To say that the wedding of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger was the event of the year at Hogwarts would have been the understatement of the year. The Daily Prophet proclaimed it the Event of the Decade, outstripping even the Triwizard Tournament (which competition, given the number of official complaints registered by the then-headmaster of Durmstrang, Igor Karkaroff, had been judged as something less than the success its planners had purposed).
The ceremony was held immediately following the graduation exercises and attended by the whole of Hogwarts, making it, by some accounts, the largest such affair in British history, wizard or Muggle. And once the snide remarks of Draco Malfoy had been muted by a Silencing Charm (courtesy of Professor Flitwick), prompting the remainder of Slytherin House to withhold any further remarks of a discordant nature, the celebration proceeded apace with an enthusiasm not soon to be approached, and unlikely ever to be equaled. The festivities carried on well past midnight, with the house-elves outdoing themselves with food and refreshments, and even Peeves the poltergeist seemed to be having so much fun that any thoughts he may have entertained of disrupting the festivities were entirely forgotten.
Nor had it been necessary to send out invitations, for everyone whom Harry or Hermione could have wished to attend was already present for the graduation ceremonies. The Weasleys were all there, from first to last, as were the Grangers (graduation being one of the few times when Muggles were permitted on the Hogwarts grounds). Harry was torn between whom to name his Best Man, but Sirius insisted that the honor go to Ron. Ginny was a vision in cornflower blue in her capacity as Hermione's Maid of Honor, while Lavender and Parvati served as attendants. Rose petals were strewn along the bride's path by dozens of fairies, and Hermione arrived in a silver coach drawn by two dazzling unicorns, courtesy of Hagrid.
As wizards favored bright colors for festive occasions, Hermione did not wear the chaste white to which she was entitled (Malfoy's cruel barbs aside). Her wedding robes were a stunning apricot, harmonizing fashionably with Harry's rich burgundy robes. As wizarding tradition held that marriage was a union not merely of a couple, but of their families as well, Hermione's parents stood beside her on one side, while Harry was joined not only by Sirius and Michelle, but by Arthur and Molly Weasley. He who had endured for nearly seventeen years with no true family to speak of suddenly found himself with three sets of parents, and he could not have been happier.
When Professor Dumbledore spoke the words which sealed the union of Harry and Hermione, a silence reigned like unto the calm before a storm. And when the newlyweds kissed for the first time as husband and wife, the storm broke. Even without the participation of the conspicuously taciturn Slytherin House, the resounding cheer from the student body caused the giant squid to leap dolphin-like above the surface of the lake, while the owlry exploded, sending a cloud of flapping birds into the afternoon sky like smoke from an erupting volcano.
As Harry and Hermione celebrated their first dance as a married couple, surrounded by hundreds of enthusiastic celebrants, they were also observed, most unobtrusively, by a man and a woman who were themselves observed by not one person save each other.
They were old in years, if not so evidently in appearance. The man was a head taller than his female counterpart. Both of them stood tall and straight, their hands joined, their eyes clear and glowing with an indescribable exhilaration. The woman's hair was brown and full-bodied, with a streak of white that began at her left temple and flowed down her back like a waterfall of molten silver. The man's hair, once jet black, was salted with white, lending him a dignified aspect. He wore his hair in a long pony tail, longer than that of Bill Weasley (who stood nearby with his own new bride, the former Fleur Delacour), though not so long as Dumbledore's flowing silver mane. No trace of a beard hid his face, which was strong and serene. He stroked his smooth chin contemplatively.
"I do keep forgetting how magnificent Dumbledore's beard was," he mused. "I may have another go myself one of these days."
"I hope you'll be very comfortable in the broom cupboard," the woman said in an even voice, her deep brown eyed fixed straight ahead as she observed the ceremony with a fond smile on her lips. "Because kissing a beard is like snogging the tail of a broom, and if you insist on looking like a broom, then you'd ruddy well better get used to sleeping with them."
"No, thanks," the man laughed gently. "I've had my fill of broom cupboards. I'll stick with the tried and true. Same old bed..." A pair of emerald green eyes flickered briefly to his side before returning to the wedding ceremony, "...same old wife."
"If we're speaking of forgetting," the woman said, ignoring her husband's feeble barb, "I'd forgotten how pretty I used to be." She allowed a wistful sigh to escape her smiling lips as she savored the feel of her husband's hand holding hers.
"Used to be, my arse," the man said, punctuating his remark with a gentle squeeze of his wife's hand. "You're still the sexiest witch in Britain, and Voldemort bugger anyone who says otherwise."
Freeing his hand from hers, the man began to caress his wife's shoulders and back before his fingers, seemingly with a will of their own, crept down to cup her backside through her elegantly tailored robes. His hand was promptly slapped away, accompanied by a reproving glare from a pair of eyes that, befitting their color, simmered like boiling coffee as they narrowed dangerously.
"Stop that, Harry! You're too bloody old to be acting like a horny schoolboy!"
"You're only as old or as young as you feel," Harry returned, resuming his exploration of his wife's charms. "Or is that who you feel?"
"It's whom," Hermione said, pulling away with a schoolgirl giggle to match her husband's schoolboy antics. "And if you try that again, I swear, I'll use my wand!"
"Not if I hold your arms to your sides," Harry said, suiting deed to word with a triumphant laugh. Hermione continued to giggle as she struggled playfully against her husband's unyielding arms.
"I can always use wandless magic," Hermione said defiantly. "Incantation only."
"Only if I let you speak the words," Harry said.
"And how are you going to stop me?" Hermione challenged, an impudent gleam in her eye.
"Like this." Harry bent and covered Hermione's mouth with his. On the dance floor, another Harry and Hermione were also kissing, and of the two couples, it was impossible to say whose passion was the more ardent.
Sighing against her husband's cheek, Hermione said, "Well, as long as you're using both arms to hold me, that doesn't leave you a free hand to get into my knickers."
"I think I remember a potion," Harry said as his lips trailed with slow savor along his wife's jawline, "in Moste Potente Potions, that grows extra arms. I might try brewing up a batch one of these days, just to sort you out."
"You're bugger all when it comes to brewing potions," Hermione chided. "It's common knowledge that I'm the potion brewer in this family."
"Then you brew it," Harry said. "I'm not proud."
"What you are is a horny prat, Harry Potter," Hermione declared. "But I love you, anyway."
"Let's go home, love," Harry said. Nodding at the wedding festivities taking place only a few yards away, he added, "We know how this ends, don't we?"
"Yes," Hermione said, smiling in the direction of the young couple who were taking their first halting steps on a new and untried road, on what they would come to regard, even after a century's perspective, as the happiest day of their lives. "We do."
"And they lived happily ever after," Harry quoted, kissing his wife tenderly.
"Not yet, they didn't," Hermione said, her eyes piercing her husband's declaratively. "It's not over yet, Mr. Potter. We still have a long road ahead of us."
"And we'll walk it together, Mrs. Potter," Harry said. "Always."
They joined hands and turned their eyes upward searchingly, as if they could see something beyond the sky and clouds to which the myriad guests all about them were unforgivably blind. A swirling silver mist appeared, enveloping them until the wedding, the guests, the towers of Hogwarts castle, were obscured. The pair became weighness, as if they were swimming in a sea of liquid smoke. Upward they rose. For a moment, the world was blank whiteness, with no up, down or sideways. Their stomachs lurched, they seemed to somersault once, twice.
Their feet touched down on a hardwood floor. They were once again surrounded by the familiar walls of their living room. A fire was burning comfortingly in the hearth. The silver mist was gone. But it was not far away. It swirled still, in the stone bowl of the pensieve sitting on the table between the fireplace and the sofa.
"It doesn't seem possible," Harry said, holding his wife to him as if, even now, he still couldn't believe that she was his. "A hundred years. Where did the time go, Hermione? I don't feel any different. Not inside, I mean. It seems like only yesterday that I married the most beautiful witch in Britain. I keep thinking that I'm going to wake up in my four-poster in Gryffindor Tower and find it was all a dream. A hundred years, and I still love you more than I thought possible."
"I feel the same way, Harry," Hermione said, her face pressed to her husband's chest as her tears dampened his robes. "It must be true, that the happy years fly by too quickly."
"We were so young then," Harry said, remembering the images of themselves dancing happily in the pensieve. "Not even eighteen. Our whole lives ahead of us. And now..."
"Speak for yourself, old man," Hermione sniffed. "'I' still have a lot of living to do!"
"You mean we do, old woman," Harry said as he hugged his wife more tightly to him. "Blimey, it's not all been easy, has it? But I'd not change a thing. I'd walk every mile of that road, all one hundred years, again. Just so I knew I was walking it with you."
Hermione was not looking at Harry. Snug in his arms, she was surveying the broad mantel of their stone fireplace. Every inch of space, on the wall above as well as on the mantel itself, was covered with animated wizard photographs. She saw herself and Harry at various stages of their life together, along with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was as if the entire wall was a hallowed shrine to an earthly happiness beyond description, of blessings piled upon blessings to which no couple had any rightful claim. Yet it was all theirs.
Two of the four walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves of books (indeed, there was not a room in the house that did not boast at least one fully-laden bookcase). Even these were decorated with photos. Hermione saw herself standing at her desk the day she assumed her duties as Minister of Magic. Harry was beside her, of course, hugging her proudly and holding up her name plate for all to see. In another photo, Hermione looked just as proud of Harry as she stood beside him the day he was appointed by Minister of Magic Arthur Weasley (Hermione's predecessor) as an International Ambassador-at-Large, which post sent him all over the world and resulted in prolonged separations during which time they might not see each other for weeks at a stretch. But, if anything, those separations only served to strengthen the bonds of love between them. For they were elastic bonds, which stretched to allow each of them to soar alone, yet which snapped back unfailingly to reunite them in the end.
Looking now at the ruby-diamond ring on her left hand, Hermione remembered Harry's words the day he had slipped it onto her finger. Even true love required ceaseless toil to keep its flame burning bright and hot. To Hermione, that tiny ember floating in its crystalline womb upon her finger was the flame of their love, unwavering, eternal. It had not always been an easy path to walk. The last century had seen its share of hard roads as well as smooth for the two of them. But nothing worth having came without a price. All that mattered was that they walk that road together.
Hermione pulled Harry's face to hers and kissed him with a fire which ten decades had not dimmed.
"I'm going to pour us something to toast our hundredth anniversary," she said, flashing Harry the smile that could still turn his knees to water after more than a century. "And I think a little music is in order. You know the one."
Harry knew indeed. He walked to the wall behind the sofa, which was very nearly a solid wall of books of every description. But in the very center, just above an antique writing desk (which had been new when presented to them as a wedding gift a century past), was a state-of-the-art entertainment system of a type found in no Muggle home.
Impelled by the far-seeing vision of Minister Hermione Granger, the wizarding world had taken a bold step forward in the mid-21st century. A shotgun marriage of wizard technology and Muggle science had brought about an electronic revolution not seen since the development of wizarding wireless. Now, a generation later, not a wizard household was without the simple convenience of music at the touch of a finger (or, to be more precise, at the wave of a wand), brought about by the development of what came to be termed the Magic sound Disc, or MD.
Drawing his wand, Harry was about to point it at a particular slot among the many rows of MD's. Hermione had insisted that their discs be strictly alphabetized, and after a time Harry could find every one with a single glance. Now, however, a glance was all he needed to see that the space where he had intended to point his wand was empty.
"It's not here," Harry called over his shoulder.
"I must have been playing it in the portable and forgot to put it back," Hermione said from the kitchen. "Look on the sofa. It may have slipped under a cushion."
Walking to the sofa, Harry quickly saw that the cushions were empty. Unperturbed, he picked up the throw pillow nearest at hand, and a smile spread across his face. A smooth object of a size and thickness approximating that of an English muffin was revealed, through the transparent face of which a gleaming silver disc was clearly visible. Harry bent and picked up the portable MD player --
Gasping in surprise, Harry felt a sharp -- and very familiar -- tug behind his navel. In a dizzying swirl of mist, Harry felt his insides lurch violently before his feet settled once more onto solid ground. Or rather, so he now noted, stone.
"She didn't!" Harry gasped as he took in his surroundings: Circular stone walls, set with flickering torches whose golden radiance gleamed dully from the surfaces of dust-covered tapestries older than Excalibur.
"Oh, but she did!" came the reply.
Hermione stood before him with a crystal goblet in each hand. She wore a dressing gown of shimmering black silk, enhanced by a smile bright as a Summer's morn, and a devilish look in her eyes that Draco Malfoy could not have equaled on his best day.
"What am I going to do with you?" Harry smiled, taking the goblet proffered by his wife.
"We already established that," Hermione said meaningfully. "Ages ago."
His goblet held before him, Harry said with a tremulous flutter in his voice, "Here's to us. To the last hundred years."
"And to the next hundred," Hermione said earnestly.
The rims of their goblets rang together musically, as they had more than a century ago on this very spot. Hermione quickly drained her goblet in a single draught. Not willing to let his bride of one hundred years demonstrate a greater degree of youthful exuberance than he, Harry followed suit.
Instantly he choked, his face screwing up in surprise and no small degree of disgust.
"Blimey!" he shuddered, his insides churning rebelliously. "That's not wine!"
Harry stared at the dun-colored dregs of his goblet, the whisper of a distant memory tugging at his thoughts. The sour taste on his tongue -- boiled cabbage? Why did that seem so --
The goblet fell from Harry's limp hand, shattering on the stone flags. He reeled momentarily, his skin crawling as if it were swarming with gnats. The sensation passed quickly, as did the dizziness. He blinked, brought his eyes back into focus. He gasped, blinking again, furiously, his brain unwilling or unable to accept the testimony of his eyes.
Hermione stood before Harry, a goblet in each hand, a mysterious smile on her lips. Was he having a flashback? No, the goblets were empty now. No doubt Hermione had reassembled the one fallen from Harry's hand and retrieved it. His eyes rose from the goblets to his wife's face. Harry felt his jaw drop so far that, whereas he had once nearly swallowed the Golden Snitch in a Quidditch match more than a century gone, he was sure he could now have swallowed an entire Quaffle!
Hermione looked precisely as she did on their wedding night! Her face was young and smooth, her hair a lush and tameless chestnut with no trace of silver. Her skin was glowing in the torchlight, the color of cream and so supple and soft as he had not seen in --
It hit him like a Bludger between the eyes.
"Polyjuice!"
"I told you I was the potion brewer in this family, Harry," Hermione smiled immodestly, the two goblets vanishing with a flick or her wrists. Her hands thus freed, she placed them on her hips, which were round and seductive and tilted in a tantalizingly solicitous manner that brought a flush to Harry's cheeks.
"How?" Harry croaked. It was the only word his stunned brain could conjure.
"Time enough for talk later," Hermione purred. She opened her dressing gown, revealing a black lace baby doll that drifted about her lithe body like a veil of charcoal mist. Harry felt a surging through his own body of a strength and power he had not experienced in --
Harry nearly cried out. He looked at his hands. They were young, smooth and strong. Seventeen-year-old hands. He touched his chest, his neck, his face -- he gasped again as his hand encountered the back of his neck, finding short-trimmed hair in place of his black-and-silver mane. What in the name of Merlin...?
"Well, lover?" Hermione said invitingly. "I'm not getting any younger."
Harry cursed himself inwardly. By some means beyond his understanding, the two of them were seventeen again -- and here he stood, devouring his wife with nothing but his eyes! In a rush he was on her, Hermione opening herself to him. Her dressing gown fell to the floor, revealing an abundance of moonlight-pale flesh which Harry attacked like a starving man at a banquet.
"No need to hurry," Hermione said in a throaty rasp as Harry's lips turned her skin to flame. "We have all night."
"Polyjuice..." Harry mumbled incoherently as he nuzzled his wife's perfect shoulders, "...wear off...hour..."
"Not...this..." Hermione panted, her passion rising in concert with her husband's. "Last...all...night..."
Without warning, Harry swept his wife off her feet and into his arms. He carried her to his bed -- the same bed in which they had frolicked with joyous (if inconsummate) abandon the day their engagement was sealed -- which sat in hushed readiness, its sheets turned down in a silent yet eloquent invitation. It was a canvas a hundred years waiting for the final brushstroke. Now, by what miracle Harry neither knew nor cared, the canvas would at last be complete.
As Harry lay his companion and lover of more than a century upon the crisp sheets, felt the soft mattress yielding to their weight as he nestled against her warmth, his again-youthful cheeks burned with tears reflecting a happiness for which he had no words.
"You really are," he choked as he caressed his wife's face tenderly, "the most brilliant...the most wonderful...do you have any idea in the world how much I love you?"
"You have all night to show me," Hermione said wantonly through the blush of her own tears.
And with a wave of her hand, the torches all went out.
Author's Note: No one guessed that the uninvited guests were Harry and Hermione themselves? All the better to segue to the future on my way to next week's finale. HP fiction is SUCH fun to write! Virtually ANYTHING is possible!
Now, reviewer alex seems to have come to the conclusion that my making Hermione a strong character automatically renders Harry weak. It is always my goal to make Hermione as strong as I can, to show her clearly as the equal of the legendary "Boy Who Lived" (and putting her so far ahead of Ron that even to consider pairing them up is laughable). In this case, Harry wanted to fight and was frustrated that his age prevented him from doing so. Hermione ewas not permitted to fight, either. She was able to serve the cause in a non-combative manner due to her superior knowledge and skills. The books clearly indicate that Harry is generally NOT Hermione's equal when it comes to learning spells. Whenever he needs to learn a new spell to get out of a jam, it is she who teaches Harry, because she has already mastered it, whether it be the Summoning Spell, the Four-Point Spell, the Stunning Spell, you name it. Harry himself reflects in OotP that his grades and Ron's are not all th at far apart. In this case, maybe if Harry had worked a bit harder and learned as much as Hermione, he could have been a Healer's Aide in the Insurrection, too, and worked by her side. They would now be sporting matching Order of Merlin medals. Ya snooze, ya looze.
In canon, Harry continually complains that he does not want the weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders. He dreads the thought of facing Voldemort in an ultimate death-duel. Does this make him weak? No; it makes him sane! He wants nothing more than to be plain Harry Potter, not "The Boy Who Lived." I have merely given him his wish.
Besides, Hermione was duly impressed last time by Harry's Transfiguration work on the diamond. Harry CAN do powerful magic, as he proved in PoA when he conjured his Patronus. All he has to do is apply himself. Harry is far from weak. But I would feel embarrassed to make him a swaggering, macho stud like Oliver Wood. That is not Harry's style. Nor is it mine.
Someone recently included the following quote from the TV show Joan of Arcadia in an e-mail: "Humility isn't really humility unless you're GOOD enough at something to BE humble." Clearly, Harry is good enough to be humble, and that is how I feel most comfortable writing him.
Thanks to all who are reading and reviewing. The talent running rampant on this site continues to make me feel like I crashed the party. It's good to know that some people, at least, feel I belong.
Next, the final chapter, in which we learn the secret of the Polyjuice potion, and the full significance of the story
title. Surprises await, so don't be late.