A/N: Sorry, sorry, sorry! I had been trying to upload one chapter every day, but between homework and other assorted duties, my schedule pretty much got much more school-oriented than usual, and my poor fan fiction got all left alone and lonely for a little while. In hopes that no one will throw too many tomatoes at me for missing a few days, here's another heaping helping of fluff, in which we find out exactly where our two lovers have gone in their lives.
Enjoy!
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~One Year Later~
Gentle rays of sunlight finally coaxed Harry's eyes open, waking him from a restful sleep. He lifted his right hand to momentarily rub his eyes, becoming aware of the fact that his entire left arm was occupied with the task of holding Hermione - who was still sleeping - close to him. After a moment of half-blind searching, Harry located his glasses on the nightstand to his right and manoeuvred them onto his face (a difficult task when done with a single hand), finally bringing the master bedroom of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place into focus. He and Hermione had moved into the room a few months earlier, finally vacating the bedroom that they had been sharing since the end of the Battle at Hogwarts, whose first anniversary had recently been celebrated.
Harry smiled. He remembered thinking, long ago, that waking up next to Hermione must be the nicest way to start the day. He still believed it to be true, with all his heart. He looked forward to starting every remaining day of his life exactly like this - waking up to find that he was still alive and well, despite the constant threat of Death Eater rebels, with Hermione still snuggled next to him, warm, safe and content.
Hermione stirred next to him, roused by the sunlight as well. He turned towards her and was met by a pair of brown eyes - oh, how he loved them - and a small smile.
"Hey," she greeted him, the blissful calm of sleep still present in her voice.
"Hey," he replied, returning her smile. "How'd you sleep?"
"Mmm… Wonderfully," she replied contentedly, moving a little closer to him. They had drifted a few centimetres apart while they slept, and that was, apparently, a few centimetres too far for her. Harry responded with a light kiss on her lips.
"So," he started, gently brushing a few stray curls away from her face, "what do you want to do on your first day as Mrs. Hermione Jane Potter?"
Hermione's smile widened a little. "Mrs. Hermione Jane Potter," she repeated, lifting a hand to examine, just for a moment, the golden wedding band that adorned her third finger, before facing Harry again. "I like that."
Harry chuckled softly, entwining his left hand with hers in such a way that their two rings became adjacent. "I like it too," he replied. "Wouldn't you think that that was why I asked you to marry me?"
Hermione rolled her eyes while Harry's mind toyed with the subject.
Mrs. Hermione Jane Potter, he mused, smiling slightly. He loved that name, and everything it meant to him. It meant that he and Hermione had finally decided to settle down, after more than a year of 'dating'. They hadn't called it dating, because they weren't, not really, but they had still technically been boyfriend and girlfriend. Neither of them had really felt the urge to get into anything more serious or permanent, because they had been quite comfortable with the way things were, not to mention that they had been (and still were) a little young for marriage by the Muggle standards with which they had been raised. After a while, however, Harry had finally decided that it was high time to finally pop the question and just confirm what everybody already seemed to know: he wanted to be with Hermione for the rest of his life.
He hadn't worried about Ron's reaction like he had when he had been preparing to tell the Weasleys that he and Hermione were a couple, now more than a year ago, because Ron had settled for a relationship consisting mainly of respectful indifference when it came to Harry and Hermione (Harry felt that their dramatic duel on the day that his and Hermione's relationship had ceased to be a secret had definitely helped to keep Ron at a respectful, polite sort of distance, for fear of getting his dignity smashed to pieces yet again). He had decided that he was quite comfortable pretty much pretending that they didn't exist and forcing a smile when he absolutely had to be in their vicinity, which wasn't often, considering the increasing amount of time he was spending with Luna Lovegood. That suited Harry and Hermione just fine. Besides, they still had the rest of the Weasleys, who were still the warm, loving people that Harry and Hermione had stayed with during the summer holidays, when they had still been attending Hogwarts.
Harry smiled. He had always thought that he would be either dead or fighting Voldemort for the rest of his life, not enjoying wonderful day after wonderful day with Hermione and never having to worry about what Ron might do to them.
She had noticed his smile. "What are you smiling about?" she asked.
Harry shook himself from his thoughts. "I'm just thinking about you, my love," he said, kissing the back of her hand and grinning.
She rolled her eyes but couldn't hide the fact that she, too, was grinning. "OK, so what are you really smiling about?"
Harry shrugged. "You'll probably die of insane amounts of cheesiness if I tell you," he replied.
"I highly doubt that I will," she replied. "Come on, tell me," she insisted, detaching her hand from his and poking him in the chest.
He reclaimed her hand in order to avoid any more poking. "All right," he said, as though she was positively dragging it out of him. "I'm just thinking about how I always thought that I'd be dead before I was eighteen, and if, by some miracle, I didn't die, I'd still be fighting Voldemort for the rest of my life. I never thought that instead of risking my life every single day, I'd get to spend those days with the woman who was crazy enough to agree to become my wife," he told her.
Hermione smiled, planting a light kiss on his lips.
"It does sound a little bit cheesy," she agreed, "but it's not, because I know that it's perfectly true. And I'm glad that thinking about it makes you smile," she added.
"'Course it does," he replied, lightly stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "It really is great to not be dead, you know," he said with a grin.
"Prat," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. "You had to go and ruin the big emotional moment, didn't you?"
"What?" he asked, pouting jokingly. "I'm not allowed to like being alive?"
She rolled her eyes again. "Of course you're allowed to like being alive. I much prefer you not being dead," she said with a grin.
"It might be a little boring to be married to a corpse," said Harry. "Not to mention a tad smelly."
Hermione's expression became one that seemed to be a mixture of disgust and her trademark 'Harry-don't-be-so-immature' Look. "Harry, that's gross…"
It was Harry's turn to stick his tongue out. "Don't be a baby."
She stuck her tongue out right back at him. "Don't be a prat and I won't have to."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Look, we're already quarrelling like an old married couple."
Hermione wriggled her hand from his grip and poked him again. "We haven't even been married for a whole day yet!"
"Which raises my question once again: what were you hoping to do on your first day as Harry Potter's wife?" asked Harry.
Hermione pretended to be offended. "It's true that I married you, but I'd prefer to not be addressed as 'Harry Potter's wife' for the rest of my days, thank you very much."
"Sorry," said Harry. "I meant 'Harry Potter's loving wife'," he corrected himself, grinning at her.
Hermione sighed. "All right, that'll do. Though I did like 'Mrs. Hermione Jane Potter' better," she added.
"Well, Mrs. Potter," said Harry, his grin widening (it was a wonderful feeling, after all, being able to call her that), "you still haven't answered my question."
"About what I want to do today?"
"Yeah."
She smiled. "What if I said that I don't want to do a single thing today?"
Harry blinked, surprised. "Sorry?" he asked, wondering if he had heard her properly. Since when did Hermione Granger-now-Potter, the queen of immaculate organization and talking homework planners, decide that she wanted to waste an entire day? The world was surely ending right then and there!
"What if I said that instead of doing anything, I just wanted to lie here for the rest of the day and not move a single inch?" she asked him.
Harry shrugged. "I'd say that I'd be quite happy to lie here with you, if that was really what you wanted to do, but I'd point out that the two of us might be a little hungry in a few hours, and eating would, if I'm not mistaken, require our departure from bed, thus ruining your plans."
"Well, I'm sure that my loving husband would be nice enough to fetch his beloved wife something to eat, wouldn't he?" asked Hermione, making the biggest puppy-dog eyes she could up at him.
"He would," said Harry, "if said loving husband didn't have the opportunity to just ask a certain house-elf to bring said beloved wife whatever she wanted, therefore ridding said loving husband of the daunting task of actually moving more than an few millimetres."
Hermione rolled her eyes and jabbed him in the chest again, which seemed to be her favourite way of venting her annoyance.
"Said loving husband is also going to develop a bruise if said beloved wife doesn't stop poking him," Harry said with a pout, rubbing the spot on his chest that Hermione was constantly poking.
"Said beloved wife politely reminds said loving husband that he was the one who told her not to be a baby," said Hermione, a triumphant smirk on her face.
Harry pouted again and sighed. "Said loving husband concedes defeat, on condition that said beloved wife stops poking him."
Hermione's smirk widened. "Said beloved wife appreciates said loving husband's decision to concede defeat, but advises him to not get his hopes up when it comes to her not poking him," she replied.
Harry continued to pout. "Said loving husband pleads shamelessly for said beloved wife to cease her incessant poking."
Hermione poked him again. "Said beloved wife points out that said poking is not incessant, but that it could be if said loving husband doesn't quit whining."
Harry held up his hands. "Said loving husband surrenders, if only to evade further poking."
Hermione laughed. "Merlin, we're weird."
Harry kissed her cheek. "Yup. Love does that to you."
Hermione rolled her eyes but smiled. "If I didn't die of cheesiness before, that just might do it."
Harry turned the tables and poked her shoulder. "You know it's true. You're weird 'cause you love me."
She snuggled against him. "Maybe."
They lapsed into silence for a little while after that, Hermione carrying out her plans for the day and Harry merely dozing a little and enjoying their time together. He loved it when they wasted time together like this, whether they were lying in bed and pretending that time didn't exist, that they could lie there forever and never have to drag themselves out of bed at noon because somebody somewhere wanted them to do something, or sitting together on the couch on a rainy day, wrapped in each other's arms as they looked out the window at the rain coming down, not speaking, just enjoying the lasting moments of peace. Comfortable silences were fairly new to Harry, and he found that he enjoyed them quite a bit. Before he and Hermione had gotten together, Harry had always found silences to be awkward periods of time in which he could never keep himself from wondering if the person he was with was hiding something from him by not speaking (and who could blame him, given the number of lies that he had been told and the number of times that people had conveniently neglected to tell him things?). Once they had become a couple, however, Harry had discovered the miracle of the comfortable silence, no doubt brought on by those pleasant cuddly moments that he and Hermione both loved (though he would never admit that to anyone but her). He had discovered that it was a nice feeling, being so comfortable around someone that you could just sit for hours and never say a word, yet never feel the tiniest bit awkward.
A good few minutes of that blessed comfortable silence later, Harry spoke up, his eyes closed as he relaxed beside Hermione, not minding her desire to stay in bed all day one bit.
"'Mione?"
"Mmm?" she prompted, performing a world-class balancing act as she steadied herself on the tempting edges of sleep, feeling rather drowsy once more, despite the rays of sunlight that had woken her earlier that morning.
"Sing to me," he said.
"What?" she asked, a little confused.
He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. "Sing to me," he repeated.
"All right," she said, still a tad confused as to why he would suddenly ask her to sing to him. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that Harry usually asked. "What would you like me to sing?"
He smiled. "I think you know."
She blinked, trying to comprehend the weird way her husband's mind worked, before something clicked in her head and an understanding look came over her face.
"Ohhh," she said, nodding. She smiled. "You want me to sing that song."
Harry nodded. "Yup. The one that brought us together. Highly appropriate, I think, considering…" He took her hand in his again and ran his thumb over the smooth surface of her wedding ring to illustrate what he meant.
"Harry, that's very sweet, and I'd love to sing that song for you, but I don't think I remember all of the words anymore," she said, a slight frown crossing her features for a moment.
Harry was not to be deterred. "Could you try?" he asked. "Please?"
Hermione was about to apologize and tell him that she couldn't possibly remember all of the words, not after more than a year had gone by since she'd sung the song that had started their love story, but seeing how much Harry wanted to hear her sing it again made her think twice. She smiled warmly at him and let out a soft sigh, forced to accept the fact that she was a sucker for those puppy-dog eyes of his.
"All right," she said. "I guess there's no harm in trying."
Harry smiled and settled himself beside her again, closing his eyes as he waited for her to start. She cleared her throat softly and started to sing, invoking memories of that one morning, that seemingly unimportant morning, when Harry had stumbled upon Hermione as she sang to herself at the table, wallowing in the sorrows of unreturned love.
Well, she had thought that it was unreturned, anyway. Luckily for her, Fate had had something quite different in mind for her and the boy for whom she had been harbouring secret affections at the time.
The two of them couldn't help but take a walk down memory lane as Hermione sang, her soft voice seeming a tad louder than it was in the silence of Number Twelve, though just as pleasant as it had been when Harry had first heard her singing, now more than a year ago. After a moment of reminiscing, she came to the chorus of that blessed song. She smiled and turned to Harry, wanting to watch his reaction.
"I'm sure you see me
And I know you need me
'Cause I'm sure you love me
The way I wished you would
I always knew you could"
Her grin widened as Harry turned to her, a questioning expression on his face.
"Those aren't the words," he said, though he didn't sound all that sure. "Are they?"
Hermione snuggled against him, that same smile on her face. "They weren't the words when you heard the song for the first time, no," she told him. "But they are now." She planted a light kiss on his lips. "They're our words, Harry."
Harry smiled as well, pulling her close to him to show his appreciation for her new lyrics. "Did you just make that up on the spot?" he enquired.
She shook her head. "Nope. I've had plenty of time to figure it out, haven't I?"
Harry nodded, hesitated for a second, then asked, "Did it bother you that it took so long for us to finally settle down?" he asked, a little hesitantly. He couldn't help but be afraid of ruining the pleasant mood that Hermione had brought to the room with her sweet song lyrics.
Hermione shook her head again. "Nope," she said simply, effectively ridding Harry of his worries. "We were - and still are, I suppose - a little young for 'settling down', after all. But I'm glad that we finally did, of course," she added. She smiled. "It's nice, you know, knowing that we're going to have a life together."
Harry smiled back. "A good, long life," he added. Merlin, it felt good to say that. He never would have thought, even for a second, that he would get to have a life with anyone, much less with Hermione. The Boy-Who-Lived (now the Man-Who-Conquered) had gotten the one thing that he had never, ever dreamed he could possess: a future.
"Of course," Hermione agreed. "A nice, long, happy life. Just the two of us."
Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "Just the two of us?" he repeated. "You don't want to have any Mini-Potters?" he asked, a mock-pout on his lips. Despite his joking attitude, he was actually rather curious to know what Hermione's feelings were when it came to the subject of having a family. The topic had never come up in conversation before, at least not seriously, but now that he and Hermione were married, it seemed like he ought to know what she thought about it.
She chuckled. "All right, maybe not just the two of us. I mean, I know we haven't exactly discussed the future - well, not seriously, anyway - but… I dunno, I think it would be nice, you know, having a family together," she told him.
"Yeah, it sounds pretty nice," he agreed. He smiled. "I really never thought that I'd ever even have the opportunity to think about this sort of thing, 'Mione," he said in disbelief. "But look at us now, seriously talking about things like having kids." He gave her a gentle squeeze. "It feels pretty good, doesn't it?" he asked her.
She nodded. "Very good," she agreed. "For now, though, your beloved wife would definitely prefer to be able to lounge around in bed with her loving husband for the rest of the day, without being tackled by several small children," she said with a grin.
Harry raised his eyebrows at her again. "Several?" he asked in mock-shock. "My word, Hermione, what sorts of plans have you got for us?"
She grinned mysteriously. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough, Harry. You'll find out."
He smiled. "Can't wait," he said. Whether or not she thought he was joking, he knew that he meant it. There was no doubt in his mind that Hermione - his ever-so-organized Hermione - had plenty of plans for their future, no to mention that he had a few of his own. The most important thing on his mind now was not, for once, how on Earth he was going to defeat the most vile wizard to ever walk the planet, but how he and Hermione could make all of their plans real.
She smiled back. "Believe me, I can't wait either," she said softly, snuggling a little closer to him.
Harry lightly brushed his lips against hers, a small gesture of affection that he hoped could thank her for everything that she had given him: a bright future, a soul mate, a best friend… even his very life, if you thought about all of the times she had saved him through the years.
She seemed to understand, for she returned his gesture a moment later. "Love you, Harry," she said softly, not wanting to ruin the moment by speaking too loudly.
He smiled. "Love you too."