Title: Could You Leave Me With a Scar
Characters/Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Spoilers: Books 1-7, Deathly Hallows Part 1 (movie)
Summary: Hermione has scars.
Author's Note: It's a bit of movie canon mixed together with book canon mixed together with my canon. Based on the prompt "Scars like warpaint" over at the LJ Harry Potter Non-Canon Ship Ficathon.

i.

You are five years old and you are curious, impossibly curious, so when you watch Mary Poppins for the third day in a row it seems perfectly natural to wonder. So, like a miniature scientist you devise an experiment. You retrieve your father's grand black umbrella from its stand in the foyer, carefully climb onto the porch roof from your bedroom window, and jump. It is not until your knees are bloody with gravel and your parents are screaming that you realize your curiosity may have led you astray.

Later, after your mother has washed and bandaged your knees, your father pulls down a large book from the shelf (an encyclopedia, he calls it, and the word is tricky on your tongue but you practice it again and again). He lets you turn the pages, stopping finally on gravity, and your tiny mouth hangs open because it seems almost magical that the answers to all of your questions are right there on those crisp white pages.

Waiting for you.

So you beg your father to take down all of the encyclopedias from off the shelf and that night you diligently haul them up to your bedroom, two by two. You choose one from the pile ('H' for Hermione) and climb up onto your bed, propping your pillow against the headboard. Then you carefully, painstakingly remove the bandages from your knees (your mother's fretful words ring in your ears: you are going to be left with scars), and prop the book up against your angled thighs.

(When you look at the matching blemishes on your knees you can still hear the crack of the spine as you split the pages to reveal hummingbird. It is a perfect memory.)

ii.

You catch yourself staring at it in the mirror again and again. After you shower, as you dress, before you go to sleep: the puckered pink star that glows against the white expanse of your chest. You can still feel Dolohov's curse hitting you - crushing against your chest and stealing your breath - and sometimes you are amazed that this is all you have to show for it.

You've been fighting this battle (war, you think, it will become a war) with Harry for years, but this time you have the mark to prove it - a talisman of sorts, seared directly into your flesh. You wonder how many more marks your skin will earn as you step forward to fight with Harry over and over again.

As long as he needs you.

Until the very end.

You wonder if someday you will die for this boy who lived. They will bury you in satin, you think, and your scars will bear a silent witness that you were, perhaps, in love with an impossible boy who (somehow) taught you so much more than books ever could.

You press your palm against the star - against your heart - and you take a deep, full breath. You remind yourself that there are things worth dying for.

iii.

Harry sets the jar down on the bedside table gingerly. You can feel his gaze travel over your curled up frame, but you keep your eyes hidden against the pillow.

"It's Essence of Murtlap," he says, his voice raw and uncertain. "I remembered that you gave it to me during fifth year."

He hesitates when you don't answer, then sits down gingerly on the bed next to you. His weight pulls down the edge of the mattress and your body tilts toward him, knobby knees digging into a too thin back. He is about to reach for the jar when you stop him, your cold fingers wrapping around his wrist.

"It will make you feel better, Hermione," he insists, his voice gentle.

But you don't want to feel better. You don't want to be soothed. Your arm throbs with bone-deep pain and the warped letters burn scarlet against the backs of your lids when you close your eyes, but you don't mind. Because that is how you remember.

So you pull Harry's hand away from the murtlap and slowly, carefully begin to trace out the letters on his hand with the pad of your thumb (you think you hear his breath catch when you linger over lies). Then you lift your hand to brush aside his hair and trace the jagged bolt with your fingertip.

"I don't want it to fade," you whisper, finally lifting your eyes to his. "I don't want to forget."

He stares at you for a long time before nodding in understanding. Then he squeezes your hand gently, and you sit with your fingers intertwined until Fleur comes to fetch you for dinner.

iv.

It happens in a muggle library, of all places. Your mother has been begging you to join her book club (it's a kind of magic we can share, she insists), so there you are, searching the stacks for Mrs. Dalloway while Harry peers at you from the other side of the shelf. He's not much for libraries (many, many things have changed but that is not one of them), and you are certain that Ron has begged him to keep an eye on you while he's away on business for the day.

Then it happens. One moment Harry is catching your eye between the books, and the next moment you are doubled over with a sharp oh.

"I think I'm going into labor," you manage after a few seconds, trying to keep your voice even.

In the space of an instant, it seems, someone has called for an ambulance and you are being whisked away to a muggle hospital (we could apparate to St. Mungo's, Harry suggests with an anxious whisper, but you both know it's far too dangerous). And suddenly you are in a sterile white room and Harry is holding your hand tightly and it is all happening so much faster than the books ever told you it would. Somewhere amidst the haze of pain you hear the word breach and your head begins to buzz with a sharp sense of panic.

"I think I should send Ron a Patronus," Harry whispers in your ear, his voice heavy with fear.

"Don't leave me," you beg frantically, your eyes wide. "Please don't leave me Harry."

And so he stays and you lock your eyes with his as doctors and nurses and scalpels whirl all around you. He threads his fingers through yours and your wedding rings clink together (it feels, for a moment, as if you've used a time-turner to go back and right all of your life's wrongs) - and then she is there. Flawless and warm and so unbelievably small in your arms that it takes your breath away.

Harry beams through tears as he leans forward to press a gentle kiss against your damp forehead. I love you, he breathes, a whisper meant for just the three of you.

(Years later you can still feel his words against your skin. Rose is perfect just the way she is, you think as you run your finger along the scar that rests just below your navel. But sometimes it seems almost impossible that her tangled mass of curls is not jet-black and that her eyes are not a deep shade of green.)

v.

It happens just once. It's the night before the fifteenth anniversary of the war and both of your families have gone to the Burrow. It's a Weasley tradition, this gathering, but you and Harry have your own traditions as well. On the day of the anniversary you are public heroes and you make all of the proper appearances, say all of the proper things, lay all of the proper flowers on the (too) many graves. But the eve of the anniversary is just for you. Just for the two of you.

"Fifteen years," you muse quietly as you pull down a mug from the cupboard. "It seems like only yesterday."

When you turn around Harry is standing mere inches from you, his eyes unreadable. You open your mouth to say his name but it dies on your lips as he takes another step forward, pressing your back against the countertop. His lips hover mere inches from yours, and the world feels upside down and (finally) right-side up all at once.

"Why now?" you manage to choke out after a moment, the time for pretenses and pretending long past.

"Because we are fools, Hermione," he whispers, his eyes pained. "Because time is making fools of us."

Then he is crushing his lips against yours and your fingers are weaving through his hair and you are both desperate (so desperate) to claim each other's flesh as your own that it makes your bones ache. His lips and hands are everywhere as you shudder against him, your own hands pulling him closer with every ragged breath. It is passionate and frenzied and perfect.

It is over far too soon.

As you struggle to catch your breath you find yourself wishing for some sort of evidence of his hands on your skin - some sort of mark. Your eyes are frantically (illogically) traveling over your unblemished flesh in disbelief when Harry speaks, his voice achingly tender.

"We could have been extraordinary," he says, pressing one last kiss against your lips.

(You've got scars that the whole world can see. But this one is only for the two of you.)