It was now easy for Harry to understand what had brought these revelations to the surface, and the calming draught was allowing Dan to talk about things he would normally keep bottled up inside him.
"Just like today though, our little Hermione was a fighter and pulled through. Emma however was in a coma for seventeen days, the seventeen worst days of my life - until today. Even after Emma came back to us, she was very weak for a long time after that. Hermione spent most of her first year being cared for by my mother, and those two loved one another - Hermione's first word was 'Nana'."
Harry felt a wave of emotion coming from Hermione and immediately understood the story was about to take another downturn.
"My mother passed away rather suddenly when Hermione had just turned two. How do you explain to a two-year-old the person they love most in all the world is no longer there for them..." At that, Dan's eyelids shot open. "Harry, I'm sorry. That was very insensitive of me, since your own parents died when you were young too."
"It's fine, sir. My relations solved that problem by telling me my parents were a couple of drunks who died in a car crash - a crash that their drinking caused."
Dan stared in silence at the young man for a moment before deciding nothing he could say on the matter would make any difference. He closed his eyes once more and continued with his own family's story.
"Emma had been so ill, she never bonded with her baby girl. Hermione hadn't lost out though, she had her Nana. When my mother died, Emma did try but Hermione was inconsolable. So much so, she started having bouts of what we now know was accidental magic. If Emma held Hermione, things in the house would start shaking and falling from shelves. Remember, we knew nothing of magic at the time - it was bloody terrifying. If I held Hermione, Emma would then be in floods of tears because it didn't happen. I have two women in my life that I love more than my own life, yet holding one upset the other."
Harry knew Hermione was now out her shower, and the wetness on her cheeks was because of the tears she was crying. He so wanted to go to her but felt this needed to be out in the open. What was happening here could affect the rest of their lives. Hermione understood, and completely agreed with Harry. She would be there soon but staying outside the door in case her presence stopped her father speaking.
"Emma being assigned as my lab parter at Uni was life changing for both of us. I was terribly shy, she was even worse, but right from our first lab we worked incredibly well together. We slowly grew closer but it still took me a couple of months to ask her out for a coffee - without a doubt the best decision I ever made. We gradually coaxed each other out of those shyness shells we'd both grown around ourselves and were married right out of Uni, with Hermione coming along a couple of years later."
Hermione had arrived, but stayed outside the door so her father wouldn't know she was there.
"That shyness came back to haunt both of us though when our family hit problems. Crawling back into our shells was one way of stopping the hurt, we were safe in there. Emma and I were never ones for public displays of affection but soon all signs of affection between us stopped. I'm certain the affection is still there, we've both just gotten so used to hiding it. Now we have a wonderful daughter who thinks her mother hates her, and her father is a buffoon. So now you know what you're considering marrying into..." Dan was shocked into silence as his daughter made her presence known.
After hearing that, Hermione knew it was time. She silently approached her father's bed, brushed the hair from his forehead before gently kissing it. "Your jokes may have been terrible, but my dad was never a buffoon."
With the both of them in tears, Harry was getting ready to retreat and leave father and daughter to it when Hermione's head whipped around. "Harry, don't you dare leave. You're part of this family too, it's going to take all of us working together to put it back together."
"Your young man said no one was going to touch his family this time, you have no idea how delighted I am that he meant it."
"That's one thing about my Harry, he always means what he says. How are you feeling?"
"I was just going to ask you the same. That brute had you in a chokehold, then you made sure he wouldn't be doing that to anyone else. You warned us, and we didn't listen. I'm so sorry, they were everything and more you said they would be. You and Harry still came to rescue us, I'm so proud of you both."
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