Disclaimer: I only own the plot. Everything else is JK Rowling's.

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Harry stared at his wall. Today was bad. Today, his therapist had made him realize his biggest mistake. One word about me seeing a therapist and you're as good as dead, I'm warning you. Anyway, the therapist had helped him see that his whole life for the last three years was a complete mistake.

Harry, being all happy to have defeated Voldemort, had gotten drunk. Completely pissed. Hammered. Whatever. The point is he kissed another girl. One thing led to another and, well, Baby Harry became…existent. Now, his wife was not pleased with that bit of information. Not really. No, Hermione hadn't taken it well. They got divorced.

The story isn't that simple. Before their divorce and even Baby Harry's creation, Harry and Hermione were in marriage counseling trying to fix a marriage that was falling apart. Their marriage counselor had asked them how they planned to work things out. Did they want to or did they just think a divorce would be better? Harry had come out and said: 'I have to marry Ginny.'

Hermione's immediate response to that was: 'You're kidding. The only way you'd have to marry her was if you'd…oh, Merlin.' Then she promptly fainted into his lap.

So, Ginny and Harry got married a week after Harry and Hermione's divorce papers came in the mail. Hermione, always one to be proud of certificates, framed hers and hung it on the wall. Harry crumpled his up angrily and threw it into the fire. Ginny even had the nerve to ask Hermione to be her maid of honour. That was a story all in itself.

So, baby Jillian Potter was born. Everything was great for a year or two. Harry and Hermione remained best friends, plus little swats to the head every once in a while for Harry. He was slightly jerkish. They took turns with their kids, Emily, Ricki and Lily, every other weekend. Hermione kept them during the week because Harry had a new family. It was best that way.

Later, Harry began to feel depressed. Really. He stopped going to work – which happened to be Pro Quidditch. How fudging hard could it be? Apparently too hard to do when you are chronically ill with depression. Hermione took up smoking because she knew he was sad and it was all her fault and Harry started drinking because he knew it was all his fault. Ginny was being her usual self, trying to get Harry into bed at any given moment.

Harry knew he still loved Hermione and he assumed he loved Ginny. He was married to her, after all. Hermione still loved him, deep inside she knew it, too. She still whispered his name in her sleep. According to Ron. Who stayed at her house a lot. Yeah.

But today, Harry's therapist had helped him to see the whole nasty truth. He didn't love Ginny. He had made a huge mistake in leaving Hermione for her. Sure, she had been pregnant, but Hermione had been, too! He just…hadn't known at the time of conception with Ginny that Hermione was pregnant. She really ought to tell him these things. They were slightly important. Merlin.

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"Hermione, I have a problem." Harry burst out as he bounded into Hermione's apartment. She looked up from her bills and smiled.

"Buy the wrong kind of shaving cream again?" She joked. Her face turned back to serious and she nodded towards her bathroom. "Don't worry, picked you up some yesterday night."

"Where were you yesterday night?" Harry asked, suddenly extremely jealous. Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed.

"Why's it so important to you?"

"You're my wife!"

"Was your wife. Now, I'm your ex-wife. I was at dinner with you and Ron, stupid. We went shopping at Finnegan Mall, remember?"

"Right."

"Now, what's the breaking news?" Hermione looked all ready to be phoney-excited. Harry sat down beside her nervously. She frowned and lay a hand on his knee. "Alright, circumstances are grim. Go on."

"Well, you know how I've been seeing a counselor about my … wounded happiness, right?"

"You mean the shrink for your depression?" She grinned,

"Yes. Now, stop! I'm trying to be really delicate about this. Okay, well. He helped me realize that everything is a lie. Everything I've done over the last two years is a lie. I love you and I couldn't live without you if I tried. Leaving behind a good marriage and three kids because of something I royally fucked up wasn't right. I need to know that I've still got you. I still need you." Harry looked quite pleased that he had had the moral fiber to actually articulate a complete string of dialect. Yes, that was looking rather difficult to him when he walked up the steps to her house forty seven seconds ago.

"Well, of course you've still got me! Who would buy your shaving cream if you didn't have me!" Hermione grinned. Harry shrunk with anxiety as he realized that he would have to explain this to her.

"Uh, actually, I don't. Not the way I need to have you." He looked down at his shoes, realizing that this exchange had recently turned fairly tense. He heard Hermione breathing beside him; short, soft bursts of air with the small and choked sound of restrained tears hidden behind them. "I'm sorry, I'll just go."

"No, Harry, sit." He did as he was told and waited patiently for her to continue. He had learned years ago that it was best to let her control significant discussions. If you did something wrong, like ask for a sandwich when she asks about having another baby, you won't likely be having another baby soon because it's hard to get your wife pregnant when she has banned you from sleeping with her for six weeks. Yeah. "You love Ginny, Harry, and I'm not going to come between the happiness of two people in love. Alright, so Ginny isn't exactly my best friend, but I like her. She just so nice…well, except for that one time when she stole my husband, but everyone makes mistakes!"

Harry looked at her incredulously.

"Hermione, you've just said that it's not easy to hate the woman who stole me from you. And you don't understand: I love you still." He sniffed slightly, convincing himself that he had allergies and he was in no way expressing grief through wet stuff flowing from his eyes.

"I don't understand? I don't understand?" She seemed to pause and cool herself down while Harry looked hastily at the door. It was so close, yet so far… "Harry, you have no idea how hard waking up every day to see your half of the bed empty is. How hard it is to stare at your spot at the breakfast table every morning. How hard it is set the table for five and suddenly remember that you don't live here anymore. Or even how much it hurts to ignore the fact that you need 'Wizard Whiskers Be-Gone' shaving cream when I walk by it in the drug stores. Why do you think I buy it for you?"

Harry stared at her red painted toenails and heard her sharp gasp of breath as she bit back a sob. His eyes slammed shut to stop the flow of tears, but only succeeded in pushing them out from beneath his eyelids. Abruptly, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight to him, vowing never to let go.

He had never realized that she might hurt still, too. She had never showed a single weakness and was always smiling. Right from the minute she woke up from fainting in Marriage Therapy. She had said: 'So, do you want kids on the second and fourth weekend or the first and third of every month?'

He still remembered the last night before she kicked him out and told him he would need to live with his new wife because she might get suspicious that he still lived with his ex. She had broken down only once and it was then. She had begged to know why he liked drinking so much and asked him one last favour: would he make love to her one more time, just to let her know he still cared? Well, of course. It was possibly their most emotional love making ever. Despite the somber mood, he had put everything he had into that night. Everything.

"Hermione, I'm sorry and I know you're going to regret this later, so please, stop now before you say something you'll be unhappy about." Harry whispered, clutching her hair fiercely. She sniffed sadly and looked at him with those big, beautiful brown eyes and smiled dejectedly.

"What did I do wrong, Harry? I tried so hard to make you happy, I really did. All I ever wanted was to grow up, get married, start a family and live happily ever after. Look at me now; I'm thirty some years old, divorced with a family lacking a dad and a garbage can beside my bed so that when I cry so hard I make myself sick, I won't get it on my covers! Where did I go wrong, Harry?" She choked back a sob and buried her face in his chest, breathing in the smell that had been missing from her pillow for far too long. His grip on her tightened with grief and he let a tear slip into her brown curls.

"Hermione, you never went wrong. I did. Who left? Who slept with someone else? Who has royally screwed up his life and the lives of everyone he loves? Let me tell you, it was not you."

"But why wasn't I good enough for you? Was it that I wasn't good enough in bed? Or I wasn't great at cooking? Was it my looks? I know I'm not pretty, Harry, but if you really ever loved me, that wouldn't mater!" She beat a fist against his shoulder so hard he flinched. He shifted her so that she sat on his lap, in a more comfortable position than having to lean over awkwardly to hold her.

"No, Hermione! You were great at everything, absolutely everything!" He exclaimed. She laughed derisively and he pulled her face to look at him, directly in the eye. "Even at looking prettier every time I saw you."

"Oh, come on, Harry. I know I don't fit into any of my clothes from before I got pregnant with Emily. I'm just not a size two anymore." She cried. She didn't seem incredibly happy about this fact, so Harry saw his chance and seized it.

"Hermione, I never noticed. Honestly, I didn't. And you know what? I have never seen anything more sexy than you waiting for me on our bed, your belly all swollen after carrying a baby for eight months, skin glowing like the sun…Hermione, you being pregnant was part of all my fantasies. I had always wanted a wife and kids and when you were pregnant, I got a two-in-one deal. Your body is the most beautiful entity that God put on this earth."

"You don't mean that." Hermione giggled. Harry smiled. Laughter was always a good sign. Unless it was mean and fake. Then it was scary. Hermione paused bashfully for a moment. "Do you?"

"Mmm-hmm." He smiled softly and tugged her hand gently towards his crotch. She buried her face in his shoulder shyly and tentatively placed her hand there. He heard her intake of breath and grinned. He knew she had felt it. That stiffness that radiated excitement over her.

"Harry, I miss you so much." Her hand remained pressed into him lovingly. Her mind moved back to a time when everything was good and she didn't have to feel guilty about touching him there, not even in public, never mind secret.

"I know, love. Me, too." He murmured, rocking her back and forth gently, his face buried in her sweet smelling hair. "Me, too."

AN: Hey, guys. There's chappy number one! Hope y'all like it. By the way, if you don't offer constructive criticism, don't completely bash me. It's mean, ok? I had someone tell me recently that I should stop writing because I had absolutely no talent. That's not the sort of thing that writers need to here from virtual people they don't know. Advice? Yes. Bullying? Not a chance.

Thanks, guys!

Bridgette

Blue Dazzles