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English
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Part 2 of When You Left
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Love Fest 2020
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Published:
2020-02-16
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3,598
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1/1
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56
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18
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The Choices We Make

Summary:

She made choices that had far-reaching implications and consequences, and now she needed to face a hard truth.

Notes:

Written for #LF2020 #TeamAphrodite

Thanks to PotionChemist for betaing!

Work Text:

 

“You don’t know. You can never know. And that’s why we can never go back to what we were before we dated. It’s best if you don’t contact me again.”

 

Oh, Gods. Why does it hurt so much? His words are knives in my chest. I deserve them, but the pain is almost unbearable. I have to get out of here.

 

“I’m sorry,” I sob. “Goodbye, Ron.”

 

I flee. The tears I tried so hard to hold back are unstoppable now. I can’t see. Dimly, I hear the door of his flat close. The lift is down the hall, and when I reach it, I fumble for the button. After an age, the doors open and I slip inside. Hidden from view at last, I want to Apparate, but in my state I fear I’ll splinch myself. I concentrate on breathing instead of hyperventilating as the lift takes me to the ground floor.

 

I manage to find my way outside and slip down a side street. My whole body is trembling as I lean against a wall. I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead against the cool brick, trying to focus on my destination, but Ron’s final words keep invading my thoughts. 

 

It’s best if you don’t contact me again.  

 

He reacted as I feared he would. Not that I can blame him. In the end, I chose my happiness over his, and the guilt eats at me still. But I couldn’t stay with him. I just couldn’t . 

 

Okay. I think I can do it now. I think of home, of James. I turn on the spot and am sucked into the void of Apparition. Moments later, I land roughly in my living room, stumbling slightly. None of my usual grace is present, but I suppose I should just be thankful that I managed to get home in one piece. Splinching is horrid . That time Ron splinched himself when we were escaping from the Ministry was—shit. 

 

Ron. 

 

The pain comes again, a sharp twisting inside me, and I slide to the floor. A wail escapes me.

 

“Hermione?” 

 

The living room door opens and James enters. Dimly through my tears, I can see him hurrying towards me, a look of concern on his face. He sits beside me and wordlessly takes me into his arms, where I proceed to weep profusely all over his shirt. He rocks me gently and makes soft shushing noises. 

 

“I take it things didn’t go well?” he asks. 

 

Well, duh. I wouldn’t be having hysterics if it had. But I bite back my sarcastic reply. I brought this on myself, after all. “No,” I say instead, shaking my head. “He said—” 

 

I’m overcome by another bout of sobbing, so forceful I can’t speak. I can feel a headache coming on, my throat is raw, and my eyes itch and burn. I gasp in lungfuls of air, trying to calm myself enough so that I can continue. “He asked me not to contact him again.”

 

"I'm sorry, love."

 

I sniff. My chest hitches, but I'm beginning to get myself under control. "I'm sorry, too. You advised against me sending the invite, and in the end, I did it anyway. I don't know why I thought personalising it with that note would make it any better."

 

James sighs gently. To his credit, he doesn’t say, ‘I told you so,’ though I’m certain he’s thinking it. For that, I’m grateful. He’s far too good to me, and once again, I think I don’t deserve him.

 

“What’s done is done,” he says. “All you can do is try to carry on as best you can and respect Ron’s wishes.”

 

This sets me off again. Tears roll down my face anew. I just wanted what we used to have so badly — a friendship, without the complication of feelings — that I ignored common sense and decency. I feel ashamed, and I say as much to James. He’s silent, and I take that as an indication that he doesn't disagree.

 

“I think I’d like a glass of wine,” I say quietly. Actually, I’d prefer to skol down an entire bottle, but that would just end badly.

 

“I’ll get it. You sit on the couch and try to relax,” James suggests kindly. 

 

He gently slides me from his lap, stands, and offers his hands to help me up. Then he guides me to the couch and sits me down. I thank him and try to smile. Gods, what would I do without him? Ron was never good with emotion. If I got all emotional and cried in front of him, he never knew what to do. He’d pat me awkwardly on the back, give me a quick hug, and invariably mutter something like ‘I’ll just give you some space’, or ‘Don’t take on, so,’ and scuttle out of the room until my storm had passed. Not that I’ve ever been an overly emotional woman, mind, but I have my moments just like anyone else, and they seemed to terrify him.

 

My mobile beeps. I summon my handbag and fish it out to check the message. It’s from Harry. He wants to know how it went. I smile wryly and text him back. About as well as you expected it would. He asked me not to contact him again. After a few moments, a reply.

 

U ok? Want me & Gin to come over?

 

“James,” I say as he comes back into the room, a glass of white wine in his hand. “Do you mind if Harry and Ginny pop over?”

 

“Of course not,” he smiles, handing me the drink. I take it gratefully and swallow half the contents in a big gulp, then place it on the coffee table to tell Harry that yes, I would be grateful if they could. A few moments later, the Floo activates and Harry and Ginny step through, brushing the soot from their robes. Harry’s holding a six-pack of beer, and Ginny a bottle of wine.

 

“Gin insisted on bringing drinks, “ Harry explains, “And I figured you’d prefer a lager to that swill, James.” He hands him a bottle, taking one himself.

 

“Grand.” James nods enthusiastically. “Thanks, Harry.”

 

My friends sit down while James goes to put away the drinks and bring Ginny a glass from the bottle he’d just opened, topping mine off at the same time.

 

“So,” Ginny asks sympathetically. “What happened?”

 

I tell the story once again, calmer this time. My heart still hurts, and the shame I feel at ripping Ron’s wounds open again still burns a hole in my stomach, but I’m no longer a blubbering mess and am able to recount our exchange in a voice that shakes only a little.

 

“Ron will move on eventually.” Ginny tries to comfort me. “Although I don’t think he’ll ever accept that the two of you weren’t right for each other.” 

 

I’m so grateful for her. When I left Ron, she was the only person who didn’t hold it against me. She stuck by me the whole time, even when everyone else was calling me a piece of shit and a heartless bitch and all manner of things. After the Prophet got wind of it, I even got Howlers from perfect strangers, for Merlin’s sake! Saying things like, Ron deserves 1000000 times better than you and You’re such a piece of crap and I hope your whole life falls apart. Honestly!

 

The Prophet only ever reports one side of the story, of course. In saying that, I wasn’t going to fuel any fires by trying to tell my side. It was quite simple, really. Ron and I wanted different things. Everyone thinks I left him because I got promoted (and because of James), but that isn’t true. Well, not entirely.

 

“He’ll come around, ‘Mione,” Harry says. I snort indelicately.

 

“No, he won’t, Harry, and we all know it,” I say. “I should never have sent the invite in the first place. It was short-sighted and selfish. I put my stupid fantasties of us all being good friends again first, instead of thinking about how he would react. I guess I just—” I shrug my shoulders helplessly. “I thought that if I personalised the invite, it would soften things a bit. Give him pause, you know?”

 

Harry nods slowly. He doesn’t know, but he’s too polite to say. He wasn’t polite when I asked him and Ginny whether I should invite Ron, though. He’d told me not to be bloody stupid and that Ron would take it badly; and that I would be better off accepting that there was no way anyone would be able to convince him to attend, let alone me. Stubborn old me though, thinking I knew best. I had to go and ignore everyone’s advice — and my own, for that matter. What had Alice said after she got lost in Wonderland? I give myself such very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.

 

I consider myself lucky that Harry, at least, is still my friend. I think a lot of that has to do with Ginny. He’s a pushover when it comes to her. The two of them had several rows over me after I left Ron, and Harry wouldn’t speak to me at all for several months, but eventually Ginny coaxed him round. She convinced him to meet James, to see the difference for himself.

 

“I’ve been trying and trying to tell him you’re so much happier now, and that you're far better suited to James than Ron,” she told me at one point, shortly before Harry finally agreed to meet him. “I think he was just as convinced as everyone else that you and Ron were some fairytale couple, and he was refusing to consider any alternative.”

 

Surprisingly, James and Harry got on like a house on fire. This, coupled with him no longer refusing to have anything to do with me, caused some friction between Harry and Ron, which made my guilt even worse. I didn’t want them fighting over me like that, and I told Harry he shouldn’t sacrifice his own friendship for my sake, even though it terrified me to do it. What if I lost Harry, too? But in the end, Ron relented, although he made it clear he still felt extremely put upon that Harry was choosing to remain friends with us both.

 

I think Ginny had something to do with that, too. She’s quite frightening when she wants to be. She probably threatened to make bats come out of an orifice other than his nose or something. She’s extremely handy with that hex.

 

“Another wine?” Ginny asks. I look down in surprise — my glass is empty. Huh. 

 

“Yes, please,” I answer. I really shouldn’t — I drank the last glass and a half so quickly — but what the hell. She summons the bottle and refills my glass, then hers, and gives me a hug.

 

“Maybe sending the invite wasn’t the right decision, but leaving Ron was,” she says firmly. 

 

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “I hate to admit it because it feels disloyal to Ron, but the two of you—” he nods towards James “—work so well together. I didn’t realise how different you and Ron were until after I saw you with James.”

 

“Thank you, Harry,” I say softly. James, sitting beside me, places a hand on my knee.

 

Everyone thinks James was one of the principal reasons I left Ron, after my new job, but truthfully, our relationship had begun to erode long before that. At that time, I didn't want to admit that it was happening, but it was. It was just that everyone had such high expectations of us. We were one of the golden couples, with Harry and Ginny the other. We were all meant to live happily ever after in our assigned pairings, and eventually send the next generation of magical children off to Hogwarts.

 

I’ve always been driven. Sweet Salazar, everyone knows that. At Hogwarts, I was determined to excel, even more so because of my blood status. I felt I had something to prove, and I suppose I did need to prove myself to certain people. Certainly no one believed in my abilities as much as I did. That didn’t change once we graduated. I was determined to secure a position in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and I did. My next goal was to advance my position, and I achieved that, too.

 

Ron tolerated my ambition and dedication to my work, but he didn’t understand it. What he really wanted was for us to have a family, and for me to eventually become a stay-at-home mum like Molly. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted children at all, and in truth, I’m still undecided. It’s hard enough in the Muggle world for women to juggle a demanding career with parenthood, but in the Wizarding world, it’s near impossible. The children issue had been a bone of contention between us for at least a year before I was promoted to the Head of Department.

 

“Is anyone hungry?” James asked. 

 

Harry and Ginny agree enthusiastically, and I find myself nodding also. My stomach growls. Also, it would be wise for me to have something to absorb the alcohol.

 

“Right, I’ll go get us a takeaway,” he says, standing. “Want to come for a walk, Harry?”

 

“Yeah,” Harry says. The two get up and transfigure their robes into Muggle clothes before leaving the flat.

 

I turn to Ginny. “Will I ever stop feeling so wretched?” I sigh.

 

“I don’t know.” she answers honestly. “I think you’ll always feel a bit guilty, Hermione, but you’ll just have to learn to live with it. Just as Ron will have to live with the fact you’ve moved on.”

 

“Sometimes I wonder if it was all really worth it,” I admit. “I love James more than I can comprehend, and I’m grateful for him every single day, but it’s caused so much contention.”

 

I first met James about six months before I was given the Head’s position. He worked in legislation, reviewing existing laws and consulting on new ones that were being drafted. I wasn’t attracted to him immediately, but to my shame and guilt, I quickly became aware that he was in my thoughts a little more than what was appropriate for someone who was already in a committed relationship.

 

What drew my attention was our shared passion for the rights of magical creatures and a drive to challenge the laws that disadvantaged and enabled prejudice towards them; and a desire to change society’s attitude towards Muggleborns like myself. But what truly enamoured him to me was the way he valued my mind. He challenged me, both intellectually and professionally, in a way that Ron had never been capable of. Where James encouraged my love for learning and respected my intellect, Ron had very little interest in either and was sometimes intimidated by it. We certainly could never have a debate over an aspect of law, or the treatment of werewolves, or the rights of Muggleborns to be afforded the same opportunities as purebloods. 

 

I soon realised that I was under-stimulated in my relationship with Ron, and felt like I could never reach my full potential while he and I were together. He wanted a simple, homely life. I wanted to affect change and challenge boundaries, to break through the glass ceiling. And after I was promoted, Ron began to resent my new role. He complained I worked long hours and was too focused on my career. He wanted to know when I would start scaling my workload back and began pressuring me to have a family. It caused me so much frustration — he didn’t seem to understand that longer hours and more commitments came with being a department head, and I could hardly take time off to have children so soon after being given the position. That, more than anything, was what made me realise he and I were never going to work.

 

The boys come back with the takeaway. Ginny and I head into the kitchen to grab plates and cutlery, and refresh everyone’s drinks. I could have summoned them, but sometimes I still like to do things the Muggle way. James thinks it’s sweet. Ron would just roll his eyes and say, ‘Why would you want to do things the hard way when you’ve got magic?’

 

For the next while, everyone is silent as we concentrate on eating. Then James asks Ginny about Quidditch and she’s off like a rocket, enthusiastically talking about her training and the Harpies’ upcoming tour. She got scouted in her final year at Hogwarts and joined the team the moment she graduated. Molly was very put out. She wanted Ginny to start planning a wedding right away and start popping out grandchildren. The two of them had had a terrific row about it. Ginny and Harry didn’t intend to get married anytime soon, preferring to live as a couple at Grimmauld Place, which offended Molly’s traditional sensibilities. She hated the idea of her daughter living in sin with a man she wasn’t married to, even if that man was Harry Potter. 

 

She’d reacted similarly to the idea of Ron and I living together, though was notably less pushy about it, likely because Ron was a boy, so it wasn’t as bad in her mind. But when I left Ron, she’d been quite awful. I was saddened, but not surprised, and in fact I was more afraid of Molly’s reaction than anyone else’s. I’d never trusted her completely, not since our fourth year when she had so viciously turned on me based on nothing more than vindictive gossip in that ridiculous magazine. She’d bad-mouthed me to anyone who would listen, calling me a hussy and a manipulator, accusing me of having an affair with James. 

 

I didn’t, of course — whatever else anyone may think of me, I’d never cheat. I’ve been accused of being emotionally unfaithful, and I suppose that’s not entirely unjustified. I couldn’t help my feelings for James, though, and I did try my best to resist them. A few months after I left Ron, James asked me out for the first time, but I refused. I desperately wanted to say yes, but felt too guilty. Plus, I was aware of what everyone would say, and I wasn’t sure I could face the reaction. It was Ginny who convinced me in the end, and I finally went on a date with James almost six months after Ron and I broke up. After that one date, I was done for. I just knew he was my one . And, despite my residual feelings of guilt, I was finally truly happy in a way I never had been before.

 

James proposed after only a few months. I wanted Ron to come, even though logic told me he wouldn’t want to be there. James, Harry and Ginny all tried to tell me the same, and I wavered back and forth for ages over what to do. Then we set a date, and the invitation templates came back from the printers, ready to have the invitees’ name spelled onto them, and I just… I had a moment of madness. I put Ron’s name on an invite, wrote the note, and sent it off. Moments after I’d done it, I felt a sense of foreboding and regret. But it was too late to undo it.

 

After several weeks, when I hadn’t heard back from him — and I really hadn't expected that I would — I decided that I would have to face the music and go to see him in person. I did that today, and, well — it went as I expected. Which brings us back to where we are now. Me feeling like utter shite, heartbroken at knowing my choices meant I’ve lost a dear friend and overcome with guilt and shame at how much pain I’ve caused him.

 

“We should probably get going,” Ginny says apologetically. I look at my watch and am surprised to see it’s after ten pm. 

 

“Thank you so much for being there for me. Both of you.” I say to her and Harry. “It means more than you could ever know to have you in my life.”

 

“Of course,” Ginny says with a smile. “We love you, Hermione. And I’ll personally hex the living shit out of anyone who badmouths you.”

 

I embrace them both tightly, first Harry, then Ginny. We say goodnight, and they leave.

 

James banishes the dinner things to the kitchen and wraps his arms around me, placing a kiss to the top of my head. “How are you feeling now?” he murmurs.

 

I sigh contentedly and rest the side of my face against his chest, putting my own arms around his waist. “Still not great, and I’m still not completely ready to accept Ron and I will never reconcile, but I’ll just have to muddle through it,” I reply.

 

“And I’ll be here for you in the meantime,” he declares.

 

“Thank you,” I smile, pulling back to kiss him. He kisses me back, and a feeling of warmth spreads through my whole body. 

 

“Let’s go to bed,” James suggests. 

 

“Yes,” I agree. Arms still around each other, we walk towards our bedroom. As we enter, I flick my wand to turn out the lights in the rest of the house.

 

I’m not at peace, not by a long shot. But one day, I will be.

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