One Last Chance

There are lit candles in the dining room.

While this normally wouldn’t be a cause for alarm, Harry feels a nervous tension in his belly when he steps out of the Floo and notices the glow in the otherwise dark flat. It’s after midnight, and he’s in desperate need of relaxation and maybe a shower, but he just stands by the fireplace staring into the alcove cum dining room as the flames of the candles flicker.

It’s dangerous to leave candles burning. He can hear Hermione’s voice in his mind, prissy and matter-of-fact in that tone that he finds unbelievably arousing. Thinking about her makes him shake his head, and he realizes that he needs to put them out. She probably just got busy and forgot, though he isn’t entirely sure why she had lit candles in the first place. They rarely used the dining alcove, after all; if only because they never seem to be home to share dinner lately.

In the years since he completed Auror training, he works even longer hours, which shouldn't be possible considering how many he’d worked while learning, and Hermione transferred to Magical Law a couple of years ago, so her schedule changed, too. They can’t even be guaranteed time to themselves on weekends because work or friends always seem to need them. In fact, he can’t really remember the last time they just spent a day together without interruption.

He hits his knee on the side of the sofa and curses under his breath as he reaches down to rub it. The sofa wasn't there before. It was usually turned at an angle to face the window. The view from the sitting room window was one of the reasons Hermione had fallen in love with this tiny, but affordable, flat. When they’d decided to get married, it was the reason she’d persuaded him into living there at first until they found a place of their own. It had been rather difficult to tell her no when he’d had her breasts pressed against said window while he took her from behind.

Currently, though, the sofa is facing away from it, and he can see a shadow that must be a table standing next to one end. The candlelight from the dining room doesn’t provide enough light to see more than shadow, but it's enough for Harry to shift awkwardly and wonder when they’d bought a table. He’s been home after ten every night for the last two and a half weeks, and the path that leads to their bedroom doesn’t take him this way, but he was around last Sunday during the day before a case needed his attention, so it had to be a recent purchase.

To avoid running into anything else, Harry pulls his wand out of the pocket of his robe and whispers, “Lumos.“ He blinks in surprise when the light from his wand reveals a room that is barely recognizable. Nothing except the bookcase is where it was the last time he’d noticed. The walls were now a pale shade of blue instead of beige. Everything was clean and tidy, which was actually not a change but it still made him feel as if he were in the wrong flat.

Hermione must have decided to redecorate. She didn't tell him about her plans to do so, but maybe that’s what she’d been nattering on about a couple of months ago at breakfast when she’d asked if he liked blue. He was reading the Prophet and told her he liked most colors, he recalled distantly. She hadn’t said anything else. It was a nice color, but he didn’t really understand why she’d go to the trouble of painting when they wouldn’t be staying here forever.

They’d originally agreed to one or two years after their wedding, tops. He'd expected that after that, she’d get over her stubborn pride and let him buy them a house in the wizarding world that suited them both. He’d had visions of a place like Godric’s Hollow, a house like his parents had but one that fit him and Hermione instead. Somewhere big that they could eventually fill with the laughter and footsteps of children, maybe a dog, and a library for her. A real one with bookshelves on all the walls that were overflowing with books.

That was five years ago, true, but they were still young, and their plans just hadn’t worked out the way they’d expected. He’d finished training and realized that being an Auror was more than a full-time job, and Hermione always threw herself into her work and causes. When she’d mentioned going to look for a house a few years ago, he’d been in the middle of a huge case, and he’d told her they’d get to it eventually. Actually, that’s what he’d told her every time she asked in the last couple of years.

He bit his lip and ran his hand through his hair, tugging slightly as he looked away from the sofa towards the dining alcove. Had it really been that many years? Before they were married, they were always busy with work and training, but they’d been together as much as they could. He remembered lazy Sundays where they never even got out of bed except to use the loo; he’d always just had Kreacher bring them a tray of food and laugh at Hermione’s blush as she covered herself tightly with sheets.

They used to laugh a lot. Not at first. Not when Ron was still hurting and Ginny just didn’t understand and neither of them could explain how they’d just looked at each other one day and known. He thinks that maybe he always loved her, but just didn’t really know what love was enough to identify it. It was lust with Ginny and a desire for normal, but never felt like he does for Hermione. She did love Ron, though, which still makes him so jealous that he almost hates himself for it. She loved them both, but, in the end, she loved him more.

They never laugh anymore, he realizes with a start. He can‘t remember the last time he saw her relaxed and happy, saw her smiling and her eyes lit up in that way that makes his heart race a little faster. He tightens his grip on his wand and crosses the remainder of the sitting room. When he reaches the alcove, he stops and bites his lip so hard that he can taste blood.

The table is set. The awful dishes that Ron bought them for their wedding present, the ones he was proud of finding and still thinks are just bloody brilliant all these years later, are set out, and there’s a cold roast in the middle of the table. Everything is still in place, cold vegetables and hard bread, and there are puddles of wax beneath each floating candle. Her mind must be elsewhere if she forgot the charm to keep the candles from dripping.

It had probably been on the dinner she’d made, one of his favorite meals, and not on candles. Bloody hell, he hadn’t even owled her to tell her he had to work late. He’d stopped doing that when it seemed he was sending an owl every day. They’d talked about it after that, having a row that ended with slammed doors and no talking for an entire day before she’d finally just said he could do what he wanted. So, he had, because it was easier to just work straight through without taking the time to write a note that just said ‘home late’ when she’d obviously know that once he didn’t come home by seven.

Tonight was no different. Except it was, he remembers, because she’d asked him last night, when he finally got home and went to bed, if he’d make it home for dinner tonight. He’d agreed to the whispered question as he’d touched her and tried to forget the stress of the day while making love with her, but he fell asleep soon after and forgot today. Making love. No, that was the wrong word for what they did now.

She’d told him the difference one day, before they were married, when they were lying together in wet sheets tangled around them. Making love was about emotion and connection while sex was about release and gratification with someone you generally care about. And fucking, which she’d said with a blush that he teased her about, was giving in to urges based on nothing more than lust. Harry had promised that it would always be making love or maybe sex sometimes if they both wanted something a little dirty.

That’s a promise he hasn’t kept, because making love certainly doesn’t describe their recent encounters. Sex, since he loves her more than anything and would never be with anyone else, but a part of him now wonders if it hasn’t been more like fucking when he just comes home late and starts touching her without even asking if she’s in the mood, too. She always is, after all, so why ask? She gets wet when he touches her, makes those amazing noises that cause his cock to twitch no matter how many times he hears them, and holds him against her whenever he comes.

Something’s wrong.

Years as an Auror have taught him to trust his instincts, and he knows in his gut that this is different than any other night when he’s come home late and missed dinner. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t understand why she made such a fancy meal when it’s not a birthday or anniversary, but he feels like he can’t breathe as he turns away from the dining table and runs down the corridor. It only takes a few seconds to reach the door to the bedroom, and he stops for a moment to catch his breath, feeling like a prat for actually running in the flat. When he opens the door, he feels so bloody relieved that he has to lean against the doorframe as he looks at the bed and sees her lying there asleep.

Thank God. The fear that she’s left him fades away as he looks at their bed. Her back is facing him, and her hair covers their pillows as she lies there without any covers. It takes him a moment to realize that she’s not wearing her nightgown. Instead, it looks like she’s wearing one of his old shirts, the one he used to wear beneath his Quidditch clothes when he and the boys would do weekend pick-up matches. Haven’t done one of those in years.

He feels tired suddenly. There’s been too much thinking about things he avoids considering seriously. Emotions have never been something he’s good at, and he’s grateful that Hermione knows him so bloody well that he doesn’t have to use words for her to know how he feels. He can show her, and she understands. He hasn’t felt this mentally exhausted since he realized that the sisterly feelings he’d had for years were a lie, and that he’d somehow managed to fall in love with his best friend, who was sort of dating his other best friend at the time.

As he enters the bedroom, he closes the door behind him. He turns to look back at her and notices something out of the corner of his eye. What he sees makes him feel as if someone’s just used a Cruciatus curse on him, and he drops his wand on the floor as he stumbles back to lean against the door. He stares at the suitcases as if they’re Voldemort reborn, and feels so scared that he can’t breathe.

“I’m tired.”

The soft voice echoes the thought he’s just had, and he looks at the bed with wide eyes. He wants to tell her that she can’t leave him, that he can’t live without her, that he’s not Harry without her, but words won’t come. He makes a strangled sort of noise that will embarrass him in the morning when he remembers it, he’s sure, but nothing else comes out.

Hermione’s laugh is soft and sad, and it makes him close his eyes tight in the hopes that he’ll open them to find himself waking from a horrible nightmare. “I’ve tried, Harry. I’ve tried so hard because I love you. I love you so much. But I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” he manages to ask, flinching when he realizes that’s not what he wants to say, not what she needs to hear.

“This,” she whispers. “Loving you and wanting to be with you but never being enough. Being second best to your work. It’s funny because everyone seemed to think that I’d be the one who became a workaholic and let you slip away, but you put me to shame.”

“I---Hermione, please.” It isn’t much better, but at least he’s forming words now instead of making odd grunts and strangled cries.

“Please what?” She rolls over then, and he feels the knife in his gut twisting. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying, and she isn’t even looking at him as if he’s at fault. Instead, she looks hurt and so sad that he curls his fingers into his fists until his nails press against his skin. “Please keep on as if nothing has changed? Please keep the house as if you actually care about being here or even still think about getting a place of our own? Please keep eating dinner alone and visiting our friends alone so I can see their pitying looks as if I’m too blind to notice that you never want to be with me? Please continue trying to keep this marriage together when it’s become nothing more a piece of paper that we signed years ago? Please keep subjecting myself to being fucked whenever you want without caring about my own needs or desires because a good little wife never speaks up?”

He flinches with each word, wanting to deny their truth but knowing he can’t. What has he done? How did this happen? And why the hell didn’t he see it or realize it before now? God, why hadn’t she said something? Anything? She’s supposed to tell him these things, supposed to make him understand and see when he’s fucking up. She’s not supposed to be so docile and accept it calmly. She should have hexed him, threatened him, fought him until he was shagging her against whatever surface was available. “You never---”

“I shouldn’t have to,” she interrupts, knowing in that way of hers exactly what he’s going to say, maybe even before he decides himself. She sits up and looks down at the sheets. “When I tried, we ended up having horrible rows that never did any good. I---I love you too much to endure those all the time, so it’s been easier to just hope you’d realize it. But I can’t hope that anymore. Tonight, I made a nice dinner and intended for us to talk about it, to make you listen and admit that you’ve changed in a few ways that aren’t good, but I should have known better.”

“You can’t leave.” The words sound desperate even to his own ears but he doesn’t care because he was actually able to say them.

“I can do whatever I want.”

“I didn’t mean---I meant---bloody fucking hell,” he curses finally, pushing his glasses up before he runs his fingers through his hair and pulls hard. When he drops his hands, he looks at her and hopes she’ll understand.

“No,” she whispers softly. “I can’t keep on this way, Harry. It’s not fair.”

“Hermione,” he murmurs as he walks to the bed. He can’t say the words, can’t tell her everything he wants to say, but he has to make her understand. She watches him warily and stubbornly raises her chin as if telling him that it’s going to take a lot more than sex to make her stay. He knows that, of course. He’s not as clever as her, but he’s never been stupid. Except about this.

When he reaches the bed, he walks around it to her side and sits down beside her. He moves his hand over hers, more hesitant than he was their first time together, and he holds his breath as he waits for her to push him away. He listens to her sniffle, but she doesn’t move her hand. Taking that as a sign that she’ll let him try, one last time, he raises his hand and touches her cheek, tracing the curve of her jaw until he tilts her chin up so she’s looking at him instead of the bed.

“Hermione,” he whispers again. I love you. You’re my whole life. I know I fucked up, but please don’t leave me. He tells her all these things and more as he stares into her eyes. She blinks away tears and sighs, breath warm against his fingers, but she doesn’t look away. Maybe there’s still hope, if he can get his head out of his arse and make sure they don’t end up like this again.

Harry lowers his head and brushes his lips against her forehead, her temple, her nose, her cheeks, and finally the corner of her mouth. His glasses have slid down the bridge of his nose, but he doesn’t care if it’s awkward to do this. He needs to know, needs her to understand that she’s his heart and he can’t go on without her. She’s still sitting rigidly, as if she’s afraid to give in or believe in him, and he hates himself for letting things get like this. He knows they share the blame in some parts of it, but it’s mostly on him.

He doesn’t kiss her mouth yet. In a way, he hasn’t earned that yet, so he just kisses his way down her neck as he moves his hand along her thigh. His touch becomes less hesitant and uncertain as she begins to respond to him, but he tries to keep himself from becoming too aggressive yet. Make love. This is about her, about how he feels for her, and it doesn’t matter if he could push her legs up and fuck her until she screams right now because it’s so much more than that, even if he can’t really explain it or even understand it most of the time.

“Harry,” she says in a breathy voice that makes him groan against her neck. He slides his hand beneath his shirt, feeling her soft skin as he considers just ripping the shirt off her. She used to like when he did things like that, even when she’d scold him about the sting of torn knickers or wasting perfectly good shirts that a Reparo charm never made fit the same again. He’s not sure if this is the right time for that, though, because he doesn’t want her to think this is just about sex.

When he reaches the collar of the shirt, he has to decide quickly. He raises his head and looks at her, trying to figure out what she’d want. Slowly, he smiles and grips the shirt in both hands before he rips it, listening to the fabric tear as she bites her lip and stares at him. Why is he so nervous? This is his wife, his Hermione, and she’s never wanted him to be anything but himself. He’s still acting like a complete git, being tentative and shy like she’ll hex him for touching her.

If she really wanted to leave him, she’d have been gone when he got home. She stayed because she wanted one last chance, too. It’s in the way she looks at him and the way she moves her hand over his face, as if she’s not touched him in years. Maybe she hasn’t, not like this. He’s been such a bloody fool. He almost lost her, but now he knows, and he’ll not make that mistake again. Other mistakes, sure, but not any that mean she’ll leave.

He kisses her, and it’s like the first time when his heart was beating so fast he was surprised it didn't explode and his palms were sweaty and he was just drowning in her. The kiss deepens as they tumble to the bed, and she lets go. Her hands are all over him as he caresses her breast and squeezes, tweaking her nipple with the practiced pressure that makes her writhe beneath him. He’s so hard that he nearly comes when she unzips his trousers and wraps her fingers around his cock. Is it wrong to be so aroused in such an emotional situation?

Who cares if it’s wrong if it feels this good? He groans against her lips as he bucks forward into her hand, and he has to reach down to grip her wrist before he embarrasses himself by coming too soon. “In you,” he mutters as he kisses his way back down her neck to her breasts. He teases her nipple with his tongue as he shifts and moves her arms above her head, holding her wrists loosely with one hand while he sucks on her breast. Her knickers are wet, soaking for him, and he growls softly before moving his attention to her other breast.

Instead of ripping the damp cotton, he eases them down this time. She moves against him, muttering about him letting her arms go or finding himself a victim of an unpleasant hex, but he doesn’t listen. He gets the knickers around her knees and moves his hand between her legs, stroking her wet cunt teasingly, wanting her to curse at him more. It’s only in bed when she’s really aroused that she says such things, and he loves that he’s the only one who ever gets to hear her be so improper. He wasn’t her first anymore than she was his, but that was merely a technicality because nothing in his past compared to the first time she scratched his back and told him to fuck her while she trembled beneath him.

He can’t wait too long because his emotions are heightened, which makes him too intense to be patient, and he’s so ready to be inside her that he’s worried he won’t last once he is. She knows him, though, understands him, and she parts her legs and rocks up against him in a blatant invitation. He lets her nipple go and licks his lips as he raises his head so he can look at her. I love you. You’re my heart.

I know is her silent reply as she smiles slightly and rolls her hips wantonly. God, he loves her so much more than work and cases and long hours spent writing reports. He moves into a better position and lets go of her wrists so he can urge her legs up, spreading her in a way that makes him shudder just looking down between them. Her knickers are hanging from her left ankle now, dangling over his shoulder as he moves above her, and his trousers are around his knees, but he doesn’t care. There’s time for being naked later. Right now, he just wants to be home, where he belongs.

She’s so wet and hot and tight that he can’t stop himself from just thrusting forward and burying himself inside her. She gasps and arches up, pulling on his hair in warning for not being considerate. He doesn’t really care because it feels so bloody good, and he starts to move, in and out with deep thrusts that cause those noises of hers. His concerns prove warranted when he can feel his orgasm approaching soon after they’ve started. He shifts position and grips her hips as he begins to move faster, grinding against her as best as he can.

“Touch yourself,” he pants, glasses barely still on his face as he moves his gaze from her face to her breasts to her cunt and back as she rubs her nipples and clit and looks so beautiful that he can’t stop staring. He comes with a soft grunt, back tensing as he pushes forward hard and his hips start to jerk. She keeps rolling her hips even as his spent cock goes limp inside her.

He lets her legs fall from his shoulders so he can lean down and kiss her, curling his tongue around hers as he reaches between them and swats her hand away. He wants to make her come, so he rubs her clit with his thumb, pressing hard against the sensitive skin, and he slowly moves his hips, listening to the sounds they make as she starts to breathe raggedly. When she comes, she arches her back off the bed, pressing her breasts against his chest, and she whines as she shudders. He doesn’t let her go as she finds release, holding her against him until she stops trembling.

It’s after, when they’re lying in damp sheets that are tangled around them and they’ve used words to say the things that need said, that he remembers the candles. She’s drawing circles on his sweaty chest, and he’s brushing his fingers through her hair, and he hates to mention a reminder of what started everything, but he can’t risk burning down the flat, either. “Hermione.”

“Hmm?” She raises her head and looks at him expectantly.

“The candles? I, uh, I didn’t put them out,” he admits, feeling almost vulnerable now that his glasses are off and he’s telling her that he was so scared that he didn’t even think to blow out the candles.

“You didn’t?” She reaches up and brushes his hair back from his eyes. “Did it scare you enough to really change or is this just placating until work needs you tomorrow?”

“’m supposed to be off on weekends, so work can bugger off,” he mutters, wondering why she needed to talk so bloody much about stuff.

“Won’t be that easy, Harry.”

“I know that, Hermione. We already talked about this, yeah?”

“Still, I want you to know,” she says in the prissy tone that makes his body wonder if it’s really ready to sleep, after all.

“I do know. Now, roll off so I can go put them out.”

“I don’t think I will. I’m really comfortable.”

“That’s good, but we need to put them out. Dangerous, remember?” He feels rather smug to be quoting her own warnings back at her.

His smugness doesn't last, of course. “I remember, Harry. That’s why I charmed them to go out automatically at two am.”

He blinks down at her as he brushes his fingers against her cheek. “You have them charmed?”

“Of course. I’m not about to risk burning down the flat, even if I was hoping to accomplish something.”

“Accomplish what?” he asks, slowly realizing that the sneaky little witch has been up to something because her current expression is definitely her ‘my plan worked’ smirk.

"Well, I didn't plan this," she admits. 'I had actually hoped that we'd talk and, uh, be otherwise occupied before we finished dinner, so I didn't want to worry about the candles. When you didn't show up, though, I was hurt and scared that I'd already lost you, and I just came to pack before I lost my nerve. But I couldn't leave you without trying one more time."

"I'm sorry." He doesn't know how he's been so blind, how he's missed their relationship falling apart, how he almost lost her because he loved her and figured that was enough.

“It’s in the past now, Harry,” she says before she kisses him, nearly distracting him from finding out. When she pulls back and he looks at her stubbornly, she smiles and lies her head back against his chest as she holds him. “I didn’t do anything except take one last chance because I finally realized that I can't keep doing this.”

“Yes, it's definitely in the past. But I'm still sorry that it took this to make me realize it,” he mutters, tightening his grip on her when she says she couldn’t do it any more.

“I love you, Harry, but you can be so adorably thick sometimes.“ She kisses his chest and settles against him. “You just needed to see the light.”

End