Authors' note: This is something I've been toying around with for awhile. I'm not sure on how long this will be but I can tell you how strange it is to write by myself after writing with someone else for so long. I've been working on this for quite some time. I don't know how soon or how often the updates will come, but I will try and be better at it than I was at Drop in the Ocean. I hope you guys will like this and even though this does start off sad, just be patient with me and have faith. You guys really are the best. Please let me know what you think. And inspiration for this came from one of my favorite songs right now, "Far Away" by Nickleback.
Prologue
Okay. This was not exactly how I thought my life would turn out. Not in a million years. I had a set of goals and everything I did was a means to an end. I would be the best student. The best healer. And maybe someday, Minister of Magic.
But, as one of my parents' favourite singers used to say, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." And I never fully appreciated that statement until a fully grown mountain troll crossed my path and I was befriended by two boys I'd written off as complete morons. Well, that's not entirely true. One of them had definite potential. The other one just seemed to exist to drive me completely insane.
But more about that later.
I am not ashamed to say that I am an overachiever. I have been from the moment I was born. I arrived early---two months ahead of my mum's due date. I said my first words and took my first steps way ahead of schedule. I was reading by the time I was three years old and spoke fluent French by the time I was eight. There are numerous pictures of me sitting in my father's study with a book almost as big as me open on my lap. Books were my only friends growing up, next to my parents. I loved getting lost in a story, in the characters. Books opened up a new world to me that fascinated, excited and challenged me.
As you can probably guess, I wasn't very popular in my class. But that was okay with me. At primary school, I concentrated on my studies and helping my teacher. I wasn't concerned with who I would play with at recess. To me, that was a colossal waste of time. So, I would spend my recess sitting on one of the benches reading or writing. And maybe, just maybe, I sometimes looked enviously at the girls in my class and wished that one of them might ask me about my book or if I wanted to join in the game. But, they never did. And that was okay. Really, it was.
I had bigger things to consider. I had better things to do with my time.
I remember one day pulling out my leather bound notebook and writing down the plan for my life. I was going to breeze through primary school and then get acceptance at one of the most prestigious boarding schools in Great Britain. And then, I'd go to University and pursue my dream of being a dentist like my parents.
It was everything I wanted.
But it certainly wasn't how my life turned out.
No, someone had other plans for me.
I can still remember the day I received the letter. My next-door neighbor was having her 11th birthday party and big surprise---I wasn't invited. I'd set outside on the front step watching as some of my schoolmates arrived for the party. Jessica Stillman was a total airhead. I bet they spent the entire party talking about rubbish like dolls and makeup and boys. I didn't understand those things and they certainly didn't interest me. So, let Jessica Stillman and her lemmings have their stupid birthday party. I was going to go to the museum with my father when he came home from his golf game.
I heard the sounds of laughter coming from the Stillman's backyard and rolled my eyes. Well, I'll just go inside and see what my mum was up to ---see if she wanted to play a game of Scrabble. I'd nearly made it to the door when I looked up to see an owl of all things flying toward me. I watched in awe as it deposited a letter at my feet and then perched itself on the railing alongside our porch.
It was a bit early for the post and I wondered if Jessica's parents had hired some sort of animal trainer for their daughter's party and this owl had missed his target. I bent down to pick up the letter and noticed that my name was on the front printed in fancy script. My parents had applied to a number of boarding schools and I wondered if this was the first acceptance letter. With shaking hands, I turned the letter over and saw an unfamiliar seal and a very strange name.
Hogwarts?
By nature, I am a very curious person so I thought there wouldn't be any harm in opening the letter. It was addressed to me, wasn't it? And then I could run into the house and tell my mum the good news.
I took a deep breath and then tore into the envelope. I pulled out the letter and read:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)
Dear Miss Granger,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Please find
enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Okay, this had to be some sort of bad joke. Witches and wizards were things in books and movies. They weren't real things. They weren't real people. I bet Jessica had done this as some evil joke and I bet she and her minions were over there just laughing their heads off about this.
But then, again…this would explain quite a bit.
There'd been a few unexplained events that had happened over the past few years that my parents had just written off to…circumstance; or as my mum liked to say "just one of those things.' There was this one time when I was five years old that I'd wanted to get a piece of my mum's sugar-free candy that she kept in a tin on her desk. I'd tried to get a piece, but she'd decided to put it up on the top shelf so I couldn't reach it. Well, I'd somehow managed to get the tin to come to me. I'd been so awestruck by it; I hadn't even been able to eat a piece of the candy. There were all sorts of small things that happened like that…but…wait.
I wasn't going to be made a fool of by Jessica. I crumpled the letter up and stalked back inside the house. I breezed past my mum into the kitchen and threw the letter in the rubbish bin. Tears were streaming down my face.
Unbeknownst to me, my parents had received a visit a few days back from this Minerva McGonagall who had explained to them all about me and who I truly was. They'd been quite skeptical to say the least, but Professor McGonagall was quite persuasive and patient and she convinced them that this wasn't some ruse. She'd even given them a handful of books that explained all about the Wizarding World.
My mother took my hand and sat me down and told me what was going on and that it wasn't a joke. She said that I was very special and that I had a gift that not too many children had. And if I wanted, I could pursue my life as a witch.
Looking back on that day now, I wonder what would have happened if I'd told her that I didn't want to go to Hogwarts. How would my life have turned out? What would my life have been like had I not met Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley?
But my 11 year old self was wide-eyed and innocent. And she knew exactly what she wanted to do the moment she'd read about this magical world. And I felt that maybe at Hogwarts---I'd finally be home. Maybe there, I'd finally felt like I belonged.
So, I'd told my parents that I wanted to go to Hogwarts and I wanted to be a witch.
And with one lost toad, I met the two boys who would change my life completely.
*********
From the moment I stepped on Platform 9 3/4, I saw that children in the wizarding world weren't that different from the ones in the Muggle world. My fellow students were already pairing off in cliques and no one stepped forward to introduce themselves to me. My new life was already starting out like my old one.
Oh well, I thought, at least I'd be able to re-read Hogwarts: a History on the long train ride. With hugs and kisses and promises to write, I said goodbye to my parents and stepped on the train. People pushed past me as they clamored for empty compartments. It took forever for me to find a seat, but I finally squeezed in with this girl who introduced herself as Susan Bones and a boy who was holding on to a toad and looking out the window.
His name was Neville Longbottom and there wasn't something about him that made you want to be nice to him. He seemed eager to make friends and even though I would have much rather like d to read, I set my book aside and listened to him as he told me all about his toad Trevor. He was about to show us this purple spot on Trevor's back when he looked down and noticed that Trevor was nowhere to be found.
Neville freaked out and Susan and I both tried to calm him down.
"You just had him," I pointed out helpfully. "He couldn't have gone far. We'll split up and look for him."
I told Neville to take the back part of the train and I'd take the middle. Susan volunteered for the front section and off we went.
My opinion of my fellow students wasn't bolstered as I barged into the compartments in my section asking if anyone had seen Neville's toad. Some of those older students could be so crude!
It didn't take me long to finish my section and since Neville seemed to be moving at a snail's pace I decided to help him out. He said that he'd already checked this one compartment in the back, but I told him it couldn't hurt to double check. Before he could protest, I pulled open the door to that compartment. Two boys that looked to be our age were sitting down across from each other. The red-haired boy had his wand poised to perform some sort of spell on that unsuspecting rat on his lap.
And as I look back on it now, I really was rather pushy and full of myself. Needless to say, they didn't have that high an opinion of me upon that first meeting. And as we settled into Hogwarts, I didn't have that high of an opinion of Ron Weasley. He seemed to enjoy talking bad about me and this of course culminated in him saying some derogatory things about me that I happened to overhear; which inadvertently led us to that mountain troll that pretty much set us up as friends for life.
My feelings toward Ron seemed to change during our third year. This was kind of strange since he pretty much drove me insane that year. He accused Crookshanks of killing that rat of his and he hated me for telling McGonagall about Harry's new broom. Excuse me for looking out for my best friend, thank you very much! Excuse me for wanting him to live to see his next birthday!
And don't even get me started on that insanity that happened during the Triwizard Tournament. I can't believe Ron actually believed Harry intentionally put his name in that cup. I mean…I could see where Ron was coming from, but he knew Harry. And he should have believed in his best friend. He came around eventually, but still…
That's always been a sore spot between Ron and Harry. Ron's always thought that Harry had things come so easily to him. And Ron didn't like just being known as Harry Potter's friend. He wanted to stand on his own. It led to some rather tense situations and I tried to play the mediator, but sometimes neither of them wanted to listen to reason. In the great scheme of things, what did it matter? Did it matter who got what first? Ron would invariably tell me that I didn't understand because I wasn't a bloke. Funny he'd say that when he always seemed to treat me like one of the boys. They both seemed to do that, truth be told.
And it was hard when they both started to notice girls. You should have seen the way Ron Weasley acted when Fleur Delacour and the girls from Beauxbatons arrived. He had this dazed look about him. Even if she was part-Veela-come on!
And Harry and…Cho C hang. I cottoned on pretty quickly that he fancied her. And then again, who could blame him? She was pretty, popular and she loved Quidditch just as he did. But I also knew that she fancied Cedric Diggory and that Harry was a little too late. I don't know why, but that fact made me quite happy.
But things changed irrevocably that Fourth Year. Cedric's death set about a chain of events that would be the beginning of the end in more ways than one. Harry and Cho got together during our fifth year and then broke u, in part because she was jealous of my role as Harry's best friend. I felt guilty about that, but I mean, I was his friend long before she came into the picture. And just because he gets a girlfriend, it certainly didn't mean that I was going to stop. We'd been through far too much for that and if she couldn't realize and respect that, well Harry was better off without her.
Fifth year was quite difficult for all of us. I swear if I ever get near Delores Umbridge ever again, I'll …well, I'm still actually plotting my revenge on that horrible woman and the horrible things she did to Harry. Cruel and unusual punishment doesn't even come close to describing it.
Our sixth year at Hogwarts…well, I don't really like to talk about that year. I didn't really feel like myself, to tell you the truth. I did some things that I normally wouldn't dream of doing. Yes, I hated watching Ron with Lavender Brown. He was acting like a complete idiot and snogging her right in the middle of the Common Room in front of everyone! He really was a moron. I couldn't believe I'd wasted any of my time fancying a boy like that.
Yes, I admit it. I did fancy Ron even though for the life of me, I couldn't fathom why. He drove me mad and he didn't understand or respect the things that were important to me. He thought S.P.E.W. was a joke and a complete waste of time. He thought I was mental for spending so much time in the library and he belittled most of the things that were important to me.
But, there was just something about him that drew me to him. And it was nice to have him around to lighten the mood during some really dramatic, dire situations. You could always count on Ron to say or to do something that would make things seem a little less serious, even if it was only for a few precious moments. Harry needed that and so did I.
The three of us had been through so much together that the decision to not go back to school for our final year was made without hesitation. There was no way Ron and I would have left Harry to go through that on his own. He needed us and we would be there for him, no matter how dangerous we knew things could get. This wasn't a game. We weren't 11 years old anymore. This was serious. This was what Harry had been waiting his whole life for; what the entire Wizarding world was counting on.
To tell you the truth, it was something I'd always admired about him. I never told him this and in retrospect, I
really wish I had. He had so much on his young shoulders. The fate of our entire world was in his hands, so to speak.
And he never once backed down. We had a few talks just him and me about what it all meant and how scary it was, but he
never once thought about running away. He was what all of us Gryffindors strive to be. Brave. Courageous. Loyal. I
wanted to be just like him and I hoped that in even a small way, I was.
The hunt for the horcruxes was tiring and it tested not only our strength and endurance, but our friendship. Long days and even longer nights stretched on that summer and we couldn't help getting testy with each other. And it didn't help that Ron was always trying to get me away and ask me about what would happen in the future for us. We weren't guaranteed a tomorrow so how could I even begin to question what the future would hold? I know that he took my hesitation as rejection, but this wasn't the time nor was it the place to discuss it.
And so we agreed, albeit reluctantly on Ron's part, to not examine anything about our relationship until after Voldemort was no longer an issue.
Our search took us to places that I'd never seen before and some places I never wanted to see ever again. There are too many things to go into about each of the items we found and truthfully, they've been discussed over and over again in the newspapers and on the Wireless.
But there was one night that everything changed.
We were in Devonshire and the search had taken its toll on all of us. We'd seen so much and been through things
that no teenagers should have to see. We checked into a small bed and breakfast and barely spoke to each other at
dinner. Harry excused himself half way through the meal to take a kip and Ron went upstairs to take a shower and then
said he'd probably turn in for the night. I decided to try and curl up with a book, something I hadn't had the
opportunity to do in weeks.
But my heart and mind weren't in it and I was restless. I decided to go outside on the porch for some fresh air.
I wasn't surprised to see Harry sitting out there by himself. The wind was blowing through his always messy hair and I couldn't imagine what he must be going through.
"What are you doing out here?" I asked as I stepped outside.
He didn't turn around; he kept his eyes focused straight ahead. "Couldn't sleep."
I knew from his tone of voice that he probably wanted to be left alone and that I should probably go back upstairs and leave him with his thoughts, but I just couldn't.
"Weather's turning cooler now," I remarked as I sat down beside him.
He nodded. "Summer's over."
We didn't say anything to each other for awhile after that. I was too busy thinking of all the things I wanted to say; all the things I wanted to ask. But I didn't want to push. If he wanted to talk, he'd talk. And at least he hadn't stalked away from me and told me to go away.
"I'm sorry," he finally said.
I looked over at him. "For what?"
"You know what for," he replied. "For this. You know where you should be right now? On a train back to Hogwarts. Getting ready to start your last year…serving as Head Girl. Ron should be getting ready for the Quidditch season…planning on all the ways he can sneak food back into the dorm…"
"Harry-"
Harry held up his hand. "I've already lost so much, Hermione. My parents. Dumbledore. Sirius. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you or to Ron. You're my family."
Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at him; as I listened to him.
"You're not going to lose us," I said putting my hand on his arm. "We're going to get through this and we're going to be so pathetically normal and mundane, Harry."
He gave me a wry smile. "You can't promise that, Hermione. You don't know if we're going to be okay."
"I do," I argued. "I have a feeling, Harry."
"You don't believe in Divination."
"No, but I---"
"I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I think it's best that I face what could happen," Harry said looking up at the night sky. "What probably will happen..."
I shook my head. "You're going to be fine. We all will be fine."
Harry squeezed my hand and looked at me. "I don't know what I would do without you. You've been beside me right from the start. I never said thank you and I know I didn't always tell you how much I appreciated it."
He was talking as if he didn't expect to see me ever again. He was talking like he was saying goodbye. My heart plummeted.
"You're my best friend," I said simply, trying to stave off the tears.
"And you're mine," he whispered. "I'd probably have died years ago if it hadn't been for you."
"Harry---"
"It's true," he said giving me that smile of his that he always thought would make me cave.
"I'd do anything to keep you safe," I told him honestly. "You know that. And none of that other stuff matters, Harry. If I'd gone back to school and left you to do this on your own, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate. At least being here with you, I know what's going on and I know how you are."
He gave me a hug and we held each other for what seemed like forever. The tears I'd been holding off fell freely down my cheeks.
"There are some things I'll need to do on my own," he whispered into my ear. "You know I'm right."
I pulled away from him and looked up at him. "We're not going to let you---"
"There are some things that I need to do on my own," he repeated. "And I want to know that if something happens to me, that you and Ron will…that you'll not be sad. That you'll both have full lives and go on to do wonderful things."
"Nothing is going to happen to you," I said firmly.
"Promise me," he said leveling his gaze at me.
"I-I promise."
He gave me another hug and I thought of all the things that I should probably tell him. But, for some reason, I didn't say anything else. I just held onto him, never wanting to let go.
Finally, he pulled away and told me that we should probably go upstairs and get some sleep since we had a big day
tomorrow.
"Okay," I said wiping at my eyes. I made for the door, but he didn't move.
"Harry, aren't you coming?"
"I'll be up in a few minutes," he said turning away from me.
"I'll see you in the morning," I said before walking back inside.
But, I didn't see him in the morning. When Ron and I awoke the next morning, he was gone. There was no note. I guess he figured we didn't need one. He thought that this was a battle he had to face on his own. Ron and I were both angry.
"What are we supposed to do now?" Ron asked sinking down into a chair. "Wait?"
He looked to me for an answer.
"I don't know," I said truthfully.
Three days later, they found his body and Voldemort's in the place where it all began: Godric's Hollow. Lupin and Moody had found him and they were the ones who broke the news to Ron and me. I heard the words, but I couldn't make myself believe it. He couldn't really be gone. There was someway that he'd gotten out and that he'd cheated death just as he had when he was a baby. And he was my best friend. If he was truly gone, I would have felt it. I would have known it in my soul. But, I didn't. Even after we'd seen his cold, lifeless body, I'd refused to believe it.
I kept waiting for him to wake up and give me that wonderful grin of his and tell me to not take things so seriously.
I'd never had someone so close to me die before. I couldn't believe that it was all over and that Harry's life was finished before it even had a chance to begin. He was going to defeat Voldemort and he'd have that chance at a normal life with a family of his own. That's all he'd wanted. He'd told me so. And I'd told him that he was going to have that and so much more.
All around us, people mourned for him. Friends and family tried to console both Ron and me, but we were both kind of numb, for want of a better word. We didn't know how to react to this. And everyone seemed to be looking at us for the answers. For once in my life, I didn't have any.
In the aftermath of all that had happened, I threw myself into my studies. I finished up at Hogwarts and then received acceptance to one of the top wizarding universities where I earned my degree as a healer. Ron and I never managed to get together. I never really thought about why, but I think it had something to do with the fact that we were supposed to be a trio. We didn't know how to be just Ron and Hermione without Harry.
Ron took a job with his brothers and held out hope of one day being good enough to play Quidditch professionally. And he'd married Luna two years after he graduated. She had helped him through his grief about Harry and their friendship had slowly blossomed into love. I was happy for them, but it just reminded me of what I didn't have.
The decision to leave England was one of the hardest I'd ever had to make, but I couldn't continue just existing here. I didn't date. I didn't do anything for fun. I just worked and dealt with the guilt I felt that I hadn't stayed up with Harry that night and convinced him that he didn't have to go through this alone. If he'd had Ron or me with him, he would have survived. I'd known that he was trying to say goodbye to me that night, but I'd still left him alone. I should have stayed with him and tried to talk him out of going off on his own. But I hadn't and he was gone.
I'd been his best friend and I'd let him down when he'd needed me most.
So I'd moved to the States to accept a prestigious fellowship at St. Mantague's Hospital in Seattle. But the loneliness and guilt still followed me. And I wondered if one day it would go away.
My therapist thought that keeping this journal would help me. I'm not so sure. Reliving the past is too painful. I came here to start over, but it hasn't been easy.
The war is over, but the fight seems like it's only just begun.
I used to smile so easily. And now…I just don't know.
I DON'T KNOW.
And I can't stand it.