About Harry

Hermione

In the morning I make sure to rise before him, I'm exhausted. The night has been a full one and the moments where I could get some sleeps I couldn't doze. I don't think Harry did either judging by the frequency he looked for me. I take a moment to observe him in his sleep, last time I can indulge in the pleasure.

Under the shower, the water running on my body wash away Ginny from me, wash away my being a lover, my being sinful. It washes away Harry's presence in me and on me.

When I step outside, I'm a new creature, strong and rational. The haze is over.

When I wear my clothes it's me again, the me before all this. I'm the friend, I'm the sister, I'm the one that must repress her feelings.

I'll return to Ron, and I'll be satisfied with my life. I'll take care of my children; I'll take care of my house and I'll be fulfilled with it. I won't wish for anything different. I'll resign myself to a half-life.

I make a coffee and while I wait it gets ready, I look outside. The weather is miserable. Grey and full of rain, dismal. I go to the window watching the rain thumping on the pavement. A child in a yellow raincoat with some blue Wellingtons, passes in front of the window. His mum is taking him by the hand hurrying him while he endeavours to free himself longing to jump in the closest puddle.

I think about my children, Rose is already a woman, only last year she wrote me she got her period for the first time. She was very excited despite the cramps but perhaps even proud of them, the first pain that mark her entrance in womanhood. I cannot help myself thinking bitterly that is the first of many and obviously I'm not talking about the cramps.

I would have loved to be born a man. Life is so much easier for them. Without having to feel always vulnerable, always wavering. To have always to push your way in a world owned by them and fight arduously to conquer a position, always threatened by your role of a mother that always must come first and by the support you must give to your husband who without you cannot even tie his shoes.

I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe this weather makes me sour. Maybe I'll drink my coffee and I'll feel better afterward. I don't know.

I go to wake Harry up. I don't go and kiss him because a friend is not supposed to do it; I only stand on the threshold without looking in, because he is not dressed. I only knock informing him that I'm getting breakfast ready.

I busy myself on the stove hearing the water running in the bathroom.

A few moments later he is sitting behind me in the kitchen.

None of us spoke, we didn't look at each other. I can feel his gaze on my back while I'm cooking.

'I'm sorry' those simple words ring clearly in the empty kitchen, so ethereal and isolated that a moment later I'm not sure if indeed they have been pronounced or it was only my imagination.

I know why he is apologising. Because he cannot love me, because he gave me a taste of what I'll never have knowing how much I would have suffered, because he won't treat me nevermore the same as the days just passed, because he cannot rescue me from my infelicity.

I close my eyes and I get deep breaths to pull myself together. It's unbelievable how many tears a body can produce. I cried so much in the last few hours that I truly thought I had no tears left and yet there they are, behind my eyes striving to come out. And I shove them back.

I gather all my strength to pronounce the following words composedly.

'Ted will be here in ten minutes, can you set up the table?'