Title: Table for two
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Rate: PG
Genre: Drama
Thank you tohyacinthianfor the beta ^.^andellesmera73for the final touch and amazing help (thanks again, dear!)
This is post-Epilogue ficlet. If you don't like Post-Epilogue stories, just don't read it.
Another One-Shot I post to *test the waters* here on Portkey. It seems very clear that Portkey readers think I suck as a writer. I guess my next step is to delete all my fics then.
TABLE FOR TWO
The dark haired wizard was sitting at the restaurant's table, an empty seat right in front of him.
With a small sigh, his gaze fell, as it often did, to his left hand, and stared at the now unadorned wedding finger. It felt strange- yet a little liberating, to see how it wasn't there anymore. Twenty years with that ring, and now gone."
Harry wasn't sad or depressed about the way his life had turned out. He had been happy (or at least what he supposed what happiness was) for a while. However, you could not live in a fairy tale forever- and pretend day after day that your life is perfect and your other half is faultless.
Maybe they had married too soon; maybe...there were several maybes and what ifs.
And that didn't matter; not any more, anyway.
Ginny had been a good wife, a wonderful mother to his children. She gave him a family, some sort of feeling of stability, but it had been only that.
During all those years that they had been married, Ginny was simply his wife, the mother of his kids-- nothing more.
She wasn't a friend-- just Mrs. Potter.
And perhaps, it was enough for some time. However, as the years went by, her beauty, the sex, the caresses weren't sufficient anymore.
He wanted more than a great shag, or a sexy wife; sometimes, he just needed a friend.
And that, Ginevra Weasley-Potter had never been able to be.
It was when, not entirely without pain, Harry realized the difference between passion and love; and, no matter when or how; all passions always went to an end.
Shaking his head slightly, Harry reclined back in his seat, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.
"Harry?" a too familiar voice called his name and he turned his head, pushing his glasses back to the top of his nose. "Harry? Are you all right?" Hermione asked with a slight concerned tone in her voice.
"Everything's fine," he replied with a small grin, prompting himself to stand up and greet her a little more properly. In all those years of friendship, Harry had learned to notice how those simple details could make her happy.
"I'm fine, really," he repeated, already on his feet, just before kissing her on the cheek. Sometimes he wondered why she was the only person in the world (besides his children, obviously) that he didn't feel embarrassed on doing that little gesture. On the contrary, that simple gesture actually felt right. And right in a different way as it was with his children. "And you, Hermione?" he asked, his eyes flicking over her body. She looked slimmer than the last time he saw her. "You look thinner," Prompted Harry, a slight demanding tone within his words.
Hermione shifted on her feet, but soon smiled at him. "I guess," was her answer, and she leaned her head and kissed his cheek, letting her lips lingering on his skin a little longer than the usual.
And the sensation of her lips on his skin brought a strange, but he realized, not unwanted feeling to his chest.
"I'm fine, Mr. Potter," Hermione assured him, moving to the empty chair. "I guess we can sit already, right?" she asked teasingly before sitting down.
"Right." Harry smirked and sat back on his chair. "I didn't order anything yet. Would you like something?"
Hermione's eyebrows frowned and she shook her head lightly. "I think for now I'll just have a Butterbeer, if you don't mind." She gave him a small smile. "I'm not really hungry right now."
"Me neither," Harry said with a small nod, and for what seemed to be less than a second his eyes caught a glimpse of her left hand. Without really realizing what he was doing, Harry stared down at it. In the place of her wedding ring she was using a silver ring with a small emerald on it.
"It's strange to not wear anything after all these years," Hermione's voice made him look up quickly, "so I bought this little ring."
"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, "I didn't mean to stare."
"It's okay," she said with an easy smile, lowering her gaze to her left hand. "It's already a year, but it still feels...strange."
"Hermione, I'm sure that if you and Ron decided to-"
She held up a hand, and shook her head. "No, it's really over," Hermione replied honestly, and Harry realized that she didn't look sad or depressed, just- conformed. "The best thing Ronald and I have ever done in our marriage, besides Hugo and Rose, was to get a divorce."
"Hermione-"
"Bickering and little fights can be a stimulating when you are a teenager, but it's impossible to live more than nineteen years of it."
"They call it Unresolved Sexual Tension, Hermione!" Harry said with a teasing smile.
"Unresolved, Harry?" she snorted. "After nineteen years of marriage and two kids?"
He sobered up. "I know...it's just-" He trailed off, and ran a hand through his raven hair.
Hermione surged forward, and reached for his hand over the table, squeezing it gently.
No words of consolation, or reassuring whisperings, were spoken. It wasn't necessary. She didn't need to speak them aloud; and he didn't need to hear. Her simple touch did seem to just be enough.
Harry lowered down his other hand and placed it over hers, intertwining their fingers together.
Then, he knew that everything was going to be alright. For sure he was still a little wounded after the recent changes in his life but with time all that would go away.
And he realized that whatever happened, Hermione would be always be by his side, and would always understand him; and with that thought alone Harry became conscious of some sort of truth that had been always in front of him.
He smiled at her, letting go of her hand and searching her face, touching it gently. And it was something scary and new; she leaned against his touch and he could feel a warm sensation rising within his chest.
Harry wasn't sure what it was- or maybe he was. He just didn't seem to want to spoil a moment labeling it with silly definitions.
It could be nothing.
And it could be everything.
They were free...
And they had all life to find out.
But first, he needed to order their Butterbeers.
Finis?