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When Hermione saw a dementor, she saw yellow eyes. She was sitting out in the wind and rain watching murderball, oh pardon, Quidditch, and she couldn't even read a book because she couldn't cast Impervious on each page fast enough to protect it. So she had to try and watch the game while she froze. And when it was so cold, they barely noticed it getting so much colder, except that Hermione kept blinking and seeing yellow eyes, and remembering her thoughts… moving… so… slowly…
"Dementor…" she whispered. But no one heard her.
She tried again, louder, "Dementor!"
She noticed that several children were screaming. Ron had Ginny in his arms, and both were crying. "Dementor!"
The players saw the Dementors coming, and their organised formations turned into scattered flight attempts. It was easy for her to pick out Harry, even with a helmet that obscured his hair and face. He was just so much smaller than his older teammates. And of course, he was paired with a larger Hufflepuff, because the two of them must have seen the snitch.
But Harry's broom drifted.
"Hold on hold on hold on…" Hermione prayed, both to Harry and to the frightened girl in her memory of the Yellow Eyes.
Hold onto that mirror, don't let go, don't let go of that mirror for one second, it's the only thing that's saving you!
Then… What if he falls? We just learned the spell for that, but I've only done it with pillows…
She got her wand out anyway, trying not to worry about what would happen if a Dementor caught him after he slowed. Then it wouldn't matter that he hadn't hit the ground.
Don't fall… Harry, don't fall… hold on… hold on…
She had asked him what he saw when the Dementor got close on the train.
"I heard my mum screaming. Then there was the thump of her fall," he said flatly.
She had never hugged him more tightly. Her own fear seemed small in comparison, even if it was her own near death.
In the air, the small figure fell off the broom.
And he fell.
so…
far…
down….
Just like first year, with the cursed broom…
Just like second year, with the jinxed bludgers…
Harry fell….
Hermione screamed the words of the spell, "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!!!!" trying to catch him, but her hands were shaking, and she missed the boy that fluttered through the air, tossed in the storm, with starving monsters waiting below.
"ARRESTO MOMENTUM!!!! HARRY!!!!! ARRESTO MOMENTUM!!!!!"
She didn't know how he was saved, because she felt herself growing dizzy. Too many dementors. Too many spells cast in succession.
Later, in the infirmary, she rolled her eyes as she realised that Harry was more upset about the broom and the lost game than about the fact that he'd nearly died or lost his soul!
"I don't know how to keep you safe," she whispered at him, after he fell asleep. "What if I'm not enough? What if one day you fall and no one is there to catch you?"
Four years later, she was running after Harry, up the stairs of the Astronomy Tower, the same Tower where Dumbledore had been murdered, and she saw him cup his hand around the back of Voldemort's neck. He gazed at him as if he were a lover, and the wild thought went through her head, Harry never looked at me like that…
He said something - words she could barely make out over the wind, and then the two of them went off the tower together.
She raced to the edge, screaming the spell. "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!"
Just like back then, she missed.
By the time she reached the bottom of the tower, it was over. Both wizards were dead. Broken.
Neither can live while the other survives.
I couldn't save you…
So she did the only thing she could for the boy she loved.
She never told anyone Harry's last words.
"Tom. I just want to finish this the way we started, together."
And she never told anyone that he rose onto his tiptoes to press a kiss to Voldemort's thin lips just as they toppled over the edge.