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Title: And First an Hour
Author: Eugenides
Author Email: shishkabob147@wmconnect.com
Author Website: http://www.geocities.com/gavrochevies/main.html
Category: not quite fluff, not quite angst
Spoilers: any reader should have read all four books simply for understanding
Rating: PG (nothing bad, but certainly not Disney)
Summary: A member of the trio deals with unrequited love.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Where to start, that's the problem. My life has forever been of words and my beloved books, all of which begin and end at some point at least. Perhaps my greatest fault in life has been that ever-present longing to mirror those stories that outline my existence.

This is meant to be an after word to my story. It is of course the story of Harry, begins with him and ends with the rest of all we became. I wrote it on a night that was the end, and did not realize it was birthed until I sat back, candle smoking wetly, in the drafty library at Hogwarts and found pages under my fingers, pages upon pages of what used to be. Even in those hallowed halls I did not stay long, but passed into the summer dawn outside, hushed and lone. My fingers were ink-stained and I was amazed. All these years I never knew how kindred I was to the comrades of my soul-- Austen and Bronte and Alcott and Montgomery-- our understanding so long the magus of my secret knowledge, now to be given to the world. I was happy in that thought. I leant back on the grass and felt my heart beating fully, the rhythm of night and day.

It was not hard. It has never been difficult to embody Harry and his thoughts. As natural as breathing, day and night. Of course it hurt, though, like wrenching out my mind and heart, followed by soul, and trying so hard to pin it in place, draw it all out. When it was finished I was emptied of much, but something else had grown up in me. I am happy now, as happy as I ever feel. My flight of joy is always fettered.

The beginning, that's always where you're to start. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a girl in possession of a lonely soul must be in want of a friend. So it was with dear Harry at first, both of us smarting from our displacement. When I saw him for the first time I recognized it from the crease in his brow, the shy gaze in his brilliant eyes hiding such a dwindling fire. Ron was next to him, equally uncomfortable, though at the time I did not offer much attention toward his countenance. I can't remember much more beyond that moment. At eleven I hadn't reached the age of awareness I remember much from.

My next, freshest memory of him is on that night they saved me from the mountain troll on Halloween. Harry dove in, he himself not seeing yet the desperate unity we felt for each other, simply following his sense of right that remained intact, even after those years with his horrid relations. My head aches looking back. Such a young thing I was, always looking for my Darcy. Of course my books had given me my own impression of this prince, and my eyes were open for any sign of his presence. Heaven could not have intervened with my hell-bent intentions. When Ron appeared before me, freckles vibrant, ears feverish with anger, my girl-heart jarred and it became so clear to me that this could be the one I was waiting for-- this angry jealous boy the fulfillment of every novel and story in my heart. I snapped back my fiery reprimand, which I have never forgotten ("Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does...") and fled. That night in my room my eyes glowed starry in my mirror. Ron! I had never suspected Ron! But he liked me-- no, loved me, and truly there was something between us I had never felt before.

That short time afterwards I will never forgive myself. All the more so because Harry did not feel anything of it, that I know. In his calm, truehearted way he gave himself up soon after that and I was broken awake. Suddenly, for the first time since I had known him, Harry was alone in his final battle. Neither Ron nor I could do anything to help--- we hung speechless, hearts racing, outside that devil-ridden maze of hedges. The silence broke when he came back and lay clutching Cedric, grasping him in such a fear of and longing for life. Ron, Viktor, everyone in the crowd faded into a frozen mist arrayed across his brow, and I awoke. Harry was all I ever needed in my estranged life. It was something wonderful. Instead of following in the pathways of all my beloved books I was writing my own, painting something all my own on the canvas of our hearts. Harry awoke, and for many days I lived in the bliss that comes when the desire of your life is stirred up. From that point on he was all I could want--- not a mysterious admirer nor an infatuated friend, but the one person in the world I understood effortlessly. It was not unnatural to kiss him after that, not awkward to say goodbye to Viktor and turn down his plans for the summer--- I did not and do not know anything about Viktor really, and once I had gotten to my senses did not care to. It was of course difficult for me to pick myself out of the way of Ron's affections, but it was done. In spring of our 5th year Ron and I were settled back to our old relationship of spatting siblings and I was happy. I love Ron, don't misunderstand me, but he only reaches down to a certain part of me. Perhaps I lament that to some point, but you cannot understand or anticipate such truths until you experience them for yourself. If Ron had ever entertained more tender feelings for me, they were always grown, tended, drawn up. Harry is natural for me and takes no thought. Our souls are knit together in an old way that has existed since God first spun life into the heart of man. I run out of reasons letting Ron go--- perhaps that is why I fell into my folly as a child. On paper Ron and I add up to so much, and for a long while it certainly seemed that our impetuous relationship was that of Anne and Gilbert, Darcy and Elizabeth. At least most outsiders seemed sure that we would be together in the end. Little did we all know I had a Teddy Kent in store. It does not even make sense to me as I write it--- but there is no predicting the ways of the heart and soul.

I should have known then, but there was no way I could have. Even when we were comforting each other in the dark of Voldemort's night that followed, Harry never came to his realization. In his mind we were everything we had always been, but he could not yet see that that was all we needed. The spring of our seventh year he unclasped his hand from mine, smiling his dear honest smile, and took Ginny in his arms. She smiled blithely up at his face, his eyes full of all that was him she could never comprehend, and Harry was lost in her splendor. I never looked like much, especially to a boy who had eyes only for Cho Chang and other faultless beauties.

It is a bitter point for me. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter what his personal traits are. Some things are irreversible. I appear scholarly and concise; he plays the hero and falls prey to his very senses. Underneath it all we are kindred dreamers. To some point Ron and I balance each other out, but with Harry and I there is no fulcrum at all, we simply exist, almost as one entity. Can you fault me for loving one and not the other?

That is how I became alone. When our time at Hogwarts finally ended, Harry followed Ginny and I followed my studies to an advanced university of magic in Iceland. Ron struck out on a path of his own, with the help of Harry's personal fortune. Our first year as separate adults was so hard for all of us-- whenever we met there were invariably tears. But time heals all wounds, even when its poultices are unwanted. Time flew, and suddenly I was 22, catching a familiar owl from the sky to read that Ron was getting married.

And so Harry and I saw each other for the first time in two and a half years. He had not changed (how could he?) but Ron had certainly grown. The feeling that your foundation has been altered and you are left in unknown territory is never a pleasant one. Ron could never be a stranger, but the fact remained that our trio was forever broken. As Ron promised himself to another, divine happiness stole over both Harry and I, and yet somehow our hands found each other's in grief--- I could feel the sorrow emanating from his very skin. I drew small but strong comfort from the fact that not once during the service did Harry's eyes steal over to Ginny in the family's front pew.

We saw Ron and his new wife off, but remained with the Weasleys all that next week. I tell myself that he saw me simply as a dear friend, and try to convince myself that friends is all we are ever destined to be. And yet I gazed in his emerald eyes and could not repeat that false sentiment with any fervor. When it was time to depart company, we did so amidst tears that were more bitter than sweet. That fall I took a job at Hogwarts as a professor, and my heart was blessed to see so much of my childhood living in the current students. I have watched them grow, memories spinning round me always, for three years.

Yesterday Ginny died.

It was a terrible shock for me and I immediately wrote off an owl to Ron, calling back all the love my soul contained for him, and putting myself back inside our school days. He wrote back with the true sincerity his years have granted him. Dear Ron has truly become much of a man, and I love him all the better for it.

And then I sat down in the library to compose my letter to Harry. All that he was came rushing back, and, setting off the miserable world I inhabit, I fell into the fervent trance of our childhood.

I awoke this morning, as I related, with his story before me. I know now not what is to be done with it, but I know that one thing is stronger in me: though he may never love my back, my love and devotion for Harry will never falter. Were Ginny still living I have a suspicion that my hope would be less firm, but it would matter not when it comes to my newfound purpose in life. So I will prepare my life work, mail it off and pray that it is published. I cannot say what will happen when Harry discovers I have written our life together as a series of seven novels, but I have no fear. Our relationship could never change for the worst, that I am sure of.

And if he chooses to spend his life in mourning for the girl he never truly knew, then so be it. I will endure, basking in his very presence on the earth. I am willing to make such a sacrifice for the love that fills my every emotion.

But, knowing so fully the boy he was and the man he has become, I cannot oppress the phoenix of hope in my soul that is re-birthed after every death. Somehow I do not think my life will be empty of him after all. On my back I see his figure cutting across the Hogwarts grounds--quickly, eager for my comfort, and I close my eyes only to open then again. I relish his every movement.

I cannot make out his face at this distance. Yet he is coming closer, and I do not know him inside and out for naught. He has come, and I am here.

 

And first an hour of mournful musing
And then a gush of bitter tears
And then a dreary calm diffusing
Its deadly mist o'er joys and cares
And then a throb and then a lightening
And then a breathing from above
And then a star in heaven brightening
The star the glorious star of love

-Emily Brontė

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