Ripple. PG, Harry/Hermione, fully post-DH.
"It's been years." Then again, he's always been a little slow about these things.
To all my beloved H/Hr shippers, because we feel that twinge, too.
.
.
"It's been years," he blurts out one day, out of the blue, in a tone so amazed that it almost seemed completely incongruent with his actual words. The two of you are sitting out on the porch of his house, the kids already in bed and your respective spouses occupied somewhere else for the moment. It's just the two of you, and it's like a major event; it seems like it never happens anymore.
For a moment you think he's talking about the war-- somehow it always seems to come back to that-- but he's not, you can see it. It takes you a heartbeat more to realize what he really means.
You should feel angry, you think, that it's taken him this long to see, but then again, he's always been a little slow about these things. Instead, you only feel scared, and sad, and shocked, and perhaps happy as well, because for all intents and purposes this topic should have never been brought up. It's accompanied you since you were twelve, but not him. Never him.
"Hard not to notice that, don't you think?" Your eyes involuntarily move upward, glancing at the upstairs windows behind which his (and your) children lay asleep. The deadpan intonation of your voice bothers you, because you love your life as it is, but you can't help it because now you know that he feels, and you feel, and the earth is not shattering but it feels like your heart does, just a little.
His gaze is lost somewhere far away, beyond the starry horizon. "I know. But I hadn't seen the magnitude of it." He shakes his head, still very much astonished after this small-huge epiphany. "I'm immensely happy, and I wouldn't change a thing... but sometimes I look at you and something in me just aches." He gestures with his hands, like he can't quite find the words. "It's not like a constant, overwhelming pain, it's just-- it's a twinge of sorts." He chuckles dryly, feeling silly because he can't really explain it. You chuckle as well, because regardless of that, you understand him perfectly.
He shrugs in resignation. "I've learned to handle it. But it just hit me-- it's been years..." he repeats, and you think he sounds more and more breathless every time he says those words, "...and I still feel it. It's never gone away." His disbelieving eyes finally meet hers, and in them you can see that this knowledge, for him, is truly surprising. Genuine surprise. "Isn't that amazing?"
Your smile is bittersweet, because you always have to be ahead of the curve, so you've already been through this realization process, and now you're just left with the mess of feelings that comes afterwards. "Feels like forever, doesn't it?"
"It's been forever," he concludes with certainty. He rubs his eyes under his glasses and then sighs. "What do you think it means?"
That we could've had forever and we never knew, you want to say. And you know that he's thinking the same, or he will, given a little more contemplation. Still, the words won't go past your mouth. Instead, the silence is broken by a different whisper: "It can't mean anything."
He is silent for a few minutes, pondering on the unwavering reality of your last statement. You hug yourself, waiting, both hoping and not hoping that he'd say something, anything. Finally he nods, and he wordlessly gets up from his position, moving to go back inside. As he walks by you, just under the doorframe you're leaning against, he extends his hand to gently touch your forearm-- not quite a caress, he wouldn't do that, but it feels intimate nonetheless. He gazes into your eyes and there it is, the aforementioned twinge, pulling at your heart.
Not one more word is exchanged, because there is nothing to say. Because even if the what-ifs still ripple through both of you in moments like these, it's been too long and things are out of your hands, if they ever were. This interlude changes nothing, save for the small level of comfort in the fact that it wasn't just you.
As it always happens, simply by his presence, he has made your life just a little darker, and at the same time just a little lighter.