A/n- Something really close to my heart!
Disclaimer- As if...
Colour- Grey- hurt, loneliness, sadness.
LOVE LOVE
He'd known she would show up here sooner or later, he thought as he heard the faint sounds of footsteps climbing up the stairs.
He rubbed his sleeve on his face to wipe away the remnants of the tears that had flowed down his despite his resistance. He wiped them away because he couldn't let her see him like this, he couldn't let anyone see him like this.
He couldn't, because he couldn't let anyone see that he wasn't who they said he was. He wasn't the messiah people had claimed he was, he wasn't the warrior everyone had painted him to be, he wasn't the hero that those newspapers had called him.
Because heroes don't cry, they don't let their weakness show, heroes didn't let their enemies get the best of them and heroes didn't let people die for them.
Harry Potter was no hero.
A humourless laugh escaped him as he wondered what they would say, if they could see him like this, sitting on the roof of a house that belonged to a family that he wasn't even a part of, not really, not after everything that had happened. Sitting and crying on the first anniversary of his own great victory.
He wondered if he would still be the mascot for wizard victory if they could see him like this.
He heard her getting closer and finally saw her, as she came to sit beside him. She slowly sat down, giving him time to tell her to leave him alone, but he didn't because it was the first time in months that she'd been alone with him.
"I gave them some time alone, to grieve," she said, and he nodded, but didn't meet her eyes because his reasons for being here were a lot more selfish than hers.
He still couldn't look Mr or Mrs Weasley in the eyes without the weight of guilt almost crushing him for not saving their son. He couldn't look at Ginny knowing that he'll never be what she needed and she won't be for him even though it was they wanted to be. He couldn't look at the sadness in George's eyes and not miss the mischievous twinkle that used to exist.
He was scared of it all, afraid to look and find that the love that they had for him had been replaced by blame and hate. The same look he saw in the mirror each morning.
He looked at the girl sitting next to him, as she stared at the cloudy, grey sky, and ached for all that they used to be.
Something had happened, a year ago on this same night, something that had changed her, changed them. She no longer looked at him the same, no longer talked to him like she used. It was as if she was angry, as if she was hurt and it was his fault.
He just hadn't lost people who died that night; he'd lost someone alive too. He'd lost, as he later realized, the person he lived for.
He'd lost Hermione.
"The world seems grey," she said, out of nowhere, "to me." she added after a beat passed.
Her eyes were dry, but they hit him harder than tears would've and she continued, "It's like all colour has been taken away and all that I'm left with is grey. And no matter how hard I try, I can't fight it. I can't fight this sadness, this grey for some colour. I can fight death eaters and trolls and dragons, but I can't fight this grey, Harry."
He heard every single word that she said, and every one of them made him feel like she'd taken his heart and read it. He knew they grey she spoke of, he knew how it felt when your world lost all colour.
"I know," he said, almost whispered to her, "I can't fight this grey either."
He also knew exactly when his world had gone completely and utterly colourless, it'd been when he'd looked in her eyes a year ago and had found hurt instead of love. Now, a year had gone by, but the hurt still remained.
"What did I do, Hermione?" he asked, tired of not knowing and wondering what he'd done, "Why are you so angry with me?"
She looked at him for a moment; there was no surprise in her eyes, as if she'd been expecting him to ask.
"I'm not just angry at you Harry Potter," she said, "I'm furious with you, and the funny thing is that you don't even know why." She completed with a humourless laugh, but Harry found nothing about this laughable.
"You left alone, Harry," she said, "That night, you left alone, you went to that forest, and even though I know why, it doesn't hurt any less that you never even said goodbye," her voice broke but Harry sat their frozen, "I was looking for you, me and Ron, we both were and when we couldn't find you, Ron had been the one to realize where you'd gone. He'd been so hurt, having already lost one brother that night and realizing that another had walked to his own death."
She stopped talking as her tears got the best of her and she sobbed, her shoulders shook but Harry remained frozen, and for the first time he understood her anger and hurt, as he put himself in their position and knew that no matter what happened he shouldn't have left like he had, not without saying goodbye.
"I saw you," she continued, wiping at her cheeks, "in Hagrid's arms and you looked so lifeless, and all I could think was that I didn't remember the last thing I told you, I couldn't remember telling you how proud of you I was, and then you were lying there in his arms, dead and I couldn't believe that I never got to say goodbye to my best friend. That was when the world went grey, Harry, when I didn't want to live anymore because you weren't with me anymore, because I couldn't remember telling you that I loved you, that I was in love with you."
He didn't know if she realized what she'd just confessed as she continued to cry. He looked at her, and his heart almost crushed under the guilt of what he'd done, but in that moment he knew it with all certainty that he was in love with Hermione Granger and she was in love with him too.
"God, I'm so sorry," he said, wrapping his arms around her, "I'm the biggest idiot on earth, Hermione, I'm sorry, but I'm here, I'm not dead, you haven't lost me, and you're never, ever going to."
He kept on whispering the words in her ears as she cried in his arms, sobbing into his shirt and stopped a few moments later.
She lifted her head and looked at him, her hair messed up, her eyes bloodshot from her tears and shadows on her tears left on her face and he wished he could take it all away, the hurt and the pain, every bit of misery that he'd caused.
"I love you," he blurted out, to her surprise and his own.
"I love you too," she said, her eyes softening a bit, but Harry had a strong suspicion that she didn't really understand what he meant.
"No, Hermione," he said, "I'm in love with you, like love love."
Her eyes widened and he held his breathe wondering if he'd just lost his best friend a minute after he'd gotten her back, but then a huge smile broke through her face and she sad, "I love love you, too, Harry, I always have,"
And as he leaned down to kiss her, all the grey in the world vanished, filling it with colours, with different shades of love.