The early autumn breeze swept through the window, capturing the wispy white curtains in its grasp and lifting them upward. She could feel the season all around her and breathed it in from her worn spot on the windowseat.
In summer, the sky always shone a deep blue, but as the season faded into fall it pulled the blue with it and left the gray. Not the depressing, dark gray of a thunderstorm, but the clear gray that bounced light off of everything, defining the season as it coupled itself with the crisp air that seemed to smell of nostalgia.
She lazily pressed one hand against the screen of the open window and idly strummed it back and fourth across the tiny wire checkerboard, while the other hand rested on top of the book that now lay on her stomach. Her thoughts were nowhere in particular, but everywhere at once.
It was one of those moments where you think about life and it suddenly seems very wonderfully odd. To exist. To be alive.
The feeling rushed in like a tidal wave but was just as soon swept back into the chasm from which it came.
Her thoughts turned, as with most in moments like these, to herself. Her own life.
Silent reflection together with the times she could really discuss her feelings and who she was with another person - those were the things she valued most. She often felt that too little importance was put upon understanding your own soul. Instead people focused so readily on whatever they projected of themselves, their true spirit was lost. She hadn't always been so aware, but things had changed. She was no longer the bushy-haired little girl consumed with proving herself. She was worthy and that was that. It no longer mattered.
The easiest thing in the world to do was take something for granted and the hardest was not realizing what it was until after it was gone and you had to live with the emptiness. Today though, thankfulness surged within her.
She pulled her hand from the screen and turned on her side, still caught in the season that seeped in through the window and lit up her room.
Indescribable. How do you explain something to another person with words, when it is only something you can feel?
She knew she would never be able to speak of how she felt without leaving the other person in a blank stare, but she also knew if she sat that same person down in a quiet room, where the only light was that of the autumn sun, they would know, without a doubt, what she had been trying to say.
"Hermione?"
It was as if on cue.
She smiled at the sound of his voice. The one person who did truly understand her.
"In here."
She heard him pad into the room and a grin invaded her face.
"One of those days, I see." He said quietly, sitting beside her.
"Don't you think so?" She said, turning away from the window to look at him.
He took her hand in his and lightly kissed the palm, "I do." He gestured to the window, pushing the screen out of the way with the shutters. "Always this with you in the fall and spring."
"Isn't it lovely?"
As she spoke another small breeze tufted through the room, swirling her hair lazily.
"Beautiful." He whispered in reply and let his gaze move from her face to the view.
She sighed contentedly and they worked themselves effortlessly into what Ron called, `The Position'. He'd found them this way countless times before, Harry, his back against the wall of the window alcove, cushion behind his head; Hermione laying back against him, where she alternately looked up to prod or poke him for cheeking her about something, or kiss him for no reason at all. They'd never really noticed it happening until Ron came in one day muttering something about them `always in The Position'. He'd faked just enough disgust to make them laugh heartily.
He felt her take a deep breath as she pulled his arm around her waist.
This life felt like another lifetime from the one they'd known at Hogwarts. Sometimes he tried to remember what it had been like then. How easily it had moved from joy to pain and back again. Sometimes he could almost touch those days if he reached far enough. Others, it all felt like a dream.
The three of them had been in Tuscany for two years. They'd always promised one another that once Voldemort was gone ("There's no other option, so don't even say it," Hermione told them when they tried to be practical about the possibilities of them not making it through the war.) they'd disappear together. Just the three of them. Their own private hideout from everything London held for them. They'd always known they'd go back, but Italy had been their ultimate reward.
They'd traveled first. The islands of Greece, the South of France (Paris was too risky with reporters) and the riviera, Prague, Spain (Hermione had given Harry a firm, "No." on running with the bulls.) and up and down the length of Italy. Harry had once heard Lavendar Brown tell another girl (rather melodramatically) that she should travel everywhere, but once she went to Italy, she'd find her heart. He was sure he'd rolled his eyes, but the warning had stayed with him. And it was true.
Harry had loved losing himself in the canals in Venice for three weeks - often venturing off alone from the Piazza San Marco, to be found hours later in a darkened café writing furiously in his journal - a departure gift from Hermione. "You'll want to remember this - all of it - one day." She'd called it a travel journal but he felt sure both of them knew he was writing about much more than vacation.
From Venice they'd gone to Capri, which Ron swore was `the best place' he'd ever been. Until they traveled through the Cinque Terre, where he met Georgiana.
Everything had changed in those tiny villages.
One night, while Ron and Georgiana were off, ("Merlin only knows where," Hermione said distastefully.) Harry and Hermione had been left alone. It wasn't unusual, just the two of them, but sometime during dinner, as the breeze from the water had blown across their tanned faces and Harry leant to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, he realized he was in love. The transition, amazingly simple. When they left the table, he suggested a walk on the beach. She took his hand and smiled.
"I didn't expect you to realize until after, you know." She said shyly.
"Realize?"
"I saw your face just now, Harry."
Now he was shy. "Have you known long?"
She stopped and turned to face him, "Yes," she said honestly, "But I didn't want you to see it until after… he was gone."
"Do you… love me too?" He ventured.
"Of course I love you." She said simply, as if he should have always known. "But I'm rather glad you finally recognized it."
He'd kissed her then, holding onto her as if the breeze might drag her away.
Ron had returned to their apartment that night and called their names several times before he found them snogging on the veranda.
"Finally!" He'd sniggered before going off to his room.
Ron's own `relationship' with Georgiana lasted a month before the trio left the Cinque Terre for Tuscany.
Harry had known the minute he saw the look on Hermione's face in Florence that this was where the three of them would stay. They'd bought a small villa in the hills outside Florence and found the perfect balance between the city and the country. They'd had occasional visitors, Remus, Neville, even Dumbledore, but no one in Florence knew who they were. And the villagers could have cared less, only shouting, "Ciao bambinis!" whenever they saw the three friends laughing as they walked through the streets.
And now two years had passed.
Ron had taken up contact with Luna Lovegood. Owls arrived and left at least twice a day and Hermione deduced that their 7th year romance had been rekindled. Ron would only smile, his neck rushing red, when she asked.
"He's going to want to leave soon, you know." She'd told Harry one day.
He'd only nodded, knowing it was true, but not wanting it to be. Italy, this escape, had protected them for a time. Enclosed them in something wonderful and all their own.
In reality, they all had things to do. Lives to live. The chaos of Voldemort's defeat was gone, as Harry hoped the public's fascination with the three of them would be. He knew it would always follow them in some way, but he never wanted it to be their master.
The three of them would never really part. It was impossible. Their lives and hearts would always be linked by time and space and love. And even though Harry knew he'd still see them everyday once they returned, it would never be like this again.
From their spot in `The Position' by the window, Harry and Hermione saw Ron walk into the garden. Hermione looked up at Harry and nodded, the large stone he had slipped onto her left ring finger the week before, flashing in the sunlight.
She kissed him lightly and they moved wordlessly down the stairs and out into the courtyard, hands intertwined.
Ron heard them and moved over to the right side of the bench, watching as Hermione sat down beside him, Harry on her other side. A position the three of them had often taken together. There had been nights they'd sat like this for hours without uttering a sound and days they'd talked endlessly, filling the hillsides with echoing laughter.
Harry placed his arm around Hermione, a smirk on his face, and reached to slap Ron lightly across the back of his head. Hermione rolled her eyes and the ritual, kissed Harry on the cheek and laid her head on his shoulder, one hand fingering a hole in the knee of his jeans, the other clasping Ron's hand.
She took a deep breath and focused her gaze on the view of Florence below, drinking it in, keeping the memory locked in her mind before she whispered…
"It's time to go home."
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