Thank you all for your patience! I'm aware that this chapter is super duper sappy.
Please don't shoot me.
I promise to add more actual interaction in the next one.
As per usual, I own no rights. J.K. Rowling and her glorious self owns all.
ENJOY!
Three days after the scene in the common room Harry and Hermione finally emerged. They had never really intended to be gone so long, hadn't meant to hide away as they had. Time had just seemed to slow in that room, with only the two of them there. The Room of Requirement had supplied all they needed, at times before they even knew they needed it.
They had been so wrapped up in each other they hadn't even given the rest of the world a second thought. Quidditch had not even crossed Harry's mind and Hermione had not once lamented the absence of books.
The two young Gryffindors had lay here, exploring each other's bodies; kissing, touching, and the occasional lick had been their whole world for that span of time.
Harry smiled as he looked down at the brown haired witch sleeping on his bare chest. They hadn't bothered with dressing after that first time, something Harry had definitely taken no issue with. He looked down Hermione's lithe body, taking in her soft cures, the swell of her lovely backside. The raven haired teenager could not get enough of the girl's body, laying there gently caressing his fingertips up and down her spine as he held her. A soft glow filled his chest as he let his eyes wonder over her exposed flesh, relishing in the fact that she was now his.
He had once, not so long ago, thought that he had loved Ginny, and he had been wrong. As time had passed in this happy little bubble of theirs, Harry had realized that Hermione had always been there, she had claimed a piece of his heart, even before he knew in his mind, his heart had known. He came to the realization that he had loved Hermione for a while now, that she had been the one that he wanted, the one that he needed. She was the one person he had always been the most open with, the one he had shared everything with. This beautiful brunette in his arms knew him, all of him; she knew things he had never even dared mention to Ronald.
Hermione had been the one constant in his life, the only person that had been there through every trial and tribulation. She, with her wholly good soul, had seen him through every failure and triumph. She had been the one to pull him back together in the face of Sirius' death. No one else had been willing to be his rock; he was Harry Potter, strong savior of the wizarding world. People thought he should push the hurt aside and go on; Hermione alone had seen the devastation in Harry's heart and eyes as he floundered to cope with such a catastrophic loss. She had been the first person since his mother to hold him as he cried.
Laying here, his arms wrapped around her beautiful body, her leg wrapped around him, he felt complete and content for the first time in his life. He had thought that he would never truly feel this at peace, especially after the loss of his godfather. Sirius had been the only person he had ever truly loved, or so he thought. He now understood that the bond he had with Hermione was a different type of love, one that had grown out of years of friendship, a friendship that had withstood the test of so much heartache.
In a way he was saddened by the time he had wasted pining over an emotion for someone else, an emotion his own mind had created to save him from the disaster falling for his best friend could have been had the feelings not been returned.
Reaching up with his other hand, he gently brushed his fingertips over Hermione's cheek as she slept, the soft smile she graced him with in her sleep at his touch warming his heart.
Before this he had been losing faith, losing the hope he had for victory in this unending and seemingly impossible war. Harry, the Savior, had been a hair's breadth away from washing his hands of it all. Of disappearing from the public eye and letting the world burn. He now had a reason. An actual, tangible, reason to keep fighting the terror of Voldemort. He would do anything, be anything, survive anything to protect the girl wrapped safely in his arms. He would fight with every breath in his body to protect her.
He would have done anything to protect her before, but now... Now she was the most important thing in his whole world. He had been so alone for so long, even surrounded by friends, he had felt as though he was alone and untouched by others. Now he had been touched, his life had been changed.
The need to protect Hermione was a visceral, touchable, vital thing. The thought of her being harmed tore at his insides like a wild beast. There was no grey area, no moral code, he realized, where she was concerned. There was no Light or Dark, there was only survival and protection to him now. There was only the need to keep this new found feeling of peace intact. No lengths were too far now, nothing too low as long as it would defeat the Dark Lord.
'If necessary' Harry thought to himself, 'I will use the same level of depravity to bring Voldemort to his death.'
Intellectually, the raven haired Gryffindor knew that he should fear for his own sanity and goodness. Emotionally, goodness and sanity were relative terms that held no sway. He had lost every person he had ever loved, Hermione would never be another casualty in the raging war that consumed the entirety of his life.