Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

What it comes down to	By : melinda1293 Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 115221 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
Chapter 16. Painful Apologies

Hermione pulled her knees up in the chair as she sat down and wrapped her arms around them. She wanted to talk to Harry, now that she could. Now that they were alone again and he was able, before he fell asleep again, before he shut them out.
“Harry?” she began, and he looked at her, but she wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Was it Snape that cast the doe patronus?” she finally asked him tentatively. “In the woods? Did he lead you to the sword?”
Harry stared at her intensely a minute.
“Yes,” he croaked out, nodding. His voice had actually broken through, but it sounded so unlike his own, hoarse and gravelly. It sounded as if his vocal chords were in shreds.
“Why the hell would he do that?” Ron asked then, hunching over and resting his forearms on his thighs, gesturing his confusion with his hands. “What happened with him at the Malfoy’s, Harry?”
Hermione watched as Harry’s eyes grew dark, and his face went hard. She’d been horrified by what she’d read earlier. By what he had and hadn’t written, and from what she remembered of Bellatrix’s words that horrible day. They’d speculated about Snape after their escape. Bellatrix had said he’d betrayed them. They knew that he might have played some part, but she didn’t know what happened between them, not the reasons why Snape tried to save Harry, not the reasons why Harry ultimately saved Snape. She couldn’t believe that he’d stayed behind, after all they’d done to him, especially if he thought they were already dead, her and Ron.
“I need the bathroom first,” he said after a long silence, his voice failing him again half way through so the last words were said on a whisper. Still, she was glad he hadn’t given up trying to use it. She was even gladder that he seemed willing to discuss any of this with them at all. She knew from experience that he could close up like a steel trap, but he needed to talk about the things that happened there. They all did.
Ron got up to help Harry stand, but he’d already managed on his own. Holding onto the arm of the couch to steady himself as Ron reached for him, his face grimaced in pain, a slight tremor visible in his thighs.
She needed to rub the salve on them tonight before bed to try and ease his discomfort. She had meant to after his bath this morning, but they’d had such a late start to the day that they were all eager to get downstairs for something to eat. Plus he had seemed a lot better after the bath. Then his mood had turned so sour when they got downstairs that she didn’t dare try to touch him after she’d made him come down, afraid of his anger.
Harry had been so touchy with her since he regained consciousness. He’d been so all over the place emotionally, that she didn’t know how to react to him anymore. It made her feel like she was doing things all wrong, which with Ron would’ve been completely normal before, but she and Harry had always been so comfortable with each other. It came totally naturally with him, but it was different now. He was different. The relationship between them had changed. It was like Harry and Ron had switched places, and now the tension was between Harry and her. She wanted the old Harry back. She wanted her best friend back, but she didn’t know how to get there. Or if they even could.
Hermione had been completely naïve when Harry finally woke up. She’d told him everything was going to be all right, and she’d felt hopeful for the first time in so very long. She had thought they could pull themselves back together, but he was just so broken, and not just his body. His whole mental state had been damaged. He needed help. Help that she and Ron didn’t know how to give him, help that she feared he would never ask for or accept anyway. Madame Pomfrey could heal his body, perhaps, but not his mind. She couldn’t erase the terrible things they’d done to him without obliviating him entirely.
Still, Hermione had thought things would get better, but yesterday when Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were visiting, Harry had gone practically comatose. The terror after his dreams, she expected. Actually, he’d recovered from that pretty well, but then later, his eyes just went dead. It was the same empty stare she’d seen in the dungeons, and it had scared her to death.
She’d hurried Ron’s parents out, and then they had watched him. She watched him like she had done during their time in Malfoy Manor, watched him take up his quill and write, his eyes glassy, far away, lifeless. It was the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen. And then finally, the darkness drained away. He was left so exhausted afterwards, like he’d been struggling, fighting to stay with them, to hold onto his sanity. It broke her heart.
It felt like watching him drown, not knowing how to swim, not able to help. Like standing at the water’s edge unable to save him, screaming for help with no one around, watching as his arms flail and his head dips under. Watching as the water ripples out away from his thrashing body in waves of concentric rings, listening to his gurgling cries for help when his mouth fills with water. Watching as he disappears under the glassy surface. Watching the water go calm and still again once he’d given in, once it had swallowed him whole, once it had silenced him.
She ached to reach out to him, but he wouldn’t let her get too near him lately, so she was reduced to merely watching him again. Feeling chained against the wall again, feeling as if the silencing charms were back around her. Watching him tear himself apart now, she watched him continue what the Death Eaters had started, and felt so helpless again to stop it, standing here at the water’s edge.
Harry was suicidal. She knew that. He’d made a damn fine attempt to carry it out when they’d escaped, but it was clear from what he told Lupin that he’d been suicidal then, too. He’d stayed behind, even when he thought they were already dead. Harry had fought those bastards so hard. She knew he had. He’d been so strong for them. She’d watched it happening. But when they brought him back in that day, believing they were dead, he’d finally been defeated. His whole being had told the truth of it. Slumped on Avery’s shoulder, and having to be dragged in, he was already gone.
His body had been totally compliant in Avery’s arms, completely incapable of independent movement, his head resting on the Death Eater's shoulder while he held Harry up. He was conscious, but his eyes were dull, his face pale and waxy. Not really seeing or comprehending, he was utterly oblivious to his surroundings, or no longer capable of caring. The hair rose up on Hermione’s arms at the memory, at the emptiness she had seen in those beautiful eyes then. It was the same look she saw in them yesterday.
He took up the quill again today, working in the journal for a long time, but this time it was different. This time his eyes flashed with anger, which, frankly, she felt better about. He should damn well be angry, and he needed to express that, even if he was angry at her. Harry needed to direct that anger outward, to lash out at someone else instead of himself. It was a hell of a lot healthier. It meant he was fighting back again instead of lying down. It meant that he hadn’t stopped struggling against the water. That he was still trying to hold his head above its black surface.
The journal she’d given him appeared to have become his outlet. She’d never known him to carry a journal before, but he almost wouldn’t be separated from it now. He stroked it constantly, like a lover, clutching it to his chest protectively. But if he could pour out his feelings into that book, if he couldn’t confide in her or Ron, then she was glad he had it. He had to let his anger and grief out somewhere or he would drown in it.
Maybe it wasn’t that he couldn’t confide in them, though. Maybe it was that he couldn’t confide in her, she thought, as she watched them shuffle slowly out of the room, reminding her irresistibly of how he’d looked on Avery’s shoulder as he leaned heavily on Ron. It was just her he was turning away. Ron was replacing her as his confidant, as his protector, it seemed. They were growing closer while Harry shunned her recently. The estrangement stung more than she wanted to admit.
She felt jealous, which was ridiculous. She was jealous of Ron, jealous of Mrs. Weasley, too, yesterday when Harry let her hold him, let her comfort him. It was irrational. Hermione knew she was being petty, but she was feeling usurped, nudged aside, shut out from the closeness they’d always shared, and she didn’t like it one bit. The initial feelings of wanting to protect him after their escape, to protect all of them from the outside world, had only intensified since Harry had awoken. She was still trying to keep everyone out, to hold both Ron and Harry to her chest protectively, possessively, selfishly, like Harry seemed to with his journal, and she didn’t know how to relax her grip on them.
Her feelings about Harry were so confused, different than they were before everything that had happened to them, more complex and mixed up after their forced intimacy. She was in love with Ron, she didn’t doubt it, but the three of them were so intertwined. Their relationships with each other was so bound together that some of those feelings were tied to Harry, too. Ron had said it himself. He wouldn’t leave them, either of them again, no matter what. The three of them couldn’t be separated. Now that she and Ron had finally come together, and their relationship had blossomed and turned sexual, their closeness to Harry had gotten even more complicated.
Neither of them had turned away from him, nor put up any barriers between them. Maybe because of what happened to all of them in the dungeons. So much had been stripped away from them there, their innocence, their dignity, their humanity. Maybe because it developed around him, the intimacy she’d found with Ron. It had happened with Harry there beside them, though admittedly he wasn’t aware, conscious even, but it seemed to her to have developed with him too, because of him, even. He was the reason they were together. It didn’t really exist without him.
Hermione didn’t know what she wanted from Harry. She couldn’t decide if she really wanted to explore those feelings, but she knew she didn’t want to let it go either. Unable to relax her grip, right now the confusion of emotions only made her want to cling tighter.
Harry shuffled back in, moving mostly on his own now. Ron’s arm was around Harry’s back with a hand on his hip to steady him while Harry’s arm was thrown around Ron’s neck. His fingers were digging in Ron’s shoulder for support. His face was still a mask of pain, and a bead of sweat was sliding down the side of his face from the effort the trip was costing him. She felt bad for having neglected him this morning, but the ointment wasn’t going to relieve that much pain, she thought. He needed a potion, but he was just so damn stubborn!
Harry was still in nothing but his pajama bottoms, looking desperately skinny. His skin was flushed with the persistent fever, but the bruising was fading away finally. The color had changed from brilliant blacks and purples to muted yellows and greens. All the bandages had been removed now, and only the cut on his left arm still looked gruesomely fresh and raw, still vibrantly red against his pale skin.
Ron helped settle him on the couch before taking the other end for himself. Then she and Ron both sat and patiently waited for Harry. They waited for him to decide when he was ready to talk. After a moment, he sighed deeply and took up the quill.
I was with her that whole night I didn’t come back to your cell. She left me sometime in the morning. I don’t know how long I was alone. Then Snape was there with Lucius and Avery. We fought, as I said, and he tried to get into my mind, to get information about what Dumbledore and I were doing. Trying to find out what the three of us have been up to. He didn’t learn anything, though. I fought back, and it turned ugly. He wrote and then he paused a few minutes, chewing on his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth before dipping the quill once more and continuing.
He sent Lucius and Avery out of the room, and then he tried to get me to go with him. To take the portkey, but I wouldn’t. I thought it was a trick. He cast the patronus then. To get me to trust him, I guess. And when I still wouldn’t leave without you, he told me you were already dead. I didn’t believe him at first, but I didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t seen either of you since the morning before. I started to think it was true, that maybe that’s why they weren’t taking me back there anymore. When I still wouldn’t go with him, he disillusioned me, and we went to get you. She came down the stairs then with a bunch of other Death Eaters, and she knew something was wrong. Then she and Snape started to duel, and the others joined in. He yelled at me to take the portkey and he got stunned. So I used the portkey on him, like I told Lupin.
Finished writing, he set down the quill before flexing his fingers and popping the knuckles to give her and Ron time to read over what he’d written. Hermione read it through twice before speaking.
“Ron and I heard the fight in the corridor before they brought you back in,” she began after a few minutes silence. “We thought it was the Order finally, but then it was only you they brought in. I thought there were Order members that must have been killed or something when they came in with just you, that the rescue must have failed,” she explained, her voice wavering. Stopping, she drew in a deep breath to calm the shaking of her hands at the remembered fear she’d felt then, at the relief and then hopelessness when she had seen Harry that day.
“When you didn’t return the night before…when they didn’t bring you back,” she started again, but broke off, breathing deeply to calm herself.
“Why would Snape give us the sword?” Ron asked. “How did he know where you and Hermione were camping? Why did he try to save you at the Malfoy’s, Harry?” he asked in frustration.
Harry just shook his head.“I don’t know,” he whispered.
I have a lot of questions for him when I find him, he wrote, giving up on his voice again.
There was more to it than that, she suspected. There was more he wasn’t saying about what happened between them in the dungeon, about his mother’s involvement, but he clearly didn’t want to tell them. Hermione thought she knew some of it, though. She’d worked out some of it on her own with the questions he’d asked Lupin, and what Bellatrix had said, too.
I don’t want to talk about it anymore, he wrote then. I’m tired, and my insides feel like someone took them all out, stomped on them a bit, and shoved them back in again none too gently.
She winced in sympathy at his words. He needed a pain potion, she thought. The stubborn git! She was surprised, however, that he’d even admit to them the pain he was in. His anger at her from earlier seemed to have dissipated somewhat. She didn’t want a resurgence of that anger, so she wasn’t fool enough to pressure him to take one. She’d learned her lesson about trying that.
“Harry?” she asked then, wanting to probe deeper into their time in the dungeons, to understand more of what happened there. “Bellatrix said that—”
Harry’s face went white, so full of hatred at the sound of her name that Hermione’s sentence died on her lips.
“NO!” he growled. The sound was so raw and terrifying that goose bumps rose up on her arms and tears sprang into her eyes. Then he seemed to realize himself, and the sudden anger left his face. He shook his head and unclenched his fists.
“I just can’t right now,” he whispered, looking weary. “I’m sorry.”
Nodding her head at him in understanding, she tried to blink back the tears that threatened. She’d pushed too hard. Hermione knew she had a tendency to do that, and she should have known better. He’d refused to even write her name down, simply referring to Bellatrix as she or her. Hermione should have realized that he wasn’t ready to talk about her at all. Now she’d pushed him even farther away.
She glanced at Ron, who was watching her in concern, his mouth a thin line, conflicted between her and Harry, maybe, or angry at both of them. She didn’t know, but she was feeling miserable again, and so she got up to go to the loo herself, to try and pull herself together.
When she’d washed her face with cold water in the sink and came back out, Ron was outside the door, leaning against the wall like he had been that first morning after they arrived in Grimmauld Place. And she felt like crying now at finding him waiting for her like that again.
God, she loved him.
“All right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she sighed miserably. “I’m just doing everything wrong, Ron.”
“We all are,” he replied sympathetically. Pushing himself off the wall then, he wrapped his arms around her.
“I nearly blew it with him yesterday morning, remember?” he asked into her hair. “But we’re working it out, like I said. All of us are working it out together.”
He was nuzzling her neck now, pressing her against the wall, his hands sliding down her back and over her bum.
“He’s loads better, I think,” he consoled her between nips on her neck. “He got control of himself this morning on his own after Lupin told him about Greyback. Just give him some time, ‘Mione. He’ll come ‘round,” he breathed against her throat.
Ron was completely incorrigible, she thought in dismay. He was ready at the drop of a hat to shag her wherever they happened to be at that particular moment, turning every occasion into an opportunity to have sex. They’d stopped sleeping together in the bed with Harry. Now that he was no longer unconscious or sedated, they were afraid they’d wake him and cause him to panic. So now it seemed like Ron was working his way through the rest of the house, as if he were checking destinations off a list. Though he never attempted anything where Dobby or someone else, like Ron’s mother, might walk in on them. They were always behind locked doors, not like they were now. Pressed together here in the hallway with Harry in the next room, and Dobby who-knew-where in the house, they were in full view of anyone who might decide to pop in on them.
They had spent a long time together this morning in the bathroom. He’d talked her into showering with him when Harry didn’t seem ready to wake up. It was wonderful to be with him, exploring each other, both of them growing bolder, more confident. Ron was ridiculously talented with his mouth, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her with the way he’d always eaten with such indecent enthusiasm. She was convinced that ninety percent of his sensory receptors were tied to his taste buds anyway. He was like a child in that way, learning about his world by putting everything into his mouth.
The memory of Ron tasting every inch of her flesh this morning made her suddenly flush. It made her ache and go damp with desire. Shivering, she remembered the feel of his tongue on her as it chased the rivulets of water that ran down her neck, between her breasts, over her arse, and down her thighs. His mouth had been on her, everywhere.
Water ran off her into his waiting mouth as he lapped at her with his tongue, slurping errant droplets off her nipples and stomach and the underside of her breasts. Their slick bodies slid together, and then he turned her around, her back to him under the spray, and took her like that. With her hands braced against the wall and her back arched to give him better access, the water had pounded on her lower back and ran down her legs where they were joined together. The sound, amplified by the small space and their wet bodies, sounded so terribly erotic to her ears as he gripped her hips and pulled himself into her. Burying himself inside her, he slapped their bodies together over and over again until they were both moaning wantonly while her legs shook.
She was shaking now at the memory, trying to hold back the echoing sounds that wanted to escape her lips. Inadvertently she was encouraging him further, though she meant to stop him. She needed to put an end to this and return to the drawing room before they both abandoned Harry for the afternoon and got lost in each other again. But her back was against the wall with her arms thrown around his neck as he rubbed his erection against her while still cupping her bum and sucking her neck.
Then he slid his hand down her leg, behind her knee, pulling it up to rest on his hip while he pressed himself against her. She went stiff all over in an instant. Feeling suddenly panicked, her desire turned like a switch to fear, and Ron froze, too.
She was making terrified whimpering noises now in her throat, and she couldn’t stop it. Even though she knew it was Ron, even though she knew they weren’t in the dungeons anymore, so powerful were the images that came over her that she couldn’t pull away from them. She was shaking all over with fear and shame.
“Oh, God, ‘Mione, no….I’m so sorry,” he cried, dropping her leg and backing away from her while her eyes filled with tears.
She threw her hands up to cover her face, trying to stifle the sob that wanted to burst out of her, attempting to get herself back under control.
“I’m so sorry,” Ron apologized, sounding devastated himself.
Hermione wanted to comfort him, to pull herself together for him because it wasn’t his fault. It just came out of nowhere, catching her totally off guard, blindsiding her. Crouching against the wall, she pressed her hands to her face, breathing hard. Her body curled in on itself while she trembled all over in a cold sweat, waiting for the adrenaline and the fear to drain out of her.
Then after a few moments, she reached out and grabbed Ron’s hand. Squeezing it, she wiped the wetness from her eyes and sniffed.
“Ooohhhh,” she moaned, letting out a long shaking breath, sliding the rest of the way down the wall so that her lower back was pressed against it and her knees were drawn up into her chest. Still holding Ron’s hand, she dragged him down with her.
“That just came out of nowhere,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Ron.”
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have…I won’t do it again,” he stuttered desperately.
“No,” she argued. “No, Ron, it wasn’t you. It must have just been fresh on my mind, with Lupin talking about Greyback and all, and us talking about Snape. I was just remembering too much about what happened then,” she explained. “I think it just threw me back there all of a sudden, and I lost it.”
Hermione sat there, still reeling from her reaction, realizing suddenly why Harry was reacting so violently to her sometimes. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her before. He hadn’t had nearly the amount of time to come to terms with what happened to him as she had. It must be a terrible shock to him sometimes when she’s so near to him after what they’d made him do to her.
God, she was an idiot!
Puffing up her cheeks with air, she quickly blew it out, and then rubbed her hands on her thighs. Not wanting to dwell on it anymore, she was resolved suddenly to repairing the rift between them now that she thought she knew the cause.
“We should go back in. Harry’s probably getting worried,” she told him, getting unsteadily to her feet while Ron continued kneeling on the floor in front of her.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, looking up at her with his face still full of concern.
Nodding, she reached down for him, helping to pull him to his feet.
“Yeah,” she assured him. “Yeah, I’m fine now, Ron, really. Let’s go back.”
Sniffling again, she headed for the drawing room, pulling a bewildered Ron behind her.
Harry did look worried when they stepped back into the room. He had turned sideways on the couch, watching anxiously for their return. They walked back in with Hermione still holding Ron’s hand, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by Harry’s studious gaze. They darted quickly to their joined hands and then back to her face. Harry inspected her with those green eyes that still sat too prominently on his thin face, scanning hers, taking in her blotchy complexion. Drawing his own conclusions, she thought, as she took the couch this time, sitting down with one leg tucked under her, while Ron took her normal chair.
They all sat in awkward silence for a minute, and she could feel both of their eyes on her. Poor Harry had no idea what in the world had happened, fearing he was the cause and blaming himself, no doubt, if she knew him at all. And poor Ron was watching her to make sure she really was all right, still blaming himself, too, Hermione knew. But it was she who was to blame, the cause of distress for both of them.
Harry stretched out his leg then, and nudged her thigh with his foot, his big toe revealing itself as it slid out from under the blanket draped around his legs. Hermione stared at it in surprise a moment. Surprised that he’d initiated a touch with her at all, even if it was with his foot, she looked up at him. She saw fear and confusion and something else she couldn’t name in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her when he had her attention. The corners of his mouth turned down while he squeezed that ball nervously in his left hand.
Hermione stared at him a moment, then gave him just a hint of a smile. Pulling on the toe digging into her thigh then, she dragged his foot into her lap, watching as his eyes went wide in surprise. When he went to pull it away, she held it firmly.
“It’s not your fault, Harry,” she told him sternly, but looked away from him as she ran her thumb up the middle of his captive foot. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just feeling a bit emotional today after Remus’ visit,” she explained as she continued to stroke his foot.
It was mean, she supposed. She’d learned from watching Madame Pomfrey that his feet were extremely sensitive, and she was deliberately trying to get a reaction from him, but it had the desired effect. His mouth opened in surprise, and then in pleasure, as she continued to massage his foot.
His face went slightly red at the noise that came out of his mouth when she pressed firmly into his arch and then up into the ball of his foot, causing his toes to spread wide. Hermione watched in satisfaction when he relaxed onto the couch finally and stopped trying to pull away from her, letting his eyes fall closed at her ministrations.
She glanced at Ron then, who had his eyebrows raised, half surprised, half amused, looking like he’d been clubbed over the head by a troll. She smirked at him, still feeling all over the place emotionally today, but not much caring right now. Harry wasn’t pulling away from her, and she was going to make the most of it. Using the opportunity, she hoped to try and gain back some of what they’d lost with each other.
“I think I’ve found your weakness, Harry,” she said quietly, after he sighed in deep contentment.
Peeling open one eye, he looked at her quizzically.
“Your secret? Your Achilles heel? Or is this just the only spot on your whole body that isn’t sore?” she asked in amusement.
He scowled at her, and then quickly stuck his tongue out.
“Does Ginny know about this?” Ron asked suddenly sitting on the edge of his chair.
Harry’s eyebrows disappeared into his fringe like Hermione’s had at his playful gesture a moment before. Turning slowly to Ron, Harry stared at him in disbelief.
“Only, the look on your face right now, if she knew. I mean, I reckon she could get you to do just about anything she wanted,” he said in all seriousness. “Better not let her find out,” he cautioned.
Hermione and Harry were both too stunned to respond.
They whiled away the rest of the afternoon, chatting about nonsense things, all of them having had their fill of heavy conversations today, letting the news Lupin brought and the discussion on Snape settle. Harry napped a short while on the couch before dinner, and then spent the rest of his time squeezing the ball Madame Pomfrey had given him while watching both her and Ron closely, she noticed. His arm was getting stronger. She could see it working. She didn’t know what to make of his keen eyes on her, however.
Dinner was Harry’s first hot meal that wasn’t soup, since they’d only had cold chicken salad sandwiches for lunch with Lupin today. Dobby had prepared a delicious pot roast for dinner, and it was perfect. The meat was tender enough and the vegetables soft enough that Harry didn’t have to chew it too hard or try to use a knife in his left hand to cut it. Everything was easy enough to spear on a fork, too, so he was a lot less clumsy and, therefore, less self-conscious during this meal than he had been. Hermione marveled at how thoughtful Dobby had been in his preparations for Harry.
Harry actually had seconds. Consuming a lot more than she thought him able, he ate until he looked utterly miserable. His jaw was hurting now, too. She could see him wincing every once in a while. But he couldn’t disappoint Dobby and waive off dessert, it seemed. He’d prepared an apple crumble for afters, which was something Hermione knew Harry liked. He could only get a few bites down, though, before he had to give up because he looked in serious danger of being ill if he tried to force anything else down. If he was lucky enough that Ron didn’t eat it all, he’d be able to have some with lunch tomorrow.
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came again after they’d finished dinner themselves and stayed a short while. They were mostly just checking that Harry had recovered from the scare he’d given them all the day before, but Mrs. Weasley pulled Hermione aside before they left, whispering hurriedly in her ear while Ron and Mr. Weasley were occupied. She could feel Harry’s eyes on her, watching the two of them as they put their heads together.
“Hermione, dear,” Molly began. “Ron’s birthday is just around the corner, and we’d love it if we could have you all over to Muriel’s for a nice birthday dinner. Or if Harry isn’t up to the trip, we could maybe have it here.”
Hermione hadn’t thought about anything as ordinary as a birthday dinner in so long. She remembered when she and Harry had gone to Godric’s Hollow and she realized it was Christmas Eve. They’d done nothing so much as even acknowledge any other passing holiday before or since then, though. They had noted the start of the school term on September first, however, partly, she remembered, because there was a group of Death Eaters standing outside the house, waiting foolishly to see if they were planning to march off to King’s Cross together to start their final year at Hogwarts.
The last birthday dinner they’d all had was Harry’s seventeenth at the Burrow, which had been interrupted by the Minister of Magic. She’d turned eighteen quietly in September, simply marking the day off in her head. Everything had just fallen to the wayside during these long months of searching.
“Oh, that sounds wonderful, Mrs. Weasley,” she said, though her voice sounded flat. “But let me think on it a bit. It’s true that Harry may not be up to the trip or to being with that large a group of people this soon.”
Her eyes traveled to Harry, catching him still staring at them both. She felt the now-familiar jealousy, her grip tightening, wanting to shut them all out again.
“It may be best if we just have a quiet celebration here.”
“That would be fine, too, dear, as I said, but I know that Fred, George, and Ginny would like to be here and see you all, too. Ginny’s about to go spare waiting for word from you all at Muriel’s, you know,” she told her.
Hermione felt like a prat then, hearing what Mrs. Weasley didn’t say as much as what she did: that Hermione was the secret keeper and therefore had to give her permission for them to come. She felt ashamed of her jealous hold on Harry and Ron, knowing that they would all probably love to see Fred and George, and she knew Harry would love to see Ginny. Realizing that she was the one trying to keep them away made her feel guilty. Unable to respond, she simply nodded her head.
“Very good, dear,” Molly said. “Well, I’ll let you and Harry talk it over, then, and decide, all right? Then we’ll go from there,” she finished hurriedly as Ron and Mr. Weasley walked up.
They headed to bed shortly after Ron’s parents had left. Harry looked hesitant about taking the stairs back up again. Actually, he looked like he was dreading it. Hermione knew that it would be painful for him, but she didn’t offer any less taxing alternatives. She didn’t want a reappearance of the Harry from this morning. He looked like he was seriously considering bunking on the couch for the evening, though. In the end, he let Ron pull him off the couch and wrap his arm around his waist without complaint. Then they began the slow climb to bed with Harry panting more heavily on every step. By the time he finally lay back against the pillows on the bed, he was completely exhausted. His face was lined with pain and his fists were clenched at his sides. He was breathing hard and his forehead was damp with sweat as he tried to get comfortable.
“Ron, can you help Harry get his pajama bottoms off, please?” she asked as she pulled the jar of clear salve Madame Pomfrey had left for him out of her bag.
“Huh?” he said.
“I need to rub this into his legs. I can’t do that with his pajama bottoms on,” she explained. “I should have done it this morning. He needs it. He’s in pain.”
She turned around to stare at Harry, a question on her face, asking silently for his permission. After a moment, he nodded his head in agreement and scooted over into the middle of the bed before lifting his hips to help Ron pull his bottoms off. Grimacing at the strain it was putting on his wrists to hold himself off the bed even for a minute, Harry grunted with the effort. Still, they managed, and he was stripped to his boxers in a few moments, looking apprehensively at her. She understood why now, though, and was determined to help him through this.
Hermione sat down next to him on the bed with Ron flanking his other side. The beginnings of panic started to flood into Harry’s face at their nearness as she unscrewed the lid. Hermione inhaled deeply as the smell of fresh mint wafted out from the jar. The smell was pleasant and made her feel immediately relaxed. She’d never used it or applied it before, though judging from the reaction Madame Pomfrey had gotten out of Harry with it before, she knew it must feel very nice indeed.
Laying the lid down on the side table, she scooped a handful from the jar. It was cold on her fingers, but not wet like lotion. It felt more greasy than anything. She decided to start from the bottom of his leg and work her way up to avoid startling him too much right off the bat. Hoping to let him get used to the feel of it on his legs, she wanted to allow him to acclimate to the coolness of the cream and her hands on him before she attempted to work her way up to more dangerous territory.
“That smells good, actually,” Ron commented, pulling the jar from her grip. “Most of the stuff Madame Pomfrey uses or makes you take smells awful and tastes even worse.”
Harry nodded his head in agreement.
“All right, this will be cold at first,” she warned him as she rubbed her hands together, distributing the cream over her fingers and warming it the best she could. Still, he gasped, gripping the sheets when she laid her hands on his shin. He jerked his leg a bit before catching himself and relaxing it back onto the bed.
His skin was overly warm in her hands from the fever, and her fingers must have felt like ice to him. She worked the minty ointment into his flesh, which erupted in goose bumps as her cool fingers traveled over it. Dropping his foot into her lap again so she could get access to his calf, she massaged the muscles there and then worked back down to his foot. Once the salve started to take effect, his face finally relaxed marginally. Biting his lip, he laid his head back against the pillows and breathed deeply.
“Feel better?” she asked.
Nodding his head, Harry closed his eyes in relief.
Once she’d rubbed it into his foot, she set that leg aside and put his other foot in her lap, reaching for the jar that Ron still held. He’d dipped his finger in it and was rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger as if testing its consistency. Hermione stopped and watched him. Unable to help herself, she waited to see if he would put it into his mouth. Sure enough, Ron stuck out his tongue and licked a bit off his own finger after a moment.
“For heaven’s sake, Ron,” she admonished with an exasperated laugh.
Harry opened his eyes to blink sleepily at the pair of them.
“What? I just wanted to see what it tasted like,” Ron explained with a shrug.
“You amaze me,” she replied, shaking her head as she scooped another handful and started on Harry’s other leg.
“It kinda tastes like toothpaste,” Ron told them, rolling his tongue over his teeth. “Minty, you know, except it makes everything go a bit numb, too. My lips and tongue feel funny now.”
Sliding off the bed, he dropped the jar beside Harry’s knee. “I’m gonna go wash it off,” he called over his shoulder, still smacking his lips as he entered the bathroom while she was finishing with Harry’s other foot.
Removing Harry’s leg from her lap when she had finished with it, she planted his foot flat on the bed and scooted it up so that his knee bent, and his thigh was now elevated enough for her to get her hands around it. His eyes popped open again, and he watched as she gathered more ointment. She moved as slowly as she could, holding his eyes as she laid her hands on his thigh and worked the ointment into it from his knee. Moving higher as she went, she watched his face as his breath sped up, his nostrils flared, and his eyes went wide.
“It’s all right,” she whispered when his eyes started to water and his grip tightened on the sheets.
She stopped when her fingers skimmed under the edge of his boxers, which had slid up slightly from the position of his thigh. There was no reason to go all the way up to where his leg joined his body, she decided. Hermione didn’t think either of them could handle that right now, though Madame Pomfrey had when she’d applied the cream. She hadn’t had Harry sitting this close to her, however, staring right at her, and looking all kinds of terrified and aroused.
“There,” she said quietly, holding her hands up like a surgeon who’s just sterilized them. “Let’s get the other one.”
She tried to sound nonchalant, and let him pull his other leg up on his own, which he did eventually. Gathering her last handful of salve, she finished her work on his other thigh, and then rubbed what remained into her hands like lotion. Replacing the lid on the jar, she set it back on the table. Then they just stared at each other. Neither spoke, they only watched each other as tears filled in both their eyes. Harry’s leg was still cocked, and his hands were in his lap to cover his lingering arousal which she had blatantly ignored, pretending for his sake not to have noticed it, to ease his embarrassment.
“I’m so…sorry,” he apologized then. His voice was just barely above a whisper, that rough hoarse quality broken and unfamiliar to her ears. Then a tear crested in his emerald eyes and spilled over, sliding down beneath his glasses and along the side of his nose.
Then she was crying, too, like a dam bursting open. Leaning into his chest and wrapping her arms around him, Hermione sobbed into his neck. Needing so much to finally cry with him over what had happened to them, even though she’d cried over it so much already.
Harry rested his head on top of hers as he slid his hand up her back and cupped the back of her head like he had in the dungeon. Then he held her to him like that again as her tears ran unchecked down her face. Taking her weight against him, he repeated his apology over and over again in a whisper, through the torrent of his own tears. They clung to each other like that until they’d cried themselves out, until his whispers finally faded away and they were both drained. When she’d gotten control of herself again, she sat up and wiped her eyes and nose. He still looked utterly miserable, devastated. Leaning into him again, she pressed her forehead to his and cupped his face in her hands.
“I love you, Harry,” she whispered, looking into his red, watery eyes. Then she let hers fall closed as she kissed him. It was a small, lingering, chaste kiss that was still enough to startle him, though there was no heat in it. She continued to hold him, not letting him pull away. Not wanting him to panic again because she needed him to understand her. She needed him to believe her.
“It wasn’t your fault, Harry,” she told him earnestly, pulling away again to stare into his face, capturing his reluctant eyes with hers. “I don’t blame you for what happened. You’re not the one that raped me.” She paused as he trembled violently at the word.
“You were just the tool she used to do it,” she went on bitterly after a moment. Bellatrix was the one who’d done that. That evil woman had tried to destroy everything there was between them with that final cruel act she’s forced him to perform.
“She would have used Greyback instead.”There was a note of horror in her voice as they both shook with revulsion at the thought. “You saved me from that, Harry,” she told him, stroking his hair now to soothe him.
Actually, it was the other way around, she thought furiously. It wasn’t Hermione that she was raping at all. Bellatrix cared nothing for her. She probably didn’t even know her name. It was Harry she was trying to destroy. Harry she was torturing into madness. Harry she was raping over and over again with whatever means were available to her. Bellatrix had used her own body, her husband, Greyback, and even Hermione, possibly others, to try and tear him apart. She would have used Ron, too. She’d planned to before she lost control and lost her hold on Harry, before she’d finally pushed him too far. She’d hoped he would collapse under the unbearable pressure, and perhaps he had for a moment, but then it exploded out of him instead, his rage consuming them. It was only afterwards when it began to consume him, too. A slower burn, yet no less destructive. She could still feel it on his skin, the flesh hot under her hands.
“It was you she was raping, Harry. It was you Bellatrix was trying to destroy.”
Harry flinched back at the name, letting out a little yelp of fear. Hermione could see his pulse pounding in his neck, his heartbeat thrumming wildly beneath the skin. Sighing deeply, she looked into his terrified eyes while still holding his face in her hands. His cheeks were damp with tears again and she wiped at them with her thumbs.
“Harry, I’m begging you,” she pleaded with him, her voice more forceful. “Please don’t make her name taboo. Don’t give her that much power over you,” she begged. “If you do, she’ll have succeeded.” Pulling back, she dropped her hands, sitting up straight and watching him.
“Don’t let her beat you, Harry,” she whispered.
He stared at her, his eyes still clouded with grief and regret. His face was a mask of misery as his eyes darted between hers and the bathroom door behind her. She knew Ron must have come out of the loo. He must be standing behind her. She turned to find him leaning against the wall, watching their exchange silently. He looked desperately sad. She wondered how long he’d been there, and how much he’d witnessed. Ron blinked and looked down, breaking eye contact with her, and so she turned back to Harry, waiting.
He sat there a long time. With his hands in his lap and his head down, he stared at his knees while he thought over her words. Waiting for his body to relax and stop shaking before drawing in a deep breath, he finally nodded, still not looking at either of them. Hermione felt her shoulders sag with relief. She felt incredibly weary all of a sudden, exhausted from such a long traumatic day. Reaching up slowly, she slid Harry’s glasses off his face before folding them and placing them on the side table. Then she stood up and collected her beaded bag. Running her fingers down Harry’s arm, she turned to Ron.
“I’d like to have my spot back in the middle,” she told him and waited for his response.
Ron raised his eyebrows, but didn’t protest. He hated that spot anyway, she thought, and she didn’t think there was any reason for him to be protecting her from Harry any longer. After a moment, she nodded and walked past him into the bathroom. Brushing her hand against his, she lightly gripped his fingers as she passed.

~ . ~

My sincere apologies for the lateness of this chapter. I left my flash drive over the weekend and couldn’t post on Friday. It’s a pretty long chapter though, so I hope that makes up for it :)
To apkblack: This is the one and only piece of fiction I have ever written aside from anything I may have been forced to write for an English class in high school or college, and I assure you they were crap. No one should be forced to read any of that tripe. Thanks for your kind words though.
Ron up next… and it looks like Ginny’s coming for a visit!
G.
- 15
- 16
- 17
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

What it comes down to

Chapter 16. Painful Apologies