Good-Bye

There is a stagnant, foul odor that rises up from the little lagoon in the middle of my paradise. The wind picks up and wafts away the awful stench of algae and decay only to be replaced by the sweet smell of German Chamomile, Plumeria, and Oak. The mixture inflamed my senses. I drank in this welcome aroma in tall glasses as I reached back to my faraway home.

I drifted on the limbo of time to when I was a little girl sitting on sandy beaches. I could hear waves crash upon the exposed coral at low tide. I also saw rain splatter the smooth surface of lakes and create the ripples of the past, present, and future thoughts. I could see the mists of early morning rising around the rivers of the home I belonged to. The vision of emerald moss upon waterfall rocks take hold of my imagination and keep me there, spellbound in the distance. This is my home, my beach, my river, my mystical realm in which I was ripped from. I have not felt at home since. Family travel, and relocations, what a joke. Then I found my life.

I am raised by the life-giving breeze as it blew through my hair and gave me wings to fly. I soared on the backs of wind dragons, and we cut through the silver lining in the clouds as we dove out of heaven and shoot to the unknown, to adventure, toward unimaginable realms that led me to … her. She was smelled like lemons and lavender and tasted like cinnamon fireballs. I see her even now, her smile bright and wonderful, warm, and loving. I reach out…

Oh no! I am falling. I was leaving my wind friends. They dove after me trying to keep me in their realm of freedom, but I plummeted too fast to be caught. I was jolted awake by the jibber jabber of voices. I tumble…

No please. I can't make them out, but they are louder and louder and uninvited.

I can't breathe, choking on anxiety. I start to feel a slight pressure on my shoulder, then a gentle shaking.

Death, he has me. Shaking me to see if I am worthy of his touch. I squirm, and silently scream terror clutching at the depth of my core. NO! Please I want… I need my friends back… I need her. Please don't take her away! I am lost in this endless drop.

"Hey…Hey Love," a voice is bringing me back to the world. This world of horror and unfairness. I once again breathe in the scent of German Chamomile, Plumeria, and Oak and my senses flood with memories, painful and beautiful.

No I don't want it. Please a little longer. I can't I go back. Can't I be free for just a moment longer?

"Hermione, where did you go this time, Love? You slipped away," asked a voice I could not help but smile warmly at. If I were to be taken from my winged friends, I was glad it was Harry who brought me back to reality.

I sighed. I found myself pulling together what Harry asked. I gathered back my focus to see green eyes, and dark messy hair with small streaks of light brown from sun and quidditch if you were to look hard enough. I let my eyes slide to the side and I can see what looks like waves dancing on the surface of the pebbled walkway as I tried to find my words, tried to find my lie.

I saw it there just out of reach. It shimmered like a mirage. I didn't respond. I couldn't. I think it happened again. I think I drifted away to see without seeing. I smelled my youth… wet and fragrant, tasted love…Fleur, and felt my future… nothing.

"Hello earth to Hermione. Anybody home?" He playfully asked.

I finally sharpened my focus again, this time on his sweet emerald eyes, so loving and caring. I looked away at the swishing of Coffeeberry Bush leaves. Brilliant light green and quasi sharp-edged. A small lizard flashed out of the brush, puffed up and scampered back unscathed. Funny, that I was just falling from my dragons and I then see an old friend here.

"Ok, Hermione. You are starting to scare the shit of me now. What gives? What the hell is going on?" His voice was hard and then his eyes softened as he sat back on the same bench as me and looked out to where my eyes roamed, "What did you see?" asserted Harry asked softer this time, his voice threatening to break.

"Hmmm…" was all I sounded to let him know was I still semi-there. No, yes or no, just hmmm. I just want to go back and see again. I don't want to be here anymore. I want that place, the wind, the dragons, and my past. I want it back. I want her back.

"It's hot out here," I said lazily closing my eyes tilting my head up taking in the rays of the sun.

It didn't help the fact that I wore jeans and a dark t-shirt in this hot June weather. It didn't help that my brown frizzy hair came down to the middle of my lower back, and of course it didn't help that I did not tie it up off my neck. It's been years since it has been cut. I wished for it to grow, grow like a weed in the middle of summer. She loved my hair long. She loved to run her fingers through my kinks and tease the tangles out with her pianist's fingers. It's been years since she left.

There goes that lizard again and this time pausing to soak up the warmth of the sun. I wish it were that easy. To find nourishment by basking in the sunlight must be divine, if only it were that simple. Then the clouds obscured the sun and caused the little dragon to scurry back to the brush and leave me here again.

Maybe that's what it feels like, to be left behind, empty, unfulfilled, and hurt. I am afraid for Harry. I don't want to leave him behind. I don't want him to feel this feeling of isolation, of being left. He has been so good to me. The best friend a girl could have. He has stood by me through fights with friends as I shut them out one by one, fights with myself, fights with her, and now this. But he doesn't know everything about my dilemma. I love Harry more than anyone in this world. I love him the way one does a soulmate who is not your lover… if that makes sense. He was the yin to my yang. I wanted to love him so very much, but it was Harry who said I couldn't love him the way I needed to love. Can you believe that? Harry Potter, talking of feelings and love. He knew where my heart lay, but I let her go. Not because I hated her, nor because of the way were together. No, she left because I drove her away. I drove her away because I loved her. We have been there for everything with each other but how to tell her this. How to tell her I am leaving her. I could not, so I drove away the person that completed every part of me.

"Harry," I said getting his attention.

"Yes, my Love. You finally speak!" he jests.

I saw his handsome, wonderfully innocent face. The gods were kind to him in this cruel unyielding world where he saw death, destruction, and wretched ugliness. Yet he still looked like the boy I befriended all those years ago after a troll tried to kill me in a girl's bathroom. His brow crinkled as he noticed the grave look on my face.

Do it, he needs to know.

"Harry," I tried once more swallowing.

"Wait. Do you need your pills? Some water perhaps?" he asked digging in a pack we loaded up for a visit to the botanical gardens. He knew I was sick, but he didn't know…

"Harry, stop. Please listen," I took a deep breath and gently pulled my bag from his hands. I placed the bag on the ground by his feet. I never let go of his warm eyes.

"I am dying."

Harry said nothing but looked at me and then away.

"What did you see?" he asked gritting his teeth so he would not let his voice crack.

He knew of my slight gift to be able to see into life, to be able to read the past, present, and future. It started after the torture from Bellatrix 7 years ago. When I showed up on her doorstep, bloody, and broken. Later I told her of the gift, or curse. She looked at me, kissed my lips gently as I recovered in a bed, nodded and walked from room.

Later she would tell me, after we fell into each other's arms, and into my bed she loved me, and didn't care about the sight. I told her how much I hated divination and she laughed. It went on for 3 years. What a pair we made, the DADA teacher and the fortune telling author.

I sighed once more. Shaking my head from those memories.

"Nothing. My past and present," I told Harry.

"No future?" he whispered not looking at me.

"No. No future."

He put my pills back in my bag and sat back looking at the tree where I found the meaning to my life. The same tree where I first kissed Fleur. Harry put this bench here so that I may come here and remember better days, and I loved him for it. Harry took his arm and draped it around my shoulders, pulled me to his shoulder, and stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. We listened to the wind, smelled the Chamomile and sat peacefully letting our actions say all that was on our minds.

He is here now. We are here, basking in the sunlight, but I don't want to leave him behind. He lost so much. Ginny was lost while giving birth to their third gorgeous child, Lily Luna. It gutted him. Ron moved to Romania to be with Charlie after I fell into Fleur's arms. Something about branching out. Everyone Harry had loved left him. I was the last. His voice brought me back to him.

"Have you told her?" Harry asked, his voice like a whisper on the wind. I shook my head and let a single tear fall from my eye. He lifted my chin as he felt the drop splash onto our intertwined hands. He looked deeply into my eyes, he looked past all the walls that I constructed and saw me as the scared little girl from our youth. He took my hand twisted my engagement and wedding ring. We both thought about the day that was the happiest of my life.

"I am so sorry she left," he said and fingered the bands, "You never took them off once did you?" he asked in admiration. I shook my head.

"No, for there has never, and will never be another Fleur," I whispered barely hearing my own voice.

"Do you want me to tell her?" Harry asked. I leaned in to kiss his cheek but I could not move and my forehead hit his chin.

He shook his head took a deep breath. I only looked at him. Held by him and his warmth. I was beginning to feel so cold. I saw a tear roll down his cheek and wiped it away and then leaned back on his shoulder. I took a deep breath and let it out. I clutched his hand as hard as I could. He squeezed back. He looked to the tree where I found love and let his eyes water.

"Thank you for loving me," I said then the air left my lungs, my eyes closed, and Harry let his tears run freely.

He opened his phone, dialed a number, and still held me gently. He hated the woman to some extent, but clearly, they knew before I told Harry that I was dying. Evidently, I can't hide medical documents of muggle cancer on a desk in the middle of my flat for all to see and not expect someone to find it.

As I wait, I hear in the speaker of his phone her voice. Part of me wished for one more moment of lavender, lemons, and cinnamon fireballs.

"Fleur, she is gone," then he hung up the phone, not giving the woman on the other end a chance to reply, and held me, kissed my forehead and said his goodbye. I looked away from the scene that broke my heart when I saw him lift me into his arms and take me away. I closed my eyes. Once more I was lifted by my wind dragons, taken away like a leaf on the wind.