I knew I wanted to write it when I saw this prompt ♥
Once upon a time, they had hope.
The war extinguished much, but when hope was all they had left, it cowered and flickered but never died. Deep in a forest belt, between the walls of Hogwarts castle where friends sank to their feet and died, it was weakened by losses, swept up in whirls of anguish, tangled in unending chants of die, no, live, don’t—but even then, with Voldemort’s wand pointed steadily at him, she had hope and such a thing could not be twisted into despair.
But now is not then and if there is one thing which reigns above all conventions, then it is time. Ten years after the battle, their blood and tears are reduced to dates written on pages of history books, and she thinks of how little she has changed—and yet how great. Hope is no longer a thing to hold on to; shrunk into a glance across the room, she wishes she could uncoil her fingers and let it slip through the gaps like sand, purposeless now.
He tells her news about their friends (Neville said that McGonagall was retiring, Seamus is finally getting married) but she barely listened. She watched him speak instead, the careless movements of his lips, the shifting shadow under his chin as his mouth forms word after word. This is her mother-in-law’s house and everyone else may be outside in the garden before Fred’s headstone—but adulthood is a cage, invisible, inevitable, and cruellest of all, indestructible.
“Hermione?”
He is now looking at her and the concern in his eyes can easily shift into something else. She would have smiled and shook her head, but it is a warm summer evening and everything is as good as it can be.
“I’m happy, you know.”
It shifts then, that something in his eyes. When he smiles, it is private and her breath catches.
“You deserve it,” he murmurs, almost too soft. Words are bursting behind her lips—how Ron still makes her angry; how they will always kiss afterwards for there is nothing she will not forgive him; how Rose and Hugo define happiness itself for her; how she has come to hate winter and Christmas, because they always remind her of him, of the warmth of his hand when there were only the two of them, in a vast, uncertain world.
“There is still one book…” she says and perhaps the rest would have tumbled out in an unintelligible torrent of words, or perhaps they would have remained unsaid on her tongue, like so many of their kind. But she cannot know because Rose chooses that moment to rush into the room and fall into her arms. Her child’s laugh makes her laugh, and she sees from the corner of his eyes that he too smiles—and the veil is once more thick over his eyes.
She wonders if his heart breaks too, without making a sound.
–
“There is still one book I need to close, and it will not.”
And Hermione wonders why she is ever a Gryffindor if she can only say them when he has gone.
Harry/Hermione - folded up like paper dolls and little notes
Once upon a time, they had hope.
The war extinguished much, but when hope was all they had left, it cowered and flickered but never died. Deep in a forest belt, between the walls of Hogwarts castle where friends sank to their feet and died, it was weakened by losses, swept up in whirls of anguish, tangled in unending chants of die, no, live, don’t—but even then, with Voldemort’s wand pointed steadily at him, she had hope and such a thing could not be twisted into despair.
But now is not then and if there is one thing which reigns above all conventions, then it is time. Ten years after the battle, their blood and tears are reduced to dates written on pages of history books, and she thinks of how little she has changed—and yet how great. Hope is no longer a thing to hold on to; shrunk into a glance across the room, she wishes she could uncoil her fingers and let it slip through the gaps like sand, purposeless now.
He tells her news about their friends (Neville said that McGonagall was retiring, Seamus is finally getting married) but she barely listened. She watched him speak instead, the careless movements of his lips, the shifting shadow under his chin as his mouth forms word after word. This is her mother-in-law’s house and everyone else may be outside in the garden before Fred’s headstone—but adulthood is a cage, invisible, inevitable, and cruellest of all, indestructible.
“Hermione?”
He is now looking at her and the concern in his eyes can easily shift into something else. She would have smiled and shook her head, but it is a warm summer evening and everything is as good as it can be.
“I’m happy, you know.”
It shifts then, that something in his eyes. When he smiles, it is private and her breath catches.
“You deserve it,” he murmurs, almost too soft. Words are bursting behind her lips—how Ron still makes her angry; how they will always kiss afterwards for there is nothing she will not forgive him; how Rose and Hugo define happiness itself for her; how she has come to hate winter and Christmas, because they always remind her of him, of the warmth of his hand when there were only the two of them, in a vast, uncertain world.
“There is still one book…” she says and perhaps the rest would have tumbled out in an unintelligible torrent of words, or perhaps they would have remained unsaid on her tongue, like so many of their kind. But she cannot know because Rose chooses that moment to rush into the room and fall into her arms. Her child’s laugh makes her laugh, and she sees from the corner of his eyes that he too smiles—and the veil is once more thick over his eyes.
She wonders if his heart breaks too, without making a sound.
–
“There is still one book I need to close, and it will not.”
And Hermione wonders why she is ever a Gryffindor if she can only say them when he has gone.