I pushed the rickety door open, trying not to make a sound and failing miserably, just like at everything else I did in my life. I knew if I wasn't silent I was likely to have my head blown off or changed permanently into an octopus. All of us where very jumpy, I had surprised Harry by walking in on him when he was in one of his dark brooding moods, well let's just say it wasn't pretty. The good thing that came out of it was that I knew that if I had been a death eater, Harry would still be alive and the death eater...
It was disturbing, the fact that we knew that eventually we'd have to kill, all of us. We were lucky so far, being able to repel death eaters by stunning them or using hexes which were no doubt unpleasant, but not life-threatening. It was early in the war, but the few battles we had fought had taken most of the naivety, the hope we'd had when we had begun this expedition. It didn't bother me as much as the fact that I didn't care. I didn't care that in the near future someone's heart would stop beating by my hand. They were the reason we were fighting this war, they and their ideals and prejudices caused incredible suffering for all who opposed them.
I crept along the hall, avoiding the spider webs as I went. I stopped being scared of spiders the day Dumbledore died. It was ironically on that day that I stopped being dependant on the ones I love, and started to become more dependable. Wasn't there that saying, an end is only a beginning to something else...something along those lines I think. The problem was, with my new skin, my new way of looking at that around me, I came to realize some very important factors which could easily uproot our mission completely. Our lack of resources, lack of knowledge, and the fact that Harry was closer than ever to that mental breakdown the papers had so eagerly fabricated in fifth Year. We had no leads about where the other Hocruxes were, who the mysterious R.A.B. was, we had no idea of how to destroy the pieces of Voldemort's soul in the unlikely event we were able to find one. All these loopholes, coupled with the lack of hope that came with six months searching while producing nothing, caused Harry to become more irritable, more fragile. We had to walk like on eggshells around him, keeping our emotions in check as he periodically jumped down our throats for the slightest infraction, because Hermione feared that standing up to him would awake a feeling of abandonment on our part. Something which may bring Harry over the edge he was so carefully balancing on.
I reached her room. I never liked the fact it was so far from ours,
she could be attacked without us hearing a sound, even in this creaky house. I carefully turned
the tarnished brass doorknob, in case she was sleeping.
Sleep was a precious commodity; I could not risk disturbing it. She was lying with her back
to the door, the soft glow of the oil-lamp standing on her dresser
still filled the room.
"Hermione?" I queried tentavly; she had not turned as I entered. Had she fallen asleep despite the flickering light of the lamp?
"Go." her voice was thick, as though she was about to cry. The other me would have panicked at
the prospect of tears, especially Hermione's, but I knew that I had to be the strong one.
I sat next to her, her back against my side and hugged her with one arm. I did not ask what
was wrong, in days like these it would be more useful to ask what was right with the world
than what was wrong.
"Go, I don't want you to see me like this, crying pathetically, you have too much to worry about already, you don't have to add me to your burdens."
She was smart, she knew it was fruitless; I would stay regardless of the excuses she spouted off,
but the veiled honesty, the scripted lines of conversation were one of the few morsels of
normality that were essential to our sanity. I couldn't say it was alright, it wasn't.
Lying, even a comforting lie like that, would do no good. Instead I sat there and held
her, showing her that she wasn't alone in the world like she was no doubt thinking now.
Slowly her sobs subsided and she sat up, looking at me, eyes still shiny with tears.
"Thanks."
"No problem."
And it wasn't, in some twisted way I took comfort in her despair. It was being alone I
was afraid of, and her tears showed him that I wasn't. I had always been surrounded by love,
by warmth, and laughter. When I think of my family I am happy about who I am, although
I still do not believe that I deserve it. I don't even deserve to be sitting here,
but then again, who does?
"I think you should talk about it, you know."
Whoever said Ron Weasley wasn't brave could stick his words up his ass, because he was brave.
Not in the careless kind of brave, the kind of brave Harry was, blindly flinging himself
in the path of danger because it was his duty. No Ron Weasley saw the danger, screamed like
a girl and then flung himself into its path.
"Ok," she said, taking a deep breath, "I'll talk." Her face had a horribly serious look in it,
but suddenly she giggled. A watery giggle, it was, but it was still there. I looked at her
strangely, and she explained:
"I finally get up the courage to talk, and then I don't know what to say."
I beckoned her, like a father wheedles the truth out of his child about the disappearance of the cookie jar.
"At the end, start at the end." Because the end was all that mattered now, more importantly,
who was there to see it.
"I'm not afraid of dying, I am afraid of staying alive while I see you and Harry stupidly throw yourselves in front of some curse to save someone, especially if it's me."
Yes, I wasn't afraid of dying either; there was no war under the heavy, moist soil, no fear.I too, was afraid to be left behind while all I cared about crumbled into dust. If it did,
my mind would crumble, and I would seek shelter in insanity. I wouldn't fight it, like Harry
did, I would embrace its cold, scaly body and bow to its crushing force. I would live
in denial of the events which were unfolding, staring out of a barred window, watching the sun
go down, while my sun lay sleeping in a graveyard, full of fond memories of laughter.
I didn't say this to her, I just sat there, my eyes again, beckoning her troubles out of her
shell, so that I could carry them for her, so she would be untouched by this plague. It was
my only ignorant hope now, that Hermione would stay the way she'd been on the first day
in Hogwarts, full of excitement of life, not of fear for it.
"I'm worried about Harry as well, not only worried, but mad," she sniffed, "I know it's wrong,
but I'm really tired of him taking all this out on us, snapping at us for every little thing,
it's like he is not our friend anymore, but like a dangerous pet, which is better to have
as your friend than your enemy."
"Hermione, you know we have to... I don't like it either, but it's the way it is, and you can still talk to me, can't you?"
Its funny how I still sounded like the naive schoolboy I left behind at the ceremony honoring Dumbledore, his death as well as his life. It cheered her up, hearing the same words she would have expected of me before this menace. All she now needed one of my bumbling jokes and the light of his life would be burning brightly once again.
"Stop crying now, you're wasting water. You always tell me to turn off the tap, and now look at you, letting it run down your cheeks like it was nothing."
Her face lit up, a smile stretching across it. The joke was crap, again the principle was what mattered. I kissed her then. Just like that. All those years of waiting, most would have expected a miracle, but it was. Because it made her happy, and she hadn't been happy in a long time.
As I was creeping back into my room, the new day was already dawning. I had never stayed as
long as that, I had to be careful now. If Harry found out, his paranoia would surely let him
believe they were conspiring behind his back. In truth, they were, they felt they couldn't talk,
even research freely in his presence. He was like a dark cloud, preventing things from being
normal. The visits had become a habit, creating their own little pockets of normality to breathe
in. I found it sad that only under such dark circumstances, in a dusty corner of a dark world
their love could become alive. Somehow I had always known, their bond was too special to be
nurtured by heart-shaped chocolates and holding hands at the lake. It was connected with
pain, like Harry and Ginny's fledgling love was connected by security. In some ways I
was glad by their connection of pain, Harry and Ginny's love would not survive this war any more
than Harry would unscathed. But from the moment I realized, in retrospect, that I had fallen
in love with her that day I saw her life-less eyes, their laughter sucked away by the Basilisk's
hypnotizing ones, I knew that hurt was what kept them needing each other. They had tasted
what it was like without the other, even the prospect was what kept the frantic, secret kisses in
the night from loosing their spark.
R/R please