After the DoM debacle, Hermione’s parents refuse to let her return to Hogwarts. On the day Harry’s bound to be picked up by the Order to drop him off at the Burrow yet again, the routine is changed.
Harry’s picked up first by Remus and Tonks and the trio apparate to Hermione’s.
Landing in Hermione’s backyard, Harry has his first glimpse at the house his best friend grew up in and he proceeds towards it with a smile on his face until he hears loud voices arguing; one of them being Hermione’s coming from the inside. The trio look at each other as the voices get louder until he hears Hermione yelling at her parents.
“Yes, I’m in love with Harry. Fine! Are you happy now? I’m madly in love with my best friend Harry Potter and I’ll never abandon his side. Not when he needs me.”
The wind is knocked out of Harry as the words sink in when he overhears her mother asking Hermione why would she love him, a boy who almost got her killed, a boy who has never noticed her and as per her own letters was mooning over another girl not too long ago. A boy who it seems is likely only using her for her brilliance, who abandoned her when she wanted to protect his life when an unknown character sent him a broom… who’d abandon her for something so trivial. For whom she matters less than a broom did. The boy who let their other so called best friend humiliate her so much.
And just when Harry thinks he’s heard the worse he overhears Hermione’s father telling her how she’s more than repaid her debt to Harry and Ron she owed them for rescuing her from a troll. It’s time she realise how ungrateful those boys were and neither was worth her. They’d never want her to waste her potential or the time she invested in her magical education but she should transfer to Beauxbatons.
When Hermione still denies listening to her parents, her mother asks her one question that breaks her heart and jolts Harry’s entire existence.
“Hermione, you’re willing to throw your very life away for this boy, to go against us but tell me sweetheart - do you think he’d ever love you back? The way you love him, the way you deserve and want to be loved? If you think the answer is yes and he makes you happy and promises to keep you safe we’ll listen to you. But if he is gonna break your heart don’t you think it’s better to cut strings now when it will hurt less? The more you stay with him, the more you’ll find yourself hoping and expecting something from him and even if you don’t… can you honestly tell me how you’ll deal if he falls in love with someone else? If he comes asking you for help and tips like he does for his lessons on how to win and woo that girl? Are you honestly telling me Hermione you’re so strong you’ll be able to watch as the boy you’ve been in love with for years fall for someone else and break your heart? His parents married young didn’t they right out of school you told me? What if he wants to follows in their footsteps too. Are you telling me you are willing to watch him want someone he’d wanna marry her and probably propose on the day you graduate in front of your whole school? You’ll be the highest scoring student there darling, I’ve no doubt about it… but if something like that happens are you sure you’d not feel like you failed miserably?
Your father and I just want to see you loved and appreciated the way you deserve Hermione and from all that you’ve told us we don’t think this is the boy who can do that. Why he hasn’t even written or called once all this summer and you nearly died Hermione. You’re our only child and we don’t want to see you waste your time and life on someone like that.
I laboured for 15 years Hermione Jane Granger to give birth to you, and I’d be damned if my daughter throws her life away on a boy who doesn’t appreciate her, who might have her come to me in a bodybag someday. He doesn’t care about you Hermione. He doesn’t love you sweetheart.”
And Hermione breaks down in sobs the likes of which he has never seen.
He stands there divided between two different outcomes - leaving Hermione forever or….
