A/N - This is much darker than my usual Harry/Sev fics, and for that, I do apologise. I was working with limited time and a fair few prompts that contradicted my usual writing style. As much as this is Harry/Severus, it's told in Hermione's point of view. I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

Word Count Minus AN - 1066

Can't Compete With A Dead Man

It upsets me to see him so... empty. Since the battle he has been withdrawn, spending most of his time in the Hogwarts Library, swapping it in the summertime for the Library at Grimmauld Place. All he does is read. He doesn't talk to any of us anymore, he doesn't go out, he doesn't do...anything.

No one else knows the problem, and in a way, I wish I didn't either. He told me, after three months of hounding him, as he cried into his pillows. He told me how much he loves the one man he knows will never love him back. I wanted to help him then, but he wouldn't hear any of it, begging me to leave him alone. I wish I could make him understand that he is worthy of love. I wish I could make him understand that he doesn't have to change himself to be desirable. I wish I could make him see that the love he wishes for is impossible.

Time passes, and Harry seems to diminish with it. He's getting skinnier, paler. He's still absorbed in books, because, as he once told me, he'll only love me if I can prove to him that I'm not a dunderhead. I tried to help Harry, I did, but he isn't seeing reason. He need's help, help that I, nor Ron, nor any of his friends can give him.

It's a year to the day after the battle, when we subject him to the help he needs. He tried to fight, he shouts and screams, he calls us names, whispers of betrayal. He gets taken to the secure ward in St Mungo's, where the walls and floors are a calming shade of blue apparently, where we can't see him. We all want him to get the help he needs.

It's been three months since Harry was sectioned, and we still aren't allowed to see him. He's stopped talking all together now. When he first arrived there, the nurses I call for a weekly update told me he was screaming day and night for his books. It took nine weeks for him to stop doing that. I ask, every week without fail, if we can see him. I get told in no uncertain terms that I can't. Apparently his delusional state of mind runs far deeper than any of us could have guessed.

He tried to commit suicide.

A nurse left a jug of water in his room and he smashed it, tried to cut his wrist with a jagged piece of glass. Of course it didn't work, they have alarms in place for those kind of situations, but the fact that he tried breaks my heart. Ron tells me that we have to keep living our own lives, but how can I live and be happy, knowing where he is, knowing the way he feels.

It's been six months since he got taken into the hospital. He shows no signs of improvement and he's stopped eating. Stopped drinking. Stopped anything at all. He stares at the wall, not blinking, for hours at a time. The nurse I spoke to last told me that in some cases, the delusions of a patient never go away. I think she was telling me in a roundabout way to give up hope. I can't. I won't. I want my best friend back.

They spell his food and water straight into his system, along with a potion to stop him from throwing it all back up. I wish Dumbledore was still alive. He'd know what to do. Then again, if the Headmaster was still alive, we might not be in the situation anyway.

It's been a year to the day since they took him into the hospital, and they've called us all in to see him. It's not the happy reunion I always prayed for. He's turned his magic inward on himself, refusing to live any longer. The healers have had to place him into a magical coma, but they tell us he doesn't have long left.

They called us here to say goodbye.

Harry died.

The wizarding world is in shock, and many people all over the country are crying because their saviour is dead. The paper is saying some unknown spell must have got him during the battle, and only a few of us know what really happened.

I'm the only one who knows who he died for.

I thought, when it happened, that it was sad. I saw a tear drop to Harry's cheek as he took the memories, but I thought that was just because the man was dying, and much as we thought he was a bastard, it was still yet another death on a night full of them.

When Harry started going to the Hogwarts Library, I thought he was trying to distract himself from the pressure of being a hero, of being savior to the people. I though he was doing it to get good NEWT scores.

When he told me he was doing it to make Severus fall in love with him, I wanted to help him. I wanted to try and make him see that Severus was dead, but he wouldn't let me. He asked me, as tears poured down his face, why I would lie to him about such a thing. I tried to be sympathetic, I tried to be supportive. I never told anyone why Harry had closed himself off to the world. I didn't even tell Ron the real reason, I knew he wouldn't understand.

Harry died, and it's no one's fault. I know that, and yet, as I stand by his grave, I want to rage and scream at the world. I want to scream at him. Why couldn't he get better? Why didn't he fight the delusion. Why didn't he listen to me?

Harry died because he fell in love with a dead man.

Harry died, and now, I don't know if I can live without him. I loved him. I would have helped him. He didn't want help.

In the end, I couldn't compete with a dead man.