The Magic of Music
"Ah, music, a magic beyond all we do here!" –Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter Seven.
"Harry?" said Hermione sounding unsure as she pulled out a cylindrical object from her pocket. They both sat in small patches of dead leaves and grass that they had cleared of snow in front of the tent. Harry had been leaning against a tree, his eyes closed while Hermione had been reading one of the innumerous books from that beaded bag of hers. Ron had stormed out a week ago and both Harry and Hermione were left alone together, weary, distracted, and a little confused.
Harry sighed and looked over, "Yeah?"
"Harry," she said again, firmer this time, "I want to play something for you."
He looked closer at what she had in her hands, it looked familiar, "Excuse me?"
"I know we both feel spread too thin right now and since Ron left, just the two of us being together has felt a little awkward, and if I've read the signs correctly, then I think I know why," she said quickly with a little blush climbing up her cheeks.
"Hermione," Harry said with a tired half-smile, "if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you can read- really, really well."
Her blush increased and with that she raised the roughly hewn flute to her lips, closed her eyes, and began to play.
Harry closed his eyes as the notes made themselves known and images flew into Harry's mind's eye; the first time he met Hermione on the Hogwarts Express, her floating a large white feather in Charms, a troll nearly squashing her with its club (anger flared in his heart, then pride as he saw himself jumping onto the huge creature to save her.) Next, he saw her face clearly as she began playing the same flute she played now as he jumped down a seemingly bottom-less pit, a sleeping Fluffy just a few feet away. My flute from Hagrid, he thought before the images began coming faster- Hermione lying in the hospital wing, petrified, hugging her when she was revived, the feel of her arms around his waist as they rode Buckbeak up to the tower to save Sirius, Hermione in her ball gown dancing with Krum and the jealousy he felt despite telling himself that he liked Cho. Then came Hermione bravely fighting with him in the Department of Mysteries, a flash of purple light and the surprised look on her face as she fell, hiding with her at Slughorn's Christmas party, running with her (and Ron) away from Bill and Fleur's wedding, and finally, sleeping in the tent night after night with her so close, yet so far away…
Then the music took on a more haunting sound that made his heart swell with an emotion he had only glimpsed throughout his entire life as it brought an image of Hermione lying awake in her bunk, watching Harry sleep. The image lingered, even as the tune ended on a long, low, wavering note.
A silence so profound filled Harry's ears as he finally opened his eyes and looked over at Hermione- she was nervously clutching the flute.
"Here," she said finally, handing it to him, "Sorry it took so long to give it back- after you handed it to me to play back in our first year I kept it with me. In all the chaos of that night I forgot to give it to you and it ended up in the bottom of my trunk. That summer I found it, it was like finding buried treasure. I wrote to you telling you I still had it and would give it back to you in second year but you never wrote back- I know it was Dobby's doing, but I just couldn't let it go after that. Then I remembered what Dumbledore said at the Welcoming Feast, about how music is a magic beyond what we do and I wondered if that had any real magical merit, so when we were back at Hogwarts I began my search. It wasn't until I summoned those books from Dumbledore's office after his funeral that I found it- some obscure passage about the magic of music and different instruments' attributes. Flutes made from a wand-tree, for example," she gestured to the flute Harry now held in his hands, "can be used to cast a spell very similar to that of Legilimens- as long as you are thinking of the person and they are within hearing distance, it doesn't matter what you play, the spell will work." She stopped to take a quick breath and continued, " I've felt this way from the beginning- before even knowing you, like a connection the instant I opened that train carriage door to ask if you and Ron had seen Neville's toad and our eyes met and-"
"Hermione," Harry whispered, immediately silencing Hermione's informative rambling.
"Yes?"
They stared at each other a moment before Harry lifted the flute to his lips and filled Hermione's mind with an image through a tuneless melody. It shimmered oddly at the edges; Harry taking Hermione's hand to help her up off the ground, his other hand touching her cheek lightly before getting lost in her trademark bushy hair, his face inching closer to hers, their lips a breath away-
The music stopped abruptly as Hermione placed a hand on each of his cheeks and kissed him with seven years' worth of unrequited love.