The tsunami disappeared. Ron was leaning in. On the outside I tried to remain cool, but the inside was a completely different story. NO! How can I get out of this one? I asked myself, attempting to keep calm, but it wasn't working. His face was centimeters from mine...

"Hermione! Ron! There you are, I-" then he saw our position. Wow, I thought to myself, we must look ridiculous, Ron with his lips outstretched, me going cross-eyed trying to keep his mouth in sight and leaning back as far as I could, determined that my first kiss would NOT be with Ronald Weasley. Luckily for me, Ron chose that moment to look over at Harry so he didn't see me sigh with relief.

But I immediately became worried at the look on Harry's face. He looked anxious, troubled and I was almost sure he had been crying. I took a tentative step forward.

"Harry? Is there something wrong?" I asked him softly.
"Erm...N-Yes," He said, obviously changing his answer in midsentence. I didn't want to make the poor guy say something he didn't want to say so I gave him a choice.
"Hmm? What was that?"
"Yes, Hermione, I don't know how to-I...erm-"
"Well, spit it out we don't have all day!" Ron shouted from behind us.
"I'm a horcrux." He said, and he looked down but not before I saw tears glistening in his eyes.
"What?" I asked, though I had heard him perfectly well and I had suspected it all along.
"I-the prophecy didn't mean what we thought it meant. It really means that if I want him dead I need to-"
"Sacrifice yourself." I finished for him. He merely nodded. "Oh, Harry!" I whispered, before pulling him into a hug, knowing it was the last one I would ever give him. "I th-th-thought you were b-b-but I hoped I was wr-wr-wrong!" I cried, my whole body was shaking as I completely lost control. I was drenching him in my tears, but I couldn't help it. Nothing could fix this, he was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it.

All the while he just held me in his arms, not breaking the hug, running his hand up and down my back, occasionally "Shhhhh" ing. Why did something horrible have to happen to everyone I care about, thinking of my brother Andrew who I had never met because he was murdered by Death Eaters, and now Harry, my best friend for almost eight years, the only one who ever seemed to think of me as anything but an "Insufferable Know-it-all" the boy he had unknowingly stole my heart, the man who had made me fall in love with him. He had won me over with his kind heart and loving nature. Ron didn't have that. Ron had the personality of loving brother who could easily make me cry, but Harry had always cheered me up and now he was never going to be there for me again. I wished I could have walked up to Lord Butthead and told him that he was an evil arse, but I know Harry wouldn't let me. I just kept clinging onto him, holding on for as long as I could, before...

Before his life expired. His borrowed time his mother had given him was wearing out. This only made me sob harder. He finally let go of me. I looked up at him, but for all the good it did I might as well have stared at the basilisk skull, my eyesight was so blurred with tears. I can't remember crying so much in living memory. Then, I felt Ron beside me, he must have come over. When Harry looked up I was startled to see he was crying-if possible-more than I was, but he was perfectly silent. When he spoke, his voice sounded constricted, as though someone had grabbed hold of his throat and cast the Cruciatis Curse on it.

"Th-Thanks, for always sticking by me, I could have never gotten this far without you," he said in a shaky voice looking to Ron and I.

Ron thumped him on the back. "Couldn't've done it without you either, actually, I'd be dead right now, and so would Hermione. Thanks. I'll miss you."

"You too," Harry replied, with a grin. Then he turned to me. "Hermione?" I didn't have enough strength to say anything, or even nod. He seemed to understand because he took my hand in his and sighed.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione." he said, but then, he seemed to break down, it seemed as if he choked on the air; he was no longer crying silently. I had never seen him lose control like this, and I can't remember feeling worse for anyone in my whole life. "Don't forget me," he finished as his startlingly green eyes bore into mine, it was as though he was showing me his soul, it was as clear as it could be, I could see it in his eyes. The pain, the sadness, it had been building up for so many years and it looked like it was finally getting to him, he looked so despondent, so desperate, like he actually thought I would forget him, that my ability to talk came back.

"Oh, Harry, that could never happen, don't you know that?" I asked as gently as I possibly could, after all, he looked so broken that my heart instantly melted at the mere sight of the tears flooding out of his eyes. I stroked his cheek softly as he closed his eyes at my touch (either that or he had finally given into the tears). He seemed ashamed of himself; he looked embarrassed, like he wanted to melt into the floor. "You mean everything to me; didn't I already prove that to you? Didn't I already show you, back in that tent, that I wouldn't desert you for anything? How in the name of Merlin's buttocks could I ever forget the person who made me-" 'fall in love with them' her mind screamed at me, it was now or never...

"-who I am," she finished.
"Really?" Harry asked me, his spirits lifting before my eyes.
"Of course!" I said, and even if this was a lie, which it wasn't, I would never be able to lower him when these were his last moments. "You have no idea how much I'm going to miss you," I said, my heart ripping in two inside my chest.
"Oh yes I do!" I told me defiantly, but not angrily, "Because it's not even half as much as I'm going to miss you,"
The tears were flowing from my eyes before I could stop them.
"Oh, Hermione, really, I didn't-I didn't mean to make you cry-I-" but I cut him off by kissing him on the cheek, though I wished I had the guts to go just half and inch to the left...
"There's such a thing as happy tears," I said with a smile. He grinned back at me after he let go of me.
"I don't have time to explain exactly what happened, but you can nip up to Dumbledore's office-password's Cockroach Cluster-and take a look at the memory in the Pensieve." He told us both. "Or ask Cody or Autumn,"
"What about Lizzy?" Ron asked.
"Er-just ask Cody andAutumn, OK?" Ron and I nodded. "I've got to go," He said. "I love you," Harry said with a face that melted my heart. I didn't know what to say to that, truth be told I loved him too but she didn't know how he had meant it, and Ron was right there, well within earshot...
"You're the best sister anyone could ever have," he said softly. What he didn't know was that those eight words shattered my heart, he might as well have called me a Mudblood, it would have hurt much, much less. I tried to cover it up, but I had already started crying. I flew into his arms again, and hugged him, making him think she had just realized he had to go, which was also very sad.
"Shhhhh," He whispered into my ear, sending shivers down my spine but he thought I just shook from sobbing. He extracted himself from my grip. "No tears," he said as he wiped some off my cheek, little did he know that this wasn't the first time I had shed tears over him. I stumbled backward into Ron.

"This...it's the last time we'll see him, just be happy for him, OK?" Ron questioned me under his breath so that Harry wouldn't hear him. I nodded, thinking that it was the least I could do for him. Before I knew it, he was at the mouth of the Chamber and he turned back to face us.

I forced a smile, though I had never wanted to cry more. He grinned back at us. He gave a final wave and set off at a run out of the chamber and out of sight, into the hands of death.