Title: Nothing to Lose
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Luna, or Ginny, or Cho, or... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: Harry willing goes into the Forrest to face Voldemort because he has secret that means he has nothing left to lose. Hermione, however, has made sure he is leaving something behind. One-shot.
A/N: Fair Warning to anyone who has not read one of my One-Shots before. They are always depressing. Always. Don't ask me why, it just turns out that way. Not the case with my multi-chapter stories but is with my One-Shots. Go figure.
Harry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he rose from the bowl of the toilet and flushed it. At least there was no blood in it this time. Stiffly walking over to the sinks, he washed his face and then rinsed out his mouth. Looking in the mirror he saw his eyes were sunken in his pale face.
"You're going to do it, aren't you?" Hermione asked from the door to the boys' toilets.
"How can I not?" Harry replied. "All it will cost me is a few months."
He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. He was lucky he still had his hair. He felt Hermione's arm slip around his waist.
"I would give almost anything for those few months." She said seriously.
She was the only one who knew in all of Hogwarts. She had done what Hermione always did, when she found out and read every relevant book in the Library, and asked a battery of questions of the resident Expert on Staff. She had asked enough general questions as well so the staff member was not suspicious, but there was no Magical solution to his problem.
"So would I." He replied. "But at least I know I am leaving something behind."
He placed his hand gently on her flat abdomen, knowing he would not feel anything but liking the thought of what grew under his hand.
Things had changed so dramatically in the last two years. After their Fifth Year, Harry had spent some of the Holidays with Hermione and her Parents. Three days into the stay Harry had blacked out and vomited for no apparent reason. The Grangers had rushed him to hospital and the news was devastating. Aggressive Cancer. Inoperable and Terminal. The doctors had given him three and a half years and put him on Chemotherapy.
That had been a nightmare, with it being daily injections for six months. The Grangers, being medical professionals had convinced the Doctors they could administer the injections, and then had proceeded to train Hermione the procedure so she could do it while he was at Hogwarts. She had given him the injection every evening and then he lay with his head in her lap as he sweated, ached and occasionally vomited.
After the six months the injections stopped but Harry and Hermione still spent that time together of an evening. Ron had slowly drifted away from them during Sixth Year as they grew closer. With the end of Sixth Year and the death of Dumbledore, Harry and Hermione went on the run and hunted Horcruxes, but after a few months of hard travel and sleeping in a tent in the wild Harry's condition started to rapidly deteriorate.
"Almost time." Harry said as he hugged Hermione and kissed her on the lips. "You were the best thing that ever happened to me."
"As were you." Hermione replied before touching her abdomen. "You and this."
Hermione walked Harry down to the Entrance Hall where Professor McGonagall and Mrs Weasley both tried to talk him out of it. He thanked them both for what they did for him, gave Hermione one last hug and walked out the door.
The Snitch that Dumbledore had left him in his Will never even crossed his mind as he walked into the forest and to the clearing where Voldemort and his lackies were waiting.
"Harry Potter." Voldemort said mockingly. "Come to die."
Harry did not say anything to the monstrosity standing before him, just stood there as Voldemort rose his wand and fired the Killing Curse.
'Hermione. I love you.' Were Harry's last thoughts.
Hermione sat on the porch of the small cabin she had built looking out on the Forest of Dean. It was the second anniversary of what the Ministry was calling 'The Victory' and those who were there called the Battle of Hogwarts. They had tried to get her to go to the celebration but she refused, as she had the previous year. The Ministry just wanted her there as she was the 'Best Friend' of one of the Three Martyrs. Harry for sacrificing himself in the Forest, Neville for public denying the Dark Lord and killing Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor and being killed by Voldemort personally for it, and Seamus, who suicide bombed the Dark Lord.
This little cabin was her way of remembering the best two months of her life. Best and worst. She had spent them in the Forest of Dean with Harry, just the two of them living in a simple Magically Expanded Tent, but she had also had to watch him slowly wasting away from his Cancer.
She heard the door open behind her and little feet pattering out.
"Mumma. What doing?" a little voice asked.
"Just remembering your Daddy, Henrietta." Hermione replied. "Come sit in Mumma's lap."
Little Henrietta Potter climbed up into Hermione's lap and snuggled into her Mumma's arms. There had been no issue getting Henrietta recognised as a Potter with the Ministry, especially as Hermione herself was not trying to claim access to the Potter accounts and the Goblins verified Henrietta's parentage.
"Story of Daddy?" Henrietta asked.
Henrietta knew, but did not totally understand, that her Daddy had been famous but Hermione always made sure any stories she told were about 'Just Harry' and not The Boy Who Lived.
"Let's see…." Hermione mused. "Well, there was the time your Daddy rode a Hippogriff."
Merlin, Hermione missed Harry. How she wished he could be here to see Henrietta. She would have even settled for a single extra day of just sitting around idly stroking his hair as he lay with his head in her lap, chatting or just sitting quietly.
The End.