Chapter 5: Truths of various sizes
As Hermione had once acknowledged, books and cleverness didn't account for much in the real world. 'Why is it,' she wondered, 'that I can turn a stick into a cat and deflect Dementors and yet I can't talk to my husband?'
It was sad, really, she thought as she directed the dishes to wash themselves and moved to her bedroom. Growing up with Ron had been exciting; he was always a good laugh, very loyal, strong at her back in a fight. Sighing, she eased into her desk before summoning her heavily warded journal with a flick of her wand. 'So when did it change?' she thought for the thousandth time as she took a bottle of invisible ink from her drawer and dipped her quill, preparing for the morning's entry.
It is Wednesday morning. Ron has just left for work. There was a slight altercation at breakfast when I mentioned I was going to have tea with Percy today.
It had been a few months ago that she had started to feel that things were changing for the worse. While things hadn't been good, exactly, for a while, the feeling of anxiety hadn't been quite so pervasive. She had posited that her depression was growing and Ron's outbursts were becoming more frequent, but she hadn't been certain until she started recording her observations in the journal she had been using to chart her ovulation and cycle. Data didn't lie; she'd had one hundred and eighteen periods, zero babies, and there was definitely more conflict in her marriage than there had been before.
I said, "Ron, after I get out of work this afternoon I'm off to have a late tea with Percy, his department is going through some changes and I'd like to pick his brain about it." Ron was sullen and asked me why I cared what Percy thought. I told him that I thought Ministry politics were important, even if I didn't have a job there anymore.
He had made her quit her office, blaming the stress of working for her inability to get pregnant. They'd argued constantly while she was staying at home, bored out of her mind, and he'd eventually allowed her to get a part time job at Flourish and Blott's when Luna had mentioned there was an opening
We argued again about me leaving the Ministry - I wasn't even trying to be passive aggressive - and he started yelling about housewives and consorting with "the other side" and other rubbish. Some kind of persecution complex? I didn't say anything after that because I was -
She didn't want to write it, but it was essential to be honest if she wanted her journal to serve its purpose.
I was scared of his temper. He slammed the door on the way out, but didn't break anything this time.
A murmured spell highlighted every time she had written the word 'scared' in the journal and she gnawed her lip as she flipped through and saw how many glowing spots there were on the pages.
Apparently, she felt scared quite a bit. As she reread what she had written with an objective eye, the words 'this time' triggered a new wave of sadness in her. Had she come to expect destruction when Ron got upset? Had a small part of her celebrated the fact that he didn't resort to violence instead of being indignant at the very notion he might become violent? She didn't like the way her mindset was shifting to accommodate Ron's anger.
She shut the journal and began to charm it closed again, running a fond finger over the picture of Fred and George on the front, the two men fluttering their eyelashes and picking their noses. "So when you're writing in your diary you remember which Weasleys you're really in love with," George had joked as they gifted her the mauve and lime green blank journal for a Christmas past. 'Those were better times,' Hermione thought wistfully. 'There's no way Ron would laugh at that sort of thing now.' He certainly wouldn't laugh if he knew what she was writing in the diary.
Hermione still loved Ron, but she was beginning to admit that things couldn't continue in this vein. She had had her own dreams of greatness after Hogwarts, but somehow they had all been eclipsed by the Weasley reproductive compulsion. No, that wasn't fair, she admitted, scrupulously honest even to herself. She'd wanted the baby too, but not more than she'd wanted a life of her own. But Hermione wasn't accustomed to things not working out as she intended and for a long time she had turned her considerable attention and energy to solving the problem of Not Having A Baby. But her motivation had been different from Ron's and that was probably the beginning of their divergence.
"It's not that I'm unhappy here, per se," she told Luna during their lunch hour that day. "Really, you know how I love to have first pick of the books and it's so peaceful here. But I do wish there was more of an arena for me to exercise a little more of the drive I had when I was at the MInistry, it feels like I'm losing my edge."
"You don't have to cover big truths with small ones," Luna replied dreamily. "We both know that this might not be where you wanted to end up. Have you thought about going back to the Ministry?" Luna Lovegood had been an ally during the war, and she remained an ally today. Hermione wished that she wasn't still fighting her own personal battles and could just have regular friends.
"Well, I don't know about that," Hermione said, lying easily. "I mean, this position has such nice hours, it's nice to be able to be home before Ron instead of trying to Apparate home in the dark every night. And it gives me plenty of time to pursue my research." Hermione had invented a private research project because that sounded like something she would do. No one had to know that the only research was doing was a dive into Ron's psyche and her own relationship. She'd never told Luna about the Ron journal. Ron and Hermione were war heroes turned fairy tale romance lovers and by now everyone around them accepted the narrative as fact or even a symbol of True Love. If she didn't have a baby or a prestigious Ministry career, at least she had that.
"Hermione," Luna offered a sunny smile, "your marriage is so wonderful. I hope sometime I'll be able to find someone who lets me do what I'd like."
Hermione nodded absently as her internal voice screamed. "Yes, he's very good to me. I'm quite lucky."
Little did Harry Potter know he had finally achieved his lifelong ambition to fade into relative obscurity. On the anniversary of major events like Halloween or Voldemort's death, someone usually wrote a short speculation piece on whatever had happened to the young man, but no one contacted her for interviews anymore - there were only so many times she could repeat "I don't know," in response to all of their questions. Rita Skeeter had tried to put forth a rumor that Hermione and Ron were hiding something, but she'd stopped after Hermione had owled an empty jar to the uppity reporter.
Of course, Hermione did know a bit more than the others, as she had been present for the disastrous blow up between Harry and Ron. But when Ron had screamed that Harry was dead to him and that he'd never mention him again, Hermione hadn't pushed the issue; she didn't feel the same way that Ron did, she didn't care whether Harry was straight or not.
It's true that at the time she thought that he'd be back, and later she'd been twitching at every movement in the windows in the hopes that he'd send an owl, but as the years dragged on she realized that Harry must have found somewhere else to land. It stung, but she thought that the affection she still had for her lost friend could best be served by not drawing attention to him and letting well enough alone.
So no one in the Weasley household spoke about Harry Potter or Ginny Weasley. It was as if a Taboo had been put in place, even among the family members who were less outraged than Molly and Ron.
And if Hermione missed her friend dearly, she also hoped that he'd found what he was looking for away from the madness of the wizarding world that had never quite known how to treat him and the Weasleys who had turned on the boy they once embraced.
And if Hermione occasionally thought about sending Harry a letter after a particularly vicious argument with Ron or when she was sad about her body refusing to serve her (or Ron's) needs, she imagined how that might disrupt the new life she hoped that he had built for himself.
One of them should have what they wanted.
It was three o'clock when Hermione locked the front door of Flourish and Blott's, swinging her tote over her shoulder and Apparating to Hogsmeade. The Three Broomsticks was boisterous as ever, she thought fondly as she shouldered her way through the door to find Percy.
He was sitting in a booth by the window, idly chatting to Rosmerta who had brought him a steaming cup of what looked to be chamomile. Hermione waved and was greeted with a smile from Percy and a cry of welcome from Rosmerta.
"Hello, hello, come on over, Hermione. How are you today, dear?"
"Fine, thanks, Rosmerta."
"Cold out there today, fancy some tea, then?"
"Sure, oh, and a croissant, please."
Rosmerta bustled off, calling for a tipsy looking wizard to stop levitating his takard while Hermione sat down across from her brother in law. Percy, she decided, had turned out to be not a bad sort. Mocked by his brothers and formerly coddled by his mother, the "serious" Weasley son had always seemed stiff and aloof during her childhood. However, once he was reconciled with his family, she had begun to see that aloofness as a desperate desire to escape the disadvantages he had grown up with. Once he was more secure in his own accomplishments, he'd relaxed into a much more pleasant person to be around.
"You'll never believe the monumental cock up Mulciber has caused this time."
It also didn't hurt that they knew the same people and frequently had the same dim opinions of those people. She settled in to hear all about Mulciber and his merry band of idiots, refusing any pangs of longing to detract from the pleasure of hearing about the discord in the Department of International Magical Cooperation.
"Anyway, now that this nasty little bit of corruption has become more common knowledge, they were forced to do a re-org in response to the inquiries. None, so far, against yours truly, but I wouldn't put it past someone to lodge a false complaint just out of pettiness."
"Not to worry, everyone knows your track record, any complaint that gets filed will die out quickly" Hermione said encouragingly. She wondered suddenly if she should broach the topic of Ron. It had been almost a month since she and Percy had talked about things on the porch during that particularly disastrous dinner. 'I don't have enough evidence of something being truly wrong,' she berated herself. 'It's normal for couples to fight sometimes and nothing good can come from complaining to my husband's brother. There's enough drama in the family without me stirring the cauldron.'
As if reading her mind, Percy became more focused on her. "Hermione, I wanted to ask how things are with Ron." She was startled enough to flush tellingly, but she covered her trembling mouth with her tea cup. "I was having a chat with Neville Longbottom, friend of yours isn't he? He came to see me about registering some new magical plant hybrid. Poor bloke is so scared of the Ministry that he came to ask if I could walk him through the process even though that's totally beyond the scope of my department. Anyway," he coughed and looked askance, lowering his voice, "he seemed to think Ron had been acting more erratic than usual."
Hermione gulped; so her suspicions were true and other people were starting to notice. If the subject had gone without mention, she would have had no qualms about ignoring it. However, now that Percy had asked directly, she wasn't sure how to respond.
"You don't have to hide anything," he said. "I should hope you'd know that by now." And Hermione did know. Who else would be level-headed enough to advise her while also understanding that Ron's nature hadn't changed, it had just become exaggerated? Her feelings about her husband were complicated and any confidant would need to have a sense for the nuance of loving someone but also wishing they would just make different choices. She also trusted that Percy wouldn't go prattling around to everyone about her failing marriage, and who else could she really trust in the same way? 'Harry,' her mind supplied, 'Harry would listen to you.' But Harry wasn't here, Percy was. She shook her head once as Percy regarded her with an intense look.
"May I ask why you think something might be amiss?" she settled for asking, still hedging.
"I don't care for the way he speaks to the family and I can only imagine you're hearing more of the same at home," he responded promptly. "I know I lost my temper the other week and I'm not proud of it, but Ron has exploded over something trivial on eight out of the past nine weekends and he's never apologized for any of it."
That was true, she realized. It looked like Percy had been recording some data of his own.
"He's not as bad as that when it's just the two of us, I think he just gets excited when there are so many people. And you have to admit, the twins do like to needle him."
"I also," Percy said in a very light tone accompanied by a very heavy expression, "don't care for the way he…touches you."
"I beg your pardon?"
Two flags of color rose high on Percy's angled cheekbones, but he doggedly continued. "He…Hermione, he grabs you and pushes you and tugs you along like a child. It reads as very controlling, not affectionate, and I have to say that it doesn't exactly look, well, consensual."
"That's ridiculous," she said automatically. It wasn't ridiculous. Ron's tight fingers had bruised her more than once. She remembered all the glowing spots in her journal and how many times she had felt afraid.
"Hermione, stop it. Why are you making excuses for him?" Indecision set her aflame; her childhood had made her fiercely, unthinkingly loyal and those instincts had become part of her core identity. But Hermione was also an honest person and she knew that what was happening between her and Ron wasn't right. She could also see how good it would feel to tell Percy about her secret fears and trials.
But she wasn't ready to talk about this yet. Not until she had made up her mind what her next steps would be.
"You're absolutely right," she finally said when she was nearly certain that this was the decision she wanted to make. "I'm not happy with the way Ron has been acting recently and I have enabled it by making excuses."
It was just like Luna said, she was speaking small truths to cover up the big ones.
Because instead of telling Percy about the Ron journal or how they fought over their infertility issues or about how she just felt so damn lonely all the time, she continued with a brave little smile. "But we've been through so much together, Ron and I, and I know we'll get through this rough patch, too. We're working on it and we fight just like any other couple, but without the bad there can't be an appreciation for the good. How is Neville, by the way? I can't seem to find the time to look him up these days?"
Percy knew she was full of shite, she could see it in his furrowed brow and the set of his jaw. She looked down at his hands, which weren't clenching like Ron's did when he got frustrated, but there was tension in those smooth fingers and the veins were standing out on the backs of them. Those hands were fascinating as a metaphor for the man: controlled and orderly, neat in their appearance, but containing a tightly bound set of feelings (as she had seen a month ago during that terrible fight with Molly, which the matriarch still hadn't forgiven if her icy inflection on Percy's name was anything to go by).
"-the delegation, but I'm not sure," Percy was still talking, apparently past Neville and his plants. She was sure that he hadn't been fooled by her awkward deflection, but he was enough of a gentleman not to push her. Or maybe he remembered that she had lied under the Cruciatus curse all those years ago and considered that her stubbornness might only have increased with age.
"I'm sorry, Percy," Hermione blushed guiltily, "I missed that last part. Delegation to where?"
"There's a colony of werewolves in Ireland that has sent a message that they want to undergo the Wolfsbane treatment. Apparently it's another group that Fenrir Greyback tried to turn into a terrorist cell and they've been fighting to control themselves since he was captured and killed last winter. It's a shame you're out of Magical Creatures now, this is almost more up your alley than mine."
The sticky situation intrigued Hermione; it was true that werewolves with a long term record of regular Wolfsbane treatments had achieved a legal recognition comparable to wizards. However, an enclave of untreated werewolves with sketchy origins would still be classified as "creatures" and not "people" to most of the Ministry and the following steps were very sensitive. Added to that the fact that these werewolves were applying to the British Ministry (probably because Britain had a higher werewolf population and therefore more resources and protocols for rendering assistance), and they'd have to be careful not to step on the Irish Ministry's toes.
"It sounds like such a headache, but it would be wonderful if we could find a way to help them!" Hermione enthused, getting more excited as she contemplated all the angles.
Percy smiled at the animation in her voice and also her use of the word 'we.' "Anyway, this colony wants to conference with Ministry people to potentially move to a protected reservation on British soil - one which keeps wizards out and keeps wolves in during the full moon." Hermione raised her eyebrows at this. "Yes, the Department of Mysteries has been working on a species-specific barrier that might be of use here, so this is quite a collaborative initiative."
"I'd say so! The implications of such a barrier could apply to far more than just werewolves; dragons, those damned acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest…"
"Yes, exactly!" Percy's eyes shone. "And the international cooperation to implement these barriers in other countries could win Britain a lot of the goodwill we lost during the war; my colleagues from some of the other countries still judge us by our leadership -or lack thereof- at the time."
"Oh Percy, how exciting for you to be involved in this," Hermione gushed, happy for her friend. But that happiness was tempered by the way he deflated a little and glanced away from her.
"Yes. Exciting, indeed." He cleared his throat and settled back into his chair. "But a project of this magnitude would require a lot of time and resources, naturally."
She nodded, unsure where he was going with this train of thought.
"And because the werewolves are in Ireland, most of that work should really be based nearby. Especially since, with all these factors and departments working together, any small conflict could prove to be a flashpoint that might derail the initiative."
And then she knew.
"You're leaving," she breathed out. "Of course you are, it makes complete sense."
As she sat frozen in place with her blood throbbing in her ears, she wondered what he could see on her face that made his features shift into that intense look he'd worn earlier when he was trying to get her to confess something about her marriage.
Slowly, so slowly that she could feel the effort behind it (Was it the effort to move? Or the effort not to move?), one of his hands lifted to hover over hers. She watched, fascinated in a disembodied kind of way, as it floated there and lowered a hairsbreadth at a time until their skin was separated by nothing more than the barest gasp of air and she could feel the heat radiating from his palm.
She wanted him to touch her. She didn't want him to touch her. With every heartbeat, her mind changed. And then she looked at him and the intensity had narrowed into a laser beam of focus that scorched her and without thinking she pulled her hands to her lap and pressed them between shaky knees.
"That's a once in a lifetime opportunity if I ever heard one!" she said in a silly, shrill voice, that bright facade acting as a shield between her and what had Almost Happened. "Have you told your family?" Her tongue was too big for her mouth and she felt foolish when she realized she had referred to the Weasleys as his family. As if she weren't one of them.
Percy's brown eyes bore into her and then he lifted his tea cup, which she had been almost sure was empty, to his lips. "Not yet," he said in a completely normal tone - how very dare he be so calm, she thought - "but I have my reasons. I should be going now, I have a meeting with Hauser, he moved into your old office, did you know, to review some of the recent werewolf legislation. Owl me for lunch again, whenever it's convenient for you." In a flurry of small talk and outerwear, he rose to his feet and then he was striding away from her without a backwards glance and she was trying to remember how to look like a normal witch who was out in public and not suffering the almost painful symptoms of something that felt like it might be a revelation, but that she couldn't quite articulate.
Hermione's predominant trait was intelligence, obviously. But there was some debate as to what the second most predominant trait might be.
"Strength," her mother would have said approvingly.
"Confidence," Luna would have said, like the good friend that she was.
"Bloody stubborn," Harry Potter would probably have said, which was probably the most accurate way to put it.
"Pig-headed," Ron might have added, somewhat less charitably.
The fact remained that when Hermione was confronted with a problem, she mulled it over relentlessly until she had a molecular understanding of it and then she attacked.
Her conversation with Percy had left her deeply unsettled, but she still couldn't identify what it was that had her off-kilter even hours later. As she moved mechanically through her chores (checking behind the bathroom door for more of Ron's sneaky socks this time), she ran through every detail of their meeting and noted the ones that made her discomfort spike.
'I also don't care for the way he…touches you.' Big spike there.
The way his hand had hovered just above hers, waiting for some sign before making contact. A sign she had definitely, awkwardly not given. Bigger spike.
The flex of those long fingers and the rigidity of his shoulders as she watched him stride away from her, a precursor for his eventual departure for Ireland. Jagged, mountainous spike.
Dinner was pleasant; Molly was full of gossip about some extended family member and Arthur encouraged her with gentle smiles. Ron was talking excitedly about a case he was working on and his office anecdotes were funny; he even helped her carry the dishes to the kitchen and continued his stories while she charmed everything clean. It was one of their better evenings and it was so comfortable and warm and easy.
The post-dinner lovemaking could have been described the same way: comfortable, warm, easy.
But as she lay next to her husband that night, Hermione's busy mind - which, of course, hadn't been fully occupied by idle gossip and housework and had continued to percolate while her normal life was going on around her - presented her with the unwelcome conclusion that to describe her happy ending as "comfortable and warm and easy" was sort of damning with faint praise.
Even more damning was her final thought for the day, which was that she had trembled for her brother in law's touch more than she could remember ever wanting her husband's, and she truly wasn't sure how she wanted to attack that problem.
