An Author's Note:
(P)review rules apply: Those who have reviewed every chapter of this story, including this one, will receive, via PM, Chapter Twelve that same day.
PhoenixAeternum
December 12, 2010
Rebellion
Bedfellows
Sometime in her sleep, Hermione had turned over; she had fallen asleep facing Harry, who had been on his side facing away from her. But she opened her bleary eyes to find her facing away from Harry, and to a pair of strong arms wrapped around her, and to a warm body pressed up against her.
She gave a sleepy sigh. This was good. This warmth – more than the generation of body heat – was what she had needed for awhile now. Though Ron's departure had certainly accelerated things, her need for some sort of contact had existed in some form or other since the day she had oblivitated her parents. Everything since then, and especially since Ron, had seemed like one defeat after another – every day a little closer to obliteration and nothingness. But this sensation, this closeness she shared now with the sleeping boy beside her, was the most comfort she could remember knowing.
She knew it was starting to get late in the morning now, but she didn't care. She could sleep like this til noon. She could sleep like this til she died. She closed her eyes, nestled herself closer to Harry, and let her dreams take her away.
A few hours later the sun was high in the sky and well reflected by the snow that lay thinly on all things. It was nearly winter now, and Christmas would be here soon.
Harry was first to wake, his bleary eyes opening and closing, trying to adjust to being awake. He'd been dreaming about something, but he couldn't remember what; and it wasn't like the dreams he'd been having. No one was calling him a murderer, no one trying to kill him.
He'd woken up in the middle of the night, and he didn't remember falling asleep again, but he obviously must have. It was then that he realized the position he was in: Hermione was pressed up against him, and his arms were around her, and she was incredibly warm. He pulled the covers up a little higher; his arm, the one wrapped over Hermione, had been exposed to the air most of the night and was incredibly cold.
He lowered that same arm; it had rested over Hermione's upper arm, but he carefully, slowly lowered his arm so that his hand rested on her stomach. In her sleep, her shirt had hiked up some, enough that rather than the t-shirt he had expected to find his hand resting on, he instead made contact with bare skin.
The thought of it jolted him slightly. Was this wrong? Was he taking advantage of her sleeping state? What would she think – would she be horrified and leave just as Ron had? Would she leave him alone in the world, alone to find Horcruxes and Hallows?
He moved his hand from off her stomach, but Hermione made a sound like a sleepy growl, and he decided to throw caution to the winds and return his hand to her soft stomach and the warmth found there.
Harry never quite went back to sleep, but he did spent the next twenty minutes or so in that wonderful haze between dreaming and awakening, that lovely daze where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.
After that twenty minutes, however, Hermione woke up; and just as it had taken Harry a dozen or two blinks to realize what was going on, so also for Hermione. She must have thought Harry was still asleep, because she attempted to, very delicately, extract herself from his embrace.
"Don't," murmured Harry's quiet, sleepy voice. "Stay."
Hermione froze. It was like she was a little kid again and she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
"Please," Harry's voice said, softer than before. "Stay."
Her heart was pounding. She had meant to wake before he did, or absent that, at least run away as soon as he woke up with her in his arms. She knew he was in a state of vulnerability; she didn't want to abuse that vulnerability because she was lonely.
"Hermione... Don't go."
She took a breath, and lowered herself back down as she did. When she was back fully in Harry's arms, he tugged on her shoulder very lightly, trying to coax her to face him. She obliged, rolling over to look into his deep green eyes.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but after a moment of no words coming out, he closed it again and looked up and down her face. She had very faint freckles, and for a moment he looked at her and saw Ginny. But he pushed the image from his mind; the two were not one, and he didn't want them to be. He opened his mouth again to speak, to tell her how much he loved her for staying, for not leaving him here, for carrying on with him, because he knew he didn't have the strength to do this alone. But the words would not come, and he could not think how to force him.
Words abandoned, he leaned his face forward. And it was like in slow motion as he closed his eyes for a moment and his lips connected with hers. And he held them there, and it might have been for an eternity, but time had gone funny and he wouldn't pull back. And then, at the same glacial pace, her lips caught his, and she was kissing him back – slowly, carefully, with not trace of the desperate kiss they'd shared at Nurmengard or the chaste kiss she'd given him three years before at King's Cross.
He pulled her closer to him, and he kissed her as she was kissing him – slowly, almost mournfully. Through this Harry was able to communicate what his words had failed to; through this Harry was able to express his thankfulness and his appreciation, and his love and his happiness, and the intensity and meaningfulness of her staying, and every word he could not say.
"Don't go," he reminded her when their lips parted for a moment, and she kissed him again, more intensely than she had. And just as he had done before, now she was letting her lips speak what her tongue could not; and then her tongue and her lips were speaking what her tongue alone could not, and her hands were in his hair, his were running up and down her back, greedily holding her to him, greedily holding every bit of her he could.
They kissed like that, with ever-rising intensity, for a length of time Harry would never know. But after the intensity had peaked, and they had begun to come down from it all, and their kisses returned to the soft and slow, there came a point when their lips parted from each other's, and they lay their heads on the pillow and looked into each others eyes, one smile mirroring the other.
"I don't know what this is," Harry admitted, casting his eyes downward for a moment.
"Me neither."
"I guess..." he started. "I guess it doesn't matter. What we call this. Whatever this is. You're everything, Hermione." He took a breathe, and looked into her eyes. "You're everything I have."
She leaned forward and kissed him, smiling. It was the most genuine happiness she'd known for longer than she cared to think; she wouldn't ruin it. "You're everything I have too, Harry."
He kissed her back and ran a hand from where her arm and torso met down to her hip, his fingertips absorbing every inch of her.
"You know, I dreamt of this once." Hermione said. "Except we were living in a flat in London, like Muggles, and we did a bit more than kiss." She was blushing slightly, and Harry smiled at it; he didn't know he could make her do that, that the thought of him could have that effect on her.
"We should, you know."
"We should what?" Hermione asked.
"It doesn't make sense for us to stay out here. We're not finding anything; it's not like we're going to set up the tent one day and find a Horcrux while we're charming in the stakes." He paused. "I don't think there's any reason we couldn't get a flat and hide in London, or Edinburgh, or Paris – anywhere, really."
She looked at him with something like mingled hope and fear. "Do you mean that?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, I don't see why not. I don't know that we'd be spending very much time there, but it would beat living out of a tent."
"We couldn't afford it, though."
Harry thought about it for a moment. "I'm not sure, but I think we could. There was a lot of gold in my vault at Gringotts. At least a few thousand galleons, I'd think – probably a lot more. And I don't know anything about interest, but if it's earning any, it's earning a lot. We'd have to break into my vault, probably, but if we did I think we could afford a flat – maybe even real food. We could put up the same enchantments we have up here, plus a few of the ones in Dumbledore's book that require a little more permanent a structure, and... I don't know – what do you think?" he grinned. "Do you want to move in together?"
She jumped on him.
She rolled on top of him, straddling his waist, and kissed him as thoroughly as anyone ever had. His hands were on her hips, and she lowered his torso on top of his and continued kissing him, and he was kissing her back, and it was a mess of limbs and lips. Things carried on like that for a few minutes before Hermione straightened up, still straddling him, and punched him in the arm.
"Ow!" Harry cried. "What was that for?"
"We could have been living in a flat the whole time, Harry Potter!"
"Well okay, but give me some warning next time you want to go from snogging to hitting – I don't know how to react!"
Hermione was about to say something but instead stopped and smiled widely. She ground her hips into him. "I can feel that."
After a few minutes, during which time Harry took the opportunity to pick up his jaw from off the floor, Hermione un-straddled him and lay back down on the bed beside him, very close to the edge.
"Promise we can get a bigger bed?"
For a moment, Harry was struck dumb by the implication – this sleeping together business wasn't going to be a one-time thing. And once they had a flat, it was going to be an every night kind of thing. "Yeah, sure, definitely." He didn't know why he was suddenly shivering; just a moment before he'd been snogging her, but now the thought of sharing a bed with her was making him nervous?
Hermione gave him one last lingering kiss, and a smile to go with it, and then swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up. "I need to, er, you know. So why don't you make us some breakfast? Or is it lunch now, do you think?"
Harry groaned. There was one thing more than any other that he missed about "God, I can't wait for indoor plumbing."
He quickly changed his clothes and exited the tent to start a fire when he realized he'd forgotten his wand inside, and inspiration struck him. He raced back inside the tent, jumping over Hermione's bed to get to his. He grabbed the Elder Wand and Slytherin's locket from where they'd lain on the floor, and raced back out of the tent as quickly as he had entered it.
He set the locket down on a log in the snow, breakfast forgotten. He was sure this would work.
"Hermione!" he shouted. "Come here, quick!"
A moment later, Hermione emerged from a section of trees to the right of their campsite. "What is it?" she shouted, still fifteen feet away.
"Just come here!" he shouted back. "Have you got your wand?"
"Yes," she said with some confusion, pulling it from her back pocket (ignoring Mad Eye's warning regarding buttocks). "Why?"
"Just come here."
She stood beside him then, looking down as he did at the locket on the log. "What is it?"
He seemed to shake himself from a trance. "Nothing – just – here, give me your wand for a moment." Hermione still looked confusingly at him, but she did as he asked. Harry took the wand and held it with his right hand, his left still clutching his Elder Wand. "Watch this," he told her, and he pointed Hermione's wand at the locket and in Parseltongue instructed the locket to open, and a cyclone of light and sound erupted from it.
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry shouted at the epicenter of the cyclone, and a bolt of sickly green rushed at the locket, hit it, and seemed to dissolve on impact. The locket remained intact, the cyclone as well, and Harry ordered it to close in Parseltongue.
"See!" Harry exclaimed.
"I, er..." Hermione was very confused. "I'm not getting it, Harry. You already tried the killing curse on the locket before Ron left – nothing happened last time either."
"I know, I know – but watch!" And he gave Hermione's wand back to her, and took the Elder Wand with his now free hand. "Open!" he said, though it came out as a hiss, and the cyclone of light and sound appeared again, as strong as before.
The Horcrux seemed to sense its fate, because its imagery was more vivid and horrible than it had ever been. It was as it had been in Harry's dream – one by one, his friends and loved ones and the people he had killed came to him, starting with the first person he'd ever murdered: Draco Malfoy.
"Dumbledore never killed if he could help it." His arm was bleeding where Harry had blasted off his hand. His eyes were lifeless and flat. "What about you?"
A whirl of smoke and Malfoy was gone, but in his place stood the fallen Sirius Black: "I thought Death Eaters were the ones who killed people."
Hagrid: "Yer a killer, Harry."
"No!" Hermione shouted into the void. "Harry, destroy the locket!"
"You murdered a boy, Harry?" It was his father's voice, and he might never have seen anyone so disappointed and angry at once. "You're not my son – no son of mine would be a dark wizard."
"I can't believe I gave birth to a monster," Lily, his mother, said with such scorn. "A monster and a killer, and –"
"And a freak!" Aunt Petunia spat.
"It's not real, Harry! None of it!"
And it was Ginny now: "I never loved you – I could never love a murderer."
"Don't listen to it, Harry! Use the curse! Destroy it! Do it, Harry!"
"This is why I left," Ron said, "so I wouldn't have to see you turn into a murderer – nothing but a killer, no better than a Death Eater."
And the twins behind him threw a sack of galleons at his feet. "We don't want your blood money."
"What a disappointment you've become; I once thought of you like a son – I know better now," Molly Weasley said.
"Harry it's not real!" Hermione shouted, but he was transfixed, he couldn't look away.
But then it was Dumbledore,"You have failed me, Harry."
And then it was Hermione, "You killed him, Harry... You didn't need to kill him..."
"HARRY, NO!"
And Dumbledore turned to Hermione, and he urged her on with what she was to do. "He deserves as good as he's given, Ms. Granger."
"I loved you, Harry," she said as tears streaked down her face. "But you've left me with no other choice – you've made me do this. I loved you! But you've lost yourself, and you've left me with no choice but this!"
"HARRY! HARRY IT'S NOT REAL! IT'S NOT – KILL IT!"
Dumbledore turned to the ghostly Hermione beside him, and he nodded his encouragement.
And she raised her wand, and it was pointed right in his eyes, and he couldn't shut his eyes or blink or turn away from those terrible words he knew he deserved. Anguish on her face, but nothing to the anguish in his heart: A green jet and the sound of rushing death would end his fate:
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry roared instead before the specter could, and a jet of green light rushed at the epicenter of the cyclone, and the moment the killing curse hit, the cyclone shrieked a horrible sound but dissolved in a puff of smoke as the Horcrux exploded.
The force of the explosion knocked Harry back, and he let himself fall. Hermione was at his side in an instant. "It's okay, Harry, it's all right – none of it was real."
"I'm – I'm okay," he said, but he didn't sound it. "I'm alright. I've already... I've seen that dream. I know it isn't real. I'm okay. I'm okay."
Hermione stood, and offered him her hand. He took it, and he clutched it tight as he shakily rose to his feet. She kissed his lips softly. "You did it, Harry," she said just as softly. "You destroyed a Horcrux." She smiled at him. "Now we just have to find the other four!"
He gave a quiet laugh. "Yeah, well, let's find ourselves a nice flat in London first. I want a bath, and a proper toilet, and maybe a refrigerator – and ooh, telly..."
Hermione kissed him again. "And a bed?"
"A nice big one."
The smile he wore as he spoke then might have been his last:
There, ten feet from them, stood a dozen or more wizards with wands raised.
A/N: This chapter was written a month ago. I haven't gotten around to posting lately, and I apologize for that. Three months ago I lost my job, a job I've had since a week after my sixteenth birthday. The last month has been hard. You've heard of Christmas blues? It's been hard. I've had a distinct lack of purpose in my life since I lost my job, and it's all been exacerbated since Christmas. It might sound like an excuse. I don't know. Maybe it is. But it's to account for my delay. If I'm not writing, I'm not posting, and that's why this has taken as long as it has. I guess I'm sorry to all of you. I would like to announce that I am writing a one-shot story about Harry's experience post-war, a story, fittingly enough, about losing your sense of purpose in the wake of something enormous in your life ending. Should be up soon, as shall the next chapter of this story, which marches ever on.
PhoenixAeternum
January 15, 2011
