Passage

Musca

Rating: PG
Genres: Angst, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 31/07/2005
Last Updated: 31/07/2005
Status: completed

"Nothing happened the way we thought it would, but some things stayed the same."

Chapters

1. Passage

1. Passage

Disclaimer: They belong to JKR, I’m only playing.

A/N: Yes, I’m still here. And this is for Jane (danielerin) who’s not. And of course, hoping she’ll come back.

A million thanks as always to miconic for the ‘nagging’ (her word, not mine!)

And thank you SO much to everyone who’s being reading and reviewing all my other stories, I haven’t been able to reply to many of them, I’m sorry about that. But I’m truly grateful and amazed at the kind words, so, thanks.

****

Passage

The day is mercilessly bright. The line of tall aspens along the fence points at a blinding blue sky. Against this dazzling day, our black attire achieves the impossible by making the air even brighter.

The scent of freshly mown grass mingles with the scent of roses and some other pungent smell I cannot name straightaway. I look around. A garden rake rests against a tree where the gardener must have left it, next to a pile of dead leaves, petals and dry earth; the remains of a lush summer.

At least one thing suits the occasion.

I turn around.

Inside the grave, the coffin gleams. The Father’s voice trembles with age in his blessing. He was already past his prime when he baptised you, your mother once said. Your mother, who now lies inside that polished maple wood coffin, waiting for the earth to join her. Even in death, I’m sure she wears an expression of great alertness on her face. She was, after all, your mother.

The gathering is small. Your mother’s sister holds your father’s hand, although with that familiar uplift of the chin and straight gaze he’s succeeded in making it look as though he’s holding her hand. There’s Ron, flanked by the remaining Weasleys and a few members of the Order, which has dwindled down to a mere dozen anyway.

Then there’s you.

You stand next to me, careful not to touch me or catch my eye. But I know--as you do--that if I move so much as a breath away, you’ll lose your footing. Your hair’s alight in the sun like tendrils of sunlight itself, as if the light comes not from the sun but from you. A mockery, because your face is in shadow, your eyes sunk under the strange weight of the hollow place that I know will never be filled. It’ll only get covered over by everything else the years will throw your way, like leaves over bare earth, only to be blown away by those strong gusts of need that hit you when you’re least prepared. I know, because I’m full of those hollow places, waiting like traps.

None of it happened the way we thought it would. The war was, is nothing like we imagined when we were in school. Rather than a grand drama of good against evil, it’s become a soul-draining drudgery, a test of endurance rather than bravery, fraught more with tedium than danger.

In fact, at times the only danger seems complacency.

It’s terrifying how very easily people get used to hearing about the deaths, the disappearances, the torturing, as long as they don’t happen too close to home. One of the many talents natural to humans, I suppose. Given enough time, we can get used to just about anything.

But some of us can’t. We have too many scores to settle.

Twelve years after I saw him return, Voldemort is still alive. Or we think so, when we’re desperate to give our struggle purpose. No one knows for sure. If he’s alive, then he has invented ways of concealment advanced beyond all magic known to wizardkind. If he’s dead or destroyed, then his Death Eaters are doing his work better than he could ever have hoped.

No one knows for sure.

The blessings are over. The holy water has been sprinkled. Our shadows slant across the coffin like so many fingers reaching to grasp it and hold it back.

Father Helman looks at your dad. Mr Granger nods and bends to scoop up a handful of earth. Your aunt follows his lead, throwing freshly dug earth into the grave. I look sideways at you, and you make a small movement without turning your head. I shake my head at the Father, who nods and proceeds to conclude the ceremony.

My whole body is aching with the effort to keep from touching you. And my throat hurts from trying not to scream, at the ghastly normality of it all, the serenity and light in the graveyard, the quiet way your mother is passing. Death isn’t supposed to be that way. There ought to be a dent in the air, a black hole somewhere in the space around us to mark the absence that you feel inside as solidly as you feel me next to you. If only this summery, dreadfully wholesome afternoon acknowledged your loss, perhaps then you wouldn’t feel so removed from everything around you.

But as it is, I think you feel that absence more solidly than you feel me next to you.

I know. I’ve been there.

*

It’s over. She’s ready.

Or perhaps she’s already long gone. All this, the blessings, the prayers, the flowers--they are for us.

I watch aimlessly as people begin to scatter, shaking your father’s hand, touching your shoulder. Ron wanders over to me. He’s grown lankier with the years, and somehow this seems to have made his red hair stand out even more.

“How is she?” He’s also learned to get to the point directly, our Ron.

I cast around for words. None obliges. I settle for shaking my head.

Ron nods, kicks a stone and looks at me again.

“How’re you?”

I look at him. “I’m fine.”

He raises an eyebrow. The sun beats at my back. There’s a bird in the tree nearby and its high-pitched squalling drums in my ears. The gardener has returned to his work, and the sound of the rake scouring through dry leaves and pebbled earth irritates me.

Suddenly I turn around and kick the fence beside which I stand. A spider-web stretched tautly between its white poles disintegrates.

“They were the most protected two people in all of Britain.” My voice is low and calm, but my fisted hands are shaking.

Ron’s shoulders droop and he puts his hands in his pockets, looking out across the entrance to the cemetery, through which people are now leaving.

“Yeah, well. You can’t protect against death.”

“What the hell are we doing then? With all our magic and security and all that intelligence bullshit, what are we doing if not trying to keep them from being killed?”

He looks at me like I’m twelve years old. If Ron can manage that, I must really be losing control.

“Against evil, Harry. We protect them against evil. Not death. No one can do that.”

His voice has changed too. It comes from a long distance, from an airless, lightless future, its usual humour only a faint echo.

I heave a long a sigh.

“Harry--”

“I know, I know. There’s nothing I could’ve done. What’s new?”

Ron explodes. A controlled, contained explosion, another development over the years.

“Harry, it was a fucking heart attack! Of course there’s nothing you could’ve done!”

But the gardener hears him. The man pauses and looks round at us. Then he presses his cap low on his forehead and returns to his pile of decaying summer.

Ron clears his throat. I sigh. He’s right, of course. There’s nothing anyone could have done. Despite all our precautions, our exhaustive safety measures, the wards, the spells, the endless monitoring, your mother died. Early one morning, while waiting for the kettle to boil, with the sun iridescent on the dewy grass outside the kitchen window, it was her body that failed her. Not us.

Your father saw her fall, a hand at her heart, the kettle screaming.

There was nothing anyone could do.

I pull out the remains of the spider-web from where it clings to the fence and look around to see where you are. Everyone has left, except your father, to whom you’re talking to now, a hand shielding your eyes against the sun. I watch as he leans on his walking stick and bends to kiss your cheek. You hug him, and then he walks away, leaving you at the lip of the grave.

Over by the gate, Ginny waves a handkerchief to catch Ron’s eye, with little Susie clinging to her other hand. He waves back and turns to me.

“Well, time for me to go. Susie has her check-up in half an hour.”

I nod. “Do they know what’s wrong?”

“Well, the Healer says she’s just--just missing…” He trails off, fiddling with the ring on his finger. We begin to walk across the graveyard spangled with shadows of tombs garlanded with summer. Somewhere among these neat gleaming rows is Sora’s grave. Ron’s careful to keep his eyes on his feet.

When we reach you, you’re squatting by the upturned earth. With your chin on your knees and your fingers weaving through the soil that covers the grave, you look barely older than Susie.

“I’ll ask Hermione to talk to the Healer. What’s the fellow’s name?”

“Parkinson. Richard Parkinson.”

I nod. “Yeah, I know him. He works in Hermione’s unit.”

Ron nods and looks over at you. “Tell her I said bye,” he murmurs and begins to make his way down to the gate.

The sun is now a blazing disc cutting low across the horizon. I stand behind you, for how long, I don’t know. All I’m aware of is how your hands sift through the black soil, caressing, pleading.

“Harry,” you say, after what seems like a lifetime.

“Yeah?”

I want to scoop you up and stroke your hair and kiss you, tell you I love you, I’m here, it’s okay. But you’re not ready. So I wait.

“Nothing--I just…nothing.” Your voice is muffled against your knee.

Your hands resume their caress. Your fingernails are now black. After another long moment, you straighten and stand. Then you stare at your palms with a distracted, puzzled look on your face.

“God, look how dirty my hands are!” You hold them up for me to see. My heart’s hammering in my chest. Your eyes hold the sun in pools of lucent gold. I reach forward and you step close. I take one of your hands in both of mine and begin to brush the soil off.

Suddenly, it’s all over.

You fall forward against me, pushing your face into my neck. Your cold, shaking hands fumble beneath my shirt and curl against my chest, the tears you’ve been clutching tight to yourself for three nights crashing all around us.

I don’t know what to say to you.

But you’re not asking for words.

My cheek burns against yours, your sobs shudder through my skin, and I can’t hold you any tighter, but I do. Even while I hurt for you, relief eddies through me in a torrent.

Nothing happened the way we thought it would, but some things stayed the same.

Together we’re whole. We’re okay. You and I.

I don’t know how long we stand there, under a bleeding sky. Finally, you rub your face against my shoulder and look up, a wordless whisper thrumming in your throat. My thumb leaves a faint trace of soil on your cheek, and I lower my lips to the spot.

“What is it, Hermione?”

You turn your head a little and your lips are trembling against mine, warm and salty and desperate.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye, Harry, didn’t get to tell her how much I love her.”

I’ve got no words, so I take your lips in mine.

*****