TITLE: All Roads Lead Back
KEY WORDS: Hermione, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Draco and the rest of the gang. Primarily H/Hr, but a slew of various ships as well. Post-HBP.
SYNOPSIS: Harry Potter always figured that once his destiny was fulfilled he could finally have a happy, normal life. Unfortunately for him, he fell in love with his best friend...and everything went straight to Hell! A very gradual, slow moving H/Hr love story told through multiple canon character perspective as well as several flashbacks. Set 7 years after the final battle.
SPOILERS: All six books.
WORD COUNT: 2,344
RATINGS: NC17 for language and later sexual content.
BETA: Padfoot & murphsmine
WARNING: Where do I even begin? Although this story is H/Hr I play around with several different pairings throughout so if you are a fierce Harmonian this story might piss you off. If you are looking for quickie resolutions and everything tied up in a neat bow at the end this story might piss you off. If you like fics that are action packed adventures this story might piss you off. This is my very first fan fiction so all reviews, insight, critiques and suggestions are welcome but if you condescend to me that will piss ME off. :) With that said I hope you find something to like. Although there are a few HARMONY clichés mucking about, I like to think that I turn quite a few of them on their ears. This is all in good fun! Just keep in mind that although I try to keep things as canon as possible (I rely heavily on all six books and The Harry Potter Lexicon is my go-to bible) I do take liberties here and there. I'm also American, but I do try to capture the spirit of the world that Harry and his friends live in. Now if you are still here after reading all of that...ENJOY!
DISCLAIMER: If it looks like it's JKR's, well, that's because it is. She's provided me with the canvas and I'm truly enjoying painting on it.
AND IT BEGINS...
She was in his bed again. No matter what kind of day he had; good or bad, or what dark or pleasant mood his mind was in when he retired for the evening, she always ended up in his bed...in the middle of the night; this time clad only in a peach colored towel. He liked it when it was only a towel. Makes things oh so much simpler, he thought merrily to himself as he turned over on his side and hooked his right thigh over her left leg. She didn't seem to mind according to those large doe eyes that stared back at him challengingly. What are you going to do, they seemed to say.
He began to trace his fingers down her arm at a sloth-like pace. He felt rather than heard her sigh of contentment. He could barely contain his grin. He was definitely up to the test. Her skin was warm and damp, as if she had just recently come from the bath before ending up in his arms. His bed would be wet afterwards, but somehow he didn't seem to mind. Wasn't that the whole point, he thought smugly to himself.
As he hovered over her, one hand entangled in russet colored curls while the other still traced patterns on bare, heated flesh, he noticed a bead of sweat that was slowly making its way from her hairline down the contour of her cheek. She didn't notice it or didn't seem to care, but he was enthralled. Oh to be able to glide over creamy skin without any other care in the world and then just disappear into it! He was jealous! He wanted to be that tiny droplet of moisture. So he did the next best thing. As it crested the curve of her left breast, he licked it off. It tasted of salt, cotton, and sex.
It was time to remove the towel.
But before he could put his plans into action, she grabbed on to a fistful of his hair as if to hold him securely in place. He obliged her unspoken command by lapping lazy patterns with his tongue over the skin the towel did not cover.
Her soft, cushiony body began to lightly quake under his much larger frame. As he made his way to the other breast, his tongue teasingly dipped into the valley between the two. She emitted a petulant moan, as her right hand let go of his hair and drifted down to the middle of his bare back. He could tell that she needed some kind of release soon, but he was having far too much fun toying with her. That is until her unattended hand slipped into his silken boxers and began stroking his cock at a maddening pace.
Fast...faster...then slow.
Fast...faster...then sloooooooow.
Minx.
Whatever it was she needed, he now needed too. He realized this fact as his tongue began to get bolder with its machinations. It forcefully pushed down the material over her right breast, and before he knew it, he had taken the little brown bud of her nipple into his mouth. He felt a quick shot of pain as her nails dug into the skin of his back and her body arched halfway off the bed. He could almost picture in his mind the half-moon imprints he would find in the morning. He smiled to himself. They would be well worth it; battle trophies. He fully intended on winning this war.
As he took one last languid lick of her nipple, he rolled his whole body on top of hers. One arm he used to prop himself up so he didn't put his whole weight on her. The other arm was down at her parted thighs, his hand inching upwards towards his prize. His lips were on hers, their tongues frantically dueling with each other for dominance. Almost there, almost there, he thought to himself as his fingers crept higher...higher still. He ached to touch her there. His pulsing cock felt like it would implode if it wasn't sheathed inside her moist, heat soon. The rubbing was nice, though. The rubbing was very, very nice. Almost...almost...
The smell of her arousal was damn near drugging him.
Almost...
"Do you want me, Harry?"
It took him a few seconds to realize that they were no longer kissing, and that the voice he was hearing was not in his mind, but coming from the half-naked woman who had just been writhing underneath him mere seconds before.
"Do you?"
Everything seemed to stop at that moment; his roaming hands, his labored breathing, the quick rhythmic drumming of his heart. It felt like he couldn't even blink.
"It's really a simple question, Harry," she said as she placed both her hands on either side of his face and forced him to look her fully in her eyes. Her big brown eyes...her big brown eyes that he would gladly drown in if he could!
It was a simple question. It was the question that she asked him every time they ended up in bed together; a mass of tangled arms, legs, and other assorted body parts. And the answer was always the same.
"Yes," his voice croaked in answer as he looked at her from beneath heavy lidded eyes. If anything his little friend poking at her stomach should have given her the first clue. But he didn't mind. He knew from her little sighs and kittenish purrs that she wanted him just as much as he desired her.
"Do you love me, Harry?"
This, however, was new. Usually after his declaration there would be no more conversation exchanged between them. That is unless you counted grunts and groans and pants and screams of "harder...harder..." as they both joyously fucked each other into incoherence. But love? Love was never mentioned between them. It was almost as if the subject was taboo. Did he love her? He knew that he loved his parents and Sirius. He loved Remus and the Weasleys. He had loved his old headmaster Dumbledore, a fact that he hadn't fully realized until the wizened old wizard had left him. But did he love her? Was he in love with her the way her question fully implied?
"Yes," he responded reverently, his voice cracking from the emotion of it. This answer was just as true as the last.
"I love you more than anything in this world, Hermione."
And he did. He felt the truth of those words within every inch of him. He looked into her eyes intently. He hoped she could hear the earnest honesty in his voice; see the near worship in his eyes.
She did. She smiled at him with such child-like glee that he half-expected her to clap her hands and coo at him.
"Good," she softly whispered as she leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his lips. It was a kiss so achingly sweet that he felt his heart rend into pieces from the sheer innocence of it all.
"Time to wake-up then, Harry."
Wake-up?!!
~~**~~ ~~**~~
"I SAID IT WAS TIME TO WAKE-UP, HARRY!" he heard a voice screech as he felt the weight of a pillow thrown at the back of his head. Harry scrambled up into a sitting position on the bed, draping the powder blue sheets around his waist. As he turned bleary eyed towards the direction of the irritated voice, he tried to gain some semblance of wakefulness.
"Sweet Circe! You are going to be late again if you don't hurry up. Hanes just might actually fire you this time!"
He watched the red blur go back and forth across the field of his vision a few times before he reached over and plucked his glasses from the night stand next to the bed. He slipped them on and Ginny suddenly came into focus. She wasn't too pleased with him, if the purple color her face was becoming was any hint. He placed the glasses back where they had been. He'd rather not see this.
"That's probably been your intention all long, Harry, to get thrown out of the Department! Well I won't allow it!" she said, stomping her foot down angrily. She would have made a very imposing figure too, hair blown back from her face like a Fury, arms akimbo, legs spread far apart.
That is if she wasn't all of 5ft4, Harry sniggered to himself.
"DON'T YOU DARE LAUGH AT ME, HARRY POTTER!" Ginny shouted.
Harry swallowed whatever remnants were left of his amusement. This was after all Molly Weasley's girl.
"Gin-"
"And don't call me Gin!" she growled as her eyes narrowed.
Harry even imagined that he saw her ears fold back like those of a large jungle cat. He briefly wondered if maybe he should call her Legion, right before calling in an Exorcist for her.
"You know damned well that I hate it when you call me Gin! And if you've made a mess of your sheets again, don't expect me to wash them this time!"
The way her eyes looked disdainfully at the bed, Harry was almost too afraid to take a peek down. He did feel a certain dampness surrounding him, but he was sure that it was just sweat. Please just be sweat, he hoped.
"And if you even think you're going to get to use that this morning you best think again!"
This time Harry did take a gander down and was greeted by the sight of his rock hard erection poking through the sheets. He discreetly placed a pillow over his lap, too tired to even feign embarrassment at this point.
"I wouldn't think of it, Ginny," he muttered under his breath.
To let him know that she had heard what he said, she gave a roll of her eyes and a rather irate sounding harrumph.
Harry watched her stalk to the bedroom door. Before she exited she turned around, reached into the pocket of her pink dressing gown, and pulled out her wand. With a flick of her wrists, she pointed it towards the walk-in wardrobe. One of Harry's scarlet Auror robes floated gingerly out and placed itself on the pale green settee against the bedroom's far wall.
"I had Dobby press your uniform. I think you should at least look like you want to be there," she sniffed in that irritatingly superior tone she had recently begun to address him in. As she turned her back and exited, he heard her mention something about his breakfast getting cold.
"Finally!" he exclaimed as he heard her footsteps on the stairs.
Harry jumped out of bed and bolted for his shower. He was still feeling the aftereffects of his dream and he needed to get rid of the evidence. Badly!
As he felt the first drops of cold water trickle down his skin, he closed his eyes and tried to recapture the lingering images in his head. Soft, supple flesh, inviting opened thighs, irises a warm and lovely shade of brown...that was all it took. He came hard with a shudder into his hands.
As Harry placed his body fully under the shower tap, the water sending the proof of his morning's frustration down the drain, he pondered what it all meant.
The dream changed, he thought to himself. The dream changed, what does that mean?
He turned his face up as if he would get an answer from the havens above, and was met with a spray of cold water to the face. That woke him up. Harry grabbed a hold of the soap in the dish and began to roughly lather his body with it.
So what if it changed, thought Harry. It didn't matter after all, he grumpily told himself. It was just some stupid dream. That's all! Besides, it wasn't like anything would ever come of it.
As if in answer to his question, he heard a pounding at the bathroom door.
"GET THE BLOODY HELL OUT OF THERE BEFORE I THROW AWAY THE BACON!" he heard Ginny's muffled voice shout through the wall.
"I'm coming, Gin!" he hollered as he quickly rinsed himself from front to back.
"AND DON'T CALL ME GIN!" she shrieked as she slammed the bedroom door on her way out.
As Harry stepped out of the shower and began to towel dry his body, he had a feeling that he was going to have to do a quick spell to repair said door. His suspicions were confirmed when he strode back into his bedroom, a peach colored towel wrapped securely around his hips.
Harry took a quick glance at the clock next to the mirror of his bureau and shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't going to be that late. Besides, Wednesdays tended to be slow at the office.
As he reached inside his drawer to pull out a fresh pair of briefs and a singlet, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He had just been about to tug off the towel when he noticed the color of the cotton fabric. Instantly his dream came hurtling back at him; the smells, the sounds...the friction. At this last thought his dick practically stood in salute.
Bugger.
He walked back, defeated, to his bed and reached for the wand that was still under his pillow. After he cast a quick "Reparo" at it, he threw a locking and silencing charm on the door as well.
As he laid his body on the bed, nude as the day he was born, he begrudgingly admitted to himself that he was in fact going to be late. And Hanes? Well, Hanes might just bloody well fire him. Harry just didn't care anymore!
The last cohesive thought Harry had before he placed his hand on his shaft and succumbed to mindless bliss, was that he hoped Ginny was just joking about throwing out the bacon. After all, he had to have something to look forward to as he sat across the breakfast table from his wife.
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