Disclaimer: See Part 1
Author's Note: Another ficlet produced by the Ficlet Machine.
For Anne U- *hugs*
Partly inspired by the line at the end of "Spiderman 2" when MJ says to Peter, "You've been so busy saving the world. Isn't it about time somebody saved you?" or something to that effect.
~*~*~
Saving Harry
It was getting dark. He should be getting inside the castle.
He knew that. He of all people should not be sitting out here alone. He should be getting inside.
And yet, even as he thought the words, he couldn't bring himself to get up. He didn't want to go back inside. Didn't want to rejoin the company of others.
There was something comforting about the growing darkness, the encroaching dusk. It matched his mood and his thoughts, grim and bleak as they were, much better than the bright candle-lit interior of Hogwarts.
It was getting colder as well and he shivered a little. But still he remained.
His eyes stared out over the dark depths of the lake but he didn't really see it, didn't really see anything. He saw other things instead. The faces of his parents. The face of his godfather, Sirius's expression when he fell through the veil in the Department of Mysteries. The cold, red eyes of Voldemort. The flash of green light and the body of Cedric falling down. A flash of purple light hitting Hermione and her still form, lying on the floor of the Department of Mysteries.
And he heard Trelawney's voice, the strange, hoarse tones of it, coming from Dumbledore's Pensieve, those fateful, horrifying words echoing in his mind yet again. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…
So many times since that day he'd remembered the words. They were branded on his memory and burned there. Burned with an urgency he could never forget, couldn't escape.
He shuddered convulsively, changing his position to stare blankly at his hands. His thin hands that looked so pale in the darkness. He had a power the Dark Lord knows not?
No he didn't. Whatever Dumbledore's cryptic words meant, they didn't give him any added powers; how could they? He felt just the same. He was only a boy.
A boy who was going to have to face and defeat Voldemort- and probably die in the process. That was his fate, his doom more like.
He was going to die. And not for the first time, he felt rebellion at the idea bubble up inside him. He wanted to live! And live without this curse hovering over his head. He wanted to live…
She hesitated when she got close enough to see him, suddenly unsure of herself. Maybe she should just leave him be.
And yet she knew she couldn't. The emotions she felt well up inside her at the sight of him were too strong; she couldn't leave him be. Even if she couldn't help him much, she had to try. She cared too much not to.
He looked so- so young, and so vulnerable, she thought, with a pang of sad surprise. He was sitting in one of his customary positions, knees up, one arm around them while his other arm rested on his knees, his hand in his hair as if supporting the weight of his head.
She knew when he sensed her presence because he stiffened slightly and then spoke, his voice as cold as the wind in mid-winter, not looking at her. "If you're here to tell me I should go inside, don't."
"I'm not here to tell you that," she answered truthfully, just standing beside him, not quite daring to sit down without some sign from him that she was welcome.
"Then what?"
The bluntness of his question wasn't at all encouraging and yet she sat down beside him anyway. He hadn't gotten angry and told her to leave at least. "I was worried about you," she said softly.
He opened his mouth to make some sort of scathing response but something stopped the words in his throat. She was worried about him… And maybe it was just a product of his bleak mood, maybe it was from his having just relived all the stark apprehension and fear of that afternoon in the Department of Mysteries, the soul-stopping dread that she was dead and it was his fault. But somehow those simple words, I was worried about you, resonated in his mind and heart.
She was worried about him. She cared about him…
And he- he didn't know what he would do without her. He knew that now, after that horrible moment of thinking she was dead and he'd lost her, knew that he needed her. He couldn't put into words this feeling he felt, something more than friendship and yet he shied away from giving it another name. But he knew he needed her.
And while hearing almost anyone else in the word say they were worried about him would have made him flare up in anger that he wasn't a child and could take care of himself, he didn't mind hearing her say them.
He finally turned to look at her, meeting her eyes even though he couldn't quite see their expression in the darkness. "I'll be ok," he said simply. And in that moment, strange as it seemed, he believed it too. Somehow, sitting here beside Hermione, he couldn't quite believe that he was going to die… He didn't know how he would survive, exactly, but he couldn't believe he was doomed to die facing Voldemort. Irrational, and yet he knew he'd never been more certain of anything in his life. He was going to be ok. Somehow, some way, as long as he had Hermione by his side, he was going to be ok.
Hermione put her hand on top of his where it was resting on his knee and squeezed it companionably.
He said nothing more and neither did she, just sat there, quietly, each lost in their own thoughts.
And for that moment, they were at peace.
She glanced at him, relieved to see that his expression had cleared and he was no longer glowering out into the darkness but looked calm.
In the silence of the evening, she made a vow, no less sincere and no less strong for being unspoken. Harry was going to have to save the world, and he would, she knew. She-she would save him. How she didn't know; all she knew was that she would save him, if only by being with him, helping him however she could… She would save him.