The silence in her flat was a physical presence. It pressed in on her, heavy and suffocating. The fight replayed in her mind on a vicious loop—his scorn, her accusations, the devastating finality of that closed door.
He didn't follow her. No owl arrived. No paper bird tapped at her window. The silence from his end was absolute, and it screamed his agreement with her parting shot. This is who you are.
She went to work the next day, her eyes gritty from lack of sleep. The cheerful yellow memo about the Brazilian delegation sat on her desk, now feeling like a declaration of war. She ignored it. She couldn't bear to look at it.
The day was a marathon of emptiness. Her office felt too big. The Ministry corridors seemed to stretch on forever. Every laugh from a colleague felt like a personal affront. How could the world just go on when hers had so abruptly stopped?
She thought about going to the chamber after work, a masochistic impulse to see if he was there, to see if the bridge was truly ash. But her pride, and the fresh, raw wound of their argument, held her back. He had made his position clear. He valued the sanctity of his work over their partnership. Over her.
That evening, Ginny showed up, letting herself in with her key. She took one look at Hermione's face, pale and drawn, and sighed.
"Right. What happened?"
Hermione told her, the words spilling out in a tired, monotone stream. When she finished, Ginny was quiet for a moment.
"He's an idiot," she stated plainly.
"He's principled," Hermione countered, the defense automatic, even now.
"He's a proud, stubborn idiot," Ginny amended. "But, Hermione… so are you."
Hermione looked up, startled.
"You knew who he was when you fell for him," Ginny said, not unkindly. "A brilliant, solitary, control-obsessed curse-breaker who communicates in grunts and challenges. Did you really think that was just going to vanish because you shared a few kisses?"
"I thought he'd changed," Hermione whispered, the hope now feeling foolish.
"People don't change that fast. They adapt. They make exceptions. And when they're scared, they fall back on what they know. You threatened his control, his solitary pursuit. He panicked and retreated to his fortress. It's what he knows."
"So what do I do? Apologize for trying to do my job?"
"No," Ginny said firmly. "You give him space. And you give yourself space. Let him feel what it's like in that fortress without you in it. Let him miss the 'compromise'."
The advice was sound, but it felt like a death sentence. Space. Silence. It was what he was best at. It was what would ultimately win.
The next two days were a study in misery. The emptiness around her began to echo the emptiness inside. She tried to read, but the words held no meaning. She tried to work on other projects, but her focus was shattered.
On the third evening, desperate for a distraction, she went to the one place that had always been a refuge. The Hogwarts library.
But it wasn't a refuge anymore. It was a gallery of ghosts. She saw the table where they had sat, heads bent over the grey folio. She saw the shelf where he had pulled down the "sad" book. Every corner held a memory of his intense presence, his low voice explaining a complex point, his rare, focused smiles.
She ended up in the Restricted Section, standing before the empty space on the shelf where the folio had been. Her hand reached out, brushing the dusty wood where the book had rested. A profound sense of loss, sharper and more personal than any she had felt from the Vault, washed over her.
This wasn't just about the fight. This was about the loss of them. The loss of the intellectual partnership, the easy camaraderie, the quiet understanding. The loss of the future they had been silently building, full of shared mysteries and late-night conversations.
She had accused him of wanting to keep the Vault locked away like a private treasure. But wasn't that what she had done with him? She had kept their relationship in a bubble, separate from her work, from her friends, until the outside world had inevitably intruded.
A tear traced a hot path down her cheek, dripping onto the dusty shelf. She wasn't just mourning the man. She was mourning the potential. The brilliant, complicated, beautiful potential of what they could have been, now crumbling to dust in the empty space he had left behind.