One would think that after a day such as the one Harry Potter had survived, exhaustion would trump any thoughts whirling through his mind. Yet images and sounds continued to play through his head like a Muggle horror movie. Try as he might, he could not vanish the sight of Dobby's crumpled body, nor block out the echoes of Hermione and Ron's anguished screams—her, out of excruciating pain; him, out of sheer despair.
Harry's green eyes scanned the dark living room of Bill and Fleur's little house, and noted that Ron's sleeping bag lay abandoned on the other side of the room. Perhaps the other young wizard had been unable to find slumber as well and had gone for walk or a midnight snack. Or perhaps he had slipped back into Hermione's room now that Fleur was no longer there to shoo him away, keeping an all-night vigil at her bedside in case she woke from the lingering pain of the Cruciatus Curse or simply needed a hand to hold.
He envied his two best friends. Whatever happened, save for Death himself, they would have each other to lean on during the next few days. They could fight side-by-side, guarding each other's backs and curl up in the comfort of the love that was forming between them even in the darkest of hours, such as they had done at the Malfoy's. Yet Harry knew that however strong their loyalty to him was, and whatever love they or Ginny might have for him, that he would inevitably have to stand alone at the end.
There had been nights after Ron's return when he pondered on whether there might be any truth to Ron's fears—those deep, private fears that the Horcrux had so cruelly displayed like a feature film in the moments before Ron himself had dispatched the fragment of the ravaged soul of Tom Riddle.
Harry had meant every word of what he had said after that heart-wrenching incident. Hermione was very much like a sister to him—he would defend her in the same way Ron felt obligated to defend Ginny, and had done so in the past with no regrets. Yet after the events of the past few months, Harry realized that in any close friendship between a man and a woman that one or both parties would eventually end up asking themselves a question such as this. And would be duty bound to decide what to do with the answer.
He was well aware that there was clearly no doubt that both Ron and Hermione had already asked themselves this about their own friendship, and though they had fought viciously both with themselves and each other to deny it, had reached the answer that they were both completely smitten with the other.
Yet Harry had never considered the possibility of anything more than friendship with Hermione. There had certainly been rumors of it, thanks to the ever-so-infuriating Rita Skeeters. Yet those rumors had been nothing more than an irritation set against the background of everything else that had been going on at that time.
And even now as a full-grown man, alone and not knowing if he would survive to ever hold a woman in his arms again, Harry felt no inner-turmoil about his friendship with Hermione. It wasn't just that his heart was still set on being with Ginny if he somehow managed to survive the whole ordeal. Nor was it that he found Hermione in anyway repulsive or physically unattractive. There was no habit or personality quirk that Hermione possessed that he could tolerate in a friend but not a lover. It was not Ginny's love of Quidditch that made her more attractive to Harry than Hermione. It was simply that Hermione needed a hero.
One could point out that Harry was already a hero. Yet that missed the point completely. Harry was a hero to the wizarding world, and had been since he was a toddler. For Hermione, that was simply an academic curiosity about her friend, one that she hadn't even grown up with. Yet despite all the danger that their friendship had withstood, Harry could not remember a time where he had done something to rescue Hermione and only Hermione. And even if he had done so, Hermione would have had to share him with the entire world.
While Ginny had started out starry-eyed and timid around Harry, she had grown out of it. And while Harry had rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets, she had never truly needed a hero. She had six older brothers to idolize and to look out for her. A man who needed a woman who would see him and only him as her hero would find no match with someone like Ginny. There would be too many brothers to share that title with.
Which was the difference between Harry and Ron. When Ginny had all but worshipped Harry, he had found it nothing less than embarrassing—he was already hero-worshipped by nearly all of Britain's magical populace which had gotten tiresome very quickly. Ron, however, had always desired to be special, to be unique. In the shadow of his older brothers, he had trouble even being a hero to his little sister—which perhaps explained some of his rather intrusive behavior when it came to her boyfriends. Ron had every fiber of his inner hero to give to Hermione, and would enjoy doing so to the fullest extent of his ability.
In contrast, Harry neither needed nor wanted anyone else to think of him as a hero. In truth, he hated being a hero. And once Ginny had grown out of the hero-worship-the-Boy-Who-Lived habit that her and hundreds of other little witches her age had grown up with, she had never needed to see him or any other boy as a hero, because she had six of them in her own family. Perhaps that was why her previous relationships had worked out so badly. Those boys just couldn't take not being a hero in her eyes.
Harry yawned sleepily. It was late, and it was going to be a long day tomorrow if he was going to start planning what would be his next move. The pleasant thoughts of his friends had helped sooth his mind enough that he felt he could close his eyes and finally rest. He was just about to do so when a shadow entered the room and knelt beside Harry.
"You stlll awake, Harry?" Ron whispered.
"I was about not to be," Harry mumbled, sitting up slightly to speak with his friend. "How is she?"
"Fleur says she mostly needs rest," Ron muttered, his ears turning red, obviously embarrassed that Harry had figured out he had been keeping watch over Hermione. "She bloody kicked me out. She woke up just to check to make sure I hadn't come back! What if Hermione wakes up and needs something? Or is scared…or…or…" Ron abruptly stood, and headed back to the stairs, clearly intent on once again going back to Hermione's side once the coast was clear.
Harry laughed softly and snuggled back into his sleeping bag. A hero indeed.