A/N – I just want to thank the people who mentioned getting notifications on the fanfiction app. I have downloaded the app onto my tablet, and now I can keep track of people favouriting, following and most importantly reviewing my stories. It means I will be carrying on posting on this site without issue, which I am very pleased about. I am considering slowly uploading my stories onto AO3, (possibly in the new year), but that will be a slow process so for the foreseeable future my main home will be here and it will be the only place to find any new stories of mine.
Silence filled the kitchen at The Burrow as the Weasleys digested the bombshell Hermione had just dropped on them. For a while no-one spoke as they took in what they were hearing, until finally Ginny broke the silence with a low moan.
"No," she whispered brokenly. "It's not true, you're lying."
"Why would I lie, Ginny?" Hermione asked gently.
"I don't know," Ginny spat. "But you are. Harry wouldn't do that to me. He loved me. He was coming back to me."
Ginny and Harry had been an item before he'd left to find Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, but before he'd headed off on his journey, he'd ended things with Ginny. Although Ginny knew it wasn't because he didn't love her, he did love her, he was just trying to keep her safe and avoid people coming after her to get to him. Ginny had never doubted his love, and she'd believed that if he'd survived the war, he would have returned to her and they would have spent the rest of their lives together. Now Hermione was blowing everything that she knew to pieces by claiming Harry was the father of her unborn baby.
"I don't know what to say, Ginny," Hermione said softly. "I'm not lying, Harry is the father of my baby."
"No," Ginny yelled, angrily shaking her head. "I don't believe you. You're only saying this because he's not here to defend himself. If Harry was here, you wouldn't be able to tell these lies about him."
"Why would I want to tell lies about him?" Hermione demanded. She understood that Ginny was upset, but she wasn't going to just sit back and let her accuse her of being a liar. "Harry was my best friend, and I loved him."
"But he loved me," Ginny screamed, glaring hatefully at Hermione. "Harry was mine. I can't believe you tried to steal him."
"I didn't try to steal him," Hermione argued.
"Next you'll be saying that the pair of you were planning a life together," Ginny snorted.
"We weren't," Hermione said. "We never discussed the future."
"You mean you never discussed the fact you were stealing my boyfriend?" Ginny questioned with a disbelieving, humourless bark of laughter.
"I wasn't stealing him, Ginny," Hermione said calmly. "There was no big plan to seduce him and steal him away from you. It just happened. We were coping with the war, and we sought comfort with each other. We never discussed the future, and quite honestly even if we had, I doubt we would have planned to be together. I loved Harry, but not in that way."
"Yet you still hopped into bed with him," Ginny sneered. "You disgust me, Hermione. You're nothing but a cheap tart."
Hermione bristled at Ginny's comment, but she didn't refute it as part of her thought maybe Ginny had a point. Even when she and Harry had been together, she knew she didn't love him in a romantic sense, but that hadn't stopped the time they'd spent together being something special. It had felt surprisingly natural to sleep with Harry, and she'd enjoyed every moment they'd spent together. However, she hadn't been in love with him, and she knew he hadn't been in love with her. They'd been comforting each other, and using sex as a way to cope with the hell they were living through.
"I still don't understand," Ron muttered, speaking up for the first time. "I was with you and Harry, and I noticed nothing. I would have spotted a secret romance, I know I would."
"It wasn't a big romance, Ron," Hermione said gently. "It was two friends seeking comfort together."
"How long was it going on?" Ron asked, still trying to wrap his head around what he was learning.
"Yeah Hermione, how long were you shagging my boyfriend for?" Ginny added in a bitter voice.
"It began when you left us," Hermione said, choosing to address Ron rather than Ginny as at the moment he was the one being more reasonable. "We were upset, and one thing led to another and we ended up in bed together. We didn't tell you when you came back as we both knew it would only cause trouble."
"So you chose to sneak around behind my back?" Ron questioned.
"We weren't sneaking around exactly," Hermione said. "We just took advantage of the times we were alone together. We happened to be alone a few times while we were at Shell Cottage, and I guess on one of those times we weren't as careful as we should have been."
"Why Harry?" Ron asked.
"Why Harry what?" Hermione returned, hoping Ron wasn't asking what she thought he was.
"Why Harry and not me? You knew how I felt about you, Hermione. Even before I tried to kiss you, you knew. So why did you go for Harry? Why sleep with someone who was taken, when I was right there, and I actually loved you?"
"I can't answer that Ron," Hermione replied honestly. "It was never a choice between the two of you. I didn't decide to have one of you and then picked Harry. Things with Harry just happened naturally. We didn't plan it, and I certainly didn't pick him. It just felt right at the time."
"Right?" Ginny squealed. "It felt right to sleep with my boyfriend? It felt right to break my heart?"
"No-one meant to hurt you, Ginny," Hermione argued. "I can't speak for Harry, but I didn't even think about you. It wasn't about anyone else, it was about Harry and I, and what we were feeling at the time. I understand that you're upset, but we never set out to hurt you."
"Yet you've done just that," Ginny snarled, roughly wiping away the tears that were beginning to fall as her anger gave way to pure heartbreak. "You have hurt me, Hermione, and what's worse you've taken Harry away from me."
"I didn't take him away," Hermione protested.
"Maybe not in person," Ginny conceded. "But you've taken my memories of him and tainted them. It's being killing me living without Harry, but I always had his love to remember him by. When things are tough, I used to think about what could have been. I always knew he would be at my side if he'd lived. But now thanks to you, I don't have that. I will now have to live with the fact he betrayed me, while I was waiting for him. I will now never know who he would have chosen. Harry may not be here, but you've still stolen him from me, and for that, I will never forgive you."
"Ginny, I'm so sorry," Hermione said, biting back her own tears.
"Sorry doesn't fix things," Ginny yelled, finally letting her tears fall. "Sorry doesn't salvage my memories of Harry. Sorry doesn't change the fact the wizard I loved was unfaithful to me, and now you're carrying his baby. Sorry doesn't fix things, Hermione."
"I know, but there's nothing else I can say," Hermione said sadly. "I can't change the past. What's done is done, and we have to live with the consequences."
"No, you have to live with the consequences," Ginny retorted sharply. "You've done enough damage to me and my life. I want you out of my room, and I never want to see you again."
Hermione gasped at Ginny's ultimatum as the redhead turned and stalked out of the kitchen. Turning to face the other Weasleys, she wondered if they would support her, or take the same stance as Ginny. So far Molly and Arthur had been silent observers, but Hermione knew the family well enough to know that both of them would have an opinion on what was going on.
"I never meant to cause all this trouble," Hermione said softly.
"I'm sure you didn't," Arthur said sympathetically. "But you have, and now we have to deal with it."
"How?" Hermione whispered.
"For now, I think you need to move out of Ginny's room," Arthur said.
"No," Molly interrupted before her husband could say anything further. "She needs to leave. Right now."
"But Molly, I don't have anywhere to go. You can't kick me out without warning. Please Molly, I need you and your family more than ever," Hermione pleaded.
"You should have thought about that before you broke my daughter's heart," Molly hissed angrily. "You can throw around any excuse you want, but the bottom line is still the same. You slept with Harry, knowing his heart belonged to Ginny. He can't be held accountable for his actions, but you can. You've betrayed Ginny, and as such, you've lost your right to be part of this family. I want you out of my house by the end of the day."
"But where will I go?" Hermione questioned.
"That is not my problem," Molly said as she got to her feet. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go and check on my daughter."
While Molly headed off to check on Ginny, Hermione turned to Ron, hoping he wouldn't abandon her. However, one look at his disgusted face told her everything she needed to know. She wouldn't be getting any support from Ron, not now she'd broken his heart as well.
"This looks like the end," Hermione whispered, hoping against hope that Ron would correct her and assure her their friendship would survive.
"It does," Ron agreed with a sharp nod. "I'm sorry Hermione, but there's no coming back from this. You didn't just betray Ginny, you betrayed me. You should have been honest with me."
"And would you have understood?" Hermione questioned. "Or would you have turned your back on Harry and I? If you'd known the truth, would you have stayed and helped us, or would you have left?"
"We'll never know, because you didn't give me that chance," Ron said with a shrug. "You lied to me, Hermione. You lied to us all, and now you've blown our lives apart. Ginny's right, you've tainted Harry's memory, and I can never forgive you for that. It's best that you leave and we don't see each other again."
Hermione blinked back the tears as she slowly got to her feet. "If that's the way you feel."
"It is," Ron said shortly.
Not wanting to stick around where she wasn't wanted, Hermione hurried out of the kitchen. Heading upstairs, she grabbed her bag and magically packed all her belongings. She then found Crookshanks, stuffed him into his travelling basket and double checked she hadn't forgotten anything. She hadn't, and in less than fifteen minutes Hermione and all her belongings had left The Burrow and the Weasleys behind for good.
Hermione half hoped Ron would stop her as she left, but he didn't. In fact he didn't even look up as she passed through the kitchen. Instead it was Arthur who saw her out and checked she would be okay. Hermione assured the Weasley patriarch that she would be just fine, even though she had no idea if she would be. It wasn't like she had a lot of money, and her employment prospects weren't looking too rosy now she was pregnant. Still, the Weasleys had made it clear they didn't want her, so all Hermione could do was leave with her head held high.
Once she'd left the Weasleys, Hermione found herself in a quandary over where to go. With Harry gone she didn't have any other close friends she could call on for help. The Weasleys had pretty much been her sole support in the wizarding world, but now she was on her own. With the night drawing in, and tiredness flooding through her following her earlier collapse, Hermione decided the best thing to do was to head to London and grab a room at The Leaky Cauldron for the night. She knew from experience that the pub had no problems with pets, so Crookshanks could stay with her, and more importantly it was cheap.
An hour after leaving the Weasleys, Hermione found herself settled in a pokey room in The Leaky Cauldron. It wasn't much, but it was home until she managed to get herself sorted.
"It'll all be okay Crooks," Hermione mumbled to her ginger feline as she curled up on the bed and Crookshanks leapt up to join her.
Hermione honestly didn't have a clue if everything would be okay, but she had to believe it. She wasn't going to let herself think of how bad things could get for her. She was going to have faith, and believe that everything would work out for her, and her baby, even though right now she had no idea how anything would ever be alright again. Her world was in pieces, and Hermione knew it would never fix back up to be anything like it was before. Her old life was over, and now she had to start afresh. She had to start a new life for herself and for the baby she was carrying.