He would never forget that day. Nor would he ever forgive himself. He couldn't. It was his fault.
No matter how many times Ron and Ginny would tell him it wasn't his fault, that it had just been a horrible turn for the worst, but he knew that he was to blame. He was the reason she had left him.
Now, a twenty-year old Harry Potter sat in a Muggle coffee shop with a book laid out in front of him, and a cup of steaming hot coffee in his scarred right hand. He had been having trouble concentrating on the task at hand: finishing a well-known Muggle novel.
But he couldn't focus. Not when the anniversary was coming up. It had almost been three years. Three years next Tuesday, to be exact.
As he tried to focus his attention on the novel in front of him, the bell attached to the entrance jingled, arousing his curiosity. He lifted his startling emerald eyes towards the glass door, half-expecting it to be her, coming into his life after so many years of pain and mourning for her to return.
But it wasn't.
A man of about sixty entered the shop. Harry was about to avert his attention back to the book at hand when he saw a young couple passing outside. He always got a pang in his heart when a couple like them would pass him. So young, so in love. Not knowing that in one mistake, you could lose someone forever. Like he had.
The couple's hands were intertwined; they were walking against one another, laughing, smiling, and talking. Harry couldn't help but feel a stab of jealousy. Why couldn't he have someone to walk around town with like that? Why did her time have to be cut short?
The couple walked through the doors of the coffee shop, ceasing Harry's staring. Instead, he involuntary brushed some untidy, jet-black hair out of his eyes and just stared through his glasses into his hot cup of brown liquid, painfully reliving that night that seemed so long ago, yet also like it had happened yesterday.
.::.::.::.
It had been a cloudy Saturday night. They had been driving to the new Italian restaurant in Muggle London for their date. Just as they reached the thirty-kilometer marker, signaling they had about twenty more minutes in the car, rain started to fall.
The Lord took her away from me.
She's gone to Heaven so I've got to be good,
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.
They had been driving along, laughing and singing along to an old song on the radio. When raindrops started pelting the windshield, the girl in the passenger seat chuckled slightly.
"I'm glad I didn't get dressed up," she commented sarcastically, tucking a strand of stray hair behind her small ear.
Paying attention to the slippery road ahead, Harry looked at her from his peripheral vision. He saw a gray skirt that hugged her hips perfectly, a deep emerald sweater that complemented her feminine curves, and the simple silver chain she always wore around her neck. Everything about her was breathtakingly gorgeous.
Harry smiled. "Don't worry. I have an umbrella in the backseat, 'Hermione," he told her. "Just behind my seat. Go ahead and get it if you want."
"You're just always prepared, aren't you, Harry?" she had laughed, reaching behind his seat to find it. She sat back in her seat after a moment, placing the black umbrella by her feet.
"Not always," he had responded. But that night, he was. He unconsciously moved his right hand to his coat pocket where a small, square velvet box was hidden. That night, at dinner, he was going to ask Hermione Granger, his best friend, to marry him.
The two were rounding a curve when they saw it. The mark in the sky that everyone thought was extinct. The Dark Mark, Voldemort's mark, was shining in the air above a stopped car right in front of them.
The car was immediately around the corner, giving no time to carefully maneuver around it. Harry swerved to the right, not seeing any oncoming traffic in that lane. They faced a problem, however. There was a cloaked man in the road. Harry turned the wheel even more to avoid him. The roads had become slippery with rain, so the car skidded, the tires screeching as they left the road and hit the cement barrier next to the road.
All the windows shattered, cutting the young couple, and the last thing Harry remembered before losing consciousness was Hermione's scream of terror as they got thrown from the car.
We hadn't driven very far.
There in the road, straight ahead,
A car was stalled, the engine was dead.
I couldn't stop, so I swerved to the right,
I'll never forget that sound that night.
The screamin' tires, the bustin' glass,
The painful scream that I heard last.
When he came to, Harry could see flashing lights and blurred faces staring at him. Where was he? Why was there something warm gushing into his eyes? What had happened? He tried to sit up, but when he pressed his right hand onto the ground, he felt searing pain. Glass. Then he remembered. The accident. They had been driving and he had swerved to avoid a man in the road.
The Lord took her away from me.
She's gone to Heaven so I've got to be good,
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.
Where was Hermione? Was she all right? With a shudder he remembered the horrified scream she had emitted before everything went black for him. He squinted at the flashing lights. It was . . . what was it? Harry couldn't exactly tell. He propped himself up with his left hand. His glasses had flown off during impact, where they were; he didn't know.
He suddenly recognized the rapidly flashing red and blue lights. Ambulance. Someone had seen the car on the side of the road or had seen the actual accident and called the hospital. Had they gotten to Hermione already? Was this the second ambulance, and they had already taken Hermione to the hospital? That theory was rejected when her heard a shuddering intake of breath about five meters from where he was lying.
He saw two figures in white fumbling with something in the back of the ambulance. No doubt a stretcher to carry one of them into the waiting vehicle. Ignoring the glass in his knees, Harry somehow crawled over to where Hermione was laying, struggling for breath. He gently scooped her up in his bloodied arms and held her.
"H-Harry . . . " she stammered weakly. By the reflection of the moon and the light given off by the ambulance, Harry could see the glint of a large shard of glass protruding from the left side of her neck. "Hold me for a . . . a little bit longer," she whispered, her eyes shutting slowly, resting her head on his shoulder.
Harry secured his grip around her, kissing her head of bushy brown hair as silent tears rolled down his cheeks. He should have been proposing about now. How could their perfect night go so wrong?
She shuddered as she gulped in the cool, damp, night air. The raven-haired young man gently placed a hand behind her head, raising it up to his face and lightly planting a kiss on her trembling lips.
"I love you Hermione," he whispered hoarsely, a tear running down his cheek as he tried to hold back his sobs.
Her eyes fluttered open for a brief second and she smiled a smile of relief, love, and pain. She lifted a shaking hand to caress his cheek softly. "I . . . love . . . " she trailed off weakly. Her hand fell from Harry's damp cheek and her eyes closed once more, to remain like that forever.
Harry kissed the cold hand that had been touching his face. She was gone. Hermione Granger, his best friend and the love of his life, was gone.
He lifted her up to where she was limply draped over his arms. Harry then slowly carried her towards the ambulance, not quite sure what to do next. His mind was jumbled. He wasn't sure how life would progress without her, Hermione Granger, his one true love.
There were people standing all around.
Something warm flowing through my eyes,
But somehow I found my baby that night.
I lifted her head she looked at me and said,
"Hold me darlin' just a little while"
I held her close I kissed her our last kiss,
I found the love that I knew I had missed.
Well now she's gone, even thought I hold her tight,
I lost my love, my life that night.
.::.::.::.
The bell chimed again as another loyal patron entered the cafe, bringing Harry out of his reverie. He remembered it all so clear; as if it had happened all yesterday.
Harry had later found out that the man in the road that he had swerved to avoid was the Death Eater who had cast the Mark after killing the four Muggles in the car. He had been arrested the next day.
But it wouldn't bring Hermione back. Nothing could. Nothing would.
Hermione. At the thought of the young woman whom he had known since adolescence, he set his now-cold coffee down and put his hand in his coat pocket, knowing that what he was looking for would be there. He always carried it around. Always.
What he drew out was the small, black, velvet box that had survived the crash, unlike its intended recipient. He still carried around Hermione's ring, hoping that that night was just a horrible dream and she would walk back into his life any day now.
But it had been nearly three years.
Harry decided with a big, heaving sigh, what his next stop in town was. He was going to go to the graveyard he visited at least once a week, and finally give Hermione the ring that was meant for her.
He left his money on the table as he rose from his corner seat. He passed by the young couple that had walked in earlier on his way to the door. As he was about to push open the door, he had a thought.
He turned around and walked the few steps over to the couple. They looked up from staring into each other's eyes, a bit surprised that this stranger would walk up to them.
"Take it from a man with experience: Care for each other. Realize that each day here is a blessing given to you, a blessing that could be taken away at any moment. And most importantly, never miss a chance to say ‘I love you’ to the one you love, because they might not be there the next day. It might be too late. I made that mistake, please don't make the same one," Harry told them, smiling sadly, tears glistening in his eyes.
The young couple smiled at him. "Thank you," the young man said.
His girlfriend stared into Harry's sparkling eyes, smiling sympathetically. "Thank you," she echoed softly.
The Lord took her away from me.
She's gone to Heaven so I've got to be good,
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.
And with that, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Loved, walked out of the coffee shop and headed towards the cemetery to visit his one, his only, Hermione.