A/N: Hi friends :) Here's another chapter. I suppose here is where the "shit hits the fan."
Chapter 19: Unearthed
The doorbell rang at the Potter residence. Walking to the door, Ginny opened it to find a slightly-sick looking Hermione.
"Hermione, are you alright? You look positively ill."
Hermione shook her head.
"Come in, come in. You don't want to be getting sick, not with the baby and all."
"Do you mind if I stay overnight?" asked Hermione quietly.
"No, not at all! I'll just fix up the guest bedroom later." The two women walked into the sitting room connected to Ginny's bedroom. Hermione sank into the cushions on the couch and stared at the ground. Ginny knew not to press her, and calmly waited until Hermione was ready to speak.
"Do you remember that time a few years ago, after Ron and I had broken up?"
Ginny nodded. "Yea, we never really saw you around. I know you were looking at a job as a barrister in the Muggle world."
"It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to leave the Wizarding World – but that I had found a reason for staying in the Muggle world."
Ginny's brows wrinkled in confusion, but then realisation dawned on her. "You didn't have a beau at the time, did you?"
Hermione nodded. "His name was Andrew, Andrew Winchester, and he was a Muggle lawyer. We'd been dating for a couple of months – nearly half a year – when I found out I was pregnant. It was his, of course, but he didn't believe me." Here, Hermione paused. Her voice got soft.
"He accused me of keeping secrets and cheating on him. I mean, I understood the keeping secrets part – Statute of Secrecy and all – but I could never for the life of me fathom why he thought I cheated on him. He thought I was on birth control – but I wasn't on the Muggle Pill. I just used contraceptive spells."
Ginny nodded understandingly. "I suppose that's why you never brought him around. Harry suspected you were seeing someone, but after a while, we just dropped it."
"That was the first day he laid a hand on me." Ginny almost didn't hear what Hermione said, but the implication was evident on Hermione's face. Shame. Guilt. Fear.
"What?!" Ginny had a look of complete and utter shock on her face. "How could he have laid a hand on you?!"
"He always had a temper, you know… I – I stayed with him, not because I loved him, or that he loved me. But because I didn't want my baby to not have a father. I thought that maybe when Andrew saw the baby, he'd know it was his. And he'd stop. But then…"Hermione's eyes had achieved a glazed look to them, as she looked far into the past. Ginny reached over to take Hermione's hands in her own.
"I lost the baby!" she wailed. "It was just too hard on my body, trying to take care of two humans while I was always healing. One day he just went too far and my body reacted violently. I was six months along – and…" The tears were streaming down her face. "He was stillborn," she said softly. "The doctors said he had a brain bleed and that my uterus was rejecting him. Rejecting my baby, just like the father did."
"I only got to hold him once – I was going to name him Charlie after my dad. He was so perfect – even though his skin was pink and purple because it wasn't fully developed, you could see the little tufts of hair. He had the prettiest hair, this honey blonde color that came from Andrew and me."
"Oh Hermione, you did the best you could."
"No, I didn't. It was my fault Charlie died – I couldn't protect him from Andrew."
"Don't say that! You can't blame yourself. It was all at the hands of Andrew, and there's not more you can do."
"I could've been brave enough to leave Andrew, but no, I was a coward. Gryffindor, my arse. I know that had I returned to the Wizarding world with child but sans father, I'd be the subject of too much gossip. I didn't want Charlie to grow up in that sort of environment."
"We could've helped you!" Ginny insisted.
"I wish you could've, but I don't know how much you could've done. I didn't want to be a burden."
"A burden? Is that what you think you are to us?" Ginny was incredulous. She'd never heard Hermione say anything like this.
"I don't mean it like that Ginny, but you were pregnant with Albus, and you and Harry were so happy-"
"But you were suffering!" Ginny exclaimed. "Family helps family, no matter what. Hermione you should've just come to us…"
Hermione sighed. "What's done is done."
The silence was broken by Ginny. "Is this why you love Scorpius so much?"
"Perhaps – their hair colours were similar, after all. But Scorpius was also just the child I never had. Or the child I could've had, I suppose." By now, her sobs had subsided and it was only the tears that kept running. Ginny handed her a tissue.
"Have you told Draco?" Ginny inquired.
"No, I haven't… I plan to, but I don't know when or how. I mean, he found out yesterday because my mum mentioned Andrew, but no one knew the extent of all this."
"I'm afraid," Hermione whispered.
"Why?" asked Ginny.
"I'm five months along, nearing six. It's when I lost Charlie… and I don't know what I would do if I lost another child. I was lucky I didn't lose my uterus with Charlie – I wouldn't have ever been able to have children…"
"Oh Hermione, please don't worry yourself unnecessarily. I think you have more to worry about with Andrew and Draco. How did you manage to conceal your injuries when you visited us at the Burrow?"
"I'd hide my injuries with glamour charms – I got very good at them, you know," she quipped. "I told my mum I was going to an international workshop for law, but in reality, I went to an inpatient centre for a few weeks to allow my body to heal."
"And Andrew?"
"I never saw him again, and I never plan to," Hermione said with a tone of finality.
• • • • • • • •
Harry entered his house, surprised not to be greeted by the smell of dinner cooking. The house was silent – James and Albus were with Ron tonight – so perhaps Ginny had prepared something special for them tonight?
He quietly placed his briefcase into his study and walked up the stairs. He made move to open his door, but the sound of another voice paused him in his tracks.
He heard Ginny reassuring Hermione not to worry, but the next lines worried him. Who was Andrew? What injuries? He pushed the door of their bedroom open, seeing Hermione sitting on the couch in their sitting room.
"Hi Hermione, hi Ginny," Harry said cautiously. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No – not at all!" said Hermione, though the look that Ginny was shooting him said otherwise.
Harry made move to go back downstairs when he stopped and turned around. "Hermione, I'm just curious, who is Andrew?"
Hermione visibly paled. "J-just an ex-boyfriend."
"Just an ex-boyfriend?" Harry sounded skeptical. "Hermione, I'll ask this once: Did Andrew hurt you purposefully?"
Her silence was enough confirmation. Harry saw red, shaking with rage. He stomped out the bedroom and slammed the door shut.
"Harry!" Hermione found her voice and tore the door open in an attempt to follow him. She only saw the flash of a cloak and the front door closing before she doubled over in pain.
"Help me," she said, before the world turned black.
A/N: The sucks having chapters written but having the editor inside your head being overly critical. GAHHH. Also it's kinda of sad because a lot of my friends don't know I write, and I know fanfiction isn't really taken seriously, but I actually am a decent writer... and obviously, fanfiction isn't my best work. But I've had teachers tell me my work is publishable. It's just a tad annoying when someone is like "Even you could write a better book than [insert name here]. " (In this case, we were talking about EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey lol). It shouldn't bother me this much but it does...