Happiness Forever
Multicolored lights moved back and forth across the high ceiling, walls, and floor, blending and mixing to make a never static surface of pulsating color. The Muggles in the Ballroom never stopped to look and appreciate it. Like the most spectacular works of art, it had become common place, and undeserving of even a casual glance. Harry Potter was bored. Harry was not paying attention to the colliding spots of colored lights.
He was lately spending too much time in Muggle bars and dance clubs waiting for his next Quidditch match, practice, or team meeting. His Quidditch team was on an international tour and had been playing teams in North America for the last two months. On average, he was playing between two and three matches a week as their star Seeker. The tour had three more long months to go before he could return to England and be with his friends.
His other best friends, Ron and Hermione had married the previous spring. Harry was now the odd man out. Their new married lives and planned family were slowly excluding him from their activities. He was very lonely and there was no witch or Muggle girlfriend in London that he was currently interested in. This five month world tour put a real crimp in any relationship that might have had a chance.
He looked around the dance floor at the men and woman in their finest clothes and gowns. The women wore long flowing gowns of iridescent and clingy material. But again, Harry found most of the woman unattractive when compared to some of the Witches he had known. Standing there at over six feet two inches tall, broad shouldered and in very excellent physical shape after the constant practice and game schedules, Harry noticed more than a few woman making wistful looks in his direction. Some made their thoughts quite plain. Harry looked away from them.
The lights and sounds of the band were distracting, but no one was capturing his interest. Both the men and women present were on the prowl to hook up with anybody for the night. In his boredom, he wanted to see real people and real faces, and hear people talk of trivial things. And so he had come here and now the faces were too-real, and the talk too-trivial.
Then he saw her.
Somehow the dancing and milling crowds parted for just a second – and there she was. Her beauty was breath taking. He started across the dance floor to dance with her, but she had disappeared. Her face had been beautiful with a small regal nose and features that looked exotic, with perfect lips as ruby as wine. Lithe and graceful, she was tall with black, slightly curly hair that just skimmed her shoulders. Her face was not overly beautiful butexpresseda raw sensuality he could see even from across the dance floor. Harry felt himself drawn to her. He pushed through the dancing and swirling couples but was only halfway across when she came out of nowhere between two dancing couples and glided into his arms.
They began to dance as the perfect couple. The men and women around them looked at their partners and sighed. Wishing that their partner was as "perfect". The woman in his arms was wearing a semi-transparent gold silk blouse and he could see her dark nipples. For a second he stared, but his eyes were drawn to her perfect face. They were dancing — floating, soaring about the dance floor. The other couples melted away and moved aside to watch these two so perfect creatures dance as was never done before.
They danced and talked the rest of the night. He told her that she was winning his heart. The Ballroom finally closed and that night he walked her home and kissed her. This woman who was so magnificent that she made other Witches he had known mere candles in her brilliance. They made plans to meet the next day.
They spent the next day sailing. They talked about anything and everything. They felt out each others likes and dislikes and discovered their hopes and fears. Nothing they discussed was considered off limits. That evening they dined at a very fancy restaurant. Afterward, they made love to each other for the first time. Harry felt that life just couldn't get any better. Later, he would reflect that this was the most spectacular day of his life.
They spent the next three months spending every free moment together. They skied. They danced. They rode bicycles. They made love. They talked about music, about books, about everything couples talk about when they're desperate to find every shared interest and explore it. Harry found he was falling in love with this spectacular woman.
The next night he was returning to England. The Quidditch tour was over and so on the last night he asked her to marry him. He did not tell her that he was a Wizard and not of her world. He didn't want to turn her against him or want to influence her decision to marry him. She might feel that marrying a Wizard was like marrying a god, and a mere Muggle would be a fool to pass up such a chance.
So he told her how much he loved her Anything she wanted would be hers. That marrying him, she could be rich beyond her wildest dreams. He promised that she never would have an unhappy moment.
She refused.
It was like being on the receiving end of the Cruciatus Curse. But he pursued. He pleaded. He begged. He tried to convince her to marry him. But he did not tell her he was a Wizard. She said she could not. He ranted and raved and he demanded, but her answer was always no. She loved him, she explained, but for reasons she would not tell him, she could not marry him -- ever.
In the end, she grew tired of his attempts to question her of why she wouldn't marry him, and left. He hurried after her, but she was gone. Never in his life had he felt this hopeless and frustrated. He was resolved to find her, and win her somehow, to find out the reason she wouldn't marry him.
He spent the rest of the evening looking for her. He Apparited to their favorite eateries, dance halls, and hangouts. He looked for her everywhere.
But she was not to be found. Dismayed he allowed himself to be drawn to his hotel room. "How could she have disappeared?" Deep in thought, Harry gathered his suitcases and Quidditch paraphernalia and traveled by Floo to the local Apparition point where he and his team would soon depart for London and Diagon Alley.
As he arrived at the port key destination, Harry was forcefully thrown out of the fireplace and there was a huge crunch as he collided with someone. All his trunks as well as himself had crashed into someone who was standing in the fireplace. Only his Quidditch honed reflexes saved him from injury.
As he stood up, straighting his Wizards cloak, he began to collect his scattered belongings, his eyes slowly focused on who he had collided with when he had arrived.
"You blind Mudblood git, can't you watch where --". She stopped in mid-sentence. Both looked incredulously at each other and at the Wizard cloaks and hats both were wearing, and they both cried. Later they would laugh and tell the story to their children.
They spent their honeymoon exploring the Wizard conclaves of Europe.