180 years old as of yesterday. He was extraordinarily lucky to have made it past 11, let alone live to be 180 years old. He took a swig of his tea with a splash of milk. He'd have preferred pumpkin juice, but this late in the day tea was better for him or so his wife had always told him. Ye gods, how he missed her…
As he reflected on his long life, he realized he was lucky in another way.
Two young, relatively speaking, kids were arguing.
"No, Harry Potter was not an angsty, hormonal idiot with a death wish. He was brave, and self-sacrificing with an unfortunate saving people thing, and he most certainly did not marry his friend's shrewish little sister." The young girl declared.
"How can you be so sure? You're basing your entire argument off of that old book you found."
"It is not just some 'old book'. It's a biography on the real life story of Harry Potter, and although it's missing the author attribution and consequently I don't know who the author was, it must have been written by a close friend of his. It had to have been, because otherwise how would the author have known how much he loved to sneak a glass of pumpkin juice in the evening when he should really be drinking tea with a splash of milk, which anyone who has read The True Life and Times of Harry James Potter would know is his preferred way to take tea."
"It could be a work of complete and utter fiction. Everyone knows-" And he continued his conversation with the girl. On and on they went. The girl reciting word for word passages from this contentious book and the boy countering her every argument while still remaining calm.
The old man was very familiar with the book the girl was quoting. Perhaps, more familiar than he would have liked, once upon a time, but now that he was getting on in years, he thought perhaps it was time someone set the record straight.
Walking over to the 'kids', slowly but still spry for a man of one hundred and eighty years, he sat down at their table and began telling them what really happened. Most of what he had to say was in the same ballpark as the 'common knowledge' things the boy had mentioned. Nothing he said would contradict anything that was published in the biography the girl had been so enthralled with. It wasn't exactly the same since reality had been a bit more gruesome than what the biography had tried to convey and some things had been understandably left out.
By the end of his tale, the old man gave them a few bits of hard won advice. "First, remember that any Harry Potter story you hear, no matter who you hear it from, will not be one hundred percent true. There will always be some exaggeration or omitted fact. He lived through some terrible, terrible things, some of which you're better off not knowing about. Second, never ever let a book come between you and someone you care about or you might end up old and alone like me. Third, if you like someone, then tell that person, don't let them slip away because you think you're not good enough for him or her. Let the other person know how you feel and then let them decide. Or they might choose the wrong person and then you might choose the wrong person and end up miserable for the rest of your life."
"Umm, thanks, Mister...?"
"Please, just call me Harry." He stood up stiffly and walked back to his table to finish his tea with a splash of milk, served just the way he thought he liked it.
The 'young' twenty something turned to her equally 'young' twenty something boyfriend and said, "That was Harry Potter..."
"I think you're right, Dear."
"But I thought Harry Potter ended up marrying Hermione Granger, his best friend, and living happily ever after."
"My advice is 'Don't believe everything you read, even if I was the one to write it'," came a voice.
They both turned to see an older but still dignified woman. She smiled at the two kindly. "Harry didn't live happily ever after. He got his head out of his arse, fought another dark lord; got married, fought a different dark lord; had kids, brought down a pair of dark twins; destroyed a former classmate who had risen from the grave as some horrific form of sparkly un-life, and then finally gave up the hero business and settled for a quiet retirement taking care of the grandkids and the great grandkids. Often he likes to do some people watching in our youngest daughter's pub."
"So, you're the former Ginny Weasley?" Asked the boy skeptically.
"What? No, no. My name is Hermione Potter. Before I became a Potter I was a Granger."
"Then why tell us not to believe everything we read?"
"Oh, do try and keep up. I just explained that even though I essentially wrote Harry lived happily ever after, the book was published over 160 years ago. I would have had no way of knowing what happened after the book was published. And Divination being the wooly discipline that it is, I had no other alternative but to end the biography there."
"Oh." The younger engaged couple replied in unison.
"Plus, it's tradition. But in any case, my advice was sound. I mean look at the absolute codswallop GFB Enterprises has been printing over the past several decades that masquerade as legitimate histories.; horrible, ghostwritten stories with inconsistent characterization and plot holes galore. And the bits that they do release that aren't written by a ghost writer are so amateurish that you'd think a university dropout wrote them. I mean, really, it's always 'he said' this, and, 'she said'; would it kill those no talent hacks to insert a bit of variety? Though judging from what I've witness, it's possible it very well may, in my opinion."
They looked at the older man sitting alone at his table. He was staring at Hermione Potter, and he looked younger and more alive with each second of eye contact.
"Mrs. Potter?"
"Yes?" she asked without breaking eye contact.
"I thought he said he was miserable and alone, so how that be if he's married to you?"
"What was the first thing he told you?"
"Oh, that-oh, right, exaggeration. Gotcha."
"Excuse me, but I've got to go have a private chat with my husband." She walked over the Harry, her own bushy hair beginning to take on a chestnut brown color just as Harry's hair was turning black."
"Harry, I think you need to come with me back to the house."
"Hermione! You're here, you're really here! I haven't seen you in..." His brows scrunched as his flagging memory was rebuilding itself. "Well, hours, at the very least. I'm so glad you're safe!"
"And that's exactly why you need to make love to me as soon as possible. We're starting to look our age."
"Really?" He pulled some of his dark bangs into view and squinted at them. They seemed as black as always."
"Yes, your short-term memory loss and temporal confusion should have been your first clue, but due to the age induced cognitive dysfunction, it's expected you might not notice."
Clarity and purpose began to show in his eyes and face. "And why are you not affected?"
"Oh, I'm affected, but fortunately for the both of us, aging affects me slightly less severely than you… up to a point. I had to leave myself a post-it note to go find you if I couldn't remember why I wrote the post-it note."
Memories still uncertain, Harry said, "I feel better than I have in a long time. It started once you showed up. Why?"
"Between the two of us, we have enough tantric energy stored to return our cellular structure to an earlier state." She seated herself on Harry's lap, her body having regained the look of a woman in her prime – not a trace of gray. She ran her hand through his dark, messy hair. "It's not going to last that long, unfortunately, which means you need to make love to me until I can't see straight."
The amorous pair's outward appearance had seemingly stabilized to look nearly as young as the two kids, who were watching everything take place in quiet astonishment, Harry picked up his cup, drained it and wrapped his wife in his arms and popped away.
"So those were your great-great grandparents, right?" She inquired, obviously still incredulous but quite impressed.
"Evidently… though who would have thought everything my parents said about them would be true?"
"I know, strange, isn't it?"
"Yes, indeed." The man took a sip of his tea and then summoned a pitcher of white to add a splash to his tea. He sipped. "I think I see what great-great-grandfather sees in this – ruins the bitter straight away." He paused and looked at her with a clarity that was just like his great-great grandfather's. "I hope his other advice is equally as good." He pulled a small velvety looking box out of his pocket. Opening the box, a diamond gleamed merrily.
