Seeking for a Seeker

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Hermione Granger was many things. She was extremely smart and opinionated. She was beautiful and lovely. She was a lover and a fighter. She was a strong intelligent woman who could proudly say she saved the world.

However, despite being the brightest witch of her age there was one thing, that in her eyes, ruined her perfect record of accomplishments. She never got the hang of flying on a broom. That being said she wasn't a big fan of flying, there was a point in her life where she was terrified of it but after the war, flying wasn't the scariest thing anymore. While she might not like it as much as others did, but she could be convinced to go for a ride every now and then. However, she would never get on a broom of her own free will unless it involved her having to rescue someone. She was content riding with anyone, holding onto to them.

Since flying wasn't her thing and Quidditch was all about flying, Hermione Granger likewise never go the point of Quidditch. She liked the game well enough, enough to cheer on her best friends and enough to learn everything she could about it (mostly to keep Harry safe and alive, because gods know that the boy was a magnet for trouble), but she was not a hard die fan of the sport like so many other people were but the players were a different story. Quidditch made for some fit blokes and birds as Lee Jordan once put it. There was no denying that the sport made the players more desirable.

But while most girls and guys looked at the Keepers, wanting someone big to protect them or at the Beaters because they knew how to use bats or Chasers because of their stamina, her eyes were always on the Seekers, who were known for quick reflexes and long nimble fingers.

It started off innocently, concern for Harry, wanting him to be safe and live and then to keep an eye on Draco to make sure he didn't hurt Harry but then Cedric Diggory happened.

Well, actually Viktor Krum happened.

Viktor Krum was the first person to actually acknowledge that she was a girl. And despite everyone thinking what they had was romantic it actually was a friendship. ( It didn't become more until after Hogwarts and even then it was a one-time thing.) It started when she became annoyed with his fan club and snapped at him. The next day he gave her some flowers to apologize and asked her if she knew of any places where he could get some peace and quiet. So she invited him to sit with her and he did. They became good friends, studying together. When the Yule Ball came around he asked her hesitantly if he could take her, explaining that he wanted to spend the evening with someone who didn't see the Quidditch player. She said yes because they had become such good friends and she doubted that anyone else would ask her. So when Ron finally realized she was a girl she lost it. She let everyone tease her and got herself dolled up for the ball. The look on everyone face was worth the hours it took her to get ready. The look on Harry's face was worth the money she spent on the dress and the look on Ron's face was worth the snarky remarks. Draco Malfoy's face was worth the teasing.

She and Victor had a good time laughing and dancing together. However, Ron ended up ruining her night and with tears in her eyes, she kissed Viktor's cheek. The older boy pressed a kiss to her forehead and she watched him walk away. Then she saw Ron and Harry and they had a row. There she collapsed in tears on the stairs.

And that was when Cedric Diggory came into play.

She had met him that summer at the Quidditch World Cup. They had been traveling by the same porkey and she found him handsome. He was a pretty boy with a kind heart. He stopped by the Burrow after the death eater incident to check up on them. Hermione had smiled at how everyone was surprised to see how friendly he was with Percy Weasley. Percy simply shrugged and reminded his brothers that he was Oliver'Wood's roommate and best friend and that Oliver Wood was on good terms with all the captains including Slytherin's. It was the first time that she had seen him so relax. Cedric made a comment about how he had a good time with him and Oliver and a couple other boys the night before the game.

At the mention of Oliver Wood, Arthur's face lit up and he said "So that's' where you went to sleep? I was wondering when I saw you sneaking out of the tent. You came back in with a huge smile on your face."

Percy blushed and stuttered.

Cedric laughed and Hermione liked his laugh, it was kind and strong.

He ruffles Percy's hair and kisses her and Ginny's cheeks as he waves goodbye.

She sees him a few days later near the Weasley's. He's with a pretty blonde girl and the girl is barefoot dancing in front of her, the look on his face is so full of it love that takes her breath away.

When they bump into each other later that evening, she makes a remark about the girl and Cedric laughs.

"That's Luna. You can't help but love her, she's so pure."

When he was announced as Hogwarts's champion she felt fear in her throat but that fear disappeared when Harry's name was called.

She dedicated her time to helping Harry while keeping an eye on Cedric. They had a few conversations where he agreed to protect her friend and to get the others to lay off him.

At the Yule Ball, she had seen Cedric look at her when she came down the stairs with Krum. He asked her to dance when Cho had stepped aside for punch and even though she knew Rita Seeker might have something nasty to say, she agreed to.

After the whole Ron chaos, he had stayed with her on the steps and placed his jacket around her as she cried. He walks her back to her room and gives her a light closed mouth kiss.

The next time she sees him is when he wraps a towel around her after the dip in the lake. He squeezes her shoulder and places a quick kiss in her hair as she looks around for Harry.

Right before the third task, he finds her sitting alone, worrying about Harry. He sits down next to her and she leans her head against his shoulders. He takes her hand and they stay like that for a while. When he does leave as he is supposed to meet Cho, he promises to watch out for Harry. He presses a kiss to her cheek and leaves her behind, her heart beating fast, his sweatshirt covering her trembling frame. She worries about them both and about the promise he made to her.

After Cedric died, Hermione is heartbroken over the Hufflepuff seeker who was brave and loyal and died with his promise to her on his lips.

She blames herself.

Hermione spent that summer with the Order and that was when Charlie Weasley came into play.

Charlie Weasley was a rebound.

Hermione had hooked up with Charlie Weasley during her 5th year. She had met him in the summer of her fourth year at the Quidditch tournament. He was tall and handsome and smart. They both liked to read and spent time around the fire talking books, he told her about dragons and she could see why he loved them.

After the first task and after she had checked up on Harry, she had bumped into him. He was dealing with a nasty burn and his eyes softened when they saw her. He handed Hermione the rag and told her to help him. As she helped him clean up the blood, he talked to her about dragons.

They sent a few letters to each other over the course of that year. It was a fun and easy conversation.

That all changed the next summer, after the tournament.

Hermione had gone to live with Weasleys as the muggle world was dangerous. Charlie being a member of the order was around a lot. There was only so much of Ron and Ginny she could take and everyone kept reassuring her that Harry was fine. She had to stop herself from simply picking up the phone and calling him but the fact that he could get in trouble if his aunt or uncle found out was the only thing that kept hers form doing so.

Things changed between Hermione and Charlie one night after a meeting during dinner. Mrs. Weasley made an off-hand comment about Cedric Diggory and Hermione was in shock. Did they remember that he had died? Didn't they care?

So she had silently got up from the table and walked out. She ignored everyone's calls and locked herself away in an empty room, a room that was Charlie's when he had to send the night.

Boy, was he supposed to find her curled up on his bed, in a big Hufflepuff sweatshirt, pants on the floor, tears on her cheeks.

They lock eyes and something passed between them.

"Mione."

He lets her stay the night in his room instead of having her go back to her shared room with Ginny. When she grows tired he offers to leave but she quietly asks him to stay. He does.

She curls up next to him and he holds her, and with his long fingers running through her hair, she falls asleep.

The next day Harry arrives and he and Hermione and Ron fight over the lack of contact.

A few days later, he finds her and Harry curled up in an empty room. Harry's asleep and she's reading a book, as she keeps watch over her best friend. The arrest and the sentencing and everyone fussing over him, has him all tired out, and so Harry seeks out his best friend for a nap.

Charlie sits on the floor, a book in his lap and spends a few hours with them before he has to go help his mother with lunch. Before he leaves the room, he pulls off his sweater to give to Hermione to wear, as Harry is hogging the blankets. He watches her smile fondly at the dark haired boy next to her, the image of her stroking his hair the last thing he sees.

Later that night she goes to return the sweater and finds him getting ready for bed.

They both pauses, eyeing each other and then Hermione removes his sweater and her shirt. The rest of their clothes follow.

The next morning they simply share a secret smile and that is all.

They ended up hooking up again shortly before Bill and Fleur's wedding. It was a way to get rid of the stress and worry about the war and the wedding. It's a wonder they were never caught considering how small the house was and how busy Mrs. Weasley tried to keep them.

After the war, Charlie and Hermione talk and agree to keep their brief affair a secret between them. He goes back to his dragons and she focuses on taking care of Harry.

Now whenever Hermione sees him, they exchange smiles.

Charlie doesn't know that on Hermione's left hip, she has a red dragon tattooed, a reminder of him.

While searching for her parents the first time, she runs into Victor Krum and the two of them have a brief affair. She remembers that time fondly, remembering how he worshipped her body and they attended fancy galas and balls in both the muggle and the magic world reassuring people that Voldemort was gone. (Ron never cared for these and Harry refused to show up to them, even years later unless he was forced.) But she has had enough of the spotlight and they end the affair with a promise to remain friends and they do so

She gets a small golden egg on her ankle to mark her relationship with him.

He invited her to his wedding and seeing his happy he makes her heart beat with pride. A few years later he attends her wedding and ends up godfather to one of her many children.

Somewhere, between Charlie and Viktor, her relationship with Draco Malfoy changes.

It is no question that the two were fierce rivals and the fact that she punched him in that third year, something that even Teddy's generation would still talk about, made everyone think that the two would never ever get along. This changes in their fifth year, with Dolores Umbridge.

Umbridge is an evil lady and Hermione can't stand her, especially when she sees Harry's arm.

She searches the library for a way to help him as Harry has begged her not to tell any of the professors.

Draco notices her pouring over potions books and looking under enchanted items books and he spots Harry trying to hide his cuts. He grimaces, remembering a summer with the words I will not associate with Mudbloods or Blood traitors carved into his skin after his father caught him reading a muggle book. He asks his mother for the recipe for the salve and with Snape's help makes it. He slips into her bag and sends the recipe to Hermione. He tells himself the favor is for Hermione and not for Harry.

She catches his eye and gives him a brief nod and he has no clue how she knows it is him but he doesn't question it.

The few time he stumbles on her while patrolling the halls as part of the Inquisitorial Squad, he turns a blind eye. Hermione never tells the boys but they will want to know how could she have let her guard down around him and was she alone.

He won't admit it to anyone but after she punched him in his third year, she earned his respect. Before her, no one, not even a pureblood would dare raise his hand to a Malfoy. This girl didn't care about that. After seeing her as Krum's date and that dress, well, she earned a piece of his heart.

When she gets dragged up by the Inquisitorial Squad to Umbridge's office she sees the relief in his eyes as she and Harry leave with Umbridge.

He pulls her aside after the Battle of the Ministry and apologizes for the fact that his aunt killed Sirus. She knows that Harry won't take his message but she can tell he needed to say it. She watches him walk away with a sinking heart knowing they are on two different sides of the war.

When she sees him at the manor, she is struck by how dead he looks, pale and quiet. He does nothing as his aunt tortured her but she can feel his anger.

When the war ends, their eyes meet and something passes between them. The moment is lost when Ron come towards her, pulling her toward his grieving family. It's not until they start rebuilding the school that something happens.

She and Harry speak up during his trial and Draco Malfoy ends up working on rebuilding Hogwarts instead of Azkaban. She comes back for her eight years as does he, somehow they fall into late night conversations by the fire in the eighth year dormitories. There is no reason to fight, the war has taken all the fight of them. These conversations usually with other eight years involve lack of sleep and shared nightmares. Their first one on one conversation occurred because Daphne Granger tried to kill herself and it was Theo and Neville who found her.

She was rushed to St. Mungles and Neville went to see Hannah who worked at Abe's pub. Theo took a bunch of sleeping pills and Astoria Greengrass climbed into his bed crying. Anthony Goldstein and Susan Bones went to the kitchen and came back with food and firewhiskey they had smuggled in. Seamus and Dean Thomas joined them and Luna. Hermione had found Luna (who was not an eighth year but always there) comforting Draco. When she approached them Luna left to join Dean and the others. Leaving Hermione there with an upset and angry Draco. So she kissed him and he kissed her back. They went back to his room and she held him as she talked about Daphne, his fingers tracing her scars. The next morning, he kissed her and she slept with him.

Eventually, Daphne returned and everyone fell back into late night conversations around the fire. It wasn't unusual to see people in each other's room due to nightmares and on Friday night for firewhiskey bottles and muggle cigarettes appear and for Sunday nights, the mess to be gone. Everyone coped differently.

Hermione and Draco cope by sleeping together. He was able to drive her mad like no matter and she has to take into using magic to hide the obvious hickeys he leaves her with. Their affair ends with graduation.

With Ron still grieving, Hermione set out to find her parents again after graduation. She had tried to find them earlier but they were still cleaning up the mess. She had ended up with Viktor for a while needing a break after three months of little success. When she went out for the third time to look for them, Harry came with her wanting to leave it all behind for a while. With it being just the two of them, it felt like they were back in the woods.

Hermione has a great love for her best friend. He was her first friend, the first boy she loved, the first to see her. Her best friend.

There was a time in the tent back in the Forest of Dean that something almost changed. Hermione sometimes wonders what would have happened if Harry would have kissed her. Sometimes she wonders if she really wanted him too.

If he had kissed her, it would have changed everything, but he didn't.

But here they were just the two of them looking for her parents.

After the first nightmare that had Harry screaming, Hermione and he shared a bed.

He was there to hold her as she found herself thinking about the manor. She was there when he saw Cedric die again and again.

Eventually one night he whispers that he loves her, she whispers it back. He kisses her softly and she makes the first move, removing her nightgown.

Everything falls into place at that exact moment.

When they find her parents, Hermione lifts the spell. It does not go well.

Angry words are said and horrible words and tossed back and forth and Hermione leaves in tears. She leaves her parents behind as they bounce their new daughter on their knee.

Once they get back to their room, she is reaching for his clothes.

It is hard and fast and when its over, she is quiet.

He takes the time to trace her scars and to study her tattoos. There is a small blue badger, a large red dragon, a golden egg, and a silver dragon. The word Mudblood is etched into her skin and the amount of magic will make it go away and Hermione is unsure if she wants to risk having a tattoo artist take a look at it.

Without prompting from him, she begins to speak.

She tells him about her guilt about Cedric's death and the promise he made her. She talks about sleeping with Charlie Weasley and Krum and how she felt guilty when Ron kissed her because of her past with both men. She talks about Draco Malfoy and their unexpected affair and Harry listens. Once she runs out of words, Harry kisses her softly.

Instead, of heading back right away, they hole up in Godric's Hollow.

They considered the idea of simply living like muggles, and leaving the world behind, but magic is all Hermione has left and the magic world would never let Harry leave.

So they head back, hand in hand.

They break the news to Ron first who sighs.

He wants to be angry, this was his worst nightmare, the Horcrux had shown it to him, but the time spent apart made him realize that he and Hermione would have never worked and the kiss was in the heat of the moment. He has seen the relationship with his brother and Fleur, and recently with Percy and Oliver. He knows that he and Hermione would have been happy but never has happy as she could be with Harry.

He gives them his blessing and they hug him tightly.

They will always be the golden trio.

Ron stands by their side as his best friends vow to love each other forever.

It's a small family affair with Arthur giving Hermione away and Luna stepping in as Hermione's maid of honor in place of Ginny. Dennis Creevy takes his brother's place as photographer and Teddy is the ring bearer.

Thanks for reading this Wallflowers!

-Queen