Title: A Beggar's Plea

Author: maggiemerc

Rating: PG-13

Status: Complete/Deleted Scene

Characters/Pairing: Harry/Hermione

Disclaimer: I do not own them and seek no profit beyond feedback.

Summary: Hermione comes to Harry an hour before his wedding.

Author's Note: Wrote this for Homecoming but I realized there was noooo room for it. But I still really like it so whatever.

#

"Don't marry her Harry."

His fingers stopped. The tips still touched the silk of his tie. He glanced at the corner of the mirror and saw her standing there. She was wearing a red dress and her hair was smoothed up and pulled back. She really looked lovely. Though the red would certainly clash with Ron's hair.

But what had she just said?

She took another step forward and the flaps of the tent's entrance fell shut behind her.

"Don't marry her Harry."

Her eyebrows were knit together and her lips were pursed. They were red, the lip a shade too dark to look appropriate with that dress.

"Hermione."

"You think you love each other. And you think marrying each other will finally put all those demons to bed. You think if you've got her—if you've just got her then none of it will matter."

"Hermione what are you—"

She'd been coming closer and at his interruption she dashed the last few steps so that they faced one another. Her eyes level with his.

"You think love will be enough to make it work. But it won't be Harry. Love won't squash the nightmares. It won't bring back the dead."

"Ginny and I are more then that."

Her hand darted out and took up a fistful of his shirt. She pulled him close and he could feel the warmth of her knuckles through the thin material.

"You think you are." She was crying. Her voice was strong and desperate but her eyes were wet and big fat drops of liquid ran down her cheeks and into rivulets in the creases of her nose. How long had she been crying?

"It isn't enough Harry. Love isn't enough. It can't eat up all this dead weight you've got in your chest." Her hand was still wrapped up in his shirt and she emphasized her words by punching her fist lightly against his torso.

He reached up and took hold of her wrist and stilled the violence arcing through her.

"What's happened?"

He tried to look her in the eye. Tried to see his friend past all the emotions that fell off her body in a cascade.

But Hermione wasn't there.

"I tried," she explained, "I tried so hard. I took a job at the Ministry and I told him I loved him and I do. I love him Harry. But there's nothing in me now. It's just bits of dank cotton held together by skin. I'm not a person."

He gently pulled her hand free of his shirt and clasped it warmly between his two. The skin he felt was soft and damp and chilled. He noticed now that her makeup was all wrong and there was dark line between face and neck. He reach out and ran a thumb along her jaw. It blurred the line a little.

"Hermione, you're the same girl I knew. You haven't changed," he said softly.

She cried then. Not the silent tears that had tracked across her face, but big and vocal ones. The kind that might be heard beyond the canvas confines of the tent.

"But I have. I've changed. We've all changed."

"For the better," he urged.

She shook her head and little bits of her hair fell loose. "No. I'm not for the better Harry. I've tried to be. But I'm not."

His hand was still near her face. He tilted it so that he could grasp her cheek and force her to look at him. "You are," he said. He was so close he could see the pores that dotted her cheeks.

She stared. Her brown eyes held his. They darted away. Down. Then back up.

"Harry," she whispered. A plea for respite for whatever was shattering her insides.

"You're the same," he whispered again. He'd learned long ago that soft, calm words were the best way to cut through Hermione's anxiety. He found his lips crooked up into a smile. "The very same."

Lips, wet and hard, pressed against his. The hand he held fell back against his shirt and pulled his body close. The kiss was forceful. Lips and teeth and tongues. It wasn't the languid affair he'd grown accustomed to with his fiancee. It was something altogether different.

It was Hermione kissing him.

His hands moved all on their own. One continued to cup her cheek as the kiss deepened. The other once more grasped her wrist and pulled her hand free of his clothes.

Her dress. Her hips. They pressed closer. Another hand, still moist and soft wrapped around the one that cupped her cheek. He felt his eyes drifting close. Heard a soft inhalation of air.

And remembered he was getting married.

He pulled his face away from hers. Their bodies were still pressed up against each other. Their hands were still clasped. Her lips weren't as red as they'd been but were plumper. Bruised. She was looking down, not at him but his mouth. She darted forward and he pulled back.

"What are you doing," he said quietly. It wasn't a question. There was no reproach in his tone.

She blinked and looked him in the eye. "We're broken Harry."

"It's panic. You're panicking. Ron proposed and I'm headed down the aisle. It's normal."

She smiled. Like she had when he told her about his date with Cho Chang all those years ago. "It isn't."

Her hand snaked up to stroke the back of his neck and she leaned in forehead first. They didn't stop looking into one another's eyes. "Right now you think it's enough Harry. But it won't be. And I can't be here to help you figure that out. I can't be here for you or Ginny."

The hand on his neck moved. Her fingertips glanced along the hard edges of his throat. "I wish I could be that friend you need. But I can't. Not anymore."

"You're leaving."

She smiled again. Then kissed him on the cheek.

"You're leaving."

Again. If he said it enough maybe she'd deny it.

"I've tried for three years now Harry. Tried to piece myself back together. Piece Ron and you and Ginny and everyone else." She gave a little shrug. It was so utterly feminine and defeatist. The antithesis of Hermione Granger. "I can't. And I can't watch people I love tear themselves apart in a grasp for a normalcy none of us can ever have."

"Don't say that."

"It's true."

"No. You don't get to tell me what I have with Ginny. You don't."

His tone was hard and hushed and he expected her to return in kind. Instead she shook her head. "You're going to try and let pure emotion carry you through this. It won't work. But I'll hope it does."

She turned and slipped through the entrance of the tent. Beyond he could see the blue flames in the lanterns and hear the laughter and tinkling of glass. And somewhere. In another tent, Ginny was getting ready. She was putting on her dress and doing up her hair and practicing her vows. She was getting ready to tell the whole world she loved him the most. And that absolutely WOULD be enough.