No Object worth His Constancy

No Object Worth His Constancy

“Harry?” Her voice quavered through the darkness. The Healer standing in the corner heard him grumble as she poured some potion. She sighed lightly as the younger woman fretted over the limp body of her beloved.

“Harry? Harry, please. Harry, listen to me! Harry!” She shrieked and shook him. Ron rushed forward from the corner he had been standing in to restrain his little sister.

“You’re going to hurt him, Ginny.” She fought against him, her legs lifting from the ground.

“Harry!” She continued her stream of nonsense as Hermione grimly injected the potion into a vein on his arm. She shook her head with a perpetual wince present on her cool features.

“Listen to us, Ginny.” Remus had added a second hand on the struggling girl. “We just have to wait for morning. Then we’ll know if he’s okay.”

The morning light found the quintet in various states of disarray. Hermione had fallen asleep standing up. Harry lay still in his bed. Remus was asleep in his chair with his head lolling to one side. Ginny was curled up in the fetal position on the grassy floor. The canvas walls fluttered lightly around them, letting in a summer breeze that smelled of crumpled, crisp leaves that left behind a distinct, sickly-sweet scent of freedom. This scent was inhaled by the red-haired boy who knelt on the floor, gently kissing the hand of his black-haired companion.

He muttered a single, anguished preamble to a monologue of tears through his hitched breaths. His hands encircled those of the boy, knowing the ancient magic was suspending the pulse he knew well. But it spooked him to think that he could have lost his chance to love the boy before him.

“Harry, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I knew you couldn’t do it alone. I just don’t know why I had to find her. I found her with Lupin, Harry. They’ve been all over each other since we got here. I don’t get it. I was the one who cared enough to look for her, and she treats me like everyone else—everybody but him.

“God, Harry, if she looked at me that way, I probably wouldn’t be kneeling before you like you’re some kind of god. But I just don’t know what we’ll all do without you. I mean, Ginny wants to marry you, and I want my sister to be happy. But I think I might love you too, Harry. I really do think so.”

What Ron hadn’t noticed was that Hermione’s breathing had quickened and she was a bit more rigid than she was in sleep. Remus’s head had shifted to a more comfortable position, and one eye flickered open occasionally. Ginny’s ear had been tilted towards the bed. When it seemed that his confession had come to an end, they all began to make a show of “waking up.” Harry’s hand was dropped to limply fall off the edge of the bed, dripping saline expressions of grief.

A knock came on the wooden doorframe of their room. Remus slung his invisibility cloak over himself and went to stand in a corner. No one was to know that he was there.

A Ministry official stood in the doorway. It was a young woman who Ginny recognized as a Ravenclaw from her year at Hogwarts. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail that clashed horribly with her tweed business suit. She looked at a slip of vibrant magenta parchment in her hand and looked about the room.

“I’m looking for a ‘Miss Hermione Jane Granger’.” Her tepid voice trembled.

“Well, you’ve found her.” Hermione sighed as she pushed herself off of the counter.

The woman found an empty room and conjured two folding chairs with tweed cushions. Hermione seated herself.

“It seems that you are the manager of this establishment.” She angled her tiny nose toward the ceiling.

“I am,” Hermione said coolly, eyeing the woman’s clipboard.

“I have come to bring news of your patient—” She paused, rifling though papers. “Ah, yes, a ‘Mister Harry James Potter.’”

Hermione nearly snorted. Everyone knew Harry’s name.

“What would that be?”

“Miss—ahem—Granger,” she stressed for no apparent reason, “it seems as though in that battle a few evenings ago, a particularly nasty spell has been cast. Both Mister—ahem—Potter and He-Who-Mustn’t-Be-Named have been sent into magically induced comas. The Wizarding world, on the other hand, has been sent into what my supervisor told me is entitled a ‘grey’ period. As neither power conquered in the end, both lives will remain on hold until the next great battle of this sort. Once a side triumphs, one hero will be roused.

“Until then, magic is going to be in a strange state. Therefore many security matters will be taken care of, and a number of new laws will be put into place. One of which is a bonding program where we will marry the unattached of your side to those of the other in hopes of knitting the magic back together.”

“Well, who shall I be ‘knit’ with?” Hermione asked furiously, feeling very much like produce at a county fair being auctioned off.

“That remains to be determined, Miss—ahem—Granger.”

Hermione stalked out of the room, wishing she had a door to slam behind her.

“What shall I do Remus? I cannot stand for this! I will not stand for this! They can’t just sell me off! This is Britain for God’s sake!” She paced angrily before the werewolf after explaining her predicament.

“Remus, perhaps we could run away together. You’re supposed to be dead and I need to disappear. Let’s just go. What’s stopping us?” A painful silence ensued.

“Look, Hermione, I can’t be with you. I simply can’t. I’ve told you this. I am not safe nor am I good enough for you.”

“I saw you do this to Tonks.” Hermione was livid. “You broke her heart saying you couldn’t measure up! But maybe I’ve figured it out. Maybe no one is good enough for you! Perhaps ‘no object is worth your constancy’!” She had easily directed her pent-up anger on him. He took it, sitting slumped against a wall while she ranted.

“We have only seen each other like this for a few days, Hermione.”

“Well, there’s no time to waste,” Hermione said as she whirled around in her anger to stand face-to-face with the placid Ministry official.

“I have just spoken with Miss Ginevra Weasley. She has consented to proceed to the women’s shelter. You also, as decreed by Grey Law, must come with us to await your marriage.”

Hermione threw a rock she had been holding and summoned her trunk with her wand. With one wistful glance back at Remus, she began to trudge across the meadow with the woman. Her back was turned to her life, her family, her love, her purpose and her will to go on. She faced the future biting her lip and running her fingers through her hair. All she had now was herself.

~the end~