Harry looks away when Hermione starts the car. Storm clouds shift, break, and then gather. Something’s coming – Harry can feel it, he’s seen it – A new dawn.
Hermione dreams in shades of grey and blood and broken glass.
She remembers things, tiny pieces, and she doesn’t move; she lies still while she tries so hard to put them together. There were people here; there was screaming here.
In retrospect you don’t understand. There was a reason, once, to keep you all together. You don’t remember what that is now.
They remember promises.
And it's too late to take it back.
Harry and Hermione and regrets. You're contemplating staying where you are and watching the door close, pretending not to hear the fading footsteps or unwhispered goodbyes, or falling on your knees and crying, begging. What's the difference now?
She can’t remember what it was like to be whole. She stands in the shower, hot water sliding over her skin, as she’s trying to wash away time. If only she could wash away the memories. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much.
I remember the light in your eyes, and I wonder where that light has gone. I remember the sound of your laugh and I miss it. You don’t smile and the sounds of your painful screams in the middle of the night tear me apart. I want to go to you, but I know that you find solace in nothing.
Sometimes the battle for everything is worth so much more than you have to give.
She says softly “Everything is so changed.” Neither of them could define the timeline, unsure of when it became this - moments interspersed over the years, and silent realizations melted into whispered confessions.
Three years is thirty-six months. Thirty-six months, 2 weeks, and a day had passed, and he is still trying to convince himself that he isn’t really counting.
You hate the fear in her eyes (she's afraid of you and you hate it).
It’s almost painful the way your body aches for him, the way your heart aches for him; it’s killing you to remember who he is, what he’s done. You think, maybe, he could change someday… You know better than to hope these days.
You quit everything. You quit her. Remus. Ron. Everyone. You fought and you left. You know you’re a coward for this. You told her you loved her before you left, and that was all there was.
A separation. A pregnancy. A death.
“I love you’s” and “I need you’s” blurred together, becoming indistinguishable, tangled up and muffled by kisses too hard on the lips and fingers that pressed too hard against the skin...This was all they had. This frenzied desperation and fiery passion; shameless need and wont and angry lust, and all the wrong kind of love. This was who they were and all they knew.
After it's over, everything is different. Harry talks to Ron about life after Voldemort.