Chapter Text
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For
Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
—The Hollow Men, T.S Eliot.
****
A fresh skin of snow glittered beneath the lantern lights and crunched softly under her boots, its delicate flakes settling in Hermione’s unruly curls as she made her way toward the newly opened pub-turned-café, The Three Broomsticks.
It was mercifully just around the corner—a fact for which she thanked her lucky stars, especially as it had been chosen for the Christmas reunion.
Her maroon scarf and coat, wrapped snugly about her, offered just enough protection to keep her teeth from chattering.
She held the two cake boxes close to her chest, the weight of the Black Forest cake and treacle tart anchoring her as her shoulders curved inward, bracing against the sharp, unkind bite of December air.
With each careful step, the building drew nearer, her boots carving a narrow, precise path through the snow.
The pub had reinvented itself for the season—transformed into a café that looked as though it had stepped directly out of a winter postcard.
Wreaths of holly crowned the doorway, threaded with warm, ambient lights tucked beneath the awning. Pale-blue artificial crystals that shimmered faintly whenever moonlight slipped through the heavy clouds.
The tall frosted windows glowed a gentle amber, blurring the figures within into a soft chorus of moving shadows.
A warm flutter coaxed through her chest at the thought that, after so long, she would finally be meeting up with them—the people she had let slip away, thanks to her own spectacular incompetence.
A dimwit, she was, who could never quite get her priorities straight, no matter how carefully she told herself she would.
She shook her head, her hair bouncing around her, but nonetheless there they were again—shame and guilt, a morbid pair of emotion.
A twisted knot settled deep in her chest. She made no move to untangle it.
She let it pull her under, drowning her beneath its harsh waves of jolts.
She deserved it.
How could she not, when all this time she had been choosing it over them?
It being work.
As usual, it was relentless—days swallowed whole by case files and legislation, hours spent trying to loosen the tight coil of bureaucracy, so densely wound it seemed designed to strangle any hope of change.
Corruption was a monster, wearing bureaucracy like its second skin.
A wolf dressed in the sheep's clothing.
It fed on what was once sacred, once untainted. Law enforcement stood stained wherever its vicious claws had dug in, venom pooling at its mouth, dripping slow and lethal.
For the past weeks, she had been running on sheer grit and caffeine, chasing accountability through hallways that preferred feigned, effective solutions to real ones.
She was tired—
bone-deep tired,
soul-drained tired—
but not defeated.
If anything, the exhaustion had sharpened her resolve, honed it into something unyielding.
Before it hollowed her out completely, she would tear down at least a few of the rot-infested pillars holding that monster upright.
Someone had to start it.
Or so she told herself.
But the truth was far less noble than the story she repeated in her head.
She was no different from the others who let themselves be blinded by the polished facades of authority.
This was not righteousness.
It was not a brave moral crusade.
It was a wistful, aching need to fulfil the dreams her dementia-stricken parents had once carried for her—dreams they no longer remembered, but which continued to live in her, like a parasite she had to satisfy inexhange of her essense.
Her determination overcame whatever she felt each time she thought of leaving her job and doing what she truly wanted—opening a small bookstore in the countryside, away from everything that was eating her alive.
And yet she knew she wouldn’t.
So this.
This tiny sliver of evening, carved out with the precision of someone who had forgotten what leisure felt like, was her attempt at balance.
Her promise to herself that she wouldn’t waste away as a workaholic.
Not today.
No.
Today she would breathe.
Eat desserts. See her best mates. Make compromises, correct her mistakes.
Most importantly, remember she was human.
Pausing before the entrance of the Three Broomsticks, she gathered the scattered pieces of herself, patching them together clumsily with nothing but sheer willpower.
At any moment, she might collapse—like a house of cards brushed by a passing breeze.
But that moment was not now.
She refused to allow it.
Entering the pub-turned-café, she caught flashes of wooden furnished chairs and tables before being tackled by a pair of toned arms.
“Hermione! Long time no see!”
Saggy curls fell into her eyes, but she couldn’t care less.
Shifting the boxes into one hand, she wrapped the other arm around him, breathing in Harry’s familiar musky scent.
“Long time, that it is,” she managed to murmur against his shoulder. “But you’ll have to stop crushing me before I make a mess of the goodies I brought for you.”
He pulled back, a shit-eating grin stretching across his face. “Fair enough.”
Squinting, she noticed there was a thin golden brass clinging to his neck, hidden underneath his v neck black sweater over his white dress shirt.
So that was the thing she had felt.
Meeting his eyes, she saw them shimmer with familiar greenish glow, the colour of early spring leaves catching sunlight.
It hit her harder than she expected.
God, she had missed him—missed the version of herself that only existed beside her best friend. He had always made her shine, and when they had drifted apart, he took that brilliance with him.
Somewhere in the days without him, she had forgotten that life could be this vivid, this saturated with colour.
“You don’t have to spoil me,” he said, taking the cake box from her and setting it on the small coffee table carefully with reverence.
A blazer and knitted muffler were draped over one of the chair. “I can’t be as dependent on you as I was back then. I’m a full-grown man now.”
Hermione burst into a laugh. “Oh, please. ’Tis the season The Great Detective Harry Potter makes dramatic declarations and immediately breaks them.”
Harry pointed a finger at her, “Wrong. ’Tis the season I step boldly into adulthood.”
“So… you’re admitting you were a man-child for the first twenty-two years?”
“I—Hermione—no. Absolutely not. That is not—stop rewiring my sentences.”
She lifted her brows. “I’m just translating.”
He groaned theatrically and slumped into his chair. “Okay. You know what? Show me what’s in the cake box before you verbally assault me.”
She glanced around the café, half expecting the others to pop out from behind the potted plants or simply popping out of the blue to suprise her.
Instead, her gaze caught on the barista behind the counter—gorgeous, radiant, smiling at customers with such effortless charm that half of them were blushing like schoolchildren.
Talk about brilliant marketing strategy, she thought dryly.
She noted there were no restrictions in bringing in food from home; it made her exhale a breath of relief.
She was eager to see his reaction when he saw—and tasted—the desserts.
Supposedly, they were supposed to order something in return for staying here for a while.
It seemed like the standard polite thing to do.
The warmth from the hearth in the corner melted the chill from her skin, until it seemed to vanish entirely.
Her taut nerves began to loosen of their own accord.
A waitress approached, clipboard in hand. “What may we get you both?”
Harry smiled boyishly, causing the woman's cheeks to flush with a rosy hue. “Cappuccino for me. And for the lady?”
Hermione gasped, mockingly clutching her chest. “How could you forget what I always get on Christmas so soon? Is this your virtue of friendship? I’m truly devastated.”
His tongue darted out to wet his lips, eyes momentarily hazed before clearing. “Of course not. I was merely re-checking whether your preferences remained unchanged.”
“Oh, really now?” she smirked.
“Oh, yes. Really.” He turned back to the waitress, who was visibly fawning over his sharp, athletic features. “A mocha for the lady, please. ”
“Noted, sire,” the waitress said demurely—then shot Hermione a distinctly nasty look. Hermione responded with a toothy grin and a wink.
After a moment of comfortable silence, Hermione couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Aren’t Ron and Ginny coming?” she asked, though her stomach was already curling.
Harry shifted, his hand drifting to the back of his neck—the universal Harry Potter gesture of bad news incoming.
“Well…” He dragged the word out. “Ron’s taking the break you two are having about as well as a toddler denied a second packet of Time Out.”
Hermione blinked. “…So. Badly.”
“Yup,” Harry grimaced. “I tried talking to him. He said I was lecturing—again—and stormed off. Went on about being a police officer 'who still makes time' for his family.” He made air quotes before sighing. “You’ve heard the speech.”
She picked at her cuticle, gaze dropping. “A variation of it, yes.”
His hands reached for hers, his thumb slowly circling the space between her thumb and index finger.
“I wouldn’t bring it up unless it mattered. Just… don’t contact him right now.” A pause. “I don’t want him taking anything out on you. You don’t deserve that.”
She hummed, eyeing his fingers.
Anything else would’ve broken her.
She knew she'd been foolish to hope forgiveness could be earned simply by showing her face, as if neglect could be paid off in crumbs of presence.
“What about Ginny?” she asked, forcing herself to utter the following words. “Is she starting to snub me for what I did to her brother? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The comforting tracing on her skin paused for a moment before resuming.
"No. She’s in Wales for the Holyhead Harpies tryouts. You remember how much she used to love soccer, right? Well, Ginny’s been working hard to make it into the league now. She’d rather die than miss the opportunity... though she sent her deepest regrets."
She looked up.
He avoided her gaze.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she opened her mouth to say she wasn’t made of glass—that he was terrible, so terrible at lying—but Harry cut in before she could speak.
“Too bad they’re missing out on this,” He said brightly, letting go of her hand to reach for the cake box. “But I won’t complain about having it all to myself.”
Her heart twitched.
He was trying to spare her from the harshness of the truth, and somehow that hurt more.
She wasn’t a damsel in distress.
Pathetically lonely, perhaps.
Depressed, certainly to an extend.
But she did not need a veil drawn over her wounds—
Covering them only ensured their rot. Infection spread with every breath she took, with every moment she allowed herself the comfort of pretending—the gentle insistence that everything was fine.
That lie was killing her slowly.
By the time it finished its work, there would be nothing left to save.
And yet, the tender look in his eyes stopped her protest.
A moment of hesitation passed as she processed it all, only to yield, fruitlessly, to his gaze in the end.
It was Christmas Eve—a day meant for preparation and celebration. A day steeped in bubbling anticipation.
Though for her, this marked the day of forgiveness, of daring to make beginnings anew.
So perhaps she could leave the veil where it was and tend to the wounds later. She promised herself she would. She had to. Just not now. Later.
Opening one of the boxes, the treacle tart’s rich, buttery scent swallowed the surrounding clutter whole.
Pale-gold shortcrust, neatly crimped and gleaming beneath a layer of amber filling—dark and sticky at the centre—seemed to beckon them closer.
Harry all but lit up.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “That looks incredible. Either the holiday spirit’s already getting to me, or you’ve been hiding some very real good talents again. Since when did you cook like this?”
“You haven’t even tasted it,” she said, snorting affectionately. “What if it’s dreadful? Assumptions made without certainty have a habit of ending in disappointment.”
“You?” Harry scoffed. “Bad at something you’ve poured your heart into? That’s a lovely joke—but it’s never going to happen.”
She rolled her eyes, teeth worrying at her lower lip as she fought the bright, giddy—foolish—swell of a smile threatening to give her away. “Shut up and just take a bite, Harry. I didn’t bring it along just to let it sit there.”
“Say less.” He cut himself a slice, took a bite—and very nearly moaned.
His eyes fluttered shut, jaw working through buttery crust and golden syrup.
“I was fucking right.”
“Mind your language.”
“I fear your transcendent cooking has loosened the leash on my brutish mouth,” he replied, dabbing his lips with a napkin.
The gesture was so unlike him that Hermione half-wondered if she was dreaming.
Harry Potter and table manners in the same room felt… impossible.
And yet—he ate with unnaturally elegance now. At for him, it was nothing but unnatural. Strange.
His calluose, pale fingers held the utensils with almost practised grace; his mouth made no sound—nothing like Ron’s, nothing like hers either, if she were being honest.
Even the knife moved in silence, each cut so precise it seemed he wasn’t touching the food at all, until he lifted a small, perfect piece to his lips.
Something in her chest tightened at the sight.
So maybe he really had grown up.
The fact that he no longer needed her—to guide him, to scold him, to offer advice—should have made her happy.
And it did.
But it also drew something cruel around her throat, leaving her faintly breathless.
She was going to be of no use to him now.
Not anymore.
And soon—she knew it—he would see through her, see the futility of keeping her close, and leave her too.
Just as Ron had.
Their drinks arrived as he continued to make short work of the tart.
While murmuring a clumsy collision of thank-yous to the waitress, she told Harry—very specifically—to call her Jess and not “Miss,” to consider her a friend, and to tosh all the politeness.
The smile on his face never wavered, which struck her as odd. Normally, in a situation like this, he would fidget, shift his weight, or display the slightest discomfort—but instead, he looked utterly composed.
Though, poor Jess.
She hadn’t the faintest idea the man was already taken.
By now, Ginny would have eaten her alive for daring to flirt with her man. Still—no harm done. On Ginny’s behalf, Hermione calmly pocketed the number that wench had sneakily slipped into the receipt and crumpled it into a ball.
She would always have the redhead’s back.
She only wished, sometimes, that someone might do the same for her.
Drumming her fingers against the tabletop, she didn’t bother serving herself a slice. Watching him savour it was more than enough to fill her.
“There’s another thing I brought,” she said, sipping her mocha, letting the chocolate settle warmly. “Save some room.”
“Better if I open it later,” he replied with a wry smile. “Shifts have been brutal lately—some stretching into the night. A surprise treat waiting at home would be perfect.”
Then he dipped a hand into his blazer pocket. “I brought something for you too. An early Christmas present. I wanted to give it to you myself—I don’t reckon I’ll be home much after this.”
He placed two perfectly wrapped packages in front of her. One was a small rectangle; the other looked as though it concealed something flat.
“You didn’t have to,” she said softly. “I know how busy you are.”
“I would never be too busy for you, Hermione.”
Her eyes burned.
She looked away quickly.
“Thank you,” she whispered, fingers already worrying at the wrappings of the small one.
Thank you for existing. For being here—for choosing to stay, for lingering with me when everything else had learned how to leave.
His hand covered hers, stilling her. His lips pressed into a thin line. “Not here. I want you to open it at home.”
Then, smiling gently, he added, “Shall we finish our drinks before they get cold?”
There was a gleam in his eyes as the minutes passed—but beneath it lingered a dullness she barely noticed.