The light is fading from her eyes.
She could remember, like everything else in her life, the details of the wand movements and the incantations of the combination of curses that are killing her.
Time slowed before her. She feels herself beginning to fall. The battle is fading around her, the Department of Mysteries and all the wonders she only just this night learned of, fading to black.
And then he is there.
He is moving so slowly. She calculates the distance he has to travel, determines how fast her falling body will be moving, and concludes that he won’t be able to catch her.
His eyes lock onto hers. Brilliant emerald meeting deep hazel. She sees the flicker of realization in them. She watches, almost dispassionately as he drops his wand to start reaching out for her.
She remembers the first time she saw that wand. Truly saw it. He didn’t even get a chance to use it before it lodged itself up a troll’s nose. But if it weren’t for that night, none of what came after would have happened.
The polyjuice- no. That one, we leave out of this.
But the days of being petrified. She remembered hearing Harry every time he came to visit. She heard him through it all. He even, bless his soul, read Hogwarts, a History to her just so she wouldn’t be alone.
His wand hit the ground, silver sparks shooting out of the tip as it clattered on the stone floor.
Silver.
The same color as his patronus. She would never admit it to anyone, but she spent some of the time she gained with her Time Turner doing what she liked to call Harry Watching. As much as her work overwhelmed her over the course of the year, she never tired of helping him.
Maybe…
Maybe she should have told him then….
But it would have been better to tell him before the First Task, wouldn’t it have? They ran the tournament so badly, so haphazardly, that she could have snuck over to the tent, cut a hole in it, confessed her feelings.
Probably even kiss him.
But she didn’t.
No. All she did was what she always did.
Studied advanced spells and helped him learn. Helped him earn the skills he needed to survive one more time.
That’s all she was, after all.
Books, and cleverness.
And then, she didn’t know how, but she was in his arms. He caught her, falling the rest of the way to the floor with her. He held her gently.
So gently. So warm, here, now, finally, in his arms. She reached up and grabbed his jumper, trying to pull him closer.
“But,” he said softly, so quietly. Barely a whisper that she could only just hear over the spellfire.
“There’s more important things than books and cleverness.”
She smiled as a tear ran down her cheek. He remembered. That was so long ago. A lifetime. A lifetime at its end now.
He brushed the tear away from her face.
“Friendship and bravery,” she said.
“And love.”
And then he kissed her. He pressed their lips together and for that moment. For that one brief moment.
Hermione Granger knew love.
Her hand fell to the side, limp.
The last thing she heard as her mind finally stilled, was a scream of pure anguish. A scream that was not wordless, not thoughtless.
It was her name.
He screamed her name.