Pieces of my Heart.

By ShellCottage.

When we were young, the only thing I could call her was a know-it-all. I regret it the moment it came through my lips, but she made me so pissed and there was no other way in which she would shut up. And then, I saw the way she looked. It was like absolutely pure magic. Not the kind we learnt in our six years in Hogwarts, it was so much more.

It started at the age of 13, I saw the changes she had suffered, the was her waist became narrower, her lips got plumper, her hair became a little less bushier, and I knew Hermione was not the little girl we met at the train when we were 11.

14 was the time in which I suffered the most. I was a lanky teenage boy and the way Hermione looked wrapped around Krum´s arm, just made my anger spill up. She looked so adorable in that dress, and she was a terrific dancer. Many times during the dance, I wished for her to come by, to strip me out from my insecurities and make me dance with her. But it never came. And that´s when my heart started to fall into pieces.

Every time I saw her in the hallways, waking to and fro to her next class, or hunching down to grab one of her fallen books, my heart would hammer so hard it was bound to implode. And then she kissed my cheek. It was all that I needed, one kiss from Hermione and my whole life became worth anything. I felt like the only man, the luckiest man, on earth. And as our relationship was heading to a new direction, my heart was swelling and filling up with warm.

Sixth year made my life a little harder. The moment those words from Ginny were utter out to the wind to take them away, my heart sank so low it was in risk of falling out. It started to chip out, and sure enough it was beginning to break again.

Lavender getting into the picture was sure out of my plans. She seemed as a quick remedy to my broken heart. It took several of her kisses to forget about what Hermione kept doing to me. And slowly I felt better. That was, until the image of a crying Hermione, sending yellow birds in my direction, came to me. Her tears were spilling out to the dirty floor, being wasted as if they meant nothing, as if such sad perfect pearls were not worth a Knut.

It was shattering. Not even being poison later in the year could compare to the hurt she made me feel with those shed tears clinging from her cheeks. My heart was almost dead at the moment of the poisoning, it was famished and weak. The mere mentioning of Hermione´s name just made me want to tear up, or scream from the desperation.

When we were young all that mattered was Hermione being with me, or trying not to make her cry. My world was so narrow I thought maintaining Hermione happy was my number one priority. I got a crash with reality later on, Hermione´s happiness did not seemed as important as her life, and her yelling was a thousand times more painful than her tears.

It died, from an attack, from loneliness, from love. It just died, it completely broke, tiny pieces being spread out in every direction. I became a heartless man the moment I heard her scream. The tears on my face were simple attempts to feel the pain she was feeling, and as I was already heartless, her pain was going to an empty whole in my chest.

But then she does these things, like interlacing her fingers with mine while walking, or smiling at some quiet moment of the afternoon, and my heart feels as if it was alive again. The sight of her naked body, the feeling of her warm skin under my fingertips, the smell of her hair as the breeze carries it to me, the sound of her laugh, all reminding me she is still alive, that my heart has been mending itself up.

And then the ring wrapped around her finger, and that is all that it takes for it to beat again.