The Return

Chapter 5

Two days later, Hermione sat at her desk in St. Mungo’s, staring at the adjacent wall, her thoughts on the one person she wished she couldn’t think about. Yet she found herself thinking about Harry for the last two days, ever since her night at Grimmwauld. She still couldn’t believe that she had gone there and that they had kissed, it was so unlike her. But then, she always was a different person for Harry, always a little braver, a little bolder, and a little weaker in some ways. An uninvited onrush of old feelings, one’s she had made herself believe were gone, overrun her. It pulled her heart strings and developed a deep conflict in her thoughts.

She hadn’t seen or even spoken to him since that night and for some reason it was killing her. She didn’t realize how much she missed him. His cute little laugh that he always tried to suppress, his deep emerald eyes that were so easy to get lost in, and how the simple brush of his hand could send her into a frenzy. She hadn’t gotten more than an hour of decent sleep that night. Most of it was spent staring at the picture frame, replaying the moment he walked into the door at the Burrow and her heart fought to not soar to the ceiling.

She had lunch with Ron the previous day like they had planned. It had been awkward to say the least. She fought against the angel and the devil on her shoulders. The angel telling her to repent to Ron and tell him she lied and ended up kissing Harry cause of it. And the devil telling her it didn’t matter and there was no use stirring the water. In the end, the devil won and it killed her. It wasn’t that she had never lied to Ron; there was plenty that she had kept from him. It killed her because Ron had done nothing to deserve what she had done, what she had been doing the whole length of their relationship.

She had never given her whole heart to him. She had reserved some it, most of it, for someone else, someone she wasn’t even sure she would ever see again. She had never told him about Harry and her. Nothing about the two of them had ever crossed her lips. When Harry disappeared, she had told everyone he had let her know he was leaving in a letter, but that all it said was that he needed to get away for awhile. It left out all of the other stuff, the more personal stuff.

Most of the lunch was spent with Hermione sitting in uncomfortable silence as Ron stuffed his face and in between bites, talked about Harry being back. She knew that she was acting funny, unlike herself, and Ron was bound to notice. He finally asked her if she was okay and she made up a story about how a difficult case at work had her down. Ron had bought it, he had no reason not to, and lunch continued. Hermione had spent as much time alone as she could, after that lunch. Working late and making up excuses to be home alone. She didn’t know what to do and knew she had to figure it out fast.

So here she found herself, at her desk, not doing anything but thinking about a man, other than her boyfriend. What a woman she had become, she thought. She heard a commotion across the ward and wondered what could possibly cause this much excitement in a hospital. Hermione got up from her desk and walked to the door where she found several nurses standing, all acting in an excited manner.

“What is all this noise about?” Hermione asked as she peered down the hall, hoping to catch a glimpse at something exciting.

“Harry Potter is here. I didn’t even know he was back, but he’s here. Came to visit Arthur Weasley.” A nurse told her Hermione excitedly.

“Oh. I should go say hi then.” Hermione walked through the crowd of women. She heard whispers from some of them, wishing that they were as close to him as she was. If they only knew, she thought to herself. And then she remembered that if they did know, she would be making the front page of Witch Weekly as a home wrecking whore, that couldn’t get over a juvenile crush and ruined the life of a war hero.

Hermione walked to the ward where Arthur had been for the past two years. She visited this bed at least once a day. She had already been by this morning and said her hello and gave him a message to encourage him to wake up. No one knew that she did this, not even Ron. But she felt like it was something she should do. When she reached the doors she peered through the window. She could see Harry at Arthur’s bedside.

She slowly entered the ward and stood by the doors. Harry looked up from Arthur and Hermione could see tears glistening on his cheeks. He started to wipe them away while she walked to him. She stopped at the foot of the bed and smiled at him.

“You know you don’t have to hide those from me. I’ve seen you cry more than that.” Hermione said, trying to make light of the situation. Harry smiled up at her and looked back down at Arthur.

“I know. It’s just hard to see him like this. He was like the only father I ever had, and he’s stuck in this bed because of my battle. I hate it. I wish there was some way to make him wake up.”

“We’ve tried every spell and everything we can think of. We don’t know what curse McNair hit him with so it’s hard to know for sure what it is we need to help him, but we have tried everything. I made sure of that when I started working here. If there is something out there, we will find it.” Hermione encouraged Harry to think positive. Harry just nodded his head, and held Arthur’s hand. “I’ll leave you alone with him. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Stop by my office on your way out.” Harry nodded one more time, this time looking at Hermione with a weak smile.

Hermione made her way back to her office and tried her best to remain busy while she waited for Harry to find her. She didn’t want to seem like she had wasted the day away on thoughts of him. She was doing paperwork on one of her patients when Harry walked behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and kneaded them briefly. Just long enough to make her putty in his hands and cause her to become flustered. He walked around the front of her desk and sat in the open chair.

“So this is your base camp, eh? This is where the magic happens, no pun intended.” Harry said with a chuckle and her heart melted at the sound of it.

“This is it. I love it. So did you come just to see Arthur, or are you looking for a job also?” Hermione hinted at him possibly joining her in the healing business.

“Oh no, not looking for a job. Not yet anyway. I have a few offers, now that everyone knows I’m back, but I haven’t decided anything yet. I wanted to pay my respects to Arthur, let him know how much I missed seeing him the other night. And to say hi to you.” Harry smiled at the last comment, knowing it was the main reason of the two.

“Oh well, I’m flattered Mr. Potter.” Hermione batted her eyelashes, acting overly excited, and obviously flirting with him. “So you’ve had offers, eh? What kind of offers?”

“I don’t want to talk about them until I decide on something. Most of them are all things we talked about me doing earlier, during the war. Things we thought I would be good at, but I don’t know which one suits me the best.” Harry responded, seriously putting thought into his secret offers.

“Fine, keep your secrets, but just remember, you never could keep them for very long around me.”

“I know, I know. So, got plans for lunch?” Harry asked non-chalantly.

“I’m actually skipping lunch today so I can get off early. Ron has this party for work, and I need to get ready.” Hermione told him, inwardly cursing the party. Harry acted equally disappointed that the party was causing them not to be able to go to lunch.

“Right, well I hope you guys have a great time. I’m going to get going then, since you have a lot to get done if you want to leave early. It was good seeing you again, Hermione. Maybe I can take you to lunch another day.” Harry said as he stood from the chair.

“I would like that. I’ll owl you and let you know.” Hermione answered sadly.

“Goodbye Hermione.”

“Bye.” And with that Harry left the ward and Hermione continued to stare at the chair he had just been sitting in. She sighed heavily and wondered how she had come into this life; the life of loving two men, not necessarily equally, but loving them both, all the same. She didn’t know what the future held for her, and what she would decide if she was given a choice. But for now, she would handle what was dealt, when it was dealt and that was the best she could do.