Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

It takes a minute to have a crush on someone,

It takes an hour to like someone,

It takes a day to love someone,

But it takes a lifetime to forget a loved one.

* * * *

The forest path was dark. Dark and damp. It smelled of earth.

Hermione walked slowly, dragging her feet. Her head was down, hidden by her burgundy cloak. The cloak. His cloak. At the thought of him, hot tears started traipsing down her soft clean cheeks... "How long has it been?" She asked herself, "How long has it been since he left?"

* * * *

She turned over, reached out to touch him. But her hand clutched thin air, he was gone. A letter was left on the indent of his pillow. It was addressed to her in his cramped neat writing. She opened it with haste; there wasn't much to it, just a few quickly scribbled lines. The lines... They didn't say much. Just enough for her to know that he had left for good. He had left on Valentine's Day.

* * * *

"Valentine's Day two years ago," she answered her own question, "Two years should be enough to forget."

But she could not forget him. How could the rest of the Wizarding world have? Maybe it was the fact that she had loved him more than life itself. She reached into her breast pocket. Her fingers brushed against the letter. The last letter. She took it out. Opened it. Her sight blurred again as recited the contents.

"Dear Mione,

I'm leaving. I can't live here anymore.

I hope you understand.

Love Always,

Harry"

She had elaborated many hypotheses about why he had left, the one she thought was the most likely was that he had found another woman and had run off with her. What she didn't know was why he hadn't talked about it to her. That was the only problem with that hypothesis. They had talked to each other about everything. Everything. Every problem that they had with the other's life style.

* * * *

"Harry, you know that you can tell me if something wrong, don't you?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked up from his book,

"Yeah, you can always tell me if something is bothering you too, you know."

Then they had both laughed and gone back to what they had been doing before.

* * * *

Hermione sat down on the bench. It was old and worn it wasn't falling to bits. It held a whole infinity of romantic memories. She put her head in her hands. She sobbed, her hair falling around her like a curtain, hiding her from the outside world. She was oblivious to the footsteps of a human on the leaf covered ground. She was oblivious to a cloaked man sitting down next to her. A man, who was crying too. Crying for the worse crime he had committed. The hooded man looked at her. He extended his hand.

"I'm sorry Mione."

She looked at him.

"Harry! What are you doing here?"

"Happy Valentine's Day Mione."

He drew out a roll of parchment. He handed it to her.

"Maybe... you will understand why I left. If you forgive me... then I have... something to... give you..."

She looked at him. Her hands were trembling as she opened the parchment.

It was an edition of the Daily Prophet.

The newest edition.

A huge wizard photograph of Harry was plastered over the front cover. Across the top of the newspaper the headlines screamed:

Harry Potter reappears victorious after TWO years absence!

She looked up at him with a questioning gaze.

"Read it all Mione," he answered.

Her attention went back to the paper in front of her. She read:

After many years of absence Mr. Potter has finally come back. He was found in the Malfoy Mansion with the dead bodies of the Dark Lord and his faithful minions. He found bound to the wall by chains but by some miracle he had managed to acquire his wand. He had been suffering from malnutrition. This reporter wishes that Mr. Potter had been there at their arrival, he could have given more details...

It went on but Hermione looked up, flung her arms around Harry.

"Why did you leave? I could have taken care of you!" she exclaimed.

Harry looked grave as he replied,

"Mione, they didn't want me. They wanted you. They were planning on using me to track you down."

"Why did they want me?"

"There was this prophecy you see, I forget the exact words... But you see it came up to the fact that if they wanted to win the war they had to kill the 'deflector's' true love, which means that they had to kill you, my true love. I found out about their plans, left you that note, and ran. I'm sorry Mione."

He looked down at his hands as he whispered uncertainly,

"Do you forgive me?"

Hermione looked at him, tears of joy making her eyes glisten,

"Yes, Harry, of course I forgive you." She breathed.

Harry's face cracked into a grin.

But Hermione wasn't finished asking him questions,

"Harry," she asked, "what happened after you ran away?"

He sighed.

"They didn't bother me for about a month. One night I was missing you so badly that I was starting to think of going home. That was when they attacked. From then on I was eating dry bread and rainwater in Malfoy Mansion. At first they did nothing to me, then they started torturing me to know your whereabouts. I never told them anything. Finally they summoned Voldemort. He had my wand. He put it down by my feet where he thought I could never get it but Wormtail betrayed him. After all he did have a dept to repay. He grabbed the wand and handed it to me and said: 'Go on Harry kill us all this is your chance, soon it will be too late." So I killed them. Not using the Avada Kedavera, never that. No I did something they didn't expect. You do remember that before I left I had been inventing my own curses. Well I used on of them, it was a combination of a Middle Ages blood extracting charm and a "reducio". Basically it extracts all the victim's blood and simultaneously blasts it into billions of atoms. I was in the Malfoy dungeons for about a day before a group of Aurors got to me. Straight after they let me out of St. Mungo's I came here."

Harry smiled at Hermione and slid his hand into his breast pocket. He drew out his closed fist, took her hand, and asked,

"Hermione, will you make me happiest man in the world? Mione will you marry me?"

Hermione had tears running down her cheeks, as she nodded, she was saying yes to her dream.

FINIS