Disclaimer: See Part 1.
Author's Note: Apologies for how long it's been! The next chapters will be up much quicker, I promise, since they're already written.
For my dear granger_girl17.
Searching for Destiny
Part 2: Speaking of Love
"I think I'm in love," Harry announced rather abruptly, breaking a thoughtful silence.
Hermione choked on the sip of wine she had just taken and coughed, wondering why she felt so surprised at this declaration. It wasn't as if she hadn't been expecting it. She had been. Sort of. Maybe not the being-in-love part (definitely not the being-in-love part) but still, she had been expecting him to say something about Ashley whom he had now met up with twice in the space of a week and about whom Hermione really had no objections.
Ashley was nice, as Ginny had said, very nice and quite sweet. She wasn't silly or stupid in any way, was quite smart, although she would never have been the cleverest witch of her year in Beauxbatons. She also possessed a rather surprisingly witty sense of humor.
All in all, Hermione's only problem with Ashley was that she was very interested in clothes (which wasn't anything approaching an objection which she could mention or one which she could even consider at all seriously) and she wasn't, well, Hermione herself.
(And, Hermione decided, the fact that she had started to consider Ashley's single flaw from perfection being that she was another witch was definitely sign that she was losing her mind.)
"With Ashley, I assume?" Hermione was proud of herself for sounding so normal and so relatively disinterested in something that was of the most immediate and rather painful interest to her.
"Of course, with Ashley," Harry said, smiling slightly, a little dreamily, an absent look in his eyes. "She's just- perfect…"
Hermione thought for one painful moment that she would give up everything she had to see Harry look that way, with a small smile playing on his lips as if he were thinking of the one thing in his life that made him happiest, because of her…
But she would not think like that, could not think like that…
He blinked, shaking his head a little as if to clear it and added in his usual tone of voice, "I mean it, Hermione. I think she might be the one."
Hermione raised her eyebrows slightly. "Really? You're sure? You've only known her a little more than a week now."
"11 days," Harry corrected automatically.
Hermione fought to keep her slight wince from showing on her face at how exact Harry's memory was. She would not cry or do anything stupid, she resolved. Harry was happy (painfully so) and that was the important thing. He deserved some happiness. And if he was happy, she would be happy for him.
And surely she would meet someone else who could make her feel the same way as Harry did. Surely Harry could not be the only one to understand her as well as he did. Surely Harry couldn't be the only person she could love… That would just be too cruel of the fates.
"Well, I'm glad she makes you happy," Hermione managed to say, sincerely.
He smiled at her with so much affection in his eyes that her heart fluttered and then ached. "Thanks, Hermione. You're the best, you know that?"
She fought back her blush with limited success. "I haven't done anything."
"Yes, you have; you've listened to me talk about Ashley; you've gone to Twillfit and Tatting's to get to know Ashley better and taken her out to lunch as well and I know you don't enjoy shopping for clothes."
Hermione shrugged it off. "I thought it was about time I got some new dress robes," she protested a little weakly.
Harry gave her a slightly lopsided smile. "And you decided you just had to buy these new dress robes only a couple days after attending the main formal event you go to these days?"
Put like that, it did sound rather too obvious, but Hermione didn't care. "I'd been thinking of getting new dress robes for a while," she insisted. "I just thought while I was looking, I may as well get to know the witch who's captured your interest so completely."
"Anyway, thanks for that," Harry said, his look clearly indicating that he didn't believe her excuse for a minute.
"Well," Hermione gave in and teased him lightly, "I have to make sure she's good enough for you."
"I think she definitely is," Harry said softly, that same small smile playing on his lips.
Hermione didn't say anything to that-after all, what could she say? Of course Harry thought she was good enough. And to be honest, Hermione herself couldn't find anything to dislike in Ashley either. (But oh how she wished she could… She wished, in some small, immature part of her mind that she could say that Ashley was evil or dishonest or only interested in Harry as a trophy or- or something. But she really couldn't.)
A short silence fell, during which Harry thought of some very pleasant memories from the past week and Hermione's thoughts were decidedly less pleasant.
A silence which Harry finally broke by blurting out, "I kissed her last night."
"And?"
Harry colored a little but answered, "And it was nice. Very nice…" He trailed off but then added with a little more color in his cheeks, "I think she liked it too."
Hermione managed a little grin as she said lightly, "Oh, of course she liked it. Is there a girl alive in the world who wouldn't like to be kissed by Harry Potter, the heroic Boy Who Lived?" And that included her, Hermione reflected with an odd mixture of self-deprecation and a pang of wistfulness.
He made a rather wry face at her use of that title before he smiled. "I suppose not," he pretended to smirk exaggeratedly.
He sobered. "You know, though, I don't think Ashley cares that much about my being the Boy Who Lived. She was a little nervous when we first met but after that, she hasn't asked me what it was like or gushed over how she's read every news article that was ever written about me or anything like that, unlike a lot of girls I meet."
"I know. She's actually very practical. Has both feet on the ground, as my Aunt Christine would say."
"Yes, I think so. I think that's part of what made me decide I liked her so much," Harry commented, reflectively. "She didn't treat me like she was the star-struck groupie of some sort of super-hero. After her initial nervousness, she treated me just like a normal person. I like that. She's about the only girl I know who's treated me normally from just about the very beginning." He paused and then smiled at Hermione, reaching over to briefly squeeze her arm. "Except for you, of course."
"Well, I'd already read all about you and I'd been expecting to see you since I knew you were starting Hogwarts that year too," Hermione demurred.
Harry's smile softened as he looked at her. "I don't think I'll ever forget the first time I saw you and the way your first words to me were basically to tell me that my glasses were cracked." He let out a brief laugh. "I didn't know it at the time but that's the most normal way anyone's ever treated me. Even knowing all about me, you never treated me like a hero." He cast her a teasing glance. "Merlin knows you have no problems telling me when you think I'm being a prat. I'm still deciding whether I think that's a personality flaw or not," he teased.
She grinned. "Well, somebody has to volunteer to keep your ego in line or we'd all be in trouble. And since no one else seemed willing to do it, I guess I volunteered for the job."
"And I'm sure it's been a real chore too," Harry quipped. "We all know how my ego tends to run wild."
"Of course," Hermione agreed teasingly.
She smiled at Harry, returning his grin, as she reflected that, after all, she loved Harry for his sense of humor and how he could make her smile and laugh. She loved him for how self-deprecating he could be. For all his fame and all his power, he was never arrogant about it, was still insecure about many things.
Harry's grin softened into a small, rather dreamy smile as his eyes became unfocused, gazing at some point over her shoulder.
Hermione suppressed a sigh. He was thinking of Ashley again; she recognized that absent look of someone thinking pleasant thoughts.
In another moment, though, Harry shook himself slightly, returning to the present, with a slightly sheepish look. "Thanks for putting up with me, talking and thinking about Ashley so much, Hermione. I don't know anyone else I can talk to about her; Ron's no good because all he does is laugh and get an inordinate amount of amusement out of this."
He reached over and squeezed her arm lightly, in one of his occasional gestures of affection.
She dismissed his thanks with a half-shrug and a smile, sternly quashing the tiny flicker of hope she felt whenever Harry looked at her like that, the blossoming of warmth in her heart. It was only friendship, she told herself. They were just friends. Just friends… The two words had almost become her mantra in the last years since she'd realized her true feelings for Harry, reminding herself. Just friends…
"Anytime. After all, what else are best friends for?" she asked lightly.
And Hermione reflected, rather ironically, that she was getting so much practice hiding her feelings, maybe she ought to consider acting as a career.
But she only smiled when Harry looked at her; she always just smiled. Never allowed herself to really hope for anything more than friendship, never allowed herself to blurt out what she was really thinking and feeling.
And some day, she thought, she would find another man who could make her heart flutter with his smile, another man who listened to her like Harry did, another man whom she could love like she loved Harry…
She would. She was sure of it. There were plenty of men out there; there would be someone else for her.
Right?
To be continued…