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Granger's Anatomy	By : brightneeBee Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Voldemort Views: 2587 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Epilogue...

5 December 2007



                We like to think that we are rational beings. Humane. Conscientious. Civilized. Thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little bit, it becomes clear. We’re no better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream. But deep down, we’re all still rooting around in the primordial ooze. Biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold dark world, like the rest of the tree toads and sloths.

There’s a little animal in all of us, and maybe that’s something to celebrate. Our animal instincts is what makes us seek comfort, warmth, a pack to run with. We may feel caged, we may feel trapped, but still, as humans, we can find ways to feel free. We are each other’s keepers. We are the guardians of our own humanity. And even though there’s a beast inside all of us, what sets us apart from the animals is that we can think, feel, dream...and love. And against all odds, against all instinct, we evolve...

Blood, so much blood, everywhere. She had heard the Yank saying “bled like a stuck pig” but she never actually understood it until now. She never thought the human body could hold so much blood. She never thought that 5.6 liters of blood could look like too much. It soaked the stretcher and now it covered the floors around her. She was standing in blood – it was like a lake of crimson and she was standing in it. Just…so much blood.

“Don’t die! Don’t you dare die on me,” she cried as she administered more pressure the gaping wound in the man’s chest. She had to stop the bleeding and nothing was working. Why wasn’t anything working?

                “Hermione, you have to stop this! He’s gone – you’re acting like a mental patient!” said Harry as he warded off the emergency ward room to keep his fellow Aurors out while he talked his best friend since Hogwarts down from a Dementor’s Kiss sentence.

                “I need more Blood Replenishing Potion!”

                “Hermione! Stop! NOW!” She wasn’t looking at him, but he could tell that she could feel the authoritative tone in his voice and she was choosing to ignore it.

                “He can’t die!” She was sobbing. She was frantic. She was beside herself with grief. “He can’t die, Harry! It’s not supposed to end like this!”

                That statement only enraged him more. “It was always supposed to end like this! Hermione, save yourself – let him die!”

                “Give me the damn potion, Harry – and my wand!”

                “No!” bellowed Harry. “Hermione, listen to yourself! You’re fighting to keep Him alive! You’ve already bought yourself a one-way ticket to Azkaban for harboring him. I can’t let you keep on like this!”

                “He can’t…I can’t…I won’t allow him to die – I took an Oath, Harry! I made a promise...”

                He had never seen Hermione Granger so hysterical over another human being like she was acting in relation to the man bleeding out on her gurney. “Merlin, ‘Mione – you’re acting like you’re in love with him or something!”

                It halted her movements and cut her deep; all the way to the bone. Some scars never healed, and Harry had just found the one wound she had hidden from everyone for almost nine years...

“No…”

                “Harry, please-”

                “NO!” shouted Harry, silencing her attempt to plead. She was still sobbing, still trying to save the man she was hovering over. She had her hand in the wound across his chest, gently massaging his heart in an attempt to coax it back to life. “You can’t be serious, Hermione!”

                “I’m sorry, Harry – I really am! But you don’t know everything…you don’t know him like I-”

                “Of course I know him! He killed my parents, Hermione! He’s supposed to have been dead for the last eight years! Why did you keep this from me?”

                She was flustered and wide-eyed at his question. She didn’t want to answer him, she was sure he could tell. “I can’t do this right now! He’s slipping away and he can’t…leave me all alone again, Harry! I can’t…Just give me the bloody potions!”

                “No, Hermione - you’re going to answer the question!”

In life, only one thing is certain; apart from death and taxes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how good your intentions, you are going to make mistakes. You are going to hurt people. You are going to get hurt. And if you ever want to recover there’s really only one thing you can say...

The truth is painful. Deep down, nobody wants to hear it. Especially when it hits close to home. Sometimes we tell the truth because the truth is all we have to give. Sometimes we tell the truth because we need to say it out loud to really hear it for ourselves. Sometimes, we tell the truth because we just can’t help ourselves. And sometimes, we tell the truth because we owe ourselves that much.

Forgive and forget. That’s what they say. It’s good advice, but it isn’t very practical. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. When someone wrongs us, we want to be right. Without forgiveness, old scores are never settled. Old wounds never heal. And the most we can hope for is that one day we’ll be lucky enough to forget.

                “Get. Out,” she snarled, snatching the potions out of Harry’s hands. If he wasn’t going to help her then he could leave. She needed to save him. She had spent seven years mourning him and she had just gotten him back…How was she supposed to live without him again?

                If Harry had headed her words that she was fine, if he would have refrained from popping into her flat unannounced, then neither of them would be in this mess. Nor would the Dark Lord be bleeding out on a stretcher in her Emergency Ward. And if both grown men could come up with less original curses, both or none would be alive right now, and it would save her a hell of a lot of paperwork and a life sentence in Azkaban.

                “I cast Sectusempra first, and he countered with Avada,” Harry had recounted as he levitated the sickly pale visage of Tom Riddle, unconscious, into St. Mungo’s. At least he had warned her beforehand, it was very considerate to send a patronus with a message that the Head of the Auror Department had found a youthful Lord Voldemort in one’s living room and was bringing him in for “stitches.”

                She still couldn’t wrap her head around Harry’s conflicting responses to the fact that the Dark Lord was still, in fact, alive. One minute Harry wanted her to save him so the wizard could rot away in Azkaban, the other minute he was telling her to step away and let Voldemort die – what was Harry playing at? Was he trying to drive her insane? The sight of the love of her life bleeding to death on a stretcher in her emergency room had almost caused her a complete mental break as it were!

                “Why isn’t anything working?” she cried, tipping the Blood Replenishing Potion down the man’s throat. She had spent all of her college money from her parents on a Healer Training Program, lived on an ever-changing and unpredictable schedule that accumulated to one-hundred or more hour work weeks during her one year Healer-insternship and three year residency training – all those hours and all that sleep deprivation spent on learning how to cure all ailments. All that time and money and nothing was working – why wasn’t anything working?! What good was a degree in Healing if it wouldn’t bring him back?!

                “Hermione, you need to step away from the body,” said Harry gently.

                She shook her head and sobbed harder, “No…There’s still a pulse…Please…Just help me bring him back.”

                “‘Neither can live while the other survives,’” whispered Harry. He was close to her now, reaching out to touch her arm but she flinched away in favor of pouring more potions down her lover’s throat. “Hermione…you have to stop or I can’t help you.”

                “Oh, shut up, Harry! Prophecies don’t transfer, you idiot!” Her body tensed but she didn’t turn around to look at him when she snarled, “I don’t need your help, Potter.”

                “Then why have you been begging me to help you save him?” asked Harry sadly. “Why did you lie to me for so long? You could have told me the truth, Hermione...”

                As Healers, we’re trained to be skeptical…because our patients lie to us all the time. The rule is: every patient is a liar until proven honest. The same can be said about day to day living. Everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

                Lying is bad. Or so we’re told. Constantly, from birth, “Honesty is the best policy.” “The truth shall set you free.” “I chopped down the cherry tree.”

                Whatever.

                The fact is lying is a necessity. We lie to ourselves because the truth…the truth bloody hurts. No matter how hard we try to ignore it or deny it, eventually the lies fall away…whether we like it, or not.

                But, here’s the truth about the truth: It hurts. So…we lie.

                Her wand. Harry finally gave it back after she had crawled onto the gurney and curled her body around the still bleeding man. She had snatched it quickly before he could change his mind. She had already given the patient more Blood Replenishing Potion and an Invigoration Draught to act as a steroid against infection. She was tracing the line of the gaping wound with the tip of her wand, singing an incantation in Arabic, Gaelic, Greek - any language that could possibly work - and praying to a higher power that it would work – that it would bring her wizard back.

                “Please live…please,” she blubbered. “I can’t go through this again…I won’t survive it...”

                Memories played themselves as she watched the skin begin to slowly knit itself back together. He was still losing blood, but maybe – just maybe – this would work. She remembered her Hogwarts years; the sneaking around behind her friends’ backs; the secret meetings with Him. When everyone despised her, turned on her, used her. Lord Voldemort had been waiting with acceptance and understanding. She knew it had all been an act, but it had felt so nice to let herself feel wanted by someone – anyone. He had taken her under his wing, molded and taught her; he had allowed her to keep the career path she wanted, had encouraged her even. He had never demanded more of her than to learn everything she possibly could. She had been handed advanced texts, dark texts, informative texts on a plethora of subjects – all to prepare her for the future because he was uncertain but still cocky. She had fought in the Final Battle on both sides – killed her own school-mates without any suspicion, without second thought or regret. It had been so hectic and no one thought twice that Hermione’s aim might not have been “perfect as usual.”

And then he was gone. Harry killed him, but Hermione had remained silent afterwards because she didn’t want to chance losing Voldemort again; not after seeing the Dark Lord cheat death in a rather Slytherin-like way. She never did figure out what the flash of silver light meant, or what it had been, done. She had been swept up in the moment of victory as Harry and Ron hugged her from both sides. And then there had been parties and interviews, depositions at the Ministry under Kingsley’s watchful eye. And then…there had been the trials and the Healer Training Program, then the internship and residency at St. Mungo’s Hospital. She never had the time until the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts drew near. She had requested that day off, but that first year had proven too difficult to face and she had gone to class anyway. The year after that she was still unable to face the reality that there was a possibility that Voldemort would not be coming back, that he was dead, and she had continued with her thesis papers and gone to class again. When she started her internship and then her residency, she had requested the anniversary of the Final Battle off so she could finally grieve – by that point she felt that she needed to mourn his loss in order to move on with her life – but small favors were never granted. She was always paged, called into work for some great travesty that happened that day - unapprehended Death Eaters running amok while the wizarding community celebrated. Eight years and she had never grieved. She tried, but she had always been denied.

Again, how did she even get to the point where she needed to grieve Lord Voldemort? She had been a key player on the side of the Light…until she had been captured by Death Eaters, brought before the Dark Lord in all of his serpentine glory, and found that she was quite drawn to the cruel, dark wizard. He knew so much while she knew so little; his knowledge was priceless, so valuable. He created a schedule for her and she would sneak out during her sixth year (being a Prefect had its perks) and she complied so he would teach her as much as he felt that she deserved, so she could use it against him when the time came. And soon she found that she wasn’t meeting the Dark Lord to get an edge on the enemy for Harry – she was doing so because she wanted nothing more than to please him. She desired him, his intellect - and she didn’t even mind his appearance – and she felt as though there was something beyond reality at play. He had seduced her, taken her to his bed and pleasured her. She had willingly given the Dark Lord – her best friend’s enemy – her virginity, and she had never regretted it. She loved him. When Harry defeated Voldemort after so many years, she had finally realized that she loved him; she loved the most evil wizard in history and no one ever knew. No one would ever know…

                Yes, he had been a cruel, vindictive man with emotional and intimacy issues – what could anyone expect from Lord Voldemort? But no matter how many times she had suffered for defying him, choosing to save a life rather than destroy one like he wanted, he would forgive her, eventually. And she would be relieved that he had. She had rationalized her feelings towards the puzzling wizard for so long, denying that it was nothing more than her reaping the benefits of his attention to help Harry in the end. Nothing more than business as usual. There was no intimate meaning, no love or deep, meaningful connection for him, so surely there was nothing like that for her. It was just passion and learning and really…really…good sex. Intimacy was a back-thought…something that she pondered over years after he had supposedly died…

                And ever since he had returned...



                Intimacy is a four-syllable word for, “Here are my heart and soul. Please grind them into hamburger and enjoy.” It’s both: desired and feared, difficult to live with…and impossible to live without.

Intimacy also comes attached to life’s three R’s: Relatives, Romance, and Roommates. There are some things you can’t escape, and other things you just don’t want to know. I wish there was a rulebook for intimacy. I wish there were some kind of a guide that could tell you when you’ve crossed the line. It would be nice if you could see it coming. And I don’t know how you fit it on a map. You take it where you can get it, and keep it as long as you can. And as for rules...maybe there are none. Maybe the rules of intimacy are something you have to define for yourself.



                “My…muh…mudblood,” a raspy voice breathed out next to her.

                She jerked up and looked at the incredibly handsome, incredibly evil, man on the gurney. The bleeding had slowed down between the stitching skin, to just a trickle, and his breathing was labored but strong. She cried out in complete and utter relief – joy – before checking his pulse, which was weak, but there. He was going to live and that was all that mattered to her.

                She showered his face with kisses and let herself sob at the fact that he was alive – ALIVE! She had never been happier than she was at that moment – not even when he had shown up seven years after his snake-like counterpart’s death. She slid down the bloody stretcher and sobbed as she clung to him. She forgot that Harry Potter was still in the room, that there was an army of Aurors outside the emergency room doors; it felt like time had stopped so she could take in every detail of that moment.

                “I thought…I thought I lost you again,” she whimpered. “You can’t leave me! I won’t allow you to leave me all alone again!”

                He cracked an eye to peer down his symmetrically perfect nose at her with an air of noble arrogance, “Never…”

                “I’ll try to get you both a joint cell in Azkaban,” quipped Harry in a dark tone.

                The underlying threat in the Auror’s tone seeped into Hermione’s psyche and she reacted on pure instinct. Her wand was already aimed and the curse left her lips before she realized what she had done. All she had been aware of was that he was going to take Voldemort away, lock her up for the rest of her life so she never saw him again. She couldn’t let that happen – she wouldn’t be able to handle it. She had to fight, and if it meant killing her best friend, then so be it.

                The Killing Curse illuminated the brightly lit room in emerald green and Harry Potter’s body fell lifeless to the blood soaked floors. Hermione added more wards up to the room as she worked to take down the Anti-Apparition Wards that the Aurors had set up when Lord Voldemort’s body arrived on a stretcher. If she could just create a hole in the magical make-up of it she could focus and Disapparate through it. She just needed that one little crack – there was always a little crack, a small window of opportunity.

                And there it was, that small forgotten hole making the entire Ward preventing Apparition in and out of St. Mungo’s fall apart around them all. She took hold of Voldemort’s arm and twisted into a quick disapparation far, far away from the searching eyes of Aurors. She could never go back now – she was a fugitive until the Dark Lord regained his full strength – but she didn’t regret it…She would never regret it. She had complete and utter faith.

                You never know the biggest day of your life is the biggest day. Not until it’s happening. You don’t recognize the biggest day of your life. Not until you’re right in the middle of it. The day you commit to something or someone… The day you get your heart broken. The day you meet your soulmate. The day you realize there’s not enough time… because you want to live forever. Those are the biggest days. The perfect days...

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The End.
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Granger's Anatomy