Disclaimer: JKR owns HP; I just borrow.
Miracle
Chapter 1: Something Missing
There was something missing.
Harry lay flat on his back staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom in his flat. There was something missing in his life.
He'd become aware of a vague sense of dissatisfaction with his life; there was simply something missing.
He had a good life; he should be happy-but somehow he wasn't. He liked his job, working with the Aurors; he had his best friends whom he would give his life for and knew they'd do the same for him in a heartbeat; he had a second family in the Weasleys. He had a good life-but there was something missing.
And he'd finally figured out what it was.
He was missing having someone to come home to, someone to be for him what Luna was to Ron-not necessarily a wife (although that was exactly what Luna was to Ron) but someone to make him feel that little glow of warmth he could see in Ron's eyes and hear in Ron's voice when he mentioned Luna.
It had started more than a week ago when he and Ron had met up for dinner and drinks. He had grinned at Ron and asked, "Another round?" and Ron had answered, "Sure," before he'd glanced at his watch and then added, "Wait, no, actually I think I'll pass on that and just head home."
He had glanced at his watch too, to see that it was only just after 9 at night. "Early night?" he'd commented.
Ron smiled a small, content little smile. "Luna said she should be getting back late, maybe after 10, tonight, and I want to make sure I'm home when she gets back."
And he had seen the almost imperceptible brightening of Ron's entire expression, the little glow in Ron's eyes and heard the way Ron's tone softened when he said Luna's name and the anticipation when he spoke of Luna's coming home-and he'd suddenly felt a pang of jealousy. Luna had been away, traveling somewhere in an attempt to find proof of the existence of some creature she called a Crumple-horned Hoolilalea, but she was coming back that night-and Ron was, he could see, absolutely delighted about that.
He was happy for Ron and Luna, glad that Ron was so happy with her and he had grown quite fond of Luna-but he found himself, in that moment, struck with an unexpected pang of undeniable envy. He wanted what Ron had, he realized. He wanted to have a person who just thinking about made him happy, wanted to have someone to look forward to seeing with that anticipation he could see in Ron at the thought of seeing Luna.
He wanted someone to love like that, someone to be the most important person in his life.
It had been more than a year since he'd last had a serious girlfriend, or a relationship with a girl that had gone on for longer than a few weeks. Not that he ever had trouble with finding girls willing to go out with him; much to his own annoyance most of the time, his fame had that one by-product. He did seem to have trouble keeping a girlfriend for very long. Ron teased him that he was becoming a serial dater, Love-'em-and-Leave-'em Potter, who never let a girl get too close or last too long before he ran as far away as he could. (Harry had promptly thrown a cushion at Ron's head which Ron had ducked, as he cackled madly.)
But Ron's teasing aside, there was some truth to it in that he hadn't had a serious girlfriend for going on a year and half now, although he'd gone on a lot of first dates. He found he just got bored with the girls he dated; they didn't really know him except for the heroic stories everyone knew and a lot of them, he could tell, could have cared less about him as a person with their overweening interest in him as the most recognizable and best-known wizard in the wizarding world. (Defeating the most powerful evil wizard the world had seen in more than a century before his 18th birthday had done wonders for his fame and his reputation-much to his disgust.) As Ron had joked, girls lined up around the block and would wait out on the street all night in order to date Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. The problem, he'd realized, was that he wasn't sure how many of them would do anything that inconvenienced them in the slightest in order to date just Harry, a normal bloke. He was willing to bet that not many of them would.
This, combined with the fact that his early experiences and the admittedly exciting life he'd led made him be easily bored with girls who had never experienced a more traumatic event than being caught outside in the rain or something (which, given they were witches, was not exactly an event), girls who had no idea and no understanding of just what it had taken him to defeat Voldemort. Girls who didn't know how often he still had nightmares from the last battle and the other battles, who didn't care that he still made a point, every year, of visiting Dumbledore's grave and the stone marker he'd had erected next to his parents' graves for Sirius, on the anniversary of the days they'd been killed-as if, in some small way, that he didn't forget, would never forget, could make up for the lingering sense of guilt he still felt even though Sirius had been gone for ten years now. None of them knew, none of them understood-and even if they did know, they wouldn't care because it would just be a story to them; it wouldn't mean anything to them because they hadn't lived it like he had.
Ron had managed to move on; he didn't, Harry knew, have nightmares about the battles and had enjoyed being able to return to a more normal, danger-free life. Ron enjoyed Luna's remaining detachment of sorts to the rest of the world; although she'd gotten much less dreamy as she'd gotten older, she still somehow managed to exude an air of having access to an entirely different existence. Harry, fond as he'd become of Luna, couldn't entirely understand how Ron managed to live with her-but then, he shrugged, Ron loved her and Luna adored Ron.
And he was alone.
He wanted someone in his life, wanted to meet the special woman whom he could love-and he was tired of casual first dates with women whose main interest in him was for his fame. He wanted more than that, wanted something more meaningful than that.
And he didn't want to be alone.
~*~*~
Harry sat back and grinned at Ron in the dim light of the pub. "So did Luna end up finding any evidence of the Crumple-horned Hoolilalea?"
Ron chuckled. "Apparently not but you know her, she never gives up and always insists they're out there."
"Right."
Ron grinned and took a drink of his butterbeer.
Harry paused, studying the expression in Ron's eyes when he spoke of Luna, and then spoke up. "I've been thinking of getting married."
Ron choked on his butterbeer and stared at Harry. It took him a few minutes to regain his breath and his ability to speak from the butterbeer going down his throat the wrong way but finally he forced out, gaping at Harry, "Um, Harry, did you acquire a girlfriend and not tell anyone?"
Harry allowed himself a smirk at Ron's dumbfounded expression before he sobered. "I didn't mean, immediately, and I don't have any specific person in mind. I was just thinking that it seems like everyone's getting married now. You and Luna. Neville. Seamus. Charlie. Fred and George. Even Draco bloody Malfoy's married-and I'm still the lonely bloke without even a girlfriend."
Ron grimaced. "Don't mention Malfoy and marriage to me in the same sentence."
Harry grinned. Ron had been the one with the worst reaction when Ginny had told her family that she was dating Draco Malfoy, despite the fact that he had defected to the side of the Aurors and even been instrumental in helping out at the Last Battle. (Ron's reaction had been only slightly more tempered than it might have been had Ginny announced that she was dating Snape or possibly Voldemort himself.) And even though Ginny and Malfoy had now been married for more than three years now and it couldn't be denied that Ginny was happy, Ron had yet to forgive Malfoy for the heinous crime of marrying his baby sister and still being- in Ron's eyes- an arrogant git.
"Seriously, though," Harry sobered, "I don't mean I have someone specific I want to marry or even that I necessarily intend to get married in the immediate future. I just-I just want someone to be what Luna is to you, you know what I mean. I'm tired of going on casual dates with girls who only care about the sodding scar on my forehead."
Ron nodded. "Okay, well, it's not like there's a shortage of witches who'd love to be your girlfriend. What are you looking for in a woman?"
Harry sighed a little and shrugged. "Well, someone who's not more interested in my scar and my fame than in me, for one thing. She doesn't need to be brilliant but she needs to be smarter than some of the girls I've met so she can talk about something other than the latest fashions she read about in Witch Weekly."
Now Ron looked amused. "That's it? Gee, Harry, lower your standards some, why don't you? Anything lower and all you're going to require is that the person is female and under the age of 50 and not already married. Come on now, if I'm going to ask Luna or Ginny or anyone else to start looking around, you've got to give me more than that," he said, deliberately leaving Hermione's name out of the conversation. Of course, for anything else involving Harry, Hermione would be the first person he talked to-but for this, he had a sneaking suspicion Hermione would rather not be involved in finding Harry a girlfriend. Then again, he had no intention of speaking to Luna or anyone else about looking for a potential girlfriend for Harry either. "Describe your ideal woman," he finished with a grin.
Harry laughed shortly and thought for a few moments. "Okay, then, ideally, she should have a sense of humor too. She's going to need to be able to understand me and where I'm coming from. For the rest, well, I want someone who won't bore me even if I spend all day with them, someone I can talk to about things. Someone who won't treat me like I'm a hero or some sort of savior and who won't act as if everything I say is either brilliant or the most amusing thing she's ever heard-someone who can tell me when I'm wrong or when I'm being a prat. She should be kind and honest and loyal." He paused and then quirked a smile. "She doesn't need to be pretty but it wouldn't hurt."
Ron returned Harry's smile before sobering and pretending to think seriously about all the qualifications. "You know what, I think I know just the girl. She's perfect for you and I happen to know for sure she's not dating anyone right now."
Harry raised an eyebrow somewhat skeptically. "She's perfect for me? And you've come to this conclusion in the past minute?"
"No, I've thought you and she would be perfect for each other for a long time now. I just never said anything because I didn't know if you'd be interested," Ron answered composedly.
"Okay, then. Who is this paragon?"
Ron stifled a laugh. "Oh she's not a paragon. Far from it, but she is a good friend and I'd trust her with my life-or with you," he added with a teasing wink.
Now Harry looked intrigued. "What's her name?"
And then, in a move that was probably not the nicest thing he could have done but to get a sort of revenge on Harry for what he'd done earlier, Ron waited until Harry had taken another drink of his butterbeer before saying with deliberate calm, "Hermione Jane Granger."
Now it was Harry's turn to choke on his butterbeer. He spluttered and gaped at Ron for a moment, as if Ron had just suggested that Harry propose to and marry Professor Trelawney, before he finally recovered his voice. "You're mental!"
Ron shrugged. "Maybe. But it doesn't mean I'm wrong."
"Have you lost what little remained of your mind? I can't date Hermione!"
Ron tilted his head to one side as he studied Harry. "Why not?" he asked succinctly.
"Because!"
"What, did you suddenly regress to 5 years old again?"
"Because she's my best friend!"
"So what? I consider Luna to be one of my best friends."
"She's your wife; it's different."
Ron shrugged a little. "There's nothing wrong with dating your best friend. Hermione and I dated for a while, remember?"
"Yeah but look how well that turned out."
Ron waved a dismissive hand. "That's because Hermione and I were never meant to be more than friends; we couldn't get past the bickering and it just got worse when we tried to be more than friends, you know that. But we dated and we're still best friends."
Harry gave Ron a look that suggested he thought Ron was severely mentally deficient. "You two broke up and then you barely spoke at all to each other for more than two months afterwards!"
"It was awkward for a while," Ron admitted, "but we got over that and now we're better friends than ever."
"I can't date Hermione," Harry insisted. "I just- can't. It's ridiculous to think I could."
"Why? She's your friend, not your sister. You're both single and you get along really well. You've certainly acted like you cared more about Hermione than you have about most of your girlfriends."
"Of course I cared more about Hermione; she's my best friend."
Ron studied Harry but refrained from mentioning that one thing almost all of Harry's former girlfriends had had in common was that they hadn't gotten along too well with Hermione. Admittedly, Hermione had never been one for many female friends but he suspected that Hermione's generally cool behavior towards Harry's girlfriends and their even-cooler behavior towards Hermione had had another source-jealousy. None of Harry's girlfriends could have missed the fact that, as far as Harry was concerned, he and Hermione came first. After nearly a decade and half of friendship and all their shared experiences, it wasn't surprising, Ron supposed, especially with how loyal a friend Harry was-but he also could understand why Harry's girlfriends hadn't appreciated being relegated to second-or third- place in Harry's life, after Harry's two best friends, one of whom was another woman.
Ron wondered if Harry realized that it wasn't necessarily a given, that one's best friend meant more than one's girlfriend. He would gladly give his life for either Harry or Hermione-but Luna had become more important to him than his best friends.
"Well, it's your life," Ron gave in, giving up (for the moment) against the brick wall that was Harry when he'd made up his mind. "But I still think you and Hermione would be great together. Think about it."
Neither of them said anything more about it as Harry hastily changed the subject by bringing up the upcoming Quidditch match England would be playing against Ukraine, which effectively distracted them both.