"I met this girl... but she's with someone else."
"Does she love you?"
"I don't know... no... yes... but it doesn't matter."
"Oh... it's all that matters."

OOO

Hermione sat in the cheap apartment in Hogsmeade that she'd rented for the month- she had no idea how long she was staying and it was only this place that would let her rent on a month by month basis. She liked it, despite it being on the end of town that students didn't regularly frequent, and despite the rats in the walls that had taken two weeks of Mr. Rodent's Rat Remover! Highest Quality Potions! to encourage them to move elsewhere. She also liked that is was near Hogwarts. For all its associations with Lord Voldemort, she still saw Hogwarts as a place of wonder and joy and friendship. Although, staring up at it now, also made her feel a little bit lonely.
Hermione thought about meeting with Malfoy at the bar in London after the wedding, and the conversation they had. It had actually been surprisingly nice. After Voldemort was defeated, school enmities hardly seemed important, but she never thought they'd actually be able to have a decent conversation.

Funny that he assumed that her presence there was an indication of why she'd left Ron. She supposed it made sense; most of the world, if they knew she'd broken up with him, didn't know why. But she'd never really considered herself lesbian. For the first part of her life, she was attracted to Ron, and a little to Krum or Lockhart. And then, while she was abroad... she found herself attracted to a new person, who had for a period of time turned her world upside down.
But she'd explained none of this to Malfoy. Instead, their conversation had mostly steered clear of relationships, except for a few sentences.

"So what are you writing about now?" Malfoy had inquired curiously when Hermione had mentioned that she was thinking of staying for a while to do research for her next book. She was earning enough in royalties that she could afford to work on something of her own for a while.

"Grindelwald actually," Hermione had said with a smile, "Though it'll be more of a story than a historical account. I hope."

"Story?" Malfoy echoed, looking surprised, "I thought there wasn't anything to Grindelwald. Just another Dark Wizard right?"

"Well Professor Dumbledore was friends with him so there must be something to his character," Hermione had explained, "I want it to read like a novel. I want to write something that readers will sympathize with."

Malfoy laughed, and drained the rest of his drink, "Of course! Rita Skeeter hears that they were friends and assumes this means that Albus Dumbledore was a Dark Wizard... YOU on the other hand hear that and think Grindelwald must have not been so Dark after all!"

"Don't you think so?" Hermione asked, looking at Malfoy a little bit sharply.

"I mean, Grindelwald was obviously a Dark wizard..." Malfoy started, looking wary, but seemed to think about it, "But... you're right. I can't imagine that the Dumbledore we knew was a Dark wizard as a kid and then redeemed himself. It does seems slightly more likely that Grindelwald wasn't all evil."

"I don't want to write a fluffy book about how Grindewald was a poor misunderstood sod," Hermione interjected.

"Oh I don't expect you too," Malfoy quickly said, "As I said, I read your novels. Those had enough dark bits in them to make me realize your confrontations with the Dark Lord every year or two had their toll... if you don't mind me analyzing your character."

Hermione glanced at him and for a second they shared a moment of acknowledgement that both their childhoods had been marred by that particular Dark Wizard. But then Malfoy looked away and the moment was gone. Hermione decided to just keep talking about her writing.

"I want to write a story that depicts him rightly as a Dark wizard but also depicts as someone who was at least at some point in his life- likeable. Maybe even loveable," Hermione explained, "At first I'd thought about writing about Voldemort, it would be fascinating to really analyze his character, but I didn't think Harry would be ready for something like that. Also it's really his story to tell. Maybe I can get him to reminisce for me someday. Maybe I can ghostwrite his story... "

"So why are you here all alone anyway? Potter and Weasley not hanging out with you anymore?" Malfoy asked, his usual sneer almost, but not quite, back in place.

"It's Harry and Ginny's wedding," Hermione confessed. Being a small wedding, the news hadn't exactly been blasted all over the wizarding world, but for some reason it surprised her that Malfoy didn't know.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her as he ordered another drink from the bartender.

"Ron was there," she said, "It was awkward. I wanted to go somewhere where I wouldn't run into anyone I knew."

Malfoy snorted into his new drink, "Sorry for ruining that plan!"

"No! Well, you don't really count, I don't think," Hermione said with a smile.

"Oh, gee, thanks," Malfoy said with sarcasm tinging his voice, "So you're not a velcro then?"

"Velcro?" Hermione echoed.

"Lesbian, dyke, gay, poofter, lemon, whatever you want to call it," Malfoy said with a shrug, "You like to get your leg over with girls?"

"Oh," Hermione said, a blush creeping across her cheeks as his vocabulary immediately made her feel awkward and self-conscious, "Erm, I don't really like to label myself like that..."

"I'll take that as a yes," Malfoy said, "For the record, I am. My mother tries to pretend I'm not, because she's still hoping I'll marry well and increase the Malfoy fortune but... as high standing a family as we are, I couldn't really hide it, and if I tried to, the media would jump all over it once they found out. If I'm open about it, no one cares."

Hermione found herself smiling at Malfoy's sudden rush of sharing. Should she be surprised? After the final battle, and all that had happened over their seventh year, she'd wondered if maybe he'd changed a little, and now she saw he had. Or was it just that they were both adults now? Probably a bit of both.

Hermione suddenly remembered a time in her second year where she and Ron had agreed that Malfoy was definitely gay. He was too pretty and his hair was too nice. He had a rich father. His clothes always matched. They decided he spent at least two hours in front of the mirror every morning. Ron was sure he wore eyeliner sometimes.

"So how is the Malfoy name doing?" Hermione asked, "I've been abroad and haven't read a Daily Prophet in months."

With that they'd gotten into a discussion on the latest politics of the wizarding world, just barely managed to not really discuss Voldemort and Death Eaters and the fact that Lucius Malfoy had been one and was now serving the rest of his life in Azkaban. She'd left when a friend of Malfoy's showed up. They were clearly occasionally more than friends and she didn't want to be awkward again and it had been getting late anyway.

She hadn't gone to see Harry and Ginny since then. She told herself this was because they were on their Honeymoon (though she actually had no idea when they were taking their honeymoon or if they were traveling for it or not), but it was really because she didn't know quite what to say to them. She felt like she could no longer fit into their lives, happy as they were together, married, and probably going to start a family soon. She didn't think she could quite face them if Ginny became pregnant, not after what had happened with her and Ron.

That thought resulted in pang in the pit of her stomach. To think that she almost... Hermione shook the thought away. Lord- children, definitely not. Being back in England made all of her relationship with Ron come back close to the surface of her mind, making her thoughts swirl around crazily. This was why she had left in the first place.

Hermione shoved her books and old newspapers aside, the scraps of documentation she'd started collecting on Grindelwald. Beneath them, she saw the edge of her journal, the one she'd bought in Egypt. She hadn't really used it much at all though and it'd been mostly sitting neglected. Maybe now was the time to write in it. She flipped it open and scanned the few jotted notes on her travels. She'd planned for it to be just for things about her life, not for notes on her writing, she already had enough notebooks filled with story ideas and research. The entries only lasted for three weeks or so. It'd started off with a short narrative of the day she'd bought the journal, a few notes on the pyramids and camels, then an entry on her arrival in Greece. Maybe now was the time to write about something more personal than her travels. She almost laughed, she must be a true writer, mining her own past for story fodder.

She flipped the the next clean page and then looked around for a quill. Upon finding one, she opened a bottle of ink and dipped the end in, and then began to write.

I'm back in England once again, now living in Hogsmeade. The return is always so quick, so sudden, and the country hits me with all its characteristic smells and sights... it makes me almost wish we witches and wizards didn't have portkeys and were limited to such 'low-speed' travels as airplanes, like muggles. Then at least I'd have a few hours to know that I am traveling, in which to adjust, to leave one country behind and ready myself for another. Instead, there is only the few hours of packing, of looking at the window at a once unfamiliar now so familiar as to be almost unnoticed landscape, and realizing that I don't know when I'll see it again. Then there is the portkey, a sudden lurch, and then I'm somewhere new, before I've barely even had a chance to really decide if this is where I want to go. Imagine the long wait of going to an airport, waiting in line for baggage, for security, for the plane to be ready. All that time to change one's mind! But for me, once the bags are packed it's almost too late. It almost makes me panic, the sudden finality of the choice, how it must be so. I suppose that is why I often don't make the choice to leave, that I don't plan it ahead. Because if that's what I did then I'd never go anywhere. Hmm, well I'm rambling now.

Anyway, the reason I'm back in England is for Harry and Ginny's wedding. Oh, how strange it is to write those words! To think... marriage. I suppose we're about that age. But I feel so far from marriage it's as if I'm thirteen again. Anyway, it was a small, sweet ceremony. Ginny looked wonderful, Harry awkward and almost surprised, as if after all these years he's never quite gotten over having Ginny to himself. Ron was there, as best man. And the rest of the Weasley's. I suppose its really Harry marrying into her family, rather than the other way around. Harry Weasley, ha. But I think she's taking his name. Ginny Potter.

Hmm. I tried to avoid Ron after the ceremony, but eventually it was too hard. I just... I can't quite bear to face him, especially not at a wedding. This year has been wonderful, traveling, but at the same time I wonder what it would have been like, if we would have been getting married now, if I hadn't decided to go through with the abortion. I mean... a small part of me, a large part me? Some part of me still loves him, is still in love with him but... but. Why must there always be a but? We wanted such different things out of life. I couldn't imagine settling down like that... but for Ron that would have been easy. Almost odd, me who still wanted the adventures to continue... And Lord, children at age 21? My parents would have been scandalized. No, I won't lie, they would have been supportive, I was scandalized by the thought.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant. I didn't have any morning sickness, nothing obvious like that. It was just... a general feeling of being off... a slight uncomfortableness and then I just had this sneaking suspicion. Like... wasn't there that one night where we didn't perform the contraceptive charm? So I checked. And it was positive. And negatives can be wrong, but positives almost never are. I freaked out a little. But my decision was anything but spontaneous, though I know Ron still felt it was. I mean, my first reaction wasn't one of 'oh wonderful I'm pregnant' the whole happy mother thing. It was more like 'oh shit... now what?' though I wasn't immediately aware that my conclusion to that question would be that I really didn't want a baby. But I suppose that should have tipped me off right then. I didn't know whether or not to tell Ron either. I mean, how does one tell that to your boyfriend? It was like I saw this whole life flash before my eyes, we would have to get married, we would have to sacrifice our lives and our careers, we'd never be the same. And sure, it's supposed to be the best change in your life, but your twenties are supposed to be the time when you travel, and do crazy things, and have adventures and then when you've 'been there done that' THEN you have kids and its wonderful and you want all the same wonderfulness for them.

But how do you start their lives when you've barely started your own? And maybe I got this from my parents, but I hate being sick. I hate hospitals, I hate feeling out of control, and I hate having to take medicine and worry about my health. And goodness, the idea of having a BABY and ITS health to worry about too... it made my brain start to hurt thinking of how much I DON'T KNOW about babies. Can you imagine me, Hermione, a mother?

I suppose Ron could anyway. But he's been around children his entire life, I mean, his siblings. I'm an only child. I never had to change anyone's diapers. I never had another kid to watch out for or depend on or anything. He would have been alright I suppose, though the thought of letting him watch out for a baby still makes me feel nervous. And if I actually decided to have the baby I couldn't have left Ron to raise it alone...

Part of it was how vehemently he wanted me to keep it. It made me feel like I didn't have a decision in the matter, like this was happening to my body and no one thought I should stop it. It was too out of control. And then I realized that maybe this was it. Maybe this was the ONE THING that made Ron and I just... incompatible. After all that, after Hogwarts, maybe we just weren't meant to be together.

I would have stayed with him, but I couldn't say something like "I promise we'll have a whole boat load of kids in the future, Ron!" and I know he couldn't forgive me for letting his first child go.

We fought about it for a week. We both kept thinking that after a few days the other one would give in. When I told him I was pregnant, and at first he just looked dumbfounded, so I thought maybe it would be something we could actually talk about, and work through together. But then he grinned and said, "A little early, but hey. I wonder if he''ll have red hair?"

I asked Ron if we could talk about it, about whether or not we were ready to have a baby, and he just looked confused. I told him I didn't know if I was ready, if we should keep the baby or not. He never quite seemed to understand what a huge thing pregnancy is for a woman's body to go through. There are all sorts of complications that can happen that could have put both of our lives in danger, even magic can only do so much.

So the first conversation ended sort of stiffly, like that, with neither of us sure where the argument stood. It came up again at dinner, when Ron laid out his argument. He'd clearly been thinking about it, though his decision hadn't changed.

By the end of the week we were both fighting with the fervor of someone fighting for a life, me for mine and Ron for our child's. I was sleeping on the sofa and we could barely look each other in the eye. I wondered if this was worth it, if I should just give in and have a baby, but the idea that having a baby could be a sort of giving in... I didn't want to bring my first child into the world like that. I wanted it to be a choice, I wanted it to be something where we started picking out baby cradles at the same time as we stopped performing the contraceptive charm.

Imagine telling your child, mommy and daddy had you because we were a little pissed one night and couldn't perform a contraceptive charm properly and I didn't even want you but daddy did and then we got married to make it all better. I mean, that's not exactly how it was, but if I gave in, if I agreed, how could I live with myself and Ron after that? Would I ever really be happy? Could I still love him, knowing that he couldn't love me if we made the opposite choice?

I went to the clinic for the potion the next morning. I told him I was going. He didn't try and stop me. When I got back, we exchanged a few words but we both knew that it was over. I made him cry, I made him hurt, and I've felt horrid about the pain I caused him ever since. I wish it hadn't been such a big deal to him.

Hermione shut the journal, her wrist aching from the sudden emotional fervor of her scribbling. It felt odd, to have finally written that down on paper. She could have written more, but her head was starting to ache and she realized she was delving into the past a little too much.

Instead, she decided that it was time to work on the research she'd briefly discussed with Draco Malfoy at Bee's N' Bee's. She only had the barest scraps of information on Grindelwald, and not for the first time she wished that the Wizarding World was as library obsessed as the muggle one, for Hogwarts was the only real library in Great Britain. Or even Internet for that matter, though after seven years at Hogwarts she could barely function with a computer. Instead, she'd have to go and buy books.

An owl sent to Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley confirmed that they had one book on Grindelwald in stock, and that several others could be ordered. She already had Rita Skeeter's book on Professor Dumbledore, though she could hardly use that information as fact. She knew that she'd eventually have to go to Nurmengard, the prison that Grindelwald had built for criminals and political opponents alike, and that he had ended up living and dying in. But for the time being, she contented herself with ordering what she did have chronologically, and making notes on the usefulness of each and what chapters she might reference it in.

OOO

For the first time while at Quidditch practice, Ginny suddenly realized that she was on an all women's team. Well, she knew that, but the implications, or at least possible implications suddenly struck her whilst in midair.

We're all a bunch of young, sporty, and independent women, Ginny thought, and sort of right after that thought, We're pretty cool.
Ginny supposed that joining this team had probably been a feminist statement for her. Surrounded by older brothers her entire life, always playing with and against them, she was always having to prove herself up to their standards. Now she didn't have to try and measure up against men, she was simply measuring up against talent. We're all women- and we'll kick your collective arses.

There was a match coming up soon, and against a team of all men, maybe that's what was arousing these thoughts in her. It was going to be sort of a battle of the sexes. As soon as Ginny let that thought slip through her mind she immediately hoped none of the media would share that idea. It would turn the entire game into something ridiculous.

Ginny loved playing Quidditch. When she was younger, she was never as good as her brothers simply because of size and inexperience, but now of all of them, she was the only one who was good enough to make it professionally. It was a bit strange that she was the one doing it, and not Harry, after he had made himself something of a legend at Hogwarts as Seeker.

Once again after practice the entire team headed into Diagon Alley for drinks and relaxation and it was late when she got home to her and Harry's house. The place was quiet and Ginny pulled off her boots and stalked into the kitchen for a glass of water. She shifted through the stack of owl post looking for anything addressed to her and noticed a leather bound journal at the bottom of the stack. Hermione's present to her and Harry, well Harry more than her. She looked at it, then stuck it under one arm to write a note to Hermione in it later, and then dug through the cupboards for a snack.

Once she was sitting in the living room she opened up the journal, resisting the urge to quickly scrawl something in it like, Please stay Hermione, don't go away again! but was surprised to see something already written on the first page. More than something, it looked like an essay, written in Hermione's neat lettering. After reading only a few sentences she realized that this was not meant for her or Harry and that Hermione must have forgotten that the journals were linked. This was a private entry. But it seemed fairly light, just about traveling, and the words were as captivating as the books she had written. Ginny didn't want to put it down.

But then she felt her face turn red as her eye caught Ron's name and the word "baby" in all capitals. She almost started to close the journal but the emotion in the writing was so strong that Ginny longed to be part of it. She'd never gotten an explanation from Hermione of what had happened and Harry never volunteered much. She'd gotten a full-blown rant from Ron, but that was certainly biased. It was something Ginny had always hoped Hermione would confide in her, but never had. Then, Hermione had always had Harry and Ron, she had never needed her best friend's little sister to be there for her. But now- she didn't have Ron. Ginny allowed herself to finish reading the entry.

Then she picked up a quill and bottle of ink and started to write a response, half apology for reading Hermione's secrets, half reminder that the journals were linked, and half something to connect with Hermione's personal confessions.

OOO

The next morning Hermione flipped open her journal again while trying not to let egg yolk drip onto her research as she attempted to eat breakfast, research, and write in her journal all at the same time.

A second paragraph in handwriting different than her own made her jerk her fork and let a piece of egg dribble with a splat onto an old library book.

"Bollocks!" Hermione exclaimed and quickly pulled out her wand to clean up the mess as she abruptly remembered that she'd decided to put this journal to a better use by giving a connected journal to Harry and Ginny for their wedding.

Hello Hermione. I think you may have forgotten that these journals were linked, and I apologize for reading your entry. I can tell it was something very personal for you, and not necessarily meant for other eyes. But... I also wanted to say that I a little glad I read it, because it gave me some insight into why you left Ron and I understand your decision.

I don't think your break-up was specifically related to gender differences (after all, your arguments could have be reversed), but I do know that guys can be pretty stupid sometimes when it comes to relationships. I guess you already know about this, but I was so mad at Harry when he broke up with me at the end of our sixth year... It was like he didn't think that I had a say in the decision, that it wasn't something we should talk over together, that I didn't get a say in the risks I was taking, but he could go take all the risks he wanted. I mean, of course he was doing it for brave, noble reasons (or so he thought) but it was still stupid. And the fact that he was trying to protect me, me! Who was in minute danger from You-Know-Who compared to him! And clearly, we didn't really break up...The idea of being forced into something you don't want, I know that.

Maybe that's one of the reasons I liked flying so much. When I'm in the air, on a broomstick... it's total freedom. If I get hurt, it's entirely my fault, but it's wonderful because it's all me. My team depends on me to do my job, there's no ambiguity about it. Simple, wonderful... Anyway, now I'm the one rambling, though not quite so eloquently as you! I hope you're doing well in Hogsmeade Hermione, you should drop by and visit us sometime. We're still your friends, even if your relationship with Ron is still a little tense right now.

Hermione stared at the words penned by Ginny, surprised and a little touched. She also felt a little bit bad about not confiding in her before. Aside from being embarrassed that Ginny had read her long, angsty rant about her and Ron, she was actually kind of glad that Ginny had read it.

She scribbled a quick note in reply, apologizing that she would be disappearing again for maybe a week or so for research. Then she went ahead and explained her ideas for her book on Grindelwald, and left it there before it started turning into another lengthy diatribe.

A/N: Thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and watching the first chapter of this story! Hope you'll enjoy this one as well, sorry for the heavy seriousness.. not all the chapters will be like this I promise. Remember to give credit to Snowbear and check out her stories as well. Hope to have another chapter up by this weekend!