Flowers for Hermione Chapter 7: The L-word, a harry potter fanfic

Tuesday, 11/23/98

Harry woke slowly from a deep, dreamless sleep. He could not remember the last time he had slept without nightmares, but last night, miraculously, he had found peace. It made him nervous. He hastened to quash his rising hope, not daring to believe that the nightmares would ever really go away.

Something was tickling his nose. He moved to scratch at it only to find that his arms felt like warm lead, wrapped around a weight against his chest.

With a start, he realized that this heavenly warmth was in fact Hermione, pulled flush against him and still asleep. They were in her private Head Girl quarters. She had brought him here last night, and then he had...stayed.

It had been a whirlwind. Harry felt like he had spent months with Hermione in those few hours of the night, after the flowers. They had said so much, done so much...could they go back now?

Harry did not think he was capable of it. He had already confessed to Hermione last night, spilling his fears and hopes and desperate, burning need for her. How he needed her to survive. To breathe.

I told her I loved her.

It had not gone at all like he had planned it. Harry had screamed it at her in frustration, trying to smash through her wall of insecurities and have Hermione see herself as he saw her, as everyone saw her. He had pictured the moment he would tell her the L-word a thousand times, had had a hundred imaginary conversations in the cottage starting and ending with that word. But not like this. Not frustrated, and angry, and ending with her in tears.

Harry remembered hating Ron a year ago, viscerally hating him, when he had left them on the Horcrux Hunt and made Hermione cry. He had sworn he would do everything in his power to prevent those tears. Yet here he was, the cause of her tears twice in one week.

They were not happy tears. He knew her better than that. She had been strangely airy and punch-drunk all night (was it from the kiss? Did she feel it too?), but the deep pain in her eyes had cut through her dazed expression when Hermione had said she couldn't dream of being pretty. She had said it so casually, as if it were a foregone conclusion. How could she think that?

And then, once again, Harry bled his heart out onto the carpet right there in the Common Room. He felt that hatred against the world a hundred-fold, hated it for hurting Hermione. But instead of healing her, he had yelled and screamed at Hermione, the one person he never wanted to see cry again. The sight of her tears killed him. He was a monster. She deserved so much better.

He had heard it again, that smallness in her voice, as they fell asleep last night. She had asked him to say he loved her, as if he might have changed his mind in the intervening time. He didn't know what to do, how to soothe that pain in her, so Harry had just clutched her and listed the ways he loved her until she fell asleep. I hope she believes me. I'll say it a million more times, Hermione. I love you, I love you, I love you…

Why had she not said it back? Was she unsure of her feelings? His heart seized at the thought, but Harry reminded himself that he had waited many years for this and would wait a thousand more. He could easily wait that long, as long as she remained with him. Harry was selfish, after all. He would rather she tolerate him than love someone else. Besides, when he closed his eyes at night he could go to the cottage in his mind, where the imaginary Hermione would wear his ring and say that she loved him back...

"Harry?"

He opened his eyes to a sleepy Hermione, cupping his cheeks as her chestnut curls haloed her face. She was staring at him as though she had not seen him for years, tracing every corner of his face with her thumbs.

"Hermione?"

"You're real," she breathed, face splitting into an angelic smile.

"I am."

She studied him for a minute, deep in thought as she traced his face with her thumbs. Harry returned to his favorite activity: studying her eyes. There was no trace of the pain from last night in them; only warmth, and care, and the something else from last week. That something else from when he had gotten her the gemmae molles and told her he was terrified of losing her.

Hermione suddenly stopped her gentle rhythm and rested her thumbs at the corners of his eyes. Her face relaxed, settling into a warm contentment that reached all the way to her eyes.

"I love you too."

Harry's heart shuddered and came to a halt. His breath left his body in a soft gasp and he went entirely limp under Hermione's weight.

Is it real? Everything about this was the same as the cottage. Her tone was the same. Her smile was the same. The light flutter of her breath against his face was the same.

Hoping against hope, he looked up to her chocolate brown eyes, illuminated by the faint morning light. He could always read her eyes, trust them to tell the truth. In that moment, they carried a simple message: she was telling the truth.

Without consciously choosing to, Harry went back to drowning in the leagues behind her eyes. He checked the truth in her eyes over and over and over again, chanting the revelation like a prayer. She loves me, she loves me, she loves me, she loves me...

Drowning.

Harry was going to live out his life here. All his worldly attachments and desires from a moment ago seemed laughably irrelevant. He didn't want any of it. Not the cottage, not the ring, not the children. Nothing. He didn't care about any of it, not when he could drown into her. There were whole histories there, entire epics written in the depths of her eyes. He would study them until he died.

Drowning.

Years passed. Maybe decades. Had he died yet? Dumbledore had not welcomed him to the afterlife this time. Good. He didn't want to spare a moment for the old wizard, not when his world was sitting right there in Hermione's eyes.

Drowning.

"Harry, what's wrong?"

Reality rudely interrupted his meditation. He heard the snowstorm outside, and felt his heart beating in triple-time. He took in Hermione's entire face, noticing her brows were furrowed in concern.

"R-really?" he croaked out, voice breaking against his constricted windpipe.

Her face relaxed again, splitting into that same beatific smile. Cupping his face tighter, she rested her forehead against his, touching her nose to his.

"Yes, Harry. I love you."

A dam burst in his chest as he let out a pathetic whimper. Harry's eyes went blurry with tears. Groping blindly, he crushed her towards him as great heaving sobs racked his body.

"Shh, Harry, I'm here love, I'm here, I'm not leaving…"

She whispered reassurances into his ear as he gripped her tighter. Hermione's arms snaked up to rub his tears away and run through his hair, gently massaging his scalp.

"Again?" Harry begged, repeating her pleas from last night.

"I love you, Harry Potter. I love you, I love you, I love you…"

Eyes still welling over, he looked up at the blurry outline of her face.

"Why?"

She crawled up to kiss the tear track below his left eye, then his right. Harry's eyes shut at the warmth of her lips.

"Because I do. I don't need a reason."

"Why?" he repeated, still sniffling with small sobs.

"Because you saved me from a troll."

He choked out a whimpering laugh.

"That's - sniff - that's it?"

"That's all it took."

He stilled at the memory of her near-death all those years ago. They had risked death so many times since then, but mercifully she had always made it through. It made the thought of losing her all the more terrifying now. Harry felt the familiar icy fear seep back into his chest.

"Don't leave me."

"Never."

"No, I...don't get hurt. You can't get hurt."

"You're one to talk."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

He had no answer to that, so he just held her tighter. Fear still clawed at his chest, screaming that he would never be enough, that he would get her killed just like all the rest. Harry shuddered, but refused to let go of Hermione. He desperately clung to her warmth, a steady rock in the tempest of his guilt and hurt.

Finally, Harry's sobs dulled to soft whimpers and the pain trickled out of his body. He could breathe again.

"Hermione?"

"Mmm."

Does this mean you want it too? Would you marry me?

"What is the time horizon of the word future?"

"Depends on the context."

"When you said it, last week. That this...that we finally had the future we were fighting for."

She slowly stroked his chest, lingering in thought.

"The time horizon is however long you want it to be."

"What if I...what if I don't want to limit it? I just...I want this. Always."

She tucked her head onto his shoulder, idly tracing a finger down from his collarbone and humming into his chest.

"Me too."