Author's note: Hey guys! This is my first oneshot. I hope you all like it. Italics with squiggly things are things said by and about Hermione. Italics that are underlined are things that Harry is thinking. Anyway, please excuse my bad grammer. In fact, I'm looking for a beta for grammer reasons as well as to push me to write. If you're interested, write me at . Thank-you! Please Not flames just R&R!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot. Things also would have went a lot differently if I had it my way.
~You're a great wizard Harry. You really are.
Harry opens his eyes, gazing down to the body that lay centimeters from where he was kneeling. His fingers move of their own accord brushing across her cool cheek. His eyes rake over her and a single tear escapes and falls in freefall before mixing in with the grimey floor below. How many people had died today? How many people did he not save?
~I've always admired your courage Harry, but some times you can be really thick.
He has no courage. She was wrong, he thinks as they lower her body into the ground. People all around are sobbing for the fallen heroine. No tears that are shed are his. He feels the salt water in his eyes, desperately looking for a way out. Harry know he will never let them fall. Ron cries next to him and Harry notes that this is the first time he has ever seen Ron so emotional.
He has reason. He has lost so much.. Fred, Percy, Molly, and Hermione were only a few of the ones that Ron had seen loose their lives.
Harry looks down as the speeches start and Mrs. Granger's heaving sobs fill the air. Professor Magonagall had retrieved them after the shock had worn off. The ceremony continued and one by one people told their stories and admired her bravery. Harry just shakes his head, no one knew her like he did. Soon, the speeches end and people disperse one by one. Some people head into the school and others walk down to Hogsmeade. Harry, Ron, Hermione's parents, and the ones that were truly tramatised by her death stayed. They sat, unmoving until after dark. They were the ones who would never recover.
~Me, books and cleverness?
She was so much more than that though. She was the reason he had lived to see so many days. She was the reason he was alive now. Once more someone he loved had given their life for him.
You promised you wouldn't leave me Hermione. You promised me that you wouldn't give up on us.
"Harry, are you ok?" Ginny asks him. How can he make her understand. His Hermione was gone. Their wasn't ever going to be an ok Harry again. He mumbles a reply and continues his stare contest with the flickering flames in front of him. Ginny moves towards him and wraps her arms around his shivering body. Harry sees the tears in her eyes and hugs her to him. He needs the comfort. "I miss her so much Harry! She was one of my best friends. I miss them all!" Ginny cries out. Harry feels the tears seeping through his shirt and hugs her closer. "Me too," he whispers to the sobbing girl.
~You said to us once before, that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?
He wasn't turning back. He had every intention of going through with it. Harry stared into the cold granite stone and raised his wand. He couldn't live like this. Ron and the rest of the Weasleys had gone into a depression. He didn't have anybody left. Everyone he had ever cared about was six feet under or would never be the same. Three months had passed and Harry hadn't cried once. He could feel the sadness inside but he kept it locked up there. He was afraid that if he let it go he would loose her forever. He was afraid that she would disapear. That would destroy him.
Goodbye Hermione, I love you with all my heart.
Thoughts of her filled his brain as he pressed the wand into his throat. In the last few seconds, he smiled.
~Hermione raced down the asile passing table after table of students and flug her arms around Harry. He smiled brightly and hugged her back. He had missed her. He was home.
~You're my best friend Harry!
~I'm Hermione Granger, and you are?
~I came looking for the troll professor. If it weren't for them, I'd be dead.
~Hermione decended the stairs and smiled as Harry gazed upon her in wonder. 'She looks beautiful.'
~I'm not an owl.
~When are you going to get it into your head? We're in this together!
~Your mum was beautiful Harry. Your dad was really lucky.
~I love you Harry!
"Harry wait!" a voice called and for a moment he thought it was Hermione. Elation filled him and he spun around expecting to see the bushy brown hair and chocolate brown eyes he fell in love with. Instead he saw the firey red-head that had had a crush on him in her youth. She gazed down on him with sad eyes. "You aren't going to leave me, are you?" she asked him quietly. He didn't answer her. Ginny knew right then that if she had come two seconds later she would have met a dead Harry Potter. "Please don't leave us Harry. We have lost so much already. We can't handle losing another member of our family." Ginny pleaded. She inched her fingers toward his wand prepared not to let him kill himself. Harry simply stared at the stone block before him. Guilt seemed to rush through him and in that moment he realized that he was still needed here, Ginny's tears leaked and fell to the ground below and Harry felt his eyes welling up with unshed tears. "It's ok Harry. She would have wanted you to be happy. She would have wanted you to live your life. She would have wanted you move on." Ginny told him. Slowly but surely Harry felt his grief bubbling up anf rising to the surface. Eventually a tear escaped and rolled down his face. It was the only tear he had cried since her death, Ginny knew she had broken through and pulled him up. She conjured a boquet of roses and placed them in front of the grave. Fourteen beautiful blood red roses, they were Hermione's favorite. Then she walked away and went to another grave close by. Harry closed his eyes, hearing the words Sirius had whispered to him all those years ago. "The ones we love never truly leave us, they are always in our hearts." Harry whispered. He knew that he would never fully recover from Hermione's death but Ginny had whispered ther words that he had wanted to hear from the beginning. He knew that she was right, Hermione would have wanted him to move on and be happy. "Goodbye Hermione," he whispered to the wind, "I love you with all my heart." Then he joined Ginny and together they moved on to face the future.
~'I'll never leave you Harry." Hermione whispered as her lips connected with his own.. "We will always be together." "Really?" Harry asked her pulling her ever closer to him as they stood on the balcony of Hogwarts. "I promise!" Hermione giggled watching his face light up in glee.