Tomorrow

Prompt: Desperate!Harry. Religion. Hermione struggles with her identity.
Summary: After her parent’s death, Hermione runs away to only be found by Harry.

It was only a fortnight past when she heard the knock on her door.

Her arms simply wrapped themselves over her threadbare sweater. A desolate bulb flickered on and off over her head and she couldn’t help but look over at the the bottom opening of the door.

That sheer sliver that caused her to clutch my head in the wake of the sounds that assaulted her ears. That opening that made her notice the white soles of some run-down trainers.

Her breath was already caught, tangled up in her chords, when he stepped in.

He reclined on the wooden doorway, a white knuckled hand grasping the knob. She remained still on the bed, pulling her bare legs closer to her chest.

He stared.

“I thought I said goodbye to you.” It comes unbidden from her lips. Yet, yet, that’s the only shred of defiance she can muster. Only scared, wary eyes can face his everlasting stare behind her mangy hair.

“Too bad I haven’t.” With that he jams the door in its place and she still doesn’t tell him to go away. She wants him to, that’s what she’s been wanting and has done for these last two weeks...

Yet, yet, she remains there on the sloping bed.

Doing nothing.

But her uncut nails pinch her skin hard and the pain feels so delicious. It heightens the moment and a breath, that knot, loosens itself.

He merely continues staring and rests those pale, long fingers on her knee.

Stop, please just stop it.

His eyes soften further, but that razor-sharp blade he keeps behind makes her wary of letting down her guard. Too bad he already knew what she wanted to do. Too bad he came here prepared.

“How bad does it hurt?”

Her lips are chapped and she really doesn’t want to talk. He’s caught her in one of those moments when she leaves behind common sense. Where she leaves behind that cool, logical girl he’s always known. The girl he took for granted.

The girl she had assassinated.

All for attention, all for normality, all for the end result of this, her vulnerability. Her complete breakdown.

“So much.” His hand moves soft circles on her knee. Her voice hitches and he’s discovered a crack in her dam.

“At times I think I’m fine, I was fine, you didn’t notice anything different,” she can’t control what comes out of her mouth next, “You didn’t notice anything at all.”

She had hoped his reaction would have been different. She had hoped that he would have looked at her with those warm algae eyes of his and told her he had. He just, he just... didn’t care?

That’s what it came down to. And that’s why he winces.

“I,” his hand leaves her knee, only through a glance does she notice how his shaky hand rubs underneath those trademark glasses of his. “I am so sorry, Hermione.”

The bags under his eyes are visible. They bulge and are beautiful in their own way by adding evidence to Harry’s story. They make him look like the man who cared for his cause and they make her acknowledge his sincerity.

“You know those words are meaningless. Sorry, sorry, sorry. They don’t do much but waste breath.”

A bitter smile graces his taut face. He kicks off those soggy trainers and lays behind her. The nostalgia rises within her as she finally starts to relax at his gesture. It brings back memories of her head resting on his shoulder as she read to him in the common room. Where his head would loll atop hers and he’d swear that he didn’t fall asleep but was simply absorbing the material and, by the way, great shampoo.

“I remember when Sirius died. I hated, detested, that word. Only because no one knew what they should feel sorry for. They were sorry about the article, about believing me to be a spoiled prince. I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care!”

His eyes gain a slight crazed look to them. Her mouth remains a slight ‘o.’ She doesn’t think he remembers she’s in the room at the moment. Or that he remembers how their relationship is supposed to be. Strained. Awkward. Nonexistent.

She doesn’t think she still believes that anymore.

He continues, unfazed.

“I couldn’t stand being around anyone. It all seemed superficial, remember? Especially after their treatment, but I was used to that. I didn’t need them. I had you and Ron.”

She knows where this is headed and she wants to stuff her wrist in her mouth and bite. She wants to go on pretending she’s alone and that Harry isn’t right beside her with his hand raised. Raised in order to turn her head towards his.

“What I don’t understand is why you can’t rely on us.”

She’s shaking but his hand lays softly against her cheek and she can’t turn away.

“How did you find me?” comes her strangled whisper.

“You must be mad to think I wouldn’t notice you were gone and that I wouldn’t find you.”

“Am I?” she knocks his hand away and gets up. Suddenly that fury and those repressed feelings surface and they break skin. “Come on! You didn’t give a damn about me! It was always taken for granted, whatever I did. I was always just that nagging voice you wanted to shut up.”

“That’s not true! I couldn’t stop hearing your nagging voice even if I tried!”

Time stands still and both of them breathe hard. She’s receding into that pathetic creature she’s been turning into and he’s watching her.

“But you’ve tried and succeeded.”

Soft murmur she wants to take back. He wishes he didn’t hear it.

“How did this happen?” He cradles his head in his hands. He’s stuck in her shadows, in that shoddy chair the Bed and Breakfast had provided for her commodity.

“I don’t know.”

It hurts her that their breaking bond can’t be denied. It hurts her that they both had chosen separate paths and maybe that it’ll continue being that way.

“If I can change -”
“ - You can’t.”

Those bitter words hang on her tongue and his only response is to get those hung jeans on the back of the chair and toss them towards her.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

_________________

Reluctantly, she leaves and the overcast sky goes well with her pale parlor. Despite it being his suggestion, she leads the way. The dewy grass leaves wet patches on the bottom of her jeans and they’re soaked.

For the first time, he initiates a handhold. She doesn’t hesitate to take it.

“So, Ireland?”

Her eyes gain a wistful quality. A small smile flits across those cracked lips.

“My grandmother loved it here. She said that this is how the world was supposed to be. Rural, calm, peaceful. Familiar. Ironic, isn’t it? Considering the IRA bombs... But she said that’s part of life. There has to be pain.”

She tugs on his arm and they follow a cobble-stoned pathway. She jumps to each sparsed one and curses if her heel touches the germinating grass.

“Sounds like an optimist.”

Abruptly, she stops and he can see a quaint chapel looming ahead. Her breath is marked by the slight fog enveloping them.

“She actually was. Damn religious too. My grandmum would never be seen Sunday without her top hat and gloved hands holding a pocket-sized bible. She would make me put on some of those get-ups that demanded a petty-coat and they weighed so much... I cried once because my hair would get in some deadly tangles and I couldn’t be less than perfect for grandmum and God.”

Her voice starts withering and her eyes are getting teary again. She hastily wipes her lashes.

“I just lost it and I started shouting that I couldn’t go. It wasn’t that horrible even but I made a huge fuss. Well, you can imagine my grandmum, Mrs. Prim and Proper. She spanked me hard and I couldn’t believe it. I never had done anything to deserve her wrath and my mum did nothing but watch. That day she made me be part of the choir. Like I had to compensate... What? I don’t know. But I know, ever since that day, I made sure I wouldn’t do anything to disappoint her.”

He squeezes her hand and she shakes her head.

“It’s ridiculous the lengths I went to. But every summer I would come here and tell my grandmum about being top of the class and she’d smile but my prayers only mattered. I didn’t like it. The wood was hard on my knees and by the time I wanted to go to sleep, that’s just what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to see her in my doorway, grading my posture and my recitations. Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name... I can still tell it to you. But it won’t mean anything from my lips.”

By this time they’re right outside the simple chapel that has vines wound around a cross that stands proudly on the roof. Hermione only gazes at it, bewildered.

“Have you ever gone to mass, Harry?”

They both crouch down on the steps leading up the the Church. The evening session had started and a symphony of cherubic voices filters out.

“I think - once. It was Christmas and Mrs. Figg couldn’t take care of me (I think she wanted me to get out of the neighborhood) and to keep up appearances, the Dursleys took me. I guess only because it was crowded and I wouldn’t be noticed. I didn’t understand a word of it. But this woman in front of me, she looked right off the streets, but it didn’t matter. She looked...otherwordly, real dedicated. Her eyes were closed all the time and she looked as if she knew where she belonged in the world.”

“Wish I can say the same.” She looks down at their hands but he only reclines on the stone.

“I can,” he blows out sadly.

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, than no. And you can very well shut it.”

He laughs and she purses her lips. The effort causes a trickle of blood to come out. But she doesn’t relent from her proud stare. He wipes it off with his sleeve.

“Do you think we can recover?”

“I have lots of things to recover from.” is her reply.

And he knows this. He has only to look at that black letter with a burgundy seal locked in her vanity drawer to know of what she was reeling from two weeks past when her parents were slain. He has only to look at her blunt planner to see her note on the margin “Grandmum - deceased” on October 31st, 1996.

He has only to look at her now to know.

He wished his obliviousness had been brief. He wished he had not distanced himself from her to have missed the symptoms.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner.”
“I’m sorry for not saying anything but lashing out sixth year and keeping quiet these past few months. I can’t believe her death changed me so badly... She would have whipped me had she seen.... Well, that is if she got past that ‘witch’ part of me. You know, mother and father never told her. Didn’t know how to break it to a devout Catholic. She would have had me exorcised....”

She releases a bitter laugh.

“I guess I have to thank my parents for being reasonable non-religious Muggles then...”
“Do you miss them?”

She hums under her breath to what he can tell is a familiar tune from the inside. Her eyes remain closed as she answers him.

“I miss the idea of them. The what-if’s that I could have had with them, mostly. Is that sad?”
“If it is, I suffer from the same thing.”

They both lean on one another and the sky is getting dark. She shifts and her brown eyes look questionably at him.

“You never answered me: How did you find me? Here, of all places.”
“I’m not incompetent, Hermione.”
“I’m not saying you are.”
“Does it matter anyway? Now?”
“No, no it doesn’t.”

That story is for another day. Maybe tomorrow when they both manage to crawl into that breaking-bed in her B&B or when he starts packing for her. Maybe when she resentfully gets on a ferry to stall time for their return towards home. And maybe after she visits her family’s graves.

But, for now, conversation isn’t required and his fingers entangled with hers is all that she cares about.

“No, just that you found me again.”

A/N: If this sounds familiar, it was an entry for the lj community hhr_serendpity. For those curious about Tabula Rasa, I am revising bits and writing for it as we read. RL has been hectic so sorry for what seems was a hiatus.