SPOILERS: SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP, QA, FB

SHIPS: Harry Potter/Hermione Granger

Dear Harry,

I’m hoping that this letter finds you well and happy. I know that you said that you didn’t want to be bothered while you’re on vacation, but some things need to be said. Since you won’t come and see me, and I can’t come and see you, it shall have to be done in a letter.

I’ve often wondered what happened between the three of us after the war ended. It’s all a blur to me now, and no matter how hard I try, all I can remember is waking up next to you with the worst headache I’d ever had, courtesy of my first hangover. Since then, Ron has started talking to me again, and I wish you would, too.

What happened between us, Harry? Because I know that you know. Otherwise you wouldn’t be acting this way towards me. You won’t return phone calls, owls, or anything else. Did I do something terrible to you that night? If I did, at least give me the courtesy of telling me what it is that I’ve done to make you treat me like this – because I assure you, I don’t remember.

I’ve never been more hurt in my entire life than I am right now. I have come to think of you and Ron as my family, and I love you both more than anything else in this world. I’m starting to wonder if my love for you was misplaced, though, Harry. I feel certain that if you returned my sentiments, there’s no way that you’d treat me as you’re doing now.

I’m really not sure what else to say. Before you left for vacation, you didn’t even tell me goodbye, but you went to the Burrow and had dinner with the entire Weasley family. Do you know how much that hurts, Harry? Because it does. It hurts me terribly, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

If you decide not to answer this letter, then I suppose I’ll know how you really feel, and I’ll respect that. I’ll leave you alone, and you won’t hear from me again. Just know, Harry, that I’m here for you, if you ever need me.

All my love,
Hermione

Harry,

What’s going on, mate? Hermione says that you never even stopped by to tell her goodbye before you left! She’s really upset about it, and keeps asking what she did to you to make you treat her this way. If things keep going the way they are now, I’m going to have to break down and tell her what happened that night. I know that you don’t want me to, and have asked me not to, but I can’t stand seeing Hermione like this. All she does anymore is mope around, and she never leaves her flat, except to go to work. Ginny keeps inviting her over for dinner, but she always turns her down, saying that she’s going to go to bed early instead.

Harry, you’ve got to come home and come clean with her. I think that your fear of her hating you is off, because Hermione could never hate you. Even if you crucio’d her a million times, I don’t think she’d ever raise her wand against you. Okay, maybe that’s exaggerating a little bit, but it gets my point across.

Come home and tell her everything. It’s time to make things right. Besides, every time I see her, she cries all over my shirt. Makes it kind of awkward meeting with her.

Come home!
Ron

Ron,

There is absolutely no way that I’m coming back there, at least not for a long time. I got a letter from Hermione yesterday asking what was going on and what had happened that night – you didn’t already tell her, did you? She’d hate me for sure if she ever found out the truth, and I just couldn’t live with that if that happened.

Harry

Harry,

YOU ARE A MORON! Hermione will never hate you, how many times do I have to tell you that before you’ll believe me? No, I haven’t told her what happened – YET. But I will, if you don’t. She deserves to know.

For all you know, the woman could be madly in love with you. Have you ever thought of that? Because believe me, I have. When I walked in on you two that morning, my first reaction was anger that you’d slept with her after I’d told you how I felt about her. My second reaction, after I’d had some time to sit down and think about it, was that maybe I shouldn’t be mad after all. Who knows, neither of us had ever asked Hermione if she had feelings for either of us, had we?

I know that you still think it was all of the alcohol that she’d had the night before, but I wonder about that. Even drunk, I think Hermione would be a good judge of what she did and didn’t want. Maybe the alcohol just opened the door and gave her the courage to do what she’d always wanted to do, you know? No, you don’t know, and you won’t until you talk to her about it.

Please, Harry. Talk to her.
Ron

Ron,

Look, it’s all well and good that you think I should tell her, and I know that I should, all right? But that doesn’t make it easier to do. I’m too afraid that if I tell her how I feel, she’ll never want to speak to me again. She might even hate me for what happened, considering that she was drunk, and I wasn’t, and I didn’t stop what happened from happening. I could have, Ron, but I didn’t.

Harry

Harry,

Again, you’re the biggest blithering idiot I’ve ever met, if you think that last letter from you had any truth to it. Didn’t you tell me that she came onto you, not the other way around? Yes, you could have stopped it, but you didn’t. It’s in the past now. Don’t you think she’d like to know what happened between the two of you? I’m very close to telling her, Harry. I mean it. If I have to see her cry one more time…

You’re making her cry by not getting in touch with her. Even if you can’t face her, at least send her a letter with a little explanation in it. You don’t have to go into big detail to let her know what happened, you know.

TELL HER!
Ron

Ron,

All right, you win. I’ll write to her tonight.

Harry

Dear Hermione,

You can’t possibly know how hard this letter is for me to write. I have wanted to talk to you since that morning, and just have not been able to summon up the courage to do it. You were right in your letter when you said that we need to talk about a lot of things, but a letter is the only thing I can offer you right now.

I don’t know how much you remember of that morning, or the night before, which is when everything started. Since Ron had to work late, you and I went out alone for dinner. After dinner, we had a few drinks and left the restaurant. Do you remember running into Terry Boot on the way back to your flat? You were so upset that you didn’t want to go home after that, so we went into the nearest club we could find, where you had more drinks than I’ve ever seen you consume in one sitting. Needless to say, after you were done, you were in no fit state to apparate home. I walked you home, and helped you to your bedroom.

I helped you into bed, but when I tried to pull away, you wouldn’t let me. You grabbed my arm and pulled me down onto the bed with you, and then you did something that totally surprised me.

You kissed me.

I have to admit that after the surprise wore off, I didn’t push you away. I think we kissed for thirty minutes straight before either of us pulled away. I don’t remember who ended the kiss. I remember staring at you for a long time, and wondering if you’d kissed me just because you were drunk, or whether there was actually something there. I didn’t have too much time to think about it, though, before we started kissing again.

I hadn’t had very much to drink, and I could have been in complete control of the situation if I’d wanted to, but I chose not to. I’m weak, Hermione; weaker than I ever dreamed. I’d wanted that for too long not to respond to your touches, and things went further than I’d ever dreamed they’d go.

In the midst of our lovemaking, I said something to you that I probably shouldn’t have said. Your eyes got wide and you returned the sentiment. I know now that you were drunk and probably didn’t mean it, but nonetheless, I’ll carry the memory of those words with me until the day I die.

The morning after, you woke up beside me, and had no idea what had happened, because in the middle of the night you’d somehow managed to get your pyjamas on. Before I could explain anything, Ron burst in on us. Don’t condemn Ron for acting the way he did, Hermione. He had feelings for you, and he’d only recently told me about them. He thought that what had happened between us had been a hateful move on my part to take you away from him, when in fact, it had been a happy accident.

Now you know part of the reason why I left. I couldn’t look you in the eye knowing that I had held the power to keep things from going too far and I hadn’t exercised it. If you hate me, I’ll understand, but I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. Not being able to talk to you or see you has been killing me, even though I’ve been afraid of how you might react.

The other part of the reason that I can’t look you in the eye is because of my own feelings for you. They’ve grown tremendously since that night, no matter how I’ve tried to stop them, and I find that that makes it difficult to have any friendly contact with you. There wasn’t a moment when I looked at you that I didn’t want to take you into my arms and tell you everything, so when the temptation became too strong, I left. It’s better this way, with the distance between us.

I hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

With love,
Harry

Harry,

You great bloody pillock! How dare you do that to me! Please tell me that you didn’t say the words I’ve been waiting to hear, and then ran away immediately afterward; I just wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So you’re trying to tell me that I got drunk after seeing an ex boyfriend, then slept with you, and you think it was only because I was drunk? Gosh, thanks for letting me know that – if you’d just told me that we slept together, we both might have been fooled into thinking that I actually wanted to do it.

Come on, Harry.

That excuse isn’t going to work with me, so stop with the self pity already. I don’t remember sleeping with you, but I remember waking up next to you and being overwhelmingly happy that you were there. Then Ron came in and everything went to hell, and you ran after him without so much as a goodbye to me. It wasn’t fair, and you know it.

As long as you’re being honest with me, I may as well be honest with you, too. I have done nothing but think of you since our fifth year, when you went out with Cho Chang. For some stupid reason, I harbored the hope that you might someday come to feel the same way about me, and because of that, I turned down every other person who asked me out.

Let me tell you a thing or two, Harry James Potter. People sometimes mean the things they say and do when they’re drunk, regardless of the alcohol they’ve consumed. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, doesn’t it? Did it never occur to you that I might mean what I think I said to you that night?

There are a lot of things in my life that, could I go back, I would do differently, but I assure you, that night is not one of them.

I guess now I don’t have anything else to say to you… except that I love you.

Yours,
Hermione

Hermione,

I love you.

Will be returning home in two days to tell you in person.

Harry

Harry,

It’s about bloody time.

Hermione