What If?

Ella Marie

Rating: G
Genres: Angst
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 31/10/2004
Last Updated: 05/11/2004
Status: paused

On the eve of her last day at Hogwarts and after the defeat of Voldemort, Hermione stands on the edge of the lake and reflects on the man Harry is now and the boy he once was, the boy she loved.

Chapters

1. What If?

2. Author's Note.

3. I'll Never Know

1. What If?

Disclaimer: It's all J.K. Rowling's, I'm afraid. Some people have all the luck.

Author's Note: First, I must thank Ben for reading this through, correcting my mistakes, and massaging my ego. He's a wonderful writer and a wonderful friend and I love him to bits.

Second, the idea for this story comes from Kate Winslet's song, What If? She's another of my obsessions, to be quite honest, and I just adore this song. I hadn't heard it in a while, so I downloaded and listened and Lady Inspiration smiled down upon me.

Third, it's only a one shot, I'm afraid, and a pretty short one at that. It's written in Hermione's point of view, second-person. So, obviously, Harry is the you.

Finally, please enjoy. And reviews are always welcomed and appreciated. They're also one of my addictions. Please, please feed it.

What If?

I stand alone on the edge of the still lake, under the beech tree where we used to meet, watching as the glass-like surface was broken, not by wind or rain, but by the Giant Squid, whose slow movements seemed to mirror my despair. My heart is broken, and each tiny piece holds an unbearable weight of guilt and of impossible love. You are lost to me now.

You once told me that Voldemort did not believe there was anything worse than death. I know now that he was wrong. The haunted, hopeless look in your once vibrant green eyes is worse than death. The weak smiles you force are worse than death. The memory of the boy you once were and the reality of the man you are now is worse than death.

I keep looking back to happier times, trying to figure out when everything changed, when you changed. But the change was so gradual; it's impossible to tell exactly when this new Harry replaced you. I know I helped you vanish. I know it and I mourn for my mistake. I mourn for you and all you've done and all you've been through. You were the strongest person I knew, physically, spiritually, and emotionally, but now, you are not you. You are a shadow of you, displaying no strength, be it physical or spiritual or emotional. I know when the strength died, but I was the one who made the haunted hopelessness in your eyes more profound. I will never forgive myself.

I tried. I tried to stay strong for you. I stayed by your side like I promised you I would. You said it was not enough, you said so in our last meeting under this very tree, but I had to draw the line. I couldn't be your distraction. I couldn't be the reason you weren't prepared to face Voldemort. I had to take a step back. I had tried to make you understand, but at the time, I knew you thought I was just a coward. You thought I didn't want to be by your side when you were to face your destiny.

I told you I loved you with tears in my eyes. The sadness in yours did not fade. I kissed you, but the despair remained. I still remember the taste of our last kiss, sweet pumpkin juice mixed with the saltiness of our mingled tears. I still remember the way you felt, pressed against me, before I let you go and walked away, leaving you standing alone under this tree on the edge of the lake.

I thought I was doing the best thing for you. I would remain your friend, but not your lover, not your distraction. I would be there for you and with you, always by your side, always helping in any way I could, as I had always done.

I helped you prepare and we never spoke of my decision again. You must have thought I was right, but now I realize how very wrong I was.

What if I had never let you go? What if I had never walked away from you? What if I had stayed, both as friend and as lover? Would we be together now, celebrating your victory over the Dark Lord? Would your eyes shine with love instead of tears? Would you smile, talk, laugh? Would you say goodbye to our home of seven years tomorrow and move on with me, live with me, share your life with me?

I guess I'll never know.

I once knew where my life was headed, but that life included you. You with happy eyes and an easy smile. You as my best friend, as my partner in crime and in Auror training, as my lover, as my husband, as the father of my children. Without you, however, I have lost my way. I know I can do almost anything I want, but there doesn't seem a point now that you're not in my life. Nothing else really matters without you, not Head Girlship, not house points, not rules or homework.

For so long, I have strived for perfection. I have feared failure as you fear, fear. But I have failed you, something I once imagined impossible. I made the wrong decision, I took the wrong path, and I want so badly to go to you now and tell you we can turn back the hands of time and right my wrongs. But even if it was possible, could I ask you to take that chance, to relive these last few months? I couldn't.

I wonder if you think about me now. Do you think of how it could have been? Does your mind plague you with the what ifs? Do you wish I had never let you go? Part of me wishes I had never walked away. Part of me wishes you had tried to talk sense into me. I haven't listened to that part of me in months, but since you stopped speaking, since you defeated him, that part of me makes itself known and it plagues me with the memories of you… the what ifs…

I still love you. I love you more than I can say. I don't know if you love me anymore. Every time I catch your eye, you look away, but you don't seem to even see me. You look at everyone like that now, as if your hollow eyes can see right through us. It seems as if you are searching for something in the faces you so fleetingly glance over. I would gladly give you everything I have, but you don't want anything from me. I know that now. I see it in your eyes, you eyes that used to twinkle beautifully each time you saw me. Your cheshire grin you reserved only for me has vanished as well, taking also the person you once were, the boy I loved.

And now, as I watch the melancholy squid disappear into the lake's black depths and I lean against the tree's rough bark that tugs at my bushy hair, that long-repressed part of me continues its questioning.

What would have happened if I had never let you go? Would you be the man you are now? The man you've become is so unlike the boy I knew and still love. For the first time in four years, I wish I had my time-turner. If only I could go back… and if I could take you back, would you try? Would you take the chance? Would you be you, the true you, now?

The moonlight wavers on the water as the last tentacle vanishes and I shiver despite the still, hot summer air.

“I guess we'll never know.”

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2. Author's Note.

Another Author's Note: I'm sorry, but I've made a bit of a mistake! I'm absolutely hopeless, truly. A few minutes after I uploaded What If?, my girlfriend told me she would like to write a second chapter, in Harry's point of view. There will be one more chapter, which should be up soon.

Sorry about that. And again, enjoy!

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3. I'll Never Know

Notice: As I said in the previous Author's note, the second chapter has been written really as a companion piece by my darling girlfriend. Do tell her what a wonderful writer she is by leaving a review. Thanks!

I'll Never Know.

By Nazorami

Companion to “What If?”

By Ella_marie

The howling of the wind is soft and lonely, swirling about in the darkness, a night lit only by the torchlight in the castle windows and the stars high above my head. I can't see them, tucked away beneath the dark reaching fingers of an old beech tree.

The wind is the only sound, save for the faintest of voices coming from across the grounds, echoing up into the walls of the castle.

I can see you…your robes pressed and neat… your Head Girl badge twinkling faintly on your breast.

Leaning my forehead against the tree trunk, I'm carried away by my thoughts yet again.

My fingers ache to touch you…but I tuck them into fists and force the feeling away.

My mouth is dry, and my chest is aching, heavy with old remorse, and yet equally empty as the wind.

I tried to push them back; those memories…back into the reaches where I keep all the pain. I tried so hard to forget, to act like nothing ever happened.

Every time I see you, I'm reminded that there is something I simply can't do. Yet another on the list of my flaws…I can't forget.

I can't erase the fact that I love you.

Though you don't see me, and most likely have no idea I'm here…I can see you, from my little hiding place. Standing in the very place where it all began, and ended as quickly as a fleeting thought. A bit of whimsy, is all there was between us. No, that's not it. That's all it was to you.

You said you loved me…but then you ran away. Is that what love is? It's something you feel when it's convenient?

No. Not the way I loved you. I would have given you the world, carried you through the dark and lifted you first into the light. I was ready to do what I had to do, because you were beside me.

Shuffling gently, I pocket my frigid hands and watch the Giant Squid slide languidly through the chilly water. The empty wind likes to make a game of tangling my shaggy black hair.

You knew I was afraid…

You knew it wasn't fair…

And yet you stole my strength.

How can I forgive you?

One painful memory after another…it was you who sat and listened to my protests. Did I ask for this? Any of it? At what point did I stand up and say please, would you make my life as miserable as possible? Oh, I'd be eternally grateful…

For as long as I can remember, when it finally boiled over, it was you who would sit and rationalize my rage. As much as I hated your damned logic, I loved you for being the one who listened.

Six years of struggling, six years of coming to grips with that which I never asked for…a fate that I really had no say in edgewise. Do I even care enough to risk it…?

Do I really care enough to die?

When I said those words, your beautiful eyes would glitter with sadness, and it was for that I bit my tongue. For you, I tried so hard not to think about what might happen.

Because I watched it break your heart, I tried to think of brighter things.

You were my brighter day.

I can't explain how many nights I let my mind wander, while I clutched you to my chest and lost myself in the scent of my best friend. The way your warm, heavy body cradled against mine and sought refuge in my arms.

Then, and only then did I want to be a hero.

Godric, how I want to go back to those nights beneath that tree, as the time grew shorter, the battle lingered ever closer, how when I cried you never faltered, to you I wasn't ever weak. I shivered and in my agony you would curl into me and whispered the sweetest words I'd ever heard. I know I never told you, but those words meant everything to me. You kissed away my tears, breathed sweetly on my cheeks and told me the world would get better. That everything would be all right, and you would never leave me. When I wrapped myself around you and tried to disappear, I believed you. I released my grip on reality and got lost in you. How sweet and soft your lips were as they took those little drops of fear and made them go away. The way your eyes glittered like embers and amber, the way your skin was fragrant and welcoming…

Each night you kissed away my tears. Then, one night, you weren't kissing the tears at all.

The first time our lips met, my entire body gave way and sank into you. I gave you everything, my hopes, my fears, my strength; I just stopped thinking, and felt you.

When I look back on the way I felt then, wrapped up in you, I know I could have achieved anything.

But you stole that motivation…you took it from me because you thought it was best.

You tried to tell me that your love for me was powerful, even eternal, but you wouldn't allow yourself to be an obstacle, a distraction, something that could get me hurt…

How ironic, that the pain you inflicted was a hundred times that which you sought to protect me from.

Crying, you kissed me, and despite my pleas and my reasons, you fled. You took my everything, and then, left me with nothing.

The dreams I once escaped to, when the pain and the fear returned, the ones filled with you; your beauty, your wisdom, everything that was you and everything that I wanted to keep more than I wanted anything else in the world… my partner, my lover… and to think that I had hoped for… my wife, my soul's mate, the mother of our children…

My happily ever after…

They're gone. You took them, and fled, and I know there's no hope of them every returning. They're clouded with too much agony, loneliness, betrayal, and regret.

Although I fulfilled my destiny…

The one I wanted by my side most abandon me…and the person who was there with me was someone I couldn't bear to see.

Every time I see you, I feel numb. The empty, heavy, horrible ache was too much to bear. So I fought it. I learned how to turn it off…I learned how to kill an honest response to a broken heart.

The fact that this numbness is what has amounted from our friendship makes me sick.

I look at you, so close, your dark curls blowing about your face…

I miss you…

There's an empty spot inside me no one else can fill…can't you see it? The place that was saved only for you…

I want to feel…but I can't.

I can't erase the fact that I love you…but I can't forget the way you broke my heart.

That place inside is worn and raw and the pain is far too great.

So I turn and walk away.

Push it away, cover it up, let the numbness take over again.

It's disgusting, it's pathetic, and it shouldn't have come to this…but I would rather be numb, than ever cry for you again.

My eyes are worn enough already.

Pausing, I let myself have one more glance. The moonlight dapples your face; shines off your tears.

What would it have been like; I let myself muse, just briefly, if the dreams had all come true?

I don't let myself answer.

Because I know I'll never know.

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