And here's the rest...
Hermione was jerked awake by a noise that broke through her tiredness, tugging her out of sleep.
What-where was-she was instantaneously fully alert at the realization that she couldn’t see Harry.
She sat up and grabbed her wand in one smooth movement, glancing first outside to the mouth of the cave to see that it was still dark and still pouring rain. So he wouldn’t have gone outside. Besides, she knew he’d set up the wards at the mouth of the cave and he wouldn’t have gone outside the wards. She turned to peer inside, deeper into the cave, and scrambled to her feet.
Was there-her eyes were suddenly caught by a faint illumination from the back wall of the cave-yes, there was an opening in the cave wall. Harry must have noticed it and gone to explore, or reconnoiter, more accurately.
She moved quickly and quietly deeper into the cave. “Harry?” she called cautiously, keeping her voice low. (It was, she sometimes thought, a sad fact that they had both become so much more careful, even paranoid, always leery of making too much noise or doing anything else that might attract attention. But if paranoia kept them alive…)
There was no answer and the prickle of unease sharpened into outright worry. Harry would not have gone far and she knew if he’d heard her, he would answer her.
She tried just peering into the gap in the wall but could only see that it clearly widened into another cave and that was where the dim illumination was coming from. Harry, she thought, it had to be. But why hadn’t he answered her, she wondered with a stab of apprehension.
She slid through the narrow gap and stepped carefully into the cave, her gaze immediately finding-she caught her breath sharply.
It was… herself. Lying on the floor a few feet away, and she was dead.
It was an eerie sight and she had to wrestle her mind back into coherence. It was only a boggart. It had to be.
Which meant-
Her gaze lowered-Harry! He was on the floor slumped onto his knees. She took a quick step towards him, which allowed her to see his face, and she stopped abruptly, her heart suddenly clenching.
He looked… broken… was the only word she could think of to describe it. Rather like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Harry?” she managed to say, hearing the tremor in her voice from a combination of fear and a sudden swell of another, softer emotion she didn’t try to identify at the realization that Harry’s boggart was of her now.
He didn’t react. Didn’t blink. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her or seen her, wasn’t aware of anything at all. He was pale, his hair and his eyebrows standing out in stark relief against the parchment-like pallor of his skin-but the worst part was his eyes, she realized, as she crouched in front of him. His eyes-his normally vivid eyes-were dulled and vacant. He looked like a shell of himself, hollowed-out and empty.
Empty of life, empty of strength, empty of hope.
“Harry!” she tried again with a little more urgency, forgetting all other emotions completely in her sudden panic, her voice sounding shaky and unlike herself.
He still didn’t react. He hadn’t moved at all, seemed as frozen in place as if he’d been petrified. No, it was worse than that. Being petrified affected the physical body; this… this was as if his mind was no longer in his body. He looked… defeated. As if he had already seen the end of the War and Voldemort’s final victory and, worse than that, as if he didn’t even care.
She heard a sob and realized belatedly it had come from her and clamped one hand over her mouth, fighting back the rising sobs in her throat. She couldn’t-she couldn’t break down.
It didn’t matter if she was suddenly terrified-more terrified than she’d ever been-at this sight of Harry. It didn’t matter if she was suddenly, starkly conscious that she couldn’t go on fighting this War, couldn’t go on trying without him. Not because he was Harry-Potter-Boy-Who-Lived but just because he was Harry. He was Harry and-and somehow, he gave her strength.
She forcibly shoved the thought aside. She would think about it all later, deal with this revelation and all its repercussions later.
She had to deal with the boggart and then-she had to fix Harry, bring him back. Somehow. She had to. Not even because of the War but because she needed him.
She pushed all of her emotions and her terror over Harry out of her mind-or rather, she tried to. She didn’t succeed; all she could really say was that she no longer felt on the verge of breaking down into hysterical sobs.
For Harry. She needed to be strong for Harry.
She focused on the thought, clutched it to herself like a talisman, as she forced herself to stand up and turned back to the boggart.
Only to take an involuntary step back as she saw that it had changed forms-had become Harry, lying there dead.
She automatically glanced back down to Harry-the real Harry, who was still alive, she reassured herself fiercely-and then back up at the boggart, trying to steel herself.
Something funny. Something funny, she repeated to herself. God, at the moment, she could hardly imagine laughing at anything again, let alone forcing her will on the boggart to change it into something funny.
But for Harry…
“Ridikkulus!”
She flinched and stifled an involuntary cry. The boggart had changed to become her parents, lying there dead. Oh God…
She swallowed hard and tried again. “Ridikkulus!”
It was Ron lying there dead now. Oh Ron! She flinched and closed her eyes to the sight. Not that it helped much. The sight of him, the thought of him, tore at her-as it had since he’d left them-regret and grief and guilt and anger and disappointment welling up inside her-and she forcibly quashed the emotions. No, she couldn’t think about Ron now.
She needed to focus! She mentally shook herself. She could do this. For Harry’s sake. She kept her eyes shut and focused on a mental picture of Harry smiling and happy, tried to remember one of those times when it had just been the Trio and they’d just been enjoying themselves, the three of them together. A memory, images, crept into her mind-the three of them in the Great Hall, celebrating after Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup. The twins had said something funny and Ron had choked on the butterbeer he’d been drinking, causing some of it to go up his nose, making him wheeze as his face turned red. She and Harry and the twins had begun to laugh, Harry laughing hard enough that he’d been breathless afterwards. Ron had pretended to glare at them for laughing but then, once he’d recovered, he’d joined in, laughing at his own predicament with the perfect good humor he exhibited occasionally. She inwardly smiled at the memory.
“Ridikkulus!” She opened her eyes to see that the boggart had been turned into a small dog, dressed up in frilly clothing, and dancing. And heard a rusty laugh break out in response.
The dog vanished. The boggart was gone.
All amusement died as quickly as it had come as she knelt back in front of Harry, who still had not moved.
She reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Harry! Harry, wake up, it’s me, Hermione.”
He still didn’t react-and the worst of it was that he wasn’t looking at her even though she was right in front of him. It was like his gaze, fixed, vacant, was looking through her or inwardly, looking through himself. As if he had retreated so far from reality that it could no longer impinge on him, could no longer affect him. As if he was no longer in this world.
She shuddered at the thought, terrified all over again. Oh God, she couldn’t lose him! She couldn’t!
“Harry, come on!” She shook him by his shoulder but she might as well have been shaking a corpse for all the reaction she got. And then she hated herself for the comparison she’d just made. “Harry, you’re-you’re scaring me,” she blurted out, something she would not normally admit to anyone else but this was Harry, who was probably the only person in the world to whom she could admit being afraid and she wasn’t just afraid. She was bloody terrified, almost mindless with panic.
“Harry!” she cried again, a sob she couldn’t hold back punctuating his name. “Harry, please, you-you can’t leave me!”
She was pleading, begging him, some part of her sure that that would bring him back. She knew how much he cared, how much he would do for others, for anyone he cared about-for her.
Her breath caught and held as she stilled, her hand still on his shoulder. He didn’t react overtly, didn’t move-and yet… she swore she’d felt something, a tiny tremor go through him. For the first time since she’d seen him like this, she felt the tentative beginnings of hope start to unfurl inside her. He wasn’t entirely lost. She could still reach him. She had to reach him, to break through to wherever his mind had retreated to.
He had seen his deepest fear-and it was of her being dead. The thought, the realization, rushed in on her with renewed force. His deepest fear was of losing her…
And hers… was of losing him…
She knew that now.
She looked at him with that knowledge-the certainty that she would do anything for him and the accompanying awareness of all that he meant to her-settling into her heart. She could not lose him. Not now, not ever. And on a desperate, reckless impulse, propelled by all her fear and all her emotion, she cupped his cheek with her hand, leaned forward, and kissed him. She pressed her lips to his with more energy than skill, as if by kissing him, she could somehow will life and hope back into him. It was crazy, of course. Illogical and irrational and quite possibly the silliest thing she’d ever done to kiss him as if that would affect him when shouting at him, shaking him, and pleading with him hadn’t succeeded.
For a long, interminable minute-or two-or ten, she really couldn’t have said-there was no response. It wasn’t working. She felt despairing sobs beginning to build up in her chest, tears pricking at the back of her eyes.
And then… it started out as the slightest softening of his lips against hers, a slow, gradual thing. His lips softened and then she felt movement, a subtle increase of pressure against her lips.
Her heart leaped. He was coming back. She hadn’t lost him.
His lips softened and parted, his head tilting ever so slightly, as he began to kiss her back-he was fully conscious now!-and she found herself deepening the kiss almost automatically, pouring all her fears and all her emotions into the kiss. Oh, she knew-she knew now-what he meant to her and, for just that moment, nothing else mattered but that she show him just how much she cared, how afraid she had been.
She felt his hand come up to curve around the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair, as the kiss exploded from there, his lips and tongue almost taking possession of hers, claiming her, as he kissed her as if the world had become a vacuum and she the only remaining source of oxygen in it.
And then with a suddenness that left her reeling, he broke off the kiss, almost tearing his lips away from her, his breath coming in quick, hard pants. “Hermione-you-I-what-”
His chest was heaving as he gasped for breath, his eyes wide and darting around the cave in sudden, almost frantic uncertainty.
If the eyes were windows to the soul, it looked as if a part of his soul had died. And her heart physically hurt for him, an ache so sharp it felt as if she’d cracked a rib.
He was back, alert and conscious again, yes, but he was not entirely whole, entirely himself, yet.
“It’s okay, Harry,” she said softly, soothingly. “I’m fine. We’re both fine. It was only a boggart and it’s gone now. I’m fine and I won’t leave you.”
His eyes stopped moving, focusing on her face, studying her-more than that, his eyes were positively devouring her, greedily reveling in the sight of her. The hand that had been on her neck moved as he touched his fingertips to her cheek with a feather-light touch. He touched her as if he were afraid she might be an apparition that would vanish with too solid a touch.
She felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes again, tears of happiness and relief this time, but she blinked them back, trying instead for a small, reassuring smile. But all she managed was a slight quiver of her lips.
“Hermione…” he breathed, his voice a little hoarse and wavering almost imperceptibly.
“I really am fine, Harry. It was only a boggart and it’s gone now,” she repeated quietly.
His eyes darted over to where the boggart had been and then returned to her. “Only a boggart,” he echoed a little hollowly, his voice still sounding unlike himself.
A shudder went through him and then he hauled her into his arms abruptly enough that she lost her balance and ended up leaning against him, her face buried in his shoulder. It was a rather awkward position but at the moment, she didn’t care, only wrapped her arms around him and savored the reassuring warmth of him, the solid strength of his arms clutching her.
He took a few shuddering breaths. “I can’t-I can’t do this without you,” he rasped out, his voice shaky.
She turned her head just enough so she could speak without her voice being muffled by his shoulder. “I know, Harry,” she said softly. And of course she did know. Harry needed her cleverness, relied on it. He had for years and even more so now, when she knew he was so worried over the horcruxes and how he wasn’t sure what he was doing. And yet… somehow, now, she felt a ridiculous, irrational pang of something like hurt at the thought, at his words. He needed her for her books and cleverness, as she’d once said to him-but now, she knew it wasn’t quite enough for her. Not now, not anymore. Not now when she knew what he meant to her and had begun to hope-just a little-that he felt the same way because of what his boggart was. But his words now… Sweet and precious as they were, more than he had ever said to her before, were still somehow not enough. She pushed aside the little niggle of disappointment, of hurt. She shouldn’t be disappointed or hurt by this. He needed her. And that was a lot. “I know,” she said again. “And I won’t leave you. We’ll figure all this out together, the horcruxes, everything.”
He stirred, putting his hands on her shoulders and gently moving her just far enough away from him so that he could meet her eyes. “No, you don’t know. That’s not-I didn’t mean that. I don’t need you for that-for the War and all that stuff. I mean-yes, I do need you for the War stuff but that’s not what I meant.”
It was not a coherent speech and yet she felt hope unfurling inside her chest, tremulous and tender. “What did you mean?”
“I meant…” He trailed off, visibly uncertain, and then abruptly kissed her, his lips finding hers and lingering and she felt herself melting into him, her thoughts dissipating so that she had to blink and grasp at coherence when he finally drew back. He moved one hand to touch a finger to her cheek. “That’s what I need you for.”
She blinked. “For… kissing?” She suspected she was being uncharacteristically thick-amazing what being kissed by Harry did to her-but more than that, she was also afraid to hope. He meant too much to her for her to feel comfortable assuming anything and, after all, she had years of knowing that she was only Harry’s best friend engrained in her.
He didn’t smile-he was still a little too shaken, a little too haunted, to smile but the set of his lips eased a little and a tiny spark of something approaching amusement kindled in his eyes. “No, I meant… I need you for you.”
“Oh.” She almost mouthed the word rather than spoke it, her voice so soft it was nearly inaudible.
“I-it’s not about your cleverness-not only about your cleverness-it’s… when I saw-when I thought… I just… I felt like something inside me just… shattered… and-and I think, if-if anything happened to you, for real, I don’t think I could ever… put myself together or-or be… really whole... again. It-it wasn’t about the War. I mean, it was in that I… I knew we would lose but I just… I didn’t care about that. I-I cared that I had lost you.”
She felt tears welling up in her eyes and spill over and he stopped, sucking in a breath.
“No, Hermione, I didn’t mean-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just-”
She cut off his words with her lips, kissing him with all the emotion bubbling up inside her-poignant happiness and some guilt and regret and so much love she thought she might burst from it-and he kissed her back, his hand cupping her cheek.
She was the one to end the kiss, drawing back reluctantly, even though it was only enough to be able to look at him. At another time, she might have imagined that hearing Harry’s confession-disjointed and halting and still somehow the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard-would have had her smiling but somehow, the moment felt too solemn for smiling. It was too much, they both had experienced too much dizzying extremes of emotion to smile. But she met his eyes and, as always, told him the truth. “I feel the same way. I need you too.”
His eyes widened a little. “You do? But-but why?”
Oh, Harry… She felt a rush of tenderness-even as she hated his relatives for the way they’d treated him, there was something about this evidence of his insecurity, carefully hidden as he usually kept it, that made her melt. Why did she need him? Because of the way he talked to her, listened to her, trusted her, understood her, cared about her… “Because you taught me about friendship and bravery,” she finally said.
She could see faint confusion and then remembrance flicker across his face. “You already knew about friendship and bravery. You didn’t need me for that.”
“Yes, Harry, I did, because neither is worth much without someone else to help you live it.” She paused and then added, softly, “You and Ron are the first real friends I ever had, you know.”
The mention of Ron slipped from her without thinking-she wasn’t used to watching her words with Harry, was too accustomed to total candor with him-and she found herself almost regretting it at the way his eyes darkened, his expression sobering, as he physically drew back, his hands dropping from her shoulders.
“Ron,” he repeated with a sigh. “How-what-what are we going to do?”
Ron. She felt a stab of guilt and regret-because as angry as she still was at Ron and in spite of how much he had hurt her, she would never have wanted to hurt him. But this-Harry-meant too much to her. She cared about Ron-she knew she did-in spite of everything, in spite of all he’d said and how he’d left them, but she knew too, now, that she loved Harry.
But then she looked at Harry, saw the look in his eyes, and felt a pang of something like fear chill her heart. She might be certain about how she felt about Harry and that he meant more to her than anything else-but what about Harry? He had said he needed her and she believed him-she did-but she also knew how deep Harry’s loyalty to Ron ran. Ron had been Harry’s first friend, had been the thing Harry would miss most-and she knew, too, that because of that, Harry would never go against Ron. In all the years she’d known them, she could not really remember a time when Harry had gone against Ron; they disagreed occasionally and, of course, there had been that time in Fourth Year, but all of those times and even now, the estrangement had mostly been of Ron’s making. She knew Harry needed her, cared about her, even more than she had thought-but Ron was… Ron. And when it came down to the two of them, to making him choose between hurting Ron and being with her…
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “What do you think-what do you want to do?”
He sighed, briefly shutting his eyes, as a host of expressions chased each other across his face-regret and guilt and worry and pain. Then he opened his eyes and met hers-and she knew, even before he said the words. “I don’t want to hurt Ron but I can’t-I can’t lose you.”
She felt the prick of tears again and blinked them back. “Then I guess… if Ron-when Ron comes back,” she quickly corrected herself, “we’ll tell him the truth.”
“The truth…” he repeated. “What… truth will we tell him?”
“The truth that I…” Care about you, need you, can’t imagine losing you… The phrases, other euphemisms, passed through her mind but, in the end, she found herself admitting the truth, the real truth, the whole truth. “I love you.”
He sucked in his breath, his eyes flaring with shock and emotion. “You-you what?” he almost whispered.
She felt herself coloring but she met his eyes honestly. “I love you, Harry.”
For a long minute, he only stared at her, blinking rapidly, his breathing shallow, as expressions she couldn’t quite read flitted across his face.
“Hermione… you… I think… I think I might love you too.” His tone was diffident, one of uncertainty mingled in with wonder.
It was her turn to stare. “Really?”
His eyes, his expression, the set of his lips, softened as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then cupped her cheek with his hand in a gesture of infinite tenderness. “I think… it’s the only thing that this can be, isn’t it? I just… you mean… more to me than… anyone else… That’s all I really know.”
“That’s enough for me.” And it was. More than enough. She knew him, knew how rarely he spoke about really personal things, knew how hard it was for him to do so. So for Harry to admit that he thought he might love her-those words meant more than an epic poem from anyone else would have meant.
She leaned forward and kissed him, softly, lingeringly.
As she drew back, she meant to smile but then she felt a sudden flare of pain in her knees from shifting on the uneven stone floor and she suppressed a slight wince instead. She hoped he wouldn’t notice any fleeting expression of discomfort but knew he had when his eyes immediately focused on her, quick concern darkening his expression.
“What is it?”
“Nothing really,” she reassured him quickly, any discomfort she felt mitigated by the warmth of his perception and his concern. Ron had never, even at the best of times, been so attuned to her expressions or shown so much solicitude over her. “Just… the floor’s hard, that’s all.”
He glanced down at her knees, her position kneeling on the floor, and frowned slightly. “That can’t be comfortable.” He made a rather rueful face. “Anyway, we should probably move, go back to where we left our stuff.”
Almost before he’d finished speaking, he reached over to retrieve his wand from where he’d dropped it and then pushed himself to his feet before taking her hand to help her up.
She had to admit she was a little stiff from kneeling so long, not that she’d even registered the discomfort in her complete absorption in Harry, but now she felt it and had to hide a grimace.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
Thus reassured, he was momentarily distracted, his gaze going to where the boggart had been, his expression darkening with remembered anguish, and she tightened her grip on his hand until he turned back to look at her. “Hey,” she said softly. “It’s all right. I’m right here and I won’t leave you.”
His expression eased a little as he tugged her close enough to brush his lips against her forehead. “Do you promise?” he asked with an attempt at lightness that fell flat.
“I promise.”
“Thanks,” was all he said but his eyes were more than eloquent enough for her.
He blinked and she could see him visibly steeling himself, the set of his shoulders changing as the rest of the world, the War itself, and all the other worries the War entailed, returned to his mind. And then he led the way back to the front cave, sliding through the narrow passage, still retaining his grip on her hand.
The emotional upheaval of the last minutes had made her feel as if days or hours, at the very least, had gone by since she’d first awoken and gone to find Harry so she was surprised to see that it was still the full dark of deep night outside, although the rain had lessened into a steady drizzle.
By unspoken accord, they stayed side by side as they lowered themselves to sit on the ground. Harry reached over to grab her discarded blanket, arranging it to cover them both as they sat with their backs leaning against the wall. She rested her head against his shoulder and, after a moment, he put his arm around her shoulders, bringing her in just that slightest bit closer to him. She felt him rest his cheek against her hair and felt a small bubble of warmth in her chest, a little amazed at how the one small gesture could make her feel so… loved…
It was probably foolish and definitely irrational of her but Hermione was suddenly certain that Harry did love her. He might not be consciously aware of it yet, might not be able to say the words, but he did love her. It was in the tenderness of his arm around her, in the way he so evidently wanted to keep her close to him, in the way he was so attuned to her moods and her expressions.
And it was in the way he worried about her, she thought, realizing after a moment that he was. She could sense it, somehow, in the increase of tension in his hand where it rested on her arm, in his very stillness.
“What if I can’t protect y-”
She turned in the circle of his arm, touching her fingers to his mouth to stop his rush of words. “Don’t, Harry. You can’t-you shouldn’t think like that.”
“How can I not?” he interrupted her as he grasped the hand she’d lifted to his mouth with his free hand. “I wish… I wish I was strong enough to-”
“No,” she cut him off firmly. “Don’t even say it. I won’t leave you. You can’t make me leave you.”
He let out a shuddering breath, his grip on her hand tightening rather convulsively. “I just… I can’t lose you.”
She opened her lips to promise that he would never lose her but the words stuck in her throat. Because she couldn’t promise that nothing would ever happen to her. Neither of them could promise that. So all she said was, “We’ll protect each other, Harry, just like we always have. That’s all we can really do.”
He hesitated but then sighed, “I suppose you’re right.”
“Aren’t I always?” she responded in an attempt to lighten his mood.
He didn’t laugh but some of the shadows in his eyes lifted as he met her eyes. “Okay,” he conceded. “I’ll stop brooding.” At another time, he might have sounded humorous; at that moment, he only sounded resigned and a little weary.
She sobered as she looked at him. “We’ll protect each other,” she repeated softly. “And I think, I really think, that we should be all right if we do.” It may have been uncharacteristic, irrational optimism on her part but somehow, right then, with Harry, knowing she loved him and he loved her, she could not find it in herself to believe that the worst might happen. Could not find it in herself to feel so afraid of the future. He was there, with her, and surely-surely-the two of them together would find a way…
His response wasn’t in words. He just bent his head and brushed his lips lightly against hers. And somehow, the brief kiss felt like a promise and an affirmation and a symbol of hope all at once.
She nestled her head against his shoulder again as he settled his arm around her. And then they both waited, in silence, for the start of the new day.
~ ~
The way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.
- Rumi
~The End~
A/N: Yes, I changed Harry's boggart. I will only say that I, unlike JKR, don't believe that what Harry goes through wouldn't change him; I highly doubt Harry's deepest fear would be the same when he's 17-- and spending the entire year basically afraid (and mostly alone, except for Hermione!!)-- than it was when he was 13, before he'd really experienced the War.
What-where was-she was instantaneously fully alert at the realization that she couldn’t see Harry.
She sat up and grabbed her wand in one smooth movement, glancing first outside to the mouth of the cave to see that it was still dark and still pouring rain. So he wouldn’t have gone outside. Besides, she knew he’d set up the wards at the mouth of the cave and he wouldn’t have gone outside the wards. She turned to peer inside, deeper into the cave, and scrambled to her feet.
Was there-her eyes were suddenly caught by a faint illumination from the back wall of the cave-yes, there was an opening in the cave wall. Harry must have noticed it and gone to explore, or reconnoiter, more accurately.
She moved quickly and quietly deeper into the cave. “Harry?” she called cautiously, keeping her voice low. (It was, she sometimes thought, a sad fact that they had both become so much more careful, even paranoid, always leery of making too much noise or doing anything else that might attract attention. But if paranoia kept them alive…)
There was no answer and the prickle of unease sharpened into outright worry. Harry would not have gone far and she knew if he’d heard her, he would answer her.
She tried just peering into the gap in the wall but could only see that it clearly widened into another cave and that was where the dim illumination was coming from. Harry, she thought, it had to be. But why hadn’t he answered her, she wondered with a stab of apprehension.
She slid through the narrow gap and stepped carefully into the cave, her gaze immediately finding-she caught her breath sharply.
It was… herself. Lying on the floor a few feet away, and she was dead.
It was an eerie sight and she had to wrestle her mind back into coherence. It was only a boggart. It had to be.
Which meant-
Her gaze lowered-Harry! He was on the floor slumped onto his knees. She took a quick step towards him, which allowed her to see his face, and she stopped abruptly, her heart suddenly clenching.
He looked… broken… was the only word she could think of to describe it. Rather like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Harry?” she managed to say, hearing the tremor in her voice from a combination of fear and a sudden swell of another, softer emotion she didn’t try to identify at the realization that Harry’s boggart was of her now.
He didn’t react. Didn’t blink. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her or seen her, wasn’t aware of anything at all. He was pale, his hair and his eyebrows standing out in stark relief against the parchment-like pallor of his skin-but the worst part was his eyes, she realized, as she crouched in front of him. His eyes-his normally vivid eyes-were dulled and vacant. He looked like a shell of himself, hollowed-out and empty.
Empty of life, empty of strength, empty of hope.
“Harry!” she tried again with a little more urgency, forgetting all other emotions completely in her sudden panic, her voice sounding shaky and unlike herself.
He still didn’t react. He hadn’t moved at all, seemed as frozen in place as if he’d been petrified. No, it was worse than that. Being petrified affected the physical body; this… this was as if his mind was no longer in his body. He looked… defeated. As if he had already seen the end of the War and Voldemort’s final victory and, worse than that, as if he didn’t even care.
She heard a sob and realized belatedly it had come from her and clamped one hand over her mouth, fighting back the rising sobs in her throat. She couldn’t-she couldn’t break down.
It didn’t matter if she was suddenly terrified-more terrified than she’d ever been-at this sight of Harry. It didn’t matter if she was suddenly, starkly conscious that she couldn’t go on fighting this War, couldn’t go on trying without him. Not because he was Harry-Potter-Boy-Who-Lived but just because he was Harry. He was Harry and-and somehow, he gave her strength.
She forcibly shoved the thought aside. She would think about it all later, deal with this revelation and all its repercussions later.
She had to deal with the boggart and then-she had to fix Harry, bring him back. Somehow. She had to. Not even because of the War but because she needed him.
She pushed all of her emotions and her terror over Harry out of her mind-or rather, she tried to. She didn’t succeed; all she could really say was that she no longer felt on the verge of breaking down into hysterical sobs.
For Harry. She needed to be strong for Harry.
She focused on the thought, clutched it to herself like a talisman, as she forced herself to stand up and turned back to the boggart.
Only to take an involuntary step back as she saw that it had changed forms-had become Harry, lying there dead.
She automatically glanced back down to Harry-the real Harry, who was still alive, she reassured herself fiercely-and then back up at the boggart, trying to steel herself.
Something funny. Something funny, she repeated to herself. God, at the moment, she could hardly imagine laughing at anything again, let alone forcing her will on the boggart to change it into something funny.
But for Harry…
“Ridikkulus!”
She flinched and stifled an involuntary cry. The boggart had changed to become her parents, lying there dead. Oh God…
She swallowed hard and tried again. “Ridikkulus!”
It was Ron lying there dead now. Oh Ron! She flinched and closed her eyes to the sight. Not that it helped much. The sight of him, the thought of him, tore at her-as it had since he’d left them-regret and grief and guilt and anger and disappointment welling up inside her-and she forcibly quashed the emotions. No, she couldn’t think about Ron now.
She needed to focus! She mentally shook herself. She could do this. For Harry’s sake. She kept her eyes shut and focused on a mental picture of Harry smiling and happy, tried to remember one of those times when it had just been the Trio and they’d just been enjoying themselves, the three of them together. A memory, images, crept into her mind-the three of them in the Great Hall, celebrating after Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup. The twins had said something funny and Ron had choked on the butterbeer he’d been drinking, causing some of it to go up his nose, making him wheeze as his face turned red. She and Harry and the twins had begun to laugh, Harry laughing hard enough that he’d been breathless afterwards. Ron had pretended to glare at them for laughing but then, once he’d recovered, he’d joined in, laughing at his own predicament with the perfect good humor he exhibited occasionally. She inwardly smiled at the memory.
“Ridikkulus!” She opened her eyes to see that the boggart had been turned into a small dog, dressed up in frilly clothing, and dancing. And heard a rusty laugh break out in response.
The dog vanished. The boggart was gone.
All amusement died as quickly as it had come as she knelt back in front of Harry, who still had not moved.
She reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Harry! Harry, wake up, it’s me, Hermione.”
He still didn’t react-and the worst of it was that he wasn’t looking at her even though she was right in front of him. It was like his gaze, fixed, vacant, was looking through her or inwardly, looking through himself. As if he had retreated so far from reality that it could no longer impinge on him, could no longer affect him. As if he was no longer in this world.
She shuddered at the thought, terrified all over again. Oh God, she couldn’t lose him! She couldn’t!
“Harry, come on!” She shook him by his shoulder but she might as well have been shaking a corpse for all the reaction she got. And then she hated herself for the comparison she’d just made. “Harry, you’re-you’re scaring me,” she blurted out, something she would not normally admit to anyone else but this was Harry, who was probably the only person in the world to whom she could admit being afraid and she wasn’t just afraid. She was bloody terrified, almost mindless with panic.
“Harry!” she cried again, a sob she couldn’t hold back punctuating his name. “Harry, please, you-you can’t leave me!”
She was pleading, begging him, some part of her sure that that would bring him back. She knew how much he cared, how much he would do for others, for anyone he cared about-for her.
Her breath caught and held as she stilled, her hand still on his shoulder. He didn’t react overtly, didn’t move-and yet… she swore she’d felt something, a tiny tremor go through him. For the first time since she’d seen him like this, she felt the tentative beginnings of hope start to unfurl inside her. He wasn’t entirely lost. She could still reach him. She had to reach him, to break through to wherever his mind had retreated to.
He had seen his deepest fear-and it was of her being dead. The thought, the realization, rushed in on her with renewed force. His deepest fear was of losing her…
And hers… was of losing him…
She knew that now.
She looked at him with that knowledge-the certainty that she would do anything for him and the accompanying awareness of all that he meant to her-settling into her heart. She could not lose him. Not now, not ever. And on a desperate, reckless impulse, propelled by all her fear and all her emotion, she cupped his cheek with her hand, leaned forward, and kissed him. She pressed her lips to his with more energy than skill, as if by kissing him, she could somehow will life and hope back into him. It was crazy, of course. Illogical and irrational and quite possibly the silliest thing she’d ever done to kiss him as if that would affect him when shouting at him, shaking him, and pleading with him hadn’t succeeded.
For a long, interminable minute-or two-or ten, she really couldn’t have said-there was no response. It wasn’t working. She felt despairing sobs beginning to build up in her chest, tears pricking at the back of her eyes.
And then… it started out as the slightest softening of his lips against hers, a slow, gradual thing. His lips softened and then she felt movement, a subtle increase of pressure against her lips.
Her heart leaped. He was coming back. She hadn’t lost him.
His lips softened and parted, his head tilting ever so slightly, as he began to kiss her back-he was fully conscious now!-and she found herself deepening the kiss almost automatically, pouring all her fears and all her emotions into the kiss. Oh, she knew-she knew now-what he meant to her and, for just that moment, nothing else mattered but that she show him just how much she cared, how afraid she had been.
She felt his hand come up to curve around the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair, as the kiss exploded from there, his lips and tongue almost taking possession of hers, claiming her, as he kissed her as if the world had become a vacuum and she the only remaining source of oxygen in it.
And then with a suddenness that left her reeling, he broke off the kiss, almost tearing his lips away from her, his breath coming in quick, hard pants. “Hermione-you-I-what-”
His chest was heaving as he gasped for breath, his eyes wide and darting around the cave in sudden, almost frantic uncertainty.
If the eyes were windows to the soul, it looked as if a part of his soul had died. And her heart physically hurt for him, an ache so sharp it felt as if she’d cracked a rib.
He was back, alert and conscious again, yes, but he was not entirely whole, entirely himself, yet.
“It’s okay, Harry,” she said softly, soothingly. “I’m fine. We’re both fine. It was only a boggart and it’s gone now. I’m fine and I won’t leave you.”
His eyes stopped moving, focusing on her face, studying her-more than that, his eyes were positively devouring her, greedily reveling in the sight of her. The hand that had been on her neck moved as he touched his fingertips to her cheek with a feather-light touch. He touched her as if he were afraid she might be an apparition that would vanish with too solid a touch.
She felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes again, tears of happiness and relief this time, but she blinked them back, trying instead for a small, reassuring smile. But all she managed was a slight quiver of her lips.
“Hermione…” he breathed, his voice a little hoarse and wavering almost imperceptibly.
“I really am fine, Harry. It was only a boggart and it’s gone now,” she repeated quietly.
His eyes darted over to where the boggart had been and then returned to her. “Only a boggart,” he echoed a little hollowly, his voice still sounding unlike himself.
A shudder went through him and then he hauled her into his arms abruptly enough that she lost her balance and ended up leaning against him, her face buried in his shoulder. It was a rather awkward position but at the moment, she didn’t care, only wrapped her arms around him and savored the reassuring warmth of him, the solid strength of his arms clutching her.
He took a few shuddering breaths. “I can’t-I can’t do this without you,” he rasped out, his voice shaky.
She turned her head just enough so she could speak without her voice being muffled by his shoulder. “I know, Harry,” she said softly. And of course she did know. Harry needed her cleverness, relied on it. He had for years and even more so now, when she knew he was so worried over the horcruxes and how he wasn’t sure what he was doing. And yet… somehow, now, she felt a ridiculous, irrational pang of something like hurt at the thought, at his words. He needed her for her books and cleverness, as she’d once said to him-but now, she knew it wasn’t quite enough for her. Not now, not anymore. Not now when she knew what he meant to her and had begun to hope-just a little-that he felt the same way because of what his boggart was. But his words now… Sweet and precious as they were, more than he had ever said to her before, were still somehow not enough. She pushed aside the little niggle of disappointment, of hurt. She shouldn’t be disappointed or hurt by this. He needed her. And that was a lot. “I know,” she said again. “And I won’t leave you. We’ll figure all this out together, the horcruxes, everything.”
He stirred, putting his hands on her shoulders and gently moving her just far enough away from him so that he could meet her eyes. “No, you don’t know. That’s not-I didn’t mean that. I don’t need you for that-for the War and all that stuff. I mean-yes, I do need you for the War stuff but that’s not what I meant.”
It was not a coherent speech and yet she felt hope unfurling inside her chest, tremulous and tender. “What did you mean?”
“I meant…” He trailed off, visibly uncertain, and then abruptly kissed her, his lips finding hers and lingering and she felt herself melting into him, her thoughts dissipating so that she had to blink and grasp at coherence when he finally drew back. He moved one hand to touch a finger to her cheek. “That’s what I need you for.”
She blinked. “For… kissing?” She suspected she was being uncharacteristically thick-amazing what being kissed by Harry did to her-but more than that, she was also afraid to hope. He meant too much to her for her to feel comfortable assuming anything and, after all, she had years of knowing that she was only Harry’s best friend engrained in her.
He didn’t smile-he was still a little too shaken, a little too haunted, to smile but the set of his lips eased a little and a tiny spark of something approaching amusement kindled in his eyes. “No, I meant… I need you for you.”
“Oh.” She almost mouthed the word rather than spoke it, her voice so soft it was nearly inaudible.
“I-it’s not about your cleverness-not only about your cleverness-it’s… when I saw-when I thought… I just… I felt like something inside me just… shattered… and-and I think, if-if anything happened to you, for real, I don’t think I could ever… put myself together or-or be… really whole... again. It-it wasn’t about the War. I mean, it was in that I… I knew we would lose but I just… I didn’t care about that. I-I cared that I had lost you.”
She felt tears welling up in her eyes and spill over and he stopped, sucking in a breath.
“No, Hermione, I didn’t mean-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just-”
She cut off his words with her lips, kissing him with all the emotion bubbling up inside her-poignant happiness and some guilt and regret and so much love she thought she might burst from it-and he kissed her back, his hand cupping her cheek.
She was the one to end the kiss, drawing back reluctantly, even though it was only enough to be able to look at him. At another time, she might have imagined that hearing Harry’s confession-disjointed and halting and still somehow the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard-would have had her smiling but somehow, the moment felt too solemn for smiling. It was too much, they both had experienced too much dizzying extremes of emotion to smile. But she met his eyes and, as always, told him the truth. “I feel the same way. I need you too.”
His eyes widened a little. “You do? But-but why?”
Oh, Harry… She felt a rush of tenderness-even as she hated his relatives for the way they’d treated him, there was something about this evidence of his insecurity, carefully hidden as he usually kept it, that made her melt. Why did she need him? Because of the way he talked to her, listened to her, trusted her, understood her, cared about her… “Because you taught me about friendship and bravery,” she finally said.
She could see faint confusion and then remembrance flicker across his face. “You already knew about friendship and bravery. You didn’t need me for that.”
“Yes, Harry, I did, because neither is worth much without someone else to help you live it.” She paused and then added, softly, “You and Ron are the first real friends I ever had, you know.”
The mention of Ron slipped from her without thinking-she wasn’t used to watching her words with Harry, was too accustomed to total candor with him-and she found herself almost regretting it at the way his eyes darkened, his expression sobering, as he physically drew back, his hands dropping from her shoulders.
“Ron,” he repeated with a sigh. “How-what-what are we going to do?”
Ron. She felt a stab of guilt and regret-because as angry as she still was at Ron and in spite of how much he had hurt her, she would never have wanted to hurt him. But this-Harry-meant too much to her. She cared about Ron-she knew she did-in spite of everything, in spite of all he’d said and how he’d left them, but she knew too, now, that she loved Harry.
But then she looked at Harry, saw the look in his eyes, and felt a pang of something like fear chill her heart. She might be certain about how she felt about Harry and that he meant more to her than anything else-but what about Harry? He had said he needed her and she believed him-she did-but she also knew how deep Harry’s loyalty to Ron ran. Ron had been Harry’s first friend, had been the thing Harry would miss most-and she knew, too, that because of that, Harry would never go against Ron. In all the years she’d known them, she could not really remember a time when Harry had gone against Ron; they disagreed occasionally and, of course, there had been that time in Fourth Year, but all of those times and even now, the estrangement had mostly been of Ron’s making. She knew Harry needed her, cared about her, even more than she had thought-but Ron was… Ron. And when it came down to the two of them, to making him choose between hurting Ron and being with her…
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “What do you think-what do you want to do?”
He sighed, briefly shutting his eyes, as a host of expressions chased each other across his face-regret and guilt and worry and pain. Then he opened his eyes and met hers-and she knew, even before he said the words. “I don’t want to hurt Ron but I can’t-I can’t lose you.”
She felt the prick of tears again and blinked them back. “Then I guess… if Ron-when Ron comes back,” she quickly corrected herself, “we’ll tell him the truth.”
“The truth…” he repeated. “What… truth will we tell him?”
“The truth that I…” Care about you, need you, can’t imagine losing you… The phrases, other euphemisms, passed through her mind but, in the end, she found herself admitting the truth, the real truth, the whole truth. “I love you.”
He sucked in his breath, his eyes flaring with shock and emotion. “You-you what?” he almost whispered.
She felt herself coloring but she met his eyes honestly. “I love you, Harry.”
For a long minute, he only stared at her, blinking rapidly, his breathing shallow, as expressions she couldn’t quite read flitted across his face.
“Hermione… you… I think… I think I might love you too.” His tone was diffident, one of uncertainty mingled in with wonder.
It was her turn to stare. “Really?”
His eyes, his expression, the set of his lips, softened as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then cupped her cheek with his hand in a gesture of infinite tenderness. “I think… it’s the only thing that this can be, isn’t it? I just… you mean… more to me than… anyone else… That’s all I really know.”
“That’s enough for me.” And it was. More than enough. She knew him, knew how rarely he spoke about really personal things, knew how hard it was for him to do so. So for Harry to admit that he thought he might love her-those words meant more than an epic poem from anyone else would have meant.
She leaned forward and kissed him, softly, lingeringly.
As she drew back, she meant to smile but then she felt a sudden flare of pain in her knees from shifting on the uneven stone floor and she suppressed a slight wince instead. She hoped he wouldn’t notice any fleeting expression of discomfort but knew he had when his eyes immediately focused on her, quick concern darkening his expression.
“What is it?”
“Nothing really,” she reassured him quickly, any discomfort she felt mitigated by the warmth of his perception and his concern. Ron had never, even at the best of times, been so attuned to her expressions or shown so much solicitude over her. “Just… the floor’s hard, that’s all.”
He glanced down at her knees, her position kneeling on the floor, and frowned slightly. “That can’t be comfortable.” He made a rather rueful face. “Anyway, we should probably move, go back to where we left our stuff.”
Almost before he’d finished speaking, he reached over to retrieve his wand from where he’d dropped it and then pushed himself to his feet before taking her hand to help her up.
She had to admit she was a little stiff from kneeling so long, not that she’d even registered the discomfort in her complete absorption in Harry, but now she felt it and had to hide a grimace.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
Thus reassured, he was momentarily distracted, his gaze going to where the boggart had been, his expression darkening with remembered anguish, and she tightened her grip on his hand until he turned back to look at her. “Hey,” she said softly. “It’s all right. I’m right here and I won’t leave you.”
His expression eased a little as he tugged her close enough to brush his lips against her forehead. “Do you promise?” he asked with an attempt at lightness that fell flat.
“I promise.”
“Thanks,” was all he said but his eyes were more than eloquent enough for her.
He blinked and she could see him visibly steeling himself, the set of his shoulders changing as the rest of the world, the War itself, and all the other worries the War entailed, returned to his mind. And then he led the way back to the front cave, sliding through the narrow passage, still retaining his grip on her hand.
The emotional upheaval of the last minutes had made her feel as if days or hours, at the very least, had gone by since she’d first awoken and gone to find Harry so she was surprised to see that it was still the full dark of deep night outside, although the rain had lessened into a steady drizzle.
By unspoken accord, they stayed side by side as they lowered themselves to sit on the ground. Harry reached over to grab her discarded blanket, arranging it to cover them both as they sat with their backs leaning against the wall. She rested her head against his shoulder and, after a moment, he put his arm around her shoulders, bringing her in just that slightest bit closer to him. She felt him rest his cheek against her hair and felt a small bubble of warmth in her chest, a little amazed at how the one small gesture could make her feel so… loved…
It was probably foolish and definitely irrational of her but Hermione was suddenly certain that Harry did love her. He might not be consciously aware of it yet, might not be able to say the words, but he did love her. It was in the tenderness of his arm around her, in the way he so evidently wanted to keep her close to him, in the way he was so attuned to her moods and her expressions.
And it was in the way he worried about her, she thought, realizing after a moment that he was. She could sense it, somehow, in the increase of tension in his hand where it rested on her arm, in his very stillness.
“What if I can’t protect y-”
She turned in the circle of his arm, touching her fingers to his mouth to stop his rush of words. “Don’t, Harry. You can’t-you shouldn’t think like that.”
“How can I not?” he interrupted her as he grasped the hand she’d lifted to his mouth with his free hand. “I wish… I wish I was strong enough to-”
“No,” she cut him off firmly. “Don’t even say it. I won’t leave you. You can’t make me leave you.”
He let out a shuddering breath, his grip on her hand tightening rather convulsively. “I just… I can’t lose you.”
She opened her lips to promise that he would never lose her but the words stuck in her throat. Because she couldn’t promise that nothing would ever happen to her. Neither of them could promise that. So all she said was, “We’ll protect each other, Harry, just like we always have. That’s all we can really do.”
He hesitated but then sighed, “I suppose you’re right.”
“Aren’t I always?” she responded in an attempt to lighten his mood.
He didn’t laugh but some of the shadows in his eyes lifted as he met her eyes. “Okay,” he conceded. “I’ll stop brooding.” At another time, he might have sounded humorous; at that moment, he only sounded resigned and a little weary.
She sobered as she looked at him. “We’ll protect each other,” she repeated softly. “And I think, I really think, that we should be all right if we do.” It may have been uncharacteristic, irrational optimism on her part but somehow, right then, with Harry, knowing she loved him and he loved her, she could not find it in herself to believe that the worst might happen. Could not find it in herself to feel so afraid of the future. He was there, with her, and surely-surely-the two of them together would find a way…
His response wasn’t in words. He just bent his head and brushed his lips lightly against hers. And somehow, the brief kiss felt like a promise and an affirmation and a symbol of hope all at once.
She nestled her head against his shoulder again as he settled his arm around her. And then they both waited, in silence, for the start of the new day.
~ ~
The way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.
- Rumi
~The End~
A/N: Yes, I changed Harry's boggart. I will only say that I, unlike JKR, don't believe that what Harry goes through wouldn't change him; I highly doubt Harry's deepest fear would be the same when he's 17-- and spending the entire year basically afraid (and mostly alone, except for Hermione!!)-- than it was when he was 13, before he'd really experienced the War.