44. Hermi

They stood outside the wards of Malfoy Manor, right outside the gate. Harry had told Hermione via owl to meet them there and that Astoria most likely would key her into the wards during the day, so she could come and go from the one room in the Manor where it was allowed. Because after today there was a very good chance that Hermione Granger would be a frequent guest at the Manor, or so Harry hoped with every fibre of his being. The hope burned in his blood and pounded so hard in his chest that it was hard to breathe normally.

Despite his distraction, Harry did notice Voldemort's unusually stiff posture next to him, and the man was usually quite stiff. Now he stood dressed in a fine robe in so dark a green it was almost black and with his hands behind his back, his back straight, shoulders thrown back, and jaws locked so tight Harry wouldn't be surprised if it hurt. His hair hung loose around his face and even though the ground was frozen, he didn't have anything on his feet, as usual.

"Want to tell me what's wrong?" Harry asked without looking directly at him.

No answer came.

"Because right now I'm beginning to get worried that you will curse Hermi before she gets to say as much as hello. Whatever you are thinking can't be that bad."

A long silence, but more considering this time. Harry was almost tempted to see if Voldemort would react if Harry opened his mind door now. But even if Harry was more alright with having the doors open again than he had been in the past few weeks, right now his mind and his feelings were in such a chaos that he didn't want to share it, and it probably wouldn't be helpful for either of them.

"Granger is your closest friend, your family," Voldemort began in a low voice and stopped.

"She is," Harry affirmed when Voldemort didn't continue.

"I … ponder if introducing her into your life, our lives, will break the … truce … between us."

Harry could honestly say that he had never heard Voldemort this hesitant, and he hadn't believed that he ever would hear the man this hesitant, either. Before he could say anything, Voldemort continued.

"Not the actual truce in our society, of course, but between the two of us. The personal truce that I, in truth, had not expected to reach, or even to want."

"I see …" Harry began, when Voldemort seemed to have said all he wanted for the moment. "Why would I, or she, want to break that truce, when I assume that that truce plays a big part in me being allowed to actually have a life and make my own decisions?"

A long silence this time before Voldemort huffed. "Harry, you may perhaps not believe me, but I was not, at any point after the idea of marriage had occurred to me, going to keep you a prisoner. Keep you with higher personal security than you now have, certainly, as I did not imagine you would ever be willing to stay of your own accord. Keep you with more rules than you now have and would have preferred, most definitely, as I saw no reason to believe that we ever would reach any kind of agreement. But a literal prisoner? No, that was never a part of my plan. The truce, our personal truce, is not … essential … to your way of life." The uncertainty was back. It was strange hearing it from someone that in general was so very sure of themselves, their goals, and their methods.

"Alright. Thank you for telling me, but that doesn't actually change anything, the way I see it. The truce, or more to the point, the relationship, we have; it works. I assume for the both of us, going off your words.

"I won't say that it hasn't been difficult at times, nor that I don't expect some challenges in the future too, but honestly … most of the problems have to do with our very, very problematic history, with memories and trauma, and not with anything that has happened since we got married. Sometimes it's more difficult to keep the memories and the feelings that accompany them away. And there is a bloody mountain of those memories, Voldemort, a mountain that I most days don't even look at, don't dare look at, because I agree, the truce we have between us is … good, surprisingly good, and those memories will fuck it all up."

Harry turned towards Voldemort and looked at him until the man turned his head and looked back at him. Green eyes met and held red.

"Hermi will not even try to destroy the truce we have, because the life I have now is better than even she dared hoped it could be. And because I will tell her to back the fuck off if she tries."

Voldemort raised an eyebrow.

"You are not the only one who did neither expect to reach a truce, nor expect to want such a truce, but that likes the result anyway," Harry said.

Voldemort bowed his head in acquiescence.

There was a long silence again before Voldemort said:

"Thank you for your explanation, your candour, and your reassurance. It is appreciated."

"You are very welcome, husband mine."

A crack rent the air and Harry whipped around to see a slight figure some way down the lane that led to the gates. She was dressed in black jeans, a thick sweater, and black knee-high boots. She had two big bags over her shoulders and stood there in the early afternoon light, on the first day of the year, frost glittering on the ground around her. Harry swore he could feel his heart falter for a moment before it thundered in his chest so hard, he could taste iron in his mouth. The world spun around him.

"Hermi?"

"Harry! The Shakespeare Code!" Her voice was hoarse but loud and clear enough, and not accompanied by any sound of pain or discomfort. She truly had healed from the curse. She had told him so in their letters, of course, but it was something else to hear it himself.

The shout felt like a jolt that went straight through him and he began running.

"Vincent and the Doctor, you plebeian! Hermi!"

"Harry!" The incandescent joy in her well-known and cherished voice made tears sting in his eyes as he saw her toss the bags off her shoulders and sprint right at him.

They collided in the middle of the lane, and he grabbed her and held her tight at the same time she crushed him against her and sobbed into his chest. Her arms shook, her chest heaved, and she couldn't speak for sobs, and Harry had never been happier to see her, never been happier to hold her, never been happier knowing she was alive and safe and with him.

He had never been happier at all.

Even as tears ran down his face and he cried so hard he could hardly breathe, much less speak.

He was so, so happy.

She was hugging him too hard now, desperate, and it wasn't just sobs that made it hard to breathe anymore. He tapped her back lightly with his hand, twice, and she let up a bit so he could draw a breath.

"Hermi, I have missed you so much. So very much!"

"I missed you. I missed you. I missed you!" she sobbed. "Don't you dare do something like that again!"

Harry snorted. "That would be very hard to do anyway, Hermi, as a divorce is out of the question, and so is becoming a widower. So no, I will not get married and leave you behind again. Promise."

She hit his shoulder lightly and buried her face against his chest, her curls tickling his face and her arms threatening to crush him again.

"Have you done anything but working out, Hermi?" he pretended to wheeze, it was mostly pretend anyway. "I swear you are made of pure steel now."

"I was immensely bored, Harry, of course I have been working out. Even I can't read all the time. Should be faster than you now, too."

Harry made a non-committal sound. "I will believe it when I see it. I have been running, too."

Hermione huffed and Harry placed his hands around her face and held her out from his chest so he could see her face. The right side was marked after the cutting curse ball and the left was marked after the curse that took her sight and made black lines frame that side of her face and throat. He knew the shape of her face with both his eyes and his fingertips, every line, every scar, every bump. And he had missed it, every single one. Her warm brown eye stared back at him, hungrily, doing its best to reacquaint her with his face.

"We are still here, Hermi, still here, still alive," he whispered and brought her into another hard, desperate hug.

"Yeah, still here, still alive," she murmured.

Neither of them mentioned that so many others were not. Neither of them mentioned the friends, the family, and the allies they had lost. But Harry was sure that they both thought about it, in that one moment before they had to let the thought go. So they could continue to live, continue to stay alive, and not drown in memories and grief.

Hermione leaned back to look at him again and tugged a hand through his hair.

"I still say you look better with a beard," she said.

"I agree. I'm growing out my hair so I can get it a bit under control and then the plan is to grow my beard out, too. Just a small beard. I'm going for a look."

"A look, you, really?"

"The one I had before Godric's Hollow, I kind of liked it."

She hummed. "Yes, that did suit you." Then she rolled her one good eye. "I can hit you with a hair growing charm, you know. Or bring a potion next time, if you prefer, and then fix your hair for you. If you wish." She frowned and let her gaze go over his shoulder, towards where Voldemort stood, before she looked at him again.

If you are allowed? she mouthed.

He smiled at her. "That sounds great. I will go for the potion, though. Thanks." He wiped at his wet face. "So, what the hell happened to your hair?"

"I wish I knew!" she exclaimed and ran a hand through her wild curls, not letting go of him with the other arm. "One week after I was released from St. Mungo's, I woke up and … poof!"

"Yeah, I can see that. Poof." Harry nodded. Hermione's hair had always been big and bushy, now it was, if possible, even wilder. It was a fall of pitch-black corkscrew curls that stood like a cloud around her face before it fell down to the middle of her back, probably longer than it had ever been before. Four white streaks were in the mass of curls, two from the top of her forehead and two from further down, right over her ears.

"It's like magic or something," he said with a snort.

He fully expected the hand that went to hit his shoulder, as well as the exasperated sound she made, and then the grimace she gave him. He knew her, knew her face, her mannerisms, her voice. He knew her magic. He knew her. He had missed her. He loved her so much. And now she was back in his life, and he would never, ever let her go again. He didn't think he would survive a second time. The pain of missing her had been so immense that he had refused to think about it, about her, most days, before he began to write to her.

The security phrase they had said to each other when they saw each other had been unnecessary, really. He would have known her from a line of identical clones on her magic alone. As would she. But it had been half a year since they last saw each other properly, and precautions were always better than regret.

"Want to go inside?" Harry asked.

"We can do that, after I greet your husband. Manners and stuff, you know."

They turned to walk hand in hand up towards the gates and Voldemort who waited for them. Hermione's luggage floated in the air behind them.

Voldemort had made his face a mask, but it was quite a pleasant mask, and he didn't scowl. Harry didn't give it even a thought that Voldemort had been a witness to their reunion. He had seen Harry fall to pieces enough times for Harry to not find it embarrassing. Besides, there had been enough distance between the three of them to make it hard to make out words and facial expressions.

"Yeah, because you are known for those," Harry murmured.

"Oh, that reminds me." She poked him hard in the shoulder, while they continued to walk.

He looked from the finger she was poking him with, to her face and down again.

"Ow?" he asked. "What did I do?"

"Susan managed to badger me into giving her a promise that I would reprimand you properly for using Fiendfyre around civilians."

"That was months ago!" Harry protested. "No one got hurt because I do actually know what I'm doing!"

She pressed her finger harder. He was certain it would bruise.

"Fine, fine, consider me reprimanded. You may tell that to Susan. I will never do it again, unless I think it is the best solution."

Hermione grinned and removed her finger. She had never expected anything more from him, because she knew him better than that. He rubbed the spot.

"Merlin, I didn't think she would actually go through with it and tell you!" he muttered. "She must have been really annoyed."

"Close to incensed, which was why I gave her my word to censure you, so she wouldn't go after you like an angry badger."

Harry shuddered at the thought, and it wasn't all pretence either.

They had stopped in front of Voldemort. Voldemort raised an eyebrow.

"Do I even want to know?" he asked.

"In most cases, probably not," Harry grinned at him. "Well, you two know who the other is, so I'm not certain actual introductions are the right thing here."

Hermione shrugged and met Voldemort's gaze. "You may call me Granger, for the time being." She went to continue, then stopped and closed her mouth. Then opened her mouth again, but stopped and closed it. She frowned. "Would you look at that, I actually do have impulse control when I want to."

Voldemort looked questioningly at Harry, curious as always.

"Absolutely not," Harry shook his head. It was far too easy for him to guess what kind of words had gone through Hermione's head and had actually been filtered out before they reached her mouth. This was Voldemort after all, right in front of her.

"I cannot think of a single thing that I might be willing to call you, and that you would approve of," Hermione admitted after a few seconds. "Do you have any suggestions? Anything with Lord or the like is out, just so you know."

"Hello to you too, Granger," Voldemort said with obvious mirth, at least obvious to Harry. He suspected that Hermione didn't see the amusement in the taller man's eyes, as she just managed to halt a grimace. "I would not object to being called Slytherin by you, and as I am the last of that line, it would not be inaccurate either. Would that suit?"

Hermione tilted her head and scrutinised Voldemort closely, then she looked at Harry and back at Voldemort. She drew a deep breath and Harry knew that he probably wouldn't like what would come out of her mouth next, because Hermione didn't quite like it either.

"You are not actually insane, are you?" she asked. "You are far too controlled for that. Why put up that front for so long? Why …?"

Harry pressed the hand that he still held, and she cut off. Harry looked at Voldemort and wondered how truthful he would be and what exactly he would want to keep from Hermione. They hadn't even talked about that.

Voldemort met Harry's gaze in silent inquiry.

"I have told her very little in our letters," Harry admitted, "and I believe I told her nothing personal about you. We mostly kept it to general ideas, spells, books, runes, past events and conversations, our daily life in general terms, that sort of thing, there is a lot that shouldn't be told in a letter."

While Harry would never willingly lie to Hermione, he would be willing to keep Voldemort's own secrets from her, because of the personal truce between them and because private should be allowed to stay private, and he now respected his husband enough not to spill his secrets. And wasn't that a really strange thought right now, standing beside Hermione that he used to stand with against Voldemort … Harry suddenly realised that Voldemort's worry that Hermione would change their relationship might not have been too off the mark, even if she wouldn't do anything on purpose.

Well, he had promised Voldemort that it wouldn't change anything and because he knew that Hermione wouldn't want to be the reason for a negative change in his life, he wouldn't let it become a problem. By not thinking about it at all, if necessary. He already had a very long list of topics he did not think about.

"I am not insane, any longer, Granger," Voldemort said, "but I very much was insane, for an extended period of time. It was never a front, unfortunately."

"Oh." Hermione looked at Harry, tears swimming in her one functioning eye again. She blinked them away and looked back at Voldemort. "Should I assume that the change in your mental status was what brought on the wish for peace through marriage?"

"You are welcome to assume that. Should we go inside?" He cut off any further possibility of questioning by turning around before getting an answer and leading the way through the gates and up the long drive up to the big front doors.

After the doors had closed behind them Voldemort turned towards them again.

"Harry, I presume that the two of you would like to keep to yourselves for some hours and thus eat lunch on your own. But I would like to share tea with you. Either only the three of us, or with Astoria and Draco."

Voldemort looked at Harry and Harry looked at Hermione.

"If I'm going to drink tea with the Dark Lord, of all people, I might as well drink tea with some bloody Death Eaters, too." She shrugged and then frowned, looking at Harry. "Sorry, my filter misfired. I have been practising, I promise."

"You managed it with only one swear word, and that's brilliant in and of itself." He knew that because she was talking about Voldemort and Death Eaters, the sentence should have been positively riddled with profanities. Only one word was quite astonishing.

Hermione snorted. Harry knew that she would never apologise for her choice of words to Voldemort, or anyone else in the house, as she didn't care what they thought of her. But she didn't want to make any difficulties for Harry by continuing to talk as she usually did around the new people in his life, including his husband.

"We will meet at the conservatory for tea, then," Harry said to Voldemort, and set an alarm with his wand to help him remember.

Voldemort nodded. "Feel free to show Granger whatever she wishes to see of the Manor and the grounds. Only private rooms are out of bounds."

"Kitchen," Hermione promptly said and looked at Harry. "I have had a birthday; you owe me a cake."

"In that case, I have had a birthday too, so you owe me a cake also."

"Excellent. Four cakes then," Hermione agreed with a happy smile.

Voldemort blinked and looked lost before he looked at Harry with obvious confusion. Harry opted to show some pity on the man.

"No, we are not actually that bad at maths. Every time either of us have a birthday, we bake both of our favourite cakes," Harry said. "Because both have had a birthday since we last saw each other, we need to bake four cakes to cover both birthdays. It's tradition. Even though," Harry looked at Hermione, "I did bake five cakes yesterday for Voldemort's birthday, so I'm pretty sure there is quite a bit left. Maybe we should eat those first and bake at another time. If you are willing to share that is?" Harry looked at Voldemort. It was his cakes, after all.

"As if I can possibly eat them all by myself," Voldemort said. "I am having a piece of the meringue and berry cake after lunch, so do not finish that one off."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Meringue and berries?" She looked at Harry. "Does your husband and I share a favourite cake?"

"It … might seem so. As I said, I baked five because I didn't know what he liked, and the meringue and berry one seemed to suit him the most." Harry looked at Voldemort who nodded.

"He has good taste in cakes, that's something, I guess."

Harry put a hand over his eyes, but wasn't able to hold back his grin.

"Yes, Hermi, good taste in cakes is important." He removed his hand and looked at Hermione with a small smile. "As we now have covered the cake issue, should we take a look at the library first?"

"Yes, please! I need new sources! I have been trying to find an Extension Charm that will work on our tent, as it is special in that it's supposed to be put up and taken down. A trunk would be easier to deal with, even if I would change its size now and again. Tents are too different and it's beginning to seem like those charms are a fucking trade secret!"

"See you later, husband mine!" Harry said over his shoulder with a smile at the man, as he led Hermione away from Voldemort. He could feel Hermione stiffen at the words, but he doubted Voldemort would notice.

"I will see you both later, Harry," Voldemort said easily.

A/N:

Thank you so much for the comments, the favs and the follows! They are much appreciated! I love to read what you think about the story and the characters! It makes writing this story even more fun! Each and every comment makes me smile!

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