Harry, Ron and Hermione trekked along the paths of an unknown place, specifically a forest, wherein Snatchers live and steal many things, and afterwards selling it to a store in Diagon Alley. However, due to Ron's emotional instability and to the locket he was wearing, he was nowhere to be found and Harry and Hermione knew not where he currently resides in. Their faces are terror-stricken and clouded with worry of their best friend. Harry wasn't at fault, too. In fact, it was Dumbledore's lack of idea the whereabouts of the Horcruxes of Lord Voldemort are. If only he knew, this wouldn't have happened, but Dumbledore's already dead and no 'what ifs' or 'I wish' would solve anything right now. Harry knows this as well.
The two lone teenagers were sitting inside the tent, not minding each other's business, but out in the open, it was Harry who broke the silence. "Hermione?"
"Yes, Harry?" Hermione inquired. After all the long silences and her quiet sobbing on her bed, Harry breaks the deafening silence she casted between them.
"I think I don't like Ginny anymore," he said nonchalantly. Hermione, of course, was surprised for this astounding announcement he made. She was speechless, and therefore, unable to speak. Out in the blue, Harry only says that. No sincere apologies or wishful thinking. He might have, he just didn't say them out loud, Hermione supposed.
Without waiting any words from her, Harry continued what he was saying. "Ginny just popped in my life last year, you see, while you have always been there for me ever since we're eleven."
He swallowed audibly. She could see his Adam's apple along the process. "I'm not saying I'm in love with you, but …" He stopped mid-way. He was still trying to find the right words to say, she supposed. He implied to her that she needed to talk back to him, to see in case that she was following or that she understood the awkward situation right now.
"I'm listening, Harry. What are you trying to say?" If only Harry Potter knows how Hermione is afraid of him right now. If only he knows, he might've done something to worsen it.
He scratched his head and looked at anywhere but her. He was being the coward Harry again, Hermione thought. She smiled surreptitiously as she thinks about this.
"I wish I had fallen in love with you faster than Ron did. If only I did, Hermione. If only I wasn't so dense, daft and a dim-witted git. Oh, I wish," he began soliloquizing and he shook his head.
They locked eyes and Hermione could tell he meant it sincerely, that it was coming purely inside his heart. "You wouldn't be in this misery that he caused," Harry paused. He could tell Hermione was nervous as well, but he didn't ponder the thought any longer and he continued his confession. "I would never do that to you, Hermione. I would never leave you, let alone, leaving you because I was angry at you."
Harry argued with himself. He didn't know any better if he would say it. There's a price, anyway, and it's the cost of their friendship. If their bond is strong enough, then it would be never broken. It would just stay as it is or it will become stronger despite the circumstances they're currently experiencing. Anyway, after thinking it through, he still said the things that plagued his mind ever since of their other best friend's departure, "I love you, Hermione in a romantically sort of way. It's okay for me if you wouldn't love me back. I appreciate it, really. Just as long you're hearing me out now, I'm appreciating it, but I'll appreciate it more if I get a small response from you right now. But if you were to say that you love me back just as much as I love you, would you say it if it would be coming purely and deeply inside your heart?"
Hermione was shocked. No, shock was completely an understatement. She was flabbergasted of Harry right now. She couldn't speak anything, let alone say a basic syllable coming from her mouth. Logic fails now, she reflected. She breathed in, breathed out. Harry is patient. Of course, he would understand her just as much as she does to him. He was still waiting for her response and in the back of Hermione's brain; it was applauding for his unwavering patience.
"I-I love you, too, Harry. It's just that-"
"No, Hermione. I told you it's okay. I just hope it didn't ruin anything," Harry interrupted.
He was talking about their friendship. Of course, she knew. She doesn't understand anything anymore. Nothing makes sense, she thought. He held her hands and clasped them together and stared directly at her eyes. For a moment, she thought it was sparkling. "Hermione, do you love me more than you love Ron?"
I do, she was about to say. Unfortunately, she's back on the reality wherein Harry stays quiet, Ron's nowhere in sight and a war's currently taking place at the Wizarding World.
As she said to no one, a tear slid down on her cheek. Because Merlin knows, Harry, that I love you, too.
A/N : What do you think?
Words : 874