“Hermione, you’ve got to eat something.”
I knew it was Hannah, knocking at my door, telling me to come out of my room. I knew she was genuinely concerned for my mental and physical health. I knew, as a Healer, that I should be thoroughly appalled at the state in which I was currently living. The truth of it was, however, that I just didn’t care.
For the past week, I had hardly left my room. I was now living in Hannah’s house until I could find a situation of my own, but I hadn’t taken any steps toward doing so. Hannah didn’t mind; she loved having me around. I scarcely left my room except to go to work and scrounge through the cupboards to find mood foods through which I could work my way, while fighting back my tears. I had locked my door. Hannah would come every hour or so, trying to get me to unlock it and let her talk to me, but deep down she knew I wasn’t ready to talk, and when I was ready I would unlock my door.
Ron had stripped me of my last shreds of sanity. He had worked his way down into my mind, making me believe that if I loved him, he would love me as well. Without question, he loved me, but that fact that he could just walk away from something he wanted so badly puzzled me. It wasn’t like him to do that.
Could war have changed him that much? Could this be some newly acquired trait as a result of the death and pain that he had seen?
No, that couldn’t be it.
All this boiled over in my mind as I lay there, day after day. It was not until St. Mungo’s asked me to testify against Adrienne that I came out of my room.
“Hermione?” Hannah called, timidly knocking on the door. “Hermione, open the door.”
“Leave me alone.” I hated to be so curt with her, but she just had to understand how I was feeling at the moment.
“Hermione,” she said, more firmly now, knocking again. “St. Mungo’s wants you to testify.”
At this I opened my eyes.
“They need testimony for Adrienne’s arrest,” she continued, knowing that a spark was forming in my mind, “and you’re the only one who can give it.”
I sat up quickly, eyeing the door suspiciously. She knew very well that I didn’t want to come out yet. I sat for a moment, turning the situation over and over in my mind. Hannah wasn’t a generally deceptive person, nor did I think that she would use things important or touchy to lure me out of my state of utter misery. Cautiously, I stood up and walked to the door.
Once outside my room, I was surprised how horrible I felt. The little eye makeup that I wore was smeared under my eyes; my hair looked like I had been given an electric shock. If Ron had seen me in this state, there was no doubt in my mind that he would reject me all over again. I slowly turned to look at Hannah.
“Are you serious?” I said, not believing her.
She nodded solemnly. “They keep sending owls, wondering where you are. They value you, Hermione, even if Ron doesn’t.”
I hated to hear it, but it made me feel better just the same. Perhaps I liked to hear my sorrows confirmed by other people; it was just a morbid pleasure. In spite of myself, I smiled, letting a smile of relief wash over Hannah’s face.
“Look,” she said, sitting down next to me and taking my arm. She giggled. “Neville and I were supposed to go out to lunch today, but …” She paused. “Maybe we could go out instead. What do you say?”
I smiled at her. She was so good to me. She was the best friend I had ever had, not to mention one of the few girls I knew. I tried to run my fingers through a strand of hair, but found that task impossible, because of the knots that had accumulated there over the past few days. Confirming her request, I said, “In this state?”
Hannah smiled and handed me a hairbrush. “Get dressed,” she said simply, turning away and walking toward the fire. “I’m going to talk to Neville.”
It felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I was out of the room, and I could feel the warm summer sunshine wafting through the house. It smelled like summer, and that had always made me happy. Setting the hairbrush into my stubborn curls, I tugged “ and tugged “ and tugged. At last, when I had straightened it out and brought life back to my dying complexion, I declared myself presentable.
Lucky for me, Hannah came back at that exact moment. When I told her we could go, she sighed.
“Hermione, have you already forgotten the reason you came out of that bedroom?” Hannah asked, sipping her tea.
Of course! How could I have forgotten? Adrienne, that lying scoundrel “ I had to deal out justice wisely. “I’ll be back in an hour,” I said quickly, and Disapparated with a pop.
For the first time in a week, I saw the inside of St. Mungo’s. Rather, I saw anywhere or anything but the walls of my bedroom. It all came flooding back into my memory as I took in the site of the white, surgically clean building. As I walked the halls to Healer Dai Llewellyn’s office, I saw the room where Ron had lain, and tears came to my eyes. Brushing them gently away, I walked past the Longbottom’s ward.
Of course, the Longbottoms! I knew that in my absence their ward had been given to another employee, but I wanted to drop in on them, just this once.
The sight that met my eyes was terrible. Frank Longbottom as I had remembered him sat in the corner of the room. When I looked closely, he was a different man entirely. His hair was white and frizzy, instead of calm and grey, and his eyes were bloodshot and veined, like some sort of nightmare. And Alice “ Alice sat in a corner as well. Usually, she was the livelier of the two, and the same held true even now. She sat in a rocking chair, rocking compulsively back and forth, singing a song to herself. Her voice shot up and down the scale without any real purpose, and there was a wild look of fear in her eyes.
“Alice,” I said, crossing the room and sitting down next to her.
She didn’t recognize me. She got up out of her chair and continued singing, while looking at me, terrified. I bit my lip, and then it dawned on me.
I knew the reason that Ron knew he couldn’t be with me.
Alice had been a friend, a brain-dump, someone to whom I could talk even if I knew she couldn’t understand. In a way throughout the years, she had become a dear friend “ at the very least someone for whom I cared deeply. But I remembered many times when work had overtaken me, and I had neglected to stop by “ I had had less time to spend with her and her husband. And when I thought about it, I had done the same thing to Ron.
When we were younger, he would sacrifice time that I knew should have been spent studying to accompany me to Hogwarts when Harry wouldn’t go. He skipped Quidditch practice on occasion to keep me company in the Common Room when he knew I was feeling particularly down. Now that I thought about it, this was the reason I loved him. He wasn’t the great oaf I had met on the Hogwarts Express and endured for five years. In our sixth year he had changed, and he had been more willing to make sacrifices for me “ though I hadn’t realized it at the time.
Thinking back now, I realized precisely what I lacked. I knew he loved me deeply “ he had told me so. In fact, he cherished every moment we spent together. Every second was a pleasure. But he knew as well as I did that I was reluctant to give up my career, my aspirations “ I was unwilling to let my hopes and dreams give way to love. He knew that until I realized this, I couldn’t be with him. There was no way.
It seemed I had become blind for a moment. I couldn’t see Alice anymore, and my mind filled with a different scene “ a memory.
“Mione, you all right?” Ron asked, sitting down beside me and resting his hand on my forearm.
I was flustered. My mind was cluttered with numbers and calculations and Scouring spells. “Fine,” I muttered, not looking up or responding to Ron.
I had been stupid. I could feel him nervous and reddening next to me “ I could feel him breathing, but I did nothing. He rubbed his thumb on my forearm and smiled. I could tell. I knew him just that well. As soon as he began this act, I brushed him away.
Unfazed, he went on. “Listen, Mione, I was wondering …” He scratched his neck, shaking his head. “Do you “ do you want to come to Hogsmeade with me on Saturday?”
“Ron, I’ve really got to study,” I said, ignoring his plights. “I’ve got to get the marks “ exams are in four weeks!”
“Just once?” he said. “It’ll only be for a few hours.”
“I’m sorry, Ron, I can’t.”
There was disappointment in his eyes. I knew I had wounded him beyond repair.
But only now did I realize why.
I was unwilling to give things up for him. I knew that he also needed marks to become an Auror and go into the same field as Harry. Nonetheless, he knew that I was more important than anything in the world, and to think I would have disagreed with him. Now, I would give anything to have that moment back, and it is gone “ lost in the vacuum of time. He would have laid down everything for me, and I pushed him away.
Walking dejectedly down to Healer Llewellyn’s office, I felt a surge of emotion. Quickly and silently, I brushed it away. I had work to do.
I knocked on the door. “Come in,” sounded Llewellyn’s deep, honeyed voice. I opened the door and stepped inside.
“Miss Granger,” she said, getting up and shaking my hand. “You’ll testify, then?” She looked worried. “We need to make sure that our patients are safe.”
For a moment, I seriously considered declining. I didn’t know why, but it seemed a good idea to me at the time. Adrienne had never done anything to me, and now that Ron was lost, nothing seemed to matter anymore.
I opened my mouth to decline, to refuse to testify, but my heart spoke that day.
“What should I say?” I asked, surprising even myself.
Dai smiled. “Thank you, Miss Granger.” She heaved a great sigh of relief. “You have no idea what this will mean to the magical community.”
Immediately after telling Dai, I Disapparated. I couldn’t bear to do anything but go home and lay on my bed, watching the ceiling fan spin. I was so distracted in fact, that I Apparated into the middle of my old apartment. After apologizing profusely to its new owner and modifying a memory or so, I made it back to Hannah’s house.
At any moment but that one I would have found my situation funny. I was in no state to laugh. I tore the clip from my hair and stormed to my room, slamming the door behind me, ignoring the worried look in Hannah’s eyes. I spent an hour or so in my room with a magical directory, looking up new apartment buildings in magical communities, so I wouldn’t have to hide anymore. I was just so tired of everything.
Then I realized the real reason that I couldn’t bear to be near everyone. I couldn’t stand to know that I had rejected, therefore I had been rejected. I needed to be alone “ by myself, yet loneliness was the last thing that anyone would have prescribed for me. I sat alone in my room, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, listening to my own thoughts.
You don’t have time for him. You can’t afford to be like this. …
All the same, these words tore at my insides. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. And then, when I thought about it, all I wanted to do was break down and cry. And that is exactly what I did.
Miles away, I could almost feel Ron thinking about me, for I knew he was. I had known him all these years, and these were the things I remembered. For so long, I had lived without him, and I knew that he was just as distraught as I was.
Ron sat on his bed, looking out the window. In some odd twist of events, the sky had clouded over. A clap of thunder resounded throughout the house, shaking its foundations. If the artless symbolism didn’t stop, he might just scream.
The fact that he had left her was killing him, he knew. Slowly, particle by particle, he would disintegrate, leaving only the shadow of what had once been a man. Of course, he knew she was right. In battle, he hadn’t taken the coward’s way out “ it wasn’t his fault. He liked to think so, but on the inside he knew that it was not the case. Nonetheless, the coward’s way was his escape this time. How could he have been so stupid? Instead of fighting for the girl he loved, he had chosen to stand at arm’s length and keep her just far enough away that she couldn’t hurt him again.
Yet again, she kept telling him years and years ago that she had no time for him. She couldn’t let him get in the way of her career. It was clear now, he thought. There was no mistaking the mist that had clouded her eyes that night a week ago when he had told her that he couldn’t love her anymore.
He stood up. It was enough. He couldn’t go through this anymore. She would hate him forever for hurting her, but he had to tell her, and he had to tell her now.
A/N- Okay guys, I know I kind of left this chapter hanging as well, but I wanted to get it up quickly, and not waste time. I hated what happened with the last chapter, so I’m going to put this one up now. Check out my other fics, including my newest one called “The Love Potion.” *gasp!* It’s not under Romance fics, it’s under Humor! I know, it’s amazing. Anyway, check it out and tell me what you think. Thanks!