But You Promised, Harry!

But You Promised, Harry!

"The pain of war cannot exceed the woes of the aftermath..."~ Junoon.

"What are you thinking about Hermione?" asked Harry. Hermione looked deeply lost in her thoughts.

"I was wondering Harry, what I'd do if you ever left me," she said. Harry and Hermione were sitting under a huge oak tree at the crossroad in the middle of the Hogsmeade high street. The sun was bright in the sky even though the weather was cool. Few people were seen moving about the streets, a few of them Hogwarts students. It was the last Hogsmeade weekend of the term and the last for the seventh years as their last school year was about to finish. Harry and Hermione often sat under this tree, huddled close together talking happily to each other. For Harry, these were the only few happy moments of his life.

"What in the world are you talking about Hermione?" exclaimed Harry, surprised. "You know I'd never leave you. What made you think of that?"

"I don't know Harry, but it just came to me and I started thinking..." replied Hermione, still lost in her thoughts.

"Hermione! Hermione look at me!" said Harry. When she didn't turn, he took her chin in two of his fingers and gently turned her face towards him. She had tears streaming down her face.

"Don't cry Hermione!" said Harry, now totally alarmed. Hermione sobbed harder as he said this. He pulled Hermione into a hug and she started sobbing into his shoulder.

"Hermione!" said Harry in an attempt to quiet her. "Hermione listen to me. I'm never going to leave you Hermione! Never ever!"

Hermione broke away from Harry and turned to look at him with her tear-stained face and red eyes. "Promise Harry?" she sobbed.

"Yes Hermione; it's a promise!" he said, getting up from the bench on which they were sitting. "You always say that you totally love this place and especially this tree, don't you Hermione?" He looked at her. Hermione nodded.

"Then I swear on this place and this tree that I will never leave your side Hermione-- never!" he said looking at her. Hermione got up and hugged Harry as hard as she could.

A gust of cold wind in her face woke Hermione from her thoughts and she realized that she had tears flowing down her face again. She quietly wiped them and looked around her. She was sitting under the same tree, on the same bench under which she'd spent so many happy times with Harry. The lone tree had surprisingly remained intact throughout all the destruction in Hogsmeade years ago.

People were to be seen milling about happily and peacefully, going about their daily shopping or visiting as usual. The destruction of years ago had left its mark on the grown-ups, but they had managed to continue living their life as normally as they could. It appeared to be a Hogsmeade weekend since Hogwarts students were seen roaming around. Nearly five years ago, Harry had rid the world of the threat of the living terror, Lord Voldemort. Barely two months later, Hermione's world had been torn apart.

After the end of seventh year, the war still continued on full scale. During school, along with studies, Harry had been taking Auror training to help him in his final fight, which he knew would come before he would have a chance to finish or even begin his Auror training. He was right. Two days after the end of school, Harry, Ron and Hermione officially joined the Order of the Phoenix and entered full-scale war.

It was horrible. The things they had to do and see. Hermione still dreamed of it and woke from her sleep screaming and shaking terribly. Deaths were so common that she was surprised people were still alive in the world. Bodies could be seen sprawled everywhere one turned. Some in pieces, some at odd angles indicating every bone in the body was broken and some simply spread-eagled, looks of terror on their faces. Blood flowed freely as if one was standing and fighting in a pool of blood, to save the very blood that was being shed. Not only on the Light side, but the Death Eaters lay in more or less the same conditions.

Seeing fellow classmates and friends dying in front of her very own eyes was the worst thing Hermione had ever experienced. She was surprised that she had even survived the war. But she also was not unscathed. She had a big scar on her face running from the left top of her forehead, starting from the hairline, and continuing to the bottom of her left cheek all the way across her cheek and left eyebrow. She had plenty more on her hands and arms. But she'd survived. Sometimes she wondered if she really wanted to survive... in a world with Harry, yes, but in one without him, no... never!

Three months after Harry joined the Order, he met Voldemort in his final battle, reducing his body to nothing but ashes that got blown away in the wind and ridding the world of nearly three years of renewed horror and devastation. He'd also been very, very happy, rejoicing with the rest of the wizarding world at the end of the war that filled the world with terror. He took part in the reconstruction best as he could, but he had plenty of his own injuries, physical and emotional, to deal with. Both of them needed time to heal, but some wounds never do heal.

Hermione looked at the sky, it looked as if it was about to rain, just as she felt inside. She remembered how, slowly and gradually, Harry had started getting dark circles around his eyes and heavy bags underneath them. He hardly ate anything and lost weight rapidly. He tried to stay happy and cheerful as he was before, but didn't succeed often. He slowly started distancing himself from all of them. Hermione and Ron had started getting very worried. When they asked him what the matter was, he said that he couldn't sleep at night. He continuously had nightmares about the war and all the deaths he'd caused, all the people he'd killed, Death Eaters or whoever else. His scar hurt and he couldn't sleep because of fear of waking everyone up and worrying them. Hermione suggested some Dreamless Sleep potion. He agreed.

Dreamless Sleep potion worked for a while and Harry started to improve very little. But soon, due to overdoses of it, it also stopped having the desired effect. Harry started sleeping less and less again for fear of having to see the sea of the dead again. He lost weight until he became something like a skeleton. His eyes lost all their brightness and they became something like dimly glowing green bulbs. His skin stretched taut over his cheekbones and his scar stood out vividly as ever. Ron and Hermione decided to take him to St. Mungo's. After much fighting and arguing, Harry agreed.

He was admitted to the hospital. He was given the strongest sleeping potions and spells. They worked for a while, but only where there's a will there's a way, and Harry didn't have the will to sleep, so nothing and no one could make him sleep. Lack of food had made his internal organs weak and remedial potions didn't work unless there was food in the stomach. He got weaker and weaker, each passing day. People came to meet him, to give him the will to live, but he just seemed like a light bulb with the switch turned off. Ron and Hermione stayed with him most of the time. Hermione cried a lot, but not once in front of Harry. Nearly two months after the end of the war, Ron and Hermione had to go to Hogsmeade to deal with some things over there. Harry should've gone too, but he wasn't feeling well. That day Ron and Hermione only stayed with Harry for an hour, unknown to them, that would be the last time they would ever be seeing him, alive.

Harry had apparently had enough and he decided to finish it off. Ron and Hermione came in the evening. Harry had told everyone not to disturb him. When they entered his room, they found him hanging from the curtain rail around his bed. His face had already turned blue from lack of oxygen. There was nothing anyone could do for him. Hermione fainted on the spot and Ron retched. The Healers came and one by one all of them started crying, but none of them seemed to want to remove Harry. At last one of them went and released him from his death grip and Hermione was taken to a next-door room and given reviving potions.

His funeral was held two days later. It seemed as if most of the wizarding world had shown up for the funeral of their Hero, the Boy Who Lived, now dead. No one in their wildest dreams had expected him to do something like that.

"Didn't even care about me!" thought Hermione selfishly. That funeral was held more than five years ago but Hermione still hadn't forgotten Harry, after all, who could forget their one true love.

"Hermione!" came Ron's voice, cutting straight through her thoughts. "What're you doing Hermione?"

"Nothing Ron," she replied, turning to look at Ron. "Nothing at all." Tears were flowing down her face again.

He came over and sat down next to her. "Don't cry Hermione!" he said, enveloping her in a hug. She could talk to Ron about anything.

She sobbed into his shoulder. "He promised me Ron! He promised to never leave me!"

"That was the only promise he couldn't keep, Hermione," said Ron, sighing. "The only one..."

"I know Ron. But still, he promised me..."