fic: and four wax candles
Harry Potter. Hermione/Harry. 699 words. Fourteen years old and Harry wears loneliness like a cloak, wraps it close to his heart to keep the dementors away.
notes: for firstillusion. Title credit to T.S. Eliot. There are some shameless references to the brilliant and talented corleones' fic, if she objects I'll take it down, or maybe just suck up until she lets me leave it.
We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.
Lolita [Vladimir Nabokov]
Basilisk. Basilisk. Basilisk.
A mirror edged around corners, paper crumpled in her hand, and knowledge is power.
Knowledge is fear.
Basilisk. Basilisk. And Mudblood.
She’s a poor little Mudblood.
An eye catches in the mirror’s glass; ice sinks through her bones; she thinks Harry.
Not Ron. Never Ron. Not then. Not now. Not Ron.
Harry.
Hermione was born a brokenhearted little girl.
Only child. Friendless at nine. Friendless at ten. Then eleven came; then Hogwarts came.
Still it took time.
She was born three-dimensional in a linear world. She was born a brokenhearted girl.
Wore lightening-bolt scars on her heart, not her forehead, and oh, oh the pain.
She’s a brokenhearted little girl.
This is no surprise.
Fourteen years old and Harry wears loneliness like a cloak, wraps it close to his heart to keep the dementors away.
She walks next to him, even when the stares cut like curses.
She walks next to him when no one else does, when everyone else does. She walks next to him through the whispers and the jeers and the cheers. She walks next to him.
He clings to her hand, and lonely days don’t seem so bad.
Then she wears dress robes. Periwinkle blue floating through the air, and the crowd whispers pretty girl.
She looks to Harry and his eyes bleed green, greener than green. It’s not for her.
It’s still her hand he holds.
A dark wood, a dark world, and they wander through it.
Three souls. Three souls bound by friendship, by love.
Three souls wandering through a war-torn world. Off the map’s edges, beyond borders and boundaries. They wander.
Arguments spark, tempers ignite. Ron leaves.
Ron leaves.
She remains.
Harry has family. Harry has a godfather. A future. A family.
His face lights up. Dark passageway and his face lights up and she sees. She notices.
She always notices.
Harry has a family. Harry has hope.
A moon turns full.
Her fingers catch on a time-turner.
Back in time. Back in time. Back in time.
She clasps his hand. Too late.
The thing about Ron is he notices.
Doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know how to react.
But notices.
Notices her blooming form, and pretty eyes, and the sadness she tries desperately to hide.
Ron is like an old wool sweater.
Worn soft by age. Still itchy in unexpected places, but worn soft. Comfortable.
Ron is like an old sweater. And Hermione is rationalizing.
This isn’t the first time.
Beneath the Sorting Hat a thousand thoughts whirl.
It is a sly whisper in her ear, speaking like the too wise uncle she never had, telling her things she doesn’t want to hear. Things she must hear.
Before her four roads sit. Four roads, four futures, four outcomes.
She does not choose the hardest or the easiest.
She chooses the one her heart, not her head, wants and this becomes a pattern.
This becomes her downfall.
Years and years after it's over, after it's all over, they don’t reminisce.
Don’t sit around trading remember when’s. They don’t speak of it, not to the children, not to each other, not to the waiting grasping world.
Some silent agreement passed between them in the office of two dead men and it sounded something like never again.
She wonders if Ron saw, if Ron knew.
The secret is he kissed her once.
End of another year; end of lives and lives and more lives. Dead parents, dead godfather, dead headmaster and his eyes seem to bleed hatred, hope, despair.
A silent pause before the (first) funeral and he takes her hand. She doesn’t cry, not in front of him, that comes later with someone who isn’t trying to hold the whole world up.
A silent moment and his lips brushed hers and neither tried to pass it off as an accident of grief.
His lips against hers, his hand on her hip, and she sinks into him. Into warmth and cold and Harry.
The secret is there was a kiss and maybe it meant more to her than him, and maybe it meant the world, and maybe it meant nothing.
There was a kiss, a single kiss, and this they never speak of.
notes: for firstillusion. Title credit to T.S. Eliot. There are some shameless references to the brilliant and talented corleones' fic, if she objects I'll take it down, or maybe just suck up until she lets me leave it.
We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.
Lolita [Vladimir Nabokov]
Basilisk. Basilisk. Basilisk.
A mirror edged around corners, paper crumpled in her hand, and knowledge is power.
Knowledge is fear.
Basilisk. Basilisk. And Mudblood.
She’s a poor little Mudblood.
An eye catches in the mirror’s glass; ice sinks through her bones; she thinks Harry.
Not Ron. Never Ron. Not then. Not now. Not Ron.
Harry.
Hermione was born a brokenhearted little girl.
Only child. Friendless at nine. Friendless at ten. Then eleven came; then Hogwarts came.
Still it took time.
She was born three-dimensional in a linear world. She was born a brokenhearted girl.
Wore lightening-bolt scars on her heart, not her forehead, and oh, oh the pain.
She’s a brokenhearted little girl.
This is no surprise.
Fourteen years old and Harry wears loneliness like a cloak, wraps it close to his heart to keep the dementors away.
She walks next to him, even when the stares cut like curses.
She walks next to him when no one else does, when everyone else does. She walks next to him through the whispers and the jeers and the cheers. She walks next to him.
He clings to her hand, and lonely days don’t seem so bad.
Then she wears dress robes. Periwinkle blue floating through the air, and the crowd whispers pretty girl.
She looks to Harry and his eyes bleed green, greener than green. It’s not for her.
It’s still her hand he holds.
A dark wood, a dark world, and they wander through it.
Three souls. Three souls bound by friendship, by love.
Three souls wandering through a war-torn world. Off the map’s edges, beyond borders and boundaries. They wander.
Arguments spark, tempers ignite. Ron leaves.
Ron leaves.
She remains.
Harry has family. Harry has a godfather. A future. A family.
His face lights up. Dark passageway and his face lights up and she sees. She notices.
She always notices.
Harry has a family. Harry has hope.
A moon turns full.
Her fingers catch on a time-turner.
Back in time. Back in time. Back in time.
She clasps his hand. Too late.
The thing about Ron is he notices.
Doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know how to react.
But notices.
Notices her blooming form, and pretty eyes, and the sadness she tries desperately to hide.
Ron is like an old wool sweater.
Worn soft by age. Still itchy in unexpected places, but worn soft. Comfortable.
Ron is like an old sweater. And Hermione is rationalizing.
This isn’t the first time.
Beneath the Sorting Hat a thousand thoughts whirl.
It is a sly whisper in her ear, speaking like the too wise uncle she never had, telling her things she doesn’t want to hear. Things she must hear.
Before her four roads sit. Four roads, four futures, four outcomes.
She does not choose the hardest or the easiest.
She chooses the one her heart, not her head, wants and this becomes a pattern.
This becomes her downfall.
Years and years after it's over, after it's all over, they don’t reminisce.
Don’t sit around trading remember when’s. They don’t speak of it, not to the children, not to each other, not to the waiting grasping world.
Some silent agreement passed between them in the office of two dead men and it sounded something like never again.
She wonders if Ron saw, if Ron knew.
The secret is he kissed her once.
End of another year; end of lives and lives and more lives. Dead parents, dead godfather, dead headmaster and his eyes seem to bleed hatred, hope, despair.
A silent pause before the (first) funeral and he takes her hand. She doesn’t cry, not in front of him, that comes later with someone who isn’t trying to hold the whole world up.
A silent moment and his lips brushed hers and neither tried to pass it off as an accident of grief.
His lips against hers, his hand on her hip, and she sinks into him. Into warmth and cold and Harry.
The secret is there was a kiss and maybe it meant more to her than him, and maybe it meant the world, and maybe it meant nothing.
There was a kiss, a single kiss, and this they never speak of.