Chapter Text
Harry was exasperated with the lump on his couch that barely resembled one of his best friends.
“Hermione, you cannot keep lying here like this. You have to get up. You have to eat something. You have to talk to me.”
The lump didn’t so much as move. Harry sighed and rolled his eyes.
Hermione had shown up on his doorstep nearly three days ago, just after dawn, soaked to the bone from the early morning summer rain storm. She’d looked an absolute mess of sobs and wet tangled hair. Harry was immediately alarmed at the sight of her. Harry used his wand to dry her off and then deposited her on his couch where she’d crawled under the blankets, laid her head in his lap and cried for nearly two hours before finally falling asleep.
Since her arrival she hadn’t spoken a single word to him, hadn’t eaten a single bite of food and had barely done more than drink a little water and use the loo.
Harry had tried to tempt her with toast, desserts, broth, tea, coffee, and candy but the only reaction he’d gotten out of her besides an occasional side eye or grunt was when she would roll over to curl tighter into the back of the couch.
At one point Harry had attempted to run a diagnostic on her, but before he could even complete the spell, she’d waved it away with wandless magic and glared at him. Though he glared back, Harry knew her well enough to know when to not push her.
Then, he believed he’d had a stroke of genius this morning when he showed up with a pile of books he’d collected. Certain the massive stack of old and unique tomes would produce some kind of reaction out of her, he had reached complete exasperation when all she’d done is continue her impression of a couch cushion.
“Hermione, if you don’t eat something or talk to me, I’m going to be forced to call St. Mungo’s because at this point I am considering your catatonic state a magical medical emergency.”
Hermione didn’t react. Harry continued, his tone far more serious than it had been previously, “I skived out of work today so I can be here for you and I am telling you right now, if you haven’t spoken to me by the end of the day I’ll be making that call to the hospital.”
To his surprise, Hermione pulled the blanket off of her head to once again hold him in the grip of her glare. Rather than cower back, Harry felt his emotions sparking from fear and anxiety into anger and frustration.
He leaned in, his tone sharpening further, “I mean it, Hermione. I’m here for you always, obviously, but I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me and I can’t concentrate at work if I know you’re here on my couch in this…” Harry gestured at her vaguely, “…state.” He finished lamely.
Hermione said nothing.
“I already tried to talk to Ron,” Harry attempted to explain, “but he’s even more of a mess than you are. Apparently he’s been blind drunk for nearly three days. George and Percy are taking care of him.”
Hermione’s eyes tightened and tears began to leak down her pallid cheeks.
Beside himself yet again, Harry grasped at the only thing he could think to offer her. “Would you, perhaps, like a hug?”
At last, at long last Hermione nodded.
Harry bent down to give her a tight squeeze and a careful pat on her back. She returned the hug with gentle pressure, but when he went to pull away she clung to him tightly. Her arms were enclosed around the back of his neck like a vice. Instead of struggling to escape, Harry decided he better buckle in for the long haul. He twisted himself until he was sitting on the couch and pulled Hermione closer so she could rest her legs sideways across his lap. Hermione pressed her face into his shoulder, her arms looped even tighter around his neck, and let her sobs return with a vengeance. He held her that way for some time. When her sobs turned into hiccups and her hiccups into shallow breathing, he felt her grip loosen slightly.
“Hermione, for the love of Merlin, will you please talk to me?”
She nodded again and Harry sighed with relief. “Thank the cursed stars. What is going on? How can I help?”
Hermione shook her head and mumbled something into the side of his neck.
“I didn’t quite catch that Hermione can you say it again?
“It’s over,” she mumbled slightly louder, “Between Ron and I.”
“I gathered that much,” said Harry, “but what exactly happened?”
Hermione took multiple deep breaths, and then she began to talk quietly. At times she was barely audible, but Harry tried his best to listen closely. Slowly, she told Harry a heart breaking tale. She started by explaining that she’d experienced a miscarriage a few months prior. The miscarriage had nearly taken her life. She had forbade Ron from telling anyone about it. She didn’t want his family to know, she didn’t want Harry to know, and she didn’t want any of their friends to know because she couldn’t bear the thought of their sympathy or pity.
Hermione elaborated by telling Harry that it wasn’t uncommon for witches to have difficulties bringing magical babies into the world. Complications were expected. Miscarriages even more so.
She relayed all of this to Harry as if she needed to justify it to herself more than to him. She then explained that she had been worried that Ron believed it was actually his fault. The pregnancy itself was accidental but not entirely unwelcome. She told Harry that she knew Ron wanted to start a family as soon as they were married. Although she felt 23 was a little too young for marriage and babies she hadn’t been completely against it.
Hermione’s chin quivered against Harry’s neck as she paused. Her voice was shaky but clearer when she told him about how her and Ron had finally sat down together this past Friday night to talk about everything. Her voice shook when she expressed how he’d finally opened up to her about his feelings. In their discussion, Ron had cited the intense and pure magical bloodlines he came from, both the Prewitts and the Weasleys. He’d then told her of his theory that perhaps Hermione’s less magical blood status couldn’t handle his offspring.
Obviously, Hermione didn’t have to spell out to Harry that she’d taken offense to this. She told him how her and Ron had fought about it. The fight had been extremely emotional. Hermione admitted that they both said terrible things to each other, most of which she wasn’t willing to repeat. In the end Ron took off. He was gone all night, which is something he’d never done before without contacting her.
Hermione described that after waiting anxiously all night she decided she wanted to make things right between them. She intended to find him and apologize to him and ask him to come home.
She admitted to Harry that she used an illegal magical signature tracing spell to locate him at the leaky cauldron. At first she was relieved to see he’d ended up in a familiar place, she figured that meant he wanted to be found. On her way there she stopped and got coffee and blueberry scones. The bell hop and bar keeper both recognized her of course, and allowed her the access she needed to head up to Ron’s room.
Hermione paused to take a deep breath before continuing.
Her voice was suddenly much clearer as she explained through clenched teeth that instead of waking him with scones and kisses and apologies, she had found him asleep in bed with another witch.
Harry’s eyes widened.
She kept talking. She told him she did not recognize the witch, but it didn’t matter. Hermione admitted that after a lot of screaming and a lot of hot coffee being thrown onto Ron, the witch went running out of the room, cursing and wrapped in only the bedding. Hermione told Harry she followed, not long after, while screaming to Ron that if he tried to contact her she’d turn him into a shrunken head and bury him in his mother’s back garden. Unable to bear the thought of going home she’d walked aimlessly in the rain for a bit until she found herself on Harry’s doorstep.
Harry was stunned to say the least. He wanted to ask what she was grieving more, the relationship or the miscarriage, but he felt that it was inappropriate to ask such a question.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Hermione as she sat up to look at Harry who could only raise both of his dark eyebrows in curiosity.
“The answer is all of this,” she gestured to herself vaguely, “is not because I found Ron in bed with another woman, but because I worked so hard to stay strong after my miscarriage, not just for myself, but for him and for the sake of our relationship. I was barely holding it together for months. And when I saw him with that witch, I knew all of my strength had been for nothing.”
Harry just watched her talk. At least she was no longer crying. She continued, “Yes I’m sad that our relationship is over but I’m mostly sad that I’m not really surprised. I’m not surprised he hurt me like this. I’m a little surprised it took me so long to see how wrong we are for each other. I loved him very much, Harry. I thought the pregnancy was a sign that it was all going to work out. I knew, somehow, that when we lost the baby we would lose each other too. I tried to deny it. But I knew.”
And then she covered her face and began crying again. Not as hard as before, but as soon as her shoulders began to shake Harry simply pulled her into him and held her. Eventually, she fell asleep again with her head on his shoulder. Having no heart to wake her, he carefully repositioned them so that he was lying on his back on the couch and she was asleep, curled a top him like a cat.
Harry’s mind began to wander as he dissected everything she’d just told him. He could kill Ron for this. Truly. But Ron had his brothers to scold him and to look after him. Hermione didn’t have siblings to hold her up. Ginny was traveling for Quidditch and Luna was still on her honeymoon with Neville which meant her two best girl friends were unavailable at the moment. So all Hermione had was Harry. And Harry was determined to do everything he could to help her through this. Her soft snores lulled him into a doze and before long he was asleep as well.