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Chapter 4 – Tears – (as witnessed by Harry Potter)

NOBODY HAD SEEN HER FOR three days, so I finally decided to go to her house to check on her. Her house was secluded, in a Muggle neighborhood, and very small, but it was all hers and she loved it. I remembered the day Ron and I helped her move in, she was bossing us all around and though we both acted put out, we admitted later that we loved it, because we loved her.

I didn't love that it wasn't hooked up to the Floo system, or that she had so many wards up that no one could Apparate inside. She didn't like us to send Owls, claiming that the neighbors would think it odd, though her closest neighbor was two kilometers away.

No, Hermione Granger just liked her privacy and that was okay, except at times like this. There were always parts of her life that she kept private from us, and other parts of her life that she kept private from her family. I don't know why, but it had always been that way and I respected it.

I knocked on the front door for several minutes, calling her name, and when she didn't answer I ran around to the back.

I knocked there, still no answer. I went to the windows near the breakfast nook and looked inside. The house was uncommonly dark. Now I was worried. As an Auror, I was taught to be on guard, and to look for things that were unusual and out of the ordinary. Frankly, everything appeared fine, but the hairs on my arms stood on end. That was reason enough for me to do something drastic, like break down her door.

Plus, her mum called me and said that Hermione had missed a luncheon date with her the other day. Her boss told us that she had missed two days of work without calling them. Even Malfoy came up to my desk this morning and said, "Well, Potter, she's your best friend. What are you going to do about it? Go find her. If you don't, I will." Since I didn't want Malfoy anywhere near her, I decided I had best come find her.

I looked up at the roof. I wondered if I would fit in her chimney. I was about to Apparate right up there when I heard her. She opened the window of her bedroom and called out, "What are you doing lurking around my house, Potter?"

"Lurking is an interesting word, Granger," I said back. I walked up to the window and said, "Is it lurking if I'm concerned for you? Everyone's worried about you. Your mum, your coworkers, even Malfoy, for some odd reason. Your boss personally asked my boss, the head Auror, to find out if something happened to you."

She looked away. "Marcus was worried?"

"Yeah, I guess," I said.

"I don't know why he would be," she said sarcastically. She had that funny, anxious, Hermione look on her face. I knew what that face meant, and I didn't like it, and I was going to ignore it for right now.

"Hermione, may I come inside. I hate talking to you from out here."

She nodded. I walked around to the front porch, jumped up on the side, and found the front door opened for me. Entering her house, I immediately knew something was wrong with her. Something had happened. The house was a wreck. It looked as if I had been staying there for a day or two. She was usually so neat and tidy. I bent down and picked up newspapers and magazines from the floor, then picked up plates and glasses. I took everything to the kitchen before I went to find her in her bedroom.

As I started to enter her bedroom, I stopped in the threshold, immediately, because she was doing something so intimate, so private, that I hated to interfere. In fact, she was doing something that I was self-conscious to see her do. Something that I knew she found incredibly embarrassing, and in which I had always found so incredibly awkward.

She was on her bed, on her back, her head on her pillows, her face all distorted, her hands clutched in the covers, and heaven help me, she was crying. Buckets full of tears. She was wailing. Bawling, actually. She wasn't crying gently or softly, or fleetingly. She was sobbing and weeping copious amounts of tears.

And I couldn't stand to see it.

"Hermione?" I asked. "What in the world is wrong with you?" I climbed on the bed, pulled her into my arms, and held her as tightly as I could. I rocked back and forth with her. My t-shirt was soon soaked. I couldn't understand most of the things she said, although words were coming through the tears. I heard sentences like, "I should have known better," and "Why can't I have what I want?" She even said, "Why does it have to hurt this much?"

Since I didn't know what we were dealing with yet, I couldn't answer any of her questions.

All I could do was hold her, dry her tears, brush back her hair, and kiss her tear soaked cheeks. My heart broke as her heart broke. Yes, she broke my heart.

How many times in our lives had I seen her cry? Too many times to count. I had seen her cry for little, unimportant, forgettable, mundane things. For example, when we were in school, she cried more than once because she didn't get a grade she thought she deserved on a paper or a test. She cried because someone, (usually Malfoy) teased her or called her names. Yet, other times when we were young, she would show the utmost courage and not shed one single tear. She fought by my side, against men twice her age, and she wouldn't cry one drop. She even looked death in the eye as a young girl and no tears fell.

She was an amalgam of many things, combined together, that made her the woman before me. I heard Malfoy call her a paradox the other day. I wasn't sure a person could BE a paradox, but I knew one thing, all the things mixed together that made her who she was also made her my best friend. They made her Hermione Granger. They made her the woman that I loved above all others.

Perhaps the feelings she invoked in people was the paradox, because she was the woman I wanted to put upon a pedestal, yet I wanted her by my side in the middle of a battle.

When her tears finally ceased, I asked, "What happened? Why are you crying?"

"Oh, Harry, it's all so stupid," she said with a sigh. I had heard her say that exact phrase many times before. Sometimes when she said it, it was stupid. That day when she said it, I knew that it undoubtedly WASN'T stupid, or trivial, but merely something that she was embarrassed to share with me.

I brushed back a strand of hair that was stuck to her wet check and laughed. "Remember that time when I found you crying by the Black Lake, I think in second year, and I asked you what was wrong, and you told me the exact same thing. I should have listened to you then, because you were right. You said 'Oh, Harry, it's all so stupid,' and you held out the word stupid, and I remember that I wanted to laugh, yet you had tears coming down your face, so I knew it wasn't stupid."

She giggled, her fingers playing with the design on the front of my t-shirt. "Yes, and you kept prodding and probing until I told you why I was crying. I think you were convinced that someone had called me 'Bucktooth Beaver' again or some such twaddle, and I was so mortified to really tell you why I was sobbing, yet, I felt I had to tell someone, and after all, you were my best friend."

I laughed, low in my chest, and said, "I still am, but nothing prepared me for what you had to tell me that day! I think you ruddy well scarred me for life!"

She laughed with me, sat up, and hit my chest. The smile on her face made me feel better, even if she didn't feel any better. She snapped, "Show some sympathy, Mr. Potter. I was as mortified as you were!"

"I doubt it," I returned. "Here I was, a twelve year old boy, holding the hand of my thirteen year old best friend, who just happened to be a girl, and she ends up telling me an embarrassing tale about how her menstrual cycle had just started, and she was afraid for goodness sakes!"

We both laughed hard at that memory.

"I was the one that was scared!" I continued, "I didn't want to hear that sort of thing! I didn't grow up with sisters, or a mother! I didn't even want to think about you having a period, or breasts, or any of the like."

She sighed a long sigh that ended with a laugh and deduced, "You asked, and I told you. I didn't have my mum there, and I was too embarrassed to go to the Mediwitch. I didn't want to talk to the other girls about it, because most of them had already gotten their periods, and I had lied and told them that I had already gotten mine, so I couldn't very well go to them and tell them that I hadn't until then." She cuddled closer to my chest. I wanted to hold her forever. "But, as shocked as I know you were, and as embarrassed as I was, you handled it with aplomb. Even though I knew all I needed to know, and I was prepared, you still convinced me to go see Madame Pomfrey."

"That's because I didn't want to have to talk to you anymore about it," I admitted truthfully. We continued to hold each other, on her bed, for a long time. Finally, I knew I had to find out what was wrong with her this time. I had a feeling it wasn't something to do with her period.

I said, "It can't be that bad, this time, can it? I mean, we've already dealt with blossoming womanhood. I've helped you with your breakup with Ron. We've been through torture and mayhem together. I figure I can handle whatever you have to tell me."

She started to cry again.

All sorts of things went through my brain. Was she sick? Had someone hurt her? Please, tell me. Tell me.

She said, "It's nothing serious. It doesn't warrant your concern. I'm sorry I worried you, but frankly, I need to be alone right now. I'm sorry you bothered coming all the way out here, really, I'm very sorry, but it's not your concern."

I didn't agree with her, I didn't understand, and I really didn't want to leave her alone, but I would. I stood up, smiled down at her, and stroked my index finger across her check. I leaned down and whispered, "If you change your mind, and you need me, call me. I'll be here in a heartbeat. I promise. Even if you don't want to tell me what's wrong, that's fine. We wouldn't have to talk. I would just come to hold you, if you'd like. I'll go now."

I stood back up. I started to turn to go, but I felt a brush of her hand against my arm. Her fingers moved slowly down to curl around my fingers. Her palm pressed against mine. She looked at me with an expression that I couldn't quite place, and I always knew all of her expressions. A faint smile came to her face, and then tears started anew.

A strange surge of awareness powered through my body. It almost hurt how much I wanted to protect and take care of her. I wanted to hold her in my arms, to offer her comfort, an embrace, and a shoulder to cry upon, but by all that was righteous I also wanted to offer her passion and desire and so much more.

Looking down at her, I almost asked her once more what she wanted, what she needed, but then she said, "Harry?" in a questioning way. In that instant I knew what she wanted. I knew what she needed. It wasn't exactly what I wanted and needed, but what I wanted and needed wasn't important at that moment. At that moment, all that mattered was her needs, and she needed a friend.

I crawled back into the bed. She turned to her other side, away from me. Her hand still firmly in mine, I pulled her back against my chest and I rubbed her arm and leg and back. I kissed her hair, and even her shoulder. She continued to cry until she fell asleep.

I never found out that day why she was crying. On that day, it didn't matter. Because I knew she wasn't going anywhere, and neither was I. There was always tomorrow.