Cigarettes & Lucky Jeans

She hadn't slept for days.

His voice was dull and deadened. He stared at her.

"Do you love me."

It was more of a statement than a question. Weren't these sort of things always supposed to be questions?

She looked up at him, brown eyes glistening and luminous. Throat dry, lips cracked. "W-why?"

Harry was silent for a moment, and looked down. He spoke to his toes.

"Do you?"

Her throat choked up and she could say nothing. She had been running from the truth for days, avoiding him everywhere she saw him, ignoring the obvious pain on his face everytime he saw her, but no matter what she could not hide from the truth in her dreams and her heart--but still she did not want to face it.

She was in love with him, no doubt about that. Somehow he had found out.

They were going to ruin their friendship. No. Anything but the friendship.

Ron darted in and out of her mind.

Fuck Ron.

Lost in her reverie, she did not notice the way his eyes moistened, or how he blinked and a tear slid slowly down his cheek. They stood together as infinity whirled around them.

Finally, he stood up slowly as if the motion was very painful and released his firm grip on her arms. "It's all right. I'll just.. go. Now."

He turned and walked away, each footstep resounding in her head.

Don't go, she thought dimly.

Her mind was spinning and she was lost in a sea of memories. Harry running in the girls' bathroom waving his arms frantically at the troll, Harry sitting by her bed in the infirmary with his head in his hands until daybreak, Harry grimly and bravely emerging from the shadows carrying Cedric's corpse, Harry sleeping, Harry crying, Harry yelling, Harry never faltering, always there, never gone, always faithful, always her hero, always by her side, always loving... her.

Hugging Harry, kissing Harry, holding Harry. Dreaming of Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry. Only, always, Harry.

She couldn't hide anymore.

"Harry!" Her voice echoed throughout the empty corridor.

She ran.

"Harry?!"

She could not stop.

"Harry!"

She screamed.

She didn't know where she was going. All she knew was that she had to find him. She had to tell him. She had to save him before he left for Voldemort, she had to let him know that she was all his and that she always would be and all she ever saw and breathed in and felt was him, all him, only him...

She saw him walking slowly in the opposite direction, head down. A wave of sorrow burst in her already aching heart, overtaking her, pulsating through her veins. She felt like she was going to die.

No. He was going to die.

She stopped.

What did you do, what did you say, when the love of your life who you would never see again which you both knew and both could not say stood in front of you?

"Harry." Her throat hurt.

He turned around and looked at her, as if seeing her for the very time.

She ran to him and threw her arms around him and drenched his chest with her tears as if that could save him, drowning in the scent that was so very Harry and she never wanted to let him go and she knew she would never forget this moment ever ever ever she loved him and he dragged his fingers through her hair and pulled her up to him and kissed her salty tears on salty lips and they fused together her lips and mouth and hands telling him all he would ever need to know burying his head in her neck hermione hermione muttering sweet nothings and she never wanted to let go because she knew where he was going she knew he was dying oh harry please stay no no no

"Don't go."

"I wore my lucky jeans," he whispers hoarsely.

And then the warmth vanished and he was gone.

"I love you," she said, to an empty room.

---

She sees the announcement in the newspaper a few weeks later. Front page. Big, black, bold headlines that she cannot get her eyes to focus on or her mind to digest. Neither could live while the other existed... but it seemed as if neither could live if the other didn't exist as well. They were like yin and yang, good and evil, and she is not part of it.

All the same, when he died, she died as well. She misses him.

She drops her cigarette and curses as it burns her right where her heart beats but she doesn't bother to remove it, just lets it burn and sting and mark her.

Piercing her like a dagger that one cannot remove without causing instantaneous death.

She knows. She wishes she could have saved him.

Sometimes love isn't enough, and she knows this all too well, but all the same, she loves him.

Maybe he lost his lucky jeans.

The cigarette burns, and extinguishes itself on her flesh.