Shades of Truth

Shades of Truth

Chapter 10

*****

“What is that?” Harry peered into the bubbling pot on the stove that greeted him when he entered the kitchen. His guest was sitting at the table, nose in a book, with a cup of steaming tea in one hand.

“She’s making dinner.” Was the delayed response after a leisurely sip of tea. Harry blinked, waiting for a further explanation, but all he got was a continued silence as the tea was returned to its spot and a page was slowly turned.

“Hermione?” He guessed after a continued silence. The answer was almost immediate as the witch in question swept into the room drying her hands on a towel.

“Oh, you’re home!” she smiled brightly. “Sorry to intrude, but Ron made this delicious stew last night, and I thought I’d bring some over for the pair of you.”

“Where is Ron?” he asked, slightly worried and confused. “I mean…he’s not here, is he?”

“I’m not stupid, Harry.” She shook her head and turned to the other occupant of the room. “Didn’t I tell you? He always does this.” No response was offered besides a slight grunt of agreement. “Of course I wouldn’t bring him over.”

“I was just asking.” Harry backed away from the pot so she could stir the contents. “Does he know you’re here…or…”

“He’s not my mother.” Hermione grumbled, “Would you get a few bowls out?” she glanced at him over her shoulder and then turned to the table. “You may want to put that away if you want to eat.”

“Are you eating with us?” Harry asked as he opened a cupboard and began removing dishes.

“Unless that’s too much of an intrusion.” Her tone was sharp, and Harry decided that perhaps he would be better off if he stopped asking her questions, or perhaps if he just stopped talking at all. Just then, his houseguest swept past to put away the book and hissed an affirmation of this at him.

“Could you stop aggravating her?”

Harry suddenly wished he’d stopped over at Azkaban instead of coming straight home from the Ministry, where’d he’d spent most of the day poring over the official files for the remaining cases, hoping to find something that would give him a lead. It had been fruitless of course; he’d been over those files dozens of times already. He had written an entreaty to an individual whom he suspected might have been present during at least one of the deaths, one of the very few remaining first generation Death Eaters. However, he wasn’t sure that his pleas would work, though he hoped that the fact that everything he was doing was for Draco’s sake would convince the person to offer something. Personally, he believed they might be guilty of one of the crimes, thus causing her to hide away from his requests for help, as Death Eaters tended not to be very self-sacrificing in Harry’s experience.

Silently, he returned to the table and set out the three bowls before getting spoons and glasses as well. He made a point not to get in Hermione’s way, as she seemed by turns to be acting either the picture of contented domesticity or to be slamming things with unnecessary force.

Ron and she must have had a fight. That, or the pleasure of an afternoon with my houseguest was enough to push her over the edge.

Just then, the third member of their party returned from putting the book away and they sat down to eat in what may have been companionable silence, or may have been abject fear of setting Hermione off again. Harry wondered if that was the reason for the lack of conversation when he’d come home, and figured it was likely, though he was unlikely to get an admission of this from either of them.

After they finished eating, Harry watched Hermione clear the dishes with brisk efficiency, and while he was deciding whether he’d get yelled at if he helped her clean up, the other left the room so quickly it was as if only the two of them had been there all evening. Sighing heavily, he picked up the large pot of stew and brought it to the counter.

“There’s not a lot left, but I think I have something you can put this in…or you could just borrow the pot.” He spoke up as he watched her wash the bowls by hand with more concentration than the task actually required. “If you want to take this back with you, I mean. We barely ever use this one.” He was babbling, he realized, but he never knew how to handle women when they were upset. He’d known Hermione forever, and he still couldn’t read her moods very well. “Or, well, you probably have something you brought it in, obviously, so I can just put it in there if you want.” There was a long silence while she scrubbed furiously at a spoon that was long since clean. “It was very good.” He attempted.

“Can I ask you something?” she turned around, her hands covered in soap and water, the spoon clutched tightly between them. “If Ron told you something, but he asked you to keep it secret, and it concerned me…would you tell me?”

Harry didn’t know what to say. He felt like there was no right answer, and he could think of dozens of exceptions to either way that he could respond. He wracked his brain for anything that Ron or Hermione might have said or done that this could be about, but he realized that he’d been spending so much time on his own troubles, and on trying to help Draco, that he had only rarely seen either of them lately.

“Hermione…is there something you, um, need to talk about?” he asked her, and a sudden thought occurred to him, “Is this about what we’re doing? Keeping it secret from Ron? Because, I understand if you want to tell him, but if you could just keep it quiet until I finish everything up. I know he’ll know eventually, but if he knows that you’re involved…I couldn’t let this come between you.”

“What?” she looked momentarily confused, but then she laughed a bit hysterically, setting the spoon down and wiping her hands on a towel he offered her. “No, no, it’s not that. I’m sorry, I must seem crazy…I just…”

“Look, you can leave those,” Harry motioned to the dishes. “Do you want some tea or something? I know I’m no good at these things, but if I can tell you anything you need to know, I will. Though to tell you the truth, I can’t think of any big secrets Ron’s keeping from you.”

“I…yeah, some tea would be good.” She nodded, her face tight the way it usually was when she was trying not to burst into tears. Harry hoped she wouldn’t start crying, he was horrible at comforting crying women. He always felt like he was just making it worse.

“I’ll put the kettle on.” He turned to do just that and she wandered to the table after turning off the tap. She sat down, fidgeting and pursing her lips together as she waited for Harry to come sit with her. When he brought the tea over, she set it aside and nearly pounced on him with her first question.

“Do you think Ron’s seeing someone else?” it was out so suddenly that Harry thought he’d imagined the question, and it was so patently ridiculous he wondered if he was really supposed to answer.

“Um…no.” he finally replied when it was clear she was seriously waiting for an answer.

“Are you sure, though?” she pushed forward, her body leaning toward him the way she always sat when she was interrogating someone. “Even if he hasn’t told you for sure who it is, or if he is, do you think he could be?”

“No.” Harry’s answer was swifter this time. “Even if he could do something like that, he’s horrible at keeping secrets.”

“Well, do you think he really wants to marry me?” Hermione asked, blowing on her tea and fiddling with the handle of the cup. “I mean…do you think that when he asked me, he had thought it through, or do you think…because of all that happened during the war, and…and other things, he just suddenly decided to do it, and didn’t really think about it until later?”

“What, because of the war…making him think you could die or something?” Harry frowned, having a hard time following her line of reason. “Or…like he was happy that it was over? Is that what you think?”

“Well…I mean,” Hermione was clearly a bit uncomfortable at this point, as though she was debating whether or not she should say something, “what if he thought it was just the right thing to do at the time, and the situation…is different now?”

“I’m sorry, Hermione, I’m not really following.” Harry shook his head. She opened her mouth as though she was going to say something, closed it again, opened it once more, and then started crying, thick tears rolling down her cheeks as she furiously scrubbed them away. “Hermione? I’m sorry…I really don’t know what you’re asking me, but I know that Ron loves you, and that he wants to marry you. He loves being with you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start…I know you hate this.” Hermione scrubbed at her face and Harry looked around for something she could wipe her face with and settled for a napkin which he handed her. She took it with a half-hearted chuckle and dabbed at her eyes. “It’s just…I wish Ginny were here, she was the only one I could really…I’m sorry, Harry, you’re a good listener, and you’re a good friend, but there are some things…you just need another girl.”

“It’s okay, I’m not offended.” Harry ignored the twist of pain at Ginny’s name. “I know I’m not really good at figuring these situations out, or really understanding these sorts of things, but…if you want to tell me something or if you just…need to stay here or something for a couple days, I’ll do whatever I can to help. Ron’s my best friend, and so are you.”

“No…it’s okay, I just need to calm down.” Hermione swiped at her eyes. “It’s not such a big deal, and it was so long ago, I shouldn’t get so worked up.” She took a deep breath while Harry patiently waited for her to continue. “When Ron and I got engaged, we thought that I was pregnant.”

Harry had no idea what to say or do at this point. He vaguely wondered why he had never been told this before, because it seemed like something Ron would have mentioned, or at least hinted at. He was horrible at keeping secrets, like Harry had said.

Maybe better than I thought.

“I feel stupid now, thinking about it.” she continued after he didn’t respond at all to her revelation. “I was late, and then my test was positive, but…those can be wrong sometimes. But Ron was so excited when I told him, like with that it would make up for everything that had gone wrong during the war, all the people we’d lost. His parents, Ginny, Fred, Charlie, all our friends. Only Bill and George and Percy are left, and they’re not…really the same after what happened. I was an only child, so I guess it isn’t the same for me, but still, if I lost my parents…I think he was thinking if we could start a family, he’d feel better, he’d forget about all of them. And I was glad that he was so excited, that it gave him something to look forward to. He got that job at the Ministry, we moved in together, and then I found out…I found out that I wasn’t really…I never had been. False positive, and probably the stress of everything made me late, and I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but Ron and I were…well, obviously. Sometimes the answers aren’t as obvious and…”

Harry felt like he was definitely supposed to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything that would make this all right, or of any way to respond to what she’d said that wouldn’t sound foolish or silly. “Why…why didn’t you say anything before?” he finally managed, though it sounded rather futile.

“Ron and I…he wanted to tell everything right away, but I said we should wait until we were a few months in, because a lot of times…things can go wrong.” She gave a forced laugh. “I make it sound almost like I really was pregnant and I lost the baby, but I never was. It still felt that way when the doctor told me, though. And there was no reason, really, after we found out.”

“Well…” Harry licked his lips, “I mean, if it bothers you, you should talk about it.”

“I know.” She sighed heavily, “But I don’t want to load you down with my problems, and I could never talk to my mother about those sorts of things…she probably thinks I’m still a virgin.”

“If you guys…if you wanted a baby so much, why don’t you try again?” Harry asked, but then immediately felt foolish. “Or…have you been? I mean…”

“No, we haven’t.” Hermione frowned deeply, “I brought it up once, but Ron got so upset, he said we should wait until we’re married. We weren’t trying the first time, it just happened.” Tears started dripping down her cheeks again. “I just want to yell at him sometimes…we both want kids, we both want to be married first, we’re engaged, what’s stopping us? Every time, every time, it’s him. I’ll pick a date, he’ll tell me something that’s wrong with that one, some meeting or game or something…I’m usually more booked up than he is, but can I tell him that? He’d explode. It doesn’t really bother him that I do something…that pays more and has more requirements, I don’t think, but you know how proud he is.”

“Is that what you guys fought about…or, I mean, did you fight?” Harry flushed, wishing he were better at this sort of thing.

“Yes, we did, and yes, that’s what it was about.” Hermione gave him a sad smile, setting down the napkin in her lap and rubbing at the corner of one eye with her thumb. “I told him that if it’s so hard for him to get a free day, he could pick the date, and he brushed me off…I got upset. I asked him if there was someone else. He blew up. I don’t know if he’s come home yet, but I can’t bear going back to an empty place, so I came here instead. Sorry.”

“It’s no problem.” Harry assured her. “Hermione…I’m sorry I didn’t really…when you told me that it was bothering you, Ron not setting a date. I didn’t think it was that bad, but if you guys have all these issues, and it’s getting you so upset. Would you like me to talk to him?”

“I wish he’d talk to me. Just tell me why.” She heaved a deep sigh, “If he has someone else, or if he doesn’t really love me, or want to marry me, or if he’s changed his mind about having kids, whatever it is…I wish he’d just tell me. I feel like I keep trying to go forward, but he’s pushing against me, and we’re stuck in one place. We’re not going anywhere like this, and it feels like we never will.”

“It’ll work out.” Harry told her, “He’s bad at saying it, but he loves you, I know. His family was hit hard, and now that makes you more important to him. He seems normal, but he relies on you, and if you left, he’d be pretty messed up.”

“And if he comes home to an empty place.” Hermione continued. “He’ll be just as crushed as I would be.” She leaned forward and kissed Harry on the cheek. “Yeah, I know. I’ll go home now.”

He stood up and hugged her, walked her to the door and watched her leave, and didn’t realize until he climbed into bed that he had said something helpful after all. Maybe he was getting the hang of women. Or at least Hermione.

*****

To be Continued…