A/N: The whole reason for posting an A/N first was to avoid having one in the middle of the story. That plan failed. (Hello Captain Obvious)!
I had this chapter written before I'd ever posted the Introduction but the more I looked at it (scrutinized it, more like) the more I found myself rewriting what I had originally written. The entire flow of the story has now changed and as a result the length seemed to have grown so much that I ended up having to break this chapter into two parts (I'm still working on the next one). The process is taking much longer than I'd originally thought it would but since this may be the last [original] story I write in the HP universe (I have a couple of ideas for epilogues to two of my older stories) I want to ensure it's something that I can be proud of.
I won't promise that everything you read will make sense to every reader because I'm sure that we all have different views of things. All I can do is hope that by the time we reach the final chapter, we'll all feel a little better about where we are with the end of the series.
My fingers are crossed.
Thanks to everyone who has read and/or commented. *hugs*
No one but me has read this chapter so if there are mistakes they are all mine. J - thanks for going through the hardest part with me. I love you, girl.
And I have to give a shout out to Josh! It's been a long time! (I'll have to take another look at `Parallel' because as of now, nothing is planned…but I love that you still ask about it).
xoxo
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Smiles from passersby went unnoticed as Harry and Hermione strolled hand in hand down the street, oblivious to how very much they resembled a couple in the comfortable way they moved together.
Taking advantage of the silence and Hermione's being lost in thought Harry chanced several glances her way. His eyes lingered on her furrowed brow a little longer with each subsequent look until he could no longer resist asking what it was she was thinking.
It took a few seconds for the sound of his voice to penetrate her thoughts and she looked at him questioningly. "Excuse me?"
"I asked what it is you're thinking."
"Oh." She turned away, her cheeks slightly pink. "Honestly?"
"No, I want you to lie me," said Harry wryly. "Of course I want you to be honest."
Hermione half-smiled and shook her head. "Honestly then, you don't want to know what I'm thinking."
"Try me."
She shook her head again. "No, I don't think I will thanks."
Harry nudged her. "Come on, Hermione," he implored. "Talk to me."
"Trust me, Harry, you don't want to know. But tell me something…"
"Shoot."
"Why did you really follow me?"
"Instinct," he said simply. "I saw the way you looked at me and I knew I had to follow." He looked at her shrewdly and smiled. "I know what you're trying to do, Hermione, and you can't change the subject. Now talk to me."
"I am talking. Tell me what you said to Ginny and Ron."
"Not much. Just told them I was going to check up on you then I left. I didn't wait around to hear what they had to say about it."
"Oh, man."
"If they've got a problem they'll just have to get over it, won't they?"
"Well, they shouldn't, but you know how they-"
He stopped walking and stepped in front of her. "You know, now that you know how abysmal I was, you can't not talk to me. You have to provide proper justification for my actions."
"Abysmal?" Hermione smirked. "Where'd you learn such a big word?"
"Comes from years of being friends with a know-it-all bookworm," said Harry, smirking back.
Hermione laughed and rolled her eyes before sidestepping him to resume walking. "Believe me, I'd love to tell you what's going on in my head, Harry," she said, "but I don't even understand it all myself and, quite frankly, I'm not sure it'd be such a great idea to try and explain it to you anyway…assuming I even could."
"Sounds like someone's harboring secrets," Harry said in a sing-song voice.
"You have no idea," Hermione muttered.
Harry stopped again and pulled her back to him. "Tell you what. Start talking and I'll make you a promise."
"What promise?"
Harry took both her hands in his and looked into her eyes. "If you tell me something you wish you hadn't then you can erase the memory of it before we say goodbye today."
Hermione took a step back, shaking her head. "No! Harry that's-"
Harry took a step forward. "I mean it, Hermione," he said. "If you feel uncomfortable with anything you tell me today, I promise you can erase the memory of our entire conversation. You can make me forget that any of this ever happened. I trust you."
"But ... but I-"
"Need to talk," he said, finishing her sentence in his own way. "You need to talk and I'm here to listen. You said I could be here for you," - he put his hands on either side of her face - "now you just have to let me."
Hermione pressed her cheek against his hand. "I'm not sure I can even explain it," she said softly. "It's all so confusing."
Harry spotted a bench and his hands dropped to her shoulders and slid down her arms until he could grasp her wrist and pull her toward it. "Come on. Let's go have a seat while you think about where to begin."
"Fine," Hermione muttered. "But I'm still not sure this is a good idea."
Harry waited for her to sit first then smiled as he sat beside her. "Doesn't matter, does it? You're stuck now."
"Hmmph."
Harry chuckled. "Just tell me what you're thinking."
Hermione stared at the ground and shuffled her feet.
Harry's eyes followed hers. "Nope," he said, shaking his head playfully. "There is no hole down there big enough to suck you through to some other dimension so you can get out of talking to me."
"I could Apparate."
"You could," Harry agreed. "But you won't."
"How do you know?" she challenged. "Maybe I'll do it just to prove you wrong."
Harry exaggerated a yawn. "Go ahead."
She stared at him for a few seconds as though contemplating it, then sighed. "I don't know what happened. It was ... odd," she began tentatively. "One minute I was waving goodbye to Rose and then the next an image of my own mum waving to me just before I passed through the barrier to Platform 9 3/4 flashed through my mind. There were tears in her eyes as she watched me go. With everything we've been through and some of the things that were said today it hit me that I'm a little frightened of what may come. I can't imagine what my mum must've felt the first time she let me go. I wonder if she would've let me walk away from her that day if she'd known what the future would bring."
Harry remained silent.
"Don't you think it's ironic that this whole thing started with Voldemort taking your parents away from you and then sixteen years later I took myself away from my parents?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply but Hermione waved it away.
"I saw how much it hurt you to not know your mother's love. I felt for you every year when I watched you walk away with the Dursleys, knowing you wouldn't find love where you were going. But for as much as I hurt for you, the pain was peripheral until the day I walked away from my own mum knowing she didn't remember ever having loved me."
"Hermione-"
"They gave me everything; they sacrificed so much of the little time we should have had together. They did that for me because they knew that I-" Hermione's eyes narrowed as they met Harry's and she pulled herself up short. "You know what gets me the most?"
Harry shook his head as he debated asking her the reason her parents made the sacrifice for her. "What?"
"My arrogance and stupidity."
"Hermione, you're neither of those things and you know it."
"No, I am," she said earnestly. "Looking back on it now, I can see that the only reason they weren't tortured or killed is because I got lucky."
"How do you mean?"
"You can't take away blood ties, Harry. No matter what I'd done to alter their memories, they were still my parents. Do you remember when Lucius Malfoy saw them at Diagon Alley in second year?"
Harry nodded.
"All it would've taken was a look back in a pensieve for him to recognize them. I highly doubt that Voldemort or a Death Eater would've been fooled by a move to Australia. Add to that, Malfoy wasn't the only one who'd seen them either…there were always crowds at King's Cross. I'm sure a lot of Death Eaters had seen my parents at one time or another. It didn't matter that I altered their memories; they weren't any safer simply because they couldn't remember. In the end it only meant they were robbed of a daughter. It was luck that saved them, not me."
"There was good reason to believe they were in danger then, Hermione."
Hermione looked at him pointedly. "What do you suppose it'd be like to have a child one day and no memory of one the next? What do you suppose a woman would do when she undressed and found a caesarian scar on her stomach but couldn't remember having given birth? I can't even imagine what it would be like if Rose or Hugo were put into a similar position ... I can't imagine not remembering them."
"You don't have to worry about that anymore-"
"I wonder if my parents ever felt like something was missing ... like a part of them had died without any recollection of why. I think that's how I'd feel if my children were stripped from my memory. It's such a strong bond…"
"I'm so sorry, Hermione."
Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him. "Don't be," she said quietly. "I don't blame you. I would've done anything for you, Harry. Anything."
Harry brushed her hair back with his fingers. "I know. And I was selfish enough to let you. I needed you, Hermione, more than I've ever needed anyone in my life. I hope you knew..." - he paused - "I hope you know that."
Hermione nodded and reached for his hand. "We needed each other, Harry. There's no denying that. But if anyone should be sorry, it's me."
"For what?"
"For laying this all on you ... for making it sound as though you're the one to blame when the decision was mine and mine alone." She squeezed his hand tightly. "But most of all I'm sorry that you feel the need to apologize when there's nothing for you to apologize for."
"Well," said Harry, shrugging. "I guess that's the price I pay for making you talk, isn't it?"
"Harry…"
"Seriously, Hermione, a lot happened back then. There are a lot of things that I wish to God we could change, but we can't; they're done and over with. There are things I maybe can't let go of, but any guilt I might carry has nothing to do with you making me feel that way ... not now, not then, not ever."
Hermione smiled at him gratefully and wiped her eyes with her free hand. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For knowing me so well."
"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said, grinning. "So, is that what was bothering you at the Platform?"
"Sort of. I mean, not all of that was actually going through my mind then, it's only just tumbling out now." She let go of his hand and pretended to be distracted by something on her jeans. She half hoped that he'd change the subject so she wouldn't have to tell him anymore. When he didn't, she took a deep breath and went on. "I knew I couldn't dwell on any of it while I was standing on the platform so I tried taking a few deep breaths after the train rounded the corner. Ron came up beside me and immediately attributed my mood to me missing Rose. I suppose that might've been part of it, but I was grateful for the ready-made excuse and I jumped on it. I thought everything would be okay until-"
"Until what?"
Hermione closed her eyes and turned her face skyward. "Until I saw the look on your face when your hand fell from your scar," she said quickly. "It was at that moment that everything came rushing back to me. The things Ron had said on the platform, the things we'd sacrificed all those years ago, how much I-"
"How much you what?"
Hermione looked at him and shook her head. "Nothing. I just couldn't think. I couldn't put anything into any kind of perspective because it all came at me so fast. I just knew I needed to get away from everyone ... from everything."
"And now here I am, getting in the way of your thinking," said Harry. "No wonder you wanted me to go away."
"I don't think I've ever really wanted you to go away," said Hermione softly.
Harry leaned back on the bench, put his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and turned his own face skyward. "That's good," he said, getting comfortable, "because I'm not going anywhere."
Hermione laughed and leaned back beside him. "Then I'll repeat what I said earlier," she said, adopting his blasé tone. "`You may regret this, you know'."
Harry peeked at her from the corner of his eye. "You know, somehow I don't think I will." He closed his eyes again and nudged her. "Now, start talking before I fall asleep."
"You mean if I wait long enough I may not have to say another word?" she said, gratefully settling down a little further on the bench and closing her eyes. "Sounds good to me. I think I'll join you."
Harry poked her in the ribs and grinned. "Not on your life, Granger," he said, laughing when she jumped up with a squeal. "You're gonna have to start talking or we're gonna be here all night."
She poked him back. "Is that a threat ... or a promise?"
Harry stopped playing to look at her. "Which do you want it to be?"
"I don't-" Hermione was taken aback by the sudden intensity in his eyes. "Just let me think," she said uneasily.
Harry raised a questioning eyebrow.
"You know ... about what I want to say. Or, well, ... how to say it."
"Relax, Hermione. I'm only teasing. Just take your time," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
She sat back on the bench and closed her eyes. "I just ... I feel like I've lost the plot or something somewhere."
Harry sat up and faced her. "Well, it's certainly safe to say we're off to a confusing start," he quipped. "What plot would that be?"
Hermione turned to face him, resting her knee on the seat between them. "You know, the theme ... what it is we're doing here ... the whole point to our story."
"We have a story?"
"See?" she said, waving her hand dismissively. "I just ... I can't do it. Why don't you tell me what happened between you and Al earlier? You both looked so serious."
"Oh. That," said Harry, trying to sound unconcerned. "He was just worried about being sorted into Slytherin and-"
"That's it! That right there!" she exclaimed, slapping her knee then pointing at him. "That's just what I mean! The plot's been lost."
"Huh?" Without thinking, he looked around as though he might find it in the air in front of them. "I thought plot was something you found in a book ... or a graveyard."
"Well … it is," she said slowly, trying to collect her thoughts. "But it's not just about books ... or graveyards" - she rolled her eyes at him - "it's about life, too. Every story has some basis in something real. Whether it's good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, sacrifice, love…whatever. Each of those things may be part of a story, but they are also a part of who we are as real people; they're not exclusive to characters in a book. It's about the choices we make and what we gain or possibly lose by making them."
She paused at Harry's bemused expression. "Put it this way: It's not the `what' that changes so much as it is the `who, where and how'. An author is free to choose the world in which his story will take place, right?"
"O-kay," said Harry hesitantly. He wondered if the questions were real or rhetorical.
"But the core of the story - the plot - is generally universal," Hermione went on. "It changes very little from one story to the next. It's why in so many you get good defeating evil or true love conquering all. How many stories do you see where good is defeated and evil reigns in the end?"
"Uh…"
"You know, even in those stories where the protagonist dies, it's generally still love - or a willingness to sacrifice in the name of love - that ultimately defeats who/whatever it is the hero's fighting against."
"What exactly does this have to do with us? We defeated Voldemort," he said. "Besides, this is real life, not some fairy tale..."
"It has everything to do with us, Harry!" she exclaimed. "Don't you get it?"
"Apparently I should," he muttered, "but no, not really."
Hermione sighed. "Our story began twenty-six years ago when we got our letters to Hogwarts. Prior to that, witches and wizards were a part of fantasy stories. I'd wager that nearly every boy and girl has dreamt of having magical powers at one time or another. I know I did. But how many of those dreams actually come true? How many orphan children get a chance to escape their miserable life to become the hero of a whole other world the way that you did? How many kids with insecurities like mine get to learn the spells and incantations we only dreamed we could use to get back at the kids who bullied us? We were special, Harry. For whatever reason, our dreams came true. We got a story."
"Okay. I can understand that bit, but I still don't get the whole `plot' thing because this still isn't a story. It's not make-believe ... it's us, and the Weasleys, and the Wizarding World, and" - he put his hand to his scar and frowned - "real pain and real sacrifice."
Hermione reached for his hand. "Yeah, you're right," she said, "but just think about it for a minute. When we boarded the Hogwarts Express we were given a fairy tale story of our own, complete with cursed scars and broomsticks and trolls and dragons and potions and ... well, you remember, you were there. We were strangers who became the best of friends who set out to conquer evil and right the wrongs of a world we'd only just met; a world we thought existed only in fairy tales. We didn't care that we didn't know what we were getting into; we only knew that there were things we had to do and we willingly sacrificed everything to see that those things were done. We were given all the makings of a fabulous fairy tale, Harry. We had good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, sacrifice, and-" she hesitated briefly, "love." She stopped abruptly and shook her head. "Never mind. I don't even know where all this is coming from. Besides, it's not like it really matters anymore; it all happened so long ago. I just need to let it go."
"Of course it matters, Hermione," said Harry sincerely. "Everything that happened then still plays a part in what happens now."
Hermione looked at him for a moment then sighed. "There's one thing, Harry," - she held up a finger for emphasis - "one thing above all else that every good story should have ... something our story is severely lacking at the moment-"
"What's that?"
"A clear, indisputable understanding that the sacrifices were somehow worth it in the end."
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