Hermione had expected to sleep badly, lying restlessly tormented. She did not. As soon as she reached the bed in the anonymous single room and closed her eyes, she was unconscious. It had been a long, fraught day. No qualms intruded until the morning when Crookshanks woke her with a myriad of complaints. Although she had made arrangements for him before she had collapsed into slumber, he was not happy.
"Am I a bad person?" Hermione asked her familiar as she transfigured the armchair cushions more to his liking while she investigated the mini-bar. Outrageously priced boutique snacks did not appeal. The virtues of quinoa eluded her. She sat on the floor feeling wretchedly unencumbered.
"Crooks, I'm so relieved." The witch started to sob great snotty tears that defied tissues. So relieved Ron would not keep pressuring her to marry him. There was so much more she wanted to do, wanted to experience before shackling herself to a stove. She wanted a career. She wanted to change the world. She wanted to do something sensible.
"I screwed that up, didn't I?" Hermione choked, trying to blow her nose and stop crying. It ended messily. "I should've done something smarter. But he wouldn't listen and now I've hurt him. I never meant to hurt him. I love him." She cried harder because the bond she had with Ron, a bond she cherished, she feared she had broken because she did not have the words to help him understand.
To explain that she loved him and wanted him in her life, wanted to be with him and share with him but that he would never be her whole world. That he suffocated her when he pushed for more. She didn't have any more. The war had taken so much from her she could not give him what he craved.
"I never meant to hurt him, I swear I didn't." The soulless hotel room gave her no answers. It was at least quiet, excepting the traffic noise outside and her own abject tears. "I should have been honest."
Those words lingered. She had been honest. She had asked for more time. She had tried to compromise. She had gone away, insisted on finishing at Hogwarts. On recovering her parents. But Ron needed more.
And she did not have it.
Hermione hoped she would have it someday. That when she had caught her breath and found her footing that she would be able to be the wife he wanted. She hoped. She did not quite believe. That worry was an old one. It had seeped in long before she and Ron had dated. It had in fact started as soon as the three of them had become friends. The worry that she would be forever their mother.
She did not want to be a caretaker. She did not want that obligation weighing her down for the rest of her life. That somehow because she was part of the Trio she had to be the responsible one.
Well, sleeping with Marcus had hardly been responsible. Hermione was immensely reassured she had at least been coherent enough to use contraception. Having that complication add to the maelstrom would have just been the end. Stupid stupid stupid.
And selfish. She had to admit that to herself. All her choices had been made for her own benefit.
Which she did not regret.
That made her feel even worse. The witch cried, alone with the realisation that she felt no remorse over keeping the funeral to herself. To protect her parents one last time from the pandemonium they had never wanted. They would not be lessened by being mundane. Their death rites would not be novelties to be marvelled over by the enlightened. They would not be foreign in their own world, like she was.
That she had betrayed Ron, she did rue. She had slept with another man without the common decency of ending her relationship. That was not kind and certainly not honourable. Ron had every right to be furious with her.
But he should not have drugged her cider.
He should have trusted her. She had made a mistake and had told him about it immediately and had been prepared to take whatever he had thrown at her. Because in reaching for Marcus, who expected nothing of her, she could see how little she wished to remain with Ron right now.
Hindsight told her now she should have ended it rather than drag it out trying to placate him. She should have had the backbone to say she did not have what he needed. In trying to avoid the cruelty of rejecting him outright, she had wounded him even deeper. He would be right never to forgive her for that.
Hermione gave up on tissues and took herself into the bathroom for a hot shower. She washed everything. Scrubbed everything. Then she took herself downstairs to the hotel salon and had a chatty woman cut her hair. It was an act of contrition, like a collaborator being shorn.
The pixie cut let the cold winter breeze chill her scalp. The bite gave her a little clarity. She had transgressed. But there was atonement. She could remedy something for someone at least. Hermione collected her cat, checked out and went to her parents' house.
She did not want to be there. The memories weighed her down, sapping her resolve. But this was where she needed to be. She cleaned up as she had intended to do before the Ministry owl. She made beef stroganoff because damn it she had bought gourmet field mushrooms and refused to throw them out. She wrote letters.
She answered the door when Harry came in response to her owl. That was when Hermione found herself winding down. The resolution that had motivated her drained suddenly when she met his steady gaze.
"Tea?" It was a feeble ritual but it gave her a little time to collect herself.
"Thank you, yes." Harry could still taste the suspicious beer from last night. Neither Ron nor George had emerged from their beds for breakfast. Molly had taken lunch up to their rooms but it had done little to tempt them. "I want to understand, 'Mione."
"I know you do. I wish I could explain this better. It wasn't something I planned. It just happened and I feel as dumb as that sounds." Hermione fussed with cups, saucers and tea bags. "But I did this to myself. Marcus told me you and George confronted him. He isn't at fault. I am."
"He's an arsehole." He petted Crookshanks as the cat took an interest in what they were doing.
"Not to me." She took a deep breath. "I went to Australia to see my parents. They had been in an accident. A serious accident." Hermione had to pause for breath again when grief choked her. "A drunk driver killed them. My dad on impact. My mum died in the hospital."
"For Hell's sake!" Harry jumped up from his seat at the counter. He caught himself and went to her, offering a hug and giving it when she accepted. Carefully not saying the first things that came into his mind, he found something he could say. "I'm sorry."
"I couldn't tell you. I couldn't write it down. I didn't want it to be real." Hermione clung to him and shook, fighting not to cry. She could do this. She was strong. Harry deserved an explanation. "That's why I stayed away. Not for a honeymoon, like Ron said. God, Harry, he put Veritaserum in my drink."
"Flint did?" There seemed to be a step missing from the conversation. Harry felt her shake her head against his shoulder. "Ron did?" This got a nod. "Right." That did not help much. "When?"
"When I came to tell him I'd been unfaithful. After the funeral." Hermione swallowed and broke away to pour then gulp her tea, cooling it with a charm so she could drink. "I told him right away. I didn't lie. I didn't want to keep it from him. But I couldn't explain with the truth potion in me. I was upset."
"Hermione." Harry assembled some very tactful words. "I think that everyone is upset right now." That was an understatement. "I brought your things. You should probably check them for surprises." Ginny was still hexing gnomes in the garden, calling each of them by their friend's name. "We would have been there for you. You didn't need to shut us out."
"I did. Don't you see?" Hermione put her cup down slowly, not wanting to chip it. Calm explanation. No shouting or crying. Calm. Try to rationalise. "No one gave a damn about my parents. They never said so, but it was there. I had to send them away. Me. The Order should've fallen over themselves to help, but they didn't." She caught him about to speak. "And don't bloody say there were a lot of people to protect. I know! We protected them. But it was just me for my parents."
The resentment took Harry aback. Hermione had always got on with things. Soldiered on. He had relied on her and she had been there for him. That she felt she could not rely on him in return was bitter gall.
"I would've been there." He asserted. "I would've walked on water to get there. You didn't need Flint." A Slytherin over him! When did that make sense? Harry clenched his hands when he felt them start to tremble. "You should have told us."
"I didn't want you there! I didn't want everyone looking at my mum and dad like they were freaks! Like they were some sort of pathetic monkey people not quite civilised!"
Harry took a step away from her anger. He had to say something. He could not just walk away and leave her there. Pulling her trunk out of his pocket, he set it down on the floor and cast finite on the shrinking charm.
"'Mione, I don't want to argue with you right now." But there would be an argument later. By Merlin, there would be a fiendfyre hot quarrel about this. "I am sorry about your parents. I am here for you. But not here right now. I think I need a little time to get my head around everything you've said." Hopefully Ginny had left some gnomes for him.