Disclaimer: Obviously, I do not own Harry Potter; since I like Hermione and respect her and think of her as a role model.
And, well, if I'd own Harry Potter, I wouldn't need to write this story, since Harry and Hermione would have already been together.
After The End
Author's Note: This is the moment to say that this story is written for her. For the girl, who lived with a heart whose woman was already awake. For the woman, who was mercilessly murdered by The Plan, when it forced a Sleeping Potion down her throat.
For all of us… women and men who were touched by the Girl with the heart of a woman.
Eternally grateful to Puccini's, whose Opera "Madama Butterfly" kindly gave Hermione the chance to have her catharsis. ;)
"To die with honour when one can no longer live with honour."
I write this for Hermione. Because, she lives here, even if she'd rather die in Canon after HBP.
Thanks to my loved Gil, for all the love and support, and for taking the time to fix up the horrors that my excited writing does.
Chapter Two: Chronicle of an Inevitable Surrender
Vol. I: Love Is Blindness
"Love is blindness
I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night
Around me
Oh my heart
Love is blindness
In a parked car
In a crowded street
You see your love
Made complete
Thread is ripping
The knot is slipping
Love is blindness
A little death
Without mourning
No call
And no warning"
~U2
Hermione woke up when she turned around in the bed and felt the sunlight shining right into her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes and blinked at least three times before she turned around and met Harry's gaze, looking at her from one of the living room chairs.
He had the chair against the corner of the room, and, somehow, Hermione knew Harry had dragged the chair over there. He hadn't levitated it, or summoned it; he had dragged it, and she could clearly picture Harry doing so… sitting on it, watching her sleeping form until she woke up.
She smiled and he smiled back, though his eyes had already been smiling. He was wearing the bottom of his pyjamas, and was sitting crossed-leg; his left hand was holding a mug with his usual morning tea.
"Hey!" she mumbled sleepily, hugging her pillow under her head.
"Hey yourself!" he whispered lovingly.
Hermione had noticed that Harry had a certain way of addressing her that was simply special and unique. And… that wasn't a new thing. Harry had always been special whenever it came to her. She knew it, she had always known it, and… she simply couldn't believe that she could have induced the blindness which she used to relate to that.
"So, today's the day," she said, turning, to lie on her back and look up at the ceiling.
"Don't say it," he quickly said. "Let's not say it."
She looked at him, a sad but understanding smile on her face.
"We'll see each other tomorrow… it's Charlie's birthday," she said. "And we'll see each other on Monday at work,"
"Still," he said. "Don't say it."
"Harry," she said. "You know that just because we don't think about-"
"It's not about not thinking about it," he interrupted her as he ran his right hand across his messy hair. He sighed then gave her a look. One of his Harry looks… this one-a pleading Harry look. "It's about forgetting that today only has eight hours for you and me."
Hermione heaved a sigh. She took the covers from her, and sat on the bed. She stared at Harry for a moment before getting up and walking to him. She sat on his lap and he wrapped his arms around her, placing his mug on the floor.
She snaked her arms around him and ran her fingers up and down his naked back, touching her forehead to his and they remained silent, allowing the moment to linger.
Harry had spoken words that meant a whole world to them. Harry had spoken the words that echoed, something that he told her one year ago. And those words had been the key with which they had unlocked the door to their prisons.
Before she engaged herself in a lengthy travel back through memory lane, Hermione broke the silence with a quiet, loving whisper.
"I'd like that."
~*~*~
The Dying Swan - One Year Before
"How long before I get in?
Before it starts, before I begin?
How long before you decide?
Before I know what it feels like?"
~Coldplay
"Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it is"
~U2
Hermione sighed as she stepped out into the backyard of The Burrow feeling as if she'd been walking the whole day with a heavy burden on her shoulders. Which probably, she thought, she had.
Harry was in the backyard, chasing kids around. Bill and Fleur had two: Jacques and Claire. Charlie had married a Polish witch he had met in Rumania, and they also had two kids, Andros and Melinda. With ages from 7 to 4, all four kids had a liking for Harry that suited him strangely well. It was oddly peculiar of Harry, but he was totally natural when it came to kids. They loved him and he loved them. It was as if he had a special gene for fatherhood, but Hermione had never considered why he didn't have his own children.
Just like she had never stopped to consider why she didn't have hers. It was not that she didn't like them, she liked kids… it was just that she didn't feel the time was right. She sighed. That was what had started the heaviness of her day.
She sat on one of the chairs in the porch and, in a dream-like state, watched Harry play around with the kids. She didn't notice how Harry fixed his eyes on her, or how he frowned after he studied her face for a moment. She woke up from her reverie as Harry was knocked down by a pair of running kids.
The kids gushed that Harry had lost the game, and that he now had to sit and wait until it was over… Harry only argued with them for a couple of sentences. He then looked at Hermione and caught her looking at him. He smiled at her and then turned to the children, saying that he was accepting defeat. He walked to the porch and sat on the chair next to Hermione's.
He was smiling, and Hermione made an effort to smile up at him before he sat. She should have known better, but she still tried.
"It seems like you lost a child's game over there," she said in a whisper that echoed her effort to seem light and fine.
"I kinda did," he answered smiling. "Four to one, you can't argue." As he sat, Harry determinedly looked at her. She could feel his eyes, even though she wasn't looking at him. She knew it was worthless to keep pretending, so she sighed again and looked at Harry.
He had stopped smiling but as he met her gaze, he gave her a shy, understanding smile. Hermione liked that smile: it was always comforting, and (if she had to be honest) it was with that smile that Harry told her what was coming.
"What's going on with you?" he asked in a soft, calm voice that vibrated through him and reached Hermione when he covered her hand with his.
Hermione was sure that it would be useless to pretend nothing was happening. This was Harry, there was no way around it, he knew something was not right with her, and there would be no point in lying to him, because she knew he had a very good idea where her heavy sighs were coming from.
She looked at the floor for a moment, gathering her strength, summoning all of her Gryffindor courage. She didn't know why it seemed difficult to her to speak about it, but she thought that it had something to do with that terrible sense of wrongness that she had felt since the argument started. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and when she opened them, she raised her eyes at Harry and sighed once again.
"Ron and I had an argument this morning," she said. She fixed her eyes on Harry's. It only took a moment for Harry to nod his head slightly, and for Hermione to know that he had understood. By argument, Hermione meant a real one. Not stupid, senseless and pointless bickering that every other day brought for her and Ron.
"What happened?" he whispered.
Hermione took a deep breath before she went on. She had no idea how to approach the subject, so, she went straight at it.
"This morning, Ron told me he wants children."
Harry gasped. Years later, Hermione would never be able to explain why, but back then, she understood Harry's gasp. She understood why he had suddenly taken a gulp of air and why he hadn't been able to release it until several moments later. Back then, she had been grateful for Harry's gasp, and she looked into his eyes and, without uttering a word, she told him so.
In his eyes, Hermione saw the understanding. She didn't need to say another word. He understood that her answer to Ron had been no. Harry understood why she had said no… understood what it was that seemed so wrong to her about having a child with Ron… understood why she couldn't bring herself to push that aside and just give it a try.
He understood why she simply couldn't fill the holes that Ron's proposition had opened.
And he understood, that, what troubled her the most, was that she was afraid that those holes hadn't been opened just that morning, but had been there for longer than she could be able to count.
"There is nothing gone," she said. It was almost as if they had just had a long conversation in which she had told him all that she and Ron had told each other. But she hadn't, and yet it all made sense-and Harry understood. "But there's something wrong."
Harry closed his eyes for a moment and lowered his head. He stared at the floor, then looked back at her, raising his head up straight.
"There is nothing gone," he whispered. "But there's something missing,"
As Harry uttered those words, Hermione knew that he was no longer talking about her and Ron. Harry was talking about himself and Ginny. She hadn't asked the question, but Harry knew better. He gave her an answer for a question that she hadn't asked, but which brought comfort into her anxious, questioning self.
She looked up at Harry, her eyes bearing the sign of the comfort that his words had given her. She was looking at Harry, their eyes communicating in that language that had been their own since before she could remember it to be. And it was then when she first saw it.
It.
It was staring intently at her from Harry's eyes. It couldn't be, but it was.
She blinked, in an effort to spot more keenly what she had just saw, as if she could really see it with her eyeballs. But she knew it was there… it wasn't there because her eyes had spotted it-it was there because she felt it! It was there, because, for the first time in many years, she had opened up the door that she locked away with a key she had hidden under books and cleverness.
It was there, coming from Harry… as if Harry himself had spared the key a look and tried to take a peek at what they had both imprisoned.
Harry was looking at her as if he could see it too… and Hermione saw, for an eternal second, that Harry was seeing it too. And she knew it in the desperate, apologetic, comforting, reassuring look that he gave her.
She almost opened her mouth to say something, though a thousand thoughts were in her mind and she hadn't decided which one to act upon.
"Hey you guys!" Fred shouted, poking his head into the porch from the door. "We're gonna cut the cake! What're you waiting for?"
When Hermione jumped out of her reverie, she started to tell herself that it couldn't be true, that it had been a delusion of her troubled mind. She hadn't been very coherent that day; that had been it.
She didn't react when Harry let go of her hand, and she ignored the confused look in his eyes. She barely registered how she got up and told Harry to go in; she registered, as a vague and swift memory, going inside the house. She never remembered what Charlie's birthday cake was made of, or what colour it had.
Monday morning came and she remembered very little of the sleepless night she spent in her bed, looking sideways at Ron every now and then.
But she couldn't forget it.
Hermione got up and showered and ate breakfast and talked in barely civil terms to Ron. She dressed and brushed her teeth and waved goodbye to Ron as he told her he was leaving. She walked to the parking lot downstairs and drove to work. And she couldn't remember having done any of those things when she opened the door to her and Harry's office.
A piece of parchment was resting on her desk, on top of a messed pile of books and papers.
"Went to the Hospital. Baby's coming. Come Quickly.
Love,
Helen and Neville"
She hadn't finished reading the note, when a smile spread on her lips. Authentic happiness swelled within her. And, for a moment, the *it* that she hadn't been able to get away from her mind was pushed aside by the happy news.
Before her determination could settle for that thought, she heard the door behind her open and close; and she knew Harry was now in the room.
She didn't allow her determination to hesitate. She turned on her toes and looked at Harry. It was obvious to her that he, just like she did, had not slept a minute. It was clear that he hadn't been able to push the thought away, and that when he looked at his wife he had felt the same strange stab she had felt when looking at Ron.
But they had to make room for something else for a moment.
She looked at him, and, silently told him with her eyes that it was going to have to wait. It was not the time. And fact is, that she didn't wait for a reply, because, fact was, that she was afraid of listening to a reply she hadn't anticipated, or, even worst, the one she, in the back of her own mind, had been secretly expecting.
As soon as she stated her determination with her eyes, she gave him a wide smile.
"What?" he asked. In his voice Hermione heard the same fear that was in her heart, and wondered, for a moment, how come they were both Gryffindors, if they were giving in to fear instead of facing it. But again, she was determined to push *it* away. And, forcing herself to follow the plan, she beamed at him.
"Come!" she said, walking forward and taking his hand. "Helen and Neville are having a baby!"
As if that explained it all, she dragged him to the parking, and opened her car, with the keys that she didn't get the chance to pocket. Harry mechanically sat in the passenger's seat at her left; and it wasn't until she was driving into the packed streets of London, that she was hit by what was happening. They were heading to the muggle hospital were Helen was going to give birth!
Helen was Hermione's cousin. Though they had never been close, after Hermione's dad died of a heart attack five years earlier, Helen had become a strong and steady support for Hermione and her mum.
When the war had ended, both Harry and Hermione had joined the Auror Training Program. One year into their training, the Security and Intelligence Agency of the International Confederation of Wizards contacted them.
When their training was finished, they had been assigned as partners-part of the Division in charge of Infiltration and Stealth. Their work had them, some times, in various places of the world; most of the time, working infiltrated. Sometimes, they went all the way, from infiltrating to catching the bad guys. Other times, it was their job to recognise the scenario and craft a plan that was later followed by Aurors from the Ministry.
That meant that they both had constant communication with the Aurors-and Neville was their usual contact. He'd entered the training program at the same time as they did. He made their perfect counterpart at the Aurors' office.
And, because they worked so closely together, Neville met Helen.
Hermione honestly had to admit that, sometimes, she was very jealous of Helen and Neville. She had always known they had something special, some thing quite unique about them. Something that, beyond different, seemed almost seamless. Not because it was flawless, because it wasn't… but because, in the perfect motion in which their relationship progressed, they seemed to complete each other. And Hermione, if she was true to herself, had to admit that she had never had that.
And that morning, as she walked inside the hospital room, she felt it.
Neville and Helen were sitting on the bed, a small bundle of blankets in Helen's arms.
"Hey!" She greeted happily.
"Sorry," Neville said, looking at them, a smile on his face. "He didn't wait for anyone,"
"Harry, Hermione," Helen said. "Meet Frank. Frank, these are Harry and Hermione, say hi!"
Hermione appreciated the sight in front of her, and she was able to let go of the shield that had been covering her. She felt the emptiness that she had been pretending to overlook, but had always been within her. She allowed her mask to fall off her face, and she saw herself there.
As if she was an observer within someone's memory, she looked at herself standing there in the hospital room. She saw her face as she smiled at Helen and as she talked to them both, apologising for being late. And, looking from a distance, she understood finally and clearly, why she had been jealous of Helen and Neville.
She understood how they were both just Helen and Neville. They didn't hold back, they didn't keep things shut… they didn't measure every little bit that they gave the other, and they didn't walk cautiously around each other, preventing themselves from falling into the unknown.
And she saw, with a piercing pain inside of her, everything she had been trying so hard not to be.
Her eyes watered, and her pulse quickened. She was about to run from the room and throw her shield and armour out the window, when the inevitable happened.
Suddenly and accurately, she felt a strong and familiar hand on her shoulder.
And, if she thought the world had just crumbled… she had been wrong. For it was right there-as she felt Harry's hand on her shoulder-that, for the first time since she was 16, she saw clearly.
And this one time, she couldn't deny it even if she wanted to.
It was there, she felt it, coming out of Harry, and vibrating in the hand that he had on her shoulder. It was there, burning inside of her, like a fire-just as real as it had always been. As real as the room in which they were in. As real as Helen, Neville and Frank in front of her, as clear as the fact that she had purposely blinded her sight.
It was as if time had stopped running on its normal pace, and had suddenly gone slower. And she saw the world around her crash into pieces and rebuild itself into a new one she hadn't seen before. She saw how her mask came off, and she saw, with shooting pain, how the last eight years of her life had been a total and complete lie.
In seconds, Hermione saw her life change in a blur of undefined images that she recognised because she realised that, unconsciously, she always had. She felt a blinding desperation to unravel those images and find an answer that would tell her for how long she had been living on the lie that had been eating her alive without her even noticing.
And the terrifying question popped into her mind in one, impossibly long, second.
Why?
It rang through her mind in a permanent echo that didn't stop when she blinked and realised that time hadn't stopped running on its normal pace. She didn't get the time to wonder where time had gone off to; or how she stood there in the room as she realised all of that-how could her mind understand such a rushed flow of realisations, if they had only happened in a few, very rushed seconds.
Neville was pulling at her arm, asking her to go outside the room with him. She realised that Harry's hand was no longer on her shoulder as they exited the room, Harry following behind her and Neville.
"Hermione," Neville said, closing the door as they stepped into the corridor.
Hermione blinked a few times, consciously aware of the fact that she felt that disturbing, disorienting feeling of being almost drunk, when one can command the body and feel it move, but wonders if it's all really happening.
She tried to focus on Neville, focus on what he was saying-but it was hard, since Neville didn't really appear to be there, his voice sounded distant to her ears. Hermione sent her mind a conscious order, telling it to focus on Neville, but she felt as if her entire self was working in slow motion.
"I need to go home," Neville was saying. "Need to bring Helen a few things she forgot, and-"
"I'll stay with her," Hermione interrupted, blinking intentionally hard to settle her mind.
"I won't take long," Neville hurried to say. "I know you guys have to be in Paris this evening."
"Oh… I… oh!" Hermione muttered, running her fingers through her hair, sighing. She had forgotten about Paris completely. She hadn't packed and her office had a ton of paperwork waiting to get done before she'd leave. "It… will be alright, I'll stay. We have a few hours left, and it's not like you'll be gone until tomorrow, right?"
Neville stepped forward and kissed her cheek.
"You're an angel, you know that?" He then turned to look at Harry, and it wasn't until then that Hermione considered that Harry was having the same strange feeling that she was trying to fight. As soon as she took into account that Harry, standing behind her, had had the same realisation that she had endured, the funny feeling of being unconscious left her.
"She's an angel!" Neville told Harry. "I won't take long!" he said, opening the door again and going in. "I'll tell Helen."
Neville didn't realise what he had just done. But he had left the crouching tiger and the hidden dragon to face each other, with nothing standing between them to crouch or hide under.
Hermione was looking at the floor, as if it was very interesting to analyse where her shoes met the floor. She sighed a very deep sigh that felt as if it had been trapped a lifetime, which it probably had. She let her head fall forward and closed her eyes, as she tried to catch her breath.
When had it started to be so hard to breathe? When had her hands started to sweat? When had she stopped feeling her legs?
When did she start to feel as if she had just woken up from a very long sleep?
The silence hung between them, holding on to the last bits of time it had left. Though Hermione wished to end it, she didn't. For she felt, in the silence, that eventually it was going to be ended, because finally, they weren't going to run anymore. That road had ended.
And, if she had any doubts, they were swept away when Harry took matters into his hands and finished with the silence.
"Where do we go from here?" he asked in one steady, firm voice.
Hermione raised her head, opening her eyes as she did so. She turned slowly, to look at Harry behind her. First, she turned her head, and then her torso, moving her feet until she was almost there.
She saw, in Harry's eyes, that they didn't need to speak about anything. He was quietly asking her to reassure him.
I know you felt it.
And Hermione found her own reassurance in the pleading in Harry's eyes. So she gave him hers with her own eyes.
I did. I know you did too.
What now?
Harry didn't move, or say anything. But his eyes gave her a smile that wasn't on his face.
Hermione consciously placed a smile of her own in her eyes and gave it to Harry.
Something came between them for a second. Something that Hermione knew well, even if she had never acknowledged it before.
The Line.
And, it surprised her that she hadn't ever recognised its presence there, not even when they had chosen to move its position and draw it in a spot that separated them even further.
She wanted to erase it, and never see it again. She felt like crying and pulling at her hair and laughing. She looked at Harry and she saw the same need in his eyes. She was going to step forwards and sod the line.
"Hermione!"
Hermione jumped at the sound of her name, being spoken at her back. Her eyes opened wide at Harry and she didn't say a word.
"You are the best!" Neville said, placing his hand on her shoulder. Hermione caught her breath, unbeknownst to her that she hadn't been breathing. He turned to Harry: "You're staying?"
Harry looked at her, and she knew he had to leave. He had to go and do their paperwork so she could stay and then go to Paris. She gave him a quiet and subtle nod.
"I'm going," he said to Neville. "Have stuff to get ready." He now turned his attention to her. He bent and kissed her temple, his cheek lingering against hers as he whispered in her ear. "I'll see you in Paris."
"Okay," she whispered back in an almost inaudible voice.
Harry straightened up and looked at Neville. Neville smiled at Hermione as he walked down the corridor. Harry looked at her and his eyes remained on her until Neville was almost turning right towards the exit. Then, he turned around and sped up after Neville. He went round the right corner and she didn't see him anymore.
Hermione took a deep breath and opened the door. Inside, a nurse was taking Frank out of the room. She smiled at Hermione and left. Hermione looked at Helen as she closed the door that she held open until the nurse went out.
Helen smiled, and it was as if suddenly, all her defences had gone down. Her hands began to shake, and she couldn't feel her legs.
She thought that this was Helen, and she had just had a baby, and she, Hermione, couldn't go freaking Helen out, she had a baby just hours ago!
Calm yourself, she told herself. You can't freak Helen out just because you're freaked out. Get a grip, Hermione!
"What are you waiting for?" Helen said in a steady voice, her smile imperturbable.
"For what?" Hermione asked, slightly taken aback. Her eyes wide and her thoughts suddenly stopped.
"Cast a Silencing Charm and then tell me what happens to you," she answered imperiously.
"Helen, I-"
"Hermione I just had a baby!" she said, near the edge of irritation. "I know something is going on with you, and I know it's a big thing; trust me, I wouldn't be asking you if I couldn't tell it wasn't."
Hermione's lower lip trembled. She should have known better. Taking a deep breath, she took out her wand and cast the Silencing Charm without speaking. She turned to Helen, but she didn't know where to start. What was really going on with her? Where did it all start?
"Are you going to tell me what happened to you, or do I have to guess?" Helen said, raising one eyebrow.
"I don't know what it's…" she cut herself off. She had every intention of talking with Helen, but, once again, she didn't know where to start.
"Hermione, what-"
"How do you say?" Hermione interrupted Helen. She didn't know where to start? So be it. "How do you say, I've been fooling myself into a delusion that has ruled my life for eight years?"
Helen frowned, clearly puzzled.
Hermione felt a tear roll down her cheek. Emotion overtook her and she tried hard to bite it back, the effort to keep herself from breaking down right there, becoming a burden that felt much too heavy.
She directed her eyes right at Helen, who was expectantly waiting for her to speak. She knew this was going to kill her, but she couldn't fight it back, and the words were out before she knew it.
"I'm in love with Harry!" she said as the tears began to roll down her cheeks. Much too suddenly, she only saw the outline of Helen and the bed and the window behind it. She blinked as the words she had just spoken hit her. "Oh God! Helen… I just realised!"
Her hands went to her head, and she pressed her palms against her temples, as if afraid her head was going to explode, to fall on the floor, detached from her body by the slicing ache of her realization. She ran her fingers up and through her hair, pulling it down with her hands.
"Hermione," Helen said in an anguished whisper.
Hermione tried to look at her, but her eyes were full of tears and she couldn't find her face in the blur. She realised her hands were on top of her chest, her fingers curling as if she could grab the heart that was speeding up within, and where she felt a sharp pain.
"Helen," Hermione mouthed as she tried to breathe, completely unable to stop the tears that she felt she was drowning in. "I can't breathe! Helen! I can't breathe! Oh God!"
She let go of it completely. She started sobbing, one hand on top of her chest, still trying to grab her heart from the outside, the other covering her mouth as if to quiet the sobs.
She walked unconsciously over to Helen's bed, not completely aware of where she was going. She leaned against the footboard of the bed.
"Hermione!" Helen was crying at her in a tortured voice. She extended her arms and Hermione leaned into her embrace.
"God!" She sobbed against Helen. "No! God! Helen… Why? What happened to us?"
Hermione didn't expect Helen to answer, but she felt a pivotal need to cry out the questions that had been eating at her since the afternoon of the past day.
She wrapped her arms around Helen, forgetting the bit about not wanting to freak her out. Hermione needed to cry her heart out-shattering sobs coming out of her throat-and she simply couldn't do a thing to keep them inside.
Helen was stroking her back softly, murmuring in her ear, trying to soothe her… but Hermione couldn't stop. She felt a pressing ache in her chest, and a horrendous swelling in her lungs, as if air couldn't reach her lungs properly, which she thought was probably happening.
"Hermione, please!" Helen shrieked. "You're going to hyperventilate!"
Hermione tried desperately to take a breath, but she couldn't stop bawling. She closed her eyes and made up her mind. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath.
She separated from Helen and sat on the edge of her bed. She stopped sobbing, but her eyes were still filled with tears, and those tears still rolled down her cheeks.
"Helen…" she started, her eyes were staring past Helen and lost on the window at her back. "I don't understand… what, what happened?" she asked in a whisper, again, not expecting an answer. "Why didn't we… see?"
"I…" Helen started. Something occurred to Hermione and she focused on Helen.
"Did you know?" she asked Helen, her eyes wide. Helen said nothing, she stared at Hermione. "Helen, tell me!"
"I always wondered…" she said, sighing. "Why it… it wasn't you and Harry in the end?"
Hermione opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it. She actually had nothing to say, she realised she had opened her mouth in disbelief. It seemed unreal that someone would have thought about she and Harry, and that she, Hermione, hadn't.
She closed her mouth and lowered her head, staring at the sheets on Helen's bed.
"Go on," she whispered.
Helen placed her hand on top of Hermione's. She sighed before she spoke.
"It's just…" she hesitated, trying to find the right words. "It always appeared to me as if you and Harry… well, had something special… something that you and Ron never… something like me and Neville!"
Hermione saw her vision cloud again. Helen went on.
"And… you were always there… and, Neville has told me… all the stuff you two did, and it made sense… and I could never explain it… why, why would Harry rescue you from that troll if you weren't even friends?" She finished, looking up at Hermione expectantly. But Hermione wasn't paying attention anymore.
Helen's words had hit something in her. They had triggered a memory to play itself inside Hermione's mind, like a movie. And, suddenly, completely out of nowhere, she remembered. Where, when and how the lie had started.
"Hermione?"
"I remember…" she whispered, again, feeling the difficult to breathe. "Helen I remember why… and when and where… and how," the tears were rolling again, and she knew that soon, she was going to be sobbing.
"What?" Helen whispered.
"Everything you said…" Hermione whispered absently, as if she had taken Veritaserum. "You're right… it makes sense… but I remember," she held back a sob as the memory replayed in her mind. "I remember the day we thought we could let it die."
Hermione got up and walked to the wall on the right of Helen's bed. She did remember, with excruciating detail, she did.
She felt the sobs attempting to overtake her again, but she had to let it all out.
"Summer," she whispered, again in the absent voice that sounded hollow, even to herself. "Before sixth year…" A sob escaped her and she placed her palm against the wall for support. "We were at The Burrow… and he told me."
"What?"
"And we let it come between us."
"Hermione, what-"
"He looked at me…" Hermione couldn't believe she had really stopped thinking about that one, crucial and agonizing moment of detour. She wept again, in the same helpless way in which she had done moments ago.
"He told me about it and he looked at me… and, I… I… he didn't say anything, but I knew! I knew he needed it. And, I… agreed! I… didn't say a word,"
"Can you please explain-"
"Voldemort," she said in a harsh, determined voice.
"Voldemort?" Helen asked, confused.
"That morning," she said, turning to Helen. She had controlled the sobbing again. "Harry told me about the prophecy. I had told myself, over and over, that… whatever it was, I was going to stay where I was… I wasn't going to let it come between us."
She turned to the wall. She sighed deeply, and again, she felt as if the sigh she was letting out had been contained within her since that morning, eight years ago.
"But he told me, and we exchanged looks…" she paused, anticipating the cry that she felt building up inside of her. "And his look… he asked me to keep it… it wasn't going to be easy, and…" the pain in her chest pierced at her, as she replayed the moment, and Harry's look. She remembered with a painfully precise detail.
"I would have done anything… Anything to help him!" Her cries echoed all around the room, and it had been a good thing that Helen had asked her to cast a Silencing charm, because her cries pierced her own ears. "And… he needed to let his mind control his feelings… I know that's how he did it!"
Hermione didn't understand how she kept talking with the pain in her chest and the tears rolling, and the lack of breath, but, she spared a moment to thank her determination as she controlled the sobbing for a moment.
"Do you see, Helen?" she whispered to the wall, wondering if Helen could listen. "He… we, cut a piece out of the picture that morning! … we… we, let it go! … so he could chase the moment, when it will be better and he… when he looked at me-" A sob came out of her throat and she tried to hold it back as she remembered what she had shut behind a scar in her heart so she wouldn't remember.
"He told me he couldn't give me everything… and, we," she was openly crying again, her cries felt desperate and hopeless. "We couldn't… he couldn't… and I wanted to refuse… but I couldn't… he needed me, and he needed me behind The Line!"
Hermione leaned against the wall; her cries now overpowered her and she felt she couldn't hold herself up.
"I got a black eye that morning!" She cried helplessly, the aching memory felt like a heavy weight in her chest. "And it didn't matter that it got cleared up… because I never saw again!"
She turned to look at Helen, although, again, she couldn't really see. She knew Helen was crying. She wished it hadn't been like that. She wished it so badly that it hurt.
"Why?" She moaned. "Why did we let it come between us? Why didn't I say anything? Why did I agree? Why? Helen!" Hermione was shouting to the room. Everything ached within her. From her throbbing throat to her shaking hands. "Why did we let it come between us? It wasn't worth it!"
She was pulling at her hair again, desperation trying hopelessly to get drained through her hands. Her hair didn't hurt as it should have, there was only the desperation, the tears streaming down her face. The unfair pain that reminded her of what they had lost. The time they had lost.
"How come we never looked back?" Suddenly, Hermione remembered a series of moments, and the pain within her intensified with a strength.
"There were times…" She whispered. Then the feeling overtook her and she was speaking through her cries. "He would give me a look… and I… GOD! … I wished to act upon it! I… wished to shake it out of us… and the first time!" Hermione hid her face in her hands in a rushed manner, and then, just as quickly, uncovered her face. "The first time he left me to go face it… for the first time, I saw him leave and… I couldn't help it!"
Hermione realised she couldn't feel her legs and that her knees were bending, and she couldn't do a thing as the painful liberation flowed out of her.
"I looked at him!" She howled. "I gave him the look and asked him to reconsider before he left… I didn't say anything… I looked at him… and he…" Hermione was remembering this as she spoke, and that one, particular painful moment, stabbed her in the chest, as it had done the first time. "He said…GOD!" She yelled. She doubted she was praying, but it seemed to flow out of her naturally in the middle of her unexpected catharsis.
"He said… he said 'Don't look like that Hermione!'" Hermione had never fainted, but she felt close to loosing all self control. She remembered the moment with a sickening accuracy. She remembered looking at Harry with wide eyes, and seeing how Harry refused to see what she was showing him in her eyes. And how he walked away, that first time; the first time she saw him leave to start it. The beginning of the end for his mission, but the end of the beginning for them.
Hermione made an effort to control her legs and walked to the bed. She sat on the edge, and then felt Helen's arms on her shoulders, embracing her from behind.
"Why did you marry him, Hermione?" She said between her own sobs.
"Helen!" Hermione said, turning around and facing Helen, who backed away a little bit. "What do you do when a man you love kneels in the middle of a street and offers you a ring?"
"You love him?" She asked, frowning.
Hermione fell silent. A warm tear was falling out of her right eye right at that moment. She had to pause to think. That, she knew, was not a good start.
"I do," she said finally. "I did… he was the guy there, telling me it'll be fine, that Harry would come back in one piece…" she looked into Helen's eyes, almost begging her to approve what she had thought. "It was never like Harry, but how do you not love that?"
"Hermione…"
"I know!" Hermione got up from the bed again and walked to face the door. "I know it wasn't right! But… don't you see? Nothing of what we did from that day was right… it was all…" She sighed as she anticipated the word that was to come out of her mouth. "Easy."
"But Hermione," Helen insisted. "The war ended! Why didn't you go back at it then?"
Hermione closed her eyes, lowering her head. She knew the answer to what Helen had asked her. But it wasn't just painful to admit it… it was so unfair… it had been so unfair.
"Because it takes all your strength to crawl out when you've been buried alive…" She sighed as she turned around and looked at Helen. "And the bloody war sucked it all out of us!"
Hermione lowered her head as silent tears fell from her eyes. The terrible realisation, and what was worst, the most rightness of it; felt horrendously heavy on her. She needed to shake it all off.
"I didn't…" Hermione tried to whisper. "Never wanted him to be anything other than who he is… but… it was so unfair on him, and on us… that I never blamed him."
The feeling of being almost over the edge of her consciousness came back, and Hermione felt dizzy at the thought that was tormenting her. She raised her head and directed her eyes to where she saw the outline of Helen.
"I would have done anything…" She said, the tears streaming down once again. "And I did… I let him undo the picture…" She sobbed, now she couldn't care less about trying to hold back. "I thought we could leave it behind! I never knew… I…" Again, her legs were betraying her and she felt herself slowly bending, and she didn't fear the fall… she knew she was grabbing at consciousness because of her determination. "I didn't stop to think it would come after us! I would have done anything to help him… and…" She covered her mouth again, in a subconscious attempt to shut out what she was saying. "AND WHEN HE KISSED HER I SMILED AT HIM!"
And then she couldn't hold herself up anymore, and she was only inches from falling into the floor, when she felt a pair of strong arms around her pulling her up, supporting her against him and allowing her to lean against him and weep in his shoulder.
She had rescued him many times. She had wrapped her arms around him in a thousand metaphors and had lifted him up many times, from many different floors. She had never expected any payback from him; but right then, Hermione thanked whatever God there was for having Neville in her life.
"Why?" She cried against his shoulder. "Neville, why did we let it come between us? Why didn't we hold to it? Why did it come between us? Why? It was not worth it!" she wrapped her shaking arms around his back, and poured it all out. All the desperation, all the pain, all the frustration, and he kept her wrapped in a firm hug, supporting her, in a way that reminded them of how she had supported him when they were younger, and back in the days when she and Harry were their true selves.
It was then that it hit Hermione that it simply couldn't have been any other way: Neville knew.
"You knew!" she cried. "Neville, you knew! Why? You saw it as it fell between us! Why did we do it? Why didn't you make us do something?"
"Because," he whispered against her hair. He took her by her shoulders and made her look at him. "You wouldn't be looking at freedom, if you hadn't been imprisoned."
Credits:
-The lines "There is nothing gone, but there's something wrong" and "There is nothing gone, but there's something missing" Both come from Hanson's song Underneath
-The line "What do you do if a man you love kneels in the middle of the street and offers you a ring?" is a rephrase from a line by Carrie in Sex and the City.
I collect quotes, so, if I used another that you recognise as not mine, then it probably isn't! Let me know, so I can credit it.