The Love I Found in You

Bingblot

Rating: G
Genres: Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 4
Published: 18/03/2003
Last Updated: 18/03/2003
Status: completed

A little song-fic about Harry's feelings for Hermione.

Chapters

1. The Love I Found in You

1. The Love I Found in You

A/N: The song is “The Love I Found in You” by Jim Brickman. Much of this was inspired by Chapters 5 and 6 of Lori’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces”. The Love I Found In You

He was in the closet under the stairs again.

He could hear the Dursleys, Dudley’s whiny voice, Uncle Vernon’s bellow, Aunt Petunia’s fawning over her dear Dudders.

“That freak nephew of yours…” “Ungrateful brat!” “Your pathetic, no-good parents leaving you with us…”

Harry awoke with a start, looking around him, disoriented at first.

He settled back, relaxing, as he realized it had only been a dream. Odd, it was the first nightmare he’d had of being back at the Dursleys in years now.

He shuddered at the memory of that dark closet, the harsh words, the utter lack of love.

Beside him, Hermione was still sleeping soundly. His face relaxed into a tender smile as he studied her face, calm and peaceful in sleep.

You are the air I need to breathe,

River of life inside of me

You are the half that made me whole

You are the anchor of my soul.

He loved to watch her sleep. So cliché, he knew, watching the beloved sleep and all that, but it was really true. It was the best time, the only time really, when he could just look at her and marvel that she was his.

And you are strong when I am weak,

You are the words that I can’t speak

You never fail to see me through

That’s the love I found in you.

She was so beautiful. It wasn’t that she was model-beautiful or the regular type of beauty that every man, wizard or Muggle, would look at again. No, her beauty was so much more than skin-deep. It was the intelligence you could see in her, the confidence in her air. It was in the love he could see in her eyes when she smiled at him.

He shook his head at himself. How on earth had it taken him so long to realize it? He’d known her for more than ten years before he finally realized how much he loved her. But now she was his and only his.

You are my shelter from the storm,

You are the road that leads me home,

Baby, with you here, face to face,

Oh I know I’ve found my place.

As always when he thought about Hermione’s acceptance, he felt a goofy grin on his face. He still had a hard time believing it sometimes.

“I love you, Hermione. Marry me please.”

He had spent hours mentally composing all kinds of beautifully phrased, elaborate, romantic proposals but when the moment came, he couldn’t remember a word of any of them. He’d looked into her cinnamon-brown eyes and said the only words that came to his mind. “I love you, Hermione. Marry me, please.”

He had mentally kicked himself for the baldness of it, but she hadn’t minded. He still remembered the amazement he’d felt when he saw the tears well up in her eyes, those eyes that he wanted to look into every day for the rest of his life. And then she’d said the word he could have sworn he’d waited his entire life to hear.

“Yes!”

Once in every life,

You find the one that’s right.

And when you say “forever” it’s true

That’s the love I found in you.

His Hermione… No matter how many times he told her he loved her, it would never be enough. She was everything to him. Not just because she’d been there for him every step of the way since he was eleven, not just because she was the first person he’d met in the wizarding world who had accepted him for who he was and not just because of the scar on his forehead, although all that was true. It was something about the way she made him feel, how he could be himself around her and didn’t have to act the hero.

The wizarding world may call him The Boy Who Lived and think of him as being lucky. He’d never thought so. He’d lost his parents when he was one, before he could have any memories of them. He’d been abused, neglected, ignored, and generally made to feel unwelcome for ten years of his life after that, and then every summer for the next five summers after that. He’d spent his seven years at school in pretty much constant fear of being murdered and being afraid that his friends would be hurt or killed because of him.

No, he wouldn’t have thought to call himself lucky. Not until her, that is. Not until Hermione had come along and told him she loved him and that she would marry him.

He looked at Hermione again, as she made a slight movement in her sleep, making a murmuring sound into the pillow, “Mm, Harry…”

He smiled again, sliding back down into the bed and putting his arm around her waist.

He was the luckiest man in the world. Hermione Granger loved him and she had said yes.

And you are strong when I am weak,

You are the words that I can’t speak

You never fail to see me through

That’s the love I found in you.