone of her age had ever rose before. Anger was etched into her face. She bore down on the two sitting on the lounge and made them feel as though they were thirteen again, and had been found sneaking to Hogsmeade, or something equally as rebellious.
"And you two KNEW?" she roared. "You two KNEW THAT I HAD A GRANDAUGHTER! Ginny, I am very disappointed in you! In the both of you!"
Harry felt as though he had been slapped across the face. Mrs Weasley had never been this angry at him.
"Mrs Weasley we-"
Molly was already storming up to the spare room, upstairs in the Potter residence, and slammed the door behind her.
Harry and Ginny slumped down against it. They had to continue their story. She had to know what happened.
Harry leant his ear against the door. He couldn't hear anything. Then he moved his mouth up to the keyhole.
"She raised Jessie, all by herself, with no magic at all. She didn't want to tell Ron because she thought that he had done something that she couldn't forgive, and he would just use the child as a reason to make Hermione forgive him. She didn't want Jessie to be used like that, so she kept quite, and had the child all by herself. I have spoken to her, about once a year, and she had never mentioned having a little girl before. Never. She didn't have any help either. You'll remember that her parents were killed in the war I suppose? Well, She was an only child, and now she is a muggle."
"Why would she have done that? I'm that kids grandmother, I would have taken care of her!" Mrs Weasley roared back, the first sign that they had gotten that she really was listening. Ginny hoisted James up higher on her hip. He was getting to big to be carried…
"She was scared Mrs Weasley! She was nineteen years old! She's regretted it for all her life! I hated her at first as well, but you remember what it was like to raise Ron, don't you? Imagine doing that all by yourself, without magic. I'm not saying that you have to love her straight away, but can we please try and forgive her. She thought that she was doing the right thing. And you'll want to meet Jessie, wont you? She's a great girl Mrs Weasley! She's wonderful."
Harry stopped, and looked at Ginny. She nodded, and Harry put his arm around her. All they could do now is wait.
Finally, after a long silence broken only by James Potter throwing his shoe up and down and trying to catch it, without success, Mrs Weasley's voice came wafting through the wall.
" And now Ron knows?"
"Yes." Ginny said, sighing with relief, " Jessie has been with Jade and Daniel Lupin all year, at Hogwarts, and Hermione's been trying to get up the courage to tell him. The other day he put too and two together for himself, and so now, I guess, he knows. The truth is out."
The door opened a slither, and the light coming form the hallway that Harry and Ginny were standing in lit up the tiniest corner of Mrs Weasley's face.
"Well we can't make the girl suffer for what Hermione did when she was nineteen." She said, slowly and logically. "Neither of them, I suppose."
With this, you could tell that there was still anger in her voice, but it was heavily suppressed with reminiscent pity. "Invite her around to dinner, when she ready."
And with that, Mrs Weasley appearated back home.
Harry smiled at Ginny, and James threw his hands in the air in triumph, though that may have been with more to do with the fact that he had just caught his shoe on the full.
"When she's ready?" Ginny asked, the hint of a laugh in her voice, "When she finds out she has a father."
"Oh she will. If Ron and Hermione are talking things through now then they'll have to confront her eventually, won't they?"
This analogy would have been fine, had Ron and Hermione been talking at that moment. Instead, however, Ron was sitting in a muggle park, letting the sun go down slowly around him, and Hermione was sitting at her kitchen table, her wand in her hand, no longer distraught, but wondering strategically what to do next.
Ron was still fuming when he had reached the park. He had walked, for what seemed forever, and found himself in the little grassed area, with tall trees that were casting romantic shadows across the lawn. There were only a few people around; a couple walking a dog that appeared to be bigger than they were, and a family of four, the kids reaching their knees, squealing and carrying on, making the parents laugh, hand in hand. Ron ignored all of these people. He went down and sat under a large tree by the river that ran through the park. It was a large tree, with viny, overhanging limbs that almost brushed the water. Ron sat, sprawled out on the grass under the tree, and closed his eyes.
All her could see was red. And angry, fierce red colour, and as much as he closed and shut his eyes he couldn't get rid of the rage that he was holding onto.
He thought about Hermione. He didn't want to…or did he? He couldn't decide anymore. He was so mad at her that he might have hexed her if her weren't so worried what would happen to his daughter.
His daughter the words never ceased to amaze him. And the fact that she was, and had been his daughter for eleven, almost twelve years already was the other thing that he couldn't come to terms with. He had missed out on so many things that he would never recover all of them, no matter how long they talked for.
Why had Carrie…Hermione…come to Lavender's party? If she had talked to Lavender then she must have known the truth. Maybe that was what Lavender was doing, tonight, Ron thought to himself, realising that he had been set up to know the truth, she sent him to Carrie Brown's house, so that he would find Hermione. Lavender must have known that he had had a child.
The red colour obscuring his thoughts came back to a blinding state. Ron opened his eyes. He couldn't stand the anger.
The sun was casting patterns on the water, and for the longest time Ron stared at the river, which was calm, and still, and thought. He thought about Hermione, and Jessie, and the night that he had met Carrie Brown. How she had cried when they were talking about how great Katie was. How she had run outside. How…
Ron stopped. The colour on the water no longer looked calm and still. The orange projected onto it seemed to reflect his anger; his hurt, and his absolute fury. Ginny and Harry had known. They had known all along, for how long, he had no idea.
Could they have known all her life? All of Jessie's life? Ron apparated on the spot, and appeared outside the Potter Residence, back in England. The temperature was considerably different, and Ron's muscles seized up with the cold, but he kept on walking, approaching the house at almost a run, his feet pounding up the walkway.
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Dan, Jade and Jessie were sitting under the beech tree in the school yards. The early winter air was chilly, and grasped at their cheeks, making them pink. Jade had been let out of the hospital wing a week ago, and though she still got a little dizzy sometimes, she seemed fine.
Jessie, however, didn't seem to be all that focused.
"I wish I knew where I'd seen her before you know." She muttered, when conversation died down between the three friends. Daniel and Jade looked at her, curious.
"That girl, the one in the pictures. I wish I knew who she was."
Jessie looked up at them, taking her eyes off where she was staring at the grass. "I've seen her before, I know that I have. I must have, or she wouldn't haunt me like this!"
"If only we could get Hagrid to crack." Jade added, giving them a small, frustrated grimace, "But he's been so stubborn and distant that I doubt we'd get any where."
"We could try bribe or blackmail. Anything that Hagrid would want?" Daniel added, half joking.
"A dragon." Snorted jade. The other two glared at her with scandalous expression, and Jade hastened to correct them. "No no, I was joking. Never mind, it's a long story…"
"I'm serious you two!" Jessie said, standing up to let out her angst and pacing in front of them. "I have seen her, and I need to know where. It's not her exactly. Maybe I know her kid or something. She's so familiar…I have dreams about her, she's there!"
Daniel and Jade gave Jessie weird looks, like they were a little scared of her.
"Not weird dreams. She's just smiling, you know. Or else she's sitting here, under this tree, or, I don't know, standing in one of the pictures that we've seen, that's it, but I know that I must be having them for a reason. Something's telling me that I should know by now!"
Jess kicked a rock in the ground angrily so that pieces of tufted up grass went flying into the lake. She stared out as it hit the water. The sun was setting, casting red patterns over it's surface, patterns that mirrored her frustration so perfectly that she could have sworn the hue was made in her head.
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Hermione and Harry jumped, when they heard the door downstairs burst open. Mrs Weasley had left not long ago, but she would have been gentler with the door fittings than the person who had just entered so crudely. By the sounds of it,; the door banging back against the wall inside; the person downstairs was either very angry or in a very big hurry.
Harry's experience and auror training had not been wasted on him. Before Ginny could blink he had his wand in his hand, and was headed down the hallway. Before he could reach the end, however, and cats the sealing charm on the room so that who ever was there couldn't leave, he heard a voice echo up the stairway.
"Where the bloody hell are you?" Ron roared, standing near the doorway and beginning to pace the living room dangerously. Harry looked back down the hall to Ginny, who was looking tearful, and James, who was excited and raring for adventure at her heels.
"I know that you're here Ginny! Harry! I know that you knew! The whole game is up! I know about Carrie Brown, and I know that I HAVE A DAUGHTER!" Come down! You've been too scared to talk to me for the last eleven years, come out and be brave now!" he yelled. Ginny looked from the top of the staircase to Ginny, and se off down them.
Ginny stood, shaking, in the door to their bedroom.
Harry appeared at the top of the staircase. He hated the fact that it made him look down on Ron while speaking, but he feared that if he got any closer then his friend might start throwing things, and they might easily hit their mark.
"Ron?" he said, quietly. Ron was breathing heavily, and his fists were clenched in his pocket, one hand over his wand and the other balled into a tight bulge.
"You could have told me Harry." Ron said, in barely more than a whisper that was, like Mrs Weasly's disappointment, much more hurtful than screaming.
"You could have told me something like this. I would have forgiven you then-"
"Would you have forgiven her though?" Harry asked, quietly. Ron's eyes flew wide open, like he was seeing Harry for the first time, and Harry knew instantly that he had said the wrong thing.
"Forgiven her?" Ron bellowed, looking up at Harry, and starting to ascend a few stairs. Harry didn't dare look back to see if Ginny and James were watching, and he didn't want them to see he and Ron arguing, so he started to go down, and meet his friend.
"I didn't mean it like that mate, you know that I didn't, it's just that I was mad at her too! I was, I really was! But she thought that she was doing the right thing at the time. She didn't know that there was a mix up Ron-"
"I told her that there was a bloody mix up…"
Ron's voice was loud, booming through the whole house as though there was a very unsettled wind billowing through the curtains.
"We were nineteen Ron! Don't you remember what we were like when we were nineteen? We were absolutely crazy! The war was over and we thought that we knew what was best for everyone!" Harry saw the reminiscent look in Ron's face. It was only there for a fleeting moment, but Harry knew that he had caught it, sneaking into the corners of Ron's blue eyes. "Hermione didn't." Harry finished, quieter, "She just thought that she knew what was best for her daughter."
The anger returned immediately to Ron's face.
"She's my daughter too." He said, in a quiet, quivering voice that he pushed out through proud, gritted teeth. Harry nodded.
"I know. And what Hermione did was wrong, I know that. But we have been working all year to get her to tell you! It wasn't our right, we couldn't tell you, it would have been the worst thing that we could have done, after her keeping it a secret all these years-"
"So you haven't known the whole time?" Ron asked, his face relaxing just a tiny bit, and his eyes opening hopefully wide. Harry shook his head earnestly fast.
"No, only this year. That's the thing Ron. She's raised Jessie alone all these years-"
"She didn't have to! I would have supported her! I would have been a good dad Harry!" Ron could feel that he was about to cry, but he knew that he never would. Not now, not in front of Harry.
"I know that you would have. But it's true. You would have wanted to get married. You would have wanted to be with Hermione. If she had come back then you would have been able to talk her into coming back to you, even though she thought that you"
"I didn't!"
"I know! I know that! And she does too, now, but back then she didn't! Think about it! Is it worth throwing away what you could have now for what happened back then? You have a daughter Ron."
Up the top of the stairs, Ginny fought with her will. She had never been one to just stand around, especially when Harry and Ron were doing something that didn't involve her. Especially when Harry and Ron were doing something that did involve her, even in the smallest of ways. She knew that Harry would be able to get through to him much easier than she would have been able to, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to be there, downstairs, where the action was. Growing up hadn't changed that.
Ginny took James by the hand, and led him to his room. She sat him down on his bed.
"I'm going downstairs to talk to daddy and uncle Won Won." She told him, soothingly. James stood up, and began to jump on the bed, enthusiastically; "you stay here, alright?" she turned. James pulled the saddest face that he could muster, and when Ginny looked back, she couldn't help but spare him a laugh, no matter how serious the situation was. He wanted to be part of the action too.
Ginny appeared at the top of the stairs. Ron as walking back down to the living room, and Harry was following him, quietly. She made a small noise, at the back of her throat. Both the meant turned around.
Harry gave Ginny a small, hopeful smile.
"We're going to tell Ron everything." He told Ginny, sitting down on the couch, Ron placing himself, pale faced, across from Harry. "Everything."
A/N: sorry this is so long coming! The final confrontation I mean! I keeps drawing itself out, and I can't stop it! There will be one last chapter, plus an epilogue, and that is all.
Please leave me a review!
Luv Ella xXx
