"What?!" Hermione asked Harry pointedly, her voice offended and completely in denial.
"He's alive, Hermione, aurors found him, Kingsley summoned me and told me that he was completely healthy. He was trying to get into Grimmauld Place, but the alarms went off because he didn't know we changed them. Kingsley is speaking with him in the Minister's office."
"I want to go," she decided immediately.
Harry shook his head and held Hermione from reaching her wand in the back of her dress.
"You can't yet, he's talking to the minister and I'm not allowed to let any of us go until he's done. Kingsley will send for me again when he's finished."
"But why?"
Harry gave her a straight face meaning he didn't know anymore than what he'd just told her.
"Hermione, that's great," Ginny said reminding the two of her presence. Harry smiled and held her gently.
"Yeah, the-"
"No. He can't know, he regrettably even wanted to... There's no way he is even going to discuss continuing our relationship let alone want to help me raise a child," Hermione told them knowledgeably. She knew her lover, and when they'd created the child, it was Hermione who'd almost seduced him into it. She had been with him since sixth year, but they'd played well, even in front of each other like when Ron had been poisoned.
"Hermione didn't you say he loved you?"
"But he left, I was left alone after that night." She shuddered at the thought of the note she received.
In smaller words, it said that as much as he loved her and thanked her for the love she showed him, things had to happen, things she couldn't know about and never would. Horrible things. It was safer for her and him to let what they had die.
"Because it wasn't safe," Harry argued. She tried to ignore him, but he was right. He was very right.
That still didn't mean he ever wanted children, but of course they'd never talked about it. When Dumbledore had died, she had gotten a letter explaining the whole thing, the whole story. Well, not the parts about his double-agent work, but how simply how Dumbledore had told him to do it.
"I hate this so much! It hurts, Harry, it hurts so much and all I want is to be in his arms! Yet I know I can't be because the moment he finds out..." She couldn't even finish her thoughts.
"Come on, we'll apparate to the ministry and wait there."
Hermione nodded, tears in her eyes as she bit her bottom lip and took Harry and Ginny's arm. With a quick pop, the three of them were gone from the party with no explanation.
So, outside the minister's office, the three awaited him and comforted a rigid Hermione. She was shaking as she bit at her nails or bottom lip, whatever her teeth chose. The anxiety she exhibited was gnawing at her very patience, and Ginny kept throwing worried glances at Harry's way because she only got worse.
He felt bad for yelling at her earlier, but when he tried to apologize she nearly growled out that she understood his apprehension as Snape was the closest connection to his parents. He had a right to be weary about the whole situation.
Suddenly, the door clicked open, and the Minister for Magic came through the door, a dark figure following.
"Ah, Harry you got my message, I see."
"I did, and I brought Ginny and Hermione as well," he said with a smile that Kingsley brought out in everyone.
The amiable man had glanced back when he heard the figure's breath hitch behind him.
