almost

You know the door to my very soul

You're the light in my deepest, darkest hour

- how deep is your love; the bee gees

It was months before Hermione discovered it, but only days since Ron had left. She was searching futilely for a book, frantic rummaging born of frustration more than any real urgency, when she pulled out one of Fred and George’s Shield Cloaks that was blocking the way instead. She had yanked the cloak out and thrown it roughly to the side. That’s when it had come tumbling out, clunking against the floor, her whole body freezing as she stared at this unexpected secret hidden in the folds of Fred’s parting gift to her. Hermione had picked up the box in confusion, tied neatly with twine, a small folded piece of parchment tucked underneath. She recognised the colorful box and the deck of the ridiculous pirate ship, and it drenched her with an ice cold dread. If she was remembering correctly, she had called this particular product of theirs extraordinary magic.

That’s where Hermione found herself now. Sitting on the floor of a cold, gloomy tent that felt like it was going to collapse in on her from all sides, feeling bitter and angry and sorry for herself, staring with trepidation at a bloody box. 

As she extracted the note, her hands, inexplicably, began to shake. The locket burned against her sternum. Her heart leapt into her throat. Hermione found herself hesitating at the small, careful handwriting spelling out her name on the outermost fold. She recognized Fred’s scrawl, but it was the effort that he had taken to make it legible that knocked her even more off balance. 

One shallow, shaky inhale. An unsteady exhale. She felt an adrenaline pulse in her fingertips, numb and buzzing all at once, a painful disembodiment. Neither here nor there. Meanwhile, her heart thudded painfully in her chest, a loud, obtrusive tattoo against her ribs. Then her trembling hands made slow work of unfolding the parchment and she began reading in a daze.

Hermione,

I’ve just left you in the garden and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And I don’t even think the hardest bit has happened yet, where you leave for real, maybe forever. There’s no real way to prepare yourself for soon, and I feel the dread of not knowing how much time is left, but knowing it’s precious little.

I hope we get a proper goodbye. Though maybe it’s better if we don’t. I don’t think I can let you go a second time. 

I don’t have a joke for this. I don’t have a joke for anything that just happened between us. I wish I did because I have a feeling you’re going to need a laugh when you read this. 

The thing is, Hermione, I don’t know how to say all the things I want to because I don’t know what will happen. And some things I could write here might hurt you if… well, I hope the ifs I’m thinking of never come to pass. Because that’s the last thing I want. To be a reason that you’re hurting. 

So instead I leave you with a gift of sorts. You never took your free Daydream Charm, and you’ll get what’s owed to you whether it's contraband or not, Miss Prefect. This particular one takes the form of a muggle charm bracelet. I nicked it from dad’s shed just now. I don’t think he’ll mind.

When you tap the first charm, the weasel, with your wand, it will activate a daydream made by yours truly, devised entirely from my own imagination. I can tell that this has alarmed you – I can see your face scrunching up so clearly. Let that poor, abused lip go from between your teeth before you draw blood –-

Hermione follows his direction, but only because her mouth has fallen open in surprise and a hysterical laugh startled out of her throat. She wipes at her eyes hurriedly before returning to the letter, reading now with a small smile that feels almost criminal, given the circumstances.

– But I promise you, it's just a jam tart, Hermione. It’s the canary creams you’ve got to watch out for. 

The second charm, the rubber duck… that one is all you, love. It’s like lucid dreaming. You call the shots. Whatever your brilliant mind can dream up, so I expect it will be a good one. 

You can find the incantations in the box. You’re the first one to test this particular version of my charm – but you’re no first year, you’re brave, and… I know you can’t resist a puzzle. You'll probably make it better -- as you do most things. Side effects might include drooling, a dazed expression, and falling in love with Fred Weasley. Ideally. My intellect, at the very least.

I hope these find you when you need them most, and that you don’t save them because you’re afraid to use them up. There’s no such thing as a wrong or bad time for a little extra joy, Hermione. If I have any say in it, you won’t have to wait too long before daydreams are no longer necessary, anyway. 

It’s not fair that the weight of the world is on Harry’s shoulders, which means it’s really mostly on yours. I’m under no illusions as to who the real brains of the operation is, and I don’t think Harry and Ron are, either. I don’t know what your impossible mission is, but if anyone can do it, it’s you. 

Merlin, though, I wish it didn’t have to be you. 

I can’t be there with you in the way I want to be, but maybe, for a little while, I can lighten the load. I know it’s not nearly enough, but unfortunately, war waits for no man, and this is all I could scrounge up on short notice. I wish I had time to make you more. 

Hermione, I…  I’m out of my depth here. 

I think I love you more today than I did yesterday. Someday I suspect I’ll be irrevocably in love with you, and that it will far exceed my wildest daydreams. If you’ll let me. 

It scares me a bit, to be honest, these feelings I have for you. It scares me that you know about them now. But it scares me more that I might not get the chance to act on them. Especially now that I know what it’s like to kiss you, Hermione Granger. 

I’ll let you go for now, against my better judgment… but come back to me, yeah? Please. You have to come back.

Unreservedly yours, 

Fred

She reads the letter again. And again. Her heart clenches and unclenches painfully as she wipes at her puffy eyes. Her throat constricts tighter around the lump that had formed there as tears well in her eyes. Hermione had thought she had run out of tears after several days of crying following Ron’s abandonment, if only due to dehydration. Yet here she was. There are tears dripping onto the letter and out of her nose; she is once again a sniffling mess. This time, though, an impossible smile is warring with the frown she’d thought had taken up permanent residence on her face. 

Oh, Fred. 

A large part of her wants to wait to use it, to save it for a rainier day like Fred explicitly told her not to. Other parts of her – the darkest, most insecure parts, located in the deepest recesses of her heart, the ones that she knows the locket sees and exploits – they don’t want to use it at all. Those parts are a sotto voice, a stage whisper. A bully pretending like he didn’t speak but knowing damn well you heard every cutting word. 

You’re scared, too. And you’re not as brave as everyone thinks. 

You’re a bit of a coward, actually. 

It wouldn’t matter if Fred were here, because he would have left with Ron.

The only reason Harry is even still here is that he has nowhere else to go, not because you’re good for anything. 

Aren't you supposed to be the brightest witch of your age? Can't even figure out a children's book. Pathetic.

Fred’s an idiot to think he could love you. What have you ever done for that man to deserve it in the first place?

The horcrux is cold nestled against her, warmth seeping out, the heaviness weighing her soul and dying it dark, inky black. 

Usually, these tactics work. Part of her really believes it to be true, after all. But usually, Hermione isn’t finding secret love letters hidden in her beaded bag, and a voice that sounds suspiciously like a certain Weasley says, louder than the darkness, that it’s absolute rubbish. 

She chooses to listen to it, that voice. She thinks if she opens the box she might get to hear it again.

There’s only so much more rain she can take before she drowns in it, and if there’s anyone who could possibly coax anything even resembling a happy feeling out of her heart right now, it’s Fred Weasley. Harry is outside on watch while she’s meant to be sleeping, though they both know she does more wallowing than anything these days, and will be for the foreseeable future. So Hermione, in uncharacteristic impulsivity, tosses the locket off and rips the box open before she can change her bloody mind.