The morning sun shone over the snow-kissed peaks of central Europe, through a small window set in the highest tower of a nameless wizard castle, and onto the flushed faces of Harry Potter and his wife of one hundred years, Hermione Granger Potter.
"That," Harry sighed, his finger idly running along the streak of silver marking his wife's tangled chestnut halo, "was a night to write about in my diary."
"You don't keep a diary, you silly old goat," Hermione returned. Her eyes remained focussed on her task at hand, that of platting a length of her husband's salt-and-pepper mane into a braid.
"After last night," Harry said, hugging Hermione's warm body against his, "I may have to start. If only to remind myself later that last night wasn't all just a wonderful dream." The arm encircling Hermione's abdomen, which rose and fell gently under her husband's embrace, relaxed. Harry's hand began to creep downward, halting only when his wife folded her hand around the now-finished braid and jerked sharply, causing him to cry out in surprise and amusement.
"We're not seventeen any more, Harry," Hermione said softly.
"You're more beautiful now than on the day I married you," Harry said with gentle emphasis as he detached his wife's hand from his hair and threaded his fingers through hers. "A hundred years more beautiful. And if it comes to that, maybe you didn't notice that the Polyjuice Potion wore off just before dawn. The woman I made love to twenty minutes ago was the same one who's lying in my arms right now -- the same perfect goddess who came to me on our wedding night, in the Honeymoon Suite at the Hogsmeade Inn. Seventeen, or a hundred and seventeen, you're still the sexiest witch in Britain."
"And you're still the lyingest old sod in Britain," Hermione said.
"Oh, am I, now?" Harry said. He shifted his weight, gave a mighty lurch, and suddenly Hermione was on top of him. As their bodies merged, Hermione melted into a puddle of trembling sighs. Kissing his wife passionately, Harry murmured, "Now do you believe me? Am I still a lying old sod?"
Hermione could not answer. Not in words. But the heat of her skin against his, her quickening breaths, her responsive motions, her urgent moans, were all the testimony Harry needed.
Neither knew how long they lay in each other's arms, listening to the songbirds in the trees outside the window, before the power of speech returned to them. Harry's long hair spilled over the pillows, mingling with his wife's to create a rainbow of black and brown and silver. Hermione lay on her stomach at an angle, one leg protruding from the sheets which hung precipitously from her hips, puddling on the stone floor like spilled milk. Her face was pressed against her husband's chest, her fingers clinging gently to his shoulders. Her eyes were closed, but her eyelids fluttered now and then. Her breathing was even, issuing silently from lips painted with a wan, enigmatic smile.
Harry's right hand caressed his wife's hair, wisps of silky chestnut threading through his fingers like fine sand. His left hand played along the smooth curve of her back, returning with each upward sweep to the delicate chain that hung drunkenly from her neck. Each time, his touch lingered on the fine links, calling his attention to the tiny golden hourglass pressed against his ribs, its sands running as they had for more than a century. Even as their love.
"How did you do it?" Harry said at last, seeming less to ask a question than merely putting a thought into words.
"Bit of a long story, that," Hermione said, tilting her head slightly while keeping her cheek pressed to Harry's chest.
"I'm not going anywhere," Harry said as he used a single finger to draw expanding circles upon his wife's back.
"It's difficult to know where to begin," Hermione said. "But wherever I start, it all comes back to Neville."
This revelation came as little surprise to Harry. Neville Longbottom, their old Gryffindor classmate, had become something of a legend in the wizarding world over the past few decades. Expanding upon his proficiency in Herbology, Neville slowly but steadily began to press the boundaries of standard magical procedure to the bursting point. As a result of this revolution, he founded an entirely new branch of magic, Theoretical Potions. This involved reasoned speculation on how to improve existing potions, as well as the creation of new and heretofore unimagined potions, through the crossbreeding of plants for specific purposes. Once a theory was put forth, a new strain of plant was bred and tested to see if it performed as predicted as a potion ingredient. Many potions experts, Severus Snape chief among them, scoffed at the notion that existing potions could be improved by altering basic ingredients.
"Nature has been doing quite well enough without you, Longbottom," Snape was once heard to sneer when the twain encountered each other one day in the Apothecary in Hogsmeade. "I shall be greatly surprised if you do not end up poisoning half the wizards in Britain before that fool Weasley finds the backbone to put a stop to your foolishness."
But the last laugh was Neville's when a mutant variety of Wolfsbane, developed by him in his own small greenhouse, produced a potion that succeeded in arresting all symptoms of werewolfism. Remus Lupin had volunteered to test the new potion, and he it was who enjoyed the singular honor of placing the Order of Merlin, Second Class, around Neville's neck, before the smoldering eyes of Snape (who attended the ceremony at the direct order of an almost obscenely smug Minister Arthur Weasley). Headmistress Minerva McGonagall followed by esablishing the wizarding world's first Theoretical Potions course at Hogwarts. The smiling face of Professor Neville Longbottom graced the front page of the next day's Daily Prophet. The accompanying article included lauditory comments from the Hogwarts faculty, save only one; Severus Snape's comments were deemed unprintable by the editorial staff of the wizarding newspaper (The Quibbler, to no one's surprise, ran them verbatim).
Harry now sat up in bed, pulling Hermione up next to him so he could look into her eyes. His own eyes shone with boyish excitement as he waited to hear the full tale of his former dorm-mate's latest triumph. Her cheek resting against Harry's shoulder, her hand tickling his abdomen just above the crumpled sheet, Hermione lowered her eyes, drew a breath and began:
"After that business with Barty Crouch before Fourth Year, Neville reasoned that Polyjuice Potion should be good for something besides deception. And he began to ask himself, why couldn't people simply add parts of themselves to the potion? You remember that Crouch planned to impersonate Mad-Eye Moody, before Dumbledore hired Sirius instead. Under the influence of Polyjuice, Crouch would have lost his leg and his eye, just like Moody. But when the potion wore off, Crouch's leg and eye would grow back straightaway, because they were a part of his natural body. So Neville wondered, what if the real Moody had clipped and saved a bunch of his hair from before he incurred his injuries? He could use it to make Polyjuice Potion, and when he drank it, he wouldn't change into someone else, he'd simply change into himself, as he was when the hair was taken from him years ago. Both his leg and his eye would be restored."
"Why didn't someone think of this before?" Harry marveled.
"Maybe someone did," Hermione shrugged. "Ages ago. But they would have found, as Neville did, that drinking Polyjuice with bits of yourself in it didn't work. As I discovered when I drank the cat-hair potion all those years ago, Polyjuice was created to accomplish a specific purpose and none other. So any witch or wizard who tried and failed in the past wouldn't have bothered to leave a record. Magic, like science, remembers success, not failure."
"But those other blokes had never thought of changing one or more of the ingredients through crossbreeding," Harry smiled appreciatively.
"After resigning from Hogwarts, Neville worked in secret for years, breeding new strains of fluxweed and knotgrass," Hermione said. "He didn't actually brew the potions," she added with a chuckle, and Harry laughed at the memory of Neville's bumbling efforts in Snape's Potions classes at Hogwarts. "Fortunately, like someone else we know," she smirked, "he had the good sense to marry a good potion brewer. But he did test each new batch on himself. He refused to put anyone else at risk. He'd mark himself in some small, harmless way, like putting a little scratch on the back of his hand with the point of a quill. Then he'd add a bit of hair to the latest test potion, hair he'd taken from himself before he marked himself."
"Until the day came when he drank the potion and the scratch vanished," Harry said, whereupon Hermione rolled her eyes up at him and smiled.
"And the potion doesn't have to be taken hourly, like regular Polyjuice. Changing into someone else is very traumatic, and the body fights against the potion every moment, trying to change back to its normal self. But if you simply become a different version of yourself, the potion is more readily accepted, more easily integrated into the system, and the body isn't in such a hurry to change back. Neville believes that, if he stays at it, he can eventually come up with a potion that lasts a full 24 hours. And who knows? Maybe someday a formula can be created that will make the effects permanent."
"Bloody brilliant, " Harry said. "Think what this could mean for the wizarding world -- for everyone, wizard or Muggle. Aurors can carry flasks of this potion, and if they get wounded they can heal themselves in a second. Why -- why, if Neville's parents had hair clippings from before they were -- they -- they might..."
"I think that's what Neville had in mind all along," Hermione said with a trace of sorrow in her voice. "They're both gone now, but I'm sure Neville wanted to ensure that no one else ever had to go through what he did all those years."
After a respectful silence, Harry asked, "So, how did you and I fall into the picture?"
"It was the oddest thing," Hermione said with a floaty lilt in her voice. "I ran into Neville in Hogsmeade, and we had lunch at that little sidewalk cafe I love so much. We got to talking about this and that, and naturally he mentioned his Polyjuice experiments, as they're all he seems to think about these days. He doesn't usually rabbit about it, but he knows I won't go running off to the Daily Prophet, so he always ends up saying more than he intends. You know Neville. And this seemingly innocent remark just popped out of his mouth. He knew you and I were about to celebrate our hundredth anniversary, and there we were in Hogsmeade, just that far from the scene of the crime -- "
Harry laughed, giving his wife an appreciative squeeze.
" -- and he said, 'Imagine if you and Harry had saved some of your hair from your wedding day. You could drink the potion and become seventeen again.'"
Harry's face went white. He looked at Hermione, who wrinkled her nose in reply before answering her husband's unspoken question.
"The morning before graduation, I went to that chic little salon in Hogsmeade, the one where all the girls used to go who had the gold to spread around, you know. I had my bangs clipped, my ends trimmed, all that sort of thing. And when the beautician was finished, she handed me my pouch, as usual." Hermione paused meaningfully. Harry nodded.
Any knowledgable wizard knew that clipped hair was ever a potential danger to its owner. Aside from Polyjuice Potion, there were hundreds of potions and spells that could do grave injury, even cause death, by the addition of the hair of an enemy. Even Muggles knew that Voodoo dolls used such trimmings as hair and fingernails to give them sway over their counterparts, prompting the wise to destroy all such extraneous matter, burning it to ashes and scattering the ashes to the winds.
To protect wizards from such threats to their persons, the Ministry imposed strict regulations upon all wizarding salons and barbering establishments. All cut hair was magically drawn into a pouch, which was then presented to the patron for disposal. Failure to comply with this directive was punishable by a term of imprisonment in Azkaban. No witch or wizard would ever patronize any salon where an official Ministry Certificate was not displayed prominently on the wall.
"But," Harry said as through a haze, "you..."
"Yes," Hermione said. "I kept my pouch. It was to be a keepsake, something to remember that most marvelous day of my life, when I became a fully-empowered witch, and married the wizard of my dreams. I placed a Concealment Charm around the pouch and hung it around my neck, right next to the Eternity Glass.
"And then...I made one more stop before I returned to school."
Harry needed no elaboration. With a chuckle of pure delight, he hugged his wife and placed a smothering kiss upon her bushy brown-and-silver crown.
Like most every student in school, Harry had himself got a last-minute trim in Hogsmeade preceding graduation. The barber in town was an old and trusted wizard who had been plying his trade for longer than anyone could remember. It was not uncommon for a wizard patron to fall into a pattern of trusting such a barber completely, even to the disposing of the cuttings afterwards. It had become second nature for Harry, when the old wizard offered the small pouch, to nod once as if to say, "Take care of it, as usual." So had Harry done that very day. Only that day, unlike those previous, the old barber had not destroyed Harry's clippings. He had given them to Hermione, whom he quite naturally trusted to want them for only the best of reasons on such a special day. (The Ministry quite naturally frowned on such a practice, but it was a common occurance all the same.)
"I never imagined," Hermione said, "to what use those trimmings would be put when I tucked them away a century ago. If I had, I'd have gone back all that year, whenever you got a trim, and saved enough to fill a book bag. But then, they were only a keepsake, weren't they?"
"And now," Harry said, "they've given me the second most wonderful present I've ever received."
"Only the second?" Hermione said with a look of mock hurt.
"Nothing can ever match the first," Harry said. "The first time we ever shared a bed as husband and wife. I was glad that night that you'd put me off that last time we were up here. It wouldn't have been the same if we hadn't waited. You always knew best. Time hasn't changed that. And here's something else that hasn't changed: You're the best thing that ever happened to me. You wrote your name on my heart a hundred years ago, and it's still there, in letters that can never be erased. Hermione Granger. My poofy-haired angel. My sexy witch. My Patronus."
Hermione blinked at this last remark. Momentarily startled at his own words, Harry blinked back before allowing a warm smile to creep across his face.
"That was always my secret name for you," he confessed. "I guess we all keep little secrets, don't we? The hair was yours; this was mine. I never told anyone. I never even spoke it aloud, unless maybe in a dream. I surprised myself just now by saying it. Maybe something inside me just decided, especially on a day as special as this, that a man shouldn't keep any secrets from the woman he loves. Even something so silly as that."
Hermione's eyes were still uncomprehending.
"It means," Harry said in a faltering voice, " that you were sent to me from Heaven to drive away all the darkness in my life. You're the bright, white light that dispels all shadow, all doubt and despair. You're my defender, my protector. Whenever I feel like I'm being smothered by metaphorical dementors -- when nothing makes sense, when everything seems hopeless -- all I have to do is think of you. I speak your name -- my own, private incantation -- and you appear in my heart, weaving your magic spell. Saving me, from the world and from myself. My beautiful, wonderful Patronus."
Harry held his wife to him as if he never wanted to let her go. Neither spoke for what seemed a very long time, each lost in the other. When Hermione finally found her voice, it was infused with an uncertainty that seemed to Harry almost apologetic.
"We can still have some more nights like this. What clippings I saved will be good for a few more anniversaries, at least." She began to tug at the sheet gathered around her waist, self-conscious now that the potion's effects had worn off, but Harry's hand stopped hers with gentle firmness.
"I won't say no to a little cinnamon in the porridge now and then," he said teasingly. "But," he added in a soft voice that masked an edge of unyielding steel, "I don't need a magic potion to show the most beautiful witch in the world how much I love her. That's what you'll always be to me. Never forget that."
Hermione's hand relaxed under Harry's. "You're still a lying old sod, Harry Potter. But I love you." As Harry's arms wrapped themselves around her, Hermione reached up to embrace the gold hourglass hanging between her breasts. Seeing the endlessly falling sands in her mind's eye, she whispered, "It's not been easy getting here. But we made it. Together. Happy anniversary, Harry. Thank you...for the best hundred years of my life."
"Here's to the next hundred," Harry said. "Happy anniversary."
Following a deep, lingering kiss, Harry nuzzled his face into his wife's luxuriant hair and breathed into her ear, "It's not over yet. Just one more piece to make the puzzle perfect."
Acting from more than a century of habit, Harry reached instinctively for his wand, only to realize with a self-depricating chuckle that he presently had no place on his person to keep a wand (though his wife had, on numerous occasions, suggested a place where he could "stick his bloody wand" without benefit of robes or pockets). His wand was in the pocket of his discarded robes, which lay in a heap on the floor in the middle of the chamber. Rejecting any notion of releasing his wife for so much as a moment, Harry raised his hand and pointed his finger. His brow furrowed momentarily; wandless magic took a bit of concentration. A night and a morning of amorous exertions had left Harry with barely enough strength to levitate the feather his future wife had Charmed in Flitwick's class in their first year at Hogwarts. Nevertheless, he concentrated with all his might and, sighting down his finger as along a gunsight, said, "Accio."
An object rose from the floor near his robes and drifted toward him at the best speed Harry could manage. Seeing Harry motioning with his hand, Hermione looked up. Realization illuminated her face with a light to rival the sunbeams streaming through the tiny window. The portable MD player -- dropped by Harry upon his arrival, but (praise Merlin) undamaged by the fall -- now hovered above them, balanced at the edge of the headboard. Harry waved his hand commandingly, and the disc in the player began to turn, releasing the haunting and memory-laden strains of a song.
Their song.
During the Summer preceding Seventh Year, Harry had arranged to spend the last month of the holidays at Hermione's house, freeing Sirius and Michelle to enjoy her own holiday from Beauxbatons with her new husband without fear of Harry interrupting them during an "awkward moment." At a time during their courtship when they were still discovering little things about each other, Harry and Hermione found that they both shared a passion for old Muggle movies. Throughout that final holiday of their Hogwarts years, they spent endless late-night hours sitting on her parents' sofa, holding hands while their faces reflected the harsh light of countless black-and-white movies on the living room telly.
A good many of these movies featured soundtracks with love songs that were old when Hermione's parents were young. On a particular Saturday night in August, one such song touched the both of them in a way that was to change their lives. It's simple message, along with a melody that might have wrung tears from the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office, touched them to the core of their souls. In the span of a single heartbeat, as their eyes met, followed by their lips, it became "their song."
There was never a question of their getting married without that song accompanying the ceremony, defining their vows, lighting their path. It was sung by Hannah Abbot, who had been discovered only a year earlier to have by far the most beautiful voice at Hogwarts. Many believed afterwards, Harry and Hermione among them, that it was in that moment when Neville Longbottom fell in love with Hannah. It took Neville more than ten years to summon the pluck to propose, whereupon he promptly fainted before she could give her answer. He was revived by a dose of cold water from her wand, only to faint again when she said yes. It was a story Hannah still loved to tell when they all got together at Christmas, and Neville, even after ninety years, still blushed at the telling.
Harry had declared on occasion that he and Hermione must have played "their song" more times than there were drops of water in the lake at Hogwarts. But neither frequency nor familiarity had dimmed its magic, and not an anniversary had passed in a hundred years but that they celebrated it even as now, to the words and music of that one special song.
With eyes of polished emerald piercing twin pools of deep mocha, Harry took his wife's hand in his and kissed her fingers, his lips brushing the ruby-diamond stone that glimmered like a pinpoint of flame in the dimly lit chamber. And as the song played above them, Harry mouthed the words softly, Hermione following.
"I'll be loving you," Harry's resonant tenor crooned, "always."
"With a love that's true," Hermione's sweet contralto trembled, "always."
"When the things you've planned..."
"Need a helping hand..."
"I will understand...always."
"Always."
"Days may not be fair," Harry croaked, his wife's face blurring before him, "always."
"That's when I'll be there," Hermione whispered, "always."
"Not for just an hour..."
"Not for just a day..."
"Not for just a year...but..."
And, speaking with one voice, befitting the one love uniting them:
"Always."
Author's Note: Thanks to all who read and reviewed (especially Sassy -- now that you're back, I want to see updates!). I always promised myself that I would never write a songfic, but in my mind this does not qualify. Since the song was literally part of the story, and since Harry and Hermione physically sang it together, I maintain that this was not a songfic, merely a fic in which a song played a part. I'm digging my heels in on this one. The song in question, Always, was written in 1925 by Irving Berlin. Those of you who know the tune can sing along with Harry and Hermione if you like. I'm sure they won't mind.
Next time, I'm going to bury the dreaded fluff-monster and replace it with perhaps the darkest Harry I have ever written. It's a little tale of crime and punishment, wizard-style. No ooey-gooey feelings, but plenty of angst mixed with a little history of magic (just call me Professor Binns). I call it: The Price. I hope you'll be back to give me your opinion, for good or ill. Until then, thanks for reading.