Lost Destiny
by Bil!
T – Angst, Romance – Harry/Hermione – Oneshot
Summary: AU. They were supposed to change the world. And instead they're here, living grey lives in grey London while their great destiny passes them by. Even when Harry and Hermione don't get their Hogwarts letters they still find each other.
Disclaimer: Isn't the pairing enough to tell you JKR didn't write this?
A/N: A bit nasty. Not for kids. Frankly, this doesn't strike me as a very healthy relationship.
It's not like he ever really means it. It's just a stupid game he plays, something to do to pass the time while he sits around waiting for bigger and better things. So he'll annoy her, he'll tease her, he'll say cutting things that he doesn't really mean just because he wants to get a rise out of her. He's the only one allowed to do it, though. He's beaten up guys for ragging on her even though it just means she attacks him later. That's okay. She's allowed to hit him and he's allowed to annoy her, but no one else is. No one. Just him, and it's just a game. It's something to do, you see, something to fill in time while he sits around waiting for Fate to send him that big, wonderful destiny he just knows is coming for him. Because he can sense it, the feeling that he's meant for a bright destiny and he's just killing time while he waits for it to arrive. She's not a part of that destiny, but bugging her gives him something to do until it comes around.
Besides, she really is that annoying and so he has to annoy her back. Tease her about her ridiculous name and make up awful nicknames, hide her books, yank on her tangling hair so hard that she hauls off and socks him in the gut. Find where she's hidden her plans for overseas trips that she's never going to take and tear them up. Jeer at her for working a dead end job in a public library where she's never going to get promotion, never going to get noticed, never going to do anything but waste her brilliance. He doesn't care about her, so he can jab and jab, prodding her with sharp words to bring the flush of anger to her cheeks and the brightness of fury to her eyes.
And, okay, maybe she is hot, in a crazy kind of way, with her wild hair and her stupid teeth and the anger, always anger, that sweeps across her face at regular intervals like the beam of a lighthouse. Only instead of warning him off it beckons him in, because she may be the most annoying person in the entire world but she's his on-again off-again girlfriend and anger suits her. It's like she's furious at the whole world for something she can't quite articulate and she takes it out on him as the most convenient target. But it makes her beautiful somehow.
And, let's face it, the make-up sex is great.
Still, she isn't a part of his real life. This is just the waiting part, waiting for Fate to get her act into gear and shoot him towards the bright lights and the happy ending. He doesn't know what it'll be, but he knows it'll happen somehow. He knows it's coming, it's out there waiting for him. He'll get there one day. He will.
Until then, just while he's waiting, having her around isn't completely terrible.
The funny thing is, most of the time she hates him. They share a flat even when they're not dating and they tend to hang out with each other even when they're in the middle of a week-long fight, but she really and utterly loathes him. His stupid hair that never sits flat annoys the hell out of her, his contempt for books drives her absolutely crazy, and his lack of ambition, the way he's perfectly content to go on being a grocery checkout operator for the rest of his life when he's capable of so much more, makes her want to scream. The way he insults her with every third word is just a minor irritation; she doesn't care about his opinions and at least he's intelligent enough to use some mildly imaginative insults. She's tried dating other guys and they're just too stupid and bland to be interesting.
But really the reason she keeps coming back is because he understands. He knows the feeling that consumes her sometimes, the certain knowledge that somewhere out there is a destiny, something grand and beautiful, that she should be fulfilling. A life of greatness has been promised to her but the promise hasn't been kept. She should have been a part of something that was bigger than herself, something important and amazing, something full of wonder and magic, and instead she's stuck here, yelling at kids for drawing on library books and making all these plans to travel overseas even though she knows she'll never go through with them. She's twenty-seven years old and she already knows that she's failed at her life.
When she's overwhelmed by the knowledge of what she's lost, when she's furious at the world for breaking all its promises – then he's the one she can yell at, the one who never cares what she says, the one who'll match her insult for insult and give her all that anger straight back without apology because he knows the feeling too. He knows about the loss and heartache and despair, about the gaping gulf inside that comes from knowing you've missed every opportunity to become who you were meant to be. Only he's more idealistic than she is, because he hasn't quite given up yet. He can't admit that it isn't going to happen.
They were supposed to be something. Somewhere, somehow, they were supposed to change the world. And instead they're here, living grey lives in grey London while their great destiny passes them by. They don't talk about it. They never talk about it. Not even the slightest, faintest hint. But they know it. They know just what it is they're missing out on. So they stick together.
It isn't love. It isn't really lust, although she has to admit he isn't that bad on the eyes... Okay, so some of it's lust. But definitely not love. Just the bonds that tie together two people adrift on the same raft after the same disaster.
"Don't you ever feel," she asks in the privacy of her head, "that you're made for something better than this? Don't you ever wonder what life should have been like? Don't you think there should be more than this?"
But she never says it out loud. Instead she rolls over in bed and kicks him. "Harry. Harry!"
"Wha'?" he grumps. "Sleeping."
"Wake up."
"No."
"Wake up." She kicks him again, almost hard enough to bruise.
He kicks her back and blinks at her. " 'M awake." Without his glasses his eyes are almost luminous in the dark and she can believe, really believe, that in another life he was someone important. It's there in that look, in the way he holds himself, that he could have been something if he'd just been given the chance. It almost makes her weep for the loss of it. "What, Hermione?" he demands when she just stares at him, just props herself up on one elbow and stares at him.
"I hate you," she says very calmly. It's important. Because she really does hate him, he's just convenient to have around and she can't imagine a life without him.
"I hate you too. So what?"
His hair is sticking up all over the place and her hands itch to flatten it because she hates the way it looks so messy, but she knows the only way to make it stay flat would be to use a frying pan. One of those big cast-iron ones and a good hefty swing behind it. She's fantasised about doing that sometimes. With one whack she could get rid of both that irritating hair and the irritating idiot living under it.
"I hate you," she says viciously and he laughs. Just laughs. The light catches his eyes as he reaches up and pulls her down on top of him. "I hate you!"
"I know," he breathes into her mouth and then that's the end of it. His fingers tangle in her hair and she buries herself in the smell of him, in the touch of him, in the taste of him, and that's the end of it.
Because maybe in some other universe they're actually somebodies, maybe in some other universe they've managed to create that big, bright destiny that they were supposed to have. Somewhere else they might have everything. But right here, right now, this is all they have. And that means that all they have is each other.
The stupid thing is that sometimes, just sometimes, it's almost enough just to have him.
Fin