Lies

LittleCreek

Rating: G
Genres: Angst, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 09/08/2004
Last Updated: 09/08/2004
Status: completed

I hate when he talks in riddles. He knows that.

Chapters

1. Lies

1. Lies

AN: I know… I’m in the middle of Circle of Oblivion. I had to take a break and search for some creativity!

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“What if I told you I was a liar?”

I’ve been searching for him for an hour and he doesn’t look over as I take my place beside him, “A liar?”

“The worst sort.” He’s nodding faintly.

“What do you mean?”

He looks at me then and I realize how small I am. The two of us sitting side by side on our hill by the lake, Hogwarts towering behind us. We’ve spent hours – days – here resting beneath the tree. Shielding ourselves, escaping from the task that occupied our lives. Tiny markings on a thousand years of history. A history he – we – just changed forever.

And all he can say is that he’s a liar.

“I’ve fooled everyone.” The hardness that’s rested on his face since fifth year hasn’t faded with the end of the war but slowly, I feel him creeping back into himself.

“Harry…” I hate when he talks in riddles. He knows that.

“I know, I know. Explain myself.” His eyes return to the shadowy purple sky where the sun is sinking past the horizon.

“Is this about Voldemort?”

“No.” The cynical look on his face makes my eyes burn. “I’m done with it. I don’t ever want to talk about him again.”

“Fine.” I nod. I know this IS a lie. The wounds are fresh. The carnage still evident. The Dark Lord is gone – Harry saw to that – but not without a price. He stole our youth. He took our friends. But I know that we will talk about him again. Until we’re raw with it and have ripped it from our hearts. Until we feel safe. Until we feel new.

“You don’t believe me.”

“No.”

“You always have known me best. Saying things to appease me for the moment, knowing I’d come crawling to you for deliverance seconds later.” He laughs dryly, “It’s a terrible realization to discover someone knows you that well and they still care about you.”

“What a ridiculous thing to say.” I put my hand on his arm. “That’s everything I want.”

His fingers close around mine, grasping so tightly I’m afraid my hand will turn blue if I don’t pull away. But of course, I don’t. His life is in that grip and I feel him barely hanging on.

“Yeah, but you deserve it.” He laces his fingers with mine, “That unconditional sort of devotion.” His words drift away like smoke.

“So do you.” He makes me angry when he gets this way. So self-deprecating. “You know you do. And you know you have it – from all of us.”

“I know.” He sighs, “I always have. I just didn’t understand until the end… how powerful it was.”

“Is.”

“Do you promise?” He looks like a child for a moment. Free of the burden that has buried him for so long.

“Yes.”

“Can you forgive me?” He looks at me again, eyes clouded, threatening to betray him.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Harry.” I’m tired and I can’t stop the tears from rising. I want him to be free of this. “You did what had to be done and you have to stop blaming yourse--”

“I’m not talking about killing him. I’m not talking about feeling guilty or responsible for what happened to the innocent. And I’m not talking about the way I’ve acted for the last two years. I’m sorry for all those things – save the first one – but I DO know now that it’s not my fault.”

“Then what?” I force him to look at me.

“You.” He says simply.

“Me?”

“I never wanted to need you.”

The sun is almost gone now and I watch it disappear in his eyes, “You think you’re alone in that?”

“Am I?”

“No.” I say, almost furiously.

“Hermione, do you know what I’m trying to say to you?”

“Yes.”

“You made it endurable. The days when I thought I would die because of it… all I had to do was look at you.” He looks at me then and I know it’s for the same reason, “And I lied to you.”

“How?”

“Because I didn’t tell you. I took what I wanted from you and never gave it back.”

“No you didn’t.” I know he doesn’t hear me. Doesn’t believe me. He won’t until I make him.

“Yes I did. I did it to everyone. But most of all you, because you were the greatest source.”

“Of what?”

“Comfort. Help. Friendship. Loyalty. Truth.” He releases my hand for a moment and frames my face with his hands, “Love.”

“And you think you gave nothing to me?”

His hands drop like a weight into his lap, “I know I didn’t.”

“Now you are a liar.”

He smiles for the first time in days and I swear the sun has risen again just to see it, “You’re mocking me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re stupid.”

“Thank you.”

“Harry,” I grab his hand again, sure I’ll lose myself if I don’t have him there to ground me. “You were preoccupied and you were selfish and irrational and you lost your temper too much, but you were also carrying something no one else can ever understand. Not even me.” I watch as his eyes flicker, “Haven’t you ever thought about why you did it? Why you took the load without so much as a glance backward. Because you didn’t have to. You could have run away and no one would have blamed you.” I know he’s listening now, “You did it for the same reasons that all of us did. So to say you gave nothing back is terribly wrong. You gave me protection and confidence and strength.” This time I take his face in my hands, “And love.”

He doesn’t say anything as my fingers trace the scar.

It’s only as I wipe the tear from his cheek that he speaks again. “I don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve everything.” I whisper so my voice doesn’t crack with tears.

“I love you.” The exclamation is revealed in a wave, rushing out of him a if no longer containable.

“I know.” And I do. I always have. I was only waiting.

He smiles again and I know it will take time, but one day the grief and hardness will be gone. Crowded out of him by me and Ron and everyone else who hold pieces of him in us.

“Since the beginning.”

“Liar.” I smile.

He tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear as his eyes travel my face, “Do you know how much?”

“I can only imagine. If it’s half as much as I love you, then--”

He poured it out then. Every bit of love and pain and fear and happiness we’d ever felt, we emptied into one another. The bad things passing silently out of us in the moments our lips broke apart, the good, spoken softly in our own imperceptible language. We stayed that way for ages, whispering things back and forth, clinging to each other in a new way.

The moon is glowing over us, my head resting in his lap, his fingers dancing in my hair. I look up at him, kissing my fingertip before pressing it to his lips.

“You were never a very good liar.” I say, eyes shining as he laughs.