Understanding

by Ydream08

Chapter 10

"Hermione, I need to do this. I need to do this alone."

He was insane. Bloody insane. Why was she always had to be the one with brains in this group?

"Harry, do you hear what you're saying?" she shrieked, grabbing a hold of his arm. She would not let go. He would not go to that forest.

Who did Voldemort think he was, anyway? Was he the bloody Queen of England for Godric's sake? Why should Harry go to his feet, lie down to take the blow no less?

Ron hesitantly stepped closer to them. One hand raised to somewhat calm Hermione, he faced Harry. "Mate, 'Mione is right. It is a bloody trap!"

Hermione agreed to Ron. The cup was destroyed, only Nagini was left to get to Voldemort. There was no need for heroic sacrifice-

"Harry, getting yourself killed is not the answer. And that's exactly what's going to happen if you go by yourself. Let me-"

"NO!" Harry objected. "You're not going anywhere with me. You'll stay with Ron and the Weasleys. I will finish this. And if I can't-"

She shoved him. "You," she shoved again. "Stupid," punching felt better. "Egotistical…"

Oh, Merlin, she was crying. Everyone was dead. They knew the state of the Great Hall, bodies lined up neatly. Snape's death was perhaps the most recent they knew of, but Hermione doubted it would be the last.

She just didn't want Harry to be among them.

"You either come with me inside while we discuss this with the Order," Hermione hiccuped; it was damn hard to hush her crying. Not to mention, she honestly had no idea to what to threaten Harry with. He was an effing sacrificial saint in the first place. "That's it. No other option."

Harry looked pained. Her declaration didn't even slightly alter his mind, she was sure, or even made him doubt. Hermione knew that determination.

This was the reason he never opened up to Ginny, too. His fate, in his tiny stupid head, was supposedly sealed to death.

Hermione was an idiot.

"Harry, c'mon," Ron nudged him, and reluctantly, and surprisingly, Harry joined them inside.

His hollow footsteps among theirs didn't ease Hermione's turmoil. She just knew that Harry would look out for the best time to slip away on his own. The utter dunderhead would think that that way he would cause the least pain. She had to have her eyes open.

At first chance he had escaped to view Snape's tears in the pensieve. Harry couldn't believe what he saw. Everything made sense now: Snape's involvement with the Order and especially Dumbledore's blind trust for the half-blood wizard.

The truth of Harry's survival, though, was by far the most important revelation.

Back when Harry gave in to both Hermione and Ron's insistence that he stay, there had been a small part of him that agreed with them.

But now?

He had to go. Taking out his Invisibility Cloak, Harry made his way to the Forbidden Forest.

It was Ron who held her from collapsing. Harry was dead?

Draco crossed the yard. Neville limped forward. Death Eaters laughed.

Something had snapped in her, Hermione knew. She didn't know what to do. What was next?

Would she be able to continue as valiantly as Neville described? Or would she surrender and accept the Avada that would surely find her chest. Her heart was dead anyway.

There needn't be an answer to give as Harry Potter rose to his feet, miraculously alive, and aimed a spell at Nagini.

Hermione gave up. She failed each time when she tried to decipher Harry Potter anyway, the Boy-who-thankfully-didn't-die.

Their plan was on. Hope remained. They would fight.

Everything felt so… distant.

Hermione didn't know how she could stop thinking, but ever since her feelings drained away, thinking was all she could do.

She thought back to their first kiss. She thought how her friendly hug gave pass to Harry's openly affection. She thought, at that moment, when she pulled away to shriek his name, she felt an immense pleasure upon his following kiss.

She thought back to how she climbed onto his lap.

Then, Hermione proceeded to think their first time in the library. It occurred to her now how their conversation was picked up after the sex was over. It was Harry simply saying, "Glad I found you."

Hermione fast forwarded to every encounter with Harry after that. Their relationship… well, she considered it as that after the 'Mrs. Potter' slip, but recalling the day of the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione just knew that she had to have some peace for herself.

Yes, the more she thought back to it, the clearer it became that the two of them had dimmed each other's worries, cured their wounds and amended their broken feelings. Hermione had needed that. Harry had needed that.

Was that enough, though? Really enough?

When he walked out to that forest without a word to her, Hermione wondered if she ever was a concern for Harry. He was always in her mind! Constantly. While grieving for their friends even, Hermione worried about Harry still.

She never saw the same worry in his eyes. He had become cold. Lifeless. Silent.

This was hard for the both of them, but Hermione... well, she couldn't fit neither her feelings nor her logic for their interactions.

Even Ron had noticed it.

"You and Harry are odd. I've never seen the two of you so apart. Well, maybe whenever the two of us used to fight, Harry did his best to get away. But it's not the same, you know. Is everything alright? With you two?" Hermione was so embarrassed to turn into a mess of tears in front of Ron, but it happened. A bit comical in a sense. Ron panicked, of course: "Are you okay?"

He soothed her, and only when she looked back up at him did he understand it was not just about her relationship with Harry. It was everything about the war. Their escape. The hunt. Her torture. The final battle.

It was about Harry, on top of all of that. Bloody insane, everything was.

And Hermione could not take this any more. She wanted her parents. Not the Weasleys, not Ron, not Harry. Definitely not Harry.

"I'm sorry," Hermione blurted out to Ron. He had lost his brother. And here she was crying for-

"Don't," Ron interjected. Hermione smirked in vain. Ron hadn't been her best friend for nothing. That, or it was easy to read her mind. "Just talk with him, 'Mione. This hasn't been easy on any of us… and you just don't see how he looks at you."

That got her eyebrows up. "What? He never looks my way!"

Realizing how awful that sounded, Hermione shook her head. "Ron, I'm sorry. This is really not appropriate for me to discuss when…"

"When Fred is gone," Ron finished. She hadn't paid attention to his bloodshed eyes. It had only been three weeks since the Battle, six days since Fred's funeral. The Weasleys had waited for their relatives for the burial.

"He is gone," Ron declared, looking lost despite his assured voice. "But it's not the end. With how Percy obsessively cleans up the joke shop, it will be the first place to be open in Diagon Alley after everything. F- Fred would have… would have wanted that. Wanted that more than anything. So yeah, it is okay to discuss how we'll continue."

His voice cracked and tears ran down his cheeks. Hermione immediately hugged Ron to relieve him of his sorrow.

"It's okay to mourn, too," Hermione whispered. "You don't have to be like Percy, somewhat getting back on track. Or like Bill- he does have a daughter now, unlike you. Not like Charlie, helping Mr. Weasley with the Ministry. Or George, or like Ginny. You just be you."

They stayed like that until Ron's sniffs silenced. He exhaled, "Thanks, 'Mione."

She stepped away, smiling.

"Talk to him," Ron said once again. He left only when she nodded in promise. She wished he had told her how would she do it in the first place!

Two more days passed without talking to Harry. It was two days of observation how conflicted Mrs. Weasley was.

Victoire was a newborn, the cutest baby Hermione had ever seen. Fleur rarely came to Burrow as she tended the baby, but Mrs. Weasley went away to help her all the time. She and Bill were with Fleur during the day.

Hermione always welcomed Mrs. Weasley on her return with a warm smile mimicking hers. It was no wonder that the older witch was ecstatic- it was not everyday that one had a granddaughter. But by the evening, when the lights were out, and Hermione noticed Mrs. Weasley sat in her armchair in the darkness, the young girl witnessed the woman's cries in sadness.

Hermione always heard Fred's name, but the half-knitted jumper in Mrs. Weasley's hands was the one she had started for Victoire.

Watching her helplessly, Hermione realized how selfish she had sounded two days back when she had talked with Ron.

She wanted to be selfish, because in the back of her mind, Hermione was dying to find her parents and restore their memories, but here she was in the Burrow, aimlessly intruding in people's lives.

Her war wasn't over- maybe the sole reason she had not shared the burden of the Weasleys as much. Shared Harry's burden as much.

The next morning, Hermione caught Harry before he left with Mr. Weasley to the Ministry. He had made a habit of going to the Ministry, always the Chosen One business or something like that.

"Good morning." Hermione proceeded to hug him tightly, which ended his greeting in a whisper.

"Hey," he said once she released him. It was his easy smile that she saw, the one she fell in love with. It was such a surprise considering his behaviour the past month. A tiny, guilty and selfish part of her suggested that one of the reasons Harry was distant had been because of her. Her own distance towards him.

That hadn't been the issue during the Hunt. Now that it was, and just now how Harry lightened up at the lightest of touches, Hermione realized they needed one another.

His green eyes sparkled in content when she further put her hand on his cheek. Leaning into the touch, he raised his hand to navigate hers for a soft kiss in the palm.

"Hey," Hermione whispered back to him. This was right. It was ridiculous how effortlessly Harry found the comfort of their relationship again. Hermione knew this meant there were no broken feelings about the past month: They had needed the time for themselves.

"I was thinking," Hermione started, but realizing they were making Mr. Weasley awkwardly wait, she pulled her hand away. "I have to check on my parents. I was thinking of going back home to-"

Harry's eyes sparked with fury, not at her soon she realized. "Don't go. Wait for me to come, yeah? We can go together. I'm sorry if… well… Hermione, I just… your parents weren't safe. I don't want you to go and…" Hermione blinked at what Harry was getting at. Truthfully, she never thought that far. He swallowed, "You shouldn't go anywhere alone, not when some of the Death Eaters are still at loose."

Registering his genuine worry, Hermione understood: She had never told Harry that she had wiped away her parents' memories and sent them away.

Hermione didn't particularly want to break the news of what she had done now when there would be hours till Harry came back to the Burrow, giving him ample time to make a fuss over it, but she didn't particularly want to waste time either.

She backtracked to Harry's suggestions and counted in the determination in his eyes. Even if her parents were across the other side of the world -they literally were-, Harry would be coming with her.

She wanted him to come with her.

"Alright," Hermione conceded. She had been thinking of buying airplane tickets to travel out of the Ministry radar anyway. She would buy two tickets to make herself useful till Harry came back. "I'll be waiting for you- don't be late."

Hello,

Hope the transition was alright? My plan is to have two more chapters to wrap up this story. So yeah, maybe it will be finished by the end of March? We'll see about that.

Take care!

-Ydream08