A/N: As per usual, I struggled with this chapter and apologise immediately for all incoherency that may appear. I think I have it right though, so um… read on then.
Disclaimer: I'm severely allergic to lawsuits, none of this is mine.
~*~*~*~
Mend
He put her down, turned her to face him, looked her directly in the eyes and said, "I'll never leave you forever, sometimes for a little while, but never forever. And besides, you said you needed a break, and I got you this…"
"What is it?" asked Hermione, immediately looking down to his hands that had disappeared into his pockets.
"You'll have to close your eyes," he told her with a grin.
Okay, this she had no time for. It was cold, she was freezing, a little hungry… surely he wasn't serious.
"I hope that was a suggestion," said Hermione, irritably.
Harry sighed, "Exactly how does being pregnant give you the right to take the fun out of life?"
"It doesn't," Hermione replied, smiling lightly, "but it's freezing out here, I don't want to play games."
"Fine then, here's your dumb present," said Harry, sullenly and thrust into her hands a fist full of snow.
"Harry Potter!" she shrieked, realising the ruse and made to throw it into his laughing face. Since when was winding her up fun? Had he lost his mind? Was he somehow channelling Ron?
She would pause though, when her gloved fingers grazed something stiff within the crushed snowball.
Ignoring his laughter for a moment, she cleared away the mess of snow in her hand till she came to a small red box. She looked up at him suspicious-his expression was carefully blank-and then opened it.
She gasped at the sight.
Lying atop a blood-red cushion of velvet was a long silver chain with a pendant replica of a Time Turner. It was an almost perfect copy of the one she had had in Third Year, so much so that for a second she looked up at him and asked, "I thought the Ministry's stock was destroyed?"
He patted the top of her head with a pitying sigh, "My poor, poor Herm-own-ninny, the stress must be getting to you, you can't tell the real thing from a fake anymore?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, ready to retort, when both were startled by the sound of branch breaking under someone's foot.
At once Harry whipped out his wand, "Who's there?"
"Put it away before you hurt yourself, Mr Potter," was the reply, and into the clearing stepped Professor Severus Snape. Well, the former Professor Snape anyway.
As always, he was dressed in black, a few stray snowflakes spotting his shoulders, and stood out starkly against his white and evergreen background. With his pale skin though, he could as easily blend right in again, comfortably camouflaged in the dead of winter. How fitting.
Hermione instinctively drew her cloak around her tighter, but she knew it was probably useless. At the rate she was growing it was getting harder and harder to conceal the fact that she was pregnant and she was barely into her third trimester.
Harry stepped in front of her completely and replied, "I don't think I will actually, what are you doing out here?"
"Doing what you two should, looking out for trouble. Miss Granger has been standing here quite some time alone, I noticed," he told him.
Hermione swallowed another gasp.
Oh no, he could not have seen her could he? Please let it be that he hadn't seen her, please….
"Hermione can take care of herself," said Harry, fiercely. It was with pride that she noted the defensiveness in his tone.
"I would hope so, after all, we are all in the middle of a war," he told him. "There are enough innocent victims lying about already."
"What's that… why, you've seen something?" she asked, lamely covering her real question: "What's that supposed to mean?"
Snape looked very much as if he knew full well what she had stifled but replied instead, "No, I was merely saying that not all of us can protect ourselves, it's not a matter of weakness, just… defencelessness…."
"Weasley House, Ottery St Catchpole!" bellowed the Knight Bus conductor, startling her out of her dreams and lazily, unsteadily, Hermione rose to her feet and headed for the door.
Stan Shunpike, officially reinstated years ago during the war, actually extended his arm to help her out, "Easy there ma'am, wouldn't want to slip in this weather, icy out."
"Thanks, I'll be fine," said Hermione, slightly embarrassed, and then drawing her robes tighter round her, made her way up to the path to Ron and Luna's house.
Since the night Harry showed up on her doorstep she had been repeatedly visited by dreams, nightmares and visions of a long-forgotten past. They were coming back to her, finally coming back to her, in a tumultuous deluge that had denied her sleep, food and sometimes simple concentration for the past week and a half. Every moment she closed her eyes it seemed that she was going back to another world, another life where despite the danger she had found… well, something like happiness.
Hadn't Dumbledore said something about that a lifetime ago?
"But you know, happiness, can be found in even the darkest of times…"
She remembered flashes, every now and then, of moments: her and Harry asleep on the sofa; her and Harry walking out of their apartment with the Order and a stone faced Mrs Weasley; standing before a mirror in a white lace gown with a generous waist and sighing softly. There was a particularly vivid one of delirious joy and a blazing sunset punctuated by the cries of something tiny, nearly bald, naked and pink. There was another of her looking down into a cradle bathed in the light of a full moon where lay two tiny bundles, their hands tightly clasped as they slept. And then another still, not so happy, not so joyous, not so peaceful where she screamed through tears and pleaded against a solemn-looking Harry trying to deny her the right to help save his life.
They were linkages to a once solid stream of memory, but so muddled now that she could make no sense of them, something very foreign to her. Everything had to make sense, even in magic, if there was no order, no rules or restraints nothing would get done. But it would seem from the moment she first let her lips brush ever so lightly against his, all of that ended.
Curiously though, that memory seemed to have no problems with uniformity.
So this was why she was here now. When faced with a situation where nothing made sense where it should, she had to turn to the person she could now hold responsible: Luna. After all, it was Luna who had arranged the meeting, Luna who had somehow figured out that Paul Nicolas was actually Harry Potter and Luna who had some serious explaining to do.
How dare she figure this out and not tell Hermione? How dare she shock Hermione like that, weren't they supposed to be friends? How dare she do that to Caspar, who was probably so very upset no matter how much he appeared only concerned for her?
She actually had to leave him with Mrs Weasley today just to make sure he would be alright. She couldn't put him through anymore surprises.
Or rather, to that annoying part of her that knew the truth, she couldn't allow herself to vent her frustrations when he was around. Like that one question that kept burrowing into the back of her mind and she had fought against herself from asking. She could barely bring herself to think of it now, but there it was still: Why, if Harry loved her so much, hadn't he prevented her marrying Viktor Krum?
Before she was at the door, Luna had opened it and was standing on the front porch waiting for her.
"You saw him didn't you?" she asked.
Hermione stopped in the middle of the path, "You knew."
It was a statement, not a question, but Luna shook her head anyway, "No, I didn't know… I just… call it instinct or something, I just thought, something was wrong. At Hallowe'en, well, the more he told me about 'himself' the more I realised that he wasn't this Paul Nicolas. He slipped up a lot and thought I had missed it under the noise of the crowd."
"You could have told me before you sent him to me, at least give me time to-" Hermione began to protest.
"Given you time to do what? You jumped the gun the last time, I couldn't let you do it again," Luna cut her off.
"What if he wasn't Paul Nicolas or Harry either?" demanded Hermione then, trying to ignore the stung feeling she got from Luna's rebuke.
"I would not have let him meet you, but I knew it was him. From the first time I met him, he was taller, darker, but somehow he just still looked like Harry without the eyes, hair colour or scar," Luna replied.
"What are you, Professor Trelawney now?" asked Hermione, coldly.
Luna let it slide as she replied quietly, "No, but the way he looked at you, it could only be him. He had that look on his face whenever he saw you from the first time I ever met him."
"Harry liked Cho then, and after that Ginny-" Hermione began.
Luna smiled, "And all the while he had that look only for you. I thought it was Nargles at first. I thought that they must have gotten to him before he got on the train… but no, it was the other thing you were all too blind to see. Is he at home now, waiting for you?"
It was such a sudden change in topic that at first Hermione just stared blankly at her. When it came to her though, she shook her head, "No, I… he upset Caspar."
Luna looked unconvinced, "Where's Caspar today, at school?"
"No," replied Hermione, "he's still upset; he's not doing too well in his classes so I left him with Mrs Weasley."
"Then why aren't you talking to Harry now?" asked Luna. "Caspar's not around for you to upset him."
"It's not going to change the fact that he's upset. I'm not talking to Harry again, not as long as it upsets my son," said Hermione.
"What about your daughters? Aren't they going to be upset too when they find out that you don't want to talk to their father?" asked Luna, poking a hole in Hermione's plan.
Hermione sighed and gave up, "It's just… if I go to see him, if I go over there and talk to him… I have every right to be angry, but I won't be. I won't be able to stand it. I won't be able to spend ten minutes with him and not want to… just hold him and never let go. I would never let him out of my sight again, ever."
"Then what's the problem? I think your daughters would be right pleased, and Caspar, well, he'll come around, as long as you're safe, he'll be just fine," said Luna.
"His father won't come back from the dead," Hermione told her.
"That's what stepfathers are for," Luna replied, and then involuntarily shuddered. "Um… I think we should go in now, it's a bit… cold out here."
Hermione looked around surprised, as if suddenly realising that they had just carried on this entire conversation out in the cold. It was early afternoon, with the bright sun above brilliantly flooding the now painfully bare front yard of the Ron and Luna's home-comfortably larger, and more ordered, than the Burrow-with gentle white-gold light and no heat. The leaves had all deserted the trees, and though some determinedly held on by the first snow fall they too would succumb to the deadly chill.
In one of her dreams she had seen the Burrow like this, a memory plucked from the depths of her mind that surprised her. She had been to the Burrow even and no one beyond Lupin, Mrs Weasley, Snape, and apparently, Fleur, had known? How come they could not have employed their talents to keeping the entire family together?
Those were bitter thoughts to have but she could not help herself. Forgiveness for them would be slow to come, very slow to come.
Now, why couldn't she have those same thoughts with Harry?
Luna was speaking again, shaking her from her thoughts, "Aren't you coming, or do you like the cold? Father always said-"
"I'm coming," said Hermione, cutting her off before she began, "I'm just wondering since when I became your best friend."
She met Luna at the door and began to head inside as she replied, "Since your Sixth Year I think, you and Ginny just weren't as close as you used to be, anymore. I wonder why, you were going after her brother at the time."
She had a feeling that Luna was going to make it very difficult for her to stay mad at him as she wanted. By the time the door shut behind them she knew she didn't stand a chance.
~*~*~*~
With only days to the Christmas break, the lists for students going home were passed round during dinners. Among those departing, Ron was much pleased to find, were Maia and Aimee Potter. It was not that he didn't expect to find them there, Hermione was just dying to get them home with her from the day she met them. No, it was more than that, for the first time in what was surely years a Potter was actually going home, and not just to the Burrow.
Looking down at their table then-a newly formed habit of his just to catch a smile or two-he instead found a curious sight. The twins were nearly lost amidst their classmates, tonight sitting together at Aimee's table, but something was making them stand out.
Strutting comfortably about on the table before them was something he had last thought he had seen in the height of delirium shortly after the end of the war. A majestic white bird of snowy-white with eyes of amber and a stern nature that made her an excellent guardian for a boy often mistreated or misbehaving (with the best of intentions of course).
It was Hedwig.
He nearly started out of his seat at the staff table at the sight of her.
But before he could have a proper second look, she hopped off of the table and took to air. For a moment though, she soared just above the floating candles under the enchanted ceiling and then she was gone through a high open window to the dark night sky without.
He could barely believe his eyes but he knew it had to be real, that was Hedwig.
Aimee (or it could have been Maia, they were out of uniform) looked up at him this point and noticed his expression. Immediately she turned and whispered something to her sister. This prompted her to look at him then, and he somehow summoned the presence of mind to mouth, "What's going on?"
It was not as if he didn't know that the twins were in contact with Harry. He had been there when they showed Hermione the address. It was not as if he wanted to care about what they told him. He was a bit (or rather, very) angry with Harry for not physically being there for them, all of them. But the sight of Hedwig casually delivering a message as if nothing was wrong was an act of arrogance he could barely stand.
Maia mouthed back, "You have a letter."
Hermione had found Harry? Was that why Harry had so boldly sent Hedwig with a letter to the school, and more importantly, for him?
Somewhat stupidly, Ron asked, "What?"
"You have a letter," Maia mouthed again, clearly believing he had not understood.
Deciding that that would not do it though, Aimee took the small rectangular white envelope from the table, waved it and pointed at him.
"For you, this letter is for you," she mouthed.
Professor Theoden at the side of him said, "I believe the dear child is trying to say that you have a letter. Don't just sit there; tell her to bring it for you."
"Why, so that you can read his mail over his shoulder?" asked Padma.
"No, so he can get it, I wouldn't like to think he'd want her to mouth all of it to him from the table," he replied.
Ron glared at them both, and beckoned the twins. They came at once, together, and attracting attention as they did so. Realising this, Maia stopped and went back to the table, no need to draw unnecessary attention with something that was clearly private.
When she was at the table, Aimee handed him the letter and said, "Apapay entsay histay orfay ouyay." <Papa sent this for you.>
He had to wonder whatever made her think he would understand her pig Latin, but she obviously thought it more private than French in conveying the message. He also had to wonder if she knew Padma was half of a pair of twins as well. Nevertheless, she had nothing more to offer and simply slipped away from the table back to her sister while he fingered the edges of the small envelope in his hands.
Professor Theoden barely waited until she had re-seated herself before he asked, "What is it? Who is it from?"
Padma though, looked strangely pink, and turned to Ron slightly wide-eyed. She had understood what Aimee had said, and what was worse, she also knew what it meant. There was probably not a person left in the entire Wizarding world who didn't know who "Papa" was.
However, she kept anything she might have had to say to this to herself as she asked, "What's it about?"
Ron quickly pocketed it, "I think I should read it later, 'my-eyes-only' kind of thing. Possibly some junk mail as well."
"Why send it to the girls then? It must be important," said Professor Theoden, clearly curious.
"It's from Hermione," Ron lied. "Personal stuff, you know… the girls are going home for Christmas, and she's always worried about them now."
Padma looked unconvinced, but Professor Theoden, as desired, was.
"Oh, make sure and send her my regards, will you? And while you're at it, mention my open schedule, I'll be more than willing to help her out during the vacation," he told him.
"She doesn't want you, she was married to Harry Potter and Viktor Krum, her next husband might be the future Minister for Magic," replied Padma, without malice.
"We'll see about that, when I debut on her arm at the union of Neville Longbottom and Ginevra Weasley-just received the invitation-we'll see," he said with confidence.
Ron scoffed, "Believe me, the furthest thing from Hermione's mind right now is a husband, past, present or future."
Hours later, in his office, Ron drew the letter from his pocket and read it quickly.
"Hey Ron,
I've met with Hermione, and before I do anything else I need to talk to you too. I know you're not happy with me now, and I understand that, but if only just to hear my side then I would appreciate it if you came to my house when you come home for the vacation. For obvious reasons I can't include the address with a letter delivered by Hedwig, so the twins will tell you.
Even if you're going to hit me, I want you to come.
Harry.
For a time he just sat at his desk staring at the letter, and then he crumpled it and threw it away.
It wasn't necessarily a good idea for him to meet Harry right then. Not in the mood he was in at the very mention of Harry's name, or even the slightest thought of him. Hitting him was mildest of the things he wanted to do.
Sitting through Snape's rant had been hard enough. He had been right about some things and then very wrong about others. Ron had even allowed himself to be silent all through it, but only because a part of him still held on to a hurt he thought he long let go. But Harry hurting Hermione was crossing a different line.
He could stand being hurt as long as they were happy. Heck, he stood it knowing that they now had the twins to serve as mementos of that great friend they both knew and loved.
Harry's intentional absence though changed everything.
He could only hope that this letter didn't mean that Hermione had forgiven him. After all they had been through to just let it go like that was unthinkable.
And then he heard a soft rustling.
Quickly, he turned and followed the sound of it. In the absence of curtains and a night wind to flutter them, he knew of only one thing in his office that could produce such a sound and he had given that away weeks ago.
There was the rustling again and this time the top of it slipped away to reveal the twins curled up fast asleep on his sofa. They had slipped in under the Invisibility Cloak and quite possibly it was to talk to him about their father's letter. Their determination to have their family together, now that everyone knew the truth, was admirable, but there were some wounds that they may not be able to heal.
He loved the little midgets, honestly he did, and could ignore their conception altogether just at the sight of them. But he could not, could never try to ignore the fact that thinking that Harry was dead almost killed him.
Harry was his brother, as close to him as he could be without being his real brother. They had quarrelled, ate, played and lived almost as he had done with his five elder ones. So Harry's behaviour was not just something they could talk him into forgiving. Brothers didn't just let each other think they were dead.
One of the twins snuggled closer to the other and the cloak fell off of them completely. Rising from his desk, Ron started over to them undecided as to whether he should wake them and send them to their dormitories or cover them with the cloak again.
They looked so peaceful asleep, much more peaceful than Harry sometimes did and especially so during the war. But they could have that; they were innocent of the things he had known. And more than that, asleep like this he could finally pick out the features that made them at once strongly resemble Harry or Hermione and then still neither. He could see those things on his son's (who he would have to start calling Henry now… or maybe "Little Harry" like Caspar) face sometimes, the features that identified him as his parents' child and yet still with his own face. He had to wonder why he didn't see it before.
Oh right, he didn't have a reason to then.
As he finally decided to leave them there, and drew away the cloak to replace it with one of his own, there was a soft knocking at the door.
He immediately checked his clock. It was nearly midnight, which possibly accounted for why the twins were asleep; he had taken his time to get back to his office. But who could it be at this hour?
The person knocked again, and this time called, "It's me, Padma."
Quickly changing direction, he went over to the door instead and let her in, asking, "What are you doing here?"
"Don't play with me, Weasley, I heard what that girl told you, Harry's alive?" she demanded, rounding on him as soon as she was inside.
He looked across to the sofa and she started, "Oh, I didn't… wait a minute, why aren't they in their beds?"
"They came up here to talk to me, got tired of waiting apparently," Ron replied. "So, what's this you're on?"
"I heard what she told you, 'Papa'? Unless there's been a serious mix-up somewhere I do believe that Papa is Harry Potter," she said, her voice a loud whisper.
"So what if he is?" asked Ron.
"'So what', he wrote to you, he sent you a letter… that was Hedwig wasn't it?" she asked.
"Whatever Harry sent me is private, this is none of your business," replied Ron, hastily.
"The hell it isn't, this is everybody's business! For the past eleven years we thought he was dead, the self-sacrificing hero, and instead he has kids and not only that, but is still breathing?" she exclaimed.
"You can't tell anyone, you know that right?" he asked then, deciding to give up on blocking her out.
"Of course I won't tell!" she snapped. "But you have a lot to tell me."
"Oh ho?" asked Ron, shocked.
"Yes, you do, I thought we were friends?" she said.
"I see I'm not the only one who made that mistake," he muttered.
"What?" she asked.
He sighed, heavily, and stood silent for a moment contemplating whether or not he should answer. Finally deciding that the truth would come out eventually he turned to her and said, "You'd better had a seat, this is going to take a while."
~*~*~*~
Harry had barely properly opened the door before Hermione was charging into the house and demanding, "Why didn't you stop me from marrying Viktor?"
It had not yet been two weeks since their ill-fated meeting at Northbridge Manor and he was rather surprised when he parted the curtains to find her standing at the door. After she had put him out, refused to call him by proper name, ignored questions an owl he had sent the next morning apologising for just barging in, here she was finally coming to him. He had to be forgiven if he didn't have high hopes for this evening's meeting.
He did not reply, choosing instead to slowly close and re-lock the door before turning to her in the foyer.
She looked as if she had just come back from work-though it was much too late at night for that-standing there dressed in her heavy winter cloak, scarf and hat. Her cheeks were flushed bright pink; her eyes sparkling slightly in the dim light of a nearby lamp and her stance clearly showed that she had come here for answers and that alone. Two weeks from that night and she had come here for nothing else.
He sighed, "Snape told me you would be happy, that it still wasn't safe… I went anyway and only got as far as the gates… I saw you going out in that dress and… I couldn't do it."
"I was still your wife! You let me break my vows-" she began to rant.
"Do you think I was happy about that? The thought of you marrying him made me sick to my stomach, Hermione, but I… you were happy with him…. He was someone who wouldn't die on you, he wouldn't make you cry, he would do anything to please you, I couldn't promise you that, not all of it anyway," he told her.
She gave a bitter little laugh and looked away from him, visibly twisting Viktor's ring on her finger.
She had just come here to talk, and argue. Two weeks of worrying about Ron angrily storming in and breaking his jaw. Two weeks of fearing that she would announce her divorce from him, in absentia, and a suit for full custody of twins. Two weeks of just hoping she would come back… and she just came there to argue.
"Would you have ever come back, ever at all?" she asked finally, and this time slightly dropping the harshness from her tone.
"Yes, when Amaranthe died… I had thought that once the twins had settled, once they were with you again… as that would be the inevitable result of their return… then I would come back. I wanted them to be with you first…" he replied.
Again she said nothing for a while after this response, seemingly pondering his answer. He had a sneaking suspicion that no answer would do though, that his replies were futile in the face of her anger.
They were both victims in this situation, but she was his victim too.
He continued speaking, "I never intended to hurt you, but Hermione, the day you and Ron decided to come with me I couldn't stop that. That night… I wasn't expecting anything to happen, or for it to go as far as it did, and once it was done… I did… I did regret slightly… that I had made it worse for you…."
"Worse for me?" she asked. "Worse for me would have been to watch you die, worse for me was thinking you had. Why didn't you fight to be with me, with us…? Since when, is Snape your most trusted advisor? And you were only considering returning after Amaranthe died? Why not before that when things had quieted down as much as it did?"
"I trusted Snape because I had no other choice. Your parents died, just like he said they would, when I tried to reach you. I could barely stand on my own two feet and St Mungo's was out of the question if I wanted to live long enough to have our family back together again. I loathe him almost as much as I hated Voldemort but I could do nothing without him, he knew potions and spells the Healers and the Order knew little to nothing about. I had wounds inflicted by curses from Voldemort, damage beyond anything they would have been dealing with. He knew it; I knew it and he took advantage of that. As for coming back, I would have before Amaranthe died but there was no guarantee that it would not have resulted in your murders and I couldn't risk that. There's still none now, but-" he explained, but was cut off.
"Your life was never guaranteed Harry, you could have died in Godric's Hollow and you know that. Being your wife was always going to be a risk, still is, and I know that. Our children will always be in danger of some vengeful person, but that's no reason for us not to have a family. You told me once that you always wanted a family-I'm starting to remember a lot of things now-I remember you saying that, but was it the truth?" she asked.
Harry looked at her a moment and said firmly, "Absolutely. But I-"
"No, no 'but', you wanted it and when you had it you let someone take it away from you, as if you didn't deserve it in the first place. I thought you had outgrown that mind-set but you didn't. You deserved us and you let us go, and frankly, I shouldn't be here talking to you after that…" she said and her voice faltered to a whisper.
When he dared to look into her eyes he found them tear-filled, and this time it had nothing to do with cold. This time it was the sadness and the pain he never wanted to see in them but had twice so far.
As if a stated fact, he said, "You're leaving me."
She took a deep breath, and was silent a long while before finally shaking her head, "No, I'm not leaving you. I… I can't leave you. Not after today with Luna, and after these two weeks… knowing that you're alive… the one before that where I couldn't wait ten more minutes to get out of that meeting and find you… I can't leave you. Not because of the twins, not because of what the others may say, not because of anything else… but that I love you."
He tried to stifle a reaction to this but couldn't, he just had to look at her and say, "I love you too… you have to know that, have to understand Hermione, I do and have always loved you. But… what does this mean… you're not leaving me, what does it mean?"
Without hesitation, "What I said, I'm not leaving you… but nothing is alright between us either."
"I'm not expecting it to be…" said Harry, but just barely able to contain the flare of hope that had surged through him at her words. Her not leaving him wasn't a leap back to him, but it was a small step, a step more than he had actually thought he would get.
It was then that Hermione crossed the floor to him and pulled him into an embrace so tight that he nearly couldn't breathe. More than that, she buried her face into his chest and said, "I thought you were dead, for eleven years I thought you were dead. For months now you were right here… do you know how terrible it was for me and Ron and everyone else to live through that? Do you know what you did to me when you just showed up on my doorstep? Do you know how hard it was for me these past two weeks trying to understand all this? I've been through hell."
"I'm sorry Hermione… but I suffered too, I made mistakes and I'm so sorry for-" he apologised before she cut in.
"Don't, I'm tired of hearing people say they're sorry, you have to tell that to the twins, to the Weasleys, but I don't want to hear it anymore," she told him.
"I want to say it, I have to," he insisted, daring to secure her in his arms.
The feel of her, the scent of her, so long had he waited for a chance to do this again. Releasing her hand before in the street had been difficult, but he knew that if she pulled away then it would be impossible. When last he had held her like this was shortly before they took the memory potion and she whispered into his ear: "You know what hurts me the most…? The fact that you can do this to me…"
Surprisingly though, when she did she slipped free of his grasp as easily as air. She stopped there before him, just free of his arms and stared up at him and asked, "I'm going to have to tell Ron, you know?"
He nodded mutely, his arms and chest desperately missing her contact.
"And once we tell him, we, we're going to have to tell the others. When the girls come home, they're going to want to see you," she said.
He nodded again, but this time asked, "Do we… do we have to tell anyone else too?"
He meant the media, and she nodded, "I'm tired of being a widow."
He had not been expecting her to say no really, and then asked cautiously, "When will we be okay again? You've had two weeks of it, but I've had eleven years… I don't think I can stand it…."
She smiled sadly, "I'm not ready yet-despite what Luna thinks-and neither is Caspar. The twins' father seemingly rose from the dead, but his won't."
"I had nothing to do with that," said Harry quickly, anxiously. "If you're wondering, I had nothing to do with that…."
"I know, you're not a murderer Harry, people you hate only end up dead because they deserve it," she replied.
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