Many lines in this story are not mine. One is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Another is from the movie ÒSomethingÕs Gotta GiveÓ. A third one is from ÒOriginal SinÓ and a final one from LoriÕs cookie ÒSomedayÓ
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"Just the bang
And the clatter
As an angel
Hits the ground"
~U2
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Lily had Alex's hand wrapped in hers when they entered the house. She was still feeling so happy, so genuinely happy, that she felt light as a feather. Her eyes were shining, her lips were smiling, and the wholeness of her felt blissful.
And then something happened that changed that happiness forever. Something that changed her life and Alex's forever.
James was running down the stairs, his hair flying in a thousand directions, a bit more than usual. He connected his gaze to Lily's and held it there as he came down the stairs. Lily froze and immediately lost her balance, the expression James wore was so final, so definitive, that everything else became blurred. She felt her legs failing her support, felt her back leaning against Alex for that support. Felt Alex holding her firmly from behind, steadying her.
James broke eye contact with her and looked at Alex.
"Alex!" he said. "So good to have you here!" Lily was only listening halfway to what they spoke, a couple of sentences, but nothing came clear into her mind.
"Where have you been?" James asked her. She couldn't help but fear the worst, she had been fearing the worst for days. "We've been looking for you, what have you -"
"What has happened?" she interrupted her brother. "Has mum...-"
"No she hasn't," he said, not being able to hear her say what she still couldn't say. "But this is it, I... I think she's just waiting for you."
Of what happened next, Lily will lately remember very few. Clear images appeared when she was already opening the door to her parent's bedroom, Alex holding her hand firmly, like she had dragged him before running up the stairs.
When she entered the room, Hermione was sitting in her wood armchair, Ally sitting in her lap, her head resting on Hermione's chest, as both of them ran their hands through each other's hair. Hermione looked at them for a moment. Lily had an impulse to leave the room, but Hermione signalled her to stay, smiling at Alex after doing so. She was talking to Ally, in a steady, quiet voice.
"...and you may feel like you want to cry, and that'll be ok, you cry everything you want," she was telling her daughter. "But you'll have to be really brave, Ally, you'll have to work hard on it, alright?"
"But mummy," she said, her voice just as steady as her mother's. "What will happen when I'll miss you?"
"When you'll miss me," Hermione whispered, mostly to herself, it seemed to Lily. A tear rolled own her cheek, and she saw another rolling down her mother's. "Whenever you miss me... remember I'll be there, Ally. You hear me pumpkin?" she took Ally's head and directed her eyes to her face. "There will not be a time of your life when I wouldn't be there with you. I'll always be there, not on one moment, will I leave you alone. Alright?"
Ally nodded, she wasn't crying, she was so calm, Lily felt jealous.
"I love you pumpkin!" Hermione said into her daughter's hair. "I love you! I love you so much!"
"I love you too, mummy!"
Hermione held Ally tight to her, tears rolling down her cheeks, even when her eyes were closed. Lily felt her chest tighten to the quickness with which her heart was pounding. Her throat closed and her eyes started to get clouded with tears that blurred her vision.
"Alright now," Hermione whispered to Ally. "Go to your dad, he's waiting for you, alright?" Ally nodded and Hermione kissed her forehead. "I love you little pumpkin, and I will always be in your heart and by your side, understood?" Ally nodded again and kissed Hermione's cheek. "Alright then, remember what we talked, go now!" Ally jumped from Hermione's lap and walked away, passing Lily quietly, and stopping just to kiss her cheek, she climbed then in Alex's arms as he took her to kiss her cheek. Then, quietly, she walked out of the room. Alex closed the door behind them and Lily stared at her mother.
This was that time; the time she had dreaded since she heard about the doctor's predictions. She had never liked goodbyes.
But this was one she was obliged to get through, even if she dreaded it, mostly, because she knew she wasn't going to live afterwards if she couldn't have it. And so it had to start. But Lily dreaded that start so much, she didn't realise when did she started crying.
She felt her eyes as they became unable to hold back her tears and covered her mouth to hide a sob.
"No Lily!" Hermione said slowly, shaking her head. "Please don't!"
"Mum!" she answered, her hand still covering her mouth. "How can you ask me not to?"
"Lily!" she said. "One day you will look back on this day and feel stronger!"
"No mum!" Lily said, her voice hoarse as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Every day of my life, I will look back on this day and miss you!"
Lily lowered her hand and placed it over her heart, feeling as it raced crazily. She connected her eyes to her mother's. Green against cinnamon, once again, like it had been for years, like it had been for all eternity. Like it never will be again.
And Lily felt herself crying. Crying as if the world was shattering, because in reality, it was real that her mother, the shelter of her life, the first main stone to their home, was shattering in front of her. And it was her world being changed.
Hermione opened her arms slowly and it was all the cue Lily needed. She ran to her mother's arms and held her tight to her. A flash of a thousand images flew inside her head and through her eyes. Hermione's hug, when she first left for Hogwarts, the hug she got from her as she came back for the last time. The time when she played Giselle and came out of the Theatre to receive her hug, she remembered her words clearly "You were spectacular! You really were!"
When she admitted she had never been in love, when she had fought with her first Ballet teacher to come home crying and find her mother's hug. The comforting of that hug, that she was probably finding for the last time "I'm not ready, mum!" Lily cried in her mother's shoulder. "I'm not ready!"
"My Lily..." Hermione took Lily's face and held it between her hands, looking right into her eyes. "Of course you are ready! You..." Hermione hugged Lily again, and whispered in her hair. "You're just afraid... you... You're going to do it so well!"
"No mum!" Lily kept crying. "I'm going to miss you, and need your advice, and hear your approve what I do... No mum!"
"Lily," Hermione spoke clearly at Lily, disentangling from their hug. "Look at you, look at what a success you've made of your life, look at that strength you possess, look at that gorgeousness of a man you've got behind your back... Of course you're ready!"
"But mum... can't you see? You're my strength!"
"No Lily!" Hermione was smiling at her daughter now. "He is! If I had any doubts, they disappeared when I saw you walk in with Alex. He is your strength and always has been... you... that's only one thing you're still afraid of!"
Lily looked from her mother to Alex, standing at her back. He was just there, waiting, waiting for her call... waiting to protect her... to be her strength. Lily looked again to her mother.
"No mum," she said. "I'm not afraid of Alex anymore!"
"Lily!" Hermione held her again, and Lily felt the immediate flood of tears rolling down her cheeks, then remembered something her mother needed to know. She had to tell her something, right away.
"Mum, I've had it!" she cried in her mother's hair, her voice drowned in her tears. "I've had the time of my life! With Alex... I've had it!"
"Oh Lily!" Hermione was crying on Lily's hair. Lily felt as her chest tightened around her heart, not able to contain its beating anymore.
Hermione let go of Lily and looked behind her at Alex, she smiled slightly even through the curtain of tears that shadowed her face.
"Alex," she said, lending him a hand to hold. Alex walked slowly to them and took Hermione's hand, then knelt in front of her at Lily's side. "You... I'm so glad you realised this now, I wouldn't have bear it if..." Hermione hesitated in her words, doubting clearly if she ought to speak the words aloud. She shook her head. "But you realised. And I'm really glad!"
"How long have you known?" Lily asked her. Hermione smiled.
"All of your lives!"
"You've known?" Alex asked, slightly bewildered.
"Of course!" Hermione said, still smiling. "You father even owes me now 100 galleons, you're still not twenty!"
"You had a bet on us?" Lily asked, her expression changing to terrible surprise.
"One?" Hermione almost laughed. "Many! I bet with Draco you'll get together before twenty, but I had it with your father it'll be while Alex was away, and I won that too. Then, James and your father and Seamus and Remus and Tonks all have a bet about who would realise first..." Hermione laughed an authentic laugh. "You've been the source of some money!"
Lily looked at Alex, and she just laughed too, and soon felt Alex following. Hermione locked her gaze with Lily and Lily shook her head.
"Why are we laughing?" she asked lowering her gaze to the floor.
"Because, it's a good way not to cry." Lily raised her gaze and looked at her mother. "Besides, because it is funny!"
Hermione then looked at Alex, still smiling, as if she couldn't really believe them.
"Alex," she said. "There's something I need to ask of you..."
"No you don't!" he said immediately. "I'll promise you before you ask me to do it."
For a moment, Lily had no idea what they were talking about. Hermione had tears developing in her eyes, Lily could easily tell; but still had no clue as to why.
"I promise," Alex told Hermione, both his hands over Hermione's. "I promise you I'll take care of her, I'll be with her at everytime, and any time she needs me. And I promise you, that when she needs you, I'll remind her that you're still with us... I promise you, on my life, that I will love her until my last breath, and that I'll be taking care of her everyday for you."
Hermione was crying now, big, shiny tears rolling down her cheeks. She was barely capable of uttering a thanks to Alex, and then he had her in his arms.
"I promise you, I swear!" he said as Hermione cried in his shoulder, her tears wetting his shirt, but he didn't seem to mind one bit.
When Hermione let go of Alex, she looked at Lily.
"I will never leave your side," she said. "I'll be with you, whenever you need me, you know this, don't you?"
"I do," Lily said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"I love you, Lily," Hermione said, as Lily felt all the muscles around her throat tighten. "And I'm so proud of you, that I can't even begin to tell you... Alex, both of you, take care of it, Lily, it will be one to make those in the books jealous!"
"I... we know!" Lily said through her tears.
"Something else, puppet," she told Lily. "I left you a little trunk on your room, it has things I want you to give to Ally, some you'll give them to her when she goes to Hogwarts..." Hermione gasped before she kept speaking. "Some others... when the time is right, when you find it's right, give them to her. A letter for you is in there, don't read it, please don't read it until you marry, can you promise me that?"
Lily was incapable to speak, the weight of everything around her closing her throat, so she just nodded.
"I love you Lily, I'm sure you'll do excellent!"
"I love you too, mum, I'll miss you, a lot!" Lily answered, making an effort to hold back tears.
"I know," Hermione told her. She turned to Alex. "Take care of my daughter, love her very much, and make her very happy!" she kissed Alex cheek and then Lily's, remaining longer on Lily, hugging her and stroking her hair.
Hermione stroked Lily's temple, looking in her green eyes, then she spoke. "Go now, ask your father to come up here." She kissed Lily's cheek again. "I love you," she whispered. Then turned to Alex. "Tell your parents I love them. Very especially, tell Draco I haven't had a thought against him, I haven't hold a doubt of his trust, never, for one minute, since he swore his loyalty to us." Alex nodded, his gaze connected to Hermione.
They got up and Alex wrapped his arm around Lily. Lily kissed her mother's cheek again, and then stood there in front of her. She could feel Alex's arm, firmly gripping her waist, but she couldn't move. She closed her eyes and forced herself to make a resolution, fighting every bit of her logic as she did so. She turned around and started to walk straight to the door. She vaguely thought that perhaps it was that stubborn determination what her mother found so similar to herself in Lily. Perhaps.
"And Alex," Hermione said, Alex turned to look, but Lily was afraid to lose her determination, so she didn't. "Tell Draco, the 100 galleons, I want them in Ally's account for school."
"I'll tell him," Alex answered, then continued with Lily out of the room.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"But it's never enough
So many things to tell each other
And kiss, understand one another, hold one another
But it's never enough
And it's late, but so what?
Where are you hurrying to at this hour?
What are you doing this evening?
We'll laugh about it"
~Sarah Brightman
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"I brought you this," Harry said as he entered their room. His wife, his dying wife lying on their bed. Really dying, even if he still couldn't believe it.
"What is that?"
"Photograph album," Harry answered quickly, still unsure why he had that thing between his hands.
"Harry!" Hermione cried. Harry forgot the album, and ran to their bed, lying over her, franticly holding her to him.
"Hermione I can't let you go!" he cried. "I can't live without you! I don't know how to live without you!"
"Harry, please!"
"Please what, Hermione?" he cried. "Can't you see? Don't you see?" he asked, knowing she'll be taken back twenty seven years in the past. "Don't you see I cannot breathe without you? I don't live without you! Don't you see?" Harry felt incapable to speak as he, too, felt back twenty seven years ago. "Don't you see how much I love you?"
Hermione now cried deliberately, helplessly, in a way Harry had seen her cry very little. He moved to hold her from her waist and pressing his forehead against hers as their tears rolled down their cheeks. She took his face with her hands as her tears mixed with hers, only to increase the feeling he had of not wanting to let her go.
"I'd do anything, Hermione!" he cried. "I'd do anything!"
"Harry!" she cried. She seemed incapable of saying anything else. She cried big tears that Harry could taste as they got mixed with his, but that only made him cry more. Made him feel more the weight of loneliness that was coming closer to him with each minute.
"I need you!" he told her, almost yelled to her. He got up from the bed in a quick movement. He started to pace the room, and felt Hermione as she managed the strength to bring herself to a sitting position. "I can't face the fact that I won't have you with me anymore... I'd give anything to have you, but nothing I can give will keep you with me!"
"But Harry..." she managed to say. "I'll be with you, I won't-"
"No you will not!" he yelled. "Don't you see? I'll have to sleep alone in that bed! I won't feel your hands or have your kisses, or hug your waist at night... Don't you see? I won't even see you again!"
Harry turned to look at her, she held his gaze for a moment, then cried, hiding her face in her hands. He knew that was going to happen, he had just exposed a terrible true. A terrible true that they had both been trying to avoid for too long.
"I need your love, what am I going to do?" he said quietly. "I won't... I won't ever love anyone... I'll never-"
"Harry never is a long time!" she said, stopping the frantic flow of her tears to state something he dreaded she would try to say.
"Don't Hermione, stop right there!" he said firmly. "Don't go all wise on me right now. Don't go trying to ask me to move on, to find someone else..." he hesitated as he felt the pressure of tears again. "Because I won't!" he stopped in search for the words he needed to convey. "I... everything I know about living, about loving, I know it because of you!" She had tears rolling down her cheeks, but Harry faced her, connecting his gaze to hers to keep her looking at him. "My life... My life didn't change the day I met you." Harry stopped as tears rolled down his cheeks. "My life," he walked again to their bed, his yelling subsiding. "My life started the day I met you!"
Harry sat at the edge of their bed and gathered his wife in his arms, feeling as the world ended in their embrace. Feeling how it changed into a horrifying new world he didn't know, and even worse, didn't want to know.
"Harry," Hermione spoke somewhere on his shoulder. "Your life didn't started because you met me!"
"Oh, but it did!" Harry said, disentangling from their hug and taking her by her shoulders. "Why would a little boy go after a little girl, to save her from a mountain troll, even if they're not friends?"
Hermione bit her lip and looked into his eyes.
"Why did you do it?" she whispered.
Harry connected his eyes to hers and sighed.
"I don't know," he said. "And sometimes I wish I could say it was because I secretly loved you, or because I felt guilty Ron had hurt you... but I can't!" He pressed his forehead against hers again. "I don't know why I did it, something greater than myself made me think I had to do it, and I did it! I didn't have a reason back then, but I'm really glad I did it, and I'd do it again if I could!"
"I know you would!" she whispered, caressing his temple. "But... some things are meant to happen!"
"This wasn't supposed to happen!" Harry said frustrated. "We were supposed to grow old together!"
"We wanted to grow old together!" she whispered. "But what you really promised me was to love me, until... until death will do us apart, and you haven't failed me once!"
"But-"
"No Harry!" she interrupted him in a whisper. "You've loved me in a way I can't even explain, you gave me our three beautiful children, and you've been the best father in the universe... I've had everything I've wanted. I couldn't possibly ask for more!" she brushed her nose against Harry's and closed her eyes. "You've fulfilled that promise twenty two years!"
"Hermione-"
"Harry!" she interrupted him again. "Everything I could have asked from you, you've given it to me! I couldn't possibly ask for more!"
"But you are!" he said. "You're asking me to be strong without you. You're asking me to hold back the pain of losing you. You ask me to live life without you... That is something I know I cannot do!"
"Harry!" Hermione whispered. "My love will always be with you. Our love will not leave you. Our children are going to remind you, every day, how much I've loved you. How much I will love you."
"But you, you, my Hermione, I won't have you." He said. "What kind of life can I have without the promise of seeing your face? Knowing that I will never kiss you again, never see you again?"
"But Harry," she whispered. "We will meet again! We will see each other again... someday, I know we will!"
"How can you be sure we will?"
"I believe it is real, and sometimes, when you think something is real, it becomes real!"
"My realness is that I won't have you with me when I wake up in the morning. That I won't see you last thing before falling asleep."
"Harry, there's still too much you're going to do!" she said, more tears rolling down her face. "You'll see our Ally go to Hogwarts, you'll see Lily and James when they marry, you'll see our grandchildren, you'll be merciless to Ally's boyfriends, and see Lily dance countless times. You'll go with James when he goes book signing. You... you'll be living for both of us, even if you can't see me; I'll know it, I'll be living in your memory, in the memory you will keep of our love. In our children's everyday... I'll be living, and if you believe it's real, then it will be!"
Silence fell. Silence, only broken by their breathing and their tears. Silence, the kind of heavy silence that hurts inside the very soul. That hurt inside Harry's very soul.
That hurt Hermione's soul just as much. Or perhaps even more, for she was the first to break through it.
"I love you, Harry!" she whispered. "I love you, with a strength and a passion that's greater than myself. I love you, with a force I cannot measure, with everything I am and everything I have.... I love you!"
Harry kissed her temple, tears rolling down his cheeks as he did so.
"I love you too, my Hermione. I love you, with all the hope and the faith of a heart that, before you, had no idea what love was. I love you, like... like my blood melts if you look at me... Like my breath is taken away from me if you touch me... can you remember how?"
"I do, Harry!" she kissed his cheek, breathing with difficulty.
"And I'll miss you, I'll need you with an urgency that will pain my very heart. I will need you... I won't have my life without you, Hermione. My life started the day I met you, and from tomorrow on, I'll live this life for our children, for what will be left of me. But my heart, my soul, the essence of my life... you take it with you!"
"Shh... Don't think about that now, Harry!" she whispered. "I'm sure, that one day, when the wind will blow and the birds will sing, we will meet again! Please Harry, believe it, so it'll be true!"
"I will," Harry said, his voice drowning in his throat as he cried. "I will believe it, so I can go through my every day, and be strong for our children, and be able to help Lily and be a companion to James and raise Ally. I promise you, my Hermione."
"Promise me you'll live to protect them, Harry." Hermione was crying. Promise me that you will search life in every one of them, so that you will be with them. Promise me you will not go searching death. Promise me, promise me Harry, that you will love them on my behalf, promise me you will talk about me, promise me, Harry!"
"I promise you, my Hermione," he cried. "Tell me what your sweet heart desires, tell me how you want it to be, and I'll do it. If it's love you want... I'll do anything, my Hermione. Anything, I'll do it, I promise!"
"Then kiss me Harry!" she whispered, her voice drowned. "Kiss away my fear, kiss away your loneliness. Kiss me, so that you remember that the last thing I asked from you, was your love... and your kiss!"
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