Not So Riddikulus

1. Her Greatest Fear

Not so Riddikulus

Chapter One - Her Greatest Fear

The soft sounds of crying assaulted Harry's ears. It had been a long day and he certainly didn't feel like going to find out who was the source of the crying. He knew it was slightly heartless, but after classes, Quidditch practice, and further Occlumency lessons with Dumbledore, Harry's nerves were jangling and his body aching for a hot shower and a warm bed. Harry sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he passed the classroom from which the sounds were drifting out, feeling slightly guilty as he walked by the door that stood ajar.

“Harry," the voice sobbed suddenly.

He froze in his tracks. The only sound in the hallway as he stood, waiting for the voice to confirm that his ears weren't deceiving him, was the reckless pounding of his heart.

“Harry!” the voice sobbed so loudly Harry was sure the whole castle shook with it. The agony of it pulled painfully at his heart. “Oh, god, Harry … oh God …”

He couldn't help it, he was drawn. Something in the voice was so devastated that Harry could do nothing but move toward the sound … to try to comfort this poor lost soul that was obviously in pain at his hand, whether directly or indirectly. And he knew the voice. He tried to believe that it wasn't … that it couldn't be, but it was. He knew it was her, sobbing so horribly about something he must have done that he felt her heart must have been breaking with it.

Harry's mind swam. He couldn't imagine what he had done that would cause her such anguish. True, he had been closed off and reserved this last year after Sirius's death. If he had to be true to himself, he admitted that he must have been a horrible wretch to live with for months. But she was weeping as if she had lost her very soul.

Harry moved quickly to the classroom and was sure he felt his heart stop as he gazed upon her prostrated form. Hermione was huddled on the floor on her hands and knees to offset the horrible shaking sobs issuing from her body. In front of her was his own body, pale - oh god, so horribly pale - green tinged around the lips, his wand carelessly dropped a few feet away. A horrible keening was escaping her lips as she rocked and cried, her hand outstretched toward his form, but darting back when she neared touching him. From the partial profile he could see of her face, Harry's heart wrenched as he saw tears raining down her cheeks, darkening the front of her robes.

“Oh, God … Oh, Harry … Oh God, Harry, I can't… I can't let him hurt you. What did I do? What could I do if he ever hurt you? How could I live?”

Harry took a step inside the room, feeling like the click of his shoes against the stone must have been deafening, but she made no move to indicate that she had heard him. He moved behind her, watching as she sat up on her knees and looked down at his form that was now oozing a slow trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. Harry shivered.

Heedless of Harry's presence in the room, Hermione reached out a hand and Harry very nearly felt its caress as her fingers brushed the cheek of the lifeless Harry. And that's when it hit him what was going on here. A sudden flash of a sobbing Molly Weasley brought him to a crashing realization of what he was seeing. Dead Harry was a boggart. Hermione's boggart.

Hermione's greatest fear was his death.

Hermione's greatest fear … was his death?

“Oh, Harry,” she said, sniffling back the wash of tears. “What if this really does happen? What if you … what if you d-d-die? What if you die and I n-never g-g-g-get to t-tell you?”

Harry seemed to have forgotten to breathe as he listened. His head was screaming that he shouldn't be watching, that somehow this was an invasion of her privacy, to watch her here, so vulnerable. But his blood chilled as a cold, cruel, high-pitched laughter filled the room and Harry felt rooted to the spot.

Hermione threw herself bodily across the masquerading Harry's motionless form and shouted. “No! No, you won't have him! You won't have him as long as I have a single breath! You can't have him until I tell him …”

She trailed off slowly and gazed down at the body. As she turned her face to look into the cold, dead eyes of the Boggart Harry, she pulled the body into her lap and stroked at its cheeks with the back of her hand. “I never told you, Harry. There was just never a good time. First it was the Stone, then the Basilisk, Sirius, the Tournament … the Order. And then dealing with all that came after the Department of Mysteries … the Prophecy … There never was a good time.”

Hermione looked up from the body, and then back down. She was cradling its head in her lap softly, almost lovingly. He saw only the gently curve of her cheek, a slice of her nose, one eye. But the face … he would never forget her face. His heart started to heave painfully, as if it had stopped working up until now and was just learning to beat again.

“I guess now is as good a time as any,” she said, taking a deep breath and using her free hand to swipe at her tears.

“I love you, Harry Potter,” she said down at his lifeless face. “I've been in love with you since the moment we stepped off the train. I had read about you so much before we came and then … and then I met you and you weren't at all what I expected. I had been laughed at and ostracized and picked on so much in grade school and then … and then here you were, just like me. Not knowing how get on, no clue how to make friends, to cope. And with it all being different …”

His breath seemed terribly loud in the still room.

“And when you … when Cho …” Her face worked painfully, frustration warring with her grief. “I couldn't stand it, Harry. She wasn't good enough for you. No one is good enough for you. I tried to … I tried to forget about it. I tried so hard to make it go away. I thought that if I was with Ron, I'd forget, but it never went away. And you have to know, that's why I couldn't let him and I go on. I liked him and all … I care for him very much but … but I just couldn't go on. Because I'd kiss him and see you. He'd touch me and … and though it was nice - it was wonderful - it wasn't you. So it wasn't enough.

“You deserve everything that there is to give, Harry, and every ounce of love that this world has to offer because you're just barely out of childhood and you've dealt with so much and you are taking on this horrible weight. They've given you the weight of … of this whole world. And it's too much to ask anyone, and yet you—”

Her eyes were brimming with tears again as she bent and hugged her arms around the body in a tight embrace. “Oh you poor, dear, sweet boy! You've tried so hard and I've watched you struggle so much. And I'd take it all away if I could. You have to know that. Even if I never really get to tell you, I hope that you'll somehow feel this and know that while there's still a breath in my body, nothing - no one - will ever hurt you. Ever.”

She said the last word with vehemence, but then her face softened. She bent slowly. It seemed to take ages for her to move her face down … down … and then her lips touched those of the Boggart Harry. And something twisted in him and he couldn't stand to watch.

Harry had no idea how he came to know what to do, but somehow he knew how to end her agony. Harry stepped forward, so close that he could have reached out his foot and touched Hermione's heels, curled under her behind. The Boggart, eager to feed off his own fears, started to change form. With a strong sense of unease, Harry watched as her face slipped in and out of several emotions; she was painted with confusion as the Harry in her arms began to shift, change. Her eyes lit with horror as she suddenly saw the body lift, reshape. She saw herself standing in front of a small headstone, Ron standing behind her, a hand on her shoulder. Weeping, the Boggart Hermione laid a handful of flowers beneath the name on the stone: “H. J. Potter.”

“Riddikulus,” Harry's voice rasped quietly, breaking the stillness. Hermione jumped slightly and wrenched around to see Harry standing there, his wand still raised.

Hermione rocketed off the floor with an energy and swiftness that Harry never would have believed, had he not seen it himself. As she looked back to the Boggart that was still displaying a stark grave scene, he knew that she was beginning to realize how long he had been watching.

Hermione's face began to glaze over with rage, and Harry was barely aware that she had cocked her hand back before she let it fly. His face was still stinging with the impact as he watched the tail of her robes whip out of sight around the doorsill.

*****