Happy almost the weekend! I hope that you enjoy the Harmony moments!

Thanks to the wonderful Nova5621 (FFNet) /karasunova (AO3) and The Muse of Apollo for all of their help!

Chapter 12

Hermione sat in the middle of the Longbottom library with piles of books as far as the eye could see surrounding her. This was Hermione's happy place. She had spent the last two days much like the ones before catching up with her friends and exploring new and old places around London. She had just about hit her limit of being around people all of the time. She needed some quiet time and what was better than being surrounded by books in a beautiful library.

She got to the manor after breakfast. Hannah was still asleep so she and Neville drank their morning cuppa joe on the porch listening to the birds. He then gave her a detailed tour of the manor and its grounds.

When they were done with the tour, Neville went off to the greenhouses to spend the morning with his plants and she to the books. She started by pulling all of the books off the shelves and into large piles around the library. She wrote typical library category sections titles like Transfiguration, Herbology, Potions, etc... on pieces of parment. She stuck them to the bookshelves where the books would go.

She then sat in between the piles of books and was slowly going through each of the titles by hand. All of the tension left her body as she buried herself in the written word. This library was massive, it had titles that she had never seen.

"If this is a normal non-book loving family library, I wonder how Harwood and even Harry's library is," she said to herself, adding another book to the Herbology pile. Hermione knew that she would get lost in those libraries for days.

She reached for a small maroon book and turned it over. Monogrammed on the spine was 'Alice Hogwarts Year 1'. Hermione pumped her fist in the air, this was the first of Allison's Hogwarts journals and she had already found copies of both girls' pre-Hogwarts journals. She levitated the book to the table with the other journals she had found.

"Good morning, well almost afternoon." Hannah greeted Hermione as she walked into the library.

Hermione looked up from the books as the wondrous smells from the tray of food Hannah was carrying wafted into her space. "That smells amazing."

"Hungry?"

"Yes," she stood up and looked around and the literary chaos that had spread over almost every surface of the library. "Well I guess I have taken over everything."

Hannah walked through the path of books to the couch by the fireplace. "Couch breakfast sounds good to me."

Hannah set the tray down on the table and maneuvered herself down on the couch. "It's a freakin production to do anything to these kids inside me." She let out a contented sigh as she lifted her legs onto the couch.

Hermione grabbed the tray of food and set it in between Hannah and herself.

"I feel much better with my legs up, everything hurts because I'm a whale. So our brunch feast this morning is spicy stuffed french toast with fruit and a spicy hot chocolate."

Hermione lifted the plate up to her nose and took in a deep breath, taking in the flavors of chilies and bread. "Smells great Hannah, I love spicy foods."

"I am all about spice right now. I am craving everything Latin flavors - spices, and peppers. Maybe just maybe it will kick these two out of their residence."

Hermione took a bite of the french toast, the ground meat, peppers, and cheese fell out of the inside and her taste buds exploded with flavor and spice. "Wow, that is good." Hermione exaggeratedly waved her hand at her mouth, "and spicy."

Meemy popped in the room with two additional drinks and set them on the tray. "Enjoy."

"Thanks Meemy," Hannah said with a laugh, Meemy popped out of the room.

"I learned how to make horchata and it seems to be a favorite among all the Elves. As I was making this she was warning me that you may not like spicy food and she was going to make a fresh batch for us. If you can't take the heat, it will cool it down!"

"I like the burn."

"A girl of my heart and that habanero will build." She took a bite, "so in the last letter I wrote you before you came back, I think I started telling you about my food journey."

Hermione nodded as she was digging into breakfast.

"This breakfast is the brainchild of that journey, mashing classic dishes from different cultures together. I didn't know what I wanted to do after I finished my apprenticeship. So I decided to explore the wonderful world of food and culture. Food has this universal language to it and I wanted to explore that and expand my horizons." She took another bite.

"I decided to explore a different region of the work every month. Let's see we started in Europe from Italy to Greece to Ireland and Russia. Then moved to Africa and spent an entire year exploring the food culture there. It is such a vast continent and has such wonderful food. Then we moved to the Middle East and Asia - oh, Iranian taftoon and lavash are killer types of bread. Then we moved to the Americas and had everything from Bralizzilan to Puerto Rican to Mexican to American. Let me say this fried cheese curds fresh from this tiny dairy farm in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin in the States are one of the best things ever."

Hannah went on to explain over breakfast that she would buy books and books about the culture and food and origins. She didn't realize how much she was going to learn when she started her culinary journey. She would spend the month reading, watching, and exploring recipes. At the end of the month, some of the Elves, Hannah, and Neville would spend a weekend traveling to that country. These epic food-filled weekends were the highlight. Then Hannah would come back home and host a dinner party for their family with her favorite recipes. She continued this exploration to this day albeit at a much slower pace and no travel.

Through their breakfast, they both tried to keep from using the horchata to dull the spice. Finally, Hermione caved and took a drink about halfway through the dish.

She took her last bite and exaggeratedly wiped her forehead, and finished her horchata. "Wow Hannah, was spicetastic."

"I am going to make you my favorites every day you come over for brunch. I am glad to have a partner in food to host dinner parties. After these two are born, I won't have as much time to do all the cooking." She looked around the library and grinned. "So I see it looks worse in here than it did before, which is always a good sign in my opinion."

Hermione turned towards Hannah with a huge smile on her face. "Right now I am doing a high-level topic sorting, putting books into their general categories. Then I am going to hand-sort them into subcategories that will correlate to the shelf that they go on. I am so in my happy place, you have so many out of print or special editions of the books that I have never seen before."

"Oh Hermione, our library is nothing. The Potter library is magnificent," Hannah said and she saw the glimmer of excitement in Hermione's eyes.

"I will be lost in books for a very long time."

"Well do you mind if I join you for the day? I am pretty comfortable sitting here and don't wanna move."

Hermione grinned, "Your company would be most welcome."

"Can you pass me the lineage book and the first two journals?"

Hermione handed Hannah the books and went back to the stacks of books. Hannah started reading the family journal out loud.

The Harwood family was a long line of good wizards and witches. The bulk of the family wealth came from a husband and wife team who was a healer and potions master. They helped to create smallpox vaccines that were used in the Wizarding World in the eighteenth century to protect against the deadly threat that was decimating the Wizarding population. The husband and wife went on to work with Muggle doctors and scientists to develop the muggle vaccine as well. Their family received royalties on every vaccine that was given out which accounted for the large fortune and power that the family had.

As the day went on, Hannah would switch between the girl's journals to get the world from both girl's perspectives. They had an opulent family life as they were the only children born to the couple. Allison wrote a lot about the family's history and things she wanted to learn about and was very procedural, it reminded her a lot of Hermione. While Alice's journals were filled with stories and fun things that the family did.

As they read on, Hermione made an observation that Alice may have been jealous of the life-path given to her sister, as the heir to the household. Allison had to learn how to manage the family fortune, participate in the Wizgnamont, and do a host of other things that the leader of the family did. Alice's only goal in life was to be a good witch and find a man. Hermione surmised that this was probably why she was so driven to become an Auror - she wanted her own path.

Alice wrote many times during their childhood that she found it confusing that Allison had all the responsibility but they were only three minutes apart. Alice was a free-spirit while her sister was very serious. Allison had been determined to learn everything she could about the world while Alice loved just being.

Hannah laughed when she read that observation, "Wonder where Hermione got her zealousness for learning with your upbringing, your super-intelligent parents, and Allison's genetics."

Hermione grinned, levitating another book into a pile across the room. She was about a fourth of the way through the piles of books. She stopped a few hours after lunch.

"So I think I can easily get this done in a few days. There are so many great books here." She spun around looking at all of the progress she made. Hermione felt so accomplished.

Neville laughed, "I bet you have a list of books you want to dive into don't you?"

"Oh, the have-to-read list is about a page long but oh there are so many more I want to read if I have the time. Hannah, I would welcome your wonderful storytelling from the journals for as long as you want to. It was a very enjoyable way to spend the day."

"I cannot do anything else than sit until these two are born, you got me, girl. This has given me a great look into Allison and Alice and an important part of our lineage," Hannah added.

"Well you two, I will leave you two your evening. I am going to spend the evening with Sirius." Hermione gave them each a hug and made her way to the floo.

Hannah rested her head on Neville's shoulder. "Love, I had so much fun today. Hermione is going to join me with the Food Journey next month and host the dinner party after the twins are born. I am so happy for this journey."

She teared up a bit, "Oh these hormones, I am so glad that she is in our and our twin's lives."

Neville ran his hand up and down her back and wiped the tears from her cheek. "Oh Hannah, I am so thankful and glad. I get a little freaked out sometimes at how similar she and I are. I am glad she is back for a very long visit, I will be super sad if she leaves."

Hannah sighed, "I don't want to think about that. Let's think happy thoughts, my love. I have a feeling she will stay."

Sirius was making popcorn on the stove in preparation for movie night when Hermione got home. He told her that they were going to watch Die Another Day. The movie had just been released on DVD and James Bond was his and Harry's favorite series.

Harry apparated into the entryway, "Sirius, my main man, the Saviour has arrived with the beer and Chinese food."

"Now we can get this party started, our Savior has arrived with our sustenance and libations," he heard Hermione exclaim in a loud drawl.

Harry walked into the kitchen, "Hey, you." Her smile brightened his day.

Sirius was shaking the pan on the stove as the popcorn was popping. "Egg roll time! Thanks for grabbing dinner Harry. Jean kept me out late today trying desserts and going over plans for the shop. It really is tiring work."

Hermione slapped Sirius' shoulder, "goof." She turned to Harry, "how was your day?"

Harry set the takeaway and beer on the counter. Hermione set three beers out on the counter and the other three in the fridge. She opened the beers while Harry pulled the food out of the bag.

"Oh we are collating a lot of data from the anniversary party. Lessons learned are good but by the end of the day my brain is all spreadsheeted out." He grabbed a beer and took a long sip.

He grinned at her. "This is my favorite beer, it's an orange IPA." Her eyes lit up and she grabbed it and smelled the beer. "So how was your day Hermione?"

She tasted the beer and sighed, "yep, that's a good IPA. The Shinny Sands one from Australia is still the best IPA. Alas, that is only available down the street from my beach house. I spent the day in my happy place - a library."

She moved to the cupboard and grabbed plates and utensils and set them on the counter.

"The Longbottom Library is a disaster and a fun challenge for me." Hermione handed Sirius a bowl to put the popcorn in.

Hermione handed Harry a plate and one for herself. "There are so many amazing books that I have never read before. Hannah read the lineage book and the first two journals out loud. It was a great day."

Hermione grabbed an egg roll and set it on her plate. She grabbed her beer on the way to the couch.

Harry followed her and asked, "Did it remind you of the Codex in the beginning?"

"Thankfully, it is not as bad as the Codex. It's really just a big organization project. It was so nice to be surrounded by books and nothing to do but look at them and figure out where they go."

Hermione turned and saw Sirius giving them a curious look. His eyes darted to Harry and back to her, she blushed. His eyes got big and she mouthed 'later' to him.

"Sirius, get over here and let's get this movie started," Harry said with a laugh.

Sirius sat down on the other side of Hermione. He flicked his wand and the lights in the room dimmed and the volume turned up. When they were done with James Bond, they made it a double feature and put on Jaws 3.

Hermione fell asleep partway through the movie, leaning on Harry. Harry wrapped his arm around her. Soon, Harry too was lulled to sleep by the darkroom and the girl resting by his side.

"Hermione."

"Hermione, we need to get up," Harry whispered in her ear.

Hermione ground and snuggled into his side trying to stay in her cocoon of sleep.

"One last try, it's time to wake up." When she didn't open her eyes, he started tickling her side.

Hermione sat up almost instantly pushing away his hands, fists balled. "No tickling..." She stopped and looked at Harry confused.

"Careful Killer, we fell asleep on the couch." Harry grinned holding up his hands. "I need to get to work, I have twenty minutes."

Her brain finally caught up to her when she sat that she was in the living room, she poked him in the chest. "No waking me up with tickling, you stinker."

"Well nothing else would wake you up, your highness. You kept ignoring me so I had to wake you up somehow." Harry laughed.

Hermione shook her head and stood up. She stretched trying to shake the sleep from her body.

Harry couldn't help but admire the beautiful woman's body beside him as she stood up from the couch and stretched. He had to quickly pull his eyes from her bottom to her face as she turned around and held out her hand to help him up.

Sirius walked into the room. "Morning you two, sleep well?"

Harry laughed, "Good till I had to wake up this fighter and she started punching me."

Hermione punched him in the arm, "Thought you had to run, Potter."

She pushed him towards the floo. Harry laughed and beelined for the stairs.

"Hey, I thought you had to go to work?" Hermione stood at the base of the stairs with her hand on her hip.

Harry stopped and turned to grin at her, "I can't go to work in yesterday's clothes, so I am going to my room to change. I would invite you up but I do have to go to work." He started up the stairs but missed a step and had to catch himself.

"One step at a time Potter." Sirius walked into the hallway as he stumbled up the stairs.

Hermione pointed up, "I thought he moved into Potter Manor full time."

He handed Hermione a cup of coffee and set one in a to-go cup on the table by the fireplace. "He does but like I have a room at the manor, he still has his here. It's good for situations like this. Want some breakfast?"

"I think Hannah was going to make breakfast so I should be heading over," Hermione replied with a shake of her head.

An owl tapped at the window in the kitchen, Sirius walked back into the kitchen and opened the window to let it in.

Harry came running back down the stairs, running his hands through his hair. Hermione handed him the coffee cup. "Thanks, Hermione. Can I pick you up at three tomorrow for our date?"

Hermione smiled. "All afternoon, pulling out all the stops."

"Tomorrow is just the beginning." Harry said as he stopped at the fireplace and smiled at her. With a wink, he threw some floo powder into the flames, then he was gone. Hermione just stared at where her best friend had been, a goofy grin slowly spreading on her face.

"Hermione, Neville sent an owl, apparently Hannah isn't feeling well and is staying in bed while he is heading to the bank. He wanted to make sure you knew to eat before you came over. You up for omelets?"

Hermione nodded and followed him back into the kitchen. She sat down at the bar, Sirius passed her a green onion, cutting board, and knife. He grabbed the eggs and other ingredients from the fridge.

"So wanna talk about anything?" Sirius asked and started cracking the eggs into a bowl.

Hermione nodded at him, glad that he broached the conversation first. She looked down at the onion focused on chopping it into perfect pieces, "Well…"

"You know me, I am nosey and I want to know, but no pressure from me. You choose what to share with me and when you want to share it. I just don't want you getting all stuck in your head about whatever that is. I promise no snarky Sirius to you when talking about this."

"Thanks Sirius. As far as this whole Harry thing… I feel like I am standing on the edge of a cliff and about to jump off."

Sirius added eggs to the pan and started grating the cheese. "Well what's stopping you from jumping?"

"I should correct my statement, given we have fallen asleep together twice since I got back and I said yes to date with him. I have already jumped off that proverbial cliff."

"Yep, you jumped."

"Sirius, he makes me feel so crazy. We are going on a date, tomorrow at three, so I am trying not to freak myself out because this is what I have wanted. Hell, fourteen-year-old me doesn't believe that this is actually happening."

"I knew that there was more there between you two than just best friends…"

Hermione snorted. "Well, of course I always wanted more. But I buried those feelings down so far they didn't see the light of day. Even in the sun bleached Australia as I kept them buried down. It wasn't until my bloody therapist asked about the dance in the tent.

"That damn dance and that damn war. The emotions that I buried into that lightning bolt shaped box came flooding out. I was a damn mess. But I talked through them and figured out my shit. I know where I stand on my feelings but never did I think he would reciprocate them."

"Hermione, to be honest, this direction was inevitable. I am dense but even I could see it between the two of you. It just took a bit longer while you both healed from the war."

Sirius flipped the omelet without a spatula and Hermione clapped.

"Mad skills Sirius."

He bowed.

"You kids have been through more than most people would experience in three lifetimes. You were already a pretty mature kid and you grew up too damn fast. Please trust yourself and your magic and above all else don't overthink it."