The Way It's Supposed to Go

The Way It's Supposed To Go

"Hermione Granger-Weasley was shot dead today during an incident near her home in Sussex. The twenty-five year old had recently won her battle with cancer and was spending the day in the park with her husband Ron Weasley, twenty-five, and daughter Rowan, three. Witnesses at the scene of the crime report various assailants appearing out of nowhere, one carrying a gun. Paramedics on the scene were unable to save Granger. Weasley was not available for comment. On other news ...."

He turned off the television. He didn't need to hear this again. It was the same wherever you went; all the newspapers, the Muggle news, everyone was talking about the tragic death of one of the greatest witches of her time.

Except one. The Boy Who Lived, The Boy Who Wouldn't Die, The Boy Who Lost Hope, sat in silence, and cried. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go.

*

Three months had passed when the doorbell rang in the old forgotten house and the small child plodded through the hallway, searching. The man in the kitchen looked up from his paper and checked his watch. It was a little early for business; who could it be? She found her father in the kitchen, and tugged at his sleeve, urging him to follow, and she plodded back out.

"What is it honey? Someone at the door?" he asked, scooping up his child into his arms and walking to the front hallway. As he rounded the corner, he stopped and stared. The child in his arms pointed to the man in the doorway.

"Look, daddy, look."

Ronald Weasley continued to stare at the one person he thought he'd never see again. He placed the child down on the floor.

"Rowan, go and play with your toys for a while, okay?" The girl did not have to be told twice, and she scurried off, red-hair flailing behind her.

Harry Potter stared back at his old friend. "So ... can I come in?"

*

Ron led the way into the kitchen which was so much lighter than Harry had ever remembered it. Ron busied himself with making a pot of coffee and collecting mugs, all by hand. Harry found this almost strange.

"Why don't you ...?" Harry pointed to the mugs and pot and then to what looked like an abandoned wand on the mantelpiece above the hearth.

Ron followed his gaze and blushed. "Use my wand? I don't know really. Just, well, there's no excuse for getting lazy I suppose." Ron gave a weak laugh and continued with his task. "Plus, Rowan-"

"She knows doesn't she?"

"Hmm?" Ron looked up again. "Oh yes, she's a witch, she knows about it all. I just don't want her to grow up like I did. Completely dependent on her wand. It was Herm-" He stopped mid-sentence, pausing just before he picked up one of the mugs on the table.

"I heard about Hermione. I'm sorry."

Ron nodded and stood still for a moment longer, then swiftly continued. "Sugar?" he asked.

Harry shook his head. "No. Thank you." He took the coffee mug offered to him and placed it down on the table. Then he picked it up again, taking a small slip. He didn't know how well Ron could make coffee by hand or if he could at all, by that matter. He settled the mug upon the table again.

"You live here then?"

Ron looked up from pouring the coffee into his own mug. "Yep. The letter said-"

"Yeah," Harry interrupted, all too well remembering the letter he had written to his friends the day he left, telling them what to do with his assets, in particular Grimmauld Place, which had been in his possession ever since the death of Sirius. He moved on quickly. "And the Order? Do they ...?"

"Still meet? Occasionally, well, what's left anyway. After the war there hasn't been so much need to do it as regularly as before. Now it's just once a month. To catch up on things. You know how it is." He resumed pouring out the drink and put the coffee pot down on to the wooden table.

Harry picked up his mug and looked around the room. The silence was awkward, but who knew what to say after seven years? Harry never was the best conversationalist. "I, erm, really like what you've done with the place."

Ron looked up from his own mug. "Oh. Thanks." And resumed staring into the liquid. Minutes passed, neither of them saying a word, then ....

"Do you want to ...?" Ron gestured into moving out of the kitchen, perhaps to one of the living rooms in the house. Harry shrugged, nodded, and proceeded into moving out of the door, Ron following behind him.

*

Again, they sat across from each other, on different settees in the living room on the second floor, silently sipping their coffee, or slightly adjusting their positions, but neither saying a word. Harry broke the silence, surprised at himself for what he was saying, but he didn't care. It just seemed like a good thing to say. At least something right now.

"Have you ever watched someone while they were sleeping? No, not like that. It was years ago, in the summer of our sixth year, and we stayed up for hours, remember that?" Ron nodded, and Harry continued, not knowing why. "You were the first one to fall asleep, then her, and I just found myself ... watching. She was beautiful you know. And she never knew it. I should've told her that, a thousand times over, but I was waiting for you. Don't look at me like that, you know you should have. It drove me insane, you two. You should've told her, from the first day you met her, that she was beautiful. She had a right to know."

The boys sat there in silence a little while longer before he spoke again.

"You never knew that I told her. After you fell asleep, we carried on talking. She was almost asleep when I said it ...."

*

"Hermione, I... I love you."

She rolled over and sighed. "I love you too."

He leaned back against the foot of the bed. "But you're not in love with me. That's the difference."

*

"I doubt she even remembered that. She never said anything, so neither did I. It was better that way."

His old friend looked him in the eye. "Why are you telling me all this?"

Harry continued as though he had never spoken. 'It was hard, standing by and watching the two of you. Night after night, I just wished you'd tell her, so I could stop waiting. The night you did, you should've seen the smile on her face. Whether it be romance or the fear of confrontation, you wrote her a letter, telling her everything. She searched the whole house for you, and when she found you, she couldn't speak. She just kissed you. Things would never be the same after that." He got up to pace slowly around the room.

"It kept getting harder. I was thankful to go back to school, thing were better then. There were ... distractions. But at night it was the worst. There were no distractions at night. Only her.

"We were always 'The Trio', always the three of us. Inevitably one of us would have to step down, for the other's sake, for her sake. I just hated the fact that it had to be me. You never seemed to realise that maybe, just maybe, listening to all the things you'd done with her was hard for me. Of course, I never said a word. How could I? You were so happy."

He sat back down on the settee. "I suppose that was one of the reasons why I left. I couldn't stand it any longer."

"No one made you leave, you didn't have to go."

"What was I supposed to do?" Harry stood up again, apparently believing that pacing was better than sitting. "Just sit around and watch you live your happy life? No thank you."

Ron began to protest. "But you moved on! What about all the others-"

"What others? They were nothing compared to her," he replied bitterly.

"What about Luna?" he asked tentatively.

Harry stopped moving, not looking at Ron. When he spoke, his voice was un-naturally constrained. "What about her?"

"I thought you were getting married, that's what Fred told me-"

"Well you thought wrong, okay? There's nothing between us anymore."

*

She smoothed out the folds in her wedding gown, and looked at her reflection. She smiled. She wished her mother could be here to see this, but it didn't matter. She was sure she was watching anyway. She heard the door open, and then her father appeared beside her in the reflection. He was wearing the same tired expression he had been all day.

"Dear, don't you think you should take that off now? The last of the guests have gone home, don't you think that-"

"I will. Just, just a little longer, okay? I'll be out in a minute." Her father sighed and nodded, and left the room. Luna's smile faded. Who knew when she'd be able to wear one of these again?

He had come into her room three hours ago, looking more tired than she had seen him in weeks. She had put it down to pre-wedding jitters at first, but that wasn't the case.

He had looked so upset when he told her. This was genuine, that much she knew, but she despised his timing. The guests were waiting; everyone was ready and raring to go, except the groom.

"You want to ... to call off the wedding? Now?" she had asked.

He had nodded slowly and looked her in the eye. "It's because of her, isn't it?" He had said nothing, but she knew. "I think you should go."

"I'm sorry, Luna," he had said.

Luna had turned to face Harry. "Me too."

*

They sat, and they said nothing, for hours. Night had fallen by the time either of them had bothered to speak again. This time it was Ron. More speaking aloud than speaking to anyone, but still, his words filled the room with resounding pity and Harry stayed silent once more.

"I still talk to her you know. I know it sounds silly, but she can hear me, I know she can. I tell her I love her, and that she's beautiful. And then I look into the eyes of Rowan, and I can see her. And she's smiling." Tears silently fell down Ron's face. "Why did she have to leave?"

"She shouldn't have died like that."

"She shouldn't have died at all!" Ron stamped his foot, yelling across the room.

"She got cancer soon after we were married. Soon after Rowan was born, actually. They still say that it was the pregnancy that triggered it, but it didn't matter. Rowan was fine, and that was all that she cared about." Ron sighed and fiddled with his watch. "She always looked in so much pain. It was so hard to just it by and watch her ... but there was nothing I could do."

He stood up, silently agreeing with Harry that pacing was the better option. "I begged her to go to St Mungo's, but she was adamant; she wouldn't go. I think it was her parents who pushed her into it." He put on a high-pitched, pompous voice, " 'We will handle our own problems in our own way!' They started to put a wedge between us then. Tried to take her back into what they knew."

He slowed down, no longer speaking to Harry, more talking aloud. "Eventually, the cancer went away. She was finally going to be okay, after two years, she was finally going to be okay, and we could've gotten on with our lives. Rowan was almost three by then. She looks so much like me, the poor kid, but her eyes ... she has her mother's eyes. She's such a beautiful little girl; you should see her, Harry. She's beautiful."

Harry nodded in agreement, remembering the freckled face of the young child at the door.

"It was about a year after the cancer went away when it happened. We had been in the park, the three of us, and she, Rowan wanted to go on the swings. She began to get up, but I said I'd do it. Herm-" He didn't seem to be able to bring himself to say her name. "She looked so comfortable, half asleep on the grass, so I took Rowan instead. That was my first mistake." Ron ran his fingers through his hair and sighed deeply. Harry watched in silence; he didn't know any of this.

"They came out of nowhere. Two, or three of them Apparated right next to her, and ... and all I heard was her scream, so I grabbed Rowan and ran to her, but-but I was too late." He hung his head and stared at his hands. "It's still unclear what happened. Just all I remember was her shriek, then seeing her lying there, and Rowan crying, screaming, and all I could do was stare."

Harry said nothing, so Ron continued, "It should've been me that day. I should've let her take Rowan; I should've been the one who got hit. I suppose my second mistake was not taking my wand. I mean, who needed them back then? Things were, well they were safe. At least I thought they were."

Harry cleared his throat. "Then what happened?"

"It ... those Muggle medicine men came and tried to save her, but they couldn't. I tried to get her out of there, I could've sent for someone to help, someone who could really help, but there were so many people." Ron buried his face in his hands. "Her parents still blame me. They say it's not my fault, but you know they believe it is. You can hardly blame them really. I took away their little girl, only to lead her to her death. It was my fault she got hit."

"You can't keep blaming yourself for that."

"Oh really? Just watch me," he replied, his voice filled with resentment. "I had visited her every day. Every hospital appointment, every injection, every treatment, I had been there. And then she was fine, she had survived ... but she died anyway. Do you think all that I had done for her mattered to them? Of course it didn't, because it was my god damn fault she was there in the first place."

In retrospect, this would probably be an appropriate time for Harry to get up and go to comfort his oldest friend. But he couldn't. All he could do was sit there and watch his oldest friend beat himself up inside.

"Maybe if you hadn't of left, she'd still be alive."

Harry shook his head. "Oh, don't try and pin this on me."

"Why shouldn't I? You just turn up here and expect everything to be all right. Hermione's dead Harry. Did you think that coming back here was going to change that? 'Cause it's not. Nothing is."

He stood in silence, again, the words having escaped him, not that words would make a difference right now. Nothing would.

"Fine, you want to know why I came back? You really want to know, then fine." He rooted around in his pockets and threw something down onto the table. "There, that's why I came back."

Ron looked down to the table and saw a necklace. It wasn't particularly impressive or at all lavish to the naked eye, but there was something about it. He reached over slowly and picked up the chain tenderly, watching it glisten in the soft light.

Attached was a pendant. It looked ... strange, almost surreal somehow. He could swear that things were moving inside this tiny glass ball but he couldn't be so sure. It wasn't till he held it up to the light did he realise what he was seeing.

"That's-"

"I know."

It was Hermione. Well, her image at least, caught inside this glass ball. The Hermione in the ball was dancing, alone, or occasionally with an imaginary partner, but she was smiling and her laughter was practically echoing off the walls. Ron stared intently at her tiny figure, lost in dream, in fantasy, in love for the dearest thing in his heart.

Ron eventually broke the silence. "Why do you have this? Someone sent this to her years ago; she never said who it was."

"I gave it to her, but ... you never knew she came to visit me. Just the once. After you were married, she found me."

*

He entered the room without a word, she following closely behind him.

"You shouldn't have come."

"And why not? I haven't seen you in years, Harry, and this is how you treat an old friend?" He stared out of the window, so she was forced to talk to the back of him.

"Why did you even come here?"

She reached inside her pocket and pulled out a fine chain. "I came to give you this." He turned and saw the necklace, then looked her in the eye.

"I gave that to you, it's yours-"

"Harry, why ... what is the meaning of this?" She lifted the necklace closer to her face, surveying every detail. "Why did you give this to me?"

Harry walked across the room, and took the trinket from her hands. Inside the miniature figure of the young woman danced and twirled and laughed. She was practically glowing with light. "Do you remember our sixth year? In the summer, we were staying at Ron's, and Ron thought that it'd be a good idea to sneak down to the lake one night, lord knows why. He had gotten some fire-whisky off Fred and George, and we were all a little drunk that night." He smiled, nostalgia kicking in. "And you just started dancing, right there in the middle of the garden. You were beautiful." She stared at him, expecting more, waiting for this all to make sense.

"That memory always stayed with me. And there was this little jewelry shop near here, that, well ... it kind of works like a pensive. Storing thoughts? You can store thoughts practically anywhere, and well, I don't know. I just thought you'd like it." He smiled again, watching the tiny shimmer of his fondest memory smile and laugh. His smiled faded and he pushed the necklace back at her.

"Keep it."

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but changed her mind. "Harry, I can't."

"Why not, why can't you?"

"Because, Harry. I just can't. You don't give something like that to someone you haven't seen in five years. You don't give that to someone you no longer care about-"

He was across the room in two strides and kissing her, kissing her with everything he had to give. It took a moment for Hermione to realise what was happening and she pushed him away. "No! No, you're not doing this!"

"But I love you." He looked into her eyes, searching for any sign that she was still there. "You can't say that you don't feel something too?"

Her silence meant more than words, and tears filled her eyes but her voice did not crack as she spoke. "You left. That kind of evoked every damn right you had to know how I feel."

He let go of her arm and didn't look at her. "I'm not taking it back."

"Fine. Just do whatever the fuck you want."

She placed the necklace on the table, and turned and left. She didn't come back.

*

They said nothing, but just sat in silence for hours. Neither could sleep, and quite frankly they didn't want to. There were so many things left unsaid, but the two couldn't bring themselves to utter a word. And so they sat, and waited, for something to break the silence. The sun had begun to rise when Ron finally spoke.

"She used to ask about you a lot. When you didn't come to the wedding, you nearly broke her heart. You could see the disappointment in her eyes, and I couldn't do anything about it. I always supposed that you were going to be my best man, that we'd be the three of us again."

Harry hung his head and spoke quietly. "Things change."

"Yeah, they do." Ron bore a steely eyed expression as he looked at his friend. "Why did you even come back here?"

Harry tried to dismiss his action by waving his hand. "To pay my respects ...."

"The funeral was three months ago, Harry."

"Well, I-"

"Well what? She was your best friend! I was your best friend. But I guess things really do change after seven years. You left us. You left all of us to go bugger off to the other side of the world-"

"It was only America!"

"And forget about everything we'd ever been through. You missed the wedding, you missed the birth of Rowan, you missed her funeral, and you don't even care-"

"Cut the bullshit, okay?" Harry stood up and glared at Ron. "I loved her. I loved her more than anything. She was everything to me, but I couldn't have her. Do you know how that feels? Everyday watching her be with someone who's not me? No, no of course you don't, because she was yours." He snorted. "And I thought the hero was supposed to get the girl."

Ron threw his hands up in the air in desperation. "Oh, so that's how it goes, huh? The Magnificent Potter saves the world and that means that everyone must fall at his feet, whilst the pitiful sidekick gets walked all over?" He looked into the eyes of his old friend almost pleadingly. "Life is not a comic book and you are not a Superhero. Life is hard and it hurts, okay? That's how it goes." He watched as Harry sat back down. "She loved you. She loved you in a way that she could never love me."

"I loved her too," Harry whispered. "Every day I thought about coming back, to see her, to see you, but ... it's just not that easy. I left to get away from it all. The memories, everything that happened here, in this place," he waved his arm around the room. "I hate it all. Even now, I - I can't stand to be here. But I am. I'm here for her. And it kills me that she never knew, and it kills me that I missed the wedding and Rowan, and-and everything, and it kills me ... that she's gone." Harry's voice broke as he fought back years of suppressed emotion for the only girl he'd ever loved, the only thing that he knew was true. He pointed a shaking finger at his friend. "So don't you ever, ever say that I don't care. I never stopped caring. I never stopped thinking, I-" Harry started to stammer. "I can't do this, not here, not right now." He turned and began to walk away, but Ron stood up and called after him.

"Where are you going?"

Harry reached for the door and opened it. "Somewhere that's not here." And he left.