About Harry

Chapter 5 - Nineteen years before

'Leave the horcrux' Harry said.
Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair. He turned to Hermione.
'What are you doing?'
'What do you mean?'
'Are you staying, or what?'
'I..' She looked anguished. 'Yes- yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help –'
'I get it. You choose him.'
'Ron, no -please – come back, come back'
She was impelled by her own shield charm; by the time she had removed it, he had already stormed into the night. Harry stood quite still and silent, listening to her sobbing and calling Ron's name amongst the trees.
After a few minutes she returned, her sopping hair plastered to her face.
'He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!'
She threw herself into a chair, curled up and started to cry.
Harry felt dazed. He stooped, picked up the Horcrux and placed it around his own neck. He dragged blankets off Ron's bunk and threw them on Hermione. Then he climbed on to his own bed and stared out at the dark canvas roof, listening to the pounding of the rain.
Anger against Ron blinded and deafened him to everything except for the rain falling. But as it mounted up, by degrees, it subsided, leaving a void, and an immense sadness filled that hole.
He realised Hermione had crawled into the bed under his own, she was still sobbing. She had turned down the light and darkness had swallowed the tent completely.
He couldn't say how long had passed but she still couldn't sleep choked by her own tears. Harry reflected guiltily on how he had dragged her in this hopeless research, how difficult it must have been to send her family away and disappear from their life.
And now Ron.
He couldn't pretend anymore to be unaware of the feeling they had for each other and an intense pity for Hermione overwhelmed him.
He descended the bunk bed and kneeled beside her bed. It was pitch black in a night without moon, he couldn't see a thing. Following the sound of her sobs, he caressed her hair gently 'Hermione... I'm sorry...' he didn't know what to say to make her feel better, it was difficult to convey all that he meant, he had never been good with words.
Trying to stifle her crying, she took his hand; she didn't speak but he understood she wanted to reassure him.
He climbed on the bed and embraced her tenderly. She buried her head in his chest breaking down again. He kept caressing her thinking about the miserableness of their situation and an enveloping sense of forlorn took possession of him.
They stood there for a while, awake, just listening to the pounding of the rain. The only sound that could be heard in that disheartening night.
Slowly her sobs died away but she didn't relinquish Harry, they both needed that simple human contact.
It was a heart-warming sensation to have somebody to hug. Two warm bodies encountering, struggling to ward off the frost of the weather coming from the outside and a similar frost coming from the inside.
Harry brought his mind back to the last time he had had a comparable interaction. It had been with Ginny during his birthday, in her room.
He was reminded of that passionate kiss she gave him on that occasion and something in him started to change, to worsen. The sadness transformed in desperation, in an acute longing for something more, for something that could wipe out the misery of the reality they were in, for something that, for a while, would make him forget everything awful was happening in his life.
He hugged Hermione more tightly and kissed her head wishing to suppress all those emotions, to blend in her warm body to be protected from that dreadful coldness he felt.
Moving his hand, he brushed her skin and the softness of it brought the memory of Ginny even stronger in his mind, all that could have happened if his life would have been different.
And that thought, that memory, quite suddenly, acted like a switch that is turned on. And Hermione wasn't Hermione anymore.
She was something that could save him from that abyss of loneliness and desperation. He wanted to feel her body more. He wanted to drown every dark feeling in her.
He slid his hands onto her waist under her night shirt wanting to touch that smoothness again. She stiffened immediately and, after a faltering moment, she tried to push him away. Resisting, he let his hands rise on her torso and started to kiss her neck avidly. He felt her relenting, giving in to that urge of closeness that was now driving them both. With his face he brushed her cheek and felt it wet from the tears she had shed and while she hugged him more tightly, arching her body under his hands, new tears fell. He didn't register them, however. At that moment he could just feel her womanly body adhering to his own and that made the little control he still had over himself disappear.
He started to undress and to undress her frantically. Their bodies responded immediately as he slid on the top of her and, in a moment, it was bliss as he never experienced before. Everything, but those new feelings, was shut out.
His mind went to Ginny, and he was with her at that moment. He tried to control himself not to speak her name, but he wasn't sure he managed.
Hermione, under him, moaned and he hoped with all his might she wouldn't speak not to bring him back to the awful reality of what they were doing.
In a corner of his head a voice was thumping with violence trying to be heard, but the intensity of the sensations he was experiencing didn't leave space for anything else. He was deaf to his consciousness reproaching him loudly for this backstabbing act.
The height of pleasure was coming closer and closer. He tried to hold on as long as he could, guessing how quickly he would be back to his senses after that.
And he guessed right, it happened soon enough.
A moment before was the culmination of ecstasy, engulfing his mind and body in a spasm of pure rapture, and the next moment, it was all gone. Not a trace of it was left.
He let himself fall on the side of the one that was, clearly and painfully, Hermione and not Ginny.
He was aware again of what was surrounding him; the cold of the room on his sweaty body, the rain hitting the tent, Hermione slightly panting beside him. He got back to everything, the hopelessness, the misery, the loneliness. And on the top of that a new bad feeling was slowly creeping over him, guilt.
He wasn't willing to let it happen though; he didn't want to be crushed by the weight of a condemnation. He already had so much to bear. Just for one night he wanted to be free of it. Free of everything oppressing. He wanted to keep going with the pretence of being close to Ginny, happy and carefree. In a real cosy house, not in a tent, free of any danger, not with the threat of Voldemort and with a clean conscience, not having to rebuke himself. He had made love with Ginny and Hermione was going to be Ron's as it should have been.
He could do it; he knew he could. This was different from emptying his mind, something he had always difficulty in accomplishing, this was creating a different reality.
He canalised all his effort in it and he succeeded. After few moments, exhausted by the events of the day, he fell in a deep sleep.
When he woke the following day, it was several seconds before he remembered what had happened. Then he hoped, childishly, that it had been a dream, that Ron was still there and had never left.
Yet, then, regaining full awareness, remembered everything had passed after Ron left as well, and he couldn't kid himself with the thought that it had been a dream. He was naked in a bed that wasn't his own, traces of the previous night were all around him. A curse raised on his mouth fully remembering every detail.
What in the name of hell did I do?
He could hear Hermione in the kitchen and swiftly retrieved his clothes from the floor and got dressed. He went to the bathroom to ponder over the gravity of the situation and to compose himself, the first task easy to accomplish, the second almost impossible.
He took a hot shower that helped him to calm down slightly, but he still had no idea how to confront Hermione. She was there, outside the door and the awkwardness was going to be extreme.
Strangely he was reminded of how difficult it had seemed to be, in his fourth year, to ask a girl for the yule ball and how he had thought that facing the dragon had been easier. Now, he acknowledged, he would have preferred to face all the four dragons together instead of what was waiting for him outside the bathroom.
However, he couldn't stay locked in there forever, no matter how ardently he wished to do it, he had to face what was outside, unfortunately not four vicious dragons but just Hermione. He took a deep breath, all the courage he could collect, and opened the door.
She did not wish Harry good morning but turned away quickly as he approached her. They ate breakfast in silence. Hermione's eyes were puffy and red; she looked as if she had not slept.
He understood she would pretend nothing ever happened and it was fine by him. Nothing better could be hoped for.
By the end of the morning everything was packed, and nothing remained to testify the events of the night.
They behaved as normally, as the departure of Ron would allow for the whole day and by the evening, their pretence had been so well performed, that it was really as if nothing had ever passed between the two. The whole of it could easily be forgotten and filed away as an unhappy mistake not to be repeated.
Although, when the light went off and darkness enveloped the tent so similarly to the previous night, everything changed again for Harry.
He never felt so awake in his life. He was also very aware of Hermione out of the tent, keeping guard, just a few feet from him. A flash of the previous night popped into his head very vividly, too vividly considering that he had already forgotten about it.
He forced himself to change topic and obviously Ginny took that place, filling his mind with a strength that destabilised him. She was there so poignantly, her smell, the softness of her lips kissing him. It was a torture. He punched the pillow to vent out the frustration, turning stomach down.
He wasn't doing a good job. He needed to change his train of thought.
He imposed himself to think about Voldemort, the seriousness of the task he had to perform, the danger, the horcrux still to be found, so many perils surrounding them...
Funnily enough, all that struck him was that the night before he had rekindled the memory of Ginny to banish Voldemort from his head. Now he was reviving Voldemort to banish Ginny. Harry smiled realising it.
He was sure he could master himself though. He had to be determinate and just try to sleep.
It took more than half an hour of turning in bed obsessively to realise that it was impossible. There were things that couldn't be mastered so easily. He sighed. A long sleepless and restless night was waiting for him.
He then heard a sound; Hermione was back in the tent.
To get a glass of water surely.
But no, she was climbing onto his bed.
Thank god!
The night was not going to be as he had envisaged after all. And thinking that, he heaved a breath of relief and pulled her toward him.