Part One

She should be happy. Or at least, content. Maybe a small smile. Something. She should at least feel something. Something good. Not the dry throat, the tiny chest, the darkness that enveloped her.

She should be happy.

They were her friends- or at least they used to be. Now, she didn’t know. He had moved on. He had got along with his life- had found a wife – and had left her behind.

Five years. Five long years had passed and she still wasn’t able to leave the dark behind - nor had the dark left her.

She hadn’t moved on. She couldn’t. And nobody cared.

He was happy now.

He was getting married. He had asked for Ginny Weasley’s hand.

He had proposed just the night before.  He had done the deed during a dinner at The Burrow. She hadn’t even been there to see it – she had been too busy with some reports that needed to be finished. There were always reports that needed to be finished.  Perhaps it had been for the best.

If she knew it was going to be such an important dinner, she would have made the effort to be there - but she didn’t know. He never told her.

Five years ago he would tell her everything. Five years ago she thought they would be friends forever.  Maybe more.

Nope.

Five years ago he had left her in pain to be in Ginny’s arms.

She never forgave him for that.

Hermione looked around her meager surroundings; never had her cubicle in the Ministry seemed so small, so claustrophobic.

Her boring, bureaucratic work had been the only thing that kept her alive- well, functioning, if that could be called living. But now the pain was too much. Even when she buried herself in all the papers, reports and so on, it persisted – sometimes dull, sometimes throbbing, always present. She needed to get out of there. Badly.

She needed to cry. Badly.

She hurriedly gathered her belongings, at least those that still mattered to here. She felt her old injuries – the souvenirs of all the curses she had taken for him – start to hurt once again. Madam Pomfrey had told her that those injuries would probably always be with her.  That they would always hurt in a stressful situation - although with time, she would physically heal. She called it “only” psychological.

Psychosomatic or not, it was five years later– and they still hurt.

*

Pressing her bag against her chest, she left the room. Fast steps. Fast steps. She wouldn’t inform anyone she was leaving. Not this time.

Fast steps. Fast steps. Why did the Ministry corridors seem so endless?

Fast steps. Breathing hard. Fast steps. She wanted to cry.

Fast steps. Breathing hard. The exit was close...

Fast steps...

“Hermione?”

Him.

She flinched. Hermione closed her eyes briefly before turning to  face him. She didn’t say a word.

“I guess you already heard the news,” he commented a little awkwardly, “about Ginny and me.”

Hermione only allowed herself no more than a mute nod. Her pain was getting worse and worse, her heart beating so fast that she could only pray that she would not cry – that she would not break down in front of him.

That would only add insult to injury.

“We didn’t settle on a date yet, but-” Nervously, he ran a hand through his messy hair. “I think Gin won’t want to wait too long, you know?”

“No,” she blurted, no longer even trying to hide her annoyance. He knew damn well why she was annoyed.

If he knew, he wasn’t showing it.  Harry blinked twice before replied, “Excuse me? What do you mean no?”

I won’t cry, she instructed herself.

“And is there another meaning for no, Potter?  What part of it don’t you understand?” Her voice was dry and rough in its sarcasm. “I don’t know what Gin wants. I never have. And frankly I don’t give a shit for it!” I won’t cry.  “Now, if you excuse me, I must go-”

Grabbing her arm firmly, Harry turned her around and hissed at her, “What’s wrong with you, Hermione? Why can’t you be happy? Why can’t you be happy for Ginny and me? Or at least for me?”

Without even a shadow of a smile, Hermione threw everything back in his face. “Happy? Of course I’m happy. I’m trilling! Can’t you see! Congratulations! Congratulations on forgetting so easily! Congratulations on moving on without looking back.”

“What is it with you? Do you just want me to be miserable forever – like you?” his voice was getting high in its anger. “Hadn’t the bloody Harry Potter the right to be happy?!”

“Be happy, then,” she spat.  “Voldemort was dead and you simply forgot - you simply forgot about the bodies that still needed to the buried...”

“Whatever happened to Ron,” he countered.

“Sod Ron! You had made me feel special!  Nobody else – you!” she yelled, her voice shaking, not caring that a small crowd had gathered and was staring at them. “You led me to believe that you thought I was special - that I was loved. I gave myself to you! Willingly and without reservation! I offered you my body and soul. And you took them.”

He let her go and slowly turned away.

“And you never gave them back.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hermione smiled shyly at him. She was nervous. She had never been nervous around him before.

They were in his bedroom at the headquarters, talking about random things like the Muggle world, Hogwarts, and what they would do after the end of the war. Neither of them knew when, or how, or even why their mundane coversation suddenly ceased d to be replaced by silence.  Instead of talking, they stared at each other.

She moved a hand towards him, perhaps to take off something from his hair.  Ordinarily he let her do this without a second thought, but this time he grabbed her capturing her fingers like a Snitch.  This connection made both of them shiver with strange but not at all unpleasant sensations.

“Harry,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

He held up his other hand like a stop sign. “Shh...” He leaned forward, pulled her to him, and kissed her on the lips. The kiss began shyly and awkwardly, but like so many things Harry did it grew, soon she was filled with an intense feeling of desire and love.

Things had never been the same after that.

 *~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hermione-”

“You fucked me!!” She wasn’t able to control the tears anymore, as they poured from her eyes. “You fucked me like everything in the world depended on it.  Then two days later, you were celebrating your victory in Ginny Weasley’s arms!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Gazing at her svelte and now naked body in front of him, Harry had to work very hard to maintain his self control, to stop himself from simply acting like a caveman.

“Hermione, are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’ve been sure for quite some time.  I want to be yours, Harry.”

Harry’s hands found her shoulders.  His arms flexed and brought her ever closer to him. “God, you are beautiful” he whispered huskily.  He said no more.  He let his body, his lips, do the talking fore him.  His tongue pushed her lips apart as he kissed her hungrily.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

With that outburst, he grabbed her and pulled her into a nearby vacant office.  Still, holding her, Harry whispered, “Hermione, about that night-”

*~*~*~*

He entered her slowly, gently, more than a little unsure about what he was actually doing – about why he was doing it.  Most of all he was afraid of hurting her.  He never wanted to hurt her.

He didn’t think he had – hurt her, that is.  Once he found himself completely inside of her, their bodies began to dance to the tune of his thrusts.  For the first time in Harry's young and often desolate life, he felt fulfilled – truly fulfilled.

*~*~*~*

“That night killed Ron!” she cried in awful memory of that horrible time. He let go of her, his lips mute but his eyes staring. “That night killed Ron and two days after... you killed me.  Looking back, I think Ron got the better part of the deal!”

Without waiting for his reply, Hermione stalked away, wiping angrily the unwelcoming tears.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry didn’t know for how much time he stayed there, rooted to the floor, as unmoving as a rock- in the middle of that godforsaken room.

 “That night killed Ron and two days after... you killed me.”

Hermione’s words echoed in his head, bouncing off the insides of his skull like a sadistic mantra.

 “That night killed Ron and two days after... you killed me.”

A slap wouldn’t hurt so much- a curse wouldn’t generate so much anger. She had always had a way with words.

“How dare she?!” he growled to himself, finally gathering enough of his wits to walk back to his office at the Aurors’ Department without running into – or through – a wall.

“You led me to believe that you thought I was special - that I was loved. I gave myself to you! Willingly and without reservation! I offered you my body and soul. And you took them.  And you never gave them back.”

So what? He never had promised her anything; he never had told her he loved her. He had never lied to her.

“I asked her if she was sure!” he muttered angrily as he entered his office, slamming the door behind him.

That night was only a fuck- two friends fucking. It wasn’t a moment to exchange loving words and being sweet. That wasn’t how we were.

It was only sex. Was he careful? Yes. Had he tried his best not to hurt her – not to make her uncomfortable? Yes, it had been good, mind-blowing, even. But still it was only sex.

He didn’t love her...He knew he didn’t love her.

Didn’t he?

*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry felt a little lost when he woke up that morning in the Hospital Wing. He wasn’t exactly feeling any pain – well, maybe a small headache.

Still searching for his glasses on the bedside table, Harry was suddenly enveloped by two of the sweetest arms he had ever seen.

“Oh, Harry!” he heard Ginny’s voice coo at him. “You did it! You defeated him!” And before he could say anything at all, she brought her lips against his, kissing him passionately. That was it for conscious thought.

For a few minutes, anyway.

They broke apart abruptly, when they heard the heavy oaken door creak, letting them know that someone was entering the room. Harry looked as the door shut again.  There was Remus, and he was carrying a badly injured Hermione in his arms; Ginny’s father was trailing behind them.  He looked absolutely crushed, crying silently.

Harry wobbled to his feet. As fast as his injured and tired body permitted, Harry half walked and half stumbled towards them.

“Hermione?” he whispered her name. Remus lowered his arms so Harry could see.  Her face was very pale, her clothes were torn, dirty, and soaked in places with dried blood. He could sense that she was forcing herself to not collapse.

She saw him.  She saw Ginny.  Hermione was the cleverest of her age.  When she saw the two of them, she knew.

“You make me sick,” she hissed, her eyes filled with sadness and, what was that? Deception?  Stunned by her accusatory attitude, Harry looked up at Remus and then at Mister Weasley.  Remus looked to Arthur, who said in an almost inaudible whisper, “We lost Ronald, Harry. We lost Ronald.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry had never wanted to know how exactly Ron had died – so he never found out. He had promised himself wouldn’t let himself lose himself in sadness. Ron wouldn’t want that. Harry promised himself that with Voldemort finally gone it was his duty finally to be happy. All he knew was that it had happened at the Granger’s - a Death Eater attack. What he couldn’t understand was why Ron was there - he wasn’t supposed to be there.

He was supposed to go home to the Burrow.  At least that’s what he had told Harry.

Harry never asked Hermione about that...he never even asked her about her injuries. Ron had died at her parents’ house. If she wanted to talk about it, he would have listened, but he would not force her to.

His kiss with Ginny, even if it was less than two days after he and Hermione had sex, seemed to him to pale in comparison to what she had done.

She had brought about the death of their best friend.

“It’s because of her that he’s dead,” he finally let himself say out aloud. It was something that had festered within him for a long time – something incrusted onto his heart.

“No, Harry,” a familiar voice said firmly. “It wasn’t her fault. You cannot blame her for surviving - especially because she really didn’t. Hermione died then too.”

Harry stood from his chair. “Mister Weasley….”

“I think it’s time for you to forgive her. And yourself.” Arthur Weasley forced a small smile. “It’s time for you to know what happened.”

>>>>>>>End First Part<<<<<<<<