FicWad

Disclaimer: Rowling would likely be appalled at some of the things I write, therefore I ain’t her, and don’t own Harry Potter.

A/N: As with all my fics, this is dedicated to my late sister, FireLemming, for her beta work. She didn't even follow the Harry Potter fandom, preferring TLK, and yet, would take time to offer much needed (and often unappreciated) critical advice. Having an expert on literature, the English language, Mythology and anthropology, leaning over your shoulder making snarky comments about your writing can be a pain, but it does cut down on research time.

I first wrote this back in ‘05. A challenge by my late sister, Marion (FireLemming). She knows my military history and asked me to write something from the viewpoint of the survivors. I ended up doing two, ‘Requiem for a Hero’ was the first, and this is the other. Most likely it’s clichéd as hell, but, really, I don’t care. As with Requiem, this is from Hermione’s point of view.



He stands there, by the rumpled bed, unmoving, unseeing. Like an automaton. Like someone dead and yet, not. I don’t think he’s slept since the final battle. We’d won, but the cost had been horrific! Mostly to him. Both of our lovers had died to save him; best friends, all. He’d survived, but still, he wasn’t whole. He was a mere shadow of what he had been. I think he was just waiting to join them. He barely eats. Barely drinks. He’s clean, as he’d been made to shower and clean his teeth regularly. I think that if he hadn’t been, he’d just have let himself get filthier by the day.

He’d been awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. He’d just dropped it to the stage, and walked off.

The new Minister of Magic had understood. Others had not. For weeks he’d been ostracized in the press as an ungrateful prat, for the insult he’d offered. Rita Skeeter had been his loudest detractor. No news there! In return, I arranged for the Department of Magical law Enforcement to ‘discover’ that she was an unregistered animagus. She was arrested the next day, and sentenced to five years in prison, with her ability to transform permanently bound.

Oh, well.


Now, I knew if I didn’t do something, he would die, too. Voldemort’s final victim.

There had been arguments when I’d proposed my idea. Too young! Might get pregnant. Irresponsible! All of that. My counter had stunned them. I bit through my own pain and said; “He’s suicidal, Molly! You’ve already lost three children, including his best friends! If I don’t do this…if I can’t show him he is loved…that his life is still worth living; you are going to lose another!” Shocked and hurt silence greeted my unkind words.

I’d left the kitchen before anyone could recover from the shock. By the time they had, I’d reached his room and had warded the hallways behind me, to prevent them from following. I’d entered the room, closed and sealed the door, and stepped toward him, stripping off my clothing as I did.

Harry gaped at me. I didn’t really consider what I was doing. Yes, I was offering my body, but I never realized it would be far more! Harry wasn’t the type for one night flings. He demanded a lifetime. I suppose I did too.

He takes my offer. I’m suddenly on my back, him on top of me, thrusting madly…desperately, into me, as if he is trying to reaffirm his tenuous connection to life.

It hurts. I’m not a virgin by any means. My first lover had taken care of that, but it has been a long time. Harry wasn’t gentle. He pounded into me, as if his life depended on it. I suppose it did. The pain I felt was nothing. Nothing at all, compared to what he’d endured his entire life. I know I would go through this pain, and any other, for him.

He finishes quickly, growling out my name. I feel him pulse within me, spilling himself into my body. I don’t mind. I would do it again…as often as needed, to tell him he is alive, he is loved.

He is wanted.

He says the first words I’ve heard from him in weeks. “Thank you!” He croaks with a voice, long unused. I hold him until he is asleep, then dress myself and leave the room.

Downstairs, I face them all. Mum is furious. Arthur is worried. Charley is neutral, but I can see the tension in his eyes.

I wave my hand and the wards vanish. I can hear them, now. “It’s done.”

Mum comes to me, and wraps me in her arms, weeping. She knew what I’d done for him. She hated it, but she understood.

An hour later, we are sitting at the table having tea. He enters the kitchen. Molly sees him and wants to rush to him, but I stay her with an outstretched arm. I stand and walk to him, instead. I can see the tears in his eyes. Tears he’s never before allowed himself to shed. Now, as I wrap my arms around him, he does. Years of abuse flow out of him, in horrible, wracking sobs. All the deaths and the hurts he’s been forced to witness, or that he’s been party to, now escape him as I hold him. We sink to the floor. He doesn’t seem able to hold himself up anymore.

We curl together there, weeping, for I know I am weeping also.

Then, many arms surround us, holding and comforting us in this, our time of desperate need. Harry finally gives vent to the torment that has possessed him for so very long. His howl of anguish nearly deafens me. As it is, all the glass in the house shatters. He cries, he weeps, he rails against the unfairness of the universe for hours. I do too.


He sleeps, now. He’d exhausted what little was left of his energy. Only his magic had allowed him to survive for so long. Now, that too, is spent.

Harry was meant to be a loved soul. Instead, he had been reviled from the day his parents died. First, by his aunt and her husband and son, through the machinations of a senile old man who thought himself a god. And then by the wizarding world, whenever it was convenient. Harry had been the scapegoat for whatever ills had befallen our world. When things had turned out right, he’d been offered insincere apologies and thanks, and when the next crises had shown itself, he’d been blamed once again. Fudge had seen to that! Whoever had suspected he was Voldemort’s most important source of information?

Harry never deserved that. He simply took it. He accepted his role, and while hating it bitterly, he performed it flawlessly. It was his hand that struck down the dark lord. Voldemort was dead, along with most of the pureblood lines, whose scions had supported him. Their dark mark ensured his followers remain faithful to him in death as in life. As Harry was the one who defeated him, and with him, them as well, under the laws of conquest, Harry had inherited the assets of no less than fourty lines…probably more… including the Malfoy line! He hated that! He was now the single richest person in the world.

******

Seven months later:

I’m uncomfortable. This need to pee all the time is annoying in the extreme. My breasts are sensitive to the point I want to leave my shirt off. Harry handles me like I was going to break. Even, when we make love. He thinks that pregnancy has somehow made me delicate.

Yes, I’m pregnant. Me. Mrs. Hermione Potter. The smartest bleedin’ witch of her age. But I’m not. Not really. I’d forgotten one charm when I went to Harry that day. I’d warded the halls, the door, and the walls. What I’d not warded as my own body. I’m certain I’d conceived that day. Maybe I did it on purpose…maybe not. I don’t know.

My parents were understandably upset when I told them. Mum understood, but daddy had wanted to rip Harry’s balls off! It took the both of us to calm him, and I’d explained the reasons behind my actions that day. I made him understand that Harry had wanted only to die, and was well on his way, when I’d gone to him. I explained that if I hadn’t been able to break through his grief…he would have succeeded.

So many of his…our friends, had died in the battle, and in those leading up to it. My parent’s practice had been demolished, killing many of their patients. They had survived the explosion; not knowing, it had been caused by a particularly inept Death Eater named Draco Malfoy. He’d been caught in the explosion himself and had died in a muggle hospital, wearing handcuffs. I’d been there on scene and had taken his wand. I still have the pieces. They are enshrined on the mantelpiece, sealed in plastic along with Voldemort’s and the wands of all those who supported him.

Ron’s and Ginny’s wands are there as well, holding places of honor, in the entry hall. Harry and I live in the rebuilt home at Godric’s Hollow. Our official residence is number twelve Grimmauld Place, but as the house holds too many painful memories for Harry, he has Remus and his family living there as caretakers. Tonks is expecting as well. She’ll deliver about a month before I do. They’ve done test after test, and can find no trace of the Lycanthropy in either Remus, or Tonks’ baby. Harry had something to do with that, I’m certain of it! He won’t say a word, though. I even threatened him with refusing to allow him any sex. He simply held up his hand, wriggled his spread fingers, smiled wickedly and walked out of the bedroom. I found him in the lounge watching a show on the telly.

I apologized to him in the best way I could. If I hadn’t been preggers already, I think I would have got that way from that apology!

******

April Potter was born at six twenty five, August the fourth. She has my curls but Harry’s hair. Black and bushy. Her eyes are also a brilliant green. Would one expect any different? Tonks’ baby Teddy Joshua Lupin, is a growing, one-month old pink-haired, bundle of colicky fun. We’ve all taken turns around with him, Harry and myself included. Tonks thought it would be good practice for what she called ‘the inevitable’. I think she just wanted a break.