“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Three Years Earlier
“And how are we this morning, Alex?” Hermione Granger breezed into the recovery ward in the psychiatric department of St Mungo’s hospital. The blond man sitting on the edge of his bed looked up at her, excited to see her.
“Great!” he said, enthusiastically. “I can’t wait to just get out there and start living my life again!” Hermione beamed happily at him, and sat down next to him.
“Yes, we’d all like that,” she said, with a wan smile. “You’re lucky to have the chance, you know.” Alex nodded, the grin subsiding slightly, replaced by a more serious look.
“I know it, believe me. But…” his face was reddening slightly, “I just wanted to… well, I wanted to say thank you. I wouldn’t be leaving today if it weren’t for you, you know.”
“Of course you would,” Hermione replied shyly, glancing away and feeling her own cheeks growing hot. “You weren’t destined to be cooped up here forever. I just opened the door for you, you’re walking out of it yourself.” Alex nodded, then slowly reached his hand across. To Hermione’s surprise, he gently took hold of her hand and clasped it tightly.
“You could have a chance to start again, you know,” he said quietly. “We could start together.” Hermione sighed.
“I tried it before, Alex. It didn’t work.”
“We can try it together,” Alex repeated earnestly, watching her carefully with his blue eyes. “Us against the world. We’ve come this far.”
Hermione was silent for a moment. The touch of Alex’s warm, secure hand in hers made her heart soar in a way it hadn’t done for so long, and the knowledge that he would always be there for her comforted her.
“Maybe last time I wasn’t ready to start again,” she mused softly. “You know, after mum and dad died. I just had to get out; I didn’t care where or how.”
“You weren’t ready to take on the world even two years ago,” Alex told her gently. “I know, Hermione. That day you told me about your parents, that was the day I think you started to accept it.”
Hermione nodded slowly. Her dancing career in the Muggle world had skyrocketed, her excellence in whatever she turned her mind to (with the obvious exceptions of Divination and flying) paying dividends as she soared through the ranks at the London Dance Academy. But despite her professional career, she felt empty and alone, so isolated from the rest of the world. That was when her dance teacher had suggested visiting the patients in St Mungo’s. At first Hermione had been sceptical; after all, she didn’t want to hang around in the hospital where her parents had finally died. But eventually she decided to take up the challenge, and had been offered a voluntary position in the Psychiatric Ward. And that was when she met Alex, and he had changed her life.
“There’s something I never told you, Alex,” Hermione whispered softly, stunned to feel a lump rising in her throat. “About the day we met. Do you remember it?”
“Of course,” Alex said immediately. “I’d run off again, and was hiding on the steps to the roof. You were lost and came across me, and we just sat and talked for hours, until eventually they found us.” Hermione nodded, carefully not looking at Alex’s earnest face.
“I wasn’t lost,” she muttered hollowly. “I was heading for the roof.” Alex didn’t say a word, but merely sat very still, his blazing blue eyes still fixed on Hermione’s face. Then, without a word, he released his hand from hers and slipped his arm comfortingly around her shoulders.
“I know,” he whispered finally. “I guessed.” Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t find the words. She felt a tear leak down her cheek, and hurried to wipe it away.
“I think,” She said eventually, “you may have saved my life.”
“And you saved mine,” Alex replied at once. “So we’re quits.”
Hermione smiled in spite of herself, and rested her head on Alex’s comforting arm. She remembered clear as day that afternoon they’d spent together on the stairs. She had opened up to Alex, then still a complete stranger, about her parents’ deaths and how she had left the wizarding world. She had told him about how she had been forced to leave her two best friends in the whole world, simply because being with them reminded her of all she had lost. In return Alex had told her how his mother had abandoned him, leaving him and his poverty-stricken father alone; how his Hogwarts letter had come but his father refused to let him go because he was ill and needed Alex’s help. How his father had died while Alex had sneaked out of the house to meet friends from the local estate, and how he had subsequently scraped a living on the streets of London, before finally catching pneumonia and nearly losing his mind.
“You’re still welcome to stay at my house until you find a place. Do you want any help carrying your stuff?” Hermione asked, sitting up straight once more and looking around for Alex’s bags, but he smiled wryly.
“This is it,” he said, holding up one small duffel bag. Hermione nodded.
“I’ve still got a few more hours I’m supposed to be doing here,” she said awkwardly, but Alex shook his head, smiling.
“Come with me,” he said, standing up, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder and stretching out his hand. “Let’s start a new life, just you and me.” Hermione stared at the proffered hand, and felt a slight tremble. In a few moments, she could be beginning life over again, free from the pain of her teenage years, her parents’ murders and her lonely life of her early twenties. Alex was offering her a life of security, a life where she would be loved, and there would be no hurtful bickering or pointed barbs. She smiled at him in return, and took his hand.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said happily and, hand in hand, they headed for the door.
Two years later
“I love you, Hermione.”
The words hit Hermione like a ton of bricks. She hadn’t heard them in so long. In fact, she knew exactly the last time she’d heard them, and who it was that had said them. It had been her mother, as she lay dying in her hospital bed. By that time, Hermione’s father had already passed away, although Hermione didn’t have the heart to tell her mother this. Instead she had just sat quietly beside her mother, clutching her hand as she had when she was younger, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. And as her mother’s life slipped away from her, Mrs Granger had found the strength to say only a few words “ “I love you, little girl.” They had also been, Hermione knew, the first words her mother had ever said to her, moments after she was born. It was only in that moment, as her mother died in her arms, that Hermione had understood the true depth and strength of those words: the power, the fear and the courage of those words. And here was Alex, saying them to her. She didn’t know what to say.
“I… Alex, I-”
“It’s alright,” he sighed, although he looked disappointed. “I understand. Perhaps someday you will?”
“I know I will,” Hermione told him, firmly. “I promise you.”
“You’d better keep that promise!” Alex warned her jokingly.
“I don’t make promises lightly,” Hermione replied philosophically. “It’s from a Muggle song,” she added, as Alex looked bemused. “But you know what, Alex? We’ve done alright, haven’t we? I mean, here we are, living when a couple of years ago, we felt we had nothing to live for.”
“I live for you,” Alex told her quietly, lying down on the swing seat they were sitting on, and resting his head in Hermione’s lap. Hermione smiled and stroked his hair.
“You are the best thing in my life, did you know that?” she asked him gently. “I don’t know what I did to deserve someone like you.”
“Every warrior receives a victory prize,” Alex said solemnly. “I just hope I wasn’t the consolation.” Hermione laughed, bent down and kissed him tenderly.
“You weren’t. I’m just not ready to tell you that I love you yet. Those words are important, and once said, they can’t be taken back.”
“That’s why I said them,” Alex said. “I can’t imagine my life without you. Don’t ever leave me.”
“What in the world could make me leave you?” Hermione asked with a laugh, but Alex was looking serious.
“Another man,” he suggested. “Or dancing. Please, promise me you’ll never leave me alone again. Everyone else in my life left me, but you’re different.”
“I’d give up anything before I gave up on you,” Hermione assured him.
“Even dancing?”
“Even dancing.” But Hermione was reminded of another promise that she’d made, in what would have been her seventh year at Hogwarts, had she not been searching the country for Horcruxes. The words came as easily as if she had spoken them yesterday “ ‘I’ll never give up on you, either of you. You’ve been my world for so long now, and I’ll never leave your side.’ She had said them to Harry directly, but both had known that they applied to Ron as well. Her heart sank as the thought crept unbidden into her head “ would she ever give up Alex as easily as she had Harry and Ron? If they were ever to need her again (not that they had for the past nine years) she knew in her heart of hearts that she would go running back to them. Because that was where she was supposed to be; her place was with them as a witch, not with Alex as a dancer; her heart knew it. But Hermione was Hermione, and, being Hermione, she listened to her head, not her heart. Alex symbolised the warmth and security that had been missing from her life for so long, and she wasn’t prepared to give that up.
“Then I’ve got something to ask you,” Alex said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Ok,” Hermione replied, startled but looking back at him. “Shoot.” Alex took a deep breath, and then got off the swing seat. Behind him the sun was setting over London, the bright golden beams reflecting off the silvery rooftops of the skyscrapers. Hermione watched Alex curiously. He was taking a step back, searching his pocket. He was “ oh my goodness! “ he was getting down on one knee! Oh no, Hermione thought, this was all wrong! She couldn’t marry Alex!
“Hermione,” Alex said, his blue eyes more serious and solemn than she’d ever seen them. They showed warmth, passion and sincerity. He would never leave her. He would never be taken away from her. He would always be by her side. But it was wrong.
“Y-Yes, Alex,” Hermione stuttered, fiddling nervously with the hem of her dress.
“Will you marry me?”
An eternity passed in the moment of silence. Hermione was torn. Her head was telling her that it was the sensible thing, that Alex could give her everything she thought she needed, but her heart was screaming in protest, so loudly that even cool, rational, reason-driven Hermione could hear it.
“I… I can’t, Alex,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. Alex was still for a moment, then looked at the floor.
“Why?” he asked quietly. Hermione wondered what to say; he looked so utterly defeated in that moment that she did not have the heart to tell him the truth.
“I don’t believe in marriage,” she lied quickly. “I don’t feel the need for a piece of paper to legalise the bond between two people. I’m sorry.” Alex was still, but then nodded. He looked back up at her, and she was relieved to see that he was smiling, albeit a little strained.
“I understand,” he said, putting the diamond ring back into his pocket and sitting back down on the swing. “We don’t need to get married to show our love.” He took her hand in his, and Hermione felt once again that comfortable feeling of security. There was no danger of getting stuck with Alex but, as long as she remained with him and did not think about whatever life she might or might not have had with Harry and Ron, she would be safe. The faint cry of her heart fought to be heard, but she stifled it quickly. If she ever returned to the life she’d once had, she knew that all that would face her was pain and heartache.
Strictly Ballroom by goldenprincess
Chapter Notes: This chapter flashes back to a time before the dancing competition started, and the true nature of Hermione and Alex's relationship is revealed. Final few chapters will be done in a few weeks time; for the moment, enjoy!