Where Elizabeth Stood

A/N: I am soooo sorry that this isn't an update to Powers of Persuasion, which I've honestly barely touched in a while. Summer School is done this week and, given recent events here in the UK, I have to ship my laptop back to the States, so I may be without it for a while. Rest assured that I will be updating PoP fairly soon though!

A note on this piece: the italics is usually referring to a flashback or a character's thoughts.

Chapter 1: Where Elizabeth Stood

For the first time in nearly twenty-three years, Hermione Granger slept in. Her bed, with its enveloping cotton sheets and quilt heavy in both patching and weight, had become a safe haven, a place from which to reflect how her life had just gone terribly, terribly wrong. For naught but her dependable pillow, which faithfully absorbed her tears each night, knew of her despair, and it certainly would not betray her.

She wondered with that philosophical curiosity that always accompanies experienced time travelers what small actions in past helped shape present events, and if she somehow was responsible. What if she had inadvertently given the final push to the event that coincided with her own destruction? How many unconscious nudges had she unknowingly given?

She abandoned these worrisome what-ifs for now and logically drew up her options, but they were few and unappealing and offered no hope whatsoever. And as far as she was concerned, there was only one way to handle this situation. She thought of the women in history who had spent their entire lives waiting for something—a throne, a love one's return—and she resolved to be just as steadfast, just as courageous. After all, there certainly was a reason she had been sorted into Gryffindor. Maybe she had been born for this very test of character.

A light morning breeze was gently blowing through the gauzy curtains of her bedroom. Outside, in the Muggle world beyond the magical confines of the Black family home on Grimmauld Place, she could hear the sounds of laughing children, a lawn being mowed. Inside the house, if she strained her ears hard enough, there was also laughing. She did not want to consider where it might be coming from. Steadfast, she reminded herself. Steadfast and strong. Never mind that each lilting gale was like a needle to her heart, pinning to it painful memory after painful memory of her failures and shortcomings. Never mind the fact that, though she had yet to check her reflection, she guessed that she had aged twenty years overnight. The night of news.

The clock struck the hour with six insistent gongs. Hermione counted each one, smiling to herself as she readied for the monthly Sunday family dinner at the Burrow. Not one to be caught unprepared for something as impacting as weather, she checked the forecast for the evening not an hour before. With the warm pleasant sun already seeming to warm her, she paced her walk-in closet that up to now was still only half full and fingered the floaty material of several as yet unworn sundresses. She did not notice how her secret smile spread until it commanded her expression as she imagined her friends' faces in this dress.

True to her punctual nature, Hermione was dressed and ready early and decided to wait in the foyer for the rest of the traveling party. The corners of her mouth turned down slightly at the thought that she had robbed herself of gliding-down-the-stairs fantasy. She shrugged; there would be other dinners, and other chances to fulfill that particular fancy.

Surprisingly, her best friend and housemate Ron was next, looking bedraggled and sleepy as though he had just fallen out of bed, which she supposed he had given the amount of work he and Harry were being assigned at the Auror office. He waved to her a sleepy hello and she opened her mouth to ask where their other best friend was when Harry appeared at the top of the steps.

Instantly warning bells went off in Hermione's head. Harry trudged down the stairs like a man walking to the scaffold, his face a sickly green and his hands jammed in his pockets as though to anchor. When he reached the bottom, Hermione rushed to him and asked concernedly, “Harry, what's the matter? You look awful, you're all clammy, and—”

“He's fine, Hermione,” said Ron, not even looking at her but patting Harry sympathetically on the back.

“He is most definitely not fine, Ron Weasley!” she returned, firing up immediately. She gestured to his hunched shoulders, his downcast eyes and trembling hands. “Are you all right?” she asked, looking into the green of his eyes, made even more so by the intense red of its bloodshot surroundings.

He smiled wanly at her and held his hand out wordlessly to Ron, who, after digging around in his pocket for several seconds, finally placed a simple, black velvet box in Harry's outstretched palm.

“Where is she?” asked Ron, oblivious to Hermione's bemusement as she stared at the fine jeweler's box in their best friend's hand.

“Upstairs, still getting ready,” Harry answered quietly as he checked over his shoulder for improbably eavesdroppers. Old habits die hard, Hermione supposed.

Suddenly, as her brain processed the last thirty seconds, Hermione's confusion sharpened into the kind of clarity that reminded her of falling into an icy stream. She was simultaneously numb and alert, for her wonder at the boys' behavior suggested that she was missing something, and Hermione Granger, never missed anything, especially that which had to do with her boys.

Harry must have seen her reaction, because he instantly took a step in her direction, his skin merely a drawn, pale tint, and said words that she was hoping never to hear: “Hermione, there's something I need to tell you.”

She gulped involuntarily, already predicting the next words from his lips. Hadn't this very situation plagued her nightmares for years, ever since her met her? She wanted to close her eyes and ears against, but the words still came, buffeting against her in a succession of painful waves of knowledge. The happenings of the last few months slipped in to place: Harry sitting her and Ron down to discuss whether they minded a fourth tenant under their roof, their assurance that, as it was his house, he could do as he pleased, Harry's frequent disappearances over the past week with suspicious excuses like buying more milk or sugar or some other arbitrary household item that he apparently could not do without. It all had lead to this, she reasoned, and she hadn't done a thing to thwart it.

He smiled as he told her the news that would crush her if she weren't careful. She forced a smile in return, the corners of her mouth strained in a way he might have noticed if he hadn't turn back to Ron's encouraging pats on the shoulder. He put both arms around his best friends and Hermione caught snippets of what he was saying through her smothering thoughts—“Couldn't do it without you both there,” he was saying, and Hermione felt herself nodding in all the appropriate places as though her head was merely bobbing uncontrollably on her disjointed neck.

She was saved from having to offer any words of advice or support by her entrance. As one, the trio turned their eyes to the top of the stairs, where Elizabeth stood in her breathtaking beauty. She descended slowly, her eyes only for Harry, though Hermione felt their dark gaze sweep her up and down in that calculating way of hers. Elizabeth was Elizabeth, a woman of shining red hair and attractively pale complexion, a woman who commanded respect and admiration from all of those around her, a woman of such cleverness and wit that men tripped over their own feet to speak to her and women wanted to be her. A woman who had held Harry's heart from the very moment he first came upon her. A woman Hermione could never beat.

“Sorry I took so long,” she said sweetly as her feet graced the final step.

Hermione sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She pushed the covers off her body and staggered out of bed, throwing open the curtains and promising the rays of sunlight that now seared her vision that she would not give up. Hermione Granger would not be forgotten or set aside. Hermione Granger would not be denied. Her steps had already faltered, but she would recover. She may not win, but she would survive.

She could admit it now, as she had refused to before: she was in love with Harry Potter, and she would be damned if she sat by the quayside while he sailed away from her. It was a testament of her blinding love for him that she never saw it coming.

A/N: Thanks for reading! If you would be so kind as to leave a review and let me know what you think. I know, I know, it's rather short, but it's one of those things I woke up with and had to write, so let me know what you think!

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A/N: Hey everyone, it’s good to be back and finishing up my last fic. I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this, and since then it’s sort of become an entirely different thing than what I had originally intended. I’ve also tried to incorporate as much of canon as possible but I’m sure you’ll notice where I took some liberties. Modifications aside, I hope you enjoy it anyway. And thanks for reading!

Where Elizabeth Stood

Chapter 2—Denials and Delusions

Her dressing gown was hanging off one shoulder but Hermione didn’t notice. If she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, if she focused on the feel of the polished wood banister under her hand, if she regulated her breathing to a normal rate, then maybe she wouldn’t have to think about the night before. The pale April morning light filtered underneath the closed doors downstairs in Grimmauld Place, lighting the shining wood floorboards in the entryway.

Hermione reached the kitchen and noted with a strange sense of loss how cold and uninviting it seemed without the whistling of the tea kettle or the remains of some mostly-eaten meal of Ron’s on the counter. She didn’t expect to see her ginger-haired best friend that morning; his alcohol consumption from the previous evening’s celebrations would probably keep him in bed until the afternoon hours. In any case, he had decided to stay—or rather, had passed out—at the Burrow. No doubt Molly Weasley would be giving him enough of an earful when he awoke that he would be put off of alcohol for the rest of his life. Or at least until his next best friend’s engagement.

This sobering thought wiped the amused grin off Hermione’s face. Harry was going to marry Elizabeth, and while Hermione wasn’t naïve enough to think that all marriages were final, she knew Harry well enough that he wouldn’t have asked Elizabeth to spend the rest of her life with him if he didn’t intend to do so.

Hermione bit her lip, trying in vain to keep the tears from welling up. She felt that Harry was soon to be lost to her forever, if not only romantically then perhaps as a friend as well. Knowing only too well how Harry’s past girlfriends had believed that there was something more to her friendship with Harry, Hermione doubted that his wife would be keen for him to continue it once they were married. Well, Hermione would just have to put her foot down on that one; she wouldn’t allow herself to be pushed out of her best friend’s life, even if she secretly harbored more than friendly feelings for him. Especially if she had more than friendly feelings for him, a small more insistent part of her reiterated.

As she filled the kettle with water from the tap, Hermione recalled the first time she had laid eyes on Elizabeth Prinsen and wondered not for the first time if she herself were responsible for her own current emotional state.

Despite the fact that after the war Hermione had immediately traveled to Australia to lift the charm on her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Granger still retained a great passion for the land down under and frequently went on holiday there. On one such a trip for her twenty-first birthday, Hermione accompanied them and spent two weeks with them before returning solo to her desk at the Ministry. She regretted not being able to spend more time with her parents, whom she had seen little off in the past few years, but one of her pieces of legislation on elf rights was up for debate and she thought she ought to be present.

That period of her life was particularly trying, as not only had she and Ron broken up in January of that year, but Harry and Ginny—after being together for over two years—followed suit six months later. Once Ron began dating Luna, Grimmauld Place became a little uncomfortable for Hermione; this was partially the reason she had agreed to her parents’ suggestion of a holiday.

While celebrating her birthday in Australia, Hermione fell in love with the sun and surf, and although she could not directly meet the friends her parents had made in the year of their residence (since they would find it odd that the Wilkinses had suddenly acquired a daughter), she was glad that her parents were happy in their time there without her. With a heavy heart, she left her parents after two weeks to enjoy the rest of their holiday and headed back to London.

She spent a few uneventful hours wading through airport security before finally boarding the plane to take her home. It would be a long flight and, anxious about her legislation, she did not want to be disturbed. But fate would not have that it would seem, as not four minutes later a beautiful girl with red hair and eyes that were almost black sat down in the seat next to her. The arrival shot Hermione a quick acknowledging smile, which was returned politely, and she became engrossed in studiously examining the placard outlining the airplane’s safety procedures.

Hermione was gazing at the tarmac out the window when the red head spoke. “First time in Sydney?” she asked conversationally, her mouth in an engaging smile that showed off all of her even white teeth to perfection. Her accent told Hermione that the girl was British and probably on vacation herself.

Hermione couldn’t help but smile back, drawn to the young woman beside her in a way that she had never been toward any stranger. “Can’t you tell?” she answered, indicating the paleness of her skin good-humoredly.

The stranger sat back in her seat, still studying the safety placard and smiling in appreciation of Hermione’s joke. “That’s me as well,” she said, pointing to her face. “Three seconds in the sun and I’m absolutely covered in freckles. I’m Elizabeth, by the way.”

She held out her hand and Hermione turned to shake it, opening her mouth to introduce herself. “I’m Her—”

“I know who you are,” Elizabeth said with a wink. Instantly Hermione realized that the red head was a witch, and she wondered if she might have met her before at school. The awkwardness that she expected upon being recognized outside of the Wizarding world never arrived.

“Did you go to Hogwarts, then?” she asked curiously.

Elizabeth nodded. “Yeah, a year below you, in Ravenclaw,” she replied. There was a slight pause in their conversation as the flight attendants explained safety procedures and made a last sweep of the cabin before take-off. Then, when the plane was in the air and the sound of the engines quelled to a low hum, Elizabeth turned to her again and looked to be steeling herself to say something. “Listen, I’m sure you get this all the time, but I would just like to, well, thank you, I guess. For everything that you have done. And I don’t just mean with Voldemort either, but with your work with rebuilding the Ministry as well.” She said all this very fast but with a hesitant look in her eyes.

“Well, you’re welcome,” said Hermione, genuinely touched that this perfect stranger seemed so appreciative of her actions.

Elizabeth gave a small, slightly embarrassed smile and once again sat back in her seat. The pair sat in silence for several minutes as Hermione went back to worrying about her work, but, feeling as though she should make at least some attempt at conversation since they would be sitting together for another twenty or so hours, she asked, “So how was your holiday?”

From then on they chatted almost non-stop, bar a few intermissions for occasional naps, about their jobs and education, their holidays, current events, and whatever else came into their heads. When the pilot announced their descent into London, Hermione blinked in surprise. Elizabeth seemed to be mirroring her expression and the two shared a laugh at how quickly the time had passed.

Hermione couldn’t have asked for a better seat companion; Elizabeth was the first person she had met in quite a while with whom she was able to hold an intelligent conversation. And the girl was so charming and friendly with an easy laugh that rang out without being obnoxious. But what Hermione liked most of all about the girl whom she hoped she might now call a friend was that she never once asked anything impertinent about the war or Harry and Ron. Elizabeth seemed to sense that these subjects should not be broached and restricted her remarks to other matters.

So it wasn’t a stretch of her powers of cordiality for Hermione to ask Elizabeth to lunch in two days’ time, after they had both properly recovered from jet lag.

“I would be delighted,” she replied, her dark eyes sparkling in pleasure and she appeared moved that Hermione would make the suggestion. The pair of witches retrieved their hand luggage from the overhead compartments (of course being careful as the contents may have shifted during flight) and proceeded to collect their remaining bags from the carousel.

When that task had been completed, they were just about to arrange the details for the upcoming lunch when they were interrupted by a loud, “HERMIONE!” The brunette in question cringed as several heads turned in the direction of the shout and then followed the caller’s progress through the crowd toward her. It could only be Ron Weasley, accompanied by Harry Potter, who was shuffling his feet and keeping his head down.

“Hey guys,” said Hermione, still a little pink as the curious passers-by gradually went back to their business. Ron, sensing this, scooped her up in a hug that took her off her feet and swung her around in apparent jubilation. “Ron! Put me down!” she yelled indignantly, swatting his shoulder, though she was a little pleased at her welcome committee. When Ron had placed her back on her feet, she received a hug from Harry as well, who whispered, “Sorry,” in her ear so that Ron couldn’t hear. She smiled in acceptance of the apology as she pulled away and suddenly remembered the presence of Elizabeth, who was standing a few feet away shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“Oh! Sorry, how rude of me,” she said indicating for Elizabeth to come closer. Ron and Harry both looked at her in interest, as it was rare that Hermione forged acquaintances on an airplane, and smiled during their introduction. “Elizabeth Prinsen, meet Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. Elizabeth was a year below us at school—in Ravenclaw,” she said for Harry and Ron’s benefit.

“You must know Luna Lovegood then,” said Ron casually as he shook the red head’s hand.

Elizabeth nodded and broke into a grin in recognition of the name. “Luna! How is she? I haven’t talked to her in ages,” she said and Hermione knew that Ron would appreciate Elizabeth’s inquiries even if she wasn’t a close friend of Luna’s at school.

Hermione chanced a glance at Harry, who had an expression on his face that she hadn’t seen since the early days of his relationship with Ginny. But rather than the girlish excitement at a potential match that she had felt when she deciphered Harry’s somewhat suppressed feelinsg for Ginny in sixth year, she felt a pang of something else, something she couldn’t put a name to.

The moment passed and with it the strange feeling, as Elizabeth made her goodbyes and reaffirmed her promise to meet up with Hermione in two days. As she walked away, Hermione and Ron stooped to gather the former’s luggage and began to walk toward the airport’s secret Apparition point. They stopped when they realized that Harry wasn’t with them, and, turning back, saw him running up to Elizabeth, who had apparently dropped something from her bag. Hermione and Ron watched in silence as Harry returned it to Elizabeth and the pair shared a short conversation involving a few blushes from the latter and a few nervous finger hair-combings from the former.

Hermione shot a look at Ron from the corner of her eye. It didn’t matter to him that he had just met and liked the girl; the fact was that his sister and his best friend has just broken up not four months before, and he probably felt torn between allegiance to his blood sibling and the friend who was as good as. Hermione placed a comforting hand on his arm and his grim frown vanished just as Harry caught up with them. She braced herself for some kind of verbal chastisement from Ron, but to her chagrin he said nothing.

For his part, Harry remained silent as well, though Hermione suspected it was more of his thoughts being occupied rather than any kind of awareness of how Ron might have taken his little chase after Elizabeth. For the first time, Hermione was slightly regretful at having met and introduced Elizabeth to the other two, though she was sure that this situation would have arisen no matter what. Eventually, there would have been another girl on Harry’s horizon.

That was the day that she and Elizabeth had met, barely a year and half before. Hermione poured herself some tea and mused at how it could have all gone so painfully wrong. She suspected that a large part of the blame should go to her, since she hadn’t figured out—or admitted to, at any rate—her feelings for Harry. And she was supposed to be the smart one.

“Got any more of that?” came a voice from the doorway still deep with sleep.

Hermione’s wand arm, the same one that happened to be holding her tea cup, jerked at the sudden noise and she sloshed tea all down the front of her dressing gown. She looked up at the voice’s owner and served him with a dirty look. “Merlin, Harry, you of anyone should know not to sneak up on people,” she scolded, siphoning off the tea from her robe.

“Sorry,” he said, fighting back a chuckle and coming forward to retrieve a cup himself. Hermione instinctively moved away from him to the counter on the other side of the kitchen. “If you want, I’ll spill some on myself as well,” he suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermione replied, secretly pleased at his playful tone. She finished making her breakfast, leaving a few eggs and sausages on the plate by the stove for Harry, and seated herself at the table.

A few minutes later, Harry joined her, smiling in thanks at the food she’d left. They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments until Harry asked, “So what are you up to today?”

Hermione frowned in thought. She did have some work to get done, but given recent events she decided a visit to the only other woman in who’s confidence she trusted was in order. “I think I’m going to go visit Ginny today, actually,” she said, reaching for an orange from the bowl of fruit in the center of the table.

“Sounds good,” he said, squirming a little in his seat. She kept her hands busy peeling the orange as she waited for him to speak his mind. Finally, he said, with a quick glance toward the door to the kitchen, “Do you think she’s all right? You know, with everything?”

Hermione assumed that by ‘everything’ he meant his proposal to Elizabeth in front of her and the rest of the Weasleys. She considered his query and guessed that while a year ago his worry might have been legitimate, it was doubtful that Ginny would be that upset about it now. She shrugged as she replied, “I don’t know, Harry, but I’m sure she is. I mean, she’s dating Neville now and they seem pretty happy. Plus, it’s Ginny, she’s pretty resilient.”

Harry nodded and returned Hermione’s kindly smile, but before he could say anything else, a cheerful voice rang out, “Good morning, lovely household!”

Elizabeth, dressed in running clothes, entered the kitchen and plopped down in the seat next to Harry, grabbing an apple and kissing him sweetly on the cheek. Steadfast, Hermione said to herself.

“Just get in?” Hermione asked in a good imitation of genuine curiosity. Instantly she felt guilty; Elizabeth had done nothing wrong but love Harry, something that she couldn’t really blame her for. It would not do to act horribly toward her when her only crime was loving a very lovable person. Besides, Harry would probably notice and not be very pleased.

Elizabeth nodded, clearly in a good mood. She hopped up, abuzz with energy, and went to open the icebox, presumably to prepare lunch. As she bustled around the kitchen, Hermione’s gaze was drawn like a magnet to the glittering stone on the red head’s left hand and a glance at Harry told her that he was having trouble looking away himself, though Hermione knew they had very different perspectives of his upcoming nuptials.

Hermione was trying to finish her breakfast as fast as possible, not wanting to leave the two alone together but at the same time not wanting to be alone with them either. Elizabeth, who got up earlier than most people, was making lunch while Hermione and Harry finished breakfast. She held up the pan with the contents of her lunch and asked, “Want some?”

Hermione and Harry looked up, saw what was in the pan and immediately had the same reaction. Harry groaned and put his hand over his mouth and Hermione clenched at her stomach, which was now lurching unpleasantly. Elizabeth’s hopeful expression fell. “You guys don’t like mushrooms, I gather?”

Harry groaned again. “If I never have to eat another mushroom again, I’ll die a happy man, Lizzie,” he said, only half-joking. “No offense, Hermione,” he added, shooting her an apologetic look.

Hermione wasn’t sure if she could trust herself to speak, but said anyway, “None taken.” She felt much the same way.

Elizabeth was regarding the pair with raised eyebrows, obviously taken aback by such strong opinions on fungi. Harry, seeing her mild curiosity, explained, “That’s pretty much all we ate while we were in hiding.” He didn’t have to say any more, Elizabeth got his meaning immediately. Hermione was once again struck at how much she, Harry, and Ron shared that none but themselves knew about during the times that they were hunting Horcruxes. She wondered how much Harry had shared with Elizabeth or with Ginny.

With that thought, Hermione Banished her dishes to the sink and stood to leave.

“Oh Hermione,” called Elizabeth before Hermione had made it through the door. Elizabeth strode forward and grasped Hermione’s hands in her own. “Harry and I would like to ask you something tonight. If you’re available that is,” she said, her white teeth gleaming behind a hopeful grin.

Hermione did not like the girl’s use of ‘Harry and I’ but agreed to talk with them that evening nonetheless. She had absolutely no idea what the couple wanted to ask her and she supposed that she would have to wait and see.

With a forced smile, she excused herself and went back upstairs to her room so that she could get dressed and give Ginny a Floo-call to say that she’d be visiting. Hermione had no idea of Ginny’s Quidditch schedule (she was a Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies) but as it was the off-season, Hermione hoped that the Quidditch star would be at home.

Much to Hermione’s reief, Ginny was not only at her London flat with no plans for the day but also seemingly unsurprised at Hermione’s request for a visit. And so, despite what she had told Harry at the breakfast table, Hermione steeled herself for the meeting with Harry’s most recent ex-girlfriend, the only other woman on the face of the planet who might have some clue as to what she herself was feeling.

She closed her eyes and felt herself being squeezed through nothingness before landing precisely on the doorstep to Ginny’s building. After making the weary climb to the fourth floor where the youngest Weasley lived when she wasn’t on tour, Hermione rapped smartly on the door to 4E. Less than ten seconds later, Ginny had thrown open the door, greeted Hermione with a wide grin, and beckoned her inside. Hermione, who had been expecting somewhat different behavior, allowed herself to be shuttled into the living room, where Ginny had already prepared a steaming kettle of tea.

Wordlessly, the pair plopped onto facing armchairs, Ginny still smiling at Hermione with a strange expression she couldn’t quite read. The brunette cleared her throat.

“So, erm how are you?” asked Hermione, unsure of what else to say. The question was rhetorical; Hermione had known Ginny long enough to know that the red head was not feigning her cheerfulness.

Ginny waved her hand vaguely. “Oh, you know, tired and everything,” she said, looking anything but. She leaned forward and dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “Oh Hermione, you didn’t think I was upset about last night, did you?”

Actually, that was exactly what Hermione had thought. At the very least, she had believed that in Ginny she would find a kindred spirit, that they would be united in knowing that Harry would be out of their lives forever. “Of course not,” she said, to cover for her oversight. “I know you’re with Neville and everything.”

Ginny smiled at the name, but in that smile Hermione finally identified what had eluded her before. The smile Ginny had turned her way was one of understanding.

Hermione tensed, breaking Ginny’s gaze. For all of her wishing that Ginny might share in her grief, she had never actually intended to admit to anyone her feelings toward Harry. And now it seemed that somehow her behavior had betrayed her.

Leaning back in her seat, Ginny said as though to no one in particular, “Oh man, remember the last time you came to visit me like this?” Hermione glanced up at Ginny, who was staring with a faraway look at the opposite wall.

She did remember. It was just after Ginny had moved into that very flat when her Quidditch career. Hermione had planned to spend Christmas Eve with her parents and then meet up with everyone at the Burrow the day of. And so, laden with gifts for the many Weasleys and Order members who would be present for the holiday, Hermione donned her new navy blue dress robes and traveled directly from her parents’ to the home where now only Mr. and Mrs. Weasley still lived.

“Hello!” she called as she walked through the front door and reached into her bag to retrieve the many packages. She could hear noise coming from the kitchen and dining area and guessed that most of the guests had gathered there. With her wand, she enlarged the presents from their shrunken form and added to the already enormous pile beneath the tree.

“Hermione, dear, how are you? Oh, you look lovely,” came the pleasant voice of Mrs. Weasley who, judging by her rosy cheeks, had not declined the consumption of a few choice beverages that evening.

Hermione smiled in thanks and stepped forward to accept the woman’s motherly embrace. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Weasley,” she said politely. Over her shoulder, Hermione spotted Ginny talking to Neville and George. “Have you seen Harry or Ron?” she asked after extricating herself gently.

Mr. Weasley stepped up behind his wife, evidently overhearing Hermione’s question. “No, but we expect them shortly,” he answered before hugging her and wishing her a merry Christmas as well. When the Weasley parents had moved away through the crowd of twenty or so, Hermione made a beeline for their daughter.

“Hey Ginny, Neville, George,” she said, nodding to all three in turn. “How are you?” she asked, directing her question more toward Ginny, whom she had not gotten much of a chance to speak to in the past few months.

The younger girl shrugged as Neville and George both answered, “Good,” and “Great,” simultaneously. They were silenced from further conversation by the sound of Mrs. Weasley’s greeting of her youngest son who had just arrived dragging a sheepish Harry in tow.

Hermione turned to go approach them when Mrs. Weasley suddenly went quiet. The unnatural hush seemed to spread like wildfire throughout the rest of the room, and every head turned toward the entrance to the kitchen. Hermione had to stand on tip-toe to see what was causing the silences. What she saw elicited a gasp of surprise.

There, behind Harry as though embarrassed at all the attention but wearing her usual charming smile and looking resplendent in royal blue dress robes. Stepping forward and seemingly ignorant of the looks of surprise on every face, Harry said, “Everyone, this is my girlfriend, Elizabeth Prinsen.” He turned to Elizabeth and named everyone in a quieter and—Hermione could barely admit—more intimate tone, “This is Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ron’s parents. Over there are his brothers Charlie, Percy, Bill, his wife Fleur, their daughter Victoire. You remember Professor McGonagall—sorry, I keep forgetting, Minerva, of course you know the Minister for Magic Shacklebolt Kingsley, Luna Lovegood who you already know, Dean Thomas who was in Gryffindor with me, Hagrid of course, Ron’s other brother George, Neville Longbottom, you know Hermione, and Ron’s sister Ginny.”

Although the talk in the room rose throughout his introduction, Hermione could still tell that his voice faltered slightly on the last name. She glanced surreptitiously at Ginny, who had become quite pale as Elizabeth’s eyes made a sweep about the room and finally came to rest on her own. Mrs. Weasley was the first to come forward to shake Elizabeth’s hand, though Hermione thought she saw the woman’s smile become slightly strained as she met the girl who had replaced her daughter. As others followed Mrs. Weasley’s example, Ginny quietly made her way out of the room. As inconspicuously as possible, Hermione followed the red head to the bedroom they had often shared as teenagers when Hermione had come to visit. Upon entering the room, she shut the door softly behind her and seated herself on Ginny’s desk chair.

The younger witch still had a look of incredulity on her face as she stared at Hermione from where she sat on her bed. Hermione looked at her, not sure of what to say. The silence stretched as the sound of lively laughter and conversation drifted up from downstairs.

“Are you all right?” Hermione asked gently, stretching out a hand to lay it on Ginny’s shoulder.

She jumped, apparently forgetting that Hermione was there, and looked up at the brunette with wide eyes as though she was still trying to accept what she had just witnessed. “I can’t believe it,” she said quietly. She paused and looked at Hermione again. “Is it serious?”

Hermione had been just as surprised as the rest of them. She knew that Harry and Elizabeth had been spending some time together, meeting a few times during the week. In fact, Hermione had had lunch with the pair of them and Ron quite a few times, since they all worked at the Ministry. But she had never suspected that there was more to the picture. She met Ginny’s gaze and shrugged. “Serious enough for him to bring her to Christmas,” she replied.

Ginny stood up suddenly and began pacing the room. “Merlin, doesn’t she have her own family to go to?” she demanded to no one in particular, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation.

Hermione followed her progress about the room and remained seated in Ginny’s chair. “Actually her family lives in Australia now,” supplied Hermione, but Ginny appeared not to have heard her. She had frozen mid-stride with her back to Hermione.

“Wait,” she said, whipping around to face the brunette. “I think I recognize her. Was she in my year at Hogwarts?” she asked.

“Well, yeah,” answered Hermione, who had no recollection of Elizabeth back in school. Granted, she had been quite busy keeping Harry away from the jaws of death every waking moment.

Ginny punched the air in triumph as though she had just worked through a particularly challenging puzzle. “I knew it! She was in Charms with me, and quite the little—”

“She’s actually pretty nice, Ginny,” said Hermione quietly, not wanting to encourage the abuse of someone who wasn’t even there to defend herself.

Ginny huffed. “Oh of course, she is. Miss Prinsen, so royal, so regal. She has always known how to get what she wants, how to say exactly the right thing to exactly the right person. And now she’s gone and snagged the most eligible wizard in Britain—”

“Ginny, you broke up with him, remember?” Hermione interrupted, though she felt that Ginny might have had a point about Elizabeth’s skill at saying just what one wanted to hear. Still, she thought that Ginny might need reminding that she was the one responsible for Harry’s eligibility in the first place.

“I know, but I still didn’t expect that he would move on, not this soon!” she cried defensively, resuming her journey around the room. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way! I thought, you know, after the war that everything would work out. You and Ron would be together and Harry and I would be together. Mum even started dropping marriage hints, as though that wasn’t at the front of my mind all the time anyway.

“But it wasn’t what I thought it would be,” she continued, lowering her voice so that Hermione had to lean forward to hear. Ginny met her gaze and Hermione was surprised to see that Ginny was actually crying, something she had not often done in the brunette’s presence. Hermione remained silent, letting Ginny express the emotion that she had probably been withholding for quite some time.

A few moments later, the redhead went on, her speech interrupted by sporadic hiccups as she fought through her own misery. “Harry wanted so badly for everything to be normal, but he didn’t seem to understand that he was an extraordinary wizard, he couldn’t have normal. He came home from the Auror office every day and I could see what it cost him to bury everything so that it wouldn’t disturb our little relationship. I knew that he was keeping things from me, for my own good he said, and that created a rift between us. Then one day I woke up and realized that my boyfriend was a stranger to me. I could no more tell you his deepest fear than his favorite dessert.”

She said all this without a trace of bitterness, as though we was relating a rather uninteresting story that had happened to someone long ago. Then her eyes grew less clouded and she looked up at Hermione, who was regarding her sympathetically even as her mind brought forth the answers to those questions Ginny had never learned for herself.

“For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing,” said Hermione gently.

“Did I?” replied Ginny in that same light tone. They might have been discussing a homework assignment.

Hermione nodded fervently, sensing that Ginny still had to be convinced. “Of course! Ginny, you deserve someone who won’t hold back, who’s searching for the same things in life that you are, who gives himself freely and asks for nothing in return but that you do the same.”

Ginny looked up at Hermione, an expression of shock written all over her tear-stained face. “Hermione,” she said in awe, “that was the most romantic speech you’ve ever made!”

With a laugh, Hermione joked, “Yeah, I must have picked it up from your brother. Did you know he gave Harry his book on how to pick up women?”

Ginny’s hand flew up to slap her cheek in astonishment. “Did he really?” she giggled.

Hermione just nodded, not trusting herself to speak lest she burst out laughing. She stared around Ginny’s room as their giggling died down and felt a wave of nostalgia crashing over her. After all the talks they had had as girls about Harry, Hermione could never have predicted that someday she would be encouraging Ginny to give him up. She looked up at the witch in question, who was studying her fingernails with the ghost of a grin still on her face, and made a decision. In as casual a tone as she could muster, she said, “So you and Neville seemed to be getting along well earlier…”

“I remember what you said that night,” Ginny said, interrupting Hermione’s reverie. Hermione looked at her quizzically; she had said a lot of things that night. “About me deserving someone who wouldn’t hold back, someone who was searching for the same things as me and who asks for nothing in return but that I give him what he’s given me.”

Hermione nodded, remembering that little speech and just as unsure where it had come from now as she had been then.

Ginny took a deep breath and stared straight into Hermione’s eyes. “I’m just going to put it bluntly: you love Harry.”

Warning bells were going off in Hermione’s head and the word ‘DENY’ was flashing in bright red letters in her mind. She spluttered, “What—er, I don’t know what you—nuh uh!”

“Oh, that was eloquent, Hermione,” Ginny teased, but she was laughing.

“It’s supposed to be a secret!” she exclaimed childishly.

Ginny let out a bellow of a laugh that Hermione had difficulty reconciling with her small size. “What is this, fifth year?!”

“I thought you’d be upset with me,” Hermione explained in a small voice, not daring to look up at the girl who had loved Harry Potter for years.

“Oh, Hermione,” said Ginny with that same maddeningly understanding smile as before.

Suddenly, white hot anger engulfed her. She had lamented her situation before and pitied herself in weaker moments, but now she grew downright livid. Springing up from the chair, she began to pace Ginny’s living room in quick, measured steps. Her hand flew up to her neck, resuming her relatively recently acquired habit of stroking the slightly raised white scar that ran across her neck in a thin, white line. “Don’t ‘Oh, Hermione’ me!” she cried. “I’m finished offering advice! Now I want to know, what am I supposed to do!”

“Well you could tell Harry how you feel for one thing,” said Ginny as though it were plainly obvious. She didn’t flinch when Hermione threw a baleful glare in her direction.

“You know that’s impossible, Ginny. In case you haven’t noticed, Harry is now engaged to be married.” Just saying the words made her nauseated. “And I was the one who made the introduction!”

The younger witch stood and reached up to put her hands gently on Hermione’s shoulders, keeping her in place. “Engagements aren’t final Hermione. Do you really want to go the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you had just told Harry you love him?”

Hermione said nothing, her eyes cast down on the carpet.

“I don’t understand you!” Ginny exclaimed, some annoyance in her tone. Hermione jumped and her brown eyes came up to meet Ginny’s. “I’ve listened to you tell me for years that I deserved something better. Why can’t you take your own advice?”

To her chagrin, Hermione felt a single tear making its way slowly down her cheek. “You’re right, I know you are,” she said, stepping out of Ginny’s grasp and turning away toward the fireplace. Half a dozen picture frames lined the mantelpiece, all featuring some combination of the trio, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. A sad smile spread across her face as she continued. “But I’m not brave like you. I could never admit to him how I feel because I couldn’t possibly live with the consequences. Logically, I should not take the risk of ruining our friendship.”

“Oh, hang logic!” Ginny cried.

Hermione turned to face her confidant, her resolve strengthened. “No, Ginny. I’ve made my bed, now just let me lie in it.”

The younger witch did not seem entirely satisfied with the course of the conversation but kept quiet.

Using the palms of her hands to dry the moisture on her cheeks and smooth away her hair from her face, Hermione expelled her grief in a sigh and forced a smile. “So, tell me more about you and Professor Longbottom?”

The pair passed the rest of the day making small talk and catching each other up on events that had transpired while Ginny was away during Quidditch season. Neither again broached the subject of Hermione’s feelings for Harry, but he was not far from Hermione’s mind all afternoon.

Ginny had admitted that Harry did not divulge much about his career to Ginny during their relationship, and she had seen evidence that morning that Harry did not seem to have shared his experiences in the war with Elizabeth either. She frowned, wondering if it bothered Elizabeth as much as it would bother her, Hermione, and as much as it had bothered Ginny.

She also wondered how much of his past Harry had shared with Ginny. While she was putting on her coat to leave, Hermione could no longer ignore the nagging curiosity. “Ginny, do you know if Harry likes mushrooms?”

Ginny shrugged, following the brunette to the door. “No idea, but I know that Ron absolutely detests them. Probably the only food he won’t eat. Why?”

“Just wondering.” She smiled, hoping that her gratitude for Ginny listening to her troubles showed, and waved goodbye. The smile dropped from her face when she heard the sound of the door clicking shut. With a suppressed groan, she remembered that Elizabeth wanted to speak to her that evening. What on earth could she possibly have to say that required her to request a meeting?

Rubbing her fingers idly across the scar on her neck, Hermione reached the ground floor of Ginny’s building and with a cursory glance for Muggles, Apparated with a soft pop to the front step of Number 12. The act, though she had done it many times in the interim, brought back a rushing sense of déjà vu, causing her to shiver involuntarily as she opened the door and hung her coat on a peg in the entryway.

“Cold?” came a voice from the dark end of the hall. She recognized it as Harry’s but jumped at the sudden sound just the same.

She squinted in his direction, her eyes not yet used to the lack of light, and replied, “Not really, just Apparated on the front step is all.”

Harry nodded in understanding, his expression growing serious.

With an air of wanting to get it overwith as soon as possible, Hermione said, “So what did you and Elizabeth want to talk to me about?”

His face lit up at once and Hermione felt a pang of envy, wishing that one day she might have a man who looked like that when he thought of her. “Here let me call her. She wants to be the one to tell you, and I’m sure she’ll kill me if I spoil it. Lizzie!” he called up the stairs.

“Yeah?” she called back, her voice both soft and carrying. Hermione and Harry looked up the landing on the next floor where Elizabeth stood, leaning over the rail. “Oh, is Hermione home?” she said. Without waiting for an answer, she gracefully descended the steps and approached the pair where they were standing in the entryway. She was practically bouncing with excitement, Hermione noted, and a weight suddenly dropped onto her shoulders as she realized why.

As they relocated into the kitchen, where a cheerful fire crackled merrily in the grate, Elizabeth seized Hermione’s hand and steered her so that they sat beside each other at the table. “Harry and I have discussed it and we think that since you and Ron are Harry’s best friends, we want you both to be in the wedding somehow. We’ve already asked Ron to be the best man and Hermione, we would be delighted if you would consent to be my Maid of Honor.”

Along with the leaden weight on her shoulders, Hermione’s insides turned to ice. She wanted to laugh at the thought of Ginny’s suggestion now. What kind of Maid of Honor would she be if she stole the groom away from the bride? She knew that there was only one answer to Elizabeth’s question. With a happiness that she certainly did not feel, Hermione smiled and the words came of their own accord. “I can’t imagine anything I would like more.”

Elizabeth let out a squeal of pleasure and engulfed Hermione in a bone-crushing hug. When she pulled away, Hermione could see tears of joy in her black eyes as she began relating all of the many plans she had for the wedding. When she glanced at Harry, she realized she too had tears streaming down her face. But the couple did not seem to consider that her tears could be anything but happy.

A/N: Whatcha think?

A/N: Wow, thanks for all the lovely reviews! I don’t think I have much to say about this chapter, so I hope you like it! There’s a scene later on in a flashback that’s invented but meant to take place in Deathly Hallows…so just a head’s up. Thanks for reading!

Where Elizabeth Stood

Chapter 3—The Burden of Decision

Time had a curious way of speeding along in great spurts only when Hermione was helping with the wedding plans. Elizabeth had seized upon Luna’s suggestion of having the wedding on the autumnal equinox, “For luck,” Luna had said serenely.

Hermione rolled her eyes, again reminded of the reason she’d dropped Divination in school. The notion that marrying one day compared to another made any difference at all was absurd, but Hermione was more annoyed that no one seemed to realize this meant the happy even would take place just four days after her own twenty-third birthday.

But she had little time to dwell on this, as she had thrown herself into wedding preparations with the fervor dictated by her position as Maid of Honor. There was so much to decide and so many logistics to cover that she finally understood Mrs. Weasley’s

stress during the preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

At the very least, helping Elizabeth remember gown fittings and choose table cloth colors allowed Hermione to keep her former resolve not to spill the beans to Harry. In fact, in those rare moments when it was just herself and Elizabeth, Hermione could almost forget whose wedding she was preparing and actually started to enjoy it. Planning was her thing, and she had to admit that the lack of danger of dragons or incarceration involved definitely brought down her anxiety level.

The more time Hermione spent alone with Elizabeth the more she was reminded of why they had become friends in the first place. Elizabeth was like some red-haired, black-eyed version of Hermione herself, a charming and confident Hermione that might have been if she hadn’t hidden behind her books for the first decade of her life.

But at times it seemed trouble was brewing in paradise as well, which only succeeded in rousing Hermione’s deepest feelings of guilt. The Daily Prophet, revamped since the end of the war, still could not resist touching on the nuptials of Britain’s happiest couple—as well as sensationalized reports of feuds between Harry and Elizabeth.

Hermione knew too much about tabloid stories to be much bothered, but Elizabeth, who had never, as far as Hermione was aware, come across a Rita Skeeter in her life, was outraged by any negative press that stretched the bounds of truth.

One story in particular, detailing Harry and Ron’s supposed plans for his stag night educed the ire of Elizabeth so thoroughly that Hermione and Ron had to avoid Grimmauld Place for an entire afternoon while Elizabeth vented her displeasure upon her fiancé. Having been one of very few occasions where the red head lost her temper, Hermione sensed that there were some feelings of insecurity mingled in there underneath the confident exterior. That was the only justification she could make for the extreme behavior—Elizabeth’s tears, tantrums, and threats in Hermione’s mind could only be otherwise explained by a want in trust in Harry. To be honest, Hermione didn’t know what to believe, but, considering herself somewhat an authority on the subject of insecurity, she found it difficult to reconcile it with Elizabeth’s actions as much as she wanted to.

Hermione could never imagine not trusting Harry, and when these wonders once more gave way to her true feelings of him, the guilt returned like the constant companion it was. She wanted him happy above all things, but even she could see the harmful effect Elizabeth’s charms sometimes had on him. She was a woman extremely skilled at being everything to everyone, but also clever enough to guarantee her own way on every whim. It was hard for Hermione to see Harry’s will sometimes bent so that he was gradually made to be in complete agreement with his fiancée, despite holding the opposition before.

With these thoughts at the back of her mind, she returned to the task at hand. She and Elizabeth and Ginny were stationed in the kitchen with piles of letters and a long piece of parchment all around them on the table, discussing Ron’s rather amusing musical entertainment during Harry’s birthday party a month before.

“I swear, if he weren’t dating Luna I would have some serious doubts as to his sexual leanings,” laughed Ginny as Hermione and Elizabeth both collapsed into giggles. “Neville for two, his gran’s coming as well,” she said.

Hermione nodded and duly noted the two names on the long list of wedding attendees on front of her.

Elizabeth sighed. “Ah, RSVPs, never an easy or exciting task. I can’t believe Harry and I even know this many people,” she said in surprise, scanning the list over Hermione’s shoulder. She herself was composing thank-you cards for the mountain of presents she and Harry had received already.

Ginny glanced at Hermione across the table, something that she had taken to doing every time Elizabeth referred to herself and Harry as a unit. Hermione steadily ignored her. The youngest Weasley had not given up trying to persuade Hermione to tell Harry how she felt about him, and Hermione was having a hard enough time trying to quell not only the feelings for her best friend but those of guilt that arose anytime she particularly enjoyed herself in Elizabeth’s presence. It was all very confusing, and she thought from time to time that if her emotional range were any longer, she would probably explode.

A sudden exclamation caused her and Ginny to jump in their sheets. The quill drew a long black line across the margin of the parchment as her hand jerked.

“Oh no! Hermione! I just remembered: your birthday is coming up! Why didn’t you say something?” Elizabeth scolded playfully. Hermione would never tell her the real reason for staying mum on the subject of her birthday—she secretly was wondering if anybody would even notice—but it didn’t matter, since Elizabeth was already constructing grand plans for Hermione’s birthday, “a last little hoo-ha before the wedding” in lieu of a hen night.

Outside the world of floral arrangement, not all of Hermione’s life was rosy. The next two weeks passed much too slowly for her liking, and often she lay awake at night, not wishing for sleep but that somehow she could speed up the Earth’s rotation.

There were so many things time could do: run out, drag, fly, wait for no man, change, be up. There were times, in the refuge of her darkened bedroom, that Hermione thought she might be making a mistake, that perhaps it was her duty to ensure her own happiness as well as Harry’s.

But she couldn’t quite decide, and she knew that if no resolution could be reached alone in the dark, then her nerve would definitely fail her in front of the man she loved. And that’s when she began to will time to pass more quickly, to remove the burden of decision. Sometimes she would just hold the simple gold wedding band that Elizabeth had selected for Harry and entrusted her to hold and imagine what it would feel like to be the one to place it on his finger.

The sleepless night began to take a toll on her, as Ron was so kind to comment a few days later.

“You look like hell, Hermione. Elizabeth isn’t running you ragged on all this wedding stuff, is she?” he said as they sat facing one another at the kitchen table. “Oh, and happy birthday, by the way,” he added as an afterthought, toasting her with his large glass of firewhiskey.

She let out a sardonic laugh and raised her glass to return his toast. “Gee thanks, Ron, just what a girl wants to hear. And no, Elizabeth hasn’t been ‘running me ragged,’ it was she who did all this for me, actually,” said Hermione, waving a vague hand behind her at all of the scarlet and gold streamers that adorned every doorway to celebrate Hermione’s birthday. Elizabeth had even charmed confetti to fall from the ceiling but disappear before it reached the heads of the guests.

Noise from the party in the living room increased as someone opened the door to the kitchen. Hermione and Ron glanced up to see the identity of the intruder.

“Harry, mate!” called Ron in too loud a voice. “Why don’t you come have a little drink-chat with Hermione and me, here. Drinks all ‘round!”

Hermione caught Harry’s eye and neither bothered to stifle a grin. Ron always became exceptionally genial when under the effects of firewhiskey. Hermione could almost tell how many drinks he had had by how shiny his eyes were or the redness of his face.

Harry adopted a put out expression and answered, “Ron I’d love to but I can’t. I just came to grab some more butterbeer.” He looked back at Hermione and said, “Figured it might be prudent to stop serving the B-O-O-Z-E,” spelling the last word so that Ron wouldn’t catch on. Hermione nodded in agreement.

“Butterbeer!?” Ron exclaimed in revulsion. He looked down at his glass and became distracted. Holding up his glass, he said, “Hey Harry, since you’re up, pour us another cup of the good stuff, would ya?”

Harry obediently re-filled Ron’s glass and slid a glass of water across the table as well. Picking up the tray of butterbeer, he made to return to the party raging in the living room. “Oh!” he said, pausing and shifting the tray on his arm. “Hermione, I almost forgot to wish you happy birthday. Here I got you something.”

With his free hand digging in his pocket, Hermione protested, “Harry, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I know,” shrugged Harry, finally retrieving the package from his robes. “But I wanted to.”

He slid the long and slender box in front of her on the table and for a second Hermione just stared at it. Harry had never given her anything for her birthday but practical books or maybe candy when they were younger.

“Open it already,” said Ron impatiently after about three seconds.

She rolled her eyes and picked up the package to remove the single blue ribbon around it, noticing distantly that her hands were shaking slightly. Carefully and with movements that seemed so exaggeratingly slow that they were almost painful, she removed the lid and promptly gasped.

Maybe it was the subtle lighting in the room, but there in the center of a surface of navy felt was the most brilliant sapphire she had ever seen attached to a chain of pure silver. It wasn’t big, but then she didn’t think Harry would figure her to wear something gaudy. “It’s perfect,” she breathed, feeling tears that if completely sober she might have been able to restrain prickle in her eyes. She beamed up at him. “Thank you so much, Harry,” she said, rising to give him a one-armed hug.

“Yeah, it’s your birthstone, according to Elizabeth. We both picked it out. Anyway, gotta get back before our friends start to riot!”

Within two seconds, he had gone, opening and shutting the door so that there was another swell of volume. Hermione plopped back down on her chair, her good spirits having departed with Harry. She chewed her lip as though to bite back the urge to cry; stupidly she had attached too much meaning to Harry’s birthday gift, when of course no man would ever pick a nice piece like that out for her, or know anything about birthstones.

Ron cleared his throat uncomfortable with the tension that seemed to have suddenly arisen in the kitchen. Hermione ignored him, stewing in annoyance at herself, and struggled to hook the chain with the hanging sapphire behind her neck. Finally she managed and she glanced up at Ron to find him staring at her strangely.

“What?” she said self-consciously.

“So how are the wedding plans going?” he said unexpectedly.

Hermione frowned at him wondering why on earth he had brought up the wedding when it looked like he had something else on his mind. “They’re fine,” she said slowly. Then she thought, what the hell. Ron was her best friend, if she couldn’t confide in him, there weren’t many others to turn to. “Actually, they’re not fine,” she confessed, seizing Ron’s glass and taking a mighty swig. “I’m having a lot of fun and am really enjoying Elizabeth’s company,” she finished miserably.

Now it was Ron’s turn to frown. “And that’s a problem because?”

She sagged as the last vestiges of the whiskey burned its way down her throat. Her nerve died, she couldn’t say it. “Oh, no reason,” she said quietly.

“Because you love Harry,” Ron said seriously.

She said nothing, there was nothing she could say. At this point she wouldn’t have been able to deny it even if she had wanted to. Finally, she cleared her throat and without meeting his eyes, she asked, “Is it that obvious?”

“Well I’ve had an idea since the cup,” he stated plainly.

Hermione looked up at him sharply. They had silently agreed never to discuss what had happened in the moments before Hermione destroyed the Horcrux contained within Hufflepuff’s cup, and until then the issue had never come up. Hermione suspected that the alcohol had helped loosen their tongues. But as though Ron’s words had unlocked a gateway, the memory of it came flooding back.

“Here, maybe you should do it,” he said nervously, motioning to the basilisk fang in her hand. He bent over a flat rock that was about at waist level and gingerly laid the cup on its base.

The small cup trembled at Ron’s words as though it was aware that its fate was near. It almost looked like a small struggling and helpless animal and Hermione involuntarily felt a surge of pity for it. If she destroyed the Horcrux, she would also be destroying a priceless bit of Hogwarts history.

Ron seemed to sense her hesitation and said in an uncharacteristically serious and sharp tone, “Hermione, if anything..happens, just remember that it’s not real.”

She tore her eyes away from the shuddering cup at Ron, who looked suddenly fearful. There was no mistaking the warning in his voice and she wondered what he might know about the destruction of Horcruxes that she didn’t. But before she could ask, she was distracted by a billowing mist that was emerging from the hollow part of the cup. It seemed to hover for several moments as though considering the pair of wizards and then began to materialize properly. Hermione was drawn inexplicably forward as the form sharpened to resemble Harry.

She gasped and to her left, Ron groaned. Without taking her eyes off of the figure of her best friend, she took another step forward and said in a voice barely audible, “Harry?”

But it was Harry as she had never seen him. His hair was well managed and he was wearing smart robes that actually fit him properly. He seemed taller somehow, or maybe it was that he seemed to radiate total confidence and contentment, and this countered the weight on his shoulders. But what was strangest of all was the indifferent gaze he turned towards her and the barely detectable disdain in his voice when he said, “Oh, it’s you.”

She frowned, not fully understanding his behavior. “Harry, what--?”

“Don’t listen to it, Hermione,” Ron said firmly, making a move to grab her arm, which she had just realized was outstretched toward the form of her best friend. “That’s not Harry,” he said with a certainty that broke through her confusion.

As though responding to Ron’s words, Harry said, “You know, Ron and I were only friends with you because you could help us with our homework. We even used to laugh about it behind your back. We always said that once school was done, we’d have no more use for you. That’s the only reason I brought you along with me, so that you could do all the hard stuff.”

She gasped again and Ron’s hand squeezed tighter around her forearm. “Hermione, do it, do it now!” he shouted without looking away from Harry.

But she was frozen, unable to believe the cruel words coming out of Harry’s mouth and yet unable to banish them entirely. She stood beside Ron, gazing up transfixed by Harry’s relentless stream of hurtful insults.

“Does it make you feel wanted, Hermione? That the Boy-Who-Lived needs your help? Does it make you feel that you have a purpose, that you haven’t failed everyone around—especially your parents?” the floating Harry taunted. His eyes looked her up and down in a harsh appraisal that made her shudder. “As if I could ever want you,” he said, giving an unkind laugh when he noticed the tears gathering in her eyes.

She felt Ron’s breath in her ear, his words uttered hurriedly like a mantra he was saying to convince her and himself. “Don’t listen, it’s not real. You have to destroy it Hermione. It’s not Harry, Harry would never say that—it’s not true, it’s not real!”

Surprised to find that she was still gripping the basilisk fang in her right hand, she clenched her fingers around it as though attempting to imbibe its strength. With Ron’s words running through her mind, she raised the fang like a dagger over the still-trembling cup.

The Cup-Harry sensed the danger at once and continued his merciless torture, laying bare every insecurity Hermione possessed. She stepped boldly forward, feeling courage she didn’t know she had flowing through her veins and bolstering her confidence. Without a word or acknowledgement to the figure floating above her, she slammed the fang through the side of Hufflepuff’s cup. Cup-Harry let out an anguished scream before being swallowed by an explosion of light erupting from the cup.

Hermione and Ron were thrown backwards and landed hard on the stone flow of the Chamber. Their chests still heaving from the violent throw through the air, they looked at each other in shock. At once they stood up and ran to the stone on which the last heirloom of Helga Hufflepuff lay charred and dented beyond repair.

Silently Hermione reached for the wrecked Horcrux, not sure what she was looking for. Ron stood beside her, quiet for a few minutes before saying, “Harry would never say any of that. And besides, none of it is true.”

She wanted so desperately to believe him, but the Cup-Harry had struck a nerve on a fear that she had been trying to dispel for years. To have it so cruelly lain out by something that so closely resembled her best friend was, needless to say, unexpected. Just to have something to fill the silence, she replied, “I know.”

Distant booms and crashes from explosions overhead reached them deep in the Chamber, drawing them from their thoughts. Simultaneously they realized that they were another Horcrux down and Hermione knew that the expression of hope on Ron’s face was mirroring her own.

With a swell of sudden optimism, Hermione grabbed Ron’s sleeve and said, “Come on, let’s gather the rest of these fangs and go find Harry.”

Hermione had buried that memory deep, long ago when she was a different person. Bringing it to the surface now, she was able to see everything from a whole new perspective. Although she might not have loved Harry at the age of eighteen, preserving his well-being and having his good opinion meant a great deal to her, more than it probably should have for a girl who claimed to be nothing more than a friend. For once, she thought Cho and even Ginny had a point in being slightly wary of her close friendship with Harry. She was simply too close to the matter to see it clearly.

“So you know then,” she said with a sigh, unable to keep from slumping in her seat from the weight of revelation on her shoulders.

Ron shrugged, probably as unwilling to dredge up the past as she was. “I had my suspicions. You always seemed to care so much for him and you couldn’t go five bloody minutes without mentioning him. Oh, I know you didn’t love him then,” Ron said as Hermione opened her mouth to argue. “But it was sort of a matter of time, wasn’t it?” He let out a dry laugh and Hermione felt a surge of affection toward him. The man before her now had matured from the one she’d walked out on (metaphorically, since they still technically lived in the same house) that January morning. He seemed more understanding.

Ron grasped one of her hands and she marveled at the change brought on by time. A few years before, Hermione would have wanted nothing more than for Ron to hold her hand like this, for Ron to understand her at last. Time had changed and matured things and yet Hermione was still pining away for her best friend. But rather than making him jealous or becoming angry at him, she would be the best friend she could be, which meant ensuring that he was happy

With the memory of the destruction of the Horcrux still fresh in her mind she wondered to herself how Ron had known what to expect with the cup. “Ron,” she said with a frown, waiting for him to meet her gaze before continuing uncertainly, “did something similar happen to you when you destroyed the locket?”

He nodded seriously. “Something like it, yeah.”

Despite her curiosity, Hermione knew Ron didn’t want to elaborate. For a while, the pair said nothing. The festive sounds from the living room were dying off as party-goers departed one by one.

.“So you’re not going to say anything to him?” asked Ron.

Hermione shook her head dismally, tears beginning to form in her brown eyes. “If he’s happy with her—”

“He’d be happier with you,” said Ron steadily, gripping her hand.

Hermione shook her head once more and said rationally, “We don’t know that. We don’t know how he feels about me.” The small measure of hope that Ron would contradict her and miraculously declare that Harry actually loved her was crushed when all the red head did was stare at her in sympathy.

“I guess everything in life requires some kind of sacrifice then,” said Hermione after a pause. She looked at Ron across the table sadly, surprised to feel tears finally coursing down her cheeks.

A/N: Thanks for all of the awesome reviews so far, you guys rock! I’m sorry that some of you found the last chapter to be sad, but sometimes fics are like fevers—they have to get worse before they get better. Keep that in mind here! And beware another DH spoiler in this chapter!

I can’t seem to get the italics to load properly, so I’ve added ~*~ to distinguish the flashbacks as well.

Where Elizabeth Stood

Chapter 4—Being Careful What You Wish For

It seemed that Hermione was getting her wish after all. Time finally seemed to be speeding past at a rate that was bordering on obscene. She was glad that the abundance of last-minute wedding details over the next few days allowed her to escape the presence of Ron, who despite his state of drunkenness actually remembered every word of their revealing conversation, and insisted on reaffirming his position on the matter of Hermione’s love life.

She was not so lucky as to avoid his younger sister, however, for she was often undertaking the same tasks to ease the bride’s burden right before the wedding. Thankfully, although for once Ginny and her brother were of the same mind, she was much subtler than her older brother, who insisted on significant coughs of “Tell him!” during meals. Hermione doubted that the bruises in his leg would ever heal after all the times she’d kicked him under the table.

The only other bridesmaid was Anne, Elizabeth’s younger sister, who still lived with their parents in Australia and was thus unable to participate much in the pre-wedding activities. The Prinsens would be arriving the day before the wedding and, much in the way of tradition, Elizabeth would stay with them in a London hotel so that the bride and groom wouldn’t see each other.

The night before the autumnal equinox arrived and Hermione, Harry, and Ron decided to spend it quietly at home. Harry refused offers of assistance to prepare dinner, though admittedly only Hermione was sincere, and placed before them a meal of enough courses that even Ron wouldn’t be able to finish.

As they chewed and praised the cook repeatedly, Harry and Ron regaled her with incidents from the Auror office she was almost completely sure were classified. This inevitably led to reminiscences of Hogwarts—Dumbledore’s Army in particular—and then to Luna Lovegood. Her relationship with Ron provided good-humored fodder for many more minutes of teasing conversation, made worthwhile not only by Ron’s red ears.

It was after the fourth helping of Harry’s treacle tart that Ron forfeited. “No more, or I’ll never be able to fit in my dress robes tomorrow.”

He leaned back in his seat and patted the slight bulge that was his stomach to emphasize the point. Hermione and Harry looked at each other in utter bemusement—Ron had never finished a meal before them in all of their acquaintance--and in a fit of silliness threw their fists up in the air and cried, “Victory!”

The pair dissolved into laughter as Ron grumbled, “Yeah, yeah,” and grabbed three butterbeers from the icebox. He slid them along the table to the others and it was silent as the trio popped open the tops and took the first satisfying swig.

It was decided that they would relocate to the drawing room, where a warm fire maintained the merry atmosphere. They settled into their favorite charms, falling into a familiar pattern of jokes and light-hearted banter. Hermione pressed her eyes shut, unnoticed by either of the others, and wished that she could just keep that moment forever. Her best friends and the only two men she had ever really loved.

But like a black cloud hanging in the back of her mind, Hermione couldn’t help but think how long it had been since just the three of them hung out together. As if speaking her mind, Harry laughed and said wonderingly, “Man, it’s been a long time since we hung out like this.”

“Yeah, I know. Weird,” agreed Ron, not bothering to swallow completely. “Since before Elizabeth came to live here.”

Hermione winced inwardly, hoping the conversation wasn’t heading toward wedding talk. She wanted just one final memory of the three of them unsullied by the changes that the morrow’s wedding would undoubtedly bring.

She glanced at Harry, who was squinting down at his lap with a look of deep concentration as though calculating something. Before she could even attempt to change the subject, he’s said, “I think you’re right, Ron. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that before.”

He continued the staring contest with his plate as Hermione threw a glare in Ron’s direction. The red head just shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, “What’d I do?”

She rolled her eyes and glanced back at Harry, who was staring down into his lap with one hand propping up his chin. She took a deep breath, cursing Ron for bringing down their good spirits, and asked gently, “Harry, you all right?”

As though just remembering her presence, Harry looked up and met her concerned gaze. “Yeah, just thinking, that’s all. It’s really happening, isn’t it? Tomorrow?” he said, looking all of eleven years old again.

There it was, just what she was dreading. She wanted to laugh at herself for naively believing that they could steer clear of it all evening. But instead she replied, “Yes, right on the equinox,” in what she hoped was an upbeat tone.

Ron reached over and clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder when Harry did not answer right away. “It’ll be fine, mate,” in a heartening voice.

“It’ll be great,” echoed Hermione, nodding fervently. She wanted nothing more than to go to her room and sleep until it was all over, but she recognized that Harry’s troubles were more important than her petty yearnings.

Harry looked from one face to the other, finding comfort in each warm and supportive gaze. Sucking in a large breath, he seemed to buoy himself up somewhat and smiled. “Thanks, guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you both.”

Hermione smiled in reply and Ron muttered something indistinct, though the words, “Probably’d go mental,” were heard quite clearly. The happy mood from earlier returned as the trio recalled those exploits not tinged with the danger of imminent death, of which there were remarkably many.

But like all good things, this too came to an end as Ron pulled another first and announced that he would be retiring to bed. Hermione narrowed her eyes in suspicion while Harry wasn’t looking, fairly certain that she had an idea why Ron had chosen to move his bedtime up a good three hours.

“Bit early, isn’t it?” she said through clenched teeth. The clock chimed ten accordingly.

With a large and wholly affected yawn, Ron said pointedly, “Well you know, gotta get my beauty sleep for Harry’s big day.” Hermione noticed the statement was aimed more at her and narrowed her eyes still further. With a last clap on Harry’s shoulder and a cough that poorly masked Ron’s suggestion to “Tell him!” Ron left the room. They could hear his feet shuffling noisily up the stairs as he made his way to the third floor and his bedroom.

After the sound of his footfalls retreated, the silence in the room was interrupted only by the loud crackling of the fire. Hermione’s head was suddenly swimming with indecision; for once, she thought she should maybe just take the plunge and tell Harry the truth. At least her conscience would be clear. Her eyes wandered over to him of their own accord, but thoughts of grand confessions were wiped from her mind when she saw that Harry was again looking pensive.

She was nearer to him than she had been at the kitchen table. Without thinking of it meaning anything more than the hand of friendship, she stretched out a hand and rubbed his shoulder to bring his attention back to the present.

When his eyes met hers, she was taken aback by how wide and afraid he looked, more afraid than she had ever seen him. Hermione’s eyes softened and she rose to place herself on the arm of his chair. “Harry?”

Harry’s green eyes had followed her path to his chair without really seeing her. At the sound of his name, though, she saw his focus shift to her and read her concerned expression.

“I’m all right,” he said, patting her leg and giving her a wan smile. “It’s just, everything is going to change, isn’t it?”

He looked away as he voiced his fear, into a future he feared more. Hermione saw it too: the end of the trio. She supposed it was inevitable. The three of them would each marry and eventually move away. They would gradually see each other less and less, the weekly meetings would become monthly ones. Things would improve once they all started having kids and those kids needed playmates, but it all would have deteriorated too much for any kind of return to what once was. It was clear—Harry’s marriage would just be the first step in a long chain of events leading to a guaranteed future.

Hermione had never thought that far ahead, and now she wished she hadn’t. Her dreary introspections were interrupted when Harry suddenly jumped up and began to pace frantically.

“I shouldn’t be doing this, do you think I should be doing this?” he asked nervously. Without waiting for an answer, he went on, the anxiety in his voice escalating, “I’m too young to get married. I don’t know Elizabeth at all. I’ll never date anyone again!”

“Is that something you want? To date more witches before you get married?” said Hermione in bewilderment and with a trace of disdain. But she knew him well enough to give him the benefit of the doubt; his panic must have been genuine if his priorities were so out of whack.

He looked at her as if he’d just remember she was there. “Yes…no…I don’t know!” he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair so that it stuck up all over. “I mean, if I get married now, what if I just spend the rest of my life wondering ‘what if’? What if I really was supposed to be with Ginny, or what if—” He cut off, glancing over again at Hermione, who was perched on the end of the chair arm with anticipation of his next sentence running throughout her whole body. “What if I’m supposed to be with you?” he finished quietly.

Hermione made a strange coughing sound in the back of her throat that was meant to sound like a scoff. “Harry, don’t be absurd!” she exclaimed, unable to meet his eyes lest he see her feelings written all over her face.

“Why is that absurd?” Harry demanded.

“It just is!”

He stopped pacing and just looked at her. She refused to read the expression in his eyes and forcibly slowed down her breathing. “So are you saying that you’ve never thought about it before?”

“About what?” she said, playing dumb.

Harry took a step forward and she could feel her body reaching back toward him. “About us, Hermione, you and me!” he said impatiently.

“No.” She heard the word coming from far away, filling the room and the space between them. It was a lie, but one that she was used to living. She reached up to rub her neck, soothing her heart’s pain, and she could feel Harry staring at her.

“Why do you do that?” he said, staring at the movement of her hand as though hypnotized.

She stilled her hand at once, suddenly self-conscious of the permanent mark that Bellatrix had left on her body. Her hand dropped into lap and without its warmth at her neck, the thin scar felt like ice tracing a line across it.

~*~

Harry, Ron, Dean Thomas, and Griphook the goblin were escorted out of the room and down to the cellar. Ron threw her one last desperate look before disappearing into the darkness, leaving her with the Malfoys, Greyback, and Bellatrix.

The only sound she could hear for the next few moments were the grunts of exertion Draco was making as he dragged the bodies of Greyback’s unconscious helpers outside and the protests issued by her friends as they were taken below. She stared around the room, her mind and her pulse racing. Her eyes finally met Bellatrix’s malevolent stare and she swallowed the urge to cry out in terror.

Instantly the taller witch strode forward and viciously delivered a backhanded slap that reverberated about the room and knocked Hermione’s head to one side. Before she could prepare herself, Hermione heard Bellatrix’s silky voice murmuring close to her ear.

“Let’s say we start with a little, taster, eh, Mudblood? Crucio!”

It was worse than she could have possibly imagined, like huge pins puncturing every surface of her body. She heard the loud slam of the cellar door, blocking her from the only people who could have helped her, and knew that she couldn’t hold back anymore. A long, drawn-out scream was wrenched from her lips, the sound ringing in her ears long after it died in her throat.

Bellatrix stepped forward as Hermione began to collapse. She seized Hermione’s hair and pulled back sharply, hissing in her ear. “Ah yes, now you understand pain, little Mudblood. Now tell me, where did you get the sword?”

Through a haze of pain, Hermione’s eyes darted to where the sword had been almost reverently placed on the table, her mind whirring as she tried to figure out a strategy to face Bellatrix without betraying the significance of Gryffindor’s sword. She guessed that her best bet was to stay silent, so when her gaze returned to Bellatrix, she pressed her lips together firmly.

Sensing her captive’s dissent, Bellatrix gave a nasty smile. “Oh, so the little Mudblood’s not going to play,” she said with a fake pout. Hermione saw the tip of Bellatrix’s wand come into view and had just enough time to clench her teeth in preparation for the onslaught of pain before she heard, “Crucio!”

The pain was worse than before and seemed to last forever. Hermione could feel herself slipping and her throat nearly tore when she screamed again. She opened her eyes to find that she fallen to the floor and that Bellatrix had stepped back a few steps.

“Where did you get it, Mudblood? The sword! Where?” she demanded, flicking her wand to deliver the Cruciatus at every pause.

Hermione knew that she was screaming again. She turned onto her stomach, fighting the urge to vomit. Everything ached and she knew it would not do to say nothing for much longer. But the pain was clouding her mind, she could think of nothing but how important the sword was to Harry for destroying Horcruxes.

“I’m going to ask you again! Where did you get this sword? Where?”

Footsteps announced Draco’s return from his assigned work. Hermione’s eyes were drawn to him in her fog, the only person she knew really, and somehow she sensed a weakness in him. She sent him a pleading look, but he turned away and went to stand by his mother.

Finally she found her voice. “We found it—we found it—PLEASE!” she screamed.

Bellatrix rose to her full height. “You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth!”

The Cruciatus was placed on her again. Hermione felt as though she was being torn in half. When the curse was lifted and her vision cleared, she stayed still, hugging her limbs to her body protectively. Without shame, she cried silently to herself, knowing that she was failing everyone by not being able to think of anything to get them all out. They would all die if she could come up with a cover story for why they had had the sword.

“What else did you take? What else have you got? Tell me the truth or, I shall run you through with this knife!”

Darkness was creeping at the corners of her vision, but Hermione’s mind could not turn off. Why was Bellatrix so paranoid about someone getting in her vault? Hermione had an inkling that there was obviously something very important in there or else the older witch would not be so fanatical about it.

Then, another wave of pain crashed over her and, try as she might to repress it, she screamed again.

“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!”

Hermione could hear her own screams echoing off the walls as the curse of pain was once more placed upon her. Real panic began to set in, that she would die right there in Malfoy Manor having failed her friends in protecting the sword. But she couldn’t think about anything but how much she hurt and the sweet release that death would bring. She sagged on the floor, her hair clinging to her sweaty forehead as dull aches riddled her limbs.

Worse than ever she screamed and through it all she could barely make out Bellatrix’s shrieking. “How did you get into my vault? Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?”

Cellar? Goblin? Hermione’s mind was sluggish, she could barely remember who she was, let alone what that goblin had to do with the sword. She felt her tongue loosen in her mouth and with a voice hoarse from screaming, she rasped, “We only met him tonight! We’ve never been inside your vault.”

There the truth had been wrenched from her at last.

Then, a stream of purest thought. She fought the approaching unconsciousness, forcing her eyes open. The lie that had eluded her before suddenly seized her and in the same panicked tone she continued, “It isn’t the real sword! It’s a copy, just a copy!”

She promptly shut her eyes again, expecting another angry curse, but Bellatrix only replied in a derisive tone, “A copy? Oh, a likely story!”

With her eyes still shut, she silently willed them to believe her. But it wasn’t so irrational: Dumbledore could have made a copy of the sword and left it in his office. Snape, the traitor, would have put that into the Lestrange vault…So what else was in the vault that Bellatrix was so worried about?

The senior Malfoy interrupted her thoughts. “But we can find out easily! Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!”

Shuffling steps away from her told Hermione that Draco was doing as he was bid. This was a flaw in her plan that she had not foreseen. The goblin was certain to recognize the craftsmanship of his own kind in the sword on the table not ten feet from her. He had no allegiance to one side that Hermione knew of, but perhaps she could give him a message to keep with her story?

“Copy, copy, only a copy,” she was muttering, hoping to stay conscious long enough to deliver the idea to Griphook.

Unfortunately her noises only irritated her torturer, and with an angry, “Shut up, mudblood!” Hermione felt the full effects of the Cruciatus once more.

But she was determined. The goblin had to know how important the sword was to their side, and whatever his opinion of wizards, she had to make sure he testified that this one was a copy. If Voldemort got a hold of the real Gryffindor sword, she had no idea what would happen. She couldn’t let her friends down.

Her body was fighting against her. It wanted sleep and darkness to heal, but she had to resist the invitation. She forced herself awake through more curses of pain and shouts from others in the room, all the while feebly stirring at Bellatrix’s feet and desperately waiting to hear the goblin’s confirmation either way.

“Well?” Bellatrix said to Griphook. “Is it the true sword?”

Hermione waited, holding her breath, fighting against the prickling of unconsciousness.

“No,” said Griphook. “It is a fake.”

“Are you sure?” panted Bellatrix. “Quite sure?”

“Yes,” said the goblin.

And as Bellatrix sighed in relief, so Hermione finally succumbed to the sweet darkness.

~*~

“I do it when I’m nervous, I suppose,” she answered quietly. There it was, a testament to her love for Harry, for the lengths to which she would go to ensure his protection.

“Do I make you nervous?” The question was innocent enough, but the mood shifted almost imperceptibly. His voice was throaty and tinged with something unidentifiable. The ice in her veins warmed to licks of flame. She could feel her blood pulsing in her ears. The hair on the back of her neck bristled with something like potential. It gave her a heady feeling, after such a vivid recollection of pain and suffering, to suddenly be in this situation. In a way, love was also a bit of pain and suffering.

“A little,” she answered candidly.

He smiled. Hermione felt her pulse quicken as she rose from the chair, each step toward him a possibility of something more than the future she had imagined.

“Hermione,” he breathed when she reached him.

Her name was like a call back to reality and she stopped moving at once. The clock struck the eleventh hour. Here was her chance, she could tell him everything right now. He was already doubting his wisdom in getting married, technically she wouldn’t be ruining anything. But then as she stared up at his imploring face, she knew that any kind of confession wouldn’t work out. Harry’s qualms would pass by the following morning, and then what? She would have been that other woman, the girl who ruined Harry Potter’s chance of happiness. That would be going against everything she stood for as his friend—and the girl who loved him.

She took a step back and felt the beginning of tears form in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, closing her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see the look on Harry’s face. She turned around and spoke to the room at large, though her voice came out almost too quiet to hear.

“You’re getting married tomorrow, Harry, to a woman who loves you and, despite the cold feet you may be feeling now, you love back.” She turned back to face him slowly, fighting the tears building in her eyes, and said more than just goodnight; she said goodbye to a dream she’d been living far too long. With a soft touch on his hair, she left the room just as the tears started to fall.

She didn’t see Harry close his eyes or at her touch or open again to follow her exit from the room.

There’s a Place—Siobhan Donaghy Take your time, keep in mind

I will be all the strength you need

And I will show you a way

I don’t mind if you cry

I want to be holding your hand

And you can feel, look at me

Don’t turn away

All is lost but if you try

You can see there’s a place for you

Where I will know your pain

Don’t turn away

It’s tender leaving, no good deceiving you

There’s a place for you

You just have to keep it strong

And I won’t turn away from you.

A/N: The excerpt from Deathly Hallows roughly follows what would have been Hermione’s pov during the Malfoy Manor chapter. The scene is from approximately page 375—383 in the UK Bloosmbury version, and obviously is not mine. Is it bad that I enjoyed writing it though?? The lyrics written above are from a song called “There’s a Place” by Siobhan Donaghy and I thought were pretty appropriate for the way Hermione’s feeling at the end of this chapter. I recommend you give it a listen if you can! And again, thanks for reading!

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I’ll get around to answering them pretty soon, I swear!

Where Elizabeth Stood

Chapter 5—Going to Be Fine

Hermione woke up early the next day and just stared about the room as though hoping to divine inspiration from its contents. She knew logically that the earth would go on turning, the sun would continue its daily trek across the sky, and in that she was certain that tomorrow on the whole would be no different than today. She also knew that this was the time for a pep talk, since once the wedding chaos began she probably wouldn’t get an opportunity.

So, sitting up in bed with the bedclothes up to her neck, she wondered how she was going to make it through the day—or rather, how she was going to make it through the rest of her life. In less than five hours, she would walk down the aisle toward Harry—and then step aside so that his bride could stand in her place. That was where Elizabeth stood.

But the morning had brought with it a fresh sense of hope. The future was not definite; the bleak picture she had painted of the death of the trio did not have to be so if she worked against it. And, she conceded to herself, even if the future failed, they would always have the past, and that past was dear enough to sustain her through the worst. It was as though the tears she had cried while falling asleep the previous night had cleansed her, hardened her resolve, and returned her to her state of steadfastness.

With that renewed determination, she threw off her blankets, hastily piled her hair in a messy knot on top of her head and grabbed the garment bag holding her bridesmaids dress, her woefully stocked make-up kit, and the silken slippers that had been exactly dyed to match her navy blue dress. She left the house quickly, not daring to look into the drawing room and be reminded of the previous night’s almost-mistake.

She judged by the lack of stirring in the house that neither of her housemates were awake, which elicited feelings she couldn’t quite identify within herself. She knew that the next time she saw Harry and Ron would be at the wedding and that once they walked down the aisle nothing would be quite the same, but she didn’t know how she felt about it. In a sense, it was the end of an era, but that didn’t necessarily have to be bad.

She arrived at the enormous hotel room Mrs. Prinsen had booked for the bridal party’s preparations just in time to witness the beginnings of total chaos. From the few words of sense she could glean from the scene, it seemed that Elizabeth’s sister Anne had left her dress on the plane and had only just noticed. Hermione did her best to calm the mother of the bride, who was quickly approaching a state of hysterics only broken so that she could scold her older daughter for her carelessness in not noticing sooner (as it was her wedding after all and Mrs. Prinsen could not be forced to make sure everything was always absolutely perfect) and surveyed the room. Why Elizabeth had chosen a hotel to be married in was unknown to her, but at least she had picked one that was not overly decorated.

Walking purposefully to the window, she yanked down one of the drapes and commanded Anne Prinsen to stand still while she transfigured a dress that matched her own. When she had finished, no one outside of the room could have identified which bridesmaids’ dresses was the original. Thusly, peace was restored to the bridal suite.

The next few hours passed relatively uneventfully and Hermione couldn’t help but shoot worried glances at Elizabeth every now and then. The bride had not said much that morning and while she had been all smiles when Hermione had arrived to bring order to her own family, she had been growing steadily taciturn and just stared blankly at the progress the hairdresser made in the mirror. None of the bridal party seemed to have noticed, least of all Elizabeth’s mother and sister, who Hermione could tell were very close and seemed to be more concerned with each other than the nerves of the bride. For the first time, Hermione really understood Elizabeth’s return to England.

Hermione quitted the room briefly to stuff herself into her dress and shoes. When she came back, she noticed that Elizabeth was no longer sitting in front of the hairdressing station. Rather than alarming the Prinsens, Hermione asked the hairdresser if he knew where the bride had gone, but he only shrugged.

Without pausing to think, she quickly dashed out of the room again and began to search. She thought of nothing, especially not the look on Harry’s face if he learned that the bride had disappeared. She checked the corridor on which the hotel room was situated and then proceeded to the lifts, looking into each doorway as she passed. She rounded the corner, trying to figure out which direction to take in the elevator, and saw her.

Elizabeth, in her elegant and old-fashioned but tasteful wedding dress, stood silhouetted against the large paneled windows that looked out of the side of the building, gazing with quiet reflection at the tiny moving people on the pavement below.

At first Hermione did not think that Elizabeth had heard her, but then the red head spoke softly to the glass. “I’m sorry, I just had to get out of that room. This dress is so stifling, and my mother, well you saw her.”

She turned and her black eyes, filled only with a fraction of their usual warmth, met Hermione’s brown ones. She smiled a little sadly and said, “Oh Hermione, you look lovely. Navy looks very well on you, I noticed during that one Christmas.”

Hermione muttered her thanks, but her mind was reeling. This quiet, pensive Elizabeth was not one she knew; she supposed this was how Elizabeth coped with nerves.

She placed a comforting hand on the younger witch’s shoulder and said gently, “You’re going to be fine.”

Elizabeth gave a wan smile in reply and Hermione noticed that she had gone so pale that her black eyes stood out even more. “You look beautiful, Elizabeth. Just imagine Harry’s face when you walk down the aisle,” she said reassuringly, though the words were cutting into her heart.

“I would do anything for him,” Elizabeth said suddenly. Her eyes bore into Hermione’s with a fierceness that frightened her. “I love him, and I will make him happy.”

So would I, thought Hermione, her hand flying once more to her neck. She would go to hell and back for him—she had. She understood in the witch’s words a promise to his best friend and the woman who for much of his life had been the most important. In half an hour, she would relinquish this role and have to trust in the woman now before to keep her promise. “I know you will,” she answered quietly, and she believed it.

Elizabeth had been following the movement of Hermione’s hand at her neck. Neither witch could deny the importance of what had just transpired, but Elizabeth had a wedding to look forward to, and Hermione realized that the source of her anguish all morning had been related to Hermione’s position as Harry’s best female friend. It seemed that things had already begun to change irrevocably, but Hermione felt the strength to take it all in stride.

“Should we go back before my mother sends out a search party?” Elizabeth joked, linking arms with Hermione and heading back toward the bridal suite without waiting for an answer. Hermione couldn’t admit that Elizabeth’s mother hadn’t even noticed her daughter’s absence; at any rate, she suspected Elizabeth had somehow known that anyway. Just before they entered the room, Elizabeth turned toward her and remarked, “That necklace is perfect, by the way. Is it a sapphire?”

Hermione frowned, thinking that Elizabeth should have recognized a piece of jewelry she had picked out herself. “Yeah,” she replied slowly, “it’s my birthstone.”

Elizabeth emitted a little laugh, fully returned to her natural good spirits. “And here I thought September was topaz! I suppose I’m useless, aren’t I?” She skipped into the room and wandered over to where her mother was arranging baby’s breath in Anne’s bronze hair, leaving a confused Hermione in the doorway.

But the brunette had no time to dwell on this paradox, as in the next moment she was being whisked to the foyer of the room where the wedding was to actually take place. There she met up with Ron and Neville, Harry’s groomsmen, looking rather dashing in their newly tailored dress robes.

The Prinsens gathered in the corner and Elizabeth grinned in that harried way that daughters with overbearing and unappreciative mothers do. Hermione joined the pair of wizards, her relief at being out of the bridal suite bedlam at war with her anxiety for the event about to begin.

“How you holding up?” Ron asked seriously after Neville complimented her looks and then stepped away to give the pair some privacy.

Hermione shrugged. “About as well as can be expected. You look nice, by the way.”

“Thanks,” he said with a smile. “So do you.”

She smiled and forced herself to keep from asking the one thing she wanted to know.

“Harry’s fine, Hermione. A little nervous—I think he threw up once in the bin in our room—but fine otherwise,” Ron said.

Hermione laughed at Ron’s attempt to comfort her. “Really know how to paint a picture, don’t you, Ron?”

They stood in silence as the wedding coordinator Elizabeth hired for the actual wedding day buzzed around putting the party in order. She fussed with Hermione’s hair, which was already become frizzy again after the hairdresser declined her advice to use more Sleekeasy’s, and steered her and Ron to their place just in front of Elizabeth and her father.

“I think you’re making a mistake,” came Ron’s hissing voice in her ear.

Immediately Hermione looked back to make sure Elizabeth hadn’t heard, but the bride was talking quietly with her father with an attentive expression on her face. She crossed her arms, facing Ron and looking him square in the face. The barrage of emotions beating on her for the last few months had exhausted her, and the last thing she wanted to discuss were the choices that had brought her there. She let out a sarcastic laugh, taking care to keep her voice low, and said, “Oh really, Ron, and what do you suggest I do? Run down the aisle and confess in front of the entire reception?”

“Well, why not?” he replied indignantly. “You’ve fancied him for ages, how can you just sit there and just let him go?”

The entrance music started and the flower girl, Bill and Fleur’s Victoire, wandered down the aisle throwing fistfuls of flower petals onto the red carpet to the delight of the assembly.

Hermione felt the beginnings of tears poke at her eyes. “I’m not letting him go, Ron. He’s going to be happy,” she said quietly, still mindful of Harry’s bride standing behind her.

Neville and Anne began their slow march. Hermione and Ron stepped forward, awaiting their turn, and Hermione felt Ron grip her arm consolingly.

“If you won’t tell him, Hermione, I will,” said Ron with determination.

“No you won’t, Ronald Bilius Weasley, if you still favor the notion of fathering children,” was Hermione’s instant reply. “It’s too late.”

A beat later and the Best Man and Maid of Honor rounded to the corner and stepped through the doors into the wedding hall. She immediately caught sight of the Weasleys—particularly Ginny, who shot her an encouraging if not pitying smile— Luna’s long blond hair, and her parents who gave her a little wave when she saw them, but her eyes inevitably roamed to the end of the aisle.

When she saw Harry, her breath actually caught in her throat. She had imagined this very moment hundreds of times, but never had she walked down the aisle toward the man she loved with the full knowledge that she would have to step aside at the end of it.

Harry was gazing at his best friends with a true grin, a rarity for Harry Potter. Before she could stumble or succumb to the grief that had only just seemed to really hit her, she whispered, “Ron, I don’t know if I can do this.”

He didn’t reply, but she sensed that he had taken on a bit more of her weight. She knew that she would never lose the friendship of Harry or Ron, and Ron’s shouldering of her weight—emotional or physical—seemed to reinforce that. Suddenly she could breathe easier.

When she reached the groom, she waited a few feet back while Ron embraced him and then moved to his side. Hermione stepped forward into his open arms and inhaled deeply, allowing herself one last moment to enjoy him before backing away to join Anne on the other side of the altar. She kept her eyes fixed on Harry, not caring what it looked like to anyone else, until the music changed and the congregation rose and turned their heads to where Elizabeth stood in the doorway.

Appreciative oohs and aahs accompanied Elizabeth’s journey down the aisle. Hermione noticed that Harry was transfixed by the sight of his bride, and her smile was only for him. This, more than anything else, had ensured Hermione that she was doing the right thing, even if it was killing her inside. She looked past Harry to Ron, whose eyes softened in sympathy.

After the assembled guests settled down back into their chairs, the wizard performing the ceremony began to speak. The words blurred in her ears, a jumble of meaningless noise that made her head ache. Images floated lazily through her vision—memories of good times at Hogwarts mostly and all involving Harry. Finally, she let herself think of her birthday gift from him and the fact that Elizabeth really not had any input on the purchase after all. She knew without any hesitation that she loved him and only him, that she only would love him. How many people could say that at the age of twenty-three? Could she really spend the rest of her life not knowing if he had felt the same?

Could she really be the one to ruin his happiest day by stopping the wedding?

She was recalled from her reverie by the sight of everyone staring at her with expectant looks. “The ring!” Ron was mouthing, and with a blush and apology, she handed over Harry’s wedding band so that Elizabeth could fulfill her fantasy of placing it on Harry’s finger.

Hermione could feel the anticipation of the next words building in the room. This was it, her very last moment. After this, there would be no looking back, no lamenting her fate, for she had charted her own course.

“If anyone has just cause as to why this man and woman should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

The words were on her. If she could force them past the block in her throat, she would declare herself to Harry then and there, and not care who witnessed. She looked at Harry, his expression of intense concentration, then Ron who had pursed his lips so tightly that they were white, then Ginny who was literally dancing on the spot as though deciding whether or not to speak, and then finally to Neville, who Hermione suspected knew more about the situation than he let on.

“I object.”

The words hung heavily in the silence, followed by gasps from the guests. But it was not Hermione who had spoken.

A/N: Mwahahahaha! But who spoke those weighty words???

Sorry for the short chapter, but obviously I had to stop it here. To make up for it, the next one will be at least twice as long, I promise!

A/N: I pre-apologize for the surplus of commas in this chapter. I have been reading all Jane Austen lately and can only blame that.

Where Elizabeth Stood

Chapter 6---Both Sides Now

“I object.”

The words hung heavily in the silence, followed by gasps from the guests. But it was not Hermione who had spoken.

It was Elizabeth.

The master of ceremonies sighed and resignedly closed his book; this sort of thing probably was not new to him. But Harry looked at the woman he was about to have married and spluttered, “What?” in genuine incredulity.

Elizabeth turned to him and brought her head near his. Hermione just caught the words, “I’m so sorry,” before the bride faced her and said in a surprisingly steady, “I need to talk to you.”

And without waiting for any response, Elizabeth grabbed Hermione’s free hand and started dragging her back up the aisle past all of the bewildered guests. Hermione had no time to recover from the shock of what had just taken place, but somewhere deep inside her unbridled feelings of joy that the wedding had been prevented without her having to sacrifice her friendship with Harry began to stir. She looked back at where the man in question was still rooted to his spot by the altar, staring at their retreating forms as she was led up the aisle by Elizabeth’s firm hand.

They reached the doors to the foyer and with a deft flick of a wand that seemed to have materialized from nowhere, Elizabeth shut and locked the doors behind them. Hermione eyed the piece of wood warily, but Elizabeth did not seem intent on harming her. For several moments Elizabeth said nothing, but voices of concern and insistent poundings on the doors seemed to bring Elizabeth out of a certain contemplation.

Hermione waited with some anxiety for her to speak, but when she did, it was not the harsh accusations or angry outbursts that a guilty conscience had caused her to expect.

“Hermione, I’m sorry, I’ve been so stupid,” she began, a heartfelt expression on her face but that same calm tone she always had.

This did nothing to alleviate Hermione’s confusion. Elizabeth’s composure seemed entirely inappropriate for having just objected to her own wedding. “What are you talking about? What have you got to be sorry for?”

The red head sighed and looked deeply into Hermione’s face for a short time before replying. “I know you love him, Hermione,” she said matter-of-factly.

Hermione involuntarily took a step backward. Instinct and years of self-denial elicited an instant response. “Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth, Harry and I are just friends and always have been.”

Elizabeth gave a hollow sort of laugh. “Anyone else might be convinced by that Hermione, but not me. You’ve hidden yourself well, but I’ve seen it in your face, in your smile, in your concerned expression when Harry seems to be holding back something. You love him, of that I am sure.”

She stared steadily at Hermione, who was secretly annoyed that her feelings had been so terribly obvious to everyone. She wondered if she had a sign saying she loved Harry stuck to her back; that Elizabeth, Ginny, and Ron of all people could decipher the feelings she had thought she’d kept so perfectly hidden did not say much for her acting ability.Eventually, she crumpled under the weight her own duplicity and said in a mechanical voice designed to keep her tears at bay, “But why stall your wedding? You know me well enough to know that I would never act on my feelings.”

Elizabeth suddenly engulfed her in a hug, though the women’s skirts were wide and she had to lean in to reach Hermione. But it was a much different embrace than the one that she had received when she had accepted the Maid of Honor position. Somehow through this one, Hermione thought Elizabeth had understood something.

Elizabeth pulled back and Hermione was surprised to see red rimming the black of her eyes. “Sometimes, at night, Harry cries out in his sleep, cursing demons that by morning he swears don’t exist. I catch him at moments looking into mirrors as though expecting to see something besides a reflection. I know he loves his job, but he won’t discuss it with me, as if bringing his work home with him might sabotage our little semblance of normality.

“Hermione,” she said, looking at her fiercely, “he needs someone who understands him, who already knows why he can’t stand mushrooms or why he insisted on removing all of the chandeliers in Number 12. He belongs with you, I’m sure of it, you’re the only one who’s been with him through everything. I meant what I said earlier by the window. I love Harry, very, very much, which is why I have to say goodbye to him now.”

Hermione had been dumbstruck by her speech, only then fully comprehending Elizabeth’s pain at not being included in Harry’s past or his present. How could she have hoped to be part of his future?

The pounding on the door grew louder and both women turned at the sound of a certain voice demanding to be let into the foyer. Wordlessly, Elizabeth acquiesced, and Harry tumbled roughly onto the carpet at their feet before the solid wood doors banged shut and prevented any unwanted company.

Harry scrambled up and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, hardly glancing at Hermione at all as he rushed to Elizabeth’s side and said, “Lizzie, what the hell is going on?”

The brunette felt all the pain of going unnoticed or ignored.

She trained her warm black eyes on him and said, “Harry, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can do this.”

Hermione stepped back without realizing it, giving the couple the chance to work things out. With Harry’s confused “But why not?” Hermione was certain that Elizabeth had been mistaken in her interpretation of Harry’s feelings. At that moment, Hermione wished she could have been anyone else but the witness of Harry’s declarations of love to another woman.

Smiling sadly, Elizabeth replied, “You know why, Harry. We could never make each other happy. Sure, these years have been great, wonderful actually, but I don’t believe that either of us thought that we really belong together. You’ve been through things I couldn’t possibly comprehend, and though I don’t blame you for it, you never let me in. You know I’m right.”

His expression changed at once, and Hermione recognized this as a reference to a discussion of which she had not been a part.

“I knew that you would never say anything,” Elizabeth went on, this time with a glance at Hermione as though the comment was also aimed at her. “So I took it out of your hands. Just make sure that none of this was in vain.”

With that she gave a frowning Harry one last kiss on the cheek and stepped back from him.

“Where will you go?” he asked with a deflated tone. Hermione felt herself drawn to him, wanting to somehow ease her own guilt by offering him comfort, but he seemed more composed than someone who was not in agreement with the bride’s reasons for withdrawing ought.

Elizabeth shrugged but her countenance showed a trace of true yet respectfully withheld excitement. Hermione knew that Elizabeth’s situation with her family was not such that she should expect open arms and Hermione wondered how the red head would recover.

“I’ve always wanted to live by the sea,” she said lightly as though discussing less than a life-changing decision. Her smile faded as she turned to fully regard Harry and Hermione. “I am sorry, Harry. I wish that I had had better timing than this. I can’t imagine what the papers are going to print,” she said solemnly.

Harry waved a hand and said, “Sod the papers.” With one last grasp of Elizabeth’s hand, he whispered enigmatically, “You really do understand me, you know.”

She returned a watery smile and made to leave, beckoning for Hermione to follow her a little way out of Harry’s earshot.

“You’re both too noble for your own good, Hermione,” she said once she judged it safe to speak.

Hermione gave a reluctant laugh. “Well, you seem to have picked it up as well. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’m going to be fine, you said so yourself.” She looked at Hermione warmly, surveying her as though trying to memorize what she looked like then because the next time they met, things would be different. Hermione noticed her gaze settling on the sapphire pendant, but she said nothing except, “I knew navy would be perfect.”

With that pronouncement, Elizabeth Apparated, her faint pop echoing in the open space of the foyer. Hermione and Harry regarded each other, speechless, until at last they were interrupted by a groaning sound as the door separating them from reality was breached.

“Elizabeth! Oh, where is that girl? I swear someone should pin her down by the hem of her dress! Oh, that dress cost a fortune, when I get my hands on her—” shrieked Mrs. Prinsen, who was dragging Anne throughout the crowd hoping to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth’s red hair. She was unlucky, however, as the Weasleys were also on the scene to ensure that Harry and Hermione were all right.

Thus, pressed in from all sides, Hermione and Harry stood staring at one another as though unsure that they had processed everything that had just taken place. Harry’s bride had left him at the altar but refused to speak to anyone but her Maid of Honor, his best friend. Elizabeth knew something she, Hermione, did not, but with the onslaught of noise and bodies forcing past her, she thought this not the time nor place to try and get to the bottom of it.

“How strange that this should have happened,” Hermione overheard Luna saying to Ron, “for I have often read that this equinox is the most lucky of all.”

Ron laughed. “Oh, I think it still is,” he replied, indicating his best friends in the middle of a swarm of wedding guests. “I think it most definitely is.”

~*--Three years later--*~

The trio were seated languidly in their favorite spots around the drawing room fire—Harry and Hermione on the couch, and Ron in an armchair—still making the satisfied noises that accompany a pleasant meal. Harry had once again prepared dinner for his best friends in a tradition now attributed to the celebratory night before some big event.

Snow fell sedately past the tall windows and the massive Christmas tree in the corner was surrounded by more than just holiday presents.

Hermione gazed happily at Harry’s relaxed profile, silhouetted against the flames. He caught her looking and returned a significant glance that to Hermione said, “If not for tomorrow, I could act as I wish right now,” and made her blush accordingly.

There was something in the total and utter happiness that she felt at that moment—that she was even allowed to love Harry, to tell him so in actions if not words, and to have him, after years of painful wishing on that count, finally return that love, was something she would never become complacent to. The man that she loved, loved her, and she was fortunate to remember the exact moment that it had happened, a year and a half before.

~*~

Everyone—including the rather serene bride—agreed that the summer solstice really was the most beautiful day to wed. Hermione suppressed that ever-present urge to roll her eyes when reminded that that same bride, barely more than two years before, had insisted that the autumnal equinox was the luckiest day, and that it actually had not turned out to be so at all.

Hermione had spent the last several hours that morning helping Ginny—and subsequently being helped by Ginny—to minimize the hideousness of Luna’s bridesmaids dresses, which even had managed to touch Hermione’s weak vanity.

Luna had chosen bole, a color that until the first fitting, Hermione had not known to exist. As it was, the color turned out to the least of her worries, as Luna also had an interesting take on the cut of the dress and the jewelry that should be worn to protect the bridal party from the treazle fairies that lived inside wedding cakes and were responsible for general mischief.

Though the title of maid of honor fell to Ginny, Hermione still found herself preoccupied with plans for what would unquestionably be the most bizarre wedding she would ever attend.

Once again drawn into a ceaseless number of activities designed to alleviate the stress on the bride (although Hermione thought it was safe to say that “stress” and “Luna” were certainly words that would never occur naturally together in a sentence), Hermione could not help but remember the moments still fresh in the past when she had been doing exactly the same tasks.

Hermione had heard only once from Elizabeth Prinsen after the then-bride apparated from the foyer of the London hotel, and it was only a short note left presumably when the red head had come to collect her things from Number 12 renewing the reassurances she had made previously on the part of her own feelings for Harry, knowing where she stood in his life, and wishing them both very happy. The note also reminded her not to waste this opportunity—for lack of a better word—and make sure that Elizabeth’s sacrifice had not been in vain.

But it vain it seemed to be, for following the wedding, Harry had withdrawn into himself, and though Hermione guessed there was more alluded to in his and Elizabeth’s last conversation than she was privy to, Hermione was at a loss as to how to approach the subject with Harry. Now that she had the time she’d wanted, she had no idea what to say or do, and realized that the fact of his being taken before was a luxury to her in that she never had to entertain any serious thought as to how to win him. For the first time since she’d really been aware of those dearer feelings lurking just below the then untouched surface of her heart, Harry was attainable. And she was out of excuses.

For the first few months between Ron’s proposal and the wedding, the unending list of tasks seemed to provide a legitimate reason for Hermione and Harry to avoid each other’s company. That was Hermione’s motive anyway, because Harry had become less warm toward her since Elizabeth had swept her up the aisle at his wedding. For being—or believing herself to be—the primary instrument of his unhappiness, Hermione was much aggrieved. And for her part, she still didn’t know if the words “I object” would have finally made their way from her mouth if Elizabeth hadn’t spoken first.

The day finally arrived for who would soon be known as Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Weasley. Hermione thought with the kind of mild amusement one feels when confronted with slightly embarrassing memories about how not six years before, she wouldn’t have minded the name. But things change, she thought, a lesson she had to really grow up to learn properly.

And so she and Ginny were occupied with trying to assuage the dramatic effect that the bole bridesmaids dresses were bound to have. They debated as their wands worked whether an ornate hairstyle would detract or enhance the outrageousness of their appearance, all the while hoping that Luna wouldn’t notice or be hurt their not very subtle modifications.

“A little less tulle in the skirt, I think, and then we’re good to go,” Ginny mused, waving her wand in a complicated movement that Vanished a portion of the undesirable material.

Wrinkling her nose at her reflection, Hermione said, “This is as good as it’s probably going to get. Where’s Luna?”

“Spewing in the loo I should think,” said Ginny sarcastically. Neither she nor Hermione had ever seen such a calm bride on her wedding day. “I think she’s talking to her father outside. We should probably go line up anyway.”

Hermione nodded in agreement and followed the youngest Weasley out of the small bedroom they had been using to get ready.

Like Bill and George, Ron had continued the family tradition of marrying at the Burrow, something that both delighted and managed to nearly stress to death Mrs. Weasley. Luckily for her, Luna had very simple ideas in mind for the wedding, and her dreamy air often also made her amenable to any of her future mother-in-law’s suggestions.

Hermione closed the door behind her and went with Ginny to meet the rest of groomsmen. Luna was there in a meringue-looking dress and a veil that swept the floor talking quietly to her father, who had thankfully adopted a much more subdued color palette for his dressrobes than at Bill and Fleur’s wedding. There was a little stiffness on his part when he spotted Hermione, for their dealings in the past had not exactly been pleasant, but she returned a polite smile in his general direction. She spotted Neville looking rather suave in his dressrobes and grinning eagerly at Ginny’s approach. And then she saw Harry.

Although he was wearing exactly the same robes as Neville—and Ron too, she added to herself, as an afterthought—somehow she had never thought him more handsome than at that moment. She hoped her feelings did not show on her face, but when her eyes rose to meet his, he looked away quickly and pretended to be studying a picture on the wall. Luck was not on his side however, because the picture he had hoped would come to his rescue in avoiding her in fact contained the pair of them as its principal subjects.

“We look so tired,” he observed quietly at her approach.

“I suppose defeating Dark Lords take a lot out of one,” was her half-joking reply. They continued to stare at the moving photograph in silence, until Harry seemed to remember himself and with a quick intake of breath turned toward her, gave a slight start, and promptly burst out laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” she said, secretly pleased to have some smile from him at all, even if at her own expense. “I’ll have you know that Luna says this is the color of constancy.”

Harry was still only just managing his laughter. “You look like the trunk of a tree.”

“Always what a girl wants to hear,” she said, fighting to keep the indignant expression on her face. They hadn’t spoken much lately, even the night before during their last night as an unmarried trio. Or rather, they had spoken a lot, but said very little.

Hermione soon found herself pressed against Harry’s side as the entire wedding procession was sandwiched in the Burrow’s tiny kitchen, waiting for their musical cue to step outside into the summer sunshine.

She chanced a glance at Harry, who was looking pensive again now that their humorous banter had subsided. But because she couldn’t bear the silence, or waste the opportunity for conversation afforded by their closeness, she asked with real concern, “How’s Ron doing?”

At this, Harry offered a wry smile, and with an actual look in her direction, answered, “As good as can be expected. The green face suits him well, compliments his hair.”

Hermione took care to keep her laugh quiet, since the woman said green best friend was about to marry was standing about four feet behind her. The pair once again slipped into silence.

“No, but he’s all right,” said Harry after a long moment as though he hadn’t stopped speaking, “If there’s any woman out there that can make him happy, it’s Luna.” He spoke with such a wistful tone that Hermione could find nothing to add. “No offense,” he added, seeming to just remember whom he was speaking to.

Hermione shrugged, the era when that comment might have stung having long passed. She was starting to feel uncomfortable; Harry being so close but so far away only served as a reminder of what a mess she was making of her life. And yet she had no idea what to do to fix it, she who was supposedly the brightest witch of her age. But luckily she was saved by Harry himself.

“Hermione, I have to tell you something,” he said seriously. She immediately steeled herself—that statement was rarely accompanied by good news. “You know the necklace that I gave you for your birthday?”

She nodded absently, her hand unconsciously feeling along the visible part of the necklace’s chain; the pendant was underneath the neckline of her hideous dress. He eyed her movements for a split second before coloring slightly and determinedly looking at her face.

“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath. “It was from me.”

She stared at him for a moment, expecting him to go on, before realizing that of course he had no idea that she had figured that out months before. It wasn’t exactly a far leap. Once she had had time to actually reflect on Elizabeth’s manner of seeing it and not recognizing it for what it was, Hermione was sure that for some reason Harry had pretended that bestowing of the present had been a joint effort. She only wondered why.

Abruptly they heard the magically amplified music for the procession start and Mrs. Weasley came to shepherd them all into place. Before she took her place in line beside Neville, she said, “Harry, I know.”

He looked surprised, and almost nervous. “You do?”

“I do,” she said simply, not wanting to invite him to speak more on a subject that was only sure to distress her. Maybe he thought that she had thanked Elizabeth for the gift, only to awaken the redhead’s suspicion, and that was what had led to the unraveling of his relationship with her. Her head spun with scenarios, each as unlikely as the next. All she knew was that her other best friend was about to be married and Hermione forced herself to focus and pay attention to her movements so that her ability to ruin weddings did not become a pattern.

“Hermione,” said Harry when the flower girl and ring bearer set off.

She looked up at him inquiringly; his tone was urgent and he looked on the brink of saying something when she heard her cue. Neville grasped her arm and with a regretful look that promised they would speak after the ceremony, she turned and headed toward the backdoor.

Suddenly, just as she was stepping out into the backyard of the Burrow, she felt Neville’s arm slip from her own and be replaced with someone else’s. “Harry, what are you doing!” she hissed through the smile she had plastered on her face for the guests. As best man, Harry was meant to walk down the aisle with Ginny, the Maid of Honor, and she did not think Mrs. Weasley would like this at all, after their numerous rehearsals.

“I had to talk to you,” he hissed back by way of explanation, squeezing her arm.

“You couldn’t have waited until after?” was her rhetorical reply. She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly so annoyed with him, when all she had wanted for the past eighteen months was for him to talk to her. She was just afraid that somehow everything would turn out horribly.

Squeezing her arm again to slow her pace, he said, “It can’t wait. Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk since the wedding. I know it can’t have been easy—”

“Harry, please,” she begged, terrified at where this conversation would lead and that she wouldn’t be able to maintain her composure, “can we please just talk about this later?”

But to her agitation, Harry seemed to have no inclination of leaving the topic he’d begun. She could only continue to measure her steps down the aisle, trying to keep her worry from showing on her face, but she doubted any Academy Award nominations were heading her way.

Harry was speaking urgently to her in an undertone that kept his impassioned words from reaching any of the wedding guests on either side of them. “Hermione, Ginny left me because I wouldn’t talk to her about the war or my job or anything. Elizabeth—” He cut off for a moment and Hermione staggered slightly. It was the first time either of them had mentioned Elizabeth’s name in the year and a half that she had been gone from their lives. How they avoided speaking it for so long was lost to her, but Harry had already gathered his composure and continued the speech with the uncertain destination. “Elizabeth felt much the same way. Neither of them were there for a lot of the war, neither of them could understand some of the things we had to do. And I didn’t want them to have to, I wanted to keep them safe from that.”

He paused and Hermione wondered if she ought to say something. She had absolutely no idea where he was going with this, and she could already feel her contented façade slipping—it didn’t happen often that Harry Potter started opening his heart to you, and your own would have to be made of ice for it not to be touched by his words.

“ And eventually they gave up trying to talk to me about it and accepted that I never would confide in them,” he continued, speaking aloud words he probably had hardly ever allowed himself to think. The fact that he was confiding in her made her heart ache for him even more. “ I wanted them to just get everything without me having to talk about it, I wanted them to get me without me having to explain it. I knew I was being selfish, I knew I couldn’t have it both ways. But I was too afraid to leave them. What if no one could ever love me?”

There, that was it. That was what was worrying him on the day his best friend pledged himself to love and be loved for the rest of his life. “Oh, Harry,” she said feelingly, turning to face him for the first time and squeezing his arm in sympathy.

He returned her look steadily, but with something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite put a name to. “It was about a month before your birthday that I knew. I was just out walking and I saw the necklace and, I just knew. I knew with this weird certainty that it was meant to be yours.” He had been speaking almost to himself, but at these last words, his eyes met hers and conveyed more meaning than words ever could. She hardly dared to hope.

But he wasn’t finished explaining. His words came faster as he realized how far down the aisle they had already walked. “The saleslady told me it was the September birthstone, and that just made it seem more perfect. When I got it home, I hid it from Elizabeth, which had surprised me. I told myself that there was nothing about it that I should be hiding, it didn’t mean anything. And then I thought that you might not like it, or that you would think that it was somehow inappropriate, so I told you that it was a gift from me and Elizabeth.”

Now everything was clear. “This is about more than the necklace,” she said quietly, as though hoping that if she were wrong then the wind would carry away her words. But the way he was looking at her…

“Yes, it was always more than that,” he said ardently. “Hermione, I love you.”

This time Hermione really did stumble. Harry held her arm tightly as they continued their journey down the aisle. “What?” was all she could manage. Now she could put a description to the expression she had seen in his eyes, for it was the same one as in her eyes every time they were directed his way.

“I love you, I have for a long time, even before I could really admit it to myself. I was trying so hard to hide it,” he said, still looking at her and not really where they were going. There was a general rustling as the wedding guests seemed to become aware that the bridesmaid and best man were discussing something of importance.

“But…why?” she spluttered. She knew her own reasons for keeping her feelings to herself (or trying to anyway), but for the past year and a half Harry had had none of the same limitations.

“I don’t know, I was just stupid maybe. I thought that even if you loved me too, somehow nothing would be different. I would still be unable to give you what I couldn’t give Ginny or Elizabeth, and you deserve so much for than that. I would still be the same Harry, never enough of a man for anyone.”

They stopped and faced each other uncertainly, having reached the altar at the end of the aisle. At the back of her mind, Hermione thought that they shouldn’t be doing this, distracting from the ceremony. But there were a few things that still needed to be said.

“Harry, you’re more than enough for me. Remember I was with you through everything, and I know why you are the way you are—because that’s what made me what I am too.” She smiled shyly, pressing his hand where the sapphire pendant he had given her was hidden near her heart.

Harry still looked uncertain, as though afraid that he had somehow gotten everything wrong. “What are you saying?”

Hermione felt tears come to her eyes as she declared, finally, “I’m saying that I do love you, and that I want the same things as you do: peace and simplicity. I always have.”

Harry’s face broke out into a huge grin and she felt him grip her hand tightly. She didn’t think that she could feel happier; indeed it seemed to spread throughout every vein in her body to the point where she felt as though she would burst from it. Se had finally uttered the words she had long to deliver for years, and her exquisite pleasure at her feelings being returned were almost overpowering.

“Now what do we do?” Harry said with an infectious smile that Hermione couldn’t help but return.

“Well, you could try kissing her,” piped in Ron, who, along with the rest of the attendants, had been listening to their every word once they had arrived at the front of the crowd.

Without an answer, Harry did just that, and through the total daze that of course quickly followed, Hermione vaguely heard Ron mumble, “And they say I never have any good ideas.”

~*~

That moment was enough to sustain Hermione through all the memories of pain and longing from the years that Harry was with Elizabeth. But she was certain of one thing: even for all the what-ifs and laments that she and Harry might have had more time together, she would not have changed a thing. Time was a funny thing, and who said that things would have turned out the same if she had confessed a moment too soon before he realized he felt the same? And would their noble natures have allowed them to so cruelly disregard the feelings of others; in Harry’s case, to back out on a life-long promise? The very things that had kept them apart at first were the precious qualities that she could not do without.

“Harry,” she whispered that night as she was falling asleep beside him.

“Mmmff?” came the sleep-addled reply.

“I love you.”

She felt him turn over to face her. “I love you, too.”

The next morning she would become Mrs. Harry Potter. The path that had brought them there did not matter as long as this was their destination. As the first rays of sun shone on her pillow, Hermione stirred and instinctively reached over. Half a second before she should have felt anything, she opened her eyes, and, as she had expected it would be, found Harry’s side of the bed empty.

But what she found in his stead was almost as good as the real thing. He had left her a note, intimately addressed to her in his untidy scrawl.

Hermione smiled to herself and grasped the note gently in her hand. She knew that life was not about gliding-down-the-stairs fantasies, but she was still thrilled to be finally fulfilling her favorite fantasy of all: becoming Harry’s wife. With one last glance at the note, she said to the empty room with a little laugh, “I can’t agree more,” and left it carefully on her nightstand before leaving the room to get ready.

“I can’t wait to marry you.”

A/N: And so ends my last fic. It’s been an awesome three years here on Portkey and I can’t describe how much of an honor it was to see familiar names cropping up on reviews of several stories of mine. I will be permanently indebted to Portkey and all of you for helping me develop as a writer as well as an appreciator of the Harmony ship!

For special features and a little behind-the-scenes action, see the entry for the date this was posted on my livejournal, accessible on my author page.