Across the Stars

Summary: He lives on stolen kisses and meetings arranged by fate. Harry and Hermione, forced to choose between love and duty, choose duty. But what if they had chosen love? Angst abound!

A/N: Listening to Across the Stars (Ani and Padme's lurve theme from Star Wars) and it struck me that the same music could be used as an H/Hr theme. So I had to write a fic about it. Meh, I was inspired.

I recommend listening to it here: http://musicby.jw-music.net/ Scroll down and look under Episode Two and it'll be there. There are also some HP music there, so listen to that, too.

Across the Stars

Jakia

It began with a kiss, though in all honesty it might've started long before that. A simple peck on the lips that was suppose to be on the cheek but he turned his head. The pure innocence of the kiss broke him, shattering his soul and his very lively hood.

He watched with mild amusement as her face turned bright red as she began muttering a long list of apologizes. The twins teased her mercilessly, and he accepted her apology. He did not think about it again. He never had before.

This was something she had never done before. He thought as her face turned redder. He recalled similar thoughts he had had when she had kissed him on the cheek at the end of forth year.

It was as simple as that. It was something she had never done before. It did not change their relationship. It wasn't something he dwelled on. It was merely something she had never done before.

He thought nothing more of it.

Their relationship changed gradually. He was always protecting her-ever since he was a child, really. But now he took it to more extremes. No one dared to say a word to Hermione about her Muggleborn status, or even her bushy hair or just being a know-it-all without Harry jumping down their throats.

Not even Ron.

She was just the same. She had always been rather touchy with him. Grabbing his hand when she was scared, or worried, or nervous. Hugging him tightly as if he would disappear if she didn't hold on tight enough. A platonic kiss on the cheek before a Quidditch match.

Now it was just as it was before, only different. She held his hand tightly, even though she wasn't scared or worried or nervous. She held it just because it was there, close enough in her reach, as if the feel of his skin against hers wasn't enough. She would lay her head down against his shoulder when she was tired. She would hug him casually when he woke up in the morning. The platonic kisses she gave him didn't seem quite as platonic anymore, though he wasn't for sure why. And the accidental kiss on the lips happened too often to be accidental anymore. They weren't deep kisses, ones full of passion and desire. More like simple pecks on the lips.

Sometimes they both changed. Their hands would brush more often against each other in classes. Her leg would accidently rub against his. He would play with her hair when he was daydreaming.

He finds he liked these changes, these simple transitions of what use to be to what would become. He thought about her and the gradual changes in their relationship more often than he probably should have, but he couldn't help it. He finds them enthralling, delightful, and addicting.

He doesn't know what he would do if he lost her.

So he tells her the prophecy.

She takes it better than he thought she would. She doesn't cry or speculate or try to disprove it. Instead, she holds him. She may be holding him tighter than usual, but he can't tell. Or maybe it's just because he's squeezing her back, unlike the one-sided hugs he usually give.

He cries. He feels he should be stronger, but he can't be. He's so bloody strong all the time, let this be his moment of weakness. Let the smell of her hair, the light in her eyes, or the softness of her touch be what breaks him, not Voldemort or the prophecy. Let the gentle taste of her lips be his damnation. Let his passion, his desire, destroy him.

So it does.

Before he knows it he's on her, kissing touching feeling, and it's the most heavenly thing he's ever felt. Suddenly he's alive. Everything before this moment has been meaningless. Long walks around the lake, the comfort she brings, the sparkle in her eyes....It means nothing. This is everything. Everything he's ever desired and more importantly, everything he never knew he desired. Prophecies and wars be damned. This was what he was born to do, this was his destiny. To kiss taste love feel Hermione.

She pulls away, and he's broken again. He looks in her eyes and suddenly he realizes she's scared.

He realizes he's scared as well. What has he done? Did he do something wrong? How could he? How could anything that wonderful fantastic beautiful be wrong in any way?

This changes everything.

She turns and leaves, leaving him sitting there blindly.

His soul breaks.

She acts as if it never happened. As if the kiss, his life, his destiny never took place. No one else notices it, but he does. And his spirit shatters every time she's near. She still sits by him at meals, but she no longer holds his hand for no reason. Her legs and hands no long brush his. Her kisses suddenly seem platonic again, and he hates that.

He's dying.

He wants to confront her, to make her realize and understand what he feels, but he can't. Rejection is what he fears the most. He's afraid she'll try and tell it never happened, or worse, tell him she doesn't love him. That she'll tell him that the kiss was a mistake, and that she doesn't love him.

But his heart is damaged every time he looks at her, and he doesn't know how he suppose to go on.

He finally confronts her. The sorting hat didn't put him in Gryffindor for nothing, he had to have some reckless courage. The same reckless courage that got Sirius killed was now going to confront Hermione, and hopefully heal his heart.

She's alone in the common room, and he doesn't think she knows he's there. So he walks forward, stepping toward the fire. Now she has to know he's there, she's just ignoring him.

He's angry. He's never been so mad in his life. Hermione was ignoring him, and that tore his soul.

He runs to her, and he grabs her. He picks her up off the couch, forcing her to drop her book. He's holding her so tightly he's afraid she might break, but he finds he can't care all that much, he's so angry. He looks in her eyes, his anger, his magic, radiating off his face.

So his kisses her, and he's alive again.

It's even better, because she's kissing him back. She's pouring her soul back into his, and he realizes she's just as broken as he is.

The kiss grows deeper until their tongues are locked. He pushes her back on the couch, and his hands are everywhere searching feeling loving everything about her.

He pulls back slowly. He doesn't want to, but his mind, the part that talks to him in her voice, tells him he should. Because if he doesn't stop now he may never stop.

She meets him in the eyes and nods. She sits up, straightening her skirt and hair. They're both a mess, he realizes. He doesn't care.

He turns to her, and he wants to yell at her. He wants to know why she's been avoiding him, why she's been ignoring him. The only problem is he can't seem to find his voice, he's so heavily lost.

He doesn't need to ask. She can read him like a book. He can read her, too. Her eyes are screaming I was afraid! I was afraid!

He was afraid, too.

He kisses her again, slowly, more passionately. She returns the kiss.

The night goes on.

And the stars and the flames are their only witnesses.

It's become their dirty little secret. Their hidden story that no one else knows. They've both agreed that they can't be in love. Being in love is too dangerous, they could both end up killed. So instead, they hide amongst the shadows, where the only ones who know are the stars and flames and the shadows that cling to the night.

He lives on stolen kisses and meetings arranged by fate. His destiny is too important, too dangerous to be meddled in with something like love. But that doesn't stop him from meeting her in the Room of Requirement at odd hours of the night. It doesn't stop him from kissing her in the darken hallways.

It's his best kept secret. He thinks maybe Ron knows, but he doesn't say anything. He's glad. He wouldn't know what to say if Ron asked him about it. But other than Ron, no one else knows. They are both good liars, he notices, though he's not for sure if that's a good thing or not. And he's gotten brilliant at Occlumency, so not even Dumbledore knows (though the old coot may suspect something).

This is what he lives for, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

It's the night. The night when his destiny is to be fulfilled. No one has to tell him this, he can feel it in his bones. Tonight he would kill or be killed, become the murder or the victim.

She comes to him, like she always does. Only tonight is different. She's crying. He hates it when she cries, he's never been one to handle someone emotional.

She doesn't kiss him, instead, she holds him tightly. He's reminded of the night when everything changed, when he first kissed her. So he holds her, breathing in the scent of her hair, realizing why he's still alive.

“Harry----I...” She stops. This is the first time they've spoken. She looks like she's having trouble saying whatever she has to say. He cups her face with his hand, looking her in the eye.

“I love you.” She says plainly. He knows she loves him, but this is the first time she's ever said it. It's something she's never done before.

“I love you, too.” He replies, kissing her forehead.

And for once, they don't care that the night is their only witness. Let the world watch, if they want.

This is their last time together.

They bring her back a corpse. A broken shell of what was once her Harry. His green eyes are soulless, and she notices that before she notices the mortal wound stabbed in his heart.

They say the only good thing about the battle was that he was able to take Voldemort down with him, but she doesn't care. Her love is gone. Screw the world, her Harry was gone.

No one bothered her at the memorial. The tears have long since stained her face, and the lump in her belly grows larger everyday. The only reason she hasn't killed herself is because of that lump, the lump that holds the only reminder of their love, an unborn child.

She says she'll live until the baby is born.

No one asks her about the lump in her stomach. They have no need to. Anyone can see her tear-stained eyes and tell who the father is.

So she waits.

Life is meaningless.

She keeps to her word. She dies during childbirth. She gives birth to two beautiful children, a boy and a girl. She lives just long enough to name them—The boy is Harry, after his father, and the girl is Lily, after her grandmother. She doesn't give them a middle name. They don't need one.

What shocks everyone is that the childbirth went smooth. There were no problems, no complications at all while the children were being born.

She simply lost the will to live.

And as she looks into the two identical pairs of green eyes, she apologizes, then let's go. Harry is waiting for her.

“Uncle Ron?” A girl with bushy red-brown hair and green eyes asks, looking up at her godfather. This is Lily, and she is half of her godfather's pride and joy. “Who are these people?” She asks quietly, pointing to a photo she found.

The other half is Harry, and these two are the only memorial he has of his two best friends. Even though the girl's birth name is Lily, he has named her Hermione. He can't help it. He needs them. They are all he has left.

The boy is sitting beside his sister, and he looks at his godfather with the same innocent green eyes that Ron met on a train at eleven. He has unruly brown hair that sticks up in all directions, and if Ron tries hard enough, it almost looks black.

He picks up the twins lightly, setting them down on his lap. He holds them both tightly, letting the two six year olds hold the picture.

“These are your parents.” He whispers in the night.

And he tells them the only story he knows. About a boy with unruly hair and glasses too big for his face, and a girl who is bossy, with buck teeth and bushy hair.

His best friends, and the only memory he has left of them in the form of two unruly six year olds.

Somewhere, across the stars, two people smile down at them.

Duty be damned.

::end::

Please review. I'd much appreciate it.

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