Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 2 Symptom: denial. Treatment: tequila.

Next few days Hermione moved through the hospital like a ghost in scrubs. Her badge caught the light as she passed each ward—neural restoration, post-curse rehabilitation, experimental memory therapy—and every healer she passed offered a nod she barely registered. She’d already performed two consults, reviewed three scans, dictated one impossible prognosis.

None of it landed. Her hands still obeyed her, but her mind was elsewhere—adrift in smoke and silence.

The morning blurred into motion: flick of wand, pulse charm, dictation quill scratching at the edge of consciousness. The neural lattice flickered red, then green again. Hermione adjusted the charm with steady hands and dead eyes. When she looked up, the clock insisted it was almost noon. She hadn’t eaten. The world around her felt thin, unreal.

Ron’s message appeared on her mobile halfway through her third consult. We need to talk, I’m in the café.

She read it once. She didn’t reply, but an hour later she found herself at a café near St Mungo’s anyway—half out of habit, half because she didn’t have the energy to avoid him. She was still in her scrubs, hair pulled into a lopsided knot, the faint smell of antiseptic clinging to her sleeves.

Ron was sitting by the window like someone rehearsing regret. He stood when she approached, then didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” he said the moment she sat down. His voice was thin, pleading—familiar in a way that made her bones ache.

Hermione wrapped her hands around the coffee cup. The heat didn’t reach her fingers. She was tired—of apologies dressed as explanations, of circular fights, of being the problem he needed her to fix. Tired of how, in his eyes, she was always just short of enough.

“Okay,” she said softly, without looking up.

He blinked. “Okay?”

“You have three days to move your things out of the house.”

The silence that followed was dense, almost physical. Outside, London went on as if nothing was ending—rain stippling the glass, buses hissing past, a siren wailing somewhere far away.

“I need more time, Mione...”

“More time?” Her voice was steady now. “You had nine years. You get three days.”

“Come on! This can’t be news to you,” he snapped. “You were always bloody working—always. Like the world would fall apart if you stopped for five minutes.”

Hermione didn’t flinch. She just studied him for a long, unblinking second, as if examining a specimen that had long since stopped surprising her.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she murmured.

Ron scoffed. “It is a bad thing. You don’t know how to stop. You never did. Everything’s got to be a project, even people.”

She tilted her head, the faintest trace of something—maybe pity, maybe grief—crossing her face. “No, Ron. The problem was that you were always waiting for me to stop.”

His jaw clenched, but he had nothing left to throw. The words hung between them like the last breath of a dying fire.

“Three days,” she repeated quietly, then pushed open the café door.

The bell chimed, absurdly cheerful, as the rain swallowed her up outside.

She felt numb. Like everything was happening to someone else, somewhere far away.

The hospital made her greet Doctor Morgan—the bastard who’d snatched the position that should’ve been hers. A charming vulture in a pristine lab coat, good at shaking hands and climbing ladders, not so good at medicine.

Fine. If St. Mungo’s couldn’t recognize talent when it was standing right in front of them, then to hell with it. Let them keep their politics, their committees, their smug little smiles.

She had work to do.

That night the Potters-Weasley house was painfully warm—firelight, the smell of roasted vegetables, the hum of something normal. Harry hugged her at the door like he was afraid she might fall apart.

Ginny was already at the table, jaw tight enough to crack.

“She’s furious,” Harry muttered as he led Hermione inside.

“I can tell,” Hermione said, managing a tired smile.

Ginny poured her a glass of wine without asking. Hermione drank it in two swallows.

They sat. Silence hung like fog until Ginny finally said, voice clipped and trembling, “She’s… pregnant.”

Hermione blinked. “Who?”

The clock ticked in the next room. No one touched their food.

“Lavender,” Ginny said.

“Gin—” Harry began, but Ginny shot him a glare that could’ve melted steel.

“Lavender Brown?” Hermione asked.

Ginny nodded, looking anywhere but at her.

Hermione stared at the table. “So he cheated, and now he’s reproducing,” she said flatly. “Outstanding.”

Harry winced. Ginny looked like she wanted to set something on fire herself.

Hermione poured another glass of wine. “Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured. “I’m fine.”

It was the least convincing thing she’d ever said.

Harry hesitated. “You can stay here if you want.”

She shook her head. “I’m staying with Theo. I’ll go home in three days. I told Ron to move out.”

Harry nodded slowly, unsure what comfort was even left to offer. Ginny reached across the table, brushed her fingers against Hermione’s wrist—silent, sisterly solidarity.

Outside, the night pressed against the windows, soft and indifferent. Inside, the fire crackled on, burning low and steady, as if mocking how calm she sounded when she said it.

Three days became two weeks. Theo decided that the cure for heartbreak—and mild arson—was clubbing.

Hermione disagreed. He didn’t ask. He appeared in black jeans and a shirt unbuttoned past decency, grinning like a man who’d already won.

“You need dopamine, Granger,” he said, tossing her a jacket. “And tequila. Possibly at the same time.”

“I need sleep.”

“Sleep is for people who haven’t committed minor property crimes. Let’s go.”

Somehow, she did.

The club pulsed with magic—lights bending, music pounding through her ribs. Theo got them past the queue with a charm and a wink. At the bar, he shoved a shot glass toward her.

“To moving on,” he said.

“To questionable life choices.”

The tequila burned. It felt honest.

The crowd swallowed them whole. She let herself be pulled onto the dance floor, let the noise drown her thoughts. She wasn’t Hermione Granger-Weasley, betrayed wife, war hero, overworked healer. She was just a body, laughing too loudly, trying to feel alive.

A stranger spun her around—a tall wizard with dark eyes and a smile that promised nothing good. She let him kiss her. It didn’t mean anything. That was the point.

Theo whistled from the bar, raising his glass. “That’s my girl!”

She laughed—reckless, real for half a heartbeat.

They ended up on a street corner at four in the morning, hair damp from the mist, hands wrapped around greasy hot dogs that steamed in the cold. The city was quieter now—just the low hum of enchanted taxis gliding past, a couple of students Apparating home, laughter fading into the dark.

Theo had somehow acquired two bottles of beer. He handed her one with great ceremony.

“To survival,” he said solemnly.

“To questionable hygiene standards,” she countered, and they clinked bottles.

The beer was terrible. The hot dog was worse. It was perfect.

For a while, they ate in silence—chewing, breathing, existing.

“You think it’s odd I haven’t cried yet?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe there’s just nothing left to cry for.”

The city hummed around them—alive, indifferent. Maybe that was what she wanted: a place that didn’t care who she’d been.

“I applied for a rotation in New York,” Hermione said finally, watching the beer foam slide down the bottle’s neck.

Theo froze mid-bite, then turned to her slowly, eyes wide. “You what?”

“I applied,” she repeated. “Neurological exchange program. New Salem Hospital. Just a rotation. Six months.”

He blinked, processing through a mild haze of alcohol. “You’re leaving me?”

She laughed softly. “It’s not permanent.”

Theo pointed his half-eaten hot dog at her, deadly serious. “I hate you.”

“You do not.”

“I do! I hate you. You’re abandoning me for Americans and bagels. Do you know how much I’ve suffered? I went to a club for you. I danced.”

“You danced badly.”

“Out of love!” he said, clutching his chest with mock injury. “You heartless witch.”

Hermione smiled, the first real one in days. “You’ll survive, Theo.”

He took a long swig of beer, muttering, “Unlikely.” Then, after a beat, “Can I visit?”

Hermione smirked. “Oh, please. We’ll see a play on Broadway and complain about Americans butchering real theatre.”

Theo brightened instantly, eyes glassy with both beer and sincerity. “I love you again.”

She laughed, quiet and real this time, the sound curling through the empty street like smoke.

Then she leaned her head on his shoulder, still holding the half-empty bottle. “I don’t know what I’m doing without you,” she murmured.

Theo nudged her lightly with his arm. “You’ll work like a madwoman until I come visit and make you shag someone.”

Hermione let out another laugh—hoarse, startled, genuine. “You’re terrible.”

“I’m practical,” he said, deadpan. “It’s a medical prescription.”

She smiled into his sleeve, feeling the warmth of him through the fabric, the absurd comfort of being seen and not judged.

For a few quiet minutes, they just sat there—two exhausted people eating bad food, trying to convince each other the world hadn’t ended. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe something new was beginning.