DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. does, and she has every right to do whatever she thinks is best for Harry Potter. I just love writing. So sue me. Wait, seriously… don't.
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"Goodbye's?" Ron repeated in a surprised voice. Harry simply stared at Prof. Dumbledore, numb from all feeling. "It cannot be time yet, is it? Have you given her the ingredients, then?"
"There's no need to, Mr. Weasley." Prof. Dumbledore said simply. Though he had meant the words for Ron, he was, instead, looking the Harry's face, analyzing his reaction.
"Why?" Ron asked further. "Has she found a new way home?"
"I'm afraid she is already there." Prof. Dumbledore solemnly concluded and watched as the truth dawned on Ron's features. He couldn't bear, on the other hand, to carry on looking at Harry to any further extent as the boy slumped down on the nearby surface with a horrified expression on his face.
"What do you mean she's there?" Ron said frantically. "Her home is here!"
"She has decided to stay where she is."
"Did she say that?" Harry asked in a startlingly heated tone as he stood up. "Did she actually say that?"
"She did not say it directly to me, Harry, but the spell I put on her told me all I needed to know." Dumbledore had turned to look at Harry and was now disguising his compassion as the young wizard's eyes blazed in anger.
"How can you just decide someone's life by a spell!"
"Harry, she must have a good reason!" Ron called out in an attempt to calm Harry's infuriated expression, but he was already striding towards the foam and, without warning, confronted Hermione.
"What do you think you're doing?" He snarled at her.
As he waited for an answer, he indistinctly heard Prof. Dumbledore leave to give the three of them some time alone.
"Harry?" Hermione's happiness at hearing Harry's voice was clouded by the surprise it held.
"Yes. Harry. Me." Harry said in a vicious tone through gritted teeth. "The one you would kill Ron for."
"How--?" She began to ask but couldn't get herself to finish.
"I've been here since the first connection."
"But Ron said--"
"Never mind what he said. I told him to tell you that so you won't know I was here."
"Why didn't you want me to know?" she whispered.
"Why didn't I want….?" Harry began to repeat in disbelief but forced himself to calm down. When he did, he spoke in a clear tone which stunned Hermione and relieved Ron. "Merlin, Hermione! You wouldn't talk to me when you were here. What was I supposed to expect when you're a hundred years away? I couldn't bear you ignoring me through a connection, too."
"It would've been a lot easier for me if you had taken that risk, Harry." Hermione whispered when she got her voice back. "I would have felt much better knowing you were there."
Harry didn't speak after that, nor did Hermione. But both were thinking so much that Ron was afraid each one would go mad if they didn't let out their feelings at all.
Harry beat Hermione to it.
"Is it because of me?" He asked softly.
"What?"
"Is it because of me that you won't come back? I mean, if you don't want to come back just because I'm here, I promise I'll leave you alone. If you want me to go away, I'll do it. I won't bother you at all." He swore as he sagged down on the floor, feeling quite defeated. "I don't care how much it would hurt as long as I know you're here and I can see you're all right."
Hermione's heart was breaking at his words. But she knew better than to succumb to it and forced herself to face what had been unavoidable from the start. She didn't have much time and she knew that if she didn't tell him, she would regret it more, now that she had been given the second chance she had been hoping for all along.
But first, she had to give him a reason for this.
"I can't, Harry." Hermione began, her voice breaking as tears of compunction began to fill her eyes. "I--I don't have the heart to."
"Why?" Harry asked her in an equally disheveled tone.
"I have seen so much in this world that I can't see myself living the same I life I have back there. I know that I can change anything I don't want to happen since I already know what they are. But I can't bear to think I'd cause pain to people who would be affected."
She let the tears flow and only when she knew she wasn't going to sound as if she was crying did she finally talk again.
"I don't know what will happen to me once my time's up and you'll forget I ever was part of your life. But I'm willing to accept the consequences of what I did. I got more than I bargained for, and I'm going to have to pay the price."
"You don't want to stay, Hermione." Harry said, taking the opportunity to speak as she paused. "I can hear it in your voice. I can hear it in your words. You want to come back."
"Even if you were right, I'd still be staying." Hermione said. "Needing and wanting are two different things. All I feel is the need to go back because I have to set things right. But what I really want is for things to turn out the way I like. And now that I think about it, I was a bit crazy to have thought I could change anything." She laughed.
"Why'd you even think you can in the first place?" Harry asked in a reproachful manner.
"I was a fool." Hermione said matter-of-factly. "I thought I could do it since I hardly made mistakes before, but I wasn't careful enough."
"Why weren't you? That isn't just like you."
"I thought Ron would have told you already." Hermione supposed, and then she bit her lip. "I tried to ignore it. I even pretended no such thing exists. Or it did, just not in me. But the more I resisted, the harder it was for me to act as if it wasn't there."
Harry waited as Hermione weighed the next words that would come from her, which she thought would be quite shocking for him to hear.
"I've been in love with you for a long time." A long pause before a deep breath, when no reply came… "Believe it or not, I sat all those nights ago, patiently listening about how things were between you and Cho, hoping that in my silence, you'll hear me calling out and see me like you see her." A bitter laugh. "But you didn't. And when I finally made the move to tell you, you ask her to go steady."
At hearing this, Harry swiftly turned to look at Ron. Apparently it was a part of the story he hadn't made clear to him.
"Stunned, are you?" Hermione asked with faint amusement. "I didn't have it in me to break your happiness then, so I waited. For what, I don't know. But I did. And when I finally had another chance; my plan backfires. Ironic, isn't it?" She asked him with another bitter laugh. Not waiting for an answer, she carried on. "All this time, I'd been waiting for nothing. You were never mine to begin with, so why had I hoped you were to come back to me? We were destined to be nothing more than just friends. And because I was too blind to see where my hopes should have ended, I'll not even be a memory to you."
"Is that really what you want?" Harry asked in turn. "To be there knowing we would forget you?"
"I'd rather not exist completely, than be beside you and not be seen at all."
"I swear you won't ever feel that way again, Hermione. Just come back."
"It's too late."
"Why are you throwing away what you have?"
"I'm not throwing them away." She said. "I'm just letting them go."
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. `Is this how it feels to be defeated? To watch someone you love slip away from you?' He asked himself as he saw Ron shot to his feet at the sound of Hermione calling his name.
"Ron?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Ron nodded, understanding though the words were left unspoken. "No problem."
"You know I couldn't have done this without you, right?"
"I know," He said, shaking his head. "That's why I have to kill myself later for it."
Hermione laughed despite the graveness of the situation. "I'll miss you."
"Same here."
"No, you won't." Hermione sighed. "Not for long, at least. You'll soon forget. Trust me; you'll be happier when you do. And don't worry. I'll be glad knowing you're fine and satisfied with the life you'll be living."
She then took a deep breath.
"I know this is inexcusable, but I can't do anything. I've been fighting a feeling I shouldn't have felt and if this is where I had been heading all along…then I accept it." She smiled, though her tears were flowing freely now. "Don't you two go feeling guilty about anything--you didn't ask for this. I'm just glad I had the chance to--"
A static sound broke off the words of Hermione's sentence. Ron immediately looked up at the noise while Harry looked alarmed and frantic. Hermione, on the other hand, forced herself to calm down.
It was no use trying to do something to prolong the connection. It would end sooner or later anyway and all three of them knew that when it happened, there would be no way out. They would just have to accept that this was the end of their journey.
The last chapter of their story
Parting that way hadn't been easy. It wasn't long enough and not nearly good enough, especially for Hermione.
Harry and Ron would still have each other at the end of the day. She, on the other hand, would have no one but herself.
As the static sound became louder, then stopped, grew louder again, and then stopped once more, Hermione took the chance to say her final word.
"Goodbye…"
Before either Harry or Ron could say anything else, a whistling sound and a pop reverberated across the room and the foam began to clear, leaving behind a light mist and the smell of light rain from where it had once been.
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