Disclaimers: Harry Potter 'verse not mine, though I would seriously bid very high on eBay for it. Alas, no money is made by the loving abuse of this fandom.
O' Children is owned by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. I'm just wantonly mistreating it without any profit or gain of any kind (except playing on repeat while writing this.)
Author's Notes: Songfic, but only for the first chapter. Altered versions of scenes from HP:TDH1. Back story blends both the books and the movie (so I apologize for continuity hiccups.) If I get ample encouragement and some time, I plan on continuing this little story beyond this scene. Alas, though artistically I would've like the song sections to be left justified as to seem like its playing in the background, this thing would not let me. Blast!
H/Hr AND R/Hr. Other pairings possible in future chapters.
Without saying: If you're not into it, don't read.
Read and review, please! This is my VERY first fanfic after many years of fanfic readership and secret scribbling in notebooks (What's that, you ask?).
I have no beta at the moment and am still brushing the cobwebs off the writing muscle, so keep that in mind.
Enjoy!
Chapter One: And of All the Words in the Entire World.
Words: 3,553
Rating: M – minor adult themes, but nothing my 10 year old niece couldn't handle.
Pass me that lovely little gun
My dear, my darting one
The cleaners are coming, one by one
You don't even want to let them start
She blames Harry, if only a little bit, for Ronald leaving. Though there is more than enough blame left over for Ron, if he ever dares to show his face again. She has taken to listening to Potterwatch on the wireless, continuing Ron's tireless vigil. The same vigil which had driven Harry nearly to the brink a few weeks prior. It would serve as his only punishment, she had decided. Her only indictment to him of what they had lost because of this journey; of what she had lost.
They are knocking now upon your door
They measure the room, they know the score
Three weeks later, she still refuses to say his name out loud.
They're mopping up the butcher's floor
Of your broken little hearts
Her face presses against the deep warble of music beside her, as if to keep warm. A song from another life—a Muggle one—filled with the sublime rubbish of an unexceptional adolescence. A life without Hogwarts. Without Magic. Without Ron or Harry. The thought cuts through her, plucking a melancholy chord to the tune of the music. She keeps her face to the wireless, the tears threatening her carefully constructed mask of indifference.
O children
She feels him, more than sees him, softly pad over to her, hands outstretched. She looks up, peering at him sideways through pieces of hair and heartache. His hands are warm and slightly calloused as he takes both of hers, lightly tugging her to her feet and towards the center of the tent. He reaches out, his fingers gently probing the material of her collar, searching for the locket. Her eyes scrunch together slightly, but she says nothing. Harry unclasps it and tosses it aside, his bright green eyes never leaving her brown ones. She had been wearing it all day and where it had made Harry bitterly impatient and Ron brutally paranoid, wearing the locket brought upon Hermione an unbearable loneliness. With the locket gone, it was like surfacing from a frozen lake.
Forgive us now for what we've done
It started out as a bit of fun
He begins to move, reticently at first. One foot here. Another sway there. Awkward, yet impossibly charming in his awkwardness-even this close to death. He is always thinking of others. Always the one with the "saving people thing," no matter the costs.
The corner of her mouth twitches upwards and she shakes her head, trying not to crack a smile. She wonders how many people would hazard a guess that the "Boy Who Lived" is a rubbish dancer.
Here, take these before we run away
The keys to the gulag
As Harry pulls her along, moving her arms like a marionette, she can't help but think back to that day. She plays it over and over in her head as she would turn an object over in her hands to see it from a different angle. The row had almost been more than she could bear. The look in Ron's eyes as he asked her to choose, finally and bitterly verbalizing his fears and insecurities after what seemed like a life time of playing the funny man and the sidekick. She had seen something so dark in that hard gaze. She saw for a second what they could have become in this war had they been other people, living other lives.
Had they not had each other.
Didn't Ron understand? Didn't he know how much they both meant to her? Harry needed her and Hermione needed to be here, with him. She had felt in those first few weeks on the run that their collective relationship had moved beyond mere friendship. It was more than loyalty or love that pushed her forward now. It was something inexpressible and indefatigable and yet so tangible that when she woke up in the morning it all but pressed her back down into her cot. They had made a choice on that tower: to see this through to the end.
O children
They were tied now…no matter the ending.
Lift up your voice, lift up your voice
And as the weeks bleed into months, she notices a change in Harry. Subtle, but still there. In the middle of all this madness, he had become an adult. More than even that, actually. He had finally accepted his place in this world and in this war; as a man, as a wizard, and especially as a war hero marked for death. They both had, really; piecing together a rather unusual domestic simplicity in spite of their lives as wanted Undesirables.
As she falls asleep at night, holding the wireless, she realizes that there is so much past behind them and what seems like so little future ahead. At the crisp age of 17, she wonders if she had lived all the life that she was going to. And yet here she is, hoping to see tomorrow. Hoping to grow old with him. Her friend. Her brave. Obstinate. Wonderfully kind. Unbearably selfless. Hopelessly famous best friend, Harry James Potter.
He and his impossibly green eyes are the only color left now, even when the world is nothing but shades of ash.
Children
Rejoice, rejoice
The swell in the music invades her senses again, bringing her back to the tent and to a rather unexpected revelation. In that moment between the ticks and tocks of the invisible clock winding down their lives she makes a decision to bring herself front and center in the present. No more hiding behind her cleverness or her books. She once told Harry, back in the very beginning, that there are more important things in this world—friendship and bravery. She would move forward willingly and forcefully, if need be, and be damned (pardon her language) if anyone tried to get in her way.
Here comes Frank and poor old Jim
They're gathering round with all my friends
She entwines her fingers with his, twirling slowly, allowing herself to be swept up in the silliness of it all. Harry twirls her again, faster this time. Her head spins and something locked away bubbles up inside of her, spilling out of her lips rather un Hermione-ishly, at least the Hermione of lately. She giggles and Harry smiles broadly, a blast of sunshine in a place full of darkness. She can see it in his eyes that he needs this dance as much as she does and she twirls him rather unceremoniously.
She never really understood why the boys always got to lead on the dance floor, anyway…
We're older now, the light is dim
And you are only just beginning
They turn in circles. Twirling. Swaying. Rocking. Hands over heads and fingers grazing arms and hips and backs. Feet tracing invisible patterns on the dusty floor. She closes her eyes briefly and takes a deeper breath, allowing him to guide her closer to him. She pretends that it is just another Tuesday night in Gryffindor Tower. Scrolls and quills are scattered on the rug by the fire. A half-finished game of Wizards Chess on the solid oak table by the coaches, Ron wearing...
O children
Ron.
As Harry's movements slow and his chin finds a place on her shoulder, the music begins to fade. Her face grows solemn and she curses herself for being so foolish as to believe it would be this easy to be free of the burden of their shared destiny.
We have the answer to all your fears
It's short, it's simple, it's crystal dear
Oh, Ronald...
It's round about, it's somewhere here
Lost amongst our winnings
Instinctively, Harry pulls her closer and she presses her face into his neck. He smells of smoke and wool and wet leaves. Hermione wraps her arms around his neck and he returns the movement in kind, both needing to be close to something and someone. The feel of his solid, steady heartbeat pressed to her chest is reassuring and familiar. His neck is warm and slightly stubbly against her temple. He would die for her, she knew. He could die. Voldermort would see to that, if they let him. Harry would too, if he knew it would save them. Her breath hitches at the thought.
O children
Harry pulls away, tilting his head quizzically, his hair falling across his scar and into his eyes. She stops, her feet suddenly planted to the ground, heavy from exhaustion and the constant buzz of fear. She reaches up, mussing his hair a bit before pressing it back into place. She really did give him a terrible haircut.
Lift up your voice, lift up your voice
Children
" 'mione..." He grabs her wrist, pulling it down and placing it squarely on his chest near his heart. "The haircut is brilliant. I fancy myself a bit of a rock star with this shag…" He tries to keep it light, but she can feel his heart thumping wildly beneath her fingers. He looks as if he's about to say something more, but remains silent. His eyes search her face for some sort of reaction, but Hermione is thoroughly lost in her loneliness again.
Rejoice, rejoice
"Hermione." He says again, pronouncing every syllable of her name as if testing out a new Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean, unsure of its flavor. It snaps her back momentarily.
"I didn't say thank you before."
The cleaners have done their job on you
They're hip to it, man, they're in the groove
They've hosed you down, you're good as new
They're lining up to inspect you
She knits her eyebrows together at the sudden change in topic, "For what, Harry?"
"For sticking with me. For being my friend. For never giving up on me. For everything you've sacrificed…" She knew he meant Ron. And her parents. "I didn't choose this life, but you did." He looks away for a moment, suddenly taking interest in a frayed piece of flannel on her collar.
"I honestly don't know where we'd be without you…so…thank you." He lifts his eyes again. Hermione notices speckles of light reflecting off his irises.
It was such a simple declaration, but the thickness of the emotion behind his words made her eyes begin to water. "Harry…" She sighs, looking down, unable to look at him look at her so earnestly.
O children
She didn't think it possible to love Harry more than in this moment.
Poor old Jim's white as a ghost
He's found the answer that was lost
Suddenly, he reaches out and brushes a piece of errant hair behind her ear, tipping her chin up with his other hand so that she is forced to look at him. Her mouth opens slightly, as if the air in the room suddenly rushed out. She has never seen this blazing look in Harry's eyes before. Not at her. Not in a million years. But this is a different place. They are far away from the people they were months before. Far away from Ginny and Ron. From Hogwarts and Dumbledore's Army. From everything that has defined them so carefully during their years at school. It is as if she is looking in the Mirror of Erised, except this one is showing her another path. A slightly different one from the one she is on. Where the hero and heroine win the battle, finding victory in each other's arms. Just like all the story books and fairy tales, Magic or Muggle, she'd always hated as a child for being so improbable.
We're all weeping now, weeping because
There ain't nothing we can do to protect you
Then he does something inexplicable and so completely illogical, which for Hermione Granger, the cleverest witch of their age, is saying something. Harry Potter: her best friend, Ron's best friend, Ginny's always almost love, the Chosen One…kisses her.
O children
Lift up your voice, lift up your voice
Children
Rejoice, rejoice
Hermione knows that the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words currently in use and about 47,156 obsolete words that no one uses anymore—that is not including all the words in the Magical Lexicon—and between all of them she could not form one. Single. Word. It is the first time she has ever been completely and utterly relieved of her ability to speak.
Instead her brain buzzes with a sort of primal awareness:
Of Harry's lips being surprisingly soft and small against her mouth.
Of the way his eyelashes look like lace against his pale cheeks (she is too stunned to even close her eyes).
Of his hands gripping the shirt covering her arms a little too tightly.
Of the smell of burning wood from the fire dwindling outside.
Of the hissing of the wireless as more news of deaths in the Wizarding World are announced.
Of the rustle of the worn pages of the Tales of the Beedle the Bard as they flap slowly in the draft of the tent door.
Of the locket pulsing eerily behind them, its metallic heartbeat speeding up with each passing second, fed by the sudden charge of tension in the room.
Of the feeling of being a child and a grown-up all at once.
And of knowing that there is no going back from this moment.
Hey little train! We are all jumping on
The train that goes to the Kingdom
We're happy, Ma, we're having fun
And the train ain't even left the station
Harry pulls away, his face hovering inches from hers. He peers at her in that impossibly silent way of his. He says nothing, though his hands are still wrapped tightly around her forearms. For a moment, Hermione thinks she has lost her hearing. The world is so quiet, as if holding its breath.
Hey, little train! Wait for me!
I once was blind but now
I see Have you left a seat for me?
Is that such a stretch of the imagination?
After a few seconds, he lets go and takes a step backwards to give her room. His chest rises and falls rapidly beneath the thick grey wool of his sweater, slightly out of breath, but he looks at her evenly, fearlessly. Though still in shock, Hermione knows instantly (or perhaps she always known) that Harry will never hurt her or leave her. That the kiss, though unexpected, has been some time coming and did not come lightly to Harry. While Ron is passionate and unpredictable, he is still and immutable. Her constant. He knew, just as well as she, that this kiss between friends—best friends—is as perilous as the battle outside their door. Yet, he kissed her anyway and in this kiss holds a delicate truth.
There is hope.
In the face of what seems like a deep and ceaseless night, these are the things that would shine on.
Hey little train! Wait for me!
I was held in chains but now I'm free
I'm hanging in there, don't you see
In this process of elimination
The wireless glitches and blares a loud cacophonous note of noise before settling back into the gentle thrum of voices. Hermione starts as if having been woken up suddenly from a strange dream.
And just as suddenly the analytical part of her mind begins to re-engage.
And just as she used to in the face of a puzzle she didn't know instantly how to solve, she panics.
Harry opens his mouth to speak, uncertainty dancing like flickering flames in his eyes. He reaches out for her hand. "I…"
She steps back and does the one thing she swore she'd never do to Harry, who has been hurt by so many already. Hermione walks away—straight out of the tent—palming her wand as she goes.
"L-l-lumos," she manages.
Hey little train! We are all jumping on
The train that goes to the Kingdom
We're happy, Ma, we're having fun
It's beyond my wildest expectation
She barely makes it out of hearing range before she begins to cry. She keeps walking, however, planting one foot in front of the next until she's nearly to the edge of the enchantments encircling the surrounding area. The dam has broken now, threatening to drown her. She sinks to the ground facing the dark of the forest, unaware of the damp ground or the jagged rocks or the whistle of the wind as it cuts through her thin top. She cries out of guilt, out of love, out of hope, out of fear, out of frustration, out of hunger, and out of cold. She cries harder than that terrible night she saw Ron and Lavender share their first (entirely too overzealous, if you ask her) kiss. Or the day they buried Dumbledore in his white tomb. Even harder than the day she sent her parents packing to Australia, their bags filled with mementos where she had no place.
Hey little train! We are all jumping on
The train that goes to the Kingdom
We're happy, Ma, we're having fun
And the train ain't even left the station
And of all the words in the entire world that Hermione knows, and would happily give the definition of if prompted, all she can think is:
Bugger.