Author's Note: The song is "So Close/ The Last Day" by Evanescence.

So Close

I've spent so much time

Throwing rocks at your window

That I never even knocked

On your front door…

Curious, how beautiful a London Christmas seemed. The air was gray, the snow moist and filthy, making shhhhh sounds in the dreary afternoon, as though entreating children to be silent and not disturb the newly born piles of white, on ledges and the very tip-tops of lampposts. Vibrant wreaths decorated shop doors—there were cakes and puddings in windows; trains ran in enticing circles just at the eye line of covetous youngsters, counting each moment until Christmas morning, which, though only a day away, couldn't be coming any slower. The streets were slick and black like an icy river, running through the city as though the very waters of the Styx, and the vehicles monolithic ferrymen upon it, accepting their fares and moving on with a gentle swoosh.

Harry had never a chance to tread the streets of London during the winter—in fact, he had spent so much of his life within the magical world, he had very well forgotten the odd quirks and appreciable idiosyncrasies of his muggle heritage. And he wasn't the only one. Oftentimes, he found Hermione beside him give a slight gasp when a car rushed by, rustling their jackets like an ill wind, and sweeping her hair away momentarily. The streets bustled with hurried shoppers, and the greatest miracle was in the fact that they had not yet lost one another.

"Where did your parents want to meet you again?" Harry asked her at yet another light, talking rather loudly over the clatter of the busy sidewalk.

"I already told you, The Leaping Salmon! It shouldn't be that much farther, if I remember right!"

Harry shook his head. It had become fast apparent that neither of them could adeptly navigate the London streets, and as much as he enjoyed a respite from Grimmauld Place, he didn't much fancy getting lost, either. Hermione had promised her parents that, as she would be staying with friends over Christmas, she would meet them at a favorite restaurant—which was blessedly close to Order Headquarters—to have lunch. Not very keen on going on her own, and since Harry was suffering intense claustrophobia, she'd invited him along to keep her company. And as both had "conveniently" forgotten to alert certain Order members, they were in the clear for at least a few hours, without exacerbating bodyguards treading in their footsteps. It would certainly help to know where they were going, though.

"Hermione, let's take a break and try to figure out where we are," Harry suggested before they crossed. "You don't really look—"

"Harry, I know where we're going!" Hermione responded, turning on him irritably. "It's just…" she looked about with determined eyes, her hair tossing. "Just…" She swallowed, alighting on the window of a shop. "You know, we have a bit, and I have to get my mum's present wrapped in any case."

Harry fought back a snicker as Hermione pulled him away from the intersection and into the nearest store, letting the door shut with the gentle tinkling of a bell. It was a standard Muggle gift shop, lit softly and bright with multi-colored Christmas lights; fake snow littered nearly every surface and sparkled benignly, onto manger scenes and ceramic angels, their arms open, sweet smiles simply dancing upon their lips. Harry peered at one as Hermione went to queue up at the counter—it did not look to him the way an angel should. There was a celestial quality missing from their visages, an inner glow, a blinding flash, a series of indescribable color that could not be conveyed by gaudy paint or gloss.

"My mum used to say to me that we all have an angel, one that watches over us," Hermione's voice wandered into his reverie. He shifted his eyes somewhat cautiously in its directly, to find her watching him intently, very close at hand, brown pools soft and warmer than the shop itself, like cinnamon cookies before bed, freshly-made and sweeter than honey. "I'm not entirely sure I believe her anymore, but it was nice to think it when I was little."

Harry stared at her for a long moment, not daring to breathe; there, in her eyes, was a soft effervescence, a brilliant radiance, spun candy and flickering fire, smooth chocolate and electricity, running hot through his veins and quickening his heart to the pace of a lightning bolt, somewhere between cloud and sky, heavens and earth, before the shock, before the instance, before the next second, two figures on a Grecian urn, frozen in time.

I walk by statues
Never even made one chip
But if I could leave a mark
On the monument of the heart
I just might lay myself down
For a little more than I had…
"Harry?" came Hermione's voice again; Harry shook his head, as though to clear it.
"D'you know, Hermione," he began, afraid to stop and terrified of going on, "that when I'm about to do something stupid, there's always this voice in the back of my mind that tells me to be sensible… not put myself in danger. That voice… kind of… well, it does—it sounds like… you."
Hermione was silent for a long moment. The bell chimed; the cash register chinged. Like predawn sunshine, the slightest whisper of a smile tickled her lips beautifully, in a way that far outshone the whorish ceramic vassals on the shelf beside them—she breathed, her heart beat, engulfing her inner tissues with warm blood, a trace of brown freckles dotted her cheeks, her curly brown hair kinked at odd angles, frazzled by the winter winds—she was real, so unbearably, incredibly human.
And in that instance, Harry realized that he would have died a thousand times over, left an unutterably meaningless existence behind, wandered in dark, his fumbling fingers outstretched and searching forevermore—had Hermione not come into his life. He found his lips forming words without his consent, soft and almost inaudible, yet an underlying portion of his mind knew that she would hear them.
"You should believe your mum, Hermione. You're living proof that she's right. About angels, I mean."
He realized that the heat of the shop had begun to fog his glasses up a bit; still watching him with her calm intensity, Hermione slowly reached up and removed them—she gazed into his eyes, dissecting an unknown substance there, so sharp, so keen and gentle that Harry felt a shiver run through him, starting from the feet and reverberating up to his lips, little shoots of hot and cold flowing like transcendent adrenaline through his veins. The shoppers bustled by—did none of them notice the heart that beat like a tribal drum with his ribcage, irregular and pounding and thrusting searing blood throughout him?
The door chimed. The register chinged.
Hermione deliberately placed the cloudless glasses back upon his nose, never once looking away. Without stepping back or retreating an inch, she took his hand into hers. "My mum's present is wrapped. Let's go—it's too hot in here."
Then, the smile still waltzing weightlessly upon her lips, eyes fervent and still afire, she tugged him out the door. Harry followed behind, somewhat short of breath and utterly bewildered, wondering at the things that had crossed his mind—Hermione was his best friend, he certainly cared deeply for her—but he had never seen her the way he had in the shop, never truly looked, never realized or made the connections or understood what she had done to his life. She was the first friend he'd ever had that he could trust with everything, his fears and thoughts and deepest concerns—even when he hadn't told her, he had still known that he could. But what frightened him the most was the look of calculation and zealous intelligence he had glimpsed within her—she saw him, had always seen him, simply without his knowledge. As though she had been waiting for him to open his eyes, the perceptive core of her viewed at last his own understanding—yet Harry knew deep within that he did not understand—not yet. The mere idea of this girl beside him, pulling him through the crowds, her hand a warm spot in this eternity of cold winter, was terrifying. His heart was swelling—it felt so wonderful and so horrible, because he couldn't wrap his mind around the idea, of what the bottom of his mind, the most primal and innate and intricate part of him, was saying…
You… I… Her… She… Me… You… You—
I don't know how.
"Dance with me, Daddy!" a little girl cried, her voice bubbly and jubilant—they were in a square now, just beside the bustling street alive with traffic—a choir on the walk was singing O Holy Night—out of the corner or his eye, Harry glimpsed a little girl in a blue jacket being spun about by her father, laughing with joy.
"Fall on your knees!
O, hear the angels' voices!"
Hermione stopped abruptly, her head turned away and watching the little girl. Harry, nearly at a loss for words, felt he should say something in any case—if for no other reason than to fill the void, to feel close to her again.
"Hermione, I—"
She whirled before he could finish, stealing his breath in a gasp—as though she had been holding it in for years, Hermione leapt up on her toes and pressed her lips against his, one hand still intertwined with his fingers, her other reaching up to the side of his neck to steady herself; Harry's eyes shot open for a startled, star-struck moment—the world spun, nothing of it registered even as his sights landed upon it—there was only her and her body alight and close against his, the shaking in his limbs as he realized nothing, not even flying, had ever felt so natural or liberating or wonderful in his entire span of being, that the wings within his stomach were lifting him away above the earth—his eyes closed, his arms found the gentile curve of her back and pulled her in tighter, so that they were one collective existence, one essence, neither male nor female, neither light nor dark, neither on the ground nor flying through the heavens, but all and none at the very same time.
The last day…The last day…
"Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we…"
"Daddy, daddy, lift me up!"
Their lips' embrace broke softly; they pulled an inch away, eyes still closed, a cold wind tugging at their clothes, pushing them together, pulling them apart, a darkly playful chess game made with singing mistrals. Harry felt Hermione's lashes tickling his cheek as his eyes slid open and out of the dream. Another cold wind blew—her hair was twirling around her in a whirlwind of snowflakes, which seemed to be coming faster and faster still… Their eyes locked, hooded but alive, firing messages faster and more numerous to be deciphered by the logos of the human mind. At last, Hermione spoke, her voice low, slight, and lyrical—the voice ever present in the back of his head.
"A storm's coming."
She let go, returned to the heels of her feet and her normal height, keeping her hand in his, and approached the curb, watching the traffic with a partially intent eye. A break in the clouds appeared, beaming softly down on the street with a smile of gentle winter sunshine. Harry's eyes closed once again, breathing in the cold air, so suddenly fresh and invigorating.
"Thank you…" he whispered. "Hermione, I…"
She took a step into the street, but at the sound of his voice, she turned to him—the beams of light seemed to move—they framed her like a halo of swirling mist, soothing and blinding, so beautiful it was breath-taking—and there it was, that ballet of a smile pirouetting about her lips, in the corner of her mouth, her eyes sparkling like a thousand silver bells, a thousand rushing creeks, a thousand winter suns on a thousand winter days, and one, singular, expositional and final moment, the beams just landing for that eternal second, soaring and plunging and soaring again, a bird with two wings turned to one, flying about in spiraling circles… In her eyes was his answer, without words, complete but unrefined, primal, gorgeous…
The last day.
In years to come, Harry would never be able to quite describe what it is that happened—all he knew was that, as he blinked through the whirl of snowflakes that blanketed the day, there was a flash of red. When he opened them again, he caught the screech of wheels, the over-bearing scent of tar and rubber, saw the back end of a double-decker bus speeding past—and Hermione, as though the wind itself had swept her away, was no longer there. "Hermione…!" Harry gasped, his voice breaking. He was too shocked to connect what must have happened, too numbed, in that instant, to realize anything—only to find Hermione, who must have been on the other side of a car, the other side of a truck, just beyond his vision—he ran, through a tumult of confused and deafening traffic—honks, whistles, confused voices, all about him in an ear-splitting roar—invading him, tearing him apart—Where is she, I know she's here, just around that—
And she was.
It was as though some charitable soul had sprinkled the reddest of rose petals upon the snow—Harry had a distinct impression of the bright velvet dresses that little girls wore, that Hermione, even, must have worn to church, each year on Christmas. Trimmed in white, smooth and brilliant, swirling skirts and long sleeves, little matching ribbons in the hair, tiny flowers that walked through the snow, bundled up but as radiant as ever in that twirling, fair wonderland world… ephemeral, evanescent, will-o'-the-wisp creatures they were, these little winter angels, seen, like dryads, on one day of the year, holy and handsome and hard to grasp, sweet little sugar puffs, candy-canes, a dance of red and white.
Harry realized he was cold, and wet… there was blood on his hands—his knees were drenched—and the form on the ground beside him was that of Hermione, already growing stiff and icy. A crowd was growing around them—a man was shouting, but it had grown somehow far away from him… a haze in the gray afternoon… the buildings were dingy, the snow was dirty, the blood was rapidly turning black… but her face, calm and untouched, was white as a winter morning.
Wait a time,
To spare these lies we tell ourselves…
Harry bent over her, his body frozen, his hands inflexible and stinging like needles—but all that didn't matter—it wasn't real. There was only her, the lips still red as holly berries. Closing his eyes, shutting out the feel of that tiny, singular tear which froze on his cheek, he let their lips meet again, hoping to have once more that dancing smile, that sugary and wonderful pirouette of magic, and be one with it. The winds blew, but they smelled of peppermint and gingerbread, and all was light on the back of his eyes.
These days have come and gone—
But this time is sweeter than honey.
Fin