All Hallow's Eve by IslandPrincess1

Rating: PG
Genres: Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 6
Published: 30/10/2005
Last Updated: 30/10/2005
Status: Completed

Side by side, they lay in the grass under the shade of a tree at the lake. A light wind blew,
scuttling fallen leaves over their supine forms and shaking a few more free of their branches. The
air was chilled, hanging over them like the pervasive mist, and ever so often cut blithely through
their light woollen robes. And their eyes were trained on the horizon as the sun, in a blaze of
bright red, flaming orange and burnished gold, descended to the twilight of the dying earth. This
was the dusk of All Hallow's Eve. My attempt at a fic for the season, and seriously, my parents
should take away my rights to the computer. Lighter and fluffier than my usual stuff. R&R




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**A/N:** *I know I should be working on the next chapter to Aftermath, and I am, and that
second part to Die With Me, and the challenge I wanted to do, and my schoolwork, but I just had to
do this.*

*I don't* *really* *have Hallowe'en in my* *country but it's the
season, and I was thinking of something fluffy,* *and just thought I could do this. Clearly, I
can't**, it just became pointless fluff, I think**, but please note, I really, really
tried.*

**Disclaimer:** *If JKR is kind enough to send the deed to all this in a bag of treats on
the night of October 31**st**, then it will be.* **crosses
fingers**

*******

**All Hallow's Eve**

Side by side, they lay in the grass under the shade of a tree at the lake. A light wind blew,
scuttling fallen leaves over their supine forms and shaking a few more free of their branches. The
air was chilled, hanging over them like the pervasive mist, and ever so often cut blithely through
their light woollen robes. And their eyes were trained on the horizon as the sun, in a blaze of
bright red, flaming orange and burnished gold, descended to the twilight of the dying earth.

This was the dusk of All Hallow's Eve.

Beneath a pile of browned leaves between them, the colour of her hair, their gloved hands were
linked in the barest of holds. Intertwined, the pinkie and the ring, it was the only contact, for
the time being at least, they were to allow the other to have.

It was simple modesty though, for they both feared the danger of any more, for they both feared
the memory of what they had done, for they both feared the *thing* that had come between
them.

They both feared what their hearts screamed the truth and their minds logically refused.

In the castle just up the bank behind them the first lights were beginning to appear. Like
large, late summer fireflies in the distance, the windows of the Great Hall were brightest. There
was to be a grand feast there soon, the lights flickered as if to welcome them home.

Their excited schoolmates, in anticipation of it, could be clearly heard wandering the halls
within. The sounds of their voices, their footsteps, and their very existence filled the stillness
without.

They had not spoken since they first came out here though, words would have jarred the
companionable silence.

The Great Hall, they knew, was decorated with candles, pumpkins and candied treats that the more
adventurous among them could eat off the walls. In the dungeons one of the ghosts would be hosting
a Death-day Party or a Headless Hunt. In the staff room or offices, the teachers would be at work
at the most Machiavellian of plans to ruin the students' fun. In the Common Room their other
best friend was awaiting their return.

And they should have been up the bank in the castle with him, but here they were lying on the
grass without wrapped in their own thoughts.

All this passed at the evening of autumn on All Hallow's Eve.

When had best friends stopped being just that? Why had *they* stopped being just that? And
why *couldn't* they just remain what they were before?

He had the weight of the task of saving a world on his shoulders. He inadvertently had the
responsibility of the lives of his two best friends in his hands. There were deaths, Death Eaters,
Horcruxes, Dark Wizards and surprisingly, school work, on his mind all the time. He had no time or
place for pursuits of the heart.

She had the weight of aiding him in that task on her shoulders. She had taken on the
responsibility of keeping him alive if with nothing else but her own two hands. There was research,
books, counter-spells, plans and extra schoolwork on her mind all the time. But she had given up on
aiding her heart in place of guiding his a long time before.

Couldn't it be clearer then, that they could not do this?

No.

Because those best friends loved each other deeper than that. Because *they were* those
best friends, and now they had finally acknowledged that fact. And because he had kissed her, and
instead of pulling away in shock, she had kissed him back.

And all this had transpired, not on Valentine's Day, but All Hallow's Eve.

And then he broke the silence that moments before had been filled with the music of the wind and
the leaves.

“Hermione?” he asked, his voice tentative as he tested her name.

“Harry.”

Her voice was wearied, and then almost afraid. She had been both expecting and dreading the
coming conversation. If his action before had been a moment of madness she didn't think she
could bear it. If it had been a last impulse of the hormone driven teenager as the man came to his
place she knew she would not stand it. If all it had been were a mistake she would never recover.
And yet she didn't try to run away.

She was afraid for her heart, but she couldn't leave him to spare it.

He tried again.

“Hermione… why did you let me kiss you before?” he asked.

It was an innocent question, and deserved an honest answer. It had deserved an honest answer
from the moment he quietly leaned over and brushed his lips against hers between the shelves of the
library earlier in the afternoon. From the very instant she slipped her arms round his neck and
drew him closer. From the moment she let him deepen it.

But her voice chose that moment to fail her and her cheeks flushed rose pink. And even if it had
worked, what would she have said? And shouldn't she ask why he had kissed her in the first
place?

He took her silence for an answer and sat up.

“I reckon I should tell you why I kissed you first then?” he asked.

She sat up too, and noticed that he still made no attempt to break the contact of their hands
and neither did she. But he was speaking and she left it be.

“I don't have a reason… and I don't think I want to have one either… I like you… a lot…
and more than just your best friend… I really like you Hermione.”

He said this plainly, turning his vivid green gaze unto her with such intensity that it seemed
to burn.

“Everyone says that I can have anything, anyone I want… and we both know that that's not
true, that until Voldemort is gone, that won't be true… but if they want to know the truth, I
just want you… I don't want anyone… I want you.”

She still could not find the voice to speak. And still he continued to.

“It's unfair what I did in there… kissing you like that… but if I'm going to die, if
I'm going to ever have peace, ever have the strength to focus… I want you to know how I feel.
And you don't have to say anything, and I know that that's not fair either, but I just want
you to know how I feel.”

His gaze had lost some of its intensity. In the fading light where the clear sky above was
deepening to navy sequined by a sprinkling of stars, she could only just make out the glint of them
behind his glasses. He actually looked every bit like the frightened schoolboy faced with his first
crush. But she was not his first crush, or his first kiss, or even his first real girlfriend. She
was a first of a different kind, and also the last.

She was his first true love.

Maybe it was the magic of this night where evil spirits of the dead were supposed to wander last
before the good came the next day. Maybe it was just her imagination and she would wake in the
library having dreamt it all. Or maybe it was true.

After years of just being his friend, after years of just being the person he looked to when he
needed something and not simply wanted around, after years of hoping, wondering, wishing, she now
knew the truth.

How then, could she best respond to that? How then could she best profess that she felt the
same? How then could she let him know that he was hers too?

In their First Year, on the anniversary of this day, she had expressed her friendship by lying
for him and her other best friend in a troll-ruined bathroom. But this moment was not about
friendship and didn't involve anyone other than him. It was a step up and deserved an action to
suit it.

She gave him a smile. A true smile, her first real smile in months, and watched as his face
relaxed.

And then she leaned forward and kissed him.

And that was all he needed to know as the twilight faded to night on All Hallow's Eve.

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