Disclaimer – Anything you see and recognise does not belong to me. Harry Potter is JK Rowling's; The Avengers and other related characters belong to Marvel. I'm simply playing in their sandboxes.

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Heroes Assemble!

Chapter 7 – Together Once Again

On a whim, Harry stepped between a pillar and wall and conjured a small placard. A thick black pen was added which he used to write on said placard. And then, feeling completely ready, he re-joined the crowd milling about the arrival gate.

The plane, he knew, had landed some time ago, but having vast experience with how long it took to get through customs when entering a new country, not to mention the general slowness of people disembarking a plane and gathering their luggage in the first place, he wasn't worried.

In fact, he was kind of surprised when the first people emerged from said gate, looking around for either friends, family or simply a sign pointing where to go.

Straightening, Harry manoeuvred himself into a prime position and held the placard between his hands. He was sure that he was failing abysmally at keeping the mischievous grin off of his face, but he didn't care.

Two dozen people had already filed out of the small entryway with Harry giving each one a brief look over before dismissing them.

And then, at the very back of the next group, he spied a head of bushy, brown hair. Well, it was in actual fact a lot more tamed than it once had been, but that didn't diminish Harry's ability to pick it out from a crowd.

Suddenly the path between them opened up and Harry could see her properly.

Hermione.

She had hardly changed at all; still as beautiful as the very last day that he saw her so many years ago. She had filled out a little in the hips and chest area, perhaps, but still maintained her slim figure. And her outfit accentuated that figure very nicely indeed – a pair of jeans and a snug dark blue shirt.

He watched as her eyes systematically began scanning the waiting crowd before fixing on him. Her eyes flicked down to the sign that he held and an eyebrow rose along with a small smile as she looked back into his eyes.

And then she was running towards him, her luggage rocking dangerously on its little wheels as it tried to keep up. It was dropped, along with Harry's placard as she flung herself into his arms.

"Harry!" she near-squealed into his ear.

"Hey, 'Mione," Harry replied as he took in the all-too familiar scent of her – some type of berry that he'd never been able to identify with just a hint of parchment.

Slowly, she pulled back, her hands cupping his face as her eyes intently roved over him – eyes, hair, scar, before she frowned slightly at his ear. A single look told him that he'd be explaining what he was doing with a pierced ear or else and he couldn't help but give a lop-sided grin. It was a look that he'd never been able to resist, all the way back to first year at Hogwarts when she'd first looked at him that way.

"I promise that you'll hear everything," he told her.

"Good," she said, giving a single emphatic nod. Then, "oh, Harry, it's so good to see you! It's been far too long."

"I know, I've missed you, too, 'Mione," he replied.

Then, stepping slightly apart from her, he reached down and grabbed up her luggage and his placard with one hand, took her hand in his free one and tugged her along.

"Come on, let's get out of here before the crowds grab all the taxis," he said.

She smiled and swung his arm wildly, excitedly, in a way that he'd never seen her do before. He could see the thousand and one questions bursting inside her. Finally, she seemed to settle on one.

"'Granger'? Really?" she asked, motioning to the placard in his hand.

"Well, you might have forgotten what I looked like you see," he grinned.

A playful smack against his arm rebuked the very thought. "Never gonna happen, Harry," she told him.

In response, he gave her hand a squeeze, only to feel an answering one in return.

"I know you've got a lot of questions, Hermione," Harry said, "but let's save the big ones until we get you home."

"Home," Hermione repeated with a smile. "I like the sound of that."

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"Wow, Harry! This looks amazing!" Hermione exclaimed as he opened up the final door to his apartment.

Ascending the stairs from the side door had easily taken four or five times as long as it should have as Hermione insisted on stopping to examine every picture that lined the walls. To keep it on the safe side, these were strictly photos that he'd taken of various mundane landscapes and places of interest from all over the world and every continent – the pyramids of Egypt, the Victoria Falls in Zambia, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the great plains of Africa filled with various wildlife. Some had Harry in them, some didn't, but what they all had in common was that they were all places that Harry had actually been to.

His magical photo collection he kept either in the magical part of his library or his bedroom, places where people wouldn't normally go, thus protecting the Statute of Secrecy.

It was almost as though Hermione had even forgotten that he was there as she glided forth, drawn around the room, examining everything in detail. The mantle above his average-sized fireplace was her first stop, there to lightly reach out and touch each of the intricately carved figurines there. He'd collected them from all around the world, each one an animal native to the land that it came from and each so well done that one could almost imagine that they would be able to get up and run around.

From there, it was to the back across the room, lightly tracing her hand along the top of the coffee table, made by a man in a small village in the depths of the congo from a rich dark wood.

The pile of photo albums sitting on one of the side tables beside the couch caught her attention though, and with a mischievous grin in his direction, she picked up the top one and plopped herself down on the couch, expectantly looking between the couch and Harry still leaning in the doorframe.

"You don't want to see your room or freshen up first?" Harry asked as he crossed to her.

"When there's something to learn instead?" she replied, wrinkling her nose.

"What exactly are you hoping to learn?" Harry asked, barely resisting from mentioning the library that he'd accumulated over his travels.

"All about your last five years, Harry. Where you've been, what you've done, what you've seen, the people you've talked to," her expression switch to one of mild disapproval. "You didn't honestly think that those brief letters that you've sent me, so erratically I might add, was sufficient, did you?"

"Um, no?" Harry replied.

After checking the date on the first of the album and then her watch (which Harry was unsurprised to see was set to New York time), she gave a nod.

"There should be more than enough time to get through this one before you go and make me dinner while I get unpacked," she stated.

As he settled back into the couch, Hermione shuffled closer to him and opened the album on their combined laps.

"Well, I didn't really know where I wanted to go at first, which I have no doubt that you remember, which is how I ended up beginning my journey in Europe, Bulgaria, to be precise," Harry began, pointing to a picture of he and Viktor Krum standing together in front of an iced-over quidditch pitch.

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With the chicken parmigiana placed on the angel hair pasta and the mixed salad in the large bowl on the table, Harry looked up and around for his houseguest. A quick warming and stasis charm later and he headed off to find her.

"Hermione?" he called, lightly tapping on her bedroom door.

When there was no answer, he tentatively opened the door and took a quick look around. From what he could tell, she was completely unpacked, but totally absent from said room. Obviously, her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she'd wandered off to explore.

An instant grin formed on his face. There was one place in any house or building in any country or continent that Hermione was sure to gravitate to, even subconsciously. With quick steps, Harry crossed the small hall and bounded up the stairs to the second floor of his apartment.

Yep, exactly where I thought she'd be, he smiled to himself.

The library. He'd had floor to ceiling shelves installed throughout most of the room, with only a few spaces left vacant for windows and the occasional set of photos. In the centre of the room, atop the genuine Persian rug, was a set of comfy armchairs, big enough for one person to curl up in or for two to sit side by side if they didn't mind snuggling up together.

Extra small bookshelves, set back to back ran in a row near the back, leaving an aisle between it and the back shelves. An ancient desk with the wear and tear of centuries marring its top sat under the window.

Hermione, as Harry would have expected, was currently perusing the shelves, one hand lightly running over the tomes while the other arm held what looked to be at least eight volumes.

"Having fun?" he asked lightly.

Her response was so sudden and the glower on her face so pronounced that he involuntarily took a step backwards. Her empty hand balled and landed on her hip even as one foot began tapping.

"Exactly when, Harry James Potter, were you going to mention this library that you've created here?" she asked.

For a few seconds, Harry's mouth moved without a sound coming out.

"Surprise?" he eventually managed to squeak before continuing in a rush. "I had you in mind when I created this room, thought that it'd be something that you'd enjoy. There's books here from every continent and nearly every country that I've visited in the last five years."

Quickly, he crossed the room and tapped his wand against one particular bookshelf, which obediently slid forward and to the side. With an impish grin, he beckoned her to follow him.

The gasp that she let out as she entered told Harry all he needed to know.

The room was almost an identical size to the main part of his library, but where the other was open, airy and relaxing, this room was filled with rows upon rows of tall bookshelves, with nearly every one of them filled to capacity.

"This is my magical library," Harry explained. "There's books in here in languages that I can't even read, but I got them anyway. Figured it'd give me incentive to learn an extra language or two."

"If you'd told me about this, I would have come months and months ago," Hermione said as, eyes wide, she began wandering down the first aisle.

"Um, Hermione," he called before he lost sight of her, "dinner's ready."

She turned back to look pointedly at him. "You're not forgiven for keeping me from this, you know. But if you bring my dinner to me up here, I'll consider it."

Obediently, Harry turned to head down to the dining room. Now that she'd found his library, he wondered whether he'd ever be able to pry her out of it again.

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"Your coffee, Boss."

Hermione looked up at the waitress with a smile, moving back in her seat slightly to allow the girl to place not only Harry's cup of coffee beside his plate, but also her own tea. She seemed to know what she was doing, not that Hermione thought that being a waitress in a café was a particularly hard job. The noise from the rowdy groups of teens on the other side of Harry's Marauder's Den caught her attention and she slightly altered her opinion – dealing with them could be difficult.

"You're the Boss today, Gwen," Harry countered. "I'm just a customer having a lovely late breakfast with my friend."

The waitress, Gwen, shrugged her shoulder and smiled, her blue eyes lighting up before she winced slightly at the sudden outburst of laughter coming from a dozen or so teen boys.

"They're in good spirits today," Harry commented. "And here much earlier than normal."

"I think Flash organised for them to go to a game later today and they chose to meet here," Gwen stated. "I'll be glad when they go, perhaps we'll get a bit more peace and quiet."

"At least your admirer over there is always quiet," Harry commented and Hermione could hear the teasing quality in his voice.

Looking across the room to where Harry'd nodded, she saw a dark-haired boy fiddling with a camera while reading a small booklet, possibly its instruction manual, a tall stainless steel glass in front of him.

Gwen sighed irritably at her Boss. "It's just Peter. We've known each other for years. There's nothing between us, believe me."

Harry's hmmm caused Hermione to lay a hand on his arm and give him a warning shake of her head. Thankfully, he took the hint and dropped the subject.

"I'd better let you get back to work, never know when the Boss is going to show up," Harry smiled.

"I thought that I was the Boss today," she countered with a raised eyebrow. Then, "See you later, Harry. Enjoy your meals."

Hermione waited until the girl was out of earshot before leaning into the table.

"Isn't she a little young to be in charge of the Den?" she asked.

Harry shot a glance at the girl now back at the bar before turning back.

"She's more than capable. And besides, think of what we were doing at her age," he said.

"We were in a war," Hermione replied sotto voce.

Harry simply raised an eyebrow and she had to concede that his point was made.

"Tell me about everyone back home," Harry said. "What's everyone been up to since I've been gone?"

For a few seconds, she pushed some egg around on her plate, trying to decide exactly what it was best to tell him. There'd been a lot of very upset people at the way he'd just disappeared overnight, even if, in retrospect, he had said his goodbyes. Ron, Ginny and Molly had all been particularly angry, for similar sorts of reasons, for quite some time.

"Well, I've told you about Neville marrying Hannah," she began, deciding to start on the easier people first. "They seem to have found a balance that works for them, with their different jobs at either end of the country. Oh, and Hannah's pregnant. They announced it about a week before I left."

"Really? That's brilliant! I'll have to get something special to send to them when the baby comes," Harry beamed.

Hermione smiled and took a bite of her eggs benedict before moving on to the next one.

"I hardly see Luna anymore, but the Quibbler's still going strong and she seems to be enjoying life. Minerva's really changed things up at Hogwarts. There's a lot more tolerance between the Houses."

"Really?" Harry asked.

"Yes. And it hasn't been easy and it's still a bit shaky, but it's working," she replied. "Hagrid's still his old self, I don't think anything could ever change him and, his cooking is still as atrocious as ever, at least, his rock cakes were the last time I visited."

She watched Harry's eyes glaze over slightly and a soft smile form on his face. For an instant, he looked a lot younger, much more like the boy that he was probably remembering himself as, rather than the world-travelling man seated across from her. He really had aged well, she had to concede. He'd grown into his looks and updating his wardrobe and glasses had played a large part in that. But it was more than that. Even a couple of years after the war, when he was still in Britain, it was easy to see that he carried a massive weight on his shoulders – the burden of being The-Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One and then the Man-Who-Won. As much as she didn't want to admit it, leaving Britain really had been the best thing for him.

"What about the Weasleys?" Harry asked. "Ron, George, Molly, Bill and Fleur … Ginny. You haven't mentioned them."

Internally, Hermione sighed. She'd known this was coming.

"To be honest, they're all still a bit peeved at you for leaving like you did," Hermione told him. "Well, not George, Bill or Fleur. Nor Arthur come to think about it. George probably understands the most and wishes that he'd followed you. But he's been throwing himself into WWW and it's been booming ahead – literally at times. He's still with Angelina, although there's no sign of any pending nuptials there.

"Arthur, Bill and Fleur are all doing well. Fleur seems content with just the two children. And Arthur seems happy as Undersecretary to the Minister."

Harry shook his head. "I still can't picture that. I was sure that he'd stay in the Misuse of Muggle Artefact Department, fiddling with his spark plugs and what not."

"Yes, well, Kingsley did a good job of convincing him otherwise and the country's better off for it, I think," Hermione replied.

"The others?" Harry prompted after she had been silent for too long.

"Molly enjoys being a grandmother and bustling about the Burrow," Hermione said. "She's forever trying to get everyone together for meals. She misses you, though, always saying that 'all of her kids should be here, even the missing one'."

"She was suffocating me, Hermione, I had to get away from her" Harry stated, staring down at his plate. "I know that she was still grieving from Fred, but it felt like she was using me to compensate – plan out every facet of my life, where I lived, what job I was to do, even who I was to marry. Did you know that about a month before I left I accidentally came across a little book that detailed every detail of my and Ginny's wedding? We weren't even together and she was still planning it."

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said sympathetically, laying her hand over his. And she could relate; she was sure that Molly had a similar book for her and Ron.

"Ron's doing well at the Canons," she said, trying to change the topic. "There's some talk of him becoming the Assistant Coach as well as being the Keeper. I don't see him as much anymore, of course, not since you left."

"I'm sorry," Harry said.

"Don't be," she told him. "We didn't work as a couple, really that was a spectacular error on both of our parts, I'm sure that I don't know what we were thinking! We simply can't help but argue all the time. We're still friends, we're simply on separate paths."

"And he blames you for my leaving," Harry said in a burst of rare insightfulness. "He expected that if anyone could get his best mate to stay so that he didn't have to grow up and do things for himself and could be there to hang out and play chess and go drinking whenever he wanted, it'd be you."

"I won't say you're wrong, Harry," Hermione replied. "Five years ago, he was a lot like that. But he has matured some since then."

"Enough to not be angry for 'abandoning him'?" Harry asked.

"Possibly," Hermione finally decided.

Harry gave a single nod as though it answered a hundred questions.

"And Ginny?" he eventually asked.

Once again, Hermione found herself sighing, an action that was beginning to really annoy her.

"Ginny's … Ginny," she began lamely.

"Well, that's helpful," Harry deadpanned.

"Hush, you," she admonished. "It's taken Ginny a long time to get over you and quite frankly, I don't think that she ever really will. Sure, she's been dating off and on, a lot, these past few years, but I doubt she'll ever find someone that'll measure up to what she's looking for."

"Me," Harry stated flatly.

"Well, yes."

At that, Harry shook his head. "What she wants is something that never existed. I'm not the boy in those ridiculous stories. I'm not The-Boy-Who-Lived."

"Yes, and Ginny knows that; she's known since she was eleven," Hermione told him before rushing on to cut off whatever he was about to say. "Yes, she grew up hearing those stories and developed quite a crush on him. You. Whatever. But then, at the end of her first year of Hogwarts, what happened? She woke up to find you standing over her, sword in hand, dead monster behind you and you'd just saved her very life. You, Harry Potter, instantly surpassed all of those books of The-Boy-Who-Lived in her mind; she realised that the reality was better than any story."

"But she never really took the time to get to know me," Harry complained. "All she ever wanted was the fame and celebrity status that came with being the girlfriend of The-Boy-Who-Lived. I never wanted that; I hate that."

"I know, Harry" Hermione sympathised, "and it took Ginny a long time to come to terms with that as well. I don't think you would have ever worked well, but you could have worked as a couple and Ginny knows that. Unfortunately, you're the measure that she holds every other guy up to and it's impossible to find anyone that good. Well, except for maybe Neville, but he's taken."

"Why, Hermione, are you saying that you measure other guys by my standard as well?" a playful Harry asked.

As much as she tried to control her blush, she wasn't sure that she was exactly successful. In lieu of an answer, she quickly changed the topic.

"Really, the only other really important ones from back home, I've already told you about – Teddy and Andromeda. And now that you've settled, you should see about having them out here. You don't want to be an absent Godfather, after all, and sending bundles of gift back doesn't count! Quality time, Harry, that's what the two of you deserve."

"I know, Hermione, and I've been seriously thinking about it," Harry replied. "But I wanted you to see what I've put together first. Guess I'm still wanting you to look over my homework and check that I haven't been making a right mess of things."

"Oh, Harry, you could never do that," she told him. "What you have here is extraordinary. It's like a breath of fresh air after stuffy old England. I can see why you like it so much."

"Enough for you to move here, too?" he asked, somewhere between playful and hoping.

"You know why I can't, Harry," she told him. "The work I'm doing with the Ministry is incredibly important, not just to the common witches and wizards, but for every species who live there. I'm helping to build something that will change the very nature of our society and I can't turn my back on it, I'd always feel that I'd left something undone and you know that I could never do that."

"I guess that I'll just have to enjoy the time that I get to spend with you now, then," Harry replied, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand.

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A/N - I've put up a poll on my profile page for those interested.