Remember Me

Does the name Hermione mean anything to you?

The question hung in the air above them. Harry waited with his heart in his throat. Hermione just stared at him. The moment stretched for what seemed an eternity until a smile creased the corners of her mouth.

"Only in the way the name Harry means something to you," she said and immediately cleared her dry throat.

Harry said nothing. He was too stunned to believe it.

"Your name's Harry and mine's Hermione." She smiled deeper now as realization dawned on his face.

Before she could catch her breath, she was in his arms. He felt tears of joy pricking his eyelids. He could hear her laugh, feel the vibration of it. It was Hermione, and she was home. Arms tightening around her, Harry felt Hermione wince slightly and he loosened his hold.

"I'm crushing you," Harry breathed into her hair.

"Who cares?" Hermione responded but pulled back a little.

She reached up and removed his glasses, studying him...the green of his eyes, the slightly older face, the joy radiating from every inch of him. Then she placed her hands on either side of his face and pulled his mouth to hers.

A sense of completion, of rightness settled over him as she wound her arms around his neck and began running her fingers through his hair. Tentatively, he deepened the kiss. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, then plunged inside. A moan sounded. He moved his hands to cup her face as her tongue did a little plunging of its own.

"Ahem." They broke apart like teenagers caught in a parked car. Harry blushing furiously, Hermione clutching a hand to her pounding heart. "Sorry to interrupt, but the heart monitors at the nurses station were spiking and I promised I'd check. How are you feeling, Jane?"

"It's Hermione, Dr. Ramsey. Hermione Granger," she gushed. "I remember. Everything. My name, my childhood. My life."

Ramsey looked shocked for a moment and then broke into laughter. He looked over at Harry and offered his hand. "Guess it worked, huh?"

"Yeah," Harry grinned back. After another kiss, a more sedate one in deference to the doctor, Harry excused himself while Ramsey examined Hermione. He walked back to the waiting area and found Ron and Mariah sitting close together, Ron's arm around Mariah's shoulder.

"Getting comfortable, Ron?" Harry quipped, not surprised when Ron dropped his arm and jumped to his feet.

"Harry. Er...what happened? You've been gone nearly two hours."

"She remembers, Ron. Everything. While I was sitting with her, I nodded off. We met in her dreams again. But this time it was Hermione, not Jane. When she woke up, her memory had returned." Harry wasn't surprised to see a smile bloom on Ron's face, but was a little shocked at Mariah's frown.

"Mariah, what is it?" said Ron, noticing it as well.

"Does she remember her life as Jane, too?"

"I assume so, Mariah." Harry slipped an arm around Mariah's shoulders and Ron took her hand as they walked towards the room. "Let's find out, shall we?"

They met Dr. Ramsey in the hallway outside Hermione's room. "Well?" Harry asked.

"I can't explain it, but she's in perfect health. Most of her memories are intact now, so I guess my work is done. I'd like to keep her overnight, but she's declining that...adamantly. If you'll give me a few minutes, I'll get her discharge papers in order."

"A moment, doctor," Harry held up a hand. "You said most of her memories?" he looked pointedly at Mariah.

"She still doesn't know how she ended up walking along the side of a highway, or how she got the mark on her back. But apart from that, everything seems normal."

Harry pushed open the door and held it for Mariah.

"Mariah!" Hermione laughed as her friend took a few tentative steps towards her. "I remember everything." Mariah relaxed visibly and threw her arms around Hermione.

"I guess that means I have to start calling you Hermione now," Mariah wiped tears of happiness from her eyes.

"That's right. Jane's just a little too plain for me," she smiled.

They settled into the room, Ron and Mariah dragging chairs to her bedside, Harry taking the same one he'd slept in earlier. He took hold of Hermione's hand, almost afraid to let go for fear she'd disappear again.

"So tell me what's been going on?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron, thirsty for news from the missing years of her life.

Ron and Harry clamored to speak at the same time. After a stern reproach from the intensive care nurse, they quieted down. They both spoke rapidly, filling her in on the past four years.

"You're joking," Hermione gaped at Harry. "You're teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"Well, I'm a little better than Lockhart," Harry laughed. "But not much. I'm learning, though."

"But after all you've done, wasn't there anything else you wanted to do?"

"Yeah," his voice lowered, "but after spending years at the bottom of a bottle, not many people were up to hiring me. Dumbledore came to me and offered the job after I'd pulled myself together a bit."

The room fell silent as that news sunk in. Harry noticed the tears and rose to sit next to her. "What is it?"

"I've missed so much, Harry. I've caused so much pain through my disappearance. When I think of what I said earlier, about not caring about the people I left behind. It wasn't true. My parents, Harry," Hermione whispered. "They think I'm dead, don't they?"

Harry inched closer and leaned forward until his forehead touched hers. "It's okay, Mione. Don't you see, it's all worth it now that we've found you. The grief, the pain, it's like a ghost now. Thin, shadowy and nearly impossible to see." Neither noticed that Ron and Mariah had slipped out of the room.

"I want you to take me home, Harry." She pulled back enough to see his face clearly.

"The doctor is working on that now, I believe."

"No," her lips quivered. "I mean home. To England." Harry sighed and folded her in his arms again, rocking slightly as tears soaked his shoulder. He didn't doubt there would be more emotional battles to overcome as Hermione dealt with the repercussions of the past four years. But he'd be by her side through all of them. They'd faced the worst of it and had come out on the other side together.

*^*^*^*^

"Hermione?" Harry called into the bedroom where she was packing a bag. "Are you sure you're up to Apparating with me? Airplane or floo powder would probably be easier on your system. Not to mention that it borders on illegal since you're not licensed."

There was no answer. "Hermione?"

A pit of dread lodged in Harry's stomach. He walked slowly down the hallway, telling himself that he was imagining things, yet terrified that she wouldn't be there. The thumping in his chest was so rough, he was surprised his ribs weren't cracking.

Hands shaking, he clenched them into fists as he turned the corner into her room. He nearly fell to the floor in relief. She was sitting on her bed looking at a notepad. Knowing her, she was making lists of all the things that needed doing in her absence.

"Mione?"

She turned her head towards him slowly. The terror in her eyes was staggering. He went to her at a dead run. "Mione? Love, what is it?"

"This," she whispered and handed the pad to Harry. It was clearly her handwriting, neat and precise. But the words...apparently, she'd remembered more than she knew.

"What does this mean?" her voice quivered. "I remember trying to write down my dreams after I had them, but I'm sure I'd remember writing this."

"It's the cave, Mione. It's what happened in the cave." But as Harry focused on the words, he realized it was more than just the actual events. It was her feelings, her impressions, Voldemort's words, all of it jumbled up into page after page of recollections.

"What cave, Harry?"

"The last remaining memory you're repressing."

Green lights flashed before Hermione's eyes, and the mark on her back shot pain up her spine. Like a switch being thrown in the recesses of her brain, it all came back. Everything. Her heart pounded painfully and tears spilled from her eyes. "I was there, wasn't I? I went down there after you and Ron. Why, Harry, why did you go without me? Why didn't you push harder? Why didn't you tell me you loved me before it was too late? Damn me for being so sure I knew everything that I denied the one thing that could have saved us years of tragedy."

Harry was stunned. He sat there with the notepad hanging loosely in his fingers, his eyes trained on Hermione.

"What do you remember, love? Tell me, and then we can bury it in the past where it belongs."

"I can't, Harry. It hurts too much."

"You can, Mione. I'm with you. We can face anything together. You know that."

Hermione glanced up at him. His green eyes blazed at her. She felt his love, his protection. And she knew he was right.

She woke suddenly in her hospital bed. She'd heard a voice from somewhere, but far as she could tell, she was alone. And then it came again.

"Clever girl. I have so much to thank you for."

"Who's there?"

"Who else? The person you fear most. I just wanted to thank you before I go. It's been so enjoyable, our little chess game of advance and retreat. It's almost a pity that it has to end."

Hermione started to shake violently with hatred and fear. "Why do you need to thank me?"

"Because without your insufferable need to know everything, combined with your confidence that you already do, I'd never be able to finish what I've left undone all these years."

"Which is?" Hermione was still looking around the deserted hospital wing, trying to find the voice's origin.

"Killing Harry Potter, of course."

Her blood turned to ice as she leapt from the bed. "You'll never kill Harry," Hermione spat. "He's stronger than you. We're stronger than you." But something about Voldemort's confidence began to worry her.

"Pity you didn't stick with Divination, my dear Hermione. You missed an important lesson. After all, if you don't hear the entire prediction, how can you be sure you'll interpret it correctly?"

Hermione searched her memory for the encounter with Professor Trelawney. She remembered hearing that if she were joined by hand and heart that it would lead to death and destruction. And the end of all she knew.

"That means it wasn't Harry's death she saw..."

"Precisely so. If you and Potter had entered this cave joined in love, I wouldn't have stood a chance. Now, all that has changed. That albatross around my neck stands at the mouth of the cave with his meddling friend. And his heart is in tatters because the girl he loves has pushed him away. I must go, dear. I have an appointment to keep. Thank you again."

Hermione screamed his name, but the voice was gone. She sat on the bed, stunned. If Voldemort was right, then she had spent the past few months keeping her distance from Harry when she should have been doing the opposite. But what of the "end of all she knew"?

She realized too late, that were she and Harry to acknowledge their feelings openly, it would be the end of their childhood friendship. But the beginnings of something far more wonderful. Damn Divination anyway. In her well ordered, detailed existence there just wasn't room for a magic so imprecise. And that could spell Harry's death.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," she ground out, leaping from the bed and running flat out for the dormitory. Changing from pajamas into regular clothes and grabbing her wand, Hermione raced for the cave, praying she wasn't too late. Knowing that if she was, her friends' deaths would be on her hands.

But she had been too late. As she reached the cave, she'd heard the yelled curses and charms echoing throughout it. Then Ron had screamed and fallen silent. Then Harry. His ragged cry had torn through her soul and filled her with steely determination.

She walked straight towards Voldemort who was standing over the bodies of her friends. The motionless bodies. He was panting and sweating, clearly weakened by the encounter with Harry and Ron.

"Too late," Voldemort cackled, turning towards her. He staggered a bit, but righted himself.

"He's not dead," Hermione asserted. "I'd feel it if he was." But from what she could see, he would be soon.

"You're sure?" he said derisively.

"As sure as the panic I see in your eyes, Voldemort. And you're wrong. Love holds it's own power, as you well know. His mother's saved him when he was a baby, and mine will save him now."

"A love unspoken, Hermione? What power does that have?" Voldemort scoffed.

"The power of promise, of the future. Of hope. And it will mean your end, once and for all."

Hermione walked over to Harry and placed her hand over his head, fingers brushing the hair away from his scar. "You are my greatest love, Harry Potter. And my only. You have been since I saw you on that train. No one has ever found the way through my defenses the way you did without even trying. I will love you from this life into the next."

Voldemort bent double, his voice an angry, raspy whisper. "It will never work, he can't hear you." But he was sinking towards the ground.

"His heart can. That's what matters."

When Voldemort lay prone on the ground, Hermione stepped past Harry and walked towards him wand raised. But she couldn't perform the curse. She only knew the words, not the practice. In their plans, Harry had always been the one to take Voldemort down. Never had Hermione thought she'd be the only one standing.

Sensing her hesitation, Voldemort raised his wand.

As he did, wand shaking in fear, Hermione had begun muttering her own charm. One she'd written but had never tried. Out of pure fear, and screaming the charm, Hermione turned to run.

With a voice almost gone, Voldemort uttered, "Avada Kedavra."

She managed a few steps before she was surrounded by green light, and felt a crippling pain in her back.

"The next thing I knew," Hermione sighed as she ran her fingers over Harry's arms, "I was lying in a hospital bed in America." She had expected the recounting of her encounter with Voldemort to bring the same fear and pain that it had originally. She was wrong. The only thing she felt was peace.

"And I woke up just in time to see you disappear and Voldemort fall dead." Harry replied blankly.

At some point during her recitation, they had leaned back against the headboard, her back to his stomach, Harry's arms securely around her.

Silence descended. Hermione's throat hurt from overuse, and her heart ached for what she was sure to come. Any moment now, Harry was going to pull away and blame her for pushing him away, for being too stubborn to listen to Trelawney. For causing him and everyone else four years of anguish.

But he didn't. Instead, he leaned down and placed a feather light kiss to her cheek. "Since the train?"

Hermione sprang from his arms and turned to face him, a confused blush on her cheeks. "What?"

"You told me you loved me since we met on the train. Granted, not something you want to hear for the first time while unconscious. Or four years after it was originally said. But you said it nonetheless. Or were you lying?"

"You know I wasn't." Hermione felt positive that her cheeks were going to catch fire from the heat they were generating.

"Do you still?" Harry looked at her intently. She could sense the insecurity of a boy who'd grown up not knowing love at all. And the confidence of a man who would traverse hell itself to find her.

"I suppose I do," she said primly. Her next sound was an outraged squeak as Harry grabbed an arm and flung her around, pinning her to the bed with his body. He moved his hands up to frame her face, then lowered his mouth to hers.

He fully intended to keep it simple. It didn't stay simple for long. Being this close to her was intoxicating. His mouth moved from hers to trail feather light kisses along her jawline. When he reached the pulse point of her throat, felt the pounding of her blood beneath his lips, he pulled back. Their eyes met, their labored breathing the only sound in the room.

And without words, with no other connection than their eyes, he asked and she consented.

They explored each other with the confidence of love and the hesitancy of inexperience. Hands and mouths merged and separated, bodies pressed and released and two hearts sang with the glory of becoming united at last.

Later, as they lay panting and tangled on the bed, Harry summoned the comforter from the floor and wrapped it around them. Fumbling for his wand, he lit the candles on her dresser and gazed at her, a grin tugging at his mouth.

"You're an amazing witch, Hermione," he sighed.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she giggled.

"Not just that," he grinned back. "I can't believe you wrote a counter to AK, Hermione. At seventeen."

"Well. It was simple, actually. A twist on the rebounding charm. But it wasn't perfect, though. I don't think it was supposed to shoot me across the Atlantic and wipe out my memory. I'll have to work on it." Hermione tried to stifle a yawn behind her hand.

"Mione?" Harry hoped that she couldn't hear the tremor in his voice. "Would you do something for me?"

"I thought I just did. Ow!" she yelped when he tugged at her bangs.

"Would you tell me just once, while I'm conscious, without being threatened by a dark wizard, and not during a recounting of the most horrible event in your life?"

"I love you, Harry." Hermione turned around in his arms and faced him. Even through the muted moonlight coming through the window, she could see the intensity of his green eyes. The purpose behind them.

"Then will you marry me?"

Hermione held her breath as the question seemed to dance around her head. She wanted to scream "yes" to the rooftops. Instead, she did what she had to do.

"No," she answered sadly.

*^*^*^*^