And now this chapter. God I don't want to write it. Not because of what goes on in it, I'm fine with screwing up their relationship (pfft) I just…don't feel like writing it. I just want to skip over it and go on and on with the fluff.

"You could quit," she insisted, rolling over onto her stomach to face him, although they were lying on her couch. "Stay here with me."

He smiled, bringing her head down to sort through her hair, "I want to. Believe me, I want to."

She sighed and kissed him, pouting when she pulled back, "When is your cab coming again?"

He groaned and checked his watch, "Thirty-five minutes."

She winced and sat up, "Then…we've got to talk."

He sat up with her, looking at her curiously, "About what?"

She bit her lip, "Me, kind of. That sounds bad, but…uhmm…do you remember when you were a kid, and you'd have all of these crazy worlds you never wanted to come out of? Well…I was rather born into one."

"Hermione, you aren't making any sense," he said slowly.

She whimpered and drew her knees up, wincing at him before covering her eyes. "I'm a witch."

He stared at her, and stared at her, and kept staring before he rubbed his eyes, "What are we talking about?"

She groaned and stood, grabbing her wand and pointing it at the candle in front of him on the coffee table. It lit, making him blink at it before looking curiously at Hermione. She flicked it and the candle began to float, making him gape at it and lean into the couch.

"Oh my god," he managed as she sat down in the chair away from him, pulling her knees to her chest again as she let the candle down and extinguished it.

"My parents were normal, I was born different," she started, "I found out when I was eleven, and Hogwarts is actually a school for magic. There's Tranfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Arithmancy, Charms, Herbology, all of these amazing classes. Harry – Harry's parents were killed by a seriously dark wizard, and he should've died but he lived. So as we grew up there, we slowly had to get ready for a war. It got serious at the end of fourth year – a seventh year, Cedric Diggory, was killed during a tournament between two other schools plus Hogwarts. Harry and Cedric were both from Hogwarts, somebody had set Harry up to it. This mad woman in fifth year tried to take over Hogwarts, and she used this blood quill to scar words into our hands. Harry still has his – can't get rid of it, she made him write it so much. Dumbledore, our headmaster, was killed in our sixth. And we ran when we should've been in seventh year. Horcruxes are dark magic, they're part of a person's soul so that nobody would ever really kill you. Voldemort had seven. We hunted down six of them and destroyed them, and there was an altercation where we were kidnapped and tortured – well I was - and there was a battle at Hogwarts. Voldemort died, and George…George had a twin, named Fred, and he was killed, and our old Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and his wife and Colin Creevey was killed, and we all try to move on and forget about it, but even years later we still have those moments." She glanced at Bruce, who was gaping at her with a hand halfway running through his hair. She opened her mouth to say more when a car horn made them both jump.

She looked up at him as he stood, looking between her and the door, and she leaned further into the chair and tried not to cry. "You can go, I won't stop you. Just – just please say something."

He looked back at her and opened his mouth before looking at her desperately, not knowing what to say. The car honked again and she nodded him along, letting him step through the door and down the steps. As soon as she heard the door close, she lowered her head onto her knees and let out a sob.

"My witch is a girlfriend," he shook his head and fixed what he'd mumbled in the middle of the noisy airport, "My girlfriend is a witch. She's like Samantha on Bewitched, only British." He rubbed his temples and sighed, switching on his internal monologue now. She was a witch. She'd been through a war at seventeen and watched her friends die. And all she'd wanted was for him to tell her straight out what he thought. Except he hadn't been thinking anything other than his girlfriend being a witch.

"I've got to call Hermione," he muttered, digging out his phone only to have to go to his plane. He groaned and grimaced at it before shutting it off and shuffling into place. He could call her when he landed.

"Hermione?" Ginny asked tentatively, sliding the door shut as she slipped into the room.

"I told him and he didn't say anything," she whimpered into the pillow, Ginny immediately rushing forward and sitting on the side of the bed to pat her on the back, "I can't blame him. I couldn't believe it when McGonagall told me."

"He'll call – Hermione, he loves you, I know it. Isn't he in one of those arkplanes?"

"Airplanes," she picked her face up and looked at her wearily.

"Right – and they don't let anybody use cell phones on them, right?" she asked before turning a little serious, "I'm actually asking here. Harry used that excuse and I've always been curious."

"Right," she smiled a little.

"If he doesn't call you, we better start watching the news, because he cares about and loves you so much, Hermione, I can see it."

"Just – just give me my phone, Doctor," Bruce pleaded, hanging off the plastic table.

"Doctor Banner, honestly, unless this is some life or death situation, you should not have possession of this," Tomas insisted, setting Bruce's phone with the other scientists', "Give me one good reason why you need it."

"It's just one phone call, one life altering phone call," he insisted.

"To whom?"

"My girlfriend."

"Doctor Banner, you are not a thirteen year old going through his first romance! We are working with gamma radiation, confiscating your phone is for your own safety!"

He picked up the box and began to leave with it, making Bruce stand and groan and wander over to slam his head in a wall.

"Banner?" Heisenburg asked curiously.

"Heisenburg," he turned around and winced at him, "Please tell me when this will be done."

"A year and a half, we're nearly there, don't worry," he smiled before trotting off to another scientist, completely missing Bruce groan and slide down the wall.

"I should've quit," he muffled into his arm, glaring at the other scientists.

…Was that good? Decent? Okay?

Love,

Ava