Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related material is the property of J.K. Rowling and, to a lesser extent, Warner Brothers film. Characters not under that condition are the property of this author. Plot is dual property of author and above-mentioned person. No money is being made from producing this work of copyright infringement.
Chapter 3
Harry awoke the next morning feeling better than he had in a long time. In his professional opinion it had something to do with either being more or less on speaking terms with Hermione again, or that he had just spent half the night having unbelievably wild and passionate sex. He was leaning towards the former, even if the latter certainly had merit. Being trapped in a loveless marriage for half a decade tended to make any kind of physical contact appealing.
Truth be told, the only dark spot Harry could find to his morning as of yet was the suspiciously large amounts of empty space on his bed. There he was, almost falling off of one side, and there was a human-sized indentation next to him among an ocean of mussed sheets. Harry pulled on some jeans and a shirt, in a vain attempt to look like he had gotten any amount of sleep the previous night, and stumbled down to breakfast.
Hallelujah, no Hermione. He spent breakfast drinking an endless stream of coffee (a bad habit he picked up in Canada), and pretending to listen to Neville ramble about some sort of mosquito-eating vegetable from Southeast Asia. He excused himself once he felt the blood welling up in his ears, metaphorically of course, and set off to see where she had gone. She was nowhere to be found, until he had the brilliant idea to get the Marauder's map. It had been many years since he had last seen it, and he hoped it was where he had left it.
The doorway to the Head's dorm opened for him swiftly, a benefit of being a professor, and he entered. Where had it been? Ah, yes; now he remembered. From one of the bookcases he withdrew the copy of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's Elementary Transfiguration through Psychokinesis, the Transfiguration book Iain had assigned them years ago. As the bookcase dissolved to reveal a wooden door, he remarked on how astonishing it was that no one had picked up the book in ten years. He opened the door, and entered his past.
Not literally of course, it had been hard enough to carve a full-sized room into one of the walls without adding time-travel spells onto the entrance. No, what Harry entered was a room he had built before he left; a room that held the items of his old life he could not bear to take with him. His father's invisibility cloak hung on a rack to one side, next to his Firebolt. The shattered remains of his trusty Nimbus 2000, carefully kept by Remus, lay on a table in the center. The flute he had used to charm Fluffy, the fang he had used to destroy his first Horcrux, one of Buckbeak's feathers, and many other things. What he sought, the magical map of the castle, lay on a nearby shelf, folded reverently. He opened it. As though the map was guiding his eyes, he found her immediately. In the Room of Requirement no less. Curious, he didn't think the room appeared on the map.
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Even more curious, but the door to the room was quite visible. Usually, at least in Harry's experiences, the door would remain inert and undetectable to all but those who were using it. Harry's only conclusion was that Hermione wanted to be found. He pushed the door open and found her facing away from him, sitting in the middle of an exact replica of her childhood home. She must have known he was there, somehow, because she began to speak. "This wasn't supposed to happen." He could hear the tears in her voice, and longed to be able to sooth them. Despite his desires, he felt it would be better if he waited until she was finished. "If you came back…when you came back…I was supposed to be cold. I wasn't supposed to let you in, let you hurt me again." She broke down, and Harry could see her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. "You were supposed to be the bad guy." She choked out.
"The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley; And leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy." He quoted sadly. He knew the pain she felt well enough. He had meant to go somewhere that held no memories, and be happy to forget. So much for that plan.
She turned to face him. He saw how red and swollen her eyes were, and saw the tracks of fresh tears on her cheeks, and loved her even more. His words had, at least, earned a small smile. "You've been reading." It was not a question, but Harry nodded anyway.
He saw the indecision on her face, the conflict. Part of her wanted to trust him again, but part was still rebelling. It was paining her, and he responded to that pain in the only way he knew how: he embraced her, held her tight, and wished that he could have spared her from the pain of long ago.
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He sat in their common room, staring into the fire. Of his top ten 'worst possible things Fate may have in store for Harry Potter' list, number three just happened: Ron had left. It had started as a typical library search, and escalated into a full-blown argument resulting in Ron declaring that he had had enough and storming out of the room. Even three hours later, Harry knew there would be no hope of reconciliation. It was the parting of the ways, where their paths diverged and Harry was forced to take the one less travelled. He would never begrudge Ron of his choice, he did have a family to go back to when it was all over, but he could not help feeling sad.
Number two on his list was the one his efforts were trying to avoid, so it may be skipped for the sake of time-management. It was the first that Harry knew he would have to deal with, when he heard approaching footsteps from the Head Girl room. "Harry?" he didn't respond. "I know you're mad at Ron for leaving, but he'll come around. I know he will." He could not believe her; not when she didn't believe herself. He had heard it in her voice, and she knew he had heard.
"I'm not mad at him Hermione." He told her in an unnaturally calm voice. It chilled her straight to the bone. He knew what he had to do, but that didn't make it any easier. "I'm mad at myself for letting him help, when he has something to go back to. I could never forgive myself if the Weasley's lost another son, even if Percy wasn't much of one." The entire room had grown silent, like it was a black hole for noise. Even the crackling of the fire and the breathing of the two teenagers had been lost in respect for what was to come. "And you too."
He could feel her anger; like waves on a beach it surrounded him and penetrated him, searing flames cutting into his very soul. "And what do I have to go back to? My parents were killed, or have you already forgotten?" he could never forget, not when the aftermath of their murders was etched into the walls of his mind.
"Someday you will meet someone, and he will make you happy. You'll fall in love, marry, have children, grow old and die together. But you can't do that if you die helping me."
She was still angry, but the anger was rapidly giving way to sadness. 'But I want you to be that someone, and you can't be if you die because I couldn't help you. If you really love me, you won't push me away."
He had no answer to give for some time. He just watched the fire crackle silently, and sensed her watching him with growing apprehension. "What if I don't?" he asked her lowly.
He could hear her choke on a sob. "You don't mean that, you can't." Was she right? She certainly was, but he could never tell her that.
"Maybe I do."
The tears were coming freely, and Harry longed to be able to wipe them away. But doing that would destroy his carefully crafted lie. "If you have something to say, come out and say it." She spat through the physical manifestation of her grief, willing him to take back what he was implying.
He looked up at her for the first time, knowing that she wouldn't believe him if he didn't. Looking into those eyes, glistening with tears, and lying was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. It would maintain that place of twisted honour until the end of time. "I don't love you Hermione." He told her, mustering up all of his courage to do it.
He could see her jaw quivering, but she steadied it. Her eyes darkened with rage, and he could almost hear something inside her break. He knew it was her heart, and never again in his life would he feel as terrible as he did at that moment. "You bastard." Her voice was shaking with rage and pain. She fled back to her room, and they never again spoke. Harry hoped beyond hope that he would die in the final battle, taking Tom with him of course, just so that he could escape the pain.
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But he didn't die that day, six months later. When it was all over he looked up and met her gaze for the first time since their fight, which seemed a lifetime ago. It was empty. There was no joy, no sorrow, no love and no pain. There was just emptiness, and he knew what he had to do. Later that night he left her a letter with McGonagall, a letter that she tore up without ever reading, and he left.
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He held her close, the pain leaving her by way of the tears that stained his shirt. He didn't have to say it, because she knew anyway. Part of her, the part that was campaigning her to trust him, had always known. Slowly, little by little, that part was winning. "How do we go on, with all the pain? What do we do now?" she asked his chest, where her face was firmly implanted.
He stroked her hair softly. "The best we can." He responded quietly. How long they stood coping with loss no one will ever know, but one thing is for sure; when they finally emerged, hand-in-hand, they were the stronger for having felt it.
*triumphant trumpeting* I think that, except for an epilogue, I am finished this fic! Thanks to all who reviewed, both of you on FF and all six of you on PK (so far)
The poem that Harry recites is a small part of Scottish poet Robert Burns' (not to be confused with American Robert Frost) poem To a Mouse. It is often paraphrased as "The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray," and that is how you have probably heard it. (oft go astray is the approximate translation of Burns' original Gaelic line gang aft a-gley) The poem was also the inspiration for John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, mentioned last chapter.
The allusion to divergent paths in the flashback is an allusion to the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (the American, not the Scot above)
R&R, even with so little left it is still appreciated.