Their faces drifted ever closer as a light breeze shifted the air around them. Harry raised a gloved hand to tilt Hermione's chin up and leaned in closer. Her eyes were wide and her breath seemed caught in her throat. Mere inches away, it happened.
Hermione sneezed. It was a short, high pitched sneeze that jerked her head into a quick nod. Unfortunately, they were so close Harry was not only in the path of her snot, but also received a hard headbutt as her head snapped downward. Almost immediately her left hand raced up to cover her nose and she turned away, blushing madly. Her right hand covered her forehead. Harry on the other hand clutched at his forehead with both hands but after just a minute, he started to laugh.
Hermione, still with a gloved hand covering her face glanced at him, a horrified look splayed across her face. "What's so funny?!" she cried at him, tears beginning to run down her face.
As Harry looked at her, he imagined her tears were little sparkling diamonds rolling down her face. There wasn't any situation that she didn't look like an angel to him. He stifled his laughter when he realized the hurt look in her eyes. He rushed forward and wrapped his arms around her, the smell of lavender and lilac invading his senses.
"H-Harry?" Hermione spoke, somewhat calmer but with her hand still over her face. "I'm so sorry I ruined that." She rested her head on his shoulder but he slowly pulled away from her.
"It's okay Hermione." He looked in her eyes and reached a hand up to pull her own down from her face. He wanted more than ever to feel her soft silky lips against his own. As he gently pulled down, he felt her resisting. He peered questioningly at her.
"I…need a Kleenex." Hermione turned away, blushing madly as he started to chuckle and took her by her other hand, leading her towards the nearby ski lodge.
While Hermione was procuring a Kleenex from the lady's restroom in the lodge and cleaning up a bit, Harry thought about the alley and decided not to speak of the incident until he could find the perfect moment. After all, that moment in the alley should have spoken louder than anything he could say then and there. He now had ski clothes and he was itching to try the sport. As soon as Hermione approached him, he asked if they could try the slopes and she was more than happy to avoid talking about the alley incident. Hermione had already planned to rent some skis but Harry, having not decided what he really wanted to do before, opted for a snowboard since they seemed awfully cool at the time. He had never even ridden a skateboard, much less a bicycle before, but he figured it couldn't be that difficult. After renting their gear, they headed off to the slopes to receive a short beginner's lesson from the local snowboarding instructor for Harry.
Harry had originally been pretty insistent that he could handle at least the intermediate slopes without a lesson, but Hermione would not hear of it and insisted he take a lesson first. All throughout the lesson, Harry was having a great deal of difficulty with his balance. He had fallen dozens of times and with Hermione watching him intently and trying to help, his confidence was falling by the minute. After thirty minutes, he finally told her to go have some fun on her own while he finished the hour lesson on his own. She hadn't been especially happy about it, but she went ahead and skied down the bunny slope and switched over to an intermediate slope and was out of sight within a minute of the suggestion. After that, Harry didn't exactly improve, but he was at the very least happy that Hermione wasn't there to see him flailing about like a hippogriff with a broken back. All too soon the lesson ended and Harry was left on the bunny slope alone. It was especially disheartening to see the little eight year old kid who had been taking the lesson with him, sliding off down the slope, turning and stopping with ease after the lesson while Harry did most of his sliding down the slope on his butt.
After another thirty minutes of practicing on his own, Hermione skied around the top of the slope to watch him, having ridden a different lift from the bottom to the top. Harry didn't even see her as he tried the bunny slope one more time. Unfortunately for him, when he lost his balance, he rammed into a little girl and plowed her down with his snowboard as he fell face first into the snow. He heard a person screaming something, but it was completely muffled by all the snow in his ears. Some rough hands jerked him up and tossed him over to the side as the parents of the little girl rushed to her side to inspect her injuries. In a daze, Harry looked up at the people who had so callously thrown him aside and realized it was the ski patrol. He wasn't sure he understood everything they said but he did understand the words "Get off" and "banned". Feeling not only depressed but ashamed, he tried to apologize to the girl and her parents, but the father of the little girl only tried to lunge at Harry's throat, falling over his own skis in the process.
Before Harry could respond, Hermione skied up and stopped right beside him. His eyes darted all over the place but she grabbed his hand and said hurriedly, "Come on, Harry…let's go." She held on to his hand as he walked in his boots, dragging his rented snowboard behind him towards the lift. Harry stared blankly at the ground, and said nothing until Hermione asked, "Do you think you can snowboard at least up to the ski lift, or would you rather walk back up?"
He tried to clear his head of all his fear but he knew he had to show her he wasn't totally hopeless. "Yeah," he said shakily, cursing his voice for betraying him. He kept his mouth shut as he put the snowboard back on and together they moved toward the ski lift. Within a minute, it was their turn to jump on, and they both miraculously made it, which was a first for Harry whom until then had fallen on his butt every time he attempted to get on the ski lift.
As soon as the ski lift raised their skis and snowboard above the snow and over the pristine snow, Hermione erupted into chatter. "Harry, I'm so sorry! I didn't know any of that would happen!" She exclaimed in a worried voice. "I should have stayed with you, I should have helped you, I just.." As she continued her nervous speech, he internally simmered, growing angrier by the second. "Harry, I know it was an accident. I was watching. There wasn't anything you could do to avo…"
Suddenly Harry turned in his seat next to her and exploded, "You were watching me the whole time?!" He paused a second, seeing that she was suddenly silent and taken aback. "What!? Did you think that my falling down all over the place was cute!? Did you think it funny!?" He glared at her and even her tears streaming down her cheeks did nothing to calm his sudden outburst. "You're nothing but a mudblood! A sniveling, manipulative mudblood who is only here to outdo everyone else around! You were nothing and no one even liked you until I took you in! You're just a burden to me…and there's no telling what you've been doing with Ron behind my back! I hate you!"
He sat there as the ski lift neared the top, panting to catch his breath. "H..Harry…" he heard her say in a small, hurt voice. It jilted him back to reality and he suddenly realized just how much he had hurt her. She looked ahead, and as soon as the lift set them down she took off on her skis, turning and flying back down the mountain and towards the black diamonds, tears still streaming down her face. He tried to follow but as he got off of the lift himself he began flailing again and fell down on his face. Knowing he'd never catch up with her and that she likely didn't want to talk to him at that moment, even for an apology, he took off his snowboard and staggered over to the lodge to turn in his rented gear. He made a mental note as he put his rented gear back on the counter for the clerk to check back in that he'd write her a card first and then apologize in person after she read it.
After explaining to the clerk why he had turned in his gear so early, he was given a hefty refund for the unused time and he made his way over towards the concessions area of the lodge and bought himself a hot chocolate with extra cream. He slid into the couch resting in front of the fireplace, and he honestly had an image of being back in the Gryffindor common room once again. The only thing missing was the strange decorations about the room and a handful of students loitering about. At this time of day, the lodge was relatively empty as most of the people in the area had taken the opportunity to hit the slopes on the fresh powdery snow. After a few sips of his hot chocolate the roaring fire in front of him began to work its own magic and he slowly fell into a deep sleep.
It was hours later that he was startled awake by a screaming girl. The lodge's den was suddenly filled with people whispering and retelling the stories of their day on the mountain but a single girl was shrilly recounting the news she had just heard causing everyone to pause their conversations to listen. It was bad news, but somehow, he realized, that people seemed to thrive on bad news as long as they weren't the ones the news was about. Harry unconsciously leaned in closer to listen as the girl cried, "Oh my gosh! You won't believe this! Some poor girl just died on the slopes!" What few conversations that had lingered in the room immediately stopped as the girl caught everyone's full attention. "They haven't identified her yet, but she went off one of the black diamonds and hit a tree! Isn't that awful!?" Harry's blood ran cold though the girl brimmed with excitement as she went on to tell the rest. "I heard from one of the officers who arrived at the scene first the girl had been crying at the time. He said he had seen her right before she went down the slopes! They might even close down that slope for tonight until the authorities can clear the scene! Isn't this so exciting!?" The girl had to restrain herself from jumping up and down.
As the girl calmed down a bit and began to talk to her own friends about the news in a quieter voice, the room returned to its previous conversations though they seemed more tense and as if a new electricity had been turned on in the room. Harry could have guessed what they were talking about then but his mind was swarming around the circumstances. A crying girl dead on the black diamond slopes, which was where he had seen Hermione go…also crying. He tried to tell himself that it could have been anyone and that Hermione wouldn't have made such a foolish mistake, but he knew deep in his heart that it was her. He had hurt her deep, as if taking a serrated knife and slowly cutting through the layers of her soul one by one. He had called her awful things and said so much that was untrue but things he knew would have hurt her at the time that he had questioned himself afterwards, as he stared at the blazing fire, if she could ever truly forgive him for them. Yet now as he stared blankly in front of him, he knew she couldn't forgive, nor bear to go on with her life feeling that pain of betrayal. He reached up to rub his cheek and found it strangely wet. The shock delayed his realization by a few seconds but suddenly it hit him like an Everte Statum hex. His stomach was hollow and his chest felt constricted and burned in the strangest of ways. He felt as if the back cushion of the couch was as hard as concrete and though his feet felt strangely heavy, he somehow struggled to his feet and staggered across the room. He managed to stumble out into the hallway, not looking at any faces as he choked back his tears and screams.
After a couple of minutes, he found himself outside staring over the ledge, his tears pouring off of his cheeks as if it were beginning to rain upon him and only him. "Why?" he admonished himself. "Why did I say such awful things to her…now I can never make it up to her." As he stood there, shaking with every sob a different thought struck him. "I caused this." His sobs stopped altogether as he stared blankly out at a wintery scene he knew he might've otherwise have shared with Hermione. "I said things…unforgivable things…If I hadn't, she'd still be alive! I…I killed her…" He took a deep breath, and stared out at the valley below. "I'm so sorry Hermione." As he stood there, the soft snow drifted down upon him. "I'm sorry Hermione…" he whispered, looking up at the falling snow and wondered if these were her tears falling down upon him.
---
A/N: Well, I didn't get my 10 reviews so…the story is going to die (well...pretty much is now) unless I get a real outcry this time! Anyways, I've got to stick to my guns this time and uphold that requirement, because my time is valuable and if no one is going to bother telling what made them want to keep reading it, or move on to the next chapter (or what made them want to run for the hills!) I can't improve which is my final goal. For all those who had supported me, I thank you for taking the time to press that little review button and giving me a window into your thoughts. It meant the world to me to find out my strengths and weaknesses. You were awesome readers!