The night that Harry Potter disappeared, his two best friends consummated six years of love, hate, and everything in between against the back wall of the Weasleys' broom shed.
It was mere seconds after Ron released her, panting, and Hermione stumbled back through the shed's broken door, replacing the loose strap of her freshly stained red dress, that she realized their moment of weakness had allowed their friend to wander off for good.
"Ron," she said slowly, scanning the wedding tent's occupants from afar, "Where's Harry?"
The night air weighed on Hermione suddenly; she felt for a moment that she couldn't breathe. Fireflies blinked around them like minuscule fairies. A tiny rivulet of sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades. The air around them was thick with the kind of heat that finds its way into every room, every space, until you feel like you will never find relief.
It had been a beautiful day, and Hermione Granger could feel that it was about to take a turn.
Ron walked up behind her, tucking his maroon button-up back into his slacks. "What d'ya mean? We left him with Ginny—"
"Ginny's dancing with Viktor now," Hermione said pointedly. Harry would never allow that, even in his Polyjuiced form as an invented Weasley cousin. Something wasn't right.
"Ginny's doing what with Kr—" Ron began, and Hermione spun to face him, brown eyes wide.
"Ron, please," she breathed, and whatever he was going to say next caught in his throat. Instead he nodded grimly, squinting into the distance.
"We'll find him," Ron said firmly. "He can't've gone far."
Hermione and Ron rejoined the celebration as surreptitiously as they could and whispered the fact of Harry's absence to just a few people at first, hoping to prevent a larger disruption. A sparse search party fanned out across the Weasley property, calling Harry's name in muted tones.
Weddings can be exhausting, they all said to one another hopefully. Perhaps Harry had simply gone someplace to be alone. The sun had only just set, after all, and the night was young. Surely they'd find him and still have time for one last dance after that.
But as the night wore on, more people began to notice that Harry was gone; the remnants of Fleur and Bill's reception transformed into something far more urgent. Fleur herself hiked up her delicate white wedding dress as she made her way through the brush, wand held aloft. It would be hours still before they found the note.
Ron maintained, for the entirety of their search, that Harry had merely gone off for some air, some space—he wouldn't just leave them like that. But Hermione could not help recalling the shift in Harry's demeanor over the last few days, a certain hardness to his face and a set to his brow—the kind of expression he wore when he'd made up his mind about something. And you could never sway Harry once he'd made up his mind.
No, Hermione knew this night was different from the others. And it was not just because she'd slept with Ron Weasley.
She guiltily retreated to the Burrow when she felt the tears welling up at last, hoping that Ron wouldn't follow her, and sank into a chair at the kitchen table. Something had been building in her chest for hours—she'd assumed she needed to cry, sobs waiting to burst forth—but here she was, alone, and still nothing came. The door opened again behind her with a protracted creak.
"Hermione, are you all right?" came a gentle and familiar voice.
"Oh. Professor Lupin." She turned away, swiping unnecessarily at the corners of her eyes, remembering too late that she was wearing makeup.
"Hermione," he said again. She could hear the smile in his voice. "I haven't been your teacher in years. Call me Remus."
But his expression shifted when he noticed the smeared mascara.
"Well, I would ask what's wrong," he said, sliding into the chair across from hers. "But it seems fairly obvious."
He studied her in his calm, mannered way. "Do you have any idea where he'd go?"
Hermione had been part of Harry's life for so long that the idea of a decision he would make without her knowledge left her briefly at a loss for words. But of course, there were many possibilities if she thought a moment. Godric's Hollow. Hogwarts.
"A fair few," she said, after a beat. "But he has his father's invisibility cloak. If he doesn't want to be found…"
"He won't be," Remus finished. He leaned back in the chair and sighed. Hermione watched him closely, trying to remember the current phase of the moon. The Weasley kitchen was dark and unlit, as its usual occupants were outside, still searching. She felt like a failure for being here when everyone else was out there. But she also felt like a failure for having let Harry get away in the first place. Her eyes finally began to fill. She squinted down at the table angrily, willing the unwelcome tears away.
"It's not your fault, Hermione," Remus said, as if having read her mind, and in a single quick movement he leaned across the table, making as if to place his hand atop hers. But he didn't. She couldn't look into his eyes and so looked at his hands instead, resting there on Molly's spotless hardwood table just centimeters away from her own.
"Or…" he murmured after another moment. "Maybe it's everyone's fault. But either way, it's not just because of you. Don't take this into yourself. Don't make it your burden."
Hermione thought again of Ron and what they'd done just hours prior. It felt like another version of herself had been with him, one she couldn't quite recognize. She didn't know who she was now. This Hermione that had done this weak, carnal thing with Ron had also allowed Harry to disappear.
"What'll we do, Remus, if he doesn't come back?" She hated how small she sounded.
"I'll go with you," he said. "And we'll find him. Mark that, Hermione. Whenever the time comes, I'll be here."
She finally looked at him, and he held her gaze for one long moment, only looking away when the door creaked open again—the search party returning.
Just as suddenly as Remus had taken a seat before, he was on his feet again as the Order stumbled in, for there was leftover wedding cake to be consumed, theories to be lobbed back and forth, Harry couldn't just be gone, he couldn't, but if he was they would assuredly find him—none of this could be done, after all, without Harry Potter.
Ron would finally find Harry's note hours later, left for them on his pillow.
I'm sorry, their friend had written in that familiar, spiky script. But I have to do this alone.
Three years passed.
In those three years they did the best they could. At first they thought Harry might come back, but days turned into weeks turned into months and the Boy Who Lived stayed gone. The Order valiantly attempted to stave off the Death Eaters and Voldemort's encroachment in the Ministry, but this was revealed to be a losing battle; an ever-increasing number of people were forced into hiding as the rules around blood status became tighter, solidifying into laws, until one day Hermione found herself living in a world where the very nature of her existence as a muggleborn witch was paradoxically illegal. And so she, too, had to leave her life as she knew it.
Grimmauld Place had recently begun functioning as a refuge for muggleborns, as it was one of the only locations the Order knew Death Eaters could not enter. In the days leading up to Hermione's departure, it was a full house—countless had been driven there seeking sanctuary. The rooms were perpetually filled with bodies and warm breath—always five different conversations occurring simultaneously, no real place to be alone.
The Order's role had shifted from offense to pure defense; now they were just trying to stay alive, and there was barely any energy left over to fight back. The pervasive belief seemed to be that it was only a matter of time until the dark side won. Morale was at an all-time low.
This is how it happens, Hermione thought, reading about the systematic execution of muggleborns in the Prophet over her oatmeal one morning. Not all at once, but gradually.
An alphabetized list of the executed was printed next to the weather report; her stomach flipped when she saw Dean Thomas' name written there among others she did not recognize.
At this point, Hermione had not left the house in months. It seemed there was no longer a place for her in the world she had come to love. But lately, an idea had been percolating. One that was getting harder to ignore.
She knew, still, that the only solution to the war must be the horcruxes. If she could also find Harry on her quest, great. But he had told Hermione and Ron about Voldemort's secret for a reason. Even without him, there might still be a way.
"What if we went after the horcruxes ourselves?" she said to Ron the next time she came to visit. They were whispering together in a corner of the kitchen at dinnertime, hoping the general sound of conversation and spoons clinking against bowls would drown them out.
"What are you suggesting?" Ron said sharply. "You mean… just leave?"
As a pureblood, Ron still had a job and for the most part did not have to worry about his safety, either—it had been years since he'd had any association with Harry Potter, after all. The most he had to deal with was garden-variety Weasley prejudice.
"We know even less than Harry did. And Harry didn't know much," Ron continued. His eyes flickered across her face, searching for something. He no longer regarded Hermione with the confidence that he'd once had in their youth, and this development pained her greatly. Hermione wanted more than anything to be believed in.
Suddenly she saw a flash of Remus' face across from her in the Burrow on that night three years ago. Back before everything went to hell.
Whenever the time comes, I'll be here.
She felt emboldened.
"You can come with me or not, Ron," she said harshly. They were so quick to snap at each other lately; everyone was on edge these days. "But I'm going. It's what Harry told us we might have to do. I'm not going to hide here anymore, waiting to die. There's nothing left for me here. I'm going to finish what he started."
Ron looked at her there in the gloom of 12 Grimmauld Place for a long, uncharacteristic moment of silence. Whole lifetimes passed between them in that moment, the different universes in which they were together or apart.
Had she loved him? Had he loved her?
When the apocalypse was coming, did things like that even matter anymore?
"All right," Ron said finally, setting down his empty bowl. "I'll come."
The next step was getting Remus on board.
Hermione went back and forth about it, riddled with guilt. He had a family, after all: Tonks, Teddy. The boy would be three or so now. Was it wrong to send this letter?
Maybe. But if they were able to locate the horcruxes and defeat Voldemort as a result of this departure… did that outweigh the temporary pain his absence might bring upon his family?
She could not think on it for long. Her own parents, after all, had been in Australia with no memory of her for years now. It was likely that she would never see them again. Unless something changed.
In the end, she wrote him an owl. It simply said,
Remus,
If you remember what you promised me at the kitchen table on the night of Bill and Fleur's wedding three years ago… I'm calling in the favor. Ron and I will leave a week from today. The invitation stands.
H
