Author's note: Wow, I can't believe this one is winding down. This might be last chapter…I might post an epilogue…let me know if you guys want one. I always hate to see these come to an end and this one especially. Like most of you, I'm looking forward to the movie and lots of Pumpkin Pie. I hope this will tide you all over until then. Anyways, let me know if you want an epilogue, and I'll see what I can do. Thanks again to all who have read and reviewed. You have no idea what it meant to me! Name of this chapter comes from one of my favorite songs…every time I hear it, I can't help but think of H/Hr…and it fits this chapter.
Chapter 15
You're All I Need to Get By
You're all I need to get by.
Like the sweet morning dew, I took one look at you,
And it was plain to see,
you were my destiny. With my arms open wide,
I threw away my pride
I'll sacrifice for you
Dedicate my life for you
I will go where you lead
Always there in time of need
And when I lose my will
You'll be there to push me up the hill
There's no, no looking back for us
We got love sure 'nough, that's enough
You're all, You're All I need to get by.
I all, you're all I want to strive for and do a little more
All, all the joys under the sun wrapped up into one
You're all, You're all I need to get by.
You're all I need to get by.
Like an eagle protects his nest, for you I'll do my best,
Stand by you like a tree, dare anybody to try and move me
Darling in you I found
Strength where I was torn down
Don't know what's in store but together we can open any door
Just to do what's good for you and inspire you a little higher
I know you can make a man out of a soul that didn't have a goal
Cause we, we got the right foundation and with love and determination
You're all, You're All I need to get by.
I all, you're all I want to strive for and do a little more
All, all the joys under the sun wrapped up into one
You're all, You're all I need to get by.
(Performed by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
Hermione and Luna actually heard the lads before they actually saw them. As they approached the front gates to the Chudley Canons pitch, they heard the sound of raucous laughter and the echo of blaring music. The security wizard at the gate looked up with a smile and wink as they approached him.
"Good evening, Miss Lovegood," he said warmly. Hermione looked at the name badge on his shirt and saw that his name was "Doug".
Luna exchanged worried looks with Hermione when they heard a loud crackling noise that resembled thunder, but couldn't have been since the night sky was clear and the weather report hadn't called for thunderstorms.
"How bad is he?" Luna asked through clenched teeth.
"He was pretty much three sheets to the wind when he arrived," he said sympathetically.
"Oh! I'm going to kill Fred and George!" Luna said, her features scrunching up in a mixture of anger and frustration. "They promised me they wouldn't let him get too out of hand! He's probably pissed beyond belief!"
Hermione stifled a laugh. She walked up beside her friend and put a hand on her shoulder. "Luna? You have met Fred and George, right? They're not exactly known for keeping their word when a prank is involved."
Luna looked thoughtful for a moment before bringing her hand to her face and slapping her forehead. "How could I have been so stupid? I should never have trusted them."
Doug led them toward the pitch and Hermione looked at her friend. "Maybe it's not as bad as you think it is. My mum always says that nothing is ever as bad as you think it's going to be."
Luna stopped abruptly when they finally made it to the pitch. Her mouth dropped in amazement.
"You're right, Hermione," Luna said calmly. "It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be."
Hermione stood beside her and her own mouth fell open.
"It's much worse," Luna said, watching as Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Neville Longbottom, and Ron were trying and failing to perform spells. When their attempts invariably failed miserably, the boys would collapse in fits of drunken laughter.
Doug patted Luna's shoulder. "I'll leave you two to it then."
Hermione thanked him and watched as he walked back toward the main gate.
She scanned the field for Harry, but he was nowhere to be seen. She looked up at the sky and saw that a few people were flying high about the pitch and she figured Harry would be one of them. She hoped he wasn't drunk like the others.
Hermione turned her attention back to the ground as Luna was making a beeline for her fiancé. She quickened her step to catch up to her friend, who wore a determined, angry expression.
The other guys saw Luna before Ron did as Ron was sprawled on the grass laughing. Seamus, Neville, and Dean all froze in place at Luna's arrival. Hermione could see that the boys were having trouble keeping straight faces.
"LUNA!" Ron slurred loudly. "Luna, Luna, Luna. How ya doin', baby?"
"Don't you 'baby' me, Ronald Weasley!" Luna said looking down at him. She offered her hand to him to help him to his feet, but he only managed to grab everywhere in the air but at her hand. Dean and Neville took this as their cue to help Ron to his feet.
"Just what have you been doing all night?" Luna asked angrily.
Ron opened his mouth to say something, but Luna cut him off.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear about it."
Ron giggled and looked at Dean and said, "That's good because the details are a little sketchy to me."
Luna shook her head. "Your brothers are so going to pay for this."
"HERMIONE!" Ron exclaimed, noticing her for the first time. "THERE SHE IS! MERMIONE. Do you mind if I call you Mermione?"
He moved to give Hermione a hug and she nearly gagged at the smell of liquor on his breath. "Yes, actually, I would mind if you called me that."
"Spoilsport," he said frowning.
"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked Ron, looking again to the sky.
"I don't know!" Ron said, laughing again. "Do you know where he is? Hey Mermione! It's after midnight. Do you know where your Harry is?"
Hermione rolled her eyes.
Neville, the most coherent of the boys, stepped forward. "He's probably flying. He, Malfoy, Fred, and George took to the sky a few minutes before you got here."
"He's not drunk is he?" Hermione asked worried.
"No," Neville said. "To my knowledge, he only had one drink at the pub."
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Neville."
"Luna," she said to her friend, who was shaking her head at the state of Ron. "I need to go and see Harry. Are you going to be alright?"
Luna nodded and then turned her attention back to Ron.
Hermione made her way toward the middle of the field and looked skyward. She hoped he would come down soon. He couldn't stay up there forever.
To her great relief, she saw Fred coming toward the ground.
"Fred!" she exclaimed. "Could you go and get Harry for me, please?"
Fred looked sheepishly at her. "He saw you were down here, Hermione. I don't think he wants to see you."
Hermione bit her bottom lip. "He has to see me!"
"He'll be down in a bit," Fred said helpfully. "Just wait it out."
Hermione nodded, but felt quite defeated. He didn't want to see her.
What did you expect? After the way you treated him, you shouldn't have expected any less.
Fred dropped his broom to the ground and saw Luna arguing with Ron, who was barely able to stand on his feet.
"Oh!" Fred said with a wicked smile on his face. "I have got to see this."
Hermione watched as he practically ran toward his younger brother and future sister-in-law. She again looked helplessly at the sky, praying that Harry would come down soon. She paced back and forth, trying to figure out what she was going to say; what she could say to make up for the past two years.
An idea came into her head that terrified her, but the more and more she thought about it, it was the only way. Desperate times called for desperate measures and this was certainly a desperate time.
Well, if Mohammed won't come to the mountain, the mountain will just have to come to him.
With trembling hands, she bent down and picked up Fred's broom. The last time she'd been on one of these had been that night when she and Harry made up at Hogwarts after the whole Ginny fiasco. She'd felt better about that then because she'd been with Harry. This would be a solo flight and it terrified her.
She tried to remember those elementary flying lessons from Madame Hooch in first year. Mounting the broom, she felt a pit in her stomach as she took a deep breath and kicked off from the ground. Her first instinct was to close her eyes, but she knew that would be a disaster waiting to happen. She gripped the broomstick tightly and aimed higher.
She willed herself not to look down. She started chanting under her breath, "Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down."
"Granger?" Malfoy's voice called to her. She didn't look in his direction for fear that she'd look down by mistake.
"What?" she called back, looking straight ahead.
"What the hell are you doing up here?" he asked. "I thought you'd gone back to the States."
"Well, you were wrong," Hermione said, flinching as the wind blew her hair in her face. Reluctantly, she took one hand off the broom to pull her hair back. The broom bucked a bit and she screamed before grabbing hold of it again tightly with both hands.
"Hey! Scarhead!" Malfoy called to Harry, who was flying in their direction. "You've got company."
Harry squinted his eyes not sure if he could really believe what he was seeing. As he got closer, he saw that Hermione was indeed flying on a broom by herself, and she looked absolutely terrified.
"Hermione!" he exclaimed, looking at her in amazement. "What the hell are you doing up here?"
"Will you two quit asking me that!" she retorted. "I need to talk to you, Harry. You wouldn't come down so I came up here."
"But you hate to fly!"
"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Hermione said crossly. "Can we please continue this on the ground?"
"This is romantic," Malfoy said, winking at Harry. "It's making me feel all warm and fuzzy and as we all know, I don't get all warm and fuzzy about anything. In fact, if it's quite the same to you two, I think I'll take leave of this so you don't give me a toothache from all the sweetness."
"Sod off, Malfoy!" Harry said, watching as Draco flew away from them, laughing maniacally as he did so.
"Sorry about that," Harry said, flying a little closer to her. "Okay, why don't we just fly back down to the ground?"
Hermione nodded, but kept her eyes focused straight ahead. She didn't make any movements.
"Let's go," Harry said softly. She had a look of absolute terror on her face.
"I can't."
"Okay," he said, trying to give her a reassuring smile. "I'm going to grab hold of your broomstick and I'm going to bring us down, okay? You won't have to do anything but sit there and look absolutely scared out of your mind, okay?"
She nodded.
Harry maneuvered his broom close enough to Hermione's so he could grab hold of it.
"You trust me, right?" he asked her, looking into her eyes. "You know that I'd never let anything
happen to you, right?"
Again, she nodded and allowed herself to turn her head slightly so she could face him properly. As she looked into his green eyes, she couldn't help feeling foolish as to think that she could have ever loved anyone else.
She focused her attention on him as he slowly maneuvered them both toward the ground. Hermione let out a huge breath of relief when she finally felt her feet on solid ground.
"Thank you," she whispered, as they both dismounted the brooms.
"You're welcome," he said earnestly.
There was a silence as Hermione regained her bearings and Harry stared at her.
"Can we talk?" she asked with a hopeful tinge to her voice.
He nodded and led her over to the stands where they both took a seat. In the distance, they could see, but not hear, Luna obviously reading Ron the riot act for his behavior.
"I thought you'd be halfway to America by now," Harry said quietly.
"Well, I didn't want to miss Ron and Luna's wedding," she said.
Harry nodded. "Why did you come here, though? Did you want to invite me to your wedding? I don't think Andrew would be too keen on that, would you?"
He gave her a scathing look and got to his feet, walking back toward the field.
"Harry!" she called out to him as she got to her feet. "I can't get married."
He turned around at her, nonplussed. "What?"
"There's not going to be a wedding," she said, looking at him.
"Why not?" he asked. "You got what you wanted, right? I signed the damn papers. What happened? Did I miss a page or something?"
Hermione shook her head. "You didn't miss a page, Harry. You signed every single copy."
"So, what more do you need from me?" he asked. She fidgeted uncomfortably. He grew impatient waiting for her answer and was about to turn around and walk away when she finally spoke.
"You signed the papers," she said softly. "But, I didn't."
Harry stood a few feet away from her, nearly frozen in place.
"After I left you this afternoon, I went over to see Andrew at his hotel," she explained. "I showed him the papers and he looked through them and he showed me that I hadn't signed them. So, he hands me a pen and tells me to go ahead and sign. I just found myself looking down at these papers and I just couldn't do it. I-I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"As I was standing there, I just got hit with this wave of memories, Harry," she continued. "And I asked myself a question. I asked myself if I could imagine my life without you in it."
"You've spent two years of your life without me in it," he responded.
"That's not true," she said, a tear fell down her cheek. "There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of you, Harry. I missed you so much."
"You sure had a funny way of showing it," he retorted. "It was your decision to leave."
"I know that," she said, looking up at him. "And it was wrong. I didn't handle things very well after the miscarriage. I made you feel as if it was your fault. I shut you out when you needed me just as much as I needed you."
"You're not going to do this to me," he said, shaking his head. "I can't do this anymore."
"You've never given up on anything before," she replied. "I thought I had, but I'm ready to fight for what I want."
"Do you even know what that is anymore?" he asked her, stepping precariously closer to her.
"I want to be with you," she said solemnly. "I've never wanted anything more in my life."
Harry stared into Hermione's brown eyes and felt his defenses giving way.
"You're the only man that I've ever loved," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "There has never been and there could never be anyone in my heart, but you."
She stared back at him, her eyes were pleading for his forgiveness; for that second chance. When he didn't say anything and continued to stare at her, with his expression infuriatingly unreadable, her stomach seemed to plummet as she realized she'd damaged things irrevocably. Until he said, "Why would you want to be married to me for anyway?"
A smile was dancing on his lips as he put a hand on her shoulder.
She grinned impishly at him. "So, I can kiss you anytime I want."
He grinned back at her before pulling her to him and claiming her lips.
They stood there, kissing for who knew how long until a loud, thunderous chorus of applause and whoops came from the field. Their friends were cheering loudly at them. Hermione and Harry broke their kiss and stared back at their friends, wide smiles on both their faces.
"What do you say about getting out of here?" Harry asked her, his thumb caressing her cheek.
She beamed back at him. "Take me home, Harry."
************
When they returned to the cottage, Hermione settled onto the couch with Harry and they talked about the events that led to their separation. For the first time, they actually talked about their feelings about the miscarriage to each other. They were finally able to grieve the loss of their baby together.
It was after two o'clock in the morning when they finally decided to call it a night. Ron and Luna's wedding was tomorrow evening and they both had a big day ahead of them. Sam, who had welcomed them both home with aplomb, now gave them both their space as he settled onto the couch.
They kissed at the door to the bedroom and Harry abruptly pulled away from Hermione.
"What?' she asked breathlessly.
"Hold on just a moment," he said, disappearing behind the bedroom door. A few moments later he emerged, holding one of his hands behind his back.
"What have you got there?" she asked, trying to peek behind him.
"Oh, no you don't," he said, holding her off.
She pouted.
"Okay, okay," he said, bringing his hand from behind his back. "Hold out your left hand,
please."
She looked up at him bemused, but did as he asked. He opened his fist and Hermione saw her wedding ring, as well as his.
A fresh set of tears welled up in her eyes. She cupped her hand over her mouth.
"I believe this is yours," he said.
She nodded and he put the ring on her trembling finger. He then put his own back on. He held up his hand and clasped it in hers.
"Now, it's perfect," he said, grinning at her.
"I love you," she said, moving closer.
"I love you," he said, leaning in to kiss her softly. He took her hand and led her into the bedroom and as he lay her down on the bed, Hermione finally felt as if she was truly home. She was where she belonged.
*****
The weather couldn't have been more perfect the day that Ron Weasley married Luna Lovegood. The sun was shining brightly and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Molly and Arthur had truly gone all out. The backyard to the Burrow was decked out in flowers and looked, in a word, quite magical.
Hermione stood just inside the Weasley home waiting with Luna and her father for their cue to walk down the aisle.
"Dad," Luna said, with a sympathetic grin. "Don't you start crying, again! It'll set me off."
"I can't help it," Mr. Lovegood said. "You look so beautiful. I just wish your mum could have seen this."
"She can see it," Luna said, her voice breaking a bit. "She's always with us, Dad."
He nodded.
Hermione looked at her friend and couldn't help agreeing with Luna's dad. She really did look beautiful. She wore a simple white, spaghetti strap dress that was embroidered with lace and elegant beading. She wore no veil, but a garland of white flowers and baby's breath adorned her blonde hair, which was curled in ethereal ringlets. She looked breathtaking. Hermione knew Ron would melt away when he saw Luna walking toward him.
"Nervous?" Hermione asked Luna.
"No," Luna said, shaking her head. "I'm ready."
Hermione smiled. "Ron's really lucky to have you, Luna. I couldn't have asked for a better person for him than you."
Luna smiled. "Don't you start on me, too! I'm going to be a sniveling mess by the time I make it to the altar."
Hermione laughed as she hugged her friend. The music from outside signified that is was now time. Hermione squeezed her friend's hand as she opened the door and slowly made her way down the aisle.
She caught Harry's eye immediately and focused on him as she made her way down the aisle. She gave a playful wink
at Ron as she made it to the altar and took her place.
Hermione watched Ron's face as Luna and her father followed next. She saw such a look of love and happiness that she knew that her friend would be happy with Luna. She felt so happy for them both.
Hermione listened to the minister reciting the ceremony and she stole glances at her husband as Ron and Luna took their vows. The crowd laughed as Ron stumbled a bit on his vows, but he recovered beautifully and Luna beamed proudly at him.
"You may kiss your bride," the minister said. Ron grinned cheekily as he pulled Luna close and kissed her softly as the crowd erupted in cheers.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the minister said proudly. "May I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Weasley."
Luna whispered something in his ear. The minister chuckled before announcing, "Ronald and Luna Weasley."
Hermione smiled as Ron and Luna linked hands and walked back up the aisle. She linked arms with Harry who couldn't resist a quick peck on his wife's cheek.
"Our little Ron has finally grown up," Harry whispered to her.
"It's about time," Hermione said with a grin. "He was about to eat us out of house and home. Now, he's Luna's."
They both watched as their friends were receiving congratulatory hugs from assembled family members and guests. Molly was crying, nearly inconsolably.
Harry looked over at Hermione who was taking it all in, with a huge smile spread across her face.
"What?" he asked her softly.
"Everything's as it should be, isn't it?" she asked him happily.
He nodded and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder.
Hermione knew that things wouldn't always be perfect and they'd no doubt have hard times in the future, but there was such promise and hope that she couldn't help feeling optimistic. Harry had told her of his plans about Flourish & Blotts and she'd been blown away to say the least. She'd listened to his ideas and contributed a few of her own and was now looking forward to not only that venture, but a long, happy marriage with the man she loved.
"Do you think anyone would mind if we snuck out later?" Harry whispered in her ear.
She pulled away from him and pretended to be affronted. "I will have you know that I am an old, married woman now and I just can't be expected to dash off at a moment's notice with some cheeky bloke."
"We wouldn't want you're husband to find out about this now, would we?" Harry asked, with a devilish grin. "I hear he's quite famous and once this gets in the papers, it will be a scandal like the wizarding world has never seen. I think Ron was right when he said they'd call you a 'scarlet woman.'
Hermione playfully punched him on the arm.
"What?" he asked, rubbing his arm where she'd hit him.
"Shut up and kiss me, Harry."