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A/N: Again, inspired by some music, this time Eva Cassidy and Fields of Gold - https://youtu.be/9UVjjcOUJLE?si=tI3lqrSe0CYY-Lzy
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She felt her grip on his hand slacken, and the world fell out of focus.
A gentle warmth fell on her face, a slight, cool breeze on her skin.
She drew in a deep breath, so easy now when it had been so hard before, and relaxed.
It wasn’t that the things from before didn’t matter anymore, they just didn’t matter here. It was a place beyond earthly concerns. It was something she knew and felt in her bones. Like … an exam, after they tell you to put your pen down. It was important, but the moment for action had passed and until the grade came back it was alright to let it go. Not that there would be any grading here.
It felt strange to accept that so readily, after she had spent a lifetime measuring facts and data to arrive at the best understanding of the truth. To just, accept. She didn’t know what there would be, but she felt sure that judgement didn’t enter into it. Perhaps that was unfair, if the unjust went unpunished … but a part of her didn’t mind. She was certain there would be no more injustice either.
When she finally opened her eyes, she found herself stood on the crest of a hill, beneath a leafy, green tree, as fields of golden barley stretched into the distance.
Something about the horizon called to her. Gently, but called all the same.
The stalks, rich with ears of seed, swayed gently in the wind. As certain as she was about everything else, she knew that none of those leaves would ever fall and the barley would never need reaping.
“Hello, Miss Granger.”
Turning towards the voice, she was not surprised to see her old headmaster standing beside the thick tree trunk. Not that she had expected him. It was just that surprise no longer meant anything, nor served a purpose.
“Hello Professor,” she smiled. Albus Dumbledore had been many things in life and, it transpired, had made many decisions she had disagreed with. All the same, she smiled. Those concerns were far away, and only transitory. In these fields, and beyond them, those troubles were only a blip. The briefest of punctuation in the text of existence.
“I hope you won’t be offended when I say I had hoped not to see you here.”
She shook her head, and her gaze swept back across the landscape, “To tell the truth, I’m just relieved there’s a here to see me in.”
Somehow the sun here moved but never set. That seemed impossible and would have bothered her before, perhaps even unsettled her. Now it was just a fact. Their shadows moved, and yet the day never grew old.
Some old habits died harder than others, and she couldn’t not be curious. “I hope you won’t be offended either, but why are you here?” Another impossible certainty, but she knew this wasn’t normal. If there was a shepherd, or a reaper, of men she felt instinctually that they did not show up for everyone … but if they did, they wouldn’t deputise.
“Forgive me for intruding on you. I’m waiting for someone, you see. Or, two someones, I suppose you could say.”
“Oh,” she said, understanding all too well. As much as most of her worldly emotions, like fear and frustration, had fallen away from here, she was intrigued to find she still had the capacity for sadness. “I’d hoped not to see him here either. Not any time soon.”
“Don’t be sad, Miss Granger. If things go to plan, and Harry has never let me down before, he may not be staying long. But he, and Tom, might need help getting to their destinations.”
For a moment, the pull on the horizon intensified slightly.
She frowned, “You mean, this isn’t it?” What could there be, out there, beyond a perfect field on a perfect day? “What comes next?”
He chuckled. “I haven’t the foggiest. That’s all part of the adventure.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Oh, forever and no time at all.”
They stood in silence for a while, before she spoke up again. “Actually, Professor, I think I’ll wait for them instead, if you don’t mind.”
He smiled softly, “I was hoping you might say that. I think that’s a much better idea.” He took a single step away from her, before turning to her one last time, “I’m eager to see what happens next, you see. And I think Harry might prefer to see his best friend rather than this old man.”
Without seeing him go, she was left alone. The horizon was there, reminding her of the way, but she stood where she was and closed her eyes again and did nothing but feel the wind on her skin.
After an indeterminable time, that may have been forever or it may have been no time at all, she heard a cry from the foot of the hill. It was a … wet sort of sound, and oddly unpleasant. The only discordant note in a perfect world.
Without hurry, she let her feet carry her towards the noise, moving between the barley which parted for her body gently, brushing the tips of the ears with the palm of her hand.
The trickle of running water guided her the last of the way.
Despite knowing what his presence here meant, she couldn’t not beam at him. He was curled up on the floor, with his eyes closed, beside a stream of cool, clean running water. He didn’t look much older than when she had last seen him, through the darkening of her eyes, but somehow, he looked even more bruised and bloody. It was okay though, because one way or another, that would not last.
The piteous mewling, which so offended her ears, came from a small bundle of wrapped cloth at his feet. It moved slightly and she understood what, or rather who, it was.
Bending down to him, she said, tenderly, “hello, Harry.”
He sat up sharply, pushing his glasses up his nose. It was amusing because there was no need for glasses here, but she supposed the self remembers its shape too hard to let things like that go. She wondered for a moment whether she had her original teeth back.
“Hermione,” his voice broke as he staggered to his feet, “but you’re …”
“Yes,” she said, “but it’s okay.”
He turned away from her, so that she would not see him cry. His dirty hands which wiped them from his face gave him away, but if he didn’t want her to look at him while he cried that was okay too.
“I guess I am too, then” he said, eventually. Trust him, to be more upset about her than him.
As surely as there was a place beyond here, she knew that wasn’t quite right. “In a way. I think … I think you could find your way back. If you wanted to. Special circumstances, I guess.” She looked at the bundle at his feet, “That must be what’s left of him. Or the part of him that was hidden within you.”
He frowned at it, while it kicked and struggled under the blanket. “I feel sorry for it.”
She didn’t, but neither did she hate it. What she did was admire his capacity for compassion. That was what she’d fallen for, in the first place, so very long ago. “I don’t think this place was meant to handle something like him.”
“Where is here, anyway?”
She laughed, “A barley field. I thought that would be obvious.”
Despite himself, he smiled. “I was meaning in a more …” he struggled around for the words, “How would you describe it? In a metaphysical sense?”
“I don’t know. Paradise? A waiting room? A crossroad? Maybe all of them at once?” She shrugged. She was curious too, but it didn’t seem like answers were likely to be forthcoming. If it was to be a mystery, at least it was a pleasant one. “I just know that there’s somewhere to go on to.”
She looked back at the bundle and heard the waters of the stream.
Kneeling down, she picked the thing up off the floor and handed it to Harry. “I think he needs help.” With a little nod towards the stream, she guided him to the water. She could have done it herself, but she thought it was important that it was him who did it.
In the reeds, there was a basket. Had it always been there? Or had it only just now always been there? Without prompting, Harry lowered what was left of Tom Riddle into it. She took his free hand in hers, glad she still had a hand in which to do it.
He pushed the basket with his fingertips, freeing it from the bank. The slow current pulled it downstream, and they watched it go together, until it rounded a corner and disappeared behind the barley, out of sight.
She brushed her thumb absently over the back of his hand.
In response, he squeezed her hand in his. “Have you … been waiting for me?”
“Only since I was thirteen.” He blinked in surprise, and she realised she had misunderstood the question. To her, they were the same question, but she could see why he wouldn’t get that. “Oh. You mean, since … well, yes. Yes, I have.”
“But you…” he blinked, perplexed.
She looked down, a little ashamed of herself. “Sorry. It probably wasn’t very fair of me to tell you now. I just thought … I don’t know what happens when I go wherever we go. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to tell you when I get there. So … with no expectations, or obligation …” She shifted around on her knees to look him in the eye and took a deep breath. This was something she needed to do, for her.
“I love you.” Before, she would have struggled to tell him. How sad that it took the washing away of her fears and frustrations to tell him. If only she’d had the courage before.
“I … I had no idea,” he said, finally. There was a tenderness to his eyes she’d longed to see. “I … it broke me, when you died. Like I’d lost a part of myself.”
A deluge of sadness and warmth coursed through her. She gathered him into her arms, and he buried his face into her shoulder. “I used the stone to bring you back so many times, but … you were still somewhere I couldn’t follow. And every time you’d fade away…” She moved to brush her fingers through his hair.
“After he called me out to the forest, I used it again. You walked with me the whole way … told me it was okay to go, and that you’d be waiting for me. I don’t know if I could have done it, if it wasn’t for you. Was … was that you? Were you really there?”
She held him tighter, and considered telling him a sweet lie. In the end, she was afraid that might do him more harm than good. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t really me. I’d never have encouraged you to go. I don’t think the stone really brings the dead back to us. I think it’s a trap. Whatever it conjures leads people to ruin. It did in the story, and it did the same thing to Dumbledore, and you. Whatever she was … she was right about one thing though. I’ll be waiting for you, as long as it takes.”
“I love you,” he muttered into her.
It felt like she’d waited all her life, and then some, to hear those words. It made her sad that she’d only got to hear them now, but that was nothing compared to the fact she’d heard them.
His arms came up behind her. She hadn’t thought it possible, to feel better than this golden paradise made her, and yet, here she was. When he finally straightened up, they were left awfully close together.
“To be clear,” she asked, with a smile, “When you say that … do you mean as a friend?”
He leant forward and brushed his lips against hers and she melted into him.
It seemed like forever, and it seemed like no time at all.
They parted, and he whispered, “I mean it like this,” and kissed her again.
A knot in her, one that had existed since she’d held onto the back of him tightly as Buckbeak had delivered them to the top of the castle, relaxed. The horizon seemed to call her that little bit more strongly, but she wasn’t done here yet.
She rested her forehead against his.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“You get a choice, I think. Go back or go on.”
“What about you?”
“My choice is different,” she said, simply, not wanting to influence his decision. “Can you feel the horizon calling you?”
He frowned slightly, as if listening to something, “Yes, but … I can also feel something else too. I can’t explain it. It’s like … when you feel tired. Something urging me to rest my eyes.”
“That’s the choice then.”
They got to their feet, and he dusted himself off. Curious, she thought. The dust hadn’t accumulated on her at all.
“What should I do?”
She should tell him it was up to him, and not lead him, but … he had asked, so maybe it was fair. “I think you should go back. You’ve still got a lot left to do, haven’t you?” There was enough hereafter he didn’t have to worry about her, and time didn’t seem to work the same here anyway. She didn’t want him to miss out on the only chance he’d get to have the world. He’d traded so much for it, after all.
He refused to unthread his fingers from hers. “But what about you?”
She gestured around her, “If you can wait for me, I’ll be here.” Whatever was calling her on didn’t have nearly enough power to stop her. She’d only go when she was good and ready. She led him by the hand back up to the tree where she had first arrived here. They sat side by side, their backs against the trunk.
“Are you sure?” he asked again, “I … don’t want to leave you again. I don’t have to go back. They don’t really need me.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said simply, “but I can be patient for a bit longer.”
He put one arm around her, and she closed her eyes and nestled up against him. The fabric of his shirt was soft against her face, and she found herself dozing off in the warm sunlight.
By the time she awoke properly, he had gone.
Leant back against the tree, she sighed.
She sat there, one arm wrapped around her knees. Her fingers played idly with the grass forever.
In no time at all, a shadow crossed her vision, and she looked up.
He was older now, white in his hair and wrinkles on his face, his body thin and wiry, but still recognisably the same man.
With one hand he reached out to pull her to her feet, and by the time she had stood up the years had disappeared from him. The self remembered.
“You waited after all,” he said warmly, “I always hoped you would.”
She threaded her fingers through his and looked out toward the horizon.
“What now?”
“Well,” she said, pointing, “We could cross that hill. See what happens next. Or …” She had no idea how much time had passed here, but she could stand to spend a little more. “Or we could go for a walk.”
He smiled, “I think I’d like that.”
Arms linked, they set out together.
And the wind moved the barley.