Chocolate Eyes

    “Hello, Chocolate Eyes,” he said, smiling weakly.

    “Harry,” her anticipation mounted with the word. This man, this beaten, broken aged man, was her best friend… only more.

    “How are you?”

    “Don’t ask me. You’re the one in the hospital bed,” she stated the blatant fact. Hermione looked at him, up and down his, now, fragile body. “Speaking of that… why are you in a muggle hospital?”

    “The muggles found me first, and the Ministry can’t get me out of here until the muggles permit my leave,” he answered as he slowly sat up with a painful look on his face.

    “Well, maybe I can get you out of here.” She went over to help him with the pillows beneath his head, he had messed them up when he moved to sit up. “I do have some say in it, right?”

    “What will you tell them? You’re a friend from school, whom I fell in love with when we went to war against an evil wizard who could take over the world at any moment?” his smug look giving away his sarcasm. Her face went slightly red from embarrassment of him mentioning his love for her. She sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs all hospitals provide for the unlucky visitors that have to sit in them.

    “What did you tell them when you were found? How did you explain these injuries?” she questioned, acting superior to the weak man laying in the bed next to her.

    “I was in a car accident and the man who hit me drove me to a nearby field trying to hide the fact that he ran into me.” His answer almost sounded true, the way he said it, like he had been practicing for days. Though no doubt he had; he was on his second week in the hospital when Hermione got the owl of his major injuries from the last battle.

    Hermione sat still for a moment, thinking. She thought of why she had chosen to stay away so long, of how hard it was for her to be back in London with everyone she had grownup with, and of why she had left in the first place, how horrible it must have been for them, her leaving. All these thoughts took place in less than a minute, it was all she had thought about for the five years she had been in the US, during her travels from New York City to the San Francisco Bay.

    “Hermione…”

    She looked up, and with her lips tight shut she sounded, “Hmm?”

    “I do still love you,” Harry stated plainly.

    The look in his eyes was over powering to Hermione. All she really wanted to say to him was, “Harry, I love you, too. These years away have shown me that, how much I missed you, wanted to come back, wanted to hold you.” But all she really said was, “I know, Harry, I know.”

    Their silence meant his sleep, and she let him sleep, looking at his face, wanting to sleep right next to it, in the bed as well. But all she could to was sleep with her head resting in his upturned hand, and that is what she did.

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    She was running. Running fast. Faster than she had ever run before. Faster than possible for a girl just out of the age 20. Faster than light it seemed. But the faster she ran, the farther, it appeared, she was from her destination. But after hours of running, running, running, she got to him. Too late to see him fade from life, he was already gone.     She did not weep, she did not scream or cry out for her beloved, she just sat there, on the ground with the bloody, dirty man in her arms, shaking.

    She whispered into his ear “Ron, Ron…” but he did not answer her.

    Other wizards gathered around her, not protecting her, or having sympathy for her loss, just filling in the empty space he had left when he first fell and her space she had run from to the hopeless aid of Ronald Weasley.

    It was loud; screams, cries of terror, and command were yelled across the field. But Hermione heard none of it. What she did hear were the shouts of, “Fall back! Fall back! Retreat!” And these, she obeyed.

    She dragged the dead man as far as she could, and even further, pushing her weight into the ground to move just one more step. When she could not go any further than impossible, she collapsed. The only reason she survived the stampede of the rush to get away was because as he ran passed her, Harry grabbed her arm and held her limp body in his arms.

    He ran like this until he was safe in the building of his old school, Hogwarts Castle.

    When she was laying in one of the beds in the infirmary, he sat by her. “Hermione, I’m sorry about Ron. We’ll all be fine… eventually.” After a short pause, he added, “Hermione? I love you.” He hadn’t thought she heard, but she did.

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    “What do you say, Hermione? Should we try it?”

    “Yes, it will be our best move. It should give us a pretty good advantage on them.”

    “It will be dangerous, though.”

    “We’ll have to risk it.”

    Harry and Hermione made their way out the door, but as Hermione stepped past the threshold, a blinding red light met her eyes.