Hopeless
CHAPTER 4 (Part 1)
My dream keeps me awake for hours; I lay in bed, staring at my ceiling. For some moments, I forget that I even have a body because I can't feel, I can only see. My eyes follow the fan as its blades turn and turn. Its movement reminds me of a cycle except I can't really find the fan's staring or ending point.
My mind works the same way. The thoughts return and go away, all in a perpetual cycle. Remember how I said that I tried to stop my thoughts? Truthfully, I can't. Even though I attempt to think of nothing, to think of a blank wall in an empty room, colors and patterns find their way onto the wall. They always form one face and one smile.
And then I hear her name in my head, as if a PA system is repeating her name, reminding me of just how beautiful it sounds. Hermione. Hermione. Hermione. My Hermione.
I know things about her, little things that I shouldn't even know about my best friend's fiancée—at least, that's what everyone else would think, but I know her for a reason. For example, her hair looks like a—to put it in a fifteen year old Ron's words—bird's nest, but when you actually touch it, caress it, it feels like silk, so soft that your hand just slides right through it. Hermione uses a special shampoo—a muggle brand. Before we got together, I never knew that she had interests in beauty…things.
She has a little bump on the right side of her finger pad; she said that she held her quills and pencils a certain way and never bothered for a grip. Every time we interlocked our fingers, I felt that little bump—
God, I have to stop this.
I sit up suddenly, and my head spins. My muscles tense and my eyes begin to focus, through the darkness, on the wall that faces me. Suddenly, I'm not tired anymore.
I decide to head to the kitchen; after all, it's a reasonable time to get up for breakfast. I have to pass three doors to get to the kitchen down the hall. The first room belongs to Anne and Liam, the second to Ron (I saw a flash of red hair when I passed by), and the third room is where Hermione is sleeping.
And what do you know? Apparently, my feet stop working when I come to her door.
I find Hermione on her bed and like a bloody stalker, I watch her. Ron is nowhere to be seen and that just makes my morning much better.
I can't help it. I haven't seen her sleep for 2 years. Ever since I killed Him, ever since the two of them woke up, they have been living together in a flat near Etwood Village, another wizarding community. I've been staying at Grimmauld Place. During the war, it was used as the official meeting area for the Order of the Phoenix.
I was so accustomed to having more than 20 people in the same room at the same time that I felt so utterly alone. So I changed the house a bit and made it my own. With help from friends, I made the house a little brighter and less gloomy. I had gotten good comments from others who had visited already.
Her body is curled and her hands are tucked under her head even though there are pillows all around her. If I listen closely, I can hear her soft, breathing sounds.
A force is pulling me towards hers and eventually, I find myself in a chair besides her bed. Being so close to her, despite her being unaware, makes my whole body tingle. It's one of those things I guess. It is that terrifying, tickly feeling that you feel whenever you're around your crush, and you're sitting so that your shoulders are touching the other person's or your thighs are squished together. It's innocent, it's pure, and I always feel it when I'm around her.
Even after two bloody years, the feeling won't go away. It just won't. I'm tired of trying to make it go away. I've moved on to hiding it.
I know that she will wake up at any touch so I try to stay quiet as I observe her. I want to touch her, run a hand through her hair or caress the smooth texture of her cheek.
I was selfish. I realized that a long time ago.
There was a time where I was so in love with Hermione, so set on the thought that we would be together forever and that no one would stop us. I was…overconfident about Occlumency and I thought that it would be enough. With Hermione by my side, nothing would go wrong.
I had never thought of what being my girlfriend and my fiancée would mean.
I'm crazy to be doing this. I should just go.
Merlin, what is wrong with my feet today? Nevermind…
I bet some people may even question how I feel towards her.
Maybe…maybe this is just an overzealous obsession. Maybe I was too young to know what love was—only 21 when I proposed! This is obviously not love because a person wouldn't just let the person they love marry someone else!
I know that what I feel for her and what I cannot forget about her is real. I've known my soulmate since I was eleven.
My definition of love has been redefined so many times, but I believe that I have perfected the meaning. When I was three or four, I thought love had something to do with name-calling and sneers. When I was eleven, my look towards L-O-V-E matured a bit, and I learned to associate hugs and smiles with it. As I grew into my teenage years, snogging in the broom closets became a common show of love.
But I didn't truly learn the meaning of love until the month I spent with Hermione in an apartment when I was eighteen. We had just finished Hogwarts, graduated, and signed up for some Voldemort hunting jobs (or we were inducted into the Order). With extensive training, Ron, Hermione, and I managed to move right on to missions, but we were needed in different areas. Ron, Luna, and Neville went to a different area, and me and Hermione went to another (seemed like Hermione had the brains of two people),
Our requirement was to watch a certain house that harbored a family. In that house, the Macanns' home, there was a family who had two magical children, who were well-known advocators against Voldemort—something rarely seen in the wizarding world. Jesse and Alan Macann were 28-year-old twins who worked for the Ministry. In muggle terms, they would have been prosecutors of bad guys. The Order of Phoenix existed to combat Voldemort's next moves, but its purpose was adapted to also protect the people who the Dark Side felt threatened by.
For a month, Hermione and I lived only a room apart from each other.
I'm not lying when I say that it was awkward living with her. I don't think the term "best friend" really meant anything until I sat down with her one night, after she asked me to read with her. I had been unsure—read…me? I answered the affirmative and sat down, feeling a bit down because I thought that I would have to actually read. Instead, she moved me over to the fireplace and we sat there. She pulled out this huge tome and opened to the first out of maybe a thousand pages. I was desperate to distract her from starting what I believed would have been a torturous evening.
"So, why do you like books so much?" I was really astonished by the question—it was bloody brilliant!
Hermione had set her book down and had looked at me oddly. "Why do you ask?"
Rather than answer, I shrugged.
She gazed thoughtfully at the fire while biting her lip. "Well, I guess it started when I was five. My mum read to me The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle."
"Wait, I think Dudley read—I mean—listened to it on a cassette before," I grinned.
She smiled back. "I loved it. It was fun to hear…so after some time, I learned the alphabet, and my parents bought me so many books! I used my imagination to work up scenarios from the books I read, and it was sort of my source of entertainment. Then I soon learned the books may be fun but they also teach many things. I read a few encyclopedias here and there—"
"Encyclopedias?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes. To you, it might not be your idealistic fun, but too me, I love everything about learning new things."
"I know that. You were always in the library when we were in school," I chuckled.
She ducked her head so that I wouldn't see her blush.
That one conversation started a month of blushes, a month of laughter, smiles, hugs, and…kisses.
We even talked about…Ron. Hermione admitted that she had a slight crush on him, but she told me that it wouldn't lead to much…that they'd be happy for a short time, but their relationship would eventually fall apart over some petty issue. Their arguments were some of an indicator for her…I was glad for that…Ron wrote to me in letters about Luna…of all people!
The two of us watched over each other, but really, there wasn't much danger. Still, we stayed close to the Macanns' home. And to each other.
There were times where I got frustrated with her—her nagging and her incessant worry. There were also moments where I wanted her to stay by my side for a long time. But came towards the third week, I drew away from her.
My feelings changed. I couldn't picture just plain, old Hermione Granger. No. I would picture her with her brown eyes alight with mirth, I'd picture her mouth opening as a laugh escapes, and I'd see myself laughing with her.
I…I didn't know what to do. Those feelings were…daunting.
For awhile, I stayed scared. Was it real?
One night, Hermione had gotten tired of me avoiding our "reading" sessions. She yanked me down (she would have been a good Beater) and with hands on her hip, she glared at me.
I had stuttered, I had stumbled, but I finally told her what I was feeling. She had smiled slightly and suddenly turned shy or embarrassed or whatever…but that changed when she leant down and gave me a quick but tasteful kiss.
Both of us were eighteen and had never experience feelings like we did. Every little thing (a kiss, a hug, or a look) was new and exciting. I'd wake up in the morning and couldn't wait to see Hermione's face.
Was it because I was with her and with no one else for a month? I even…flirted with the idea that it was love. But then…well, anyone would have been scared if they thought that their "love" was not, in actuality, love.
When we finished our missions, we were hesitant to leave. It'd mean going back to a foreign environment and back to other people. We were scared that we had been duped.
Neville had admitted that he had communicated with Ginny for a while, and Ron and Luna emerged in front of us, holding hands. The six of us were back together.
And me and Hermione stayed together. The feeling of her hand in mine was like me being saved from drowning. Hermione was my savior.
So, what is love?
I don't care if it is right or wrong because I believe what I believe. My definition is: Love is Hermione. It's her brains, her beauty, her kindness, and her acceptance. Her existence is like a living form of love. Love can't be seen; some say it's not tangible.
But Hermione is.
The six of us knew that we were all in danger since the fifth year. Any spread of our relationships would danger us even more. So we promised to each other that everyone was merely friends and nothing more.
Now, watching her like this reminds me of the time sitting in the hospital. All I did was watch too. I know that she's going to wake, but back then, when the war just finished, I had no idea. Madam Pomfrey, before rushing out to begin researching after I told her about the spell, had informed me that Hermione was in a coma, and it was uncertain if she would ever wake.
For two weeks and three days, I lived in fear. My fear was not touchable, not audible.
It was funny because when I stared at her, lying comatose in bed, all I saw were tiny scratches from war that were on her face. Nothing else had seemed wrong; in fact, if I wasn't aware that she had been hit by Voldemort's curse, I would have thought that she was sleeping peacefully. But I couldn't deny it.
Something was going wrong in her body. Any spell that Voldemort casted was not meant to be underestimated.
Luna visited Ron as much as she could. Most of the time, she had to sneak in with me, and once she was in, she'd yank off my Invisibility Cloak and immediately rush to Ron's side. No one and literally, no one knew about Luna's relationship with Ron. They had only heard of her from Ginny, but she had always called her "my friend from Ravenclaw".
But Ginny stopped talking…breathing…or living for that matter.
Killed in the third to last battle against the Dark Side with Neville.
They didn't know that they would die with a secret.
Same as my relationship with Hermione. Others never knew about it either. When the six of us were together, what we talked about and what we did would stay with us only. That was why Mrs. Weasley would push me to go back with Ginny whenever we saw her. She knew that her daughter was dating a Longbottom, but she always had this crazy idea of a One Big Happy Weasley Family. And that's why she'd always give significant looks to Ron and Hermione.
The others…they never knew.
And now, they may never find out.
The Ultimate Secret, isn't it?
