AN:So this chapter is a bit more dialogue heavy. And usually I try to keep a good mix of dialogue and story detail but this chapter was hard to churn out for me.
This has a lot of focus on the girls. But I mean hey who's complaining. The next few chapters might not be as much. We'll see.
Anyway on with it.
Hermione was about to wear a permanent foot trail in the carpeted floor of the living room. She'd been pacing laps around the coffee table and across the front of the fire place, never once sitting since Ron had left for work. When he left, he reassured the tense witch again that he was fine, and that despite his own Weasley Clock hand signifying otherwise the day before, he would always be so. For her sake at the least.
But that was before 9am this morning. It was now 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the woman was seriously running out of time to take action. Why the hell is it that time disappears so easily whenever it comes to her.
The frustrated woman was battling herself internally. She was trying to wrap her head around the fact that the day prior actually happened. And it wasn't just a dream. And she really did kiss Ginny. And yes, she enjoyed it too extensively to simply let the situation be anymore. She was too far in to just let it go, too far deep to just deal with it any longer.
But then there was Ron. Sweet, innocent and blissfully ignorant Ron.
And so, she found herself having arguments in her head that only ran circles around all sense and reason. Not that this was a common occurrence in her life.
Finding out she belonged to the magical community. Taking solace in pages of books rather than people. Inexplicably becoming friends with the famous Boy Who Lived. Then consequently this dunder she spent each day with. The trio of them single-handedly destroying The Dark Lord's soul and fighting in an all-out Wizarding Battle, all while she was still in her teens.
So many things in her life had never even seen reason or sense. So why stop now.
With that last ounce of bravado in thought, and a glance at Ron's clock hand poised on work, she disappeared from the spot.
The brainy witch appeared almost instantly in the dimmed light of Harry's inherited residence. The faint smell of dank mildew, a permanent fixture in the narrow space in which she stood. She froze in the hallway, alert and listening for even the tiniest evidence of occupancy. A few heartbeat thrums later she was met with her answer, a soft clanking sound reaching her ears from the far back sitting room. She dared to tread in the direction, choosing not to call out yet, in fear of frightening away the other in her midst. It had to be Ginny.
As she approached further in, standing in the kitchen at the threshold leading to the back room, her heart gave an abrupt halt and made its way momentarily into her throat. She could feel it clogging her airways, forcing her to swallow strenuously as she spied the tell-tale shade of auburn hair. Peering through the dinginess of the rumpus room, she turned herself towards the source of the noise. Ginny was busying herself with rummaging through the bottom cupboards of a well aged hutch. The approaching witch hinged her mouth open and shut, with no sound ever leaving her. She felt idiotic with her mouth hanging agape. She had planned a spiel in her mind, but didn't anticipate a situation where she would have to do the approaching. To heck with it. Just get on with it and say what you need to say already.
"Gin, we need to talk." The other in the room snapped to attention as she withdrew her head from inside the cupboard's hollow. She scoffed and glared harshly before breaking eye contact and resumed her rummaging, lowering her head back inside. The brunette sighed. She knew it was going to take much more. "Look, you know we do. We can't go on like this any more."
"Can't go on like what, huh?" The words from Ginny came out muffled from inside the furniture, and with a venom she didn't recognise. "And since when has there ever been a 'we' to go on anyway. Hermione there is no we." The unexpected words cut right through Hermione, but she steadied herself to go on.
"Ginny, you have every right to be upset at me, I know that. But I can't... I can't for the love of Merlin go on any longer like this," the witch pleaded, desperation edging her tone. The shuffling noises from within the cupboard stilled, along with the redhead's movements, and she pulled herself from the space. She gave the woman standing away from her a long and thoughtful stare, before she lifted herself from the ground. Dusting her knees off as she walked past the older witch into the kitchen, she didn't dare breathe a word until she had made it out of direct sight from the other.
"I'll put the kettle on. Tea?" she questioned, to which the older Gryffindor nodded lamely.
"Yes." Then feeling like a child about to be scalded she added "please." The elder shuffled herself around the table to clutch at the back of a chair, and leant as much weight as she safely could on it. It was probably the only support she'd get all week.
The pair remained in silence until they were both seated with tea poured and mugs in hand. Neither of them had dared breach the topic of their history in years. Not since it all went train-derailed-off-the-tracks kind of wrong. Hermione gathered her composure, and strengthened her resolve to speak again, but she was beaten to it.
"Look I know yesterday can't happen again," the young Weasley broke the silence first. "And you've got nothing to worry about me telling him. I won't be the one to break my brother's heart," she spoke meaningfully. Hermione paused, shutting her eyes in a moment of thought.
"I didn't come here to talk about yesterday." Ginny quirked a slim eyebrow. "Well I did and I didn't. I am here because of what happened yesterday." A small pause followed as Hermione picked at her mug handle nervously. "And I'm here more so because of what yesterday brought up." That familiar, almost an eye roll look flashed over the other witch's features. "Feelings, I mean. Feelings I thought I could handle-"
"Hermione don't even start with me about your damn feelings!" The hot-tempered woman burst out across the middle of Hermione's speech. And probably well rehearsed at that, but she had no argument to return. She could only stare affronted at the woman before she spoke again maliciously. "Don't even think about coming to me with your 'feelings'. Especially not for your self satisfaction. Just so you can feel all high and mighty about yourself, as if you could take back all the bullshit you pulled me through. Don't you even dare!" The redhead's voice had lowered to an almost growl at this point. But the older witch felt better, relieved almost. Because the lash out from the other gave a steady indication of her usual Weasley temper. And that was something that she could handle, unlike her mistake.
Because all those years ago, in a moment that was so unlike the careful calculations her brain would normally make, Hermione had indeed made the biggest blunder of her lifetime. She hurt the woman she loved more than anything or anyone, and broke her trust. The bookish woman didn't even know if her words would mean anything, but she just had to try.
"Ginny stop it, would you just stop it and look at me." The redhead seethed, and visibly reigned any further comments back into thought. The older Gryffindor waited a moment longer to give the woman some time. "Gin. Please." Knowing the usual signs and steps of a typical Weasley temper flare, she waited till the younger finally took a deep breath in. Her face unreadable.
"I haven't come here to gloat. Or rub feelings in your face. Or make you feel terrible, not even in the least." The bushy haired woman had to take another pause, focusing on clenching her mug and looking the other face on. This was finally it.
"I know it's taboo for us to speak of, and after this you have my word I'll never bring it up again. But I need you to know that I'm still so terribly, deeply sorry for hurting you." The bookworm had the strongest sense that her voice was raising ever so slightly in pitch, and she kept telling herself it definitely wasn't because she was getting emotional at the words "I know to you it might sound overdramatic, or like I'm putting a facade on. But I'm being completely honest when I say that I regret it more than anything I've ever done in my entire life. And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how messed up it is or how I wish I could take it all back."
The older witch still struggled to keep her tone even and could feel the tell tale signs of tears threatening to break free. Ginny seemed to take on an expression of sternness one would expect from the Weasley Matriarch, and the other anticipated the worst kind of lecture from the redhead.
"Hermione, I'm all about moving on and forward. But what happened hurt me. It took me a long time to get over it. I mean a really long time, and truth be told I still feel like I need space from you." The words were no where near as harsh as what the brunette was expecting. Still cuts though.
The tension in the air seemed to dissipate minimally and Hermione took the opportunity to take a long sip of aromatic tea, the taste of the liquid soothing her emotions. She noticed the quidditch player do the same and a few more peacefully silent moments passed between them. The initial awkwardness seemed to fizzle out and Ginny picked up where she left off.
"Stupidly enough", she scoffed and shook her head at herself, "you're also the last person I actually need space from." Hermione straightened instantly, her face shot into a quizzical look. "I know what happened back then was messed up. And getting myself involved with people in our N.E.W.T year wasn't the greatest move, but that doesn't mean getting involved with you wasn't."
You see, the final year at Hogwarts was somewhat of an exploration in mind, body and spirit for the pair. The two girls had finally, after countless months of hardship had a sense of freedom and utter independence unlike any other before. Both preferring to stay single while Harry and Ron trained dutifully as Aurors, they found themselves lost in an existence with only each other as anchors to the world. So, they dated. And at the same time, they also didn't date. They simply partook in whatever or whomever they may so have fancied.
Though not as sexually ravenous at that stage, for Hermione it was her chance to enjoy some semblance of ordinary youth. To continue on in her own subtly rebellious ways. On the other hand, for Ginny it was a chance to prove to herself she could handle any level of intimacy. She so unknowingly needed to lose and discover herself in that time. More than she even still cared to admit. For both of them, it was a chance to fall in love. More so than that, it was a chance for them both to discover just how completely and perfectly their souls fit with one another.
"Ginny, before you go any further I never expected you to commit to me. I know that's not what you were about then, and I completely understood that." The redhead stared back with a pensive look on her face. "I never wanted to stand in your way when it came to finding yourself. It's different for everyone, and Merlin knows you were just trying to find some life after all that death." The younger Gryffindor took the pause to interrupt.
"Mione," The brunette stopped what was a well thought out rationale. The pair locked eyes firmly before Ginny continued, "I don't care about my idiotic myriad of open relationships. If you could even call them that." Hermione did grin a fraction at this. Not that she would admit to it. "Hell, I don't even care about how horribly I ended things with Dean after all that. But after you spent the night with him." The bushy haired lioness, now not so brave, averted her eyes down into her lap. "That was the very first time I was ever actually jealous about someone." The now timid witch continued picking at her nails, too scared to face the woman she hurt unforgivably. The youngest Weasley had said jealousy reared its ugly head when they first went through the ordeal. But the bookworm sure didn't expect the next few words as they rolled off of the redhead's tongue easily, almost ironically even.
"You know it was him I was jealous of." The younger witch lost her gaze in the timber pattern that ran through the table. "Not you, I was never jealous of you. Even afterwards between us, it always lingered"
The brunette let what Ginny had said sink in. Jealous of him, so she wanted to be with. Me. With me? Her mind catching up, lagging slightly after all of the emotional distress, she finally understood what it actually meant and searched the others gaze. When the other refused to meet her gaze, she threw caution to the wind and broke the delicate silence.
"It was always you Gin." The redhead kept her sight on the table, but the bookish Gryffindor never wavered in hesitation as she rose from her seat at the table and made her way to kneel at the others side. The elder reached for and clutched the faintly tanned hands firmly within her own. "For all the logic and sagaciousness that I possess, I cannot understand why I feel like I belong with you." The younger witch chanced a glance to the bookworm and they stared at one another. The brunette's stare was intense and meaningful, but Ginny dared not look away. "I can't even begin to describe it. It's like, I've been through this before with you. As if we've spent a thousand lifetimes chasing each other in this same ridiculous routine." Hermione fought the clenching in her throat desperately, as she could see the other's lip begin to quiver just the slightest. She knew that this was the point of no return for her. The ultimate crossroads for her life thus far, and she hoped desperately she wouldn't regret it. She had lived long enough with the regret of what she had done, and she took this moment to vow to herself she would never do the same again. "I know I can't explain it any better than this, that all my tact goes out the window when it comes to you. But I know, as much as you do and you hate to admit, that there will never be anyone else for either of us. That our beings, our magic and gods even our souls belong to each other. I knew it from the moment I saw you standing there at Kings Cross and I'll know it until I give my last breath."
Hermione didn't even remember when she started crying, but all she could cared to notice was wiping away her love's tears. As she reached her thumb up to wipe across a freckled cheek she felt the woman above her sigh and lean into the touch. She couldn't help but smile almost bitterly.
"'Mione," the other begun to sniffle out. "I'm so far in with Harry, I can't. I can't even begin to think of how that would happen." The bushy haired woman's smile dropped. Here comes the utter rejection and heartbreak. "But I'm not saying that these feelings are one sided 'Mione, I know that look." Fuck's sake could she be any more of a soulmate. "But this thing we have," she gestured quickly between them, "it's magnetic, there's no nox for this. We can't, I wouldn't even know where to go from."
The older Gryffindor knew though, even with her mind jaded with love and the sensation of the younger woman's soft face under her touch, that with life the way it was they could never be together. That to save each other from the pain they would bring to their current partners, and themselves even, they would have to go back to distancing themselves from each other.
"I get it Gin, I know. I wouldn't expect splitting up with the boys, for either of us." Hermione reluctantly pulled her hands away and stood up. They both mourned the loss of contact instantly, knowing it was necessary. "Look, I don't expect a lot, I just want us to be civil to each other again. Even if we can't be close." The brunette subtly swiped at her own face, and brushed off the dust from her jeans.
"Really that's it? Is that what you really want?" The redhead suddenly felt the audacity to challenge their situation, and the bookworm took a spare moment to visibly collect her composure.
"Don't ask me that Ginny." The pair shared one last look before the unmistaken sound of apparition sounding in the property's musky hallway broke their tranquillity. Both sets of eyes shot to the doorway leading there, and the sound of heavy footsteps broke their silent stupor.
"Hey love, are you home?" Harry's voice carried through the hall, and the women shared a quick look with each other. Both knowing what each was asking; if they should be worried of him seeing them in their current state. Hermione was quicker for the both of them, nodding her head slightly and flicking her wand to revert their facial appearance to what it was before this whole mess got so emotional.
"Ah! There's my two favourite girls!" The green eyed man appeared at the doorway almost surprisingly, and the redhead woman automatically set to fussing over his dishevelled appearance in a very maternal-Weasley kind of way.
"Look at the state of your robes! Not to mention your face. Do please try and take care of yourself sweetheart." Wand in hand, Ginny set to healing the small scratches on his face and then fixing up the small rips in the bottom of his cloak. Hermione couldn't help but give a final thought: what she wouldn't give to come home to a scolding that was underlined with love and care from Ginny just like that.
However, she had no more time to dwell on such things further, as she excused herself in order to go home and greet her own partner. The couple of course understood, as she cast a final discreet glance at the other woman, and felt it returned in a sense of closure. She took the opportunity of informality to simply nod her goodbyes, and vanished from the spot with an abrupt pop.
She arrived in her empty bedroom, barely containing the sound of a single sob as she dropped to the floor. Clawing at the carpet viciously, using all of her strength to control the sound of crying that threatened to escape her vocals. The pain she felt was too overwhelming to even keep on her feet. She felt so utterly incapacitated and hopelessly heart shattered.
"Babe, you home then?" The ginger haired man's voice echoed through her being, shocking her into awareness. She couldn't bare to think of what Ron would feel if he knew the truth, but she would not live with regret as she had just finished vowing to herself minutes ago.
At least, that's what she told herself as she dragged herself to her feet, casting another quick charm to hide her face and greeted her current lover with open arms and laboured affection.