Just a quick one shot to try and get my muses working with me again.
I've been listening to Paal Isaksen's, "All the Things You Are" and Nick Cave's "Into My Arms" and this is the product. I recommend listening to both of these beautiful songs.
Along my angsty lines, this fits right in, but please read it as a stand alone, very short and without a lot of structure. I think I like the way it turned out. Hopefully you'll enjoy. I'm working on getting my other stuff out, but I've been slowed up by creativity. .
As always, don't own. I'm just renting. Please read and review.
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The fire crackled, spitting warmth and light across the darkened floor. The only sound the licking of the flames as they poured light into the familiar scene. A lone figure sat quietly, his eyes boring into the dancing waves, seeing far past their mere existence.
He knew he was falling into a deeper contemplative depression.
Her words, but he knew them to be true. Even if he wasn't cognizant of what he was feeling, he would have trusted her statement blindly. She would never tell him anything but the truth.
And now, it was something he craved more than anything else.
He was being bombarded on all sides. Not merely the hero of the war, not merely the man who had vanquished Voldemort, but the savior of their world. Everyone was celebrating and overjoyed and here he was - staring silently in a dank room he couldn't bring himself to change.
Everyone was pushing him and telling him that things would be ok. Lives had been given because they had believed in what everyone was fighting for.
They hadn't died because of him.
Give us another smile, Harry! Just one more headline.
He had always became too angered then, excused himself and somehow always found his way back to the solitude of his sitting chair in front of the fire in Grimmauld.
He'd received countless owls and visits from Ron and Ginny, telling him that he was being too hard on himself. No one blamed him for anything that had happened.
It was a miracle that so many had come through.
A miracle that he had not been killed in every encounter with Voldemort.
He must have had a guardian angel, people had mused. A protector for their protector.
He had saved them all.
He was a hero.
How could he tell them that he had never felt less like a hero in the moment they all expected him to the most?
He didn't save everyone.
The miracle would have been if none of this had happened.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes and dropped his head. He had never believed in angels or miracles. He had always wanted to believe, always wanted a faith in something greater than this and yet after everything that he had been through that should have tipped his belief in that direction, he merely found emptiness.
He had seen the face of evil; watched as it tore its way through countless lives. How could he truly contemplate the existence of angels and miracles when he had stood face to face with so much death and suffering?
A deep sigh left his lips as his eyes opened to stare back at the dancing flames.
He was no hero.
And he was no angel.
The ones who were no longer here were the heroes.
They were the angels he had believed in.
He heard the door close softly above him, and leaned his face slowly against his hand.
The only one who was still here.
The only one who had always been here.
The only one who never questioned his motives or actions since the war.
The only one who didn't look at him with pity.
The only one who still looked him in the eye.
The one who listened to his silence.
The one who spoke without words.
The one who kept the world at bay.
Hermione was a hero.
He felt her before he registered the squeak of the floorboard. Her silence startled his inner monologue more than the fact that she had been able to sneak up on him. Her stealth ability had improved as greatly as his own had.
He raised one brow and half turned his head to take her in. She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed as she leaned against the railing. Her hair was haphazard and framed her face in the shadow of the room. The moonlight spilled from the only window across the floor, stretching tenuously towards her.
Beckoning her towards him.
He focused on the creeping moonlight for a moment, registered the knowing look in her eyes and sighed.
Silence stretched between them for what seemed like hours. He merely stared at her in the muted light of the room, watching the way the firelight tossed conflicting hues across her features.
A solitary tear glistened in the flickering wave of light and with a gentle swiftness, she pushed herself away from the doorframe and stepped through the moonlight. Harry turned his head back towards the flames and immediately felt the warmth of her presence behind his chair.
One hand slowly slipped into his messy hair and he felt his eyes close involuntarily at the comfort of the gesture. A part of him wanted to look up, search out her eyes and tell her everything.
His fears.
His doubts.
The way his nightmares had changed.
The way he relived that horrendous moment in the cave, forcing Dumbledore to drink and watching him writhe in agony.
The way that sometimes it was her sprawled upon the rocks.
The way that he couldn't explain why he couldn't simply be relieved that everything was finally over.
How he couldn't find the peace that he had been certain would have come.
His eyes slipped open slowly and locked once more upon the dancing flames in front of him. He disregarded the desire almost as quickly as he had yearned for it for he knew that it would be unnecessary.
She already knew anything he would possibly say.
And suddenly, a small pit of warmth flickered in his stomach at the thought.
Perhaps he did have a guardian angel after all.
The fireplace flicked an ember towards the floor as he lifted his hand to the warm hand resting on his shoulder. With a gentle squeeze, Hermione folded her fingers over his own and stared in silence into the dancing flames.
The crackling of the fire was the only sound as the moonlight moved quietly across the floor.