Hermione was alone.
Her parents were hopeless causes that have been moved from the Janus Thickey Ward back to Australia. Nothing any certified Mind Healer could do would erase the Obliviate that she performed on them when she was seventeen. They will never be her parents again.
She sat in the very last Metro car, tapping her fingers against her thighs as the car shook with movement below London. She could almost hear the staccato tapping in rhythm to the slow breathing she was forcing herself to do. She clicked open her mobile to see she had a couple hours before the latest Ministry gala began. The seventh anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.
The static broke the rhythm, announcing her stop. She stood up, quickly assessing the empty Metro car before it began to brake. She casts a sticking charm to her shoes, waiting for the doors to open so she could get to her flat and get ready. She’s supposed to floo in to the Burrow where Ginny and Harry would join them before leaving.
She drags her feet up the steps, the dreary London rain setting the tone of her racing thoughts as she slowly makes her way through the empty streets. She fingers through her keys, looping the ring holding a kangaroos medallion around her finger before spinning them around. She unlocks her flat and sends out a few tracking spells into the darkness. Her paranoia drives her into an obsessive need to make sure everything is the same. She walks around the living area, replacing the books purposefully placed back to their original resting places. She checks the time again. An hour and fifteen minutes.
She opens a bottle of red Zinfandel, filling her takeaway cup with most of the bottle before she replaces the lid, sucking up a mouthful through the white and yellow straw. She still hasn’t gotten used to the attention gained by being friends with Harry Potter. From being a part of the “Golden Trio.” She needed liquid courage for almost every big Ministry event. Ron brought it up once, a few months ago when she arrived pissed drunk and barely standing.
But that was a special case. That’s the night she found out that Ron was planning to propose to her.
She’d figured out all the clues. Molly not wearing her own wedding ring for a few weeks before it was replaced by a different one. The late nights Ron spent with Harry and Ginny. The speech he prepared for her that he probably has memorized by now.
It’s probably going to happen tonight and she was not ready.
She knew saying no would cause a scandal…cause irreparable damage to their friendship and relationships. She grabbed the hanger holding her merlot-colored gown. It was skintight and covered every inch of her skin besides her face. She charmed the back to zip up and spun to see the skirt twirl around her legs. She was dizzy and set down the half empty cup of wine. But saying yes…it might be even worse.
She loves Ron. She loves everything about him, even the things that annoy her. He knows exactly what to do when she has a nightmare; knows how to bring her back to reality when she gets lost in memories or her studies.
But she has nothing to offer him in return.
She was still broken from the war. He had healed.
She threw herself into work just for the distraction while he found something he was passionate about.
Her wine stained lips were almost all the makeup she wore. She glamoured her dark eye bags away and put some mascara on her eyelashes before twisting her hair into a bun. She took a few deep breaths before finishing the cup of wine she poured herself. She glanced at the clock. Forty minutes. She carries her heels to the living space, taking the bottle of wine from the counter and drinking straight from it as she waits.
She imagines Ron will ask before they leave for the gala. She hopes he would wait until after, when they usually meet together at Harry and Ginny’s to have a nightcap and hear stories about James and how big he’s gotten in the year or so since he was born.
She remembers the look on Ron’s face when they would talk about children. She knows Ron wants kids; wants to settle down. She’s twenty five. She had a lot of life to live without children or a husband. Ron knows this. He’s respected her wishes this whole time. Molly and Arthur seem to be the ones putting the most pressure on him to marry. The Weasley’s all married before the age of twenty five, and she knows Ron feels ashamed for not having married before then.
Just another thing she’s taken from him.
The wine bottle is empty and she makes a note on the to-do list on the wall besides the fireplace to buy some more.
She checks the time. She’s running behind by fifteen minutes.
She calls out for the Burrow and tries not to get too dizzy from the green flames.
The Weasley’s are spread out, mingling with each other and those that married in or out of the family, in Ginny’s case. Her body feels like Gelatin. Ron’s wide smile makes her nauseous as she returns it. Arthur calls for everyone to grab hold of the portkey and she’s saved from the would-be proposal for now.
Throughout the gala, she keeps her flute of champagne full, not minding the different types of it being poured into her glass. She manages to hold a conversation with the Malfoys, only slurring her words once to the dismay of Draco. He leads her off to the balcony for fresh air and a vial of sober-up potion.
“Can’t let you embarrass everyone at your own event, Granger. It’s in bad taste. You’re not an American,” he says in his posh accent. She giggles as she throws back the potion.
“You would be nervous if you’re about to say no to your best mate proposing to you in front of his whole family,” she laughs back. Draco didn’t seem to find the humor in it like she did.
“It’s not like you’ve strung him along without telling him anything,” he says. He holds his hand out for her as an invitation in case she needs physical touch. “Besides, you’ve told him you didn’t want marriage. You can barely stand any physical touch as it is, how could he ask you to have kids within a year?”
She shook her head, her floating mind coming back down to earth as the potion made its way through her system. “How did you tell Astoria no? How did you get your boyfriend to go along with your need to not have kids?”
Draco seems lost in thought for a minute as the potion finishes its job. “We know what we went through. Astoria understood why I said no. Her and her wife are a striking couple.” He hands her his flute of champagne. “It’s Dom Pérignon. If you’re going to get sloshed at a Ministry event, at least do it with some class.”
Hermione takes the champagne and drinks it in one long sip. “I don’t think I can even have kids.”
“Then it’s a good thing you never wanted any,” he says. “My man knows my fears. I don’t think you ever told yours the real ones.”
Draco leaves her on the balcony, her champagne refilling itself as she looks up to the stars, wishing that she was braver than she really was.
The last dance of the night, and she couldn’t stand to have Ron’s hands on her. She drops his hand and spins on her own before the final note plays and she curtsies. Ron’s eyes flash with confused hurt for a moment before he smiles at her, the buzz of the ever-flowing champagne clouding his vision slightly. They all make their way to the Potter’s residence, James and the rest of the kids staying with Molly for the night.
Her hands shake, but she doesn’t notice as she’s floating on drunkenness and nerves. Ron asks her to have a quiet moment outside. She obliged.
“Hermione,” he breathes out deeply. “I…”
“No,” she says. Ron was halfway kneeling.
“Huh?” He asks, finishing kneeling. He touches the picket of his trousers. “‘Mione, I love-“
“No,” she says again. She turns away from him, facing the street. “I can’t marry you, Ronald.”
“I…” She can tell he’s floundering, searching for something to say.
“I’m sure your speech would have been lovely,” she says, voice uncharacteristically steady for how drunk she really was. “But I can’t.”
There’s a long pause where she can hear Ron stand back up. “Hermione, could…why not?”
She was silent. Nothing was good enough to say to him. “I just…can’t. I’m sorry.”
She starts down the steps, not looking back as she hears the door thrown open and a champagne bottle pop in the distance. There was nothing to celebrate, so she left.
In the months following the failed proposal, she threw herself deeper into work. She barely saw Draco on the weekends because she couldn’t handle seeing anyone. She avoided all of her friends.
The Daily Prophet was supposed to announce the engagement. Instead, they announced the split.
“It was decided that both of them thought they needed time away from each other before furthering their relationship,” Neville was quoted. “They’ve been through a lot. It’s only fair that they are able to live their lives away from the spotlight.”
Witch Weekly apparently had insider information.
“We were all invited to the engagement party,” a ‘reliable’ friend was quoted as saying. “But she said no before he could even ask. Ginny was a mess, I’m pretty sure she drank the entire cabinet of champagne that was supposed to celebrate their engagement. Some of us knew that they were having problems. She was roaring drunk at every event they went to and apparently she had enough of Ron always telling her to stop drinking.”
“It’s a shame,” Daphne Greengrass wrote. “She would have made such a lovely bride.”
“It’s a shame she’s fucked in the head,” a women said loudly in a cafe. “But he can find someone else. Someone who can be there for him in ways she never could.”
She took a sip of her tea, agreeing with the woman. Ron could do better than her.
She spots him across the way, starting to board the train to Hogsmede. She stands up and follows him, her transfigured hair shining blonde in the sunset. She sits rows behind him, watching how he and Percy talk. The train is crowded and loud, and she doesn’t know what’s worse: the silence in her apartment or the chaotic noise of the tabloids and public talking about her and her issues.
As Ron leaves the train with his brother, she collects her jacket and scarf.
Hermione is even more alone, and she can’t find it in herself to fix it.