Knickers

Chapter 9-Interrupted Confessions

"Ron, I have something I need to tell you," Hermione said awkwardly as she sat on the couch in her living room, watching her husband as he went through the latest information on the case he was working on.

Ron turned a pointed look on her, saying jokingly, “We’re not having twins and you haven’t said anything, are you?”

Hermione scoffed. She would have told him about something that important. "No, nothing like that. It's just…" she paused, knowing that she had promised Ginny that she wouldn't say anything to anyone about her feelings for Harry, but also knowing that Ron wasn't just anyone. He was her husband and, by wizarding law, an extension of herself. Therefore, it wouldn't really be telling someone else so much as informing herself of the secret she had learned that afternoon.

"Just what?" Ron set his quill down. He removed the glasses that he now wore for reading, as all the males in his family did, especially those that worked in the Ministry. By the tone of Hermione's voice, he sensed that something was wrong and therefore, this would probably require his full attention. The reports he had been going over could wait.

Hermione bit her lip, wondering if she should divulge Ginny's secret to Ron. He was her husband, yes, but Ginny was one of her best friends. She couldn't ignore the fact that said friend was about to make one of the worst mistakes of her life. Hermione, as her friend, couldn't let this happen, and for this reason, she continued with divulging the biggest secret in Ginny's life. "It's about Ginny."

"What about Ginny?" Ron said as he stood and moved from his desk to the couch where his wife was lounging and sat down next to her.

Hermione sighed heavily, not believing that she was about to betray Ginny's trust this way. "Well, it's like this, she…"

Hermione was interrupted by rapid knocking on the door to their apartment.

Ron furrowed his brow and stood to answer the door. "Who could that be, at this hour?"

Hermione blew air through her lips in frustration. This was just bad timing. Just when she had got up the courage to tell Ron that his sister still harboured amorous feelings for Harry, here was… Harry at the door. Her thoughts were abruptly stopped as she watched Harry Potter step through the doorway and into her home.

It wasn't that Hermione wasn't expecting company today that made Harry's appearance so inopportune. But it did have its downside. After all, Harry was not aware of the very deep feelings that Ginny had for him, and she knew how her friend would feel if that secret got out and Harry's engagement somehow suffered. Although Hermione was fairly certain that Harry's engagement was a sham - a ruse devised to perhaps lure his mystery girl out of the emotional hole she was in, to hopefully accept all of Harry's love - she still didn't feel like being the one to put his engagement in jeopardy. Harry should be allowed to make that decision himself.

She had to admit that she WAS a bit shocked to see him tonight, though. After all, Harry hadn't come to the flat since they had moved back in a few days before, and even last year, he rarely came to visit them. Hermione and Ron were at the Burrow so much that it hadn't seemed necessary. But now, as she watched a grim-faced Harry enter her flat, Hermione could see why he had chosen to visit them today.

Harry looked like he had the worst secret in the world on his shoulders, and Hermione suspected that her hypothesis was true.

"What are you doing here, Harry?" she asked, setting her book down on the coffee table in front of her and motioning for Ron to sit down next to her. Harry took it upon himself to make himself comfortable and quickly sat down in the overstuffed chair by the fire, facing the couch.

"I needed someone to talk to, and you were the first person that came to mind," Harry sat down, meeting Hermione's eyes desperately.

"What am I then, Harry?" Ron joked in mock-indignation, although he couldn't help but feel a little hurt that his best friend had thought of Hermione to talk to before him.

"It's about Ginny, Ron," Harry said roughly, running a hand through his hair. "And I'm pretty sure you're going to want to kill Colin when I get done telling you what I have to say. For that reason, I decided to come to Hermione first. No other reason."

"What's wrong?" Hermione sat up, brow furrowing. Whatever Harry wanted to talk about, it appeared to be bad.

Harry ran a hair through his hair again and stood up and began to pace. On the way to Hogwarts, it had seemed perfectly clear that he had to tell someone - anyone - about the situation between Ginny and her wayward fiancé. But as he sat in front of Hermione and a dumb-founded Ron (who was silent only because his wife was shooting death glares at him whenever he opened his mouth…), he wondered how to formulate what he wanted to say. Truth be told, he didn't know if telling his two best friends was such a good idea. After all, if he told them about what he had learned, they could - and probably would - find out about the feelings that he harboured for Ron's sister. Maybe it was time for him to divulge his secret. They were Hermione and Ron after all; she was good with secrets and wouldn't hold it against him that he had strong feelings for an engaged woman, and Ron, well, Ron had always made it clear back at Hogwarts that if Harry ended up being his brother-in-law, that he wouldn't have a problem with that. "I think," he said after a moment more of thought, "that Colin is having an affair."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Colin? Ginny's Colin? The man who's marrying the girl with six older brothers in a few months - Colin?" Ron simply started to turn red, anger at the mere implication that his only sister's fiancé might be having an affair colouring his face.

Harry nodded, eyes closing as if the thought pained him. "Yes."

Hermione looked at him incredulously and shook her head, "Are you sure, Harry? What kind of evidence do you have?"

"His partner at work, you know, Laura Woodross?" At Hermione's nod, Harry continued, "Well, she was interviewing Katie about the game today, and I was there, watching and making sure she didn't ask too many intrusive questions. Things were going well, but that's when I noticed it."

"Noticed what, Harry?" Ron demanded, impatient to hear the rest of this so he could find Colin and beat him up. He and his brothers had never liked Colin. He wasn't good enough, in their opinion, for their only sister. Now, from what Harry was telling him, they might have an excuse to satisfy the urge to annihilate the little bastard.

"She was wearing the sweater that Ginny made Colin last Christmas," Harry finished, looking Ron straight in the eye and exchanging a look that told the redhead that, should he and his brothers decide to kill Colin, Harry would be right there to help them.

Hermione simply stared at Harry for a moment. Quite frankly, he was reminding her of Ron right now. Indeed, Ron and his five older brothers had had issues accepting Colin at first and had turned to wild conversations about his sordid character in order to try to convince Ginny that Colin was not for her. In the end though, Ginny had seen through this suspicious line of implications that they tended to use towards any of her boyfriends and ignored all of them from that moment onward. Harry had spent too much time with the Weasley men, apparently, because he was starting to sound like one of them.

"I know it sounds crazy." Harry, who could read Hermione like a book, broke into her thoughts, having torn his gaze from Ron's to take in Hermione's incredulous look.

"Yes, Harry, it does sound crazy…." Hermione looked over to her husband, trying to gauge his reaction. He looked like he believed this, too.

"But she said it was from her boyfriend," Harry finished quickly, unwilling to let his story be discredited.

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. "Harry, just because her boyfriend lent her a similar sweater doesn't mean that…"

Harry, impatient with the unbelieving attitude Hermione was taking towards his claim, spoke the words that would change her mind: "His initials were in the bottom left corner."

OK. Hermione was getting suspicious too, now. Perhaps Harry wasn't simply being paranoid.

Harry continued, getting angrier. Hermione watched as he increased his pacing. "His initials were in the same corner that Ginny puts all her monograms, and Laura told me… she told me that it was from her boyfriend."

Hermione was beginning to get confused. Harry cared for Ginny, yes, but he generally wasn't that observant; for him to notice such an insignificant detail as a familiar sweater on an unfamiliar female - albeit one with a direct connection to someone in the Weasleys' lives - was altogether confusing. Something else was going on and, judging by what Ginny had told her that afternoon, after the game, she was willing to listen to her instincts about the real reason why Harry was noticing things like this and perhaps jumping to conclusions. Indeed, Hermione had suspected for years that Harry had had feelings for Ginny but had never said anything; instead, she chose to wait for Harry to say something to her about it. She had had enough of it, though. After all, Ginny had been in love with him for years, and if Harry had been right about Colin cheating on her, and he had feelings for Ginny…Hermione could feel the Gods smiling down on her. If everything went according to her impromptu plan (the hypothesized one that she had just come up with a moment ago in her head), then she was about to become Molly Weasley's favourite daughter-in-law. She frowned though; her bladder cut into her happy thoughts to remind her that yes, she was four days overdue and yes, this meant that she now had to pee again. With a sigh, she got up and walked toward the bathroom, trying to ignore the sharp pain in her back that had been plaguing her all morning whenever she tried to move.

"Harry," Ron broke into Harry's tirade, watching as his wife got up to go to the bathroom for the fourth time that hour, "where is Colin, right now?"

"Don't know," Harry spat out, his eyes wild, "But if this is true…"

"…Then we seriously injure him and make it look like an accident," Ron finished for him, leaning back against the couch. "It shouldn't be too hard. We'll just get my brothers and deal with the problem. And Ginny's a big girl. I'm sure after we beat him up, she'll realize the error of her ways and dump the bastard." He paused, running this option through his head and envisioning the possible outcomes of that. Ginny would hate them forever… But she'd be happier after they did it… Even if she DID hate them forever, at least she wouldn't need to live with a man who was cheating on her with his partner from work… He cleared his throat, deciding that a change in subject was just what they needed. "So how's the mystery girl this week?"

Harry turned a confused look to Ron, “What? I thought we were talking about….never mind then.” He shook his head, deciding to go with the flow. “She’s fine.”

Harry turned a confused look to Ron. "What? I thought we were talking about… never mind, then." He shook his head, deciding to go with the flow. "She's fine."

"Does Katie know?" Ron asked, determined to receive some solid answers about Harry's mystery girl this time. The fact that he had even answered the first question, acknowledging that there WAS a mystery girl, was a step in the right direction.

Harry nodded his head affirmatively. "Yeah, she knows."

"And she's still marrying you?!" It was Ron's turn to turn an incredulous look at Harry.

Harry shrugged, Colin's probable infidelity slipped to the back of his mind for the moment as he thought of Katie's problems with Oliver. He and his 'fiancé' hadn't as of yet set a date so the door was still open for Oliver, although it didn't look like he was going to use it anytime soon. Trying to explain this situation to Ron was going to be problematic though… "Well," he started, trying to word this correctly, "Katie's kind of in the same situation herself."

Ron's jaw dropped. He had suspected that Harry had become engaged for all the wrong reasons, but he hadn’t thought Katie had been liberally dabbling in the same pool as his best friend. "Are you serious? Who?"

Harry bit his lip, looking down at his hands. "That's for her to tell, not me, though it's not working out. He hasn't shown any interest in her whatsoever, just as mine has not shown any interest in me."

"Who is she?" Ron demanded impatiently, watching as Harry sat down in the overstuffed armchair. "I've known for months that there's been a mystery girl, Harry, but not once have you even attempted to share who she was with us," he turned a pointed look on his best friend at this point, "Friends tell, and you KNOW that if I had a mystery girl, I would tell you."

"If you had a mystery girl, both Hermione and I would team together to kill you." Harry shook his head, unwilling to share his secret with his best friend, but suddenly reconsidered at the hurt look that had appeared on Ron's face. Apparently, Ron didn't think that Harry was going to say anything about the woman that, if given the chance, Harry would gladly give up everything he had for. Ron was right; friends DID tell each other, but Harry was still unsure about how he was going to react. This WAS his sister, after all.

Ron was beginning to think that Harry was never going to tell him about the women he was in love with, when suddenly, Harry broke the silence.

"You're right," Harry said simply, chuckling bitterly. "And really, who're you going to tell? It's not like I can do anything about it, now…." He turned a pointed look at Ron. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

"Sure, I will," Ron smirked. "You're in love with her, right? She's got to be something special then."

"And she is." A smile graced Harry's face, serene and obviously in love. "You know her, actually, she's…."

"Ron!" Suddenly Hermione's alarmed voice cut into his thoughts, "I think my water just broke!"

“Fuck,” was the only response out of Ron’s mouth as he stood quickly and rushed to the bathroom.

Harry was left sitting alone, waiting to help his best friends to the St. Mungo’s.

He smiled bitterly. At least his secret was still safe.

He didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.