Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. It has dialogues from Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, and other programs.

Summary: Hermione was once in love with Harry, but she forced herself to forget about him when he became distant. Now that she has the chance to bring his mind back from where he hid it, what will she do about the love she once felt and that is threatening to come back? R&R

Author's Note: Forgive the grammar spelling, if any, I still need a beta. If you are interested please say so in your review.

Those wounds have been revealed
Clawing through this wasteland
No emotion lives, suffocate on hope
Swallow your last rational thought
It tastes of every heart you've devoured
Your veins constrict they are choking you
Wrapped in vanity, you're dying. –Bloodsacked Memories ~Hatebreed

A Love Long Forgotten

Chapter One

Old feelings, new beginnings

They sat in front of the fire, three best friends. Two boys and a girl; the latter was sitting between them.

They were enjoying the warmth of the fire, it was a cold night. All of a sudden one of the boys stood up; a redhead, freckled-faced, blue-eyed, tall seventeen year old.

"I'm off to bed," he said "Are you coming Harry?" he added, stifling a yawn.

Harry shook his head, his black untidy hair sticking out everywhere, "I'm not tired, Ron."

"Fine," said Ron, he turned to the brown-haired girl instead, "Hermione, I could walk you to your dormitory door? It's on the way after all," he said and shrugged.

"No, thanks, Ron," she replied "I'm not tired, either, Good Night."

"Good Night, then," Ron said and nodded to them. They bid him goodnight and he rushed up the stairs to the boys' dormitory.

Hermione looked around the empty common room, and then at her watch, it was a quarter to one o' clock in the morning. She looked around at Harry, he was gazing at the fire, a lost _expression in his deep, green eyes; they looked very dark, almost black against the firelight.

Harry had been very quiet ever since their fourth year. And even after he'd defeated Voldermort in their sixth year, he still didn't speak openly about it.

And she could see it was eating him inside, she could only go so much as imagine what he had gone through, what he had seen, what he had felt. She knew it was hard, she'd seen it in his eyes. They were no longer bright green, as they had been the first four years she'd knew him, but two shades darker. But they had changed after Voldermort's rebirth, and they never changed back after Harry defeated him. She could see all the guilt building up inside him, all the shame, all the pain, the sorrow. It made him look older than he really was.

She laid a hand on his shoulder, thinking this was just a good time as any to bring up the so dreaded subject they had avoided for so long. "Harry," she said, he didn't react. "Harry, you need to get it all off your chest. It's not healthy for you—for anyone—to keep everything locked up like you have."

She watched as he slowly turned his head to look at her, she withdrew her hand from his shoulder and placed it at her lap as she looked at him. He let out a long sigh. "Sometimes it's better to not talk about it."

"But Harry," said Hermione and gulped slightly at his stare. "Please, tell me what happened. I want to be able to understand. I want to… know."

"You would never understand—" he started but she groaned and broke him off.

"Try me."

He rubbed his forehead with his hands and sighed. "Everything was my fault." He bit his lip and looked up at her, she blinked. "Every single, bloody thing. It was because I made Cedric take the Cup with me that Voldermort killed him." Hermione flinched at the name a bit. "It was my blood that made the bastard come back, you know it. And it only caused more death and destruction." He stared at the fire again and clenched his fists. It seemed like an eternity before he spoke again. "He showed me my parents… he—he brought them back…"

"But no spell can—"

"It wasn't a spell," he said "I don't know what the hell he did, but he brought them back. He told me that they would be with me again, that I would have parents again, and that I wouldn't be an orphan anymore. And all I had to do was join him. But my mother… she was shaking her head, it was the oddest thing. Anyway, I stood up to Voldermort, said to him that I would never join him… and he took them away again.

"It was worse than the first time, Hermione. This time, I remember… I remember mum's words saying that she loved me that she was always there with me, dad's voice telling me the same." His eyes began to water, and he looked as if he was using all the strength he could muster to not cry. When he spoke again, his voice trembled helplessly. "It was horrible to watch, and it was at my parents' expense again that I beat Voldermort to where he belonged to."

He put his forehead in his hands. Hermione stood up from the couch and kneeled in front of him. "You've grown up, Harry." He raised his gaze to hers, looking directly into her brown eyes.

"You've just noticed that?" he asked with a smile, it was the first sincere smile in three years. He looked considerably younger.

She smiled slightly. "No, it's not that, you prat," she said "It's—"

"So now I'm being insulted, well this is just peachy," he said in mock hurting. She laughed and swatted his arms playfully. She then frowned.

"Harry… it's just that I've never taken the time to notice it really," she said standing up, her back to the fire.

"I know," he replied "But I just want to get this all over with." He let out a long sigh. "It's too hard."

"Don't try to grow up too fast," she said

"Oh, but I'm already grown up, you said so yourself." He stood up and walked over to her. "Aren't I?"

But she found no words to say, his gaze was intensely penetrating her brown one. And she found herself unable to react to him. But finally, with all the willpower she had, she could find her voice and speak. "Don't look at me like that," she said, and it was the only thing she could say.

"Why not?" he asked, staring at her eyes almost defiantly, as if trying to prove himself, and she could feel his breath on her face.

"It makes me uncomfortable," she replied breathlessly. He grinned, but it wasn't his usual grin, the grin she used to see on his face. No, this time it was more like a smirk.

"Sorry, my darling," he said as she turned around from him, she now fixed her gaze at the fire.

There was a long silence following these words where Hermione gazed at the ember flames that licked the fireplace, at the same time feeling Harry's emeralds of eyes staring at her. Still, after she'd told him not to.

But it was that stare, moments ago—nay, seems like centuries ago—when their eyes had locked, that had puzzled her, sent her mind into a place beyond reason, and her heart to a state of hypnosis, such strongly, that it seemed to not beat until Harry blinked, which he did once or twice while staring at her, giving her the all-too-known feeling that she was falling through a bottomless pit.

And the feelings which she had tried to hide and bury deep within her soul were once again released into her mind and into her heart. All of it, just in a brief moment when their eyes had met. And she had been afraid, afraid of being, again, haunted by the memory of him and of being forced, perhaps once again, to hide those feelings and to pretend they never would exist, or even still, that they never did exist. She could not bring herself to do that again, it had been too painful.

She had tried of course, by shutting them inside her head, in a place nobody but her knew. And it was even more painful to try and forget, because her love for him grew even in that profound place, aiding itself, loving in silence. Though, she was careful not to notice—or being noticed, for that fact—they were always there. When she felt a pang in her stomach by looking at him pass, when she felt a throb in her chest every time he brushed her while passing by, or walking next to her; they were always there, painfully—regretfully—reminding her of that forbidden love that she herself had forbid.

And it had been two years ago when she had tried to forget about her love for him. But in seconds she had quickly regretted it; seconds turning into hours, hours into days, days into months, and months… into years. And so, two years passed with only the bitter taste of sour regret upon her soul; angry at herself for allowing it to happen. Now she was in her seventh and last year, returning from her memories and dropping back with a loud blow, into reality.

And before he even noticed her change of reaction, she had bid him goodnight and had hurried away to the Head Girl's dormitory to sleep, on a busy mind, an endless sea of questions that needed to be answered. Though not now… definitely not now.

Author's Note: Okay, this is just the teaser chapter. If I get a good response I'll continue the story. Anyway, please review!

~Blue