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There were so many moments that it would have been so easy, but they were never proprietors of easy. Not since they were small, before the magic infused their veins and ruined their lives. No, Hermione and Harry fell together after fighting it for so long, because gods-forbid something was simple in their tumultuous lives.
It began, as it has so many times, with a tent and a radio playing in the silence of a darkened forest.
Harry’s eyes shone as he twirled her under his arm, her long curls spraying out behind her. Hermione shrieked in laughter as he dipped her low. Hermione was haplessly tipsy on elf-wine that she had pilfered from a locked trunk in the attic of Grimmauld Place last summer. Sirius’ wards were impressive, but they were nothing against the Golden Girl. Hermione let Harry pull her back into his arms, noticing that every time he spun her away from him, she ended up closer to the hard lines of his body when she returned. The heat of him was intoxicating in her tipsy state, and she revelled in the warmth.
Harry was similarly tipsy, judging by the flushed tips of his ears and the mischievous glint in his eyes as they waltzed around the tent in the dead of night, the music swallowing them whole and holding them in the belly of short-lived bliss. Ron had been gone for several weeks at this point, and the two of them had adopted a domesticity that they had never explored before. Harry cast warming charms on her boots in the mornings. Hermione took his glasses off his face when he fell asleep with them on. There was a fragile balance that both unnerved and excited each of them in turn, fear in the form of curious comfort.
The song faded out, the soft scratch of the radio station hissing in the mere inches of space between the two of them. They both lightly panted, smiles wide. Hermione was painfully aware of the warmth of Harry’s hand on her waist, burning through the thin cotton of her tank-top. The cold of the floor beneath her bare feet. Harry’s breath fanned across her face and they locked eyes, breaths catching in their throats. Her smile faded, lips slightly parted. He swallowed, hard. The radio began to spit out the notes of a new song, startling the two of them from their trance. Harry released her and she took a step back, the both of them laughing awkwardly.
The night was quiet and still, silent save for the waves hushing against the shore. Shell Cottage was well-warded and Unplottable, leaving them the safest they had been since they had gone on the run. It was nearly three in the morning and she was wide awake, running over the events of the last twenty-four hours in her mind. The Snatchers. Malfoy Manor. Greyback. Bellatrix. Her forearm throbbed at the thought of the raven-haired woman, and Hermione groaned in exasperation, tossing the blankets off of her and rolling out of bed and to her feet. She was careful not to wake Luna, who was sleeping in the bed across the room. Hermione stuffed her bare feet in her boots and patted her left thigh, where her wand was always holstered. She drew it and cast a Muffliato on her feet, stepping lightly out of the room and down the stairs into the darkened living room. Hermione crept out of the front door, on high alert for any sign of life. The night outside was crisp and the breeze made her shiver in her thin cotton pyjamas that Fleur had lent her. Hermione’s steps were silent across the sand to the ocean’s edge, where she sank, sitting with her knees clutched to her chest. Staring out into the water, Hermione felt her chest grow tight with pure, unending grief. The rippling reflection of the moon spilled across the surface of the sea, pure as milk in a pool of ink.
“You okay?”
His sleep-rough voice was so familiar that she didn’t even startle at the sudden sound. Hermione looked over her shoulder. Harry was standing a few feet behind her, hair tousled. His tanned skin glowed in the light of the moon, and Hermione felt the sting of tears well in her throat at the sight of him. She turned back to face the water.
“I’m fine.”
Her voice was soft, wool-wrapped. Hermione felt rather than heard him approach and sit at her side, drawing her into the warmth of his embrace with an arm across her shoulders. He said nothing, content to exist with her in the rare peace of this moment. She sniffled as tears began to blur her vision, and Harry’s grip tightened around her. With a feather-light hand, he reached for her right arm, drawing it from where it was wrapped around her knees. Hermione watched as Harry lightly traced the surface of the bandages that covered the wound, barely touching her.
“You know it doesn’t change anything.”
Hermione gave a bitter laugh at Harry’s assurance, longing to tear her arm from his grasp and cradle it against her chest. It was her pain.
“Doesn’t change anything, no. Just announces the truth.”
Harry’s grip on her arm tightened, but he was careful not to pull on the barely-knitted edges of the hatred carved into her skin.
“It’s not true, Hermione.”
She snarled at him, turning to look at him through the tears that now streamed down her face. There was a primal look in his eyes that startled her, an intensity that she didn’t expect to find on his face.
“Maybe they’re right, Harry. Maybe I wasn’t meant to have magic.”
Harry’s lip curled at her and he tugged her closer despite the venom that laced her voice, taking his arm from around her shoulders to gently hold her elbow, both hands so gentle, reverent with how he handled her injured arm. Hermione saw herself reflected in the lenses of his glasses, his nostrils flaring with frustration.
“You are exactly who you were meant to be.”
Harry’s fingers traced the bandage and Hermione felt the kiss of his magic on her skin as he gently removed the gauze, exposing the angry, raised letters of MUDBLOOD etched into her flesh. Hermione’s breath hitched as Harry, keeping his eyes on hers, gently rested his lips to the M, then the U . He pressed soft kisses to the weeping cuts, the forest of his eyes intent on the whiskey of hers.
“This?”
He paused at the juncture of the B and L .
“This is nothing but proof that you’ve survived.”
Hermione’s heart leapt at the sight of her blood, dark on his lips as he resumed the feather-light press of his lips against her skin. Harry kept her firmly in place, not that she thought she could move if she tried.
“And I’ll be damned if I let you doubt who you are for even a single second.”
Harry’s grief and worship was so stark on his face that Hermione doubted that Snape had taught him a damn thing with those Occlumency lessons. She felt as if his thoughts were screaming at her, a bridge built between them.
“Harry? Hermione?”
A soft call startled them, the both of them on their feet in a blink. Bill’s voice was quiet but panicked, and Harry ran a hand through his messy curls. Hermione wrapped her arms around herself and said nothing as they walked side-by-side back to Shell Cottage.
The smell of acrid smoke and blood was choking her. The dust was settling on the battlefield, bodies littering the ground, gruesome confetti for their celebration. Hermione’s eyes locked with Harry’s across the blackened Hogwarts courtyard, and Hermione felt a wave of exhaustion hit her with the force of a tidal wave. He was alive, really alive. She felt her lungs seize, oxygen evading her. It was over, but was it over ? Voldemort was dead, yes, but the stench of death hung heavy in the air, and Hermione could feel the stickiness of lifeblood beneath her boots, cementing her in place.
“Harry!”
Ginny shrieked, and Hermione barely saw the blur of red hair as the younger girl sprinted across the carnage to leap into Harry’s arms. He caught her, his arms holding her steady as Ginny sobbed into his shoulder. His hand stroked absent-mindedly over her hair, his eyes still firmly on Hermione’s. Hermione felt her knees begin to buckle, the adrenaline leaching from her body. A firm hand gripped her elbow, and Hermione barely registered Neville’s voice as he began to pepper her with questions. She sank to her knees, unable to tear her gaze from Harry. Others began to gather around her, and Hermione closed her eyes as they blocked her view of him. Blackness overcame her, and she gratefully gave in to oblivion.
She awoke in the darkness of the Great Hall, which had been converted to a makeshift hospital. Anyone who was gravely injured had been transported to St. Mungo’s, leaving only those with minor injuries to the care of Madame Pomfrey and anyone else who had taken to healthcare during the war. From the look of the ceiling, Hermione guessed it was very late, dawn barely lightening the edges of the false sky. She turned her head, and saw the messy curls of her best friend, awkwardly hunched over the edge of her cot, head pillowed in his arms. Harry’s glasses were askew on his face, and Hermione reached out, gently taking them from the bridge of his nose.
He blinked blearily, rousing from sleep.
“Hermione?”
His voice was raspy and she managed a weak smile at him.
“Hi.”
Harry straightened his back, his lower lip trembling as he attempted to smile back at her. Hermione lifted an arm and cupped her hand against his cheek.
“You lived.”
Her words were barely a whisper as she broke into soft sobs, the full weight of how close she was to losing him fell onto her shoulders. Harry leaned his head into her hand as tears began to slip down his face, wetting her palm. His hand came up to cradle hers against his cheek.
“We both did.”
Hermione pulled her hand away, flipping up the thin blanket that was tucked around her. She shuffled over slightly, wincing at the ache in her muscles, making room for him. Hermione didn’t need to say a thing for him to understand. Harry clambered onto the narrow cot, drawing her to lay her head on his chest, arms firmly wrapped around her. Hermione could hear the soft thud of his heart under her ear, and she fought to breathe deeply against the surge of emotion.
“You can’t die.”
She whispered. Harry’s cheek rested on the crown of her head, and she felt him move as he pressed a kiss to her hair.
“I didn’t die, Hermione.”
Hermione gripped the fabric of his shirt in her fists, as if someone was going to try and take him from her right then and there.
“You can’t ever die. Promise me.”
Hermione felt rather than heard his exhale of a laugh as he again kissed the top of her head, cradling her in his arms.
“I promise.”
Hermione sniffled as a fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes, escaping to wet the softness of his shirt.
“You can’t leave me.”
Hermione sobbed, and Harry’s hands urged her from his chest to look at him. She knew that she probably looked a right mess, her hair a tangle of curls, nose reddened from crying. Gods, would she ever stop crying? Hermione wasn’t sure that she could, her grief a deep well in her soul that seemed bottomless, neverending. Her sorrow was reflected in his face, tear-tracks shining in the dim light.
“I will never leave you.”
Hermione’s eyes searched his, and she found nothing but the real impossibility of ferocious, fearsome love. They stayed frozen in that moment, the space between them fraught with meaning, for a long beat before she nodded, laying back down on his chest. Hermione fell asleep to the lullaby of his beating heart, and Harry held her all the while.
The rain pounded on the windows, wind howling outside of her and Ron’s flat. Lightening occasionally broke the sky, the bone-white of a cut gone too deep.
“Are you even listening to me, ‘Mione?”
Ron’s exasperated voice cut through her trance and she mentally shook herself, looking into her boyfriend’s furious face.
“Of course I’m listening to you, Ronald.”
She scoffed, trying to inject any sort of real emotion into her voice. It had been two years, three months, and four days since the Battle of Hogwarts. Every moment since she had awoken in Harry’s arms in the Great Hall, having survived the war, had been a battle in itself. She had moved in with Ron two months after the Battle, renting a little flat in Diagon Alley. Harry and Ginny had moved into Grimmauld Place a few weeks after she and Ron had signed their lease. There had been countless funerals, seas of mourners draped in black, grief and anguish palpable in the air. Hermione had sat, stony-faced, through all of them, being the strong one upon which her friends leaned on. Harry had sat beside her, no tears escaping. They had been rocks, steadfast as the sea of death broke against them. She and Ron got engaged a year after the Battle. Harry and Ginny, sixteen months.
Hermione found herself frequently wondering when it would get better. She felt empty, devoid of emotion. The day-to-day was easy, but it was the big events that eluded her. Holidays, birthdays, even her own engagement. Where was the joy? As Ron had slid the ruby ring onto her finger, all she could feel was a void of numbness, an absence of anything that made her want to keep going.
“Hermione!”
Ron’s voice was rising, and Hermione forced herself not to roll her eyes. She looked him straight in the face, curling herself into a tighter embrace on the couch.
“I just told you that I cheated on you, and you have no reaction? Gods, Hermione, this is what I’ve been talking about!”
Ron threw his hands in the air before angrily raking one through his hair. Hermione’s eyes narrowed as he stood and began to pace in front of her.
“What do I have to do to get a reaction from you? Any emotion at all? You’re so fucked up from the war, Hermione, and you won’t admit it!”
Hermione bit at the skin on her thumb, secretly enjoying the iron tang of blood as she broke the scabs there. She often healed it with magic to erase any evidence of her habit, but didn’t bother at home. Her eyes followed Ron as he raved and ranted in front of her, and suddenly, she was done.
Hermione stood up and calmly Summoned her beaded bag, which was still equipped with most of her belongings. She had tried a hundred times to unpack, to settle into her life with Ron, but the sheer terror that overtook her each time had her carefully packing everything back up. Just in case. Hermione slid her engagement ring off of her ring finger and set it carefully on the coffee table, the ruby sparkling in the flashes of lightning outside.
“Where are you going? Hermione!”
Ron’s voice followed her as she spun on her heel and Disapparated into the stormy night. She appeared a few blocks from Grimmauld Place, the frigid rain instantly soaking her. Hermione walked casually down the sidewalk, rain battering her from all sides, the wind shrieking in her ears. As she approached the darkened house, Hermione felt a sort of peace settle over her, a serenity that she hadn’t managed to find anywhere else in the world.
The handful of steps to the front door felt like she was climbing a mountain, a final journey to where she was meant to be. Hermione knocked on the heavy wooden door, rainwater dripping from the ends of her hair. She wrapped her arms around herself against the damp, ears strained for any sound from within.
The door swung open.
Harry stood in the entryway, rubbing at his eyes as he yawned. He was wearing an old, incredibly faded t-shirt of Sirius’ that he had found in the attic, and flannel pyjama bottoms that hung low on his hips. Harry had grown tall, taller than even Ron, in the years since Hogwarts. His lanky Seeker’s build had filled out, and his darkened skin was littered with tattoos, both Muggle and Magical. She could see the flickering blue form of her Patronus, her otter, paddling gaily out from under the sleeve of his shirt to greet her. He had her otter tattooed shortly after her engagement.
“Hermione?”
The rasp of his voice settled on her like a warming charm and she shivered involuntarily. Hermione tried to force a smile.
“Ron cheated on me.”
Harry’s face hardened with anger, and she held her hand up to stop him when he opened his mouth.
“Ron cheated on me, and I couldn’t care less.”
Hermione laughed, no humour in her voice. Harry faltered, still holding the door open. There was a soft glow behind him that illuminated him and she longed for something. She wasn’t sure what, but she wanted.
“What happened?”
Hermione shrugged, feeling more and more ridiculous by the second as she felt the rain creep under the collar of her jumper.
“He slept with Lavender. Has been for a while, I guess. He told me that he’s leaving me for her. And I don’t care. I don’t blame him for cheating, for leaving. I wouldn’t want to be with me either.”
Harry opened his mouth to interject, but she waved him off.
“I’m damaged, Harry. I am so fucking broken and beaten and ruined. ”
Her voice rose over the roar of the thunder.
“I can’t feel anything! And I don’t know how to make that stop. I don’t even know if I want it to stop. Because if it stops, and if I can feel everything, then I will just fall apart, Harry. I can’t do that. I can’t just fall apart , because I’m Hermione fucking Granger, and I don’t get to fall apart.”
Hermione panted, the force of her words propelling her forward until they were toe-to-toe, her sodden slippers and his bare feet. She stared into his face, his hand still holding the door open for her, knuckles white against the force of his grip on the wood.
“Tell me what to do, Harry. Tell me how to fix this, how to fix me.”
Hermione was nearly begging him now, and he stared down at her, as still as he was when he was feigning death.
“Just tell me what to do, Harry, because I can’t take much more.”
It was as if something broke in him, then. Before she could think, Harry released the door and pulled her to him, slotting his mouth against hers. Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back fiercely, their teeth clacking together with the heat of them. She vaguely heard the door slam as Harry tugged her inside, still kissing her breathless. Harry’s hands were bruising on her waist as she kicked off her slippers, her hands fisted in his shirt. He dipped his hands to her thighs and hoisted her into the air as if she weighed nothing. Hermione wrapped her legs around his waist, bringing her hands to hold his face.
“Ginny?”
She murmured as she broke for a gasp of air before pressing her lips back to his, unable to stray more than a few seconds without the sheer rightness that settled in her bones at his kiss, at the aching touch of his hands on her.
“Away. Work.”
Harry bit out, carrying her into the nearest room, which was the kitchen, freshly renovated. Gone were the oppressive rooms, small and dark. Instead, Harry tore the entire house down to the studs and remade it from scratch. The house was airy and bright, open concept so there were no dark corners from which an enemy could materialise. Ginny said that they renovated it to rid the house of the lingering Dark Magic and bad memories. Hermione knew better, saw the same exhaustion in Harry’s eyes that she saw in the mirror.
He painted and fixed and improved the same way that she overloaded her double-Mastery schedule; to keep the dark corners from becoming bogeymen and the grief from drowning them.
Harry carried her to the marble island in the middle of the room, seating her atop the cold stone and slotting himself between her spread thighs. Hermione let her head tip back as Harry’s mouth moved down her jaw to the soft skin of her throat, where he nipped at the tender flesh before soothing it with his lips. She felt his hands slip beneath the soaking fabric of her jumper, palms burning the skin of her waist, up her ribs, to brush over the stiffened peaks of her nipples through the damp lace of her bra.
“Off?”
Harry asked, his voice a low rumble against her neck. Hermione nodded frantically and helped him as he peeled her sweater up and over her head, tossing it somewhere to the side of them. Hermione raised her head and tugged his t-shirt off desperately, longing to have his skin against hers. Harry’s lips blazed a trail of anticipation as he pressed kisses across the expanse of her collarbone, then her sternum. His hands gripped her thighs as he kissed the raised purple scar between her breasts, breath tickling the still-sensitive tissue.
“Lift your hips for me.”
Harry asked softly as his hands drifted to the elastic of her leggings, kneeling on the floor between her legs. Hermione whimpered slightly, squeezing her eyes shut as Harry peeled the sodden Lycra from her legs, leaving her in her bra and knickers, legs spread wide. She feared that if she looked at him, at Harry on his knees before her, that she would simply wake up from whatever illusion this was.
He ran his warm hands up the chilled skin of her legs, pressing fluttery kisses up the ticklish skin of her inner thigh. Hermione instinctively tried to press her legs closed, and Harry caught her thighs, gripping them hard and pressing her open for him.
“Yes or no, Hermione?”
Harry rasped as his breath fanned across her covered mound. Hermione’s head lolled and she relaxed her legs, spreading them farther to accommodate his broad shoulders.
“Gods, yes, please.”
Harry’s answering groan of pleasure made her shiver. He Vanished her knickers and spread her lips with his thumbs, licking a broad strip up the soaking length of her cunt. Hermione moaned, canting her hips up to meet him as he began to feast upon her like a man starved.
He slipped one of his hands lower, pressing a long finger inside of her, curling to press on the sensitive bundle of nerves that lay on her front wall. He sucked her clit into his mouth as he added another finger, stretching her.
“You taste so fucking good.”
Harry told her, breathing heavily. Hermione opened her eyes and found him looking up at her, a lazy smirk curling on his lips, which glistened with her. Hermione let out a groan as he bent his head to lap at her, his fingers pressing into her again and again, his talented tongue teasing her clit. She felt the coil low in her belly begin to tighten, pleasure beginning to mount.
“Gonna need you to come on my cock, Hermione. Need to be inside you when you come.”
Harry said apologetically, moving to stand, Hermione reached for him, drawing him between her legs, hooking a knee over his hip. Harry roughly shoved his pyjama bottoms down his thighs, grasping his cock in a fist. Hermione knocked his hand aside and replaced it with her own. Harry groaned, running his hands up her sides as she began to pump his cock in her fist, twisting her wrist on the upstroke. She drew him forward, notching his head at her entrance.
Harry swore under his breath, resting his forehead on hers as he sank slowly inside of her, pressing in shallowly before withdrawing.
“Please, Harry. Please.”
Hermione whispered to him, the flint of her emptiness begging to be ignited, begging to be consumed by the inferno of him. Harry’s fingers were bruising on her hips as he pressed inside of her in one motion, pausing when their hips were flush. Hermione whined, breath heaving as he stretched her, the girth and length of him unfamiliar to her.
“So tight, Hermione. Fuck.”
Harry breathed as he flexed his hips, barely withdrawing from her before fucking back into her hard . She whimpered as he began to fuck her, thrusts slow and deep. Harry’s eyes closed and Hermione watched his lips move, words too quiet for her to hear. He looked reverent, as if he were praying. Hermione felt their magic crackling in the air around them as one of his hands released her hip and slipped between their bodies to where they were joined, rubbing persistent circles on her throbbing clit.
“C’mon, sweetheart. Need you to come apart for me.”
Harry said lowly, burying his head in the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Hermione cried out as his teeth sank into the soft flesh and she clenched around him, the force of her orgasm surprising her. Pleasure burst behind her eyelids and she arched her back, pressing herself as close to him as she could. She would’ve settled inside his skin if it were possible. Harry’s hips stuttered and he groaned her name as he came, spilling inside of her.
She came back to herself bit by bit, sensation returning to her body. The stickiness of sweat cooling on her skin, both hers and Harry’s. The sting of where his teeth had marked her neck, the throb of an already-forming bruise. The slickness between her legs, the length of him still inside of her. Harry raised his head and stared at her, hands still firm on her skin. His lips were swollen with kisses and his eyes were heavy-lidded.
Hermione stared back at him, catching her breath, viscerally aware of the implications of what they had just done. Neither of them had words for the other, but there was nothing that needed to be said. It was an inevitability, the two of them. There had been moments for years, snippets of a promised life that was just out of reach. It would have been so much easier if they had come together then, in the tent, at Shell Cottage, in the Great Hall after the battle. Hell, they had been rumoured about in enough of Rita Skeeter’s articles when they were at Hogwarts that most people thought they were together already. But, for them? Too perfect, too predictable, never the right time. Easy was not something the two of them understood, thriving instead in chaos and consequences. But there was always an implication, and understanding.
They were a hurricane and would leave a carnage in their wake. Better to accept that early on.
FIN