Author's note: Thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy 30th Birthday. I appreciate it and it certainly made turning the big 3-0 much more bearable. I hope you guys like this one!
Chapter 18
If I Ain't Got You
Some people live for the fortune
Some people live just for the fame
Some people live for the power, yeah
Some people live just to play the game
Some people think that the physical things
Define what's within
And I've been there before
But that life's a bore
So full of the superficial
Some people want it all
But I don't want nothing at all
If it ain't you baby
If I ain't got you baby
Some people want diamond rings
Some just want everything
But everything means nothing
If I ain't got you…"
(Alicia Keys, If I Ain't Got You)
It must have all been a dream, Hermione thought to herself as she woke up the next morning. There was no other explanation for it. But, it had all seemed so real. She could still feel his kiss on her lips. She could still feel his gentle touch on her skin. She could see the look in his eyes when he'd made love to her. She could even still hear him whisper how much he loved her and how he'd never leave her again right before they'd drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.
Dreams were always so much better than reality, she thought grumpily as she turned over on her side. She wasn't quite ready to greet another lonely day.
"Ow!"
Hermione froze.
"You just elbowed me in the chest when you turned over, Miss Granger," a familiar voice said behind her. "I don't remember you being a combative sleeper before. But then again you are in your natural habitat here, aren't you?"
Slowly, Hermione turned around and saw…it was him. He was here. It hadn't been a dream after all.
"Are you just going to stare at me like that or are you going to apologize?" Harry asked teasingly.
Hermione couldn't speak. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she had no idea why. She wasn't sad-far from it.
"Hermione?"
"Yeah?" she asked her voice still scratchy from sleep.
"Everything alright?"
She nodded. "Everything's fine. You're here. You are really here, aren't you?"
Harry reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Yes, I'm really here."
"But how?" she asked. There had been a million questions that she had last night, but there had been more pressing issues to take care of, so to speak.
"Portkeyed in yesterday morning actually," Harry replied, as Hermione cuddled up closer to him.
"Yesterday morning?"
"Aye," Harry said. "I had some things to take care of before I came to see you."
Her first thought was that he'd gone to see Ron. Perhaps, to get his blessing or at least to break the news to him that he'd been dating Ron's ex-girlfriend.
"I didn't go see Ron," Harry said. "I wanted to, but I just couldn't. Not yet. I actually went to see a bloke about a job."
Hermione sighed impatiently. "It's like pulling teeth, Harry! Tell me."
"I'm sure you've heard about all the job offers that were thrown at me right after Voldemort," he began. "Anything you could imagine, Hermione. I was offered professional Quidditch, auror training. Ministry departments sent representatives to my bedside while I was in hospital throwing every job imaginable my way. It was crazy. To tell you the truth is one of the reasons why I went away in the first place. They didn't want me working for them, Hermione. They wanted 'The Boy Who Lived'. It didn't seem to matter if I was qualified or not."
Hermione rested her head on his chest and for awhile they just lay there in silence, both looking up at the ceiling.
"I didn't want that," Harry continued. "I didn't want to be that person who just lived off of his notoriety for the rest of his life. That wasn't the way I wanted to live my life, Hermione."
An overwhelming sense of dread came over Hermione as she realized what his return would mean. She lifted her head off of his chest and looked at him.
"Coming back here, you'll have to face all of that again, Harry," she said quietly. "Once the press gets wind that you're back, they'll be all over this. You'll want to leave again."
"Hey," Harry said softly touching her cheek. "They probably will be all over this like you say, but for now, they don't know. The only two people who know that I'm back are you and Albus Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore?"
"He's who I went to see yesterday morning before I came here," Harry explained. "There was one job that I was tempted to take all those years ago, Hermione. It was the one thing I could actually picture myself doing."
"What's that?"
"Well," Harry said grinning at her. "Come September, you are looking at the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts."
"That's fantastic, Harry!" she said hugging him.
"So you know what this means, don't you?"
"What?"
"You are stuck with me, Hermione," he said rolling over on top of her. "Think you can manage that?"
Hermione looked up at him. "I think I can."
Any doubts he felt about coming back here melted away. He'd spoken about all of this with Dumbledore and something that his mentor said to him kept reverberating in his mind. When Harry had complained that coming back wouldn't be easy, Dumbledore had chuckled.
"Anything in life that is worthwhile---really worthwhile---is never easy," Dumbledore had said.
Harry hadn't really known what Dumbledore had meant until he'd knocked on Hermione's door last night and saw the look in her eyes when she'd opened that door. He knew then as he knew now that he never wanted to be apart from her. And being with her was worth facing any publicity---good, bad or indifferent.
********* **************** ************* *****************
HARRY POTTER RETURNS!
By Rita Skeeter
He's back.
For six long years, the wizarding world waited for Harry Potter's return. The wait is over. The Boy Who Lived is back.
The 17-year old boy who defeated Lord Voldemort is now a 23-year old man apparently seeking advice from his old mentor.
Yesterday morning, Potter was spotted on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Arriving shortly after nine, Potter spent nearly two hours in a secret meeting with headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
Hogwarts students were not at school to witness this monumental event as they are out on summer holidays until September.
Potter did however manage to meet with some of his old professors who were heard to heartily welcome him back and wish him well.
As the meeting with Dumbledore took place behind closed doors, the Daily Prophet cannot accurately state what this meeting was for or what was discussed. An unnamed source did say that upon escorting Potter from the castle, Headmaster Dumbledore shook Potter's hand and said something about "this decision being the easiest one he ever had to make".
Is Harry Potter home for good? Will the tragic hero finally find the happiness he so richly deserves? Has he put his painful past behind him? And just where has he been these past six years? And what finally brought him home? A job? A secret romance perhaps? Our readers can rest assured that the Daily Prophet will keep you up-to-date on all the Potter gossip.
~Please turn to page 3 for more Potter news and speculation~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Molly Weasley stared at the newspaper in disbelief. What had been a quiet breakfast with her husband had erupted into total chaos as she spouted off question after question to Arthur, who didn't have any more idea where Harry was than she did.
"I just don't understand," Molly said folding the paper and placing it back on the table. "If Harry were really back, he would have come to us first, don't you think?"
Her mind was racing with possibilities. According to the paper, he'd been back since yesterday morning. She and Arthur had both been home all day. She'd spent most of the day yesterday degnoming the garden and tending to her rose bushes. Arthur, of course, spent his day in the shed behind the house going over his collection of Muggle artifacts. It wasn't as if they'd have missed Harry if he'd dropped by.
"Molly, you're getting worked up over nothing," Arthur reassured her. "I'm sure Harry is staying with Ron. He probably knew something like this would happen and he's laying low so we wouldn't have to deal with reporters all over the lawn."
Molly smiled. "You're probably right, Arthur."
"If he's not with Ron, he'd probably stay at Grimmauld Place."
"I doubt it," Molly said dismissively. "That place is dusty and hasn't been lived in for years, Arthur."
"It'd be a perfect hideaway, don't you think?"
Molly shook her head as she walked over to the kitchen counter and began loading some pastries onto a plate.
"What are you doing love?" Arthur asked bemusedly.
"Stopping in to see Ronald," Molly replied brightly.
"And to check on Harry," Arthur teased. He watched as Molly loaded the plate down with muffins, biscuits, and for added measure-fruit. "And feed them both until the end of time?"
Molly scoffed. "Don't be silly, Arthur. Ron will eat most of it anyway."
Arthur just shook his head in amusement as his wife disapparated with the plate of food.
Their youngest son was still fast asleep when Molly arrived just outside his flat.
"RONALD! IT'S MUM!" she exclaimed knocking on the door.
From inside the flat, Ron covered his head with the pillow and tried to block out all the noise and the light that was breaking through his curtains. He'd spent another late night out with some of his teammates and now he had the headache from hell to prove it. Ron decided then and there that he was getting much too old for these kinds of shenanigans.
"RONALD! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!"
If there was one thing Ron knew, it was that his mother wasn't going to go away anytime soon. She was stubborn to a fault. Ron threw back the covers and grimaced as he sat up in bed. This was definitely not how he wanted to wake up every morning. Every bone in his body hurt and his head was pounding.
"RONALD!"
Ron blearily reached for a t-shirt on the floor and stumbled out of his bedroom and toward the front door.
"RONALD!"
Ron swung open the door. "Where's the fire, Mum?"
The smile on Molly's face fell as she took in her son. His eyes were bloodshot and he had a very severe case of bed head. His t-shirt was on inside-out and his pajama bottoms were wrinkled.
"You look horrible, Ron," Molly said, momentarily forgetting the reason for her visit. "Are you ill, sweetheart?"
Ron shook his head. "Not really. I mean I feel like-"
Molly held up a hand. "If you were out drinking again with your mates, I don't want to hear about it."
"That's good," Ron joked. "The details are a bit sketchy to me at this point.
Molly didn't laugh.
"Sorry," Ron mumbled. He stood back so his mother could come inside and he watched as she cringed as she took in the sorry state of his flat.
"I've been meaning to clean up," Ron said defensively as he shut the door.
Molly shook her head. "Honestly, Ron! You know that a few quick flicks of your wand and some cleaning spells and this place would be immaculate. You should at least let me come over once a week if you're having trouble keeping this place up."
"I'm not having trouble," Ron said quietly. "I just haven't had time to clean up. I-I was planning on spending the entire day tidying things up. Honest, Mum."
"It's okay," Molly said sitting the plate down on the coffee table. "I understand. I mean, I'm sure the two of you had loads to catch up on."
"The two of us?"
"Yes," Molly said, watching as Ron cringed at the sight of the food. "You're obviously hung over or ill if you aren't tucking into this food. I just hope Harry looks a sight better…"
"Harry?"
"Yes, Harry---he's here isn't he?"
"Why would Harry be here?" Ron asked confused, pushing back a pile of clothes so he could sit down on the sofa.
"You haven't seen this morning's paper?" Molly asked.
Ron shook his head. "I haven't really looked at the paper properly in days, Mum. Even when I do read it, I just look at the sport pages."
Sighing, Molly got to her feet. She stepped over a pile of clothes and magazines as she walked over to the window to retrieve today's edition of the newspaper. She handed it over to her son who took the paper mainly to humor his mother. He could just imagine that this was some rubbish about Gilderoy Lockhart finally getting his memories back or something like that.
The expression on Ron's face changed as he read the article. His bored smirk changed into shock as he read and reread the article, skimming over the three of four paragraphs which gave background on Harry and his defeat of Voldemort.
"He's back?" Ron asked finally. "But where is he now?"
Molly shrugged. "I don't know, dear. I was hoping that he'd be here with you…"
"I haven't heard from him in weeks," Ron said quietly. "I wrote to him a few weeks back, but I never heard back. I was…it doesn't matter."
"Did the two of you have a row?"
Ron shook his head. "No."
He wasn't about to admit that he'd written to his best friend for advice on what to do about Hermione. He hadn't said one word to his parents about the breakup with Hermione. As far as Arthur and Molly Weasley knew, he and Hermione were still happily together. Ron hadn't really seen the point of mentioning it to them when he knew that this was just a momentary bad patch. Truth be told, he still held out hope that he and Hermione could work things out.
Molly folded her arms and looked thoughtfully at her son.
"Look, Mum," Ron said leading her back over to the sofa. "This article is probably rubbish. "
To illustrate his point, Ron crumpled up the newspaper and threw it over his shoulder. "When was the last time this rag ever reported on anything resembling the truth?"
"They've gotten much better," Molly said. "They've done some wonderful recipes in the food section and…"
"That's recipes, Mum. This is about someone's real life. The most famous wizard in the world. These people just want to sell papers, right? I bet wherever Harry is, he'd laughing his head off about this whole thing."
"I don't know," Molly said.
"I do," Ron said putting an arm around her. "Come on. You and I both know Harry. If he was back, we'd be the first people he'd want to see."
"I suppose…"
"You know I'm right," Ron said grinning at her. His appetite was suddenly back. He eyed the table of pastries. "Now, what did you bring me?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lavender Brown hadn't seen the article in the Daily Prophet, either. She'd spent the night on a co-worker's sofa after having a disastrous, dreadful night at the party. As she let herself into the flat, she couldn't wait to tell Hermione about what a boring evening it had been. Hermione would no doubt tell her about the merits of spending a quiet evening at home.
"Hermione," Lavender called out, hoping that her friend hadn't gone into work. "You aren't going to believe what a terrible time I had! You know that loser Chris, don't you? He was there and I had…"
She let herself into Hermione's bedroom and didn't seem to notice or care that the room was pitch black with the curtains drawn.
"…such a horrible time. He even tried to talk to me! Can you believe that?"
"Hmmmm," Hermione murmured sleepily from her bed. She and Harry had gone back to sleep after making love again and Hermione was seriously considering owling in sick. She'd never in her life called in sick. But, she'd also never been in love before---until now.
Lavender laughed. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with my flatmate? She certainly doesn't have a lie-in. Come on, Granger. It's got to be at least ten o'clock in the morning. Rise and shine!"
Lavender pulled the curtains back and sunlight filled the room. Hermione shot up in bed.
"Lavender!" she exclaimed, pulling the sheets tightly around her.
Lavender stared in disbelief as a man sat up in bed and looked myopically at her.
"Oh my," Lavender whispered, her hand covering her mouth. "I guess this explains why you haven't left for work yet."
Hermione laughed. "I guess…"
"Holy Cricket!" Lavender exclaimed, pointing at Harry as he'd found his glasses on the bedside table and put them on. "You're Harry Potter! Hermione! That's Harry Potter!"
"Is it really?" Hermione asked looking at Harry and giggling.
"You must be Lavender Brown," Harry said smiling at her. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Not as much as I've heard about you," Lavender gushed, coming over and sitting on the edge of the bed. Harry and Hermione exchanged an amused look.
"Lavender," Hermione said trying to signal to her flatmate. Lavender, however, wasn't paying attention to Hermione's clues.
"It's such an honour to meet you," Lavender said offering him her hand.
"It's nice to meet you too," Harry said shaking her hand.
As if a light bulb suddenly flashed on in her head, Lavender finally focused on her best friend who was more than likely naked under the covers with a man who was probably naked as well.
"Oh," Lavender said blushing. "You two would probably like some privacy."
"That would be nice," Hermione said smiling at her.
"You've got it," Lavender said getting to her feet. "But I do expect full disclosure later, Hermione."
Hermione blushed. "Say goodbye, Lavender."
"Goodbye, Lavender," she parroted with a wink at her flatmate before walking out of the room and closing the door behind her.
Harry laughed as he and Hermione lay back down.
"Sorry about that," Hermione said softly.
"It's okay," he said, pulling her close. "Are you sure we can't spend the rest of the day in here?"
Hermione looked up at him. "We could, but we will have to eat sometime and I really should send an owl to the office to let them know that I'm not going to be in today."
"I know your boss," Harry teased. "I could put in a good word for you."
"Thanks."
"Speaking of which," Harry continued, running his hand up and down her arm. "Yesterday when I was speaking with Dumbledore, he mentioned that Professor Flitwick---the charms professor---is retiring."
"Oh yeah?"
Harry nodded. "And he was telling me about how he was going to begin interviewing potential candidates straightaway."
Hermione could see where this was going and although she couldn't deny the excitement she felt at the idea of teaching at one of the world's best wizarding academies, she certainly didn't want to get the job because she was Harry Potter's girlfriend.
"I know what you're thinking," Harry said breaking into her thoughts. "You're thinking that I asked Dumbledore if you could have the job. But, I didn't. I'm just mentioning it to you because I know how much you want to teach."
Hermione looked at him. "I do, but it's not so easy to walk away from my current job…"
"I'm just telling you that he's interviewing candidates," Harry explained. "You don't have to do anything about it, Hermione. It's all up to you. Regardless of what you decide, I'll support you a thousand percent."
Hermione kissed him. "Thank you."
"But it would be nice to be teaching there together," Harry said mischievously. "We could sneak into broom closets and snog. Or, we could meet behind the Quidditch stands…"
She hit him playfully in the chest. "I knew that you had an ulterior motive."
"Always," Harry said kissing her.
"HERMIONE!" Lavender called out from the other side of the door. "I'm sorry to interrupt but there's something I think you should see!"
"If it's how white is the new black this season, I think it can wait," Hermione teased.
"Well, white is the new black, but that's not why I need to see you," Lavender called back impatiently. "There's something I think you and Harry should see."
Hermione groaned. "One sec…"
She and Harry quickly got dressed and made their way out of the bedroom where Lavender stood just outside the door holding today's newspaper.
"What is it?" Hermione asked.
"This," Lavender said, handing the paper to Harry.
Hermione stood beside him as they both read over the article.
"On the bright side, at least they don't know where you are," Lavender said helpfully after he'd finished reading the article.
"Aye," Harry said sighing. He'd known that he couldn't have made a low-key return to England and expect that no one to bat an eyelash. But, he'd not even been back a day before it had all started.
"Harry," Hermione said putting a hand on his arm. "Who is this awful Rita Skeeter woman?"
Lavender laughed. "She's a cow, is what she is, Hermione. She's the worst kind of reporter there is. She gives the rest of us a bad name. I honestly don't know how she comes up with the stories she does. From what I hear, she can take the smallest, most mundane details and blow them up into something sensational."
"You should read the crap she wrote about me during my fourth year at Hogwarts," Harry said shaking his head. "We never did figure out how she found out half the stuff she did…"
Hermione exhaled sharply. "She better hope she never meets me…"
"What are you going to do?" Lavender asked. "I mean, if I know Rita…she's not going to rest until she finds out where you are." She looked meaningfully at Hermione. "And who you're with."
Harry knew that he'd better talk to Ron before he found out about Harry and Hermione's relationship on the front page of the paper.