SA/N: ee end notes for author update and specific trigger warnings.
The diner bustled with supper chaos as servers smoothly took orders, refilled drinks, and delivered food with seamless efficiency. At a table tucked far in the back, Harry browsed the menu while Hermione stared transfixed at the entrance.
"He's late," she bit out, voice cold and flat as she checked her watch once again.
"It's been exactly forty-three seconds," Harry huffed, not even bothering to look up. "Your watch is likely just ahead of schedule, as usual."
"I don't like it. We should go-"
"What is your problem with Ron," Harry snapped and set his menu down more forcefully than he intended. Hermione tore her gaze from the door to glare at him. "I know the pair of you have always had this tension between you, but this is beyond petty bickering. You're outright hostile and cold towards him-"
"I am not! I just-"
"Yes, you are, Hermione," he hissed low, trying to keep from the curious looks of other patrons. "In the mornings, when it's just the two of us having coffee, you're fine, but the second Ron walks in, you flip this switch. Hell, you were more relaxed around Draco Malfoy, and I wanna know why."
Her gaze dropped to the table as she straightened the cutlery set then mumbled as if confiding in her menu, "Because he makes me nervous."
"Nervous," he repeated, shocked that she gave him what appeared to be an honest answer. "Nervous how?"
"Well, perhaps nervous isn't quite the word for it," she sighed and spun the spoon around with a single finger. "On edge is more appropriate.'
"But you still haven't said why ."
"Because I make him nervous." The silverware clanked against each other as she let them go in favour of rubbing her temples. "He's nervous around me, and you can't say you haven't noticed it. Cornered dragon right? He's twitchy and refuses to be alone in a room with me ever. He tried to follow you into the bathroom yesterday for Merlin's sake."
"And that sets you on edge?" he asked, desperate to keep her talking. At least talking, he could try to understand and help.
"It's like shoving a mirror under my nose every single day. It forces me to realize how much I've changed. I have to remember every single day all the things I've done to become this person. Things I've buried in order to keep going."
"You know he doesn't mean anything by it. He's just…" Harry took a moment to search for the right word to describe his oldest friend, but Hermione seemed to have the answer before he did.
"Dense?" she offered humourlessly.
"No," he ground out between clenched teeth. Things would never improve between his friends if she insisted on swinging low at every opportunity."He's just not as tactful, I'll give you that, but he's here, isn't he? He's trying."
With a snort, she turned her attention back to the entrance as if making a point that he, in fact, wasn't there . Under her breath, she huffed, "That's not for me."
"Of course it's for you-"
"No, Harry it isn't," she retorted with a sarcastic bite. "He said as much when he showed up at your flat. It's because of you. Perhaps a chance at another round of glory. I don't know precisely, but I do know for sure it's most certainly not for me."
"I don't think he meant-"
"People don't like me," she stated bluntly, crossing her arms and glaring back at him. Unsure how to argue that, his mouth audibly snapped shut letting her continue on. "I'm not the sort of person you up and leave your family for months to help. You are."
"Of course people like you, Hermione," he tried to reason.
"No," she insisted. "They tolerate me, and that was before all of this. You, for some reason, like me. Perhaps a handful of others don't mind me, but the majority of people simply put up with me for your sake. Some even said as much at Hogwarts. I'm one-third of this 'Golden Trio' nonsense they've named us, and that was enough back then. I don't think it'll be enough now, and Ronald is not immune to that."
"You're wrong."
The words felt odd coming from his mouth. He never knew Hermione Granger to be wrong about anything; but on this point, he knew he'd fight until his dying breath. She mattered.
"When you went missing, everyone was looking for you. The Prophet wrote daily articles about you for months. They still write articles about your disappearance."
"Because of you," she told him, speaking as if to an obstinate child. "Because you, the great saviour of the Wizarding World, were looking for me. And I imagine they were looking for Hermione, the War Heroine, not just plain Hermione Granger and certainly not whatever it is I've become. People don't care about me. I know that."
"I care about you," he said with the conviction of his whole heart and body.
"A lone exception and probably reason enough to have your sanity questioned," she tossed back just as the waitress stopped by their table and effectively ended the conversation.
"Are we ready to order?" the young brunette woman asked, her pen poised over a notepad.
"I'll have the fish and chips, thanks."
"Coffee, black," Hermione insisted.
"You sure, hon?" The waitress asked, looking between the pair and clearly sensing the tension.
"She'll have the same as me," Harry corrected before Hermione could say otherwise. With a nod, the girl swiftly moved back through the maze of tables, clearly looking for a hasty escape.
"I'm not hungry. I want to leave as quickly as possible, not wait around for some teenager to bring a meal."
"You'll draw more attention by not ordering something. Do you want that?"
He took her crossed arms and slouching as an answer. With nothing more to do, he also sat back in his chair to people watch. The din of the diner made it difficult to concentrate on any one conversation, but snippets filtered through and stitched with others as his gaze drifted around the room. Busy restaurants reminded him of the Great Hall, catching whispers of gossip as people drifted by, someone fretting over one thing or another. People leading lives he only saw in segments. Often immediately after the war, Harry found himself in diners similar to this one just to get lost among a crowd of strangers, to feel invisible for once.
"Constantly looking for the waitress won't make your food come any faster," Hermione grumbled, behind her paper again.
"It wasn't-" he started defensively but deflated, deciding it wasn't a battle to fight. "Actually, do you remember that game we started playing fourth year? The one where we used to make up backstories about everyone in the Great Hall?" Intrigued, she folded the paper and set it in her lap, giving him her whole attention. "I still do it, especially in places like this. For instance, the man over there, he's an aspiring author who just lost his latest draft."
Harry nodded toward a man sitting panicked behind a flashing laptop screen, frantically pressing various keys and muttering curses to himself. A soft smile lifted the corner of Hermione's mouth, and he decided he wasn't ready to see it go just yet.
"And that couple there," he hurried to continue and looked to his left to direct her gaze. A young boy and girl, no more than late teens, sat leaning in toward each other just to his right. "I'm thinking first date?"
"Anniversary, actually," she said, a serene look on her face. "Look at the bag she's hidden under the table."
Just as she suggested, a small gift bag sat between her feet, and Harry could just make out the "ann" in anniversary behind her leg.
"Good catch. You were always better at this than I was. So tell me, why hasn't he got a gift for her?"
Hermione paused, seeming to carefully analyze him. "Because he's a dunce and forgotten. I suspect she'll cause a scene when she discovers."
Harry snorted and shared a grin with her before pointing to another table and inviting her to make up a new story as the waitress set plates in front of them. Hermione absently nibbled on chips while she wove a wild story of love, betrayal, and ultimate reconciliation, and he listened in absolute rapture like he always did when they played their little game.
As she moved on to the elderly couple sitting just behind Harry, Ron ran through the door, loaded down with an alarmingly full brown paper bag. Realization dawned on her while Ron muttered apologies and squeezed into a chair next to Harry.
"You were stalling," she accused Harry, eyes narrowed in his direction.
"Not exactly, but I can't believe it worked," he mumbled under his breath and turned toward Ron, desperate for a shift in focus. "What's with the bag?"
"George's idea," he said, eying Hermione's barely touched meal forlornly. "Said he's been working up a few prototypes, stuff he thought might be useful for us." Finally mustering his courage after a miserable grumble from his stomach, he pointed to the plate and asked, "You gonna finish that?"
With an indignant noise, she pushed the plate towards him and unfolded her paper once again.
"Uck, you already drowned them in tartar sauce," he protested, yet still took a large bite.
"How'd the swap go?" Harry asked, keeping his voice low as a waiter checked on the table next to them.
"Fine," Ron answered around a mouthful of chips. "Dad said he knows how to work that telepad thing if Kingsley doesn't. He was planning to send a memo to set up some kind of fake status update meeting to pass it to him."
Hermione hummed her approval and folded the paper back into her bag. "Sounds as if Mr. Weasley will be more than apt to handle the job. We should go." Before either could protest, she headed towards the door, nearly knocking over another customer.
Ron, who was still attempting to eat, groaned but stood to follow, shoving as much food into a napkin as he could hold, and left Harry to balance the bag of products from George. As he fished out enough money to cover the meal, Harry silently cursed his best mate for not thinking to shrink it before leaving Diagon Alley. Finally catching up to them outside, Harry found Hermione sitting in the back of a cab glaring at Ron.
"I'm not sitting next to her," Ron offered in way of explanation. With a roll of his eyes, Harry slid into the middle seat practically pulling Ron in after him. Once Hermione gave their driver an address, the trio lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, only broken by Ron's munching.
Seated between his oldest friends, Harry could feel the tension between the both of them. As buildings transitioned from shops and flats to industrial complexes, the knot in his stomach tightened. The air was thick enough between them, and he didn't look forward to refereeing the fight that was sure to come from this.
The cab stopped at the corner between indistinguishable, decrepit buildings. After a quick exchange of money with the driver, Hermione all but shoved both boys outside and up the road, the wind whipping harshly around them. Three blocks up, she stopped in front of a chained door and physically positioned each of them on either side of her. Ron opened his mouth to ask but appeared to think better of it when she picked up a discarded pipe. With too much-practised ease, she placed it between the chains locked around the handles and torqued it until the metal snapped. After shoving the boys inside and closing the door, she used her wand to resecure the chains and raise her wards. The howling winds vanished, leaving them in the eerie quiet of the abandoned building.
"Okay, so what's here? Some hidden stash of supplies? Or another secret rendezvous?" he teased, clearly in a far better mood after just a short visit with his brother and father. "Oh, if Malfoy's here, can I-"
"After today's little outing into the Wizarding world, we need to lay low," Hermione explained. "Extremely low. At least for the next day or two."
"We're staying the night?" he asked in shock, all hints of joviality evaporating. "It isn't even a proper living place!"
"We've slept in worse, Ron. It's fine," Harry interjected, trying to calm the mounting tension.
"No, we were in a tent that was practically a house! Where is that, anyway?"
"In a forest, abandoned and likely ransacked after we were taken by the snatchers," she snapped. "You're more than welcome to mark back in there and retrieve it if you're unhappy with the arrangements I've provided."
Mood distinctly dampened, Ron crossed his arms and slumped back against the nearest wall. "Can't even brush my teeth in a place like this, much less find a bed."
"Never known you to be so concerned with your personal hygiene, Ronald," she bit back as she moved towards the stares, desperate for some place, any place, away from him. "Find the loos, then look for the offices. They'll be best for a place to sleep."
Once she was halfway up the stairs, Ron muttered under his breath, "You've gotta be joking."
"No, I'm fucking not!" she shouted back from the top of the stairs. "What about any of this seems like a fucking joke to you? Being hunted down? Constantly moving just to stay alive? Always looking over our shoulders?" When no answer came, she scoffed. "I take back what I said, Harry. I prefer it when he's scared of me now."
A door slammed sometime after her departure, making both boys jump before Ron turned on his best mate.
"Look, I know it's not ideal," Harry attempted, hands up in a placating motion, but his friend's face was shifting into a colour even darker than his hair.
"Ideal? It's bloody madness, mate!"
"What do you want me to say?" he huffed back and crossed his arms over his chest to ward off the chill of the building and the icy look from Ron.
"I wanna know you see how insane this all is! We're sleeping in a-" Ron paused to look around at the broken machinery and abandoned pieces for an inkling of what the building may have once been. "I don't even know what kinda place this is, but I'm sure we're not here legally."
"No less sane than the Horcrux hunt was. I imagine we stayed in plenty of illegal places then too. Just being us was illegal."
"And you really want that to be our standard of normal?"
"Of course not." Harry rubbed his eyes tiredly "But our lives aren't exactly normal, and never have been. What else are we supposed to do? This is Hermione, and she needs our help."
"Is it though?" Ron asked softly, eyeing the staircase she had just stormed up. "This isn't the Hermione we grew up with. It isn't the woman you fell in love with, Harry."
He reeled, stepping back as though Ron had physically hit him. No one ever talked about it, instead choosing to simply dance around the subject any time conversations came too close. He couldn't imagine they didn't know what his desperate searches had meant though. Why he couldn't let her go. It wasn't simple duty or loyalty to a friend. It ran soul-deep.
Though it was never talked about. It wasn't something Harry had quite admitted to himself completely. But if what he was doing, what he felt wasn't love, he wasn't sure he would know what the feeling meant.
"It won't make her love you back," Ron whispered in an attempt to soften the blow.
"This isn't about that!" Harry shouted back and took to pacing in frustration. Now wasn't the time to be facing feelings he'd hidden for years. Feelings he'd buried and hidden from the world, from her, from himself. It wasn't the time for all of that.
"Isn't it?"
"No! It's just- It's the right thing to do!" His breaths came heavily in anger as he glared at his oldest friend. "What would you do if this was Hannah and she was in trouble?"
"That's not the same and you know it," Ron growled back defensively, fingers twitching dangerously close to the wand in his back pocket. "You leave her out-"
"Why not? You love her don't you?"
"You wanna know what I'd do?" Ron shouted and rounded back on Harry. "I'd be pulling her out of it for her own good! If you really love her, you'd stop letting her get herself into dangerous situations!"
The accusation landed like a blow to his gut. Even before all of this New Order business, guilt weighed heavily on his conscience for constantly dragging her into increasingly perilous circumstances. Anger sizzled away leaving only the guilt, and he deflated onto the bottom step.
"Don't you think I want to?" Harry asked softly, tugging his hair in frustration by the roots. "All I want is to take her someplace safe and forget all of this, but since when has anyone been able to tell her what to do? So if I can't pull her out, I'm not gonna leave her. I know it's hard but that doesn't-"
"Hard?" Ron asked, voice cracking over the word. "It's damn near impossible! And in case you haven't noticed, she's not particularly keen on the company either."
The conversation from the diner was still fresh in his mind as he eyed Ron with new suspicion. "Why did you come back then? Why are you here, Ron?"
"Because I'm worried about you," he pled. "We're all worried about you!"
"While I appreciate the concern, I'm not leaving her. When I told her I was going to find Horcruxes, she said I couldn't do it without her, and she left everything to help me. What's so different about me doing the same for her? She took care of me for seven years, and it's about damn time I return the favour."
"And what about everyone else that's taken care of you?" Ron's words weren't accusing, but it stung like a splash of cold salt water to the face after a fresh shave. He did think of everyone that took care of him his entire life and felt helpless to return such momentous favours. This felt like a dramatic step towards repaying his debt to Hermione Granger. Even if he would have done it anyway.
The first year of her disappearance was still burned in Ron's mind, perhaps more than the actual war had been. For months, he'd worried, jumped at every lead as quickly as Harry, and pled in the press for her safe return, but after a whole year of dead-end international travel, he was exhausted and disappointed. For not finding Hermione yes, but also in himself and the way he once again abandoned his entire family, especially in the wake of such tragedy. The final wake-up call came in the middle of the night when he returned empty-handed yet again just for Ginny to corner him with a desperate plea for help.
The clock in the living room just struck twelve when Ron was shaken awake from a dead sleep. Having just been travelling for the last week and a half straight, it was surprising Ginny was able to rouse him at all.
"The hell's the matter with you?" he grumbled into his pillow.
"I need to talk with you." Ginny's voice was low and gravelled as though she'd been crying. Sleep suddenly forgotten, Ron bolted up in bed, terrified of what may have happened now.
"What's wrong?"
"It's the shop. I can't do it on my own any more." Her breathing hitched as the tears burned her eyes. "I need help. I didn't want to admit it, but I'm failing miserably. I can't keep up with the stock, and I'm pretty sure we've lost more money than we've made from people stealing. And I don't know what the hell I'm doing."
At the admission, Ginny let a distressed sob slip, ashamed of her defeat. Ron pulled his sister against him, attempting to hold her together, and realized just how thin she'd become in the last year. Ginny always took charge when others needed her to, especially when it came to her family, and after the war, the shop had become her charge, her responsibility, her burden.
"I'd hoped being there might help George get something back, but it seems to have just made him worse, and I don't know what to do because I'm drowning, but I refuse to let Fred's legacy die like this. Even if it kills me."
"Let's not get too dramatic, Gin."
She gave a watery chuckle and cleared her eyes with the back of her hand. Feeling better than she had in weeks, she leaned away to attempt a meek smile. With hands on each shoulder, Ron bent his head to meet her downcast gaze. "What do you need?"
"I need another body. This is clearly a two-person job and George isn't…"
"I get it," Ron finished, understanding exactly what she wasn't saying. He'd seen it in even the short times he'd been home. George wasn't ready. He wasn't present. He wasn't whole. "I'll be there, Gin. I'm not gonna let Fred's legacy die either."
"Thank you, Ron," she breathed the most sincere expression of gratitude perhaps in her life.
"You don't have to thank me. We're family. That's what we do."
"Thank you for being here," she sighed, hugging her brother one more time.
It was the first he realized how abandoned his sister must have felt after the war. Bill and Fleur were back at Shell Cottage preparing for their niece. Charlie had disappeared, presumably back to Romania, almost the moment Fred was buried. While Percy had come to his senses during the battle, the rift hadn't fully healed, perhaps never would, and that created a great amount of awkward tension any time he came around; so he simply didn't. George was understandably still catatonic from the loss of his other half. With their parents still grieving the unimaginable loss of a child, Ginny had taken on the responsibilities. Keeping the house running, holding George together while also attempting to keep the shop in functioning order. And during all of that, Ron had left. Again. Running off with Harry for yet another mission.
Holding his younger sister as she fell apart, Ron knew he couldn't keep running. It was time to stand still and face the hard things. And with that revelation, the youngest of the Weasley men stayed to shoulder the responsibility of the family at the cost of searching for Hermione, leaving it to the remained third of the trio. Harry understood completely when Ron told him, and did still when Ron couldn't accompany him on the next trip. Or the next one. Then the next time until Harry simply stopped asking, only stopping in to say goodbye before heading off again. It wasn't that Ron cared less about what happened to Hermione than Harry did. Of course, he cared, but he also cared about what happened to his family, something only he could take care of. Something that was beginning to haunt him in the dark cold of the warehouse, especially when she seemed to despise hi.
"Mate." Ron's voice cracked under the strain of the past creeping in on him. "I'm not asking you to cut her off or anything. I'm just asking you to keep your head on straight about it. Is this really the best way we can handle this? Hiding out in warehouses and vacant flats? We've got better resources than we did five years ago. It doesn't have to be like the Horcrux hunt."
"You didn't see that duel in Diagon Alley. They were throwing spells I'd never seen, and they meant business. They've infiltrated the Ministry once. For all we know, Sarah isn't the only one. During the Horcrux hunt, I had no idea what I was doing, but Hermione does. She learned from these people for three years. We've gotta take her lead on this."
Ron eyed him suspiciously for a moment, unsure if Harry really understood. None of this was about ripping him away from Hermione. It was about making sure they all made it out to the other side of this. And Ron had to trust Harry would see that.
"Well, then I guess I'm off to find those loos," Ron offered in a flat attempt of a joke.
The officers weren't particularly difficult to find. All of the warehouses she had squatted in so far seemed to have a similar layout. At the first door she came to, Hermione shut herself inside and threw up every ward, containment, and silencing charm she knew. If only they worked on the walls of her mind as well as they did on the walls of the room. Stale air filled her lungs as she fumed. Overcome with anger that had been simmering for weeks, she lashed out and struck the door with the flat of her palms, savouring the reverberating pains that echoed through her.
Haphazardly, she unbuckled and tossed her bag onto the floor where it slumped, and a bottle rolled out as if summoned. The half-empty whiskey from Harry's flat glinted up at her from a dusty corner. With sharp movements, she snatched the bottle and popped the cork with ease. Having no glass, she drank deeply straight from the bottle as she paced toward a deserted desk and leaned against it. The quiet was suffocating, pressing in around her and amplifying the voices in her head. Years of taunts and jeers, schoolyard and otherwise.
"She's a nightmare, honestly! No wonder she hasn't got any friends!"
"Missed your deadline again, I see."
"Beaver-faced, Granger!"
"My aunt Tessy could do this move, and she's been dead a decade!"
"No one asked for your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood."
"Absolutely worthless you are, Watson."
"Your fault! This is all your fault."
"Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!" she screamed into the void, hurling an abandoned paperweight into the wall. A certain satisfaction filled her when the glass shattered into thousands of pieces and rained down to the floor in a symphony of clinking. Anger burned through her like the great fires of London, leaving ruin and wreckage in their wake. Because all anger ever did was destroy, and one day, perhaps soon, she feared the fire would consume her completely. Fueled by her own self-loathing for the person she'd become. Anger at Ronald for holding up that mirror every day. She even harboured a sizeable slice of anger with Harry for drawing out all of these feelings. Before him, she could be numb, living day to day with no thought other than survival. Without guilt. But Harry… he brought her humanity out in ways she hadn't been forced to face in years.
The whiskey burned the raw parts of her throat like white-hot flames itself as it travelled down to settle around the knot deep in her stomach. She drank until the bottle was empty, then threw that at the wall too. It wasn't enough though. The shattered glass on the floor was nothing compared to the shattered pieces that weighed her soul down. So she conjured an empty bottle. Then another. And another. She hurled bottle after bottle at the wall, watching in fascination as the pile grew higher and higher until she exhausted herself.
Tired. She was so damn tired.
A/N: TW: alcohol abuse
So I'm not dead! Still working through some health problems but hopefully, I will have answers (and more energy) soon. I apologize for the long wait, but I have been going back through the first 15 chapters cleaning things up and, you may have noticed, adding promo photos! I hope this chapter has been worth the wait!