Berserk

Berserk

By FenrisWolf

Wherein Lord Voldemort learns the hard way that there are lines that even a Dark Lord shouldn't cross....

~~~~~

Prologue

~~~~~

Harry raced across the grounds of Hogwarts towards the Forbidden Forest, his heart pounding in fear, the piece of parchment clutched forgotten in one hand. The last three days, ever since Hermione had been kidnapped, had been the longest of his short life, his days made terrible as his emotions whipsawed between fear, grief, guilt and anger. His nights were even more terrible as his all-too vivid imagination conjured up visions of the torments the girl he loved might be suffering as a price for loving him.

Then that evening a raven had flown in the window of his dorm room, a note affixed to its leg. It didn't wait for him to approach; simply pulled it free with its beak, dropped it on his desk and flapped away. With trembling hands Harry unrolled the note, reading the spidery writing written in dark, reddish-brown ink whose nature he didn't want to consider.

Dear Potty;

So sorry your mudblood harlot was unable to meet you for your tryst the other day. She's waiting for you now, in the place you were to meet before. I'd hurry if I were you.

love and kisses,

Lestrange

Ever since Hagrid had left on another mission for Dumbledore, he and Hermione had been using his hut as a meeting place. There was nothing smutty about it; aside from some very enjoyable snog sessions, their physical relationship hadn't progressed very far. No, the comfortable surroundings of Hagrid's home were cozy and intimate, and let them escape the daily pressures of their lives for a few hours. Sometimes Harry cooked dinner, and once Hermione attempted the same, but much to her embarrassment her brilliance in all things did not extend to simple acts of domesticity. Harry had manfully choked down the meal, but by unspoken agreement any further attempts were left in his hands.

The last time they were supposed to meet, however, Harry had arrived to find the hut a complete shambles, the door smashed, furniture overturned, and his heart had stuttered at the sight of a large bloodstain in the middle of the floor. A quick search while he screamed her name had proven that she was missing, and even the Aurors that Dumbledore quickly summoned were unable to find a trace.

So Harry was ordered back to the castle, and the operatives for the Order of the Phoenix were put on alert to keep an eye out for the missing girl, but Harry knew in his gut that they had very little hope of finding her alive. Only the fact that they hadn't killed her on the spot offered any encouragement, but it was slim, very slim.

Ron and their other friends had tried to keep his spirits up, but Harry was unable to pretend that the situation was anything other than desperate. Not even during his fifth year when Voldemort had plagued him with visions and he'd felt like the whole world had turned against him, had he felt so completely helpless.

Harry's thoughts returned to the present as he skidded to a stop outside Hagrid's hut. The crudely repaired door was ajar, but no trace of light showed within. He knew he should wait, should have contacted Dumbledore, but if there was any chance for Hermione, he would take it. With wand outstretched, he entered. "Lumos."

All the wreckage from the earlier attack had been cleared away, with the few sturdier pieces of surviving pieces of furniture left pushed against the walls. What drew Harry's gaze was the shrouded form lying in the middle of the floor. "Hermione?" he whispered. He dropped to his knees beside the slowly moving shape and with one trembling hand twitched the fabric aside.

"NOOOOO!" he screamed as the bloodied, tortured form of his beloved was revealed. Her face was almost unrecognizable under the bruises and swelling, the soft, bushy hair he loved so well was matted with blood; every inch of her body that he could see was covered with more of the same, and even though she was completely unconscious, she continued to writhe in pain from the aftereffects of the curses that had been placed upon her.

He was frozen for a moment, his mind in shock; suddenly Hermione's breath hitched as a particularly bad spasm wracked her body, and Harry was jolted into action. He quickly cast the strongest healing charm he knew, though he was woefully aware how little it was in the face of her injuries. He then cast the diagnostic charm he'd learned during the magical first aid lessons he'd studied under Madam Pomfrey. As the charm's glow formed around her battered frame its color shifted to indicate her condition, and he blanched.

She was dying.

She had massive internal injuries; her lungs were filling with fluid, her pleural cavity was distended with blood from lacerated organs, and the combined pressures were affecting her heart. Even if she could survive the quarter hour it would take to carry her to the hospital wing, just moving her was likely to kill her.

Harry had never felt so helpless in his life, not when Cedric was murdered, not even when Sirius fell through the Veil. Hermione was the one who'd shown him what love was, when he thought all that was left in the world was pain and ashes. He was supposed to die for her, not the other way around. She was the reason he'd finally accepted his destiny to defeat Voldemort, so that they could have a life together. She couldn't die. He wouldn't LET her die....

Harry's connection to the magical forces harnessed by the Wizarding world had always been far more primal than the average wizard's. Most wizards had a touch of it, which was how accidental magic occurred. Harry's was strong enough to allow him to perform wandless magic, though only the most basic charms worked. Dumbledore had been convinced that he had the potential to do much more, but that for some reason his access to his full powers was blocked.

Now, faced with the prospect of losing the woman who meant more to him than his own life, grief ripped though him and attacked the barriers separating him from the magic he needed. Under the onslaught of his terrible emotions the barriers crumbled, and like a volcano erupting raw power flooded into him. It poured through him like white-hot lava, burning through him, forcing open the channels that until now had handled only a minute fraction of the load.

For an instant that seemed to stretch into an eternity he teetered on the brink of total destruction, with his newfound power threatening to consume him like a phoenix on its burning day, but then the balance shifted. The emotions that had breached the barriers gave him control of the power, harnessing it to his will. Instinctively he reached out and spread it like a cocoon over Hermione, anchoring her spirit within her torn flesh until the vessel could be made strong enough to hold her soul on its own. Then gently, tenderly, he lifted her in his arms, and with his need forcing the way, Apparated to the hospital wing.

~~~~~

Albus Dumbledore strode hurriedly down the corridor leading to the Hospital Wing, his features showing an unusually high level of worry. Ahead of him he could see the head of Gryffindor House waiting for him, her face a mixture of rage, nausea and fear. "Minerva, how is she?"

Tears glittered in the corners of Professor McGonagall's eyes. "Oh, Albus, it's terrible. I don't believe I've ever seen Poppy this worried before. She threw out everyone but Harry; somehow he's managing to keep her anchored here..."

The headmaster's breath hissed between his teeth.

"Aside from the blood loss and hypothermia, she has broken bones, internal bleeding, and a collapsed lung...and that doesn't touch on the other trauma." Her eyes grew flinty with anger. "The worst of her internal injuries stem from that. Poppy has already taken the steps necessary to prevent any...side effects, but Merlin alone knows what this will do to her spirit. I only pray she lives to recover."

"She'll live. I won't allow anything else."

Dumbledore turned at the voice, and flinched from the figure standing in the door leading to the infirmary. The potential that had lain dormant for so long was awake at last, but not in any manner the elder wizard had wanted to see. Rage poured off Harry like waves of heat, blinding the headmaster's magical sight. He switched to his more mundane senses and recognized the bloodied, disheveled young man on which so many hopes were pinned. "Harry, I am so--"

"Don't say it, Professor, just...don't. I've listened to you counsel patience again and again, and look where it's left us, where it's left her." His rage spiked up a notch as he gestured towards the closed door. "No matter what I do, she'll never be the person she was before this happened. I won't let them get away with this. I can't let them get away with...with..." He took a shuddering breath, struggling with his fury.

"In time, Hermione is going to wake up in there. I respect her too much to let anyone Obliviate her, even if Madam Pomfrey would permit it. That means that when she wakes up, she's going to remember what was done to her." His teeth bared in a snarl. "And when she does, I'm going to be there to tell her that she no longer has anything to fear from a single one of the sick bastards who did this!"

~~~~~

The black robed figure slouched in the carved onyx throne, a grimace on its lipless face. Its eyes were almost shut, just a sliver of slit-pupilled iris showing as it wrestled with the emotions resonating across its link with that accursed boy, Harry Potter.

When Voldemort's minions had first managed the abduction, the emotions had been anxiety and fear, followed by a delicious feeling of helplessness. He'd enjoyed those almost as much as he had enjoyed watching his followers 'entertaining' Potter's girlfriend. He hadn't let them kill her, however; far better to return her to his arms, so he could see first hand the price she had paid for loving him.

Lestrange and Nott had managed the return, leaving her in the same squalid hut from which she had been abducted. He'd estimated how long it would take from the time he sent the message to Potter until he found her, and the boy's first shivers of anguish and torment had been everything he could hope for.

He hadn't been certain when the Malfoy boy had suggested using her as a means of striking at his nemesis; she was a filthy little mudblood, he couldn't see how anyone could really care what happened to her, but apparently the little Slytherin had been spot on in his estimations. He'd been deciding just what sort of reward to give his informant when the first hint of something wrong echoed down the link. The anguish was still there, but it was being masked. Something far more primal was rising, and it took Voldemort a moment to realize what it was.

Rage.

The Dark Lord found himself being impressed by the intensity of the emotion he was sensing. It was bloody and hungry, and it was looking for a target - it was looking for HIM. He relaxed the barriers he'd placed on the link that existed between himself and the boy, and had smiled when he felt Potter's mind become aware of his. That smile had only lasted a few seconds, until the first wave of blind, berserk fury washed over him, tearing at his mind. He'd tried to put the shields back in place, only to have them ripped asunder by the next wave, and the next.

In the end Voldemort had been forced to drain the life force of seven of his minions in order to raise a barrier strong enough to hold back Potter's rage, and even then he could feel it clawing at the outside, trying to tear a way through to him. It was at this point that the Dark Lord had the first glimmering of fear, that perhaps pushing his foe over the edge had not been the wisest of moves.

That had been four hours ago. A dozen more drained husks were scattered about the room, their essence gone to feed the barrier that held Potter's fury at bay. Those barriers were crumbling again, but this time Voldemort didn't bother reinforcing them, because he knew it didn't matter. No point in erecting wards against the mind of the Boy Who Lived when he was there in the flesh to kill you.

Buh-doom.

Buh-Doom.

Buh-DOOM.

BUH-DOOM.

There was a tremendous crash as the bronze doors were blown inward off their hinges, one of the great valves crushing Nott into an oozing pile of shredded flesh. Beyond the entrance, enveloped by a nimbus of Rage-fueled wild magic, stood Harry Potter. Tendrils of green fire flickered across his skin and pooled in his eyes. His hands were clenched into fists, and every few seconds he flexed them, sending pulses of energy through the chamber.

Voldemort stared at the figure that stood in the entrance of his sanctum, and swallowed nervously. No, using Granger to bait Potter hadn't been such a smart idea after all...

Bellatrix Lestrange barked a strained laugh. "Why are we just standing here? There's twenty of us, and only one of him! MacLane, Goyle, all of you move in!"

The circle of Death Eaters started to tighten; Harry just stood there watching them, until the closest was within a dozen feet of him.

"Apertum Liminis!"

They didn't even have time to scream; every being bearing the Dark Mark was enveloped in a column of green fire, and Voldemort felt a wave of nausea as the walls between dimensions were ripped asunder and his followers were hurled...somewhere. He had only a fleeting impression of towering columns of fire and brimstone, and capering things that clutched and tore at the new toys just given to them, before the portals slammed shut.

When the last echoes of his spell faded away, Harry stepped forward into the chamber. Each time his foot came down, the room shuddered, the marble floor crazing with spiderwebs of cracks. The tremendous amount of power necessary to rip open a score of Gates was incredible, but he not only wasn't tired, he seemed...energized by the act of vengeance.

The last thought to cross Lord Voldemort's mind was both pithy and to the point. It probably would have annoyed him no end to learn that his words were the most common ones recorded on a Muggle flight recorder just before a catastrophic crash.

"Oh, shit...."

~~~~~

Voldemort threw curse after curse at the advancing figure, terror beginning to claw at his throat as they had no effect. Crucio, Imperio, and the penultimate, Avada Kedavra, splattered off the bubble of Potter's rage like snowflakes tossed into a blast furnace. This wasn't happening, his mind gibbered, it couldn't be happening. Where was this boy, this child, getting such power? Finally, in desperation, he channeled all his remaining power into his ultimate weapon, the Sundering Curse, last uttered before the sinking of Atlantis.

"Zakalayati Nibhandin!"

Voldemort felt all his remaining power, everything he had husbanded and gathered over the years in his quest for domination, drain into the curse. The blinding knot of energy, fit to rip apart the building blocks of matter itself, flashed at his foe--and vanished, absorbed into the corona of primal rage that surrounded Harry. The Dark Lord uttered a whining cry of fear and tried to flee, only to run headfirst into a blood-red bubble of force that sprang into being around the two of them, trapping him within the reach of the figure of vengeance that stalked towards him.

Harry glared at the quivering shape cowering before him that was responsible for so much death and suffering. This thing had killed his parents, had killed his friends, had ordered the torture and murder of countless others, and had made Harry's life, and the lives of those closest to him, a living hell. Now the one person whose well-being mattered more to him than anything in the universe lay in a hospital bed, battered, violated, because this creature had ordered it. No more.

He raised his wand and pointed it at his nemesis, and chanted the words not spoken with intent for over 3,000 years, since the fall of two cities of wickedness on the shores of the Dead Sea:

"Aroisrufio Malach Nekome!"

The form that erupted from the tip of his wand was not the silver stag of his Patronus. That was a charm of protection; this was a call for vengeance, brought forth by the rage of the righteous lashing out against injustice. The towering figure of the archangel rose above them, its presence both contained by the shield and stretching to infinity, to the very throne of Jehovah. The amorphous suggestion of ghostly wings flared outward, spreading a feeling of protection over all who sheltered beneath them, imparting a feeling of impending doom to those who deserved judgement. That feeling would linger over the landscape for weeks to follow, but it was only a side effect of what was occurring now. Within the chamber, the translucent figure passed judgement on Voldemort, and the Dark Lord was found wanting. A flaming sword rose into the heavens and struck downwards, and with a despairing cry Tom Riddle was banished from the world of men forever....

~~~~~

In a dimension normally accessible only in mankind's most horrifying nightmares, the being known as Chernobog sat on its throne of bones, watching with boredom as its minions tortured and flayed one another. There was no spark, no spontaneity, it had summoned these things into existence, and no matter how hard it tried to deceive itself, it always knew an instant before they did just exactly what they were going to do.

Suddenly a ripple passed across its realm as a portal was ripped open, something was thrown through, and then it slammed shut again. Chernobog felt its interest stir as a presence impinged on its senses. It hadn't felt anything like this in so long, it felt like...it was! It was a human, one of those pathetic talking monkeys that capered about at his Enemy's whims! It hadn't had one of them to play with in eons, ever since the Enemy sealed the gates against Chernobog with his priests and his prayers.

The being reached out and summoned its new plaything into its presence, tittering as it read in the worm's mind its pathetic attempts at evil. Chernobog looked into its toy's soul and smiled viciously. "So, little worm, you sought immortality, did you?" it cooed, its voice echoing with charnel house screams. "You are truly blessed, then, for your fondest wish has been granted. You shall live forever, Tom Riddle, and give me and mine all the pleasure we can wring from your worthless being..."

The screams echoed into eternity.

~~~~~

The scream that shattered the silence of the hospital wing quickly subsided into sobs, and Madam Pomfrey hurried to the bedside of the young woman who had been so long unconscious. "Shhh, it's all right, you're safe now," she said softly, trying to ease her patient's fears. "No one can hurt you anymore, you're safe..."

Shivers wracked Hermione's frail body. Safe? She'd never be safe again, never be clean again, not after...after...her mind shied away from what she'd experienced, fastening desperately on the warning she had to give, the thing that had enabled her to cling to her sanity throughout her ordeal. "Harry! Where is he, I have to warn him--!"

A presence moved at her other side, and she flinched before she recognized the familiar messy, black hair and sad, green eyes. "It's all right, Hermione, I'm here, don't worry..." he whispered to her soothingly.

She struggled to maintain her composure long enough to speak, to impart her warning before succumbing to the pain. "Harry, whatever you do, don't leave Hogwarts! It's a trap; they're waiting for you! He told me, before he--before they--" Hermione's words stumbled to a halt as her will to continue failed her.

"It's all right, Hermione," Harry repeated. "The war's over, the threat is gone. Voldemort and his followers can't hurt you or anyone else, ever again, I swear..."

Over? How can it all be over? How long have I been here? She looked up at Madam Pomfrey, who correctly interpreted her frightened expression. "You've only been in hospital for three days, Miss Granger, but Mr. Potter is telling the truth as well. The threat has passed, V-V-Voldemort is no more."

Pomfrey's willingness to speak the feared name convinced Hermione when nothing else could. She turned back to her boyfriend, recognizing for the first time the new pain in his eyes. "Harry?"

"Yes, I did it, I defeated him." Shame flooded his features. "I'm so sorry, Hermione, I never should have let them touch you..."

Hermione's face blanched as his word finally brought to the surface what had happened. She whimpered and tried to pull away from him, but he clung to her hands. "Hermione...Hermione, look at me." When at last she did, he spoke fiercely. "What they did--Hermione, I won't begin to pretend to know what you felt, but please, please believe that what happened to you has no real power over the real you; not the Hermione in here." He touched a finger gently over her heart. "What they did means nothing. They could hurt your body, but not your soul. That is yours, inviolate, and nothing anyone else can do can harm or mar it. You have the most beautiful soul I've ever known, Hermione, and nothing has changed that. Whatever else happens, whatever else you might hear, never stop believing in this."

Hermione broke into sobs, and Harry awkwardly cradled her in his arms and let her cry herself out. It was what she needed, the reassurance that what had happened to her hadn't changed, or worse, damaged her in his eyes, and he would do whatever it took to convince her of that. Time enough to face his own demons when she was well...

~~~~~

Time passed slowly for Hermione in the hospital wing. Harry never strayed far from her side, but seemed to know instinctively when to speak and when to simply be there. A few people she allowed to see her, but at her request most were staying away until she was released. She wanted as few people as possible to have memories of her recovering from the attack, no matter what Harry said.

Of her classmates, only those a few of the professors referred to as the Six Musketeers, those who had accompanied Harry to the Department of Mysteries in the doomed effort to save Sirius, were granted permission to visit. Ron and Luna, Ginny and Neville, and of course, Harry. Her parents were brought as well, though at her request the details of her trauma were kept vague. The Drs. Granger were visibly upset to see their only child once again injured, but the news that the cause of all their fears was finally vanquished eased their concerns.

One surprise visitor was the taciturn Potions Professor, Severus Snape. He visited late in the evening of her first day awake, timing his arrival for a moment when Harry had been forced to leave her side. He wasted no time in pleasantries or chitchat, simply expressed his relief that she was safe, and handed her a small vial of iridescent green fluid.

"It is an extremely rare, and extremely potent, cosmetic potion," he explained. "It will eradicate any trace of blemish or scar that might remain from your...ordeal...so that no physical reminders will linger. It is one more way to thwart their evil, by erasing any outward traces of their actions." For a brief moment something strangely like sympathy flickered in his eyes. "We cannot remove all our scars, Miss Granger, but we owe it to ourselves and the memories of those who did not survive to destroy every trace of Riddle's madness that can be eliminated."

With that he left in a swirl of black robes, leaving her to drink or not as she chose. She hesitated for a few seconds, and then quickly drained the vial. A pleasant warmth enveloped her, and she watched in bemused awe as the faint traceries of scars that covered her arms faded from view, leaving unblemished skin. A quick check beneath her gown showed the other marks fading as well, and in a few minutes all the lingering reminders of her torment were gone from her body. Now there were only the scars within to deal with, and Harry would help her with those. Harry...

As he promised, he was there for her whenever she needed his strength and reassurance, making sure she knew she could get through this. When the counselor arrived from St. Mungo's to help her work through what had happened, he escorted her to and from the sessions, but insisted that she talk to the counselor alone, at least at first. He would support and protect her, but he would not allow her to turn him into a crutch. When the counselor deemed it time for him to be there, he was.

In time she was deemed well enough to depart the hospital, both Pomfrey and the counselor agreeing that the familiar surroundings of her own room would be better for her. Classes had ended weeks ago, but most of the sixth and seventh year Gryffindors had remained to support her, as well as a few friend from other houses like Luna Lovegood. When their NEWT scores were released Dumbledore threw a banquet in the Great Hall, and gave Hermione a special award for receiving the highest marks of any Hogwarts student in over two centuries. Professor McGonagall followed up by helping her answer all the offers she was receiving, both for jobs and for scholarships to advanced courses of study.

The one sour note in all of this was Harry. He still showed an uncanny ability to be there when and how she needed him, but as she grew stronger and her scars healed, he began to pull away from her. It was so gradual that at first she didn't realize what was happening, but at the awards banquet she noticed for the first time that he was withdrawing into himself, pushing others forward to take his place.

Over the next couple of weeks she tried several times to get him to talk to her about it, but he always managed to divert the conversation to another topic. Finally, with a week before classes were set to resume and those who'd stayed the summer would have to leave, and with a clean bill of health from Pomfrey and the counselor (though both recommended she continue the sessions for as long as they were helpful), she decided to pin him down once and for all.

Hermione found him in the Room of Requirement. She'd noticed that he was spending more and more time there, and each time she found him there, the surroundings were grimmer, more austere. This was the worst yet; the walls were bare stone, the floor the same, and it was damp and cold. The furnishings were even more disturbing: a simple, narrow cot, a single wooden chair and a plain table with a couple of thick candles, a sheaf of parchment, an inkwell and some quills, and that was all. There were no creature comforts of any kind, and two other facts alarmed her. One, there was what appeared to be a chamberpot hidden under the cot, and two, there was no latch on the inside of the door to the room. For whatever reason, Harry's requirements had been for a prison cell, and the Room had provided it.

Harry was seated at the table with his back to the door when she entered. He didn't turn around, but she could tell by the stiffening and relaxing of his shoulders that he knew she was there, and who it was who had intruded on his self-imposed solitude. "Harry, what's going on?"

Instead of answering her question, he simply said, "Poppy told me you were being formally discharged today, Hermione; congratulations."

The quill he was holding continued to scratch on the parchment, and suddenly, for the first time since her ordeal, Hermione was furious. "Harry Potter, you will look at me when I'm talking to you!" she shouted, reaching over his shoulder and yanking the quill from his hands. He flinched and without thinking turned towards her, and she recoiled from the naked agony in his eyes. "Oh, god, Harry, what's the matter?" she cried, and then she saw the words he'd been writing. "'I, Harry James Potter, do hereby attest and confess...' Harry? What is this?"

"What it looks like, Hermione, my confession," he replied, the pain and suffering plain in his voice.

"Confession? Whatever for? I don't understand..."

"I didn't tell you before, because I didn't want it to interfere with your recovery. The things I did to win the war, what I did to Voldemort and his followers...Hermione, it's not safe for me to be running around loose. I have to be put away, for everyone's safety." He sighed and dropped his head, no longer able to meet her eyes, the shame he'd kept bottled up so long breaking free at last.

Hermione shook her head in denial. "I don't believe a word of it," she whispered. "Harry, you're wrong, you must be..."

He just shook his head and mutely handed her the document he had been writing. She took it and read the terse, dry account of his actions, her face paling even further when it described just what exactly had happened in the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort. When she could stand to read no further it dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, and Harry choked back a sob.

"You see, Hermione? You see what I've become? And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, if that's what it took to protect those I love, to protect...you. I can't regret having the power to stop him, but I can't put anyone else at risk, either..."

Hermione's mind had been racing from the moment she finished reading his account and realized what it meant, and she spoke furiously at him. "And what about me, Harry? What happens to me when you lock yourself away?" He bowed his head and she found herself growing angrier by the moment. "You told me, while I was recovering, that nothing that happened to me at their hands mattered, that it didn't change anything. How can that be true if it means you leave me alone? How am I supposed to go on without you?" She gripped his shoulders and shook him, forcing him to look at her. "We love each other, Harry, at least that's what you said! Did you mean it?"

"Of course I meant it, I've never meant anything more; that's why I have to do this..." He paused, groping for the right words. "What I have to do has nothing to do with what happened to you, it's because of what I did--"

"What you did, you did because of what was done to me!" she screamed in his face. "If you lock yourself away, it's like they won! That what they did...to me...matters!"

"Don't you see, Hermione, no one's safe with me loose," he pleaded. "It's for the greater good--"

"Oh, very bloody noble, Harry! And what am I supposed to do while you're sacrificing yourself for the 'greater good', whatever the hell that means? You've been telling me for weeks to live, how am I supposed to do that with my heart ripped out by you playing martyr?" She was practically screaming now, tears running down her cheeks, and he started to get angry in return.

"That's not fair, Hermione. All I want is for you to be safe and happy; to live the life you would have had if you'd never met me. After what happened, that's what's fair..."

"News flash, Harry! Life isn't fair, and neither is love! It's messy, and dirty, and complicated! It's fighting and making up, sacrificing and being selfish! It's everything you could imagine, and everything else that you can't! But one thing life isn't Harry, is being alone when the person you love, and who loves you, is standing right in front of you!"

She struggled to calm herself, and after a moment, bent down and picked up the paper she'd dropped. She set it with the others on the desk, and with a simple gesture of her wand, set them all aflame. Harry watched as the confession he'd struggled so hard to write went up in smoke, and his shoulders sagged in defeat. At least he'd tried to the 'right thing', or at least he'd thought it was at the time, but just perhaps Hermione was making more sense than he. It wouldn't be the first time that happened... "So, what do we do now?" he asked, at a bit of a loss now that his personal plans for incarceration seemed to be on the scrap heap.

The anger faded from her eyes and she smiled, albeit a bit sadly. "We live, Harry. I know it's not something we've really thought about the past couple of years; everything was too wrapped up in just surviving to worry about what came after, if anything. But since we did survive, we are going to do what we haven't been permitted to do for seven long years. We are going to do what makes us happy, not anyone else. And what makes me happier than anything else, is you." She stepped into his space, wrapping her arms around him as his instinctively embraced her in return. "What about you?" She looked into his troubled eyes. "What will make you happy?"

As he looked back into her brown eyes, he felt the guilt and self-loathing that had entrapped him begin to crumble at last. "You," he sighed, "you make me happy, Hermione. If I'm going to live, if I'm going to have a life, it has to be with you. Nothing else matters."

And in the end, nothing else did.

~Fin~