Remember when it rained?
There
was no light now, only dampness and a quiet fear that filled the
empty spaces, pulled the strings a little closer so that their
imaginations lay broken and tangled, the little ones learning to be
brave with blood on their faces, struggling to reconcile that the
sunlight had gone and there was only the emptiness of the rain now.
In time, they would forget how to dream.
She was woken by the screams in the middle of the night. It was not unusual, almost routine but she had never and would never get used to it. She hears the young ones at night, learning to cry softly at night, learning to fight the nightmares that would come. And she watched them, spells and wands and angry voices, the sheer strength and will and fear driving the stake forward and it was like watching a tragedy unfold, a desecration of innocence, an ashen reminder of what could have been but never was. And she saw and remembered her own desecration but it had been her choice then and there was no one to blame although she had looked hard in every place.
The burden was so hard to bear.
She blamed Harry sometimes, wished he had never come but yet angry at herself too for walking into the carriage that very first year. So long ago, like a whiter shade of pale.
But, she had loved it too. It was risky and dangerous but just a game. It had been so real then, only because they wanted it to be, took it like a wordless drug and painted their world shades of serpentine green and crimson red and it had been real then. Like some sort of stupid junkie. Except that they had known nothing then and she would give anything right now, not to know what darkness was.
The rain went on and the screams came and went. She turned on her side, exhausted and broken with memory, not knowing if the end was near or if there would be an end at all.
Sometimes, she wondered if she could even remember how hate felt, if it was anything like this drab rain that fell and left no mark, a distant memory that had been drowned and left to die. She fell asleep watching the rain, drawing her own nightmares on the ghostly reflection of the tower glass.
He was sitting there in the dark, where she knew he would be, his dark hair matted on the back of his neck, his head bowed and his burgundy jacket ripped and stained with soil and blood. He was so weary and she could feel it. It was the way his shoulders sank ever so slightly, how his eyes stared, unseeing, at some darkness that she knew existed only in his world. She was suddenly tired of watching him, knowing him, did not know who she was anymore, only that Harry was there and she wanted to see him bound and broken on the floor.
She walked over and he snapped his head up instinctively and she curled her fingers around her wand, her mouth soft and ready, except that she looked into his dark brown eyes and found that she could not hate him, not only because she had forgotten what hate was but because she could never hate Harry. She inevitably found herself bending down, touching the bruise on his cheek with a tenderness she was surprised she had, trembling all the while because he always evoked in her emotions that she could not comprehend. Perhaps it was love but she did not allow herself that because Harry had not known love for a long time now. He could not possibly love her.
She sat down next to him, hugging her knees to herself, feeling his presence beside her in the darkness. She wished he would touch her, kiss her, but he was too empty to have anything to give. She could not ask anymore of him. She wished he would cry, like he had done that beautiful day in the snow and she had found him and he had clung to her and she had felt wonderful, like stars exploding into oblivion. Now, there was only the rain, like an invisible barrier that pulled him away from her, dragging him under the grey layers of something she had no concept of. Only that he was slipping away from her and the distance was growing larger day by day.
"Harry," she ventured, savouring his name on her tongue and it cut her like sharp acid but the pain was good and real. And she wanted to ask him if he had ever loved her before The War, if he had dreamt of holding her hand, of kissing her lips, of touching her skin. She wanted to tell him that she wanted him so much that the desire sank in her like a stone but that she hated him too for desire and hate had long blended into the rain and she was too weak, too empty to know the difference.
But the words did not come because if anything, she was terrified of Harry's indifference.
Like the indifference of this rain.
She often dreamt of the days before The War, where they were playing games with themselves and there were faces that surfaced, people whom she had not thought about for so long now that they were dusty with sleep and pain. She thought of Draco Malfoy, the silver smirk and the sharp white arrogance and where that had once been hatred and tears, there was only a kind of sadness now. Malfoy had been a casualty of The War and Harry had killed him with a spell she had taught him. She did not have any feelings towards him, he was just another one of the thousands who she had to kill, their cries and pain and bodies blurring into a corpuscle of numbness and horror. She remembered Ginny, flaming red hair, sensitive and beautiful. She had kissed on the forehead before she too had slipped away under the grey, a bloodied scar running across the length of her body. And sometimes, she remembered Ron, remembered his maroon sweaters, his hair, and his awkward manner that made her smile and then she remembered nothing more except that she had lived in darkness for days, her tears meeting the ocean and the stars fading, never to return again.
She thought of Ron often, but there was less and less of him each time, till all the faces in her life mingled and merged into an endless rain. Ginny, Ron, Malfoy, Luna, Dumbledore, Fred, Bill, Cho, Cedric, Viktor and it was as if her life had been a walking obituary, a living funeral and struggled to keep alive when all around her, all the people she had loved were now dead. There was only Harry now and he has the same shadows in his eyes.
She took them out of memory and played with them like they were paper dolls, clung to them like the ghosts of a missing past, unwilling to let go even as the rain fell and washed their faces away.
Hermione needs Harry but he does not need her, he is too far gone and she watches him closely in the darkness and wonders if there was anything left behind those dark, dark eyes. He's sinking; I've got to save him. They sleep together now, side by side, like she had always imagined them doing in their 3rd year, that fateful summer, ethereal, the sharp spice of cinnamon setting them on fire. She had felt passion then, young, beautiful and confident but with Harry, it had always been a case of waiting for him in the wrong places, chasing a shadow. She never knew what he was thinking and although she tried so hard to keep up with him, saturating herself with what was tangible, but Harry had always been one step ahead. But with Harry, it was also falling and learning to fly. She understood his need for emotional complexities even though she could never know all of him. Could never have all of him.
Her
skin tingles next to his and the tears drip down her face. She leans
over and her face is very close to his cheek, her thigh pressed
sharply next to his. They're meant to be, she had known that from a
long time ago when she had been aware that their minds ran with such
fluidity, their hands and fingers coming so well together, their
smiles meeting easily and when they worked together it was like the
two of them clasped in forever, in a crushing world, where everything
else fell and danced with earthquakes and it had not mattered. Time
was immaterial. They complemented each other so well, but Hermione
never knew if he had loved her too, because she had never really
known Harry, only known that she was born to love him.
He
was everything and when she had held his hand, liquid silver that
scorched her skin and she was both mesmerized and afraid, like a moth
is afraid of the flame but pitches in anyway. With Harry, it was
power and courage, love and fire, walking the lines of fatality and
self destruction. With Ron, it had been awkwardness, clammy hands
that somehow delighted her, left a sweet taste on her lips, like
carefree spring or the unthinking scent of cherries. She loved the
fire, dared herself to let it consume her, let it take hold of her
soul but she had been weak, had been too afraid, had chosen the one
she loved, but did not truly love.
I'm sorry for choosing Ron. It was the easy way out.
She had been weak.
In her mouth, the taste of betrayal was rancid.
She moves her lips lightly over his cheek and he stiffens and she feels the sharp graze of rejection. Her head was throbbing but she continues anyway, afraid that there would not be another time in The War that would never end.
"You bring out the best in me, Harry," she whispers, clutching his jacket and listening to him breathe while the rain falls outside.
He does not answer, but it was true. Before she had met Harry, she was all cautiousness and wariness, bound by insecurity, had never reached for the meteorites, nor risked anything for love. With Harry, she had found the best in herself, found courage and strength she never knew she possessed, dared to dream, dared to love with such intensity that she surprised herself, learnt to feel exhilaration and consciousness in her veins, like stars imploding, like tingling lushness in the fire. She had never felt so alive.
Like a rag doll with fire in her heart
Because Harry was security- unpredictable, with power that could flow either way, but she knew he would always be there when she fell, when she forgot how to dream. He taught her how to dream, how to love. But now, he had forgotten how to love himself.
I love you, I love you
Except love no longer existed, only scars did and she was like a rag doll, broken once, twice and three times more.
She couldn't save him, she saw it in his eyes.
Sunday morning, 8 o'clock, because the date is burned and branded in her memory
Self-destruction was in his eyes and he had looked at her one last time, for a long time and she had understood that the burden and the pain were too much to bear. The lighthouse had gone out.
She waved to him goodbye, kissed him on the lips, hugging his body close to hers for the last time and her body was sore with regret.
He had smiled at her, like that first day they had met, and for a while it was as if the rain had gone and the sunlight had come out, illuminating him in an ethereal glow. Her eyes had brimmed with tears at the sight. And then he was gone, just like that and she knew she would never see him again in the tower of Gryffindor, the place of so many heartbreaks and happy memories. And she would always remember his smile, his voice, his dark shock of hair, the feeling of sweet intoxication that she had felt whenever she was around him even though the rain may beat upon her, forcing her to let go.
That was our last promise, Harry Potter
Remember when it rained?
She plays with herself now, taking out the people she knew and loved, tattered paper dolls, their faces blurred by the grey of the rain and she imagines they're still here, remembers Harry's smile and Ron's hands, slipping in and out of a dream, crying and laughing because she could no longer tell the difference between oblivion and pain. She missed them, wanted to join them wherever they were because there was nothing left for her here except an abyss of strange faces and the meaning of war had been lost somewhere under the layers of moving grey.
But she was too weak to voice the incantation, too afraid of self-destruction, wished herself away into black oblivion but could not conj our enough to make it real.
They had carried Harry back that night, pale and beautiful like the storm, his scar darkening on his fore head, his glasses broken and shattered and she had nodded and said Repairo like that day at Diagon's alley, like closing a chapter on an empty grave. There were no more tears to give. And then she had kissed for the last time and found a lock of her hair, Ron's hair and Harry's tied together in Harry's pocket, like he had placed it there for her to find, for her to understand what could not be put into words.
Trio.
Perhaps she had known all along, had been too afraid to see, but the complexities of their relationship had been something so perfect she had felt compelled to destroy it because what she could not understand, she could not truly love. The feelings had been so raw, so intense; her own desire had frightened her. She remembers now, the year after Sirius had died, something had filled the spaces between them and it was not the simplicity of friendship. It was love, it was desire and angst and everything they could not explain except that it intoxicated the rooms they were in, made them brush skin against skin while the feelings of lust and guilt made them bleed inside. The tension, the longing had scared her although it had been at the same time, impossibly beautiful. But, she had destroyed it all by simply making a choice. A choice she didn't have to make it.
Oh Harry, I'm so sorry.
They found her the next day, lifeless and smiling on the concrete, blood running from her head, the glass window shattered on the floor.
She had imagined that they should meet half way and it would not be raining, the sunlight coming up behind them and they would understand what love had been. She thought of the sunlight, the fresh dewdrops of the dawn, the sharp scent of cinnamon, love like heat in the morning, affection like a subtle secret in the violet fields. And they would be together somewhere, sometime and it would be forever. And they would be happy and the tears would be gone, the rain would stop and they would be smiling together, holding hands, somewhere under the same sky.
Remember when it rained?
She hears voices now, laughter like in the old days and she knows Harry and Ron are somewhere together, perhaps waiting for her. She did not know if it was an illusion or if it was real, that line had been lost long ago.