It wasn't until the second week of June that Hermione had noticed she hadn't been receiving flowers from Ron. Not that it bothered her; she was happy she was no longer receiving them. She wondered if Ron had finally come around to the idea that they weren't getting back together, but the thought was soon pushed to the back of her mind as she focused on her work. It was the ninth of June and the full moon was that Saturday, so her first task was to remind her clients to take their potions. The task kept her occupied and she completely forgot about Ron and her pending divorce.
That is until lunch came around.
"Hi."
Hermione looked up and froze when she saw the person standing awkwardly in her doorway, unsure of what to say. After a few seconds of silence, Hermione took a deep breath and said, "Hello, Claire."
Claire shifted her weight from one foot to the other and adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder, looking between the floor and Hermione's desk. "I was hoping we could talk."
Raising an eyebrow, Hermione set down the papers that she was holding. "Talk about what?"
"I just want to clear the air and tell you the truth about everything, because I have a feeling that you don't know everything that's happened," Claire said quietly.
There was a sudden twist of pain on Hermione's heart as the memories resurfaced again; even though it had only been a couple of weeks, so much had happened since Ron's infidelity that it felt like it was a lifetime ago. But now everything was fresh again in her mind, including the hurt.
Hermione found herself agreeing to go to lunch with her former assistant, and the two women were soon sitting awkwardly across from each other in a little café that they used to frequent.
Claire shifted in her chair and glanced up at Hermione before swallowing the lump in her throat. "I...I like what you've done with your hair."
"Thank you." Hermione wasn't quite sure what else to say. She felt about as uncomfortable as Claire looked in that moment, and with a deep sigh she decided to just get things over with. "Why don't you just start from the beginning?"
This seemed to catch Claire off guard but the woman nodded and looked down at her plate. She was quiet while she gathered her thoughts, and after taking a drink of her water she began to speak.
"I just want to start off by saying that I am so very sorry for my part in everything," Claire began, finally looking up at Hermione. "I understand that I am just as in the wrong as Ron is, and there isn't an excuse for my actions."
She paused then, looking down at her plate again before continuing. "It all just happened very quickly. I think it started in late March, about a month before the mess with the potion brewer being murdered."
Hermione thought back to that time and remembered that Ron had started getting snippy with her over small things around then. She nodded and Claire went on.
"It started out innocently enough. He'd say hi to me whenever he passed by to go to your office, and that turned into small talk and him getting to know me," She explained. "Then there was one day during lunch when you had a sudden meeting with the Minister over something and he wanted to take you out to lunch. Because you couldn't go, he asked me to go instead since he already had the reservation. I stupidly accepted and I shouldn't have, but I did."
Claire took a deep breath and glanced up at Hermione before continuing. "He let slip that you two were starting to have problems, and I think he wanted someone to talk to about them with. I don't know why he couldn't sort them out with you, but I didn't ask either. He ended the lunch by giving me a kiss on the cheek and that was it. But later that week he asked me out to lunch again because you were busy. I honestly enjoyed lunch with him the first time around and I thought it was just talking so I accepted again."
She looked up at Hermione then with an earnest expression. "I honestly thought you knew about it, the lunches. He told me you didn't have a problem with it."
Hermione shook her head slowly. "I wasn't told anything."
Claire sighed and nodded. "Which I had a feeling about, and which is why I wanted to have this lunch with you."
There was a pause as their food was delivered, but Hermione didn't touch her plate as she waited for Claire to continue. "It sounds like something happened on the second lunch."
Claire nodded again, looking down at her food and putting her hands in her lap. "He told me about how he was upset that you hadn't taken his last name yet, and that he thought it was ridiculous and you were making excuses. There were a few other things he talked about but that was the main thing. And also how you didn't want to settle down and have kids yet."
An angry chill rolled over Hermione's body and she clenched her jaw shut. Ron knew her career was important to her...
"He started complimenting me, and I'm not going to lie, it felt somewhat nice," Claire admitted sheepishly. "I mean, I haven't had a boyfriend in years and the attention was just nice to receive. I knew it was wrong and I felt and still feel extremely guilty for enjoying it, but I reminded him that he was married and he said he knew, and that he was just making observations."
Claire took another breath and then looked up at the ceiling. "But then at the end of the lunch, instead of just a kiss on the cheek, he...it was a full-on kiss. And I should have broken it off but...I didn't."
Hermione didn't realize that she was gripping her napkin tightly in her hands until she felt the strain in her wrists, and she took a deep, ragged breath to try and calm down. She wasn't expecting to have this reaction considering she had already moved on, but it was like the wounds were reopening deep down.
"What else?" She asked, her voice cracking slightly.
She could see the pained expression on Claire's face, knowing just how painful this was for Claire to admit as it was for her to hear everything.
"We started sneaking off nearly every day to see each other in secret," Claire said, looking away again. "Whenever you would dive into your work and shut your door so you wouldn't be disturbed, he'd ask me to come see him, and I couldn't stay away. I don't know what it was, but I know it was wrong. It wasn't anything more than snogging until..."
She trailed off and Hermione waited, blinking back the few tears that had started to well up. "Until?"
"Until Draco Malfoy came to see you," Claire said, meeting Hermione's eyes again. "It was like a switch flipped in his head, and instead of working it out with you, he..."
"He went straight to you," Hermione finished, straightening up in her chair.
Claire nodded. "It was that day when you and Draco had the meeting with the Minister regarding the new potion brewer. He decided to use that time to have another snogging session while you were busy, but he didn't know that Draco was there as well. When we came back and he saw that Draco was in your office, he just lost it. I got a note from him after that telling me to meet in his office after you left for the day. I thought it was going to be another snogging session but I was wrong."
Hermione closed her eyes and looked away, clenching her jaw again. Claire didn't seem to notice though because she went on:
"It started out as a snogging session, but then quickly escalated. I didn't want to get caught doing anything in his office so we went back to my place..." She trailed off again and took another breath. "I told him afterwards that it couldn't happen again. I tried to end things and break it off because I knew it was wrong and I couldn't keep doing it, and I definitely should not have let it get that far."
"No, you shouldn't have," Hermione said pointedly, looking back at the other woman.
Claire gave her another pained look. "We didn't speak for a little while, and you two seemed to be doing better. I thought that was the end of it. You seemed much happier and he stopped reaching out. But then the full moon came around again, and the next day he was all of a sudden on my doorstep, angrier than I had ever seen him."
So that was where Ron had disappeared to. Hermione forced herself to stay calm again, looking past Claire at the wall behind her as she slowly explained, "I had checked in with Draco's employee, and Draco wanted to show his appreciation for my concern by taking me out to lunch. Ron read the letter and assumed I was the one cheating."
"See, he didn't tell me that," Claire said, gesturing off towards nothing in particular. "He flat out told me that you had been cheating on him with Draco."
"Well, I wasn't," Hermione said angrily.
"I understand that now," Claire said sadly. "He painted this awful picture of you in my mind, and eventually I started to grow just as mad that you would do something like that, even though you didn't. He stayed with me the entire weekend, venting to me and telling me how much he hated Draco. Though he used a lot more colorful names instead of Draco's first name."
"I bet he did," Hermione said, crossing her arms across her chest and leaning back into her seat. "So he runs to you and shags you the entire weekend."
Claire nodded with a grim expression. "Deep down I knew it was mostly just revenge shagging in his mind, but then he was nothing but nice to me. He was affectionate, told me how much he appreciated me listening to him and talking with him about things. He said he got attached to me because I did small things for him that he said you didn't do anymore, like cooking him food and folding his laundry for him."
A mixture of anger and pain sliced through Hermione's chest at this, and she struggled to process what she had just heard. Cooking for him? Folding his laundry? She cooked for him all the time! And he never once mentioned these issues with her!
Claire speaking again pulled her out of her thoughts. "It just felt good to have someone tell you that you're appreciated, and to have that attention. And because of how he made me feel about you then, I didn't feel as guilty. He made it sound like the two of you were going to be finished soon. I didn't know what was going to happen, I was too caught up in how I felt about him then and I didn't even think twice about what he was telling me. I thought his version of everything was the truth."
She took a deep breath and then gestured towards Hermione. "Then that Monday happened, and you caught us in his office. After hearing Ron saying that it was a moment of weakness while I was leaving, that's when I started looking back on everything, and realized that maybe what I was told wasn't the truth. I wasn't quite sure what the truth was, but I couldn't live with the guilt of what I had done after that. He made me believe that he and I would be together and that it wasn't just a fling, since he made it seem like you two were going to end. He never outright said it, though, which makes me think that he wanted to keep both of us and not have to suffer the consequences of losing one or both of us."
Claire finished then, looking down at her plate of untouched food but glancing up at Hermione once or twice. Hermione sat there quietly as she tried to control the thoughts raging in her mind. She wasn't sure quite how to feel in that exact moment. There was an unsettling mixture of rage and understanding that she absolutely hated.
After a few minutes of silence, Hermione finally sighed and rubbed her cheek in frustration before slowly saying, "I appreciate you wanting to tell me your side of things. I know this must have been very uncomfortable for you."
Claire nodded slightly. "I know I'm probably the last person you wanted to see and talk to right now, so thank you for listening."
"Well, it was a tie between you and Ron, to be honest," Hermione said, shifting in her chair. "I, frankly, don't want to see either of you again."
"I know, and I'm so sorry," Claire said quickly. "I know I was wrong, and-"
"Wrong doesn't even begin to cover it," Hermione interrupted, glaring at the other woman. "Do you have any idea how much I want to hate you right now?"
Claire didn't answer, shifting uncomfortably.
Hermione looked down at the floor before looking back up at Claire again. "I want nothing more than to hex you right now, but I can't. I can't do that because you were lied to the same way I was. But you knew what was happening. You went into this situation knowing that he was married to me, and you still went along with it regardless of whatever he told you about me. I can justify my anger with Ron. I can hate him as much as I want. But you? As much as I truly want to hate you, I can't justify it. And that is what I am most upset about right now."
Looking down at her plate again, Claire nodded slightly at this. "I understand."
"No, I don't quite think you do." Hermione straightened up again, leaning forward to rest her arms on the table and look at her former assistant. "You have no idea how this feels."
Claire didn't say anything for a few seconds until she quietly said, "If it helps at all, I've managed to convince him to sign the divorce papers."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Are you still seeing him?"
After a few tense moments, Claire nodded.
"Well, you may end up knowing how I feel then," Hermione said somewhat spitefully.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Claire asked defensively.
"He's most likely going to do this to you, too."
Claire scoffed at this. "I highly doubt that."
Hermione gave Claire a smile, one laced with anger and spite. "You may be the perfect woman for him. At first. You may do everything right at first. But you'll start to slip because you get busy with other things in your life. You'll fall off that pretty pedestal he set you up on and he will never forgive you for it. And then he will find another perfect woman. I know this because I know Ron. I've known him since we were eleven. Anytime anyone wronged him, he'd act spitefully and wouldn't give them the time of day. He's done that to both Harry and I, his supposed best friends. Nothing has ever been his fault. He is self-centered quite a bit of the time, and more stubborn than anyone you will ever meet. He expects to be taken care of because he doesn't know how to take care of himself. He went straight from living with his mother, who did everything for him, to living with me, expecting to live the same life where his laundry is always folded for him and food is always waiting for him. And while I have the utmost respect for his mother, I am not her. I didn't do everything for him like she did. And he didn't like that. So if you decide to pursue a relationship with him, you better be prepared to be the perfect woman."
There was silence between the two women as the skeptical expression slid off Claire's face and was replaced with a worried one. Hermione set her napkin on the table and stood up, leaning forward again to add, "He lied to both of us, and you accepted his lies just as easily as I did. Do you really want to give him the chance to lie to you again by staying with him?"
"Why do you care if he does that to me too?" Claire asked then, both frustrated and confused.
Hermione was quiet for a few moments and then sighed again before saying, "I've already told you: as much as I want to hate you right now, I understand that you were not told the entire truth, and I can't fault you for that. And I truly wouldn't wish this pain on anyone else, even the woman my husband had an affair with. I'm still angry at you for your part in all of this, but honestly..."
She paused and looked up for a second before looking back down at the blonde. "Honestly, I'm in a much better place. And I think that's another reason I can't quite hate you, because this entire situation allowed me to move on to a much better relationship, and I'm happy now. I just want to finally put everything behind me, and this talk today just helped seal everything into the past. And that's all I want for everyone in this situation: to move on."
Hermione then grabbed her bag, walking out of the café with a weight lifted off her shoulders. She didn't realize just how much she had been holding back, and the thought hadn't even occurred to her in the past that she was holding in so many things that she wanted to say to Claire. She had barely even given Claire any thought in the past few weeks, but getting all of those feelings she didn't even know she had off her chest felt so freeing.
When she returned to her office, she found a small package on her desk and paused, recognizing the handwriting on it.
I know it's not much, but I'm sorry for everything. Happy late anniversary, Hermione.
Inside the package was the divorce papers, signed by Ron. She stared down at the papers as a small smile spread across her face, and all of the remaining anxiety she had disappeared.