Harry's POV

"Yes, Harry. Rose is your daughter."

Harry's world froze around him. His throat constricted, his muscles tensed. His head pounded, and he would never be able to tell if it was from the fainting or the news.

Merlin, the news.

"I'm a..." Harry felt his knees on the hard ground and realized he had collapsed. He tried to stand, tried to get back up, but it felt like the world was pressing him down into the floor. He was suffocating on his oxygen, and his eyes were going black around the edges.

"Holy shite. Holy... shite... I..."

Nearly five years of Auror training and he couldn't compose himself after a simple sentence.

"Come on, Harry, people are staring, get up." Hermione was whispering to him fiercely, her eyes glassy. "Please get up. Come on. Please."

He struggled against the heavy hair, his legs shaking. This is not happening. This can't be happening.

"Make it stop, please," he murmured, so she couldn't hear. He closed his eyes and pushed himself up.

"Let's go home," Hermione said slowly, grabbing his arm. "Let's go, Harry!"

He was entirely frozen, his legs still shaky and arms quivering. His steps, when they finally came back to him, were unsure.

He tried to take a deep breath, even though his lungs were collapsing.

"I'm a– I've got a–..."

Unable to form the words father or daughter, Harry leaned on Hermione's arm and let her drag him down the road and into the house.

"Everything all right, dear?" A soft voice floated into Harry's consciousness from somewhere in the house.

"Yes, mum, fine!" Hermione said back. Harry felt a hand at him back as he was numbly guided up the stairs to the first door on the left.

"Okay," Hermione gasped, wheezing. "Let's talk."

Hermione's POV

"Yes, mum, fine!" She called to her mother through gritted teeth, using all of her strength to push Harry up the stairs.

Guiding the lifeless man to her bedroom, Hermione pushed him onto the chair and stood back, briefly admiring her ability to get a fully grown and fully muscled man who was half a head taller than her up to the second floor.

"Okay," She said, taking a deep breath and sitting down opposite to him. "Let's talk." Harry did not respond, his eyes unfocused and directed at the floor. Sighing, she brought him a mug she kept at her bedside table.

"Here, drink this," Hermione held the glass to his lips, relieved when he took it with numb and shaky hands.

Falling back into the armchair across from him, Hermione waited for a few moments. Harry was looking out the window at the dark blue sky, the sun fading fast from the world.

"Can we talk, Harry?"

He didn't respond. It hardly looked as though he was breathing.

"I wanted to tell you..." Hermione began, her voice cracking. "So many times I wanted to..." She took a long breath. "I tried writing letters... It was never... the right time."

A low, hollow laugh filled the room. "Never the right time." he repeated slowly, turning to her. "It was never the right fucking time, was it." Harry stood, his eyes suddenly hard and focused, and he advanced on Hermione.

She stood too. In all her years of knowing him, she had never seen him filled with such obvious rage. Not even when Sirius died. "Harry, please, let me explain–"

"Explain?" The mug dropped out of his hand and shattered to the floor. "You've had plenty of time to explain." He shook his head, and took another step towards her. "Three years, Hermione. Three years, and you never... You never thought it would be nice to tell TO TELL ME I KNOCKED YOU UP?!" Hermione took a step back, wincing at his crude euphemism. Harry was yelling now, his face red and his eyes wild, and she found that her heart was in her throat and her eyes were watering.

"I had a right to know." He whispered dangerously, now inches from her face. "I had a right to know that I'm... a... a..." He shuddered, and his legs seemed to collapse under him. Harry fell to his knees, holding himself and shaking.

"Harry!" She gasped, rushing to him. Tears were leaking out of his normally bright emerald eyes.

"I"m supposed to be able to trust you, Hermione," he told her grimly, not meeting her worried hazel eyes. "But you've lied to me. And this..." He gestured helplessly to the crib tucked in the corner of the room. "This ruins... everything."

"I know..." she bit her lip. "But this is why I kept it from you– I couldn't... I would never..." Hermione shook her head helplessly. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry." Harry spoke the word as though it were a foreign one. He shook his dark curls fervently. "No. You don't get to just say you're sorry."

Hermione's eyes narrowed in disbelief. "But Harry–"

"It's too late to be sorry."