shattered

Never Know

Disclaimer: Yeah, I own Harry Potter. What? Police? Geez, can’t you people take a joke?

A/N: This is the first Harry/Hermione I have ever written. Be nice, folks. Sorry to my Dramione readers, but this is my second favorite pairing, so I had to give it a shot. I’m currently working on a Dramione comedy fic, so hold on! Don’t give up on me! Oh, and this is pretty short.

Had she ever not loved him? Vainly she searches her memory, scours every inch for a time when he was not prominent in her life. Perhaps the time she has headed under the large file marked BEFORE in her mind of file cabinets and organized offices. BEFORE for Before Hogwarts, those two capital letters marking the insurmountable wall between her two lives, the one quickly fading, the other more real to her everyday.

BEFORE now, not only for Before Hogwarts, but for Before Harry.

Ever since she was eleven, almost twelve, and saw the little boy in ratty Muggle clothes under his robes who was practically shorter than she was with black plastic glasses held together by Spellotape and a trunk and an cage with a snowy white owl in it with no idea what he was doing and a lost, bewildered sort of air, she has loved him in her own way.

The clothes she could fix—Galleons in his pocket and visits to stores together as she picks out clothes for him.

The glasses she could fix—easily, so easily, a simple Reparo.

The height she could fix—visits to Molly Weasley and a continuous nagging at him to eat.

The ignorance she could fix—“If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times, for God’s sake Harry, study!”

But the lost, bewildered air, the insecurity she has never been able to fix, and it chafes at her so. She is the know-it-all, the smart one, the teacher’s pet, the little adult. She is Hermione, who smiles and knows just what to say and knows every spell in the curriculum and has memorized every textbook by heart and knows just what to do to make it all better.

But she can’t make it better for Harry.

It is Ginny who makes it better for him. And oh, how it stings to know that it is not her shoulder he will cry into, not her name he will cry in his sleep, not her room the first place he goes running to her when he is tired.

It is first year, and she is the little girl who goes to cry in the girl’s toilet when Ronald Weasley makes a tactless remark and her Harry agrees with him. Then Harry comes to save her, and she helps him, shows him how, and she realizes that this will be her role—he as the hero, and she as the heroine that saves him when no one else is looking, to help bear his burden.

It is second year, and she is the friend who doesn’t believe in the stupid rumors about Harry being the heir just because he is a Parselmouth. She is the friend who was smart enough to figure it out, who was the culprit. And then she was the friend who was stupid enough to go and get herself Petrified before she could tell Harry. But Harry came out all right after all.

It is third year, and she is the student who is so tired because of the Time Turner which she loves and hates with equal fervor, who does what she thinks is right even though Harry hates her for it and she cries herself to sleep because he won’t talk to her over a broom and she thought she meant more to him than a stick. But she is the student who still manages to help him—her, not Ron—save Sirius.

It is fourth year, and she is the beauty whom Viktor Krum loves. She is the beauty who feels hurt that it is Ron who notices she is a girl before even Harry, that it is Ron who asks her to the ball instead of Harry, and is twistedly glad that she agreed to go with Viktor. She is the beauty who is so happy when she realizes she will be one of the hostages, and so let down when she realizes that it is Viktor who holds her dearest, not Harry after all—how could he—and all her rationalizations (you had Ron and he didn’t) don’t make the pain go away.

It is fifth year, and she is the two-timer who sees how besotted he is with Cho, who wants to scream at him for chasing after that tramp, scream, she doesn’t know you like I do! All she sees is the Boy-Who-Lived, just like everybody else! All she wants is a replacement for Cedric! She is the two-timer who manages to be a good friend on the outside, who smiles and murmurs sympathy and even gives him romantic advice. She is the two-timer who all the while feels so dirty, so ashamed, because she is secretly happy when Cho storms off because of Harry’s visit to Hermione, perversely glad when Cho cries, and oh so happy when they break it off. She is the two-timer who excuses herself and goes to her room and she laughs hysterically even as the tears of self-recrimination stream down her cheeks.

It is sixth year, and she is the witch who feels so pathetically happy because she knows she has gotten prettier and hopes that maybe, now that he’s over Cho, maybe she has a chance? She is the witch who takes one look at Harry’s face and knows that he is not over Cedric, not over Sirius, and that now is the time to be a friend and not a girlfriend. She is the witch who is angry at Ron because he has brought up the fact that she and Harry are both invited to Slughorn’s parties, yet he never comes, skives off with Ron, laughing at the thought of her cooped up—does he hate her so much? She is the witch who mopes because Harry never even thinks of inviting her to Slughorn’s party, and so she has to invite Ron instead because she feels sorry for him, and then he goes and dumps her for Lavendar Brown, and she didn’t love him anyway, but her pride is hurt and her mind is angry and why oh why doesn’t Harry ask her out? And then she is the witch who sees him kiss Ginny and her world dissolves around her ears.

It is seventh year, and she is the heroine who invented the spell that killed Voldemort and all his stupid Horcruxes in one blow. It is evening, and everyone is getting drunk. Too much Firewhiskey and too much music and too much dancing and not enough sleep and it is hot so hot.

She knows she looks good tonight, she is wearing a tight blue dress that has a tantalizing slit up her lean thighs and no straps and an incredibly low, precarious top. Her hair is done up in a sort of bun and she feels Ron’s eyes on her the whole night, and knows that he is not the only one who has noticed her.

Harry why don’t you see me

Harry is drunk and she is drunk and somehow in the press of bodies while Draco Malfoy sings up at the karaoke (funny even after he changed sides she would never have pegged him as a karaoke singer) they are dancing together, and he is a hormonal young teenager and she is a girl in love and somehow his hand slips up her dress and she does not stop him.

Her dress starts to slip down her sides and her bra starts to come undone and he is taking her by the hand and leading her outside and his lips are on hers and they are warm, hot, demanding, and she opens her mouth to give him what he has asked for. Their tongues intertwine and she closes her eyes as his hands climb up her back, clench in her hair which has come loose.

She is in heaven, and she never knew that it could taste so sweet.

Then he presses her against a tree and they are snogging feverishly, madly, and she hears him moan, “Ginny.” And everything goes pear-shaped. Her eyes fly open and she gasps and stares at him, and his eyes come open too and she sees the drunken fog clear slightly and he gasps, “Hermione?” and the horror in his eyes hurts and he shakes his head dumbly and rearranges buttons his shirt and turns and runs, and she is left with tears of humiliation and hurt and rage rolling down her cheeks, left to refasten her bra and do up her dress and run shaking fingers through her hair and rejoin the party.

It is five years after school. Draco is a good man who loves her, and he never once complains about the distant way her eyes cloud sometimes, though he must know who she is thinking of—he isn’t blind and so much smarter than Harry, she tries to remind herself—and he has never once recriminated with her about the way she sleeps curled in a ball, even after they have had sex, about the way she has never once cuddled with him. About the way she stirs and moans, “Harry” in her sleep, even though he is a light sleeper and she knows he must hear.

She has never cried out when they have sex, for fear that she might cry his name. Draco understands, and doesn’t push her. Not when she snarls at him in irrational fury because he is not Harry, not when she closes her eyes when he kisses her, not when she tries to push up glasses that aren’t there when they hug, not when she dreams of the five minutes when she had Harry’s hands on her breasts and Harry’s lips on hers.

He never says a word.

And neither will she.

And Harry will never know.