Chapter Text
Hermione sighed as she let herself fall onto her living room couch, and continue where she left off in the new book she was reading. The house was quiet at the late hour, and she let herself get engrossed in her book, as she waited for Ron to return from work.
She had initially been quite confused, as it was a Sunday, but Ron had reassured her that everything is okay, and that he simply needed to do a quick check on something at the ministry.
As the minutes passed by, she felt herself grow more and more anxious, until finally, as the clock struck 10, the emerald green fires of the floo roared to life as Ron stepped through.
She set her book down, and got up to great him, closing the distance between them before wrapping her arms around his lanky frame. However, as she looked up yearning to see his trademarked goofy grin that she adored, she instead saw an anxious, nervous look on his face.
"Ron?", she said, anxiety instantly enveloping her. "I-is, everything alright. Did something happen at the ministry?"
Ron, simply gave her a weak smile, and gently guided her over to the couch.
"No, no its nothing bad love. It's... just something that may come as a shock. But I promise you that it good news"
Hermione simply nodded slowly, and urged him to continue. Ron took a deep breath, and steadied himself, seemingly trying to find the best way to word what he was about to say.
"Hermione, your parents, they're in Australia, they are alive love."
Hermione felt herself still, trying to process what she had just been told. She simply sat their, jaw open, staring. Ron must have been mistaken, was this some type of sick joke he was making? She had seen their bodies, she had spoken at their funeral. She had sobbed for hours as the man in front of her held her, she had taken it as another tragedy of the war she would have to bear with. But as she looked back up to those baby blue eyes, she realized he was telling the truth.
The first emotion she felt was happiness.
It came in a massive wave, as she launched herself at Ron and met with his lips, kissing him passionately, as the tears started to well up in her eyes.
Ron didn't respond, he knew what was coming.
The next emotion that came was a mix of sorts, grief, shame, and worry.
She fell onto his chest, and began to sob uncontrollably, and Ron soothingly rubbed her back.
How could she have not known they were alive? Why didn't she go and search for them regardless of what she had seen or been told? She had given up on them so easily.
Ron held her face, snapping herself out of her spiral of self-hatred.
"Hermione, whatever you are thinking right now, stop it. Everything is going to be okay love"
Hermione nodded as he wiped her tears off her face, but as much as she tried to believe him, she knew it wasn't that simple.
Because this wasn't the same as going to retrieve her parents once the war had ended as she had initially hoped.
The date on the calender plastered on the fridge, displayed the date May 15, 2008.
She had a gold ring, with a baby blue stone on her hand.
And to top it all off, two ginger-haired children (who were supposed to be asleep) came running into the living room to greet their father, the elder running up onto her father's lap, her untamable bushy hair flapping around widely as she did so. While the younger one approached slower, waddling near his parents leg, where he raised his arms, signalling that he too would like to join his family on the coach.
Hermione unwrapped her arms from Ron's torso and picked up Hugo, pulling him close to her, looking into his chocolate brown eyes and planting a kiss on his forehead. As Rose began to ramble away to her father, while Hugo attempted to listen closely to his sister, Hermione and Ron caught each other's eye, as the wordlessly communicated what they both knew.
This was going to be much, MUCH more complicated, because a decade had passed since the end of the war, and although a lot of good had come, somewhere across the world, two people who had once been her entire universe had lived ten long years without her—without knowing her, without knowing them—and now, somehow, she would have to find a way to bridge a lifetime that had been broken, rewritten, and quietly carried on without them.