For All Eternity

Her hand reached out for him. She knew he was there somewhere in the dark in front of her. She could feel him at the tips of her fingers but he wasn't coming any closer, not into her view. She could hear him shuffling around, sidestepping her advances. "Harry?", she called. "Harry I know you're there." Hermione regretted these words the moment she said them. The instant she finished her sentence Harry did come into view. He was as pale as a sheet and the skin on his face looked almost stretched so she could see every bone in his face. He had blood trickling slowly out of his mouth. He had his glasses on but his eyes were gray and glossy, as if he were......

"DEAD!" Hermione screamed as she sat bolt upright in her bed. The sheets were twisted and tangled all about her and she felt almost trapped...trapped in a nightmare. Trapped in the cold stare of Harry's dead, glassy eyes. She was soaked in sweat and her pajamas clung uncomfortably to her body. Her hair, instead of the bushy mess it usually was, hung about her head in damp ringlets. She was breathing so hard that her chest hurt and felt almost as if her ribs would give way and her lungs would cave in on her. She couldn't get the image of Harry out of her head. The horrific nightmare kept replaying itself in her mind over and over again. The blood, his eyes....

"Hermione?", a soft, feminine voice asked. Hermione jumped, ready to grab her wand and curse whoever the person was into oblivion. Lavender Brown was standing next to her with a very worried and confused look on her face. "Are you okay?", she asked cautiously, knowing full well that her friend was anything but okay..

"Yeah, I suppose," Hermione said unconvincingly. Lavender sat on the side of the bed as Hermione proceeded to try and untangle herself from her prison of sheets.

"Did you have that dream again?", she asked. Hermione sighed and simply nodded. She had been having the same dream for the past year, ever since the day after they finished their last year at Hogwarts. "You know Hermione, it's been a year, you really ought to let him go," Lavender said, wanting to take the words back the moment they slipped from her mouth.

A look of utter disgust crossed Hermione's face. She flung her legs out of bed angrily and stood up straight. "You know, Lavender, if the Dark Lord took your precious Won Won with him I am sure you wouldn't let him go so easily." Hermione paused leaning just a little bit closer to Lavender's face. "Would you?" Lavender opened her mouth to say something but shut it soon after, thinking better of it. "I didn't think so," Hermione huffed as she turned to head for her bathroom.

Once she had finished school and with Harry's passing, Hermione had moved in with Ron, Lavender, and Ginny, even though four days after moving in together Ginny disappeared. Some say she killed herself at the loss of the rest of her family...her mother, her father, and all of her brothers except George. Ron, however, was dead convinced that she had run away with Draco Malfoy. This didn't help Hermione in the least, seeing Ron and Lavender being happy with each other and having no one else to talk to. So she would sit in her room sleeping, crying, or remembering her last wonderful year with beloved Harry.

They had started to realize their feelings for each other halfway through the summer holidays. One night, after a particularly long day of researching horcruxs,. Harry had found Hermione in the library of number 12 Grimmauld Place reading a muggle novel by Stephen King. He had quietly walked up behind the large cozy red chair and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Hermione jumped and screamed at the top of her lungs while Harry laughed and apologized while he sat down on the floor in front of her. They had talked for nearly three hours before Harry leaned in and kissed her. It felt as if fireworks had gone off all around them while sparks ignited into a roaring fire and a true love was born. After that they never spent a moment, or a night, apart.

Hermione was in her bathroom looking at her self in the mirror. She looked as if she had aged ten years in just one. She smiled weakly at the memory as she looked down at her hands turning on the water in the basin. She remembered the first time they had made love and it caused Hermione's heart to flutter. It was after they had started back at Hogwarts for their final year. They had gone down to the lake one warm October night to celebrate Harry's recent Quidditch victory. They had been talking as usual by the large oak when Harry had pulled out a small gold band from his pocket and asked her to marry him. How could she say no? Harry kissed her deeply and made love to her under the stars covered by his invisiblity cloak. They stayed there for most of the night, until they were sure that almost everyone in the castle was asleep. They discussed the wedding, what Hermione wanted and how she had always imagined her dream wedding to be. They talked about family and how wonderful it would be to have a family of their own and grow old together.

Hermione looked at herself in the mirror, her face damp from splashing it with cold water. She could clearly see the tears cutting through the water that glistened on her face. Why did he have to be so brave? Why did he risk his life and leave her? Why would he make a promise he couldn't keep? She looked down at the small gold band that still resided on her left ring finger. `Why?'

She opened the medicine cabinet in front of her. She quickly glanced over all the bottles that littered the shelves in front of her. Sleeping pills, antidepressants, some random vitamins and other idiotic muggle ways to try to fight her growing depression. Brief glimpses of memories flooded her brain... a sweet romantic candle lit dinner in Hogsmeade for Valentines day...a hot encounter in the astronomy tower...what seemed like silly teen wedding planning at the time, since they both knew it was kinda far off...laying on the grass, staring up at the stars and just enjoying being wrapped in each others arms...sitting in the common room with her head on his lap, reading books while he gently ran his fingers through her hair...comforting him when his nightmares had become too intense to ignore. Her body began to shake with the sobs that tore through her chest. Her legs couldn't hold her up anymore so she slumped down to the ground, her back pressed firmly against the bathroom door with her knees drawn tightly up to her chest, her arms holding them there forcefully. She rocked back and forth, crying and screaming at the heavens to any Gods or other higher powers that could hear her. Harry's dead pale face flashed again in front of her open eyes, causing her to scream, "NOOO!!", as she slid sideways to the floor, curled up in the fetal position.

She heard Lavender run up to the door. "Hermione? Hermione? Please answer me. Are you ok?" Her voice sounded petrified, as if this was something that had lingered in the back of her mind. Like some crouching demon waiting planing to strike at just the right moment, when she was least expecting it. "Hermione you need to open the door," she pleaded, praying that Hermione would do as she requested as Hermione listened to her moving around on the other side of the door. She had gotten low and quiet, pressing her ear to the door so that she could hear the sounds of Hermione's sobs. "We can talk, just you and me."

Those words sent Hermione to a place she would seriously rather not go. After Harry's death Hermione did have a few appointments at St. Mungo's to try and find a potion to get her out of the dull depressed funk she was in. Though, Hermione knew with every fiber of her being that there was no magic, no potion, no spell that could cure a truly broken heart. Her parents, being muggles, sent her to what she considered many bad therapists. They knew nothing of the magical world so they thought her fiance had passed in a car crash. The had prescribed her drug after drug and Hermione refused to take anything that they prescribed. She kept them stored in her medicine cabinet. She never wanted anything to dull the few and precious memories she had of Harry. She wanted them vivid and clear, just as the day they had created them.

Hermione continued to lay curled up in a ball, sobbing on the floor. The bottles that cluttered her medicine cabinet flashed in her mind. She had thought about it many times...she wanted to be with him and she wanted to go to that place where she knew he was; a place full of love and happiness. Lavender continued to talk on the other side of the closed door, but her words fell upon deaf ears. Hermione's mind wandered again... she and Harry had just finished the last of their exams at Hogwarts and were discussing the wonderful life that lay ahead of them after school. Hermione was wrapped in Harry's arms...oh, how she loved to be there, where she felt so warm and protected. Hermione looked deep in to Harry's eyes as she asked, "You'll love me forever, right?"

Harry looked almost taken aback by her question, like he couldn't believe she was asking him such a question. Slowly his face changed and his most charming smile spread across his lips. "No," he simply replied.

Hermione felt as if she were going to cry. The man she had loved for as long as she could remember had just told her he wouldn't love her forever. "What?", she asked, her voice wavered, wanting to give in to the tears she held at bay.

"No," he repeated, and then paused with that damn smile still on his face. "No, I will not love you forever." As her eyes filled with tears the smile that had graced his face vanished .He reached out and gently caressed her cheek, his mood solemn, while looking at her with a very serious expression on his face and said, "I will love you for all eternity."

Hermione heard Lavender calling and screaming frantically for Ron. She knew the time she had to do anything was dwindling quickly as she lay on the floor with tears still falling from her puffy, bloodshot eyes. She stood and winced at the pain that started in her chest and shot through her entire body. She flung the medicine cabinet open, the glass of it shattering and falling to the floor as she heard Lavender scream, "RON GET IN HERE NOW!"

Harry flashed in front of her again. Not the dead Harry, but the dying Harry; the one who had finally defeated Voldemort and saved the entire magical world. His damaged body laid on the ground, unmoving and barely breathing, his wand broken at his side. Hermione ran for him as everyone tried to hold her back.

"Hermione, no! You don't need to see him like that," Lupin had breathed in her ear.

"I HAVE TO!!!", she screamed as she wrenched her arms from his grasp. She flung herself down onto the ground next to him, her body still aching, cut, and bleeding from the battle. "Harry?", she whispered. His eyes were closed and he looked so pale; he was barely breathing. "Harry?", she called again, a little louder.

Harry's eyes fluttered open as he asked in a quiet, raspy voice, "Hermione?" Hermione began to shake with hope. `He's going to make it, he has to make it,' she thought.

Hermione took a bottle from the shelf in her cabinet. It was full of about one hundred and fifty little blue and green pills. They had been given to her from one of her damn muggle therapists. `At least they would be put to good use now,' she thought. She would sleep and be with her Harry once again.

"Hermione? Are you there? I can't hardly see you." Harry's glasses had been broken and he was missing one of the lenses. Hermione carefully removed her wand as she supported his head on her lap. "Oculus Reparo," she quietly whispered and tapped the frame with the tip of her wand. His glasses repaired themself as Harry let a very heavy and blood soaked sigh escape his body.

"I'll have to remember that one," he muttered as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "Hermione, I love you so very much and I want you....."

Hermione stopped him immediately by saying, "No. Don't you dare. Don't you even think of leaving me." She started to rapidly blink her eyes, trying to clear the tears from them as she said, "You are going to make it." She began to gently stroke his cheek and felt that he was very cold and barely hanging on. She could feel her Harry slowly slipping away and her heart hurt with the realization.

"Hermione my time is finished...I-I can't hold on. Merlin knows that I want to... but we will...", he coughed and blood splattered on Hermione's face, but she made no effort to wipe it away. "We will be together..." He took his final breath and as he exhaled he wheezed, "again,." and with that final word he was gone. She felt the last of his life leave his body and float away to a place she couldn't follow. It took Ron, Lupin, Neville, and Dean to pull her away from him.

Hermione heard Ron finally run into the room. He began to pound on the door, screaming for her to let him in. Hermione turned on the basin again. She heard the water flowing from the faucet and she remembered a sound as they dragged her away from Harry. They had pulled her past a beautiful waterfall and she could have sworn she had seen Harry smiling down upon her from within the mist. Putting the bottle of pills to her lips, she tipped it up and felt them slide easily down her throat. She cupped her hand under the water as she heard Lavender screaming at Ron for not having his wand on him after she had screamed for him the way she did. She heard Ron run away as she gulped down the water in her hand. Lavender continued to pound frantically on the door. It was too late. She wanted to die and nothing was going to stop her. "IT'S OVER!" Hermione yelled. "I AM DONE. I CAN'T LET HIM GO AND I CAN'T GO ON! I HAVE TO.....Be......" Her voice began to fade. "with....." Her head began to spin. "him...." Her legs gave way and she fell, crashing to the floor. She felt it and knew it was coming. Nothing was stopping her now; her loneliness and pain would all be gone soon. She heard a crash in the distance. It sounded a hundred miles away even though she knew it was just the bathroom door a few steps away from where she lay. Her vision had become blurry, but she could definitely make out Ron's brilliant red hair.

"Hermione......" His voice gave to a sob that rivaled Hermione's. "Hold on. Please hold on," he begged. Hermione felt it. The same feeling she felt when Harry left her. Ron's hair faded away into a brilliant white light. Hermione felt the floor fall from beneath her. She was free.

As Hermione fell softly into the bright light, her eyes began to focus. She saw ahead of her the dream wedding Harry had always promised her. The ocean view from a cliff, all of the beautiful roses and orchids and all of their dearly departed friends. She looked down to see herself in the beautiful gown she had seen and adored shortly after Harry had proposed to her. She was holding a bouquet of white roses and was walking down the aisle toward Harry. He was wearing the dress robes that she had loved so much. The one with emerald accents that brought out his eyes.

She reached him...she couldn't believe she was with him again. Hermione looked deep into his eyes, which were no longer white, cloudy and dead, but the stunning emerald color she loved. She tentatively reached out for him and when he took her hand it felt like electricity running through her body. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, "I promised I would be with you again." He pulled away, a smile crossing his lips and Hermione smiled back; God, it felt good to smile again. Gracing him with her smile she could feel the happiness spread through her once again as Harry mouthed, "For all eternity."