Sinking

I watched the glass of amber liquid that sat on the table in front of me. It looked so innocent. What could one drink hurt? I hadn't had a drink in months. I had stopped drinking when Harry made me realize I had become dependent on the stuff and stopped trying to live and thus was hurting everyone I loved. I had been that way ever since Ron left me standing there in the rain.

I don't blame Ron, I blame Voldemort. He killed Ron and I stood there and watched him die.

That was the same night that Harry killed Voldemort, but it was too late to save Ron. I sank that night. I had always been strong and brave, hell that is supposed to be why I was in Gryffindor in the first place, but I lost it after he left me.

I sat in our house, mine and Ron's, for months. I locked everyone out. I didn't go to work and I ordered all my food (mostly booze, vodka and tequila) and had it delivered. I was eating up the small savings Ron and I had managed to put away since we had gotten married. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore.

Ron and I where married for two years seven months and three days. Harry was Ron's best man and Ginny my maid of honor. That didn't matter to me. Ron was gone and I was an alcoholic trapped in my own misery.

It took less than a week for me to sink completely into a true depression after Ron was killed. It took six months, eight Weasleys, and one Harry to get me back out.

***

The day had started like all of my days started back then, but then again my days never really ended ether. I didn't sleep much and when I did sleep it was only for an hour or two at the time. Hell, I barely existed back then.

There was a knock on my door but I ignored it like always. I didn't know what time it was but I hadn't ordered anything so I didn't care.

"Hermione! Open the door, Hermione. It's me. Come on, I'm not leaving." Harry's voice was kind but firm.

"Go away, Harry. I don't feel like talking." My words were slurred and I refused to move from my spot on the couch. I felt like I had taken up residence there. I couldn't face sleeping in our bed so the couch was where I stayed.

"I'm not leaving. I will not watch you kill yourself for another second. We have let you be for far too long already."

I lay there for a moment before realizing that he was not going to leave me alone and then forced myself up and stumbled over to the door.

He looked good. I had almost forgotten how handsome he had become. Then again I hadn't seen anyone but the old wizard who delivered my groceries once a week for two months. His face contorted when he hugged me. "Oh, my god Hermione, What have you done." I'm sure the smell was awful. I hadn't bathed in weeks. I hadn't cleaned in months. I was covered in cuts from where I had clawed the skin from my flesh. Yes, I am sure the smell was awful.

"Nothing."

"I see that and it ends now."

"Why? What's the point?"

"Hermione...wait. First off, soberus. Better?"

"No. Now I'm not even drunk."

"If you say so Harry." My head was now pounding and I felt sick. It had been months since I was sober.

"Goddamnit! Hermione, what did you think we were going to do? Did you think we were going to keep standing by and watch as you slowly killed yourself? Did you?"

"What do I have to live for?"

"What about us, Hermione? Remember us, your family and friends? Huh? Don't we matter? Don't you think that we loved him to? Do you think it was easy for us to move on? Do you think we just forgot about him? Damnit, he was the first friend I ever had. He was a brother to me when I never had one. He loved you more than anything. You owe it to him to not give up."

"Why?"

"What?" Harry stammered dumbfounded for a moment by my question. "Are you crazy? You're supposed to be the smart one. Sit. Now!" Harry's tone left no room for question. I sat and watched as he walked to the fireplace and lit a flame in the grate. He pulled a small pouch from his pocket and dropped some of its contents into the fire. "The Burrow." Harry stuck his head in the flames and I could hear him talking to someone but could not make out what he said until, "And bring soap too. Lots of soap."

I was so mad about the whole thing. I had a headache and felt sick which didn't help either. I was twenty three years old. I was not a child. I was grieving the loss of my lover, best friend, and husband and here Harry was treating me like a child.

Harry stood and crossed the room to the kitchen. It was a moment and I heard something sizzle as it hit a hot pan. "Scourgify." I heard Harry whisper the spell several times as he moved about in the kitchen. He came back out a few minutes with a plate of eggs and hash browns and sat it on the coffee table in front of me. "Eat and that is not a request. I saw what you had in that kitchen. It looks as though you have eaten little more than dry toast and booze in weeks." That was true, that and caramel corn.

I still wouldn't talk, but with the look he gave me I picked up my fork and began to pick at the food. I heard another knock at the door before Harry had managed to make it back to the kitchen. He moved to the door and opened it to Ginny and Molly Weasley. "Oh, Harry I am so glad you called me over here. This is going to take awhile. And you little Miss." Molly said as a way of addressing me. "Don't even get your hopes up that this is it. You're lucky that you parents are in America, but I have already sent them word. This ends now." I could give no response but to groan. The Weasley women would be fussing about everything. Any hope I had of running Harry off and going back to sleep in a drunken stupor was killed when they entered.

"Ginny dear please go into the bathroom and run Hermione a bath. Harry if you will, please go and find her a change of clothes it doesn't look as though she has bathed in weeks."

"You know I am sitting right here." I picked up my bottle from the floor by the couch where I kept it and went to take a drink.

Molly snatched the bottle from my hand before I realized she had crossed the room. "That's the point dear. All you have done for the last four months is sit there and wither away. It ends now. We sat back for far too long as it is. We kept trying to say you would snap out of it on you own, but it is clear that you won't. So we have come to make you snap out of it, if we have to drag you kicking and screaming." The first thought that came to mind as she said this was that I was far too tired to kick or scream at this point.

The day continued on but I have little recollection of it. Harry and Ginny cleaned the house while Molly took me into the bathroom and bathed me like I was a child. She washed my hair and healed my cuts. I felt so small, but I still really didn't care.

I heard them say that they had to use a multitude of freshening charms to get the smell out and then Harry announce that he would stay in the guest room until I got better. Molly suggested that either she or Ginny could do it so that Harry didn't have to miss work, but Harry said that he had a lot of time coming anyway and that he would not leave me.

For the first time since Ron died I felt something besides pain, anger, and sorrow. I felt grateful to Harry. He had always been a good friend. The feeling didn't last long and I began to feel guilty for finding a moment of joy without Ron. They heard me crying and came to me.

"What is the matter now?" Molly's voice was kind but I could tell she was frustrated.

"I can't. I-I don't know how to be without him." I made no effort to wipe away the tears.

Molly pulled me into a tight hug and I felt my body quake as she held me. The tears didn't last long. My eyes were far too dry from months of endless crying. I pulled away and looked at the woman who had called me daughter for twelve years now. Ever since Ron introduced her to that skinny little know-it-all when we were eleven and fresh from school our first year.

"It's ok Hermione. I know if feels hopeless now but it will get easier."

"How?"

"I know it sounds cliché, but time heals all wounds. Both mental and physical." As Molly stood I pulled myself into a tight ball at the end of the couch and looked around at my now clean house. It looked alien to me without the empty bottles and scattered Kleenex. I sat there and gave up on moving. I tried to ignore my guests and missed Ginny and Molly departing. All I could think was I needed a drink.

***

Harry stayed there with me for weeks using every opportunity to force me out of my shell. He drug me out to the cinema in the muggle town. He took me to Flourish and Blot's to try and get me interested in something, anything that wasn't sulking. It was odd being out of the house. We saw people we knew and people we didn't, but all in all I felt as if everyone was looking at me. It is not as if Harry let me leave the house in rags or anything like that, but my eyes were puffy and so many recognized me as the wife of ne of the late, great heroes of the war. Not to mention my companion was none other than the great Harry Potter himself.

Harry's fame had tripled, if you can believe that, to what it had been before. Now not only was he 'The Boy Who Lived,' but he was also 'The Man Who Killed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.'

Harry was relentless in his quest to 'save my sanity.' He invited friends over and had dinners. Ginny and Neville were a constant couple to be seen in my home.

Hell, I began to think of it as our home. Harry was always there. I don't know how he managed to not lose his job for as little time as he spent at work. All he would say if I asked him about it was. "I have a lot of time coming." I didn't find out until later that the Ministry had granted him an extensive holiday and as much leave without pay as he needed to bring me back. They claimed it was because they needed me back at work, but I know it was because Fudge felt he owed Harry more than was possible to repay in one lifetime.

As I said before though, Harry was relentless. Every time I tried to seep back into my shell he would snatch me back out again.

It took two months of Harry fighting with me, but in the end Molly had been right and it got easier to wake up and join the land of the living each day. I went back to work and began to live again. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I even managed to visit Ron's grave and finally say good-bye. The Weasleys were glad to welcome me back with open arms. To them I was like a lost child returning home.

As I got better I noticed Harry pulling away. We had gotten so close over the past months so I felt it happening almost as soon as it started. I couldn't help but feel like it had to do with me. Like he was felling guilty because of Ron and maybe that is why he helped me in the first place. Like he felt he had to do it to get me to forgive him, but the thing was I never blamed him. I blamed myself and Voldemort.

I was talking to Ginny one night when she let the whole thing slip, the real reason he pulled away was not what I had expected.

"I am so glad you are better now Hermione. Just look at you. You seem almost back to normal, but 'normal' died next to Ron I think." I felt a slight twinge at Ron's name but it passed. It took so much to keep the pain in check but it had gotten easier. I don't think even now that the pain will ever go away completely.

"No, normal is still there but it is different now is all. I am much better, but I couldn't have done if Harry hadn't pushed me. The crazy bugger. Do you know that he pulled in a favor from Fudge just so that he could stay with me for all this time. It has been two months now. Hasn't it? I kind of lost my time perception in the last six months since he has been gone."

"Harry is a good man and love makes you do crazy things." I froze as the words left her mouth. Ginny looked like she had just put foot down on a land mine and if she moved it would explode.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, just you know, your friends, and love, but you know. Entirely plutonic kind of thing." Ginny was rambling. She always rambled when she was nervous, Ron was like that too, but I wasn't sticking around to hear it. It was Christmas Eve and the entire Weasley clan was scattered around the house. My brown eyes searched for green ones in the sea of blue and more brown.

I found them looking at me from a quite corner next to the massive tree in the living room. I made my way to him. I had to know the truth. The expression on my face must have been crystal clear as I sat next to him, because I could hear him mutter, "Damnit Ginny."

"So it's true then?"

"What?"

"What she told me. That you love me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I have always loved you. I couldn't let you know, because Ron loved you too. I thought that it was better. He loved you, you loved him. If anything were to happen to me, and I knew in my heart it would, then you wouldn't be as bad off. You fall so easy and so hard. You love with everything that you are. Just like you did with Ron. I ran to Cho and you saw how long that lasted and I decided not to try until after I knew if I would survive. And then Ron died and you collapsed and I was afraid.

"I am so sorry it took me so long to help you, but I loved Ron too. I knew if I was with you it wouldn't take long for that old flam to burn and I felt like that would be betraying Ron somehow. I love you Hermione, but I don't want to hurt you."

"Harry, I..." but I didn't know what to say. I stood up and walked out.

***

I was sitting there. I kept stopping my thoughts to look back at the glass. I wanted that warm rush in my veins. It made me feel alive. I had felt so dead for so long, but then I thought of Harry. Harry made me feel warmer than the liquor and more alive than it ever could. I did love him. I always had. I was just to in love with Ron to see it. Was one person allowed to love two people so much in one lifetime? I still loved Ron as much as ever, but somehow that wasn't as painful anymore.

I loved Harry to. I looked down at the glass one more time and picked it up. "Cheers." I muttered before I slung the glass across the room and watched it shatter into a thousand pieces. I had to go back to the Burrow.

***

Most everyone had gone to bed but Harry was sitting just where I left him. I sat next to him and his eyes widened as he caught a whiff of the liquor that had gotten on me when I through the glass. "Hermione, no. Tell me you didn't." There was so much pain and worry in those words.

"No I didn't. I don't need it anymore, but I wanted it. I wanted it so much, but then I realized there is something I want more than that."

"What?" Harry's eye begged me for the answer that he wanted to hear. I obliged.

"You." I kissed him with a need that I thought was lost forever when Ron died. I burned with the life and love that I had forgotten how to feel.

We jerked apart at someone approached. It was Molly. "Well it's about time too."

"You aren't mad at me?" She looked at me as though I was crazy.

"No. Why would I be mad? I would have been mad if you hadn't figured it out. I love you Hermione. We all do. We want you to be happy. Ron would too. You will always be my daughter even if you aren't a Weasley any more.

"So I guess it is ok if I have you two bunk together. It's a good thing to I was running out of rooms." She walked away and she stopped at the foot of the stairs long enough to add. "Best be off to bed soon, early day tomorrow. Christmas and all." Molly winked at us and went off to bed.

The feelings of relief and gratitude hit me at the same time. I looked at Harry and felt so much lighter.

"You see, life does go on and I want you in mine."

I answered him with a kiss and pulled him off to bed. We found each other that night. I cried as we made love in Ron's old room, but so did Harry. We pushed out all of our pain, sorrow, and anger. We found life in each other and true relief.

We held each other until light drifted through the windows and we heard the house stir. I was afraid to open my eyes to find it had been a dream.

"Good morning, sunshine." It was relief to see his smile beaming down at me.

"No."

"No?"

"It can't be morning yet. It is still far to early."

"I would be glad to stay the day here with you, but surly they would suspect."

"Who cares?"
"They do." He looked at me with a firmness and love in his eyes and I knew it was time to get up. We rolled out of bed and began to dress. It was quite but not uncomfortable. My eyes kept straying over to him. He really had become vary beautiful. He was tall, not so tall as Ron though. He was built from years of quidditch and auror training, but not bulky. He was hard, sleek, and slender. He was everything a seeker should be. His messy black hair had gotten long, longer even than Bill's. He kept it pulled back in a ponytail. It made him resemble Sirius ever so slightly. That and the pain that he carried deep inside from the fight he fought for so long.

I had lived pain too, but nothing like his. He had killed and fought and seen so much. More than solders twice his age. He had hated everything he had become. He overcame it and then he helped me to overcome my pain. He was so much stronger than me.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

"For what? Not, not this?" He indicated the two of them.

"No, for this." I brushed the scar on his forehead. He didn't say so but I knew he knew what I meant.

"Don't be. It made me who I am. It made me stronger. Yes, I have pain, but it is part of my soul. I miss them all, Sirius, Ron, and my parents even though I never knew them. I am sorry I took so many lives, but in the end I did what I had to do, we all did. We just have to keep living." We were both crying again. I looked at him and realized how much of a fool I had been. I laughed.

"What's funny?"

"Everything and nothing. I love you."

"I love y..." I cut him off with a kiss. We melted into each other.

There was a knock at the door that startled us apart. The door cracked open. "You two up yet? I know you where up late and all..." Harry's shirt hit Fred in the face.

"Yes give us a minuet. We had better go. Hey, he took my shirt!"

***

Christmas was wonderful. Everyone was excited for me and Harry.

Time passes fast when you are in love.

The months went by and Harry and I got to know each other as lovers.

I was July and Harry's birthday. It was also the first anniversary of Ron's death. Harry and I went to Ron's grave and placed flowers there. "Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"I have something I want to ask you in front of Ron."

"Yes?"

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

"Is that your new favorite word?"

"Yes."

"Can you say anything else?"

"Yes, after months of sinking it feels damn good to float back to the surface and fly into the air."

"I love you."

"I know."