DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: It is by JKR's writing alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the grace of coffee that thoughts acquire speed, the back acquires pains, the pains become a warning. The warning is that I make no money from this. All lyrics used are owned by Dido & her label.
DISCLAIMER THE SECOND: This is an AU take on JKR's work and a song-fic to boot. Each chapter will be based on a Dido song. I highly recommend you listening to the song first. There are many versions on YouTube although none of the visuals are what of when I think of the song. (Sort of see it set in a New England seaport where a wife wakes to realize her husband's ship has gone down)
CHAPTER TWO – MY LOVER'S GONE
My lover's gone
his boots no longer by my door
he left at dawn
and as I slept I felt him go
Returns no more
I will not watch the ocean
GREAT HALL, HOWARTS, SCOTLAND – MAY 2nd 1998 – EVENING
Hermione jerked awake with a sense of dread.
She looked around to find the Great Hall still awash in frenzied activity. She could hear Professor McGonagall's stern voice as she barked out orders. Everywhere were signs of the hurried bolstering of Hogwarts' defenses.
Hermione shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it. She realized she must have drifted off. She had just sat down to rest a bit. Rushing down into the Chamber and back after Harry had opened it had drained her meager reserves. Hermione knew she hadn't recovered yet from her ordeal at the hands of Bellatrix LeStrange.
She stood. The sense of unease was still there. It was all around her and inside her at the same time. A feeling of loss. It made her shiver.
She saw Neville coming down the stairs with a determined look on his face. Hermione could barely recognize Neville between his injuries and the fiery resolve he seem to radiate. Only in Harry had she seen such passion bleeding off like a palpable aura.
Harry. Hermione's heart skipped as she realized how her sense of dread was related to Harry. She ran to her friend, "Neville! Have you seen Harry?"
Hermione hadn't seen him after returning from the Chamber. He had said he was going to the Headmaster's office but he wasn't there when they checked. Ron had figured Harry had probably returned to the Room of Requirements. With people possibly still in it, it was important to double-check if the room was destroyed or just the junk-room section of it. Ron had gone off to check that while she had sat down to rest.
Neville shook his head, "Not recently. He and I talked about the importance of killing Voldemort's familiar. He told me about a prophecy and how he was the one supposedly marked by the Dark Lord. Harry felt it wasn't a good thing to trust too much in the prophecy since it might still relate to me. He wanted me to know just in case."
Hermione sense of dread increased, "Do you know where he went after that? I sent Ron to check on the Room of Requirements."
Neville shook his head again, "No, I passed Ron on his way down to the kitchens. He said Harry wasn't in the room if he'd ever been there." Neville's eyes narrowed in suspicion, "You think he's gone to Voldemort don't you?"
"I…I…Merlin I think he has," Hermione stammered.
Neville just looked at her. She couldn't look away from the question in his eyes.
Hermione took a deep breath as she closed her own eyes. She tried to reach out with her feelings. She and Harry had always had a connection especially after he had saved her from the troll in First Year. She hadn't really felt it so strongly till the night when she could just tell Harry was in trouble which turned out to be Nagini masquerading as Bathilda Bagshot.
She felt Neville lay a hand on her shoulder, "Hermione…what has happened to Harry?"
"He's gone Neville. I can't feel him anymore. I felt him go while I slept. I woke knowing I'd never see him again." Hermione said. She opened her eyes to see Neville staring at her in disbelief.
"My lover's gone, Neville. Harry Potter has gone to his death."
My lover's gone
No earthly ships will ever bring him home again
Bring him home again
Hermione walked like a ghost past people working as fast as they could as Voldemort's deadline approached. None of the activity touched her. Her Harry was gone and it might have been her actions which helped push him away.
She found herself on one of the balconies overlooking the Black Lake. Looking at the inky black water, speckled with the reflection of the thousands of stars bright in the northern skies brought back a memory.
While in the wilderness Harry had been reading a book she had found him in the Black library. It had stories of famous people from the various important Houses of Britain. Hermione could hear the excitement in Harry's voice as he'd read bits of it too her. How his ancestors would set sail for lands far away to trade and explore. How his lineage was filled with Viking blood from the likes of Harald Harada.
Hermione chocked back a sob. She remembered how in their First Year she had labeled him a hero. How he had denied it even as he would go on to prove it again and again. Harry's heroism was built on his selflessness. He gave and gave even when he got so little in return.
Now he was dead at the hands of a monster. Would his body be mutilated for the Death Eater's enjoyment? Or would it simply be left on the forest floor to be eaten by scavengers? Hermione looked down on the lake. Harry deserved a hero's bier, a Viking one. He deserved to have his body laid into a ship, filled with tokens from all those he had touched over the years. Then to see that ship set out into the Black Lake burning brightly to save his body from the ignominy of being defiled.
The sob she had tried to contain finally escaped her lips. Hermione knew no earthly ship would bring Harry home nor would he get his Viking funeral no matter how much he deserved it.
Her lover was gone.
My lover's gone
I know that kiss will be my last
No more his song
The tune upon his lips has passed
I sing alone
while I watch the ocean
Hermione angrily wiped tears off her cheek. How could she have been so stupid? So blind? How could she have failed to see the look in Harry's piercing green eyes as he hugged her after opening the Chamber? The look of sadness on his face as she looked over her shoulder as she went down after Ron to retrieve a basilisk fang?
How could she not know that kiss, that poignant kiss he surprisingly had given her would be their last? It was a kiss good-bye. How could she have been so blindingly, wretchedly clueless?
Hermione hugged her torso as if to keep herself together for she felt like she might fall apart at any moment. Questions she had ignored for so long raged in her brain but now they could not be silenced.
Why had she pursued Ron in the face of the problems the pair had had since First Year? Was she so pathetic that if she couldn't have Harry then she would settle for Ron? Was she so unsure of herself she would latch on to Ron rather than seek out other wizards? Hadn't she caught Justin, Anthony and even Neville giving her the eye occasionally in D.A. meetings?
Why had she almost immediately taken Ron back into her heart after he returned? All of them had suffered under the locket's spell. Harry had so much darkness in his life yet he had resisted while Ron had buckled under his own insecurities and jealousies and abandoned them.
Hermione worried her lip. Ron, the one who let his pride and jealousies get him every time. Harry had always supported him, forgave him and was there for him. Yet he was rewarded for his loyalty with betrayal. She knew in her own way she had betrayed him as well.
While Ron was handsome, how did his good looks compare to the look of caring in Harry's eyes as he took her in his arms to dance away the pain in the wilderness? How did Ron's bored indifference stack up against the feeling of Harry rubbing her back and speaking soft words of encouragement into her hair as she sobbed against his shoulder?
How could she have gone back so quickly to Ron when she had given herself so willingly to Harry? She could still feel the heat of their bodies as they lay together, sweaty and satiated. Hermione shivered at the memory of Harry inside her and how she had cried out his name over and over as he pushed her past the edge of pleasure.
Harry had been there for her just as much as he had been for Ron. Yet after all the years together, at this last moment she had failed him. Hermione remembered the bitter-sweet look on his face as he had watch Ron twirl her around before she lost herself in snogging. It was so typical of Harry that he put his friend's happiness in front of his own. No matter how he had felt, he seemed pleased that his friends were happy.
Hermione's heart thumped in her chest at this thought. Was the reason she was alone now due to the fact Harry had felt nothing to live for? That he could go to his death alone and unwanted?
A chill swept through her. Harry's life was filled with abandonment. Every time Harry was given something, be it a friend, a godfather, freedom or now a secret lover, it had been taken away. Hermione felt her temples begin to throb in pain. She had been the last in a long list of disappointments in Harry's life. He started with nothing and he had ended with nothing and so nothing had kept him from going to his death.
My lover's gone
His boots no longer by my door
He left at dawn
And as I slept I felt him go
Returns no more
I will not watch the ocean
The Sonorous enhanced voice of Voldemort called her back from her bleak thoughts. Hermione quickly raced through the Great Hall to the main gates. She hardly noticed all the others who were doing the same. Even Ron calling her name barely registered. In moments she was outside and waiting for her eyes to adjust. She gasped when they finally did.
Harry Potter lay dead in Hagrid's arms.
Hermione didn't feel Ron squeeze her hand or even comprehend what Voldemort was gloating about. All she could see was the dead body of her friend, her confident, her lover. The wizard she had betrayed because of her own insecurities.
Even with their friendship, their connection, Hermione had let her own feelings of inadequacies keep her from thinking Harry would want her. Even after she and Harry had becoming lovers, Hermione now realized why she had jumped back into Ron's arms.
He had been safe.
Ron wouldn't turn her away because fame drew the rich, the beautiful and the powerful to him like Harry would. Ron wouldn't have someone like Daphne Greengrass or Susan Bones making a play for him. With Ron she'd never have to deal with having her man taken away and making her feel ugly and unloved. She wouldn't have to compete with Ginny Weasley's fiery beauty again.
Hermione looked at the corpse of her friend wishing desperately she could see those piercing green eyes open again. To hear him laugh at a joke by Ron or see him fly like a madman on his Firebolt. To feel his lips upon hers again. She wished she had a chance to have Harry look at her again in wonder like he had done at the Yule Ball. The one time when Hermione had felt like a princess instead of an ugly duckling.
Harry's lifeless body was a testament to her failure. She had been given the chance to give Harry a reason to live, a reason to fight. Was that what Dumbledore had meant by the power of love? Would Harry have fought like the Gryffindor lion to return to the arms of his lover instead of meekly walking to his doom?
Had her lack of self-esteem doomed them all to Voldemort's rule?
Hermione looked on dumbly as Neville strode out to challenge Voldemort. Another true Gryffindor lion. One who acted instead of staring in mute inactivity as she and Ron where doing. For all Ron's complaints of not being able to outshine his brothers, at the cusp of history he stood there silent and impotent.
Her lover was gone. There would be no last minute miracle like a heroic centaur or selfless house-elf to save him this time. Harry had passed on. The song of his life was over and no earthly ship would ever bring him home again.
She had felt him go. Even in death he had said good-bye. No matter the betrayal, Harry's last act was thinking of his friends.
Hermione realized she was truly alone. Ron would never be able to understand what they had done. The guilt they shared and what their petty schoolyard games had brought about.
Merlin save them all.
XxXxX
A/N: I have come to the conclusion that I'm better off writing what my Muse is pushing on me rather than agonizing over the delay in Rejected Path. Better to get this out and then work on it when I'm ready to. (I think I'm finally getting there!)
Hermione Fans: Okay people, just so you know, Hermione is a very, very conflicted person who has her own family issues as well as self-esteem issues. So she will often act very contrarian. This is a girl who is ruled by logic and then crushed over Lockhart. A gal who believes in authority figures even as they hosed Harry at almost every turn. A gal who in canon fell for a guy who treated her mostly like crap. So just be warned she's going to be a bit of a confusing mix of contradictions for most of this fic.
