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Forgetting Hermione Granger
Hermione screamed for Ron, the rain pelting her like thousands of bullets to her heart. He was gone. Disapparated. She could hardly believe it. For seven years he had been a loyal friend to her and Harry. She thought he may have loved her, but she was wrong.
She turned her back to the black woods and rain, and returned to the tent, colder than it was before. She shivered, her teeth chattering, but all she could think was that he was gone. She yelled for him to come back, and he didn't.
She collapsed into the chair, and wept.
She felt a warm blanket move over her, feeling Harry's hand brush her shoulder. She wished to be alone, and he granted her silent request, and left to his bunk.
The blankets smelled of Ron. A little like Butterbeer and his herbal shampoo his mother made from scratch. She cried harder.
She was uncomfortably aware that Harry could hear her. He didn't like tears, and she didn't like him knowing she was crying. They had better things to focus on, but that thought was beneath her pain. She was wrapped up in Butterbeer and heartache, and all she could do was cry.
Harry and Hermione spent three days in silence, and neither of them dare spoke his name. She knew Harry's anger was waning to sadness, but all she could feel was bitter resentment. It laid heavily on her. It took days to look at him through her red and puffy eyes. He knew she cried, he had to know, it sounded loud in those quiet nights.
She wished he would break the unbearable silence. She needed him more than she ever had before. Their best friend abandoned them. He needed her too.
They both needed to find the Horcruxes, and move on.
When he was asleep she would give into her tears. She grieved for Ron alone in her corner of the tent. Sometimes, she broke down in the day. She had once reduced herself to tears by foolishly hoping he would show up while they packed to leave, and she packed as slowly as she could. They were gone, and Ron would never find them. Harry and herself were truly on their own, and Ron didn't care if they lived or died.
Out of everything they faced over the years, she had not once felt as helpless and hopeless as she did then.
More days passed, and one night that she cried, sure that her heart would break that time, he came to her, touching her shoulder in comfort. She could barely look over to him, but he lied beside her, and took her hand in his. They slept that way, in each others silent company.
It somehow kept them in one piece, reminding them that they were not alone.
It was the first night Hermione didn't cry.
They sat closer together as the weather turned colder. Their heat warmed the space that Ron left the coldest. Harry's arm touched hers during their sparse meals. He stayed beside her on the nights she couldn't sleep for the tears that kept falling. His hand took hers whenever they ventured out together. It was those little moments, those moments in silence that brought them closer together.
It was that night, in the marsh, the tent buried in snow that she curled up in her bunk. Harry insisted on taking the shift outside, on the look for intruders. He gave her every blanket and extra clothing he had, but it did little to warm her. She couldn't have slept, anyhow. She worried for Harry; if he was getting too cold, if he was getting tired. She shouldn't have had to stay inside just because she was a girl and he was being chivalrous.
She lifted the flap and spotted him waist-deep in snow. He was trembling, the poor boy. Except... He wasn't a boy. She had been seeing that. He had stubble on his cheeks and chin, his features grown, his attitude serious and thoughtful. Ron was gone, and she noticed for the first time that Harry had turned into a man.
She pulled him to his feet. He had lost the strength to fight her, allowing her to lead him inside and sit him on the bunk.
She took off the first wet layers that was Harry's jeans and jumper. She took the blankets from her bunk and wrapped them over his shoulders. Before she could move away, his hands fell over her own, holding her there.
She felt his shoulders, and closed her eyes, leaning her head on his. They moved onto the bed her curling under his arm and into his chest. It gave her security and comfort, and more of it when he pulled her closer, and stroked her hair. He made her warmer than any layers could have. He was her home, her harbor. He always made her safe.
They woke with their limbs entangled, her face in the crook of his neck, and his nose in her hair, her hands under his shirt as they searched for warmth.
They slept that way every night since. One morning, she rose long after he should have woken her for her duty. She spotted him looking at his parents picture. He was the image of his father, his mother eyes - his eyes - shining as she kissed her baby's fingers.
Hermione lowered to the frosted ground next to him, carefully laying her hand on his. He looked over at her, but quickly looked away, ashamed.
She touched his face, making him to meet her gaze. Then slowly, she kissed him. She wanted his pain to be gone, and her pain, too. All they had was each other, and they would make it through.
He hesitated in confusion, but soon he was kissing her back. They moved together in reverence. He stole her hips, and she stole his shoulders.
Insensible, they moved into the tent, onto his bunk. She felt all of him, and she forgot everything else. Voldemort, the Horcruxes, Ron leaving, and the tent they were sharing in the middle of nowhere. She felt nothing but him, and for the first time since altering her parents memories, she was happy.
It was not what she would do, and it was not the place, not the time, and not to acknowledge that when it was over, she would feel as though she had cheated on Ron.
It was all wrong, but they needed each other, and they had each other, and with him staring into her eyes as he moved within her, nothing else mattered.
On Christmas Eve they searched the graveyard, uncovering the etched names from the stones until they found James and Lily Potter, glowing under the lights reflection from the snow. She called Harry over, and they stood in silence. She made a wreath, the least she could do for couple that gave her her best friend, and she placed it on the grave.
Harry wrapped his arm over her shoulder, and she wrapped hers around his waist. They left under the kissing gate back to their tent.
That was the night they were almost found by Voldemort. It was the night his wand broke. The night they fled through a second-story window.
As he tossed from nightmares she did the best with his injuries. Some would leave scars. They would leave scars on her as well.
She caressed his drenched hair, and did not let go of his hand.
She didn't know what she would do without him. She would not make it by herself, she would never survive on her own. Losing Ron was hard, losing Harry would be her undoing.
She took her wand out of her pocket, placing its point at his head where the nightmares plagued him. If they survived they would have to face what they had done, and what if he didn't want her? What if the guilt of betraying their friend haunted him like his nightmares?
In the morning, she gave her wand to him in replacement of his.
Little did he know that the last spell that was done by that wand was not one of healing. If he knew, he would never forgive her.
She had taken his memories of their nights together.
He would never know he loved Hermione Granger.
Days later, Harry came rushing into the tent, taking her hand, as though by habit, a memory leaking through. He hastily told her an insane story about a doe, drowning, Ron saving his life, the sword of Gryffindor, the locket's too-real depiction of their time together, and the destruction of its dwelling. His visage read of heartbreak as his fingers slipped from hers.
It couldn't have been. He would have let her go anyway. It wasn't meant to be. It was a crime, what they did, and she had no excuse.
I waited for you.
I called you back.
All I saw was rain.
Was it that easy,
To turn and walk away?
Can it be that easy,
To forget?
Did you hear my calls,
Or did the wind simply carry them away?
The last look you gave me is burned in my memory.
It was pain I never thought I'd cause.
I waited for you,
I called you back,
But I'll blame it on the wind and rain.
A/N: This was inspired by the talented video, "She's Pulling Me Through," by alli6. If you want to understand why this is written the way it is, I highly suggest you go and find her video!