What's Best For Her

Parents Know Best

Hermione stared out the car window and, by some miracle, kept her tears from falling. Though it wasn't his fault, the girl got her heart broken by Harry yet again. Once again, they weren't on the same page and she missed her opportunity with him. She didn't want to take Ginny's advice and see him before her departure but something pulled her to him against her will. Before she arrived at King's Cross, the witch owled her parents and told them to wait for her while she visited Harry.

But, as always, she wouldn't get the chance to tell him how she felt because the fates just didn't want her to. That was the only explanation for all of this. Hermione Granger just didn't deserve to be with Harry Potter and this was the fates' way of telling her that. She should have accepted it sooner and spared herself the pain of losing him over and over again.

"Poppet, are you sure this is what you want?"

An affronted Hermione looked up at her father's words but stayed silent. If she were being honest with herself, she wasn't sure about her choice even if she knew it was the best thing to do for herself. The choice of leaving for New York, even for a week, without telling Harry anything was a mistake she didn't want to admit to. Add to that the fact that she was going to the city for an opportunity to move there for four years, and Hermione felt her heart wrench at the thought of Harry not knowing anything about it because she willfully kept it from him.

The girl was no idiot, she knew that there was more than a high chance she would be accepted into the program. If that happened, there would be no waiting or grace period. She would have to commit to attending as it wouldn't be fair to the countless others who applied to the prestigious program. If she did that, then she was as good as gone from England for four years.

Her father must have taken her silence for an answer because he opted to keep talking. "Honey, if you're not sure, we can turn back," he told her as gently as he could without pressuring her.

Hermione expected her mum to kick up a storm over the prospect of canceling the family holiday but, to her surprise, the woman said nothing. Then, to render her shocked even more, her mother spoke for the first time during the car ride.

"Your father's right, love, we can turn back right now," the older woman told her sweetly.

"But...this is the family holiday, mummy," Hermione reasoned, though with no actual force behind her words.

"And? We can always go on holiday during the summer, New York's not going anywhere," said her mother with an air of tranquility.

"I—I have that interview, though. I can't just miss it," Hermione argued, once again in a halfhearted tone of voice.

The teenager felt like she was battling her own version of Doctor Jekyll and Mister—Miss—Hyde. Doctor Jekyll was telling her to let her parents turn the car back and deny herself the opportunity of a lifetime to pursue an even bigger opportunity. Miss Hyde was telling her to act rationally and follow her head by ignoring her feelings and her wishes to be with Harry. Safe to say, she didn't know who to listen to.

"Hermione, look at me," Mistress Granger turned around from her seat in the car to look at her daughter fondly, "do you really want to go to that interview?"

Hermione was never a good liar and it was because of the effect her mother's gaze had upon her as a child. Even as she grew older, one look into the woman's hazel orbs was enough for her to spill her deepest darkest secrets. Before she could stop herself, or her tears from falling, Hermione nodded her head no to her mother.

"Oh, dear, then why?" Her mother reached to her and clasped their hands together, softly dragging the pads of her thumb across the back of hers.

"B—because it's...what's best for me," the bushy haired witch stubbornly replied, still using the same excuse she gave to Ginny and harry.

"Clearly it's not," Mistress Granger shook her head, "if it's got you like this. Honey, why do you want to do this?"

The girl's father pulled into a lot at the question and parked the car before turning back to look at her. Suddenly, Hermione was confronted by the sight of the concerned faces of her parents and she knew she could no more lie to them than she could lie to herself about her feelings for Harry.

"Because of him," Hermione whimpered through her tears, "because I love him too much." The admission of her feelings to her parents opened the proverbial floodgates of her tears and they came torrentially.

"You want to leave him because you love him?" Mister Granger asked dumbly before wincing at the pained moan his daughter gave in response to his question.

"I—I have to leave him. We're n—not m—meant to be t—together," the young girl confided through her heart rending sobs.

Like any parents, Mister and Mistress Granger felt completely miserable at seeing their little girl cry her heart out in despair. They knew she was in no state to travel and that going to the States would only end up hurting more than she thought it would. No, as her parents, they had to protect her. Even if that meant they had to protect her from herself.

"Love, why do you say that? Has he said anything to you?"

Hermione shook her head at her mother, wordlessly telling her that Harry did and said nothing. She admitted to herself that Ginny was right and that she had totally misread him but it was too late to correct that. It was always too late for her and him. The girl was scared, scared of hoping for something that was proven time and time again to not have any chance of happening.

"Well, then how do you know you two aren't meant to be together?" Her father once again questioned her.

"Because every time I try to tell him, something always happens. And...he never said anything to me," her body was shaking with the force of her sobs, "and he was willing to let me go without even fighting for me to stay."

Mistress Granger raised her eyebrows at that. If she knew her daughter well enough, and she did, the boy her baby girl was referring to was none other than Harry Potter. While she hadn't had the honor of seeing the boy in person too many times, she did have some semblance of an idea of what he was like in her daughter's countless letters and conversations with her about the boy.

The older woman knew Harry Potter was perhaps the most noble boy in England, if her daughter's words were any guide to follow, and could understand why he didn't fight for their daughter to stay with him. In nearly all of her letters, Hermione had written that the boy's self-sacrificing nature was much too prominent in his character even if it made him the most wonderful person she knew. It left no doubt in the woman's mind that the boy did what he always did and sacrificed his own happiness for what he believed would make his best friend happy. She was almost certain of it.

"What if he didn't fight for you because he wanted to make you happy?" Mistress Granger softly asked her daughter, a tender look in her eyes.

"What makes me happy is him, only him." Hermione continued to weep violently and covered her face into her arms as she hugged herself.

"Does he know that?" The question came from her father, who's own tears began escaping his eyes at the sight of his distraught daughter. "So how do you know you two aren't meant to be? What if he's waiting for you to tell him how you feel?" The man asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

When no answer came from their daughter, the mother and father knew that she hadn't told Harry that she loved him. If it weren't already clear that they needed to reverse course and turn the car around, it was supremely so now. At that, Mister Granger immediately put his car in reverse and left the lot before shifting to drive and beginning the journey home.

Noticing that the car was moving again, Hermione looked up to see all the buildings they passed begin appearing again. It didn't take long for her to figure out they were heading back home and she began to protest.

"What are you doing?" She frantically questioned, reaching over in between her parents' seats to look at them.

It was her mother who spoke while her father remained deathly silent as he concentrated on the road.

"We're doing what's best for you."