A/N: I don't own anything you recognize, nor do I profit from this.

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They studied together. Nothing more, and nothing less. An outsider would be hard pressed to even call them acquaintances if there had been any outsiders with knowledge of their nightly meetings. They both saved their daily work for the hours of night in which they met in a secluded corner of the closed library. They both knew the other would always be there. They took comfort in it.

They found one another on a cold winter's night. Both had a key to the library, as their respective heads of houses had entrusted a key with each of them, knowing they would respect the space and that they would make good use of the unpopulated columns of books. It was unbearably cold that night and so she lit a fire in a small hearth near the back of the library. The glow was enough to alert him to the presence of another being in the library. The cold and his curiosity drew him in.

He wasn't truly surprised to see her there as it was one of her haunts, but he was surprised when she turned around as if she had been expecting him.

"It's cold," she'd said simply as the firelight danced across her skin. If she was unsettled by his presence in the dark library that night, she didn't show it. Encouraged by the cold, he settled into a chair on the opposite side of her study table and took out his books, glancing at her from the corner of his eye when he thought she wasn't paying attention.

That was the beginning of fifth year.

She watched him change as the years passed, wasting away with the stress put on him by his family and the Dark Lord. She knew he was a Death Eater, though they never talked about it. They only ever talked about school and inconsequential topics that held positive memories for both of them. There were too many bad memories between them to create more.

The war. The Final Battle. Spells were flying, and chaos ensued. She was blinded by the brilliant flashes, and she couldn't see him anymore. Could hardly see anything. She knew looking for him might cost her life, but she had to see him. To make sure he was okay. He'd told her he'd lost his mother just before the final battle ensued. His father was forced to offer her as a meal to Nagini and he complied to save his only son's life. He'd been forced to kill his father afterward to ensure his undying obedience to the dark cause. One which he had no true interest in. He wasn't in the correct frame of mind to watch his own back, so she was determined to watch it for him.

She saw Ron out of the corner of her eye, firing sparking jets of light from his wand left and right, seemingly without pause. He was aiming without bias, shooting to kill anything wearing black. It was kill or be killed with the Death Eaters and everyone knew that. She knew that, yet she still searched.

As if in slow motion, she saw the beam of light and knew that she had failed him. Ron had aimed and spoke the condemning words without considering any consequences other than having one less Death Eater endangering everyone he loved. He wouldn't have understood the consequences even if he had seen the face of the man wearing black. She barely understood them at the time.

The light struck him and he fell to the ground. She ran to him as fast as her legs could carry her, but not fast enough to save him from his fate. She pulled his head into her lap and met his desperate, mercurial, dying eyes.

"I love you," he whispered brokenly at his confession. "I have since that first night," he forced out as he choked on his own blood. Tears streamed down her dirtied face as she petted his bloodied cornsilk-blonde hair away from his face. Everything else had disappeared, and despite the deadly flashes surrounding her and they dying boy made man, she needed him to know. She needed him to know that she loved him too. From that first night until the day she died.

She was too late. She shook him slightly to rouse him but there was nothing left in him to rouse. He was an empty shell. A shell whose departed contents would never know that she loved him. Never know of all the time they'd wasted and could never make up. Their time was up before it had even really started.

With the blazing lights coming back into focus, she found Ron again. She fired at him in a blind rage, only to be subdued by a stray immobilizing spell before she could land her deadly curse.

She woke in the hospital wing, surrounded by other wounded soldiers of the light. Harry was one cot over, and he looked fine except for some cuts and bruises. They were alive, and that meant Voldemort was dead. Defeated. She felt no happiness. Or anything at all.

The memories returned as she stared at the ceiling, and she closed her bloodshot eyes to wish them away once more. He would never know. He would never understand how desperately, passionately, violently she had loved him. She didn't know that she could have him, that it was even a possibility to win the cold boy's heart for her own until the victory didn't matter anymore. No one would ever know. She didn't know if she could live with that.

Five days:

Ron had died during the battle, and she regretted deeply that it had not been by her own hand. So had nearly every member of his family. Ginny, Percy, Molly, Fred and George, Charlie. Arthur was alive, but gravely injured and knocking at Death's door. So many had fallen, but so many still stood. Stood in a tear-and-blood-shined version of the world they had been fighting for while sweeping the bad memories into the dark corners of their subconscious where they did not dare to dwell. The world continued to spin, and life went on.

For most of them.

She hadn't eaten since the day she woke on a cot next to Harry. Hadn't spoken, hadn't cried. His words had broken her, and she hid in the corner of her mind that was the furthest away from anything that could remind her of him. Of what she'd lost before she even knew she could have it.

Two months:

She was severely malnourished. Harry had taken her in to make sure she ate, but she still didn't eat enough. She knew Harry had loved Ginny, but she also knew it wasn't the same. Harry didn't give up on himself when he knew she was gone. He went on with his life, believing that she was in a better place.

She didn't sleep enough. She lay awake most nights, looking for patterns in the wallpaper, patterns that weren't there, to distract her from the heartbreak that swallowed her every time she closed her haunted eyes.

Six months:

She objectively knew she was being pathetic, but she was gone enough not to care. She pretended for Harry's sake, but she had given up on herself. On life. She was a ghost of the woman she used to be.

Harry was looking at her differently. She knew that he was interested in her in a way that he hadn't been before, that he thought that he loved her. He loved Ginny and she would serve as a fill in for the red-head that had been taken away from him too soon. She knew this and accepted this. She couldn't have the man she wanted, so she was resigned to the idea of going along with whatever Harry wanted. He was all she had left, including herself that had fled from the misery shortly after the death of her heart.

She forced herself to start eating again.

One Year:

They were getting married. She didn't particularly remember agreeing to marry him, but she understood that she had. She ate, but it was absently. Everything was done absently. She cooked, she cleaned, she did everything that was expected of a trophy wife before they were even married short of showing affection or warmth. She just couldn't. It wasn't that she didn't love Harry, but she loved him as a sister loves a brother. The one she loved like a woman should love a man she marries had passed, and Harry didn't even know.

She looked at the blood-colored roses in her hands with sadness and resignation. It was a small ceremony. No fanfare and not lasting more than ten minutes. For that, at least, she was thankful.

Two years:

She knew she was pregnant. She could feel the disturbance in her magic. She could also feel her magic rejecting the fetus. It wasn't his baby, her soul-mate's baby. It was dying, and she couldn't find the heart to tell Harry either of those facts. Couldn't tell him that there was nothing he or she could do to save the baby as her desperate magic would ensure its death. He'd be devastated.

She stopped eating again.

Two years, One month:

She woke up in the hospital again, but she didn't open her eyes. She must have collapsed again. She could hear the nurse talking quietly to Harry.

"Her magic has rejected the child. Frankly, it will likely reject any child she may attempt to conceive in the future. For some reason, her magic senses the fetus as non-self and has self-aborted it. It could be for any number of reasons," the nurse bluntly explained in order to keep her own emotions out of the situation.

"And Hermione?" Harry asked desperately.

"We don't know yet. She is quite a bit underweight, which doesn't help the situation. Her body is trying to recover, but her magic is resisting. It's like it doesn't want to be here. She not responding well to treatment," the nurse whispered in reply.

She could hear Harry sobbing, but it was like she was underwater. She could feel her body resisting her, her magic fighting against wakefulness. She pushed the weakness aside and forced open her eyes.

"Harry," she croaked to alert him of her lucid state once the nurse had left the room. He quickly rushed across the room to her side, only to bury his head into her neck. She could feel his hot tears on her skin.

"It's him isn't it?" He whispered so quietly that she struggled to pick up the words.

"What do you mean?" She whispered roughly in reply. There was no way he could know.

"Draco Malfoy. I saw you with him after Ron's spell hit him. I guess I just never really understood until now," Harry cried softly. So he did know. She broke all over again at the sound of his name. She couldn't stop her tears and she could feel them soaking into the pillow her head rested on as they slid down her cheeks. She could feel her magic struggling against her, fighting her lucidity, fighting for the darkness to consume her. She felt Harry brush the tears from her pale face. He didn't tell her that her tears weren't the salt water she expected, but rivulets of red. He knew she had little time left.

"Yes," she cried, and she could feel his body shaking with sobs. Time passed. It could have been minutes or hours, neither of them knew. Their old grief was made new again, and Hermione realized that he'd never given up on his love for Ginny either. He had been trying to make her happy the whole time, as she'd been trying to do for him.

"Hermione?" He finally whispered, afraid of interrupting the silence that had fallen between them.

"Yeah?" She forced out in the darkness.

"Go to him. I understand," he said almost silently. She understood. He was releasing her, letting her know it was okay to reunite with the man she loved but never got to love. It was okay for her to die. Her arms squeezed tighter around him in thanks as she let her magic slip to the forefront of her mind. To the forefront of her soul.

As if it were rejoicing, her magic conveyed a sense of warmth and happiness to both of them, and she felt comfortable in her own skin in the first time since the beginning of the end. She was free to go to him, and her last living though wasn't one of wasted time and lost love. It was one of hope for the afterlife.

The darkness took her. She embraced it like a long lost friend.

Harry could feel her slipping away, and he knew immediately when she was gone. He felt no more attachment to her physical form when she no longer inhabited it. Hermione was all he had left, and like Hermione, he wished to be reunited with the one he lost.

He'd been prepared to die for exactly two years and one month. He even had the potion in his pocket to prove it. He uncorked the vial from that pocket with a serene smile on his tear-streaked face, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he would be reunited with everything he had lost or be blissfully aware of nothing at all.

He had never really believed in a life after death, but there was nothing else left for him on earth. Even if only darkness lay ahead of him, it was better than the emptiness that awaited him for the rest of his life.

The darkness took him quickly as the unholy potion took hold of him. He let it wind around him like the comforting arms of his lost love.

They found them like that the next morning. Long dried tear tracks and cold fingers woven together in death.

History would always wonder what happened to the final two members of the golden trio. Why their lives ended like they did—why they couldn't find happiness. But Death knew, and he welcomed them home with open arms.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Please leave a review before you leave.

Domo arigato.