Art of Dark

Strung-out On Art

By GracieInGreek

Harry was completely strung out.

 

From what, exactly?

 

Well...a piece of art.

 

Turning on his side, Harry looked at the girl unconscious next to him. Her white body was half-covered by a blanket that stopped below her hips, and both of her arms had tucked themselves up under the black silk of her pillow case. Her curls had twisted and knotted at the top of her head when she herself had been twisting in that very spot the night before, her hands going from her hair to Harry's before slipping under her pillow, exhausted, when she had finished.

 

Harry surveyed every bare inch of her; with her pale and slightly bruised body so stark against their dark sheets, and Herman's favorite cream-colored blanket rippled across her lower stomach and thighs, she looked like a slightly battered statue.

 

His hooded eyes half-drooped, Harry reached out a hand to cup her bare chest before his calloused fingers traveled up; passed her white collar bone, over the finger prints he'd left on her neck last night, and up her chin. His thumb slid across her bottom lip, and he smiled a little, taking in the whole sight of her.

 

He'd always wanted to make love to the Venus De Milo.

 

The war had left Harry with nothing but his twisted body and torn soul. He was darker than he had ever been, more crazed and sane at the exact same time. His skin had been burned, scarred, bruised, and broken and the very core of him, despite the victory, was left in pieces.

 

It didn't matter what any body said or what his destiny might have been. Harry would, for the rest of his life, just know that he had not been meant for killing. Despite his goodness--now, having lost it, he knew he had been good--the killing had done something to him. It wasn't natural to see death, or cause death.

 

And it couldn't have been much more natural to be one of the few--one of the only--to survive death. Yes, Harry was very sure that he had died there for a second.

 

Hermione's brown eyes were open--they didn't flutter or blink or search or adjust when they opened, anymore. One second you would be watching her sleeping face, and the next they would be wide and watching you. She was very awake when she was awake, now.

 

She had survived death too. That's what she'd said, anyway; that when she saw Harry empty, for that moment, devoid of life, she had died too. And then woken up to fight with him, and then fallen back asleep when they'd survived. When he'd survived--when he had won.

That's what she told him, anyway.

Today she was awake a lot, now that they were surviving together.

She said it was so she could always make sure she was awake when he was awake. That that's the way it was going to work, from now on.

 

...The war had changed Hermione too.

 

But Harry was still amazed by her. They had both lost so much in the battle, in the war itself. They had both lost Ron, the Weasley's, all of the Order--Hermione had lost her parents. Hogwarts had been knocked to the ground.

 

The Wizarding World itself had also survived, though. Technically--it was surreal to Harry that it was still functioning and buzzing and living somewhere, because they were so far away from it now.

The Wizarding community had been grateful to Harry for saving them; they had been ready to re-embrace him as their figure head, their savior, their Hero. But the change in Harry--the change in both of them, Harry and the girl that always had him attached to her side--had not escaped their attention. And they didn't know what to do with it; it was too strange, too heavy, too large a dose of more darkness when all they were ready for was celebration and an attempt at normalcy.

 

They had thanked Harry and given him tight smiles. But, with careful words and without, they had asked him to leave. He couldn't really blame them; he had seen, caused, and survived death, and it had changed him. He wasn't what he had been, and even he didn't want himself around any more.

 

That's how Hermione had amazed him. She'd grabbed on to him, with both hands, and whether she knew it or not had saved him from falling over the edge completely. It was an edge he had flirted with and gotten to know and had cost him his home. Hermione had actually seemed to be acquainted with the edge herself, but with more strength than Harry would ever have again, she had tugged them both away from it.

 

He really had thought, at the end of the war, that she was going to leave him too.

 

Hell, he would have left him. He certainly wouldn't have blamed her for doing the same. He'd almost forced her to--when she'd grabbed on to him so tightly, he'd first tried to push her away because he knew he'd be bad for her. He wasn't who he had been, he wasn't right, he'd been changed, he was darker, he...just wasn't good for her. She should get away, fast--go on, shoo. Run while you can, before he starts holding on to you, too.

 

But she didn't. She seemed as abused and changed and strung out from the whole ordeal as he did, but she also seemed sure that they both weren't insane. It floored the rational and more crazed sides of Harry--no, she wasn't normal. She never had been.

 

They still had each other. Something to focus on and hold and live for, she had said. How could they be insane?

 

...Well, the rest of the world thought they were, obviously, but they weren't. They were just changed, was all.

 

It scared Harry, that Hermione was so much darker--he loved her and needed her, but she was--and yet still so rational and sure. They were her new mission. They were each other's new mission.

 

So, they were left with only one another. They didn't need much; it seemed very difficult to get attached to material things or even other people these days. They lived simply and reclusively, and yet...neither of them were completely fixed. They never would be. But they were better, more complete, less wandering then they would have been without each other.

 

Harry knew all of this, and he knew Hermione did too. She was the one who kept him connected with most of it.

 

But as good as they were for each other, they were still darker people. They couldn't help it. They had killed and seen things and survived something awful--and, in all actuality, it hadn't left them very gentle.

 

They loved each other, yes. But they loved each other very hard. They held on very hard. They bruised each other. Both literally, and figuratively.

 

They made love, and they fought. They hurt each other--again, literally--and they just loved.

And each of these things seemed to be interconnected. One led to another.

 

Hermione was still so much better and more amazing than him, in every way. But that didn't stop both of them from being rough. Around the edges, on the inside...More barbaric, one might say. But just a little.

 

Yet, after--like after a night like last night--it left their bodies bruised and their minds a little more clear. They weren't insane. They knew exactly what they were doing here. They knew exactly how they were living, why they were living it, and what they were to each other. This is what kept them sane.

 

They would have never been able to function out in the world of forced normalcy, with all the others, trying to pretend what happened didn't happen. That's what would have driven them insane.

But neither of them could have functioned alone, either--Harry never could have, he would drive his own head in.

He hadn't known any of that at first, just after the war had ended and he was still trying to figure out which pieces of himself he still had.

But Hermione knew. She had known from the moment the 'new' world started--and she says that it started from the moment Harry had saved them all--and she grabbed on to him with everything she had left.

It amazed Harry. Hermione couldn't have ever, ever been normal--no, the war hadn't done this to her. She had been a work of art from the very beginning.

 

She was so much stronger than him. Yet she still insisted that it was he who kept her together, not the other way around, you silly twit.

 

Hermione's own mouth curved into a slow smile, still under Harry's fingers, to see him watching and smiling at her. It wasn't the first time she'd woken up to find him looking at her in amazement.

 

"Mmm...” she said, starting to roll her stiff shoulder. She winced, slightly, her drawn, dark-circled eyes (they both looked like that all the time, now--it was to be expected, as they were always getting strung out on each other, the only stimulant they had--) closing for a second. Of course, they quickly opened again. "Ow...Mm, I can't move."

 

Harry's tender, crack-lipped smile turned slightly more predatory, his hand traveling right back down her neck again, through pale valley of her bare breasts and down her slightly discolored stomach--it disappeared below her navel, slipping under the blanket. He pressed his face, nose rubbing against her ear, into her neck and cheek as he watched her eyes--so wide and studying lately--lull back. "Well," he half-growled, half-chuckled, "that's very good for me, then...one can do whatever they want to a statue."

 

It must have been something in his voice that made Hermione pause a second, her eyes alerting again just for a moment as she surveyed herself, looking down and up--then she smiled again, slowly, letting her eyes fall back closed as Harry's hand under the blanket twitched.

"Well, I wouldn't be able to stop you," she murmured, lightly biting Harry's lip when he started to kiss her. "I've got no arms."

 

"You've got everything."

 

Eyes still closed, Hermione kissed him fully--and all of Harry's pondering about their past, memories of the war, and every bad dream from the nights and years before melted away as his free hand went up under her neck as he rolled his body onto hers. Hermione's arms stayed under the pillow the whole time.

 

Hours, days, months, and years later, as mornings like this repeat themselves and elude them, Harry would know. They weren't insane.

 

And Hermione had never been normal.

 

She was a work of art from the beginning.

-->