Chapter Text
Harry held Hermione tight against him, his hands roving her soft body as he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. She let out a small huff of laughter, twisting in his arms to face him.
“You’re insatiable.” She murmured, leaning up to press her lips against his.
“I’m making up for lost time.” He told her honestly. He ran his hands along her back in a soft caress. Honestly, Ron’s leaving had been the best thing that could have happened to Harry — even though he hadn’t seen it that way at the time.
The forced proximity and solitude had forced both of them to look at each other in a way they never had before— and discover each other in a different light.
Hermione giggled as the rough stubble on his cheek brushed her neck. She angled her head back slightly, giving him more room to kiss along her neck, her fingers curling into the bedsheets.
Honestly, since they were a bit directionless with knowing where to look for the Horcruxes, they’d mostly distracted themselves with each other. And even though a part of Hermione was panicked about almost everything, another part of her was grabbing onto this stolen time with everything she had inside her.
“I don’t think there would ever be enough time for me to get enough of you.” She finally told Harry warmly, pressing against his hot body.
He pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. His green eyes were soft and warm in a new way — a way he’d never looked at her before. “There will be time. We’ll get the Horcruxes, win the war, and we’ll have the rest of our lives together.”
Hermione stared at him, at the confidence in his shoulders, and tried to draw strength from it. She didn’t want to tarnish this time with him with her doubts. It felt obscene to doubt him when he looked at her with such steady sincerity.
But they were in the middle of a war. And he had never looked at her the way he looked at her now before. What if, when things went back to normal, Harry remembered he didn’t want her this way? He didn’t love her this way?
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push the thoughts away, and leaned forward to kiss him desperately.
I love you.
Harry met her desperation with fierce tenderness and reassurance. His hands came up to frame her face, and his thumbs stroked softly, soothingly along the skin of her cheeks.
He rolled her under him, the kiss intensifying as they tasted each other. The rasp of his tongue sliding inside her mouth made shivers go down her spine. He settled between her legs with a now familiar movement, his hips flush against hers.
She could feel him hot and wanting against her, and just the thought of what they were about to do made her nipples tight.
He swallowed the needy sounds she made before he broke the kiss, both of them panting. His hands moved with steady assurance caressing her body, staking his claim over her again and she reveled in it.
His hips pressed forward to grind against hers and jolt of lightning went through her body at the motion. He knew exactly how to make her wet for him — he’d learned all her body’s responses so easily.
“Harry,” She breathed against his mouth, already aching for him inside her. Her hands went to tangle in his hair, trying to pull him closer.
He squeezed his eyes shut with a low moan, his head back, and his hips flush against hers. She knew he enjoyed having her hands in his hair. He looked down at her with dark green eyes. “Say my name again, love.”
Hermione smiled temptingly at him, pushing her hips against his. “Harry.” She repeated obediently.
He smiled back, his head dipping to her chest, and his mouth closed over her nipple. The sensation was electric, intensifying the ache in her lower belly. She repeated his name again lovingly, achingly, her hands gliding through his messy black hair while his tongue swirled on her nipple.
He let her nipple go with a wet smacking sound as he reared up again, curling his hands under her legs. “Look at me.” He commanded, and she hadn’t even realized she squeezed her eyes shut.
He was thinner than he had been — both of them were— food had been scarce while they’d been on the run. But he didn’t look weak — it highlighted his muscles and all the tendons in his chest. He looked fierce and hungry.
There was an unwavering certainty in his face as he looked down at her while her legs cradled his hips. It cut away at the doubt that persisted in eating away at her. “I love you, Hermione.”
Her breath caught, and her eyes stung. Her soul felt like it was on fire under him. She reached for him to draw him close, her hands pulling at his shoulders. “I love you, too, always, Harry.”
And she had — for so long now — since that fateful day she’d watched him tackle a troll for her and her heart had almost stopped.
He entered her as he leaned down toward her, their bodies tight together that they were almost one. The connection was beyond the physical, as if she could feel their souls merging as one.
She gasped as he filled her, tightening on him as he went deeper and deeper. Her toes curled, and her fingers dug into his shoulders as heat streaked through her, burning all her nerve endings.
When he started to move inside her, everything else faded but him. The war. The Horcruxes. The uncertainty of their future.
Only Harry and Hermione existed, moving together in a rhythm that was loving and desperate.
She met him thrust for thrust, desperate for more. She wanted him deeper, closer, harder. Everything he could give her. Her nipples were so hard they ached, and each movement of his chest dragged them along his skin.
She felt consumed by Harry, her eyes filled with nothing but his body and the look in his eyes.
I love you, Hermione.
She could hear it repeated with every thrust. He loved her, he loved her.
She squeezed her eyes shut as everything inside built higher and higher. All her nerve endings were taut as her orgasm built.
He must have sensed it because he drove into her harder, his movements demanding as his hands roved her body. There was a slick sound as he moved inside her, her wetness coating her thighs.
Then his angle shifted, pressing deeper, and she screamed his name.
He shuddered above her, slamming into her one last time with a guttural groan, and buried his head in her neck as he came inside her. The feel of his cock jerking inside her as he poured himself inside her made her tense as her pleasure crested, her pussy clamping down on him like she was trying to squeeze even more out of him.
The pleasure was so intense it was almost painful, and she cried out his name again as her fingernails made little dents in his shoulders.
For a long moment, they lay tangled together, their breathing ragged. The pleasure slowly receding leaving behind such a bone-deep peace and relaxation. Hermione leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to where her fingernails had dug into his shoulders. “Sorry.” She murmured quietly.
Harry made a contented hum, moving slightly to the side, his head cuddling on her shoulder as he tried to curl into her. “S’okay.” He said drowsily. “S’perfect”
Hermione held him tighter, a fierce wave of protectiveness washing over her. She promised herself she’d do anything to keep him safe.
Harry tried to move quickly to take more of the burden off Hermione as they packed up the tent to move again. She was smiling and trying to be cheerful, but he could see the dark circles under her eyes and the faint tremor of weakness in her hands.
They needed to find a way to get more food, he resolved. Hermione had been pushing back against stealing, but he was going to have to get her to change her mind. They’d just find a Tesco and grab what they needed. The likelihood of Death Eaters wandering around one was vanishingly small.
A sharp wind cut across the moor they were camped on, causing him to shiver. He cursed under his breath as he wrestled the last of the stakes from the ground. Another thing they’d learned since being on the run — it was way more difficult to do magic when you were exhausted and hungry.
All their energy was saved for protective charms and apparitions.
Harry wrestled the last stake from the ground, finally, his strength dulled by hunger and admittedly — the lack of sleep since it was a lower priority for them than making love at every opportunity— and he absolutely wasn’t going to change that, he thought with a slight grin.
Hermione’s hair whipped around her face as she broke down the tent. He wouldn’t tell her right now because from the grim look on her face, she’d snap at him — but she looked adorable with all her curls going every which way in the wind.
He turned away from the temptation she presented to go to the far side of the campground, where they’d put the boxes they were going to shrink down later for her bag with the undetectable expansion charm.
He opened the largest box that held the tent and arranged the stakes carefully for later unpacking. He was just about to turn back to Hermione when he froze, hearing something in the wind.
Male voices. Too close.
They stepped into sight not a second later. Laughter echoed through the brush. “Well now,” a raspy voice called. “What’ve we got here, lads?”
Five figures emerged between the trees wand already drawn. They had dirty cloaks and hard faces. The one at the front grinned and showed unusually sharp teeth, his eyes a dirty mud grey.
Snatchers.
Harry didn’t hesitate; he turned toward Hermione, “Run!”
Hermione bolted immediately, with him close on her heels. A spell detonated right behind them. Harry turned around, yelling, “Confringo!”
The blasting curse struck the ground between them and their pursuers, sending dirt and rock skyward, but the snatchers didn’t even pause. They’d spread out in a semicircle as they ran after them, flanking them.
Hermione was too far away, and Harry changed his angle to try to intercept her — both her hands were empty — and she looked panicked. Dread filled him. Had she lost her wand?
A curse clipped his shoulders, and he fell hard into the ground. Pain flared white hot, and his hand spasmed, his wand rolling away from his grip.
“Harry!” Hermione screamed.
He stumbled — the snatchers were just meters away. “I’m okay, keep going.”
But she didn’t listen, and Harry tried to run faster as she was angling too far and not putting enough distance between her and the snatchers as she tried to get closer to him.
They were within feet of each other when Hermione gasped his name. “Harry.”
He looked over too late. A jet of viciously green magic was cutting through the air directly at him. Time seemed to slow as he watched it barrel toward him.
The death curse— and he was afraid — not to die. But at the thought, he would be leaving Hermione alone. Dammit, he thought, shifting, trying to avoid the curse even though he knew it was impossible.
But Hermione was diving next to him, and his eyes widened in horrified realization when she crashed into him.
“No!”
The world fractured as the death curse struck her squarely in the back. It seemed like everything froze. He could see the light leaving her beautiful brown eyes. Her fingers were outstretched for him.
Then she exhaled and was gone. Empty.
Her body collapsed on the ground behind him.
“No.” He said again, feeling like his soul was shriveling. It was too much to lose her when he’d just discovered what she meant to him. It was too much death.
The snatchers were almost next to him now, but he didn’t even look at them. He couldn’t hear them anymore — the silence of her breath was too loud for anything else to penetrate. Something inside him broke.
His magic boiled around him, reaching for hers. He felt another death curse coming, his magic whispering to him of his death, and he welcomed it.
Tears streamed from his eyes and blurred everything — the landscape around him turning into a half-done watercolor, dripping away into nothing.
Harry was reaching for her so desperately with all his soul, but instead of Hermione answering, someone else did. A man appeared before him, with black, messy hair and hazel eyes.
They looked almost the same age now. A mere four years separated them.
Harry held Hermione, her body limp against his, and stared up at the ghost of his father, grief so unbearable he thought it would kill him first. He had never said it before to anyone, but there, so broken and at the edge of death, he reached for the ghostly figure he had seen only in pictures and the mirror of Erised in his first year at Hogwarts. “Daddy.”
The green spell slammed into him just as their fingers touched, magic sparking between them and surging wildly. Time seemed to slow as he could feel the death's magic crawling through him and smothering his soul.
“No,” James said as time paused with his son stuck between life and death, one foot in each world. The green of the spell spread further, snaking out like lightning and passing through James and streaking out further back, where the figure of his own father stood, Charlus Potter standing braced as the magic passed through him too. Traveling faster than time, faster than thought, as it barreled backward through the Potter family line.
Until it reached Ignotus Peverell. Ignotus watched as his many-times removed son lay dying, the last of his line. “It is not meet that my line should end so.” He murmured to the being dressed in black next to him.
“All are destined to end.” Death responded prosaically.
“Yes, but hasn’t he overpaid his tithings?”
“Gifts should be paid for, Ignotus.”
“He will greet you as I always have when the time is right.” Ignotus Peverell raised his hand, the magic streaming back clean and white. “Besides, how boring it would be without a piece of me in the world?” He said, a slight smile curving his lips as he looked towards his friend Death.
The bright white magic streaked back through the Potter family line, taking pieces from each descendant until it reached its target. James Potter glowed with an unearthly white light as his corporeal hand caught his sons, and just before Harry’s eyes closed, he whispered to him,” I've got you, son. I’ve got you.”
And Harry’s entire world went dark.
1966
Dorea Potter frowned as she watched her sons from the doorway to their room. Her youngest had begun having intense nightmares he wouldn’t talk about to anyone— not even his twin.
Charlus Potter hugged her from behind. “It will be alright, dear.”
“I don’t like it.” She muttered to him, taking comfort from his embrace. “He was always such a happy child, then for this to happen. I think we should take him in to be checked for hexes again. You know how my family was when I was pregnant. I wouldn’t put it past Wahlburga to try something.”
“She wouldn’t dare,” Charlus said firmly. “Besides, the wards on the estate would prevent any of that.”
Dorea chewed on her lip. “You’re right. But if this gets worse, we’re taking him into St Mungos— there are a few doctors I trust there.”
“Fine, my dear.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Now let’s leave our boys alone, I’m sure James will wake us if Harry needs us.”
Dorea looked at her children one more time. They were still young enough that they didn’t want to be separated. So they had a large room decorated in deep shades of burgundy with dark wood paneling. The twins’ favorite Quidditch players' posters adorned the walls, several holding up trophies.
Instead of lying in his own bed, James was curled up with his younger brother on his bed, holding him protectively.
With a little sigh, Dorea let her husband lead her away from the children’s room.
James Potter curled around his brother, alert for any change in his breathing. He felt it when Harry tensed, his forehead creasing and an expression of torment crossing his sleeping face.
“Harry.” He whispered, shaking him slightly and pulling away. His twin’s bright green eyes snapped open, shiny with tears. They looked almost exactly alike, except that his eyes were hazel, and his younger twin had green eyes.
Harry tried to suck in a breath, but the air seemed to catch in his throat. He had an expression of such overwhelming grief that it seemed to connect directly to James’ chest as if he could feel it. The grief was so intense it seemed to suck away all his air, making him gasp for breath.
“I should have protected her better,” Harry whispered to him, his voice high-pitched and wavering with tears.
“Who?” James asked.
But Harry just squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head and trying to curl into himself. James stared at his twin worriedly. A tear streaked down his cheek, and James clumsily brushed it away, reaching for his brother.
He didn’t know what had happened to change Harry, why he’d started having these dreams that made him so sad, and he wished he knew how to stop it. But the only thing he could do was do his best to protect him.
He squeezed Harry tighter, thinking he could squeeze out anything making his brother sad. “I’ve got you, brother. I’ve got you.”