*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Give me a whisper
And give me a sign
Give me a kiss before you tell me goodnight
Don't you take it so hard now
And please don't take it so bad
I'll still be thinking of you
And the times we had
And don't you cry tonight
Don't you cry tonight
There's a heaven above you baby
And don't you cry tonight
And please remember that I never lied
And please remember
How I felt inside now, honey
You gotta make it your own way
But you'll be alright now, sugar
You'll feel better tomorrow
Come the morning light now, baby
And don't you cry tonight"
~Guns 'n Roses
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I think today's the day,"
Barely four days had passed since the day Harry had taken Hermione out of the hospital, with nothing but the logic of her wishes to support what he was doing.
And it was nothing but that same logic that kept the dynamics of their house alive. Somehow, some strange, unexplainable, ironic how, anything that happened in the house with Hermione felt full of live. Harry had reached the conclusion that there was actually one single word to describe the dynamics of those actions: ironic.
And it wasn't as if Harry had told that to anyone, because he hadn't. It was because, in the midst of his sleepless nights, watching Hermione's peaceful slumber, afraid to death that the steadiness of her breathing and her heart beat won't be there in the morning, Harry had done nothing but think.
And Harry had made resolutions, and had taken decisions, and he had acknowledged the fact that whatever was going to happen next, he wasn't ready for it. And he was completely sure about it, he wasn't ready to lose her and he knew it. He had amazed himself when he realised that the fact that he wasn't ready to lose her hadn't surprised him one bit. There was a possibility, he had considered, that the reason he wasn't taken by surprise by that information, was that he had always known. In some level of subconsciousness, he knew that there was one reason why he was himself. There was one single reason why he was Harry Potter, one reason why he was still alive, one reason for which he had defeated Voldemort, one reason he was an Auror, one reason why he had three beautiful children, one reason why he existed. And there had always been one single reason. Hermione was the reason. And it was as simple and as exclusive as that. Without Hermione, Harry wasn't Harry, and there was no way out.
And it was that, and only that, why, the moment she spoke those words, while she sat in the window seat some footsteps at the right of their bed, while she looked into their garden and out to the street, that Harry panicked.
He couldn't possibly stop to consider how hard it really was for her, how hard it was going to be for Lily and James, and how was Ally going to deal with it. He didn't stop for one second to think about Ron, or about friends or family, not even himself. This wasn't about Harry or Hermione, or Ally or Lily and James. It was about them! It was about both of them! About Harry and Hermione.
And she knew it, and wanted Harry to know it.
It wasn't about his hurt, or about hers, it had to be about theirs, and that was why she was telling him.
Harry didn't dare to speak a word. Something between panic and shock prevented him from speaking. But she was there, in front of him, as he came out of the shower, with his hair dropping wet, and with his bare chest full of little water drops. And everything was as if she had been waiting for the moment when he came out of the shower to speak, but Harry just knew it wasn't like that.
But still, when she turned around to face him, he was still panicked. She just smiled at him, a knowing smile.
"Since the moment I woke up," she said. "I've been remembering,"
Harry blinked and looked back at her. He commanded his brain to respond. He blinked again and took a deep breath.
"Remembering?" he managed. "What precisely?"
"Everything," she said shrugging. "Old days, old ways. Things that make me laugh, things that make me cry..." she shrugged again. "Everything."
Harry walked slowly to her. Without taking his eyes away from hers, he sat at the edge of their bed, only a few steps from her.
"Tell me about it,"
Hermione looked at him for a moment, and then turned again to the window.
"I remembered the day Lily and James were born." She paused for a moment and Harry smiled, almost chuckled. He could remember too. "Do you remember the first thing I said when I held Lily?"
"Of course," Harry said, feeling as if he was back to that September the first. "I've just met her -"
"I've just met her," Hermione interrupted, nodding. "How can I love her so much?" She turned again to look at Harry.
"It's been some while," he said.
"It has indeed," she said, smiling slightly. "That really made me cry,"
"Some woman she's become," Harry said, staring at the floor. "She's surpassed all our expectations,"
"We couldn't ask any more from her," Hermione said in a small voice.
"Not even if we wanted,"
There was a pause. The kind of pause in which Harry realised that there was no way he could feel that comfortable with anyone else in the world that wasn't Hermione. A comfortable silence, that was never pressured to be broken, but that, at some point or another it finally was.
"I remembered the day you proposed,"
"You did?"
"Yes,"
Harry waited for her to say something else, but she didn't. Harry frowned and waited again, and still she said nothing.
"And?" Hermione turned abruptly to look at him, a little smile in her lips. "Did it make you cry or did it make you laugh?"
Hermione chuckled softly and looked in his eyes. "Both," she said. She looked to the floor and for a moment said nothing. Harry swallowed past the knot in his throat and waited. Then she looked at him, her eyes sparkling with tears.
"Hermione!" Harry said, getting up and running the few steps that separated him from her.
"Harry!" she whispered, hiding her face in his neck. "Harry!"
"Goddamit, I don't want you to go!"
Hermione sobbed and buried her head deep in the crook of Harry's neck. She took a deep breath that Harry could feel tickling in his neck.
"Harry, help me!" she cried. "Help me get through this! Please be brave for me today! Just today Harry, just while it ends!"
Harry's breath got caught in his throat and he had to swallow several times to untie the knot that kept him from being able to speak.
"How am I going to let you go?" Harry cried in her hair. "How am I supposed to think that there is life after you leave me? How am I going to live a life without you?"
Hermione released Harry and pushed him gently to be able to look at him. She smiled at Harry, with her eyes still wet and with the trace of tears all over her cheeks.
"One day at a time," she said simply. She spoke with a determination and a patience that made Harry think that she had been ready for that question long ago, she had just been waiting for Harry to dare ask it. "Picking a broom for Ally one day, taking Lily to buy pointe shoes other, watch James sigh books at Flourish and Bloots the next day. Take a deep breath every second and live through it, Harry. Find life in every breath, in every one of Ally's smiles, in every hug from Lily, in every handshake of James. You all have to give that chance to each other, the chance to find life in each other, in every breath!"
"Life in every breath," Harry repeated in a whisper.
"That's how it ought to be," Hermione nodded slowly and in a low voice.
Harry stood on his spot for a moment, but then leaned forwards and hugged Hermione once again, this time, without the teary angst that he had before. He just held her in his arms, and breathed in her smell.
"Harry," she said what was nearly a whisper.
"Tell me," he answered. "Tell me anything, my Hermione!"
"Harry, could you tell my husband he's the single best thing that's ever happened to me?"
"I will," he whispered, his breath attempting to tie a knot in his throat again. "If you say you know you're the best thing that's happened to him,"
"Am I?" she whispered. "Nothing's even close?"
"Nothing," Harry said. He released her and looked in her eyes. "Children of course, but he wouldn't have those without you, so, no!"
Hermione smiled and started to run the back of her hand up and down Harry's cheek.
"I love you. Nothing will ever change that!" she said, looking at him. "Leaving you is going to be the hardest experience of my life and to be honest..." she caught a deep breath before continuing as if she was hesitating. "I think that's the reason is my last,"
Harry brought the back of his hand to her cheek and ran it up and down like she was doing on his. Hermione smiled at him and stopped her hand. She turned it and took Harry's neck with it, and moving Harry's face to hers, kissed him.
Not a passionate, desperate kiss, not the innocent school crush kiss, not an awkward kiss, not a reassuring kiss, not a long kiss.
A knowing kiss. The kiss that, Harry knew he never gave or will ever give any other woman. The kiss he was only free to give to Hermione, the kiss that was something that they had shared since their very first one. The kiss they shared through their knowledge of each other. The kiss that, in the moment of truth, was the only kiss they had ever had.
Because that kiss, it was a kiss about being truthful to each other. It was the kiss that said that Harry and Hermione, whatever the status of their relationship, wherever they were, had always felt the string that tied them up together. A string that at times had been trust, at times had been knowledge, at times had been their children, but that never, not for one minute, had not been love.
Love, since the moment Harry hesitated on his way to Gryffindor tower to save Hermione Granger from a mountain troll, through the moment when Hermione looked in Harry's face and saw what everyone refused to believe. Through the time when Hermione trusted Harry to do what he himself wasn't even sure he could. To that very moment, of Harry and Hermione, buried in a kiss about love, the moment in which somehow they couldn't even start to measure, their love was going to a different stage. And somehow, with a strength they couldn't even recognise, it was going to live through it.
Hermione broke the kiss and kissed Harry's cheek before straightening up and looking in his eyes.
"Let's crack on, shall we?" she said, smiling and wiping her tears away. "Tell our children, call Ron and carry me to our bed,"
Harry took her in his arms, one arm behind her knees, the other behind her back. She grabbed his neck with both arms and buried her face in his chest.
Harry laid her on their bed, her head carefully placed under the pillows. He kissed her forehead and straightened up.
"I won't take long," he said.
"Try to," she answered.
Harry headed for the door, taking his shirt from the side of the bed where he had left it, and putting it on. His hand was at the doorknob when she spoke.
"I used to be afraid of death," she said. "I used to be afraid of your death. I'm not anymore, because, whatever there is for you after death, I'll know about before you do, and I will be with you since its very start."
Harry recognised in her voice that she was merely allowing him to know that. She didn't need any reply from him, and since the only one he could have was tying up in his throat again, he went on and opened the door, and walked out of the room.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Seasons may change
Winter to Spring
And there's no mountain too high
No river too wild
Sing out this song
And I'll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide
But I love you
Until the end of time"
~Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~ June, 1997. Hogwarts.
It was very early in the morning. It was how he had wanted it all. And it had certainly been carefully planned to make it as he wanted it to be.
Rules had been set, times had been accorded, places had been chosen, and missions had been assigned. But she had assigned herself another one he didn't know about.
But this was it, and he was going to know about it.
She looked at him, steps away from her, as she sat on one of the window seats of the Gryffindor common room, bright sunny light coming in through the window. Seventeen, such a young age, and yet, such a rush of experiences and emotions for her Harry.
She didn't know why she kept doing it, but she couldn't help but look at Harry and wonder how much was still left for him, how much longer will he live with that shadow of the heavy weight he carried over his shoulders? How much longer will it be a shadow in the brightness of his emerald look?
The worst of it all, was that she didn't have any answers. She only had the questions, a thousand questions to only one answer: She'll never knew, never until the day will come.
And the day had come.
But what she had been dreading, wishing, expecting, all at the same time, had started the night before.
When Harry had walked inside the common room, after being kept in Dumbledore's office for hours, having a conversation that Hermione knew, was The Conversation. The one that will settle everything, the one that will end with all of it. The one that was going to led him to battle.
But she didn't know how wrong she was.
Because Harry walked inside the room, where her figure was the only thing that could be seen between the couches and chairs, with bits of light from the moon, and bits of the extinguishing fire in the fireplace.
And, even when Hermione couldn't see him straight, when his eyes weren't clear in the darkness of the common room, she knew he was looking at her.
"Hermione," his voice said in the darkness. "We're not going tomorrow,"
Hermione frowned, she couldn't see his eyes, but she could tell by his voice that he was saying those words with a hint of insecurity.
"Why in the world not?" she asked. "Harry?"
Hermione saw a shadow of Harry's face as it turned to look at the carpet. She waited but no answer came.
"Harry?" she tried again. "Harry wh-"
"Hermione," he said, his voice half simply desperate, half simply anguished. "You've seen this people." He turned to look at her, and she felt, even when she couldn't see him clearly, that his eyes said he needed to pour this out to her. "This... this huge bunch of people, all the Order of the Phoenix, all of our DA," he said desperately, walking towards her slowly. She tasted that term. Our DA, the term Harry had started to use a while ago, she couldn't exactly tell when, but that she could tell he used only with her. "They're... they must be more than fifty people, all of them willing to give their lives to save the world..." Harry stopped barely two steps away from her, and looked at one side. "Willing to give their lives, for something greater than any of us... all of them, waiting for me to lead them into battle. And I... I don't know what to do... I don't know what to fight for... I..." Harry stopped and turned his face towards her. Being closer to her, she could see his features, though not as clearly as she'd wanted. But she could see his desperation, his solitude, the moment she knew that, whenever Harry was at the moment, she wasn't with him. He was alone. "I... they're... they're going to die, I know, some of them, a lot probably... and I don't know what they're going to be dying for... I've cut myself off from them, a lot of them. I... Being who I am... this prophecy thing, it made me different, but it's my fault I stayed that way. People is always trying to connect to me... I just avoid it,"
"Harry -"
"No Hermione!" he said loudly. "Don't tell me it's not like that, because I... I know!" he was almost screaming, but all of a sudden, his voice turned to a whisper. "I know, with you, I know it's different... I... I'm connected with you, I... It's different, because I... I need to be connected to you, otherwise I'd just, I'd be... it's just different. But can't you see?" Harry shook his head in desperation. "This people they... They're willing to die for something I don't even know, and I'm going to lead them to this death... and I just... Dumbledore wants me to lead them all, but everything we're doing, is everything he says... I... I'm supposed to be leading this people with some shrewd plan I didn't even know about until this afternoon... And I'm supposed to be their leader!" Hermione saw Harry's eyes shine very bright in the middle of the darkness and she had to swallow past the knot in her throat. "He... he seems like he doesn't trust my judgement, he can't trust what I may come up with... And is not like he's wrong because I... I can't do it!" Harry sighed and directed his eyes to the floor. He was probably waiting for her silence, but he was in for a surprise if he was.
"You're not a quitter!" she stated clearly.
"Watch me," Harry said in a defeated tone, looking at the carpet.
"You were their leader, still are!" she said, taking a step closer to him. "This isn't something you gave up, it's something he took!"
"And the difference is?"
"We can take it back!" Harry looked at her with a strange expression in his face, like he barely understood what she said. But she knew he had, perfectly.
"Can? Maybe. Should?" he said, looking back to the floor. "Hermione, how can I try to lead this people into a battle without knowing what to fight for? How? This people, must of them have families, they have wishes and wants and needs, and they're all willing to give them away for something I can't even think of! Why would I lead them if I had no idea what we're supposed to be fighting for?"
"Harry," she said patiently as he looked back at her, tears swelling in his eyes. "Because you know!" she caressed his cheek with her hand, attempting to soothe his desperation. "Harry, listen; I've been your friend a long ago, and I've known a bit longer than that... We've seen things, people couldn't imagine, and done things I'd prefer they didn't. I usually triple check everything just to be sure, but I wouldn't do any of that if I ever was sure of anything. I'm insecure, and I can make a lot of mistakes..." she sighed. She moved her free hand also to Harry's face and cupped it in both her hands. "Six and plus years... and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of: you!"
"Hermione, I-"
"Harry!" she interrupted him, as a realisation came into her mind, hitting her as a bludger. Preventing her mind from all thought that didn't relate to it. "Harry! I've just realised!" she whispered, looking at the carpet, feeling as her eyes filled with tears. She looked at Harry, his expression both puzzled and worried. "I love you!"
"You love me?"
"Yes!" she nodded, more to herself than to Harry. "Yes!"
"You mean like-"
"I mean like desperately," she interrupted him. "Desperately, maddening, crazily... like... like my blood melts if you look at me..." Hermione started to feel a strange difficult in her breathing. Her chest raised and fell quickly, like she couldn't really hold any breath. "Like my breath is taken away from me if you touch me... like that!"
"Hermione I..."
"Shh!" she said, again cupping his face firmly with her hands, shaking her head. "I'm not asking you for anything. When I say I love you, is not because I want you, or because I can't have you. It's nothing to do with me!" she said all of this as it came to her mind, because she was just realising all of this. "I love what you are, what you do... how you try! I've seen your kindness and your strength, I've seen the best and the worst of you and... I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are: you're a hell of a man! You're the one, Harry!"
Harry stood there looking at her. Something about his look seemed puzzled, but a hint of relief and understanding could be seen. And then that hint became greater and greater and then clearer and clearer... and then he looked at her as if he was just seeing himself for the first time.
"I've been looking at you forever," he said, his eyes still lost in hers. "But I never saw you before!"
And then something had changed.
Something, that Hermione had unconsciously waiting for all of her life. Something that, as she looked at Harry, she knew.
And now, this was it. That day. The day she had feared and waited for almost two years now. It was all happening today. She felt her eyes swelling with tears as she looked at Harry looking back at her. This was the day, the day she had convinced herself she was ready for, but for which she really wasn't. And it was happening today!
"Harry!" she whispered before she could organise any thoughts in her fuzzy mind. Harry dropped what he had been carrying, and it wasn't until he did that, that Hermione realised he had been holding something.
She got a short glimpse of silver and red as Harry dropped a long, heavy sword on the floor to run to her.
"You can't!" Harry started to scream in a terrible anguished voice. "You can't do it, Hermione! You can't, please don't!"
"Don't what, Harry?" she asked in a tone that was just as anguished. "Can't do what?"
"You can't come Hermione!" he said as he took her by her arms and pushed her from him to be able to look in her eyes. He grasped her shoulders and directed her gaze to him. "You're not going to come!"
"What do you mean?" she started. "Why are you-"
"You can't!" he said desperately. "You can't come! I... I can't bear the thought to... You can't!"
"Harry!" she said. he couldn't be serious. "What is-"
"Don't you see?" he asked, shaking her by her shoulders, and finally shedding the tears Hermione had seen swell in his eyes. "Don't you see I cannot breathe without you? I don't live without you! Don't you see?" he said, now grabbing so tight to her shoulders that it pained her. "Don't you see how much I love you?"
Harry couldn't hold it any longer. He cried in her shoulder, shaking like a baby as she embraced him. Hermione was being torn in a hundred different directions as she embraced Harry. She was happy this realisation was finally becoming real, she was desperately sad to see such an anguish in her Harry, she was scared of the whole ordeal they were going through... And yet he had just realised! He knew! He knew as she did!
"Harry!" she whispered, as he cried in her hair. "It is going to be alright!"
"No it isn't!" he said, stepping away from her in a rush. He walked to the place where he had left the silver and red sword and picked it up from the carpet.
"You see this?" he asked. Hermione took a look at the sword he was holding still for her to see. "This might actually help me fight my war. This might be the key to everything. And the reason I'm holding it? It's because of you! Because of the strength that you gave me last night!" he dropped the sword again and walked slowly to her. "Let's just... let's just get to the truth here. I don't know how you felt about last night but I will not-"
"Terrified!" she whispered.
"Of what?" Harry asked right away.
"Last night was..." Hermione took a deep breath and looked at the carpet before looking at Harry. "It was the best night of my life. Harry we... we've been through everything, we've seen everything, and, last night, as you told me that, we sat on that very chair..." she said, signalling the chair in which the sword had fell. "And I just held you, watched you sleep... and it was the best night of my life!" she stated with a final tone. "So yes, I'm terrified!"
"I can't lose you!" he said in an anguished whisper. "I can't... I can do whatever it takes to do it, but... only if you're by my side, I... I can't be Harry Potter without you!"
"Then you need me on this fight!"
"No!" he said quickly. "I need you safe, where I don't have to worry about you."
"But Harry!" she said patiently. "You'll worry about me, even if I was in a fortress guarded by Dumbledore!
Harry blinked at her. She really didn't know where had all of that came from, but the moment she spoke those words, she knew they were true.
"But what if-"
"Harry, there are no what ifs!" she said, getting close to him and taking him by his shoulders. "Whatever happens from now on... this!" she said smiling a very silly smile. "This! Us, you and me! This is how it ought to be! We already have this! What could we possibly fear now? If there is the end facing us at the other side of the door, then this is the end we ought to have, and we already have it!"
She had dreamed about it, she had a vague vision of how it could have been, but nothing, not the best of dreams, prepared her for the sparks that she felt all over her body as Harry kissed her. It was as if a forest had just fired up all around and inside of them. A forest in which they had been throwing fireworks for almost seven years, and now, the lightning had ignited them all at the same time. And the forest was now burning.
And had no chances of ever turning off.