Placebo

They belong to J.K. Rowling and certain Very Big Companies she has deputized on her behalf, not me.

Placebo, noun:
1. A substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce a patient's expectation to get well.
2. Something of no intrinsic remedial value that is used to appease or reassure another.
3. (Roman Catholic) The service or office of vespers for the dead; the first antiphon of the vespers for the dead.
    Source: Dictionary.com

We have never been alone in our bed.

Every night, as we cling to each other, we are painfully aware of the shade of our missing third. They called us the Dream Team, the Trio. Now two live where three dwelt, and every breath we take is coloured by a beloved ghost.

I think the worst irony is that this situation is the last thing our mutual best friend would want for us, for us to remain together yet be riven apart by our loss. Harry sometimes looks at me and I can see the self-hatred in his eyes - how can I be with someone who led someone he loved off to die? And sometimes he looks at me with abject loathing - how can I sit there when I let my best and dearest friend be killed by Voldemort? I know, because I feel the same; there are days when I can't believe anyone would want me, the loved-betrayer, in their lives, and days when I have to just get out of the house because I can't stand to see his face one more second, and know he let his best-beloved die.

When we're thinking rationally, we know better. Not one of us would have willingly let the other two keep him out of danger - it had to be the three of us who set off that night. It had to be the three of us who faced Voldemort together.

Yet neither of us can forget that it was not either one of us who saw Voldemort's dying curse and, slight form suddenly inhumanely strong, shoved us out of the way. The sight of the sudden shock of agony, blooming on that beloved face as the curse struck, is burnt on the inside of my eyelids. I can never, ever forget the sound of those whimpers of pain while we desperately cast every counter-curse we knew and some we made up on the spot.

We failed. Some days I can almost forgive Harry for that.

And now he writhes in nightmare. His hands thrash and his face twists as he faces whatever darkness his memories can churn up. "Hermione..." he mutters. "Hermione, no... HERMIONE!!"

"Shh, Harry," I say softly, smoothing his hair out of his face. "Shh, I'm here, I'm here...."

His eyes pop open, and he stares up at me. "... Ron," he says, finally.

"It's over," I say softly.

"She's dead." His statement is flat with painful truth. I close my eyes against the blast of my own grief, brought up by his, and pull him close.

We kiss hungrily, our breaths mingling as we strive to reaffirm our lives in the face of our loss, aching for our amputated third. We react to our loss as thousands have done over hundreds of years, the surge of adrenalin triggering other, baser urges.

And yet, I know all too well, that the shoulder he is gripping so tightly in his hand doesn't belong to me, that behind his screwed-shut eyelids he is seeing brown eyes, not blue. And I - I close my own, and the hand gripping me is callused, not from holding a broom and reaching for a Snitch, but from years of holding a quill and dragging heavy tomes off shelves. The flesh pressed against me is softer, more yielding, with feminine curves rather than masculine planes, and it is not Harry's name I chant, but hers. On the edge of consciousness, I hear Harry's voice, repeating the same name. Her name.

"HERMIONE!" we both cry, as our mutual orgasm flings us off the cliff of consciousness.

We return to ourselves slowly, brushing hands along arms and exchanging soft words and softer kisses. He apologises for the bruises on my shoulder, I bring delicate touches to bear upon the scars on his back. Anyone listening to us now would think us perfect, saccharine-sweet lovers. They wouldn't guess that the apologies are routine, that the caresses are hollow. They are meant for another who will never hear our mumbled words or feel our fingers glide across her skin, lying as she does in a coffin too small and narrow for her soul, six foot under the sod in a quiet Muggle graveyard.

We have never been alone in our bed.