Hunted
Chapter 10
"Did you want some tea?"
"Pardon?" Hermione lifted her head from where it had been bent low, examining her fingers. They were curious things, her fingers. Thin, not too long, a bit of dirt under the nails, perhaps, but certainly not unattractive.
In any case, they were a sight far easier to look at than the man sitting in front of her.
"I have some tea. . . if you want any," the once familiar man said, looking all for the world like a little boy before his sick mother. He was tiptoeing around her, careful not to upset her and unused to the disease, whatever it could be, that she had. Harry's eyes shone with the thinly veiled desire for approval, something that reminded Hermione too much of her own son.
"Oh. Just a bit, please."
Harry stood up and poured the tea into two quaint little cups. He put one in front of Hermione, along with some milk and sugar. To his credit his hands only shook slightly.
There was an uncomfortable silence where Hermione sipped her tea, avoiding looking into his green eyes.
"I never stopped looking for you," said Harry, suddenly. Their eyes met, and Hermione slowly put her cup down, her hands shaking. She didn't want to drop it ruin the porcelain.
"Harry. . ."
"I thought you were dead plenty of times," he chuckled, not that anything was remotely funny. "I thought maybe he," no need to say his name, "had done something to you. Maybe he had eaten you, I don't know."
"Harry."
"After Voldemort fell I figured some sign of you would turn up. We scoured the forests looking for you. Ron and I did," he added unnecessarily. "Lupin got your, uh, scent and looked. But we never did find anything."
Gods, she wanted him to stop.
"I never lost faith. I knew I'd see you again. I just knew it. Ginny is going to be so happy. We're married now, you know? Oh, and Ron of course. All the Weasley's." His face glazed over into a mask of happiness, and Hermione couldn't bare to look at it. "Molly carried on, you should have heard her. She apologized for that time she said all those nasty things to you about that article Rita Skeeter had written. Oh, Merlin, you can get to know Lizzie now. She's my daughter, my eldest. Ginny's expecting again. We think it's going to be a boy. I named you Lizzie's godmother, 'cause I know you weren't gone, not really."
"Harry, please. . ."
"It'll just be like it was, except without the sociopath trying to kill us at every turn. Oh, and Lizzie. You'll love her though. I told her all about you, she's already in love with you. It'll be just like old times, you'll see, it's be just like-"
"Harry!" she shouted at him, and the glazed look abandoned his eyes at once. He looked at her, afraid, trembling, seeing her for the first time perhaps. That moment was soon gone, however, and he swallowed.
"Have I gone on too much?" he asked.
She put her head in her hands. "I have a son, Harry."
There was an intake of breath, and she didn't have to look at him to know there was uncomfortable horror on his face.
"Did he," he struggled to find a word. "Did he force you to-"
"Stop right there, Harry Potter," her voice was picking up the familiar bossy tones that he had acquiesced to so often as a boy. "You're going to a place that won't be easy to come back from."
"He did, didn't he," the boy said, quietly.
"He changed me, Harry. In lots of ways, and not only the ways that you're thinking."
"He hurt you."
Hermione sighed, blankly wondering if Fenrir had started to look for her already. "I won't deny that he did, in the beginning. It wasn't of my free will."
"I'll kill him," he swore, the same look of his childhood flashing before his eyes.
Hermione felt something in her chest constrict, if only because she saw that Harry had still not grown up. Not fully. Not like she had.
If she thought about it, she might have found that strange. She had grown up fast, faster than her hymen had been ripped, and with the maturity came the skidding half of many misconceptions. But even so, she thought of Hati, his little nose wrinkled at her, and could not help the smile on her lips, nor the warmth in her chest when she thought of Fenir sleeping beside her, his arms wrapped around her waist and his face nuzzled into her hair.
"You will not," she said quietly.
"Hermione, you can't just-"
"No."
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Lizzie, making her way into the kitchen, stopped the words on his lips.
"Daddy," the girl said, shyly staring at Hermione. "Can I have some milk?"
Harry got up like an automaton, mechanically getting a cup and pouring the milk. He handed the glass gently to his daughter. "Is this enough for you? Perhaps too much, you're but a wee thing."
Hermione felt tenderness welling in her heart as she gazed upon them.
Lizzie giggled, grasping onto Harry's pant leg with her free hand. "Daddy," she said.
"What is it, sweetheart?"
"Who is she?" she asked innocently, her big, green eyes wide and staring with a curious intent not unlike Hati when he saw a beetle that was particularly fascinating.
"She's. . ." and he hesitated. Really, what could he say to the girl?
She's a ghost, darling. Back from the dead all spick and span. Not as innocent as we last saw her, but back in one piece she is. Might be a little deranged, might be a little damaged, but it's nothing a bit of spellotape, potions and therapy can't fix.
Or maybe. . .
She's a friend but she's sleeping with the enemy. Worse, she has a son with the enemy. By association that makes her my enemy, but I can't drag myself through the emotional torment of muck and mire at this present moment to acknowledge the fact. Maybe in a few days when I get over the novelty of seeing her in a tangible form and outside of my yearnings.
Better still. . .
She looks like someone I used to love but she isn't that person. What happened to the girl I loved as my friend, my sister, even my mother.
"She's Hermione Granger," he settled on, looking to her uncertainly. As if in his eyes he was asking her, you are Hermione Granger, aren't you?
Somewhere, in her chest, deep within that constricting orifice, Hermione felt her heart stiffen, and her immediate thought was of Fenrir.
"I am Hermione," said Hermione to the little girl, though her eyes were on Harry. "But I am not Granger."
It was some time before Hermione left the house that Harry built, the stone cottage that Harry and Ginny and Lizzie called home. There had been shouting, tears, and a choked confession from her mouth. Though she stumbled over the words (words used to have a more sensuous meaning for her, now they were too telling and made her cold) but managed to get them out.
Now she was moving, her legs carrying her quickly through the woods.
"I won't let you go back to him."
"You haven't any choice."
"What the bloody hell are you talking about! I'm not about to let you go back to that . . . that murderer!"
"It's my choice."
Pause.
"You can't seriously mean that."
"I do."
"But after what he did. . ."
"I don't have any hatred in me for what he did. I love our son. I care for them both."
"You're mad."
In the end she hadn't cried, nor shown any outward sign of agony. She imagined that Fenrir might have been proud of her for it, and it brought a warm flush to her cheeks.
He met her at the edge of the forest, worry written in large letters across his face. His tense shoulders slumped in relief when he saw her.
"Did you get lost?" he asked sardonically, moving to embrace her.
She leaned her body into his, resting her head on his shoulder. "I met an old friend. I didn't mean to make you worry," she said.
"I thought maybe something had happened. I thought maybe someone had hurt you."
"You'd never let that happen," she said, a small smile forming on her lips.
Of course he'd never let that happen. He was the only one who was allowed to hurt her, and he forbade himself even that right.
She was moving her hands into his hair, preparing to pull him down into a kiss, when a voice cracked in the woods.
"Get your filthy hands off of her."
It was Harry, his wand drawn, and his handsome face twisted into an ugly mess of hatred.
a/n: ... okay one more chapter and then the epilogue.