Chapter 1
When Ron entered the house, with Hugo, he immediately knew that something was wrong. The house was too quite- normally with Hermione home there was some sort of noise either her singing, music playing, rustling of books or she was talking to someone. There was none of that, it was like he had just entered a morgue. Also the fact that there were no lights on in the house was a major indicator that something was wrong, as Hermione would have told him if she was going out.
"Come on Hugo, let's get you a snack." Ron said to his son, ruffling his curly brown hair as he went past to the kitchen.
As Ron turned on the kitchen light, a glint caught his eye. It was Hermione's wedding ring, shakily Ron lifted up the paper from underneath the ring and read, getting paler and paler as he did so.
"Dad, what's the matter?" Came Hugo's soft voice from behind him.
Spinning around on his heel, with the note still in his hand, stalked towards the fireplace, "We're going to the Potter's, now!"
He grabbed the floo powder, threw it and shouted "Potter's Den."
As Ron walked through the front hall, he bumped into his sister. He ignored whatever she was going to say and dragged her to the study where he knew Harry was going to be.
He burst into the room and stomped up to the desk.
"Look," as he thrust the paper under Harry's eyes "Look, and see what she has done."
Harry gingerly took the paper from his enraged friend and read over the note, when he finished he passed the note to Ginny, who was hovering by his shoulder; wondering what this drama was all about. Harry put his head in his hands and sighed.
"She left you because she felt no spark in your relationship?" Came Ginny's incredulous voice "Why is she being such a bitch!"
Ron started laughing, it was not a laugh filled with joy and happiness, it was a laugh of a man who realised that he had lost the one of the best things in his life, it was a laugh of despair.
"I don't understand, what did I do wrong?" Ron whispered "Okay, we haven't had many nights to ourselves in the past year and what we do have we make it work, but what does she mean about the lies? What lies have I told her, I may not of told her some things but during our time together I have never lied to her."
"Ron, mate, do you and Hugo want to stay the night here whilst I go and see if she left any indication to where she has gone?"
"Please." Ron whispered before he broke into heartbreaking sobs.
Harry opened the study door to see Hugo outside the door, with tears silently running down his face and his had grasping Lily's. He let go of his daughter's hand and ran to his dad and cried in his shoulder. Harry ushered Lily and Ginny out of the room to let the father and son duo have some privacy.
"Is it true Dad, has Mum really left us?"Hugo mumbled against his dad's shoulder "Does she not love us anymore?"
"Yeah Hugh, she left us. She said that she loves you but she doesn't love me."
"Did she say anything about Rose?"
"No bud, you know those two never got on. In your Mum's mind Rose was an accident and she will continue to be one. But never mind. We can manage until June can't we, and then when Rosie gets back home we can do something to take our minds off of this drama. Maybe we can go to Disneyland, or the beach."
"I don't want to do any of that." muttered Hugo "I just want Mum."
"So do I," came Ron's whispered response. "So do I."
...
...
First stop for Hermione was Gringotts, she wanted a bank card linked to her personal vault and to her muggle bank account so she would never have to worry about going back to England if she ran out of Galleons and running into Ron by accident.
Her second stop was to the ministry: she didn't want to be married to Ron anymore so she got the divorce papers ready, signed her bit and gave Ron full custody of the children-not that she didn't want them anymore, but they were just painful reminders of her unhappy marriage to a man who she had more arguments with than anybody she'd ever met in her life.
Third stop. She popped into Regent Street to get herself an iPhone 6s because why not and she also wanted Instagram to document her travelling life. She wanted to enjoy life.
After getting that done, she was free. She shrunk her luggage and put it into her handbag, took out her wand and made a illegal portkey, out of a leaf that she picked off the ground, to Australia- where her parents where currently residing. Hermione wanted to tell them what happened in person, not over the phone, or by owl post.
Whilst on her way to her parents house in Melbourne, she decided that she couldn't possibly apparate every where and that it was high time that she had a car for herself. She got herself a blue Ford Fiesta and continued on her journey.
Hermione hadn't seen her parents in five years so understandably she was quite nervous. She parked, got out of the car and walked to the front door. She stood there for about 5 minutes, contemplating whether she should knock now or go find a place to stay then come back when the door suddenly opened and mother appeared.
"Hermione!" She gasped, bringing her daughter in for a bear hug, "I've missed you so much. How are Ron and the children?"
"That's the thing I want to talk to you about mum." Hermione took a deep breath "Can I come inside?"
"Yes yes, sorry"
Hermione stepped into the house and she couldn't help but admire the openness of the house and light feel it gave off. Her Mum (Helen Granger) lead her into the sitting room where they sat opposite each other.
"Where's Dad?"
"Your father is at the surgery, now stop stalling and tell me what happened."
"I've left Ron and the kids."
Helen was shocked, she made no move to talk.
"I just couldn't do it anymore. I had to get out of there. I felt trapped. Helpless. The fact that I don't love Ron also helped. To be honest the only reason I married him was because I fell pregnant with Rose and you know how Dad's family would've reacted." Hermione sobbed, "I know he loved me but I was never in love with him. That's why I never got on well with Rose, I guess I blamed her, saying that it was her fault that I was stuck in a marriage I never wanted to be in the first place.I'm such a bad mother."
"Listen to me, Hermione Jean Granger, you are not a bad mother. You are a terrific one- even if you blamed Rose you still cared for her, you still loved her. Now why are you in Australia?"
"I wanted to travel the world, I wanted to see things that I have never seen before. I just want to go and experience life. Also I would like to buy houses all over the world so I always have a place to go to."
"Oh Hermione, you are always welcome here. If you ever want to 'pop' by for a visit, please do. Now when your father gets home, we will talk about this properly."
...
...
Harry apparated into the Ron's house, he didn't feel comfortable saying Ron and Hermione as Hermione had gone and left him. He still didn't believe that she could do something like that. She had done it before, she can still remember when she just walked out of Divination in third year and didn't come back. She did exactly the same thing here; Hermione just upped and left and it didn't look like she was coming back any time soon.
Harry went up to the master bedroom and found all the drawers and doors of the cupboard open, every single item of clothing and jewellery was gone, he checked the en suite bathroom and only Ron's things were there;her toothbrush, soap, deodorant, moisturiser, make up bag-everything was gone. It was basically stripped down of all things Hermione.
Harry then ventured into the study, and her laptop obviously was not there but her world map was- the map showed every single place that she wanted to go in the world. He inspected the map-over 15 places were marked but he knew where she would go first. Hermione would go to Australia, to see her parents and perhaps tell them what was happening.
Harry was actually disgusted with Hermione, he knew that the only reason they got married was because of Rose but she told him when she was drunk that she loved Ron with all of her heart and she could never bear to break it as it would break her. What a lie that was.
Harry apparated back to Potter's den, to find Ron drowning his sorrows in a glass of fire-whisky and Hugo copying him but instead of fire-whisky it was apple juice. It was nine o'clock. Harry didn't realize he'd spent that long in Ron's house.
"Come on Hugo, off to bed." Harry said as he took the tumbler full of apple juice away from the ten year old boy. "You're sleeping in Lily's room, is that okay?"
The boy gave a slow nod, yawned and went off up the stairs.
"We have work tomorrow." Harry reminded Ron "Are you taking tomorrow off?"
Ron drained whatever was left of the fire-whisky that was left in his tumbler "No, I'm going to work and I'm going to be there for my children. As Hermione clearly was not."
"Have you sent a letter to Rose yet?"
"Yeah, it was the first thing I did after you left."
"Oka-"
"Did you find anything?" Ron interrupted "Do you know where she might be?"
"I'm not totally sure Ron, but I think she went to Australia." Harry said tentatively "You know, to visit her parents"
"I'm not going to look for her, I can't." Ron murmured "She can fend for herself, and knowing her she has probably already drawn up divorce papers and they're waiting for me on my desk at the office. Harry, she's broken my heart, she's broken Hugo's as well and I don't know about Rose but you know how much she wanted to be like her mum-the smartest witch in her generation. I call that bullshit."
"What?" Harry asked confused.
"She's the not the smartest witch in our generation, if she was she would thought of another way to do this. She is a cold hearted bitch and I will never forgive her for it."
With that said Ron got up walked off, probably to the guest room where he would stay the night. Harry put his head in his hands, this was supposed to be the Golden Trio's fairy tale ending and then Hermione had to go and fuck it up.
...
...
Hermione had just finished explaining thoroughly to her parents what had happened and although her dad was not totally happy, he understood as he hated the thought of his daughter, his only child, trapped in a loveless marriage.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Richard Granger asked.
"I want to travel the world and do it whilst I'm still young. I want to exploit the opportunities that have been given to me and most of all, I just want to have fun and maybe even fall in love for real."
A/N
Merry Christmas everybody!
Hope you have a fantastic time and get everything you wanted and more.