Author's Note: This chapter - beginning the run up to the end of this story - was a mammoth task for me. In short, it was a bit of an ordeal to write, but I would still sincerely appreciate and call for any criticism you can give in reviews, which would make all this writing so worthwhile. The majority of you will cry out for my blood because of this chapter but I hope at least a handful of you will see it for its realism and unfortunate truth of events. Good - if not happy - reading and reviewing (naturally!).
DaenerysTargary3n
Harry felt invigorated as he soared over the school that once more resembled the home he had found when he was a scrawny, little eleven year old orphan. Since the ball debacle a month ago, when the wizarding world glimpsed just how far their former darling had fallen in the wake of Voldemort's defeat, she had retreated even further into herself and her memoirs (if that was possible) whilst he had thrown himself into the final touches on the castle to get it ready for the commencement of the new academic year. He almost wished he didn't have to return to Godric's Hollow, the site of most of the hardship and sorrow he had been forced to endure. It was the site of his parents' murder and had been, since the final death of Tom Riddle, the safehaven for The Boy Who Lived and the former greatest witch of the generation.
Now that he had become accustomed to the constant presence of strangers and the absence of those whom he loved dearest, Harry believed he no longer required the isolation and protection of his ancestral home. In the ideal world he continued to wish for, he would quit the property and find his place in the warless world he helped fashion, but there was one who could not bring herself to do so and vowed never to leave the walls of the Potter house ever again.
He sighed as he brought his state-of-the-art broomstick back to the ground, pondering what he had the power to do about his failing friend.
"Voldemort was much easier than a broken Hermione…" Harry chuckled darkly.
"Mr. Potter," a strong Scottish lilt called through the refreshing breeze, "may I have a word?"
The young man had been so ensconced with his dreary comparison of Granger and Riddle that he had not heard or seen the Headmistress make her way to his landing point. In her deep pine green robes, she created quite the silhouette as her robes billowed in the blustery northern wind and made her diminutive form appear most intimidating and formidable.
"Of course, Headmistress," he replied jovially, "I am at your disposal."
Minerva always appreciated Potter and his polite, unassuming nature. For all he knew, she was about to demand that he embark on another death-defying quest for the salvation of the wizarding world. His candid grin invited one of her own to match and she felt much more confident about what she was about to propose.
"Never mind such formalities, you are one of my Gryffindors, after all! I would have thought we were past such talk, especially since I am no longer your Head of House. Regardless, I have an appointment on which I would like to have your opinion."
"My opinion, professor?"
"Yes, Potter, for as you well know, the Carrows were killed soon after their incarceration by the students they had wronged all year. This has left two positions vacant, and whilst Alecto's awful changes to the Muggle Studies module have been revoked and I have chosen to hire Arthur Weasley, who has left the Ministry, to teach that subject, I urgently require your input on my ideal candidate for the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and my replacement as Head of Gryffindor House."
Harry was flummoxed, naturally he had always flourished in that class, but for such an erudite woman to seek out his thoughts was highly flattering, "I am honoured by your esteem and I cannot for the life of me conjure how I might help you, but I will do my best to help you."
"Well, there is one former student of mine who had a turbulent time at Hogwarts, indeed, he was a truant and a miscreant, at times, but since he left the school he has made quite the name for himself in combat and fighting the dark arts. He was an unstoppable force in the fight against Voldemort."
"He sounds like the best candidate you could find, though you would have to make sure he is prepared to return to school as a teacher. For a truant and a miscreant that may be a tall order to fill, Professor." Harry replied.
"Indeed, I have considered that fact most carefully, Potter," McGonagall concurred, but unable to maintain the air of gravity that had descended upon them, she sniggered cruelly, "but I think he has matured since his days of wreaking havoc. What do you think? Has he?"
"I'm sorry? Professor, I do not understand. Has who? You haven't actually mentioned a name!" Harry blurted out, unwilling to acknowledge out loud what he deemed the headmistress to have asked.
Minerva rolled her eyes, inwardly bemoaning the limited brainpower of the other sex that did not allow for them to comprehend subtext, "I am keenly aware of that, Potter! I did not think I had to. I believed that you might, as an intelligent young man, realise that I have been talking about you all this while! So - I ask again - what do you think? Will you accept the posts?"
"Yes." Harry's lips ran away without informing the rest of his body, for in the instant after he said that crucial word, his brain commenced an internal blitkrieg of words against his mouth's precipitancy.
"Excellent! I'll be sure to send a house-elf to Godric's Hollow posthaste with your contract." McGonagall announced, in that moment feeling particularly pleased with herself, striding away from the young man and his Firebolt to relate the good news to her two predecessors in her office.
Before Harry could form a single syllable, the witch was already in the distance, so shocked was he not only that he was even suitable for such a position, but also that he had agreed so readily and irresponsibly. Only in the aftermath of his acceptance, did the almost healed wizard realise just how irredeemable it was of him to contemplate leaving Godric's Hollow and Hermione to reside in the castle and find his vocation. Hermione still depended on his aid and support and the house had rested vacant for so long, he felt dour at the prospect of abandoning his parents' house so soon after moving in.
"You're kidding yourself, Potter!" Harry spat as he wound his way towards the boundary of the castle grounds so he could apparate home.
Harry, as a selfless friend, the Boy Who Lived, Dumbledore's pet, the hero of the wizarding world could not move to Hogwarts and think about his own life before the lives of others, but for a change - for once - Harry shed his cloak of obligation and public duty. His brain was wrong to chide his lips for agreeing to take on the role of professor. If anything, it should have been his heart pining for Hermione and her peace of mind that was affronted, but instead it was the brain of Harry James Potter, son of Lily and James and boy turned man who had sway over his words in the moment following Minerva's proposal. Although he was still being dosed nightly for his PTSD amongst other things, he could not shake the opinion that this was the next step in his life journey and for once, he was permitted to be selfish and to take the route to normality. For, sadly, he acknowledged if he waited for Hermione to reach normality or to be well enough for him to move on with his life, he'd be an aged man if not a skeleton, before she found her new path.
"How the hell am I going to break this to her?" Harry mused quietly as he passed through the sturdy iron gate.
Within seconds, the Hogwarts demesnes were free of people and Harry shortly found himself outside his own picket fence, unusually hesitant to cross the threshold. He knew Hermione would be within scribbling down events and remembrances in her memoirs, which was when she was the most serene and unburdened. The remorse and guilt he had coursing through him at the pain he was about to inflict on the closest thing he had to a sister and his constant companion, even before he crushed the woman in his house, was crippling. Nevertheless, it had to be done sooner or later.
"Harry?" Hermione gasped, as was her custom, when he entered the house.
"Yes, 'Mione, it's me."
Most often there were no words passed between them once her anxiety over who had gained entry was assuaged, but on this day, Harry had to rip off the plaster without delay or compromise. He placed his broom in its stand and went into the living room and brushed away some of the scrolls on the sofa so he could perch beside his friend's emaciated form.
Hermione stirred from her writing and gazed up blearily into her housemate's eyes, "What's the matter, Harry? Is something wrong?"
Usually, when she jumped to the conclusion that something was amiss, Harry would swiftly dissuade her, but on this occasion, she was only too right.
"Not really, sweetheart," he replied uncertainly, being careful to calm her with a tried-and-tested endearment, "but it's not bad, I promise. It's just that I've got some news for you."
As the parchment she was currently working on slipped to the floor while her knees sagged, so did the rest of her, for news meant death, destruction and darkness. News was never happy when she was involved. She and Harry rarely were the recipients of joyous news...only tidings of war and destiny, neither of which had ever done them any good whatsoever.
"Oh, Hermione," Harry groaned, joining her prostrate body on the floor and tucking her snugly into his embrace, "this can't go on. The news is not bad. You don't know what it is yet, love, you can't just assume it's going to be dire, especially because I've just told you that it's not bad news!"
"I'm sorry," she spluttered, her meek voice forcing its way through her deafening sobs, "I really am. I'm trying to be better. I just don't know why I'm not working."
Harry winced at her choice of words, "Shush, you are perfect. You will find your way back to us eventually and then you'll have a spectacular life and you'll fall in love, get married, have children, become Minister of Magic...the whole nine yards are yours for the taking. You'll see."
Hermione smiled slightly at Harry's words of comfort and hope but she could not allow herself to get caught up in a hypothetical future where the probability of it having even a shimmer of hope was almost gone forever.
"What is the news?" Hermione asked quietly, foregoing the topic of her bleak future.
"McGonagall came to see me and she wants me to be the new Head of Gryffindor and Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. I said I'd do it." He blurted out.
The poor girl's eyes widened and bore holes into his own green orbs with a ferocious intensity. The hurt and fear that Harry glimpsed percolating in his best friend was alarming but as her arms tightened around his midriff and her eyes dripped large, salty tears, the wizard believed he witnessed a true epiphany in the woman who had nigh on crawled into his lap.
"So…" Hermione began uncertainly, "you'll be moving to Hogwarts. You'll be leaving Godric's Hollow, leaving me."
"I won't be leaving you, 'Mione. Yes, I'll have to live in the school but I want you - I need you - to stay on here and I will come and see you as often as I can and we can write."
"No, we can't, Harry." She exclaimed curtly.
"Why not?"
Hermione smiled up at him in unmitigated dejection, "Because Hogwarts cannot receive Muggle mail, Harry. If you'd ever bothered to even gloss over Hogwarts: A History you'd know that."
Harry returned her cheerless smile, "Well then, I'll just have to come home more often."
She looked surprised at him, "Home? You truly see Godric's Hollow as your home? I thought that would always be Hogwarts…"
"It was. It may be again, but my home will always be wherever you are, Hermione. We are two parts of one broken soul, I think. All we have is each other to make a home and to be our family. You are my home and I will never leave you."
Hermione was truly moved to her core at the sentiment but it had become more and more evident to her as the weeks since the ball had elapsed that Harry was throwing himself into the school repairs and his life outside Godric's Hollow. He did not need to be encircled by wards and familiar surroundings to make it through each day, whereas she grew restless and petrified with fear at the thought of being in the company of others again. The ball had been an experiment and its resounding failure had reinforced her opinion that her life consisted of Harry and her memoirs; nothing more could she handle.
"Thank you," she murmured, "and for what it's worth, I'm so proud and pleased for you, Harry. You deserve some normalcy and stability after...everything. Hogwarts was always where you belonged. Not here, in a house of dead souls and me. It's good that you can leave this place behind. You'll be a spectacular Head of Gryffindor and you'll make one hell of a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Also, the luck you have with curses and prophecies, I know you'll be the professor for a long time."
At the reminder of the 'curse' of the teachers of that particular subject, Harry winced in jest. He revelled in her slight bit of humour and good faith she had professed. She would be just fine when he had to depart in a few weeks' time. He would be sure to ask Minerva if Winky would be allowed to visit Hermione from time to time, perhaps with her daughter. That might brighten the depressed witch's day when Harry was unable to do so, for she truly deserved the peace he longed for her to experience once more.
"Thank you. I'll try to occupy the position for more than one year." Harry replied, with a wink.
Hermione sat up and without more ado, planted the chastest of kisses on his lips, "I know you will, Harry."
The recipient of the unexpected - but by no means undesired - affection forgot in that moment what it was he was heading towards and aiming for, instead he recalled and yearned to celebrate all he had found in the past (most notably his own, dear witch) and what he was leaving behind him. He kissed her on the lips and gripped her shoulders in a vice with his long fingers.
She was...surprised that Harry was pressing his advantage and pliant to where she wanted the night to go. His kiss was nothing like hers had been. It was unguarded and wild, insistent and intense...in short, everything she used to be but had lost due to her war wounds.
"What are you doing?" Hermione questioned from her place between Harry's busy lips.
Her partner retreated only an inch and whispered, "I'm kissing you, 'Mione. I am showing you now and will continue to show you just how much I love you. You will remember this when I go to Hogwarts and it will remind you that I'll always be yours: in body, and soul, and mind. My heart is too cracked and broken to be yours, but your place in it has only grown since we met on the Hogwarts Express, and the only one I truly hold in my heart is you."
It was a long soliloquy from the usually taciturn man, but the words and their meaning were so sincere and she felt them reverberate off her own lips as though her body was returning the love silently, saying with actions what she could not utter with words.
Hermione captured his beautiful mouth with hers once again, determined to forget that soon her single source of solace and succour would be gone, running her arms up Harry's muscular sides. His war-ravaged body deserved every caress and every amorous attention she would bestow. He had one small scar that bridged his collarbone and his shoulder on the left side. When her lips relinquished their hold on his, she began her descent to that place where his pulse and pain both resided. As she laved the mound of the scar with her tongue, Harry moaned softly, relishing her ministrations. He had been the instigator, the giver of love the last time they met in an amorous embrace, but now, he was awestruck as Hermione made love to every bit of skin laid bare.
"Neither of us will be alone, for you will always occupy my whole heart, undeserving though it is. Now, occupy my body, Harry, for it is yours and yours alone. It has bled for you and burned for you in love and war, so let my body give you the pleasure of peace."
Her words were spoken as though they were the most rehearsed lines of poetry, but that was just who Hermione Jean Granger was. She spoke with all the knowledge of the books she had poured herself into but she also made love like the clever and sagacious witch she was. As they thrummed together, divested of clothes and thoughts, in the rhythm only the pair of them could create, they both felt the heat in them rise to overwhelm the cold loneliness that was on the horizon.
"Let go, Hermione," Harry purred, "just let go."
Almost as soon as Harry charged her to give in to the coil of warmth that was aflame in her belly, she screamed through her release and fell in a slump onto his shoulder before he thrust one final time into her centre and took up residence on hers.
"No matter how long I live, 'Mione," Harry slurred against her bare shoulder, "life will never get better than that. I know we're not in love but we're so close we are unbelievable together. Perhaps, we always have been and we always will be, but as for the right now, I need to sleep. Want to come?"
Whilst the young woman staving off slumber agreed with all he said concerning their coupling and their closeness and nodded for him to transport them to his bed, she did not feel the euphoria or sense of fulfillment in which her partner obviously was revelling. The last time the pair of them had fucked each other into a good mood, but Hermione felt no remnant of any positive emotion. All she was aware of was that Harry was correct. That was as good as it was going to get for her and the feeling of emptiness and desolation that succeeded her climax was devastating to the lost young witch and that was her final thought as a tear slid down her flushed cheek before sleep overwhelmed her spent body.
When Hermione Granger woke, she felt more like herself than she had since she, Harry and Ron had quit Hogwarts to gallivant around the country in pursuit of Voldemort's Horcruxes; she had a plan. It had been written in countless Daily Prophets and issues of The Quibbler that Hermione had ever been the brains of the operation as far as Harry's continuous exploits were concerned, for she was the third of the Golden Trio who formulated the plans that got the three of them (and whoever tagged along with them) out of the scrapes that Harry and Ron managed to get them into in the first place. Some of her schemes had been downright elaborate, but her dry lips turned up in a tranquil smile as the sheer simplicity of her intentions dawned on her.
She placed one soft kiss on her sleeping friend's forehead in between the fluid locks of his messy crop of hair that hid most of his brow before slipping over to the Carpathian elm desk that used to belong in Grimmauld Place. She silently sat down and began to write with a quill and on a scrap of parchment.
To my dearest Harry,
I will be forever your Hermione but cannot stand to be this world's Hermione. I was with you when we made this world with no Voldemort but I cannot live in it and I don't believe I was ever meant to. You have found your new purpose in life and I have no doubt you will excel at it. I have seen you through Devil's Snare and Basilisk infestations and werewolf attacks, but you no longer need me to make sure you are safe. You can do that for yourself and you have others about you who came out of the war with their magic and mind intact. I am too broken and lost to ever be fixed or found, Harry, so I have to leave this world for those who have found their way, like you.
My memoirs are practically finished. They're not perfect. If the old me had composed them, then they would have been but an imperfect and incomplete Hermione wrote them, so they can reflect that, I suppose… Do what you like with them. They are dedicated to you and they are my memories of our story and how my life was given meaning by one boy.
That's all I need to say, sweetheart, except for one more thing. Don't be sad for me, Harry, and don't blame yourself. I owe you so much but death is not down to you. You knew me...I was too headstrong to let Riddle or Bellatrix Lestrange take satisfaction from my death during the war, but I am glad I can now choose the moment of my passing. I am so glad the last true memory I have is the love we shared.
Goodbye, Harry James Potter, My Boy Who Lived,
HJG
Once the quill lifted away from the final swirl of the 'G', Hermione gulped as she readied her mind and body for what she was about to inflict upon it. She had not performed any magic since her last attempt had resulted in her losing control of her digestive system when she and Harry had moved in to their home. Her wand, at her insistence, had not been kept anywhere near her person, but Harry told her it was in his desk in a compartment above his inkwell that only she could open. He had explicitly told her he would not touch the implement and it would remain there until she wished to reclaim it.
With a quaking hand, Hermione withdrew her ornate dragon heartstring wand that had lain dormant and grown a sheen of dust. As her fingers wrapped themselves around the vine wood, Hermione exhaled sharply as she felt a rush of power surge through her body. It was as though the wand had usurped all its mistress' magic but had waited and wished to return it to her when the time was right.
"Thank you." Hermione breathed, fully aware she was conversing with an inanimate piece of wood but grateful to it and the cosmos that her wand would assist her in her final incantation.
The newly empowered witch stepped towards the hallway, completely ready to see her plan bear the ultimate fruit, when she mistakenly trod on the one creaky floorboard in Harry's bedroom.
"Wha-Hermione?" Harry mumbled, stirring to see his friend holding what he reckoned was a wand but couldn't believe it was.
"Goodbye, Harry." She said calmly and resolutely back to the figure on the bed before rushing out into the hallway, leaving the door ajar.
"What's going on?"
Before Harry could comprehend why the drawer in his bureau containing Hermione's long-forgotten wand was void and where on earth she thought she was going, two words that haunted his dreams and his history pierced through the air as Hermione screeched them.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Harry believed for an instant that his best friend was going to murder him in a fit of mania but when the toxic, fluorescent green aura of the Killing Curse once more penetrated the Potter house in Godric's Hollow and yet again, Harry Potter remained untouched and thriving, he knew his initial presumption was foolish. As he saw the true victim's corpse plummet to the floor in a naked, inert heap, the truth weighed every part of him down so he knelt on the floor and crawled to the body's side.
"You stupid, foolish, selfish, irresponsible, inhuman Mudblood!" He bellowed, clutching her hand in his as they trembled in fury and grief.
As regret for his insult to his dead friend submerged him in its waters, his rage and despair turned into harsh tears that threatened to bathe the entire wizarding world in salty water. He stayed by Hermione's side for what seemed to be hours, sometimes willing her to return to him, sometimes cursing him and her for separating one from the other. His lamentations grew so fierce that her cold, dead hand that never once was released from his, turned a violent shade of purple as his grip bruised her flesh.
While he sojourned there, he realised he could not be selfish with his grief. Others, when they learned of the passing of Hermione Granger, would fall on their knees and sob out their own anguish at her suicide. He was determined that he would not conceal the manner of her death. She was a suicide and she would not wish for him to hide that fact, for it had the potential to deter anyone ever again from war if one such as she - one of the greatest heroes of the war against Lord Voldemort - could not rally in its peaceful aftermath. She was still a hero, she still fought on and she brought peace to the lives of many, including the Boy Who Lived.
Just as Harry resigned himself to spreading the tragic news, he knew he'd never be able to get enough owls or floo lines going to relay the word to all that needed to know and as for a patronus, he simply didn't have a happy memory or thought in him to cast his stag. As he pondered his problem he summoned some clothes, the both of them having fallen into bed still bare from their lovemaking, and then wrapped Hermione in a long winter cloak to protect her modesty.
"It's worth a go," Harry admitted, picking up his own wand before chanting clearly despite not having a concrete happy memory in mind, "Expecto Patronum!"
To his utter amazement and horror, a greyish light sprung from the tip of his refashioned holly and phoenix feather wand and it swirled and took the corporeal form of an otter. It was not the silvery, pure and light otter that was the Patronus of the recently departed but instead was a bedraggled, dreary and haggard creature that was his own creation. While Harry was attempting to fathom what this ersatz Patronus truly was, the beast seemed to be snarling at him.
"Go to the Minister of Magic, the Headmistress of Hogwarts, the members of the Weasley family, the Lovegood family, St. Mungo's, the Daily Prophet," he groaned at that inclusion, but they were a newspaper and he'd rather break the story than have Hermione's death wittered about as a rumour, "Rubeus Hagrid, members of the Order of the Phoenix. Fuck it, tell everyone! Tell everyone that the hero of the wizarding world, Hermione Granger is dead!"