In Pieces

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author’s Notes: This scene takes place directly after Harry talks to Nick and Luna about death in the very last chapter of OotP.

I cannot post this story here without thanking gal-texter, who was extremely helpful in pointing me over this way on many notes and who was nice enough to invite me here in the first place, and gil, who is a continual inspiration and whose stories I will never, ever get enough of reading. You may have recommended this story here, but it is I who recommend you to virtually everyone I know (and even some I don’t)! I hope your quill continues to delight those of us who are certain to very bottoms of our souls that Harry and Hermione belong together. :)

And I can’t forget to thank Deb, without whose e-mails I would be totally lost in the HP world and who continually forgives me for replying too many weeks later. ;)

***

Harry slowly climbed the spiral staircase to his dormitory, his hands absently grazing the stone walls where not a half hour earlier he had hit them at a full-run, determined to track down some answers to all of the questions swimming inside his head.

His conversation with Nearly Headless Nick had done nothing to help. And while he had felt momentarily lightened by his talk with Luna Lovegood, it was now, as Harry entered his vacant dorm-room and gazed around him, the stillness soaking into him like flooding rainwater, that he found the terrible weight that had plagued him since his talk with Dumbledore – since Sirius’s death – returning to his stomach.

His body felt as heavy as an iron anchor, weighing him down, as he sat on his four-poster bed and stared blankly at his still-unpacked trunk.

He did not want to leave Hogwarts, did not want to face the prospect of weeks of loneliness and despair at the Dursleys', where the memory of Sirius would haunt him in his dreams and where there was nobody to comfort him or to help him through his grief. He would have no one as soon as he stepped through the barrier at Platform Nine and three-quarters and that thought filled him with such a cold, empty feeling that Harry wondered how he was ever going to survive the summer.

Sliding blindly from his spot on the bed, Harry knelt next to his trunk. Ignoring the shattered remains of the mirror Sirius had given him the previous Christmas (and which he’d foolishly broken in his frustration over not seeing Sirius within its gleaming surface), the shards glinting up at him through the piles of crumpled robes and books he had thrown into it so haphazardly, Harry reached instead underneath his scarlet Quidditch robes (which were perhaps the only items in his trunk folded properly since he hadn’t worn them in months) and extracted the handsome, leather-bound photo album that Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year at Hogwarts.

Returning to his bed, he flipped through the book carefully until he came to the page with the picture of his parents’ wedding and, sure enough, there was Sirius standing next to his dad, smiling up at him with that roguish grin of his and elbowing James Potter in the ribs every once in a while, as if reminding him – in a teasing, laughing sort of manner – what an important day it was for his friend. Harry’s mother, who appeared to only have eyes for James, did not seem aware of Sirius standing there at all. And though James would turn every once in a while, grinning at his best man, his gaze would inevitably return to the beautiful woman on his arm.

There was something about this photo, other than the fact it was the only picture he had of Sirius (not including those horrid mug shots in the clippings he’d kept from the Daily Prophet), that struck a chord deep within Harry. He couldn’t place the thought, but it reminded him of something…

Yet, glad as he was to have the precious album, he found the smiling, happy faces of his parents and Sirius mocking. These people, who had once enjoyed a blissful day, unaware of the horrors to come or the terrible years that would soon follow, were now dead and gone, wiped from the earth as if their lives had meant little in the scheme of things.

Maybe, in truth, they had not. For what were a few lives among millions of lives? What did it matter to anyone whether these people lived or died?

Only Harry knew – that to him – it did matter. It mattered extraordinarily more than even he was aware, for the second his thoughts strayed to Sirius, he wanted nothing more than to shut that door in his mind, block those memories from bursting forth and reminding him of the mistakes he’d made…

But his parents? Could he blame himself for that as well? When he had been only a baby and had not known…

Harry did not want to think about Dumbledore’s words to him or the stupid prophecy. He wanted nothing more than to forget he’d ever heard why Voldemort had tried to kill him in the first place and why he was now destined to become victim or murderer. He could not – would not – think about it.

But Sirius…

His godfather had been the closest thing he’d ever had to a father or even a brother, and now he was gone… gone like all those wizards who had vanished before him in that tatty, old photograph Moody had shown Harry at Grimmauld Place. Sirius had not known, like the faces from the original Order who had beamed disturbingly up at Harry from that aged Wizarding photo, that he, too, had been doomed.

Feeling sickened and distraught, Harry threw the album aside and buried his face in his hands, unable to bear any longer the burden of his painful memories.

***

Hermione had become rather worried when Harry had not shown up in the Great Hall for their end-of-term feast that evening. By the time dessert had appeared on the glittering, golden plates before her, Hermione had excused herself, leaving Ron and Luna Lovegood (who, oddly enough, had plopped herself down at the Gryffindor table) fighting over a bowl of pudding.

Hermione had not been hungry anyway. She’d had an odd, queasy feeling in her stomach all day, and had finally come to the conclusion at dinner that it was her anxiety for Harry that was causing all the knots to tighten there. Finally, after much protest from Ron, she’d decided enough was enough and had left the Great Hall, heading directly for the Gryffindor common room.

She was not surprised, upon entering through the portrait hole of the Fat Lady ("Dear, you’re missing the best part of the feast!"), to find it empty. The room was silent but for the flames burning low in the fireplace, hissing and popping now and again with a little sputter. Usually the sight of the common room filled Hermione with comfort, for it was a welcoming room with its squashy armchairs and cozy atmosphere, but tonight the sheer stillness of it did little to quell the cold feeling inside her body, which actually started to shiver as she crossed the room and headed for the stairwell at her left.

Hermione hesitated only an instant before climbing the stone steps that led to the boys’ dormitory and the tower room that Harry shared with their fellow fifth years. She was never so glad that the founders of Hogwarts thought girls were trustworthy and allowed them to enter the boys’ dormitories without pretense. It may be an old-fashioned rule that the boys were not allowed such leisure in the girls’ dormitories, but Hermione was grateful that – in this instance – her goal was not impeded by some unfortunate ruling of a thousand years ago.

Upon reaching the tower room, she entered it very quietly, feeling fairly sure of herself and what she was going to find there. But seeing Harry as he was, his body bent over where he was sitting on the edge of his bed, his elbows digging into his knees and his hands thrusting through his black and very unruly hair, was not what she had expected at all, and Hermione halted her feet, gasping at the look of pure grief that was apparent in every line of Harry’s body. She couldn’t see his face with his head hanging so low, but the lines of agony in his hunched shoulders, the rigid tenseness of his arms and back, were enough to tell her that she had been right in her decision to come and find him.

"Harry?"

Her voice had been a mere whisper, but Harry’s head snapped swiftly upward. The look in his eyes was so painful, so haunting that Hermione’s gaze fell instantly to the floor. One of the knots in her stomach loosened slightly, but a lump rose in her throat.

"What are you doing here?" asked Harry in a strained voice, and Hermione had the immediate impression that he didn’t want her there at all.

"I came to see if you were all right," she replied, but almost winced at the hollowness of her words. Clearly, he was not all right.

Her eyes rose from the polished wood of the floor to meet his gaze again. The green of his eyes behind his glasses was dull, almost lifeless.

"You shouldn’t be here," he said flatly.

And while Hermione had the notion he was reprimanding her a bit for entering the boys’ dormitory without permission (though she’d done it on countless other occasions), she purposely misread his meaning and said, "I got tired of the feast. You know, all that false emotion running at its highest. As if Lavender and Parvati are really going to miss me over the summer? I highly doubt it."

She crossed the room without really thinking about what she was doing and sat next to him on the bed. Harry moved slightly, though not much, to make room for her.

She heard him give a little sigh before saying quietly, "I’m going to miss you over the summer."

She nodded briefly, a hint of a smile touching her lips, before replying, "I know."

It was unnecessary for her to state those words back at him. He would know without her saying so that she would miss him more than anyone.

One of Harry’s hands was resting on his knee and Hermione placed her fingers over his. They were smooth and warm to her touch. She patted them lightly before withdrawing her hand from him altogether.

"You told Ron you wouldn’t be long. What’s kept you?"

Harry sighed again, drawing his hands together and rubbing the spot where she’d touched him.

"I was packing."

Plainly, it was a lie. She didn’t have to look at the horrible mess that was his trunk sitting open before them to know that he was giving her an excuse.

She’d already had the feeling that Harry had wanted to be alone, but the thought of him wallowing in his memories of Sirius, which is what he’d undoubtedly been doing (it had only taken the look on his face to tell her that), bearing his burdens all by himself, was more than Hermione could stand.

Still, she remained silent, allowing him the liberty of believing he was telling her the truth when it was apparent he was not.

Her eyes slowly wandered from the disorderliness of his trunk to the book that was lying open on the end of his bed.

Harry’s gaze followed hers.

"May I?"

He shrugged his shoulders wearily.

"Be my guest."

The rectangular-shaped photo album was open to a page containing pictures of Harry’s parents’ wedding day. In every snapshot, the happy couple was beaming up at Hermione, even waving in some of them. A horrible sadness rose within her as her eyes landed on the one image that contained a young, laughing Sirius Black. She had never seen the photos in the album before, though she knew they had been a present to Harry from Hagrid. Harry had never shared them with her, and whatever his personal reasons were for not doing so, Hermione had never asked.

Glancing away from the grinning picture of Sirius, Hermione turned the page. There were lots of photos of Harry’s parents, even some of Harry as a baby, his forehead smooth and clear of the lightning-bolt scar. Feeling another odd lurch in her stomach, Hermione flipped the page again. Near the end of the album, before the pages started turning blank, were more recent photos of her, Ron, and Harry. There was one that she particularly liked of the three of them taken during their first year. They were standing in a row, she and Ron flanking Harry on each side, smiling at the camera, while Ron nudged Harry with a lop-sided grin every now and then. The Hermione in the picture was touching Harry’s arm and glancing at him every so often when he turned and beamed back at her.

Hermione grazed her fingers across the Harry in the photo. He looked so happy…

She sighed and closed the book, aware of the real Harry watching her. Leaving her place on the bed, she moved over to his trunk and set the book in a safe place underneath his Quidditch robes. Pulling out her wand, she waved it absently, muttering an incantation, and the rumpled clothing folded itself neatly into piles while the books stacked one on the other in rows. After everything was in order, Hermione noticed a glint of something along the bottom of the trunk, but as she moved closer to examine it, Harry suddenly caught her attention by grabbing her hand.

"I can finish that myself," he said quickly, pulling her closer to him before releasing her fingers completely. "Tell me about the feast. What did Dumbledore say?"

"Surprisingly little."

Hermione pocketed her wand and sank down onto the bed once more. This time she leaned against the wooden bedpost, facing Harry, as she curled one knee against the bedspread and folded her leg beneath her. Her other foot remained planted firmly on the floor.

"I thought, perhaps, that Dumbledore would mention something about you and V-Voldemort," she said.

Hermione was becoming a bit more accustomed to saying Voldemort’s name aloud, but she wasn’t over her fear of it entirely, just as she certainly was not over her fear of the "man" himself. In the four times that Harry had confronted (and thwarted) him, Hermione was keenly aware of the fact that she had not been present during any of those instances. Voldemort was, as yet, an unknown, and therefore, still terrifying, entity to her.

Harry looked at her with some surprise.

"Dumbledore didn’t say anything?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Not at all."

A strange look of relief mixed with something like anger crossed Harry’s features. He stood up and paced the floor in front of her three times before moving by the window and gazing out of it, his eyes as luminous as green moons, glowing with some emotion Hermione did not understand.

She knew little of his conversation with Dumbledore from that night after the whole fiasco in the Department of Mysteries. She had been unconscious in the hospital wing after all, and Harry had said next to nothing about it, other than explaining how he had arrived back in Dumbledore’s office after escaping Voldemort once more at the Ministry. Harry had told her and Ron briefly of how he had followed Bellatrix Lestrange, cold with fury after she had murdered Sirius, of Dumbledore’s arrival and subsequent duel with Voldemort, and of how Voldemort had then possessed Harry’s own body before fleeing the scene entirely. He had spoken of it in a clipped manner, almost devoid of emotion, as if he were describing the scenes of some unimportant Quidditch match he had witnessed instead of something he had been wholly a part of in a very real, very terrifying way. What had ensued between Dumbledore and Harry after they had returned to Hogwarts, Hermione did not know. And though she was curious, she had not pressed him for answers.

But now, seeing the anguished expression on Harry’s face as he was staring blindly out the window caused Hermione to think about asking him again.

"Are you ready to tell me what Dumbledore said to you?" she questioned in a low voice.

For a moment, she wondered if he had heard her at all, but when Harry turned around, she knew that he had, for he shook his head repeatedly back and forth. He didn’t speak, but stood there for a moment – his arms crossed, his stance a bit uncertain – before walking back over to the bedside. He sank down next to her once more, still shaking his head shortly in a morose sort of way.

Hermione was silent as she watched him, waiting for him to say… something. But Harry remained sitting there quietly for a long while.

When finally he screwed up his face, his features contorted in raw agony, Hermione could feel the tears welling in her eyes. She had never seen such pain, never witnessed the sort of despair that was emanating from Harry, in anyone that she cared about before. It was soul-wrenchingly sad, and as a tear slid down her cheek, Hermione found something within her opening, as if her very heart was swelling and expanding, wanting desperately to take that pain away from him and absorb it into herself if she possibly could.

Silently, Hermione opened her arms, but she was still surprised when Harry collapsed into them. She had never known what it felt like to watch another human being falling to pieces, had never felt the soul of another being ripped apart by grief as he lay sobbing in her arms. She had never seen him cry; he had always been so strong. But the body raking against her, shuddering with such despair, was so far from being weak (indeed he was pushing so heavily against her that she could barely sit up properly), so incomparably resolute, that Hermione viewed his show of sorrow not as a fault, but as one more thing that made him extraordinary, one more thing that made him human.

And in being there for him as she was, in soaking up his sadness, Hermione watched in amazement as the burdens she knew (and knew not) of lifted from Harry’s shoulders, as the heaviness of his body turned almost to weightlessness, as a lightness settled upon the both of them at his release, his relinquishing of his emotions, and her absorption of them…

Their hearts were beating in unison as Harry leaned further against her, wrapping his arms around her, and she comfortingly reached around him in a very sure, very secure embrace.

It saddened her to think that Harry had never known this kind of compassion, had never felt the arms of his mother wrapping around him in solace – or at least, not that he could remember. To never have had the simple touch of a parent to heal the wounds within, to lessen the pain, made Hermione wonder how Harry had come to be such a loving, giving person himself.

For he was all that and more…

He cared too much, too deeply. This she knew, for she knew him in the deep wells of her soul in a way that even she did not understand. When she had warned him of his "saving-people-thing," she had only done so to prevent him from acting without thought. She had never meant it as a taunt on his personality, for it was one of the things she loved best about him. It was one of the things that made him Harry.

Hermione already knew she held a special bond with Harry, of friendship, of trust… but the feeling that was rising in her now, as she held him in her arms, was something beyond her understanding, in the same way that knowing him so deeply without having to guess at his thoughts, his feelings, was outside her realm of comprehension. There was no logic behind her feeling, and as much as this should have scared Hermione, it did not. She only knew it to be the truth – whatever it was… This feeling in her was solid and real, as solid and real as the person who was Harry lying in her arms.

Harry stirred slightly and Hermione was startled out of her thoughts, but Harry kept his head buried against her chest and his arms wrapped around her body. Sighing, Hermione tried to let go of her thoughts completely and revel in the simple reality that was Harry resting against her.

A feeling of heaviness was returning to her body, but it was free of the burdens that Harry had emptied into her. Somewhere in the midst of it all, Hermione realized she and Harry had fallen onto the bed. Her brain registered that her body was lying down a long time after it should have, but the foggy feeling of overflowing emotions, of utter exhaustion had taken over by this point. The weight of Harry’s emotions had sunk into her so deeply; she had gladly drowned in them. But now, she felt the tide of those emotions ebbing away as fatigue was setting in.

Harry’s breathing had slowed dramatically and his sobs had desisted. He was resting quietly against her now.

Hermione waited until she was sure he was sleeping to edge away from him slightly. She moved until his head rested on the bed instead of on her shoulder and propped herself on her elbow so that she could see him properly.

His eyes were closed and his long, black eyelashes were resting lightly against his cheeks, which were stained with tears. Hermione reached out her free hand, which had been wrapped around his waist, and almost touched the redness of his cheek where his tears had dried, but instead raised it to her own face and was startled to find the remains of her own sorrow residing there. She hadn’t fully been aware that she, too, had been crying.

Harry’s hair was completely a mess, sticking out in ways that would have been impossible on anyone else, but on him looked all the more endearing. His scar was showing, visible through his untidy hair, glaring at her, and Hermione did reach out then to smooth down his bangs (as Harry so often tried to do himself) in a light, sweeping touch, pulling off his glasses in the process because they looked like they were digging into him uncomfortably.

Harry did not stir and Hermione sat up, sighing.

There was still a small part of her, the logical side of her brain that never quit on her, that told her the others would be returning to Gryffindor Tower soon (and wondered vaguely why they hadn’t already), and that it would be foolish for her to stay with Harry any longer. Hermione had no idea how much time had elapsed, but it would not do for anyone to walk in on them as they were…

As she tried to move away, she noticed that one of Harry’s hands was fisted tightly around her robes. She massaged his fingers lightly until they loosened their grip, and she pulled away.

Hermione stood for a moment at his bedside uncertainly.

She was reluctant to leave him. He looked so vulnerable, curled up and now very much alone on his vast bed. Something tugged inside Hermione, and she felt her mental war surrendering to whatever part of her that had just decided she was not going to leave her best friend in this state.

Without another hesitation, she placed his glasses on his bedside table and set about unlacing his shoes while she kicked off her own. She pulled off her robes as well and folded them neatly, dropping them, along with her shoes, inside Harry’s trunk before shutting the lid, realizing it would not be wise to leave them out in plain sight for anyone to see. Then she tugged Harry’s shoes gently from his feet and set them on the floor beside the bed.

She had thought somewhere in the midst of all this Harry would awaken and ask her what she was doing, but he did not. He did not even stir when she rejoined him on the bed, facing him once more.

He had not moved, but his features had relaxed somewhat in the moments since her return to his side.

Sure that her decision to stay with him was the right one, Hermione grazed her lips tenderly against his in the barest of kisses before whispering, "Goodnight, Harry."

She nestled closer to him, cocooning herself against the warmth of his body, before tugging the red, velvet curtains closed around them, unaware that somewhere in the darkness, in that wonderful, hazy place between asleep and awake, Harry was smiling.

***

Hermione awoke the next morning quite sure that something was out of place. Her body felt light, almost airless, and there was a soft breeze touching her face. Before she could raise a hand to investigate, the warm feeling against her cheek increased momentarily and then subsided, leaving a lingering hint of magic where the breeze had been caressing her.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and saw the normal setting of her dorm-room. It took a few moments for her to remember that she had fallen asleep, not in her own bed, but in Harry’s…

But here she was, lying in her four-poster, with her own scarlet and gold comforter wrapped securely around her, taking in her surroundings as she always did when she woke in the mornings.

She could see it was barely dawn outside, for the sun was scarcely shining through the open window behind her, its soft rays falling on her bedspread and streaming gently on the floor.

Had she only dreamt that she had fallen asleep in Harry’s arms after comforting him last night?

Perhaps she had attended the end-of-term feast and returned to her room, as usual, without ever seeing Harry…

But no – that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be…

And just then something caught her eye lying on a chair nearby. Her black robes were folded neatly with her shoes resting on top of them. And Hermione became fully aware that underneath her covers, she was still dressed in her gray school sweater and skirt.

Before she wondered at how she had returned to her own room at all (something she couldn’t remember doing herself), something else caught Hermione’s eye.

On her bedside table, propped against New Theory of Numerology (her most recent bedtime reading companion), was a folded note with her name written across it in Harry’s firm handwriting.

Hermione removed the parchment from the table, opened it as something fell from within, and read the two words scripted very carefully on the page.

Thank you.

The message was simple, but clear, and Hermione smiled as her eyes fell on the photograph that was now resting in her lap. It contained three beaming, contented faces, two with eyes alight only for each other, while the third looked on in amazement at the love that was radiating outward, eclipsing everything around them, in its simple beauty.