Disclaimer: See Ficlet 1.
Author's Note: HBP Spoilers ahead!!!!
This is sort of Hermione's POV during one moment at the end of HBP- where it seems she snaps out of whatever insanity she was under during the rest of the book… Another attempt to justify her behavior in HBP- futile as it might be to try to explain away everything…
Because She Cared
Everybody plays the fool, sometime…
~Aaron Neville
The door opened and she saw him.
She didn't even see Ginny standing beside him at first-she didn't have eyes or attention left for anyone but him.
And she just ran- ran and hugged him. Hugged him hard-just to feel him, to know he was alive, he was safe.
His arms went around her in a half-hearted response but she didn't care; she knew it wasn't that he didn't want her to hug him but that he was too drained, too beaten, to respond to any affection.
He was pale, his eyes blood-shot and haunted in a way that she'd never seen. Not even when he'd returned from seeing Cedric be killed or from seeing the ghostly forms of his parents come out of Voldemort's wand or from seeing Sirius die… Not even then had he looked this hopeless, this exhausted- physically, mentally, emotionally…
And she knew she'd been an idiot. A fool.
A fool not to understand- not to realize that for all her fears of getting too involved, of losing him, of losing herself in him-fears she still had-none of that mattered.
Because it was just too late to keep herself from caring too much about him.
She cared about Ron-she did! She hadn't been acting, or faking it, or leading him on. She had disliked seeing him with Lavender (Lavender… honestly! Lavender who didn't seem to have ever had a serious thought…) And for Ron to choose Lavender over her; even though she'd always known that Ron rather fancied her… And it had felt-nice-to know that he fancied her, that she always had him…
She did care about Ron.
But she cared about Harry too-not more, per say, but in a different way… A scary way. The way that she couldn't think rationally or reasonably when he was in danger or at risk… The way that she knew, if she let him, he'd become the most important thing in her life and she'd give everything else up just for him… The way that she knew she'd do anything just to bring a smile to his face… The way that nothing and no one mattered anything at all to her, except for him…
It was different. Harry was different-as he'd always been. Her feelings for him were different-intense and real and consuming and so frightening she'd reacted instinctively by retreating, by hiding, by turning to Ron…
Ron, who was so- well- normal… Ron, who was safe… Ron, whom she could understand because he was, well, just Ron and didn't have a troubled past or a dark destiny to face… Ron-who wouldn't die before he turned 18…
That had really been it. Harry-Harry dying-had always been a fear but it had become her biggest fear in the last year and half or so-and she just knew if she let herself care for Harry the way she was terrified she already did, she'd be devastated, a shell, hollow, if he died…
He meant too much to her.
She didn't know how it had happened or when but she realized it after everything that had happened in 5th year. He meant too much to her for her to recover if anything happened to him.
And it scared her.
It scared her that the thought of Harry in danger robbed her of her reason, her rationality. It scared her that he was becoming the center of her very existence, the reason for her very existence.
She was scared of losing herself.
But she was more scared; she was terrified-with a terror that stopped her heart and chilled her blood and made her tremble-of losing him.
But she knew when she saw him again that her fears didn't matter. That whatever it was that connected her to Harry, that made her worry over him so constantly, whatever it was that made her willing to do anything for his sake-was more important than her fears.
And it was too late.
She couldn't stop caring about Harry the way she did. She couldn't care any less about him than she already did.
She'd been deceiving herself to think she could. To think that doing everything short of tying herself physically into a chair to keep herself from going to see him in the Infirmary after that one Quidditch match would do anything to make her care any less. If anything, it had only meant she worried more. She hadn't been able to work or study or read or do anything except worry about him… She'd annoyed Ron by her constant asking after Harry and then annoyed Ginny when Ron had blown up at her…
It hadn't worked-it was too late.
She knew that when she saw him again-saw the look in his eyes.
It was too late.
Because this was Harry-and she just cared-more than any fear, more than any doubts.
And she knew that she couldn't hide from it any longer, couldn't try to deny it any longer.
She would stay with him, help him-no matter what lay ahead. And in the end- no matter what happened- in the end, she would know that she had helped him, that she had faced her fears and her feelings…
Because she was a Gryffindor and that's what Gryffindors did, right?
Because she cared too much to do anything less.
And maybe- just maybe- it was the caring about him, about anybody, that much, that really mattered... She cared- more than she was afraid for him, for herself; she just cared...
Vivir con miedo es como vivir a medias.
To live in fear is a life half-lived.
~"Strictly Ballroom"