Chapter 11: In Which Hermione Explores Her Grief

Hermione returned home in a wretched mood. Her students had spent the remaining hour looking at wedding and bridesmaid's dresses in the special 'Summer Wedding' edition of Witch Weekly. Apparently tulle, lace, and beads would be in short supply this summer. Her seventh years would be using every scrap available to make the most ostentatious piles of glittery fabric concoctions ever seen. Restraint was not a word currently in any of their vocabularies.

She tried to put those depressing thoughts out of her mind as she walked to her kitchen. Hermione checked on the chicken and saw that it was brining along nicely. It would be ready for the oven in a few more hours. She then grabbed the bread dough and worked quite a bit of her frustration out on it. Nothing like beating a piece of dough to help relieve stress! She divided it into rolls and began to shape them. The motion was smooth and automatic, something for her hands to do while her mind wandered about, and it wandered to her dinner companion.

What am I doing eating dinner with Snape? What am I doing thinking about marrying Snape? Am I really that desperate? Am I trying to punish myself? Am I trying to make sure that no relationship ever lives up to the one I had with Ron? She paused on that thought, her hands stilling. Yes! If I enjoy someone else, then he's really dead.

She finished the rolls and left them to proof. Hermione walked to her bathroom and began to fill the tub; she studied herself in the mirror. She still looked like she did before the War. The wounds on her back and shoulders had healed without scarring. Her hair hid the scar at her left temple, and her smile could hide the scars on her soul, almost.

I look almost the same; why can't I feel the same? She lowered herself into the bath. Ron has been dead for six years, eight months, two weeks, and nine days. He's not coming back. Everyone has been telling you for years now that he would not have wanted you to mourn him forever. Hell, his parents want you to find someone else. His sister was sitting in your room telling you what outfits to wear to turn a new guy on. So why can't you let him go?

An image filled her mind, the last time she saw Ron. He was lying on the floor of Malfoy Manor. Fred and George had just burst into the room; Bellatrix dropped her knife and apparated out of there. Ron lay on the floor, broken and bleeding, his blood pulsed weakly from where his fingers had been. He looked up at her, his love for her, his satisfaction at keeping her safe radiated from his eyes. His head fell back to the ground. He was dead before Fred could bring her to him.

I can't let him go because he lived for me. He should have died, but he didn't. He took pain after pain for me. To keep her amused. He didn't let go until I was safe. How do I move on from that?

She stepped out of the tub and dried off. A quick glance at the clock showed her there was enough time, if she was willing to do it, if she was brave enough to do it. She looked at her floo. What's the point of being a Gryffindor if I can't do this? Before allowing herself another thought she flooed George.

She saw Angelina in the flames and asked if she could talk to George. A moment later he appeared in the fire.

"What's up Hermione, don't you have a date in a few hours? Shouldn't you be flooing Ginny?"

"I need help, but not that kind. We picked out the outfit yesterday. George," she paused, how to say what needed to be said? "Everyone tells me that I need to move on, and let Ron go. You're the only other one who saw what she did to him. How do I let that go? How do I move on from that?"

George's carefree smile fell. "Hold on, I'm coming through."

A second later, a much more serious George stepped into her room and sat down next to her on the edge of her bed. "We should have talked this through years ago."

"I don't think I could have then. I'm still not sure I can now."

"You know he kept alive so that she wouldn't torture you."

"Yes, I still have nightmares about it sometimes."

"Me too, less often now. I've had a lot less nightmares since we started having kids. A lot less sleep…" He grinned, trying to muster some humour so they both didn't start crying. "But… I can't imagine he did that, went through it so you would spend the rest of your life hurting for him. He was trying to protect you from pain, not make sure you spent the rest of your life trapped in it."

"I know. I really do, but... How do I honour that? He was saving my life, saving my body, how do I share it with someone else? It was his, and now, now he's not here to claim it." She kicked idly at the dust ruffle on her bed.

George scooted closer to her, wrapping a brotherly arm around her shoulders. "Look, Hermione, there is no way to 'let this go,' no way to 'move on.' That's crap from people who don't know anything about real grief. All there is is finding a way to live with it, and live as well as you can for the people who didn't make it home. I make sure I get one really good laugh in a day, especially on days when I don't feel like it, because that's my tie to Fred. No matter what, we could always laugh." George's expression softened as he remembered his missing twin.

"This might sound mean, and I'm not saying to make Ron sound shallow, but he was seventeen. What he liked best was sex, with you. He was an insufferable prat for days after the first time you did it. Like he had seen the bloody sun for the first time. He loved your body, and the way it made him feel, the way he could make you feel. He wouldn't have wanted you to miss out on that. He wouldn't have missed out on it himself. If it had been you, he would have found another woman by now. He'd still love you, but he'd love her as well.

"You know," he continued, "Percy is a stuck up git, but he's not stupid. It's easier to go forward with the kids. You spend less time looking back. You have less time to look back. I've been wondering for a few months now if that's not part of this new law, a way of trying to force people to move forward. As I said, I've been having fewer nightmares since we had the kids, and I know Angelina is doing better. I think that's true of Harry and Ginny as well. I'm not saying that kids are the answer, and that popping a few of them out will make everything better, but I think it helps."

George flashed a dazzling smile, and the arm around her shoulder stopped feeling like the embrace of a brother. "Now, speaking of kids and shagging, how about you ditch Snape and come home with me tonight? Angelina and Deidre could take the kids out and we could have some time to ourselves…" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Hermione began to smile. She punched him lightly in the arm, and then hugged him. "You always do make me feel better."

"All part of the service." This time his smile was smaller. "But seriously, we'd be happy to have you as part of the family. Lots of laughs at our place."

"I'm not sharing a husband, as much as I like Angelina and Deidre, I don't want to split you three ways."

He grinned. "There's always more than enough of me to go around. After all, I'm living for two."