The Murder In St. John

9. Our Future

The next morning with her lips still a little bit puffy from George's own lips, Hermione heard her mail drop through the slot in the door before Ron took off with a shouted acknowledgment of departure. It was early, far too early, but Hermione had been awake for an hour. 

Thinking. 

She rose, brushing off Coach's whines, and neared the pile of mail. She yawned, reaching for the short stack, and sorted through them as she opened the door for Coach to bolt for the tree line. The squawk of departing birds is an unwelcome greeting for the bright, daunting morning.

Hermione

No 'dear' or even a scrawled 'Niece' like there normally was. Though it was always a faux acknowledgment of their relationship, it at least was a telling sign of her aunt's patience for her. No scrawled greeting meant there was very little patience left, and somewhere, somehow, Hermione had screwed up.

Not that she found herself caring all that much. She had made a choice.  

Hermione started the kettle as she ripped into the envelope, pulling down the brown paper bag of coffee beans as she snapped the letter flat with her wrist, eyes squinting as she read over the hastily scrawled words. Her hands were busy pouring the beans into her bean grinder, jamming her thumb on the button as the words blurred into focus.

I've received a rather interesting phone call to inform me that I've been disinherited from my own blood brother's will. I can only assume this was a mistake, and not intentional. Or rather, I'd hope this was a mistake. You know very well what would happen if this was not a mistake on your part.

That money is just as much mine as it is yours.

Reinherit me. Send me that check I asked for the last time we spoke. 

-Bella

Hermione left the letter on the countertop and leaned back against the table. Freshly ground coffee beans abandoned in the grinder.

It was less so them speaking and more so Aunt Bella ranting while Hermione listened.

Listening, Hermione had done well. Though not Bella, but rather George. George, who didn't so much ask but rather showed her what could be. What she could have if she just...tried to be brave. For them. 

So she tried. For them.

She had done all the paperwork, made all the right phone calls, and hired a lawyer the morning of her father's birthday. Mere hours before George had shown up and he had kissed her for the first time. Only cementing the idea that she had made the right choice. Securing the future against her lips with his.

But she had been scared. She was still scared and hadn't told anyone. 

She wasn't planning to either, not until it blew over. Not until her aunt left her alone. Not until the lawyers had it handled. A restraining order was in the works as well as a 'do not contact' order, one for which Hermione was most excited. 

No more letters. No more phone calls. No more showing up. No more false pretenses at entertaining a relationship that was in no way, shape, or form, real. 

Not like her and George's slowly forming relationship. 

She was fixing things. She was fixing things because she wanted to live a life with George without her aunt's looming shadow in her life. She wanted, as plainly as could be, a life with George. 

She was choosing George. 

Hermione snatched up the letter and crumpled it into a ball before stomping toward the trash can, and dropping it inside. Watching as the lid slowly shut, hiding the letter away from her slow-dampening eyes. She was mad, not at her emotions, but at her aunt's persistent pressuring.