All of Me

A/N – just a little bit of fluff, already written so will be updated quickly. It’s only two long chapters, so another shorty. It’s written in first person so the tenses will probably annoy some because sometimes I think I get it wrong. Sorry. I hope you can look past that and enjoy anyway.

All Of Me

I can’t really believe that this is my last day at Hogwarts, that tomorrow I’ll get on the train and my education at this school will be officially over. Sitting on the top step of the entrance way, I watch my fellow students enjoying the early summer sunshine that was currently bathing the castle and a wave of sadness sweeps over me. I don’t know why, I should be happy, right? I mean, it was a beautiful day, exams were over, and in less than two days I will be a free man soon to travel the world. By all accounts, I should be bouncing off the walls with joy.

But I’m Harry Potter and happiness isn’t something that comes naturally to me so instead I’m here, by myself, watching others being happy.

Sighing, I justify my mood by the fact that this place holds too many memories for me – not all of them good. It was here that I saw Professor Dumbledore die; it was here that the final battle took place where I had to kill another human being (if you could call Voldemort that); it was here that I had to bury Hagrid and Hedwig.

Yes, I say to myself, I’ll be happier when I begin my trip, my ‘overseas experience’, when I’m just a normal teenager out on my own doing normal teenage things. Yes, I’ll be happier then.

Sighing again, the thought of leaving the place that I have called home for eight years, more of a home that the Dursley’s ever was, is gut wrenching. I know this place, I’m comfortable here and tomorrow that comfort will be gone.

“I can’t believe that today is the last day we’ll be here. It’s like leaving an old friend.”

The voice comes from behind me, a voice that I know so well. I turn to watch my best friend of eight years come and sit by me, chuckling to myself as she did.

“What’s so funny?” Hermione asked as she sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees, bringing them close to her chest.

“You always seem to read my mind,” I tell her, looking back out to the grounds, “if I didn’t know better, I would think you’re a great Legilimens.”

“Are you saying I couldn’t be a great Legilimens?” she teases me, nudging me with her shoulder.

“Oh Hermione, you could be a great anything,” I reply truthfully, looking at her only to find her looking back at me. Our eyes meet and a new wave of sadness runs through me.

“Thanks,” she blushes before turning to the scene in front of her.

I look at her profile for a moment longer and notice how much she is now more like a woman than a girl yet I can still see the bossy child that I met on the train a lifetime ago. In three days I’ll be leaving her. Her and Ron and everyone that ever meant anything to me. Not for the first time I question my decision to leave.

“Are you all ready for your trip?” she asks me softly and I can hear sadness woven within her friendly question, “you must be so excited.”

“More like terrified,” I say to her and look at the spot she is looking out at – watching Ron and Luna lounging together under one of the large oaks on the grounds, totally wrapped up in each other.

“You’ll have a great time,” she continues.

“As will you at university,” I smile, trying to make her feel better, “by the time I come back you’ll probably be a professor or something.”

“You’ll be gone for that long?” she gasps, glancing at me briefly, long enough for me to see a sheen of tears on her eyes. Quickly, we both turn back to watching Ron and Luna.

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, because I don’t. I have no plans, not really – just going with the flow for the first time in my life. I have no ties here, only Hermione and Ron, and they both have their own plans. Ginny is not part of my life anymore, she’s already moved on to the next bloke, so what is keeping me here? A lifetime of miserable memories and a life I would prefer to forget.

But that isn’t all together true. There are great memories here as well, friends that are beyond just friends and a life I’m going to miss so much.

I sigh again.

“You’ll be fine,” she tries to reassure me, “you’re going to have the best time and of course you’ll be away for as long as you want to be away. If anyone deserves to have fun and do whatever they want to do, Harry, it’s you. In fact, I must say, I’m awfully jealous. I sometimes wish that I could do what you’re doing.”

“You could always give up your goal of higher learning and join me,” I joke, knowing she never would, “going only where you feel like going, working in dead end jobs just to make ends meet, visiting strange people in strange countries…”

“No thank you,” she interrupts me with her false briskness that she brings out now and then just because she knows I expect that from her, “anyway, I’ll cramp your style.”

“What do you mean?” I question, not too sure what she was getting at.

“Oh, come on Harry,” she laughs, once more nudging me playfully, “the girls will be swarming all over you. You can have a girl at each port!”

“Yeah, right,” I shoot back, surprised that she even thinks I’d do something like that.

She doesn’t reply and her silence makes me look back at her. She stays watching our other mutual friends, her profile making her face hard to read but I guess what she’s thinking anyway. She’s thinking that she’s losing us, both Ron and me – Ron to Luna and me to the world. She’s thinking that the wonderful friendship that’s kept us going over the last eight years is ending. She’s thinking that nothing is the same and that has made her sad.

But I don’t try and comfort her – I don’t know how. And what she’s thinking is true, in a way. The Golden Trio that worked so well together a couple of years ago when we defeated an evil regime is no longer.

Except our friendship will always be there.

“They look really happy, don’t they,” she suddenly says, and I know who she’s talking about. I look back out at Ron and Luna.

“Yeah, they do,” I agree with a smile which quickly dies, “sometimes I think I’ll never have that, I can never give that…”

“What?” she interrupts, “love?”

“Yeah,” I reply with a shrug, immediately uncomfortable, “but I’m glad Ron’s found it. Luna and him are great together.”

“You’ll find love too, Harry,” she says, once more looking at me, “I know you will.”

“Will you write to me?” I quickly ask, changing the subject because I can feel the heat of my blush on my face. She is looking at me intently and after a few moments, she smiles a small half smile.

“Of course,” she acknowledges, “and you know how I love to write.”

“Which is why I’m expecting long, information filled letters from you and not from Ron,” I joke, glad the awkwardness is gone.

“Right,” she grins one of her beautiful, natural grins, “however don’t have a go at me when you get one of my novels, Mr Potter.”

“I won’t,” I promise her and I feel something strange in my chest – a warmth of familiarity that I am going to miss so much. Our eyes are locked again and I know she’s trying to work out what’s going on in my head. Knowing her, she knows better than me.

But she doesn’t say anything and instead looks back out at the grounds.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” I tell her and gulp back a bubble of emotion that threatens to embarrass me in front of her.

“I’m going to miss you too,” she whispers and I watch a tear fall from her eye and roll down her cheek. Embarrassment aside, I didn’t care. I inch closer and wrap my arms around her, pulling her to me to me so that her face is hidden in my shoulder. It felt nice to have her in my arms, her hair tickling my chin as I rest it on top of her head.

It’s going to be so hard to leave her.

But I did and six months later I realise just how much those words meant, that I missed her more than I ever thought was possible. I guess it doesn’t help that today is Christmas and I’m sitting on a beach on the east coast of Australia, nursing a beer as I watch some of the blokes from my hostel playing an impromptu game of cricket while the sun sets on a stinking hot day.

It doesn’t feel like Christmas, and as I watch in broody silence I wonder what the Weasley’s are doing and whether Ron got another jumper from his mother. I wonder whether the whole family was able to get together now that Bill and Fleur have a family of their own. I wonder whether it’s snowing. I wonder whether anyone is missing me even a little bit.

I don’t need to worry about what Hermione is doing though as I phoned her earlier on, waking her up as I forgot all about the fact that there was a massive time difference between where I am and where she is. It didn’t matter – hearing her voice was amazing, chatting like she was just down the road. And she sounded so happy to talk to me that we talked for ages about stupid incidental stuff that she hadn’t included in her wonderful letters.

The trouble is, talking to her has made me miss her more and the desire to pack up and head home is a strong one. But I can’t, I have too much to do. So instead, I’m sitting here on a beach on Christmas day watching a bunch of strangers play a game that means little to me while pinning for a girl back home who is nothing more to me than a friend.

Of course, that’s no longer true and I realised that tonight. It has taken me a while, I know, but I finally realised that she is it – the one. She is the reason why I haven’t had ‘a girl in every port’ as she put it all those months ago. She is the reason that nearly every girl I’ve met throughout my travels doesn’t appeal. She is the reason why it’s been so difficult to do what I set out to do.

Because there have been many times that I’ve wanted to go home just to see her then told myself to stop being stupid, that she’d have her own life now as a student in a prestigious university at Oxford, that she’s just a friend and that I’m blowing things way out of proportion.

Yet the urge to rush home and check up on Ron isn’t something that I’ve felt that often since I’ve been away and tonight I realised why.

It’s because I’m not in love with Ron – but I am with Hermione.

But I carry on. I go to Sydney to welcome in the New Year and once more give Hermione a call just so I can hear her voice. Ron and Luna were with her and it was great to speak to them as well.

The homesickness hit me like a wave.

But I carry on and it was another six months of travelling across Australia and New Zealand before I get the letter that changed everything. It gave me a reason to return home early and something to grab excitedly.

Ron and Luna announced their engagement and their wedding was due to take place in a couple of months.

I organised with Hermione to come home secretly and surprise the couple a week before the victory party that we have each year. It also meant I’d be home for my twentieth birthday and for some reason, that really appealed.

Yet as I sat on the plane as it circled Heathrow, knowing Hermione was down there waiting for me, unaware that my feelings for her had changed and that I didn’t even know if they’d be returned, I begin to feel petrified. I never thought that coming home would be as scary as it was to leave just over a year ago.

But I’m a Gryffindor, and my courage pushes me forward through Customs and Immigration and into the Arrival Lounge at the busy airport. I, like all my fellow travellers, search the crowd for a familiar face.

And then I see her.

And my heart stops.

She is beautiful – her hair pulled back into a half ponytail, and she is dressed in a simple but fetching summer dress. She is searching the crowd and spots me, smiling one of her wonderful, fantastically familiar smiles. I hurry towards her as she does me and all my awkwardness is gone. Without a second thought, I hug her tightly as she does the same, noting just how perfectly she fitted into me. We stay that way probably too long but I didn’t care.

I was home.

When we do finally pull apart, there are tears in her eyes that I know she is trying desperately not to let fall. I just hold her hand and start to leave, beginning a conversation that keeps us going during the trip from Heathrow to Oxford. It is a conversation of two friends getting reacquainted as she updates me on things she hadn’t told me in her letters. There is no awkwardness, no uncomfortable ness and I feel any worry I had slowly ebbing away.

It isn’t until she parks her little car and leads me towards an unremarkable door, one among many in the row of terraced houses in a suburban Oxford street. I knew she had managed to buy her own place, that some of the money we got from the Ministry enabled her to afford to shift away from her parents and live on her own (though her parents live ten minutes away). But now I was going to stay with her and reality caught up with me.

When she opened the door, we were in a small corridor, a set of stairs to our right, a door to our left and what looked like a kitchen at the end of the hall.

“I’ll take you to your room first,” she tells me shyly and I look at her and see she’s blushing. But I say nothing as we make our way up the stairs. I notice the walls have photos of her family, Ron and myself, tastefully framed and all smiling.

“Um, the bathroom is here,” she indicates to the room at the top of the stairs, “I’ve cleared a shelf for you in the cabinet for your things, and the blue towel is yours,” I nod as she points to a room at the end of the landing, “that’s my room,” she says before turning to a door on our left and opening it, “and this is your room.”

We enter it and I drop my backpack down at the end of a comfortable looking double bed with a very comfortable looking Crookshanks curled up in the middle. He opens an eye to look at who’s disturbed him, sees nothing to worry about and promptly goes back to sleep. The walls are a plain off-white, with a chest of draws and a wardrobe the only other furniture. It wasn’t very big, perhaps the same size as my room at the Dursleys, but it was perfect.

“I know it isn’t much,” Hermione says and I look at her because she sounds embarrassed, “but I thought you could add your own touches, you know? And I’m afraid Crookshanks thinks this is his bedroom.”

“It’s perfect, Hermione,” I assure her, giving her what I hope is a reassuring smile, “absolutely perfect. Thank you for letting me stay, I really appreciate it.”

“Well, I couldn’t have you living in the streets,” she tries to joke, “and since you gave Grimmauld Place to Remus and Tonks…”

“This is much better than Grimmauld Place,” I smile more, “the much better of the two.”

She blushes again a bit before grabbing a put out Crookshanks off his spot on my bed.

“I’ll let you get settled in,” she tells me, “er, I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to sleep or not…”

“I managed to sleep on the plane,” I interrupt giving Crookshanks a pat, “but I’m famished…”

“How ‘bout I cook us something then,” she cuts in this time, “I’m starving too. It’s nearly dinner time.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I tell her, going back to my bag, “though I do need to shower and change. Meet you downstairs?”

“Sure.”

I watch her walk out of my room and sigh. Seeing her just proves to me how much my feelings for her have changed. As I get my gear out to enable me to clean two days of grime off of me, I reflect on what was going on within me. There is none of the blah that I felt with Cho, and none of the loud, in your face attraction that I felt with Ginny – but a warmth, a comfort. As I take my shower, I wonder whether it’s because I know her so well, that maybe it was because I was alone that she’s become the perfect woman for me because of that familiarity. Because of that thought, I decide to not say anything to her until I’m sure. I had no plans to mess our friendship up.

Once clean, I head down to the kitchen and to a wonderful smell. I watch her briefly in the very unfamiliar role of cook, thinking how weird and how natural it looked at the same time.

“That smells fantastic,” I tell her, startling her somewhat as she turns from the stove to look at me, “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“You sound surprised,” she replies before turning back to her meal, “I’ll have you know I’m a reasonable cook.”

“Just reasonable?” I kid as I come closer to see what she was actually cooking.

“I’m no Molly Weasley,” she says as she turns the stove off and gets ready to serve, “so you’re warned. But it’s eatable.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” I smile, “do you need a hand?”

“No thanks,” she answers, “though if you want a beer, they’re in the fridge.”

I go to the fridge and see that she’s bought my favourite brand and smile.

“You remembered I liked Carlsberg,” I say, “you really are quite incredible.”

“I wanted you to feel at home,” she blushes as she places the two plates of food onto the small table at the edge of the kitchen, “here we go. I hope you like it.”

“It smells fantastic,” I enthuse, sitting down at the table, “and looks brilliant.”

She pours herself a glass of wine from a bottle of red that had been on the counter while I open my bottle of lager and wonder if I should ask for a glass or just drink from the bottle like I usually do. My dilemma is solved when she hands me a glass as she sat. Smiling, I pour my drink from the bottle to the glass.

The meal was as wonderful as it smelt and once more we begin to chat about this and that. We decide not to go over my travels that much as I would just have to say it all again the following day when I was to meet Ron, so instead we talk about her and her studies. Of course, Hermione is modest about her achievements but Ron had already told me in one of his brief letters that she had been the top in her classes. Her first set of exams were over with the results coming out in another month – from how she told it, she was sure she’d failed them all. I knew she will have passed with great distinction.

We move into the sitting room, which is just off the kitchen. It is full of books, a desk and chair with a computer as well as a couch and two easy chairs which faced the small hearth. She apologies for the lack of television and assures me that she’s got me a small portable from a friend of hers that I can have in my room. I just shake my head in wonder – of course she doesn’t have a television, or a DVD player or a game console. Books and reading are her entertainment.

Before I sit down, I look at the books on her book shelves. There are wizarding titles amongst the Muggle text books and other reading material. There were also a good lot of Muggle classics from Shakespeare, Eyre, Austin and others. With a chuckle, I make myself comfortable in one of the armchairs and take a sip of beer.

Hermione was already seated and immediately begins to defend her little home to me. I tell her that I love it, that it’s so her that it’s perfect and with yet another blush, the topic moves back to her studies.

Half a dozen beers later, it’s now dark and my travels are beginning to take their toll. I can feel myself relax perhaps a bit too much, and I know that the four glasses of wine Hermione had drunk has done the same to her. So I take the plunge and ask the question that had been on my mind for many months.

“So Hermione,” I begin, leaning back with my glass of beer resting on my stomach and my legs straight out before me, ankles crossed, “why, in all the letters you’ve sent me over the last year, have you never mentioned any blokes. Surely you must have had at least one or two dates?”

“Honestly, of course I’ve dated,” she huffs at me, “I just didn’t feel comfortable telling you about it.”

“Fair enough,” I allow but am determined to carry on and find out what I really wanted to know, “so, are you seeing anyone now?”

I sip my beer and watch her blush uncomfortably as she ponders my question. I’m nervous and already feeling jealous as part of me realises she could actually say yes.

“No,” she finally answers before gulping down a rather large sip of wine.

“Really?” I say, my jealousy disappearing and is quickly replaced by a new sense of daring, “I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t know why,” she scoffs, “boys don’t like girls like me.”

“Of course they do…” I start, startled that she actually thinks she isn’t attractive to men. I don’t get far in my defence of her womanhood, however, as she cuts me off.

“Oh, come on Harry,” she sniffed and I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes at me, “I’m hardly a stunner, I’m bossy, I’m smart, I don’t like to go to parties and get drunk or worse. I hate sport – not exactly a catch in any stretch of the imagination. The few boys who actually gave me a chance never lasted long, just confirming what I already knew.”

“Hermione…” I begin once more, sitting up right now, shocked at her confession. All the things she listed, all the things she saw as flaws were the things that made her special to me. They were the things that made her uniquely Hermione.

She barrelled on.

“I mean, even you and Ron confirmed it,” she carried on, gulping down more wine, “sure, Ron seemed to like me for a while even though we drove each other barmy while you never saw me as anything remotely girlfriend like, considering it was girls who were pretty and athletic that were more your style…” I cringe inwardly at the truth of her statement but stayed silent as she wasn’t ready to be interrupted, “…but that’s fine. I’m okay on my own and will just wait until I find the right bloke,” she glances at me and my shock and confusion increases ten-fold when I see raw pain in her eyes – she glances away, takes a deep breath, another sip of wine then smiles a somewhat forced smile as she looks back at me, “what about you? Have you left a trail of potential baby Potter’s all over the globe?”

“No!” I cry, upset, “how could you think that?”

“Have you looked at yourself lately, Harry?” she answers, her smile now a more natural one, “honestly, you are handsome, smart, polite and incredibly charming. Women would have flocked to you every where you went and you’re a young man – you can’t tell me that you didn’t take advantage of that.”

I stare at her and she stares right back, unflinching, with this strange look on her face. The turn this conversation has taken is disturbing and one I don’t particularly like. She’s right, to a point – girls did seem to find me attractive, why I don’t know. I don’t see myself as ‘handsome’ – I’m skinny, pale and with hair that’s so black and all over the place (except my chest, of course – that’s as smooth as it was when I was ten) that it looks like I have a strange skin ailment when I dare to expose my legs to the world. Sure, the girls did seem to find my accent charming and sure, there did seem to be a general consensus that I have an innocence about me that they found attractive, but I don’t understand it myself. Most of the girls I met were either beautiful but incredibly stupid, or wanted to ‘fix’ me because they thought I was wounded or hurt and in need of tender care. Others did actually have a brain and were genuinely nice – I even dated an American doctor in Australia for a few months – but nothing lasted very long and it never got serious enough for the possibility for any baby Potter’s anywhere.

Oh, it got close a few times but the idea of having sex with a stranger scared the shit out of me. I got a fair bit of ribbing by some of the blokes I befriended during my travels, especially after my ability to pull easily became known, but I didn’t care. Even when I had girls offer themselves to me, no strings, I turned them down.

Crazy? Maybe. But I want to lose my virginity to someone I care about and I didn’t meet that woman during my trip because she was here, in England.

And now she’s sitting opposite me, looking at me curiously, waiting for my answer. I finish my beer and stand.

“I’ll have you know that I was a perfect gentleman,” I tell her smugly, “and as pure as the day I left Hogwarts. ‘Night.”

I left her then, detouring to the kitchen to put my dirty glass in the dishwasher before making my way to my bedroom. After taking off my clothes, removing Crookshanks from my bed and out of my room, closing the door after him, I lie down and reflect on my first night back home. I conclude that it went well, that I enjoyed myself and was proud of my restraint of not confessing all the moment I stepped off the plane.

I don’t get a chance to dwell, however, as exhaustion and alcohol finally takes its toll and I fall asleep.

A/N – sorry its taken so long to update but real life definitely got in the way, plus I was hooked into a really good story on PK, plus this had the fewest reviews I’ve ever gotten BUT the reviews I did get were all positive so thank you very much! Hope you enjoy this bit…

When I wake, there is brilliant sun peeking through the gap under the curtains, telling me that it’s well into the morning. A glance at my watch proves it when I see that it’s ten o’clock. Knowing we were planning on leaving at eleven, I quickly gather my things together, absently telling myself I really need to unpack properly, and head to the bathroom. Cleanly showed and shaved I go downstairs and when Hermione isn’t in the kitchen, I grab a banana from the fruit bowl and go to the lounge where I see her – her back to me as she typed furiously away at her computer, the soft sound of some music coming from the stereo at her side which she was humming along to. I lean against the door jam and watch her and once again feel this…wholeness. It’s such a familiar sight, perhaps not in front of a computer, but her focus on the task at hand. The amount of times I’d seen her like that.

“Morning,” I say eventually, and she jumps up from her chair and looks at me in shock, her hand to her chest indicating that she hadn’t been expecting me.

“Harry!” she exclaims, “you’re awake!”

“Yeah,” I reply, making my way to her, “I guess I was more tired than I thought. Watcha doing?”

“Oh, school stuff,” she demises casually but she looks uncomfortable for some reason. She pauses and I frown in concern as I recognise her look – she wants to say something but she thinks it may be something I don’t really want to hear.

“What is it, Hermione?” I prompt and she looks at me, still chewing on her bottom lip. She then takes a deep breath and speaks.

“Look, Harry,” she starts, and my frown deepens, “I…I just want to apologise if I offended you last night, you know, about the…sleeping around thing. I didn’t mean to upset you and I know you’re not the type but…”

“Hermione…”

“…it’s just that the boys have been saying what they’d get up to if they were you and it all sounded rather torrid and you are a teenage male whose hormones often dictate you actions. Well, not you specifically but in general it seems teenage boys don’t always think with their head. That is, their brain…”

“Hermione…”

“…and you were out on your own and you are rather a brilliant catch and well, girls can be very persuasive…”

“Hermione!”

She finally stops to look at me and once again she has this delightfully cute blush tinting her cheeks. I go to her and hold her arms, making her look at me so she can understand what I wanted to tell her.

“I’m sorry…” she starts but I cut her off.

“You don’t need to apologise,” I tell her, “I wasn’t offended and I’m sorry that I made you think I was.”

“You left in such a hurry…”

“I guess I did,” I reply, thinking about it and realising that I did actually leave rather abruptly, “but it wasn’t because of what you said. I was just tired and I wanted to go to bed.”

“I feel so stupid,” she groans, rolling her eyes, “jumping to the wrong conclusions – just like a typical girl.”

“There is nothing typical about you, Miss Hermione Granger,” I joke, pulling her into a hug, “and you know something, there’s nothing wrong with being a typical girl either.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have thought…”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I placate, enjoying the feel of her still secured in my arms, “and I shouldn’t have been a git. Let’s both just forget it and move on – deal?”

“Deal,” she agreed, pulling away from me and looking up at me with a smile, “we better get going.”

I nod, missing her touch already but we had plans and those plans meant a visit to The Burrow. We both finish getting ready and then Apparate to a spot just beyond the wards. I pull my cap further down over my brow in the hope I won’t be recognised so my surprise arrival will really be a surprise. Hermione takes my hand as we walk closer to the back garden where Ron and Luna were lounging around, expecting Hermione’s arrival.

Luna spots us first, indicating our progress to Ron, who stands and smiles. I’m guessing they think I’m a new boyfriend or something, my mind quickly trying to dismiss the pang of jealousy at the thought that Hermione had actually brought potential boyfriends here. Holding back a sigh, we continue walking.

It seems my disguise wasn’t a particularly good one as I’m recognised pretty much as soon as we’re close enough to see properly. I didn’t care though as my arrival is welcomed with an enthusiasm that I can only associate with the Weasley’s. Mr and Mrs Weasley join us in the garden and soon I’m telling them all about my travels with great gusto and before I know it, we’ve had lunch and dinner and it was dark.

I really didn’t realise how much fun I’d had and how much I experienced travelling the world until I started telling my friends about it all. While there, exploring these new countries and cultures, I just did my thing and although I was having a brilliant time, it never occurred to me just how brilliant it was.

By the time Hermione and I head home, I had talked and laughed for hours – it had been great. I was meeting up with Ron the following day while Hermione visited her parents and Luna was off doing…whatever Luna does. As I lay down, ready for sleep, I couldn’t help smiling. I hadn’t realised how much I actually missed Ron until today and was looking forward to us catching up – just the boys.

For the second time in two nights I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

It was a brilliant sunny Sunday afternoon, Ron and I sitting on a couple of deck chairs in the square of lawn that is Hermione’s back yard, ready for a bit of male bonding. I wait for Ron to start and he doesn’t disappoint – in mere seconds, he starts to talk.

“So, what was it really like?” he asks, squinting into the sun.

“What do you mean?” I ask back, not too sure what he was getting at.

“Come on Harry,” he continues with a smirk, “mum, Ginny, Luna and Hermione aren’t here now, you can tell me the truth! The girls! What were the girls like?”

“Oh,” I answer, now understanding, “they were…girls. We have them here in England too, you know.”

“But they’re not foreign here in England, you pillock,” Ron tells me, sparing me a look, “I mean, sure, there are some good ones, like Luna. But she’s special so you can’t count her. You were out there, in the world, charming the pants off of them…”

“Why does everyone think I’m a bit of a…a slapper?” I grump, frowning behind my sunglasses.

“You’re Harry bloody Potter!” Ron exclaimed with exasperation, “you could have anyone you like!”

“I travelled as a Muggle,” I remind him, now smiling, “where I went, no-one knew me or my past or what I’d done…”

“Which I still think is mental,” he cuts in, stretching his long legs out in front of him, “you’re the darling of the wizarding world and you go off being a bloody Muggle.”

“Which is precisely why I did it,” I say, “and it was brilliant. I could just be me, not the Boy-Who-Conquered or whatever stupid title they have for me now.”

“Still the Boy-Who-Conquered,” he informs me and his smirk returns, “so you’re telling me you go off on your own for a year, go all over the world and you didn’t pull once?”

“I didn’t say that…”

“So you did pull!” he cries, whacking me good naturedly on the shoulder, “I knew you couldn’t spend all that time away and not get shagged at least once.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” I continue, also stretching my legs out in an attempt to get even more comfortable, once again noticing just how hairy my legs are (though I note I’m not as pale as Ron), “but I actually didn’t get shagged at least once.”

“What? But you just said you pulled?”

“I did pull,” I inform my friend, “many times. But that doesn’t automatically mean that I have sex with the girl.”

“I don’t get it,” Ron continues, looking at me as if I was some weird creature or something, “you haven’t had sex all the time you were away…”

“Depends on your definition of sex,” I interrupt with a smirk.

“Bloody hell, Harry,” he mutters, looking back out at the garden, “you’re nearly twenty and you’re still a virgin. Never saw that coming.”

“Yeah, well, I have my reasons,” I tell him and leave it at that.

“Those reasons don’t happen to be surrounding a certain bushy haired witch, do they?” he asks me and immediately my heart starts beating ten thousand times a minute.

“What do you mean?” I ask back in what I hoped was a casual sounding voice.

“Oh come on, Harry,” he scoffs, looking back at me, “I saw how you kept looking at her yesterday. And before you left, you were keen to get your leg over, experience life at its fullest. Now you’re telling me that you didn’t? There has to be reason and that reason is probably Hermione. Am I right?”

I didn’t say anything but kept my eyes directed at the wall at the end of the garden as I debated with myself on what I should do. Should I tell Ron the truth? Should I actually admit the one thing that I’ve been hiding and even denying for a long time? He thankfully didn’t give me a choice as he carried on talking.

“Right,” he huffed, “so there wasn’t any one? No beautiful, long legged, tanned, beach babes in Australia, or anything?”

“Well, there was one girl…” I begin, glad the conversation has moved away from Hermione.

“And…” he prompts.

“And, well, she was kinda special,” I continue, smiling to myself at the memory, “her name was Sarah, she was a doctor from America…”

“A doctor?”

“Like a healer,” I explain, “we met in Perth and got on really well.”

“But not well enough to shag,” Ron puts in and I scowl.

“It’s not all about sex, Ron,” I snap at him, “what I had with Sarah was deeper than that! We were planning on travelling around Australia together, we were really close!”

“Harry,” he starts, turning in his chair so he can look at me directly, “you are a teenager – not only that, you’re a teenage male! If this Sarah was like a healer, she must’ve been older than you…”

“Five years,” I admit quietly.

“So you’re in a foreign country, on your own with no adults restricting what you can or cannot do, seeing a woman who is five years older than you, who’s American and probably beautiful…”

“She was.”

“…and you tell me that you didn’t have sex with her? Bloody hell, I started wanting to have sex with Luna pretty much the moment we started to snog…”

“Too much information, Ron,” I groan, pause and then sigh, “it wasn’t like I didn’t think about it, because I did. And we got really close a few times. But something always made me pull back…”

“If you tell me it was because you saw Hermione’s face when in the throes of passion, I think I’ll be sick,” Ron informs me in his over dramatic fashion, screwing up his nose. I say nothing because in a way, what he suggested was true. I wouldn’t see Hermione’s face, or the girl I was with wouldn’t morph into Hermione or anything like that. But sometimes I would hear her voice telling me to take things slow. Or I would think of her at the most un-opportune time and it would ruin the mood. Ron picks up on my hesitation and guesses that what he told me was true, “ugh!” he cries, scrunching his face up in disgust, “mate, that’s just wrong! Did Sarah know?”

“Yeah,” I sigh again and slump down in my chair, “that’s why we broke up. She was really good about it, you know, helped me actually begin to realise the reason why I didn’t hook up with any one while I was away.”

“So you do fancy Hermione, then,” Ron states matter of factly.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe,” he repeats, frowning himself, “how can you not be sure whether you like her or not?”

“While I was travelling,” I try and explain, trying to put into words what I’ve been thinking about for absolutely ages, “Hermione was my link back here, back home. Sometimes when I got really homesick, I would re-read her letters about what was happening and it made me feel better.”

“Why didn’t you just come back?”

“Because I had set myself a goal,” I told him, repeating what I had told myself so many times over the last year, “I knew that if I came home, that would be it, that I would never get there again. And I wanted to see the world. And I wanted to give the world I knew back here a chance to forget me so that when I did come back, I could live a normal life.”

“Mate, you can never live a normal life,” Ron smiles at me and I cringe.

“Yeah,” I concede, “but the more time I spent away the better the chance that everyone would just forget about me. The thing is, I really missed here, really missed home. And for me, Hermione was home.”

“So you’re scared that you fancy Hermione because of what she represents,” Ron nods as he thinks out loud, “not because of who she actually is.”

I stare at my friend in shock that he may have possibly worked out how I was feeling. He glances at me with a look that said ‘what?’ when I don’t say anything.

“When did you become so astute?” I ask, grinning.

“Things have changed my friend, things have changed,” he grins back and we both chuckle before he sobers and says, “so, are you going to tell her?”

“No,” I answer immediately, my smile quickly disappearing, “not until I sort out everything out in my head.”

“I think you should tell her,” Ron fires back at me, returning to his original position of legs outstretched and hands resting on his belly.

“Tell her what?”

The voice comes from behind us and my head snaps around in horror to see Hermione standing in the door jam, smiling. I frantically wonder how much she’s heard, whether my secret has been exposed before it should’ve.

“That he’s grateful that you let him stay here,” Ron lies easily, without missing a beat, “actually Harry, you can come to The Burrow now that I know you’re here. There’s heaps of room.”

I watch Hermione’s smile falter slightly, her eyes shifting between Ron and me, stopping on me as I continue to look at her. Something passes between us, an understanding that she didn’t want me to leave and I didn’t want to go.

“I’m pretty settled in here, now,” I tell Ron as casually I can with my heart beating fast and loud. I stay looking at her as I add, “that’s if Hermione still wants me.”

“Of course I do,” she replies and smiles once more.

So I stay and the routine of living together ends up being easy. On Monday, Hermione went back to work and I finally unpack and really settle in. By Wednesday I had visited my parents, Dumbledore, Hagrid and the graves of the others we lost, gone to see Fred and George at their shop, got spotted then nearly mobbed and learnt that Hermione loved pasta and a nice merlot.

We talked so much, that first week home, about everything and nothing. I thought after nine years of knowing her, I knew all there was to know about her – I was wrong. I found out about her childhood, I found out she actually had a great sense of humour when she wasn’t constantly worried about me dying and I learnt her devotion to facts and books was in some way a defence mechanism when she felt she was losing control.

I think she learnt a bit more about me as well, as I relaxed a bit more as the week progressed. Like everything else between us, it was easy – friendly, platonic, and easy.

By Saturday, the day of the Victory Ball, I was in a good place. Waiting for her as she finished getting ready, I felt I could handle whatever was awaiting me, even though my appearance at this now annual event would tell everyone I was back. It scared the shit out of me, but I felt ready.

As I looked at myself in the mirror for the umpteenth time, smoothing down the collar of my dress robes, I chuckle at how a small gathering of friends for the first anniversary of the end of the War had now grown into a major event that included the who’s who of wizarding society and is now organised by the Ministry. I missed last years, which is when the first part of the transition happened, and now – well, I’m standing in formal dress robes ready for a formal ball.

Which we were going to be late for.

As if reading my mind, Hermione rushes past my door in a flash of blue, ruffling material, shouting out to me to hurry up and get downstairs otherwise we’ll be late. Muttering to Crookshanks how it was like it had been me keeping her waiting, not the other way around, I head downstairs only to find myself stopping in my tracks.

She looks absolutely beautiful.

Facing away from me as she dug through her small, beaded bag, my eyes trailed along her bare neck, exposed by her hair being pulled up in a bun-type thing, along her back to where her dress started, hugging her body tightly in a blue, soft material, until it got to her waist. There, it spread out into a flowy skirt that ended at her knees, her legs looking long and tanned with these delicate, strappy high heeled sandals on her feet.

I was still staring at her when she noticed I was there – and a whole new pile of sensations hit me. Her face was subtly made up; a touch around the eyes and lips. She had on a dainty chain with a pendant on the end, her earrings matching, both accentuated by her bare shoulders and little ringlets of hair that escaped her bun.

“Oh good,” she says to me, slightly anxiously, “there you are. Oh dear, I’ve made us terribly late! But I’m ready now – you good to go, Harry? Good. Right, take my hand and I’ll Apparate us to the agreed point outside Hogwarts. Harry?”

Through the fog that was my brain, I realise Hermione is talking to me and after agreeing to whatever she had asked me, she grabbed her robe, her bag, my hand and we were off.

It was a short walk from an Apparation point just beyond Hogwart’s wards to the main gates but by the time we got there, there was a buzz preceding us to the castle. It wasn’t long before that buzz of curious people recognising me turned into a crowd grabbing at me and Hermione, thanking us for what we had done. My main concern was keeping Hermione safe as the crowd began pushing into us but thankfully the Calvary came in the shape of the Weasley men, Neville and Remus. They quickly formed a barrier around us and escorted us inside, shielding us from the enthusiastic public.

When in the Great Hall, I greeted my friends properly and because there was always someone protecting me from the very scary people, I was able to actually enjoy myself. It was great seeing everyone again and I couldn’t help but notice the difference between who they were when I left and how they are now – especially Neville, who was ready to start his second year at Auror training and was now confident and in control.

The night ended up being not too bad with me even dancing twice; once with Luna and once with Hermione. Ginny kept me at a wide berth though, which was fair enough. She was still hurting about our break-up even though it happened over eighteen months ago. Hermione told me not to worry about her, and I didn’t.

It was good to see the Weasley’s in general smiling again. They lost Charlie and Percy in the War, making the past years tough, especially for Mrs Weasley. But now she and Mr Weasley were showing us young ones how to move on the dance floor and as I stood between Hermione and Ron, watching them, I couldn’t help but laugh.

We started planning my birthday – or should I say, everyone else started planning my birthday (which was a couple of weeks before Ron and Luna’s wedding) with me interrupting every now and then saying that they were going slightly overboard. But it was fun and after worrying about the whole affair all week, I was glad I came.

The weeks went by with me now and then thinking that I should really find a job and earn some money. Not that I wasn’t paying my way, I was – I had enough money that working wasn’t necessary for quite a long time. Still, I felt exceptionally lazy, especially as Hermione started planning for her new year at university plus her part time job.

So I started making a very limited effort in finding a job. I looked in both Muggle and magical papers but nothing reached out and grabbed me. Since I didn’t even know what I actually wanted to do with my life, that wasn’t too much of a surprise.

Before I knew it, it was the end of the month, which meant it was my birthday – I was going to be twenty.

Bloody Hell.

Job hunting aside, I must admit the last three weeks have been the happiest in my life. Hermione and I have just got better and better. It’s like we’re a couple, but without the sex. Which doesn’t stop me wanting ‘the sex’ though – but I still haven’t had the courage to tell her how I feel.

Because I know how I feel now, I know that the feeling that she is the one, the only one for me, is real. And I know I should tell her. The trouble is now, I don’t think I’m good enough for her, that I can’t give her all that she deserves. We’ve been spending a lot of time with Ron and Luna and Neville and his girlfriend, Beth, which has just accentuated my fears. Even Ron, emotionally stunted Ron, tells Luna he loves her all the time.

I can’t seem to get the words out, even on my own.

But I have to do something because it’s agony to be with her but not be with her.

I’m an idiot.

So on my birthday, we have a party at The Burrow. Everyone who is anything to me is there and I have a great time. I get heaps of brilliant presents, eat tonnes of fantastic food and laugh and joke with my friends so much that I am exhausted by the time Hermione and I leave to go home. I had also drunk a few glasses of wine and although I wasn’t drunk, I was definitely ‘happy’, which was good because Hermione had been unintentionally torturing me all night as she never left my side. I planned to go straight to my room when we got home and hide, but didn’t get the chance.

“I have another present for you,” she tells me shyly as I place my already substantial pile of presents down on the kitchen table, “wait right there.”

She didn’t give me a chance to object as she quickly ran off. Curious but also nervous, I wait by the table and in minutes she’s back and hands me a small, flat box.

“You already got me a gift,” I tell her, taking the box from her hands and notice with a frown that they were shaking slightly.

“I know,” she replies as she sits, “but this is a special gift. A private gift. I was going to give it to you for you eighteenth, but everything was still such a mess and you were still in hospital, so I thought I’d wait until Christmas. Christmas came and you were with Ginny, so it didn’t seem right and then you were gone for the next birthday and Christmas, so here we are! Go on, open it.”

I sit down in the other chair and take the lid off the pre wrapped box to see a layer of tissue. Putting the box on my lap so I could use both hands, I remove the tissue to find a framed picture of three pairs of hands – a large pair in red paint, a small pair in blue paint, and a tiny pair in purple paint.

“I found this at Godric’s Hollow, when we went there the first time,” Hermione explains, “I was going to show you then, but you were so upset, and things went so horrendously pear shaped, so I slipped it into my pocket to frame for you. Do…do you like it?”

This was me and my family, our hand prints immortalised in parchment and paint. How it survived in the ruins of my parent’s home, I don’t know, but it did. I blink furiously, trying not to cry but there was so much emotion going through me, I’m not sure I can hold it all in.

I had gotten a lot of wonderful presents, presents that had had a lot of thought put into them to make each gift special. But this, this was different. This was my family and Hermione knew I wouldn’t want to open this in front of a lot of people, even if they were my new family and friends.

She had saved this for years, waiting for the right time to give this amazing piece of parchment to me, knowing how precious it would be to me.

She knew me so incredibly well.

“I…I can’t do this,” I mutter to myself, finally cracking.

“What?” she asks, concerned, “Harry?”

I put the handprints down onto the table and look at her, seeing those wonderful, beautiful brown eyes full of hurt and worry. I needed to tell her, but I don’t really know how to voice all the mess that’s in my head. Feeling ready to explode, I stand suddenly and start pacing.

“When I was away,” I begin, “I thought I missed you because you were my link home, you reminded me of home and what I’d left here. But it was more than that and I’m so incredibly thick it took me going to the other side of the world to work it all out.” I pause and look at her and she’s watching me, still concerned, but stays silent. I continue to pace.

“The thing is, I want more than just friendship with you, I feel more than just friendship for you. But…but I’ve got nothing to give to you Hermione, nothing! I can’t be like Neville or even Ron! If an expression of l…love is what you need to believe how I feel about you, I can’t do that! I don’t…I can’t give that to you. I can’t give you a future, I don’t know what it is myself! All I can offer you right now is me. This is it. And you deserve so much more…”

“Harry…”

“But I promise you that you have all of me, for what that’s worth. If you give me a chance, I’ll give you all I can. But I understand if you say no, that you want more than I can offer. I just ask that we can remain friends…”

I don’t get to carry on my tirade though because it’s hard to speak when you’re being kissed, and being kissed I was.

It was fantastic.

I quickly get lost in her, putting my hands in her hair and on her back so I can pull her closer into me. We kiss for what seems like eternity before she pulls away, her hands still gently holding my face so that I have no choice but to look into her eyes.

“All I want is you, Harry,” she whispers.

“What?” I splutter, not sure I was hearing just what I want to hear or the actual truth.

“When you left, I thought I missed you because Ron was spending so much time with Luna and I was alone,” she tells me, releasing my face so that she could hold my hands, our fingers intertwining, “but when I started school and made some new friends, I realised I missed you because I was in love with you. No other man came close to you, not even a little bit.

“But you were half way across the world having fun and I resigned myself to knowing that you may come back with a girlfriend, or a bride or not come back at all.

“Instead you came back alone and you were still my Harry and I still loved you and its taken all my self control not to have jumped you these months we’ve been living together.”

“Me too,” I admit, running a finger down her cheek just to see if it was as soft as it looked – it was.

“You and me, there’s always been something special, different,” she continues as my hand moves gently through her hair to the nape of her neck. She pauses briefly, closing her eyes, at what I hope was pleasurable sensations from my touch, before looking back at me, “but it took you leaving me for me to realise it, to realise what we have is…”

“…easy,” I finish for her and she smiles.

“Yes, easy.”

“For two people supposedly smart, we really are quite thick, aren’t we?” I joke and her smile grows.

“Better late than never though, right?” she jokes back and lets me pull her in closer so that nearly every part of us is touching.

“So,” I begin, aware that I am so very aroused by her but still that little bit too scared to make that ultimate move, “what happens now?”

“I Apparate us to my bedroom and we finally cross that line that we’ve been so careful not to cross.”

I just smile.

The news of us getting together was greeted well by our circle of friends. It seems that everyone expected Hermione and I to become a couple eventually as they all could see what the both of us failed to, though we waited until after Ron and Luna’s wedding to go public, not wanting to take the spotlight off the newly married couple. It was difficult to act as if we were still just friends for that night, but what happened after we got home well made up for it.

I never shifted out of her place but I must say, Crookshanks did get his bedroom back to himself quite quickly as I spent more time in Hermione’s room than mine. It was a few years later that we shifted into our place, straight after us coming back from our honeymoon. We built at Godric’s Hollow – no great surprise there, really – a family home to house us and our baby, due late September. Crookshanks had left us by then, his long and happy life finally coming to an end, I had gotten a job (being the new DADA teacher at Hogwarts, which was and still is brilliant) and I was able to tell Hermione how much I loved her every day.

I still do, of course, because loving her is now as easy as breathing. And it still is easy, even through the rough spots, because she has all of me – heart, body and soul.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A/N2 – this was inspired by a song called ‘One Day’ by a New Zealand band called Opshop. A lovely little ballad, one of my favs. If you get a chance, check it out