It starts out so gradually they miss it altogether.
After the Battle has ended and the grounds at Hogwarts are no longer awash with bodies, the survivors—Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill and Fleur, McGonagall, George and Ginny and Dean and a flurry of others—they all retreat to Grimmauld for what is supposed to be reprieve and celebration. Of course, there is mourning, too. How could any of them not mourn their dead? A son, a brother, friends and classmates, colleagues and professors and mentors alike.
The walls of Grimmauld seem to ebb and flow, the space as fluctuating as the mood inside. Harry feels himself drifting between rooms, in search of something even more ambiguous than the Horcruxes he's spent the better part of two years hunting. This time though, his search is different. It's aimless and empty and there is no clear end in sight, not even an unfavorable one. He has spent so long expecting to die, he's never actually given thought to what could come of life.
This is how Hermione finds him; in the library, of all places, alone and staring out a window into the quiet, rainy world beyond.
She doesn't say anything, merely falls in line beside him, content in their shared silence.
His breathing steadies a bit and it's like a dam is breaking inside her. She doesn't know exactly how he's feeling, but she can imagine something close to it. She's been living with tunnel vision for years now; hyper-focused on one task: keeping Harry alive. She's been stuck in a state of rigor mortis since he confirmed her suspicions about what would have to be done. Not that they would need to find and destroy seven individual pieces of Tom Riddle's soul, but that he himself was one of them. That in order for the world to find peace, he would have to die.
Hearing him breathe beside her, hearing the evening of his breath—it relieves a tension she's held in her shoulders for months now. The release is like rain after a drought.
"It's too loud out there," he says. "Too many people."
His voice is so quiet Hermione isn't altogether convinced he's even talking to her until he looks over and gives her a sad smile. She'd hoped to see less of that look once the war was over if they ever found themselves on the other side of…whatever their lives had been to this point. Maybe in time, it would come.
Harry reaches out and takes her hand in his, eyes returning to the street beyond the window. He holds it there at his side for a long time but eventually, her knuckles end up pressed against his lips, wet—not from the reserved kiss he plants along each bend, but from the steady flow of tears that break and wear a trail down his cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he says, still so quiet. His voice is cracked, either from lack of use in the days since the Battle or maybe overuse from the Battle itself. He lowers their joined hands and uses his opposite thumb to wipe the salty residue from her skin. "You should be with the others, with Ron. Take a load off, relax." A bark of laughter pierces the darkness and it sends a shiver down her spine.
"I'm just fine right here, thanks," she says, breaking her silence for the first time since coming to join him.
After a while, they drag one of the giant dust-covered couches over to face the window. Hermione mutters a perfect scourgify and they settle themselves into the folds as they continue to take in the rain and Islington beyond. For the first time in quite possibly her entire life, Hermione can't think of a single thing she needs to research.
Eventually everyone just…moves on. It's not quite like nothing ever happened, but after a few days, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley announce that they're returning to the Burrow, finally ready to face the demons that live there and restore their home. George is quick to accompany them, a little heavier with the burden of loss still fresh on his shoulders, but stronger for Fred's sake all the same.
Ron has a harder time knowing where he belongs. In the end, it's Harry who takes him aside and level sets.
"Go, Ron—they need you."
"Nah, mate." He brushes a hand through the air like he can wave the thought away with a swat. The look in his eye and the way his gaze is locked on his mum, across the room, breaks way to the truth, though.
"Look," Harry says, following Ron's gaze, observing Mrs. Weasley as she wearily waves a wand through the air, packing up the last few bric-a-brac from the kitchen. All he sees is the memory of her hunched over a Boggart in the drawing-room, here at Grimmauld Place, the ever-changing image of her family beside her, death after death after death. "I know you're afraid to leave again," Harry continues a moment later. "But this isn't the same; you're not deserting me, or Hermione. Your family needs you, Ron."
Having that freedom seems to release something inside Ron and his face crumbles. He is instantly a mess and it's all Harry can do to draw him into a firm embrace, the way any brother would.
Surprisingly, Ginny does not put up a fight when he has much of the same conversation with her. It unfolds easily and Harry is overcome with relief to know that she agrees it's not the right time for a relationship. He needs to understand what his life means, who he is outside of Voldemort.
After the Weasleys leave, everyone else follows quickly. Everyone but Hermione, that is.
There's a certain way you carry yourself when you spend most of the night afraid to close your eyes; when the few times you do manage to sleep are interrupted by phantom cries and the ghosts of horrors past and present.
He sees it first in the way she stands along the peripheral, always just shy of joining in whatever's going on around her. He notices it again when Ron attempts to fix her stray hairs and slide their hands together whenever they're seated even relatively close to one another. The only time he thinks he sees her breathe is in the evening when they've both sneaked out of their rooms and down the dark halls to the library, where they sit in relative silence watching the world outside pass by.
She seems to get better when Grimmauld Place is just the two of them, but something is still missing.
They're both seated at the kitchen table, light music playing in the background and half a roast steaming between them when she clears her throat and places both her hands along the tabletop. Harry somehow knows what comes next—has been waiting for it since the war ended.
"I want to find my parents," she says, a matter of fact. She watches him, waiting for something like shock or surprise, but it never comes. Harry simply nods, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I've already owned McGonagall; I won't be returning for my final year at Hogwarts. She's allowing me to sit for my N.E.W.T.s next week, and after, well…after that I suppose I'll be—"
"Good, Hermione," he says. He reaches a hand across the table and takes hers, stroking a thumb across her knuckles in an effort to calm her. "I think you're doing the right thing."
She lets out a long breath, her whole body relaxing.
"Thank you. I was afraid—"
"To be honest, Hermione," Harry says as he drops her hand and cuts them both a healthy helping of meat, "I think it's rubbish she's making you sit for your exams at all."
Hermione makes a point to avoid eye contact.
"Actually, I insisted that if I weren't going to complete my final courses, she at least let me test out."
Harry doesn't press her or comment on the fact that everyone in their year will be receiving their papers without properly completing their courses. He also doesn't admonish her for something he knows she can't help. She comes by everything honestly, and it's one of the things he loves about her the most.
Accompanying Hermione to Australia is unplanned.
As it would turn out, getting used to having a life requires having a life. Healing takes longer than Harry would have expected, and he wasn't making any progress being holed up inside Grimmauld Place day in and day out.
They find a rhythm together, much like the one they had while they were on the hunt, just the two of them. Hermione ensures that they have plenty packed, despite not having any idea how long they'll be gone, and Harry pours over the maps, ensuring that they have the best route laid out and plenty of boarding options along the way. If there's one thing he's promised himself, it's that Hermione will never spend another night in that blasted tent.
It feels good to have a mission, to be working toward something. He doesn't like having idle hands. It's something he's newly learning about himself, in the wake of all this free time.
Over the weeks which turn to months, they fall into easy habit.
Sometimes, when they're both up in the middle of the night, tangled together on the couch, their legs mingling under a shared blanket, bodies too close to be causal, Harry lets himself think of what's happening between them. What could happen, if only the timing weren't so horribly wrong.
Finding her parents was easy. Restoring their memories though…that's harder, just not in ways he ever expected.
He can see the pain behind her eyes as she watches them. They're careful, always so careful, not to be near Mr. and Mrs. Granger without the aid of Polyjuice. It was a request Harry thought odd at first—but the more time he spent watching Hermione watch her parents, the more he came to realize what was really happening.
"I want to find my parents," she'd said.
He should have listened more closely than to the words she used as they made their plans. He should have considered the fact that she had not made plans for their return back in London. There were so many things he should have been doing but hadn't.
This was not a reunion. She was saying goodbye.
The last time they go to see them, Hermione doesn't insist on the Polyjuice. Instead, she is herself in the truest form.
Harry watches her as she gets ready that evening, face stoic as she ties a perfect bow at the back of her sweater before laying her mane of curls gently between her shoulder blades. Over the past seven years, he has not been given many opportunities to see Hermione's parents in the flesh, but what he was lacking in face time he swiftly made up for since arriving in Sydney. He can see each of them so clearly in the structure of her face and the way she holds her shoulders that it catches his breath.
Wendell and Monica Wilkins.
It doesn't seem fair, not to anyone.
"You don't have to do this, you know," he says. It's the first time since all of this began that he's done anything but follow her lead.
"I know." Her words are almost a whisper. "But they've made a life here. They're happy. I can see it in their eyes. More importantly…" She turns to face him. "They're safe. That's all I want for them now."
"But what about their future? Your future?" He moves forward, taking her by the shoulders and almost pleadingly looking between her eyes. "They're going to miss so much."
"I can't restore their memories, Harry," she says quietly. "The science—pardon my term—it simply isn't there yet."
"That can't be true."
"It is when you're talking about an entire person's existence. There's no telling what repercussions would take place—what might get lost or misconstrued along the way. If I restored anything, it would only ever be pockets."
In the end, it's Hermione who comforts Harry in the acceptance of what must take place. They join hands as they leave for dinner, each of them in their own true form, neither of them ever more grateful for the other's presence.
They can't ask for a more organic evening. Though tables are sparse, the night is beautiful as hundreds of thousands of stars litter the sky. Just as Harry and Hermione think they'll be turned away and forced out of Hermione's last chance to silently say farewell, the Wilkins', who are seated nearby, catch the arm of their server and offer the two empty seats at their table to the couple waiting at the door.
As he watches the most important person in his life face, not two parents who are dead, but two who are living and have no memory of her, he vows to do whatever he can to protect her.
They are both lost to this world in so many ways. Neither of them ever truly believed they would make it out of the woods. Maybe staying in the Forest of Dean wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all.
It feels strange, when they return home, for Hermione to get her own place, but she does. Harry hadn't realized how accustomed he'd become to having her in the next room, of knowing that if he awoke from a nightmare, he could easily find her already seated on the couch, two hot cups of tea and a fire ready to soothe their troubles away.
"I think I need this," she reasons. "I've never actually lived on my own before." There's something else she wants to say, but it's trapped somewhere between her tongue and her head.
Harry nods and gives her a look of permission.
"I think we both need it," she says finally.
Harry agrees with her for complacency's sake, but what she's saying—it just isn't true. He lived the first eleven years of his life mostly alone and the thought of not having her under the same roof…he can't explain it, but it just doesn't feel right. He can't begrudge her anything though, so he just nods in agreement and offers his understanding.
He takes this time to devote himself to two things: becoming an Auror and restoring Godric's Hollow.
It feels right to return to Ron's side in the name of defending Wizarding Britain. Hermione is there beside them, of course—dedicated to the cause of the DMLE, nose behind a book and voice behind some of the most influential changes the Wizarding world has seen in centuries. They're as golden as ever, each of them making their mark.
Somehow, it takes Harry aback when he runs into Ginny in the Atrium.
"Harry," she says, sweeping her long hair behind her. "Good to see you. I was just on my way to level nine. Need a new permit, running a bit late."
He steps back and takes in her uniform.
"Holyhead Harpies, huh?"
She makes another sweeping gesture, her gloved hand making show of the gold and green.
"Couldn't turn it down," she says. "Ron didn't mention it?"
There's a level of humility in the way she says this that pushes Harry to ask her to lunch. Their meetings continue off and on for several months until it can only stand to reason that there's once more something larger than friendship brewing between them.
Even though she has her own place, it doesn't stop Hermione from dropping by Godric's Hollow, both announced and of her own accord. When the frame and general structure are complete and Harry moves on to defining the life within it, he finds himself carving out space for her. Just for the sake of it, he does the same for Ron, though it's an afterthought and means his room is just slightly more than a broom cupboard. It's space enough, Harry reasons. At any rate, Harry's lived in an actual broom cupboard before, and the generous rooms in Godric's Hollow are anything but.
Life goes on like this for some time. Eventually Harry and Ron graduate from Auror training and eventually Harry runs out of projects at home.
And as they say, idle hands are the devil's playthings. Idle hands make fretful minds.
It isn't long before Harry finds himself waking from fits, a sweaty mess, his screams still caught in the air.
Ginny wakes to calm him temporarily, but it never seems to heal his wounds completely. He lays in bed and listens to her snores fill the room—too much like Ron for anyone's good—and after a while, he pushes himself up and goes to make a cup of tea before finally coming to rest on the couch in the library.
He's in the middle of thinking about how quiet it is in this big empty house— too quiet—when the fireplace before him erupts in green flames and out walks the small, fragile frame of life itself.
"Oh!" She lets out, startled. "Harry, my god, I didn't expect to—you scared me."
There are a million things he thinks to say to her, but only one thing comes out.
"It's about time you got here."
She doesn't waste any time coming to settle on the couch beside him, taking his cup of tea to warm her hands. Harry tosses a blanket over their laps and stretches his feet out to rest on the table between them and the hearth.
"What was it this time?" she asks after a moment.
"Same as always," he answers.
In his mind, he can see it all unfolding as if it were happening presently.
He's across the field, running as hard as he can toward her, but he never gains any traction, never seems to make any progress. Between them stands only one thing. It is black and amorphous. Always, just at the last minute, just as he feels his energy running out and his ability to keep running give way, it turns to face him, giving just a glance over its shoulder as it raises its wand forward to the other side of the field.
Sometimes it has Voldemort's face, sometimes Bellatrix.
Other times, it's merely an empty void.
Harry always wakes up as the green light emits from their wand, just before it strikes Hermione square in the chest.
He takes the cup of tea from her hands and drains it, eyes locked on the fireplace before them, then reaches an arm across her shoulders and brings her into his side, placing a gentle kiss at the crown of her head. She melds into him easily. The house is still quiet, but somehow it feels fuller with her by his side.
"I'm right here," she says quietly. "I'll always be right here."