A/N - thank you for all the reviews and though a few thought this story ended with Chapter 5 - this is the last chapter. Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 6 - Happiness
Hermione
After all the formalities, we are excused from the stage and allowed to sit at the large table with the Weasley's, Luna, Remus, Tonks, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid. Harry goes to the empty space next to Ginny while I sit between Hagrid and the professor. It doesn't upset me that he is sitting with her as I talk to those closer in proximity around me. I find that I'm enjoying myself as the glow of what Harry said about me to all these people keeps bubbling through my mind.
After the meal is finished, the tables pull back to allow a dance floor. Harry and Ginny go off somewhere while Ron makes a bee-line to a corner with Luna in tow. Looking around the buzzing Hall I notice Neville standing on his own looking a bit forlorn. With a grin, I make my way over to where he was.
"Hey Neville," I call out, getting his attention. He smiles at me and his whole face changes.
"Hello Hermione," he greets, "you alright?"
"I am now I can relax a bit. I must admit, I wasn't looking forward to tonight."
"Neither was I," he tells me, "you look fantastic, by the way."
"Thanks. You don't look too bad yourself." He blushes a bit and then his eyes dart away to a spot behind me. I step casually to his side and look at what had grabbed his attention to see Harry and Ginny in deep conversation. Neville looks guiltily back to me and I realise something.
"Harry's speech was pretty good," Neville states nervously, "I feel pretty honoured he mentioned me."
"You were a great help Neville," I say as he looks once more at Harry and Ginny and I recognise the look on his face - I should do, I've seen it enough on mine, "she looks beautiful, doesn't she?"
"Yeah," he utters before he can think about it. Horrified, Neville looks at me blushing so hard I amazed he can still stand, what with the amount of blood staining his cheeks.
"How long have you liked Ginny?" I ask softly and he bows his head in defeat.
"A long time," he whispers, "not that it matters. She's with Harry and there is no way I could compete with him."
I watch the couple on the other side of the Hall and smile sadly. Whatever they were talking about, it seems pretty intense, their heads bent together as they talk frantically. Neville was right, of course, he couldn't compete against Harry just like I can't compete against Ginny. The trouble is, I think I've finally realised I don't really want to anymore.
"Do you want to dance?" I ask suddenly, making Neville look at me with surprise.
"You want to dance with me?"
"Neville, I'd be honoured."
He smiles one of his lovely smiles, takes my hand and leads me onto the dance floor. There are already many dancers, but not so many that the floor is full. As Neville takes me in his arms, I remember that he is actually quite a good dancer (much better than his attempt at the Yule Ball anyway). We chat about his acceptance into Auror training that begins in September and what he was planning to do until then. I let him know of my lack of plans and he helpfully tries to come up with some suggestions.
I find myself enjoying his company and that more often than not I was laughing and smiling at something he said. I was having fun. When Harry tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he could cut in, I almost didn't want Neville to say yes. Almost. Instead Harry took me in his arms and we swayed to the music.
"I thought you didn't like to dance," I said after a few moments.
"I don't, not really, though this isn't too bad," he replies, then, "Hermione, we need to talk."
My heart skips a beat.
"Talk?" I try and say casually, "what about?"
"What you said last Saturday."
"Can we just forget what I said?" I ask, making sure I'm not looking into those wonderful eyes, "I mean, it doesn't really matter, does it? You're with Ginny so…"
"I'm not with Ginny."
"What?" We stop swaying.
"I'm not with Ginny. I haven't been with Ginny since Dumbledore's funeral last year. Don't you get it Hermione? I want to be with you."
I'm sure everything stopped when he said those last words - the music, the chatter, the dancing, my heart. I look up at him and don't see embarrassment or fear just good old Harry Potter determination.
"But I thought…you and her…she's so pretty…me?" I stammer out ineloquently.
"Can we go somewhere more private and talk?" he asks me and I numbly nod. Taking my hand, he pulls me off the dance floor, past all the guests (who are looking at us strangely), past the grinning figures of our friends, out of the Great Hall, up the stairs and along the route we both knew of by heart. Neither of us spoke as we made our way to the seventh level and into the Room of Requirement.
It looked like the Gryffindor common room with subtle differences - there were no staircases to the dormitories and no studying tables, just the fireplace and lots of squishy chairs and sofas. We face each other and now he looks embarrassed.
"I thought you were with Ginny," I state, if anything just to break the silence.
"She's been trying to get back together with me for ages," Harry tells me, "and she wouldn't take no for an answer. I kept telling her that I really enjoyed my time with her but I realised she wasn't the one for me, that there was someone else. Tonight I think she finally accepted it."
"Your speech."
"Yeah."
"The someone else," I breathe, my heart hammering, "do you mean…is that…are you talking about…do you mean, me?"
Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at me shyly before mumbling "yeah."
"I don't understand."
"Last year, at Christmas," he explains and I remember when he's talking about, "everything was such a mess. Voldemort was getting stronger and we had just got rid of the cup. And then you got hurt and I thought I'd lost you. Nothing else mattered to me but you living. It made me realise that you were more than a friend to me, that I couldn't imagine my life without you in it. It changed everything."
Last Christmas I nearly died. I don't remember much of December and half of January but I do remember that he had pulled further away from me and it had all been rather upsetting. And now he's telling me that was when he realised he had deeper feelings for me?
"You stopped talking to me," I say a bit sharply, angry at the pain he had put me through, "you barely acknowledged my presence for ages after I got better!"
"I had a job to do," he responds, looking at me as if he expected me to be pissed off, "and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it if I actually admitted to you or even me, what I was feeling. Besides, I didn't want him to know…"
"You were protecting me."
"Yes."
"Do you realise how much you hurt me?"
"Yes," he admits and I glare at him, "but it wasn't easy for me either. I told no one about what I was feeling, not Ron, not Remus - no one. I was trying to hide how much I cared deep, deep down inside of me so Voldemort wouldn't find out but instead it just kept growing stronger and stronger. I wanted to tell you so many times, just reach out and hold you when I saw how upset you were, to kiss you, to…"
"What?"
"Nothing," he mumbled and he went a brilliant shade of red and I had an idea of what he was going to say. All my anger ebbed as I went to him.
"Harry?" I pressed feeling both pleasure and guilt about how uncomfortable I was making him.
"Let's just say I was having rather…unsettling dreams about you."
"I've been having unsettling dreams about you for years," I say and grin when he looks at me with horror.
"You have?"
"Oh Harry, haven't you worked it out yet?" He says nothing so I take caution to the wind and continue, "I love you, I have for years and I've just recently resigned myself to the fact I would never have you…"
"…because you're not good enough." I nod, he continues. "How could you ever think that you're not good enough for me?"
"You never, ever gave me any indication that you saw me as anything different than a friend Harry," I state matter of factly, feeling tears beginning to form, "and the girls you were attracted to, well, I'm nothing like them and could never be anything close to them. But now I've started to realise that I really don't want to be like them because I'm me, I'm unique and special in my own right and if you didn't like it, then…"
"I do like it, like you…a lot," he interrupts, taking my hands in his, "I'm just sorry it took nearly losing you for me to work that out. And I'm sorry that I hurt you because I never meant to. Hermione, you're amazing, the most amazing girl I know. And for the last month I haven't said anything to you because I was afraid that I wasn't good enough for you."
"What?" I cry, "why?"
"Well, your first boyfriend was Viktor Krum," he grins sheepishly, "how could I compete with that?"
I stare at him dumbfounded, then dip my head in defeat. Somehow I always forget Viktor and the amazing fact that he chose me out of all the girls at Hogwarts to go to the Yule Ball with.
"I was going to ask you to come here with me tonight, but you wouldn't answer my owls." His voice is barely above a whisper, his head bent towards mine - I look up at him and he's only inches away.
"Sorry," I breathe.
"That's okay," he smiles his famous lopsided smile, "you had things you needed to do. Your hair looks fantastic, by the way."
"Thanks," I return his smile shyly, aware that he's so close to me.
"Would…would you like to go out with me? On a date?"
He looks so sweet, so different from the leader I saw walk into the Great Hall but still like the Harry I love. And after all that I've told him, he still looks like he thinks I'll say no. The burke.
"I'd love to go on a date with you Harry," I finally say, ending his misery. He smiles at me brilliantly.
"Great! How 'bout tomorrow? Is that too soon? I mean, we can wait until…"
"Tomorrow," I interrupt his babbling, "we could go for a walk or catch a movie or something."
"Brilliant," he smiles, "great. Well, I guess we should be getting back."
Back? Back to what, I wonder. Then I remember the Ball that is going on downstairs in our honour. Bugger, I quite like being up here alone with Harry.
"Right."
Harry nods and steps away from me, the closeness disappearing. He lets go of one of my hands but continues to hold the other, intertwining our fingers snugly before we leave the room.
I'm sure I'm floating next to him as we make our way back to the Great Hall because I don't remember my feet ever touching the ground. Tomorrow I'll be going on a date with Harry, our first ever date.
Wow.
A passing thought entered my mind, the thought that this means I am good enough for Harry, he's proved it by asking me out. But then I countered my own praise - what had just happened, Harry telling me I was amazing, saying that he had liked me for a while, was proof really that I've always been good enough.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Okay, so I'm sitting next to a very quiet, very…disappointed Ginny and facing a radiant, chatty Hermione with neither of them taking the slightest bit of interest in me. This thought, I realise, is terribly self-absorbed so I turn my attention to those around me (other than the sullen Miss Weasley), and joined in half-heartedly with the conversation.
My mind, however, kept returning to Hermione. Did she understand what I was trying to tell her in my speech? Judging from Ginny's silence, she definitely understood.
It was when the meal was over that Ginny finally found her voice. In very clipped tones, she asked if she could have a word then dragged me over to a corner of the Hall.
"How could you do that to me?" was the first thing that came from her mouth, face flushed and eyes blazing.
"I didn't do anything…" I began without much success as Ginny quickly cut in.
"No, you're right, you didn't! I was your girlfriend Harry - your girlfriend for goodness sake! Didn't that mean anything to you?"
I sighed with resignation and braced myself for what I hoped was the final chapter in the romantic-relationship-with-Ginny-Weasley saga.
"Like I've told you Gin," I start softly, "our time together was great, special. A bit of normality when everything else was anything but normal…"
"Then why can't it continue?" she interrupts, no longer sharp but now closer to tears. I don't know which is worse.
"Ginny," I try to explain, leaning in close so only she could hear what I was saying, "so much happened to me last year, so much that you wouldn't understand…"
"But Hermione can? Why her and not me? I'm stronger than you think, Harry."
I pause as I get my thoughts together, wanting to make Ginny understand.
"Hermione has been with me from the start," I tell her as the first tears fall, "she knows me so well and last year…last year, well, we got to know each other even better…"
"You slept with her?" Ginny cried, hurt and shock on her face and I immediately blushed.
"No!" I vehemently denied, "no, of course not!" Although the idea had crossed my mind on many occasions, Ginny didn't need to know that. I carried on, "but we did get closer and I finally realised just how important Hermione is to me, how every other girl would always be compared to her and that she would always come first…"
"Even before me?"
"Even before you," I say gently as she wipes the tears from her face, "you will always be special to me Ginny, but you've got to let me go. Even if things don't work out with Hermione, I won't be coming back to you."
She looks up at me then, her tears already drying up and the fire returning.
"Hermione doesn't know how you feel, does she?" she asks me with a frown and I shake my head 'no', "bloody hell Harry, why haven't you told her how you feel?"
"There never seemed to be the right time…" was my mumbled reply, suddenly feeling foolish.
"What a load of rubbish," she humphs as she turns from me and starts searching the Hall, "though that speech was a good start, you need to tell her. Merlin knows she's fancied you for ages - it's time you two sort yourselves out. Ah, there she is!"
I follow the line of Ginny's pointed finger and see Hermione dancing and laughing with Neville. A huge gamut of emotions consumed at that point, ranging from anger to regret.
Maybe I've lost her. Maybe I'm already too late. Maybe I've…
"Now's your chance Harry," Ginny interrupts my internal self-doubt musings by shoving me slightly, "go and talk to her."
I know she's right and I had vowed to myself I would tell Hermione everything tonight, but now that my time has come, I'm suddenly very nervous.
"What about Neville?" I ask, trying to stall for time.
"I can distract Neville," Ginny replies and her tone makes me look back at her. All sign of her previous tears had gone and she has a small smile on her face, "he's quite cute when he laughs like that. Come on!"
She grabs my arm and starts to drag me towards the dance floor but my brain screams it needs more time.
"Ginny!" I cry as I dig my heels in and stop her taking me any further, "stop!"
"What?"
What indeed. She's looking at me as if I've gone barmy and perhaps I have. I know what I should do but the doing it is quite a major problem.
"What…what about you?" is the next delaying tactic, "I mean, you've been trying to get back together with me for months! You were just crying about me just now! Won't it be difficult to see me with Hermione so soon?"
"I'm tougher than you think, Harry," she tells me somewhat sadly but with that same small smile, "besides I think part of me always knew it would end up like this, that's why I was working so hard to get you back. You and Hermione have something special, something I could never compete with - although I really tried. I guess I finally see that now," she pauses and gives me a small kiss on the cheek before saying, "go and talk to her."
I stop and think, reconciling what I know I should do and the scared part of me that doesn't want to do it because of the possibility she may say no. But then I remember I'm Harry-Bloody-Potter, I've saved the wizarding world - I can go and talk to a girl, even if that girl is Hermione.
Taking a deep breath, I smile a good-bye and thanks to Ginny, square my shoulders and focus. Walking over to where Hermione and Neville are, I tap him on the shoulder and ask if I can cut in. They both turn to me but Neville passes Hermione to me without a word. I feel strangely in control of myself even though I have her in my arms and she feels absolutely lovely.
"I thought you didn't like to dance," she says after a few moments and I smile.
"I don't, not really, though this isn't too bad," I tell her, take another deep breath then plough on, "Hermione, we need to talk."
Her body tenses in my arms, telling me that she's nervous - her next comment confirming it.
"Talk? What about?"
"What you said last Saturday."
There you go, I said it, it's out in the open. Brilliant.
"Can we just forget what I said?" she asks, looking anywhere but at me, "I mean, it doesn't really matter, does it? You're with Ginny so…"
Ah, there we go.
"I'm not with Ginny," I tell her and for some strange reason, my confidence soars. Maybe it's because the ice is already broken and there is no turning back. Or maybe it's because of what I see in Hermione's eyes. Whatever it is, nothing can stop me now.
"What?" she gasps and our poor excuse for dancing ends.
"I'm not with Ginny," I start softly, "I haven't been with Ginny since Dumbledore's funeral last year. Don't you get it Hermione? I want to be with you."
She looks up at me in confusion.
"But I thought…you and her…she's so pretty…me?" she stammers and I remember where we are and all the eyes and ears trained on us.
"Can we go somewhere more private and talk?" I ask and when she nods, I take her hand and lead her out of the Great Hall and up to the Room of Requirement, ignoring all the stares that followed us.
The Room looked like the Gryffindor common room which was comforting because now my nerves return.
"I thought you were with Ginny," Hermione whispers, breaking the slightly uncomfortable silence.
"She's been trying to get back together with me for ages, and she wouldn't take no for an answer," I admit quietly, "I kept telling her that I really enjoyed my time with her but I realised she wasn't the one for me, that there was someone else. Tonight I think she finally accepted it."
"Your speech."
"Yeah."
"The someone else," she continues nervously, her face blushing bright red, "do you mean…is that…are you talking about…do you mean, me?"
Here it is, the moment of truth. After what feels like a lifetime of edging around the subject we have now both finally laid it on the line. Well, Hermione has - I need to answer, which I do with a mumbled "yeah."
"I don't understand," she frowns.
Right - here we go.
"Last year, at Christmas, everything was such a mess. Voldemort was getting stronger and we had just got rid of the cup," I pause briefly as I remember what was one of the worse periods in my life. With a sigh, I continue, "and then you got hurt and I thought I'd lost you. Nothing else mattered to me but you living. It made me realise that you were more than a friend to me, that I couldn't imagine my life without you in it. It changed everything."
I see a cloud cross her face and I know exactly why. Hermione had nearly died. She didn't, and when she was deemed back to normal, I had pulled away from her without telling her why. It was a terrible few months.
"You stopped talking to me," she growls, "you barely acknowledged my presence for ages after I got better!"
"I had a job to do and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it if I actually admitted to you or even me, what I was feeling," I tried to explain, expecting her anger but wanting it to go away as quick as possible, "besides, I didn't want him to know…"
"You were protecting me."
"Yes."
"Do you realise how much you hurt me?" she snaps, glaring at me with glistening eyes. She looked so beautiful, so…alive.
"Yes," I admit, "but it wasn't easy for me either. I told no one about what I was feeling, not Ron, not Remus - no one. I was trying to hide how much I cared deep, deep down inside of me so Voldemort wouldn't find out but instead it just kept growing stronger and stronger. I wanted to tell you so many times, just reach out and hold you when I saw how upset you were, to kiss you, to…"
I stop abruptly as my mind delved into very, very dangerous territory.
"What?" she asks and all those naughty thoughts intensified.
"Nothing," I manage to mutter as the heat from my face radiates the room.
"Harry?"
The way she said my name made things even worse.
"Let's just say I was having rather…" how could I say this without being too disgusting, "unsettling dreams about you."
"I've been having unsettling dreams about you for years."
"You have?"
Bloody. Hell.
If Hermione has been having the same type of dreams about me as I've been having about her, then, well, she's not as straight laced as she's led us to believe.
"Oh Harry, haven't you worked it out yet?" Worked out what? Brilliant, I'm still as dim as ever. As I still ponder over what I should have worked out, she continues with that lovely smile of hers, "I love you, I have for years and I've just recently resigned myself to the fact I would never have you…"
"…because you're not good enough." I finish, remembering last Saturday, "how could you ever think that you're not good enough for me?"
"You never, ever gave me any indication that you saw me as anything different than a friend Harry," she tells me and I know that's the truth, "and the girls you were attracted to, well, I'm nothing like them and could never be anything close to them," no, she isn't - she's a hundred times better, "but now I've started to realise that I really don't want to be like them because I'm me, I'm unique and special in my own right and if you didn't like it, then…"
"I do like it, like you…a lot," I stop her and putting caution to the wind, I reach out for her hands, "I'm just sorry it took nearly losing you for me to work that out. And I'm sorry that I hurt you because I never meant to," I search her face for the courage to go on, and I find it - comfort in those lovely eyes of hers, "Hermione, you're amazing, the most amazing girl I know. And for the last month I haven't said anything to you because I was afraid that I wasn't good enough for you."
"What? Why?"
I smile at her surprise.
"Well, your first boyfriend was Viktor Krum - how could I compete with that?"
Amazed at how well I'm doing, I lean towards her bent head and get even closer to her. Close enough to kiss.
"I was going to ask you to come here with me tonight, but you wouldn't answer my owls," I tell her quietly.
"Sorry," she says, just as quietly.
"That's okay, you had things you needed to do," I joke, resisting the urge to copy what Ron did seemingly a lifetime ago and run my hand over her short locks, "your hair looks fantastic, by the way."
"Thanks," she replies with such shyness that my own awkwardness returns. We are standing so close to each other now and I still have the Big Question to ask.
"Would…would you like to go out with me?" I venture hesitantly, "on a date?"
Hermione looks at me as if I was an idiot and I wonder if I've made a huge mistake. Did I read all the signs so terribly wrong? I try and confirm within my memories that she definitely told me she loved me - right?
"I'd love to go on a date with you Harry," she finally says and the relief that I feel is incredible.
"Great!" I grin, my mind whirling over the possibilities, "how 'bout tomorrow? Is that too soon? I mean, we can wait until…"
"Tomorrow," she cuts in before I can make a bigger fool of myself, "we could go for a walk or catch a movie or something."
"Brilliant. Great," I beam, feeling so chuffed with myself that I had actually asked Hermione out and she has said yes. Now we can return to real life and the stupid Ball happening downstairs, "well, I guess we should be getting back."
"Right," she says and I'm sure there is disappointment in her tone as if she would prefer to stay up here with me. Not that I don't think that's a fantastic idea, it's just that this Ball is in our honour and we should really be there.
With a bit of reluctance, I step away from her and begin our journey back to the real world. But this time it is the real world with Hermione as my girlfriend. I intertwine my fingers with her as I mull over this delightful thought and marvel at how her hand fits so perfectly in mine.
This is happiness. I've finally found happiness. Harry Potter is happy.
Brilliant.
A/N - so there you go, no dramatic kiss just a gentle realisation of what they mean to each other - I hope you're not too disappointed. I just kinda thought that they would get used to them being a couple before either of them are comfortable enough to kiss. And although Ginny seems to give in easily, if there was a sequel, there would be some residual hurt that she'd work through before she would totally accept she had lost Harry (and that special first kiss between our favourite couple). But there isn't a sequel, sorry! You will just have to use your imagination….