Oh, you wouldn't want an angel watching over
Surprise, surprise, they wouldn't wanna watch
Another un-innocent, elegant fall
Into the un-magnificent lives of adults.
"Mistaken for Strangers" - The National
Harry was in a nearly, comparatively, relatively good mood.
A true good mood was a novel gift of a feeling. Since the war ended, he'd of course experience sporadic bouts of happiness, fleeting moments of serenity or even short stretches of contentment. But a good mood is something else entirely; it signifies hope, a day where nothing he did could turn sour. Today was his date with Hermione, and the two events were probably, definitely linked.
But he was still himself, of course, and Hermione was still herself, which is why it was only nearly a good mood. In the good mood ballpark, if you will. Which still wasn't half bad.
They opted for a lunch date. Not markedly sexy in Harry's mind, but it was the only time and day they could slip out for an entire afternoon, just the two of them. The Weasleys were having a family reunion, and the Burrow would be jam-packed with boisterous redheads and treacle tarts and meat pies and raunchy jokes until sundown and beyond.
Normally, Harry would never want to miss such a joyful, well-fed event. But he chose Hermione over the Weasleys, again. (He did not dwell on this fact for long, lest he exit the Good Mood Ballpark and roll towards the piss-stained Angst Alley round the corner). Hermione told Ron that she absolutely had to run errands that day because she was going to be staying with her parents in Muggle Ireland before returning to Hogwarts and Harry had to come with her because maneuvering Gringotts and Muggle Customs would be an absolute nightmare without his influence speeding the process, now that Apparating directly into Muggle areas needed proper clearance and screenings. (Hermione had actually sorted this all out weeks ago).
Ron and Ginny, of course, understood and bore no grudge.
This was also the last weekend before the end of Easter break, so Harry would be seeing much less of both Hermione and Ginny when they returned to Hogwarts. He tried not to focus on this fact upon his arrival to Hermione and Ron's flat. As he walked up to the impossibly high, brown cobblestone apartments, a bouquet of bright blue carnations mingled with baby's breath in his hands, he waved to their neighbor whose front garden he had previously passed out in. The portly man's eyes bugged out of his head as he stared at Harry through his window, and he sprung up his arm in salute. Feeling awkward, Harry returned it quickly, and then hurried on, wishing he hadn't.
He stepped into the steel grates of the lift, and a female voice squawked over him. "Residence?"
"Granger and Weasley, please."
The lift whooshed into action, barreling upwards so quickly Harry nearly squashed the flowers as he careened into the doors. He arrived promptly to their door, and rapped his knuckles on the scarlet wood.
When Hermione opened the door, Harry felt like a bright light was being shined in his face. A slight blush highlighted the charming contours of her cheekbones, and her curls were coiled, smoother than usual, and framing her face that seemed more vibrant than he'd seen it before. She wore a deep violet sundress with a low-cut neckline that hugged her waist and floated to just above her knees, showing just a hint of her thighs. Her lips were painted a light cherry color and Harry wondered if he could ever bear to stop looking at them.
"Are those for me?" she asked, smiling, suddenly shy. Harry blinked and grinned back.
"Oh, yeah, um, bit of an impulse buy, really. The florist said that, um, these particular flowers were symbols of both great beauty and intelligence, so, I thought they'd be fitting for you. He was probably just talking rubbish to get a sale, but — erm, they're still nice, I think." He couldn't believe he was nervous.
Hermione took the flowers and gave them a jocular little sniff, followed by an appreciative smile. "They're beautiful, Harry, thank you so much."
"Oh, yeah, you're welcome."
They were both on their very best behavior, and Harry wondered how long it would last before they reverted back to their normal selves. His clothes suddenly felt sticky and wrong, like he was playing dress-up.
"I'll find somewhere to hide them when I get back," Hermione said briskly as she pulled out her wand and magicked the bouquet out of sight.
Harry bit the inside of his cheek, crestfallen. "Of course. Sorry, I wasn't thinking."
Her eyes widened. "Don't apologize! They're great, really. It's just...you know."
Harry nodded. He did know.
"Shall we go?" he said, holding out his arm. She took it and smiled, and they walked into the finicky lift to be whisked away.
He brought her into Diagon Alley first, but didn't tell her where they were going, to Hermione's great annoyance.
"Honestly, Harry," she huffed while he pulled her along quickly, not wanting to linger as to avoid being stopped by throngs of sycophantic strangers, "It's absolutely ridiculous you won't tell me our destination, I had no idea what I was meant to wear! I changed three times out of worry."
He beamed at her. "You're perfect."
She couldn't fight her lips from curling into a smile.
But when they reached the doors of the Leaky Cauldron, however, Hermione frowned, forehead creased in puzzlement.
"You're taking me here?"
Harry grinned. "Just a detour."
He walked quickly to the back, ignoring the stares from the pub's occupants, and tapped on a particular brick. At his touch, the wall reformed into a doorway.
Harry winked at her. "Let's go be Muggles for a day."
It had been quite some time since Harry had entered the Muggle world, really entered it, and he worried that perhaps it would take him some time to acclimate. But the sight of cars whizzing by on wheels and not magic, men and women in suits chattering into gray cell phones and electricity coursing through the unsightly power lines was so familiar it was as if he never left. While it might not be as picturesque as the world he now called home, it did have one thing that the Wizarding World did not.
People who didn't stare.
Harry had almost forgotten what it felt like to be out in public without blatant, suffocating scrutiny. He felt buoyant, reckless, and grasped Hermione's hand in his own. She looked down at their intermingling fingers in disbelief, and then looked up at him, smiling broadly. They walked off, hand in hand, and let the spring sunshine fill them up.
They got on a bus, an actual bus that didn't squeeze itself around corners or make anyone vomit; Harry felt like it had been decades since he had moved so slowly. But it dutifully chugged along until Harry pulled the line and arrived around the corner of a cineplex. Hermione looked up in delight as it instantly clicked.
"We're going to see a film?" she said, voice bright. "Oh, Harry! It has been a while. What are we seeing?"
"Something called Star Wars," Harry responded, looking at the blinking lights on the marquee to be sure. Harry had extremely limited knowledge of Muggle forms of entertainment, seeing as the Dursleys were never particularly keen on taking him for a bit of fun out on the town, to put it mildly. "It was the closest one playing at this time."
Hermione pulled a face. "Hmm. All right, I'll give it a chance, I suppose. Although I think I would have preferred something a bit more academic."
Harry chuckled as they reached the front of the line. "Two tickets to Star Wars, please," he said.
The teenager working the booth's eyes lit up. "Ace!" he exclaimed. "Most people take their dates to see Notting Hill or summin'. Total bollocks. Ewan McGregor's the best, am I right?"
Harry stared blankly at him, not knowing what a You-win Mickgreggor was.
"Yeah, she's our favorite actress," Hermione said confidently. The teenager looked away uncomfortably and rang up the prices.
"...That'll be eleven quid, fifty."
Harry actually quite enjoyed the movie, although some parts he had some difficulties watching. He found himself turning his head whenever the Sith Lord came on screen or, oddly, whenever the camera lingered on Anakin Skywalker for too long. A couple things just hit a bit too close to home, he supposed. He spent a lot of the time staring at Hermione, who seemed rather drawn in by the film, although a tad disapproving at times.
"I mean honestly," she tutted every so often when things got a bit too fantastical for her. "They're just making up rules of physical property as they go along. Harry, you see that that's absurd, don't you? Gamp's Law clearly states — "
Harry quieted her with a kiss; slow, languid, and she was much more content for the rest of the film.
They stopped for a late lunch and coffee at an Italian restaurant called Agostino's, its ambiance inviting and savory. There was a single lit candle at every ivory table-clothed booth and twinkling lights were draped across the walls, interlacing with a massive wine rack of vintage reds. The place was only half filled so it was still fairly quiet, and Harry could hear the faint melody of violin music chirping through speakers. They ordered their food off of laminated menus and Harry was greatly amused to see Hermione struggle with eating her spaghetti once it was served.
"Why don't they cut these damn noodles?" she complained. "How is anyone meant to consume these monstrosities?"
"It's traditional," Harry smiled, taking a bite of his ravioli. But his smile fell away as he continued to stare at her, her face going determined and annoyed, and the realization of how weird this all was finally dawned on him.
Sex with Hermione, in the dark, feeling like shit about it, okay. Understandable. It was what he needed to do to feel something after all his senses numbed over; he had been inert, underwhelmed by the sheer malaise of his life. Depression, possibly, but that didn't feel like the right word for it. More likely, it was just another of those nasty consequences from fulfilling a prophecy and murdering a Dark Lord in such developmental years. He probably had just gone stale, his purpose fulfilled, existence no longer necessary. Them's the breaks.
But now, it was in the light of day, and he and Hermione were in a bloody restaurant, as if they were normal people with nothing to be ashamed of. It was distasteful of them, foul. He blamed Hermione for agreeing to it, his no-longer-moral guide.
Harry looked around and saw another young couple, holding hands under the table. Neither were very attractive, the bloke with a greasy wisp of a mustache and the girl with a pimply chin, and they were gazing at each other too mawkishly for his taste, but you couldn't deny that they were clearly, effortlessly in love. A few tables to the right of them was an older couple, probably mid-forties, straight-backed and mundane. They ate their meal in steady silence, staring at the food and only the food. They might as well have been eating alone.
He was dying to know what he and Hermione looked like. Did they look ordinary, mushy, or bored? The three descriptors of a relationship: trite, gross, or doomed.
"Are you okay?" Hermione's voice made his skin feel itchy, like the sun streaking in through the smudged windows was turning him pink with burn. The restaurant that had been quaint and charming to him a few minutes ago was now showing its defects, like a heavily made-up woman shoved beneath harsh fluorescent lighting; a small spider's web weaved in a corner of the roof, one of the bulbs on the twinkle lights had gone out, the wine bottles furthest from the bottom had dust on the necks. Harry felt like he was encased in plastic disguised as authenticity, the worst kind of lie.
"I'm fine," he said on reflex.
Hermione smiled a little. "People always ask that, don't they? And they never expect a real answer. Sometimes when people at school ask me if I'm okay, I want to actually tell them no, and list every single thing wrong with me."
Harry nodded, mouth tasting slightly less like bile. "That's how to win friends."
The corner of her mouth turned up. "I have night terrors! Can I copy your Charms notes?"
He laughed, actually laughed in response. "Three times this year I've gotten so anxious I've thrown up. Pass the marmalade?"
"Sometimes I can't even get out of bed in the morning. Let's head back to the party."
"I'm shagging my best friend's fiancé! Now, let's meet that new girlfriend of yours."
Hermione's chuckling quieted and her smile cracked. "Yes, that should go swimmingly."
There was a pause.
"No, then," Harry said abruptly. "To answer your question. I don't think I'm fine."
His answer seemed redundant.
Still smiling, as if she had forgotten how to stop, Hermione nodded and said, "Same. I don't think anything's fine."
She picked at her noodles, and they both went quiet again, but it wasn't a suffocating quiet, or even a bored quiet like the older couple nearby. It was just familiar. Neither sentimental nor ominous.
"I miss talking to you," Harry said suddenly. He was on a roll with the bluntness.
"We talk all the time."
He shook his head. "Not really. I mean we do...stuff. But it's not like it was before, back at school."
Hermione shrugged. "Well, we were always trying to fight Voldemort and the Ministry and Death Eaters and miscellaneous evil at school. But now, we don't have that, and it's just...small talk. It feels like every conversation I have now is small talk."
Harry could feel himself grinning. "Isn't it bloody horrible?"
"It's like I can feel my brain rotting," Hermione laughed, and then her eyes went big, and she quickly added, "Not that I'm saying I want Voldemort back or anything."
"No, course not," he agreed.
"It's just..." she popped another meatball in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "It's like I've been on a vacation that just won't end. Everything is so dull. Even now, I don't know what what we're supposed to do here. What do people even talk about? The weather? Is that what all these people are talking about? I'd rather swallow glass. And every day I'm in school and look around at everyone talking about the food or their boyfriends or Potions class or whatever, and I want to just scream and shake them all because—because—"
"Because people died," Harry finished.
"Because people died," she repeated solemnly. "So what else is there to talk about?"
Harry looked over at the unattractive young people at the table nearby and had to swallow his lips to keep from laughing. "Maybe we should talk about what they're talking about," he said with a furtive point. The girl was stroking the boy's oily face, while his socked foot was steadily sneaking up her leg.
Hermione pretended to scratch her neck to look behind her and then whipped back around after she caught them, her hands covering her mouth to quiet her laughter. "Oh my God, no, that's not happening."
"Hermione, his foot, I think it's going to — "
"No, no, I don't want to know!"
"And how is everything over here? Molto bene?" their server, some Spanish-looking guy named Thomas who was pretending to be an Italian-looking guy named Tomás interrupted them, a mouth turned perpetually up. They both removed their hands from their mouths to choke out that everything was great.
He wandered away, and the carefree moment passed.
Hermione's eyes lasered into his, and he instinctively clenched, went on defense. "Harry, I've been wanting to ask... Why are we here?"
Harry decided to play dumb, oblivious male (a fairly easy role, as he played it rather more frequently and inadvertently than he would like), as if he saw nothing remarkable with what was happening. "I just wanted to spend the day with you. Is that so bad?"
Her eyes softened slightly. "No, it's just...I don't know. A date? It seems...strange. It's not what we do, you know? And for the past couple of months you've been...well, you've been different."
His witless pretense was waning. "Different how?"
Hermione fidgeted with her engagement ring. "Um." She looked around as if someone could be listening in, although clearly no one was. "Well, first off, our — our, when we...you know," she said meaningfully. "You've been different. Like, it used to be much more...I'm not sure what to call it — but it was strictly somatic. Purely physical." She cleared her throat. "But then it became a bit...warmer."
"Warmer," he repeated tonelessly.
"Yes," she said, uncomfortable. "More emotional, I guess. Even...tender."
"So that's why you started avoiding me?" said Harry, embarrassment making his body tighten in an angry slow broil. "Because I stopped fucking you like you were a sock?"
Hermione flinched and then steeled. "Yes. Yes, that is why."
Harry scratched the side of his head, trying to recall their sex right before she stopped touching him.
It was late February...Hermione came over and looked like she'd been crying earlier, but that was certainly nothing unusual... They started kissing against the wall, he threw her onto the bed... He was pretty sure it was Missionary style, nothing fancy, nothing crazy, he was tired from a long day at training...So tired, he wasn't even that keen, in fact...
And it was normal, wasn't it? It wasn't very rough sex, no, but it wasn't like he laid her body down and made love to her or some rubbish like that. It was sex. Intercourse. He would even call it fucking coitus if that would make her less weird.
Harry was about to say just that, when the rest of the memory clicked into place.
They had finished, and it was in the middle of the "afterglow" or whatever people called the space in time between having sex and hating yourself, that Harry looked over at Hermione beside him, and was struck by how warm and soft she looked. Almost luminous. He felt drawn in by her, but it also felt very casual, very obvious, like of course this is the right thing to do, the only thing he could possibly do in that moment: He rolled over and kissed her shoulder, kissed her cheek...felt kind of awed by her... He wrapped her in his arms and —
"Okay," Harry grumbled, staring down at his food again. "Maybe I kind of get what you mean."
He felt another rush of humiliation, a vain stab to his ego. "So you...stopped...liking it?"
She rolled around a meatball that was probably on its way to cold by now. "It's not that I disliked it, I just...I know that I'm doing a bad thing here. A really terrible thing. To Ginny and to Ron," her eyes filled with tears and her voice cracked on Ron's name. "But I guess I can still kind of live with myself if it's just about sex, you know? If it's just about...why I'm doing it."
Harry leaned forward. "Why are you doing it? Me."
Hermione laughed a little sadly and shook her head. "A lot of reasons. Or maybe none at all."
"Great answer," he said with a frown. "Really cleared things up."
She perked up. "Yes," she said nodding, "There, you see? I'm really a frightful person to date. I expect who I'm with to open up completely to me, while I keep things inside. I'm also very bossy, a perfectionist, too serious, I cry easily, have a very bad superiority complex, and I'm so worried about being cut down I''ll cut you down first." She became thoughtful for a second, quirked her head sideways. "And I have terribly unmanageable hair."
"Huh?"
"Ginny, on the other hand," Hermione said, slurping a noodle, "has great hair. And she loves Quidditch like you do, which I don't, and she's pretty open, more than I am. She's also funnier than me, and more laid-back. Better around people; everybody likes her."
"Are you..." Harry stared at her incredulously. "Are you pitching me my own girlfriend?"
She wiped at the corner of her mouth with her cloth napkin. "You never got anything easy in your life, Harry. You deserve someone easy. And I am not easy."
Hermione stuttered after he made a face. "Wait, that came out wrong, I just mean — "
Harry didn't want to stay on topic anymore, didn't want to talk about things he may or may not deserve. Thankfully, something subject-change worthy at the table nearby caught his attention.
"Hermione," he whispered in delight/horror, "That girl is feeding her boyfriend sauce with her finger. This is not a drill, this is real."
She struggled to keep her face serious. "Stop looking! I'm trying to talk to you!"
The boy with the oily mustache started to suck enthusiastically on his girlfriend's finger. "I physically can't stop looking. It's like a car crash. He is really going in on that thing."
Unable to resist, Hermione took another peak, and the sight of the girl's finger going into the boy's mouth, all the way to her knuckle, made her bark out a laugh before she had time to spin back around. The couple immediately retracted all limbs and fingers from each other and glared at her.
Her eyes were huge as she turned back around and stared at him. "They saw me."
"I don't think they saw," Harry lied.
"Really?" she whispered.
"Definitely not."
He watched them angrily hail a server, the boy's mustache twitching in indignation. Multiple people were now staring in interest.
"Okay, they might have seen," Harry choked, fighting laughter.
"Ohhh, I wanna die, I wanna die," Hermione moaned, her hands covering her eyes in embarrassment.
"Hermione, I have something serious I want to ask you," he said somberly.
At the change in note, she slid her hands away and stared at him with some concern. "Um...Yes?"
He took a deep breath, stared at her with all the sincerity he could muster.
"Do you want me to give you a foot job?"
She made a high-pitched noise at the back of her throat and threw her napkin and leaving. "Okay, we're leaving, we obviously cannot handle civilization."
"Because I don't want to, but I'd be willing to make the sacrifice if that's really what you're into, I want to respect your kinks —"
Hermione stood up and smacked him on the arm, her head hung so that her chin was almost touching her chest as she hurried towards the hostess stand, where she dropped her money before fleeing the scene. Harry laughed openly and followed, switching out her money to return to her for his own, and exiting the restaurant while the two teen lovers stared daggers into his back.
"So. We were discussing Ginny," Hermione said promptly as he fell into step with her, passing by a square of shops.
Harry sighed. "I know how great Ginny is. I know I'm lucky to have her. And I...I love her," he paused. "I think I really do love her. But she just doesn't...do for me what you do for me."
She glanced towards him and then looked forward. "...What do I do for you?"
"You know how after the Battle I never cried?" he said, feeling a dull twist of reluctance that he was going to actively try to remember how he felt back then. He usually just repressed it, in the way he repressed most things.
"Yes, I remember," she said, in a voice as soft and gentle as a fleece blanket, her Let's-Talk-About-Harry voice. "Well, that is until the second time we...at Godric's Hollow..."
"Yeah. Until that time." Harry's tone went clipped and curt, his face stony, and it became very clear to both him and Hermione he was incapable of sharing anymore.
But she was Hermione, so of course she pressed on, pressed too far. "So...so you crying like that was...was like a good thing for you, or —"
"Hermione," he said sternly, abruptly. "Just forget it, okay? Never mind. Let's just talk about something else."
They walked on in silence until he couldn't take it anymore, her worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. "How are you and Ron, then?"
Hermione jumped at the question, and looked like she wasn't going to answer. Which was such bullshit, considering how much time they had devoted to cracking him open. He nudged her, and to his surprise, she took his arm.
"We're...I don't really know," she said. Her warmth beside him softened Harry up.
"So, bad?"
"Not bad, exactly."
A family passed by them then, all topped with mops of blonde hair, three little clones. The baby in his mother's arms was sticky-faced and crying, while the two in front proudly led the pack. The parents just looked tired.
"Do you ever think about the future?" Hermione asked, staring so hard at the mother that Harry watched the woman lock gazes with Hermione and screw up her mouth in annoyance; wary, jealous of her un-stretched stomach and new-new skin.
"I'm just trying to get through the days, really," he said, although it was a lie. He thought of it sometimes; house on a hill, wife and kids, the whole bit. It just seemed so far away, like those kinds of things only got to happen to other people. Happy, normal people.
"Do you...do you think I'm making a mistake? Marrying Ron?" she asked hesitantly, head craning to look up and watch his reaction.
Harry balked.
Should he take this opportunity to drive an even deeper wedge between his friends, or try to be a better man and let them be?
He stared back at Hermione; pretty, intelligent, pushy, erratic, always near tears.
Was this what he wanted?
"I think I'm kind of a biased sounding board for that question," he said at last.
Hermione let out a breath that he hadn't known she'd been holding. "Okay. Okay. I think...maybe I'm just scared."
"Scared of marrying Ron?"
She shook her head, started to bite her thumb-nail. Harry found it a bit weird how Hermione always had to bite something when she was anxious. "No, just...marriage in general. Maybe I'm not cut out for it, you know? Maybe I'll fail. I probably will. I'm failing already."
She looked distraught, and then with a shake of her head the expression was gone, replaced by one of carefully constructed contentment. Like flipping a switch.
"We're getting far too chummy," she joked, smiling at her feet. "I thought you hated talking about feelings."
"Oh, shit, did I have a choice this whole time?" he said, trying for lightness. "In that case, quit talking so much, woman."
"Ha ha," Hermione said, and then she actually did laugh. But they did continue their walk talking about everything besides what they were feeling; Teddy and who was dating whom at school and how Hermione's former classmates were doing in Auror training.
They came upon St. Paul's Cathedral, intimidating and hallowed, spires and pillars stretching towards the heavens. Harry did what he always did when he found himself near a church; glanced at it, realized what it was and shuffled on, repelled by its shameless esotericism, the feeling that it was not somewhere he belonged. But Hermione came to a complete stop, forcing him to turn back as they were still linked by the arm. She stared at it, transfixed.
"Hermione?" he questioned.
She kept her eyes on the church, looking peculiar. "Were the Dursleys religious at all, Harry?"
Harry scoffed. "No, not even remotely, although they were plenty high and mighty. Why?"
Hermione was still regarding the building with such reverence Harry was worried she was having some sort of religious experience. He wouldn't really know how to explain that to Ron.
"You were never interested in religion, either? Not even now?" She asked.
Harry shrugged, starting to feel uncomfortable. "Er, not really. That's Muggle stuff."
She took a couple steps closer, and then suddenly stopped, as if it was protected by a shield to ward her off. "My dad used to be Catholic," she murmured. "He wasn't really practicing, exactly. But we always had a gold figure of Jesus on the cross hanging in our kitchen. I went to mass once, and I was intrigued by the Latin, of course, and the historical aspects of it all. History's a bloody thing, no matter what world you're in."
Hermione took another unsteady step forward, dragging him along. "But as far as belief, well, you can imagine how I felt about that as a child."
Harry smirked as he pictured an eight-year-old Hermione, transcribing the discrepancies and inconsistencies of religious texts to her frazzled parents.
"But I-I remember once, when I was a kid, I got on my knees and prayed to that little Jesus...ornament." She clucked her tongue on the last word, really trying to emphasize the absolute ridiculousness of her youthful naivete. "It was for some silly reason, naturally. I think I prayed for some friends."
Harry was surprised to hear this, but shouldn't have been. It wouldn't be a far stretch of the imagination to believe Hermione was isolated by her peers in her younger years, what with her studiousness and frank nature. But she never talked about her childhood, so he just assumed it had been perfect. With guilt, Harry realized he'd never really asked her about it before.
She scowled. "All rubbish, of course. I was just talking to myself on the ground like a nutter. But it was...a comfort, I suppose."
Finally, to Harry's relief, she began walking away from the cathedral.
"The day after I got my letter from Hogwarts, and my parents were told magic was real," she said thoughtfully, "Dad took the Jesus down and threw it away."
In Harry's mind he pictured a strange man dipped in gold, bleeding from the hands and skull, nestled carelessly between a rotten banana peel and a wad of tissue, and felt something dangerously close to empathy.
They continued their walk, stopping once for ice cream from a cart sold by a man in a funny little pin-striped apron and pink trousers. Hermione licked her vanilla cone with a quick twirl of her tongue, drawing Harry's attention to her mouth. He pulled her in for a kiss, and she froze.
Feeling her stiffen, he pulled away. Hermione was looking at him cautiously, observing him. Harry felt like a test subject.
"What?" he said.
Her eyes read him like a book, left to right. "Why did you do that?" She didn't ask him like she was affronted or offended, it wasn't in an aggressive tone. She said it slowly, her ears pricked to really hear his answer; grade his response.
His mind spun as he searched for the correct one. "...Because I want to fuck you so bad," he replied, and his voice sounded dead.
But then Hermione visibly relaxed, and kissed him for a long time, and for just that moment, nothing else really mattered to him.
The disgust Harry had been feeling back at the restaurant at the fact that he and Hermione looked normal, unashamed, seemed to have been blown away by the fresh air. Now, he even liked it; that there was no one to catch them, no one to hate them for what they were doing.
It is a heady, unrivaled feeling, to not be hated.
Dusk began to settle over the sky, turning the city purple and puce, like a bruise. Harry smiled as he wiped off some ice cream Hermione somehow got on her nose, and then noticed a little girl with bouncing pigtails and bright yellow trainers come bounding up to them.
When she met them, she was grinning from ear to ear and shaking with excitement, as if she was restraining herself from jumping up and down on the spot.
"Could I have your autograph?" she asked, her voice too loud due to nerves.
Even though signing autographs usually made Harry want to snap every pen handed to him in half, he forced himself to give her a friendly smile and held out his hand for her paper. The girl blinked at him and made no movements to hand him anything.
"Oh, actually, Mr. Potter, sir, I was — I was talking to Hermione."
Hermione looked taken aback. "Me?"
The girl's smile was back, brighter than before. "Yes, Miss! You're my hero. My absolute hero. I'm a Muggle-born too, just been sorted into Gryffindor this year, too nervous to go up to you at school, but I've read all about you. I have your profile from Witch Weekly framed on my wall!"
"Oh, my, well — " Hermione took the girl's pen and began scrawling her name on her sketchpad. Harry felt a grand tenderness at the moment. "What's your name, sweetie?"
"I'm Clara," the girl said, showing off a missing tooth in her grin. "Clara Donovan, and I'm going to be just like you when I grow up!"
Hermione froze again, her face going ashen. She swallowed dryly a few times and Harry grew unnerved by her sudden change of state, knowing what must be crossing her mind. The blood on her hands. The shame. Her scars, both seen and unseen. Things you never want to think about inflicted on children.
Her hands shook as she finished the autograph, and she was misty-eyed when she kneeled down in front of Clara to be at her eye level.
"You know what I think, Clara?" she said, giving the girl a watery smile. "I think you're going to be much more special than I ever was."
Clara smiled toothily again, and hugged Hermione around her neck. Hermione let out a small gasp and it took her a moment to remember to wrap her arms around the girls shoulders, but she did. Harry saw a single tear fall from Hermione's face onto the girl's jumper.
"Clara!" A woman in the distance called after her and waved.
"That's my mum, I better go," Clara said, turning on her heel and running towards her mother. "Bye Hermione! Bye Harry Potter!"
She rejoined her mother and they walked out of sight. Hermione stayed rooted to the spot, breathing shallowly.
"How do you get used to that?" she whispered to Harry, struggling not to cry.
Harry took her hand again. He's felt exactly what she's feeling. How awful it is to have people look to you as if you're a savior when you feel like you're splitting apart at the seams, a in hero's clothes. Liar. Fraud. False idol.
"You never really," Harry said, trying to meet her gaze that was still cast outward. "But, eventually, you realize that everything you did was so people like her will never have to. She'll be spared because of what you did, and she'll never have to feel what you're feeling. And that's worth it."
She sniffed and fell against his chest, letting him hold her.
"I hope she's nothing like me when she grows up," Hermione choked, barely audible. She wrapped her arms around his waist and they stayed like that, holding each other, until the cold shooed them away.
It was still fairly early in the night when Harry and Hermione left Muggle London, so Harry suggested going back to Grimmauld Place before she returned home. She smirked at the ground but nodded.
"Only if you want to," he added softly. She responded with a kiss so heated it made Harry feel like he wouldn't have the patience to even make it there.
Once out of the Muggle world, they finally Apparated to just outside of his doorway because Harry still wanted to make this feel like a proper date.
"This was actually really nice," Hermione said with a gentle smile. "I liked pretending to be different people."
Harry felt completely connected to her, grateful that she could say what he was feeling, only better. "Yeah. Yeah, I did too."
She laughed when Harry swooped her up in another kiss, and he melted against her mouth. Her fingers dug into the back of his neck as he tugged on her lip with his teeth, sucked on her tongue with want and fire and need.
"Bed," he said, voice raspy, eyes dark, and Hermione scrabbled to push open the door with one hand while pulling him closer with the other.
He kept kissing her as they tumbled into his home, wrapped up in her body and smell. He had just slid his hand between her thighs when he heard a loud clanging noise coming from the other room.
"Out, Kreacher!" Harry shouted before capturing Hermione's lips again. She whimpered in his arms and held him tighter, grinding delicately on his hand.
"S'only me!" Ron's voice rang out.
Harry had never seen Hermione move so quickly in his life. She disentangled herself from him, jumped about four feet away and smoothed her dress of any wrinkles in a blink of an eye.
"Ron? What are you doing here?" Harry asked, shaking, still in shock at how close he had been to having his entire world come crashing around him, and made his way to the stairway of the kitchen where he'd heard him call from. Ron came out with a chicken wing in hand to greet them.
"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to scare you, I just — Wow. Hermione." He looked at his girlfriend with wonder. "You look great!"
She blushed. "It's only a dress."
Ron caught Harry's eye and chuckled in appreciation. "Never seen it before! Blimey, why'd you look so nice just to run some boring old errands?" Ron dropped the chicken on the counter and scooped her into his arms. She laughed when he twirled her into the air and set her down again to give her a peck on the lips. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you."
Harry looked away. "I thought you'd be at the Burrow?" he said, feeling out of place in his own home and hating it.
"Ugh, I couldn't stand it another minute," he said, swinging his arm around Hermione. "Aunt Mildred wouldn't stop pinching my cheeks. I don't even think I have them anymore, just numbed, raw muscle on both sides of my face."
Hermione pinched his cheek. "Nope, still there. Still red."
"Hey!" He said, catching her wrist and smiling. "This is a serious malady. Course, it would've been easier if I could've had a Butterbeer or two...but I didn't! Just water for me, thank you kindly."
Hermione smiled at him appreciatively. Then she turned to Harry, who was trying his very best not to grimace. "Harry? Do you still have that elf-made wine the Ministry gifted you?"
"Yeah…"
Hermione clapped her hands together. "Let's open it!"
Ron's mouth fell open. "Seriously?"
Hermione tried very hard to put on a show that she was just feeling excessively merry, but Harry could detect the slight hysteria in her buoyancy. "I'm feeling rather parched."
Ron laughed. "You heard the lady, Harry."
Hermione gave Harry a small smile that probably meant sorry, but she didn't need to apologize for being affectionate with Ron. He would have done the same had he been in her shoes. Harry descended into his kitchen to recover the wine from a wooden pantry.
While he busied himself with procuring some crystal glasses that Sirius had left behind, Hermione and Ron went to the opposite side of the room by the large fireplace. Harry watched Ron conjure up a chessboard, and Hermione made a noise between a laugh and a groan.
"You only want to play chess with me because you know you'll beat me," she complained. Ron chuckled.
"Now listen, no wife of mine is going to be a rubbish chess player."
"I'm not rubbish! You just cheat!"
Ron scoffed. "What? How am I cheating?"
"I haven't figured it out yet, but you must be!"
Harry smiled to himself at their bickering. At least some things didn't change. But when he finished pouring generous amounts of wine into each of their glasses, Harry looked up again to see the mood had indeed changed very quickly. The firelight made Hermione's face glow and, seemingly enraptured by her beauty, Ron dropped their small quarrel to lean forwards and kiss her shyly. Harry's hands started to hurt and he looked down to realize he had been digging his nails into his palms. You don't get to be jealous of him, he reminded himself. You're the bad guy in this, remember? You're the bad guy.
He cleared his throat as he neared them and they scooted away from each other, embarrassed. Harry sat on the ground with Ron and Hermione above him on both sides, sitting on the marble bench of the fireplace. The three friends drank the entire bottle of the thickly bittersweet wine over the course of the next several hours, and they merely played chess and laughed over nothing but Harry thought that this turned out to be a very fine night indeed.
None of them wanting to be separated, they slept on pillows and couches right beside each other, Harry again in the middle. Ron patted Harry on the shoulder before drifting off to sleep and Harry gave Hermione a kiss before she turned in and that was that. He nodded off feeling complete.
The next morning, he woke up to the smell of bacon. Bleary-eyed, Harry shoved on his glasses and headed downstairs to investigate the source of the heavenly smell.
"...I can cook, I just know it. It's an untapped potential." Hermione's voice drifted from the kitchen.
"You're the smartest person I know, but no, Hermione, you really can't." Ron retorted. Harry leaned against the side of the wall so he could see them but they couldn't see him. Ron was flipping bacon with his wand while Hermione sat on top of the long counter, watching him do it. Harry recalled the last time they had shagged there and tried not to feel smug about it.
Hermione snickered, failing at pretending to be offended. "You just don't let me!"
"Yeah, and there's a reason for that." Ron smiled lazily at her, the way someone smiles when they know someone utterly belongs to them, and Hermione reached out and pushed his head forwards playfully.
"Fine," she huffed, smirking and crossing her legs. "But you're severely underestimating me, Ronald Weasley."
He grinned at her again. "Never."
Harry shut his eyes, willing away the envy, the feelings of exclusion, the bitterness. They were the impeccable image of domesticity. Why had Hermione confessed to being terrified of this when she clearly slid into it so perfectly? He couldn't help but compare this Hermione, chatty and fiery and at ease to the one that he had spent the day with yesterday, moody and unsure, nearly falling apart in his arms.
But maybe this was an act. Maybe she didn't show what she was truly feeling to Ron, only to Harry, because he just knew her in ways Ron didn't. Maybe she simply didn't think Ron could handle her true emotions like he could. This thought cheered Harry considerably, and he finally made his presence known in the kitchen.
"Hey, Harry," said Ron, gesturing towards the sizzling meat on the stove. "Just saved your entire kitchen from burning down, thought you'd want to know."
Hermione made a disapproving sound. "I had everything completely under control. I simply thought they were supposed to catch fire like that. Makes it crispy."
Harry chuckled and kissed Hermione on the cheek. She eyed him reproachfully but Ron didn't notice anything odd about it, so Harry turned his back to her to get some breakfast.
Mid-bite, Harry heard a loud knock on his door.
A/N: Ooh, who could it be?
How did you guys like the references to religion in this chapter? It was an idea that I just couldn't get out of my head because it was so sad and logical: doesn't it make sense that Muggle-borns abandoned their faith when they discovered the wizarding world? How could you not? I actually teared up a bit at the thought of Hermione's dad throwing away that figure of Jesus, and I think it went well in this chapter as Hermione is really struggling with morality and the quality of her own soul. As always, thanks for reading and reviewing!