We lay there for quite a long time; I don't know how long. It's difficult to say. Judging by the feeble light outside is still morning. Early but not too early. The weather is forlorn. If there is something I don't miss about England it's the weather. Surely it doesn't help if you are in a dejected state of mind. And today it's as miserable as the mood in the house.
Harry is still limp in my arms; after that unhappy sentence he had not spoken. At one point I thought him sleeping but he is not. He is quite awake.
After a bit, without saying a word, he disentangles from me and sits up. One of his knees raised, he let his elbow rest on it massaging his neck.
While I'm about to call his name, he leaves the bed and he is out of the room, I hear the sound of the shower coming from the bathroom.
Trying to chase disappointment with the conviction that I couldn't expect anything different, I dress myself slowly. No point in staying in bed as I don't think he'll get back from the shower all smiling and wanting to start a new life with me. I am a fool.
It is better to spend my time making myself a coffee.
While I'm sipping it at the kitchen table, I peruse a Daily Prophet Percy sent to me. Despite already a few weeks have passed, it's still full of the accident. It's a wonder how people don't get bored to read the same things over and over again.
It talks about Harry disappearance from the community (not that he has never been really present anyway), there are many appeals for him to join it again (why in the name of God should he do that? To be harassed some more? To provide the magical community of fresh gossips?!) and then it goes on blaming lack of funds to the Azkaban prison that made the escape possible, shortage of staff, lack of security. The prison is overcrowded, some wish for death penalties (the same who want to keep house elves enslaved, I'm sure), some wish to see back Dementors (Heaven forbid! People really have such short memory). It goes on talking about 854. It tries to reconstruct his whereabout before going to Australia but it's difficult as most of the time he was using Polyjuice Potion. In fact, the only sure notion is his sighting in Gringotts (buy the way, now the pressure on goblin to change their neutral policy is huge. I quite agree. It's scandalous that a convict can withdraw money at his pleasure, and they won't even notify the Minister) and Nocturnal alley to buy a large batch of potion. How he got hold of Harry's hair is still unclear. To the general public, I mean. I've got a shrewd idea, and I asked the minister to check it out.
Anyway, he died in a mysterious way as soon as he got to Azkaban. Nobody felt the need to investigate, and the case was closed in a matter of hours with the verdict of natural death. Nobody even arched an eyebrow hearing it. The fact that he was barely in his forties and with a perfect constitution didn't seem to constitute an impediment to a natural death.
He has been killed by the guards obviously. Most probably tortured to death. And, if I may say so, not altogether surprisingly. Harry was quite often there and in good terms with most of the staff.
I don't agree with this procedure but in all honesty, despite all my principles and believes, I felt a homicidal rush going through me when I found out that at being rennervate, discovering that Ginny was dead and Harry still alive, laughed.
I'm still against death penalties but I'm not going to cry over his decease.
Perusing the Daily prophet, I feel a bit excluded. When I was still working at the Ministry all what I'm reading would have been of the greatest importance to me. I'd been included in the debate; my opinion would have been looked for and considered. Now I can be only a spectator, I'm an outsider. But that doesn't mean that I'm kept in consideration for the decisions got in the Rumanian government either. I'm an outsider there also, a foreigner. I don't belong anywhere. It has been rather tough for me to leave England. Also because of mum and dad, who are getting older; they have only me and it's hard for them to see me so seldomly.
I feel forlorn in Rumania, divided from everybody. Alone. I didn't exactly manage to make any new acquaintances and the only people we hang out with are Charlie and Clea. They are truly lovely, and I enjoy their company but what would happen if I should divorce Ron? I couldn't move back to England as I wish. Hugo had already gone through too many changes, and he must finish school there, moreover I cannot take him away from Ron, it would be cruel. I should stay there, and I have the feeling that I would lose them too.
I feel imprisoned in a situation that makes me unhappy, but I cannot alter. My children are my life, I cherished them with all myself but sometimes I wish they'd never been born. It's horrible, I know. I've never told anybody, and I would never. But they make everything more difficult and enchain me in this relationship that clearly doesn't work.
I'd like to be free to pursue my career, to be able to read a book without thousands of interruptions, to be able to give up everything and move back here, but I cannot.
And now, that I've been with Harry how can I look in Ron's eyes again?
It all seems different today from tonight when I was delirious by happiness. Now I fully realise what I've done. It's really unfair in his regards, he may have plenty of faults, but he doesn't deserve this.
Quite suddenly, to enhance my sense of guilt, I remember when I was about twenty and I got into a bit of a difficulty because of an attempt to free an abused house elf from a private house. And it had been a very foolish act considering that at that point I had already applied for a position in the Law enforcement, and it could have seriously undermined my chances if a misdemeanour of that kind would have come to light. Finding out what happened, Ron took immediately all the blame and went through quite a lot of troubles before the owner of the house decided not to press charges. Or when, on another occasion, during a very particular dinner at the Minister to celebrate my rising to head of department, he overheard a guy making a denigrating joke at my being a woman. He gave him such a loud put down that procured the guy a chiding from the Minister himself in front of everybody! I scolded him afterwards saying that it was not necessary but inside I've been so proud of him and so grateful to have a man who would stand up for me without hesitation. No, he doesn't deserve it. He is a good man. However, that being said, I cannot even pretend that going back I wouldn't act exactly in the same way nor that if I should have another chance at it, I would back off.
Right now, what is right and what feels right are clashing. Do I have to keep my life miserable only because it is right to do so? Don't I deserve to have a shot at happiness? Are there any chances of happiness in this pathetic situation?
All these questions spinning in my head, I fold the newspaper and hide it in my suitcase. I don't want Harry to see it.
While I'm taking my empty cup to the sink wondering what to get for breakfast, I realise I don't hear the shower anymore. I don't know why but that lack of any sound makes me suddenly uneasy. A moment of uneasiness followed straight away by sheer panic. How could I possibly have been so stupid to leave him alone after the sentence uttered this morning! I was reading my newspaper here, drinking coffee nonchalantly after he basically told me he wants to die! I'm the biggest fool!
The cup I was rinsing breaks in two in the sink as I drop it with this realisation. I'm about to dash toward the bathroom, already my mind filling with images of veins cut open, blood everywhere, when I see him fully dressed and perfectly fine in the living room.
Biggest fool? A total idiot more like.
I see him grasping a wallet and that rings a bell in my head immediately. If he takes a wallet, it's because he wants to buy something in the muggle world and considering the mood of the morning, a suspicion makes way into me.
'Where are you going?'
He doesn't answer heading for the corridor.
I sprint forward and overtake him standing in front of the door. I repeat my question at which he tries to push me away. I stand my ground.
'Hermione, let me go.' He says without looking in my eyes.
'No Harry. I know what you are trying to get out for, and I won't allow you to'
'You don't understand, you must let me go' he says steadfast.
But I don't budge. He stares at me with a look full of frustration, I can see he wants to thrust me away, but he doesn't dare. And there is nothing he can do to force me away.
He observes me a moment, studiously, and then he does what I did not expect.
He presses his body to mine, immobilising me against the door as he starts to devour my throat avidly while his hands are grasping firmly my backside pressing his groin against mine.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I definitely wasn't prepared to this and my mind goes fuzzy straight away as the blood spins fast hazing my understanding.
He pushes hard his pelvis and I moan, already completely on fire, ready to sink powerless in his grasp, until when, I don't know which part of my brain is still miraculously working, reminds me why he is behaving this way. He just wants me to lower my guard to have me out of the way and with his Auror training, he studied me and played to my weakness. Him. He is my weakness, and he knows it very well.
Oh, let's him bloody play with it! This is best than anything!
No! Hermione no! You are not here to improve your sexual life (despite greatly needed) but to help him. And allowing him to have his way (notwithstanding the deliciousness of the mean in which the way is obtained), you are not helping him.
I have to use all my self-command and gather a strength which I didn't think to possess to stop him.
I start in pronouncing a very feeble 'no' that of course gets totally ignored but once is out, I manage to have it followed by a louder one and a still louder one after that and so on and finally I gather enough strength to grasp his hands and push them away.
He stops what he is doing when I succeed in shouting a decent loud enough negative.
He lay his forehead on my shoulder, resting it there limply, without a word, without a movement. Silence, if not my panting. Silence, while I try to master my flush. Silence, while I try to say something inarticulate.
This silence, so buzzing which prevents me to think, which prevents me to speak, is fast disrupted by a clash beside my ear that makes me jump in fright and gasp loudly.
He banged with all his strength his fist on the door, few inches from my face, making the door tremble.
Not just once. His fist rests there and then he does it again, and again, and again, the following stronger than the one before.
'Harry, stop! Stop!' I yell scared, trying to hold his fist, but he shrugs me off, drawing away from me. I see him wavering, his face stricken and then there is only a loud cringing roar gushing from him, followed by a second one even louder.
He is there roaring with such intensity and pain that I shake. I feel all my inside contracting seeing him in a so violent grief, I think I sobbed nervously, I don't even now. And he is there howling like if he is getting mad taking his head in his hands, stooping and I have no idea of what to do! It gets even scarier when abruptly he began hitting his head quite hardly on the wall, more than once and there I know at least one thing, I must stop him as soon as it may be before a concussion.
I sprint forward aware that in his fury he may struck me, but I take the risk, I must do something. I try to block him, but he is too strong for me. There is only one solution, he needs to be soothed somehow. I dash to the kitchen and take one of the vials with the sleeping potion I hid just in case, and I entreat him to drink it. As soon as he sees it, he snatches it from my hand and is down in his throat a second later.
He staggers blacking out and, just in time, I dart to prevent him from falling badly on the floor, sagging under his weight. I rest gently his body down and with a charm I move it on the sofa.
I find myself trembling all over and I flop beside him, my knees giving away.
