Nightmares

fenriswolf

Rating: R
Genres: Romance, Humor
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 25/07/2007
Last Updated: 25/07/2007
Status: completed

Warning: spoilers for book seven. After the final battle, the survivors mourn their losses, bury their dead and continue on with their lives. Everything is as it should be....or is it?

Chapters

1. untitled

1. untitled

Nightmares

By FenrisWolf

All of this belongs to JKRowling. If it had belonged to me I wouldn’t have butchered the last two books.

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Harry smiled and waved as the Hogwarts Express pulled away from the station. Just as the last car was about to pass through the wards surrounding Platform 9¾ a window opened and Albus’s waving arm could be seen, a smile on his face. “See you at Christmas!” he called before vanishing from sight.

Harry sighed and turned to the redheaded witch at his side. “Well, that’s one more on his way. It’s going to be awfully quiet at home with just Lily.”

Ginny looked up at him, a mischievous gleam appearing in her eyes. “Maybe it’s time to think about another little Potter?” she asked, her lips curving into the little smirk that always drove him crazy.

“Are you serious?” he asked hopefully. “I thought you didn’t want to be, how did you phrase it, ‘trampled underfoot by your own children like you were by your brothers’?”

As always, Ginny’s fair skin betrayed her blush. “You would remember that,” she replied ruefully. “I guess I’m more like my mum than I thought. I really miss having them all underfoot.”

“Well, you won’t get any complaints from me,” her husband of eighteen years replied. “The more the merrier, I always say.” He grinned as his wife elbowed him lightly in the ribs, then is expression softened. “And if it’s a boy, we could name him after Remus.”

“Nymphadora Potter,” Ginny replied, her eyes growing suspiciously shiny. “That works for me, too,” she whispered.

Harry smiled, feeling that swelling of his heart that he had so long ago called in all ignorance the ‘monster in his chest’. “Merlin, I love you,” he murmured as he leaned down to capture her lips---

“Ahhhhhh!”

Harry jerked upright in bed, his face streaming with sweat, his wife’s hands on his shoulders. “Harry, what is it? Is it that old nightmare again?”

His labored gasps easing as his heart rate slowed, Harry tried to focus his blurry vision in the dim light of the bedroom. With only the crescent moon for illumination it was hard to make out anything beyond the halo of bushy, brown hair surrounding Hermione’s features.

Reaching for his glasses, he scooted back enough to brace his shoulders on the headboard, allowing Hermione access to what she swore was one of the best pillows in the world, Harry’s smoothly muscled chest. Playing with a loose tendril of the wild tresses he loved (even if they were the bane of their children’s existence) he finally spoke. “No, this was an all-new nightmare. I think my subconscious is nervous about seeing everyone at the reunion tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“In the dream I was seeing my youngest son off on the Hogwarts Express for the first time, and I had to calm his fears after James teased him that he might be sorted into Slytherin.”

Hermione tsked. “Well, that’s not surprising; James is every bit the scamp his grandfather was supposed to have been.” Their oldest son was a precocious seven-year old who was already showing signs of his Marauder ancestry “And there’s always a certain amount of rivalry between brothers, so James teasing Sirius--”

Harry shook his head. “Albus.”

Hermione looked up at him in shock. “Excuse me?”

“His name was Albus Severus Potter.”

Hermione sat up in bed, her hands braced on her thighs as she bristled with outrage. “Harry James Potter, subconscious mind or not, you should know I would never agree to naming one of our children after those two---after the way the headmaster manipulated everyone, the pleasure Professor Snape took in tormenting everyone? I don’t care if he was maintaining his cover or not, he enjoyed being cruel!”

“You’re right, you’d never agree to something as delusional as that.”

“Well, then---”

“You weren’t my wife.” Now that the nightmare was over, Harry found himself enjoying the look of shock that crossed Hermione’s face, followed by a growing one of horror.

“You don’t mean…” she asked, slowly shaking her head.

“Yup. You were happily married to Ron, and were the proud parents of two children, while I was married to Ginny and father to James, Albus and Lily.”

“And what were my children named, or did that detail crop up in your fevered imagination?”

“Actually, it did. Your daughter was named Rose,” he paused as Hermione considered the named and gave a small nod, “and your son was named Hugo.”

“Hugo?”

“Hugo.”

Hermione shook her head in bafflement. “I know wizards have their own weird onomastics rules that they draw on, but really…” She glanced up, sensing her husband’s puzzlement and in the borderline psychic manner of happily married couples added, “It’s the science of names.”

She frowned as another thought occurred to her. “Wait a minute, if Ginny married you, who married Draco?” For strangers throughout the wizarding world, the Romeo and Juliet relationship of Draco Malfoy and Ginevra Weasley had been the stuff of happy sighs and sappy smiles. For the immediate family it had been the stuff of harsh words, bitter recriminations and an estrangement of the youngest Weasley from her siblings that had lasted five years, until Molly Weasley put her foot down and demanded to see her grandson Menelaus.

Harry shook his head. “No idea; in the nightmare she looked like a knock-off version of Narcissa.” He felt a grin appear as he recalled another detail. “Guess what they named their son?”

“No idea. Lucius? Marvolo?”

"Scorpius."

Hermione goggled and then burst into peals of laughter. “Scorpius! Oh, my, who would’ve ever thought that Draco Malfoy would be a fan of Muggle television?”

The giggles finally subsided and Hermione resumed her comfortable position, nestled into Harry’s arms. “It seems so strange, looking back at it. Ron was perfectly fine as a first boyfriend, and I still love him dearly, but I can’t imagine actually being married to him. I spend as much time in the Muggle world as the Magical one, and he still doesn’t even know how to drive a car!”

“Well, let’s face it, he doesn’t really need to does he?” Harry replied, oddly feeling a need to defend his oldest friend’s shortcomings. “About the only time he ever enters the Muggle world is when he’s with one of us; the rest of the time he’s with Luna or the other Weasleys.”

“Mmmmm,” Hermione replied noncommittally. “And what about you and Ginny? Do you ever think about what it would’ve been like if you married her?”

“It wouldn’t have lasted,” Harry sighed. “She was in love with the Hero, the Boy Who Lived. Her head was filled with those ideas growing up and she never grew past them. When I found out she’d used a love potion on me during sixth year---”

Hermione gasped. “She didn’t!”

“Didn’t I tell you? She said Molly talked to both of you about how effective they were.”

Hermione thought back. “That’s right, she did tell us about how she’d used one to attract Arthur’s attention, but I never thought it went beyond talk, Harry, I swear!”

“Sssh, I believe you,” Harry replied, rubbing her back soothingly.

“Why didn’t you ever mention it before?”

Harry shrugged. “It didn’t seem all that important. You and Ron had already split on friendly terms when I found out, so there was no worry that Ron as pulling the same thing---not that I thought he would,” he added quickly before she could defend their friend, “it just meant the subject never came up.”

“How did you find out?”

Harry sighed. “I showed up early for lunch at the Burrow one day; I was going to surprise Ginny by taking her to a new café that opened on Diagon Alley and I wanted to give her time in case she wanted to change.” His expression darkened. “I was just about to walk into the kitchen when I heard Molly asking Ginny if she needed any more Amortentia.”

“What did you do?”

Harry’s thoughts went back to that day; how he’d confronted them, how Molly had looked embarrassed and Ginny had looked devastated.

“I told Molly how disappointed I was, and I told Ginny we were through. And then I went home and stayed drunk for a week. After that I was pretty much just relieved.”

“Relieved?”

Harry shrugged. “There was always something a little…off in how I felt for Ginny,” he explained. “I mean, here I was with these overpowering feelings for her that flared up at the sight or smell of her, but other than that we hardly anything in common. She wanted to accept every invitation to a party we received, the bigger and swankier the better, I just wanted to stay home and get on with my life. She was pushing me to accept one of the offers to play professional Quidditch that kept pouring in, but I knew that in just about every case they wanted me for my name, not my Seeking skills. I’m all right, but I’m not at a pro level and I know it.”

“That’s not true, Harry!” Hermione contradicted. “I’ve seen you play, you know. Just because it scared me to death to watch you pull some of those maneuvers didn’t mean I couldn’t see how good you are.”

“How good I was, you mean,” he corrected with a smile. He held up a hand when she started to object again. “No, think about it for a minute. Fifth year was the last year I played, and I hadn’t hit my final growth spurt yet. I’ve what, grown six inches and put on three stone since then? Most seekers are under five feet six inches, and those who aren’t are skinny as rails. No, I’m good enough for the secondary circuit, but professional? Uh-uh.”

Hermione considered his words and reluctantly nodded. At five-eleven and twelve stone, Harry was a broad-shouldered, lean-hipped hit wizard for the International Confederation of Wizards, a position she knew he’d worked hard to earn on his own merits and not due to any lingering fame as the Boy Who Won. Fortunately for his wishes, Voldemort’s predations had been limited mostly to Great Britain, which mean the instructor’s at the Confederation’s Enforcer’s Academy weren’t about to cut him any slack.

“Those two years you were away at the Academy were the longest of my life,” Hermione admitted as she snuggled into his embrace. “I was so afraid you would make new friends and never come back here, what with all the bad memories Britain held for you.”

“Really?” Harry asked, surprised. “You never said anything in any of your letters. Lots of information about how everyone was doing, who was settling down with who and how your own studies were going, but nothing to indicate you were worried I wouldn‘t come home some day.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t want to put any pressure on you to return, though I wanted to, terribly. I was so afraid you’d meet some beautiful, exotic witch who’d sweep you off your feet…” she trailed off as she realized her husband was chuckling. “And what exactly is so funny?” she asked, poking him none too gently in the stomach.

“Oof! No violence, witch!” he said theatrically as he initiated a tickle war. After a few minutes of wrestling and laughter they settled back down into the somewhat more rumpled covers. Harry sighed and picked up the conversation where they left off. “The reason I was laughing was that I hurried back as soon as I could, finished the course six months early as a matter of fact, because I was afraid you would find someone else.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You see I realized something while I was away at the Academy, reading and re-reading your letters, and remembering all the time we spent together during our years at Hogwarts and after, something I had been awfully stupid not to see a long time before.”

“And just what was that, Mr. Potter?” Hermione asked, having heard this before but quite willing to hear it again, thank you very much.

“That despite what I’d been telling myself for years, and told Ron to keep his jealousy in check, I definitely did not think of you as a sister. I just didn’t have the frame of reference to recognize my feelings for what they were. That’s why I kept confusing hormones for love; I’d never felt anything like it before, so my reactions to Cho and Ginny had to be love, right?”

“Don’t ask me, I was the one dragging you out of Madam Puddifoot’s to talk to Rita Skeeter, remember?”

Harry laughed. “How could I forget? I know I’ve said it before, but thank you for rescuing me from that Cupid-infested hell; that had to have been the most uncomfortable half hour of my life.”

“We live only to serve, my lord,” Hermione replied with mock servility.

“Ha ha. To get back to the question at hand, I was having a couple of drinks with Remus---oh, that was another thing, in the dream Tonks and Remus both died in the final battle, and we---that is, Ginny and I---ended up raising Ted.” He nodded at Hermione’s gasp, not going into any further detail as to how much higher his subconscious mind had run the death toll.

“Anyway, Remus was filling me in on the latest antics of Nymphadora and their ‘cubs’ as he insists on calling them, and I starting bemoaning my chances of ever finding anyone with whom I could have the same sort of happiness. Then I grumbled that even if I found someone like that, I’d probably never recognize them, since I didn’t have a damned clue what real love was about.

“Remus just gave me that look that says, “Are you stupid or what?” and said, ‘Maybe you’ve already found her and just don’t realize it yet. A very smart writer by the name of Heinlein once said that true love means placing the other person’s happiness before your own, in fact being willing to sacrifice your own happiness rather than see that other person unhappy. Now, when you find someone who feels the same thing about you, well, than you’re in love.’”

“Well, when I got back to my dorm room that night, the first thing I saw was one of your letters sitting on my desk from when I’d been re-reading it earlier, and that’s when it hit me; the person who’d been there for me when everyone else, including my supposed best friend, turned their backs, the young woman who was more worried about house-elf freedom than if she had an ink smudge on her cheek, but who could be drop-dead beautiful when she put her mind to it, the partner who would argue with me when she thought I was wrong, but who would support me if she couldn’t change my mind, she’d been there all along, and like an idiot I’d almost let her slip through my fingers.

“It took a while, but I finally calmed down and controlled my first impulse, which was to pack my trunk and race back to you---”

“”And a good thing, too,” Hermione huffed softly. “I’d just have sent you right back again! Imagine abandoning your classwork, just to see me---”

“It’s never ‘just’ when has to do with you, love,” Harry said firmly. “I knew that from the moment I jumped on a cave troll’s back for you, even if I was too thick to realize in consciously at the time.”

“Oh, okay,” Hermione squeaked, earning a chuckle from Harry.

“Yeah, well, fortunately for my tender ego, I realized in time that ditching school would not win me any house points with you, so instead I sat down and wrote you a letter. I don’t remember exactly what I put in it, I’m usually pants at that sort of thing, but it must’ve worked because you wrote back, and, well….”

“It was a wonderful letter,” Hermione corrected, hugging him for emphasis. “Instead of the usual two or three lines that boiled down to ‘Everything’s okay, miss you, bye!’ it was pages and pages that wandered all over the place and made absolutely no sense at all until you got to the very end and there were those four words it seemed like I’d been waiting to read for years: ‘All my love, Harry’” Harry felt the heat of her blush where her cheek rested against his chest. “I was still living at home at the time, and I’m afraid I squeed so loud the whole neighborhood heard me.

“Fortunately Dad was at work; after some of my histrionics over Ron I don’t think he was too keen on me getting involved with another wizard any time soon. Mum was home, and came racing in to find out what was wrong.” She straightened up a little and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Once I calmed down enough to explain she was delighted; Mum was always a little dubious about my relationship with Ron, and asked far too many questions about you. I think she figured out which way the wind really blew before anyone else.”

Harry smiled as he remembered the undisguised happiness with which Elaine had welcomed him when he officially started dating Hermione. David Granger had been a little slower to come around, but had eventually relented when he realized just how happy Harry was making his princess. It also hadn’t hurt his chances between his inheritances from his parents and Sirius he was comfortably well off. Not rich, but with enough capital, property and investments that with a little care supporting a family would never be an issue, giving the two of them an amount of freedom few couples just starting out shared.

The faint sound of morning birdsong drew his attention to the partially opened windows, where the first pale light of dawn was lightening the sky. This time of year sunrise came early; with any luck the children wouldn’t be stirring for a couple of hours yet….his hand moved up and cupped a small, firm breast, still high and pert despite two children and nine years of marriage. Hermione gasped as her nipple stiffened under his ministrations. “Just what do you think you doing, Mr. Potter?” as she turned her head and started to nibble on his neck.

“I was thinking of unwrapping one of my birthday presents, now that you mention it,” he replied, his other hand slipping down and into her knickers, finding the nest of curls hidden there, and the moist warmth they sheltered.

Hermione gasped and rolled over on top of him, hungrily capturing his mouth. He felt her smirk against his lips as she wandlessly vanished her knickers and his boxers. Brown eyes locked on green, a triumphant gleam in them as she felt his rock-hard length pressing against her. She arched her back, her hands lifting her hair above her head in a pose of absolute wantonness. “And now that you’ve seen your present, what do you think?” she purred in a voice no one else ever got to hear.

“It’s more than I ever dreamed of,” he whispered, and then proceeded to show her once again how amazing she was, how much he loved her, and how grateful he was that she’d never given up on the Boy With The Scar.

Finis