Completed: 1/27/05 6:56 PM
Posted: 2/15/05 10:56 PM

Timing: Post-Hogwarts

Note: Entered in the "Quills Spills Inspirations 4" contest. The voting hasn't taken place yet, but it's officially closed so I think I can post this here without thieves going after it. Enjoy. (I know I said I'd get a Harry x Hermione up that wasn't depressing, but...I'll try again later. The contest just didn't call for happiness. And...well, it's kinda happy)

In a remote plot of land somewhere in the south of France, a tiny cottage, its chimney huffing cozy smoke into the overcast sky, sat at the edge of a moderately sized forest – the only other location of life for miles. What was most interesting about the small house, however, was that, unless one knew exactly what to look for, they would only see an abandoned stone quarry, rotting beams slicked with slime and lichen. Quite ingenious really, for one might come to the conclusion that the owners of this "invisible" cabin rather fancied their privacy; and they would be correct. After a fashion.

This cottage, with it's brightly lit windows and a walkway lined with azaleas, was not placed in the exact middle of nowhere for any trivial misanthropic reason, but for the purpose of protection. Yes, this tiny home, with its magic shields a mile thick, was a safehouse for the numbers one, three, and four of Voldemort's most wanted list; Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley.

They'd just finished dinner; a simple affair of fish sticks and salad and though hardly grand, it filled their stomachs. They were nearing the end of the month where fresh supplies would be brought to them, and had to make due with what was left until then. No one much cared what they ate anyway.

The dishes had been abandoned in the sink, without so much as even filling it with soapy water, for the time when one of them would lose the inevitable bout of 'rock-paper-scissors' and be forced to tend to the food-caked plates in the late hours of the night when all they really wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep til midday. All they seemed to be doing lately was sleeping

Sitting around the fire, they'd settled into the holes left in the mess even Hermione had given up on cleaning, to tend to their own various, but repetitive, after-dinner habits.

Harry sat in the sole armchair, starring despondently at some spot just to the side of the mantel that one would think held all the answers to the questions of the universe the way he was looking at it so devotedly. Ron, having left Harry after the bouts of blank staring insued just weeks into their forced hiding, was playing Wizard's Chess by himself and winning.

Hermione, the only one of the three who still bothered properly getting dressed in the morning, had Hogwarts: A History cracked open on her lap; but not even the beloved, and much read book interested her anymore. She could recite the entire volume from start to finish and then backwards, but the thought no longer brought her pride.

She always swore that she'd make the Order work last, but every month when their old Headmaster came bearing supplies and work, most usually research, she'd throw herself into it desperately to escape the sheer nothingness that was their safehouse. She'd usually do Harry and Ron's work too, but none of it lasted past the second week.

And that was the truth of it.

One would think that sharing a house with your two best friends, never having to work, able to do anything you could possibly imagine with your free time would be the greatest thing, but the quaint house was suffocating, your friends were more annoying than not, the sheer ability to do anything made it feel as if there was nothing to do at all, and you'd welcome even the mere mention of work that would force you out of your stupor and off of the couch cushions that had molded to fit your body.

The trios days mostly consisted of sleeping and eating. They would wake up some time midday, save for the rare days where Hermione would refuse to lay lethargically in bed for hours after waking, then they would practice their wandwork and dueling skills, outside if the weather permitted, and after a pitifully constructed lunch. Hermione tried her best, but she was properly awful at domestics and the task often fell to Ron who, though used to cooking for a huge house, more often than not came up short on meals. After that, they'd come back inside for an equally half-done supper. The three of them passed well into the late hours of the night, sometimes talking about their childhood, but more than likely passing the time in silence before retiring in the near-dawn hours.

The first month and probably well into the second had been wonderful, don't misinterpret. Harry and Ron had played Quidditch before breakfast, while Hermione had spent days absorbed in tailoring the house to their own specific likes and dislikes. The boys had discovered after the first attempt that Hermione could not, in any fashion, cook, and that she was most definitely never to attempt again. They'd prepared themselves extravagant snacks, if not even more extravagant dinners, with wine and candles and perfectly matching place-settings. It was as if they were playing house.

They'd gathered together on late nights in someone's bedroom to talk about what had happened in their separate lives since graduation, despite the fact that they had been in constant contact since that day six years ago. They'd enjoyed their close proximity again, that recalled fond memories of Hogwarts and the Gryffindor Tower.

But then the cottage was as decorated as it could be, and Hermione found herself with too much time on her hands. They ran out of stories they hadn't yet shared, and the memories of times past became less amusing than they had been to live through, and, thinking back now, the only memories they could dredge up were less than pleasant, leaving them to abandon their reminiscing altogether.

Quidditch became tiring after a while, as it inevitably would with only a Seeker and a Keeper to play, and Harry and Ron had resigned themselves to an ongoing chess tournament they kept score of on a long parchment, before that too was cast off.

And so now, here they sat, five months into hiding from a dark lord that would stop at nothing to see them pushing up daisies, eating half-cooked fish sticks and scarcely capable of having a full conversation with one another. Hermione had finally thought to requisition a muggle television from Dumbledore, but she didn't really think that its arrival next visit would do much to stave off the maddening nothingness that swathed the cottage. She actually feared she might well go mad. She'd heard it happening to lesser witches than herself – cooped up in small, enclosed spaces, nothing for the mind to do but turn its scrutiny inwards.

It was that very fact, with its resulting revelations (that both scared and confused her) that made Hermione Granger hate the little cottage.

This night, though, for all that it seemed just like any other, however, was different. Hermione could see it in the way Harry kept continually shifting in the chair, and the way he was no longer able to stare unceasingly at the wall. Unable to read her book as she was, she was trying her very own best to stare at the fire, but kept getting distracted by his green eyes sliding inadvertently from their fixation on the mantel to her, and then, subsequently, to Ron, who had noticed something was off as well. The clicking of the marble chess pieces, who'd been manhandled so often their faces were worn clear off, was louder than usual, and when Hermione looked over, she found that he was losing.

Ron never lost to himself.

Then the rain started, as if mocking their own inability to make noise as it did, and the sizzling of the flames in the hearth was enough to finally stir one of them to speak.

"Somebody charm the fire," Harry muttered.

The sole female of the group got quickly to her feet and cast the spell ahead of her ginger-haired companion, remembering the last time he'd attempted the charm and in addition to keeping the rain out, had kept the smoke in.

The cottage smelled for days.

There was a small shine from the end of the vine wood rod she held in her hand, and the hissing fire quieted. The rain had started up quickly, and for good reason; the tiny house rocked with the buffeting of the fierce French country wind, and the droplets of rain hit the dusty window panes in a harsh staccato rhythm. The sound was the only marker of the torrential storm carrying on outside the tiny cottage; the fire remained cheerily blazing, unhampered by water spilling down its floo, the glare of the light on the windows made it impossible to see anything but the room's reflection against the black backdrop, and even the vibrations from the wind and rain were hardly felt through the layers of shielding.

Hermione had just properly reseated herself, smoothing her white skirt beneath her legs, when Harry broke the silence again, in a rare overflow of conversation. (It was a disconcerting thought when two sentences spoken between friends felt odd and out of place)

"I'm done."

Hermione froze, mid-seat; hovering over the couch cushions with her hands still pressing the slick material of her skirt to the backs of her legs. She glanced up at the swinging pendulum clock above the mantel and slowly sat down. "But it's only eight o'clock. Are you feeling all right?"

"You are looking a bit peaky," Ron offered.

"No, you guys." His eyes were burning holes into his trousers as his squeezed great fistfuls of his slacks into his hands. "I'm done."

Hermione shot a worried look to Ron, and was only more distressed by the unusually solemn look on the lanky boy's face. Setting her book shut on the coffee table, she pushed aside all the papers and the coffee mug that held her quills and muggle pens before turning on the couch to face her rigid friend.

"Harry, what—"

"I'm going after Voldemort. Tonight."

Hermione's stomach plummeted. "Harry! We're not ready!"

He lifted his eyes to hers and the coldness in them was like a slap in the face that made her breath short. "You're not, but I am."

Ron sat up straighter on the floor, but the chess board was rattling with the force at which he was gripping the edge. "What are you saying?"

"I'm going alone, Ron. I can't let you and Hermione get hurt."

"I don't believe you!" Hermione cried, jumping to her feet. "You can't be serious about this Harry – Ron and I are going with you no matter what."

Harry shook his head, looking so calm and resigned that Hermione was so very close to being angry with him. Standing up himself, he quietly said "He's already taken my family from me. I won't let him take the both of you." He put both his hands on her shoulders, but she threw them off as if his touch on her was acid. His face fell.

"Don't touch me," she choked out, and her voice was trembling despite how angry she wanted him to know she was.

"Damnit, Harry!" Ron shouted, slamming his fist on the chessboard. The black bishop on his side spun a bit on its base and toppled over and off onto the floor. "This is exactly what Voldemort wants you to do. I know you think your doing the right thing, mate, but if you go alone he'll kill you."

Harry was shaking his head, refusing to hear a word of it. Hermione fretfully tugged on the sleeves of her pink jumper and wished with all her might that things could go back to the way they'd been just yesterday. She'd gladly give up her sanity to ensure the survival of her best friend.

"Are you listening to me?" Ron was on his feet now too, freckles disappearing into the bright red flush of his face. "He. Will. Slaughter. You."

"And then he'll come after us," she said it in such synchronization to her realization that her voice still had the soft lilt of surprise to it. Her eyes weren't really looking at anything, and her entire expression was one of dazed recognition. "He'll kill you...and then he'll come after us."

She was speaking more to herself now, then trying to dissuade Harry, and she spoke each word with a deliberate and calculated tempo. "He'll kill me...and he'll kill Ron." She looked now to Harry and her eyes held such a desperate plea as the tears began to form. It was her face that made Harry's stony eyes soften. "We'll die if you go alone, Harry," she whispered. "Don't we mean more to you than that?"

He ran a hand rakishly back through his hair and paced around the coffee table to the fireplace. "Of course you do; that's the whole point! I have to save you and this is the only way."

Hermione was now fighting to hold back tears as she turned away from him. Lifting a quivering hand, she placed it over her mouth to stop herself from betraying her emotions with even the faintest sound. As the two boys began to yell at one another, Hermione squeezed her eyes shut tight against the burning crystalline tears.

"Will you stop playing the hero for once!" Ron started yelling, throwing his hands up in the air.

"You know I never wanted this!" Harry shot back, his own voice starting to rise.

"And you know it doesn't have to be you or no one. Why the hell would you go alone, when you've got an entire Order of powerful witches and wizards who'd be more than willing to save the bloody world!"

"There's hardly an Order left!" Harry was shouting now, and their features looked equally harsh in the light and shadows of the fire.

With a sound of disgust, Ron pushed off of the mantel and walked away. "You haven't thought this through AT ALL!"

"I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY DAMN NIGHT!"

Hermione gasped in shock, and whirled around to witness the face off between her beloved friends. Harry's ragged breathing echoed in the humid air of the living room while the rain beat down over head of them, and his hands were balled into fists at his sides. Very slowly, Ron looked first over his shoulder then turned completely all around. His face was struggling to remain neutral.

"Don't you think I've imagined every possible thing that could happen to you?" Harry said in a voice dangerously low. "To both of you? I've seen you die in ways too terrible and horrendous for others to even comprehend. So don't you dare say I haven't thought this through. I see Voldemort killing you...every. Time. I. Close. My. Eyes."

The look on Ron's face as he said this words was nothing less than pure anger, and if it was even possible he looked so much terribly more livid as tears of his own came to his eyes. "You're an idiot," he said with as much disgust and loathing as he could muster before walking to Hermione's side. He bent over the couch, bracing his arms against the back, and stood there with his head bent trying to regain his composure.

Hermione Granger stepped up to bat.

"Do you think so little of our friendship?" She asked, and Harry was taken aback – both, by her painfully softer tone, and by the abrupt question. He gaped at her.

"We see it too; Ron and I the same. You're not the only one who can't sleep at night."

"Hermione..." He started to cross the room to her, then stopped midway. The memory of her flinging off his hands was still fresh in his mind; and it stung. "I won't let him hurt me."

"If you go," her lips were quivering. "Then you'll make all our dreams come true; ours and yours."

He brushed past the low table and came up just inches away from her, where she stood hugging her arms about her chest. "He will not touch one hair on your head," he swore it with such conviction that Hermione almost believed him. "Remus will protect you...you know he loves you like a daughter—"

"Remus?" Her mouth opened and shut like an uprooted flobberworm. "You're, you...you've sent for Remus"

All it took was one brief flash of guilt across his handsome face to change Hermione's teary confusion to understanding. "He's not coming to protect us...you're bringing him here to stop us from following you!"

"Hermione, listen." He grabbed a hold of her arms as if he might need to shake her to get her to finally see how right he was.

"No, Harry!" She pulled at her arms frantically, but he wouldn't let go, and frankly she was too hysterical to truly fight him. "Y-You...You! You are the one not listening! You've...re-resorted to putting your own friends – best friends! – under house arrest!"

He winced at her harsh words, and looked truly upset at having made her cry. "That's not it at all—"

"I don't want to hear it!" She shrieked, wrenching her wrists from his grip in a fit of outraged strength.

"Hermione!" He tried desperately to pull her arms back down and stop her from fighting him.

Tears had blurred her eyes, but she could still make out the fuzzy peach outline of his face, and as she ripped her right hand away from him again, she knew exactly without being able to see the exact mark that as her hand came forcefully down upon him she had slapped him right across the face.

In the deafening silence that followed, she whispered those three painful words. "I hate you."

And then she was pushing past Ron and knocking into the coffee table. The mug holding her pens went rolling, spilling her quills out all over the glass. Far from caring, she was already running out the front door and into the storm, not bothering in her fleeing to close the door behind her. It banged forcefully back against the wall again and again with each blast from the wind.

Ron heard Harry curse and caught the bespectacled boy glancing at him, before he was vaulting over the couch and chasing Hermione out into the storm. Letting out a long breath, Ron straightened and looked over his shoulder at the pile of scattered quills that were still rolling slightly on the clear tabletop.

"That's the signal," he murmured.

-

-

Harry was immediately blinded.

Dragging his sleeved wrist across his rain-coated glasses, he tried to shield his eyes as best he could. The world around him was so dark he could scarcely see his own feet as they slipped across the slick grass, and the rain was invisible in the gloom despite the sound and feel of it drenching him from head to toe.

Finally halting his hodgepodge wandering, he tried to ignore the pounding of his heart and think clearly. He thought of Hermione then and knew instantly that she'd have crossed around the cottage and gone towards the forest. Wiping his soaked jumper sleeve across the lenses of his glasses, and only succeeding in smearing the beaded droplets, he sniffed at his runny nose and hurried towards where the dark night became absolutely pitch black with the clustered line of giant evergreens.

As he rounded the bed he caught sight of her almost instantly. She was like a blinding beacon in her pale pink jumper and white skirt. She was sitting at the top of the hill with her back to the cottage, and him, and her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around her mud splattered stockings.

If she was really made at him, which he knew she was – or else she would never have said those painful words, she would have run so far into the forest that was her sanctuary that he would never have found her. But there she was, sitting in her nearly florescent pastels, in plain sight. She hadn't thought she'd needed to hide...she hadn't thought he'd come after her.

Harry stopped dead, just a ways down the hill from her, as the realization hit. It hurt; more than he'd ever imagined it could. The thought that she could think so little of him, that he'd just up and leave her after their fantastic row...it sunk to the bottom of his gut like a heavy stone to the bed of a lake. And there it festered.

The cold was finally overtaking him, as he stood there, hastily shoved on sneakers squelching in the muddy ground. The smell of wet grass was strong. He stood there as still as stag caught out in the open field, torn between going back to safety and going forward into danger.

The rain beat down, seemingly harder than ever before, and the wind picked up icing his rain-sodden sweater against his skin with a frigid vengeance. He shivered despite his resolve to move neither way, and still, with his splattered glasses distorting her image, he could not find the resolve to go to her even after he'd come so far with that very intention.

Lightening flashed in a brisk series of bursts, illuminating the homely grounds, and in the half-second where the harsh white light covered everything...Harry could see every brunette curl on her head. And then the lightening flashed again, draping Hermione in his shadow.

She whirled around and he was caught.

He watched her lips move in the strobing light, and he was fairly certain it had been his name, but the following thunder was too loud to make it out. Harry had no other choice – he'd have to finish the last few steps.

He was hurt and unsure, but he came within a foot of her as she struggled up from the slippery slope to meet him. Ready to launch into another full out row, the words were on his lips as he came to a stop in front of his best friend and looked down into her face.

Her bushy hair was now heavy with rain and plastered to her forehead, and the added weight of water to her thin jumper pulled it down heavily over her hands, obscuring them from view. Her skin was nearly translucent in its alabaster hue, making the red rings around her eyes all the more prominent. She'd been crying.

Harry couldn't speak.

Hermione did it for him. "You've been neglecting your glasses again..." Sniffling, she ran her pink covered hand under her nose and reached up to divest him of his glasses. Tapping her wand against the rims she said "Impervius" in a clear voice. After that, she wordlessly handed the now bewitched spectacles back to him and he slid them up over his nose.

Now seeing her perfectly in all her distraught glory, and knowing that it had been him and his words that had caused it, Harry wished she hadn't had the common sense to charm his glasses. As it was, he felt the need now to touch her, and when his hands alighted on her shoulders he felt the cold tremors of her muscles beneath.

"Hermione, please...I don't want to leave things between us like this."

She sniffed loudly and looked down. "You shouldn't be leaving at all."

Harry sighed and racked his brain trying to think of how to fix this. "What do you want me to say?" he asked.

"That Remus can go back home and be with Nymphadora when all this goes down, because Ron and I are coming with you," she told him in all seriousness.

In frustration he gripped her shoulders tighter and lowered his face to press his forehead against hers. "I-I...can't."

They stood together in silence; the argument Harry had expected never coming. The rain continued to beat down on the two solitary companions, and though they were both frozen to the bone and shivering uncontrollably, they made no move to head back inside. This moment...the moment they were living right that instant...there on the tiny hill in southern France – this moment was too important to miss.

"I think there's only one thing left for me to say..." Hermione murmured and they were so close, he heard the words as if her lips had been pressed against his ear. The thought made him shiver.

"You're..." he hesitated. "Agreeing with me?"

She looked up at him so quickly her brown eyes bore sharply into his. "Never. It's the stupidest plan I've ever heard – and something you'd expect from Ron, much less you."

He groaned, though the wind took it away and ground his forehead into hers, as if he could somehow transfer without the words he was continually tripping over, just how right he knew his plan was. "Hermione..."

"You can't go!" She nearly shouted into his face, and his hackles rose.

"WHY!" He snapped.

"Because I love you!"

Harry stared in complete and utter shock at her resolute face, before confusion took another swing at him. Hermione's lips began to tremble and then the tears started pouring out of her red and swollen eyes again to mix with the iron tasting rain. All he could think to do as she shook now from sobs was to comfort her.

"Hush," he whispered, squeezing her shoulder soothingly. "Please don't cry, Hermione. Oh please..."

"You can't go because I love you, you big, daft idiot," she rasped out, and when she touched his face he could forget all about being called an 'idiot'. Her other hand found a tight grip on his upper arm, as if Hermione worried her legs might fail her, and both were warmer than he could imagine them being in such freezing conditions.

She was searching his face for some confirmation that her feelings returned; the tiniest flicker, a flash in his eyes, the hint of a smile. Harry too was searching; and he was surprised most at the end of it to find that he wasn't surprised at all, at least about his feelings for the young woman, who, until this point, had always fit the profile of 'best friend'.

"I...I think I love you too," he swallowed hard.

That was all she needed, and in one half-heartedly graceful lift onto the toes of her red, mud coated mary janes, she connected their lips. Harry was amazed then, when, after their deep and meaningful exchange of confessions, she pulled away almost immediately, leaving his mouth tasting disgustingly bitter.

Then his legs dropped out from underneath him.

Harry tried to stand, but every limb was paralyzed. White filled his vision and he was able to move his head just enough so that he could lock eyes on Hermione crouching beside him. While he was busy gaping at her in a dazed shock, she leaned over him and fished his wand out of his pocket.

"Hermione..!" he hissed in disbelief.

Slipping his ebony wand up her sleeve, she settled back on her haunches and glanced at something off in the distance before looking back down at him. "I'm sorry, Harry," she said, and her voice sounded truly sincere. "But it had to be done."

She ran a wet sleeve across her eyes, smearing the red pencil she'd used to line her rims. She then wiped at her lips, more roughly this time, until she was satisfied of their cleanliness and left them a raw cherry.

"What did you...do to me!" It was difficult to talk as whatever she'd placed in his system began to affect his higher functions.

"It was a mixture of mugglewort and henbane on my lips. There wasn't enough henbane to severely poison you, and the mugglewort took care of the convulsions. It won't hurt you at all, I promise." She swore, and had the consideration to cast a rain repelling dome over the both of them. "You'll wake up in a few hours; with a bit of a nasty headache I'm afraid. Remus will be here by then to take care of you."

She pressed her hand to his cheek, the briefest graze of fingertips, before pulling away. "I really am so sorry, Harry. But Ron and I knew you'd try and do this one day, we had to have a plan."

"Ron...too!"

"I'm here, mate."

Ron's voice came from above him, and his position was confirmed when Hermione looked upwards and then, sighing, shook her head. As strong arms hooked him beneath the shoulders and lifted him onto his unfelt feet, Hermione straightened. He was losing the ability to form thoughts properly and there was a heavy-heartedness that gave him an inexplicable urge to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. Instead, he forced his darkening focus on Hermione's face and saw up close her guilt-ridden features.

"You tricked me..." he groaned, not wanting the sad look on her beautiful face to sway him, and the accusation held more hidden barbs for Hermione alone.

They caused such distress to come to Hermione's face, that despite everything she and Ron had done, Harry wanted to swallow those words back up. "No, Harry..." she insisted, genuinely teary-eyed. "I do love you. That's why I can't let you do this."

The sudden absence of what had seemed like the ever-present rainstorm, made Harry's emerald eyes roll to the side to take in the smooth wooden walls of the cottage, then back to Hermione as Ron dragged him in a dripping trail to the couch. She cast a few drying spells on him and levitated the afghan throw to unfold over his legs.

He watched her look back over her shoulder and some words were exchanged with an off-camera Ron that he couldn't hear at all, and then she was looking back at him. He knew they were alone.

"Don't worry, Harry." He heard her voice like it was some far off call – like she was speaking to him from the other side of a vast gulf. "We'll take care of it."

We'll take care of it...Harry realized too late, his friends true intentions. No! You can't! You can't go after Voldemort! He screamed, but the words never made it to his lips. He battled desperately to say something that could dissuade his friends' objective, but he couldn't even say anything at all.

Ron materialized from his disappearance up the stairs and he held both of their cloaks in one hand. He said an apology that was only half heard as Harry's inner voice was screaming out in frustration. Hermione glanced back at the redhead and nodded.

They were leaving.

He could only watch helplessly as the henbane began to take effect, and Hermione reached out to brush back his unruly bangs. He no longer was able to hear her voice clearly when she spoke, and though it was now faintest of whispers, he heard it – her last words to him

"Please forgive me."

Then, Hermione leaned over the couch and placed a tender, lingering kiss upon his cold lips...and it was a true kiss.

But Harry was too far into unconsciousness to taste it.