Broken but not Shattered
The night was cold, rainy yet he didn't feel it. Maybe he was getting old or he just didn't care anymore. A pretty nice spell prevented that he got wet anyway. Somewhere in far west a lightning went through the sky, everything looked as if this night would turn stormy. A perfect scenario to stay at home, drink some hot tea and have a nice evening but Harry Potter chose to take a walk, despite this dreadful weather.
Minutes before he had been sitting in a warm room, flipping through old pictures, remembering his life, his friends and most of all his family and all it took to get him here out was just a thought, nothing more. But one that followed him nearly so many years by now and time was slipping through his fingers.
Harry's once black hair was now grey, his face lined but still one could see his famous scar, one he had more than once forgotten to own. Perhaps this came with age that he looked upon things much different now than he did with thirty or even sixteen.
He smiled by that thought, even if his time at Hogwarts was everything but peacefully it still was great despite of everything he had to go through. After all he found the greatest friends imaginable and he found love at Hogwarts. Ginny Potter his wife since nearly 50 years.
They had wonderful years, peaceful years and Harry never had to fear that his heart might get shattered maybe broken; maybe here and there some scars but nothing he couldn't have survived. They had wonderful children together; everything seemed fine, perfect even except for that one lingering thought.
For the first time since years, hell decades he felt reckless again. He needed to know, now or never and he knew deep down that never was probably closer than ever.
He could have apparated but he needed to walk, needed to get his mind clear after all this could be his last chance he'll get. At least she knew he was on his way, he had sent her his patronus. Their house wasn't that far away, perhaps a few kilometers.
From a distance he could see how someone was walking toward him, slowly but surely. Under his breath he cursed himself and his recklessness but at the same time he knew it was pointless a Hermione Granger, no, Weasley, he reminded himself, was just unstoppable.
Since months her health had gotten worst at Saint Mungos they told them it was age and her weakening heart that she needed to take it slow now something she ignored. Hermione just wasn't someone who would sit at home; she needed to write, to research if just to keep her mind off for a while.
"Hermione!" he breathed, when she reached him.
She looked thinner, maybe paler than the last time he had seen her but still her brown eyes held this fire, warmness.
"I'm fine, Harry." She said.
"Ron is busy for a while, he has just another chess match with Hugo." She continued as if she read his mind.
Harry smiled, she knew him probably too well.
"What is so important, why are you here, Harry?"
As soon as she asked him this, he didn't know an answer anymore something that had happened so often, countless times before.
He was caught up with watching her as if this time it could be their last meet up. They had been through so much together but this, he felt, was probably the most difficult time ever.
"I'm not sure anymore." He whispered finally.
"Oh, Harry, I'm not leaving yet." She told him stubbornly but when she touched lightly his cheek with her cold hand, he wondered if she believed her own words at all.
"Hermione, do you remember that time when Ron left us, when it was just the two of us hunting the remaining Horcruxes?"
She nodded slightly by that. Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him but she was looking at him, like so many times before, with so many hidden emotions. It had been that look, this eyes that had triggered him to meet her tonight.
"I mean, maybe I'm just a crazy old fool but there was a moment when –"
"We danced on a thin line, you mean?" she finished for him and he knew by just looking at her that she understood, knew what he was thinking of.
"We could have, you know, ended up together."
A long pause stretched, just broken by thunder, between them after he said what had bothered him years, hung between them like an unfinished breath. They were just looking at each other, perhaps wondering what if, pondering perhaps if they made the right decision.
"We are both married to two wonderful people, Harry." She breathed deeply.
"I'm not questioning that, I'm not regretting my life or anything." He interfered.
"Of course, you are not but we were both seventeen and probably more vulnerable than ever before." Hermione explained yet it was probably written on his face that he didn't understand, at least couldn't follow her.
"I had no family, no home anymore and Ron left us too. Of course, I was hurt but I learned I could manage, I could survive. We were probably never that close to another like in that night when we danced but I couldn't risk following any deeper feelings I probably had for you. Having you and losing you again –"
"Would have been too much." He finished and a half smile appeared on her face.
"Sometimes it takes more than a Gryffindor for love." She continued.
"But does it make any different at all, do you think if anything happens to you will leave me less than shattered just because we didn't end up together?" Harry stuttered, he knew too well that he might find it out soon enough, too soon.
Authornote: In so many ways is this strange. For one I found this story by accident and another its the first english story I publish in several years.
Cheers
Phoenixwriter