Just an idea I got while reading yet another Dark Harry fic... What do his former friends feel like when he takes his 'rightful' revenge? One-shot, at 4 a.m. on a regular weekday during the semester... So possibly that explains the weirdness of it all... ; )

Disclaimer: Not mine. All things Harry Potter -related belong to J.K. Rowling and whomever she might have sold the rights to (I'm not one of them)

Warning: Mentions of slash (boy x boy love) and a number of character deaths.

Too much to ask

She let her gaze sweep over the battle field. Bodies littered the grounds of Hogwarts. The grass had been burned or poisoned in various places, blood and nastier substances staining the once soft and peaceful hills.

The Death Eaters had retreated to the edge of the Forbidden Forest when their master had fallen under Dumbledore's curse, taking the old gentle wizard with him to the death.

While the forces of the light rejoiced in the knowledge that the Dark Lord was no more, they had little reason for celebration: already the Dark troops were regrouping. Their Lord was dead, yet they were hardly left without a leader. It had been four months since the Dark Lord had announced the true identity of his heir.

Harry Potter stood on a small rise on the brink of the forest, cold gaze scanning the battle field while instructing the forces of his late master on the next move.

His eyes met hers and they looked at each other, faces expressionless while something flickered across the mirrors to their souls like a fast forwarded movie running out of control.

Hermione gasped.

There was so much emotion in those emerald eyes in that moment. Everything seemed to fall apart around her. She had not believed that Harry would turn from them when the rumors first began. Even when she accidentally walked in on him and Draco Malfoy, of all people, heavily making out in an empty class room, she had not believed in his changing sides. Even though she later realized the boys hadn't just been making out, but had litteraly tried to pound one another through the teacher's desk, eyes shining with nothing but feral lust and the desire to possess and control. That sure hadn't been the boy who had been her best friend for over five years, and yet she would not give up on him.

Then sixth year came and Harry began to change. At first she had thought the death of his godfather was still affecting him and tried to help him. But Harry had blocked her and Ron off, turning ever more vicious in his words to drive them off, till eventually she had exploded in his face. That was the day it all went down the drain. Harry had looked at her coldly, yet calmly throughout her rampage; then he had walked off towards the headmaster's office. That night, Harry Potter had been resorted into Slytherin.

Hermione had not understood what had happened to him. She only knew he somehow seemed to blame her and Ron for it, as well as Dumbledore. More and more often, he would sneer at them in the halls, spit biting remarks like a true Slytherin and do his worst to shame them in front of the whole school.

Ron had not taken it well. The ever hot headed Gryffindor had begun reacting to Harry's taunting with fits of anger, going so far as to draw his wand on the Boy-who-lived.

A mistake that proved deadly.

Harry never blinked while he cast the killing curse on his former best friend, all the while keeping his face a cold, expressionless mask.

While people just stared at him in utter shock, Harry Potter had walked out the main gates, calmly leaving the school and all he ever fought for behind.

Hermione had cried. She had wept for Ron, for his family, for herself; for she had truly loved the irritable redhead. She had also mourned for Harry, the Harry she had gotten to know since her first year of school and who had somehow disappeared after fifth year without ever letting anyone know the reason.

She looked up as a noise broke through her painful memories.

The armies had started moving again. Order members, aurors, teachers, students, inhabitants of Hogsmeade and even a few people she had never seen and could not place for the life of her united to stand in the last and all-deciding fight against the Dark that had ruined and stolen so many lives.

Hermione gripped her wand, cold determination banishing any thought of lost friendships and happier days from her mind. Her eyes never leaving the raven haired, lean wizard on the hill across from her, she began to slowly move down from her perch to add what little help she could give to bring down the latest Dark Lord and maybe finally allow the wizarding world some peace.

Four hours had passed. The day was nearing its end and still the fighting continued. Hermione had seen dozens of her friends and teachers fall around her. Her eyes had glazed over, a dull and absent look taking over her features while she mindlessly murdered the Death Eaters that kept coming for her, still she kept her intent fixed on that one person who seemed to be the point around whom everything revolved.

And there it was.

After weeks and weeks of fighting, there was this one weakness that the Boy Lord should not have allowed himself. As Hagrid, the gentle half-giant who had so often been there for the three friends in times of sorrow, breathed out his life in one last, small, astonished groan, Harry Potter turned to stare at the man who once had meant the world to him. In that moment, Hermione aimed- and her curse hit home.

Suddenly, all noises around the two opponents died as people realized what had happened. Death Eaters and Light wizards watched in silence as the Boy Lord, once their savior, now their most feared enemy, fell to the ground as his knees gave way, no longer able to support his body.

It took Hermione only a split second to make a decision that would haunt her dreams forever. In a single dash she reached the side of her once-friend and caught his lithe form before his head could hit the ground.

The heir of the Dark Lord, Harry Potter, looked up at her, forest green eyes swimming with emotion.

Hermione choked. In that moment when realization hit that he was dying, he looked so small, so incredibly vulnerable- and so very much like the boy he had been before his fall to the Dark.

Tears ran down her face as she met his confused and hurting gaze. Slowly, she opened her lips to ask the one question that had been on her mind for so long now.

"Why?"

He looked at her, fully understanding only now, it seemed, who she was.

"Hermione..." The girl's heart contracted painfully at the sad and broken voice of the boy she'd considered nearly a brother not so long ago. "Hermione, I never wanted any of this. All I wanted was someone who would accept me for who I was. If there had been just one person to truly love me, just one... All my life, all I ever wanted was to experience just a little bit of love. Was that too much to ask?"

An intense look passed his eyes as he stared at her, willing her to answer the question he had asked himself over and over during his cursed life, never getting an answer. Then his eyes glazed over once more, turned sightless as his body went limp.

Harry Potter was dead.

Now maybe the world would know peace. But Hermione, who had seen the despair and loneliness in Harry's eyes as he died, alone and confused even in that last moment, never would.

THE END


So what do you think? Please review!