//Will you hold the line?
When every one of them has given up and given in, tell me//
Screams. Blood. Pain. Lost. Death.
One would think this is not normal. War is not normal for normal people. But when it comes to a life full of chaos and suffocation, you get used to the darkness.
Hermione Granger was eleven years old when she was thrown into a dark world full of magic. She had never been normal, Hermione always loved books more than people; she knew there was really bad people in this world. At eleven years old she received the letter that changed her entire life. Being different was always an issue with the little Granger, and she naively thought Hogwarts was the place where she would finally be accepted. How wrong she was.
In a world full of weirdness, she was bizarre. Daughter of muggles, she was a Mudblood.
Bullying was the first pain she experienced. She was all alone in an unknown world, so she found shelter once again in her precious books. The little know-it-all bookworm with bushy hair and bucked teeth was rejected for almost two months until she finally, finally made two friends. It just took a troll to almost kill her for that. However, in that moment, Hermione Granger was not alone anymore. Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley became her world. And that world became darker.
Her relationship with Ronald wasn’t always good, she isn’t sure she’d have called them friends until much later. But they always had a common ground, the same goal. Keep Harry Potter alive, no matter what.
With time, though, that weird relationship became more. Ending together was something everybody expected, just like everyone expected for Harry to defeat Voldemort, Ron and Hermione would end together.
However, nobody anticipated the darkness that surrounded Harry Potter. Year after year of friendships, laughter, unconditional support, Lord Voldemort was back. She has been hurt, she has been turned into a half-cat-half-human, she has been petrified by a basilisk, she has helped a convict to escape imprisonment, she has helped The-boy-who-lived to keep living, she has been cursed by a Death Eater across her chest and being in a coma for two weeks due to the pain, she has been named as Undesirable No. 2, she has been on the run for almost a year, she has been mark a Mudblood in her arm, she has been cut and almost rape, she has been capture and torture for hours almost to the brink of insanity. Everything for Harry Potter.
“Mione, please, come with me. Let’s run away from all of this, away from the pain. Just you and me,” Ron has whispered to her ear one day, sweets little nothings and promises of happiness.
“Ronald...you know we can’t. Harry needs us, he can’t do this alone,” every time something became too much, every time she thought on giving up, every time Ron asked her to run away with him, Hermione repeated over and over again that. Harry needed her. Harry couldn’t do all of this alone.
The redhead asked her that three times, the first two he understood, and he stayed. But the last time, the last time he made her choose between their love, and Harry.
“I love you; I need you by my side! I need my family, and I need you to be alive! Safe! Why don’t you understand that? Being close to Harry means hurt and death! His parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, Mad-Eye, Hedwig...me and you! How many scars do we have because of him? Don’t tell me that your wounds are worth it. Worth him!”
The pain was raw; the wounds bleed too much, but the one in their heart was too much. But not enough, not to her.
“Ron, don’t do this. Don’t make me choose again, because the answer will always be the same. Pain and death are never worth it, Ronald, but him, Harry, will always be worth it. No matter what. He needs us, he will defeat Voldemort, and we will be by his side. You can’t choose an out, Ronald, we’ve been in this darkness since the beginning. He is not your friend, he is your brother, he is my brother, and he is bloody worth it.”
However, no matter how hard you want to believe it, sometime it’s not enough. Harry Potter was her everything. Since she was eleven years old, she has done everything for him. Fight for him, kill for him, cry for him, use every little knowledge in her brain for him. All to protect him. And Harry, her sweet Harry, has done the same for her. Ronald's abandonment hit both of them hard. They were supposed to be the Golden trio, always and forever. But it wasn’t enough. Seeking refugee in one another was natural.
“Hermione, I’m so sorry you’re stuck with me,” Harry never thought he was worthy; sadly, they were both alone in this dark world.
“No matter what, Harry James Potter, I will always be by your side. We are soulmates, remember? Together always and forever,” She truly believed it. She and Harry were soulmates; not romantically, both of their hearts belonged to Ginny and Ron. Hermione believed the main reason of her existence was to be by Harry Potter’s side. Until death do them part. And it did.
They knew fighting Voldemort was going to be hard. Finding Horcruxes with little to nothing of information, was like looking for a needle in a haystack; however, no one saw coming the devastation this war could bring. Screams. Blood. Pain. Lost. Death. The first time she saw Harry’s body being carried by Hagrid, she thought her soul was leaving her body, like her heart shattered in a thousand pieces. But then he wasn’t dead; he was fighting again, and the ones standing, fighting by his side.
Then she felt it. The sharp pain in her heart compared to nothing she had ever felt before, and she knew. Hexes cut her torso, blood run down her legs, a dark curse hit her hand, but she didn’t notice. Nothing mattered when she saw his body.
Everything disappeared around her. She saw the malnourished face of Harry Potter when they were eleven years old and she met him in the train to Hogwarts. She saw his happiness at the end of the Great Hall when she was cured from the petrification. She saw the pain in his green eyes when he learnt the truth about his parent’s death. She saw the fright in his thin face when the goblet spat his name. She saw his rage when Umbridge punished innocent first year students unjustified. She saw him crumble when he used a curse for the first time against Draco Malfoy. And she saw his strength and determination, his bravery and loyalty, his pain and acceptance, in what was supposed to be their last year of Hogwarts. When her arms hugged his limp body, when her eyes saw the emptiness of his green eyes, when her fingers stroke his dull and dirty black hair; Hermione saw everything.
She didn’t notice the agonizing scream that left her mouth, nor the rawness power of her magic that left her body, incinerating everything around them. Hermione Granger was empty, shattered, numb, nothing. The only purpose she had had for almost eight years was gone.
Her soulmate was dead.
She never saw, or felt, that green light hitting her back, and taking her last breath away with Harry’s name.
//That's the price you pay
Leave behind your heart and cast away\\
by Kami Wolf
