Disclaimer: See Ficlet 1
Author's Note: This angst ficlet was inspired in part by reading CheeringCharm's absolutely brilliant WiP, "Better Late than Never".
I should also note that I consider this fic to be almost AU in one sense because this is the last thing I imagine will ever happen in canon and because I can't imagine any man existing who is perfect for Hermione whose name isn't Harry Potter. I wrote it to exorcise a plot bunny and that is all.
And again, the next post will be fluff to make up for this.
The Wedding
He was dying.
He knew he wasn't dead yet because you don't feel pain when your're dead. Come to think of it then, he wished to Merlin that Voldemort had succeeded in killing him. It would have saved him this agony.
His cheeks were beginning to hurt from smiling. He didn't dare allow himself to stop smiling even though he knew that right now, no one was looking at him. If he stopped smiling, he knew he'd never be able to make himself smile again.
Not even for her sake could he make himself smile again. He would do anything for her. But at this moment and on this day, he knew he wouldn't be able to smile again if he dared stop. So he smiled, stiffly he knew, but a smile that would fool anyone glancing at him. And he knew that she, the only person who had always been able to tell if his smile was forced or not, was too happy to notice the stiffness of his smile.
Her happiness was killing him.
He felt a bitter, ironic little laugh well up inside him and swallowed it back, not wanting to look like a lunatic. Yes, her happiness was killing him. He, who would do so much to keep her happy, who would give his life without a second's thought if only it would keep a smile on her beautiful face… He was dying now because she was happy.
And yet, conversely, her palpable happiness was the only thing keeping him alive.
Dear Merlin. It was time. She was speaking her vows, promising to love and be faithful to one man for the rest of her life.
He felt every word she spoke in that clear, confident tone as if it were a dagger to his heart. (He found the clichéd thought oddly compelling at that moment.) The love and trust in her gaze as she looked up at him (Harry never thought of him by his name; he was always only 'him' or in his less-polite moods, 'that lucky bastard' or some other variation on that theme) were slowly but surely turning the handles on the figurative rack he was on, increasing his torture.
If there were any poetic justice in this world, he should rightfully have simply dropped dead on hearing her speak those words, he thought, with the miniscule part of his mind that had managed to retain some detachment and therefore some macabre humor.
And he suddenly realized that up until that very moment, some small part of him had never really given up hope. That maybe she would suddenly look up at him and see what he'd been too stupid to realize earlier and would simply leave with him, to hell with the lucky bastard and all their plans… He knew it had been a completely preposterous hope; she could never be that fickle or that faithless or that cruel or-- He loved her for it too. But he'd somehow hoped anyway. Harry decided his own heartbreak was clearly making him irrational and incoherent.
But now it was too late. Too late. Too late. Too damn, bloody, sodding, effing, bugger-it-all, late. It had been too late when he'd realized how he really felt about her (the day she'd announced her engagement). It was absolutely too late now when she was officially married to the lucky bastard.
He wished he could hate the sodding lucky prick. And there were moments when he was almost sure he did. Hated him for the very un-hate-able-ness of him. Hated him for loving Hermione so much; hated him for being able to make her so happy; hated him for having the brains to claim Hermione and make her his before anyone else (i.e. before Harry) could; hated him for being clever and funny and kind and successful and-- … Hated him for being, to all intents and purposes, the perfect counterpart to Hermione.
Harry caught Ron's eye and again was thankful for his forced smile, which Ron returned with a half-grin that was perfectly sincere. He didn't know whether to bless Ron for being oblivious to Harry's agony or curse him for the same reason. He'd never told Ron about his feelings- even after he woke up to them. Never admitted them to anyone except himself, Hedwig, his empty flat and the bottles of firewhiskey that had become his constant bedtime companion after the Revelation.
The Revelation. He always thought of it in capital letters. It had been too stunning a moment to be called anything less. The moment when he'd finally been alone after Hermione's floo-calling him to announce, ecstatically, that she was engaged to be married. The moment when his knees had literally given out on him and he'd collapsed to the floor of his flat, not seeing anything or hearing anything or aware of anything except that his life was over. Hermione was engaged and happily in love with someone else. And he, her best friend, was and had been for years, completely and irrevocably and hopelessly in love with her. The moment when all the lies to himself about his feelings for Hermione, all the justifications (and excuses) for the way his stomach flipped when she smiled or the times he found himself distracted from her conversation by the shape of her lips or the times he found himself comparing some other girl to her only to find the other girl lacking had been revealed, once and for all, for what they were: lies.
He was jolted out of his thoughts by the announcement of Mr. and Mrs. Damon Westhaven.
Mrs. Damon Westhaven. Oh why, why, why couldn't he be dead? Just those three words should have killed him by rights. But no. He wasn't that lucky.
He watched as Hermione and her- he flinched inwardly- husband turned and began walking back down the aisle.
She was beautiful, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, the most beautiful women in the world.
And for just a moment as she passed, their eyes met and held. She smiled at him, her eyes thanking him for being there today, on her day of days. And for just that moment, he stopped having to force his smile. She was happy, blissfully so. And for that fleeting second, that was enough for him.
Then the moment was gone; she moved on, past him. And he thought as he stared at her back, Goodbye, Hermione, love.
Because in that moment, he knew what he was going to do. What he had to do: leave England, for good. He couldn't stay here, not when he would then have to see her occasionally, be constant witness to the fact that she belonged to another man. No, he would leave. And though the thought of not seeing her at all was enough to rip at his heart, it was nothing compared to what the thought of having to watch her happiness with the lucky bastard did to him.
So he watched her walk further away from him, finally allowing the mask to drop and all his pain, all his hopeless love, to show on his face, safe in the knowledge that everyone else was looking at the newly-married couple. And said goodbye in the silence of his own heart, to his Hermione- his no longer- and his love.