Searching for Destiny

Disclaimer: All things HP belong to JKR; I just borrow her world for fun and not for profit.

Author’s Note: Written for my dear sbeegee’s and emiliap’s birthdays.

Searching for Destiny

Part 1: It Happened One Night

At precisely 8:22 in the evening on June 30, 2001, Harry Potter fell in love.

He knew the time because there was a very large, ornate clock that happened to be straight in his line of sight from where he was standing in the ballroom of the Avalon Hotel—and he remembered it because, well, falling in love was an enormous thing. An earth-shaking, life-changing event.

And as seemed typical with him (since he had never had what anyone would call a boring life) when he fell in love, he felt it all over his body, knew it with all his body, mind and soul. He was in love.

With her.

And it was a dramatic moment, a moment when thunder should have crashed and lightning should have lit up the world or trumpets should have blared an announcement—or something. But nothing happened.

Except he knew.

He didn’t know her name—yet. But that didn’t matter because somehow, he knew, looking at her at that moment, that she was right. She was the one. That one person who had been put on this earth for him, whom he had been made for.

It was something about the turn of her head as she looked over her shoulder at someone who had said something. Something about the curve of her cheek, the shape of her face. Something about the sweetness of her smile as she answered whoever had spoken to her and made her turn around.

It was just something about her—and he knew.

He wasn’t even sure why he knew but he did. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; he didn’t like to think he could be that shallow and, it had to be admitted, with his status as the hero of the wizarding world, he had had more than his fair share of gorgeous witches fluttering around him and had never fallen for any of them. She was very pretty, yes, but it was more than that, he decided. It was in her smile, in her expression as she listened to what the other person (whoever she was) was saying, as if the other person were speaking the most important, most eloquent words ever spoken by man.

And then- Merlin and all the fates be praised!- he saw a very familiar person go up to her and smile and say hello.

Ginny knew her.

And just like that, without his having consciously decided to move, he found his feet moving and carrying him across the ballroom floor to where Ginny was standing with her. Destiny, he decided he’d call her until he knew her name- and possibly even after. Destiny. Because that’s what she was, to him. And he rather liked the sound of it.

“Ginny, hi. I didn’t see you earlier,” he greeted Ginny with a smile as he lied about not having seen her. He had seen Ginny the moment she walked in; it was impossible not to notice Ginny’s entrance with her red hair and the rather vivid, emerald green dress robes she was wearing tonight.

Ginny turned to him with a smile. “Harry, it’s good to see you.” She brushed her lips against his cheek in a sisterly fashion, as she had taken to doing occasionally.

Harry turned his gaze to Destiny, his eyes quickly taking in every detail of her. She had blue eyes, along with light brown hair, a small smattering of freckles across her cheeks that were hard to see unless you were standing close by. And when she was smiling, as she was now, there was just the hint of a dimple in one cheek. He decided he wanted to kiss that dimple.

Ginny turned her smile to Destiny, looking between them as she said easily, “Harry, this is Ashley Featherton. She works in Twillfit and Tatting’s. Ashley, this, although I’m sure I don’t really need to say it, is Harry Potter.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” It was amazing how normal he sounded even though he was shaking the hand of his Destiny for the first time, being introduced to her, finally learning her name.

Ashley Featherton.

A pretty name for a pretty witch.

And then he stopped, almost horrified at himself for thinking such a horribly clichéd phrase.

“Oh my. I mean, yes, of course, it’s nice to meet you. It’s- it’s an honor; it’s- a privilege. I mean, I’m thrilled…” Ashley belatedly said in response to his commonplace words. Or not so much said as gushed, really.

Okay. So she was nervous and he had surprised her. That was fine.

He laughed slightly, trying to make her feel more at ease. “It’s a common emotion,” he joked. “Until people realize I’m really quite ordinary.”

“Oh no, I’m sure…” Ashley began.

“Really, don’t feel embarrassed. I think the worst was when someone told me on meeting me for the first time that I wasn’t as tall as they had expected.”

She laughed. She laughed! He had made her laugh.

He suddenly felt like a king. A god. Like he could face down ten Hungarian Horntails with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded. He had made her laugh. A laugh that reminded him of music.

Ginny looked between Harry and Ashley and hid her smile. She glanced around and spotted Hermione. Perfect. She smiled at them. “I see someone I should say hello to. I’ll leave you two to get to know each other.”

Harry barely gave her a glance as she left and Ashley looked a bit dazed as she smiled and nodded at whatever pleasantry Harry had just said. Small talk, she was sure (and Harry had gotten surprisingly good at it after years of having to talk to strangers who introduced themselves the moment they saw his scar and realized who he was) but it was enough.

She was still smiling when she approached Hermione, who noticed and skipped her greeting to say, “What has you looking so smug?”

“Harry.”

Hermione glanced around. “What has he done?”

“He’s smitten.”

Hermione blinked. She couldn’t have heard that right. “What?”

“Smitten. He fancies her, I know he does.”

“Who?”

Very good, Hermione, if she restricted her questions to one word, then maybe no one would notice that her throat had closed up and she was finding it hard to breathe.

“Ashley.”

“Who?”

Ginny sighed a little. “Ashley Featherton. You’ve never been to Twillfit and Tatting’s yet, have you?”

Hermione blinked. What did that have to do with Harry being smitten? “No…”

“Ashley’s the manager of the store. I’ve gotten to know her quite well these past few years since I started shopping there.”

“Oh. Well, I mostly stick to Madam Malkin’s,” Hermione managed a little lamely.

“Honestly, Hermione. Madam Malkin’s is fine for every-day wear but for dress robes, the stock tends to be too limited. You should try Twillfit and Tatting’s; they have a much better selection.”

No, Hermione didn’t think she would. Not as long as this Ashley whom Harry apparently fancied was working there. She rather thought she would sooner go to a fancy ball dressed in a burlap sack rather than having to go to the witch Harry fancied to buy new dress robes. It wasn’t as if the one man she really wanted to notice her would notice…

“Anyway,” Ginny was going on, “I just introduced Harry to Ashley and I could see it. He fancies her.” Ginny nudged Hermione’s arm. “Look! You can see it in the way he’s smiling at her. You know Harry; you know the way he looks at girls when he fancies them.”

And almost against her will, driven by some inexplicable compulsion to know for sure that Ginny was telling the truth, Hermione looked.

And she could see it. She did know the way Harry looked at girls he fancied; it wasn’t too obvious but it was there for anyone who knew him well enough to see. Hermione saw it; Ron would recognize the look. Ginny recognized the look because he had once looked at her like that. He had looked at Cho like that, way back when. And he had looked at every girlfriend he had had since the final defeat of Voldemort (all 3 of them) like that. At least, until something changed and he suddenly stopped. But it was the same look. She knew the look.

As if he was staring at the sun and moon and stars all rolled into one, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist as long as he could look at her. It was a sort of expectant look, a hopeful look, as if he were always watching for some smile, some sign that the witch felt the same way about him (and, always so far, they had.)

It was a look Hermione sometimes thought she would give anything she had, to see it directed at herself.

And seeing it directed at yet another girl who wasn’t her just- hurt. Hurt like a remorseless hand had reached in and grabbed her heart and was squeezing it. Hurt until she had to look away until she met Ron’s gaze and managed a smile in response to his slight wave.

She thought she was used to it by now. After all, she had had 3 years and as many girlfriends of Harry’s to get used to the pain of seeing Harry with someone else when what she really wanted was for Harry to look at her like that, for Harry to belong to her… What she really wanted was for Harry to love her, the way she loved him.

She wondered sometimes if she was being punished in some way for her own blind stupidity in not having realized sooner that she was in love with Harry. She should have realized it years before she finally had, when they’d been nearly a year out of Hogwarts. She should have realized just why it was that her entire life centered around him and it just felt right, should have realized why it hurt her with an almost physical pain to see him in pain or particularly troubled. Should have realized why she knew she would, quite literally, do anything for him. She should have realized why the sight of his smile, the sound of his laugh, always made her heart lift a little. She should have realized that of course she didn’t fancy Ron, that it had always been Harry whom she really cared about… She should have realized that, when it came right down to it, Harry was the one who understood her and who comforted her and whom she relied on for strength and encouragement when she needed it. Harry was the one who made her happy. She really should have realized it.

But she hadn’t—not until nearly a full year after the final defeat of Voldemort when Harry had finally begun to feel as if he could lead a normal life, could stop looking over his shoulder almost constantly.

And then, one day, he had simply smiled at her about something—she couldn’t even remember what exactly—and she’d known.

She didn’t just love and care about Harry as her best friend; she was in love with Harry. Absolutely, completely, irrevocably.

Hopelessly, another voice in her mind inserted, and she suppressed a wince.

“Do you know Ashley well?” she finally asked Ginny, finding her voice.

“Yes, well enough. I actually like her quite a bit, think she could be good for Harry. She’s actually quite clever about certain things and she’s very nice, has a sense of humor and she likes Quidditch too.” Ginny paused and added with a wink, “Ron would like her too; she supports the Cannons.”

“I should meet her and get to know her,” Hermione commented casually. Drat her, this Ashley did sound almost perfect for Harry.

“Make sure she’s good enough for your precious best friend?” Ginny asked lightly.

“What? I don’t- I wasn’t—I wouldn’t do that!”

Ginny let out a crack of laughter. “Oh, yes you do! You’ve gotten to know every one of Harry’s girlfriends, testing them, to make sure they’re good enough for him. And you’ve had to give them your seal of approval before Harry would even do anything serious.”

Hermione gaped at Ginny. “That’s not true!”

Ginny shrugged. “Maybe not entirely, but it is true that you’ve gone out of your way to meet all of Harry’s girlfriends and I know that if Harry ever tried to date a girl you didn’t like, you would put a stop to it.”

“I wouldn’t—he wouldn’t—even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop him if he really fancied a girl!”

Ginny gave her an odd look. “Maybe you’ve just been lucky so far in that none of the girls Harry’s fancied has been the type you wouldn’t want him to date so it’s never been put to the test. I don’t know, I think if you really told him you didn’t like someone, he would listen to you. You know how much he trusts your opinion.”

“He doesn’t trust me that much. Not about things like that,” Hermione argued. And it was true. Harry did trust her but it didn’t stop him from disagreeing with her when he thought she was wrong and she doubted- no, she was as sure as she could be without it ever having actually happened- that in a case where romance was involved, Harry would still act according to his own opinion and his own feelings. He wasn’t some sort of puppet to be manipulated according to her will; he was too stubborn, for one thing.

Ginny just shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Hermione said simply. “But tell me more about Ashley. How long have you known her? How old is she?”

“She’s my age. She went to Beauxbatons, though, because her mother is French and she went to Beauxbatons too. She’s really quite clever and she’s very good at what she does, managing a store. I don’t quite know how she does it but she always manages to make sure I never leave Twillfit and Tatting’s without having bought something and I’ve never regretted buying any of her choices.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Hermione murmured, trying not to sound sarcastic. She was fond of Ginny, honestly she was, but she did have a tendency to get a bit caught up with talk about clothes sometimes.

“I know she likes the Cannons because she mentioned having gone to one of their matches and how disappointed she’d been when they lost. She’s very sweet; she remembers almost every person who’s shopped at the store even once and keeps track of the family members and close friends of those people who come by on a semi-regular basis.”

All of which was very well and good but it wasn’t enough for Hermione. Hermione stifled a sigh; she was going to have to get to know this Ashley for herself. And for a fleeting moment, she wished almost desperately that this Ashley would turn out to secretly be a former Death Eater or have some other fatal flaw that would make Harry realize he could not date her… Not that his realizing he couldn’t date Ashley would make him realize he wanted to date Hermione—but it would still spare her some pain. And then she was promptly ashamed of herself for thinking such a thing. She wanted Harry to be happy; she honestly did and if Ashley was the person to make him happy, then she would support him every step of the way.

She was his best friend; that was what best friends did…

To be continued…

A/N 2: And yes, in case you need the reassurance, I do promise a happy H/Hr ending!

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…

Disclaimer: See Part 1

Author’s Note: Part 3 of 4. Enjoy!

Searching for Destiny

Part 3

False Dream

Less than two weeks later, an absolutely horrible thing happened.

Harry fell out of love.

Not that he realized that at the time—but something was different.

One day, he was in love and blissfully anticipating the next day when Ashley would return from a fashion convention held in Paris of the latest designs in clothing and he would get to see her again.

The next, he did see her again as they met up for dinner, according to their plans—and… And something just wasn’t quite right.

He was… he was restless, somehow. For the first time since he could remember meeting Ashley, he found himself not completely enthralled with what she was saying and how she looked but, instead, he was distracted. Bored.

Yes, that was the only word for it.

Harry was bored.

That was it; he was just… bored.

And something about Ashley’s smiles and laughs just didn’t seem quite as lovely and fascinating as he’d always thought until now.

Something about her conversation just failed to interest him, which he’d never really noticed before.

And was it his imagination or was she a little distracted, not quite as easy and friendly as she usually was, too?

Surely she couldn’t—she hadn’t—sensed that he was bored and beginning to question just what had drawn him to her in the first place.

No, of course not, he assured himself. She had never exhibited an ability to read his thoughts without his having said anything—not like Hermione, who had somehow always been able to.

She must simply be tired from traveling and being out of town for a week. That was all it was.

And he was… just having a bad day. He was tired. There was something wrong. It was only a fluke of the day and his mood, something, that made him find Ashley not quite as perfect, he told himself. It had to be.

Of course Ashley was perfect. She was pretty, smart, nice, kind, fun to be with; she liked Quidditch… Of course she was exactly what he was looking for in a witch, his ideal.

That was all it was…

A brief, not-very-comfortable silence had fallen while Harry tried to pretend that he found every word Ashley had said to be as fascinating as he’d found her before.

“Um, Harry?”

Harry looked up to meet Ashley’s eyes and managed a smile. “Yeah?”

She hesitated, looking a bit uncertain, Harry thought with a flicker of nervousness, and then looked down at the table with a sigh as she muttered, more to herself than to him, “Mon Dieu, this is so hard.”

Oh no… Harry couldn’t imagine what Ashley was going to say but there was no way it was going to be good.

“What is it? You know you can trust me,” he said gently.

She looked back up at him with a feeble smile on her lips that faded after a moment. “I- I don’t quite know how to say this but… Harry, do you—fancy me?” she blurted out, flushing and not quite meeting his eyes.

Harry stared. “I- er…” he began but then stopped, at a complete loss as to what to say. What could one say to such a question? Especially when he wasn’t at all sure of the answer. He would have been, just a few hours ago; he would have been completely certain that the answer was an emphatic yes. Now… now he found he suddenly didn’t know… And he couldn’t say yes when he didn’t know. “I- I’m not sure,” he finally said, lamely, and then hurried to add, in a vain attempt to make his answer sound like less of a rejection, “We haven’t known each other very long.”

“I know and I really like you, Harry...”

Harry tensed, waiting for the ‘but…’ which was just trembling on her lips waiting to be said, after a statement like that.

And then it came.

“But I- I’ve met someone,” Ashley confessed, her voice so low he had to strain to hear it.

“Oh,” was all Harry could think to say, lamely. He was almost dizzy with confusion and uncertainty, unsure of what he was feeling or anything.

“I- we met at the convention and- and we just- clicked, you know how that happens sometimes,” Ashley continued, still not quite meeting his eyes. “And I really do like you, Harry, but I- I think we’d be better as just friends… I- David- he asked me out and I- I’d like to go out with him but I felt I owed it to you to talk to you first. I’m sorry…”

“That’s okay,” Harry smiled reassuringly. “I’m not hurt. I hope you and David do well together and we can still be friends.”

Ashley let out a breath of relief, finally meeting his eyes tentatively, a hopeful expression in her eyes. “You’re not hurt, really?”

“No, I’m not.”

She smiled. “I’m glad. I mean, I feel terrible about this, Harry, because I really do like you so much and I’d hate to think I’d hurt you in any way.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

And somehow, his smile and his words eased the awkwardness of the atmosphere and they fell back into easy conversation.

Harry walked Ashley to the Apparition point and brushed his lips against her cheek and gave her a quick smile. “So, friends, then?”

“Friends,” she smiled.

And that was that, Harry reflected.

Some time later, he sat back on the sofa in the living room of his flat, staring thoughtfully at his bottle of butterbeer.

He still wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

Ashley had met someone else.

He had thought she was his ideal witch, had thought he was in love with her—until today.

He prodded at his feelings, cautiously, as if it were a sore spot, testing to see if he felt any pain at the contact.

He felt… what?

Shouldn’t he be feeling- something? Perhaps not heartbreak, exactly, since he had begun to question if he could really be in love with Ashley. But- surely, he must be feeling something?

Disappointment. Hurt. Regret.

Something…

And yet… He wasn’t. He didn’t feel those things, not really.

He felt…

Was it—could it possibly be… relief?

He felt… relieved that he hadn’t had to try discouraging Ashley or going back on his pursuit. Relieved that, after all, he hadn’t had to be the one to confess that he suddenly wasn’t sure he really loved her or fancied her.

He hadn’t been in love with her.

That was glaringly obvious now. He had liked her, fancied her at first, been infatuated even, but it had never been love.

Love would have been… more… somehow…

He wasn’t sure how he knew this or why he believed this, considering he’d never, aside from Ashley, even imagined he might be in love with anyone before, but he somehow knew.

Love would be… everything… Not so much about excitement, or even about passion (although, yes, he knew there would be passion) but it would also be… comforting. It would be about sharing, about understanding… It would be about the silences, as much as it was about talking and laughing together. It would be about simply knowing that when he was with that person, he was where he belonged…

And he hadn’t, never had, loved Ashley.

He looked back, tried to remember a time when they had really laughed together over something, when she had really seemed to understand him, when he had had the feeling that more than any one else in the world, she truly knew him…

And he couldn’t.

He couldn’t remember a time when they had really shared laughter or simply understood the other in comfortable silence.

They had talked and learned more about each other, yes; they both liked Quidditch but beyond that, there was… nothing.

Ashley’s world had basically revolved around her work and clothes; having gone to Beauxbatons, she hadn’t really experienced any of the war at all and her interest in it was minimal, really. She just wanted to move on, live her life and be happy; she had no real sympathy for his lingering, occasional nightmares (not that he mentioned them to her) or of what he’d been through in that last year of the war.

And while he had, at first, been charmed by that cheerfulness, now he realized it might get a little… tiring to be with someone who simply did not understand and did not know all that he had been through. Someone who didn’t understand that Harry found it hard to take happiness and safety for granted.

He didn’t know what it said about him; maybe it spoke of some morbid tendencies or something. He supposed he should be only too glad to move on and leave the memories from the war behind him, dismiss it as being a past that would never be repeated (he hoped)—but he couldn’t do that, he realized. Yes, he wanted to move on with his life and so he had—but he also wanted to remember. He didn’t want to become complacent. And he knew now, in hindsight, that hard as it had been, his experiences in the war had changed him; they had made him who he was.

And Ashley hadn’t seemed to understand that he couldn’t escape his past so easily.

In hindsight, he wondered how he could think he had been in love with someone with whom he wasn’t comfortable sharing what had been such a huge part of his life. He had never brought up the war, had never liked to talk about it—but, he thought now, if he had loved her, he should have felt free to talk to her about everything, good or bad. And he hadn’t.

He could almost hear Hermione’s voice in his head, saying that it was part of his protective, being-a-hero streak, that he never liked to burden people with talk about what had been such a dark time, that he still felt he needed to protect people from the harshness of some of what he had endured.

He supposed it was true—no, he knew it was true.

He had felt that way about Ginny, for all that he knew she was aware of and involved in the war, through her family and knowing about the Order, but he had never wanted her to actively fight in it, never wanted her to be a part of it all. It had been a large part of why he had broken up with her at the end of sixth year, because he had known he needed to find and destroy the horcruxes and he hadn’t wanted her to be a part of that. He had wanted her to be the one part of his life that wasn’t tied up in the war and Voldemort, the one part of his life that was only normal… And that she had let him go had, in the end, become part of why nothing had ever happened between them again, even after the war was over.

He had changed too much and she hadn’t been a part of it all.

After it had all been over, there had been too large a distance between them, a distance of experiences and of time and of maturity, a chasm that had been too deep to cross.

He sighed and tossed back more butterbeer, savoring the feeling of warmth in his chest as it went down.

No, he wasn’t heartbroken. Or even hurt.

He was, however, he realized, just disappointed.

Not because Ashley had met someone else; it wasn’t specific to Ashley at all.

It was more, he thought now, a general, vague feeling of discontent. With… with having to be alone again. Once more, single, the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding world and all that rot.

He was tired of it.

Ron still enjoyed it, Harry knew, had been on more dates than Harry cared to try to count in the past three years since the war had ended. Ron had thoroughly enjoyed the reputation he had gotten as the best friend of the Boy Who Lived, the fact that because of his fame, Ron was consistently in the top 15 list of Most Eligible Bachelors of the wizarding world as well. (Of course, nowadays it also helped that Ron had made a name for himself as the up-and-coming latest Quidditch talent in playing as the Keeper for the Chudley Cannons.)

But Harry was tired of it.

He wanted to feel like he belonged with someone, like there was someone special for him.

He hadn’t been in love with Ashley—but he had, he thought, been very much been in love with the idea of being in love, if that made any sense.

Harry frowned a little, tilting his head to one side.

Well, the thought of being in love with being in love made sense to him and since he was the one thinking it, that was all that mattered, right?

Clearly, he’d lost his mind.

The events of the evening had unhinged him from being bored and distracted when Ashley spoke to realizing he hadn’t really loved her to hearing her say she’d met someone else.

But the fact remained that he had wanted to believe he was in love with Ashley. He had wanted to believe it, had wanted to have that special someone to think of, to dream about, to make him happy…

He still did.

He wanted to find that one person he could love, the one person he could imagine himself with forever. That one person who would make him feel at home, like he was exactly where he belonged when he was with her… That person to be the most important person in his life, the one he always turned to first whenever anything good or bad or funny or interesting happened…

He had been deluding himself to think that he’d found that person in Ashley.

But at least, thinking he loved Ashley had made him realize that he wanted to find love.

He would just need to keep looking…

Disclaimer: See Part 1.

Author’s Note: And this is the end! Thanks, everyone, for reading and reviewing! I hope this chapter satisfies!

Searching for Destiny

Part 4

Epiphany

Hermione sighed and then smiled when she heard a knock on her door.

It was Harry, she knew.

He had been on another date tonight, a friend and work colleague of Ginny’s with whom Ginny had set him up on a pseudo blind-date.

Harry had, in the last three months since the Ashley Incident, as Hermione had taken to mentally referring to it, been on a number of first dates. Only first dates. They never went any further than that—to Hermione’s secret relief.

And now, he was here again—which meant that tonight’s date hadn’t gone well.

Harry stood outside Hermione’s door, wondering- as he always seemed to- just what he was doing standing outside of Hermione’s flat after another excruciating first date.

He never consciously intended to come see Hermione and he didn’t always seek her out after another disappointment but more often than not, almost without meaning to, he found himself knocking on Hermione’s door.

Seeking the ease he always found in her presence, seeking the comfort of her friendship, seeking the honesty and openness he appreciated more and more in her… Just seeking her…

The door opened and, though a moment before he’d been feeling decidedly disgruntled and frustrated, he felt his mood lighten involuntarily at the sight of her familiar, welcoming smile.

“Hi,” he greeted her simply.

And then his gaze flicked down the length of her body and he paused, feeling himself flush. She was in her pyjamas, he realized, a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms—and she wasn’t wearing a bra. The thought made him redden and he yanked his gaze away to focus on her eyes, sternly quashing the unruly flash of heat he felt. “Er- I can go, if I’m disturbing you.”

“Don’t be silly, Harry, you never disturb me,” Hermione reassured him lightly, tugging him inside and closing the door behind him.

“You sure? You look like you’re about to go to bed. I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I was just doing some research for a new patient that was brought in today and I changed into more comfortable clothes.”

“Oh,” Harry said, rather lamely, feeling unaccountably uncomfortable but he threw himself into his usual spot in the corner of Hermione’s sofa, relaxing in spite of himself as he always did when he was here. And somehow the familiar act made it as if his fleeting reaction to seeing Hermione in her pyjamas had never happened and he found himself slipping back into the comfortable rhythm of their usual friendship. All was once again right in his world.

“I take it tonight didn’t go well,” Hermione commented.

Harry threw Hermione a half-amused, half-rueful smile. “She giggled at nearly every other word I said or if she wasn’t giggling, was hanging onto my every word as if I were saying the most profound statement she’d ever heard.”

Hermione winced sympathetically. “Oh dear. And you, being you, made your escape as soon as you decently could,” she added teasingly.

“Of course. If I had to deal with that much longer, I would have gone mad. As it is, I was tempted to start spouting gibberish intentionally just to see what she would say. You know, randomly say something like, ‘Voldemort was really just a kindly, misunderstood old man,’ to see her reaction.”

Hermione laughed. “She might have agreed with you! I think we’re lucky you didn’t say something like that.”

Harry laughed too, grinning at Hermione, feeling the last bit of tension from the past evening leave him. “If she had, I’d have turned tail and run.”

His smile faded as he sighed, running a hand through his hair in his habitual gesture of frustration. “Why is it so hard to find a sensible, nice girl? I don’t think I’m asking for too much, am I?” he asked, half-rhetorically.

“You’ll find someone,” Hermione reassured him, sternly suppressing the tiny voice in her mind asking plaintively, what about me? Why not me?

Harry threw Hermione a grateful glance. “Thanks. I just wish…” he trailed off as he met Hermione’s eyes.

Ever afterwards, Harry was never able to explain exactly what happened at that moment or why he stopped speaking or what was so different that made that moment somehow seem… special, even spectacular…

He just looked at her—and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t looked at her countless times before in their years of friendship. It wasn’t as if there was something different about her or the way she was looking at him, the easy, familiar warmth in her eyes and her smile.

There was nothing different or unusual about it—and yet, in that one moment, somehow, everything changed.

Everything changed… Inside him.

He looked at her and for a wild, crazy moment, he felt as if he were really seeing her—all of her, from the inside out. She was beautiful…

And the only words that went through his mind at that moment were, someone like you.

That was what he’d been looking for, though he’d never articulated it in all his musings about what he would like to find in his ideal girl. He wanted someone like Hermione.

He just looked at her—and somehow, it felt as if something inside him that had been slightly off-kilter for his entire life just slipped back into place. It was the last piece of a puzzle he’d been working on his entire life; it was the last word of a sonnet he’d been composing his entire life; it was… what somehow made everything in his life seem right… complete…

Because he knew, somehow, that she was what he’d been looking for all along.

And it was a moment of almost stunning clarity—and he felt an odd, indescribable sensation of complete shock mingled with the sense that he’d somehow known it all along and wasn’t at all surprised… It wasn’t, he realized, a revelation so much as it was a recognition. A recognition of a truth that had been steadily growing, deepening, inside him until this moment when he looked at her and saw not just his best friend but the woman he loved.

His Hermione…

“Harry?”

The sound of her voice, questioning and a little concerned, broke through his thoughts and he blinked, mentally shaking himself, realizing belatedly that he had fallen silent mid-sentence and that Hermione was looking at him curiously.

“Sorry,” he blurted out automatically, “I- I just got distracted by-- something.” I just realized I love you. I just realized how blind I’ve been until now. I just realized…

Hermione smiled, her eyes clearing. “I’m sorry tonight’s date was another failure, Harry.”

“I’m not.” The words escaped his lips before he’d even thought them—and of course, it was true. He wasn’t sorry—come to think of it, he wondered how sorry he had ever been. Even during the almost interminable dinner, he remembered thinking that he would have to tell Hermione about it and looking forward to laughing with her over it… He’d always thought that during his previous, disastrous first dates too, had always thought of Hermione with something like longing…

Great ghost, he really had been blind, deaf and dumb…

Hermione blinked, almost convinced she’d imagined Harry saying those two words—but, no, she hadn’t. “You’re not sorry?”

He met her eyes directly. “No, I’m not,” he repeated softly. And he sensed rather than heard her small intake of breath, sensed the slight quickening of her pulse in reaction—and he felt a flicker of hope. She wasn’t indifferent; she couldn’t be indifferent…

“Why?” The single word was hardly audible as it slipped out from her lips, falling into the suddenly-charged atmosphere, as, perhaps, what had always been only a beautiful friendship trembled on the brink of becoming more.

Hermione stopped breathing; she could have sworn that her heart stopped beating, her lungs stopped functioning, that the entire world simply paused, waiting—for what she didn’t quite dare to put into words, an inarticulate hope…

Harry paused, casting about in his mind for words, what he could say to explain his new-found understanding and clarity, and coming up with- nothing.

But then his eyes met hers, looked into hers—and he saw. Saw a flash of emotion in her eyes which he had seen before and never understood, never recognized it for what it was—until now. Now he saw it and he knew it for what it was and what it meant. It was longing. Longing—and poignant hope and love…

It was love.

His heart was suddenly clattering in his chest like a mad thing and he gave up trying to find words and only acted, on instinct more than any conscious thought. One hand came up to cup her cheek in a gentle, tender caress, his fingers just barely touching her skin as if he were afraid she would vanish at too rough a touch.

Hermione couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, afraid that even the smallest motion might break this spell and wake her from a dream. And slowly, giving her ample opportunity to back away or stop him (not that she would or even that she was capable of doing so), he leaned forward, closing the distance between their bodies, and his lips touched hers.

It was a soft kiss, tentative and tender, his lips just brushing hers until she leaned in towards him, her lips parting in a silent invitation which he accepted.

His hand slid around to tangle in her hair as her hands fluttered upwards to rest first on his chest then they moved, gliding up, to rest on his shoulders and one hand moved to touch his hair.

He had kissed before- obviously- but this was different. This was- more. More than just a kiss; it was an exploration, a discovery, a revelation. And he was suddenly aware that everything he’d ever thought he knew about kissing until now was false. Everything else had been merely physical, about lips and tongues and nothing more.

This was a kiss.

It was something about the heat of it, the warmth from her body which he could feel, something about the way he could hear and feel her breath at the same time. Something in the way she didn’t move other than the light motions of her hands but he could still feel her heart pounding through her skin. (And he could almost swear that their hearts were beating in tandem, in harmony—and though it was a fanciful thought, nothing seemed so right than that their hearts would beat in tandem. It was just one more aspect of the understanding, the unspoken connection, that had somehow always existed between them and had only gotten deeper with every year of friendship.)

It was something about the fact that he knew it was her.

And he somehow thought that he’d been waiting to kiss her his entire life. Waiting to feel this way; waiting to know, deep down, that this moment, this girl, was his destiny…

He moved his lips just a fraction to the side, his tongue lightly tracing the seam and contours of her lips, the corner where her lips joined, before his lips moved on, brushing light, feathery kisses in a leisurely, haphazard trail along her face, the tip of her nose, her cheekbone, the hollow right before her ear, the corner of her eyebrow, her eyelids (first one and then the other), random places only a man in love would treasure. Learning her familiar features with his lips.

Then, slowly, he pulled back, just a few inches but no more.

Their eyes met and held for a long, quiet moment, each seeing the same arousal and love and joy reflected in the other’s.

Harry could only stare and he knew that he would remember the picture Hermione presented at this moment, her eyes somewhat dazed with passion and full of emotion, her cheeks flushed, and her lips swollen with his kisses, for the rest of his life.

And felt everything, so many thoughts, so many feelings, so many words, well up inside his chest, almost stopping his throat in their urgency. He wanted to tell her he loved her, to say those words for the first time; wanted to tell her that he knew, finally, that she was what he’d been searching for; wanted to tell her that none of his former girlfriends had meant anything to him, not really; wanted to tell her that she was everything and all he wanted… He wanted to tell her so much…

His lips parted, he found his voice and heard himself say, “I’ve been a right idiot, haven’t I?”

Her eyes widened slightly, her lips parting and curving into a smile that grew until they both laughed, low and soft.

“Maybe a little, but it’s okay.” She paused, hesitated and then said, “I love you, you know.” The words simply wouldn’t be kept inside any longer. She’d thought them so many times and had held them in, hidden them, as many times for so many years now. And now, she just wanted to be able to say them aloud, to tell him for the first time.

He stilled, his smile fading until his expression was once more serious, solemn. “I know. I love you too. I’m just sorry I didn’t realize it years ago.”

She shook her head quickly, stopping his words with one finger lightly touching his lips. “It doesn’t matter. You love me now and that’s enough.”

And it was. All the pangs of hurt she’d felt, all the wistful dreams, didn’t matter anymore, made inconsequential from the moment she’d looked at him and seen his new realization in his eyes, seen the added warmth. All the old wounds had been healed the moment she’d realized that he was, finally, looking at her the way she’d always dreamed he would look at her, that intense look of hope and anticipation and desire, as if nothing in the world mattered to him except for her, in that one brief moment. It was the same look she’d seen him give to Cho, to Ginny, to Ashley Featherton, and every other girlfriend he’d had before her—only, it wasn’t quite the same. There was one subtle difference that she wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the fact that the difference was familiar to her: friendship. She’d seen that look, the warmth of friendly affection, many times—and now it had that added intensity.

This wasn’t, she realized, the same fancy or infatuation he had felt for his other girlfriends. This was different, deeper—because it encompassed friendship as well.

And she suddenly realized that he knew it too.

The thought filled her with a surge of happiness and she closed the distance between their lips, taking the initiative this time, to kiss him.

His arms closed around her, bringing her body flush against his, falling back until he was half-reclining on the couch and she was leaning on him.

Hermione gave herself up to the pleasure of his kiss, the feel of his lips on hers, the taste of him, the touch of his hands, both tender and passionate at the same time, the way it felt to have her breasts pressed against his chest and the growing hardness she could feel nudging at her… A shiver passed through her as Harry’s lips moved from her lips, burning a path down the line of her chin and her neck and back up again to her ear, before he returned to her mouth, arousal and a delicious lethargy spreading within her, stealing her breath and her thoughts.

And her last semi-coherent thought before she gave up the attempt to think altogether was: this was what she’d been waiting for.

This was love.

This was forever.

~The End~