Authors Note: Well, wow, thanks for all your great reviews. I'm completely and utterly stunned. This chapter is still unbeated (my beta is still busy with school). This chapter went in a completely different directed from where it started and I'm not sure if it's a good thing. I hope you enjoy.
I looked up at Harry, his expression reflecting exactly what I was thinking. Confusion, worry, shock, deathly tired but burning bright and clear through all that grief had smeared itself, eating slowly away at his basic functions. Lacking words of any kind, even the ones as meagre as `hello', I did the only thing I thought possible, the only thing I found logical.
Reaching out I pulled Harry into a hug, crushing my body against his, offering any shred of comfort I could spare. I feel Harry's arms automatically snake around me, pulling me closer into the hug, closer than I thought possible. I feel him cling to me with a desperation I had never seen him possess, like he was craving human contact.
Maybe he was. I had never seen him straight out of the Dursley's before. Someone had always seen him first. Offered that binding hand of friendship.
Slowly I pull away form the hug staring up at Harry, biting nervously on my bottom lip. I look down at our fingers still laced together. I hadn't even noticed. We both seemed unable and unwilling to break the contact. We stand in silence, not looking at each other, allowing the unspoken companionship to wash over us.
It was Harry who spoke first.
"Why are you here?"
I gaze around the park, the swings creaking slightly in the breeze, every possible lie entering my head. Without consenting me my mouth discarded them all and settled for the truth.
"I couldn't stand it, Harry," my voice cracking, sounding so small. "One more letter from you lying about being fine and… I don't know. I just couldn't stand it."
He doesn't even look at me. Instead staring blankly over my shoulder and into the distance. Unblinking, his eyes masked cold.
"How do you know I'm not fine?" I've never heard him so frigid, so clipped. It was like he was purposely ignoring who exactly he was talking to.
"Because I'm not." The words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them. I feel like just from speaking them a giant weight had been lifted from me. "Because I'm probably feeling not even half of what you are and I'm not okay."
I pause, waiting for a reaction. Some sign that he had even heard me. There's nothing.
"Because I miss him too."
Harry's eyes widen as he lowers them to stare at me. Blank shock covering his face. It was almost as if it hadn't occurred to him that anyone else might care about Sirius. That he wasn't the only one who felt like the world was completely unbalanced without him.
"I didn't think…" Harry starts quietly, bewilderment permeating from him.
"I know," I sigh. "Although I can't say I really blame you."
We fall into an awkward silence, both putting off the conversation we knew had to follow. It was too weird, too painful yet somehow we both desperately needed to talk about it.
Taking the opportunity I gaze around the park, letting the simple surroundings invade my mind.
Two small children, playing on the see-saw carefully watched by their mother; off to the side with what seemed to be a younger sibling. Bikes left abandoned as some boys raced to climb the highest tree.
A group of teens, wandered into the park, pushing and cajoling each other as they settled under the shade of a tree, passing what appeared to be an innocent bottle of coke. I state at them a moment. Strange, they were approximately our age but they seemed so much younger, so much more carefree.
"Seems so far away doesn't it?"
I look up to find Harry following my gaze. I nod slightly, unable to vocalise my own feelings. It was like we had suddenly skipped all those years of being stupid. In our world being stupid could make you dead.
"Let's just walk," I tell him flatly. I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to know what I've lost.
Starting out at a slow pointless stroll I feel Harry's eyes constantly flicking toward me as he walked, hands deep in his pockets.
"What?"
"Sorry," he answers immediately sheepish. "It's just… you're here, in Little Winging. Its like two worlds colliding and… I'm not sure if that's a good thing."
I stare at Harry for a minute before answering him carefully, unsure whether to be offended or not. "Mum was in the area." I shrug, not mentioning exactly how far mum had to drive to be in the area. "I was driving her insane and… well, after last year… I just had to see you."
"Hermione," Harry starts and I can see him about to launch into a lecture about how I shouldn't worry about him, that he was fine.
"I'm a worrier," I cut him off. "I worry. It's in my nature. And I think I know you well enough by now to tell when you're lying, which I know you are, and the lying makes the worrying worse and then, well, things just get kablooey."
"Sorry," Harry answers. Sheepish seems to be the order of the day for him.
"So, how you been?" I ask lightly struggling to keep some levity in my voice as I round the swing set and take a seat before looking up at Harry expectantly. Hands in pockets, as he rocks on his heals. Gently he bites his lip as he closes his eyes, a deep breath rattling through him.
Neither of us speak for a second, a slight tension cracking the air as we both hesitate, not wanting to start what could potentially be the most difficult conversation either of us has ever had.
Slowly Harry's eyes open, for the first time in years they burn completely unmasked. Green blazing with hurt, loss, fear and a tired look of knowing too much far too early. But beneath the many layers of confused emotion I was struck by one I had never thought I would see Harry wear.
He had accepted it. He had accepted that he would most likely die much earlier than anyone was every supposed too. He had accepted that he would never have the chance to have a house and 2.5 kids.
"What do you want me to say?" he finally asks slowly, almost mechanically as he tried to suppress his turmoil.
"The truth. The unabridged, we've got all the time in the world, no one can use this against you version."
"If I told you I couldn't do that what would you say?"
"I would accept it, even if I knew you were lying. Not only to me but yourself."
Harry stops, ruffling a hand thought his short locks. I can see him closing up right before me. I've gone one step too far. I'd be lucky to get more than a monosyllabic answer from him.
"I miss him too," I tell him gently, hoping to spark any conversation from him.
Harry stares down at me, wide-eyed incredulity crossing his features.
"This isn't about just missing him," he snaps frustrated.
"I know, but it's a start."
"No," Harry snaps forcefully. "You don't know. For once in her life Hermione Granger has no fucking idea and you can't handle that."
I feel my jaw drop in shock, staring at him, not believing the words had really come from his mouth. They seemed so out of character, so… hurtful. His jaw tightens as he glares at me unmoving. Like he was tying desperately not to say or don anything that may contradict his last sentence.
I feel tears prick my eyes as his slide past, seemingly unable to look at my face.
"You're going to right way to having no friends."
"Maybe I'm better off on my own."
I stare at him as the words come crashing down around me.
"You don't believe that," I whisper. "No way. Not for one second. You don't believe it."
I can hear the desperation in my own voice. I hate it. I was supposed to be the calm on, the rational one, always the voice of reason. It seemed that part of me had gone on vacation.
I knew he could do it. Alienate himself from the group, force a wedge between us. At times I already felt I was talking to someone I barely knew instead of Harry with whom I'd been practically inseparable for the past five years.
The main problem I was finding with Harry's self-imposed exile was the simple fact that I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could sail through Hogwarts without him to fall back on. Without him to throw my life into such drastic perspective.
"Who are you trying to convince? Yourself of me?" I hear Harry ask suddenly.
"I don't know," I hear myself whisper before I even chanced at lying. I stare at the ground beneath my feet, trailing one foot, idly making patters in the dirt.
He was always doing this. Play the hero, push away anyone who tried to help, deluded with the fact that helping him had a high casualty rate. Granted, he did have a point, but he didn't realise he wouldn't have been here today if it weren't for me and Ron.
He didn't get that every time we went off on one of our adventures I had the same sickening worry settling at the bottom of my stomach that he did. He didn't get that part of me would die if anything ever happened to him.
So what if he didn't exactly choose to have a murderous villain chasing after him. Well, I didn't choose to be his friend. You can't do that. Even before the troll incident we were always gravitating towards each other.
"You really are a selfish bastard."
"What?!" Harry asks in shock. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts I hadn't even realised I was speaking aloud.
I look up, the incredulous confusion in Harry sparking my anger.
"Fucking hell Harry." The surprised look remains fixated on Harry's features. I don't think he's heard me swear so much in five years let alone five minutes. "You think you have to push me away to stop me from getting hurt. Bullshit." I pause for a second, my eyes boring into his. "You're probably hurting me more."
I don't think Harry realised I was no longer talking in the plural. To me, I never had been.
His eyes flash intense green, I can see his anger bubbling beneath the surface. Not the same anger he had harboured throughout fifth year. There was something different about this. It was quieter, more focused.
"Well, its better than being dead."
"No, its not," I feel tears sting my eyes as I stand shouting at him. "I'd rather be dead than spend five minutes pretending I'd never met you. Not after what we've been through."
My mouth snaps closed surprised by my own proclamation. I hadn't expected to say that. I had come here with the vague hope that maybe I could see what was going on in Harry's head. Instead I end up two steps shy of screaming at him that I loved him. That I loved to an extent I wasn't all that sure about.
It was something I had never really contemplated but looking back on it, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
"Don't. Just don't okay. You don't understand."
"You keep saying that but you never explain it."
"I can't." Harry sighs running a hand through his hair, a desperate pleading edging through his voice.
"Can't or you don't want me to know?" I wince at the snappishness settling in my voice. I hated being so standoffish with him. Apart from the fact it had never got anything from him, it was the same tone I usually reserved for Ron.
"I can't," Harry states almost calmly, not taking the bait, quietly continuing the conversation, ignoring the fact that I seemed ready to bite his head off. "If I did you would look at me like they do. Like I'm totally infallible. Like I'm some kind of hero."
I gape at him. Of all the responses in the world that was the last one I had ever expected. I thought I already looked at him like that. Not because he had stopped the most powerful dark wizard in the world before he could even hold a wand or the fact that somehow every year since I'd known him he'd managed to save the lives of countless people including me. But because he talked to me when no one else had. Because he remembered me during the troll. Because he was the first one who noticed what I was doing to myself in third year and tried to talk me out of it even though we were supposedly fighting. Because in fourth year when Rita was printing that shit in the Daily Prophet he didn't ignore more, or got to great lengths not to be seen with me. Because in fifth year when Hagrid too us to see Grawp as soon as I had started to feel even a little jittery he had taken that small comforting step closer to me and stayed there.
Maybe that was why he was so scared to tell me. I adored him for the things he had done for me, others adored him for stories laden with hyperbole. I knew then that it had to be huge. I don't know what to tell him. I can't promise I won't look at him differently. I might be impossible not to.
"You don't have to. I get it. We all need secrets. Just don't push me away. Not completely."
I sigh, sitting back down, pushing slightly on the ground letting the swing, swing back and forth lightly, staring blindly at the lawn, the creaking of the chains as it moved the only sound.
Author's Note 2: For those wondering, the last chapter of Fear is still with my beta, she said she may be couple of weeks yet but I refuse to post it beforehand. And I'm really sorry to say that I still have writer's block as far as Screaming on the Inside is concerned. It so sucks.
-->