Title: This Is My Winter Song to You
Characters/Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Spoilers: Books 1-7, Deathly Hallows Part 1 (movie)
Summary: A moment of what could have been.
Author's Note: Takes place after Ron returns and destroys the locket!horcrux. Based on the prompt "you were my almost lover" over at the LJ Harry Potter Non-Canon Ship Ficathon.
It is very, very late. Or early. Hermione isn't sure which. It is that point in the night that seems to straddle both - lost somewhere in between.
"You were supposed to wake me up hours ago to take over the watch."
The sound of her voice behind him startles Harry - makes him tighten his grip on the feeble replacement wand - but he relaxes almost immediately.
"I thought you could use the rest," he shrugs, keeping his eyes on the horizon. "Is Ron still sleeping?"
Hermione takes a step forward, the thin blanket of snow cracking under her feet. "Yes. Sometimes I think he could sleep through the end of the world."
Harry's lips press together into a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "You should go back inside," he says after awhile.
He's right, of course. She should go back inside. She should go back inside and pull the tent flaps tightly together so that she cannot see him. Cannot ask him the question that has been trapped against her lips all day long. But it is the middle of the night and she is cold and she is hungry and she is so damn tired of shoulds.
"Harry?"
"Mmm?"
She takes another careful step forward, then another, until she is standing next to him. "What happened? When Ron destroyed the Horcrux."
His shoulders tense almost imperceptibly. "Hermione…" He sighs heavily and she watches his breath dissolve against the pale sky. "It was nothing."
She lowers herself down to sit next to him, feeling him stiffen across the space between them. "You're lying."
Harry sighs again, scrubbing his hands over his face. "It taunted him. Tormented him. Showed him his greatest fears," he replies gruffly, turning his body away from her.
The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. "What did it show him?"
"It was us," Harry confesses after a long time. "You and me. Together."
(He does not look at her, and Hermione thinks maybe that's for the best. Because she knew the answer before she asked the question. Because perhaps she has always known the answer.)
"I thought it might have been something like that," she says after a moment, staring straight ahead. She tries to keep her voice even. Logical.
"It was nothing," Harry says again, quietly. Almost to himself. "We are just friends."
It is Hermione's turn to sigh. "Harry."
He takes off his glasses and presses his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. "We can't -"
"I know we can't," she cuts him off sharply. They never could. Not then and certainly not now. "I know that," Hermione says again, more quietly this time.
"What does it matter, then?" Harry murmurs. Without warning a sliver of sunlight rises out of the horizon, cutting a streak of orange across his face and for a moment Hermione thinks of the boy she met on the train all those years ago. Apprehensive. Overwhelmed. Impossibly young.
They are still so impossibly young.
"It matters," she says. It will be a miracle if they all come out of this alive. None of them say it, but they know it all the same. The whole world is their deathbed, and Hermione knows that people do not - should not - tell lies on their deathbed. Not even to themselves.
"Harry…" She whispers his name like a caress and he finally turns to look at her. Wordlessly, he lifts his hand tentatively up to her cheek. She can feel his fingers trembling as he brushes the pad of his thumb against her skin. Hermione brings her hand up to his and they hold each other's gaze for a long time, the moment heavy with a finality that takes her breath away.
I could have loved you, she wants to tell him. If given half the chance.
But instead she says, "You should get some rest, Harry."
He pulls his hand away slowly, the moment broken. "Yeah," he nods, brushing the snow off of his clothes as he moves to stand up. "You're right." He takes a few steps towards the tent, then turns back towards her abruptly. "Hermione?"
She knows that her voice will betray her, so she wordlessly turns to meet his eyes.
"Thank you. For everything." Harry says simply, but somehow it sounds a little like goodbye to her. Then he parts the heavy canvas flaps and disappears inside the tent.
Hermione stares after him for a moment, then turns back to watch the sun begin to bathe the cold earth in its fiery orange light. Her tears glow like embers as they silently streak down her cheeks.