Not In Kansas Anymore

Chapter Two: Tears on High Quality Parchment

The voices were talking...mentally she scolded herself...of course the voices were talking...that's what voices did...they talked. For a moment she listened to the jumble of masculine tones before the baritones and tenors straightened themselves out and she could hear the words. It took a moment longer before she could grasp the meaning, and then another few minutes before she could follow the conversation and differentiate who was saying what.

"...Did the doctor say?" asked a light voice, Harry's voice.

"They said that she'll be fine," answered a much deeper voice, laced and cracking with concern, it was Ron's voice.

"But why did she faint?" that was Harry again.

"They said she needs to eat more, say maybe she's got too much stress in her life, that she needs to take a break and maybe see a counselor," answered Ron rather regretfully.

Hermione's eyes flared open and she struggled to sit up on her still weak arms. "They want me to see a shrink?" she questioned sarcastically, managing to only sit up half way.

Ron turned around, he was still wearing his dress robes, black, but Hermione noticed he didn't have his ring on anymore. "Hermione sit down you need your rest!" He tried to gently lower her back on to a tower of pillows.

She slapped his hands away, scolding she asked, "What happened?" She asked looking accusingly from Ron to Harry and back to Ron again. Ron's ears hurriedly cringed crimson and Harry ran a hand through his hair, looking anywhere but at her face. "Come on, tell me!" she demanded her voice rising sharply.

"Err...you fainted," mumbled Ron, still half holding her.

Hermione promptly felt the strength leave her arms and Ron was now supporting the weight of her upper body. He leaned her upright on the white fluffy pillows that were starched with hospital sanitizing spells. "I fainted?" she asked meekly.

"At our wedding,"

"Oh dear," she said dreamily.

"Yes oh dear," replied Ron, it was only then that Hermione noticed Harry had left the room, the doors at the end of the ward swinging in his wake.

Cautiously he sat down in a chair next to her bed and held her hand, rubbing his thumb over her bony wrist. "So I'm overworked?" she asked, injecting as much sarcasm into her words as possible, laughing roughly.

"Are you?" question Ron uncertainly.

"What?" she sputtered.

"Are you overworked, Hermione I know you, you're a perfectionist, is that finally taking a toll on you? Is there too much stress?"

Hermione leaned back further into her pillows, trying to hide herself in the goose down feathers, she wasn't quite sure how to answer. She only worked part time at Flourish and Blotts and then a few odd hours with Fred and George in the joke shop...so she wasn't really sure how taxing that was. But there was the left over book keeping for the Order, that always bombarded her with memories, most of them sour flashes of yellowing obituaries.

"No--no, no, really it's not stress Ron, I work two very low-maintenance jobs, the stress level is unbelievably low, free almost," she said, staring glumly at the ceiling.

Ron licked his lips and held back any rude comments he wanted to make and settled for asking "Are you sure?" though it was a question he wanted the answer to so he could reassure himself that he was not in love with a lunatic.

Through gritted teeth Hermione hissed, "Yes Ron, I'm sure. I work with Fred and George! How stressful can a job with Fred and George be?"

"Hermione calm down, you might faint again," he moved his chair closer to the bed and leaned his elbow on the edge of the mattress so he could look into her eyes, and he delicately ran the back of his hand over the smooth skin of her face. "Why then love? Why?"

She reached up to her face and moved Ron's hand away, titling her head sideways so she was looking in the opposite direction. "I don't know." She said this so easily that she almost convinced herself.

Backing away a bit Ron said, "Hermione, the healers think you might have an eating disorder."

She smiled wryly, "I eat Ron, just not as much as the normal person."

"That's not true Hermione, the healers told Harry and I their suspicions and it started to make sense. You haven't been eating very well lately."

"I know Ron," she said in a carefully measured voice, "but do you know why Ron?"

"No."

Taking a deep breath she started to talk, telling him a story of sorts, a dastardly fairytale, "Have you ever thought that maybe we..."

*

Hermione shifted her papers around, "Here Ginny, can you take these to the post office?"

Ginny looked at her friend, suffocating underneath mounds of wedding preparations while her brother played professional Quidditch. "Sure...but Hermione are you sure you want to try this again? After the first try?"

"Yes," answered Hermione, not giving herself a moment to be honest.

Ginny took the tall piles of neatly folded invitations but she sat down next to Hermione, grabbing her friend's fluttering hands and holding them. "So soon?"

"Of course," she answered, freeing her hands and moving on to name cards for the reception and dinner.

Ginny surprised Hermione by abruptly dropping all the invitations on the ground and pulling her hands back harshly. "Hermione Jane Granger, look at me and don't you dare interrupt!" Hermione turned toward her angrily. "You are a seventeen year old girl, holding two jobs, you parents are both dead, and your first wedding was ruined by a mixture of rain and a rampaging chimera! Are you really ready to try that again so soon?"

"We're having an indoor ceremony to avoid angry wildlife, Dumbdlore has offered us the Great Hall!"

"You're avoiding the question again! Are you sure this is what you want? You're going through this mess again! More invitations, you've had to order more flowers, more food, the announcement went through the Prophet twice, are you sure?" Ginny squeezed her wrists, and Hermione could feel her pulse straining to press through

"Y-yes...yes of course I'm sure this is what I want."

Ginny left after that, dropping her hands limply and scooping up the fallen letters. She left Hermione's flat hurriedly, wondering if Hermione and her brother really were meant to be.

*

"Not meant to be?" Ron asked, taking his hand away from under Hermione's. He looked hurt, though he was trying to hide it, his eyes still glistened with raw emotion. Sitting back deeply in his chair he looked like he wanted nothing more than to disappear on the spot.

Hermione looked miserable. "Ron, look at all the evidence stacked up against us! A war dominating the majority of our relationship, constant arguments, and now our second attempt to get married mauled by me!"

"But Hermione I love you!" he cried earnestly, moving toward the very edge of his seat, tipping the back legs off the ground.

Hermione sobbed into her fragile hands. "I love you Ron...I do! It's just that I need a break! I need to--to--I don't know what I need--but marriage isn't an option!" She sobbed tragically, the loud bursts echoing around the cold, nearly sterile room. It took her a few tugs, but she managed to get the rings off her finger, she shoved them into Ron's hand.

Gaping he looked at his open palm. "I'll miss you," he mumbled as he stood up and kissed the top of her forehead.

He began to walk away when Hermione stretched out a hand and gave a dainty tug to his sleeve; "I'll love you missing me forever."

Ron managed to find his way out of the ward; Harry was leaning against the wall beside the doors talking cordially with a portrait when he saw Ron leave the room staggering lopsidedly he jolted from the wall and caught his best friend on the shoulder. "What is it Ron?"

"We're done," he gasped, wording hopelessly silent thoughts after that.

Harry's eyebrows furrowed together, "Done?" he gaped at Ron, who had yet to turn and face him. Ron just opened his sweaty palm to reveal the glittering wedding band and engagement rings. "God. Ron are you alright?" Harry tried to maneuver Ron into a chair in the sitting area but Ron waved him away, moving toward the stairwell.

"Not now Harry, latter."

Harry watched as his best friend made his way heavily down the stairs, his grievous footfalls reverberating off the closed space off the stairwell. Turning Harry unbuttoned the last few buttons on his robes, with them open a plain white dress shirt and black slacks were revealed. He strode thoughtfully into Hermione's ward.

He settled down on the foot of her bed, she wasn't facing him though, and she didn't turn her head when he sat down. "Hermione?" he whispered, rubbing her foot through the thin sheets covering the lower half of her body.

"Harry?" still she didn't look at him.

"He left, you broke his heart," he pulled his feet up on the bed too, kicking off his shoes and sitting cross-legged.

Struggling Hermione succeeded in sitting up right. "I know," she knotted her hands together, "but it had to happen, I'm not ready Harry, and not with him, not now--"

Harry examined her face, her cheeks were dry, completely dry, her pillow wasn't damp, and then he knew. "Not ever," he finished.

"How?" she gasped.

He smiled knowingly. "I just did."

*

Harry found Hermione in the back corner of the library; she was settled on the floor with books scattered haphazardly around her in every direction. She was eating small pieces of Easter fudge Mrs. Weasley had mailed them the week previous, just before the end of the holidays. "What's up?" he asked joining her on the floor, making doubly sure he didn't misplace a book or wrinkle the edge of a bit of drying parchment.

Hermione shot him a dirty look over her fudge.

Harry laughed lightly and tossed her a hot water bottle from the folds of his robes. "Ron didn't know did he?"

"How did you?" marveled Hermione, leaning against a dusty shelf with the hot water bottle as comfort.

"I just did," answered Harry, shrugging. Then he tried to take a piece of the fudge; his hand was met with a firm stab from a sharp quill.

"Good bye Harry," said Hermione sternly.

Smiling gallantly Harry stood back up and said teasingly, "Bloody hell woman, have fun you crank," nodding his head mockingly he left the library and its haunts sucking on the back of his hand.

*

"I should never have let him believe that we were forever," she said guiltily shaking her head.

Harry nodded in agreement. "No, you shouldn't have," he choose his next words very carefully, "but I understand why you did."

Hermione cocked her head carefully. "Really?" she arched a carefully sculpted eyebrow in disbelief.

"Kind of, its like when Sirius died. You needed a wall to hold on to, maybe you shouldn't have hung on for so long, but I can understand the mentality."

Hermione heaved a deep sigh of relief, but before she could ask Harry her next question he interjected with an answer, "He'll be back, he'll heal, he's still your best friend...mind at the moment he doesn't think much of you, but he'll love you unconditionally."

She tried to hold in her tears, really she did, but she just couldn't quite manage to do that. It was relief, and hope, joy and pain, worry and self-doubt that clouded her eyes. The tears poured down her face irrationally, they were painful and shattering but they made their way down her face regardless of the discomfort. Harry moved next to her and wrapped his strong protective arms around her feeble physique, he held her as the tears continued to come. Then he held her while she tried to overcome them, tried to halt their strenuous progress, and then he held her when she lost that battle and new waves crackled free of her bindings. The last tears she had cried like this had been for her parents, and that had been a year

*

and a half after they left her Hermione found herself looking down at the simple graves of her parents. "Why did you leave me here?" she asked them, asked them over and over, sometimes through waterfalls of tears and other times through shouts of despair. She never counted how many times she visited them, never knew the distance between her visits, nor knew how long she talked to their grave markers. The only thing that kept the time were the flowers that rested on the green grass, she knew she had been neglecting her daughterly duty if the flowers were wilted and blemished, or if they weren't there carried off by the deadwind. She knew when she was obsessing if the tissue paper was still wrapped around the crunchy stems of the flowers.

She liked to venture there by herself. Alone, just her and her parents, like it had been through her childhood. She had been raised an only child and it is at times like she spends in the cemetery that she is glad she is an only child, this way she can not encounter brothers in sisters when she is steaming or mourning.

She never wore black when she went for a visit, or if she did it was a rarity. The trips run together, sometimes they are anticipated by an itch deep in her gut, but mostly she just feels a sudden and abrupt tug and finds herself sitting between them in clothes that are usually very inappropriate.

That particular day she was wearing her sleep cloths, a pair of vixen red satin pajama bottoms that Ginny had given her the year previous at Christmas and a lacey push-up bra. It didn't frazzle her when she found her self in the cold, dank area, sitting in the dewy grass, just as the sun came crawling up over that horizon.

She sat peacefully, one hand resting on each stone. She was unaware of her eyes falling shut just as the sun made its finale burst, she never knew that a man slowly approached her over the grassy moors and covered her with his thick black cloak, he smiled to himself in awe. He just cast a brief return to owner spell over it and left with his hands in his pocket.

Moments latter Harry Potter came over that same moor, looking for Hermione, he saw her and the cloak and didn't get any closer. He stood in the shadows of the trees, watching her, when she found herself draped in the heavy black wool she ran a hand over it curiously, sticking a hand in the pocket to find a peppermint and a note...

*

Hermione jumped a bit in Harry's arms as she woke up, he looked down at her and said, "All better?"

"Can I have a peppermint?" she asked, wondering where this craving was coming from.

Harry looked at her funny, "A peppermint?" he asked, she nodded eagerly. "I haven't got one Hermione, but the healers say that you can leave."

"Good," she started to slide out of her bead when Harry tossed her his robes. "Wha-?"

"Those or your wedding dress," he said turning around so she could change. She fumbled with the clasps for a moment but managed, they were dense with folds of fine fabric, and the shoulders slid down over her shoulder blades.

She rolled the too big sleeves up to her elbows and then, while Harry was still turned around stuck her hand into the pocket of the robes...

*

The parchment was a high quality and Hermione ran the even edges over the pad of her thumb, she was about to crack it open when the cloak vanished with a swish of cool air and the hum of magic.

Hermione gave a gasp and looked up at the sky, knowing that it wouldn't be there, but the sun was perched on the verge of high noon and she was late for work.

She Apparated quickly away from the plots and scrambled about her flat tossing on robes quickly, leaving her flat again she darted down the fire escape, he sandals clanking loudly against the metal. She made it to the bottom in what was probably a record time, and saw the quick colors of Diagon Alley spreading out before her. It took a bit of will power but she made the five blocks to Flourish and Blotts in a few short spurts of speed.

It was on her break, as she wandered aimlessly though the shops that she read the note...Now, where should I go about trying to purchase such fine sleep wear? Blushing Hermione put the note back into her pocket and chuckled lightly as she meandered back to work.

*

The pocket was empty and Hermione turned back to Harry slightly disappointed. "Shall we?" asked Harry, offering his arm. Hermione took his arm and they left for street exit, the nurses didn't want her Apparating after a fainting spell.

"Anything you need?" asked Harry as he put her on the Underground.

"No, I'll owl you if I do, but I think I need to be alone for a bit."

"Okay, go eat something Hermione," he kissed her cheek and then found himself a shadowy overhang to Disapparate from.

"Yes doctor," she mumbled to the dark space where he had been, looking at the Muggle money in her hand that Harry had given her for the ticket she found a woman with an extended coffee cup and added the change to her collection before leaving in the same fashion Harry had.