Author's Note: First let me thank everyone who had reviewed, alerted, or put this story on their favorites it means a lot to me. Here is the last chapter for today, I'm hoping to have enough done to do some major posting on Friday. There is a reason for it, you'll just have to stay tuned and see what it is.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Do I really need to say that I don't own them? I'm just playing with someone else's toys and do return them in the same shape I have found them (well that may not always be the case).
Hermione sat out in the back garden a few days later, pretty soon the leaves on the few trees she could see would be changing color as autumn came. She had decided that the garden would be the place to sit while she tried again to decide what to do about Severus. She had went back and forth on whether or not to speak to him again that she felt like her mind was in a tennis match.
"Hello?"
Hermione turned to see Neville come around the corner followed by Luna, Hermione smiled at them though it didn't reach her eyes.
"There you are." Neville said as he came up to her bending down to give her a hug.
"How have you been?" Hermione asked.
"Good, great even. We have some news to share with you."
Hermione had a good idea what the news was but she waited for Neville to tell her, when it seemed that he wasn't going to share his news Luna finally said,
"We are to be bonded in a hand fasting ceremony at Christmas."
Hermione squealed as she stood hugging them both before telling them to sit, it really was good news if two people belonged together it was these two, they complimented each other so well.
"I'm so happy for you both." Hermione said smiling at them both.
"Well it's about time don't you think?" Neville asked.
"Yeah it is." Hermione said wistfully as her mind traveled to her own bonding with Severus. Damn and here she didn't want to remember that day.
"So how are things going with you Hermione?" Luna asked.
She looked at the couple across the table from her, there really were only three people in the world that knew her well enough anymore that she would talk to about Severus.
"Severus was here on Friday and Saturday."
"What?" Neville asked a little more loudly than he intended.
"Why did he come to see you Hermione?" Luna asked.
"It seems that Mr. Kaseload lied to everyone, Severus and all of us."
"About what?" Neville asked.
"Just about everything, he led Severus to believe that I had already filed the bonding intent before I ever did. Apparently he never told Severus that any of us wanted to see him before he was freed. I am sure that there are others but….."
Hermione trailed off, she didn't want to ruin their happy news with the things that Severus and her talked about that night or how she couldn't deal with him the next day.
"But what?" Neville asked.
"Never mind, it will keep."
"Did he upset you?"
Hermione sighed, Neville was one of the few people who stood by her through the whole thing with Severus and she knew he deserved to know what was said.
"Yes, but not in the way you think. He had been trying to write to me about Kaseload, I kept sending them back unopened so he came to talk about that."
"But in the course of that interaction other things were talked about?" Luna asked.
"More like said, but yeah. Things I didn't know, it was….. enlightening but at the same time upsetting. He apologized for his treatment of me."
"Do you believe him?" Neville asked.
"I don't know."
Several moments of silence passed before Neville said,
"Have you ate yet Hermione?"
"No." she answered slowly.
"Good, I'm going to go pick up a pizza. I'll be back in a little while."
Hermione furrowed her brows but didn't argue, she hadn't really given much thought to food in the last few days and pizza did sound good.
Once Neville was gone Luna said,
"I have a question that I would like to ask you."
"Sure." Hermione said.
"I would like for you to be my ribbon bearer for the hand fasting."
"What? Really? I would love ….. it's going to be….."
"We don't know yet, but I want you there. I don't care what the rest of them think, if they don't like my choice they are more than welcome to not attend."
It was the first time Hermione had ever really heard Luna talk in anything other than her small lithely voice, it took Hermione back to hear anything other than the sing song quality that Luna usually carried. Luna had reached over laying her hand on Hermione's saying,
"I would like to have you there for me."
Hermione thought about, what were the chances of Severus attending Neville's wedding? None.
"Okay Luna I would love to be a part of your wedding."
"Oh, thank you." Luna stood hugging her before she sat back down asking,
"Now that is done, what are you going to do about Severus?"
"I honestly have no idea, I want to believe that he is in earnest but then a part of me wants to believe that t he's playing a game."
"Can people change?" Luna asked seemingly out of the blue but knowing Luna nothing was ever out of the blue, it just always seemed that way.
"I would have to say yes, I saw a brood of Weasley's change toward me."
"You know some people have no idea what they have until it's gone." Luna looked toward the corner of the house where Neville had left. It was common knowledge that Neville hadn't figured out that he was in love with Luna until she took that five year job in America.
"The thing is Luna, he did and said some pretty nasty things to me while we were married."
"Where there never anything but bad memories made?"
Hermione had been thinking about that same question for four days now, the answer was….
"No, the bad memories just seem to be the dominate memories. He told me a lot of things, but I don't think he even scratched the surface of what he wanted to say to me. I just don't know if I can take that walk down memory lane with him."
"Then write it in a letter, have him do that same."
"Does he really seem like the letter writing type to you?"
"If he truly wants to make amends he will on your terms."
"Maybe, I may do that because having him sitting here expecting me to tell him isn't going to get it, there is too much pain for it to not come out calmly."
"Good, you know even if it's just to reconcile the past it will be good for the both of you."
"Maybe so." Hermione was already drafting a letter in her head to him, the other problem was she would have to borrow Harry's owl to send it. She didn't think that would be a big problem since he also encouraged her to do almost the same.
Author's Note: Comments really do make me smile and brighten my day.
Also I wanted to let you know that I have a couple of Severus/Hermione videos on youtube, the link is in my profile.