Everywhere around him the upcoming winter battled for dominance over the peaceful land. The heat of summer still lingered, putting up a good fight despite the occasional bitter winds sweeping through the countryside, ripping golden leaves off of the trees, leaving mounds of dead foliage in their wake. Bright sunshine still streamed through the devastated treetops, burning out the remains of the morning fog.
Like the fog, a calm had finally settled over the land, much deserved after many years of living in fear. These people deserved the right to know that they would wake up the next day, be able to do what they have always wished to do, be able to see their loved ones again… Or at least, the ones that remained.
But unlike the evanescent fog, this calm would not be easily displaced, for the wizarding world was once again at peace.
This peace, of course, came at a very heavy price.
Looking around themselves, anyone would see jubilant, enthusiastic witches and wizards. No longer caring what anyone else would think of them, people sporadically broke out into song, sometimes sending sparks from their wands into the air or hugging complete strangers for no reason at all.
Indeed, why shouldn’t they? Their war was finally over, as the wizard who fashioned himself Lord Voldemort perished just one month ago.
Only looking into their eyes did you see the mixed emotions they concealed behind their raucous laughter. There was joy in them, true, but also uncertainty, guilt, pity, shame, anger, hatred, despair, all a jumble in their minds…
Uncertainty for the future. Guilt for not being able to save so many. Pity for those who suffered more than themselves. Shame for surviving while so many others had not. Anger for those who were better off. Hatred for those who made them suffer.
Despair for those lost forever.
Harry Potter’s eyes betrayed nothing of his internal struggle. However, there were moments when he could be caught off guard, during which it was evident how much despair he was truly harboring. How his ephemeral mask of happiness was just pretense for the benefit of others.
Where he stood, he couldn’t observe the gentle swaying of the autumn leaves as they floated downwards, for where his gaze was turned to was perfectly barren: the black waters fathoms deep, hundreds of feet beneath him, stretched past the horizon.
Far below, at the base of the cliff upon which he stood, tall waves crashed into the jumble of jagged blacks rocks.
He had stood there for hours, perched precariously close to the edge of the rocky outcrop, gazing out at the sea. His attempts of not giving in to the thoughts and memories threatening to consume him were an utter failure.
It was a place where, lifetimes ago it would seem, a young Tom Riddle would stand and look out at the sea when he managed to get away from the orphanage caretakers. Much like his nemesis, he would stand there for hours, losing himself while staring into the endless black abyss.
Way below Harry was also the cave in which Riddle would torment fellow orphans, and would later come to hide a fragment of his soul.
In which his great mentor and friend had met his end over two years past.
Everyone he ever truly loved was lost. The salty smell of the sea water, the monotonous calming noise of the waves beneath him, punctured only by the cries of seagulls, the sunlight warming his back… None would give him solace, but he welcomed it nonetheless for it numbed his heart.
A slight breeze carried the sweet scent of flowers through the warm autumn air, ruffling his perpetually messy hair.
Immediately, he recognized her presence.
“Harry,” she said softly, yet with demand, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been here for hours... Harry,” she said with a little more force when her words failed to produce any reaction. “Look at me.”
Unwillingly he wretched his sight from the rippling waves, longing for nothing but to be further lulled into a state of numb indifference.
Upon seeing her, he couldn’t help but feel awfully guilty at his very first thought: he hated her for being the one to live. As soon as he caught sight of her eyes, he knew his negative emotions towards her were by far not reciprocated. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
As he turned towards her, the sun illuminating his solemn features, his eyes were so full of grief she longed to comfort him in any way she knew. As soon as she saw that flicker of emotion pass through him, he hid it once more, leaving him looking like a mere shell of a human being, like someone who experienced a Dementor’s Kiss.
He was looking at her expectantly now, slightly irritated since she called him out of his blissful ignorance.
To him, she was like an open book, he thought with distaste. He could see everything in her eyes, as though they were transparent windows leading to her very soul. I want you, they spoke to him… I need you…
Don’t you need me?
Did he? Surely not. He thought about it, about her. About his future. Would it exist? Now that Voldemort was exterminated, that was finally Harry’s own choice to make.
He saw the options clearly now: he could live a lie, simply deceive himself. Live in an imaginary world, where all was not truly as he saw it.
Otherwise, he would not be able to live at all.
Incapable of looking at her any longer as painful memories flooded him, he shut his eyes, inadvertently squeezing out a single tear.
Though his eyes were closed, he could suddenly see as bright as day: she was standing right in front of him, wavy chestnut locks framing her sweet face, swaying in the breeze… Deep, chocolate brown eyes looking up at him with adoration, reserved just for him… Perhaps a small smile tugging at the corners of her delicate lips… Involuntarily, he reached out for her before him, all the while knowing that the vision wasn’t real but letting himself get lost in it nonetheless.
Misinterpreting the gesture, his companion went along with the vision playing in his mind.
All of the sudden, he was very conscious of a pair of arms sliding around his neck, a small feminine body pressing against him. He felt her lips on his and at that moment, he realized he could not muster the resolve and self-control to resist. He wrapped his strong arms around her tiny waist and kissed her back, pouring all of his emotions into the simple contact.
Standing there, kissing her and clinging to her desperately, his self-induced lie seeped in through the cracks of the barrier he put up around his mind. The mirage swept all barriers aside, flooding his consciousness completely, until he truly lost himself, believing that he was once again with her.
The lie was a sweet, blissful poison to his mind. Though the poison was slow-acting, the outcome was bound to be the same… Only even more painful.
But as he was concentrating on her, Harry couldn’t comprehend that. He so longed for the lie to be reality, he began to believe it himself.
She was all that he could think of; the way her eyes would glow with love when they were together… The way she tasted when he kissed her deeply… The way her sculpted, muscular back felt under his roaming hands… How soft her hair felt, like raw silk slipping though his fingers…
All of the sudden, his vision came to a screeching halt and he visibly stiffened. Was he really running his fingers through her silky hair? No, it couldn’t be. He didn’t feel anything of the sort; he must have been imagining it. The hair that he was running his hands through was much more coarse. The figure he held was slightly taller than it was supposed to be. Her waist should have felt even tinier. And she even kissed differently. Had he caught the smell of flowers? Something was definitely wrong with that picture… She ought to have smelled like peaches; she always did.
Opening his eyes, his vision was flooded with a fiery red, immediately sending him back to reality with the brutal force of a rampaging hippogriff. He rapidly pushed her away with all his strength, sending her stumbling backwards, failing to be ashamed of his actions even upon seeing her expression of incredulity and hurt.
All he could do was whisper, “I’m sorry… I just can’t do this.”
He longed for the mirage to come back and numb his pain, but all the while beginning to understand that it would just corrode him slowly, from the inside out. He had to face the truth. This was real. That was not. He could pretend all he wanted, but ultimately it would achieve nothing. Reality was a bitch, but still he had to force himself to face the truth.
“But why not? Don’t you remember all we had?” The tears that she was holding in were threatening to break loose, and yet she managed to sound reprimanding, reminding him of Molly Weasley, “It was perfect, Harry. You, me, we were perfect together. There was a time when I made you happy. Why won’t you let me make you happy once more? And we promised each other… You promised me that after all of this was over, we would have another chance together! Well, it is over! Where is that chance, Harry? What changed between us?”
Everything, he thought warily as he listened to her tirade, her voice level steadily rising to a shout.
“I never made promises I knew I couldn’t keep,” he uttered, effectively putting an end to her righteously angry monologue.
She gasped, and even Harry realized just how cold and cruel his voice had sounded. He wanted to rage at her, to make her feel at least a small portion of the horror within him, but he had no right to blame her for her actions, nor for expecting them to get back together. No right at all. Especially when he was kissing her like there was no tomorrow just moments ago, and then flinging her away like a decaying flobberworm for no externally evident reason. Talk about mixed messages. His face burned red with shame, and Harry found himself having to avert his eyes.
He had thought she succeeded in changing him for the better, if not during her lifetime then maybe after it. But there he was, still acting like a spoiled five-year-old whose lollipop was stolen, lashing out at everyone around him although they had done him no wrong. Still the selfish bastard.
After all, how could the young Weasley have known?
Ginny was not permitted to search for Voldemort’s horcruxes with them, naturally. She was too impulsive and inexperienced and young. She lacked the courage and the magical capabilities to be anything but a hindrance. Even if there was a chance in hell that her mother would allow her, Harry would not. He used to think it was because he wanted to protect her, but he had long since realized that it was simply because she did not belong by his side.
No, she could not have known.
She was not there to witness how Harry turned to someone else, out of mere convenience at first, if would seem. It would be natural, considering she was his only female companion. The convenience was, perhaps, all that was needed for him to realize his true feelings, those buried so deep inside of him so long ago he had forgotten about their mere existence. She did not know the power of the love that had blossomed between them… How he loved her more than anything else, more than life itself… How they had done things with each other that innocent Ginny could never have even imagined. Indeed, Hermione had been his solace, his saviour when his heart was so full of darkness. The one that kept him going, kept him fighting. His sole motivation was to have her once the war was over, to start a family with her. If only for that, he needed to live.
That was why she was the true reason he succeeded, not to mention the number of times she saved his life. He had already lost count…
And he could not even save her once.
He never felt more pain in his heart than when he thought about all that she had done for him and all that she had been, whereas he only caused her suffering. Due to him, she had to bear the murders of her parents. She hid her grief so that he would not feel guilty about it, and he took that for granted and didn’t even try to comfort her. That was her job, after all, comforting him. When they were not battling Death Eaters, she spent every waking moment doing research in the Black library, whereas Harry and Ron would slack off, sleeping or playing chess or occasionally flying “ magically concealed by the Fidelius charm “ in the skies surrounding Grimmauld. She had always been willing to spar with him when he needed to train since Ron was not a challenging enough partner, no matter how exhausted she was after many sleepless nights. When they got back from missions and he would enter one of his numerous fits of sullenness, she would give herself to him to take his mind off of their task, never asking for anything in return. He never once wondered what she thought of it. He didn’t even bother about what their physical relationship was doing to her, as long as he got his dose of nirvana. Indeed, she was his narcotic, and he simply used her as such.
He couldn’t believe it now, how selfish he had been. But he knew that, if he had the chance to do it again, he would not be able to do anything differently as much as he may have wanted to.
But this, it was Harry’s choice to make… He could live the rest of his life being haunted by nightmares, replaying the last moments of her life in his mind: how she took Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra curse, aimed at Harry, so that he could finish him off. How he caught her fragile body before it could even hit the floor and cradled it in his arms, while the Aurors were still fighting to subdue the remaining Death Eaters all around them. It didn’t matter though, since all light had left her eyes before she even started to fall. They were still open and glazed over, all of their former intelligence and spark gone, which frightened Harry beyond anything he had ever seen. Yet unlike most victims of that wretched Unforgivable, her frozen face held a look that bore no resemblance whatsoever to surprise or fear. Why would she have been surprised? She knew perfectly well what she was doing and what the consequence would be. Anyone could tell by the cold determination etched in every line of her rigid, rapidly paling features.
He thought he could continue to live, deceiving himself into thinking Hermione was still alive. He thought he could imagine that he was with Hermione while kissing Ginny.
But he already tried that and saw how it worked out.
Or rather, he mentally corrected himself, how it didn’t work out.
The redhead still looked at him expectantly as he pondered, her anger ebbing and morphing back into tears. She never knew about him and Hermione, and that was how it would remain. They were all better off that way. It was unlikely that she would react any better than her youngest brother if she found out.
Since Ron was also their companion, searching for Horcruxes and residing at the House of Black with them, he was bound to find out somehow. As Harry’s luck (or the lack thereof) would have it, he found out in the worst way possible: he walked in on them.
He exploded then, screaming and cursing at them, with a steady stream of such choice words that would make Mundungus blush. Mudblood was prominent among them. Surprisingly, he lashed out at Hermione above all: one of the most civilized things he called her was a scarlet woman whore who seduced both of her best friends. That was when Harry punched him. Ron rapidly fled the room and left Grimmauld Place. After looking for him everywhere with no positive results, they decided that he must have left them for good. Harry was even relieved since that would mean at least one of his best friends would be out of danger.
A little over a month later, Ron returned, saying he merely needed some time away from them at the Burrow. When it came to Harry, he attempted to act as though nothing ever happened. But he never spoke to Hermione on friendly terms again, always giving her the cold shoulder. That had hurt her above all.
When Harry confronted Ron about his unacceptable actions towards their best friend, the other boy grumpily explained, “She broke my heart. She does not deserve my forgiveness.”
When asked why he still talked to Harry, Ron was taken aback. He answered, “How could I possibly blame you for being seduced by that little slut?”
Harry then proceeded to punch him again. They no longer spoke of the incident.
As she was being buried in the small graveyard by the lake outside Hogwarts, Ron was the only one of the myriad of people whose lives she touched not to shed a single tear. He had stood then, stony faced, betraying himself only by looking anywhere but at the open casket of black marble. Afterwards, he drank so much firewhisky that he had to be taken to St. Mungo’s and given a full blood transfusion.
Indeed, it was best if Ginny never knew anything. At least someone would maintain a peace of mind, to a certain extent. Plus, thought Harry with a grim sort of humor, he didn’t want Ginny to apparate all the way back to Hogwarts just to spit on Hermione’s grave.
A wave of awful loneliness hit him like a powerful curse, penetrating his heart so deeply that he wanted to scream as he realized, there was no one to remind him for the thousandth time that no one could apparate on Hogwarts grounds. One of the first things he bothered to do after her death was to read Hogwarts, a History, though in truth all the while he thought only of her and did not pay attention to a single word.
Because the awful truth was, nobody really could replace Hermione to him. When she died, she took his heart with her. And what use was life when you didn’t have a heart?
He lifted his head and looked straight into Ginny’s eyes, glinting amber in the bright sunlight. Her face had gone all blotchy and presently she was sobbing uncontrollably. Harry tried to find it in himself to comfort her.
He stretched out his hand to wipe her tears away. “Listen, Gin… Promise me that you will try to be happy. Please? That’s all I need to hear right now.”
She simply sniffled, relaxing slightly and tilting her head into the contact with his hand, which he rapidly withdrew.
“Ginny, I’m serious.”
“Okay,” she responded slowly, looking lost and perplexed, “but why are you saying this, Harry?”
She still could not understand what was going on, and it would be best if she remained confused while he got out all that he needed to say.
“And I need you to tell Ron that he means the world to me, and that I wish him best of luck,” he continued quickly, “and give Arthur and Molly my thanks. They were the closest I ever had to parents, save Sirius, of course. Oh, and Remus and Tonks…” He added as an afterthought, ”just please let them know that they were some of the most important people in my life. I wouldn’t be the same without them… Can you do all that for me?”
By then, Harry was well aware that he was rambling since for some reason he couldn’t help being nervous, but he went on with his little speech anyway: “I hope it’s not too much to ask, bit I kinda figured… Since you know, you see them all the time anyway, you could do me one last favor and “ “
“But I don’t understand,” she interrupted, “where are you going? You’re leaving us? Now? Harry, I don’t understand!” She whimpered, sounding on the verge of hysterics, grabbing his hand in both of her shaking ones and clutching it tightly.
He held her gaze one last time, willing her to compose herself. It would make what he was about to do much easier.
“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,” he whispered, inadvertently quoting Hermione’s favorite muggle book, as he gently removed his hand from hers.
…The imagined future, which one would never see, but which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in…
He had no real future, he realized. His choice was made: he could not keep on lying to himself. Hermione was dead; there was no way to bring her back. She had gone on, moved on to the next great adventure, when there had been so many times that, lying in her arms, he would promise never to leave her side. And then she went on without him! The nerve of her, thought Harry. To even think “ he simply could not let her go on such a grand adventure alone.
She would still be waiting for him, he knew… There, on the other side of the veil, just beyond mortal sight.
He visited the Death Chamber occasionally after Voldemort’s defeat, only in his dreams, of course. In his dream world, the Ministry of Magic remained whole and untarnished, with hundreds of faceless witches and wizards milling about for no apparent purpose. In reality, the whole complex was blown to pieces during what would come to be known as the Final Battle.
He would always sprint through the ministry, never paying a morsel of attention to anyone or anything else. Climbing into the dirty telephone booth, scrambling across the crowded Atrium, knocking into specters of people without bothering to look who they were… Slamming on the down button as the grilles of the elevator closed, clattering down the elevator shaft… Sprinting down the deserted corridor, into the circular room, across the many unidentifiable subsections of the Department of Mysteries… Reaching his destination, he would tumble down the rows of the huge amphitheatre, climbing on top of the dais in the sunken center. There, suspended in his timeless nightmares, he would stand for eternity, captivated with horrified morbid fascination by the gentle swaying of the tattered veil hanging from the crumbling arch. From the other side, he would hear her voice softly whispering words of comfort, but in such twisted, unearthly tones that it enveloped him in the cloying scent of decay and brought bile to his throat. He would attempt to convince himself that it was truly Hermione he was hearing. Every time, he would attempt to whisper “I lo “ “ but every time he was jolted back to reality before completing the simple phrase.
He would wake up in cold sweat, the sheets twisted wildly about him, with a sharp metallic taste in his mouth, and the one word he never said to her at his lips.
The young redhead still stood there, silent now, no longer sobbing but looking so alone and miserable, and ever so confused.
“Goodbye, Ginevra. Do try to forget me,” he said with a small, mirthless smile.
And then, it only took one step backwards. He was still holding her gaze as realization dawned on her, and she collapsed, dropping on her knees. She opened her mouth to emit a high-pitched wail worthy of a banshee, and yet filled with such raw emotion…
The thought, this feels just like flying, crossed his mind as he plummeted downwards, towards the jagged rocks. Ginny’s screams faded into silence, and Harry was no longer aware of anything but the air pressing in on him from all directions and that wonderful feeling in the pit of his stomach that he loved ever since Draco Malfoy stole Neville’s remembrall in their first year at Hogwarts.
In truth, the feeling was just like a Wronski Feint. Or Wonky Faint, he mentally corrected himself, feeling tempted to smile at the ridiculously trivial memory and the images of a bushy-haired fourteen year old girl that it procured. Only, he didn’t have enough time to finish that thought before all coherence was momentarily knocked out of him.
If the sensation could be compared to that of flying, it was then as if he had forgotten his Firebolt. This was a dive out of which he could not pull out, even if he wanted to.
His choice had already been made long before, if only subconsciously. His purpose in their world was served, his duty completed. He didn’t belong there any longer, not without her by his side at least.
He thought he had prepared himself for everything, but he could never have imagined the pain before experiencing it. As he connected with the rocks, it was as though his entire being was shattered to a thousand pieces, torn apart limb by limb. So this is what dying feels like. After all, he had always wondered.
There must have been a simpler, much more painless way. But then, when was Harry Potter one to take the easy way out?
As indifferent waves caressed his broken body they retreated from shore tinted slightly pink, as if carrying fragments of Harry away with them into eternity would preserve his presence on this Earth. But what are a few more drops to the cold, endless ocean?
He had only a single thought on his mind as merciful blackness consumed him once and for all:
At least I will see my Hermione again…
And I will finally be able to tell her that I love her.
For the first time since he lost her, he no longer felt any pain.
Fin.