Chapter 11

Harry Potter slowly moved his arm over his closed eyelids, shielding himself from the morning sun, which peeked its persistent way in through the dark green curtains that had adorned that room's windows for however long. Harry wouldn't have been surprised to find it had been over a century. The curtains would be first on his list of changes. He had no idea what time it could be at all, but he guessed that it wasn't late yet.

"Good morning."

Harry smiled right away as he heard her voice. His gaze moved to Minerva, lying half across his torso, an arm carelessly draped over him and her teal green eyes open and clear. Her long ebony and graying tresses tickled his bare skin. He never could have possibly guessed the length of it, until it had come down in his hands after having banished the pins away the night before. "Good morning," he whispered. "You've been awake for long?" Her head quietly shook. He stifled a yawn with his hand, the other remaining cradling Minerva against him. Now he finally had her, he wasn't about to let go of her soon. "What time is it?" he wondered.

"Five-thirty," she replied. He didn't ask how she knew; she didn't say more herself either.

Harry shifted to his side, facing her, becoming serious. "I didn't hurt you last night?"

Minerva's head shook once more. "No, you didn't," she replied, shushing him by laying her fingers across his lips as he tried to speak. "You were… great," she said. "I haven't felt like that in quite a while. I do admire your thoughtfulness in being careful, especially given your own needs, but I can take rougher when I'm more myself, too."

He gently kissed her. "You do make me curious… You took care of those needs well later, though."

She smiled against his lips, feeling more at peace than had been possible in the last horrid months. "Well, I'm a teacher."

"A very good one, too," he said, the tips of his fingers tenderly trailing her cheek. "I kick in my sleep sometimes – well, very often. I'm a rather restless sleeper. I certainly hope I didn't hit you," he whispered, eying her and the way that the early rays of sunshine shimmered off of her milky white cheekbones, her teal green eyes. She looked like an angel… his angel, and that moment is when he really knew that he wanted to wake beside this woman again, for the rest of his life, regardless of age or other stupid futilities.

"You were quite still," Minerva assured him. She sighed, eyes closing.

"You're hurting," Harry stated, seeing the way in which her forehead wrinkled and recognizing it at once. "I'll have to rub that salve on your back again," he said, worry visible on his features.

Minerva's head shook. "I'll be fine," she said. "I just usually… don't sleep with anyone three times younger, never mind someone who has been one of my pupils until very recently. Then again… I don't usually sleep with anyone at all. I don't know what has come over me. I really don't."

"Do you regret it?"

"No. No, that scares me the most of all."

"Would you like if we never had last night repeated?" Harry wondered, internally dreading the answer. He could see the cogs turning slowly in her head…

"I'm not sure," Minerva eventually concluded. "I haven't been in a relationship in many years, and I don't usually jump into anything like this. The battle is still fresh in everyone's memories; Hogwarts is still so ruined. It doesn't feel like we're rushing, doesn't feel anything less but right, but… it wouldn't look like that to others."

"Who cares?" Harry whispered. "This is between us, not the rest of the Wizarding world or Muggle one included. I'm rather confused as well, but I do know… I love you, more than I ever could have loved Ginny; deeper than I ever could have loved Ginny. I've never felt like this, last night. I can't not love you. I'm afraid that I can't not wish to be with you every second of every day, and wake beside you every morning from now."

When she said nothing, Harry slipped from beneath the covers, gently kissing her lips, and announced he would go have a shower. Without thought, she slipped from the bed as well after a couple of heart beats, wrapping the sheet about her despite them being alone there, and followed Harry into the adjoined bathroom.