Like a sister

He had defeated Voldemort... He had a future to look forward to, for the first time in his life. He had been able to survive the War physically unscathed; Ginny had survived as well as Hermione... But Ron had died. His first friend, his brother: he had passed away. Harry hadn't been able to save him after all... But Ron had saved Harry's life and had destroyed the locket, too.

Harry couldn't understand why Ron had to die. Why wasn't he here anymore? Why? Where was the answer for that stupid question? He just wanted one answer. One reason. One way to accept it... but there wasn't any. Seeing Ron's coffin being lowered to the pit broke his already bleeding heart. Through his tears he managed to see their friends and Ron's family crying, wailing, looking away. Harry knew that they still couldn't believe it. Then he had turned to look at Hermione, standing next to him, and her eyes had been wide as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Just like when the redhead had deserted the Horcrux hunt, Harry had not been able to comfort her... Probably because he hadn't been able to comfort himself, either, no matter how hard he may have tried.

Harry knew how much Hermione had liked Ron... Damn it, maybe she had even loved him. After the funeral, Hermione had spent nearly three months without speaking or moving. She had to be moved to St. Mungos during those months, because she had undergone what the Healer had called “post- traumatic stress disorder manifested with catatonia”. After trying to wrap his head around the idea of a catatonic Hermione, Harry had hardly moved from her side at the hospital. It was heart wrenching to see her staring at the ceiling through half lidded eyes, barely breathing. Harry had never imagined that it would come to this.

Ginny had often come to visit Hermione, too, during those months. Her attempts to start a conversation with Harry were received either with depressed indifference or one word replies, so she had desisted eventually. Harry couldn't understand what had happened to him. Had he not wished, during the Horcrux hunt as well as the battle in Hogwarts, for Ginny to be safe and well? Had he not kissed her on his birthday? Had he not longed for her? If that was so, why was he rejecting her now? Finally, after the second month of consecutive silence between them, Ginny told Harry to call her when he was ready to talk about the future of their relationship. Harry had nodded and she had smiled, before kissing his forehead and walking out of the hospital room.

He never called her.

Hermione finally recovered and went to live with her parents after modifying their memories and bringing them back from Australia. Three weeks later she stood in the doorstep of Grimmauld Place, looking careworn, and Harry let her in without a word. From that moment onwards, Hermione took to visit Harry at least every two days, perhaps in look for comfort, perhaps because she was bored- they hardly talked to each other in those times.

Looking back, Harry reckoned that it was then when everything started.

Hermione had stayed over the night. She would've slept in a room on the second floor of the house, three doors away from Harry's. It was either very late at night or very early in the morning, depending on how you liked to look at it, when Harry heard his door creaking open, and Hermione -sleepwalking, perhaps- stumbled into the room soundlessly. Harry raised his eyebrows when the mattress groaned as his friend lied down next to him and stopped moving. A few minutes later, however, Hermione had started sniffing and whimpering, pressing her body against Harry's back as she trembled.

Was she awake? Should he do something...? In the end he decided to squeeze her hand with his, trying to reassure her, and ten minutes later he heard her breathing slow down until it was inaudible. It became a routine: Hermione would sneak into his room and sleep with him, and go back into her own room at the morning when she woke up. After a month since Hermione had first entered his room, Harry found out that her presence was soothing: a barrier against the nightmares and the ghosts of a future lost. He gradually found himself staying awake until she entered his room and lied down next to him... He enjoyed using her long brown tresses as a surrogate pillow, burying his face against her neck.

Then, after three months since the first of her nightly incursions, during a breakfast, Hermione had asked Harry if he believed in second chances. “No,” he had flatly replied; Hermione had nodded without a word. But now he wasn't so sure. In fact, he contradicted himself every night as he held on to Hermione for dear life. When had his feelings for her shifted? Why, how? Harry often remembered the night when Ron had destroyed the locket; he couldn't get the image of the Riddle Harry and Hermione kissing out of his head; it was a though it had been emblazoned in his brain.

“She's like my sister,” Harry went on. “I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It's always been like that.”

Yes... It had always been like that. Not anymore, though. He knew... And hated himself for it. How could he? How could he, Harry, the one that told Ron that Hermione loved him, be longing after her? After merely a year of Ron's death, how could he? It was wrong, it was disrespectful; an insult to his best friend's memory. Harry even wished he could fancy Ginny again; how difficult could it be? But at the thought of not being able to hear Hermione breathing at his side anymore, his resolve crumbled and his soul ached for his best friend.

How could he be so stupid? Why hadn't he pushed her away the first night she came into his room? Why did she have to represent everything he craved for? Why did she have to represent safety, comfort, and loyalty?

Harry hated the way he couldn't hate her, he despised the way he wasn't able to blame her for his feelings, and he loathed the fact that he was now incapable of having peace of mind without her by his side.

But most of all, Harry Potter hated Hermione Granger because he loved her.

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A/N: *sigh*.... I know that the chapters are short... I apologize. Anyway, I hoped you liked this one!