Title: Just Watch the Fireworks
Author: sinewave
Distribution: I don't mind.
Date: 11/26/01 - initial posting.
Update: 6/10/04 - reworking.
Notes: Hi, ok.
Wow. Almost three years since I wrote this. This story was in pain, and I happen to like it a lot (as a friend), so I decided to patch it up a little. Any further cries and/or yelps should be regarded as purely attention-seeking. (Isn't it funny to use far-and-away dates and then to see them approach? And pass? Like you expected that they would never come to pass? Anyway.) Italicized lyrics are by Jimmy Eat World.
October 19, 2007
"Hey, Herm."
Her name catching in his throat, he buried his hands in the pockets of his black trench coat and looked sheepishly to the ground. There, a 21-year-old Harry Potter could have easily been the precocious, bashful 11-year-old of years passed.
The evening was crisp and fast approaching dusk. The last few rays of sunlight battled the encroaching shadows to dance on their forest stage of deciduous floor, the browned foliage blanketing dormant grassland.
Here, you can be anything.
And I think that scares you.
The dry crackling of dead leaves underfoot rang in his ears as he took hesitant steps to her. The sunset, teeming on the horizon, cast filtered light through the trees and undergrowth, light that undulated in a thousand patterns all around him. It was fading into dusk.
"Should be dark soon. You know, Ron doesn't like leaving house on account of the unseasonable warmth causing his freckles to stand out. I'm not sure that genetics really care what the temperature is."
Harry laughed as he finished. Glancing down, he pulled a crumpled note from his pocket. Though aged, it remained folded. Pristine.
What giving up gives you, and where giving up takes you.
I've had and I've been.
He eyed it wistfully, but replaced it.
(I guess not much has changed.)
Not much, really.
I promised I'd see it again.
I promised I see this with you now.
Darkness grew closer, and Harry chanced a seat next to her. The dried grass was cool to his hands.
"I'm really glad I can speak with you again. I've been looking forward to this."
Soon, the sun was gone, cradled away in the clouds of tomorrow. It was then that the first fireworks appeared.
"I take it you have, too." Murmuring.
Harry's smile broadened, a flood of memories returning to him. Of graduation night, of Hermione close, of fireworks sparkling over the very same sky.
He liked to think that time was really quite powerless in changing things.
I said it out loud over and over.
I said it out loud but it did not help.
I'll stop now.
He settled deeper into the grass, propped on his elbows. "That night was magical," he thought aloud.
He glanced to her again.
"Hermione, I...," He pursed his lips in thought. Sighing, he leaned back, and the explosions in the sky didn't allow him to collect his thoughts any further.
Just so I can hear you I stay up as late as it takes, as long as it takes.
"Beautiful, aren't they?"
He allowed his eyes to sweep over the vast sky scape, taking in the sights, sounds, smells. The fireworks, like great, colorful glass flowers, shattered with a surreal shotgun "pop" against the canopy of the night sky.
The frazzled bits radiated outwards, fizzling and slowly fading.
Harry stayed with her through the night.
As dawn fell upon them, he had to leave. He glanced down, hand following his gaze to delicately wipe dew from her. He traced the ravines reverently.
(Fizzling and slowly fading. A proud moment when we exert ourselves against the pressures of the world, when time roars in our faces and we roar back. And when time balked, just for a little while.)
He pulled away, smiling at her for a long second, before turning and making his way on forest path. The leaves crackled.
Behind him, a note on a rogue breeze was swept to land near his former location. Her name on it.
To the direct left of the note, nearer to where Harry stood, nestled contentedly in a clearing was a smooth, rectangular stone.
It read:
Hermione Granger
Angel on Earth, Angel in Heaven
Sept. 19, 1986 - Oct. 19, 2003
I promised I'd see this with you now.
(Fizzling and slowly fading. Never fading. Burning out bright.)
Harry knew why he liked the fireworks.