Harry Potter Fic: when we were young (and ageless) 5/5
notes: So I have so many feelings about this fic, since it’s been that long since I’ve written HP and these guys, if anything else. And I could ramble on about the ways and all my feelings and so forth, but I’m not going to do that. I’ll just say this: this was written for anythingbutgrey with a lot of love - I adore you to bits, lady. ♥
when we were young (and ageless)
harry potter ; harry/hermione ; 18,096 words ; pg13
they say it’s just that simple. nobody comes and asks them: if the kids are just alright. spoilers for the deathly hallows. au.
ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR |
-
5
We could be hanging around here for centuries
Trying to make sense of this, my dear
While the planets try to get organized
Way above the stratosphere
But they keep bringing out the dead, now
It's easy if we just walk away’
(nick cave - messiah ward)
It rains early in the morning.
Hermione’s eyes are open. She stays in bed, her arms wrapped around her book. She stares up at the ceiling, watching as the weight of the water starts to form patches over the tent canvas. They’ve lost a day, she thinks.
At the front of the tent, Harry stands at the opening, back turned towards her. There are books on the table - she heard him, for most of the night, the latter half when he came back in, mumbling something about those ministry blokes. It smells like smoke too, every so often, but Hermione tries not think about that or the time that they may continue to lose.
“Have you slept?” she calls, asking finally. Her voice is scratchy and low and she blinks, rubbing a hand over her eyes. She hears nothing from Harry and then slowly, chooses to sit up. Her legs swing over the edge of the bed and her feet knock into her own boots. They fall and scatter over the stairs.
Gently, Hermione puts her book down. Harry turns towards her, glancing briefly. He jerks his head behind him.
“They’re back again, the hunters,” he says.
“Oh.”
“Do you reckon Ron’s all right?” he asks, and suddenly, it’s like he’s looking right through her. His eyes are dark and his mouth hitches into a slight smile. She’s uneasy and Harry shakes his head, “I mean, can’t go home, can’t come back ‘cause he doesn’t know where we are. Imagine that’s the sort of thing that goes and gets you caught, yeah?”
“Harry,” she murmurs.
“He’s not like you, Hermione. If I were to go, leave right now and continue on without you, you’d survive. You’d go on and find some safe place until you’d figure this out.”
“Where is this coming from?”
Her hands wave around and she’s to her feet, moving to him without thinking. The floor is dirty, mostly with the mud from the outside. Over their heads, the rain gets louder. A few drops hit Hermione’s face, crawling down her forehead; she blinks but doesn’t bat them away.
“Harry,” she presses. She touches his arm gently and he leans into her, shaking his head. “Really,” she starts quickly. “Where is this coming from? You’re thinking - you wouldn’t go without me.”
“I can’t,” he murmurs. He looks down. “I’ll eventually have to, you know.”
She shakes her head.
“Stop it,” she says. If she were particular again, she’d launch into a speech about forever and all the bloody way, but she doesn’t have it in her anymore. The taste of her response is half-hearted too.
“You know I’m right.”
Her eyes close tightly. There is nothing in her anymore, not for crying. She is tired and it’s simply that, nothing more or complicated.
“It’s just a day here, right?”
“Hermione?”
She doesn’t open her eyes. “We’re merely losing a day. There’s a village, and a way around it, I suspect, that might be safer than having to cross through another one. If the hunters are here, they’re going to be there and we knew walking into this -”
“Hermione,” Harry tries again.
There is nothing to talk about, she wants to tell him. He’s made his mind up and to a certain degree, she understands why. There are so many things that she could say to him right now, and thinking back, what they really should talk about is kissing around the fire the other night, like proper friends, like proper kids.
It’s really just an absurd thought. “I know,” she murmurs, “that there’s going to be point, Harry, where you’ll have to go and I’ll have to stay back - it’s all right, I get that. But what you need to understand that it’s not today, and it’s not tomorrow, and maybe it’s not even the next string of days, whatever they are. You need to understand that.”
When her eyes open, she catches Harry watching her too. They’re standing closer and she can’t quite remember moving forwards or backwards or near him all the same. She doesn’t turn her gaze away, or outside; the rain starts to fall harder anyway and a cold, crisp change in the air walks a shiver into her skin. She bites her lip.
“Sorry,” Harry offers then. “Sorry,” she manages too. Their voices clash. He breaks his gaze and Hermione turns her head again, watching the rain outside. This is it, for now.
“Australia,” her mother told her once, “oh, well, me and your dad met there on holiday - he was there with some of his schoolmates and I was there with your Aunt Lucy, we were eighteen or so and I was in love with your dad’s friend Tom or something.”
They are having tea or coffee, at a shop or at home, depending on how Hermione remembers the story, in and out of the woods, and her mother’s looking off, elsewhere, her gaze quiet.
“And then what happened?”
Her mother smiled, shaking her head. “What always happens, sweetheart. Everyone gets a little older.”
The rain stops at night. It is Hermione’s idea to move on. “We have to make up time,” she says quietly, and adjusts the strap of her bag over her shoulder once more.
They walk though. Harry is quiet and she has taken to humming, just a little, in hopes of keeping herself focused until the pass the next village. It’s too quiet, she thinks. The leaves crunch under their boots; Harry walks ahead, but not too much, leaving her room to watch the woods and wait.
He’s already shown her the Ministry fliers that he found. There are still three of them, one for her, one for him, and one for Ron. It’s odd tribute to the last couple of weeks, months more. But Hermione keeps them at the bottom of the bag, maybe in hopes of holding onto some perspective, another part of her knows not to get rid of everything until absolutely necessary.
When they come into a groove of trees though, Harry stops for a moment. She doesn’t see him and skids forward, into his back. She nearly falls, but Harry reaches out quickly, grasping her arm and steadying her. They stare into the darkness together.
“What?” she breathes, but Harry shakes his head. His eyes seem to widen. The space grows darker too and the wind starts to pick up. The leaves rustle and Hermione finds herself shifting closer to Harry.
She can feel his fingers curl tighter around her arm.
“We should go,” he murmurs.
“Okay,” she says.
But neither of them are moving. She can’t bring herself to look at Harry either, still watching the trees in front of them. They won’t see the village until morning, at least a few more hours into the day.
“Come on,” Harry says quickly. His hand slides into hers and he pulls her along, walking forward. “It’s nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing,” he says again, and it’s like he’s talking to himself.
“We could go back,” she offers weakly.
“No.”
He picks up his speed and the leaves begin to slip from under their feet, spitting out around them. Hermione half-gasps as he pulls her hard too, turning them into one of the trees. Her back hits the wood and he pulls himself over her, pressing against her.
“Close your eyes,” he whispers harshly.
“What -” and then she hears it, the slight hum, the sound of bones as they creak and crack. There is the rustle of fabric and as she closes her eyes tightly, buried against Harry’s shoulder, all she can think is dementors.
Harry’s mouth brushes against her ear. “Stay calm,” he tells her. “Keep yourself calm, I - if they’re looking for us, we’ll have to stay here.”
She catches a hitch in his voice, but forces herself to follow in kind. She wills herself to think of other things; not Ron, not her parents, not Harry. She pays attention to the sounds of the woods. The trees have seemed to have stop and the whole forest is almost desperately still. It’s only then that she realizes that they haven’t heard anything for miles.
Harry is completely still.
It is important to understand how much she knows and accepts that there are three of them. Before Ron left, after the Ministry and the acquiring of the locket, the two of them sat together while Harry kept watch outside.
“Do you love him?” Ron asked suddenly. It was his turn, then, one of the first times to wear the locket around his neck. But he was watching her so seriously, painfully so, that she turned to watch him too. “I mean, I reckon you love us both, yeah?”
Hermione had frowned. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”
He shrugged and sunk back into the bed, struggling to get comfortable. The bandages around his arm are fresh here, and he turned to fixate on the radio next to the bed too.
“No reason,” he said. “None at all. I just - I keep thinkin’ what difference would it make, had it been just me an’ him or just you an’ him, you know?”
“You’re talking nonsense,” she replied. Her cheeks flushed and she rubbed her knees too hard. The hole in her jumper was fairly new then, at the corner of her sleeve; she attempted to fit each finger through it, all converging into a nervous habit.
Ron had sighed anyway though. Then the radio came on after; it was then that Hermione turned to him too, closer, maybe too close and more than she had intended to. Her fingers had brushed over his arm.
“We both fit differently,” she had said.
The tree presses harder against her back. Harry slowly draws back, just to give her some space, looking down as she opens her eyes. She doesn’t know how long they’ve been like this.
“They’ll be back,” he says absently, and there’s something in the air. It’s too cold and too still, but she knows that he’s right. Her fingers curl in his jacket and she manages to nod. “So, what now?”
“We have to move,” he murmurs.
He doesn’t pull back all the way though, and his hands come up to cup her face. Hermione breath catches and she watches him as his fingers brush along her mouth. Gently, his thumb slides over her lip, against a slight mark, possibly from where she was biting too hard. She never catches herself anymore.
“I’m scared.”
Her mouth parts. She stares at him, wide-eyed. Harry continues on. “Had a dream last night, s’why I knew - I knew they were coming. And that other night, the one with the Death Eaters - I suppose I knew then too.”
Hermione’s eyes burn. She tries not to move, to listen, but she can feel herself start to tremble. Harry’s forehead drops, pressing against hers.
“I don’t know what’s mine anymore,” he murmurs, “and what’s his, what my memories are and what he’s trying to give me - I reckon s’why he went ahead and split himself into the horcruxes, immortality’s a better bet than feeling any sort of rational and genuine emotions and memories.”
Her fingers curl into his jacket and pull into fists. They sway, half-pounding against Harry’s chest and she’s not entirely sure if she’s even really reacting. It feels all too like she’s gone, all of the sudden, and when her mouth opens, a sob stumbles out.
“Why - why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry,” he whispers.
“I - so -” she stops because she doesn’t know how to look at him, how to react, or how to calm the sudden feeling in the pit of her stomach. It’s knots. It’s fear. It’s the sense of being completely helpless and that, that is something she doesn’t know how to deal with.
So she draws back, hard, stumbling back against the tree again. Her arms fold against her chest and Harry is watching her, somehow unable to do or say anything else.
“I need a minute,” she breathes.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Her hands press against her face. “I just -” her voice is muffled. “I didn’t. Harry,” she murmurs. Something in her so close to just breaking. When she laughs, it sounds hysterical. “Merlin,” she says softly. “What are we doing?”
Harry steps forward. He doesn’t touch her and she wants him to, she wants to be anchored again. She doesn’t cry though. Her throat starts to tighten and she starts to slide down to the ground, sitting and pressing her knees to her chest. Her gaze stills.
“Hermione.”
“I thought -” Harry’s hands are on her knees. “I thought at the very least, I thought - I don’t know. What if? I’ve been trying to be so bloody strong,” she murmurs. “And now, now it’s all falling all apart.”
“Don’t,” he says.
“Really, it is. I can’t - I don’t know how else to do this for you, how to make it all right. I know you’re going to have to go forward, but I - I’ve been trying to think of the right now, Harry. I -”
“We have to go,” he says firmly, cutting her off.
There is more though and when she looks up, she can see Harry talking to her. His expression is hard and his hands are now curling around hers, but she can’t feel him. She can’t feel anything.
This is what scares her.
(If you asked her, if you really asked her what she had seen back when she took Remus’ exam, she would tell you it was nothing, it was an exam, it was failure of the most basic kind; but if you’d ask her now, if you really asked what had scared her, she would just look at you sadly and shrug. There is more than a reason why her parents’ memories are gone.)
How she gets to the tent again is not important; her memory is a little foggy and when Hermione opens her eyes, she is sitting on the bed and Harry is at the table, pouring over her books.
“The dementors?” she asks, and her voice cracks. She rubs her throat and tries to stand. Her legs feel weak. Her hand shoots out, resting over the frame; it takes her a minute to steady herself.
“Gone,” he says, and carefully. “They’re gone. I reckon they’re still close. We’re about less than day away from Dumbledore - they could be watching. You needed to rest too.”
She’s quiet but nods.
Her hands brush against her hips too and she manages to move away from the bed, stepping back out to where Harry sits at the table. She moves to stand next to him, to see what he’s reading or trying to look at, but there’s no energy in her. She’s exhausted and it’s more than starting show.
When she sits next to him, he lets out a sigh. He draws away from the books and she sits with her back against them. They sit close and her brows furrows, her fingers brushing against his arm.
“I’m sorry, you know.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. S’my fault. I reckon it wasn’t the best of times to tell - I thought you would know.”
Hermione bites her lip.
He’s right, she thinks. “I suppose my mind has shut down, or did. I suppose I just - we’ve been walking and running and moving in so many circles, everything is starting to look the same. I don’t know who is who and what is really worth it anymore. I just don’t know and I feel like I’ve failed you. I don’t want to panic, Harry. I want to be useful. I need to be useful. Do you understand?”
And then she’s talking, she’s talking and it’s not stopping; every feeling, every sense of insecurity or moment of self-loathing is there, right in front of Harry to see and there’s nothing to hide anymore.
“I know, I know what Ron is to you. I know why you need him and why he needs you - you have your thing and I love you both for it. I get that you need to have that, but I don’t really understand what I need to do for you, where I’m supposed to do now.”
“You’re here,” he says quietly.
“I know,” she murmurs. “But is that enough? Is that what you need, Harry?”
She meets his gaze, but his hand pulls up to his face, rubbing hard at his eyes. Neither of them have slept. She isn’t entirely sure if she’s sleeping either. She may or may not just be lying there, sometimes listening, sometimes remember or losing bits of memories. This is where they are right now and it seems as if there is nothing else to know.
“I think - ” Harry stops. He looks at her again. The corners of his mouth twitch and he shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “I thought I did. I suppose I know what I need to do, but knowing what I need - that’s all changed, Hermione. Everything is changing.”
He closes a book and tries to nudge her. Her mouth catches itself, almost instinctively ready to respond - a smile, not quite, maybe a tired laugh if she’s lucky. Instead, she drops her head against his shoulder.
“Everything’s already changed,” she murmurs.
“It’s different when you understand that,” he adds.
“So where are we now?”
It’s an impulsive question, and she almost regrets asking it, knowing that they can’t really count on what comes next. Even the moment too, that moment is nowhere near sound nor predictable at best.
“We move forward.”
Harry looks down at her. His mouth is crooked, but it’s not quite a smile, and she thinks, briefly, that he may kiss her again and she may be okay with it, now, then, and in the moment. It makes her head hurt all over again and her heart, her heart and everything in it, still, it’s all twisted into knots.
She manages to swallow. “It’s not - remember, remember what I said? About growing old together? Right here, in the woods, where no one else can find us and we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“We wouldn’t,” he agrees, and she knows it’s just to humor her. “You’d be terribly bored, you know. Terribly, terribly bored.”
“So would you,” she says.
He laughs softly. “I would. Although, m’sure you’d figure out ways to keep us going and all. You being you, of course.”
Hermione snorts.
They’re quiet again, and Harry’s mouth presses into her hair. She feels him inhale and she lets herself relax, maybe this one time; her hand reaches for his and curls into his figures. They’ve always been like this, oddly enough, maybe more comfortable in their own intimacy than most people would understand. But that, that has always been hers with Harry.
Gone the school children, she thinks. There’s part of her who understand that for her, mostly for her, she may have never been a child, things were different, are still different, and she knew, from the beginning, how to carry things all by herself. This, Harry, everything happening now - it’s continuing to change her too.
“I love Ron,” she says slowly. “It’s - I thought it might be something else, something different and understandable. I know how I fit with Ron.”
She pauses and Harry is saying nothing, almost like he’s waiting.
“I love Ron, but it’s not the way he may want me to,” she murmurs. “It’s not the way I think I was trying to. It’s not about him seeing me, it’s not about how I see him - I know now how I fit. And I know that there’s supposed to be three of us here.”
“But you’re here,” Harry murmurs, and when she looks up, his gaze is unreadable. There’s no smile but he’s entirely too calm. “I’m not angry at him anymore,” he says suddenly. “I just -”
His mouth tightens. He turns closer, almost over her and his fingers brush along her jaw. It’s been a long time, she thinks, since that’s been a reassurance. Now, here, it’s a need.
“If there’s an after,” he says. “If I make it that far, we’ll have to talk about this. If there’s an after, things are going to change.”
“I know,” she says, nodding.
“It’s scary,” he says, and then he laughs too, low and short, but a laugh nonetheless. This is more about family and growing up together, and somehow, that understanding is weaving itself between them. Forever connected, she thinks.
She turns her mouth into his hand and closes her eyes, pressing her lips into his palm. It’s a gesture, a funny gesture, that she’s seen her mother and her father give into millions and millions of times. It’s something too that catches her memory, and the moment moves away from being there, in their small tent, in the middle of the woods, and a war that she may or may not live through. It’s not going to be the same again, between Harry and herself and Ron, Ron whenever they see him again too.
“I am going to stay with you as long as I can,” she says finally, softly, and with an assurance that hasn’t been there, between the two of them, yet. She doesn’t look at him, and she doesn’t need to, whatever is happening is there, right here, and on its own.
“I know,” he tells her. It may mean something or nothing at all, but he says it and it’s not a secret, it’s not coming later, it’s just there.
Hermione says nothing. For a little while, they let themselves sit.
There is another little town, village that they cross, making up their lost day; it is not on the map and it is a lively scene of people walking through, market stands being set up, and drafts of ribbon and celebration signs being tied around everywhere.
Harry walks close to her as they fight to blend into the crowd, looking around and being much more aware of the people than the town at all. Above them, the sun sits too and it’s heavy, the first real spring day that Hermione lets herself have.
“We’re almost out,” Harry murmurs, and they weave through a bunch of children laughing around and singing a song that Hermione can’t quite catch. The tune is familiar and there is that tug, deep inside of her, still longing for some sort of inevitable end. She takes a deep breath too.
It doesn’t matter who spots him first.
They come to a corner and there is a pub, sitting happily, a few straggling laughs dancing out from the open door. Harry stops and she follows, her gaze darting around nervously. They need food, she might think, and supplies, bandages above everything else.
And then, right there, is Ron.
He is leaning against a wall, hand wrapped around a bag and a long, wrapped object. He is laughing with a girl, his eyes bright and mouth wrinkled half in amusement, half in amazement. He has color in his cheeks. There is something so impossibly real about seeing him, and Hermione’s mouth opens, ready to call, but can’t really bring herself to say anything. She no longer remembers how this was supposed to go.
“Should we go?” Harry says quietly, next to her.
“I don’t know,” she says, and then, there, it’s Ron watching them, Ron seeing them, still listening to the girl talk. Hermione’s heart is in her throat and it’s just too easy to know why. “I don’t know what to do,” she says.
“I know,” Harry says and it’s not the right thing to say, as there is no right thing to say. It simply is this: Ron is here. Ron sees them.
Harry takes her hand.
“Let’s wait,” she says slowly and Harry nods in kind, “It’s a good idea,” he says too. “It’s a beautiful day,” he adds.
They all stare at each other. It’s different and it may have been something else, had this happened then. This is a war and it is the last time she thinks of it this way, there in the sun, in the town too, among the laughter and the people moving through their lives. No one is waiting. She will think about what’s changed between them, how it’s changed, and how none of them can go back. She will think about Harry’s hand in hers. She won’t let go.
It’s Ron too, who says goodbye to the girl and picks up the object, gripping it tightly as he walks towards them. There is music somewhere in the town, coming from behind them, and more laughter stumbles out from the pub. Over Ron’s shoulder, Harry and Hermione watch as the girl smiles.
It’ll be dark again. They grow up.
____
when we were young (and ageless)
harry potter ; harry/hermione ; 18,096 words ; pg13
they say it’s just that simple. nobody comes and asks them: if the kids are just alright. spoilers for the deathly hallows. au.
ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR |
-
5
We could be hanging around here for centuries
Trying to make sense of this, my dear
While the planets try to get organized
Way above the stratosphere
But they keep bringing out the dead, now
It's easy if we just walk away’
(nick cave - messiah ward)
It rains early in the morning.
Hermione’s eyes are open. She stays in bed, her arms wrapped around her book. She stares up at the ceiling, watching as the weight of the water starts to form patches over the tent canvas. They’ve lost a day, she thinks.
At the front of the tent, Harry stands at the opening, back turned towards her. There are books on the table - she heard him, for most of the night, the latter half when he came back in, mumbling something about those ministry blokes. It smells like smoke too, every so often, but Hermione tries not think about that or the time that they may continue to lose.
“Have you slept?” she calls, asking finally. Her voice is scratchy and low and she blinks, rubbing a hand over her eyes. She hears nothing from Harry and then slowly, chooses to sit up. Her legs swing over the edge of the bed and her feet knock into her own boots. They fall and scatter over the stairs.
Gently, Hermione puts her book down. Harry turns towards her, glancing briefly. He jerks his head behind him.
“They’re back again, the hunters,” he says.
“Oh.”
“Do you reckon Ron’s all right?” he asks, and suddenly, it’s like he’s looking right through her. His eyes are dark and his mouth hitches into a slight smile. She’s uneasy and Harry shakes his head, “I mean, can’t go home, can’t come back ‘cause he doesn’t know where we are. Imagine that’s the sort of thing that goes and gets you caught, yeah?”
“Harry,” she murmurs.
“He’s not like you, Hermione. If I were to go, leave right now and continue on without you, you’d survive. You’d go on and find some safe place until you’d figure this out.”
“Where is this coming from?”
Her hands wave around and she’s to her feet, moving to him without thinking. The floor is dirty, mostly with the mud from the outside. Over their heads, the rain gets louder. A few drops hit Hermione’s face, crawling down her forehead; she blinks but doesn’t bat them away.
“Harry,” she presses. She touches his arm gently and he leans into her, shaking his head. “Really,” she starts quickly. “Where is this coming from? You’re thinking - you wouldn’t go without me.”
“I can’t,” he murmurs. He looks down. “I’ll eventually have to, you know.”
She shakes her head.
“Stop it,” she says. If she were particular again, she’d launch into a speech about forever and all the bloody way, but she doesn’t have it in her anymore. The taste of her response is half-hearted too.
“You know I’m right.”
Her eyes close tightly. There is nothing in her anymore, not for crying. She is tired and it’s simply that, nothing more or complicated.
“It’s just a day here, right?”
“Hermione?”
She doesn’t open her eyes. “We’re merely losing a day. There’s a village, and a way around it, I suspect, that might be safer than having to cross through another one. If the hunters are here, they’re going to be there and we knew walking into this -”
“Hermione,” Harry tries again.
There is nothing to talk about, she wants to tell him. He’s made his mind up and to a certain degree, she understands why. There are so many things that she could say to him right now, and thinking back, what they really should talk about is kissing around the fire the other night, like proper friends, like proper kids.
It’s really just an absurd thought. “I know,” she murmurs, “that there’s going to be point, Harry, where you’ll have to go and I’ll have to stay back - it’s all right, I get that. But what you need to understand that it’s not today, and it’s not tomorrow, and maybe it’s not even the next string of days, whatever they are. You need to understand that.”
When her eyes open, she catches Harry watching her too. They’re standing closer and she can’t quite remember moving forwards or backwards or near him all the same. She doesn’t turn her gaze away, or outside; the rain starts to fall harder anyway and a cold, crisp change in the air walks a shiver into her skin. She bites her lip.
“Sorry,” Harry offers then. “Sorry,” she manages too. Their voices clash. He breaks his gaze and Hermione turns her head again, watching the rain outside. This is it, for now.
“Australia,” her mother told her once, “oh, well, me and your dad met there on holiday - he was there with some of his schoolmates and I was there with your Aunt Lucy, we were eighteen or so and I was in love with your dad’s friend Tom or something.”
They are having tea or coffee, at a shop or at home, depending on how Hermione remembers the story, in and out of the woods, and her mother’s looking off, elsewhere, her gaze quiet.
“And then what happened?”
Her mother smiled, shaking her head. “What always happens, sweetheart. Everyone gets a little older.”
The rain stops at night. It is Hermione’s idea to move on. “We have to make up time,” she says quietly, and adjusts the strap of her bag over her shoulder once more.
They walk though. Harry is quiet and she has taken to humming, just a little, in hopes of keeping herself focused until the pass the next village. It’s too quiet, she thinks. The leaves crunch under their boots; Harry walks ahead, but not too much, leaving her room to watch the woods and wait.
He’s already shown her the Ministry fliers that he found. There are still three of them, one for her, one for him, and one for Ron. It’s odd tribute to the last couple of weeks, months more. But Hermione keeps them at the bottom of the bag, maybe in hopes of holding onto some perspective, another part of her knows not to get rid of everything until absolutely necessary.
When they come into a groove of trees though, Harry stops for a moment. She doesn’t see him and skids forward, into his back. She nearly falls, but Harry reaches out quickly, grasping her arm and steadying her. They stare into the darkness together.
“What?” she breathes, but Harry shakes his head. His eyes seem to widen. The space grows darker too and the wind starts to pick up. The leaves rustle and Hermione finds herself shifting closer to Harry.
She can feel his fingers curl tighter around her arm.
“We should go,” he murmurs.
“Okay,” she says.
But neither of them are moving. She can’t bring herself to look at Harry either, still watching the trees in front of them. They won’t see the village until morning, at least a few more hours into the day.
“Come on,” Harry says quickly. His hand slides into hers and he pulls her along, walking forward. “It’s nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing,” he says again, and it’s like he’s talking to himself.
“We could go back,” she offers weakly.
“No.”
He picks up his speed and the leaves begin to slip from under their feet, spitting out around them. Hermione half-gasps as he pulls her hard too, turning them into one of the trees. Her back hits the wood and he pulls himself over her, pressing against her.
“Close your eyes,” he whispers harshly.
“What -” and then she hears it, the slight hum, the sound of bones as they creak and crack. There is the rustle of fabric and as she closes her eyes tightly, buried against Harry’s shoulder, all she can think is dementors.
Harry’s mouth brushes against her ear. “Stay calm,” he tells her. “Keep yourself calm, I - if they’re looking for us, we’ll have to stay here.”
She catches a hitch in his voice, but forces herself to follow in kind. She wills herself to think of other things; not Ron, not her parents, not Harry. She pays attention to the sounds of the woods. The trees have seemed to have stop and the whole forest is almost desperately still. It’s only then that she realizes that they haven’t heard anything for miles.
Harry is completely still.
It is important to understand how much she knows and accepts that there are three of them. Before Ron left, after the Ministry and the acquiring of the locket, the two of them sat together while Harry kept watch outside.
“Do you love him?” Ron asked suddenly. It was his turn, then, one of the first times to wear the locket around his neck. But he was watching her so seriously, painfully so, that she turned to watch him too. “I mean, I reckon you love us both, yeah?”
Hermione had frowned. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”
He shrugged and sunk back into the bed, struggling to get comfortable. The bandages around his arm are fresh here, and he turned to fixate on the radio next to the bed too.
“No reason,” he said. “None at all. I just - I keep thinkin’ what difference would it make, had it been just me an’ him or just you an’ him, you know?”
“You’re talking nonsense,” she replied. Her cheeks flushed and she rubbed her knees too hard. The hole in her jumper was fairly new then, at the corner of her sleeve; she attempted to fit each finger through it, all converging into a nervous habit.
Ron had sighed anyway though. Then the radio came on after; it was then that Hermione turned to him too, closer, maybe too close and more than she had intended to. Her fingers had brushed over his arm.
“We both fit differently,” she had said.
The tree presses harder against her back. Harry slowly draws back, just to give her some space, looking down as she opens her eyes. She doesn’t know how long they’ve been like this.
“They’ll be back,” he says absently, and there’s something in the air. It’s too cold and too still, but she knows that he’s right. Her fingers curl in his jacket and she manages to nod. “So, what now?”
“We have to move,” he murmurs.
He doesn’t pull back all the way though, and his hands come up to cup her face. Hermione breath catches and she watches him as his fingers brush along her mouth. Gently, his thumb slides over her lip, against a slight mark, possibly from where she was biting too hard. She never catches herself anymore.
“I’m scared.”
Her mouth parts. She stares at him, wide-eyed. Harry continues on. “Had a dream last night, s’why I knew - I knew they were coming. And that other night, the one with the Death Eaters - I suppose I knew then too.”
Hermione’s eyes burn. She tries not to move, to listen, but she can feel herself start to tremble. Harry’s forehead drops, pressing against hers.
“I don’t know what’s mine anymore,” he murmurs, “and what’s his, what my memories are and what he’s trying to give me - I reckon s’why he went ahead and split himself into the horcruxes, immortality’s a better bet than feeling any sort of rational and genuine emotions and memories.”
Her fingers curl into his jacket and pull into fists. They sway, half-pounding against Harry’s chest and she’s not entirely sure if she’s even really reacting. It feels all too like she’s gone, all of the sudden, and when her mouth opens, a sob stumbles out.
“Why - why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry,” he whispers.
“I - so -” she stops because she doesn’t know how to look at him, how to react, or how to calm the sudden feeling in the pit of her stomach. It’s knots. It’s fear. It’s the sense of being completely helpless and that, that is something she doesn’t know how to deal with.
So she draws back, hard, stumbling back against the tree again. Her arms fold against her chest and Harry is watching her, somehow unable to do or say anything else.
“I need a minute,” she breathes.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Her hands press against her face. “I just -” her voice is muffled. “I didn’t. Harry,” she murmurs. Something in her so close to just breaking. When she laughs, it sounds hysterical. “Merlin,” she says softly. “What are we doing?”
Harry steps forward. He doesn’t touch her and she wants him to, she wants to be anchored again. She doesn’t cry though. Her throat starts to tighten and she starts to slide down to the ground, sitting and pressing her knees to her chest. Her gaze stills.
“Hermione.”
“I thought -” Harry’s hands are on her knees. “I thought at the very least, I thought - I don’t know. What if? I’ve been trying to be so bloody strong,” she murmurs. “And now, now it’s all falling all apart.”
“Don’t,” he says.
“Really, it is. I can’t - I don’t know how else to do this for you, how to make it all right. I know you’re going to have to go forward, but I - I’ve been trying to think of the right now, Harry. I -”
“We have to go,” he says firmly, cutting her off.
There is more though and when she looks up, she can see Harry talking to her. His expression is hard and his hands are now curling around hers, but she can’t feel him. She can’t feel anything.
This is what scares her.
(If you asked her, if you really asked her what she had seen back when she took Remus’ exam, she would tell you it was nothing, it was an exam, it was failure of the most basic kind; but if you’d ask her now, if you really asked what had scared her, she would just look at you sadly and shrug. There is more than a reason why her parents’ memories are gone.)
How she gets to the tent again is not important; her memory is a little foggy and when Hermione opens her eyes, she is sitting on the bed and Harry is at the table, pouring over her books.
“The dementors?” she asks, and her voice cracks. She rubs her throat and tries to stand. Her legs feel weak. Her hand shoots out, resting over the frame; it takes her a minute to steady herself.
“Gone,” he says, and carefully. “They’re gone. I reckon they’re still close. We’re about less than day away from Dumbledore - they could be watching. You needed to rest too.”
She’s quiet but nods.
Her hands brush against her hips too and she manages to move away from the bed, stepping back out to where Harry sits at the table. She moves to stand next to him, to see what he’s reading or trying to look at, but there’s no energy in her. She’s exhausted and it’s more than starting show.
When she sits next to him, he lets out a sigh. He draws away from the books and she sits with her back against them. They sit close and her brows furrows, her fingers brushing against his arm.
“I’m sorry, you know.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. S’my fault. I reckon it wasn’t the best of times to tell - I thought you would know.”
Hermione bites her lip.
He’s right, she thinks. “I suppose my mind has shut down, or did. I suppose I just - we’ve been walking and running and moving in so many circles, everything is starting to look the same. I don’t know who is who and what is really worth it anymore. I just don’t know and I feel like I’ve failed you. I don’t want to panic, Harry. I want to be useful. I need to be useful. Do you understand?”
And then she’s talking, she’s talking and it’s not stopping; every feeling, every sense of insecurity or moment of self-loathing is there, right in front of Harry to see and there’s nothing to hide anymore.
“I know, I know what Ron is to you. I know why you need him and why he needs you - you have your thing and I love you both for it. I get that you need to have that, but I don’t really understand what I need to do for you, where I’m supposed to do now.”
“You’re here,” he says quietly.
“I know,” she murmurs. “But is that enough? Is that what you need, Harry?”
She meets his gaze, but his hand pulls up to his face, rubbing hard at his eyes. Neither of them have slept. She isn’t entirely sure if she’s sleeping either. She may or may not just be lying there, sometimes listening, sometimes remember or losing bits of memories. This is where they are right now and it seems as if there is nothing else to know.
“I think - ” Harry stops. He looks at her again. The corners of his mouth twitch and he shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “I thought I did. I suppose I know what I need to do, but knowing what I need - that’s all changed, Hermione. Everything is changing.”
He closes a book and tries to nudge her. Her mouth catches itself, almost instinctively ready to respond - a smile, not quite, maybe a tired laugh if she’s lucky. Instead, she drops her head against his shoulder.
“Everything’s already changed,” she murmurs.
“It’s different when you understand that,” he adds.
“So where are we now?”
It’s an impulsive question, and she almost regrets asking it, knowing that they can’t really count on what comes next. Even the moment too, that moment is nowhere near sound nor predictable at best.
“We move forward.”
Harry looks down at her. His mouth is crooked, but it’s not quite a smile, and she thinks, briefly, that he may kiss her again and she may be okay with it, now, then, and in the moment. It makes her head hurt all over again and her heart, her heart and everything in it, still, it’s all twisted into knots.
She manages to swallow. “It’s not - remember, remember what I said? About growing old together? Right here, in the woods, where no one else can find us and we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“We wouldn’t,” he agrees, and she knows it’s just to humor her. “You’d be terribly bored, you know. Terribly, terribly bored.”
“So would you,” she says.
He laughs softly. “I would. Although, m’sure you’d figure out ways to keep us going and all. You being you, of course.”
Hermione snorts.
They’re quiet again, and Harry’s mouth presses into her hair. She feels him inhale and she lets herself relax, maybe this one time; her hand reaches for his and curls into his figures. They’ve always been like this, oddly enough, maybe more comfortable in their own intimacy than most people would understand. But that, that has always been hers with Harry.
Gone the school children, she thinks. There’s part of her who understand that for her, mostly for her, she may have never been a child, things were different, are still different, and she knew, from the beginning, how to carry things all by herself. This, Harry, everything happening now - it’s continuing to change her too.
“I love Ron,” she says slowly. “It’s - I thought it might be something else, something different and understandable. I know how I fit with Ron.”
She pauses and Harry is saying nothing, almost like he’s waiting.
“I love Ron, but it’s not the way he may want me to,” she murmurs. “It’s not the way I think I was trying to. It’s not about him seeing me, it’s not about how I see him - I know now how I fit. And I know that there’s supposed to be three of us here.”
“But you’re here,” Harry murmurs, and when she looks up, his gaze is unreadable. There’s no smile but he’s entirely too calm. “I’m not angry at him anymore,” he says suddenly. “I just -”
His mouth tightens. He turns closer, almost over her and his fingers brush along her jaw. It’s been a long time, she thinks, since that’s been a reassurance. Now, here, it’s a need.
“If there’s an after,” he says. “If I make it that far, we’ll have to talk about this. If there’s an after, things are going to change.”
“I know,” she says, nodding.
“It’s scary,” he says, and then he laughs too, low and short, but a laugh nonetheless. This is more about family and growing up together, and somehow, that understanding is weaving itself between them. Forever connected, she thinks.
She turns her mouth into his hand and closes her eyes, pressing her lips into his palm. It’s a gesture, a funny gesture, that she’s seen her mother and her father give into millions and millions of times. It’s something too that catches her memory, and the moment moves away from being there, in their small tent, in the middle of the woods, and a war that she may or may not live through. It’s not going to be the same again, between Harry and herself and Ron, Ron whenever they see him again too.
“I am going to stay with you as long as I can,” she says finally, softly, and with an assurance that hasn’t been there, between the two of them, yet. She doesn’t look at him, and she doesn’t need to, whatever is happening is there, right here, and on its own.
“I know,” he tells her. It may mean something or nothing at all, but he says it and it’s not a secret, it’s not coming later, it’s just there.
Hermione says nothing. For a little while, they let themselves sit.
There is another little town, village that they cross, making up their lost day; it is not on the map and it is a lively scene of people walking through, market stands being set up, and drafts of ribbon and celebration signs being tied around everywhere.
Harry walks close to her as they fight to blend into the crowd, looking around and being much more aware of the people than the town at all. Above them, the sun sits too and it’s heavy, the first real spring day that Hermione lets herself have.
“We’re almost out,” Harry murmurs, and they weave through a bunch of children laughing around and singing a song that Hermione can’t quite catch. The tune is familiar and there is that tug, deep inside of her, still longing for some sort of inevitable end. She takes a deep breath too.
It doesn’t matter who spots him first.
They come to a corner and there is a pub, sitting happily, a few straggling laughs dancing out from the open door. Harry stops and she follows, her gaze darting around nervously. They need food, she might think, and supplies, bandages above everything else.
And then, right there, is Ron.
He is leaning against a wall, hand wrapped around a bag and a long, wrapped object. He is laughing with a girl, his eyes bright and mouth wrinkled half in amusement, half in amazement. He has color in his cheeks. There is something so impossibly real about seeing him, and Hermione’s mouth opens, ready to call, but can’t really bring herself to say anything. She no longer remembers how this was supposed to go.
“Should we go?” Harry says quietly, next to her.
“I don’t know,” she says, and then, there, it’s Ron watching them, Ron seeing them, still listening to the girl talk. Hermione’s heart is in her throat and it’s just too easy to know why. “I don’t know what to do,” she says.
“I know,” Harry says and it’s not the right thing to say, as there is no right thing to say. It simply is this: Ron is here. Ron sees them.
Harry takes her hand.
“Let’s wait,” she says slowly and Harry nods in kind, “It’s a good idea,” he says too. “It’s a beautiful day,” he adds.
They all stare at each other. It’s different and it may have been something else, had this happened then. This is a war and it is the last time she thinks of it this way, there in the sun, in the town too, among the laughter and the people moving through their lives. No one is waiting. She will think about what’s changed between them, how it’s changed, and how none of them can go back. She will think about Harry’s hand in hers. She won’t let go.
It’s Ron too, who says goodbye to the girl and picks up the object, gripping it tightly as he walks towards them. There is music somewhere in the town, coming from behind them, and more laughter stumbles out from the pub. Over Ron’s shoulder, Harry and Hermione watch as the girl smiles.
It’ll be dark again. They grow up.
____