We Were There

A/N- The idea for this fic came to me after reading the Young Wizards fan fic "She Was" by RobotAmputee. The initial idea was a memoir of sorts (from the POV of another character about the main character). So I decided to try my hand at this kind of fic except in the HP category.

So I hope everyone enjoys this fic. I've been so preoccupied with my HTTYD fics that I haven't written in other categories in a while.

This is part of the 20 by 20 Challenge. See other fics marked with "Part of the 20 by 20 Challenge" for details (some of the earlier ones have the outline for the challenge in it).

The deadline has been extended to February 21st.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, concepts, or story. "She Was" used with permission from RobotAmputee.

I am currently working on my longer HP multi-chapter story "Darkest Hour" but that's not likely to be posted until I've finished and/or moved further along in my other multi-chapter fics. I also have very little time to write as it is, so I've mostly been writing for HTTYD.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this fic and I hope some of you will hang around for when I do get "Darkest Hour" up and running. It's still in the development stages and I've written some scenes from it, but since I'm uber picky, I don't think it's ready to post yet.

This story is told from Hermione's POV and will include some spoilers from each year.

All the best,

-Don "QuixoticQuest" ^_^

That year was when our lives changed.

We were young and wet behind the ears with no idea what we were in for when we stepped through the massive doors to the Great Hall. All around us were students, who like us, could use magic.

Maybe it was because I thought I knew more than the average first year, that I thought I could tackle everything alone. No one, I soon realized, was ever that strong. Sure, we liked to pretend it was just about textbooks and spells, but it took nearly being killed by a troll my first year to realize that I was way off the mark.

It wasn't long after we fought off the troll that we made a strange pact without really saying much of anything to one another. What was there to say after all? We were eleven year olds who had almost had our skulls bashed in by a creature with less than a quarter of our intelligence level.

Though, as Ron constantly reminded me in the years after, "He was big enough that even your thickest book couldn't stop him." He was probably right. Even the thickest volumes, spanning over a thousand pages, were no match for an enraged troll.

Despite how rude Ron may have been at first, I soon realized that there was more to him than meets the eye. Of course, I didn't really think much of him in the looks department when we first met because he wasn't exactly all that charming when he chewed with his mouth open.

I soon realized that my standards were far too high in hoping that boys could be even remotely charming or even polite. At least, not at first glance.

Though after fighting in a live chess game, Ron towered above and beyond the bravery of his peers and he was forever changed in my eyes. Not that I told him anything of the sort at the time. But I figured some things were best left unsaid for the time being.

Then came our second year.

We fell into a pattern after our first year. Our expectations and realization of the reality we lived in had become crystal clear. Though knowing what we should expect from You Know Who on a yearly basis wasn't exactly comforting, it wasn't surprising.

What was, however, was the kidnapping of Ron's younger sister, Ginny. No sooner had we thought things couldn't get any worse and then the writing in blood appeared on the wall. Ron was mortified and Harry was determined, as always to set things right.

He always felt that need, whether or not it was really his responsibility. It was probably that over protective nature and self-blame that made Harry such a magnet for all kinds of trouble. Not that Harry seemed to care. It was in his nature to ignore warning signs or acknowledge them in an attempt to brave the storm.

Then there was Harry's brotherly love for Ginny. She was Ron's little sister and Ron was Harry's best mate, it was simple as that. Friends meant you'd sacrifice anything to help one another. Harry had that part of the job down pat. Though his knowledge of girls could use more work.

Whatever he'd done down in the Chamber of Secrets had won Ginny over completely. No matter what anyone did or said, she was awestruck by him from the beginning. His heroic nature and his self sacrifice down in the Chamber that year hadn't helped to stem the feelings that were growing for him.

Naturally, neither Ron nor Harry noticed this no matter how obvious Ginny's attempts to get closer to Harry were. For a long time, Harry wasn't as focused on his own feelings about her as he should have been.

I had given up all hope for the two of them ever getting the hint. Just as I'd given up on Ron ever learning some table manners.

I'd talked to Ginny not long after that and her questions about Harry confirmed my already confident suspicions about the two of them. I couldn't lie about who Harry was no more than I could tell Ginny that Ron wasn't her brother, no matter how much she probably wanted to deny it. No, Harry was different.

He always was different from everyone else we met. I suppose the meeting didn't really clue me in on just how unlike the rumors he really was. I'd read so much about his strength as a wizard and how he'd vanquished a dark wizard many years his senior. These stories were enough to skew anyone's view of how a person actually was. That day on the train as Harry sat there alone on the train, his chin resting on his hand as he looked out the window with a contemplative yet frightened expression, I saw the real Harry Potter. It was a rare moment then that I haven't told anyone about, not even Ron or Ginny; though I already knew that Ginny had seen the real Harry long before then and had long since been trying to get Harry himself to stop acting so stupidly noble.

Harry was truly vulnerable and ever since his first year had tried time and time again to live up to his name and stories. It was only after forming the DA that some of our closer friends and peers heard firsthand from Harry that everything he'd done was "luck." That had done it. To hear Harry Potter say that defeating the most evil wizard in the world many times over was luck, had proven once and for all that Harry was not only human, but inevitably so.

He could die like anyone else. No matter how many scrapes we got into, he'd pull through, but with each one, my fears increased for him and for all of us. No one was immortal.

Not even Voldemort.

Each year seemed to bring new friends, forged new enemies and brought one loss after another. The first and possibly one of the most disheartening blows to all of us was Cedric. Harry never really got over that. He'd talk about it every so often in the years following the defeat of Voldemort, but his words served to give a general disquiet to his usually upbeat demeanor. His eyes would light up as he spoke of the older boy and then he'd smile as if to shut out the pain it had caused him over the years and the feelings he'd take with him to the grave. What those were, only Ginny seemed to ever understand.

Hogwarts remained sturdy at the end of our fourth year, despite the major setbacks caused by the loss of a student. Harry was shaken and nothing Ron or I said to him could console him. I should have known as much. Books didn't have the power to erase loss. They could offer advice on how to cope, they could conjure up similar situations to relate to, but the truth remained that the person was still dead and there was nothing that could undo that.

The truth came bitterer still when Umbridge haunted Hogwarts' halls with her denial of Voldemort's imminent return and in Harry's mind, did a serious disservice to Cedric's memory. He fought tooth and nail against her to no avail and only brought upon himself the onslaught of rules and regulations. Though with a little help, the Weasley twins chased her out with a bang. The damage was done, though. Never again would Harry allow anyone to harm the memory of any of his friends.

Not that it would become any easier. The return of Voldemort was acknowledged, but at a cost that none of us relished paying. Sirius, Harry's idea of a father and brother melded into one and a distinct role model in his life, was dead. Even if he felt like he'd finally gotten through to the rest of the wizarding community, he had lost another irreplaceable member of his family. Mourning came to an abrupt halt at the start of our sixth year. Harry was burdened with the responsibility of helping Dumbledore to discover the secrets of Tom Riddle's past and worried constantly about what Malfoy was up to.

Dumbledore's death spelled the end of whatever bliss Harry gained from getting together with Ginny. There and then at the funeral Harry denied Ginny's request to come on our quest for the Horcruxes. I didn't hear what she'd said to him that day in response, but I do know that there was a flicker of confidence and hope that entered his eyes as she spoke before he turned around for what would seem like an eternity.

We weren't at Hogwarts until the very end of our seventh year, so it must have seemed to Harry that we'd been robbed of the last year of our education. I felt like we'd literally lived it, but the school was never about education to Harry. Ron always complained about tests and scores on OWLS, but Harry saw past it all. He was the only one who really could.

Except Ginny always saw right through him, for better or for worse, and there and then when Hagrid ran from the Forbidden Forest with Harry's limp form in his arms, her cry of unmasked terror showed for a moment that the feisty spirit had been broken, if only for a moment. I hoped silently that I'd never again hear her cry like that.

I didn't. She and Harry were the happiest couple in all of England it seemed. Even Ron and I seemed to pale in comparison to the level of compassion they showed one another. Oh, Ginny would chide and make a show of bossing Harry around in public, but he shared a few smiles he thought were secret with her when she wasn't looking. She reminded me a lot of Molly at times and I'm sure from the exasperation on Ron's face, he thought so too.

The parental years came almost as quickly as our school years. With each child came more responsibility and thus less time to think about the years as they went by. Time passed as it would with all of us. All of them found themselves aboard the Hogwarts Express and just like that, we were back where we started.

The look on Harry's face as he watched the train disappear among the hills and into the distance was one of longing. I knew he missed Hogwarts dearly. Ron rarely ever stopped talking about it or concocting stories of our school years that I was sure never actually occurred. Both of them would stand and smile for as long as the train was in sight and neither would claim to be the first to turn around, hands in their pockets and laughing about some joke Ron had spouted on a spur of the moment impulse.

Each year it became harder and harder to get Ron to come out to see the train off and from what I'd heard from Ginny, Harry was much the same. It's funny that despite all the things we went through together, the two were the most emotional about our children graduating were Harry and Ron. I suppose I should have known after all this time that Ron was more compassionate and emotional than he let on. Harry of course had always outwardly shown what his heart felt. He was never weak, though, fragile, impatient and hurt by his past maybe, but never weak.

Ginny wrote me about Harry's continuing interest in returning to Hogwarts in person someday. She and I knew, along with Ron, that this conversation would come. As the years went on their merry way and our kids had looks in their eyes that recognized the end of one generation's way and threaded forward into another. Whether it was against the wind or with it, they would forge onwards to whatever magic would teach them. It was hard to admit that it was out of our hands, but that's how it went. I suppose I was expecting it, having talked endlessly with Molly Weasley about how letting all her kids go off was like giving birth again, it was excruciating.

Molly never faltered in her last years. She left two years after Arthur and everyone came from all around to attend the funeral, held at the burrow. Both were buried there with Fred. Harry looked just as torn up as any of the Weasley children. Molly and Arthur had been the parents he'd never known and more. She'd fussed over him, ironed his clothes, worried about him whenever he set foot outside of the house and he gave one of the most touching eulogies I'd heard in my life at both of their funerals. His voice near cracked and he looked away at the end. I never really understood why Harry felt the need to hide his tears after all this time. We'd been through the wringer together and when I asked him why that was he simply smiled, red eyes and all, and said, "One day, Hermione." What that meant, I didn't know and from the vagueness I suspected I never would.

I don't think I understood what loss really was until I was an old lady with a hobble and a limp caused by the weakness in my left knee. The healers told me it was a long time in coming because of the cruciatus curse used on me when we'd been captured. Even though my parents had lived through the struggle, they didn't know who I was and never would again. It was like I didn't have parents. More than anything I understood how Neville felt on a daily basis. His parents had been in a state of mental obliviousness for years.

My parents were as dead as Neville's and even though I reached out to them, they still would only ever consider me as an old friend, a lost one that they felt a strange affinity to but wouldn't ever know the truth about. I didn't have the heart to bridge that gap and I imagine I never will.

Then came the first loss to our group of friends. We were all sobered by it in ways that I never expected. For the first time Ron had nothing to say on the subject and he looked as though he would never smile again. It was a relief to say that Neville went quietly. He died as old as anyone would want to be and was surrounded by his friends, children, and grandchildren, or at least as many of us as we could squeeze into the ward at the hospital. His funeral was well attended to say the least and Ron managed to give a stirring few words. His articulation was never better and it hurt to see that he couldn't manage to finish the sentence before he broke down. Harry stood up to complete it for Ron before guiding him back to his seat.

Two years later found us at George's funeral. He'd been struggling ever since his twin's death and when the icy Winter came, he let himself slide away. Ron and I attended with Harry and Ginny, though all of us were silent throughout the entire ceremony. It wasn't surprising that Harry seemed uncomfortable there as he'd come to regard the older Weasley as a brother like Ron and the guilt in his inability to express this was written all over his features. Towards the end he stood up and left, once again to hide his tears.

Loss had never come easily to anyone. This was true for Harry Potter. There was a period of peaceful grace while we enjoyed the company of our children and grandchildren and Harry and Ginny frequented to us for all the holidays or whenever they could. When they didn't show up that Christmas, we knew something was wrong even before we got the owl.

Ginny was the first to go. Harry stayed by her side the entire time, holding her hand and in the last moments he was sitting with a gentle smile on his lips where they had been scarce over the last few years. She slipped away that Christmas night to the soft crackling of the fireplace and the low humming of the music in the background.

Harry was now a permanent house guest with us and I knew we both wished he was there on a happier occasion than to get away from the lonely house in Godric's Hollow. He'd sit at the table sometimes and watch the grand kids playing on the carpet. After a few minutes he'd get up and crouch down to their level and show them a few tricks with his wand. Before long he'd grown tired, but he wouldn't leave, even when they pulled on his short beard or take off his glasses, he still smiled.

The summer of Harry's eightieth birthday Ron passed on. He too went quietly and he left behind more stories than people could account for. I couldn't say if I laughed or cried at the ones told at his funeral. Ron would have liked everyone to laugh there, is what Harry said. The night was a long one and I don't think any one of us slept through it completely. Harry sat on the thick comfy chair in the living room, a half filled glass of ale in his hand and stared blankly at the carpet. When neither of us could conjure up any more words of comfort, we let ourselves simply sit in the quiet and contemplated whatever it brought.

"Now, Hermione," He said and without another word, I nodded and said nothing about completely his wet cheeks.

Just when I was beginning to wonder who would go next and becoming steadily more anxiety ridden about leaving Harry alone once again, he finally fell to old age. He was unhappy with leaving our house and he said it was past the point where it mattered. There he lay for a few weeks, seeming to let time walk past him like a sign post. But he didn't frown or let a single worry crease his face.

One night he called out to me. I knew that he was reaching the end of his life, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. But when I got to his side, he was smiling. Harry Potter, an old man who was dying and seemed weighed down by more things than anyone should, was smiling despite himself.

"Hermione," He said. "I know you'll grant me this one request and since I'm going first, I think you'd best hear me out."

I sighed. Old age did nothing to help his stubbornness or his determination. "I've got nothing better to do than listen," I said and pulled up a chair to sit by his bed. He turned his head to face me and with those soft green eyes he fixated me with a simple twinkling stare.

"I suppose I've done more complaining than life warrants," He said with a laugh, "But it helped me to realize I've got none left worth mentioning." Harry coughed then and his entire body shook. Here was my oldest friend, lying in front of me and the first thing I thought of was my books. How I'd sworn by them all these years.

Yet none of them could or would ever explain the meaning of sitting by a friend, through any struggle. They could try, but they wouldn't mean anything to me.

"Hermione," Harry continued, "You and Ron have always told me that nothing I did was based on luck," He gave me the broadest smile I'd seen on his face in a long time and his eyes shone brightly, "But I know I'm the luckiest man alive to have what I have." He coughed and I knew he'd reached the final push.

This was his last bridge. There were no more crossings to go through now except for the last. A wise person might proclaim, "He lived as well as any person could have," or another would say, "He died with as much to his name as anyone could want."

I knew Harry Potter. He was as natural and heartbreakingly human as the next person. Some would remember how he saved them, others how he was a classmate among them. But I know the most important aspect of his life is this: he was.

We lived, we cried, we laughed and most of all, we were there to experience it all.

"This train goes on."

"It's alright, I'm ready to go."

-Fin-