Broken Love
I'd always known Harry Potter was a martyr. For all the pain his friendship caused I loved him, my brother. But his sacrifice was no surprise. He left us and despite my love, I hated him for it.
~ 2nd May, 1998; Hermione Granger ~
In a sad way, a sick way, the scream that ripped my throat in two as I saw Harry's body, lifeless in Hagrid's arms, was not one of shock. Pain, certainly, and despair and anger and terror. But not surprise.
I had known he wouldn't see the night through.
Deep in the recesses of my mind, the part I scarcely considered for the agony such thoughts brought attention to, I knew he would end in sacrifice. Perhaps I'd known it for a long time, just hadn't dared confront it.
I'd seen it before, of course.
In my darkest dreams; the dreams that leave traces: damp cheeks and stinging eyes and soulless grief. I'd seen my parents dead, Ron dead, Ginny dead, the Weasleys dead, my old muggle school friends dead.
And Harry.
But seeing Harry dead brought a different pain.
Harry was immortal!
Harry, the immortal friend I read about before I met. The friendship I'd wounded to save him from the murderous Sirius Black in third year; the friendship I'd clung desperately to as it slipped away in fifth year; the friendship I'd resented as it forced me to lose Ron, festering and growing stale in the crummy tent for three, suddenly two.
Immortal Harry. Harry Potter. How dare he!
I hated him in that moment. I hated him more than Voldemort and Bellatrix and every other Death Eater to boot. He'd wasted those lives; so many lives. Fred; Tonks; Remus; Madeye.
Little Colin Creevey, who had never really grown up in our eyes, always the tiny first year with a camera and overlarge robes.
They'd died for him and it was all in vain.
I hated him so much, and if not for my grief I may have gone mad with it there and then.
My best friend gone.
Of the two boys that were my life, Harry was the one to pat my shoulder, there there Hermione; the one to say thank you whenever I handed him my class notes; the one with a smile for every yawn of exhaustion I let slip.
Not always, of course, but he was always there, manners or no,
His bright green eyes that shed sparkly tears as we held hands and mourned for his parents, hummed a thank you at my floral token of respect.
I wanted to be happy that he was with them at last, free of the orphaned pain that only this year previous was I beginning to understand the gravity of. He would see Sirius.
My grandmother was very religious. She made us pray before every meal, and we couldn't take the Lord's name in vain, and every time I did something well it was all down to God's given gifts. She didn't cry at my grandfather's funeral because she would see him again in Heaven.
I tried to be like her. I really did.
But I knew he wouldn't see Lily and James Potter.
Sirius Black wasn't waiting for him on the other side, because there was no other side.
Death was death, and I screamed for my best friend, tormented with agony. His eyes remained closed, his face pale, his body still.
And for all the broken love in my heart, I hated him in that moment.