The Chosen: HERMIONE
My afternoon was spent crossing thickets of bramble, twisting about gnarled branches, and hopping over tree roots arched so auspiciously that I had no choice but to trip. It felt like running through the Forbidden Forest, though instead of my ten and three quarters vine wood wand, I was armed with a wide tooth comb and an incredulous look on my face. I wouldn't turn down the wand though. I really wouldn't.
The comb snagged on a particularly belligerent knot. Harry winced.
"Sorry," I said, twisting the bundle of keratin around my fingers. It struggled, unruly and brazen in its defiance, but eventually unwound just like the rest of them. I continued combing and watching strands dip and rise back into place like a field assaulted by the wind.
I couldn't, and wouldn't, suppress an eye-roll.
My head of curly, frizz-prone hair never put up as much of a fight as Harry's. The laughable idea of it having a mind of its own was not so far-fetched when one considered that his hair had a habit of growing back quickly and knotting even quicker. Why I hadn't done this – this as in sit him down and tell him "Enough was enough," and if he wouldn't do something about it, I would (or I would damn well try) – in seven years is the eighth wonder of the world.
I watched his expression in the mirror and found him fading to his unfocused baseline. Though he did grimace periodically and was looking in my general direction, I could tell that he wasn't seeing anything at all. Or at least nothing in this small, ever-shrinking room.
Our reflections stared back at us, unblinking and still. The Chosen One and the one he chose. I carefully studied the picture we made in the silver glass, and had a thought that warmed me from the inside out. If we were in front of the Mirror of Erised, I wondered if I'd see something like this.
I poked his cheek. "Still alive in there?"
"This bloody hurts," he responded. His brow was knotted almost as much as his hair.
"Maybe next time you'll learn not to neglect yourself so much," I answered back pleasantly. I was trying to keep my tone as light as possible, even though the undertones of my words hinted at their heaviness.
"I wouldn't count on it," he laughed. And I mean honestly laughed, as if he couldn't tell what I was getting at.
My lips pressed into a hard line, though he would not have noticed that either since the room got quiet and I was practically alone again. I doubted he'd notice if I coloured his hair pink or shaved him completely bald. My eyes darted to my wand lying nearby, and I briefly contemplated the prospects of me getting up to no good. A pink-haired Harry was just a wave away, after all…
I chuckled, and soon the feeling passed. Pink, half-bald Harry might chuckle too and bewitch me with something equally as hilarious, or he might shrug it off and change it back with no qualm or comment. Or, he might be loud and inconsolably vexed. It was easier to not guess what version of him I'd get, so I stuck with listening to the sounds of the blades crisscrossing and the chirping of hardy birds that hadn't flown elsewhere for winter yet.
How he could phase in and out of reality so easily eluded me. I just knew he'd been like that for days and our conversations lately have consisted of few words and many knackered glances. He was exhausted. We both were. It was a mask we couldn't take off.
I take back what I said earlier about the Mirror of Erised. This was not what I wanted to see. Gaunt, weary faces lined with stress. Tired eyes, circled from lack of sleep and untold nightmares both real and imagined. Bones peeking out from under flesh to say an unwelcomed hello. That blasted radio on its wooden perch saying nothing but the goodbyes that the dead themselves couldn't utter for lack of lips and lives.
I stowed the comb away and walked over to the crackling static like a moth to a flame. The dial was on the Wizarding Broadcast position and had been there so long that I'd lost track of who was reading the never-ending list of names. Monotone voices were steeped in dread on every channel I tried. Bad news, bad news, and more bad news. 'Haven't we had enough of that?', I wondered.
I continued turning the little button until I came across one of the only stations that still played music. I didn't know the song, and it wouldn't have mattered even if I did.
Harry was still seated when I turned around. The only differences were that his feet were propped up and his fingers were laced behind his head. I walked up behind him and his gaze quickly snapped up to meet mine. I stopped mid-step, breath hitched like I'd been caught doing something I ought not to. It was the first time he looked at me with such intensity since…well, since that time in the cave. The memory brought a blush to my cheeks. I felt ridiculous as my heart sped up.
"I like it," he said. That grin on his face, it was the grin of a man who'd spent enough time grinning to know how to pull it off even at times like these. He looked back at his reflection and ran a hand through his hair. "Very nice."
Instead of a verbal reply, churning gut be damned, I walked over to him and held out my palms. Somehow I managed to keep them still.
He looked at them and then back at me. I looked at them and then back at him, amused.
"Is this a game?" he asked when he finally took them. I pulled him to his feet.
"You can call it whatever you like."
I led him to an open area and, you guessed it, began swaying. His arms went limp as he threw his head back in exasperation.
"I'm not in the mood for this," he whined. Actually whined. If he hadn't heard the music yet, he must've heard it by that point and as silly as I felt, I kept swaying, and swinging his pliant arms as I went.
"You're not getting out of this one, Harry," I said. I placed his hands on my waist and slung mine around his neck. "No point in arguing and having a whinge over it."
He sighed heavily and rested his chin on my shoulder. "Using my own words against me? Clever."
"Thank you." I leaned in, feeling the rise and fall of his chest and our body heat mixing on my skin. Dimming light was streaming in through the slightly opened tent flap. We continued moving in our lazy circles for a bit. Just us and the music.
"This is absurd," I heard, and felt, Harry murmur into my neck. I laughed at the tickling sensation caused by the vibrations.
"You're absurd." Falling into script was the easiest thing I could've done. He laughed too and held me at arm's length. The mirth didn't reach his eyes though. It was hard not to notice.
I wondered if my eyes were just as empty.
"Am not." He twirled me around.
We could have carried on with our dancing. We could have pretended that everything was alright. We could have tiptoed around the line of reality all day and continued spinning with our heads in the clouds, and we could have done it with the same barren smiles on our faces. We could have done a lot of things. Could have.
"This isn't healthy," I began. Before the words finished leaving my tongue, he tensed, not expecting a response. I couldn't blame him. If we were still going according to script, there wasn't supposed to be one. This was improvisation. This was uncharted territory. This was the unknown.
I held his hands tighter in case he was planning to run off somewhere. I fully expected him to at least toss some cockamamie excuse to sate me and then shun me for the rest of the evening when that didn't pan out.
"What isn't healthy?" he asked. He was humouring me. I humoured him right back.
"The weight of the world you insist on carrying alone." Atlas would have been proud.
Believe me, I felt it too. I did. The crushing sensation in my head that said that everything was closing in, fast, and since I was already trapped, I was just a hair away from disappearing under the quicksand for good. Maybe I wasn't much better off than him, but at least I wasn't already sunk. "Can't you relax once in awhile?"
He lurched away from me like I burned him.
"This is war, Hermione. Not some movie I can pause and play. This is real. Real people and real lives are at stake here. 'Relax' isn't in my vocabulary."
"You've barely eaten or slept for days." And he looked it.
"You haven't made anything even remotely edible. Forgive me if I don't partake."
"I'm not kidding."
"Neither am I," he replied.
By way of a response, I let him stare at my face, stone cold and as serious as basilisk venom. The simulated merriment growing on his lips withered and died.
"I'm so close to finding the next Horcrux, Hermione. So close. I can't –"
"See, that's the problem. 'I' this and 'I' that. Look around you." Look at me. "You've got friends and allies, Harry. You've got people who care. We're so close to finding the next Horcrux. We're in this together."
"Don't you think enough people have died already because of me? I'm not dragging anyone else into it."
It stung. It bloody stung. I thought he'd let go of what I said under the influence of the Locket but it was still in there somewhere, lingering like a bad taste. Forgiven, but not forgotten.
"People are going to get hurt," I said. 'And not all wounds can be seen', I wanted to add. I thought better of it, and pressed on. "Casualties are unavoidable. This is war, not some movie you can pause and –"
"Stop playing with my words like that!" he hissed, tensing even more. I raised my hands in an easy surrender. Last time I checked, we weren't fighting each other, and we weren't about to start.
"Take it easy. That's all I've been saying. Take it easy."
"You expect me to sit back –"
"I'm not asking you to give up and watch the world go up in smoke. You just need to take care of yourself."
"Hermi –"
"Shut up!" I exclaimed. His mouth hung open mid-word, and I realized that I didn't quite mean to yell like that, but I wasn't sorry for it either. If that's what it took to make him listen, that's what it took. I reached out to touch the side of his face, feeling stubble prickle against my palm. "What do you think will happen to all those real people and real lives if something happens to you?"
He tried to reply. Surely he did. Sounds were coming from the back of his throat, but they were the only indications of his efforts. Pretty soon they were joined with rapidly blinking eyes looking everywhere else but me.
"I know, I just can't…" Those eyes settled on my face moments later, albeit reluctantly, it seemed. "I'll eat more and try to sleep. Just promise me you'll care less."
There was nothing inherently difficult about his request, but I didn't understand it all the same.
"He'll take you away from me." He gripped my shoulders like they would keep him afloat in the quicksand of his own panic. His fingers were pressing in sharply, and I could feel each bony joint digging the beginnings of bruises that would be there by morning. I didn't move. I probably couldn't, even if I tried. "That's what he does. He waits 'til someone cares about me and then he takes them away."
A feeling welled up in my chest because I knew that they were, unfortunately, the truest string of letters I'd ever heard. His blinking eyes were wet with tears left unshed.
"He can't take me anywhere," I said firmly, biting back my own doubts.
"How are you so sure?" he asked, voice choked.
"Because we won't let him." I trailed kisses along his jawline. Light, feathery things. Soft. His breathing soon softened, and his hands stopped trembling from the burden he'd been carrying for so long. His death grip on my shoulders softened too, as if he had only just realized that I truly wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
I kissed him on the mouth then and he kissed back, fully and undeniably present. It was a whilst before he pulled away with a wet smack.
"You know, I really do like what you did with my hair." His lips were curled into a genuine smile, eyes shining bright. An extra look later and I could see a little something else in there, a something I hadn't seen since a certain sunrise. How fitting.
"Oh really?" I asked. The inflection at the end of that sentence was near singsong in nature.
"Yes, really," he said. "I must repay you somehow, M'lady."
He wasn't talking about the hair. He was never talking about the hair.
I was electric with a feeling between nervousness and excitement. An anxious anticipation. A shiver.
"And how do you plan on doing that?"
We were backing up. I noticed it a second before my back touched the canvas wall of our tent.
"I'm sure something can be arranged."
Where this came from, I couldn't say. This was a version of him I hadn't foreseen. It took a lot for me to do what I did beneath the surf, so all of this was above my head and well beyond the realm of possibilities.
Warm fingers dipped under my blouse and ran along my bare back. Lips were pecking down my neck and a leg was pressed firmly between my thighs. Hitched breaths and hushed sighs followed. I wondered, despite his timid fingers brushing my nubs in quiet reverence, if he had done this before. I never asked, but heat pooled heavy in my centre despite my ignorance.
I opened my eyes only when the warmth was replaced with a bitter, unforgiving chill.
Harry had stepped away from me, and was stretching. His stomach peeked out from beneath his shirt.
"You know what? I am knackered," he yawned. "I think I'm going to take a nap or something."
My face was flaming, but whether it was from indignation, embarrassment, or arousal was an open-ended question. Perhaps 'All the above'?
"You wouldn't dare," I taunted. My voice was punctuated by pants, which only made me flush even redder.
"I would," he replied, turning away and taking another step towards the bed. "I need to catch up on sleep, remember?"
My feet missed when I kicked out at him, and only then did I realize that my wrists were fixed to the wall with a bloody sticking charm. One sharp yank and I'd bring our whole tent to the ground.
"Are you out of your mind?" I yelled. His eyes darted to my heaving chest and he smirked. I kicked at him again. "Get over here."
"Will you beg?"
Absolutely not.
"You better be over here in two seconds or else I swear I'll –"
"Okay, threats work too," he said smugly. He came closer and toyed with my hard nipples over the fabric of my blouse.
Leaning in close, he licked the shell of my ear. "But remember, you asked for it."
Ten minutes later I was laying on my back, with my legs spread impossibly wide and my hands really and truly messing up the hair I worked so painstakingly on earlier. I couldn't tell if I was falling or flying or if I was even on Earth anymore. Every delicious pass of his tongue had me trembling even harder and making wonderfully loud sounds that drowned out the music we had long abandoned. His hands wrapped around my thighs and tugged me closer to the edge of the bed. I yelped and clung to him as he continued to melt me into puddle. There was no spell, but it felt like magic. A finger slipped inside. Another. I tossed my head back, mouth in a silent O.
I didn't really know how long I was up there but when I came back down, I had collapsed on the blanket and Harry was lying next to me, watching my ragged breathing. He reached out and pushed matted hair out of my face.
"I can't believe..."
"...that I'm so amazing?" He finished, grinning like mad. I blushed brightly and nodded.
This was the moment. Our moment.
I reached out and weaved our fingers together.
"Hey," he said.
"Yeah?"
He was quiet for so long that I almost didn't expect an answer and figured I should've said "Hey", too.
"I was thinking maybe… Maybe I want to go to Godric's Hollow."
I turned my head to look at him, just to make sure I'd heard right. He was staring at the ceiling of the tent.
"I think we'll have to," I replied. He turned his body to face me, eyes now sharp.
"Did you hear what I said?" His free hand was stroking absentmindedly on my side. My skin lit up under the touch. I nodded.
"I think we might find the Sword there. I don't know where else to look honestly."
"The Sword?"
"Gryffindor's Sword. Dumbledore would have known you'd want to go back home. Maybe he hid it there."
He didn't say anything for a while. I was on hold. I waited for him to get back to me. "Muriel said Bathilda Bagshot still lives there."
I searched for the name in the depths of my memory before dragging it up and dusting it off. I read her book, A History of Magic.
"What if Dumbledore entrusted it to her?" I asked, the realization hitting me like a tonne of bricks. It was so obvious that it hurt.
Harry looked away from my hopeful expression.
"So are we going?" His voice was flat.
"We'll have to think it through."
He nodded. His eyelids closed.
Mine didn't, though. Sleeping was the furthest thing from my mind, as I watched the one I chose fall into a fitful slumber.
This visit could shatter him. As if he wasn't broken enough already.