Short Stories

The Disappearing Act

"Hey, there was something...what are you doing?" he questioned, shoving his hands into his pockets, and walking into the room to stand before her. He watched her throw everything she could fit into a suitcase, clothes, photos, everything.

"What does it look like Harry?" she replied a moment later, her tone measured and clipped.

"Well, uh, it looks like you're leaving? Are you going to your mum's house for the weekend or something?"

"Not for the weekend, Harry." She threw another pair of socks into her suitcase, refusing to meet his steady gaze. "I'm not coming back."

"Wh-what?" he goggled. "Why? Never?" a note of panic arose in his voice as his mind searched for something that went wrong, something he might've missed, and then came up with nothing.

"I can't take it anymore," she slammed her suitcase lid down. "Taking a back seat to your fame, watching all the girls and grown women tantalize you and fawn over you, you're never home Harry! You're always off on some promotional tour or saving the world from this or that! You know, once I counted up how much time we spend together. Do you know that out of the last 5 months, you've only been home for six days? SIX days Harry!"

She turned to him and he saw her eyes were suspiciously bright.

"I'm sorry Harry, I didn't want it to end this way. It's either me or your job as an Auror. You choose." She reached over and flipped the locks on her suitcase shut.

"So if I choose my job, I can't have you. And if I choose you I can't...be myself? Do what I love, what I was born to do? That's not fair, and you know that," he replied, clenching his fists. A single, solitary tear escaped and began to trickle down his face.

"I'm sorry Harry, I'm so very sorry," her voice cracked. "But I can't take it anymore, I can't keep going around, following you like some groupie or staying home waiting and wondering when you'll return. What kind of life is that? Choose." She turned back around, the tears flowing down her face.

"Then I'm sorry, but I can't give up being an Auror. If you can't accept that, then you don't accept me." His green eyes pleaded with her.

She nodded slowly, the tears coming faster. 'She's so beautiful....so beautiful' Harry thought. 'Why hadn't I noticed how beautiful she was before?'

She wrapped her fingers around the dark handle of her baggage, and walked over to him. She gave him a soft kiss on the cheek and flung her free arm around his neck for a few, brief seconds.

"I'll never stop loving you, you know that right? But I can't take this kind of life anymore," she whispered, her cinnamon eyes locking with his emerald ones. "Give everyone my love, and tell them....tell them that I'm sorry."

She pressed her hand into his, gave it a quick squeeze, and released. In a daze, he looked down and saw the promise ring he had given her in 6th year, still glimmering brightly as it dangled on its burnished chain.

She opened the door, looked at him once more, and then walked out. And with that Hermione Granger was gone from his life.