Hello! This was written for the 2015 HP Deflower Fest on LJ. The prompt I wrote from called for a first kiss, and a 'fairy-tale' sort of theme with lots of angst, which I think I managed! Pairing is Harry/Hermione - if you don't like them, I'd suggest you go back...
WARNINGS: Angst and war violence. I don't want to give everything away but I promise, even when it looks bad, that the ending is worth sticking around for.
DISCLAIMER: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. This work of fiction/art was created entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.
FIRELIGHT
There was definitely something to be said for candlelight.
When Harry had transitioned to the wizarding world at age eleven, the use of candles and flames as a light source seemed laughable, not to mention a strain on his already weak eyes. After all, it wasn't as though electricity was difficult to come by. Nearly every Muggle house that Harry could recall had it. What was stopping Hogwarts from installing a few lights? He had asked McGonagall once, and with her cagy, yet definitive reply of, "Electricity and magic do not mix, Mister Potter," he had decided to leave it at that.
As he grew, though, he came to appreciate the almost romantic ritual of drawing curtains and lighting candles do his schoolwork or read a book. It warmed him, comforted him, and seemed to do far more for setting a perfect mood than simply flicking a switch ever could.
And then, he'd noticed the way Hermione Granger looked in the candlelight.
It wasn't something he had really gone out of his way to notice. Harry had noticed how Ron felt about the female third of their trio before even Ron did, and he knew even then the unspoken rules of such a matter: Hermione Granger was off-limits.
The first particular time he had truly noticed Hermione, it had been in fourth year, when he and Ron had been on the outs regarding just how Harry's name had come to be in the Goblet of Fire. Hermione had been his greatest pillar of support. She had gone out of her way to teach him useful charms, and her constant litany of advice and random reciting of facts when no one else would talk to him had actually been rather calming, as opposed to grating like it had been in the past.
One such night only two days out from the First Challenge, he and Hermione had taken up a spot at a small table in the library. Hermione had told him it was her spot, far enough away from everyone else to be peaceful, and yet still a comfortable distance from the books she held so dear. It had been a cold, wet night, with rain pelting against the window, but the interior had been so warm and inviting from the open fireplaces within the library, and the line of candles Hermione had lit.
Her head had been bowed over a text Harry couldn't see the cover of, and she had been making notes with a Muggle pen in tiny handwriting on a piece of parchment to her left. He couldn't remember what it was that had made him look up from his own book, nor could he even recall what it was he had been reading, but the second he had set eyes on her, it was as though all his breath had been stolen from his lungs.
It was a Sunday night, so she hadn't been wearing her uniform. Instead, she wore a soft-looking jumper of deep, ruby-red and a pair of worn jeans. Her lips were pink and pursed as she concentrated on her text, and her skin had glowed the most marvellous shade of pale gold. Long, elegant fingers smudged with ink held her pen with care, and every so often, she would let out a sigh and blow the errant strands of her fringe away from her eyes. Everything about her that he had failed to notice, or blatantly ignored before was… lovely, in her very own, Hermione-like way.
But it had been her hair that had truly caught his attention. Candlelight made it sparkle a rainbow of colours, from blondes to reds to browns. Harry had never really understood how nuanced colours could be, like how shades of 'chocolate' could be different to shades of 'coffee', or shades of 'honey' to shades of 'caramel', but looking at Hermione's hair then, he'd finally seen the proof, and it was absolutely beautiful.
He hadn't even realised he had been staring until –
"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione quietly asked him. He glanced up to find her looking at him, a look of concern and fondness on her face. Her eyes appeared almost golden in the candlelight, and Harry found himself entranced. "You seem distracted."
He shook his head, both in the negative and to displace the sudden, not-so-platonic thoughts he really shouldn't be having for his best friend. "I'm fine," he replied, his voice cracking with dryness. "Just… tired."
Hermione frowned and looked down at the watch she wore on her left wrist. Her eyes widened and she exclaimed, "Good Lord, Harry! It's nearly midnight!"
Her frenzied movements as she gathered up her books and parchment were fascinating to watch. Harry looked on in awe as she darted about in a flurry, putting books back on their respective shelves and shoving personal items haphazardly in her bag. Every movement she made, another colour in her hair would glint, and Harry learned then about mocha, amber and cinnamon, too.
"Come on, Harry," she urged as she took her bag and hiked it onto her shoulder. "Stop dawdling; we're late as it is!"
He shot her a lopsided grin. "You do remember who you're talking to, right?"
He couldn't remember being so cocky to anyone, least of all her, as he pulled from his bag the Marauders' Map and his Invisibility Cloak. "We'll be fine, Hermione. I promise."
She had that look in her eye that she always had when she looked at his cloak, an endearing blend of apprehension, reprobation, and excitement that he reckoned only Hermione Granger would ever be able to manage. Eventually, she let out a sigh, and her lips pulled into the tiniest of smiles. She stood patiently and waited as Harry took his books back and packed his bag. He quickly checked the map for any sign of Filch – of which there was none in their immediate path to the Gryffindor Tower, but one could never be too sure – before chucking it in his bag, too.
In the interest of caution, he gestured for Hermione to stand beside him and draped the Invisibility Cloak about them both. She took his hand, something she always did when they were under the cloak but never spoke of, and together they set off through the library and through the winding corridors back to the Gryffindor Tower. All the while, a stupid grin took up residence on Harry's lips, and refused to budge for the rest of the night.
Funny how you could see the same person nearly every day, then see them so very differently in another light.
XXX
Harry could barely see through the thick cloud of smoke, ash and dust around him. All he knew was the bright spark of wand-fire, and the low, tangerine glow and heat of a fire burning somewhere across the field. He could just barely make out the bushy cloud of Hermione's hair, but he could hear her desperate cries of curses, and her occasional whimper when an opposing one hit its mark.
He hadn't been able to talk Hermione out of fighting, but in hindsight, it had been rather stupid to even try. It would have been incredibly silly of him to think she wouldn't want to be in the thick of it, too, to be by his side like she had been since they were children. He smiled as he thought of her: the strongest, most stubborn, headstrong woman he'd ever known.
Instead of running over to Hermione and tearing her away from the fighting to hide her in an isolated igloo somewhere in the middle of nowhere like he so desperately wanted to, Harry refocused his energy on the circle of Death Eaters surrounding their Lord like a sentry. He squared his jaw and gripped his wand in a fist so tight it shook from the effort, and joined in the group of nearly two dozen Order members working to take the Death Eaters and the shield that surrounded them down.
Harry stood alongside Ron, Neville and so many others willing to lay down their lives for a cause that had unwillingly become his own. They sent a rainbow of spells and hexes at the weakening, though still impenetrable barrier and watch it ripple under the strain.
It wouldn't take much more, he knew, and he gritted his teeth to continue, even as he heard Hermione scream. She is more than capable, he told – convinced – himself as he focused his eyes forward and threw Bombarda after Bombarda at the shield.
"Potter!" an evil, cackling voice called out over the explosions.
Harry felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him cold and faint. He knew that voice; it was one that screamed in his nightmares, taunting him with his failings. He kept his wand clenched tight in his fist as he turned from the Death Eater shield and faced the woman – creature – now standing mere inches before him. Harry had to blink; she had sounded so far away before.
Bellatrix Lestrange wore a grin made of nightmares, showing her mouth of Azkaban-rotted teeth. She had a new wand in her grip, made of a gnarled stick of blood-red. She kept her crazed eyes on him as she trailed the very tip of her wand from the waist of his trousers, up to his chest before she dug the tip into the hollow of his neck. She grinned at him again, her breath hot and sour on his cheek, as she slowly pulled her wand away and took slow steps backwards, her eyes trained on him all the while.
"Good luck, Potter." She cackled again and, before Harry could even begin to see what was happening, trained her wand on Hermione's distracted back, and let out a curse he had never heard before.
"Sopor."
Harry's mouth opened in a soundless scream as a jet of soft-pink light hit Hermione squarely in the back and forced her forward.
MOONLIGHT
Hermione hadn't wanted to light candles or even use a torch when they were hunting the Horcruxes. Too much light would draw attention, she had said, and for a time, she subsided entirely on reading her books during the day. Harry had simply smirked at her and watched as she went stir-crazy in their tent at night, and he predicted the moment she would give in and light a candle nearly perfectly.
"Ugh!" she exclaimed, tugging futilely at her hair. This was a different sort Hermione, one bathed in moonlight and shadow, making her nearly glow. It was a different sort of shine that this light cast upon her, but still a beautiful one, nonetheless, and felt far more appropriate given their setting. By that point, Harry would go as far as to say he was in love with Hermione then. He had seen her in all sorts of different lights, and he adored every one of them.
She sunk down on the ground alongside him at the entrance to their tent, as had become their tradition. Ron had left over a week ago, and the tension that had enveloped the three of them had melted away with him, only to be replaced by a new one.
It was something entirely new for his friendship with Hermione that they be spending any sort of isolated, extended period of time together. At first, Harry didn't think either of them particularly knew how to react – he himself was still coming to grips with his feelings for her, even after carrying them around for almost five years, and she… well, he wasn't entirely sure what she was thinking. Eventually though, they managed to settle into something companionable and, for want of a better term, nice.
He poked with a gnarled stick at the ground, impaling dried leaves on its tip, and asked without looking up, "Something wrong?"
"I'm just…" She trailed off with a frustrated little growl. "I'm just so bored, Harry! I don't feel productive at all."
"Light a candle, then," he replied as he began a doodle on the ground. "I'll keep watch. It's fine; you don't have to worry."
She sighed. "But that's just it, isn't it? If I don't worry, then you don't worry, then all of a sudden, we're being ambushed and murdered with our insides being strewn about the trees like macabre confetti."
Harry's nose twitched, both in amusement and distaste, and he let out a chuckle. "You definitely need to read something."
"I can't, remember?" she retorted with a half-hearted sneer.
"Sorry," he said, though he wasn't sure he meant it. A miffed Hermione that he could poke gentle fun at was certainly much better company than the serious, exhausted, perpetually frustrated one he had become accustomed to since starting their journey. "What would you like to do, then?"
"Help you keep watch, I suppose."
"No need to sound so enthusiastic. Besides, that's the opposite of productive, you know. It won't do to have us both tired tomorrow."
She nudged him hard with her shoulder, but didn't say anything. Instead, she let out another sigh and pressed even closer, resting her head on his shoulder. Harry smiled to himself and moved to rest his cheek on her soft head of curls.
"Don't you ever wish we could just… forget this?" she quietly asked. "Just forget everything and start again somewhere else?"
Harry let out a deep breath. "All the time," he replied distantly. "Where would you want to go?"
He could feel her lips pull up in a tiny smile. "Australia."
"Australia?" Harry repeated, amused. "That's awfully far away."
She elbowed him softly in his side. "For the purposes of this discussion, Harry, that's precisely the point. Besides, it's where my parents are."
Harry froze. Hermione hadn't wanted to talk about her parents at all when he quizzed her about them. Instead, it had been as though a frost had descended between them, and Hermione hadn't deigned to speak to him for the rest of the day. "Really?" he asked, trying his hardest to sound nonchalant.
"Hmm," she murmured in affirmative. "I altered their memories and sent them away. They're safe there. The war won't touch them."
Harry nearly choked at her admission. He had never really considered what Hermione would have had to give up in order to help him. To sacrifice her parents… it shook him to the core.
He turned his head to watch her, and found her face turned upwards to the sky, bathing her in moonlight, her eyes shining with tears. He moved to wrap an arm around her shoulders, to pull her close and comfort her, but as soon as his hand brushed her, she wiped viciously at her eyes and shot to her feet, and he knew he had lost her for the night.
"Perhaps I will light a candle to read," she mumbled to herself as she darted back into the tent without another word, leaving Harry to stare out through the dense expanse of trees that surrounded them while heavy guilt sunk him in place.
XXX
Harry watched on with horror as Hermione's prone form hit the ground. It came with surprisingly little fanfare; the world should have stopped spinning or something equally as cataclysmic. He desperately wanted to move to her side, to check that she was alright, but it was as though he was standing waist-deep in a pit of quicksand, where any sort of struggle would only pull him deeper. Instead, he watched Ron drop to her side, his eyes wide with shock as he muttered something over and over that Harry couldn't hear. Ron took her still hand in his and held two fingers over her wrist, counting silently before he bowed his body over hers as he shook with grief, and that was all the confirmation Harry needed.
Hermione Granger was dead.
A swell of rage and sorrow rose in him so strong he couldn't contain it. He felt a wave of magic surge through him, and in that moment, Harry had never felt so powerful. He opened his mouth and released a primal scream that sounded alien to his ears, as though it was coming from an entity far away from himself. He lifted his wand and hefted it skywards and, as though by some divine intervention, the clouds parted, a rumble of thunder echoed, and each Death Eater who formed part of the circle around Voldemort fell in a crumpled heap on the ground, their shield falling with them.
There was a collective gasp from the Order. Everyone, even Ron, had stood and were staring at him with some kind of horrified awe, none daring to speak or look away.
The look of shock on Voldemort's face barely lasted a second, only to be replaced by one of fury. For a long moment, all Harry could do was stare as another thrum of power sparked up from somewhere deep within his shaking body. Voldemort stared right back at him with something manic and truly, powerfully insane glinting in his horrid, red eyes before he let out a conflagration of curses, the last resort of a desperately floundering man.
Another lazy flick of his wand, and there was a shield going up around the Order, rippling with bright, coloured bursts of light with every curse that Voldemort sent out.
Harry knew he could do it. The power surging through him was threatening to burst, and all Harry could see was the promise of retribution for Hermione, his parents, everyone. He thought his eyes might be glowing, for that was the only explanation he could fathom for why Voldemort was suddenly lit with a pristine, blindingly white light.
But then he heard the screams, otherworldly and completely inhuman, that sounded as though they were being ripped from the Dark Lord. Voldemort writhed in place, stumbling, clutching mindlessly at his face, his robes, raking his gnarled nails on every exposed part of him. Harry watched on in horrified fascination, but didn't dare look away, even as the white light in his eyes seemed to burst out in flame, threatening to blind him.
Throughout it all – all the time Harry had spent working towards that very moment – he had prided himself on never once killing an opponent, by magical means or otherwise. No one truly deserved to die, in his mind. No one should have the power to dole out life and death with little more than a flick of a wand, least of all him.
Least of all, Voldemort.
Hermione had told him on many occasions over the past year that war means death, that when you're fighting an opponent who has absolutely no qualms about sending you into the afterlife, you need to do what you can to survive; that he needs to do what he can to survive. Kill or be killed, she has told him repeatedly over the past few months, always with a sad, grim smile.
Make your choice.
He looked at the heaped mound of robe and ash where Voldemort had once stood, and at the fallen Death Eaters around him, and knew he had made his choice.
STARLIGHT
Shell Cottage was perhaps one of the most peaceful, beautiful places Harry had ever had the privilege of visiting. Since they had arrived three days prior in a mangled, bloody heap on the sand, Harry had taken to spending his evenings on the beach. He would sit upon the shore and watch as the reflected starlight sparkled off the surface of the ocean, lighting the small beach with an ethereal, silvery glow.
He felt tired, as though he could keel over on the sand beneath him and happily sleep away for as long as he'd be allowed before someone would invariably need him again. He relished the quiet. As much as he appreciated the hospitality, he wasn't sure he could take much more of Bill and Fleur making stiflingly polite conversation that covered all the niceties, but neatly sidestepped all the drama of the past few months. He could hear the questions they wanted to ask on the tips of their tongues, but even if they asked, he doubted he would ever be able to tell them what happened without wanting to vomit at the memory.
Harry had barely spoken two words to Hermione since she had woken that morning after being out for two days. He wasn't sure he knew how. He could spend hours at her bedside clutching her hand to his cheek, as he had when she was still unconscious, but seeing her awake, upright, with that thick layer of bandaging around her arm and covering the cut against her neck, Harry's stomach sunk to somewhere around his knees, and he lost all coherent ability to speak.
He sighed and buried his feet under the cold sand, laying back and cradling his head in the cup of his laced fingers. He stared to the heavens and picked out stars and constellations, starting as he always did with Sirius, the brightest one in the sky.
He barely registered Hermione falling into place beside him. Harry glanced over, and felt the same little tug in his chest as he always felt when he looked at her, this time bathed silver in reflected moonlight and starlight and glowing sand, a swathe of yellow light from the cottage behind them lighting her hair with gold.
"Hello, Harry," she greeted shortly.
"Hello," he answered back, his voice hoarse, as he hauled himself upright, hugging his knees to his chest. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
She let out an indelicate snort. "I think I've slept enough since we arrived, thank you."
"Still," he said softly. "You… you went through a lot. You must be tired."
Hermione let out a resigned sigh. "I'm alright, Harry. Truly, I'm alright now. It doesn't even hurt."
Harry let out a shuttered breath and rested his forehead on his bent knees. "Hermione," he whispered. "Gods, Hermione, I'm so sorry, for absolutely everything."
Her gaze was directed out to sea, unmoving and unseeing. "Don't apologise," she whispered. "It's hardly your fault."
Harry nearly choked on a sob. "It is entirely my fault!" he refuted.
"Why?" she questioned, her tone sharp. "Did you make Bellatrix do those awful things to me? Did you hand me over with your blessing for them to do as they wish with me? Don't be ridiculous, Harry; none of this is your fault."
"If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened!" he whispered, finally voicing aloud the thoughts that kept him awake at night – that kept him from facing her in the light of day. His posture slumped until he was limp, his legs curled sloppily beneath him. "I said His name! If I'd just shut up, you wouldn't have been –"
"Perhaps I wouldn't have been hurt if you hadn't said His name," she cut in, "but if you hadn't, we never would have learned about the Cup. We wouldn't have anything more to go on, and we'd have been just as frustrated and angry with each other as we were before. It balances out, Harry. The greater good means far more than a few scratches on my arm in the long run."
Harry gently took her bandaged arm from where it was curled tight around her knees. She offered little resistance and allowed him to rest her arm in his lap where he gently traced his fingers over the thick layer of fabric. Harry suppressed the urge to scream at the knowledge of what lay underneath, of the brand Hermione would likely have to live with for the rest of her life.
"It's not just a few scratches, Hermione," he denied lowly. "They're… they're –"
"They're what, exactly?" she cut in again, her eyes fierce. "Tell me, Harry; what do you see when you look at these?"
She unpicked the top of the bandage and began to unwind it from her arm.
"Hermione, no." Harry tried to stop her with his hands on top of hers. "Don't."
"Yes," she refuted, sounding nearly manic as she pulled her arm out of his reach. The bandage began to show bloodied marks as it neared its end. "You need to see this."
He watched on in fascinated horror as she came down to the last of the bindings and shucked it off to the side. Hermione held her arm out in front of him, so there was no missing the angry, bleeding etching of the word 'Mudblood' on the otherwise milky-white flesh of her arm.
"You see failure when you look at this, don't you?" she whispered. "You see this, and think you've let me down, that you've failed to protect me, correct?"
Harry's throat felt far too clogged at that moment to form words, so he nodded instead.
Hermione hovered her fingers over the cuts, not quite touching them. "I hate it, but I don't want to look at these marks and feel ashamed," she whispered. "Neither should you. This is the price I paid to get us another step closer to winning this war, and I'm proud to bear it."
"But –"
"No buts, Harry," she interjected, a tiny smile tugging at her lips. "Both of us have unwanted reminders of the war on our skin, but they aren't what define us. I know I'm more than a Mudblood," she reached her hand out and brushed the messy strands of his fringe away from his scar, her fingers lingering over the old wound, "and you are definitely more than the lightning bolt on your forehead."
Harry let out a sigh and leaned into her touch. "I don't think I ever truly thanked you, Hermione," he said after a long stretch of silence. "Or apologised, for that matter."
"For what?" she asked.
"For everything. God, Hermione, you've sacrificed so much of yourself for me."
She smiled, a little sadly, her gaze full of something he couldn't quite discern in the low light as she rested her head against his shoulder. "I love you, Harry; there's no one else I'd sacrifice myself for. Since I was eleven, Harry, it has always been you."
"I love you, too, Hermione," he whispered, suffusing the short sentence with as much emotion and meaning as he could muster as he dropped a small kiss to her temple.
Hermione propped her chin on his shoulder, looking up at him with a smile. "Do you really?" she asked, vulnerability colouring her stare.
Harry let out a long breath that ruffled the shorter, feathered strands of her hair. "With all my heart," he admitted. "For longer than you think."
"What about Ginny?" she whispered.
Harry vehemently shook his head. "It's never been like that," he assured her. "What… what about Ron?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer.
She smiled and shook her head. "It's never been like that," she repeated. "I've never… not even Viktor…"
Harry felt more than he saw the flush that warmed her from head to toe, and he felt utterly charmed by it, by all of her. All he had to do was tilt his head down a scant two inches to take her lips with his. Throwing caution to the wind, he cupped her cheek with his cold hand and drew her face towards his.
"Don't," she whispered, her breath warm and slightly sweet against him. She held a finger against his lips to stop him truly closing the distance between them. "Not like this."
He didn't pull back. "Not like what?"
She smiled sadly. "I don't want you to kiss me just because you think you're going to die tomorrow."
At that, he did pull back. "Why not?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "Isn't that the perfect reason?"
She smiled then, a secretive, sly little smirk. "I think we should wait," she said, sounding almost conspiratorial. "If we don't kiss now, we have unfinished business, something to live for. I fully intend to kiss you one day, Harry Potter, but I will do so on my terms, not anyone else's."
He grinned at her admission and took her hand in his, entwining their fingers. "Sounds fair, I suppose. But what if something happens and –"
"You aren't going to die, Harry," she firmly declared in a tone that held no argument. "I don't plan on dying, either."
And Harry believed her, even though he knew he shouldn't, if only because she sounded so sure.
XXX
There was no feeling, nothing solid to anchor Harry back to earth. All he was aware of was a numb kind stupor that left him feeling as though he was floating. He might very well be doing exactly that, he dimly thought, he couldn't very well fathom what had happened earlier.
There was a sudden rush of joyous screams and cheers, and before Harry could comprehend what was happening, he was enveloped in what felt like a hundred sets of arms and a litany of praise. It dawned on him then that it worked: that the remaining Death Eaters have fled, that the Order is safe, that Voldemort is gone.
That they have won.
That they have won.
He pulled away from the crowd in a sort of trance. He could feel a hundred curious gazes upon him, watching with careful measure every step he took, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He fell to his knees beside Hermione's prone body and felt another wave of grief fall over him, hitting him in the stomach like a cannon-ball, making his heart feel as though it had been torn apart. Her eyes were shut, and she looked peaceful, like she was only asleep, but the grey pallor of her skin and stillness of her chest gave her away.
He could barely see through the tears blinding him, then there was that strange, white light again.
"Harry?" someone – Arthur Weasley, most likely – voiced gently. The white light became fuzzy around the edges before dissipating entirely. "Harry, can you hear me?"
The owner of the voice lowered himself to his side, and Harry was surprised to hear himself emit a low, threatening growl. Arthur held up his hands, in a gesture of peace.
"Harry, we need to move her," he tried to reason, even as his voice shook. "We can't leave her out here."
"Yeah, mate," came a weak voice on his right. Ron's hand settled on his shoulder; the freckles stood out dramatically on his pale skin. "It's cold out. She… she hates the cold."
Somewhere deep within him, that comment registered. In his head, he was transported back to the tent, to the nights after Hermione's admission where they would cling to each other to stave off the cold that cut through their clothes to their skin. Hermione's teeth would chatter, and she would spout expletives that left him both shocked and amused as she decried the cold, snow and rain that seemed to follow them everywhere.
Light and delicate, Harry lifted Hermione from the ground and held her securely in his arms, her face resting in the crook of his neck. He pressed his forehead to hers and felt another trickle of tears fall down his cheeks, cutting through the layer of grime that coated his skin. Without acknowledging the questions or curious, sympathetic stares that were following him, Harry began a slow march towards the dilapidated-looking castle, up through the Great Hall and towards the Gryffindor Common Room.
Harry cradled Hermione's body close to his chest as he carried up the staircase to the girl's dormitories. His steps were slow, precise, and careful with a minimum of jostling. He treated her now with the same depth of reverence and love that he had in life, because Hermione Granger didn't deserve anything less.
He had visited Hermione's dormitory only once before, two years prior at the beginning of fifth year when she had wanted to give him a late birthday present in private. It had been a hardcover, autographed collection of Watchmen, his favourite comic series, which still held pride of place on his small bookshelf. He had never owned copies of the comics as a child, but it had been a secret indulgence of his to disappear down to the library close to his school to read them for as long as he could before returning to the Durselys, to shouts and beatings and a sink full of dirty dishes. Harry had often, as a child, wondered what it might be like to be a superhero, to have a destiny greater than what he could see for himself.
He wanted to laugh now at the bitter irony of his childish thoughts.
There were still candles burning in her dorm as he pushed the squeaking door open, then charmed it to lock, no doubt charmed not to burn down or cause fires. It filled the air with the scent of lavender, one that relaxed him immensely, and that he had always associated with Hermione.
Hermione's bed remained as untouched as she had left it at the end of sixth year, with the blankets still neatly tucked and the corners perfectly aligned, a soft, ragged-looking teddy bear sitting upon the pillows.
As Harry set her down on her bed, all he could hear was the pounding of his heart and the rush of his blood roaring in his ears. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine himself at the ocean, back at Shell Cottage, with the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin, Hermione in his arms as they let the ebb and flow of the tide take all their worries away.
He had never been more terrified to open his eyes in all his life.
Harry let out a shuttered breath and moved sit beside her on the bed. He brushed her hair away from her face, and leaned down to press a soft, chaste kiss to her lips; the first kiss he would never be able to give.
"I am so sorry, Hermione," he whispered against her cold lips. "I love you, so, so much."
He buried his head against her still chest and let out a broken sob, clutching the jacket she had been wearing tightly in his balled fists.
He had no idea how many seconds or minutes had passed – it could have been a lifetime for all he cared – before he heard a rustling of the sheets so minute it could have simply been breeze. Then there had a sharp intake of breath that he couldn't ignore, and certainly hadn't come from him.
"Harry?"
Slowly, cautiously, Harry raised his head. He could feel himself shaking, not knowing what he should expect; he felt the strangest combination of heart-pounding terror and an all-encompassing rising hope.
His breath caught in his throat, his heart stopped, and his voice failed him completely when he found Hermione Granger's puzzled, chocolate-brown eyes staring right back at him, her chest rising and falling with life – very much alert, and very much alive.
"Harry?" she said again, propping herself up on her elbows. Harry watched her with wide, disbelieving eyes. She winced and fell back against her pillows, and let out a deep breath. "What happened?" She looked about the room with a confused gaze. "Why am I in my dorm?"
Harry couldn't help it; he let out a loud, joyous laugh that shook his very soul with relief. Hermione watched on, amused, as he took her hands in his and brought them to his mouth, peppering her skin with dozens of tiny kisses. "What happened, Hermione," he began with a smirk when he set her hands down and drew closer to her lips, "is that I owe you a kiss."
AN: The spell used to knock Hermione out, 'Sopor', roughly translates to deep sleep. In my head, I had an idea of a Death Eater spell that would send a person into a deep, death-like, albeit temporary sleep, which could be broken by the 'True Love's Kiss' bit, but only if a person knew that. If the spell wasn't broken, the person affected would awaken after their burial, but they would be in a coffin, and would eventually succumb to starvation. Sounded nice and twisted, perfect for Bellatrix.
Also, consider Harry's defeat of Voldemort to be simply a highly concentrated burst of wild magic (all horcruxes were destroyed prior), fuelled entirely by grief and rage.
And since someone brought it up in a 'review', call it creative license that Harry was able to enter the girls' dorms for Hermione to give him his gift. For the purposes of this fic, it needed to be done in private. Say it with me people: Fan Fiction! When he took Hermione back to the dorm at the end, the castle was ruined, destroying any enchantments that may have been on it, allowing Harry to enter the girls rooms again without any problems.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this one. There will be no continuation, as I like this story where it stands. A review would be lovely to get me through my assessment writing, though :)