Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Symbiosis
—
Their story started on a train but it did not end on the battlefield, like everyone had predicted. They were destined for greatness, each of them, and nobody would disagree. They would achieve more greatness together – but only together – and so they did not let the world pull them apart, no matter how hard it tugged.
—
Inside, Harry was a boy who wanted to be left alone and to be treated like he was nobody. He'd never bargained for friends.
And Ron was a boy who wanted to be noticed and to be treated like he was somebody. He'd never bargained for friends.
And Hermione was a girl who wanted to be seen and heard and maybe even respected. She'd never bargained for friends.
But friends was exactly what they became, and not one of them had ever seen it coming.
Alone, they were almost nothing.
But together, they were three parts that made up a whole.
And so it was clear, at least to them, why they could not ever leave one another.
—
Somewhere between an afternoon on the Hogwarts Express and a few frantic evenings flipping through books in the library and several late night trips under the Invisibility Cloak and too many months on the run looking for the last Horcrux, a bond was formed.
A bond so strong that nothing would ever be the same but nothing could ever be different.
And certainly nothing could ever destroy this bond.
Even when they were apart, they were together.
—
When the smoke cleared, when all was said and done, everyone finally seemed to realize that Harry Potter had always been no more than a boy with nothing and no one but the two people beside him, the same two people who had always been beside him.
They were still the Trio, just a little less Golden.
—
People paid far too much attention to all three of them, and it was really quite ridiculous, so they left England.
They found a lovely house in the middle of nowhere, one with an even lovelier view, and they planned on leaving as soon as everything blew over.
But Hermione found a great little spot where she could sit and read in privacy, and they had so much land that Ron and Harry could fly around on their brooms without ever being disturbed.
They were long gone from the front page of the Daily Prophet, but they could not bear to leave.
And so they didn't.
—
He grew up with five brothers who had already said everything he said and done everything he did and dreamt about everything he dreamed about.
He thought Hogwarts would be different. He thought he would be able to establish his own identity.
But his name was never said without being preceded by Harry's and followed by Hermione's.
And how was everyone else supposed to know him as an individual when even he saw himself as one-third of the group?
—
If they were each a part of the house they shared, Ron would be the kitchen.
Hermione would be the library.
And Harry would be the Quidditch Pitch in the backyard, or maybe the cupboard under the stairs.
—
There were times that she and Ron argued, and the house seemed too small to contain both of their giant egos.
And there were times that Ron and Harry had long conversations about Quidditch, and she felt left out, because she honestly didn't know what a Wonky Faint was.
But mostly, things were as they had always been. Calm, warm, loving, familiar. And when they were like this, she had a hard time caring that there was actually a world outside of the three of them.
She loved them far too much.
—
He wanted to love Ginny the way she said she loved him, but he couldn't.
Truthfully, he wasn't sure he knew how to love anyone but Hermione and Ron.
—
Gradually, Ginny stopped coming by, and soon she was gone from their thoughts altogether.
She was Ron's only sister, but she was not good for Harry.
And what was not good for one of them was not good for all three.
—
Hermione was not a possession, and she refused to be objectified the way other girls were.
But if she was an object capable of being possessed, half of her would belong to a tall man with red hair, and the other half of her would belong to a man with glasses and a barely-there mark on his forehead, where a scar used to be.
—
Hermione's parents were gone now, and so were all of the Weasleys except for Ginny, Fred and Molly.
They were all missing their families.
But they'd made a second family during their first year, and it was still intact.
They realized how fortunate they were.
—
She wore a nice, warm sweater with an H on the front. She wondered whether this particular one had been knitted for her or for Harry, but either way, it didn't matter.
Hermione, like Ron, has become just a synonym for Harry, anyway.
—
There was no room in their three-way friendship for a two-person romance, and so he learned to think of Hermione the way he used to think of his baby sister (before he stopped thinking of her entirely).
—
An owl came by every second day with a letter from Mrs Weasley, but they never responded. They didn't even read the letters half the time.
They were being selfish, and they knew it.
But after what they did for the world, after what they gave up for the world, didn't they deserve to be a little selfish?
—
One time, after the war had ended, though before they'd cut themselves off from everyone but each other, Fred had told them a joke. None of them had laughed.
Now, as they sat around a table big enough for only three and ate the dinner they all helped to prepare, Harry broke the comfortable silence by repeating the joke.
And they all laughed heartily, because it really was quite funny.
—
Symbiosis – n. a relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.