Things Tragically Unsaid

She looked around, the Hall just as she remembered it from years past. Those years weren't so long ago yet the person she was then was worlds apart from her now. She moved, taking a painful step through the door, catching a pair of twinkling blue eyes and forcing a smile on her lips. It wouldn't do to worry anyone else. She moved to the front of the room gracefully, though stiff with healed over battle wounds. Someone walked up to her and offered her a bent arm and she took it, allowing them to walk her to the table at the front. She leaned against it, exhaustion and pain etched into every line of her face, settled firmly into her skin, swirling in her eyes.

"Harry Potter is gone."

Silence.

This was a surprise to no one except her. Then again not even to her for she wasn't capable of feeling anymore. She collapsed, faintly hearing voices as a pair of warm arms lifted her easily and carried her away. The scent was familiar, warm and spicy, expensive no doubt and she clung to the familiarity like her only anchor in a spinning hurricane. She felt herself set down onto the bed, her savior moving to leave but she continued holding on, drawing him down to the bed with her.

"Are you alright?"

She didn't reply with words but reached blindly for his mouth, her lips settling on his with a fury. Her body shook, shivered in a mute plea and so he kissed her back, parting his mouth, his tongue touching to hers, sparks traveling over both of them. She pulled him on top of her, her hands finally exploring what they have been aching for, her body pressed up against flesh it has craved for so long. Clothes began flying, piece by piece, covering the floor like sad, black snow.

They didn't make love though she burned to... they merely had sex. Amazing, explosive sex that was meaningful in its own way. And when it was over and he was asleep, looking for all of the world like a fallen archangel, she traced his features with a feather touch and remembered.

She didn't love Harry, though he loved her, passionately, hopelessly. Harry never knew her lack of reciprocation, but this man did. He knew it without her having to say it and it was their guilty little secret. They would reaffirm it every time they hugged hello or goodbye, every casual touch mid-conversation would underscore her lack of romantic feeling for Harry Potter. But what they didn't share, what he never knew was her love for him, her want, her wanton desire for him. He never knew and she could never tell him, not so long as Harry spun further into war induced pain, died a little more each day. She could not strike that final blow to Harry's soul, even though he'd never know it she couldn't. And so she stood by as the man she loved took life day by day, kiss by kiss, romance by romance, till he fell in love in a way that made his eyes sparkle and his mouth curve in a permanent smile. She died when she finally admitted it, died as Harry kept trying to.

She had nothing now. This night would bring guilt into his eyes, distance them in a way that could not be healed over. He was her last bastion of feeling, every other bit drained from her by pretending real feeling for one she didn't have it for, forced into a role she never wanted. She was dead now. Did she need to take it through the final step? She looked at him carefully, studying every stroke of light and shadow on his skin, and realized she did. She had to set him free even she knew he wasn't hers and would never come back to her. So she crept from this bed, leaving his warmth, and made her way to the grounds, stalking silently to the lake. Her wand in hand she took one look at herself in the ever changing reflection of the water and then she whispered two words. And she was dead. In every way this time.

He awoke when her warmth faded from the bed. He knew she didn't love him, knew she was just taking comfort in him until she could go on to a free existence, the ghost of Harry Potter having hung over her head even while the hero still lived. She didn't love Harry and they shared that knowledge, for he saw it in her eyes, her beautiful eyes that he could read so easily and he read in them that she was aware that he knew the truth and didn't mind. He ached for if she didn't love Harry why could she not love him, but he refused to burden her with his heart, not another selfish man binding her to a life she didn't want. His love would remain secret, hidden in the darkest places of his heart for the rest of his life. He ran a hand over where she used to be and he ached for she was gone from his life and he was sure that it was for good.

A young woman came to tell him the news, a young woman who he used to know before the truth hammered into his mind, before the idea of her death occurred to him. He died then too. He died, for living and knowing she didn't breathe the same air he did would be a punishment worse than he had ever endured at the hands of darkness. The young woman looked at him with pity and with anger, fury unhindered by any more false concerns. And then she left.

He stared blankly out of the window for many hours, cataloguing every move she ever made, every word she said, every breath she took in and let out, and he ached. When he was sure he had remembered everything, he whispered her name then took up his wand and ended his un-life the same way she did, with two simple words.

The same young woman found him and her heart broke for the two of them for she was the only one who knew both parts of the truth, the only one to see and understand both their eyes. She had them buried next to each other on a green hill in Ireland where the sun shone in the day and the faeries danced at night and always came to run her fingers over their joint headstone.

'Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, lovers of the heart though they never knew it.'

The young woman, who was not so young anymore, ran her finger over that final letter and got up to her feet. Lisa Turpin would come to visit this place no more for she sensed peace here.

"You could never see the love in his eyes Hermione, could never look past the false smile in honor of his make believe love for Susan. I wish you had. But you didn't. And you Draco never could see that every spark in her eyes was for you, that every beat of her heart was for you. So you're both gone. And I miss you both. Rest in love. Rest in peace."

She turned and walked away and a mild breeze ruffled the wild tulips over the grave, bending their blooms as if to nod in agreement. Rest in peace.