Gryffindor Investigations

They were sitting in a diner in London, having lunch. Harry had to admit that Hermione looked happier than she’d been in a long time. Usually so quick on the uptake, Hermione had been painfully slow to realize that she loved Ron Weasley, and he her; Ron, of course, had been even slower. Finally figuring each other out during what would have been their seventh year at Hogwarts, the two had embarked on a relationship that had seemed like something out of a storybook—for about two years. After that, the relationship had begun a long, slow downward spiral, with Ron growing increasingly sullen and uncommunicative and Hermione angrier and more anxious.

Even if he hadn’t been having his own problems with Ginny at the time, Harry would have stayed very firmly out of it. When the pair had finally split up, Harry had talked with them both, separately, and told them that he intended to stay friends with both of them. It had been hard, but his friendship with Hermione had survived.

But his and Ron’s had not. Harry hadn’t heard from the other Gryffindor for over a year. Talks with Mrs. Weasley and Ginny hadn’t helped; Ron hadn’t spoken with his mother or his sister in almost as long, and neither knew what was behind it.

“......so I’ve decided to become a private inquiry agent,” Harry finished telling her as they sat drinking coffee.

Hermione beamed at him. “It’s about time,” she said. “Honestly, Harry, you should have left the Ministry ages ago! This means you’re going to move back up here, of course…”

The question caught him by surprise. “Um……why would I do that?” he asked.

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione said in the same exasperated voice she’d been using on him since they were eleven years old. “I keep telling you that you have to………”

“‘Think Things Through,’” Harry chorused with her. “I know, I know! So what haven’t I thought through? Why do I have to move back to London?”

“How much call for a private inquiry agent is there in Sevenoaks?” Hermione replied. “You’d have to maintain an office in London, and it’s not a nine to five job, you’d have to drive back and forth at all hours of the day and night! And why you’d want to do that when you’ve got a perfectly good house here in the city……”

“I don’t want to live there!” Harry exploded.

People at nearby tables turned around sharply at his outburst. Harry flushed with embarrassment and said, “Look, I don’t want to live in Grimmauld Place. I like that little place I’ve got in Kent. It’s mine. And……I’ve just never been comfortable in Grimmauld Place. Even though I was only there for a year, there are too many memories of………well, Sirius.”

He felt his eyes tearing up; he blinked away the wetness angrily as Hermione reached across the table and took his hand.

“I understand, Harry,” she told him softly, then added with a grin, “believe it or not. My mom’s parents had a summer place down in Brighton. They died about a year before I got accepted to Hogwarts.

“My mom was determined to sell the place, but my father wanted to keep it; he loved the sea and he loved the house. But Mom thought it had too many old memories. So do you know what Dad told her?”

Harry shook his head.

“‘So we’ll make some new memories.’ That’s what you’ve got to do with the Grimmauld Place house, Harry. It’s yours now. Put yourself into it and see what you can make of it.”

She squeezed Harry’s hand in sympathy; Harry squeezed back.

“You’re amazing, do you know that?” he said. “You always know what to do, and what to say to people.”

Now it was Hermione’s turn to blush. “Not always,” she said with an embarrassed smile.

“Oh, yeah? Name one time that you’ve been in a situation where you didn’t have any idea how to make it work out the way you wanted it too.”

“Ron.”

Hermione’s expression darkened, and Harry knew with awful certainty that he’d put his foot in it. “Oh, dragon dung…………Hermione, I’m sorry………”

“It’s okay.” She sat back, releasing his hand, and took several long, deep breaths, trying to master her emotions. “And actually, it’s not true; I knew exactly what I ought to have done. I was just too angry and too hurt at the time to do it.”

“But I don’t want to talk about it,” she continued hurriedly. “Let’s talk about you and your new career! I expect you’ll have an assistant? Someone in the Dr. Watson or Captain Hastings tradition? Thick as a brick and existing only to be dazzled by your brilliance?”

“Oh, everyone does that,” Harry scoffed. “I was thinking of the reverse—making my assistant the brilliant one who does all the work, and I’d just take all the credit.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Hermione retorted, but with an amused look in her eye. “Advertise it like that in the Daily Prophet, I’m sure you’ll have loads of responses. Who wouldn’t want a job like that?”

“Actually, I sort of already had someone in mind,” Harry replied.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Someone who’s an absolute genius, female, brown bushy hair, owns a cat named Crookshanks…………”

“No, you don’t!!!” Hermione laughed. “You’re not going to drag me into this. I happen to have a job already, thank you very much, and I love it!”

“How’s that going, anyway?” Harry asked, curious.

“It’s wonderful.” Hermione’s face took on a kind of dreamy wonder that Harry had never seen on her before. “We’re researching wizard and Muggle genes to see if we can find out how Muggle parents produce wizard children and why wizard parents produce Squibs. I was born for this, Harry.”

“Bet you were,” Harry said with mock sadness. “Oh, well………there goes my brilliant idea.”

“Seriously, though,” Hermione said, “have you thought of asking Ron?”

Harry looked uncomfortable. “Well………I guess I should, shouldn’t I? I mean, we used to be best mates. But after Ginny and I split up for good………he stopped talking to me. I sent him owls for about six months. He just wouldn’t respond.”

Hermione leaned into him, her voice lowered to a whisper. “He loves you, Harry.”

Harry stared at her.

“That was why he and I broke up. And this is what I should have done at the time, rather than waiting all these years. He’s been in love with you since we started at Hogwarts; he just wouldn’t admit it to himself. But the last couple of years we were together—I’d hear him talking in his sleep. Saying your name.”

Harry’s mouth was working, but no sound was coming out. Ron? In love with him? “Are you sure?”

“As sure as I’ve ever been of anything,” Hermione said firmly. “It must have been tearing him apart—putting aside how hard it is to admit to yourself that you’re gay, he must have been jealous as hell of Ginny, and furious with himself that he wasn’t being honest with me. And I…” she flushed, “I didn’t make it easy on him. I treated him badly, Harry—once, he got so enraged by my goading him that he……” She trailed off.

Harry’s eyes widened. “Did he hit you?” he demanded. When Hermione didn’t answer, Harry reached over and grasped her hand. “Hermione,” he said, enunciating each word, “did he hit you?”

*If he did,* Harry thought fiercely, *best mates or no, even with all we went through together, I’ll beat him to a bloody pulp with my own two hands.*

But Hermione’s next words not only put an end to that plan, they very nearly put an end to Harry’s sanity.

“No, Harry,” she said, her eyes blazing into Harry’s with an awful sincerity that frightened him, “he didn’t hit me.” She swallowed, hard, then averted her gaze and flushed red.

“He tried to kill himself.”

Harry was very thankful he was sitting down; even so, he still felt his insides turn to jelly. “He……what?”

“He tried to kill himself,” Hermione repeated. Tears welled up in her eyes at the memory. “I said some horrible things to him, Harry……”

“You were upset,” Harry began weakly.

“No, I was cruel, and I was hateful, and I was everything we used to despise in Draco Malfoy and his gang,” Hermione said firmly. “When you’re in a relationship, a real relationship, the other person knows every weakness, every soft spot you have. Hell, Harry, you must know this—you and Ginny were almost the same as me and Ron.

“And that night, Harry, that fight we had……I was as merciless as a Slytherin. Every soft spot Ron had, I hit, as hard as I could. Morgan help me, I even dredged up things from when we were in school, things we hadn’t thought about for years. I told him how I’d Confunded Cormac McLaggen, our sixth year—at the Quidditch tryouts. That he’d never have made the team without me.” The tears were trickling down her face now, and Hermione made no effort to stop them. “And finally, Ron grabbed his wand from the dressing table……I thought he was going to try to curse me, but he pointed it at himself.”

She took a long, deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I had been carrying my wand, so by the time he got his, I had mine in my hand. When I realized what he was about to do, I disarmed him.” She gave a small shudder, and Harry slid his chair next to hers to put his arm around her trembling shoulders. “The look he gave me, Harry—I have never seen such loathing in anyone’s eyes, not even Malfoy’s. And what made it all the more horrible was that at least half of it was directed at himself.”

Wordlessly, Harry pulled her to him and held her while the tears continued to come. He could see other customers looking at them as if they were wondering whether they should intervene. The waitress took a tentative step in their direction, but a quick shake of Harry’s head made her retreat.

Finally, Hermione pulled away from him, with red, puffy eyes, but mistress of herself once more. “He left that night. Just took a few clothes and some money; he took nothing else, not even his wand. He hasn’t spoken to me since; I’ve sent owls, but he won’t answer.”

“Maybe I can talk to him……” Harry said weakly.

“I think you should, Harry—but not for my sake.” She looked him full in the face, and asked, “How do you feel about Ron? Really feel about him?”

Harry couldn’t answer. He’d known he was gay for years—it was the reason he and Ginny had broken up—but Ron? Could he feel that way about Ron?

And if he could—what in Merlin’s name was he going to do about it?