Disclaimer: I don't own "Harry Potter" or anything recognizable connected to it.

A/N: I couldn't resist.

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Kiss of the Traitor

Chapter Twelve: Graveyard

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Harry sat in a corner of the black, rocking hearse as it made its unsteady way towards the cemetery. He couldn't take his eyes off a carefully covered form lying in a coffin, and his hand held onto a white, cold, stiff one as if he could never let go. Ron was on the other side of the hearse, staring out of the tiny window with tears tracking sallow paths down his face as if he would never stop crying. Harry wanted to cry too, like a baby, but he couldn't somehow.

It was like a dream. Like an awful, awful dream. To have Hermione back only for a few weeks, only to lose her again, was almost too much for any of them to bear, for him to bear. He looked down at the cold hand in his, and wished he could go back, turn back time, do anything to change this. Just so that he wouldn't have to enter that graveyard and watch her being buried deep in the earth, with nothing but a death she shouldn't have had to endure. She'd saved his life at the cost of her own twice. Only this time, it was more literal. And what had he ever done? He hadn't been able to save her. He hadn't even tried. He'd been too afraid.

When the hearse came to a jerky halt, and the doors opened onto bright, glaring sunlight, Harry and Ron mechanically got out. The sea of faces waiting in the cemetery made Harry blink, unable to detach one from another. Everyone in the magical world seemed to be here, it appeared.

"See, Hermione?" he whispered under his breath. "It's all for you!"

As they past a crowd of people Harry didn't recognize, one of them pushed forward and said, "Oh, Harry, can I have your autograph, please?"

Harry felt so angry and sick that he nearly hit the man who asked him that. Ron shoved the man away, uttered something filthy under his breath, and herded Harry with rough gentleness forward, after the coffin with its white, prone cargo. Harry found himself avoiding the eyes of the people he knew, trying to pretend this was all a dream and that he really wasn't here.

The coffin and the two young men reached the front of the crowd, where the grave had been dug and carefully neatened by loving hands. Harry caught a glimpse of Hagrid standing and sobbing nearby, and his nails had the tell-tale marks of dirt under them. Harry felt tears sting his eyes. So many people had loved her, and not one of those people had stuck by her when she had needed them to. So many people had loved her, and she'd loved them all, and after their betrayal, she'd found it in her heart to forgive them, to forgive even Harry.

"Harry," Ron whispered softly, "Mate, do you want to say something before the coffin's lowered? Or do you want Dumbledore to do it?"

Harry felt as if his head was swimming. "Er… I… Dumbledore can do it," he muttered.

He didn't trust himself to speak without breaking down.

Next thing he knew, Dumbledore, in his most elegant purple robes, was sweeping up to the front and cleared his throat, muttered, "Sonorus". For a second, his eyes locked with Harry's, and there was a wealth of tenderness and compassion and sorrow in his eyes, but also an eternal message of reassurance. 'Everything will be all right, Harry. You just have to find a little hope. And trust'.

Then Dumbledore began to speak…

"I'm standing here before you this morning," he said, "To pay my respects to one of the most brilliant and warm-hearted students I have ever had the pleasure of watching grow up and teaching. I'm here to talk about a young woman braver and stronger and kinder and indeed, more stubborn, than anyone else I have ever known. Let it be said, however, that her obstinacy was justified: she was always right."

Harry choked back tears, and, blinking suddenly at Dumbledore standing in the golden-bright sunlight of the… winter… morning, on green grass, pressed rewind in his mind.

Sunlight? Green? Dumbledore?

"Trust, Harry," Dumbledore whispered in his ear again, "Trust and faith. It'll all be right."

Harry woke up with a start, soaked in a cold sweat.

He was shaking when he frantically felt around his bed, to make sure it was real and that this was not a dream. Then he stumbled out of bed and raced down the hallway, down to Hermione's room, and he entered as quietly as he could in his state of disorientation and panic.

"She's alive?" he demanded of Lupin, "She didn't – you know – "

Lupin, taking a watch by Hermione's bedside, raised tired, worried eyes to Harry's. "She's alive, but just barely. She slips in and out of consciousness. Within another day, she might be well enough to sit up and talk and everything, but it won't last long. She's very sick, Harry. You have to act now."

Harry looked down at Hermione, sleeping quite peacefully, her pale face beaded with perspiration from a fever.

"Yes," he said quietly, searching for and finding that trust and courage, "I have to act now."

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TBC.

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