A/N: Here's the final chapter of the fic; I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!
And life is good! Got my first eagle ever this weekend after two years! Though of course I followed it up with triple and quadruple bogeys. I'm sure no one really cares about this, but since I have you as a captive audience, you're stuck with it, so there!
And this time, I promise that this story is work-reading-friendly: there's more arguing and sudden realizations, less humor but more fluff. I wasn't overly satisfied with how the last two chapters came out, but I'm really happy with this one. Fluffy-goodness abounds! Plus, it's one of my longest chapters (even not counting the gigantic author notes).
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Understanding
I never thought I'd ever wish for Voldemort to come back from the beyond, but right now I wouldn't mind some sort of crisis to deliver me from my current situation. The situation was a little surreal: here I was, caught eavesdropping outside of Hermione's flat, frozen in my little crouch, with Hermione glaring at me, my invisibility cloak in her grasp. After a while, once I was sure that no one was going to miraculously come to my aide, or that a hippogriff wasn't going to bust through the window at the end of the hallway (where, oh where, art thou, Buckbeak?), I decided to play it cool.
I straightened and looked at Hermione as if seeing her for the first time. "Hermione!" I greeted cheerfully. "Funny seeing you here."
"Uh-huh. Right," she replied icily, arms crossed. Then, she made a stabbing motion with her finger towards her open door. "Get. In," she said from behind clenched teeth.
"Sure, why not?" I said airily. "You seem troubled," I remarked, as I walked past her and into her flat. I heard the door slam shut and turned around.
"Harry James -"
"Now listen Hermione," I said quickly, hoping to cut her off before she really got a full head of steam. "I was only trying to protect you…" I began.
"Protect me? Protect me?! Who do you think you are trying to protect me? What, I can't take care of myself?"
Oooo-kay. Looks like the `protect Hermione' speech isn't going to cut it. Time for Plan B - it's just too bad that there isn't a Plan B. "No no no," I said quickly, raising my hands to try and calm her down (as well as to protect myself in case the spells started flying). "I know you can protect yourself. I just had to be sure about Carlson."
"And what, exactly, did you have to be sure about?" she demanded.
"Remember back at Ron's? I got the feeling he was Dark."
"Oh really? And how exactly were you going to verify that? By making his bodily functions go crazy?" she demanded.
Hmmm. Looks like my plan wasn't as stealthy as I thought. At least she didn't know about the Banishing spell or messing with their reservations. "Well, if he was evil, I wanted to make sure he didn't try and lull you into a false sense of security."
"Oh, in that case I should thank you, shouldn't I?" she asked acidly. I got the feeling though, that no thanks would be forthcoming. "So thank you, Harry Potter, for embarrassing me in front of all of Diagon Alley by making my date gassy, sweaty, and bloody!"
Okay, I was wrong. She did thank me, but I got the feeling that she didn't mean it; it was a rather sarcastic thanks, don't you think? "But…but he was evil," I said a little lamely.
"Right, right…he was evil. And what exactly did he do that was evil?"
If not for the years of conditioning under the Dursleys, I'd probably be squirming and sweating under Hermione's piercing stare. But though I was rather squiggly inside, I was the picture of calm on the outside. "Okay, technically he didn't do anything evil. That I know about. Yet. It was just a sense I got."
"A sense, huh? Well, why didn't you just say so? Harry Potter has a sense. Let's lock him up in Azkaban!"
This wasn't going so well. Time to try a different track. "Honestly Hermione, I don't see why this bothers you so. Even if he isn't evil, he was all wrong for you."
"Oh?"
"Yes. He's just too…dull."
"Dull? I thought you just said he was evil! And how would you know anyways?"
I hesitated. Hermione doesn't approve when I use Legilimency. "I…uh…just know?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Harry Potter," she said in a low voice as she approached me. I instinctively backed up a step, but too late! She was on me in a second. "Did - you - use - Legilimency?" she demanded, jabbing me in the chest with her finger each time.
"Um…sorta?"
She turned in frustration.
"But I was only doing it to pro - help - help you! I said help! I wasn't going to say protect!"
"Hmph. And how, exactly, were you `helping' me?"
"By saving you some trouble if he turned out to be all wrong for you, which he was. I mean, the guy practically groped you back there."
"He did not! He said it was an accident and that…waitaminute! Did you -"
Um, let's no go down that road. "He's not good enough for you," I said quickly.
"Is that right? He's not good enough for me?"
"Correct."
"Then who, if I may ask, is good enough?"
"Erm…"
"How about Terence? Is he good enough?"
"Um…"
"No? How about Geoffrey?"
"Urgh…"
"Basil?"
"Erp."
"Leonard? Bruno? Derwent? Gaspard? Elliot?"
"No…" Who are all these guys? How many wizards does Hermione know?
"Viktor?"
"Oh, hell no!"
"No? Then who Harry? Who?"
"I uh…"
"If it's not any of them, surely someone must be good enough for me…"
"Well, uh…"
"How about Goodwin? Aiden? Guthrie? Hamish? Alasda -"
"Me all right? Me! I'm the only one good enough for you!" I said angrily.
The silence was almost deafening.
It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up with my mouth, but when it did, suffice to say I was a little surprised by what just came out of my mouth. Did I just say `me?'
Okay, upon further review, I did in fact say `me.' But why? Is that why I hate Evan, why I sabotaged their date, why I wanted to pummel Ron for setting them up? Did I have feelings for Hermione?
No, it can't be. I mean, sure, I love Hermione, but not like that. I was just trying to watch out for her, like a sister…a sister that I've been having sex with? Oh God no! Ick! Maybe I should give this some more thought. Please let's give this some more thought. What did Uncle Remus say about love? Oh, right. You need trust, friendship, respect, attraction, and commitment. Well, the first three were easy: I trust Hermione with my life, she's one of my best friends, and of course I respect and admire her.
But attraction? Ha! I wasn't attracted to Hermione in the least - oh, right. The sex.
What about commitment then? Could I really see myself committed to Hermione for the rest of my life? To be with her and no one else? To live the rest of my life with her, grow old together, and take long walks in the park? To raise a family together?
Yes.
Yes I could.
I love Hermione.
I am in love with Hermione Granger.
Whoa.
I looked up and I opened my mouth to speak, only to find that Hermione had disappeared! I spun around, looking for her, until I spotted her sitting in her favorite chair, reading a book. My sudden motion must have caught her attention, for she looked up at me. "All finished then?" she asked. "Finally figured it out, have you?"
I made some sort of odd pantomime motion, gesturing at where she was sitting now and where she was standing just a bit ago. "Wha…how…you were just…and now you're…" I shook my head; it wasn't important where she was.
I suppose in the thrill of making such a colossal discovery about myself, I didn't pause to consider the consequences. So, instead, I simply blurted out, "I love you."
After which, I did give pause to consider those consequences. My dear Lord, did I just say that? What is going on with my mouth today? Just once I'd like to be able to have some control over what comes out of there. But I suppose this is one way of going about it, though I would have preferred to wine and dine her first. Then I grew worried. How would she react? This was a significant change in our relationship. But of all the reactions I could have predicted - happiness, confusion, surprise, alarm, awkwardness, discomfort - what she said took me completely by surprise.
She looked at me for a second, and then calmly placed a bookmark to save her page and closed her book before turning back to me. She looked at me in the eyes, and said, "Finally!"
"I, uh…huh?"
She smiled at me. "It's about time, Harry. I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever figure it out."
I tried to work that response out in my head, but I still couldn't make heads or tails of it. "Um…work what out?"
She gave me a tolerant smile. "Oh, sweet, adorable, clueless man. Harry, you have been in love with me for years."
"What? What are you talking about? I have not!" I said a bit indignantly. I would think that I would know if I've been in love with someone for `years,' as she says.
She rolled her eyes and started ticking points off her fingers. "Let's see…ever since we graduated, we spend almost every weekend together; we've gone on vacations just the two of us; we've slept over at each other's homes and snuggle in bed; you sacrifice Quidditch just to go shoe shopping with me; I catch you staring at me often; when you do go out on dates, they complain that all you do is talk about me; the only picture you have on your desk at work is of me; you -"
"All that proves is that you're my best friend," I protested.
"Fine. In that case, describe all the witches you've ever gone out with since Hogwarts."
"Describe them?"
"Yes. What color hair did they have?"
Even though I was pure as the driven snow until Hermione corrupted me, I have gone out on a fair number of dates, even though none of them developed into relationships. I thought back over the various witches, trying to remember their hair color. "Um…they all had brown hair." What an odd coincidence.
"How about eyes?"
"One of the witches had blue eyes."
"Yes, that's true. One did. How about the others?"
I thought back. "Erm…brown." Hmm…that's interesting.
"Okay. And how tall?"
"Well, about your height."
"And their occupations?"
"Well, one was a researcher, another a librarian. There was a teacher, an arithmetician, another researcher, a political activist…" Okay, maybe she has a point. "All right, all right," I said, raising my hands in surrender. "Maybe, just maybe you're on to something there." Her smile had a wee bit of a smirk about it, but then something occurred to me. "But Hermione, if you've known all this time, why didn't you ever say anything?"
She snorted. "Say anything?" she parroted. "Are you serious? Tell me Harry: what would you have done had I come up to you, and told you that you were in love with me?"
"Well, I would have considered it, weighed the evidence carefully, examined my own emotions, actions, and the underlying reasons for them, and then thought long and hard about the ramifications of a…" I trailed off as she arched an eyebrow at me. "Okay fine. I would have run away screaming."
"Exactly!"
Then something else occurred to me, and I grew nervous. "Er Hermione? What about…I mean, how do you…?"
She gave me a warm smile as she came up to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. "I love you too, Harry." I couldn't help the silly grin that appeared on my face. This was great! This was awesome! This was -
And then she kissed me, and I forgot what I was thinking about.
A few minutes later, I asked her, "So, what do we do now?"
She grinned. "Well Harry, it is Friday. What do we usually do on Fridays?"
I matched her grin, though I suppose it's no longer appropriate to refer to them as `Last Times' anymore; hopefully they could become `All the Times' now. I started to initiate the process, if you know what I mean, when she pulled away.
"Not yet, you're going to have to control yourself for a little longer."
"What!? Why?" I couldn't keep the whiney tone out of my voice.
"Someone, who shall remain nameless, ruined my dinner. I'm famished."
"Er, right," I said guiltily. "Yes, there's no reason to name and names." I thought about places for a quick bite or takeaway, when I remembered the star-struck maître d' at Michael's Corner. I owed Hermione at least that. "I think I can probably get us a table at Michael's Corner, if you want."
"On such short notice?"
"Oh," I said smugly. "I have my ways."
"Wonderful then!" She smiled as she retrieved her cloak, and we left her flat. As we walked down the hallway, she gave me sideways look. "If they're full, maybe you talk to the maître d' again like you did earlier."
Now that stopped me in my tracks. Eeek. "Erm, what are you talking about?"
"Oh, you remember, don't you?" she asked innocently. "How you talked to the maître d' while Evan and I were waiting for a table?"
Ouch! I winced at being caught. "How did you know? Did you see me?"
"No, you were quite well hidden."
"Then how?"
"I think the ten or fifteen people who were pointing over at you and whispering about the Boy-Who-Lived being in the restaurant gave you away," she said with an impish smile.
Argh! Stupid fame! "All right, all right. Let's get going."
As we walked down the hallway, she mimicked a star-struck third-year: "Oooh, Mr. Potter! Can I have your autograph?"
"Ha. Ha. Soooo funny."
"Your so much more handsome in public! Can I see your scar?" she continued in that fake, dreamy voice.
"That's enough, Granger," I said, hiding my amusement behind a stern voice.
"Oh, it's `Granger' now, is it, Potter?"
"That's right, Bookworm."
"Scarhead."
"Know-it-all."
"Four-eyes."
"Chipmunk."
"Glory-hound."
I laughed. "Love you."
"Love you too."
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A/N: Awww…ain't that sweet? And so ends another fic. Just a bit of personal background, when I proposed to my wife, the first word she said to me, tears streaming down her face, was "Finally!" But it's not as bad as it sounds: we were high school sweethearts, and I waited until after we graduated from college…plus a few years. Other random comments:
Don't call DCFS (Dept of Children and Family Services) on me about my plans to torment my daughter's potential boyfriends just yet, Tawny, Anasazi, and Ravenclaw's heir. She's not even two yet, so there's plenty of time to think of even more diabolical things! Mwhahaha!
I forgive those of you who thought I was a girl, mainly because it seemed it was an assumption rather than based on my writing. I had someone on FA say Harry's thoughts were rather feminine, so of course I'm never posting there again (oh yeah, and that firewall thingie).
Two points to Starlight623, danielerin and Readingeye for pointing out that I'm handsome and charming. One point to spaz141 for saying my writing is handsome.
Me wonders whether or not DJ Mandy B's observations on accountants speaks from personal experience, and whether the review was written from Cell Block 4 in a minimum-security prison. Maybe you'll see Martha Stewart there?
Thanks for the sentiments Adrial, but of course if I did receive money for this, I'd have to spend it all on the lawsuits.
I'm just a wee bit scared of funvince and woefulwabbit, but at least they're not into Snape/Hermione, right? Right? Hello?
Bec and Aly: why have thou abandonest me?
<Waves at cheering charm for no other reason then fan worship> Hmmm…aren't I little too old for fan worship? Honestly, that's more for eleven-year old girls and - wait, did someone say Tiger Woods and Sammy Sosa are having lunch downstairs with Michael Jordan and Peyton Manning? Okay, gotta go! See y'all next time!
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