Something not wrong

Pre-chapter warning: this will make a lot more sense if you read the previous chapters first ... ;-)

*****************

A Year Later

*****************

The sounds of forks and knives and nice chat are barely registering, even if I positively know that they are all there. More than a dozen people gathering at the Weasley table for dinner should be enough to keep me focused on my surroundings. Instead, I find myself enjoying the delicious dinner, but wanting nothing more than Apparate home, have a cup of tea and get into bed. My eyes shift slightly to my left while I grin at the thought. It's been a while since my bed has been mine alone.

When I lift my eyes again, I catch George Weasley looking at me, the spoon midair, and a big cheeky grin on his face, and I wonder, blushing a bit, if I'm that easy to read.

After a year and a half, George still isn't the person we used to know. He knows, just as his family and friends now know too, that he won't ever be the person he was again. Still, he tries; whether for his sake, for his family's or for Fred's, no one knows, but he does try. And so after a long time without even mentioning the shop -let alone Fred's name- one day, out of nowhere, he announced that he was going to spend the night there, in the little backroom where he and Fred used to devise all their creations.

To this day, no one has a clue of what happened that night in that backroom. He hasn't told, and no one has asked, not even Molly. The only thing we know is that, the next morning, he came back to the Burrow with a smile and in good spirits, talking about resuming work with the new set of articles they were working on before Fred had to go ahead of him.

His cheeky green turns into one of amusement, and I rise my glass to him.

Percy is sitting at his right, engaged in deep conversation with Charlie and Bill. Fleur is eating and watching over little Victoire, who is sleeping peacefully in her chair despite the madness surrounded her. She's a Weasley, after all. And Weasleys, it's a proven fact, can sleep through anything.

My eyes catch then a glimpse of Mr. Weasley, sitting, as usual, at the head of the table, next to his wife.

As I watch him now, I feel warmed by something that feels very much like pride. Something very much like the pride a son would feel for his father. For an incredible man whose faith in a new future never wavered, not even through the worst times. The New Ministry, although still rebuilding, is already better than it ever was before.

Suddenly, Ginny's voice comes for the other end of the table, her frustrated “For Merlin's sake, Ron!” followed by a silent room, and then a fit of laughter at Ron's reddening face. The two brothers have been at different levels of disagreement ever since Ginny, seemingly out of nowhere, surprised everyone by starting seeing a boy that used to go to Hogwarts too, in our same year.

Ron had come to me then in desperate need of an ally. “He's dark, mate. He. Is. Dark. He hasn't changed, I just feel it. What the hell is my sister thinking? Perhaps she's not even thinking. Perhaps he has drugged her. And why are you doing nothing about it? I mean, you dated her, Harry. Merlin, I don't even want to imagine…do you think they have done more than kissing?”

While I admit that the thought of Draco Malfoy and Ginny doing more than kissing is not one I especially like to entertain, I discovered, then and there, that the idea of the two of them together didn't bother me as much as I had expected. As Ron pointed out, she had been my girlfriend after all, and he my mortal enemy since we were eleven.

But the War changed everybody, even the Malfoys. Draco and I didn't become friends overnight, of course. Far from it, I don't think we exchanged more than nods for months, and then the occasional and mandatory training partnerships and little assignments as months went on. Because, yes, Draco Malfoy wanted to be an Auror.

I don't know whether Narcissa Malfoy told her family about our little encounter, either. But the thing is that, for whatever reasons, Malfoy had changed.

And after the change, Ginny had somehow found our former enemy someone she could actually stand. And more than stand, as it turned out.

But the jealousy? Jealousy did not come. Hasn't come to this day, perhaps because nowadays I am too busy being selfish, all wrapped up in my happiness.

I feel a hand on my arm, bringing me out of my reverie.

“You alright?” she asks softly. She's looking at me the way she always looks at me when I have been silent for a while. I give her hand a squeeze back.

“Yes,” I answer with what must be the most stupid grin ever.

Her smile widens, and so does mine, and I am back to that day.

That glorious evening, little more than a year ago now, Hermione and I talked and talked for hours. Of everything and anything. Of how much she had always cared for me, more than she had known. Beyond what she had known. Of how I had struggled on that New Year's Eve, wishing things hadn't changed for me, wishing I had not seen my heart's truth and life could go on as we had envisioned. Of how I only wished for her to be happy.

She apologised again and again, and I reassured her again and again.

And we made love, too. Again and again. It wasn't planned. We really didn't think the night would end that way. But then again, perhaps we knew somehow, for it was everything we had been looking for our entire lives, and more.

For months we went on as we always had. We decided to keep it low. Everything was too new, too wonderful. It's not that we didn't want to tell every single soul put there. It was more like we craved being just us, in private.

For my part, every morning I woke up, put my glasses on, and just stared at her sleeping form for a while. Forcing myself to believe believe she was there, with me, and that she loved me.

Not that she didn't tell me often enough.

After a while, we decided to tell Ron first, in private, just the three of us. Hermione and I had talked about it, and brazed ourselves for some Weasley temper.

I would have settled for anything, actually. I never felt the best of mates after that night at the pub, so many months ago. But then Hermione told me that Ron had known all along, before she was even sure of it herself. When they broke up, he just told her. He told her what was the reason why it wasn't going to work between them. He told her everything he felt and everything she felt. And that was the evening that Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger began to understand each other in a way they never had, not while being just friends, and definitely not while being a couple.

So he was happy for us. He had had a lot of time to accept the truth, he said. I will never forget what I felt when he gave me a hug. Nor how embarrassed we both were when we realised we were powerful wizards, hence we couldn't be seen hugging for more than three seconds and with our eyes suspiciously bright.

Ginny was another story, as we knew it would be. But despite all her resentment, she had something in common with her brother; she had known, too. She knew the moment I broke up with her, on New Year's Day, she said to me. She knew it was Hermione. That it always was Hermione. And as much as I would have liked to say different, I stayed silent. Because she was right.

She didn't speak to us for a while. Until my birthday, when the Weasleys decided that enough was enough, and threw a party at the Burrow. It was time to rebuild the Wizarding World. All of it.

So here we are now, her hand on my arm and my hand covering hers.
Some corner of my mind registers the sudden silence in the room. Reddening like the proverbial kid with his hand in the cookies jar, Hermione and I let go of each other, unable to look at the various levels of amusement displayed on the Weasleys' faces.

“Harry, mate, Hermione is Hermione after all, but you, my friend, are disgustingly pathetic.”

I can't help but laugh along the rest of the table at Ron's comic relief.

Bill's voice interrupts us to remind us we're minutes away from the countdown. A rush of glasses and cups and bottles flying around ensues then, to finish almost when the countdown begins.

As the clock ticks midnight, I turn to the witch whose hand I'm holding again. Her eyes are everything; because when she looks at me the way she does, the way she's doing right now, I forget. I forget that there was a time that I couldn't look at her the way I do now, that I couldn't hold her, kiss her. That I had resigned myself to love her forever, alone. And suddenly any suffering I ever went through, any pain I endured, feels only like a distant nightmare. Like one of those bad dreams I still occasionally have, rarer as the days pass, because it's her who holds me afterwards. It's her who whispers in my ear that everything's ok. That she's there. That she loves me.

She smiles at me before her warm lips fly over mine, and as corny as I know I may sound, my heart takes a leap at the prospect of another year with her; another three hundred and sixty five mornings with her being the first thing I see when I wake up, and the last before sleep claims me. Another year of walks in the park and dinners and movies and little arguments and bad cooking and happiness. Sheer happiness.

“Happy New Year, Harry,” she whispers in my ear after a few seconds, and I feel the luckiest man in the world. And the most amorous too, because, right now, I really have to fight the urge to take her in my arms, spend about two seconds in goodbyes, and Apparate in our bedroom.

“Happy New Year, Hermione,” I whisper instead.

She smiles. She loves when I say her name. She says I intone it like it was sacred. She doesn't know that's exactly what she is.

“Happy New Year, mate,” I hear behind, and all of a sudden I have a smiling Ron hugging me like the best mate I still think I don't deserve to have. After I return the gesture, I look at Hermione, who is staring, her eyes bright with tears.

“Oh, boys,” she says, only to throw her left arm around Ron, and her right around me.

“Whoa, Hermione, relax! Bloody hell!”

oOo

“You ok, mate?”

I hear Ron's voice at my side. I haven't heard him come. He stops and places his arms at the veranda, too. The fireworks from St. Ottery Catchpole's New Year's celebrations fill the clear night sky.

“Definitely,” I say without hesitation and a small smile.

“You know,” he smirks, looking at the fireworks. “You don't have to be so smug about it.”

I startle at his comment. Things are ok between us, but it doesn't change the fact that I fell in love with his girlfriend, broke her little sister's heart, and then started dating said girlfriend in the span of a few months. I still feel some residual guilt. I still feel that, somehow, I robbed him the most precious thing in the world.

“I was joking, Harry,” he suddenly says. Perhaps I'm too easily read. Or perhaps you aren't friends with someone who goes to hell and back with you without noticing certain things. “You really need to start believing that I don't resent you, mate.”

“I know you don't, Ron,” I say, perhaps too quickly to sound casual enough.

“Yes, you know, but you still don't let yourself believe it.” He pauses, his eyes focused on the grass he's picking at with his hand. “I wasn't only being supportive, or doing what a good best mate was supposed to do. I wasn't faking my acceptance of you and Hermione, as I didn't fake that at first it would be weird for me.”

“I'm sorry,” I blurt, surprising both of us.

He turns his head to me sharply, surprised.

“What for?”

What for indeed. For ever having made him feel less than he ever was. For being forced to hear the word sidekick more than he ever should. For never let him see how important he is to me.

“For loving her,” is what I finally say, though.

He laughs.

“Nah, you're not,” he says, smiling.

I feel flushed, but smile.

“You're right. I'm not.”

“What's there not to love, anyway?” Ron goes on. “Nah, you can't be sorry for that, mate. She is the most amazing witch we will ever know,” he says, and I nod wholeheartedly. “We were lucky she chose to stick with the pair of us when we were eleven.”

I smile at the memory of eleven year old Hermione. She was something else, even then.

“I always thought it would be you, you know, as that disgusting thing let us see,” he continues, disgust all over his features while remembering that particular day. “Plus, Hermione's favourite word has always been `Harry'.”

“Nah, I think `honestly' ices the cake. And `Ronald' is a worthy runner up, you know.”

The sound of Ron's laugh carries in the chilly night air.

“Don't even remind me,” he says, but he's smiling. Suddenly, I feel I shouldn't have said that. Memories of their good times together are bound to surface. And I'm the one that ruined it all.

“It wasn't your fault, Harry. She loved you more than she ever loved me. And I don't even have the blame outlet, you know, or the right to feel cheated. She didn't even know at the time.”

“She loved you, Ron,” I say, incredibly uncomfortable now.

“Yeah, she did. But it wasn't…well,” he gestures towards me. “Hermione never looked at me the way she looks at you, Harry. Never. And even then, there was something in her voice when she spoke of you. Some…tenderness, she never felt that for me.” He chuckles. “It turned out, it wasn't tenderness at all.”

“I really wish it was different, Ron,” I tell him, trying to discern how true and untrue a same feeling can be.

“You do?”

I don't reply immediately.

“No, I don't. But, at the time, I truly wished I could go back to how things were. You and her and Ginny and me.”

“But then you realised what you had to realise, and that's all. And she did too. Oh, and by the way, what are you waiting for, mate?”

I don't understand his meaning immediately.

“Waiting?”

“Yes. When are you going to ask her.”

I have never thought of that. It's something that we know will happen eventually, so we haven't really discussed it.

“We're very young, Ron. We've only been dating for a year.”

Ron arches his brows. “More like a lifetime, you mean.”

I smile. It feels like that, indeed.

“What detains you, then?”

What, indeed.

An unexpected wave of warmth shakes my entire body, for I can't even begin to show him how much he means to me, to us.

“You are the best friend, the brother anyone could hope for, Ron. I hope you know that” I tell her with all the seriousness which I am feeling.

He pats me twice in the back before going inside.

“I know. And now let's go back inside before we worry her and she comes out to fetch us with one of her `honestlys'.”

I laugh with all my heart, and follow him.

oOo

Apparating after a Weasley dinner is never a good idea, so we take the Floo tonight instead.

Hermione is talking about the evening, something about Victoire reminding her terribly of Ginny, but I am too distracted to really get into the conversation.

Damned Ron.

She has gone to the bathroom. As I start to divest myself, I realise that no matter where I look, Hermione's presence in my home, in my life, is everywhere.

It's in the way she always rearranges the books on the shelves.

In the way the sheets smell permanently good.

In the way the drawers and cupboard are delicately and neatly tidy.

In the way that there's always coffee in the kitchen ready for her.

In the plain pyjama top and bottoms that she finds incredibly boring and I find incredibly sexy, waiting for her on the bed.

In all the little ways she lets me know over and over again that she's happy, that we made the right decision.

And suddenly, just like that, I can't wait a minute more.

Hermione comes out the bathroom just when I'm halfway there.

“Harry, were you listening? I was telling you that—”

“Marry me,” I tell her when I release her lips after kissing her like I haven't kissed her before. Without thinking that she may not want it. Without thinking that I have no ring, no fancy restaurant, no nothing. Without realising that the best woman in the world is just receiving the worst proposal in history.

“Harry, what?”

“Marry me, Hermione,” I whisper on her lips, clearly and slowly.

She looks at me, her mouth agape, my heart in my eyes.

And then she smiles widely. I think her eyes look a bit watery, although I can't tell for sure because mine are faring no better.

“Right now?” she asks cheekily, her voice trembling a bit.

“Right now. Tomorrow. Next week. Forever.”

She doesn't actually say yes. Or she does, I can't know for sure; it's a bit difficult to talk while devouring your love's mouth.

No better way to begin the rest of your life, if you ask me.

****

Ok, here it is! It's been more than a year since I semi-wrote this final chappie. I never posted it because I am not very happy with it. Plus, it's unbetaed, so you're bound to find TONS of unpardonable mistakes. I apologise and promise to revise 8993854 times more.

But I thought you might want to know the basic end of the story, unpolished as it might be, in the proper time of the year, for this is a New Year's Eve moment. I hope you find it tolerable, at least. If not, you only have to ignore it and consider last chapter the end, lol.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year, my lovelies!

Madelaine x

-->