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Harry is seventeen when Ron leaves and Hermione stays.
In the weeks after, he half-expects her to pack her beaded bag, then tell him she’s off, in search of clarity, of hope, of someone else. Because it’s Ron and it’s her, and for years they’ve circled each other and maybe Hermione wants to find her way back.
Instead, she wakes him from a nightmare, as a scream tears through his throat and the remnants of the dream melt away at her touch. Her warmth settles into the mattress next to him—hand above heart, breath on skin—as their heartbeats start to sync and his breathing evens out.
She burrows herself in his bed, in this tent, in his life, and doesn’t leave.
::
Outside the tent, the world is covered in a blanket of snow.
The two of them sink into the frozen ground, bundled under layers and layers of fabric and warming charms, and he watches her flushed cheeks and pink lips stand out against the grey skies.
Mornings are colder these days, nights longer. But under the covers with his arm around her waist, he finds it easier to forget.
“Maybe we should stay here, Harry,” she tells him, almost wistful as she looks up at the trees. “Grow old.”
The huff of breath tells him it’s halfway between a joke and the truth, a fantasy and a longing.
He realizes he wants it to be real—and maybe this is the moment, the beginning of everything starting to change.
::
In a shared breath after a dance, with fingers that linger in the spaces between them and a longing that stretches and burns, he kisses her for the first time.
It’s almost like a question—a shy, tentative press of his lips to hers as he gives her the chance to stop him, to pull away.
She doesn’t.
The kisses burn hotter. Her tongue slips inside his mouth, and their clothes fall away, and his skin slides against hers. She straddles his hips and takes him inside her, and Harry feels like he’s on fire, hands grasping her waist like an anchor.
When they move together, breaths and gasps and sweat and skin, all Harry can remember thinking is that he wants to crawl into hers, see where they end and begin because the lines have become far too blurry.
::
He’s stopped watching her like she’ll disappear when he looks away.
He’s stopped expecting to wake up to an empty bed, and an empty tent.
Instead, his mornings are filled with bushy hair tickling his nose, an ankle looped around his, and her bare chest pressed against his skin. He’s taken to listening to her breathing, in that calm stretch of time when the sun is just starting to come up and it feels like no danger lives outside the tent’s walls. In these moments, he can pretend.
His nights are filled with warm tongues and slick skin, and he waits to feel the shame and the regret and the guilt, but they never come. Not here, not now.
He lays with her under the covers, and he just feels whole.
::
Ron comes back—and maybe Harry had known that he was always going to come back.
Hermione starts putting up her walls again, but Ron talks about a little ball of light in his heart, and Harry knows she hears between the lines. He sees the brief look on her face before she hides it, the one that tells him it’ll only be a matter of time.
He hates himself when he remembers things, as he watches his best friends dance around each other once more. All he can think about when he looks at Hermione these days is the arch of her back and the smoothness of her thighs under his palms, the way she looks when she comes. All he hears is her breathy moan in his ear and her pants of harder, and more, and I want you inside me that echo and echo and echo in the silence until he thinks he’s going to go insane.
“It can’t happen again,” she tells him, voice quiet and firm, while Ron is outside trying to hunt for their next meal. She’s looking at him like she knows what he’s been thinking and remembering. “I can’t—we can’t hurt him.”
“I know,” he says, and he does. “We won’t.”
“You have to stop looking at me,” she blurts out suddenly.
“What?”
“You’re—you’re always staring.” She bites her lip, causing him to stare some more. “You need to stop.”
“I can’t help it,” he says quietly. “But I can pretend.”
I get it, he thinks. You choose him.
“It was just…” she pauses. “Just a moment between us.” She looks at him imploringly; he doesn’t know what she wants him to say.
So he just says, “Right,” in a quiet, restrained sort of way, “just a moment. It—it stays between us.”
After a while, she whispers, “Okay. Just between us.”
He tells Ron he loves her like a sister, like the Horcrux hadn’t shown them both the truth.
Ron believes him, and that’s what matters.
::
He is not even eighteen when the war ends.
So do they.
Because Hermione had kissed Ron inside the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry is left pretending he doesn’t care.
“Oi, there’s a war going on here,” he’d told them, a bit weakly—but the war is over now, and he thinks finally, finally, they’re over too; maybe now he can really start to forget.
He’d always known they had an expiration date, that they didn’t exist outside the spaces of that tent. He’d known there was a period at the end of their story, not an ellipses, but he had thought they might have had more time.
Nor had he imagined that it would hurt like this.
::
In the year after his eighteenth birthday, he watches the wizarding world slowly patch itself back together, finding its footing in a new reality without a war.
He attends funerals of people he loved, whose faces live on in his dreams. He dodges reporters and starts warding off unknown mail that comes via owl post. He settles into Grimmauld Place, a house that holds too many memories, and tries to ignore the ghosts. He watches Hermione go to Australia alone and come back alone, and he watches Ron try to pick her up in the aftermath.
His face is in the newspaper headlines, even years later. His name is in the mouth of every witch and wizard who still celebrates the fall of the Dark Lord and the bravery of the Chosen One who had saved them all.
But the Chosen One doesn’t feel like celebrating; he just feels tired.
He doesn’t know how to tell his friends that when he had walked into the forest to die, he’d embraced it. That he had wanted it, death.
But now he’s alive, and Hermione is alive, and Ron is alive, and people tell him: now he’s free—but from what?, he wonders. He’s not free from night terrors, from forbidden feelings, from the pain of memory and guilt and regret.
The war is over, but the dead are still dead.
Harry is free to live, but he doesn’t know where to start.
::
He watches Ron and Hermione fall back together as he stands in the sidelines. They move into a flat that Hermione’s subletting in London, and Harry helps them unpack boxes and move furniture around the place they’d now call home—together.
They’re a little different now. Teasing, but more playful. Bickering, but more fond. Ron’s smile is softer, Hermione’s eyes more tender, and Harry tries not to look any longer than he has to.
She looks happy, and here he is, watching his best friends choose each other, still pretending.
::
He’s nineteen when Ginny kisses him under the mistletoe, and he lets her.
It feels both familiar and new at the same time—reminding him of a time when Ginny had meant normalcy, and safety, and escape. He thinks maybe it could mean the same now, so he holds her waist and kisses her back.
Later, he sees Hermione watching him from across the room, when Ginny drags him out of an alcove by the hand. There’s a look in her eyes he can’t seem to understand, or maybe is trying not to. There’s an ache inside of his chest, like a memory trying to crawl out of his skin.
Molly is delighted. Ginny is oddly shy, grinning as she slaps George’s arm after he makes a loud comment. Ron pats his shoulder with something between a grin and a grimace; it’s still his little sister, after all.
Hermione just smiles and says nothing. He doesn’t really know if he wants her to.
::
Even two years after the war ends, the tabloids are still calling them The Golden Trio, a name that makes all three of them wince when it comes up in writing or in casual conversation. People whisper of them being one big, happy family now—Harry’s dearest friends in the world, finding their way to each other; and Harry Potter, finally finding the love of his life. The writings in the newspapers reek of epic stories and happy endings, and yet Harry hates it all.
Sometimes, he still feels like a sham, yet no one suspects a thing.
::
He is twenty when Ginny moves into Grimmauld Place.
They paint the kitchen walls a cheery yellow, and she fills the flat with laughter and color and a lighter sort of air. It feels peaceful, for a little while—the way they build a routine around the other, find time together in between separate careers, and learn and relearn how to live.
He cooks, she cleans, they decorate together and split the chores. They kiss before they leave in the morning, they kiss when they get home, they kiss in between the sheets. It’s nice, and simple, and normal.
Ginny is as beautiful and vibrant as she’s always been—talking about her Quidditch practices and her teammates and some gossip she hears about some team or the other. He tells her about the end of Auror training, and the latest recipes he learned how to cook, and grins and laughs at all the right spots in her stories. He listens, and watches her speak, all fiery and light despite the grief her eyes carry, and he thinks he doesn’t want all that light to dim.
So he keeps mum about the ghosts in his dreams, doesn’t tell her about the weight in his chest that still feels raw, nor about the eerie space in his head where there would have been whispering. She knows him better now—his routines, his tells, his favorite dish and his preferred dessert and the way he takes his tea. But he wonders if she’ll ever really know him at all, if she’ll stay when she sees all the bad and ugly.
::
(Ginny had asked him questions before: about what happened with Dumbledore in the tower. About their time in the tent, and how Ron left. About the pieces of Voldemort’s soul that she, too, is familiar with.
She’d asked once, about the day he walked into the forest, prepared to die.
But he couldn’t bring himself to talk, and she’d never asked again.
She’d tried. He’d tried, too.
Was it enough?)
::
He is nearly twenty-one, in the middle of this strange, quiet place in his life, when Ron tells him over drinks, that he is thinking of getting a ring.
“Oh.” He blinks, not quite expecting it. His heart starts to pound inside his chest and he tries not to let it show how stiff and jerky it makes him move. “Wow. That’s a big step. Quite soon, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Ron says. “We’ve been together for over two years now. I know Hermione wants to wait a little bit, build her Ministry career first, and I fully support her, don’t get me wrong. It’s just—sometimes I look at her and I think, ‘Why wait?’, you know?”
Harry hums, not knowing what to say as he takes a quick swig of butterbeer.
Ron sighs, finger sliding across the condensation on his bottle. “I just feel like we wasted so much time in school,” he says. “And after the war…and her parents, Fred…I guess I just don’t want to waste any more.”
His chest feels hollow. There’s a ringing in his ears he can’t get rid of, and his hand twitches, like he wants to grab his wand and Disapparate away. He downs the rest of his butterbeer and decides he needs something a lot stronger.
“I’m excited for you, mate,” he says quietly. And he is. He is.
But lying’s come naturally to him by now.
::
Numb on firewhisky and grief, his quill glides shakily across the parchment later that night, back in his study at Grimmauld Place. Everything he never said, everything he should’ve said but didn’t—poured out onto paper.
Maybe this is his closure, he thinks.
I wish I fought for you, he ends, and wishes the words would leave his mouth, too—his biggest secret.
Instead, he tucks the letter away and crawls into bed, still smelling of whiskey and gin, and he kisses Ginny and slides his body next to hers. His mouth sometimes still tastes of betrayal and regret and missed chances; but he swallows it back, tangles his tongue with hers, and vows to really forget, to be better.
::
His twenty-first birthday is a small but festive affair.
Ginny and Hermione decorate Grimmauld Place in Gryffindor colors, making him laugh when Ron removes the blindfold around his eyes. Molly brings out a gigantic cake she labored on for hours, and George puts a stupid paper hat on his head that he’s not allowed to remove unless he wants to be hexed. Andromeda brings Teddy, who claps and giggles when Harry blows out the candles.
Ginny kisses him as their guests cheer, and for a little bit, his chest feels light, like things are maybe sliding into place.
“Happy birthday, love,” Ginny says against his mouth, and he grins a little when George pretends to gag behind her.
He is opening presents in the middle of the room when Hermione quietly hands him a slim, neatly-wrapped package. When he tears it open, he finds a flat, shiny round disk inside a crystal case.
“A CD,” he murmurs, a little surprised. “How did you—?”
“What’s that?” Ron asks, eyes curious.
“A Muggle thing, Ron; it’s called a CD, and it has music on it…” she explains, looking a bit embarrassed at everyone looking at her. “I, um, noticed you got yourself a CD player, Harry, and I thought…well. I just thought you might like it.”
He listens to it later that night, as he sits alone in his study after all the festivities, after Ginny had gone to bed. He is nursing a glass of firewhisky when a familiar song croons from his player, slow and haunting—one he remembers quite vividly, from one night inside a cold tent.
This made me think of you, the handwritten post-it note attached to the CD says. Happy birthday, Harry.
He settles back in his chair, the song looping in the room and inside his head, her skin and kisses once again flashing behind his eyes. He throws back the firewhisky and feels it burn as it slides down his throat.
He plays the song on loop and doesn’t stop until he feels nothing at all.
::
It isn’t until a few months later that Hermione bursts through his Floo, eyes red and chest heaving up and down. There’s a manic sort of look in her eyes, and he immediately puts his case papers down on the coffee table.
“What’s wrong?”
Hermione is quiet for a long, long moment—just breathing deeply, eyes far away, like she’s thinking of how to say what she wants to say next.
He waits.
“Ron asked me to marry him.”
He’d known it was coming. Ron had shown him and Ginny the ring. Harry had helped him come up with what he was going to say when he finally went down on one knee. He and Ginny had even laughed at how nervous he’d been about asking her, after keeping the old Prewett ring in his pocket for months.
He’d readied himself for this, for this moment—of him smiling, congratulating the happy couple, and still pretending he was okay.
But this is different.
“I’d say congratulations,” he says slowly, gauging her reaction, “but that doesn’t really explain why you’re here. Or why you look like you’re about to cry.”
There’s another long pause.
She looks up at him with eyes shiny with tears, curls plastered to her forehead, skin pale and splotched with red. “I said no.”
His hand is at the back of her head and her face is in his chest before he could fully process it. She said no, she said no, she said no, echoes inside his head as he absentmindedly brushes her hair away from her face and brings his lips to the top of her head.
It feels like a quiet exhale, and he hates himself, oh he hates himself so much, for thinking that way.
::
“We’ve been arguing more than usual,” she tells him, her voice steady as they sit in front of the fire. “He says I’m too busy with work…that I don’t make time for him anymore. And he’s right.”
“You’ve been working a lot on that werewolf case,” he says. He pours her a glass of wine and she smiles in thanks, lips wan and tired.
“I don’t think he understands how much my work means to me,” she says. “But I also think I’m being unfair, because I love him, but also…I think I’ve been using my work to hide. Sort of…me pulling away.”
“I’m sorry.” He is quiet. “I thought…well, I thought things were going great.”
“I forgot our anniversary, you know.” She exhales, looking defeated. “He said it was alright, and it didn’t turn into this big fight or anything, but I could tell he was upset. He said I’ve always been somewhere else lately. Physically and mentally. I think he’s right.”
“He loves you,” he tells her. He remembers the look on Ron’s face when he’d first told him about his proposal plans. He knows he’s telling the truth. “And he just wants to be with you. You know that.”
“I know. I think that’s why he’s proposing.” She swallows. “Because he wants us to work.”
He hesitates, just watches as she pushes her hair behind her ears and fiddles with the ends of her jumper sleeves. “Don’t you want it to?”
“I’ve loved him since I was fourteen,” she admits. “But we’re older now, and—and I’m starting to realize that we want different things. He wants to settle down, start a family…and I don’t. Not right now, or in the near future. And not…” She lets out a deep breath and meets his eyes. “Maybe not with him.”
There’s another long beat where his heart stutters. She looks startled, like she’d said too much and still said too little.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she says, flustered. “He was…I always thought it would be easy to say yes. It’s Ron.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly.
There are tears in her eyes but they don’t fall; he doesn’t reach out for her either. “But I think I’d already said no in my head, even before he asked.”
::
Ron and Hermione separate and Harry is caught in the middle.
The papers treat it like a big, explosive scandal. Ron is depressed and embarrassed; Hermione tries to preserve her dignity and bury herself in her work even more. Harry tries to split his time between the two of them, leaving him tired and spent.
No Granger-Weasley marriage on the horizon, the papers say, finding it all delicious. Are Potter and Weasley next? Is Harry Potter the reason for the Granger-Weasley breakup? The Golden Trio—trio no more?
“Honestly,” Ginny huffs to him over dinner one night, “people should find something better to talk about.”
He starts Vanishing the copies of the Prophet that arrive by owl in the mornings, and tries not to let the words burn behind his eyelids.
::
Harry is twenty-two when he finds the ring in the Potter vault in Gringotts.
The goblins later tell him that it’s been in the Potter family for ages—that it had once belonged to James Potter’s great-great grandmother, and that it had last belonged to Lily, and had been returned to the vault before they’d gone into hiding.
He lifts it up to the dim light—small, delicate—and pockets it, takes it home.
He thinks it would look nice on Ginny’s finger; closes his eyes and tries to imagine it. It would make Molly happy. It would make the wizarding world happy.
When is the Chosen One tying the knot?
Ron would be happy for them. Hermione would be, too.
And Ginny—
::
(It’s not Ginny’s hand and Ginny’s finger he imagines in his head.)
::
After the breakup, the public finds Hermione Granger’s dating life a topic of interest. She thinks it’s absolutely ridiculous, but also not well worth her time.
“It’s not been going well, then?” he asks, after he lets her rant about today’s paper and her latest date; he watches her quill angrily scratch away at her proposal drafts.
“What do you think?” she says, voice dry. Her quill is set down with a sigh. “They think I’m either too busy or too terrifying. Everyone I’ve gone out with has been…a choice.”
He laughs a little.
She shakes her head with an eyeroll. “Everyone’s been dreadful,” she comments, “either too full of themselves, or trying to get into pseudo-intellectual conversations, or just want to know about the war—of you, for that matter. Then there’s the rest who just wants to get into my knickers.”
He winces. She misinterprets it and snorts.
“Not everyone can all be in a disgustingly perfect relationship like you, Harry.” Her mouth almost curls up into something that’s not quite a sneer. “But at least you’re happy.”
He watches her start scratching away again at the parchment before he says quietly, “Molly wants Ginny and me to get married.”
“Oh.” Hermione stills. “Well, it’s about time, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What are you waiting for, then?”
He watches her. “I don’t know,” he says hesitantly. “Maybe a sign.”
“To propose?”
Not to, he doesn’t say.
::
(It would complete the happy ending the papers write for him; all that’s missing is the ring on her finger. It’s “Harry Potter’s happy ending”—
He’s just not sure it’s the happy ending he wants.)
::
In hindsight, it was foolish of him to assume it wouldn’t be found when they live under the same roof. They share the same closet, the same drawers, the same bed. She’s even foolishly keyed in to all his wards. Later, he would wonder if subconsciously, he’d wanted her to find it.
It unravels when she’s quiet over dinner. Too quiet.
“Gin,” he says finally. He knows something’s wrong even before she looks up. Still, he continues, “Are you alright?”
She is quiet for much longer. He can see her gathering her thoughts. Maybe even courage.
Finally, she says, “I found your letter, Harry.”
“What—”
“Your letter,” she says slowly, her voice unnervingly calm, “to Hermione.”
His breath gets stuck in this throat. “Gin—”
“You slept together.” It’s not a question—just rote, matter-of-fact. “When you were on the run.”
“We were alone and lonely,” he says quietly. “I was seventeen. We thought we were going to die. It didn’t mean anything.”
“And yet you were still thinking about it years later. You even wrote about it.” Ginny crosses her arms, eyes blazing. “Did Ron know?”
He shakes his head.
“Right.” She blows out a breath, then says, “Were you in love with her?”
“I wrote that letter years ago.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“That was in the past,” he says. “I love you.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question, Harry.”
There is a long pause.
“I don’t know,” he answers, finally. “Maybe I was. I never really—never really got to process everything back then, and it was already over.”
“Because Ron came back.”
He is silent; she knows she’s right.
“How about now?” she says with visible difficulty. There’s a tinge of desperation at the edge of her voice. “Are you—are you still—?”
The air is heavy with the weight that he releases. “I’m sorry,” he says, because there’s nothing left to hide, nothing left to say.
She closes her eyes and nods, a bit stiffly. “That’s what I thought.”
“I did love you,” he says, all the guilt seeping into his voice. “I do.”
“I know.” She says this with acceptance; Harry thinks that that’s the terrible part. “Just not enough.”
::
Harry is nearly twenty-three when Ginny leaves Grimmauld Place, then London, and leaves him behind.
He’s not meant to follow.
She tells no one why it didn’t work out. No interviews to press, no confessions to her family. Not even to Ron. Harry doesn’t know whether to feel grateful or guilty; she is kinder than he deserves.
Harry writes to her and hears nothing back. He wishes she would send a Howler.
::
Hermione brings over bottles of firewhisky when she hears—from the tabloids, a fact she’s terribly offended by.
“You were together for three years,” she says to him as she pours him a glass. “It’s okay to feel sad and hurt.”
“That’s the thing,” he says. “I feel bloody guilty. But also—also relieved.” He winces as he knocks back the drink. “Does that make me a horrible person?”
She swallows. “Why did you—why did you stay for so long, then, if that’s how you felt?”
“I wanted it to work. The whole world did.” He hesitates. “I wanted a life. That part I wanted. I did love Ginny; maybe I did see a version of the future where it ended with her. But that’s the rational part of me talking.” He clears his throat, refills his glass and takes another long swig. “The reckless side of me wanted something else.”
“Like what?”
“See the world, maybe,” he murmurs. “Not be an Auror. Have a boring life. Maybe teach. Maybe work with a non-profit. I dunno. Something. Just…just something else. A different life from what everyone wanted for me, or what the bloody papers write.”
She says gently, “You still can.”
“Maybe.” He looks at her like she has all the answers. “Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to take the leap.”
::
Harry is twenty-three when he finds out Ron is seeing Lavender Brown again, reconnected in Diagon Alley, years into her recovery.
Three months later, there’s a ring on her finger.
It’s all quite sudden, a bit of a whirlwind—but Ron tells him if it’s the right time, and the right person, you don’t really think twice anymore.
Harry just hums in reply, but it does make him think.
::
“I’m happy for him,” Hermione tells him, genuinely, as they sit at his kitchen table, drinking tea and working on a weekend. He believes her. Hermione and Ron may not be the best friends they once were, and while some tension and awkwardness sometimes lingers, Harry knows enough time has passed for them to be on the mend.
He wishes he could say the same about Ginny.
“Did you ever think about it?” she asks out of the blue.
“About what?” His quill hovers in mid-air. “Ron and Lavender?”
She shakes her head. “Marriage,” she clarifies. “Did you ever think about it, you know, before? You mentioned something about Molly wanting it once…”
He face reddens when he thinks of an innocent musing, a quiet daydream, of sitting out in the snow, talking about growing old. Something he’d never thought he’d get to do.
Now he can.
It’s still as terrifying as it was when he was seventeen.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rough, “I suppose I did. But I ever only really thought about it seriously only once.”
She nods, opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something more, but then just turns back to her tea and her work quietly.
She might think he’s talking about Ginny.
Instead, he thinks of a tent, and the same girl, and how the war has come and gone and they have grown older and more mature, but his feelings, his fears—all of that has stayed the same.
::
Ron marries Lavender Brown under the summer sun.
The bride looks absolutely beautiful. Parvati cries and Ron watches her walk down the aisle with a quiet sort of reverence and a touch of awe. He lifts her veil gently, sees past the scars on her skin, and loves her all the same.
Harry thinks they paint a lovely picture, standing under a floral archway set against the bright blue sky.
Then he glances across the crowd and catches Hermione’s eye, seeing her look radiant in blue—and when her mouth softens into the softest kind of smile, he thinks she may be the loveliest picture he’s ever seen yet.
::
Later, Hermione hands him a glass of wine, and they stand on the sidelines of the dance floor. He spots Ginny somewhere in the crowd, an unknown man on her arm, and they don’t cross paths, nor does she even really glance in his way. Hermione’s arm brushes against his, fingers resting on the pulse on his wrist, and his inhale is soft and slow.
The music shifts to something slower, more intimate. His eyes slide to hers, and then there’s a moment—like the world taking a breath and slowing down.
“Dance with me,” he says to her before he can stop himself, and his heart stutters when she smiles and says yes, one hand sliding down to his. They put down their drinks and walk closer to the dance floor, her other hand sliding to his neck as he pulls her in close. It’s only the second time they’ve ever danced together, yet he recalls all the same beats of remembering and regretting and wondering about the what-ifs and the what-could’ve-beens.
He lives in the past sometimes, still—in his nightmares, his memories. His mistakes and regrets.
But now, Hermione is looking up at him and she is leaning in close and he has never been more aware of being here, in the present—where he thinks she may be his beginning and his end, the one who keeps him whole, and the one who never left.
::
That night, he goes home to an empty flat and puts on Hermione’s CD.
He thinks of the kiss on the cheek before they parted, the look in her eyes when they danced, no more veil hiding the memories on the surface.
He remembers the look Ron threw at them, the smile on Ginny’s lips directed at another man, the way Hermione hugged Lavender and whispered her congratulations.
Years down the line, and he maybe wants to finally stop lying to himself, and to her, and to everyone else.
::
Sometime before his twenty-fourth birthday, Harry puts Grimmauld Place up for sale.
He looks for a little house on an isolated town, just on the edge of London. Ron wonders if he’s gone mad. Hermione just looks at him and asks if he’s sure.
But here, in this house, he feels like could breathe again. No memories, no haunts. No shared rooms and beds and no ghosts—just him, with his thoughts.
Just peace.
(“You always find your way home,” Hermione tells him. “I’m glad this one finally gets to be yours.”)
::
When he turns twenty-four, Hermione comes over with a small cake, a bottle of wine, and a warm, familiar smile.
They sit out on his back porch with paper plates and cheap wine glasses, and look up at the stars. It reminds him of the tent where it all started, and maybe it’s the quiet buzz of wine that makes him a tad bit braver. Maybe it’s just her.
Maybe he’s just bloody tired of pretending.
He’s reaching out to take her fingers when she says—confesses—“Ginny sent me your letter.”
He blinks. “What?”
She hesitates, then reaches into the pocket of her jacket and brings out a familiar crumpled, yellowing piece of parchment that she smoothes out with shaking fingers.
He looks at it, almost uncomprehending. “I—I thought she’d burned it.”
She shakes her head. Her fingers tremble where they thumb the edges of the parchment, where the inked in words are shaky and terrified and uncoordinated, but true.
Can I tell you something? he’d written in a drunken haze. Sometimes I look at you and try to remember that I’m supposed to be pretending I don’t feel anything.
I think about that night in the tent all the time. I wish I didn’t.
I wish I fought for you.
He looks at it quietly before lifting his gaze to hers. His heart pounds in his ears, fueled by wine and hope and honesty, as he says hoarsely, “This is still true, you know.” His pinky finger reaches out for hers. “I still wish I fought for you.”
Her eyes are wet and shiny when she whispers, “So fight for me now.”
::
She barely has time to gasp when he takes her by the waist and kisses her there—for the first time in seven years—under a blanket of stars.
She kisses him back, hand sliding into his hair, and he swallows her moan and thinks maybe it was always going to lead to this.
He doesn’t want to pretend anymore.
::
He is twenty-five when his fingers trace her ring finger as they lie in bed on a quiet Sunday morning, limbs tangled; her eyes track the movement in a lazy sort of way. “You told me once, to grow old with you.”
Her eyes are sleepy yet her smile is beautiful and devastating at once. “I remember.”
“Hermione,” he says quietly, “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then.” He kneels beside the bed, reaches into his pocket and brings out his mother’s ring—bright, gold, and delicate. “Do you still want to? Grow old with me?”
“Oh, Harry,” she says, tracing his jaw with her fingers. “I meant that when I was eighteen. I still mean it now. I’ll still mean it when we’re eighty.” Her eyes trace his as her thumb brushes over his mouth. “Forever, if you’ll have me.”
His hand trembles when he slides the ring onto her finger. It trembles even more when he holds her neck and kisses her, slow and sure, like she might break. Like he might.
“Forever, then,” he says, quietly. It’s not a question; it’s a truth, a confession. A promise.
She smiles against his lips. “I’d like that.”
::
(The Chosen One has found peace and true love—at last, the papers will say.
All he thinks of is that maybe their lives have always been entangled, since he met her at eleven, kissed her at seventeen, fell in love with her somewhere in the middle of a war, and continued to love her quietly since then.
He loves her loudly now.
Harry will think it’s the most honest thing that’s ever been written about him.)