Hermione was not freaking out. She was 29 years old damn it! She wasn't about to be worried about a not-a-date-but-maybe-a-date-date. For Merlin's sake, she was a war hero. People practically worshipped the ground she walked on. So no, if anyone asked, Hermione was not worried. And certainly not scared. She was, after all, the Gryffindor princess, and bravery clung to her in excess.

One could, however, be excused for thinking otherwise, as Hermione Granger stood wringing her hands out in front of her as she stared into her half-empty closet. The rest of her clothes laid strewn across the floor in undignified heaps. She tapped her foot. Surely she had something appropriate.

It was no small task, picking out an outfit when Hermione knew she would be compared to Fleur; a woman who could exude grace and style in sweatpants and a stained oversized tee. Meanwhile, Hermione exuded plainness and mediocrity. What would be considered too casual? She cast another look at the discarded clothing as if hoping that something would appear out of thin air. Odder things have happened. Alas, there were no sudden conjurations. She would have to make do.

There was a knock on the door. Hermione finished pulling the cream colored sweater over her head and dashed to the bathroom to hurriedly apply a bit of mascara.

"Just a minute!" She called out.

She ran to the door, pausing for a second to catch her breath and smooth down her hair one last time, and opened it.

Fleur was leaning casually against the doorframe. She wasn't wearing anything that could be considered particularly impressive on its own; a jean jacket, a white peasant shirt, and a pair of ripped jeans that hung low on her hips, but on her they looked couture.

Her hands were shoved into her jacket pockets. She pulled them away from her body in a questioning manner as she asked, "Are you ready?"

"What? Oh, yes let's go."

Fleur just stood there with her eyebrows raised.

"Do you want to go or not?" Hermione said in a huff.

"You might want to put on some shoes, mon amie."

Hermione looked down to see her stocking feet and a noticeable absence of footwear.

"Right. Well, come in I'll just be a second."

She disappeared into her room for a minute, returning with a pair of white converse that she had hastily cast a scourgify on in a mildly successful attempt to remove some of the grime that had built up over the years.

"Ready!"

Fleur led them to a lively pub around the corner from their building. They kept their heads down as they made their way to an empty table in the back of the room. Fleur offered to buy the first round, and at Hermione's agreement, shot off to grab them, returning a few minutes later carrying a glass of wine and a beer.

"So what do you do for fun when you're at school?" Hermione was intent on approaching the difficult topic delicately and carefully and was thus slightly smug at how covertly she was approaching the ex-husband topic.

"Read mostly. We don't have much time for much else; there's always a student needing one thing or another."

"You don't go into Hogsmeade?"

"The professors try to meet up once a month. We have a rotating schedule so there are always a few of us still at school in case anything happens."

"Oh? Just the professors?"

Fleur gave her an odd look. "Yes."

"Well, that seems like fun."

"It can be, yes."

"Right."

Fleur narrowed her eyes. "Why are you acting odd?"

"I'm not acting odd."

"Yes, you are."

"Am not!" Hermione cringed at herself. 'Am not'? Really.

"Alright then."

"Alright. Good."

They sat in uncomfortable silence. Hermione bounced her left foot nervously as she tried to gather the nerve to ask Fleur about Bill. Damn Harry! If only he had told her instead of leading her in blind. She had no clue as to what had been the catalyst of their marriage's collapse, and she had no desire to accidentally offend the other woman on their not-a-date-date. Hermione recalled that Harry had mentioned a mutual separation at the Weasley's a few weeks ago, but that was not nearly enough for her to confidently ask. Not to mention, Hermione wasn't sure how Fleur would react to her asking such questions. The younger witch would be mortified if Fleur presumed that she had an attraction, even if it were true, to her.

Up until this point, Hermione had attempted, with what she thought was an admirable success, to keep her attraction from being blatant. Flirting here and there was normal! Comfortable, even. After all, she and Jack flirted quite often, but she certainly did not hold a candle for the man. It didn't have to mean anything. Hermione was sure that Fleur had experienced enough unrequited and undesired advances. She didn't want to follow in these boorish footsteps. No, she would keep her attraction under lock and key.

Despite this resolve, Hermione couldn't deny that she wanted to find out more about Fleur. She chalked it up to typical knowledge-seeking-Hermione behavior. Eventually, after what felt like minutes, but was really no more than a few seconds, Hermione gathered the nerve to ask head-on.

"Have you seen anyone since Bill?"

Hermione couldn't quite bring herself to meet Fleur's eyes as she asked, instead choosing to focus on the lewd photograph of a naked woman that was hanging in all its dignified glory directly behind Fleur. When Fleur didn't respond, Hermione chanced a look at her face.

The other woman's face, normally displaying only the most surface level of emotions, showed the whirlwind of emotions she was experiencing. Hermione wanted to say something, anything, to bring the conversation back to safer waters, but something stopped her from getting the words out, and she instead waited patiently for Fleur to gather herself.

"Non. What happened with Bill was, well it was not pleasant. I did not wish to get into anything else." Her voice was small and quiet. Hermione had to lean forward slightly to catch the words as they drawled out of Fleur's mouth in monotone.

"If you don't mind me asking, and please don't feel as though you have to dignify this with a response, but what happened? To you and Bill, I mean."

Fleur took a drink. She held the wine in her mouth, savoring the flavor and delaying her response, before swallowing and carefully putting the glass back on the wooden table. She watched the precipitation drip down the wine glass in tracks and rubbed the stem of the glass as she thought.

"It wasn't his fault." She began. "Well, not entirely. I am no saint Hermione, I need you to understand this." She brought her eyes up to meet the other woman as she spoke, demanding the intimacy of eye contact for what was to come. Hermione kept the shock off her face and gave Fleur a small nod of understanding. Fleur continued. "When we started courting, I thought I had found the person I would spend the rest of my life with. He was charming, smart, and handsome. He made me laugh. He never made me feel less than. He never talked down to me. I was his equal, as he was mine."

She took another sip of wine, this one to sooth the sudden scratchiness of her voice.

"During the war, we didn't have time to focus on us. Our courtship started and ended so quickly, we had only dated for a year before we married, did you know? I think that was our mistake. We were so caught up in the excitement of the time. It didn't seem right to discuss superfluous things like what our dreams were, or what our favorite meal was when we were on the cusp on societal collapse. How could we? Our neighbors, our friends, our family, were fighting. It seemed so," she stopped, trying to find the word. "trivial, in comparison. And then I saw you."

Fleur stopped speaking, her eyes cast down on the table. Hermione tensed. She could feel her palms begin to sweat, her heartbeat begin to quicken, her throat tightening. Her jaw clenched and she dug her fingernails into the part of her skin that was exposed by the rips in her jeans. Focus on what you see. What can you see? Five things. Just five. She repeated to herself within the safe confines of her mind. The photograph. The bald barman. The rowdy group of university students. The neon toilet sign. Fleur. She repeated these a few times more.

Fleur wet her lips. "I- when you came to the cottage you were so broken. I couldn't sleep the week you were there. Every time I closed my eyes I just saw you. Broken."

Hermione moved to sounds. The Beatles playing over the speaker. A beer bottle getting slammed down on the table next to them. A call of cheers from the crowd. Fleur's gulp. Her heart was still thumping, but her hands felt less clammy, so she continued. Three smells. Stale beer. The slight musk of sweat. Fleur's perfume. She repeated all of these one more time.

Fleur began to speak in a rush, her voice more and more betraying the emotions she had been repressing.

"Until that point, neither of us had been on the front lines. We were keeping our ears open at Gringotts, but we weren't fighting. And there you were. Just barely 18 and fighting for your life. You had suffered through something that most of us would never wish upon our worst of enemies. And then there you were lying on my guest bed; in a room that I had cleaned the day before at my leisure with a glass of wine while you were… with her. I was the dutiful wife masquerading as a spy on the side, while you were sacrificing yourself for our futures. I felt sick with myself. I didn't eat. I couldn't. I tried to help you, make you comfortable, read to you, whatever I could think of. When you left, I- I was only thinking of the danger you had yet to face. And I was doing it sitting at my dining room table picking at a lavish meal."

Fleur cleared her throat with a cough. She found herself unable to continue and ended up sitting there dumbly, her mouth opening and closing.

Hermione's heart had slowed, her throat relaxed, and chest no longer felt the uncomfortable pressure it had been under minutes prior. She took a deep breath. Then another. She released her grip on her knee and switched to a lightly tapping on it with her index finger instead.

She spoke in a whisper. "You did help. I don't blame you, or think anything less of you. Mine was a role that needed to be played."

"It wasn't a role you should have been cast in. You were so young."

"We all were. The adults, they failed us. None of us should have been involved. Looking back, I can't fathom how they justified our participation."

"It wasn't right." Fleur said as she shook her head in agreement.

Hermione waited for Fleur to continue with measured breaths. She felt in control. It was an invigorating feeling to talk about the event and not break down, even if it was discussed in such a tangential way. She absentmindedly rubbed her left forearm with her thumb. It wasn't hurting.

"When the war ended we were left to pick up the pieces. There were funerals to organize and to attend, buildings to repair, people to heal. Bill was dealing with the aftermath of his attack. We were busy. And because we were busy we didn't have to focus on what wasn't working. But then finally everything settled and suddenly it was just us. I don't remember how it happened; one day we were fine, the next we were hardly talking to each other. We got to the point where we would leave the room if the other came in. Bill he- he was insecure after the attack. He tried to put on a brave face for his family, but it was affecting him. When we went out, he started to get more and more jealous of the attention I would get. We never talked about it. We didn't know how."

"He was still working at Gringotts when I started consulting. I thought it would be good for us to have a separation, living and working together was a lot of, well, togetherness. "

"So I left. My first assignment was for the Portuguese ministry. It was supposed to be a two week trip, but I ended up stretching it to a month. I wasn't expecting it to be so freeing. I was living by myself in a tiny apartment the ministry had set up, and I had never felt so happy. But the guilt lay heavy. How could I feel like that without my husband? Without the man who was supposed to be the love of my life? It was selfish, but I couldn't go home. I went on another assignment immediately. I was away from England for four months straight. I didn't once miss Bill."

She let out a sigh. "He didn't miss me either. A new person, a girl fresh out of Hogwarts, had taken my place at Gringotts. He was her mentor. She was enamored with him almost immediately, constantly bringing him lunch, asking for help, inviting him for a drink after work, and so on and so forth. They got close. When I came home, I found their letters. Months of them that started almost from the minute I left. I confronted him about it one night. He told me nothing was going on, that they were just friends and that he didn't see her like that. I didn't believe him. But I also didn't want to face the alternative- that he was cheating on me and I was his second choice. So I ignored it, and went on another assignment. One that lasted six months."

She looked at Hermione solemnly. "I want, need, you to understand that I was miserable. I had just learned that my husband had been unfaithful and despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise, I knew that my marriage wasn't going last long. I was in Australia and working alongside a woman who was particularly affected by my thrall. At this point I didn't have the control of it that I do now, and certain people were influenced like you saw during the tournament, you remember how Ron acted?"

Hermione nodded, Ron's dumbfounded expression still fresh in her memories.

"This woman was similar, but she was able to hold a conversation. She became rather- attached, shall we say- to me. Similar to Bill's 'coworker,' this woman, Jane, sent letters. Many of them. I'm not entirely sure why I allowed it. It wasn't right. I should never have allowed her to get as comfortable with me as she did, but I couldn't help loving how it made me feel. Desired. Confident. Attractive. Bill and I hadn't fucked in months, and I wanted to. I wanted to feel that connection with someone, anyone. She was attractive and… willing. About a month before I went back to England I agreed to go on a date with her. It was a stupid, reckless, idiotic thing to do, but I so desperately wanted to feel wanted and desired. I couldn't resist."

She stopped, trying to gauge Hermione's reaction to the influx of personal information, but wasn't able to glean a thing from the British woman's face. When she started to talk again she held Hermione's gaze, intent as she was to portray the severity of her failure. Hermione looked right back, mirroring the intensity of Fleur's stare.

"I went on the date with her, expecting to fuck at the end of it, but not even ten minutes into the date I panicked and left. I couldn't do it. I couldn't just betray Bill like that, even if he betrayed me."

Hermione reached out silently to hold Fleur's hand. The other woman's hand was clammy: betraying the discomfort and anxiety she felt for the conversation. She gave it a soft squeeze of encouragement and brushed her thumb across the back, unwilling to interrupt Fleur's confession, but wanting to provide some modicum of comfort. She was rewarded for her efforts with the smallest hint of a smile, albeit one laced with sadness.

"I finished the assignment as soon as I could, I think I hardly slept for the rest of the month. As soon as I got home I told Bill. He was furious for all of five minutes, and then all of a sudden he was eerily calm. He told me he wanted to get a divorce. I couldn't bring myself to argue with him, or to fight for our relationship when really it had been dead for a long time. I packed my things that night and went to stay with my family in France. I found out after we had signed the papers that he had been cheating on me with that woman the entirety of the time I was away, and not just exchanging letters. I had suspected it, of course, but it was one thing to suspect and quite another to hear confirmation."

"I had no idea, Fleur."

"Few did. We decided to keep it between us. It isn't something either of us are proud of. Harry is one of the only people in both of our lives that know."

"I didn't realize you two were close."

Fleur gave a small smile. "We understand one another. Harry can sympathize with the intrinsic unpleasantness from having something people want. You are lucky to count him as a friend"

"He is something special. I've missed him."

Fleur looked as though she wanted to ask, but couldn't bring herself to do so, as the emotional nature of the conversation had begun to make its effects known, and her entire being felt so dramatically tired.

Hermione added, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to go through that."

Fleur shook her head. "I wasn't sad that it was over. It was for the best. But I was sad, and hurt, both about how it ended, and how I behaved."

They had finished their drinks already, and so were free to get up and leave the small table behind. Try as they might, they weren't able to shake the morose mood the conversation had put them in, and it adhered to them with great perseverance and determination, providing a stark contrast to the aura of lightheartedness provided by those around them. They exited the pub, their heads bowed just as they had been when they entered. Their mood seemed to dissuade any strangers from talking to them, and for that, Hermione was grateful.