Unspoken
Summary: In Harry's point of view, look inside and see the true evolution of his feelings for his best friend, Hermione. Look and see how far such feelings take him, see also the depths of despair and the peaks of joy it brings. How far would you go for the one you love?
Disclaimer: It's JKR's. Not mine. Where's my violin?
Author's note: This is my first fic in quite some time. I became a lurker in the community after the disastrous release of the even more disastrous HBP. But I've stepped out from the comfortable shadows of that corner over there with a brand new fic.
Thanks to Ben (bentheslayer on Portkey, so if you haven't, check out his wonderful fic, too!) for helping me along with this. Your advice and encouragement and friendship are any writer's dream. I cannot thank you enough.
And thanks to you, readers! I hope you enjoy it!
Part One
It wasn't what I expected, this feeling. And why should it hit so long after the fact? Well, I guess I did have enough on my mind, didn't I? Running around a frantic castle, preparing myself for the murder only I was destined to commit. How could I give thought to anything else?
It was later that day, or was it night? Who can be certain? The span of the entire battle felt simultaneously like a moment and a lifetime.
Anyway, it wasn't very long after, I suppose, though it seemed so, when that peculiar feeling rushed over me. I hadn't slept. None of us had. The shock of everything - the losses, the pain, the fact that what we had been fighting for so long was, at last, over - wouldn't let our minds find peace through slumber. Instead, we eventually found our way back to our old common room, half-destroyed, but with people still coming and going, the dazed looks on their faces undoubtedly mirroring our own.
I remember sitting with you and him. Sitting and staring, it was all we were yet capable of. Silence, not slumber, was our reprieve. Sitting between us, I felt your hand grasp mine. The only other movement was of your other hand grasping his.
Then and there did the peculiar feeling stir within me. I looked at you, your tired face - for once in all the time I had known you, vacant of any other thought or emotion. You stared straight ahead without the normal, thoughtful frown upon your brow, to the fireless grate, unseeing.
And with this feeling came the memory of how you two disappeared earlier that day. The feeling intensified. And the memory of your long-anticipated snog. It intensified still more.
I took my hand from yours, stung. Confused. Horrified.
You looked at me. What was that in your eyes? No longer simple tiredness, but… pain?
I looked away from you, my hand shaking. Trying to hide it, I ran it through my insane hair. I yawned. I couldn't look at you, but still your eyes… I could feel them boring into my skin.
I stood abruptly. I'm tired, I said.
Ron simply nodded, but you… you kept watching me. Your eyes suddenly alert, wide with curiosity and… well, with the pain.
But what was I to do? I couldn't just sit there, accepting such an intense, unforgivable feeling. I had to move away from it and thus, away from you, the undeniable reason for it.
I made it to the staircase before I chanced a backward glance at you. Did the curious longing in my eyes match that of your own, as you watched me, silently? I was too tired to hide it. So were you.
But what could we do? What choice did we have? The only option was for you to turn away, back to him, grasp his hand tighter, lean in and try to long for him.
The only option was for me to tear my eyes away and let you do it.