By the time they'd arrived at the dental surgery in town, Ron and Hermione were grateful for Molly Weasley's advice that they wear shorts and t-shirts upon their arrival in Australia. It was sweltering. Not only was it too hot and sticky to put an arm round each other or even hold hands in a dignified way, but the local residents kept chuckling at them, the obvious tourists. Ron kept scowling at people who looked to be as cool as cucumber. It was a little embarrassing, but Hermione laughed anyway.
Hermione bought two cokes at a petrol station in the middle of town. It was Ron's first muggle beverage. She could tell that he found the dark brown colour a little off-putting but it was too hot to be fuzzy. He guzzled the thing down instantly and seemed quite fond of the drink.
The dental surgery was set back in a rural-looking lane on the outskirts at the other end of town. It was big and airy, with a friendly young receptionist and a waiting room well-stocked with reading material. Hermione muttered her name to the receptionist, who looked a little perplexed when Hermione explained that she'd booked a check-up over a year ago.
The waiting room had leather sofas, which was sticky and irritating. They sat in silence with an old woman sitting in the corner, seemingly impatient to see her dentist. She was grumpily flicking through a periodical on dental hygiene. Hermione doubted she was even reading it.
"Are you alright?" asked Ron in a hushed tone. Hermione smiled at him and nodded. His face was bright red from the sun.
"Are you?" she asked, automatically reaching up and brushing a stray strand of ginger hair out of his eye.
Ron shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just... I dunno, are you worried? Scared?"
Hermione laughed. "Scared of what?"
"I dunno, anything!"
Hermione smiled fondly at him. "I'm not scared. Are you going to be alright in here by yourself?"
Ron looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the ancient old woman in the corner, and he scoffed. "I reckon I'll be alright."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "What if a huntsman spider comes in?"
Ron's smug smirk faded instantly. "A what?"
The waiting room door creaked open. "Hermione Granger?" called a young woman. Hermione leapt to her feet, grinning madly. The young woman looked rather confused by her reaction.
"Hermione, what's a huntsman spider?"
"I'll be right back," she beamed at him, practically skipping after the young assistant. She heard Ron whimpering about spiders as she made her way down the hall. They past a couple of other dentists' surgeries, whose doors were shut. Hermione wondered if Monica Wilkins was behind any of them, fantasising about what life could've been like if she'd had a child.
They turned into the room at the very bottom on the left and Hermione's stomach lurched. The room was huge and bright; a far cry from her father's cramped, cold surgery back in London. His back was turned to them.
"Here's Miss Granger, Sir," said the young woman, gesturing for Hermione to sit in the dentists' chair. Wendell Wilkins turned around.
Hermione heard her heart beat once, very loudly, as Dr Wilkins turned and grinned at her.
"Hi there! "
He sounded Australian.
"New to the area?" he asked, still grinning.
Hermione couldn't believe it.
"Uh... yeah," she breathed, not recognising herself. She swallowed thickly. "Yes, I moved here last month."
"Ah, a fellow Briton! Take a seat!"
Hermione numbly slid into the dentists' chair and caught her breath as it whirred downwards. In the next moment, Dr Wilkins was staring down at her with his instruments in hand. With a spare finger, he pulled the light above her head down to shine into her mouth. She opened up.
While he scouted around in her mouth and uttered numbers and letters to his assistant, Hermione began to shake. Her father knew the ins and outs of her mouth like the back of his hand. She madly hoped that this examination would be enough to trigger his memories to come flooding back. He'd stare at her, open-mouthed, for a long time before breaking down and crying, grasping for a cuddle. He'd call his wife in and she'd take one look at her small family and burst into tears.
"Any problems recently? Toothache? Bleeding gums?"
"...no," said Hermione quietly.
"Here, you're shaking! No need for that! Not a fan of the dentist, are we?"
Hermione laughed weakly. "It's nothing like that," she said when he removed the instruments. She glanced around the surgery while he checked something on the computer screen. Framed on the wall were close-up shots of lions and zebras. In one of the pictures was Dr Wilkins, giving a thumbs up with a flock of antelope in the background.
"Did you go on holiday?" asked Hermione, not meaning to sound so accusatory.
"Yeah. The wife and I went on an African safari a few months back."
"You... did?"
"Yep. Brilliant stuff. Couldn't recommend it enough. Now, open wide again for me."
As he examined her mouth again, Hermione's head spun with terrible thoughts. Dr Wilkins was not her father. Not in the slightest. She had adored her father, but he was a solemn man. He was frugal and sensible. He argued with his uptight wife. Their job depressed them both.
"Everything looks fine! Perfect set of pearly whites, there!"
Hermione closed her mouth as the chair hoisted her up again. "Thank you," she said.
"Brooke, what's the time?"
"Three-thirty, Sir."
"Ah!" he gasped, his hands running through his thin hair.
"Something wrong?" asked Hermione unthinkingly.
Dr Wilkins grinned madly. "Not at all. In two hours, I'll officially be a Dad."
Hermione's heart plummeted.
"Excuse me?"
Brooke, the assistant, was beaming at her boss from behind him. He looked so happy... he hadn't looked that happy in years.
"The wife and I are adopting a boy. Lovely lad, ten years old. Such a funny thing... we're taking him home later on!"
Hermione suddenly felt very fragile, as though her bones were hollow. She could collapse to the floor any second and she'd shatter.
"Thank you for seeing me..." she breathed before swerving out the door.
The walls of the hall swayed. She wasn't dizzy. She shuffled numbly into the waiting room where she found Ron sitting on the sofa, hugging his knees.
"Hermione, please tell me what a... 'Mione?"
"We have to go."
"'Mione, what's-"
"Now."
She grabbed his hand and dragged him across the hall, through reception and out into the deserted road. She ignored his spluttered questions. She didn't let go of his wrist for ages until he finally tugged free.
"Hermione," he said firmly, leaping in front of her and grabbing her shoulders. He stared at her seriously, his blue eyes looking so wonderfully refreshing amid this dry, suffocating place. "Where are your parents?"
The heat added to her stinging eyes.
"Getting into their car, ready to collect their son."
She was met with a silence that let reality echo around her.
Helpless. Completely and utterly helpless.
"Let's go home," she said suddenly, grabbing his hand.
"What?"
"To the tent, I mean. Come on!"
She turned on the spot and began marching him up the hill. Ron said nothing.
Perhaps she wanted him to stop her. Perhaps she needed him to slap her into some sense. She needed something. She needed adrenaline, or a shock.
"Hermione, are you okay?" he asked dumbly.
"I'm fine! I'm happy!"
"Are you?" he murmured.
She was dragging him down the main boulevard of town, receiving some strange looks from muggle pedestrians.
She needed to be woken up. This nightmare had been going on for too long.
"You don't seem fine, 'Mione. Just stop a minute."
"I'm telling you, Ron, I'm perfectly fine!"
Voldemort. Ron. The Wilkins'. Ron. Fred, Dumbledore, Sirius, Snape. Azkaban. Ron. Her own skin. Ron's reaction to her skin. Ron.
They reached the beach. People were packing up their beach balls and sun mats, ready to go . It was all around her, but it would never touch her. She laughed.
"Hermione, what are you doing?" he asked again as their feet sank into the hot dry sand with each frantic step.
"I'm not doing anything! I just want to go home."
"What do you mean?"
"For Merlin's sake, Ron, I just want to turn in for the night! Is that too much to ask?"
"It's five in the afternoon!"
"I DON'T CARE!"
She stopped. Ron halted and stared at her in alarm. She was staring at the ground, wide-eyed in deep, horrific thought.
"'Mione..." he said with a shaking voice. "You're scaring me."
Her head snapped up. He honestly looked petrified, as though a gun had been fired and he was waiting to see if she'd fall.
She'd scared him. Ron, the only person who loved her now, was scared of her.
Tears welled in her eyes.
"What have I done?" she squeaked. Ron looked even more frightened.
He yelled her name when she collapsed to the sandy floor.
"'Mione, what's wrong? Are you okay? Should... should I get someone?"
One sob shook her body.
Ron ran a hand through his hair and looked around the beach desperately. "Come on, Hermione. What do I do? What do you need?"
Normality. A family. A home. Ron.
"Please can we just go back to the tent?" she whimpered. "I need to show you something."
Ron contorted his face into an entirely unbelievable expression of calm. "Sure," he said, wrapping an arm around her waist. He lifted her up and her legs shook as she straightened, her brittle bones and knobbly knees reminding her of a newborn giraffe.
She stumbled into the tent with Ron's arm around her waist and his eyes fixed on her wet face. He tried to guide her to the bed.
"No, Ron."
"Lie down, it's fine. I'll get you a drink."
"No. You sit down. I told you I have something to show you."
Ron opened his mouth to argue, but she was already crying. Slowly, he sank down to sit on the bed, facing her.
Hermione's heart was beating so hard that it hurt. Perhaps she did need a doctor...
"We're together, you and me. Right?"
Ron smiled half-heartedly. "Right..."
"And that means no secrets... right?"
Ron looked apprehensive and gulped. "Yeah..."
Hermione took a deep breath. Only the possibility of a full, happy, physical relationship with Ron was strong enough to persuade her to do what she had to.
In any other circumstance, she might've laughed as Ron's eyed bulged when she fiddled with the button of her shorts. She pushed them down and let them pool at her ankles.
"Hermione, I-"
"Shh..."
She reached for the hem of her t-shirt and quickly pulled it up over her head. Her eyes remained shut for much longer than necessary. Blind, she tossed her t-shirt on the floor. She braced herself and opened her eyes.
Ron's eyes raked over her body. He gulped again. For one mad second, his gobsmacked expression left her almost flattered... until she saw the exact moment when he saw the worst one. He knew about her arm. He might've guessed about her torso... nobody knew about her hip.
"When I did... that...to you, in your bedroom the other day..." she sniffed and fought back more tears. "I'd cast a charm on myself so that none of it would show."
Ron's jaw had been locked since he'd seen it. He pried his mouth open. "Greyback?" he croaked.
"Bellatrix," she replied.
She looked down for the first time in days. On her left hip was a dreadful set of four deep red claw marks, from where Bellatrix Lestrange had gouged at her skin from the top of her hip to the top of her thigh. The scar disappeared into her knickers.
"I'm so sorry," she whimpered. "But I had to show you sooner rather than later. I wouldn't have been able to... to..."
Her words were cut off when Ron stood up.
He looked strangely brave. In one swift movement, he pulled his own t-shirt off of his body. He turned and flashed her the flinch scar on his left arm.
"This one's never going away," he told her, looking down at it. He shrugged. "It sucks."
Hermione wiped her face with her hand. He smiled half-heartedly at her.
"I know what you're thinking," he said seriously. "That I'm not gunna, er... find you attractive anymore," he swallowed thickly. "I know, 'cos that's what I thought when I got all these scratches and bruises and this bloody thing..."
He looked up at her. His eyes were glistening. Oh, she wanted to run to him...
"I've told you before that I think you're gorgeous. I still do, but I didn't fall in love with your body. I reckon that was just a lucky bonus."
It did not pass her by that she did not feel self-conscious any more. In a way, she was oblivious to the fact that Ron was looking at her in her underwear.
"What a cheery way to bring that inevitable topic up, eh?" he smirked. A tear fell from his eyes. "Oh Merlin," he choked, quickly wiping the tear away. "Not cool."
She let out a weak laugh.
Ron shrugged. "I still love you, 'Mi. Can't see that I'll ever stop, to be honest."
That was it.
She lunged for him and he caught her. She wrapped herself around him and cried loudly. He lowered her onto their bed and dragged the duvet up around them. In the cool evening air, being half-naked was quite cold.
He kept his arm around her waist and his face buried in her hair. She cried and cried, while he remained silent. Eventually, when Ron hugged her closer to him, she flipped over to face him. He smiled warmly. She was no longer despairing, at least.
"I'm sorry," she croaked. "I didn't mean to scare you. You must think I'm mental."
"Yup."
She looked up at him. He chuckled.
"And I've still got the emotional range of a teaspoon."
oOo
A.N- Yeah, sorry for taking so long. Dramas and stuff, you know?
Nel X
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