Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows

"What do you mean you're not coming home, young man?!"

Arthur Weasley winced as his wife's accusing question reverberated across King's Cross Station. He tentatively laid his hand on his wife's arm in hopes of placating her. "Molly, please, not here--"

"Well, where else are we going to do it?" Mrs. Weasley demanded irately. She twisted her arm free and raised herself up to her full height in hopes of matching Ron's stature; although he was her youngest son, he was still a good six inches taller than her. Her eyes never left Ron's defiant face. "Apparently, he's not coming home with us so we can't talk about it there, now can we? Looks like it's now or never." She fixed Ron with the very same glare she had given him when he had snuck out in the Ford Anglia to rescue Harry nearly five years ago. "Now, Ronald," she ordered him. "Answer my question."

Ron set down his trunk so he could face his mother dead on. He didn't row with her very often--he knew better--but today, it was just too bloody important. He glanced over reassuringly at his best mate, who was silently waiting off to the side, looking more miserable than ever, before speaking up again. "I'm sorry, Mum, but I can't come home. I have to help Harry with some stuff."

"What sort of 'stuff'?"

"I can't tell you that, Mum."

Fred Weasley let out a low whistle as he settled down for the show. "Brave lad," he commented under his breath.

"I'll be right upset when she kills him," George agreed solemnly. Fred looked as though he wished to continue the quick repartee, but at that moment, Ginny silently crossed over and took a seat on the bench between them so she could swing her legs forward and promptly kick both of them in the shins. "Ginny!" they chorused as one while doubling over in identical pain.

"Shut it," Ginny warned in a low voice. Her arms were folded over her chest so she could hug herself as tightly as she could. It was the only way she could keep herself from leaping forward in the middle of the fray so she could find out herself just what this 'stuff' was, because she had a sick feeling that this 'stuff' could be the death of all the people she cared about, especially a certain someone standing a few feet off, looking pale and distressed. But that certain someone wouldn't want her sticking her nose where he felt it didn't belong--that was why he had ended things with her today.

So Ginny for once stayed silent and continued to watch the row. Sensing her discontent, Fred looped a long arm across her shoulders while George massaged his aching shin. Together, the three continued to watch as the ongoing row grew more and more violent. Both Mrs. Weasley and Ron were quite red in the face, gesticulating wildly their individual points, while Arthur Weasley looked more and more dejected by each passing second, not even attempting to intervene any longer. But nobody looked as miserable as Harry Potter who stood forlornly to the side, silently watching his surrogate family, the perfect family he had always dreamed of, falling apart right in front of his eyes. And it was all his fault.

"Ten Galleons says he goes with Harry," Fred suddenly predicted, sharp eyes taking in just how tall and proud Ron had grown over the past year. His youngest brother had finally gained some confidence and he knew Ron would rather die than give up the pride he had worked so hard to gain.

"Make it twenty," George proposed. "We're rich now, remember?" Fred grunted his assent and without even looking at each other, the twins shook on it.

The handshake failed to escape Ron's attention and he wasted a few seconds to give the twins a fiery scowl. "Shut it."

"What did I do?" Fred exclaimed with wide eyes, his hands clasped over his chest in feigned indignation. "I'm betting for you."

Mrs. Weasley wheeled on them, but before she could unleash her wrath upon them, Mr. Weasley interjected. "Fred, George, take your sister outside," he requested. "We'll be along in a minute."

The twins knew better than to resist when their father spoke in that curt voice that was so unlike him. Fred gave Ginny a little push to get her going, but Ginny still lingered behind, eyes shifting back and forth between her favorite brother and the love of her life. Finally, her feet started forward, but she took the time to pause next to Ron. "Give it up," she advised very quietly. Her eyebrows flicked very subtly towards Harry. "You're making it worse."

As intended, Ron sobered quite a bit when he saw how distraught Harry looked. Lupin, who had come along with Moody to ensure that Harry wouldn't have any difficulties with the Dursleys, used this to his advantage and quickly stepped in. "Molly, Ron, why don't you go on home and settle this," he suggested in his trademark patient air. He turned slightly to appeal to Harry. "Harry, I'm sure you won't mind if Ron comes tomorrow?" Mrs. Weasley let out an outraged squawk. "If they decide Ron can come, that is," Lupin corrected.

Harry fervently nodded his assent.

"No!" Ron burst in. He gave his best mate a scandalized look. "If I don't come now, I won't come at all!"

"Well, someone better be goin' somewhere," Mad-Eye Moody growled. His magical eye was whizzing suspiciously around, taking in every possible angle to ensure that no one was stealthily sneaking up behind them. "It's not safe to be out here. We need to move."

"Fine," Ron stoutly agreed. "I'll go with Harry then."

"No, young man, you're coming home with us right now--!"

"Excuse me!" Vernon Dursley had very little patience when it came to his nephew; it was a miracle that he hadn't seized Harry by his collar and dragged him off by this time. But now he had waited long enough and he strode forward, mustache bristling with outrage. His wife and son stood apprehensively back, eying the wizards and witches. "I'm not letting another one of you freaks in my home--I've got enough trouble with this one here!" he added, pointing a thick finger at Harry.

"Freak?" Mrs. Weasley spat as she squared her shoulders in preparation of taking this odious man on. "Is that what you called us--freaks?"

Mr. Weasley caught his wife's shoulders and restrained her as gently as possible. "Molly, don't," he requested softly.

She ignored him, eyes searing blisters into Mr. Dursley's flabby face, but before she could say anything else, Lupin stepped in between the wizards and the Muggles, pushing aside his shabby robes ever so slightly so the Dursleys could catch a glimpse of his wand that lay beneath. "Harry will stay with you as long as he sees fit and he will have as many friends with him as he sees fit." His hand dropped threateningly on the wand. "Do we understand each other?"

To further illustrate their point, Moody promptly popped out his magical eye and squished it flat between his weathered palms, juices and flecks of pus streaming out between his fingers.

Sputtering uselessly, Vernon Dursley backed away with his arms out in a meek sign of surrender. Moody waited until the Muggle's back was turned before opening his hands so Lupin could perform a quick Repairing charm without attracting any attention. Within ten seconds, the magical eye was back in its proper socket, intent on the still arguing family.

Mrs. Weasley had turned to her husband with her face alight with a sudden brilliant idea. "Wait--why doesn't Harry just stay with us?" She appealed to her son with a slightly sarcastic air. "You and Harry can do your 'stuff' there."

"I can't, Mrs. Weasley," Harry finally spoke up uncomfortably. His hands were jammed deep in his pockets and he kept looking over his shoulder as if he expected someone to jump out at them at any second. "I have to go with them as long as I consider them," he held up his hands to indicate ironic quotation marks with his fingers, "family."

"Albus told us about that, Molly, remember?" Mr. Weasley reminded her quietly. He was also starting to look a bit uneasy.

"Yeah, that's why I have to go!" Ron forged on, thinking he had won. "Someone's got to keep him safe while he's with those Muggles!"

"And that someone has to be you?" Mrs. Weasley said with raised eyebrows. "Never mind the scores of people who guard him, including your father and me--"

"Molly!" Mr. Weasley said sharply. Mrs. Weasley quickly closed her mouth and flushed; she had been about to reveal far too much in a far too public place. They really needed to get out of King's Cross before it was too late.

"And he's safe, Ron," Lupin reminded him gently. He had his hand on Moody's arm, probably to restrain the Auror from forcibly ending this overly-long conversation. "Dumbledore saw to that. He and the Dursleys will be just fine for the time being. You know that."

But the reassuring words did not have their intended effect. Harry actually paled at the statement while Ron, as stubborn as ever, set his heels deeper into the floor and raised his chin high in the air. "I'm seventeen now," he reminded his mother. "I can do whatever I want."

"I don't care how old you are, Ronald Bilius Weasley," Mrs. Weasley shot back, quickly regaining her composure. "As long as you reside in my house, you will abide by my rules, is that clear?"

Ron sputtered for a moment. "Well, maybe I don't live there anymore!"

"Is that so?" Mrs. Weasley asked in mock innocence. "I think your Chudley Cannons action figures would disagree."

"Enough!" At first, everyone thought that Mad-Eye Moody had finally lost his temper, but after a second of contemplation, the voice wasn't Moody's trademark baritone growl. Harry Potter seemed to grow nine inches taller as he took a quick glance around to small crowd to make sure that they still weren't being observed before squaring his shoulders and bravely facing the irate Weasley that he was about to enrage even further. "Go home."

"Harry!"

"Ron, you have a home!" Harry reminded him indignantly, for the first time really revealing just how envious he sometimes was of his best friend. "You should be there! Especially now."

From a safe distance, William Granger shifted a little as he checked his watch, fascinated by the scene he was witnessing while fully recognizing that it was very private. They really shouldn't listen anymore; besides, if they waited much longer, they were going to get caught in the dreaded rush hour traffic that all sane people did their damnedest to avoid. "Hermione--"

"I know, I know," Hermione returned with a long sigh. She had hoped that Ron would have had the good sense of going home with his family for at least one night before informing them that he was not only leaving home, but he was also not returning to school next year. But of course Ron had rarely displayed good sense about anything at all. That's when she always came in and cleaned up the mess he left behind. She handed off Crookshanks' cage to her mother. "Why don't you pull the car around and I'll be along in a minute?"

Mrs. Granger however was intent on Mrs. Weasley, who was still impatiently wiping away tears of frustration. "That poor woman," she murmured sympathetically. "I can't imagine--" She broke off and smoothed Hermione's hair in an affectionate manner, something she hadn't done in a good long time. "Will she be all right? Why doesn't Ron want to go with her anyway?" she asked abruptly.

"It's a long story--I'll explain later. Just go get the car please," Hermione requested once again in a brisk, adult voice that took both her parents by surprise. It wasn't often that a child talked to her parents with that sort of authority. Exchanging an anxious look, the Grangers obediently hurried off to comply with their daughter's request. Hermione squared her shoulders and made her way back to her best friends, preparing to do battle if necessary to end this ridiculous quarrel.

By this point, Harry had dragged Ron off to the side so they could speak privately and was appealing him in a softer, pleading voice. Ron, stubborn until the end, doggedly kept on shaking his head, his jaw set in that no-matter-what-you-do-or-say-I-will-win manner that Hermione knew all too well. Hermione slipped in between the pair of them a few seconds later, hand on her wand just in case. Ron's temper may even lead him to punch his best friend square in the nose. "What's going on?" Hermione demanded.

Harry blinked bemusedly. "I thought you left."

"No, she's been watching the whole time," Ron remarked absently. Hermione tried not to be secretly thrilled by the prospect that Ron cared about her enough to know her whereabouts at all times. He folded his arms over his chest and gave Harry a mighty glare. "Harry here doesn't want me to go with him now."

"It's not that I don't want you there!" Harry reminded him impatiently. "You know I--" He broke off, looking about ready to tear out his own hair until he was as balding as Mr. Weasley. "It's for your own good! The protection Dumbledore left only works on me and the Dursleys. If you stayed with me, you'd have no magical protection and we know that they're going to be watching me round the clock--if they knew you were with me, you'd be as good as dead!"

Hermione let out a gasp. She couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of that. Ron however seemed unperturbed by the idea of his imminent danger. "So what?"

"So what?" Hermione repeated indignantly. She put her hands on her hips and gave him the glare she gave taunting Slytherins or truculent first-years.

"Oh no!" Ron exclaimed with a wave of his hand as if he could repel Hermione with that simple motion. "Don't get that face now! Don't you turn on me too!"

"Ron, you have to go home!" Hermione insisted. "Harry's right--I should have seen this before--you'll be safe there and I think we should all be safe as long as possible before--" She broke off, unable to articulate the daunting task that lay before them in vague terms that no one else would understand, but it was impossible. Instead, she ended her sentence with a knowing look at Ron that said it all. Besides, she and Ron had never needed words to communicate everything that was happening between them.

"Let's all just go home," Harry proposed in a much calmer voice. "And we'll get some rest and do our homework so we're all ready for August, all right?" He looked back and forth between his best friends with an anguished look of guilt. "You should spend some time with your families before we do this."

None of them wanted Harry to even begin to finish the rest of that thought although all three of them knew it was the truth: that they should spend time with their family now, because it could very possibly be the last chance they had. Ron gave Harry a long look that Hermione couldn't quite read before he returned his attention back to her. "And this is what you want too?"

If it wasn't so important to get Ron over to the Burrow, Hermione would have picked up on the odd mixture of confusion, anger, and hurt that was jumbled up in his eyes. Instead, Hermione just nodded emphatically, praying that he for once would put aside his stubborn pride and relent to their wishes.

Ron gave Harry another quick glance, looked back at Hermione's wide, pleading eyes, and finally emitted a reluctant grunt. Hermione's hand came up to press against her heart in utter relief; she had rather expected to row for at least another ten minutes. She could hardly believe he'd given up so easily. Harry visibly relaxed, a smile even breaking across his face, as he clapped Ron on the shoulder once and hurried back over to where the anxious Order members were waiting. He said a few words and Mrs. Weasley promptly let out a wail of relief as she gave Harry a bone-crushing hug that nearly knocked him off of his feet.

Ron watched this interchange in stony silence, jaw clenched and eyes hardening in a way that Hermione couldn't understand. She had seen Ron at his best and his worse and his many, many shades of gray in between, but she had never ever seen that rocky harshness in his gaze. It looked so foreign on him, as if he had willingly dyed his hair Malfoy-blonde. Tentatively, she tried to take his hand and ask what was wrong, but Ron jerked away and looked all around the train station. Actually, he was looking everywhere except her face. "Where're your parents?" he asked her.

"Outside. They went to get the car. I'll meet them in a minute." She stepped closer to him and strategically tucked her hair behind her ear so he would have a clear shot of the blue flower he had sent Pig to find for her, the flower she would wear proudly for the rest of the day until she went to bed, when she would carefully press the petals beneath the protective sheaves of a book so it would preserved forever and ever. She just hoped he knew how much that simple gesture had meant to her. "Ron, what's wrong?"

He snapped his focus back to her and he was just as abruptly her Ron again: his face and eyes alight with every single thought and feeling that passed through his head. Hermione often thought about the day she had once told him that he had the emotional range of a teaspoon and wondered if he knew that that couldn't be farther from the truth. Ron experienced so, so much; he didn't even realize just how much he felt.

"Nothing. Going home, aren't I?" Ron replied gruffly. He jammed his hands in his pockets and jerked his chin towards the exit. "I'll walk you out."

"You don't need to do that," Hermione said quickly. She had a feeling that Mrs. Weasley would go into hysterics if she saw Ron seemingly leaving with Hermione. She may think that she was now losing her son to his other best friend. "I'll see you in a few weeks," she added somewhat awkwardly, not really certain what to say. She and Ron had quite a lovely good-bye on the train; adding any other words would just sully it somehow.

But Ron apparently didn't see it that way. He looked rather surprised and disappointed, but he gave another grunt and started back towards his parents. Biting her lip, Hermione could only bear to watch him go for three seconds before calling out to him again. He turned and waited expectantly. Hermione wished with all of her heart that she had the courage to run straight at him and fling her arms around him as she had done loads of other times, but right now, at this moment, she couldn't. Some odd rift had suddenly cropped up between them, preventing them from ever reaching that sacred intimacy that they both craved. Hermione had no idea where this unforeseen obstacle had come from or why it was there, especially when half an hour ago, Ron had been giving her a single flower and telling her that nothing would ever harm her as long as he was around. All she knew that it was there, eating away at her heart, and she had to try to do something to bridge that awful gap.

She gave him a tentative smile. "You'll write, won't you?" she asked somewhat stupidly. Ron always had been her most faithful pen pal, even more so than Viktor although she would never let him know that. If he was going to act like a four-year-old whenever Viktor's name came up, he didn't deserve to know the truth.

Ron inhaled slowly, eyes never leaving her earnest face. "Yeah. Sure," he finally promised, his smile helping immensely to thaw the unforeseeable ice that had sprung up between them. "As soon as I get home."

"Good." The couple shared one last smile, waved simultaneously, and broke away from each others eyes to find their parents. Hermione managed to weave her way through the hundreds of Muggles and trolleys swarming around station to find her father illegally parked near the taxi stand. She slid inside the back of the car, absently thanking her parents for waiting. She stared out the window as her dad pulled out into the traffic, seeing if she could catch a glimpse of the Weasleys again. She was still very puzzled by that odd look on Ron's face; the only time she had been completely unable to understand Ron was the few horrible months when he had been with Lavender: the time that she had lost him. Her heart started to pound. That couldn't be happening again. She didn't think she'd be able to survive losing Ron again.

"Hermione?"

From the tone of her mother's voice, Hermione suspected that she had called her name several times. She straightened up guiltily and faked a smile. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to know if Ron straightened everything out."

"Yes, he did," Hermione confirmed, still struggling to find her favorite redheaded family in the sea of people exiting King's Cross. Although she was intent on her task, Hermione still caught the quick, fleeting glance exchanged between her parents. It was just like the looks she and Ron would share behind Harry's back whenever they thought he was being thick-headed or dangerous or going into saving-people mode. That couldn't be a good sign. "What?" she asked edgily.

Helen Granger looked at her husband once again before biting the bullet and asking the potentially damning question. "We were just wondering--why Harry does need protection?"

A sharp heel of guilt kicked Hermione hard in the stomach. This was it: the cue she had been waiting for yet dreading. She had meant to tell her parents a long time ago about Voldemort, but there had just never been the ideal opportunity. As much as she valued honesty, Hermione couldn't help admitting that in this particular instance, it was so much easier to lie about her Ministry injury, the real reasons she couldn't come home for holidays, and the million other instances she twisted the truth in order to accomplish what needed to be done. But she couldn't avoid the conversation any longer. She too had to bite the bullet and forge bravely ahead. She could never live with herself if she left Hogwarts and her old life without telling her parents the entire truth.

That still didn't abate any of the nausea that had swirled up in the pit of her stomach. She swallowed hard, keeping her eyes intently out the window. "Let's just wait until we get home," Hermione suggested grimly. "I'll explain everything there."

"All right," Mrs. Granger conceded with yet another pointed glance at her husband. Hermione ignored it as best she could as she repositioned her wand so she could snatch it more readily if there was any sign of danger. Mrs. Granger stared out the window while Mr. Granger focused on the road, clutching the wheel much too tightly. A thick, heavy silence hung over the family, as impenetrable the London traffic they were struggling to get through.

It was a very long ride home.