After
It's fifteen years after the world ended and he wakes up like he does every morning, even if he would prefer sleeping forever, washes his face and comes downstairs to have breakfast with his family. He kisses his wife's cheek obediently, every morning, always to the same spot. Then he sits down, reaches his arm to take the newspaper and before he starts to read it, he pats his daughter's head and smiles to his son.
He reads the paper.
It's rather useless, really. There is never anything interesting or important there. Just same old news – deaths, births, weddings, the famous Man-Who-Lived and his perfectly lovely family.
He is tired of it.
And... he wants to go back to the times when life was still life. He doesn't need routines – he doesn't want routines. He needs adventures, and glory, and excitement.
Every night he goes to bed and kisses his wife's cheek again before settling to the other side of the bed. There is a big, empty space between them, has been ever since they found out they were going to have their second child. Every night he stares at the ceiling, eyes wide open, counting broomsticks and Butterbeers, listening to his wife's slow breathing.
He wants to jump up, shake her until she woke up, go to Harry's with her. He wants them to be together again, have adventures together like they used to have. If only they could talk about something else than children and relatives and jobs – and if only they could be together without Ginny and other old, never-forgotten ghosts!
He never jumps up and wakes Hermione up.
He is too tired.
Five years later life is full of impatience, frustration, endless bickering ...and bitterness.
There are nights when he goes to children's rooms to make sure they are asleep and finds them sleeping in the same room and bed, Rose holding her hand protectively around her little brother. It makes him wonder if the children can hear them – but surely not. Children's rooms are upstairs, he and Hermione always quarrel downstairs. This is just a proof that their children, at least, love one another.
It's a relief when children finally go to Hogwarts and the house is empty. He doesn't have to think of Rose shielding her brother even in her dreams, or his son who has fallen asleep with tear-stained cheeks. He and Hermione can now shout as loud and often as they please.
Rose gets married three months after her graduation. It's a good day – Rosie has always known how to throw a party – but while he smiles and dances and even pretends to be happy with Hermione, he is afraid that his daughter, too, will be trapped like he is.
Five years later Hugo packs his belongings and leaves the house he grew up in. "I can't stand you two anymore", and then the door closes after him.
That night they stop pretending and he moves in Hugo's old room.
Only few days later Rose receives a letter telling she isn't married anymore and he is jealous. Divorce – that is something he should have done when he still could. Before children, before he became too tired to change anything. He realises he and Hermione don't care enough to even hate each other anymore.
Twenty years later he runs up and down the streets trying to find his wife when she has wandered away again, helps her wash and dress and eat and repeats her name as often as possible because he is afraid she will some day forget her own name like she forgot their son's. He knows Rose was absolutely right when she suggested she should move in with her family so she could help with Hermione – but he also knows he was absolutely right when he said no. He doesn't want Sarah and Donny to remember their grandmother like this.
It's a cold morning and Hermione sits in a rocking chair, a shawl wrapped around her bony shoulders. He makes breakfast, keeping an eye on her all the while. He glances at their wedding picture, at Hermione's happy smile, his own awkward grin and his best man's wild, wild hair. How naïve they were, he thinks. Nothing more than children. A twenty-three-year-old is too young and stupid to get married, and doesn't know enough to promise eternal love.
He is wiser now.
He pours tea to two cups and walks to the living room where Hermione still sits. What is left of her hair is grey, her sharp memory everyone used to praise has faded, but he can recognise those eyes – their brightness has dulled, but somehow they are still the same, even painfully so at times.
At nights he counts all those wasted years over and over again. If only they had been wiser, done things differently, waited before rushing into things they weren't ready for. It's too late to regret now.
He places a kiss on her forehead.
"Hermione", he says. "I think I have fallen in love with you."