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Harry Potter ignored the tears that were sliding down his cheeks. He wasn’t ashamed of crying, not this time. As he gazed at the headstones that graced his parent’s graves, he had no choice but to wonder what life would have been like for him if Lily and James Potter had lived that fateful October night.
Would he have had siblings?
Would Voldemort still have plagued the world thereafter, causing havoc and tearing families apart?
Would Neville have become the Boy Who Lived?
But most importantly, who would he have become? Harry had no way of knowing. He so wanted to make his parents proud of him, even though they were no longer amongst the living. Were they proud of him? Harry worried that despite everything he’d gone through that he was actively disappointing his parents. After all, what had he done, really? Sure, he’d gone on some adventures, saved some lives – but most of that was with the help of his friends and through sheer luck.
It seemed silly, given that he had never really known them and couldn’t remember a time when he did, but he missed them. Terribly.
Harry felt Hermione step up beside him. She took his hand and snuggled into his side. He tore his gaze away from his parent’s resting place and focused on the brunette witch at his side. She returned his gaze with watery brown eyes. Harry smiled sadly down at her and pulled her closer before turning back to the gravestones of his parents.
What would he have done without Hermione? Who was he without Hermione? He had come so close to losing her the previous year when she was struck down at the Department of Mysteries. Harry had completely frozen when she had hit the ground. He couldn’t imagine a world without her in his life – the world had seemed to stop when it seemed like she had left him. It had only started again when Neville had found her pulse and renewed Harry’s hope that she would make it.
She had gone to the DoM for him, just like she had done so many other things. And how had he repaid her? During their sixth year, he had been argumentive and abrasive and distant. He’d been a git to her for an entire year. Sure, he’d been right about Malfoy, but in the end, did that really matter? Hermione had lost faith in his instincts after the fiasco of the Department of Mysteries. Could Harry really blame her for being cautious in the face of their – his – overwhelming failure the year before? No. No, he could not.
Hermione had been as loyal as ever, though. She had stayed when she could have easily left with Ron. Why had she stayed? Why would she continue to put herself in danger for him?
Harry looked back down at her. Hermione’s gaze had shifted towards the gravestones as well, and it gave him an opportunity to look at her. He had noticed that Hermione was pretty before, of course, but seeing her with her little beanie on and snow falling on her shoulders just made her even more beautiful. The soft curve of her cheeks and the occasional fluttering of her eyelashes when they were hit with flakes of snow just heightened the appeal.
She had always been there for him. Always. But it wasn’t until just this moment that he realized just what she meant to him.
Everything.
Harry’s eyes widened. His breathing picked up and he had to turn away. Hermione didn’t notice his distress but instead continued to snuggle into his side. Harry tightened his grip and tried to regulate his breathing.
Did he...fancy...Hermione?
That couldn’t be true, could it? She was like his sister, wasn’t she?
A small voice inside his head, the one that oddly enough sounded exactly like Hermione, said, “You don’t have a sister, Harry. How could you know what it feels like to have one?”
‘But that doesn’t mean I love her...you know, like that? Can it?’
“And why not? Who better?”
Harry thought about that for a moment. Why not Hermione?
‘She loves Ron! She wouldn’t love me!’
‘Not exactly a denial of your feelings there, Potter,’ the voice said.
Harry shook his head, trying to deny it, but he couldn’t. He was brought out of his thoughts a few moments later.
“Harry,” Hermione whispered.
Harry turned towards her, trying desperately to keep his thoughts off his face. He knew that Hermione would be able to read him like a book.
“What are you thinking about?”
‘Don’t panic, Potter,” his inner voice said calmly.
Meanwhile, Harry was on the verge of a full-fledged meltdown. What was he thinking about? What could he possibly be thinking about besides the fact that he suddenly knew that he was madly in love with his best friend?
Well, shite, Harry thought. I guess I’m not denying it anymore then, eh?
“J-just thinking about mum and dad,” Harry lied, hoping that Hermione wouldn’t notice his delay in answering.
Hermione narrowed her eyes and internal alarms started to sound in Harry’s head. Shite, shite, triple shite!
Hermione hated it when he lied about what he was thinking or feeling. It was one of her rules. And no one ever broke one of Hermione’s rules without serious consequences.
“Harry. Don’t lie to me. And why are you even lying? What could you possibly be thinking about that would make you want to fib?”
“Uh...”
Hermione pulled away from him and folded her arms across her chest. Harry winced. He knew she was just moments away from tapping her foot on the ground, and that was never a good sign.
Hermione narrowed her eyes even further. Then her expression changed. All of a sudden, the scowl was gone and her eyes had gone wide. There was also a face-splitting grin on her face.
“Ah. I see,” Hermione said, smugly. Since when is Hermione smug, Harry thought idly. “You finally figured it out, huh?”
“Er, what?” Harry asked, confused. He wasn’t aware that his entire face was flushed.
Hermione giggled. “You’re such an idiot sometimes, Harry.”
“Hermione?”
Harry watched, bewildered, as his best friend turned back to his parent’s gravestones, amusement still shaking her entire frame as she giggled. He was completely lost.
Deciding that Hermione had finally gone completely round the bend, he turned himself back towards his parent’s gravestones as well. He smiled softly down at the place where his parents were taking their final rest. Harry couldn’t imagine a better place to realize that he was in love. It was a little odd, but maybe his parents were looking out for him and had in some way led him to realize his feelings. Harry turned back towards Hermione, only to find her staring back at him with a soft smile on her face.
“I love you, too, you know,” she said softly.
Harry’s eyes widened and Hermione laughed. Harry just stared at her in shock. He felt her use her finger to close his mouth, which had fallen open.
“It took you long enough to figure out your feelings. I had almost given up,” Hermione continued.
“B-but you...Ron...you and Ron! Ron...and...you!” Harry all but shouted.
“Shhhh! Don’t yell, Harry. Remember where we are,” Hermione scolded. “There is nothing between Ron and myself, except a healthy amount of disdain on my part for his lack of loyalty.”
Harry looked at her, disbelievingly. “But all last year! The birds!”
Hermione sighed. “Yeah, well, he pissed me off, what else was I supposed to do? You and I hadn’t been getting along all that well and the first moment that I had you to myself, the prat had to get in the way.” She paused and then continued, “And maybe I had a bit of a misguided crush on him, simply because the plonker I was in love with was mooning over the little red-headed bint. I figured that if I showed interest in Ron, you’d take notice of me. Of course, that didn’t work.”
“I...I...” Harry stuttered. His mind was almost completely blank. How had he missed all of this? He could be honest with himself and say that he wasn’t the most observant person in the world – he did have other things going on in his life, namely a psychopathic dark wanker out for his blood – but surely he would have noticed that his best friend was carrying a torch for him? Wouldn’t he?
After a few moments, Harry grinned. Then he turned towards his parent’s graves once more and said, “Sorry mum and dad, but I have to do this.” Harry then turned back to Hermione, who was looking at him curiously and stepped closer to her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, before lowering his lips to hers in a soft kiss. Hermione froze for a second before kissing him back.
It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He’d always thought that the whole ‘fireworks’ thing was complete cliché, but the kiss he was sharing with his love – and how nice was that to say – made him see stars. When he went to deepen the kiss, however, Hermione pulled away and put a hand on his chest to push away from him a bit.
“Harry...I am not snogging you in a cemetery in front of your parent’s gravestones.”
Harry grinned and pressed a kiss to her mouth real quick. “So does that mean we can go back to the tent and snog,” he asked hopefully.
Hermione shook her head, a small smirk appearing on her face. “Maybe if you’re good. But first, we have to figure out who that is over there. They’ve been watching us for several minutes.”
Harry spun around. Sure enough, there was someone watching them from the shadows. “Well, shite.”
Hermione just giggled. “Language, love, language. Now, let’s get back to work, shall we?”
“Yeah,” Harry sighed. He turned back towards his parent’s graves for a moment. He pulled Hermione close to him and she snuggled into his side once more. He sighed again.
“Merry Christmas, Hermione,” he said finally, giving her waist a squeeze.
Hermione smiled up at him and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Harry.”
fin