A/N: My first ever, really. Be gentle? Sorry if it's horrible -- it's past 2AM and I'm quite bored and making no money off this. So ... :)
Now that Harry thought about it, he didn't do so much. Sure, in the end he was the one that defeated Voldemort on his own, but before that ... he didn't do so much. He caused his parent's deaths, by luck wasn't killed by the Avada Kedavra (as a baby and most recently) ... and mostly relied on his friends and luck. And, well, Hermione. Wow, Hermione was something else. It'd been 3 years since he'd seen her last. Harry still remembers the night well ...
Rain was beating down on their
heads, mud in Hermione's thick, bushy hair, Ron rolled under a bush,
unconscious. A red light shone off somewhere, and she saw Harry fall
backwards as her eyes rolled back into her head ...
All three friends were blacked
out - the murderous fiend dead; Voldemort used his own power on
himself. With the shield Harry had obtained a few months ago from a
stranger - the Shield of Aesalon with a large falcon in the center -
he had defeated Lord Voldemort. It had to be magical; how else could
the spell have bounced back? Hermione was the first to muster --
'Harry? I saw him fall!
Voldemort must've ...' Hermione tried to restrain her tears so
strenuously that she began to shake. She could take no more; she
broke down and fell to her knees. Still tremoring, she sobbed loudly,
in-taking large, sharp gasps of breath with a high-pitched squeal at
the end. 'After all we've been through ... I never realized until
now. How ... how could I have been so foolish?' Drool began to
dribble from her mouth, but she didn't care. 'How can I think of my
stupidity at a time ... like this. He's gone!' With that thought of
Harry, she began to howl in pain and sorrow and regret and too many
emotions were pouring out all at once. Hermione had now lost her best
friend and as quick as she grasped how she truly felt for him, he was
taken away. For once in her life, she couldn't think. Life without
Harry would become unbearable ...
Something nudged Hermione's left
mud-soaked ankle and moaned. Scared, she rapidly turned, fear in her
wide eyes, which a moment later opened even wider than she ever
thought possible. Harry!
"Harry ... Oh, God, Harry,
I thought ... I thought you were ..." There was an open wound on
his left cheek, an inch deep, she gently grazed, with a joyful sob.
He looked into her eyes in a way he had never done before. He said
her name in a way he had never spoken before. It was quiet, a
whisper, and thoughtful, as though now her name had a whole new
meaning, a meaning he had to think deeply about before he could take
action.
"Hermione." She
sniffed and hiccuped amidst a laugh. Suddenly, before she knew what
was happening, Harry's rough hands were in her hair, running more mud
than ever before through the never-ending dark brown waves. His warm
lips were placed on hers; she could taste the blood from the small
gash on his lower lip. But it didn't matter, because just then the
world melted away and they were in their own utopia. He was gentle
but she sensed the urgency, and as his glasses began to bump into her
nose ... the vision was broken and they were ripped back to the
earth, filled with hatred, murder, and despair.
Ron had awoken.
TO BE CONTINUED...