Author Notes: I am a huge Alias fan, and while re-watching one of my favourite episodes 3.12: Crossings; I couldn't help but please the plot bunny and write this short scene for Harry and Hermione. *sighs* Well, in any case, enjoy! Now I can go back to writing After the End. ;)
Crossings
"I find hope and it gives me rest
I find hope in a beating chest
I find hope in what eyes don't see
I find hope in your hate for me
Have no fear when the waters rise
We can conquer this great divide"
~Hanson
Something had gone wrong, he thinks painfully as he makes an effort to run across the perimeter of the castle with his wand in front of him o his right hand and his left one rightfully wrapped around Hermione's as he drags her along with him, pulling her at the very uncomfortable speed that he is attempting in the aching, almost unconscious need to escape and re evaluate the battlefield.
Something had gone wrong, he thinks as he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to recall their movements to the point where they ran away. But all he sees is darkness and confusion and death, and Ron's death plays over in his head and he has to open his eyes and turn his head back to check if it's really Hermione running behind him.
He shakes his head as he pulls her harder with a surprising, desperate strength that is almost scary. Everything from the sounds he hears to the way his body moves feels unreal and empty as if he were in a nightmare. But he is excruciatingly aware that he's not dreaming.
Something had gone wrong, his mind keeps repeating. Something had gone wrong because Ron was not supposed to die and Hermione was not supposed to have seen it happen. But Ron had died and the sudden fear of his fate being Hermione's had driven him crazily to take her as far away from the scene as his strength could.
He's very close to panicking, he knows. He cannot harbour the tickling sensation that spreads quickly inside his stomach and up his chest, quickening his heartbeat and pulsating inside his head. He cannot panic, but he finds nothing to hold onto and the thought traps him with desperation.
They turn a corner and his eyes spot the space below a window and the possibility of it. He looks at Hermione and with a silent agreement they duck underneath the window.
"Harry-"
"Something went wrong, Hermione," he says with short breath. "Something -"
"Ron's dead." She says with an anguished, hollow whisper.
Silence follows and neither one of them speaks. The sounds of the battle seem to come from a place far away behind them and for the tiniest second he feels secure.
"Ron's dead." She repeats. He can't believe it. He hears it in the tone of her voice that she won't dare believe it either. "And we ran away," she says in the same bewildered tone.
He sits on the cold wet ground with his back against the wall. He lets his head fall in defeat, his chin almost touching his chest. Hermione sits to his right and touches her head against the wall in the same painful defeat. He closes his eyes but the moment he does so, once again he sees the green light hitting Ron's chest and he is forced to open them up again.
"I don't think I can do this," he whispers, almost instinctively. "I can't go through with it I -"
"Harry -"
"Hermione, Ron is dead!" Harry whispers in an honest cry that intensified the heavy pain in his chest. He turns to her and sees hurt, a tender hurt that pains him even further but which he doesn't really know how to face up to. "I'm sorry, Hermione -"
"Harry no!" she says with her eyes widening in a mixture of shock, distress and anxiety.
"Hermione, Ron's dead!" Harry cries, unable to keep staring into her eyes. "Ron's dead," he whispers in disbelief, because he refuses to believe it what his eyes saw and his mind registered. He refuses to acknowledge it and if he holds the thought that he will never speak to Ron again, he knows he probably laughs because it sounds stupidly impossible.
"Ron's dead... and I have his blood on my hands!" He says grabbing his head with both his hands, one on each side attempting helplessly to cover his ears as if to stifle the echoing sounds of the fight he had just abandoned.
A silent beat passes before he feels her warm hand grabbing his own sweaty one.
"Harry listen to me," she whispers warmly close to his ear. "Ron is dead but your hand is clean: this is not your fault!"
Before he can comprehend everything that's taking place, his mind incessantly tells him that his loneliness, his sadness, his abandonment, his restlessness has all mounted up to nothing because he's not making it out of this one. He's not saving anyone and he's not living to tell. His heart aches in his chest, as he looks sideways at Hermione and fears so bad for her that he wants nothing more than to make a portkey with one her earrings and send her as far away as he can imagine.
For a moment, he's sure nothing good is happening tonight.
"Hermione, I'm not going to make it out of this one. Everything." He sighs. "Everything it's not enough. I won't make it out of this." He whispers staring straight ahead of him. His hands shaking and sweating nervously so bad that they feel nearly numb.
"Harry -"
"Hermione," he says turning to her with every intention to ask her to not convince him otherwise and then he sees it. In her eyes, so clearly looking back at him that time seems to freeze around them and he stops listening the distant noises of the battle that nevertheless is still taking place.
Time freezes for a long time he can't measure but which seems to last enough for his mind to set laps during which a thousand thoughts cloud his senses from everything but Hermione sitting in the cold, wet ground beside him. The first second he asks himself if that look had always been on Hermione's eyes and what kind of an idiot had he been to not see it before.
The next second he's scared. Scared of the clear and honest look of absolute devotion that's in her eyes and how it gives him the strangest warmth inside. It's suddenly all too real and too true for the short time he knows he has, and his mind is clouded against his will and the words come out of his mouth before he has any chance to feel them register themselves in his brain.
"There's something I need you to know," he hears himself say. And immediately, it's as if someone has turned the volume back up and all the racket from the battling that's going on is back on his ears and he knows the time he had is over.
A helpless, impossibly torturing feeling hits him hard and he feels ambushed. He looks at her and he can't help feeling ambushed.
He wonders sadly why it's taken so long for this to happen and why he didn't realise it before and why he's been such a blind fool for such a long time. Here she was standing with him as if she didn't know. But she knew, he tells himself. She's always known.
She knows because he knows she's seen the signs he's failed to understand. He knows she knows because she's still there. He knows she knows because every girl he's ever had around him knows it. He knows she knows because she's the one who told Ginny to get over him.
He knows she knows, because of the way her hand is still holding his.
"They're coming!" she turns around abruptly and then back to him. The volume keeps going up as the battle gets closer and she looks at him with a look of dread and terror that leaves no doubt in him that she does, indeed know.
"There's something I need you to know," he repeats and she freezes.
"Harry-" she begins.
"In my life, there's only one person -"
"Harry, don't do this," she whispers agonizingly, trying helplessly to look anywhere but him.
"Look at me!" He says forcefully. "We owe each other this much... we owe this, this much!
She turns to look at him, and he has no doubt what is going on, he has no doubt that this something is so beautiful, so amazing, so painfully amazing that is beyond unfair that it's had such a dreadfully bad timing. It's so real and wonderful that it makes it almost impossible for him to breathe.
"Hermione," he whispers grabbing her hand gently.
Their eyes lock and she grabs his hand forcefully.
"I know Harry," she says in a faint whisper. "I know!"
She leans into him, their temples brushing against each other.
"We'll find each other," she whispers. The warmth of her nearly intoxicating him, her lips touch his temple and then she leans her nose against him. "We always find each other,"
He feels her kiss on his temple and turns slowly to meet her as she is about to kiss him again. He holds the thought that this isn't at all the way it should have been, but all thoughts end as their lips touch.
First, they're just brushing lightly but instantly, he opens his mouth to her and her breath is warm and soft as his tongue enters her mouth and she sighs against his mouth. Life comes back to his heart and soul as he breathes in and kisses every bit of disappointment and frustration into a kiss that gives him back hope and warmth.
She draws back and once more, he feels as if the volume has just been turned up, he hears the sound of the magical battles taking place around the castle between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix and the Auror division.
Hope fills his heart and he looks into her eyes to see her own hope and make it his own. He realises, as he catches his breath that this is what he has that Voldemort won't even see coming.
"We will make it out of here," she whispers as she rests the side of her face against the side of his.
He nods slowly as he lets out a sigh.
"I find hope," he whispers as if to himself, rejoicing in the warmth of her face pressed against him.
He touches his lips to hers briefly and swiftly. He draws back and immediately, she starts to search for something on the pocket of her robes. She pulls out a golden coin that Harry recognises all too well and places it on his hand, closing it around it with her own.
"I find hope," he repeats in a soothing whisper. And it gives me rest, he thinks before his lips touch hers again.