A/N: I finally gave in and took some Tavist Allergy medicine which, with any luck, will keep me from staying up all night sneezing from another day in my all-too-dusty office. On the downside, I hardly ever take any medication, even over the counter, so it'll probably knock me unconscious in another ten minutes or so. Hopefully I'll be able to get this out first! Also, just so you all know, I have good news and bad news. The good news is, I got some real writing done today (I've decided not to even *try* to answer all the reviews just now; they will be answered, but finishing the writing takes priority for now) and managed to figure out how I'm getting past one of the major roadblocks to getting the story where I need it to be. The bad news is, the stuff I thought could be squeezed into one chapter (*this* chapter, to be precise) is taking more room than I thought. The estimate for chapters is now 18 if I get lucky, or 19 if I don't. (Nineteen is more likely; things usually run longer than I expect.) And as for my second piece of bad news… well… I'll have a second author's note at the end to explain.
Section 14:
On the surface, nothing seemed to change after that. The N.E.W.T.s went on without interruption. The wedding plans progressed. The sun rose every day and set every night. Harry, along with all the other students at Hogwarts, went through his usual routines, and only those who were very close to him indeed even noticed that a light they had never even noticed, a light that had always just been there, had gone out of his eyes after Hermione left. There was only one thing that brought that light back in the weeks that followed and that thing, surprisingly enough, was Colin Creevey.
Colin, along with the rest of the wedding guests, had received permission to stay at Hogwarts from the time that the rest of the students left until Harry's wedding two weeks later, but his mother was rather the clingy type apparently (not surprising, really, considering her sons) and had insisted that he and Dennis come home straight home, not returning to Hogwarts until the wedding day. Therefore, Colin chose the morning he was leaving on the Hogwarts Express as the perfect time to give Harry the graduation present he had been working on for so many weeks. When Harry came back to the common room after breakfast, Colin was waiting for him and hurried up to him immediately to press a large, wrapped bundle into his arms.
"What's this, Colin?" Harry asked, forcing a weak smile as he accepted the heavy package, balancing it carefully in his arms.
"It's a graduation present," Colin explained proudly. "Go on, open it."
Obediently, Harry untied the garish gold ribbon and pulled aside the wrapping paper, revealing a massive, leather-bound volume.
"It's a photo album," Colin piped up. "Copies of all the pictures I've taken of you, way back since my first year. I thought you might like to have it, to remember Hogwarts by next year."
"I…" Harry's voice became suspiciously choked up. "Thank you, Colin."
Colin probably replied, but Harry didn't hear him. He was too busy finding a seat for himself on the squishy couch and delving into his wonderful gift.
He knew that Colin had followed him around with a camera an enormous amount of the time since he arrived at Hogwarts, but he hadn't realized that Colin had gotten *that* many pictures. Pictures of Harry flying. Pictures of Harry eating. Pictures of Harry with the Quidditch team, or with Ron, or with Hermione. Even in just the first couple of pages, there were so many pictures of Hermione, and Harry couldn't help but smile at the sight of them. She had been so *tiny* back then, it was no wonder her large hair and large teeth had stood out.
There was second year Hermione helping second year Harry study. There was Hermione watching Harry and Ron play chess. There was Hermione standing in the background of a picture of Harry and Professor Lockhart, looking in their direction adoringly. There was Hermione, taking a firm grip of Harry's hand and walking alongside him, scowling at the other students in the crowded hallway who were looking at Harry, the supposed Heir of Slytherin, with mingled fear and disgust. The pictures had a sizeable chronological gap, matching the time that Colin had spent petrified in the hospital, but Harry didn't need pictures to remember what things had been like then. Hermione had been petrified as well and Harry hated his memories of the sight of her frozen still, unmoving, and utterly unresponsive, like her skin had been replaced with marble. No, he didn't need photographs to remind him of that.
He much preferred to look at the next picture, where Colin had captured Hermione flying into his arms at the Leaving Feast after she (along with Colin, who must have grabbed his camera very quickly,) had been de-petrified. Harry could still remember just how it felt when she hugged him so tightly he could barely breathe as she babbled over and over again that she knew he could do it, knew he could figure it out.
And then there they were in third year, evident by Crookshanks' presence in the pictures and, later, Hermione's absence from them after Christmastime and the blow-up over Harry's Firebolt. She still showed up in the background of some of them, sitting alone in a corner of the common room while he and Ron chatted together, or eating her meals with a book in front of her to hide the fact that she had no one to sit with in the Great Hall. Harry couldn't help but wince when he looked at those pictures. She looked miserable: lonely and sad and positively exhausted. She had been doubling her days with the time-turner, Harry remembered, and had had to deal with Ron and Harry's cold shoulder treatment on top of that. He hurriedly flipped ahead to the pictures at the end of the year, after they had reconciled. Her smile at the Leaving Feast when she was seated with Harry and Ron again was positively radiant.
Fourth year, and there they all were again, watching the students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons arrive. Colin had gotten a picture of Ron gaping over Fleur Delacour that made Harry chuckle, and a photograph of Harry's face the exact instant that Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire. Harry had to laugh at the dumbstruck expression on his picture-image's face.
It seemed like Hermione was in nearly every picture fourth year. It made sense. She was the one who stood by him and helped him in those horrible first months when everyone, Ron included, really believed that he'd put his own name into the Goblet. Colin had, apparently, even followed them into the empty classroom the night that Hermione drilled Harry in summoning charms over and over again until they were both confident that he'd be able to summon his Firebolt when facing the dragon. It must have been late at night when Colin joined them since both he and Hermione looked exhausted in the picture, but the summoning charm captured by the photograph clearly worked, and Hermione's smile was wonderfully warm, even as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Her teeth had been shrunk by then, Harry realized, knowing that he hadn't noticed at the time. He could see the change in her smile and wondered how it was possible he had missed it back then. Dragon to be faced in the morning or not, where was the excuse in ignoring such a beautiful smile?
There were pictures of the following morning as well, showing the dragon looking mightily put out as it tried to capture a Harry-shaped dot on a broom and (thankfully) failed, followed by pictures of Harry reconciling with Ron while Hermione cried over the pair of them. Ron was a regular feature in the photographs again after that, sharing space with Hermione, who had never left.
And then there were the pictures from the Yule Ball. Colin hadn't been allowed to attend the ball himself as a third year, but he had gotten pictures of everyone in Gryffindor getting ready before heading down to the Great Hall. There were pictures of Harry and Ron, fidgeting uncomfortably in their dress robes (especially Ron, poor soul, in those awful second-hand robes) while the girls fussed and giggled and primped in front of mirrors. And since Colin stayed in the common room after the rest of them had left, he caught the moment Harry, himself, had missed. He had snapped a beautiful photograph Hermione coming down the stairs, looking every inch like a fourteen-year-old Cinderella, blushing and smiling down at Viktor who had come to escort her to the ball.
Viktor, the oaf, showed up in other pictures as well, most notably the ones from the Second Task. There he was, captured on celluloid as he fussed over Hermione, drawing her attention to the water beetle in her hair (ah, if only he had simply squished the bug; how much simpler their lives would have been!) and *trying* to draw her attention to him. Hermione, even in the pictures, would have none of it, focusing her attention on Harry, instead.
Harry remembered her saying that she had had feelings for him since fourth year. Did she have them then? Was that when they developed? Or had it been before then? In spite of himself, all the pictures from fourth year took on a special meaning as he examined Hermione's expression in each of them, looking for signs of the love that she had confessed. When she hugged him in that snapshot, did she love him yet? Or when she got that hate mail thanks to Rita Skeeter's articles and still plastered on a smile so he wouldn't feel bad, did she love him then? In all those pictures when she stood by his side and helped him study, helped him practice for the final task, helped him laugh and relax for a stolen moment here and there, was that love in her eyes when she looked at him?
He flipped ahead, not particularly wanting to see the pictures from the Third Task and its horrific aftermath, wanting instead to see if Colin had managed to catch the moment when… yes. He had. There it was. The picture of Hermione saying goodbye to Harry and Ron at the station, and giving Harry a soft kiss on the cheek. She loved him then; he was sure of it. Instinctively, his hand slid up to his cheek, remembering the feel of her gentle kiss. Yes, she loved him then.
He had just turned the page to start leafing through the fifth year pictures when the interruption came.
"Harry, darling, have you been sitting here all morning?"
Harry flinched slightly as Lavender popped down next to him on the couch. He hadn't realized how quiet the common room had gotten until he heard her speak. Her voice wasn't unpleasant, but it was rather… loud.
"Erm… yes, I suppose so," he answered hesitantly. "Colin gave me a photo album for a graduation present," he added gesturing it in explanation. "I was just going through it."
"It's nice," Lavender said brightly. "I wonder where he got the album? I was thinking of maybe getting something like this for our wedding pictures. It would have to be smaller, of course, and maybe in off-white? What do you think, Harry?"
"Hmm?" Harry asked distractedly, his eyes focused mostly on the page in front of him. "Off white? Sure."
"Harry!" Lavender teased. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Sure I'm listening, Lav," he lied.
"Good, because I wanted to ask you what you thought about adding pink ribbons to the groomsmen's robes to match the ribbons on the bridesmaids' bouquets…"
"Pink ribbons for the groomsmen?" Harry repeated, looking at her at last. "Sweet Merlin, Ron would kill me."
Lavender laughed. "Ah, now I know you're listening!"
"You didn't mean it, did you?" Harry pressed.
"Of course not, silly," Lavender giggled, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek. "As if I'd ever have Ron wear pink ribbons in our wedding! The color clashes so horribly with red hair. Just think of how the pictures would look! But enough about photos," she stated, latching on to his arm and using it to pull him to his feet. "It's time for us to be heading down to lunch."
Reluctantly, Harry put down the photo album and let Lavender lead him down to the Great Hall. She made cheerful conversation during the walk there, but Harry didn't hear much of it. He was thankful that conversation with Lavender rarely required him to do more than make sounds of agreement at carefully spaced intervals.
With most of the students gone and only wedding guests and professors remaining, lunch was an informal, noisy affair with everyone squeezing in together at the Gryffindor table and making plans for what they would do now that school was over. Harry spoke when he was spoken to, but remained distracted through most of the meal, his mind still on the photo album waiting for him upstairs. The last time he remembered feeling like this, he was a first year, unable to think of anything but returning to that mysterious mirror he had found that showed him surrounded by what he wanted most: his family. He didn't allow himself to think of what it was that was in the photo album that he couldn't find outside of it that he clearly craved so desperately. He just concentrated on eating quickly so he could get upstairs all the sooner.
Unfortunately, Lavender misunderstood. It was an understandable mistake. After over a year of sneaking into each other's beds whenever they could find the chance for hurried, frantic, hungry shags where they used every silencing charm they could think of and dreaded the thought of being caught, she and Harry were finally free to be with each other as openly as they wanted. And now that school was out and the other students had left, the seventh year girl's dorm was all theirs. (Parvati had moved into the sixth year dorm with Ginny to give them space.) For the two weeks until their wedding, they could spend all the time that they wanted exploring and enjoying each other to their heart's content without anyone interfering or any fear of getting caught. So when Lavender saw Harry rushing through his meal, was it any wonder she jumped to conclusions?
She smiled when he rose to his feet, making weak excuses to go back to the dorms, and immediately followed after him, laughing softly to herself when she realized that he didn't even know that she was walking behind him. Harry was the most aggravating person in the world to stalk under normal circumstances since was hyper-sensitive to the feeling of being watched. She was *never* able to sneak up on him, no matter how hard she tried… until now.
Harry's mind was two years away, running through all the things that had happened in fifth year. What pictures would Colin have captured? Fifth year had been nightmarish at times (quite literally; he still remembered the dreams that Voldemort had planted in his head) but there had been some wonderful moments as well. Forming Dumbledore's Army and feeling that rush of pride that his friends trusted him and believed in him so much that they were willing to join. Realizing how many friends he really had when so many students, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as well as Gryffindors, went out on the line for him. The sparkle he didn't remember seeing before (but that he liked, yes, *definitely* liked) in Hermione's eyes when she informed him and Ron that she was in the mood to be just a bit "rebellious," and then watching the after-effects of that as Hermione played Rita Skeeter like a piano, knowing just what notes to hit. Yes, there were definitely good memories, and Harry was eagerly anticipating discovering which of them Colin had captured on film.
He made it all the way up to the Gryffindor Tower and past the portrait of the Fat Lady (not even noticing the wink that she gave him when she spotted Lavender trailing behind him) with no thought on his mind other than returning to the couch and re-immersing himself in his present. He was nearly there when he heard a playful giggle at his back, barely giving him enough time to brace himself before his fiancée jumped onto his back.
"Upstairs, Harry," she whispered in his ear. "I want you, too."
She what? Wanted him *too*?
"I have to say, Harry," she added teasingly. "I'm really rather flattered. You couldn't wait to get through lunch so you could come up here with me?"
Harry was too dumbfounded to speak. That was really what she had thought? It was… well, it was rather logical, he had to admit, even if it wasn't true. But how could he tell her? *What* would he tell her? What polite way is there to tell your fiancée that you're not terribly interested in shagging her at the moment because you have some sort of fascination with looking through old photographs that rarely include her?
What choice did he have? He took her upstairs.
~*~*~*~*~
A/N 2: Please don't hate me! I swear, I didn't *intend* to have any real mention of Harry and Lavender's sex life, especially after reading reviews from everyone saying that it made them queasy in chapter 13. But this is where the story led me when I was writing this part today. If it's any comfort, the break-up scene between Harry and Lavender was written ages ago; this is just the route my muse is taking to get us there. Hopefully it will all make sense in the end!