It Was Always Going to End This Way

Deals and Distribution

A/N - Thank you all for your patience, I am back to having some free time so I will being trying to update more often! Hope you are having a good 2024 so far!

She had brought him back to her bed once she had calmed him down enough to get up and walk. Underneath she was scared shitless, she had never seen him like this. Everything in him had broken down.

"It should have been me" repeats in her head over and over again, his cracking voice like an echo. His whole life had been driven by survivors guilt. He wouldn't protect his life because he thought he should be dead. It was all starting to make sense.

She had placed him in her bed the best she could and sat on the end. She had poorly dragged him up the stairs and through the common room. He was almost twice her size, he must have been helping her the best he could. He had drifted off into sleep in seconds, a mixture of the alcohol and mental exhaustion crashing down. She watched his breathing settle.

She just wanted to make it all go away. Take all of her boy's pain away. Ruining her hands through her own hair she wondered how he delt with all this trauma when the little bit of distress the events with Harry the past few years  had almost destroyed her.

She brought herself to stand and made her way towards her dresser, she slipped the dress off the shoulders placing it on the chair and grabbed the long T shirt in the top drawer. It was one of his old shirts.

Over time he had left a few items of his on her bed and she had kept them. It was selfish, but it made her feel close to him. Especially when he was going through a hard time and insisting he needed to be alone.

She slipped on the T shirt and walked back towards the bed sitting down near his chest. She reached and brushed the hair from his face. She began to stand to pull back the covers for herself. He groaned and his arms slipped around her torso.

"Don't go" he whined out in his sleep.

"I'm not baby." She reassured and kissed him on the forehead as she pulled back the blanket as his grip loosened. She crawled under the blanket and he moved his face into her chest. She wrapped her arms around him putting her hands in his hair and kissed the top of his head.

His arms wrapped around her like a snake and his hands gripped the shirt for dear life. Like if he let go she would leave him forever.

Why wouldn't she after finding out how damaged he was....is....

****

Hermione opened her eyes as the sun started to shine through the window. Her internal clock always woke her up with the sun.

She was facing the outside of the bed now. His body pressed against her back. His arms around her. She turned slowly in his arms to not wake him.

He had shed clothes while sleeping. Now only on boxers and a slightly unbuttoned oxford. His collar bones exposed. She looked at him for a second. He always look so at peace while sleeping...as long as he wasn't having a dream.

She couldn't help herself. She moved and snuggled her face into his neck her arms wrapping around his back. She took a slow deep breath, taking in his scent. It calmed her. She quickly drifted back to sleep and the safety of being that close to him took a hold of her.

When she woke up again it was to the sound of the door shutting. It was trying to be done quietly but the old wood door screamed no matter what. She realized the body next to her was gone along with the clothes on the floor.