A/N: Oh, you all make my heart swell with your encouragement! The hate was but a puddle compared to the ocean of kindness I received from you. Thank you, thank you. In return, here is a quick chapter! Hoping this will shed further light on Hermione. Grief can make you do desperate things. Trigger warning: might be extra sad for those who have recently lost someone important to them.
"Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go" ~ Jamie Anderson
"You know, I'm getting just a little bit hungry. Are you, Ron?" Elliot asked sheepishly.
The red-headed wizard smirked, grateful that the boy not only embraced a similar affinity for food as he did, but also that he had quit calling him sir. After nearly eight hours together, Ron had grown fond of the earnest, good-natured Hufflepuff.
"I'm rarely not hungry, mate. We can get a takeaway, but we don't have time to sit down anywhere. Muggle London is absurdly massive – we have a lot of area to cover tonight."
"I know…my family lives in Edmonton. I've grown up here most of my life, except for when we lived in Ghana. And Hogwarts, too, of course," he answered, eyes darting around the street as they walked as he took in the plethora of options for dinner.
"How'd your family take the news? When you found out you were a wizard?" he asked as they made their way to a stall, pulling out the strange muggle money that still confused the hell out of him.
"Well…if I'm being honest, it was a relief to not have my family thinking I was some kind of freak. Mum's very superstitious, and thought I was some kind of cursed child for years. She even took me to a witch doctor in Accra, which, of course, led her to believe complete rubbish about me being demonic. They even tried to get her to sell me! Thank Merlin my dad had a bit more common sense. Still had a hard time believing it, but meeting Professor Sprout put his mind at ease."
Without thinking, Ron replied, "Yeah, McGonagall did the same with Hermione's parents." Hermione's parents. Thinking about them made his heart twist painfully in his chest.
"Hermione Granger? She's muggleborn, too? I had no idea!" Elliot brightened considerably at that news and missed the frown on his companion's face.
Ron shrugged and changed the subject abruptly, steering them towards a pizzeria. After ordering enough food to make up for the few hours since they'd last had a meal, they made their way through the crowds of commuters and towards Battersea Station. Ron suspected they might as well start at least relatively near the last sighting of the dreadful lethifold. The temperature dropped with the setting sun and a faint drizzle had started.
No new information had come in all day regarding the creature. No attacks that they knew of, no reported mysterious missing muggles under suspicious circumstances, no creepy cloaked figures. This was not a surprise to the Auror, who knew that lethifolds preferred to hunt at night under the shelter of darkness.
Two hours passed without a single sighting. Ron and Elliot strolled down dark alleys, crept behind rows of poorly lit houses, and continuously eavesdropped on the muggle police dispatch line using a magically enhanced disc player. Petty crime was reported by the dozen, but nothing out of the ordinary was called in.
They took turns listening in on the communication between officers as the other would keep watch, moving them continuously around the different neighborhoods on the south bank of the River Thames.
Finally, Elliot perked up. Breathless, he turned to Ron. "Peckham! Muggle reported someone disappear right off Sumner Road!"
Bloody hell.
"Crookshanks! C'mere!" Hermione was irritated at the ginger cat who normally met her at the door without issue. Her hair, already frizzy from the commute home, was expanding in the lightly spitting rain; it had taken her a few minutes longer to walk home given her sore ankle. Rarely had she needed to beckon the animal, but usually he was already waiting somewhat impatiently for her to arrive home from work, either pawing the door or scampering over as soon as he saw her coming from down the road. She made a clicking noise with her tongue, hoping that might lure him from wherever he was lurking about.
When he still didn't appear, Hermione let herself inside to make a quick cup of tea and find her wellies before going back out again. She wasn't pleased at all that Crookshanks was out at night in unclear weather.
Hermione toed off the boots she had worn to work and padded lightly into the unlit kitchen, but came to an abrupt halt and winced as she felt a sharp pain on the bottom of her foot. Pausing to lean against the countertop, the witch realized with annoyance that a infinitesimal stray piece of glass from the teacup Crookshanks had knocked down that morning was sticking out of the bottom of her stocking-covered heel. Hermione grimaced as she pulled the tiny piece of glass out, cursing under her breath.
Limping into her bedroom, Hermione yanked off her stockings and pulled out a thick pair of wool socks. Before putting them on she examined the sole of her foot, which only had a small bead of blood forming over the invisible wound.
Without warning, tears began to fall silently down her cheeks. Hermione hadn't even realized she was crying. But why? She wasn't in pain, other than some soreness. Work hadn't been terrible. Nothing had necessarily gone wrong. Why was she suddenly so emotional?
An image popped into her head from years past, long before she even learned of the Hogwarts. She had been playing in the park near her home during the holiday and a bee had stung her as she was picking wildflowers. Anxiously, she had run as fast as her little legs could take her to the bench where her mum sat reading a book, extending her forearm to expose the reddening sting on the soft, pale skin. She recalled how delicately her mum soothed her finger around the painful spot before extracting the stinger, lightly kissing over top the injury. Her compassionate face swam before Hermione, the memory so vivid it was nearly excruciating. "Darling, you didn't even cry! That's my brave girl. Now run along and play. Don't let that silly little bee keep you from picking flowers."
Brushing the tears brusquely off her cheeks, the brunette witch felt the all too familiar hollow space in her chest. The sensation never actually left entirely – the intensity just ebbed and flowed like a lonely seashore. The emptiness, compounded with the dreary weather and fatigue, led Hermione to crawl up the short expanse of her bed and curl under the cover of the heavy duvet. As she drifted to sleep in the semi-darkness, she dreamed she was still at the park all those years ago, making crowns out of flowers while her mother turned another page in her novel.
"Holy fuck," spat Ron, in complete disbelief of the scene left for them. Police lights illuminated the dark brick house in flashing florescent blue. A teenage girl, no older than sixteen or so, stood sobbing as she recounted to a baffled officer how she had seen a rippling black ghost engulf her father as she watched helplessly from her second-story window. Her dad, she shared, was fetching her school bag from the family car when she heard his strangled cry. A few elderly neighbors had come out in dressing robes or paused while walking their dogs nearby. Ron fought the urge to tell them go inside immediately and cast every
"Let's go!" Ron urged, pulling Elliot along as they rushed past the scene. "So it was spotted by that lady three streets west of here, the shopkeeper up the street, and was here not too long ago. Blimey, we've got to get someone here quick to modify all these memories. Wait a mo while I call someone from Magical Accidents and Catastrophes." As Ron dispatched for an Obliviator, Elliot frantically jotted down notes to keep up with the details of the mayhem.
"It's moving fast. Heading east." A nervous energy overtook Ron, but he didn't dare tell the lad why his anxiety was skyrocketing. He couldn't handle the onslaught of questions, but he had to check by her place as soon as possible. It was a mere fifteen-minute walk away, far too close for comfort. There was evidence of the lethifold already consuming two muggles outdoors in the past thirty minutes. If it was able to enter a house, it could decimate an entire family and it could take days until anyone discovered it.
The two young men darted into the night as misty rain steadily fell over the city.
Hermione woke with a start, confused about not just what time it was but even where she was. That happened sometimes – the panicked few moments where she could have been in her childhood bed at her parents' sturdy brick home, or in her four-poster at school, or on the creaking camp bed in that blasted tent. On the worst of days, she thought for a few fleeting seconds that she might be pressed up against Ron's warm body, tangled up sheets and his strong freckled arms, until reality came crashing down and she remembered she was alone. Utterly, entirely alone.
Except for her beloved pet – one she realized wasn't prowling around the flat. With a start she hopped out of bed, landing a bit too hard on her ankle. Cringing, she pulled on her wellies and threw on her raincoat, realizing with dismay that she had dozed off for at least a couple of hours. It was close to ten thirty by the time she grabbed the emergency torch her father made her keep with her in case of emergency, checking to ensure the thing still worked after going years without use or new batteries. She wished she could just utter lumos and search for Crookshanks wth her wand, but the likelihood that a muggle could see was too great to risk it.
Pulling open the door, the brunette witch began calling out for her pet, growing increasingly worried that something dreadful may have happened.
He was livid – positively beside himself to see her trudging through the drizzle, in the dark, completely alone. Cars flew past him on the busy road as he sprinted towards her, disregarding the wary side of him that warned that this was a bad idea.
Her eyes widened as she took him in. Her navy wellies matched her jacket. She still wore the same ones, he noticed, that were simple and plain and so her. She still wore the skirt she had on at work, which looked a bit odd. The dark circles under her eyes were more noticeable than they had been this afternoon when he saw her last. She looked knackered. But surprised, indeed, to see him here.
"What are you doing here?" she asked once they were within talking distance, her question nearly drowning out as a bus sped by.
"Get inside," Ron hissed, trying to keep his voice calm. He couldn't believe she was intentionally outside when a murderous creature she bloody well knew was loose in London.
She just stood there, staring at him. As if she was seeing a ghost. It felt like she was looking straight through him, sizing up his insecurities. It made him angrier. A few seconds ticked by and he felt his anxiety and irritation both rise unbearably higher.
"I'm sorry – do you want to get strangled and eaten by a monster? Go inside now." He hadn't meant to sound as menacing as his tone suggested, but her reaction dumbfounded him.
"For your information, I'm looking for my blasted cat, Ronald Weasley!" she snapped, eyes narrowing at him. "And who are you to give me orders like that? I'm a grow woman and ministry employee, too! I'm just as capable of taking care of myself as –"
"Care to join us, then?" came the infuriatingly chipper voice of Elliot from behind him. Ron rounded on the boy faster than Hermione could answer.
"You shut up! You shouldn't even be here – barely experienced enough to tie your damn shoe laces. It's a liability that I even let you tag along." Ron regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but he couldn't take them back. Unfortunately for him, the witch heard every word.
"How dare you! No one stepped up to help except Elliot," came her quick reply. Her face was set in defiance, droplets of water cascading off the hood of her coat. He noticed her fists were clenched – one still holding that silly torch. He was desperate to get her inside that damn flat of hers.
"I could do this all by my fucking self!" he cried in anger, causing Elliot to take a step backwards. "It's still out here…it could be anywhere! If you hadn't been paying attention, who knows how quickly it could come out of nowhere and suffocate you before you could get your wand out?!" Ron was shouting now. In the middle of the sidewalk in muggle London. Merlin. He knew he should calm down, but was seeing red. Did she not care about her safety?
"If you need help, I can –"
"Get. In. Side," he gritted, about ready to apparate her into that bloody flat down the street himself.
"Honestly, the more people –"
"NOW!"
Her look devastated him. It was the same look of exasperation and disappointment he had seen written across her face more times than he cared to remember. When he came home drinking. When they fought. When she told him to walk away and leave her alone. It wasn't quite pity and probably not disgust, but something in between the two. It was nauseating.
His voice broke as he tried one last tactic. "Please, Hermione. Please go inside," he begged, not caring a bit how pathetic he sounded to the boy next to him who he had just offended.
Her gorgeous brown eyes stared unwaveringly into his for a few tense seconds, face completely indecipherable. He braced himself for the barrage of insults that was sure to follow, but she shocked him by turning on her heel and walking swiftly back up the street towards her building, leaving him standing in the rain. Despite being cloaked in darkness, he felt exposed – no longer obscured by the usual shadows.
With a bang, she slammed her door shut and slowly slid to the floor. Choking sobs tore through her body, making her feel lightheaded as she gasped for air. The quiet of her flat mocked her crying, echoing the ugly sounds.
That look on his face – it was as if he actually still cared for her. She'd seen that pained look when they were in danger, or when he was desperate – usually both at once. The way his voice cracked. The pleading in his eyes. It was too much.
Hermione wept bitter tears for the knowledge that deep down, she had ruined everything.
"You need to slow down, 'Mione. Process things. I'm worried about you," he had pleaded, holding her shoulders while she tried to pry herself from his grip. Mum had died. She didn't need him to reminder her of that.
Or did she? "Talk to me? Please. Those cases can wait, love." She had turned him down over and over and over again. Pushed him away when he pressed her too hard. Didn't he understand?! She couldn't think about it. It hurt too much. Missing her hurt too much.
Work was safe. Merlin, work was a goddamn haven compared to the nightmare of her grief. It vanished almost completely when she could pour herself out to help others. She could get swept up in the details of a case and the mother-sized ache in her chest would subside momentarily. The guilt of the missing years with her parents while she helped Harry vanquish evil diminished, too. She could breathe at work.
Ron – her handsome, brave, absurdly stoic boyfriend made her remember. He made her feel. She did not want to feel. It was shattering – harsh and unrelenting.
Hermione didn't know how long she sat there, looking dully into her livingroom and down the hall. She wished Crookshanks was there to curl up in her lap. She wished her mum was there to give her a hug and tell her not to cry anymore.
A shameful part of her wished Ron was there to scoop her up and carry her to bed. To make love to her like she remembered – fervently and tenderly. Just to tease her and remind her that she was wanted and enjoyed.
When she lost her mum, a part of her died, too. Ron didn't want someone partially dead. He deserved someone fully alive.
They hadn't caught the beast. Morning sun beams pierced the sky as Ron and Elliot departed, agreeing to meet up in a few hours' time to proceed with the search. This time Ron was going to need to bring in Neville and Harry, and possibly a handful of others.
His eyes burned with exhaustion, muscles sore. He yawned loudly and covered his mouth lazily, unsure of where he should go.
Perhaps it was fatigue dictating his actions, or possibly the remorse from yelling at her like a child. However, deep down he strongly suspected it was love for her that motivated him to return to the dodgy borough she inhabited to look for that bloody cat.
It couldn't have been earlier than seven when he finally noticed the orange hair in the dim morning light, several blocks away from her flat. The half-kneazle was unmoving, half hidden behind rubbish cans adjacent to the shabby park. Ron knew as soon as he saw him that he was no longer alive.
Despite his disdain for the creature, his heart sank when he got close enough to verify that Crookshanks had died – peacefully, from the looks of it. It could have been a stuffed animal a child had dropped for all anyone knew. He remembered his mum had said creatures had a keen sense of when their end was coming and often went away to die. Hagrid had shared the same sentiments during one of his lessons.
He knew then that he had to see her. The fear he expected to be associated with that decision was replaced with a deep-seated need to assure Hermione that he was there for her. That, contrary to what she asked for a year and a half ago, he was not going to slink away so easily.