Hermione’s Letters, Continued

BY JENNA BLACK

Rewrite January 06

Weeks had gone by since the night that Hermione had sacrificed herself, and yet still no one saw Harry for more than a few moments each day. He hadn’t listened to Hermione’s last words to him, and in mourning her he died a little each day himself. The days were long, and the nights in his bedroom rereading her letter were even longer. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. The pain was slowly getting to be too much.

“How could you leave me Hermione?” Harry screamed into the emptiness outside his window. “You didn’t even let me love you until you were gone.” The tears streamed down his face, just like they had done almost continually since that night. Tonight hurt most of all. It was a full moon, and it was just like the night they had first kissed. The only night they had kissed. Harry looked out the window and thought back to that night…

They had been sneaking around the castle, trying to find a birthday present for Ron. They thought that better than any present you could buy; a present found in one of the abandoned rooms of Hogwarts would be that much better. But things hadn’t gone according to plan. Not five minutes away from Gryffindor tower they ran into a teacher patrolling. Thinking quickly, he pulled Hermione into a passageway he had found a couple weeks before. “Where does it lead” Hermione asked him, one hand in front of her face to keep out the cobwebs.

“I don’t know.” Harry had answered. “I still haven’t had a chance to go exploring it yet. It’s not on the map, but I think it leads to one of the other towers.”

“Lets go then,” She said, and whispered “Lumos” to light the way. The walked and walked, and then walked some more. After 20 minutes of walking, Hermione finally said “Enough! I want a break, and if we don’t come across an exit in the next five minutes lets just turn back. We still need to get Ron’s present by next week.”

“Okay,” Harry said, glad that she had wanted a break, his legs were sore, and he’d been wishing for one for the last few minutes. Sliding down against the floor, he looked up, and couldn’t believe what he saw. “Hey Hermione, look up and see who says hi.”

Hermione gave him a puzzled look, but in the end, followed his gaze up to the ceiling, and read along with the inscription “If you’re reading this, you’ve gone too far. Go back the way you came and use your eyes to find the door. Sincerely – Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs. Glad to know your fathers been here too. But there is no door there.”

“No of course not,” Harry said while laughing “Knowing them they hid the door, then made us walk to this spot before one of us would say we wanted a break, where we would then notice this, which when read, would trigger a door to appear. You know them; they would think it was funny. Suppose we better get going though.” With that, he brought himself up, and grabbed Hermione’s hand to help her as well.

Walking along carefully, they hadn’t walked for more than a minute or two when there, right in front of them, was the door. “Guess we better see where we are then,” Hermione said, and twisted the doors handle. It gave a fight at first, but stayed miraculously silent. Stepping through the door felt like stepping through a veil, and they emerged on the other side in a room unlike any they had ever seen.

It was a bedroom. It had curtains, and it had hangings, and it was quite possibly, the most normal looking bedroom in Hogwarts. Hermione walked over to the bed and plopped down. “Come join me,” she called to Harry, who had started looking at the pictures strewn about the room.

“You know,” he said. “I do believe this room is meant for trouble making. I found a note form ‘Padfoot’ over there saying to have fun.”

“Well if Sirius wrote it than you know it’s meant for trouble.” She said, all the while getting a very scary grin on her face. “I suppose we should oblige him though” she laughed, before tackling Harry on the bed. She knew exactly where his ticklish spots were, and went at him without mercy.

“Two can play that game!” He said through laughter, before turning around to attack her himself. Unfortunately, through their actions, the bed had gotten quite messed up, and at just that moment, the change in position meant just one thing. They were going over. Forced to stop he assault by the blanket wrapped around them, Harry finally noticed just how close Hermione was. “You know, I don’t think that’s the type of fun they were talking about.” He whispered in her ear.

“No, I don’t suppose so,” She breathed heavily “But you must admit it was fun. Besides, we can’t have the fun they’re talking about.”

“We can’t?” Harry whispered, this time his mouth mere inches from hers. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew in that moment he couldn’t back down yet. “Why not?”

Hermione struggled to get up, but being that she was covered not only by Harry, but by the blanket that had got them here to begin with she succeeded in doing nothing but bringing herself closer to him. So she did the only thing she could think of. “Because.” She muttered feebely. Though his point had been made, he couldn’t bring himself to quite let go yet.

“Because? I’m less than an inch from your face, and if you don’t say stop in the next ten seconds I’m not going to take ‘because’ for a reason.” He looked her in the eye, and saw that she wouldn’t do a thing. “1…2…3…4” By this point her eyes had started to close, and he could see her giving in. “5…6…7…8…” He moved his face so that their foreheads were connected, and though he couldn’t see her eyes, but he could feel her trembling through the blanket. “9…10” At that he tilted her head up, and gave her the sweetest kiss he could.

The moment their lips touched a damn broke inside of her, and she felt herself slide against him even more. He was soft and strong and everything she knew she wanted.

But not like this.

Taking a deep breath to pull herself together, she looked in his eyes, and said “Stop” With that, he came to himself again and slowly helped her off the floor. Once disentangled, she found her way over to the note Sirius had left. “Have fun, but not too much.” She turned the paper over, and in the glow of the candlelight she saw the sheen that meant this paper had a potion on it. “Harry, take a look at this.” She said, and motioned him, over. “There’s a potion on this. I’ll bet anything they meant, for us to find this room and do that.” She stated, with a sweeping motion to the bed.

“I guess so Hermione,” He said, feeling a little saddened to find out she didn’t like him like that. “Guess I’ll have to thank Sirius for that.” He reached over and grabbed the paper out of her hand. “Come on, we still have a search to do.” He grabbed her hand and led her to the door.

On stepping through, they found themselves right back in the common room. Hermione made her excuses and went up to bed, saying there was always another night to go searching. Harry couldn’t sleep though, and couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss. Pulling the paper out of his pocket, he looked it over once again and noticed some writing, smeared on the bottom, in barely legible ink

“This paper good for one use only. Must be redeemed within 5 years of purchase.”

Knowing that it had been a lot longer than 5 years since this had been bought; he started feeling good about himself. And he knew that something would have to be done about him and Hermione. With a sigh, he found himself ready for bed.

…That had been a month before she had left, and Harry had thought about it every night before he fell asleep. To have been so close, and known so well what she felt, and never done anything about it hurt so much. It is sadly true that sometimes the feelings never explored are harder to get over than the ones that have been. Looking out the window and seeing the moon only made it hurt even more. Suddenly and without warning he reached over onto his bed stand, where he kept his wand at all times, and drew it up to his temple. “Please just let me forget about her” He whispered to himself as he stroked the wand. “Please just let me forget.” The silence that followed was broken only by one whispered word…

“Obliviate”