Rating:
R
House:
The Dark Arts
Characters:
Ginny Weasley Hermione Granger
Genres:
Drama Slash
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 10/10/2003
Updated: 10/10/2003
Words: 1,901
Chapters: 1
Hits: 1,161

Everybody Loves You Now

Abaddon

Story Summary:
"Learn children, and don’t be a lesbian with commitment issues, or you too will end up like this." Hermione never had a Prince Charming. [Hermione/Ginny]

Chapter Summary:
"Learn children, and don’t be a lesbian with commitment issues, or you too will end up like this." Hermione never had a Prince Charming. [Hermione/Ginny]
Posted:
10/10/2003
Hits:
1,161
Author's Note:
Thankyou to Ems for the beta, and Beth for the inspiration.


Everybody Loves You Now.

Hermione peers at the smeared surface of the table. There's a couple of rings left from people's coke cans, and a great dollop of tomato sauce; probably from the fat oaf pig customer she saw eating there a while back. If this was a movie, she thinks grimly, it would be some kind of kitchen sink drama, with her as 'protagonist ground down by modern society' (learn children, and don't be a lesbian with commitment issues, or you too will end up like this). She wouldn't have written it like this, of course, but then she gave up that dream years ago, along with academia or law or the thousand different other pursuits she picked up and tossed aside because she was too fickle, too greedy to choose between them. Hermione knows by now that whoever is directing this farce (and yes, it is definitely a farce), it's certainly not her. She bends down to clean, the cloth and spray gliding over the plastic, and for a second, she lets herself remember how easy this would be, if she still used magic.

Ginny wanders through the old corridors, drinking in their silence, the constant and undeniable solidity they possess. For a moment, she wishes she could seem that real, that fixed. It seems to her that she's walked through life like a shadow, unable to alter what goes on around her and merely play the part she's been assigned. Hermione used to say she was always the tragic heroine, but then Hermione used to say a lot of things. Taking her time to breathe and fix that familiar smile to her face, she turns to face the crowd, and runs through the practiced monologue about the antiquity of the stone around them, pausing for a moment to dissuade a pair of Americans at the front from taking pictures. Hogwarts, now empty, is a sacred site after all; people died here, during the War.

Ginny knew some of them.

Sometimes she thinks it would have been better if Hermione had died. Ghosts can be exorcised; dead people eulogised. It's rude to speak ill of the dead. With life, there are no such options; with the living, it's impossible not to speak ill of them. Besides, it would have been easier, to have her die. More heroic a departure, certainly. Rather than haunting Ginny's life with a horrible and unfixable reality.

Sometimes Hermione, too, thinks it would have been better if she died. She tosses the greasy cleaning cloth in the hamper and makes her way to the crowded bathroom, cleaning her hands with astringent goo from a bottle, the label discoloured and peeling. Welcome to the fruits of modern society, she thinks; ash, clinker and dust, the detritus of a world that exists only to consume. Empty, hollow and meaningless, and exactly like her.

There are questions, of course. There are always questions. From well-meaning Muggles about the whole magic thing, to those who lived in the cities and towns, and wanted to know what it was like here, before the War came and tore the soul out from the stone. Ginny nods politely and answers what she can. She's blossomed into a fine young woman, her eyes with a spark of inquisitiveness in them, and a mouth that seems ready to laugh. It's a good act. But then, Ginny's always been good. A good daughter, a good sister, a good fighter for the good cause. She's good at her job too, touring people around these ruins, trying not to disturb the stillness too much, and even better, she's good with people. It comes of having six older brothers; you learn to cope, to watch, to understand groups and individuals, how they work. Ginny can understand anyone, given time. Anyone except the one person that mattered.

Hermione splashes her face with water - she's not due for a break yet, and there are customers waiting. There are, it seems, always customers waiting. It's not that much, really - a twenty-four hour cafe in Perivale, but it pays the bills. She has a bedsit all to herself, and clothes (that desperately need replacing) and she doesn't have to ask her family for anything (a good thing, seeing as how she hasn't talked to her mother in oh, four years.) Perivale reminds her of Chelsea; it's nice and suburban and tearing apart at the seams, a perfect example of twenty-first century London's urban decay. It's different enough from where she grew up that it won't drive her insane, but it's close enough that it hurts.

It hurts, sometimes. The dull ache Ginny feels that comes from the empty apartment in Hogsmeade - contact with the Muggle world during the War caused many changes, the least of which being semi-detached housing with running water and electricity not five miles out from the castle, and a host of other things. The letter she's written fifty times, and torn up as many. The letter she knows she'd never send, because in the end, she's not loyal enough. Ginny figures, with corpse humour, that's probably why she got put in Gryffindor, and not Hufflepuff. Bravery means nothing without causes, and Ginny gave up all her causes years ago. Sometimes the thing that hurts more is that she wouldn't know where to send it. Hermione and her family were broken by the war, and Ginny was content to let it be, and not press the point, because honestly, why would she ever need to contact them if she could talk to Hermione? Perhaps, in the end, it's the things she didn't account for that upset her the most.

Hermione figures it started because she didn't open up enough. Ginny was so giving. Too giving; it frightened Hermione sometimes that she could inspire that kind of trust in a person. That kind of confidence. She remembers telling Harry that she would inevitably "overanalyse Ginny's psyche and leave her." She was only half joking. But that was the thing when your parents were dentists and you'd been declared a girl genius at the age of five. The world was a toy on a string, an experiment, a thing to be dissected and explored. Including the people, because the people were the hardest to understand.

Her prediction became a nice self-fulfilling prophecy. She tried, she really did. Hermione tells herself that a lot. She wanted a partner, but Ron didn't want her, after everything, and Ginny would grow up soon enough and not need her anymore. Hermione knew that, knew it in her bones. So she stopped caring, little by little, to harden herself for the breakup that would come. She forgot their meetings every now and then, and refused to talk about herself, more and more. And when she saw the hurt in Ginny's eyes, she clung to that prophecy as tightly as she could. What was she to do about it? What could she do about it? She knew what would happen, and what must happen. After all, she had duties, to herself, to the cause, to the future. Her personal life was not her own. Hermione Granger was not built to share herself with anyone, and Virginia Weasley had to learn that as quickly as possible. She rationalised away, excusing her behaviour and exonerating herself for letting it happen. And they slowly drifted apart.

The afternoon tour is the usual motley combination of young families, students from Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, those who lost loved ones paying respect (there were various shrines set up throughout the castle to those who fell in the Death Eater attempts to enter the school), and the aged, probably doing the tourist thing for their retirement. Ginny walks through it all, reciting the script by rote, not especially paying attention. History was never really her thing; Hermione would have been able to give the tour in far greater depth than she could, and probably make it ten times as interesting. But Hermione isn't here.

About fifteen minutes into the tour, they reach the Entrance Hall, and Ginny turns, ready to give the spiel on the Sorting Hat and the House structure. From her vantage point on the steps, she can see the small party of about thirty splayed out in front of her, and she stops. In a split second, she spots two girls, about 15 or 16 years old up the back, trying to peer over the heads of those in front to get a better look at their surroundings. One is animated, almost hyperactive, peering this way and that lest something be missed. The other gives her a fond glance before looking at Ginny. They are holding hands.

Later, Ginny catches sight of them kissing as the party is about to leave what was the Gryffindor dorms. Forcing the pale trap of memory aside, she smiles at the group, and leads them on.

All she can think is 'That should have been us.'

Hermione serves a plate of steak and chips to some guy - possibly a trucker, and he's looking at her in a way that makes her want to spit in his lunch. It's admittedly not the first time, but that doesn't make it any better. She wishes, suddenly, that she still had her wand, and ruthlessly suppresses the desire. It's something she's gotten used to coping with, and has been for more than she'd like to admit. Her parents dragged her out of Hogwarts the moment the War began, and they certainly didn't let her go back, now that magic had been revealed to be far more dangerous than any whimsical story and she had no Prince Charming to protect her. Her wand was broken, as without finishing, she wasn't trusted to cast a spell. She didn't cry; in some ways, it was a relief. All that was left for her were awkward conversations between her and Ginny, replete with more pauses than words, and a nagging guilt she needed to escape. So, finally, she did. It was a conversation in which even Ginny was hard pressed to deny how stilted the talk had become, and then finally, angsted severely and took the blame on herself for the failing friendship. The endless torrent of self-blame continued - "it's me, isn't it? It's my fault" - repeated ad nauseam, chasing Hermione along corridors, until finally she gave Ginny what she wanted. "Yes, you're right. It is your fault." After that, Hermione left, leaving a girl crying behind her. Part of her felt powerful, because she had the ability to hurt others and not be hurt in turn.

As she rings up the till, it hits her. There was a time when she would have died rather than forget Ron, but he's lost in the haze of memory. Despite herself, all she can think about now is Ginny, and it hurts so much; even beyond the degradation of a dead-end job, a cramped dirty bedsit and the urge to retch violently whenever her boss leers in her general direction.

But it's a good kind of pain, because at least she knows she's alive. For a moment, she wonders if this is purgatory, that she's doomed to be here until Ginny walks in the door and forgives her, like something out of a fairy tale. Then Hermione remembers she left magic behind, and all that's left is stark reality.