Disclaimer: *tapping a foot* Yo. For the last time (I think), I'm telling you that I don't own Harry Potter. I'll say this again and again and you'll continue to not sue me.
So. This story is coming to a close, I do believe. And since I'm writing it, that's all that matters, no? Anyway, if this isn't the last chapter, then there will be just one more after it. And I'll let you know at the end.
I *heart* my reviewers. *grin*
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"everything will change"
-the postal service, "brand new colony"
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The seconds after her questioning murmur felt like hours. Harry sat across from the girl who had inhabited his dreams for the past year and a half and found himself looking at his feet with nothing to say. Well, no, he had plenty to say, the words just wouldn't come out. And there she was, Hermione Granger, cool as a rock star. Maybe she'd learned it at work, his inner voice snickered. Either way, Harry'd been less afraid facing down half a dozen Death Eaters. And he'd certainly never had any problems with girls before. But they were just. . .girls. This was Hermione. No sweet words would save him here and, even if they could, he wanted this to be real. He looked at his shoes for another minute or so before realizing that the silence was dragging on. He looked up at Hermione and saw that she was leaning slightly forward, hands clasped between her knees, waiting for him to talk. How Hermione had gained this still quality he'd never know. When he last saw her, she was still all kinetic motion and barely concealed urgency.
He finally opened his mouth, fully intending to speak, to tell her exactly how he felt, to let it all come tumbling out of him, but the best he managed was a squeaky sort of sigh. Hermione leaned back, looked at him appraisingly for a moment and laughed.
"Harry?" Her voice still held the echoes of her laughter, even as she spoke. "You came all the way over here for that?"
And just like that, the dam broke. Harry jumped out of his seat, went around Hermione's sleek little coffee table and pulled her out of his chair and into a fierce hug.
"No, `Mione, I came over here for this." And they stood there, embracing each other tightly. He could've sworn he heard her sniffle a little
Hermione broke away first and looked up at him, her face, as he suspected, shiny with tears. "Harry, I said I was sorry and I meant it. But I also told you why I had to do it and meant that, too. I had to go. But honestly, I missed you two so much. The first few months were miserable." Here she paused, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I was trying so hard to succeed and survive and I felt like I was dying, like part of me had just been taken out. I had to do it, though, so that I could. . well, so I could grow up. And I have. So have you two, I've gathered."
"We have." Harry stated the two words simply and without any attempts to make Hermione feel guilty. There had already been enough of that from Ron earlier.
A moment of silence passed between the two, each of them studying the person opposite, and when the moment came, there was no hesitation from either of them. In the years to come, they would argue about who moved first.
It was Harry, actually, who moved that millimeter closer, though Hermione was the one who realized what was actually about to happen. Her first reaction was to pull away, seeing as Harry was probably just in shock at seeing her. Then she realized that there was time to deal with all that later, and she smiled a little as she closed her eyes, and she could actually feel Harry's smile as he touched her lips to hers and it was all fireworks and falling stars and Harry. Harry's hand on her back and his other in her hair and his scent of grass and soap, his hair tickling the side of her face, his glasses slightly pressing into her nose.
She'd always wondered what it was like, ever since years ago when she'd told him that he couldn't be a bad kisser. At the time, she'd just known it, instinctively. There was no way that Harry Potter could have been, could be, a bad kisser. She had found out that her roommates agreed with her the hard way, as they giggled and whispered in their beds and she had felt sullied. She would've known that about Harry even if he weren't the Boy Who Lived. To her he was just her best friend until things had changed and he'd become her best friend and a little something else. She thought him terribly brave for doing all the things he'd done, but she also knew about all the times he wasn't a hero. She'd held him as he cried over his godfather, she had spent late nights up with him, discussing what the future held for all of them, including him. After all, Ron and Hermione weren't destined to have a fight to the death with a Dark Wizard.
The fact that they would and did had nothing to do with destiny and everything to do with loyalty and love. Not because he deserved it for having a scar on his head from an incident when he was a year old. He didn't care about all that and neither did they. He deserved it for being kind and generous and funny and sweet and just generally all those things that made him uniquely, beautifully. . .well, Harry.
This was what she was trying to tell him, their only point of communication being their lips. She put every single ounce of the two years she had spent wishing she could be his into that kiss, every happy thought of the seven years they'd spent together.
When they finally broke apart, she suspected she'd succeeded. Harry's eyes were slightly glazed and oddly bright. Meeting them, she blushed momentarily and then looked straight back at him.
"I'm sorry I never knew, `Mione."
"I'm sorry I never mentioned it. Honestly, Harry, I couldn't expect you to know. I was just scared. I didn't want to distract you. I thought about it, I thought about it a lot. It wasn't the time. Even after the battle, it still wasn't quite right."
"So what's different now?" Harry looked at her curiously, wondering why she hadn't said anything even when Voldemort was gone.
She stepped back, waving around. "This is an apartment, Harry, and it might as well be a million miles away from Hogwarts and London. I might as well be a million miles away from the girl I was."
"But you don't seem all that different, Hermione. I don't understand. Tell me what's changed."
"Nothing but me. Take. . .well, take a minute ago." She paused, swirling away to walk to her window, where she looked over the bright Chicago night. "A year ago I would've never done that. I would've thought it to death. I would've analyzed it to see if it would be too strange afterwards or what Ron would think or a million other things. And those are all concerns, but what if we hadn't kissed? I would've always wondered and, in the end, that's what it comes down to."
"Well," Harry started, puzzled, "of course it does. What else would it be?"
"That's where we've always been different. You and Ron go charging off into whatever the near future holds, you create it as it happens. But me, well, why do you think I loved Arithmancy so much? It was so tangible, so logical, so enlightening. The research I always did? It took me somewhere, it showed me where I could go. But since I've come here, I've learned that sometimes, now and again, you have to stop looking and leap."
She turned back towards Harry, finding him about a foot away from her, studying her as if she were some odd specimen Hagrid had brought into class. She honestly couldn't blame him, she thought, walking back into the main part of the room and sitting on the couch. She just as surprised as he was, this being the first time she'd put her huge paradigm shift into words. She'd always known something was different about her since coming here, but she'd never been quite sure what. Navel-gazing was one of those things she preferred to forego in exchange for more concrete topics. Like anything other than that, really. Anything at all. She looked over as Harry sat down beside her, his leg touching hers, just like they'd sat a million times before but oddly different.
She was thinking about how she could still taste him a little when he finally spoke.
"See, that's funny. You see, we've sort of done the exact opposite. I started the season late partially because I was worried about you, love, but also because I wanted to think about it. You were right, it was a bit much after you left." He smiled as Hermione snorted at the understatement. "I could've done anything I wanted to. Ron could've done anything he wanted to. Hell, `Mione, you could've done more than both of us put together, probably, when it was all said and done. Endorsements and book deals are one thing, but did you know Puddlemere Potions had a reward out for information on where you were just so they could offer you a job there?"
Hermione looked directly at him, startled. "Are you serious?"
"Gryff's honor. By the way, nice new name."
"Thanks." She said that a bit absentmindedly before looking back at him. "That's why I left, Harry. I couldn't stand it. I've never really been used to the attention, certainly never enjoyed it." She held up a hand, stilling the protest that her companion had opened his mouth to deliver. "I know you didn't, but you had lots of experience with it. Of course, Ron had some fun with the whole thing, but I just couldn't deal with it, and what you just told me let me know that I did the right thing, at least for me. Remember fourth year? I knew from then on that being your best friend was going to be different in more than the adventuring way. To be honest, I'd rather deal with a mountain troll again than reporters."
"But, Hermione, you became a reporter."
"Ah, but we become the things we most despise. I just get paid for it. Besides, it's different. I interview rock stars and it's fun. It really is. Growing up with you has sort of made it difficult for me to be that impressed by fame, so I get to know them on a level that most people don't see. And I share that with my readers. It's like discovering something new."
Harry's eyes twinkled at her. "Ah. So meeting musicians is like doing a Potions report now, is it? You know, you could always do a column for the Daily Prophet or Witch Weekly. I don't think you understand - you could do anything." He paused for a minute. "But you would've been able to do anything you wanted without the publicity and that's why you should take the chance."
He reached over to her, pulling a springy ringlet away from her shoulder and releasing it to snap back to near her head, smiling as it fell in with the rest of her hair. She batted at his hand and he grinned, catching hers in midair before it had a chance to hit him. She turned around on the couch, swinging her legs up to sit in a half-lotus position, her legs resting on his, and gave him her best playful glare. But she didn't slide her hand out of his.
"Sorry, I've still got the old seeker's reflexes. . .you should come see me play sometime."
"I. . ." Hermione trailed off, looking away from him and biting her lip a little. "I'm not sure if I could just yet, Harry."
"But you've been away a year," he said, using the hand that wasn't still holding hers to guide her face up until she made eye contact, "and we miss you. Molly Weasley keeps the jumper she made you for Christmas in a cupboard in the living room, in case you come back. I miss you."
"I know, I know you all miss me. I know you miss me." She stopped speaking and her eyes widened a little. "Mrs. Weasley really does that? Well. She should talk to my mother, who emails me every other day lately, asking when I'm coming back to London for at least a visit. I'm just. . .I don't know, Harry."
"Behold, the great Hermione Granger doesn't know. Let me write this down," he grinned, "so I remember to tell Ron. But, really, what's so hard? I'm sure a Portkey isn't beyond your capabilities. You know, they can make them for you if it is."
"Very funny. I'll have you remember I made one sixth year so we could go chasing down Pettigrew, remember? But it's not that, nothing to do with that. It's just that England is where I grew up and where I had all these adventures, but I'm not sure I'm the same person who did those things. Since I left, I've changed a lot. I've gotten accustomed to living a normal life, as opposed to being a celebrity. Alison Gryffin is just a reporter, nothing more. I get paid to fade into the shadows and watch, to not be the person that people are paying attention to. If I come back to England, I'll be trotted out and bothered and they'll all want me because I helped defeat Voldemort, not because I can make friends with prickly people and give them to the world. Eighteen is a difficult age to have your own chocolate frog card, as I'm sure you know."
The boy across from her looked almost steely for a minute. "I found the first one that had my face on it in sixth year when a second year Ravenclaw asked me to sign the one he had gotten at Honeydukes, I know about all that. You should see it," he muttered, looking glum, "unauthorized biographies, toy wands, they want to make a movie about me for the Muggles, `Mione! Professor McGonagall is handling it all for me."
"I know, Harry. But you deserve all that fame, you earned it."
"But you said yourself, you nearly went into the Hospital Wing three times finding a way to defeat Voldemort. And when I was allowed to talk to people after I got away from Madam Pomfrey, I told them that, but they didn't listen and you were gone. I just focused everything, but you, you came up with it all."
There was another pause, the newest in a conversation that seemed filled with moments where they were searching for what came next, groping for the next place to be filled in. Harry finally broke the silence, asking what he'd wanted to know for the last year.
"Why'd you leave without saying goodbye? That hurt, a lot, to know that you could just walk away from me without even an owl telling me where you were going."
"Would you have cared?" Hermione asked in a quiet tone.
Harry looked completely appalled at the suggestion. "Of course I would've! Bloody hell, Hermione, even if you did think it was bad, we're best friends! You can't just disappear and not tell us anything. I was worried sick. First I had to go take the N.E.W.T.s and then right after, we fought Voldemort. Madam Pomfrey told me you helped shield where I was staying, but that you had gone. I asked everyone, I looked around, but no one knew where you were. The newspapers were running stories and asking where you were and no one had any answers. I wouldn't have told them, but it was hard knowing that I couldn't even if I had wanted to."
"I know, that was the beauty of it. No one knew, so no one could tell."
"We wouldn't have."
Hermione almost squirmed under Harry's gaze. "There was another reason, too."
"What?"
"I felt like you two didn't need me, didn't want me around anymore."
Harry brought her hand up to his lips and kissed the part of her fingers right after the first set of knuckles and Hermione almost swooned before she regained her resolution. It was difficult, knowing she was a breath away from starting something that she'd longed for. But she knew that there was unfinished business to discuss before they could move on.
"No, Harry, we have to talk about this. You guys were busy with Quidditch and other things." They both colored slightly, knowing what she meant by that euphemism. "I don't mean to go on about it, but you two really left me alone there."
"But," Harry responded, looking pained, "we didn't know what you were doing. And you were always so tired and. . .well, snappish. We felt like we were bothering you."
Hermione sighed. "This is never going to be resolved, is it? So much misunderstanding. It turned out well in the end, though, didn't it?"
Harry thought about it for a minute. On one hand, it seemed like Hermione was back to her old self, even if she said that it wasn't that.
"First of all, I'm not sure we're there yet. And, I'm not sure anyone told you this, but when I was allowed to talk to anyone at all, Hermione, you and Ron were the first people I asked for. You and Ron, in that order. And you weren't there. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. I felt so abandoned and didn't really know what to think. You'd always been there for me, and I thought that I had done an all right job being there for you, but I wasn't sure then."
Hermione blinked at him for a moment. "But, Harry, you had all those people. Albus Dumbledore, the most important person in the wizarding world, was there. Ron was there. The Ministry was probably ready to put you in Fudge's office. Honestly, you and Ron were far closer than I was to either of you that year."
"I already told you, though," Harry said, barely concealed urgency laced through his voice, "we left you alone because we thought that was what you wanted."
"I didn't. I just thought that you two didn't want me around, which is why I needed to go. Because I felt pushed away, so I actually went. There was all of that attention, but not when I needed it, certainly not from the people I wanted it from." She sat back, biting her lip.
Harry looked at her for a full minute, just examining her, like he had been doing all night. Then he released her hand and, moving quickly, grabbed her face in both of his hands and he kissed her. It was just as spectacular as the first time, making them both wonder what exactly they'd been missing in the past and how often they could do it in the future. When they finally broke the kiss, Hermione was slightly breathless and Harry looked pensive.
Hermione, having recovered herself slightly, looked at him with a completely serious look on her face and smiled slightly.
"I've been in love with you since the summer before seventh year, you know."
And Harry, even though he had expected that Hermione hadn't been telling him something, was shocked to hear those words come out of her mouth, so shocked that he did the only thing he could do and kissed her again. Hermione participated briefly and then pushed him away, getting up to pace around her large living room.
"No, you have to listen to me. This is so important. I need you to know this. Do you remember that night at the strawberry patch?"
Harry certainly remembered it. He, Ron and Hermione had gone out in the dead of night, in a strawberry patch at the edge of the warded portion of the Weasleys' property. They had sat out there all night, watching meteors. The three of them had laid there, their heads all touching, murmuring quietly as the stars fell from the sky. At one point, Ron had wandered off to pick strawberries, leaving Harry and Hermione conveniently alone to talk. That had been when Harry had told her his thoughts on dying and when she had decided that he wasn't going to. She hadn't mentioned this to him, just sat up and let him rest his head in her lap, stroking his hair all the while.
"Yeah. I remember." He smiled, obviously remembering the close feeling they had shared.
Hermione walked back to him and perched on the edge of the couch beside him. "That's when it happened. That's when I knew you couldn't die, prophecy or not. I wouldn't let you. A world under Voldemort would be unbearable, but I knew I wouldn't last long in it. But a world without you in it at all was one that I wouldn't want to last in, even if I didn't have to be afraid. I had to do something, I couldn't stand the thought of you dying. Of course, I had never wanted you to die before, really, but it became so pressing. If I thought there was something else I could be doing, I didn't want to sleep, I didn't want to eat. Finding a way for you to defeat Voldemort and live was more important than any of that. That was when it all started. It was later that year when you started dating that Hufflepuff that I realized why it was so urgent to me." She sat back, sinking into the cushions. "It was a classic case of denial, honestly. Obsession, even, if I had to admit it. Not with you, yourself, per se, because I was fairly blasé regarding that, but with keeping you alive, with keeping you safe."
Harry looked shocked at what she had just said. He couldn't believe that she had done that entirely because of him, he'd thought she'd done it for the good of the wizarding world, too. But, no, she'd gone to all that to make sure that he made it out of there alive. She'd been so insistent that she and Ron accompany him to where he faced Voldemort for the last time because she wanted to make sure it worked and get him out of there. He remembered it was she who had Apparated the three of them out of there before he fell asleep for the week following all that. It all started clicking into place and made him feel slightly guilty.
"I didn't realize that and I'm sorry. I was. . .I was distracted."
"I know, Harry. I just didn't want to tell you, I guess. . ." she sighed a little, "I guess I just wanted you to know now, though. It felt so silly, honestly, when it was said and done. I know that I did a great thing, but I had gone to such lengths. And I didn't want you to know, I didn't want you to be. . .well, I didn't want things to get strange."
"Well. . .I know now. And it's not strange, not when it's us, the three of us, anyway. I need you, `Mione, just like I always have. I've been waiting for the last year for you to come back and I realized that you might not. So, here I am. I'm thanking you for everything in person." He stood up, ignoring her attempts to brush off his gratitude and looked down at her, as he spread his arms. "Did those kisses mean anything to you? Was it just the moment, is it just one of those things?" He dropped his arms and walked a few feet away. "What I'm asking, Hermione Granger, is if you're willing to accept my apology. My sincerest, deepest apologies, in fact. Can we find a way for it to matter?"
"There's always something to be done, isn't there?"
Harry walked over to Hermione, dropping down to his knees just in front of her. "That's not what I'm asking and you know it," he said in a gentle voice, "I know there's something to be done, the question is what you're going to decide it is."
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(Portkey.org is now caught up to ff.net so no more cheating for you cats. *grin*) And, for the record, normally I hate the cliffhanger as a literary device. Ugh. . . One more chapter, as soon as the block disappears.