- I'm sorry. – Harry Potter stood in front of an old and dusty house somewhere in London. He wouldn't be able to tell anyone where exactly he stood, even if he wanted to. He had apparated as soon as he'd heard the address and now he couldn't remember it at all. It was all foggy in his brain.
The wind blew quite strong and his black coat swung along with it. For a few seconds he could almost swear he'd sensed her right next to him. – I'm so sorry.
If his heart had been able to, he knew it would weep along with him. But as it was, it was just him and his silent tears. There was no noise.
It made sense in a way. His world had stopped the minute they had told him what had happened, after all. It was only fair that everything else also stopped along with it.
He breathed out long and slowly and there was a twitch in his right hand as he became aware of tears on the floor. His tears.
Would she have called him pathetic?
He could hear her in his mind. Telling him to stop being a baby and to go and save the day, just like his idiotic heroic routine made him want to.
He could hear her and he could see her there, standing in front of him, blocking the view from whatever it was it had bothered him, while acting as if she hadn't been doing it on purpose all along.
For how long had she bled while waiting for him?
Had she called for him? He wondered if she'd been able to keep her obnoxious, rude charade. Or had she cracked? He knew her. Or he liked to think he did. And he had learned to love every single bit of her fake rudeness along the way.
He had failed. Miserably, in his opinion.
A crack behind him made him wipe his eyes quite furiously and rapidly, as if whoever had come looking for him wouldn't be able to tell he had been crying. For her. For his mistakes.
For a small moment in time, he wondered if he should take out his wand and point it at his new company. He decided as soon as he thought about it, that it wouldn't matter. Not right now. Not when all he wanted to was to go back in time and stop it all.
-Harry… - Hermione. Of course it would have been her coming for him. Her voice sounded distant in his mind. – It wasn't your fault. You can't do this. Please don't listen to that lousy woman. – She got closer to him and he kept on looking to that bloody awful house. Hermione's hand touched his back and once again, for a few seconds, he sensed her there, behind his back, her arms wrapped safely around him as they had been once, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
- Please don't. – his voice quivered and he looked at his feet.
She dropped her hand instantly.
Silence was installed once again, with only the sound of the wind and the occasional failure of the electric post making its appearance.
He gripped his wand tightly in his hand.
-Is she...? – he dreaded the question as soon as it left his mouth and he looked up, hoping Hermione wouldn't make him end his question.
She got closer to him once again and quickly understood him.
-Gods, Harry, no. She's still alive. – Harry winced at the implication of the word "still". His best friend was now standing at his side.
He knew without looking at her that she was looking at him the way she'd always had when she didn't know what to say and how to fix it. No amount of books could tell her how to help him not feel as guilty as he did.
– You need to come back, Harry.
The brown-haired boy looked at her and she could see in his now bloodshot eyes the guilty he felt. She swallowed the lump that had formed on her throat while looking at him. He looked so much like a lost kid.
And weren't they all?
-What if she doesn't? – he asked. – What if she doesn't come back? – Hermione grabbed his face with both her hands, being as gentle as she could.
-You do know who we're talking about, right? I haven't met anyone as infuriating stubborn as she can be. – she wiped a tear from his face. – She can be more stubborn than you. And after dealing with you all these years, that's saying something.
He chuckled sadly. The need to take out his heart so it wouldn't feel as it did was becoming unbearable. His hand twitched again.
-She is quite stubborn. – Hermione smiled a bit at him, reassuringly, and dropped her hands to her side.
- Her mother's there still. – his eyes dropped to the floor and he winced. - Ron stayed there too. Said he knew you wanted to stay but just… - Harry looked at her once again and she tried to find the right word for it - …couldn't. So he stayed for you, keeping guard. Until I got you back.
It was funny how time seemed to change it all. It hadn't been that long ago that Ron wouldn't get any more closer to her than the absolutely necessary. And now there he was. Being what he had been all along, alongside Hermione. His best mate.
He was grateful Hermione hadn't said the truth.
He could have stayed alright. He just had decided not to. Now with her mother stating as loud as she could what they all already knew.
If it weren't for him, she wouldn't be in St Mungus at all, would she? Not that much of a Gryffindor, was he?
She would have laughed at it. Telling him he had been a scared cat running with his tail between his legs. He would have told her at least he had a tail.
-She will be fine, Harry. We'll figure this out. We always do.
And as Harry Potter listened to her, he knew he didn't believe her. And he couldn't stand it.
He sobbed and his head found a place in Hermione's shoulder, while she hugged him tightly and let him let it all out.
He couldn't stand it.
He couldn't stand not knowing if he'd ever listen again to her voice telling him he was fool. And most of all, he couldn't stand not knowing if he would ever hear her voice telling him again how she was a fool along with him, for loving him as fiercely as she did.
He hugged her back and he cried his heart out. And as much as he knew how lucky he was for having Hermione in his life, he wept even more as he realized that it wasn't her he wanted holding him that night. How had it all gotten more messed than it already had been?
As her best friend wept on her shoulder, Hermione Granger, the smartest witch of her age and known Gryffindor bookworm, prayed.
She was a firm believer in knowledge and science had always topped religion. But just for this day, she could make an exception and do what her grandmother had always told her to do when she needed strength and help and there was nowhere left to turn to. She prayed.
She prayed that the girl who Harry Potter's heart loved so ferociously, would indeed be okay.
For Daphne Greengrass, she prayed.