The Gralfoy Affair (or, The Oblivious Ones) - Dramione

Chapter Seven

Through the mirrors of their Communication Compacts, Ron was trying to smile at his fiancee. But he looked sick. And he looked, Hermione thought for the first time, like he needed an eyebrow pencil. She shook her head, forcing her attention to the words he was saying. They were tepid and strange, like he had learned them by heart from a script someone else had written. But what would have been the right thing for him to say to her this evening? Perhaps the script was as good as anything.

His speech was winding down. "...so I will remain your absent partner on your journey. This is the first of my cheerful, loving daily messages to you, until we meet again." He stopped, his posture slackening. "How was that? Berlant came up with most of that. So it should have been alright, yeah?"

"You talked to Dr. Berlant about all this? Who else did you talk to?"

"Well, George, Mum, Ginny, Harry..."

It was just their inner circle.

"The porters at the hospital, those nurses..."

Their inner circle and discreet medical professionals at the hospital.

"Made a bit of a show of myself though, what with the shock, and then there was the old bloke marching around the hospital in Malfoy's clothes all day. The other patients figured out who 'Jean' really was pretty soon after seeing me getting hauled around. Don't be mad, we can't really blame them for being excited and talking about it. Nothing ever happens up there. The papers have been owling everyone here at home all night for reactions, but no one's talking to them, of course. Probably won't be able to open the store for a day or two."

She groaned into her hands. "Ronald, I am so sorry."

"Then just come home."

"No. No, let's not go over this again."

"No need, no need. Dr. Berlant explained it all to me. Absent partner, loving, cheerful, gutted. That's me."

Berlant knew her patient well. If Hermione allowed Ron to make contact with her like this every day, she'd be curled beneath a quilt at the Burrow with him within a week.

"Stop, Ronald," she said. "Don't do this. Don't dutifully sit there waiting, it holds back everything I'm trying to accomplish."

"Hermione--"

"We can start again when I've finished this project, one way or another. But I can't do this with you hanging on so tightly."

He sat back, where she could see his whole torso in the glass, showing her his hands, holding nothing. "Go," he said. "Go on and go. It doesn't change anything I feel, but go. I love you, Hermione. I'd do anything for you. I'd even do this."

Her eyes were clenched tight against her tears. He was quiet, waiting for her to echo back his 'I love you.' And heaven knew she loved him--loved his warm body on cold mornings, his permanence in her history, loved him as if her ties to every other human being she could claim to love depended on her maintaining her happy connection to him. It wasn't fair. Before her parents had left, love existed in the universe for Hermione Granger independently of Ron Weasley. And she had to make it true again, even if there was no script for it anywhere. Rewriting--this was all a rewriting.

She was cold, rubbing her palms against her arms, from elbow to wrist, stoking her own warmth and strength as she told him. "I'm sorry Ronald, you darling boy. Until we meet again, goodbye." She snapped the Compact closed.

There was a sound outside her door like someone had dropped a load of tools down the stairs while coughing out "alohomora" and Malfoy was in her room, disheveled and demanding, "What? What is it?"