A/N: Nothing belongs to me but the plot. Characters belong to J.K Rowling, and the song is by Dave Matthews Band, on the CD 'Before these Crowded Streets.
It was about 4 years after graduation. He couldn't remember exactly. He was sitting there at the Three Broomsticks drowning himself in mead when a sudden thought of Dumbledore's confession occurred to him.
'Do you see those trees out there?' Dumbledore had asked. 'They aren't just trees. That forest represents my dreams... imagination... fate. And see, just beyond the tree line? The burned area? That there is my memory fading. I am and old man, Harry. Maybe not at heart. But I am old in age. No one knows how old. Everyone figures around a hundred. I am 200 years old. It is my time to go. I hardly remember my early accomplishments. The philosopher's stone... I barely remember my experiments with Nicolas.'
Standing Here
The old man said to me
'Long before these crowded streets
Here stood my dreaming tree.'
Below it he would sit
For hours at a time
But progress takes away
What forever took to find.
Harry smiled into his mug, remembering school days. Dumbledore was very much alive. So old, now, that he hardly finds the strength to see his fading dreams in the forest. Albus always fantasized himself out in the forest as he had in the old days. He pined for it. He ached to walk with the aged centaurs through the evergreens. He'd never make it back there again.
Now he's falling hard
He feels the falling dark
How he longs to be
Beneath his dreaming tree
Harry's smile faded as his thoughts shifted to Hermione.
Conquered fear to climb
A moment froze in time
When the girl who first he kissed
Promised him she'd be his.
How he'd loved her. And how she'd loved him. But that was before... Long before now. Hermione had promised to love and cherish him as long as she lived. She didn't uphold her part of the bargain. No one ever did.
Remembered mother's words
There beneath the tree
No matter what the world
You'll always be my baby
Just last year Harry had found his mother's grave. Buried beside her heroic husband. Harry slapped a sickle into Rosmerta's palm and ran out the door.
Mommy come quick
The dreaming tree has died
The air is growing thick
A fear he cannot hide
The dreaming tree has died...
He ran to Lily Potter's grave. His mother. Dumbledore had just died. He felt it. He just knew. He threw himself onto the ground, six feet above his mother's body.
"How could he die, mother? They're all gone... All gone..." Everyone who'd ever loved him, ever needed him, was gone. It started with Sirius, who'd thrown himself in front of Harry when Voldemort had cast the killing curse. Days later it was the Weasley's. In an angry rage Voldemort attacked Harry's closest friends. They were gone... the whole lot of them. Hagrid had died ages ago... A heart attack. Hermione... Hermione was gone without ever having left. She was still alive. But she forgot all about him the day they both threw they're rings into the lake. And now Dumbledore. He slumped onto the mossy ground, sobbing.
Hermione had entered the small pub just in time to see Harry run out.
"And a good thing, too, we'd have made a scene for sure." She thought glumly. She ordered herself a small gillywater. Taking a sip she remembered the old days. School.
From the start
She knew she had it made
Easy up 'til then
For sure she'd make the grade
She always was the top of every class. No one could touch her. It was such and easy thing, studying. A photographic memory was all she needed. When it came to a social life, she barely had one until 4th year, when she started dating Viktor. After their break up, Everyone had been all over her. She'd charmed her hair straight, and was beautiful. Everyone loved her.
Adorers came in hordes
To lay down in her wake
She gave it all she had
But treasures slowly fade
She was totally ready for anything. Or so she thought. One day her father died, and everything was lost.
Now she's falling hard
She feels the falling dark
How did this fall apart
She drinks to fill it up
Her gillywater slowly vanished, and she ordered mead. And another. She smiled at each happy memory, but each smile faded into a terrible frown when Harry appeared in every one. She began drinking more and more, trying to drown the thoughts out of her mind.
A smile of sweetest flowers
Wilted so and soured
She paid for her drinks and fled the bar, just as Harry had. She, too, ran to her father's grave. She tripped over something that she couldn't see. Her tears mixed with the dirt and her face was tarnished with mud.
Black tears stain the cheeks
That once were so admired
It was last year that he'd died. Last year when her world fell to pieces. A perfect china dish shattering.
She thinks when she was small
There on her fathers knee
How he'd promised her
"You'll always be my baby." She whispered. "Well WHAT ABOUT NOW, DAMNIT! AM I YOUR BABY NOW? GREAT WIZARDS, FATHER, WHAT ABOUT NOW???"
You'll always be my baby
Daddy come quick
The dreaming tree has died
I can't find my way home
There is no place to hide
The dreaming tree has died.
"He'll always love you, Hermione. No matter what the world, you'll always be his baby." Someone said. That voice was so familiar. So familiar.
"Ha-Harry? Is that you?" She asked timidly.
"Who else would it be, Minnie?" He responded gently, "On the anniversary of our parents' deaths', where else do you think we'd be?"
And Harry wrapped his arms around her neck, and They wept into each other's coats.