Thank you very much for all of the reviews and the support that this story has garnered. This is indeed the end of the road. It has been a very long road for me, and I personally am thrilled that my first full-length story has been given this sort of respect. Thank you to everyone who reviewed for this story, and please tell me what you think of this chapter. Next weekend, I intend to begin posting my next attempt.
Enjoy. This is what you've been waiting for.
See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.
Lily's smiling eyes trailed back to Harry and Hermione. She knew it was her time.
"Harry," she said softly, stepping toward her son and taking his hand in both of hers. "I am just a shadow, and a shadow cannot stay on Earth forever. I am simply a memory. I can't stay here with you, as much as I would love to. I want to be there when you graduate from Hogwarts. I want to be there when you marry. But I can't be there in this state. I preserved my shadow to help you to survive the final battle and to help you defeat Voldemort. You've done that now. I've sat with you, given you a part of my memory to preserve within yourself. I have always been in your heart, but now you will be able to remember me. You have been stronger than most are expected to be. You have made me very proud to be your mother, and there is nothing, nothing, that I regret."
"You're saying you have to leave?" Harry replied quietly.
"Yes," she sighed. "I've done what I came to do, and my shadow will fade."
"But the pendant..." Harry offered.
"The pendant will only carry my blessing. Shadows disappear, and I'm no different. Though Hermione won't carry me around her neck, you will carry me in your heart." She closed her eyes, and Harry once again heard her voice in his head. "I love you, Harry. Those who love us never really leave us. I will always be right here."
Harry looked down. "I love you too, Mum," he thought, more to himself than to her. This was what he had missed all of those years.
Lily smiled, her eyes wet with tears, and stepped toward Hermione. Hermione embraced her as if she was her own mother, and Harry could see the tears flowing from Hermione's eyes also. Lily pulled back slowly and squeezed Hermione's hands gently. After a few moments, she stepped away from Hermione and turned to face her only son.
Her eyes shining but her face young and beautiful, she looked into the eyes that were so much like her own. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, sixteen years' worth of embraces poured into one. "I love you, Harry," she repeated to him in his head. He bit back the tears as he committed the moment to memory. He knew that many teenagers would give anything to avoid being so close to their mother, but at this moment, he would have given anything to keep his mother. He had missed out on all of this, and now he understood. He understood the selfless sacrifice that she had made. It all made sense to him now. She pulled back, hands on his shoulders, and looked into his eyes. "You know how you feel. Don't let your mind stop you. Follow your heart."
With those final words to him, she smiled, and within moments, began to fade away. As soon as she had come, she was gone.
Harry blinked the tears away, staring into the space that his mother had just occupied. As if to make sure that she wasn't still there, he swept a hand through the air. Seeing that she really was gone, he closed his eyes and stood in silence, swallowing the emotions that he didn't want to release. He was in his own world.
Feeling his emotion, Hermione slowly slipped her hand into one of his.
He felt a small hand in his own. He didn't need to open his eyes. It was her. Hermione. He squeezed her hand slightly and his eyes welled up once more. It was out of Harry's persona to cry, but he felt vulnerable. He felt, for possibly the first time in his life, that he was just a boy, one who could be completely open. His guard could fall. He could let it down.
Hermione sensed the change in him. The barriers that Harry always had carried, without fail, had tumbled down. He'd had an immense burden lifted from his shoulders, and she felt that now Harry had finally let it into his soul that the battle was over. It was over. His life had revolved around this force of evil, and his destiny to fight it. But now it was over, and Harry could lift the facade. He didn't have to be the strength of the wizarding world. He had to be Harry, and he finally was. Just Harry. She squeezed his hand again, as they sat together on the rocks. The wind played at her hair and tickled her face. She felt that, just this once, Harry was feeling the wind also. He could now.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He looked at the hand in his. Her hand. He could feel everyone's presence in the wind. Everyone he had lost. Lily was right. He hadn't really lost any of them. They were all around him.
"It's ironic," he said quietly. "How death makes you think about life."
She sighed. She could feel their presences, too, and she knew how he felt.
"So much death and destruction, and it just makes me open myself to life."
"It really is ironic," she agreed, "but really, it holds even more irony than you might think. The..." she trailed off, "killing curse..."
He heard himself whisper, "Avada Kedavra." He made sure that he only said it in words, and as quietly as he could. He had recently discovered that his power was far more than he'd ever known.
She looked at him, a distant look on her face. "Yes. It comes from the word abracadabra, from the ancient language Aramaic. It's not a common language anymore... abracadabra means 'let the thing be destroyed,'"
"Destroyed," he repeated. "The killing curse."
"That's not the ironic part," she said, taking on her characteristic Hermione-giving-a-lesson tone. "Although Aramaic is not widely used anymore, in modern Jewish congregations, there is one very important prayer in Aramaic. It's called the Kaddish, and it is said after someone dies. It's not a prayer about death, though, it is a praise for the person's life."
He looked at her. "So the same language that kills is used to be thankful for life."
"Yeah," she sighed. "Ironic, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
Although he felt the presence of death all around him, he could feel his heart beating. He knew that this was life. Life unfettered, without the burden he had always felt. He knew what he had to do. And nothing was going to stop him this time.
"Hermione," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I need to talk to you, and I need to say everything. Don't stop me or I'll never get it out. There's so much I should have said... I needed to say... I've got to get it all out."
She met his eyes with her own. "I'm here to listen," she said, her voice as soft and quiet as his.
"It's hard for me to make sense of everything," he began slowly. "It's all over now. When I was little, the only life I knew was being shut in a cupboard. I had no motive, no goal in life, except to grow up and leave. Then... my whole world changed. I was thrown into a world much bigger, a world I couldn't even have imagined. But with that came... responsibility. I went from being a nobody in a cupboard to being the Boy Who Lived for doing something I can't even remember. And I, all of the sudden, was given a goal and a motivation. I couldn't be normal. I had to be the hero. Then... fourth year, and he came back. I knew he would, but the reality was nothing I could have prepared myself for. And then fifth year. The prophecy. I... I just couldn't fathom how I was supposed to vanquish him. And it all was so overwhelming. 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord.' The one. Me. It was my life... living halfway and preparing to either meet my doom or his. And now... it's over. Just over. I never really thought about what would happen after the final battle. After it was all over. But here I am. And I guess that I'd assumed that I'd feel empty. Like I was living without a purpose. After all, I wanted to be an Auror, but I don't think I ever really thought I'd get there. I hadn't given up on living, but I couldn't think beyond the battle. So I thought I'd be empty afterwards. No direction, no purpose, feeling like my life had been given to do what I was scripted to do, but nothing else. Like... like I was just a shell."
She looked into his eyes, as if searching for life within them.
"That's how I thought I'd feel. But I don't. Yeah, that part of me is missing, but I don't miss it. I do have direction and purpose. I have a positive reason to live, for the first time. Now it's not like I have to live just so that I can die or kill. I have to live to live. I think I didn't really do that before."
She smiled. That was what she wanted. For him to get a chance to feel life. To laugh for the sake of laughing, to do something stupid just because he could. For him to be happy.
He watched her intently as she smiled. He'd seen it so many times, and this time seemed to be different for some reason. "The first time I met you on the train," he said, "you came in, busy and businesslike, bossy and uptight."
She blushed. "Sorry," she admitted.
"And then you fixed my glasses."
"Yeah," she said.
"Not exactly what rock-solid friendships are built on," he smiled. "You annoyed me to no end. But the first second I thought you were in danger, I went running. What possessed me, I don't know."
She smiled, embarrassed. "I don't know what possessed you either. I was insufferable to everyone. But I'm glad you came. I wouldn't be here if you hadn't."
He laughed. "I'm glad, too. All I did was stop you from getting squashed by a troll. And how did you reward me? You saved me from a man-eating plant, kept me from poisoning myself, believed me when no one else would, told me what was hidden in the Chamber of Secrets, used your Time-Turner to save my godfather, flew with me on Buckbeak even though you were terrified, provided me with countless pieces of information that I thought were useless, but then needed... do I need to continue?"
She smiled. "No, I think that will suffice. I really didn't..."
"...Yes, you did. All of that, and more. You were always there for me. Always. Even when I didn't know I needed someone, you knew I did. You yelled at me when I deserved it, shook sense into me when I needed it, and just listened when I wanted it. And I never really appreciated it... I took it for granted. But then... that battle... you jumped in front of that curse."
The smile faded. She looked down.
"You were right in front of me, you took a hit that was meant for me. And you knew what it did, and you were willing to sacrifice yourself for me. The sheer devotion that you had... it drove me to the edge. I couldn't let you die for me. I just couldn't. I wouldn't let you. So many people have died just because they were close to me. I wasn't going to let him take you, too. But there was something different. You... knowing that you were willing to make that kind of sacrifice for me... it woke me up. Gave me the motivation. The emotion... to..." he struggled to say it, "to kill. I needed to kill him. He destroyed everything and everyone. He couldn't take you from me, too. And I'd be damned if I would stand there and let you die, let you sacrifice yourself for me. He had done that to my life. And it was then... when you did that... everything all crashed in at once. My heart was screaming two very different things. One was to not let you die. And the other was to murder Voldemort. I'd always needed to kill him. He'd taken so many lives, so many people that I cared for, and so many others that I didn't know but felt the same for. But somehow, you taking that curse was the breaking point. If you were going to die, he was too. I don't know where it came from... the power. But I remember feeling this power and rage... and something else, flooding through my body, right before I destroyed him. And I remember that all I could think, thorough the fury, was that I wasn't going to let you die."
Her eyes were now shining with tears. "Harry," she said softly.
"I'd never felt that before. Sure, I had been furious with all of the deaths, but I'd never felt that kind of fury. It was like... like everything I was, everything I'd ever wanted, was being taken away from me. I just kept thinking that I couldn't let you die. I'd never forgive myself if you died for me. You meant everything to me, and you were willing to throw yourself away, for no reason other than to protect me. I still don't know how... how Fawkes came... and how he managed to keep you alive, but I know that he was there because I'd begged for a miracle. After... after I'd killed him, I lost consciousness. As I was blacking out, I wasn't worried about myself, I didn't care what happened to me. My job was done. But I just knew that I couldn't let you die. There wasn't anything really that I could do... I just kept thinking that you had to live. I woke up in the hospital wing... and I asked about you. Madame Pomfrey wouldn't tell me. It was killing me inside. You couldn't die. And then when I saw you... lying there... you looked so peaceful... in some other world. It was like you were dead. I couldn't stand it. I... I needed some kind of prayer of a hope that you were alive. I... listened to your heart. I laid my ear down on your chest and waited. But your heart was still beating. Weak, but alive. Emotion flooded over me... I'd never been one to cry, but I just did. I wasn't sure what had come over me. Your heart was beating. The heart that had been my strength for the past seven years, and the heart that had kept you alive through the worst of situations. The heart that you willingly surrendered to give me one last chance at living. All of it... it broke me. Emotionally. I don't even remember how long I stayed there... I just sat there, pouring out all of the emotion that had finally broken the walls I'd tried so hard to maintain."
She refused to sob, as the tears streamed down her face silently.
"I still don't know what got into me. I don't know how I ended up where I did, but I do know that I ended up there for a reason."
He lifted her chin with one finger, and wiped her tears away with his thumb. He'd never been comfortable with crying. It was always so uncomfortable to be around someone who was crying. He'd been there several times, and none of them had been comfortable. But here, with her, nothing was wrong. He wasn't trying to flee. He wasn't trying lame excuses to make her stop. No, he was sitting beside her, wiping her tears.
She smiled slightly through the haze in her eyes. This was so sweet that it pained her.
"It was all for one reason. You always being there. Me developing an incredible fury that you would sacrifice yourself to me. Fawkes. You still being alive. It was all fate. Destiny. It was always in store for me, though I could never see it. I never knew what I had until I almost lost it."
"Harry," she sighed, his thumb still catching her tears.
"I never knew what you meant to me. How much you meant to me. And when I did think about it, it scared me. Terrified me. I've been touched by death... violence... loss... I can deal with all of them. They're familiar. Pain is not something foreign to me. But you... you were just something different. You made me realize that part of me, and it was scary. I didn't know what to do with that emotion. Had no clue how to treat it. It was something I couldn't shut out, something I couldn't just... throw things over. And the worst part was that the one person who had always been able to help me deal with everything, even when I didn't want her too, was the one person I couldn't go to. It took me too long to figure out that I could come to you, though. And it took me even longer to figure out that I really wanted to. So now I'm here, and I've... I've made up my mind that I need to."
She looked into his green eyes and her own eyes watered. "Harry... you don't have to..."
"Yeah, I do. I can't deny it, and I need to thank you for everything that you've given me." He looked down, and took her hands in his. "Hermione," his voice faded to a whisper, "you've taught me so much. And you taught me one thing that I never could have learned from a book. You," he became even quieter, and met her eyes, "you taught me how to love." He paused to let his words sink in. "I haven't had much experience with love. You taught me what it was, and you taught me how it felt to love someone. And I know now. I love you, Hermione."
Her eyes went wide and she smiled broadly. A new wave of tears overwhelmed her as she threw herself into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly. He did the same, holding her, feeling as if nothing in the world could hurt either of them. Her tears soaked his shoulder, but he didn't care. He could feel her heart beat next to his.
He thought that was the best sound in the world.
Sobbing, she whispered in his ear, over and over. "Harry... I love you too...". Then, he knew that that was the best sound in the world. And the best feeling. To love, and be loved. It had taken him longer than most people to find it, but he knew at that moment that he was complete.
He pulled back from the embrace slightly, and looked into her eyes again. And then he kissed her.
He kissed her the way one does when one is in love.
And she kissed him back.
I hope that you consider this to be a fitting end. Please review. Thank you!
-Menucha