Bridges
Epilogue:
The low rush of noise crested and crashed over them like a wave when the doors into the Ministry Atrium swung open. Harry held up one hand, reflexively shielding his eyes from the cavalcade of starbursts that were multiple camera flashes.
"Mr. Potter! Harry! Harry!" He could pick his name from the shouts coming from the roiling mass of reporters, but little else was distinguishable in the cacophony.
He looked back over his shoulder in resigned irritation. He had known that this was inevitable. He angled himself toward the general direction of the fireplaces, but knew that their progress would be hindered and impeded until he said something.
"Who let all of them in here, anyway? Don't they have anything better to do?" He groused, mentally promising to send a Howler or three to the Minister's secretary or whoever headed up the Department of Internal Security.
"Don't flatter yourself, Harry," came Hermione's amused voice, as she reached the threshold through which he'd just crossed. "The Ludlow verdict was issued this morning too."
"Red-letter day in the Potter house," he said gruffly, though with much less annoyance.
When the two people with him came into the media's field of vision, the noise increased to a deafening peak. Harry reached out behind him, and drew Annemarie up next to him with his left hand, almost pressing her into his cloak, as if he wished to hide her from them, to shield her from their prying eyes and intrusive questions.
But his movement to protect Annemarie attracted another brand of attention.
"Mr. Potter!" One voice sailed toward him, clearly audible above all the din. "Are you wearing a wedding band?"
He exchanged a brief here it comes glance with Hermione, who had come through the door last, and now flanked Annemarie on her other side.
"I am."
The din was thunderous. Several women reporters seemed to be wiping away tears, and everywhere he looked, the feathery tufts of Quick Quotes Quills were moving in frenzied blurs. It seemed that purple-blue spots would be permanently imprinted on his retinas.
"- to Miss Granger? When did - ? - will become of the young Ludlow heiress?" Fragments of questions flew at them like shrapnel, until Harry finally held his hand up again, signaling for quiet, which blanketed the room so quickly that it was almost amusing.
"I - we - " Another flick of a glance - almost shy - at Hermione. "We have a short statement to make that - ahem, hopefully - will answer most of the - and - at least, prevent rumors from - that is, about my…" Harry sighed. How he hated talking to utter strangers about the intimate details of his life. He felt Hermione's arm go around Annemarie's back and squeeze his elbow encouragingly. Annemarie herself seemed to lean into his side, as if to comfort him by her very presence. He gave up trying to be eloquent, and dropped his eyes to the scrap of parchment he'd drawn from his pocket. He took another deep breath, and ran through the words in a too-quick recitation.
"As you already know, the verdict in the Ludlow case came through today, resulting in three life-sentences to Azkaban. Hermione and I have…rekindled a relationship that began many years ago." He blushed faintly. "And we were married by the Ministry officiant two hours ago. We have also petitioned to have Annemarie Ludlow's name changed to Potter - she will be coming home to live with us."
He darted another look at Hermione, as the reporters' quills scribbled furiously. They had decided not to mention the fact that Annemarie actually was their daughter, noting that it was none of anybody's business what they had or had not done twelve years ago, and not wanting to cast any further shadow on those who had raised and loved Annemarie. It was to be hoped that no one picked up on the nuances of Harry's wording - that the word adopt had never actually come out of his mouth.
Surprisingly - or perhaps not - Annemarie had been all for the name change, feeling some regret for abandoning her father's name, but no longer desiring to claim the heritage of her grandmother and uncles. In remembrance of her parents, they had settled on using Tabitha's maiden name - Easton - as her middle name .
He could hear Hermione's voice, as soothing as balm to his ears, though he had no idea what she had been asked. Then another question, indistinct, but Hermione's voice took on a sharper edge.
"-will be held in trust for Annemarie, of course, every last cent. It will be hers to do with as she wishes, when she comes of age."
Harry felt himself begin to get riled up again. Now they were asking about the Ludlow estate: the holdings, the money, the land. Only wizarding media could take something as lovely as a marriage, a new family, and repaint him and Hermione as conniving money-grubbers, using only insinuations as their medium of choice. Annemarie shifted uncomfortably next to him, and he knew that she was also thinking of the conversation they'd had regarding the Ludlow fortune.
"I don't want it. Not any of it." Annemarie's chin jutted mutinously, and her slight resemblance to Hermione became more pronounced. Tears sparkled in her hazel eyes. Harry could sympathize; he had felt the same way about the Black estate: property acquired through death, property with long and Dark associations, tainted and unseemly.
"You don't have to ever use it, if you don't want to. But let's keep it in trust for now, and when you're of age, if you still don't want it, if you don't need it, then perhaps you can give it away. It could do a lot of people good, regardless of its origins," Hermione had said decisively, smoothing Annemarie's hair back.
Their daughter sat quietly for a moment, clearly thinking over the ramifications of a deferred decision.
"And if I used it to help Muggles or something," she finally said, "wouldn't that just chafe that old bat's knickers?"
"Annemarie!" Hermione admonished, while Harry roared with laughter.
"Is it always like that?" Annemarie asked, as they made their way to the Floo, with questions peppering them all the way through the Atrium. Tonks had finally come, and used the authority of her office to clear their path. They could still hear her strident commands echoing in the cavernous lobby.
"Worse than usual this time, perhaps," Hermione mused. "Lots of fodder for them today." She absently traced Harry's wedding band with her fingers. He seemed distant and out of sorts, and their daughter was apparently as attuned to it as her mother.
"Maybe we - maybe we should just go home," Annemarie offered tentatively. At this, Harry seemed to collect his thoughts, and turned to chuck her chin.
"As much as I love the sound of that, there is only one week left before you go off to Hogwarts - so we might as well go on to Diagon Alley." He watched her carefully, but her eyes, though contemplative, were not fearful.
"We could just Owl-order your supplies," Hermione offered.
Annemarie deliberately lifted her chin.
"There's nobody there who wants to hurt me," she declared. "Besides, nobody would dare to take on the two of you."
"That's my girl," Harry pronounced, squeezing her in a one-armed hug, even as he vowed to himself not to stray more than a meter from her side. Hermione tossed in the Floo powder. "Gryffindor for sure."
Annemarie was released from the hospital nine days after the attempted attack and the subsequent arrests of her erstwhile family. With as little fanfare as possible, they returned to the flat, and settled her into Ron's old room. Hermione showed her where everything was, as Harry Levitated a couple of shoebox-sized trunks into the room, and Enlarged them back to proper size.
Annemarie quietly listened and responded to the comments and queries, but seemed withdrawn, evidencing almost none of the impishness Harry had seen upon their first meeting. Harry and Hermione exchanged glances, with the latter softly saying,
"We'll leave you to unpack your things and settle in, then."
As they backed out of the room and Hermione closed the door, Harry spoke in a low voice,
"Should we be leaving her alone?
"I think…" Hermione began slowly. "I think she may need a little time alone. So much has happened - for awhile, she was in pain and maybe her parents' death seemed a little unreal - then there was the attack at St. Mungo's, and then two people out of nowhere say, `Look, we're actually your real parents. Isn't that lovely and convenient?' She couldn't even process that properly while she was trying to recover, and now we just whisk her here, and expect - expect her to…" Hermione spread her arms out, palms up, at a loss.
"Nobody's expecting more than she's ready to give," Harry returned evenly. "I've had some training in dealing with victims, but I also remember what it feels like to be grieving the sudden and violent loss of someone. I remember what it feels like to be left utterly alone while doing it too." His gaze was distant, and Hermione knew that he was thinking about a long, lonely summer reliving what happened to Cedric in that graveyard, about discovering Sirius only to lose him again almost as quickly.
"She seemed to take to you right away," Hermione observed, a little wistfully. "Maybe if you let her know that you're here - that we're here - if she needs us… maybe that would suffice."
Harry nodded, and made a move as if he would go back through Annemarie's door, but he arrested it, and looked quizzically at Hermione.
"So, what about us?"
"What about us?" Hermione asked in a high echo, feigning innocence, but refusing to look at him. "Isn't it settled? We're … seeing each other…"
"Are you going to stay here? Live here? Are you going to use your bed or mine?"
"Well, let's get right down to the heart of the matter, shall we?" Hermione asked wryly. Harry colored; he had meant to say `room', but he supposed that it all came down to the same thing anyway, no matter which term he'd chosen. He gave a shrug, as if to say, you know what I mean, and refused to drop the subject.
"Well?" He prodded.
"Harry, you've been back for a week!"
"Ten days."
"Hardly the point." He was moving closer, and she was getting flustered. Her heart was doing a nervous tap dance inside her chest, as he pressed a light kiss near her ear, and promised to do the same along the line of her jaw.
"Twelve years didn't change how I feel about you. I don't see how ten days would even stand a chance." His lips scraped her skin lightly as he spoke.
"Harry - " Her voice was somewhere between a complaint and a plea. She was leaning into his warmth, even as her stance went rigid. He sensed her conflict, and drew back.
"I thought we'd hashed all this out already," he said carefully, his thinned lips the only thing betraying his irritation.
"I know - I know, but this is - this is … real." Her hands fluttered in a myriad of directions, toward Annemarie's room, toward his room, between the two of them.
Harry brushed a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear, and regarded her solemnly for a moment, before pulling her into his arms and kissing her, gently but thoroughly.
"It is real," he agreed, after a moment. "We have a daughter, and I love you. Those two things are constant, at least."
"There's so much to regret," she mused. "So many small things that could've been done differently…"
"Yeah," Harry agreed, his voice reflective. "I was fool enough to listen to Ginny, when she - "
"Ginny?" Hermione interrupted, startled, and Harry wondered briefly if he hadn't just made a grave error. "What did she do to you?"
"She gave voice to my worst fears about you - about us. And God help me, I listened to her." He paused a moment, and seemed to belatedly recognize the emphasis in Hermione's question. "Wha - did she say something to you too?"
At her nod, Harry felt anger well up within him, and his hand went instinctively to the handle of his wand, but he froze at a dissenting noise from Hermione.
"It wasn't - it wasn't really anything that wasn't true," she said. "She was careful, I think - or maybe didn't realize the implications and consequences of what she was doing…"
"Oh, she realized," Harry muttered, recalling his conversation with Ron.
"The thing is," Hermione continued, "we both let her get to us. It's not that we believed what she said, as much as she gave voice to our own fears and doubts, and we - we clung to that, instead of to each other. We each thought we knew what was best for the other one - and never even asked the other what they really wanted. Though I can guess what Ginny really wanted."
"I'd like to hex her into next month," Harry growled.
"Would it make any difference? We wouldn't get these lost years back," Hermione pointed out pragmatically. "She even lost in all this too." She smiled sardonically, but her eyes swam. "She didn't get you either - you fled halfway around the world! -- though judging from the look on her face at the pub that night, she'd take you back in a second."
"Marry me," Harry said, so quickly that Hermione thought she must have misheard.
"Excuse me?"
"It's the easiest way I can think of to get you to realize that I meant every declaration I've made since I got back."
"I'd like to hope you didn't mean all of them," Hermione mumbled, recalling their first heated conversation.
"Likewise," he nodded, quirking a grin at her. "How about all the ones involving loving you and never leaving you then?" He was punctuating the words with kisses.
"Marrying you would be a firm message to Ginny, wouldn't it?" She mused, as if that would be the only reason to do so.
He embraced her again, and smiled into her hair.
"Ginny would just be a bonus." He moved away from her slightly to fumble in the inside pocket of his jacket. He produced a small, dark blue, velvet drawstring pouch, loosened the gold cord at its neck, turned it upside down, and shook it. A diamond engagement band tumbled into his waiting palm.
Hermione's gasp got stuck in her throat.
"You didn't answer my question," he reminded her.
"When did you get that?"
Sadness flitted across his face for an instant before he replied.
"I bought it in a jewelry shop in Hogsmeade, three days before I left for Sydney. Been carrying it around ever since. Stupid, huh?"
"You were stupid," she conceded thickly. "But so was I." She looked down at the ring, and sniffed loudly. "I don't know whether to kiss you, or hex you within an inch of your life."
"Would my opinion on that make any difference?" he grinned. "You still haven't answered my question."
She held out her left hand, fingers splayed, in lieu of a reply.
Ron met them at the brick wall in the back of the Leaky Cauldron, one eyebrow cocked upward in amusement.
"Uncle Ron!" Annemarie cried out joyously, having grown rather more quickly attached to the red-head than made Hermione comfortable. She and Ron had already had a very long and detailed discussion about Wheezes and their presence in the flat.
"Sprout!" Ron said, in like manner, calling out one of the five or six nicknames he'd already bestowed upon her. He squeezed her in a hearty bear hug, lifting her feet off the ground.
"Prophet's putting out a bonus issue this afternoon - special full-color section and everything," was all he said to Harry and Hermione, clearly enjoying himself as Harry bracketed his forehead with one hand and let out a weary groan. "Shame on you," Ron grinned, as he tapped the pattern in the bricks. "Do you know how many women you made cry today?"
"Ron, please stop," Harry pleaded. "I didn't want any special treatment. I didn't want this to be a big deal. I just - "
"You better watch saying that your wedding isn't a big deal - in front of your wife," Ron observed sagely, whispering the last word as though Hermione were not aware of her status. "Even I know better than to say something like that." Light spilled in through the archway as they stepped into Diagon Alley. "If you don't want anything special, does that mean we should cancel the party? Be a pity, since we rented out Fortescue's."
Harry tried to keep his jaw from swinging open on its hinge, as he took in the festive scene. Everywhere he looked, he saw one familiar, smiling face or another - a great number of them Weasleys. Fred and George had already started the celebration off with a bang - so to speak - as their famous Catherine wheels soared above the striped awnings of the shops.
"We took every precaution," Ron explained to him, clearly unsure as to his reaction. "Pulled every official string we could - Tonks and I. Shopkeepers are cooperating, and the media is strictly persona non grata."
"Ron, this really - " Harry was unable to finish his sentence, as he was smothered beneath the enthusiastic hug of the only mother-figure he'd really ever known. "Hallo, Mrs. Weasley."
"It is unspeakably good to have you back, Harry dear," Molly said, her eyes bright with tears. "And this must be Annemarie. It is so good to meet you, dear."
"This - " Harry began, but his voice was rough, and he had to clear his throat and start again. "Annemarie, this is your - your grandmother." He could see her comparing this sonsy, smiling woman who had greeted her with heartfelt emotion to the cold, thin-lipped austerity of Griselda Ludlow. Molly was blinking furiously at the honorific Harry had given her.
"What - what shall I call you?" Annemarie asked, in a rather more uncertain voice than they'd previously heard her use.
"Well, you can call me whatever you like, my dear. Bill's twins call me Grandma Molly. Why don't I introduce you to them - your new cousins, I suppose? They'll be taking their first trip on the Express next week too. And I reckon you need a nice big dish of Florean's best, don't you?" Talking a mile a minute to the little girl, who had a look of delighted bewilderment on her face, Molly steered her toward the doors of the ice cream shop.
Hermione moved as if to follow them, and then stopped when Harry did not proceed.
"Harry?" she looked back questioningly, as his eyes roved through the crowd, picking out the friendly smiles of family and friends, including almost every Gryffindor he'd ever known.
"Ron, this really was too much," Harry protested.
"Well, it is several different occasions rolled up in one party - your return, big case solved, marriage, sprog… Let it never be said that you ever did anything halfway."
"You know me," Harry joked. "Always looking for a way to be the center of attention. You can go ahead," he told Hermione. "I've got one errand to see to first."
He heard the tinkly peal of bells playing a sprightly tune as she entered the shop, and turned to make his way down Diagon Alley. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flowing banner of red hair making its way toward him.
"Ron," he said in a low voice, "neither Hermione nor I want to hold a grudge against Ginny - seems to me that there's plenty of blame to go round for everything that's happened - but I just don't feel up to dealing with her today. I really do have something that I want to do. Can you intercept for me?"
"Say no more, mate," Ron replied affably, and moved between Harry and his approaching youngest sibling, as Harry slipped into the throngs of shoppers.
He returned to Florean's after he had made his purchase - his money bag quite a few Galleons lighter - to see the party going on full swing, having spilled even more extensively into the Alley itself.
He spotted Annemarie and Hermione inside at a little pastel table, surrounded by those he could call his nearest and dearest. He noted with a start that Ron had even contacted Hermione's parents. There was a large shopping bag next to Hermione, and he noticed her shrinking and depositing various congratulatory cards and gifts therein.
He threaded his way through the crowd, and pulled an unoccupied chair to the other side of the table.
"And here I thought that I was being original by getting a gift," he spoke to his daughter, in a mock-plaintive tone. "Maybe you don't need another one."
"Oh, please?" Annemarie said hopefully, taking one last spoonful of mostly melted ice cream, and pushing the bowl aside, indicating her readiness.
"This was the first gift I ever received when I entered the wizarding world. Our circumstances are not exactly the same, but I couldn't think of anything better to get a new Hogwarts student."
Hermione, of course, knew to what Harry was referring, and had folded her arms on the table, watching with an expectant twinkle in her eyes. Harry reached inside his cloak, and pulled out a small White-Faced Scops owl, his ear tufts standing out starkly in contrast to his white-masked yellow eyes. The owl fluffed his feathers and trilled slightly, looking thoroughly unimpressed with his surroundings.
"Oh," Annemarie breathed, looking enraptured. She held out one hand, palm down, and the owl casually stepped across onto her wrist. It looked her over, and snuffed its beak lightly into her hair, by way of greeting. "Oh… Dad…"
Harry had expected surprise and delight - though not this exact reaction - and he had not expected his reflexive response to it either. His eyes stung with tears that had appeared so rapidly that his nose burned. It was like accidentally breathing in the carbon dioxide vapor over a newly opened bottle of sparkling butterbeer. He let out a wheezy half-laugh, hoping that he wouldn't burst into sobs in front of everyone he knew, and managed to say, in an almost-normal voice,
"I - I like the way that sounds."
Annemarie smiled at him, and something in her calm, though obviously affectionate, regard for him, reminded him again of Hermione. He felt his new wife's hand reach across the table and twine itself with his.
"I've been - I've been wanting to say it - but I thought… maybe it was too soon - maybe people would think - "
"Everybody's different, sweetheart," Hermione said softly. "Everyone grieves in their own way, on their own timetable. The right time is when you're ready, not when we - or anyone else - think that you are."
"We love you - and we know that you loved Peter and Tabitha," Harry added.
"They would be glad, wouldn't they, that you found each other, and you found me?"
Hermione and Harry exchanged a long glance.
"Ecstatic," Hermione managed mistily.
"Annemarie? Is that an Owl? To take to Hogwarts? Let's see it, then," called out one of Bill's twins, Catrine, rather peremptorily.
"I'm going to call him Hildebrandt," she announced happily over her shoulder, as she followed Catrine over to her brother, Alexander, where the three of them proceeded to happily fuss over the beleaguered little owl.
"God, what a day," Harry said tiredly, sliding Hermione's bowl of ice cream toward him, and digging into the remnants with Annemarie's discarded spoon.
"You make it sound like you've endured a particularly trying string of hardships," Hermione observed dryly. "And I was still eating that."
"Not trying," Harry disputed the word choice. He took an impudently large spoonful of ice cream before relinquishing her bowl. "Not hardship, just… different." He assessed Hermione warily, before adding, "A good kind of different - the best, really."
"Really?" Hermione asked, her brown eyes twinkling again.
"Tell me that I'm not glowing like you are," he teased, but cupped her jaw line with serious eyes.
"Harry, you've smiled at least twice. For you, that's positively drunk with joy." The edge of her sarcasm was tempered by her grin.
"I am drunk with joy," he admitted quietly, and the look on his face made her blush. "I feel like I could take on the world. In fact, right now, there's only one thing that I'm not sure how to handle."
"And what's that?"
His gaze angled over her shoulder, somehow hardening and softening at the same time, into such a fierce, instinctual love that Hermione had never seen before.
"I don't know how I'm going to let her get on that train next week."
Hermione's warm look was pure sympathy.
"It does seem cruel - getting her back, only to send her off straightaway. Still, Christmas will be here before you know it - and she does have Hildebrandt now! Trust you to get her an owl; I'm actually surprised you didn't get her a broom."
"I thought about it. Went in Quality Quidditch Supplies. But I knew what you'd say if I came back with a broom…"
"First years aren't allowed their own brooms." They both finished in unison, Harry's last word slurring into a laugh.
The easily recovered camaraderie struck a chord in him - a wistful and reflective note that the joy of the day made all the more poignant… a reminder of the twelve years that they'd let trickle through the hourglass while they were hiding behind fear and hurt and disillusionment and pride.
He reached for her hand and planted several kisses across her knuckles, lingering at the shiny band that newly adorned her left hand.
"So, Mrs. Potter," he emphasized her new name with a smile. "Shall we collect our daughter and go acquire some school supplies."
Hermione's eyes lit up in a way that was almost comical. He could see her doing a mental inventory of her own books, and felt sure that Annemarie would board the Express with her mother's own well-loved copy of Hogwarts: A History stowed in her trunk. They had missed much, it was true, but there was much still to experience together. Harry remembered the thrill of finally finding the wand that had chosen him, the one tucked even now in the pocket of his robes.
"Let's go to Ollivander's first."
THE END
AN: There we go. Sorry for the delay - I was held up by a fried CPU. Have a few more ideas percolating in the back of my mind. Working on the companion-piece to "Shadow Walks". I'll hopefully have the first chapter posted fairly soon.
Hope you enjoyed this story.
You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.
lorien
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