Wow, everybody, what can I say? In the past two months my life has changed unbelievable amounts. I have a whole new home, with all new people. I am no longer my mother's responsibility, instead I belong to my older sister. I have been so busy with this life, from worrying that I might not get to keep the comfortable life I've established to learning that Mom will finally let me go, to learning that I have way more family than I ever thought, although not a single one of these people and I share blood. That's just the people I have chosen to surround myself with. So that explains why this chapter is shorter than others past, and why it's so late coming. I'm back this time, though, for good, with the rest of my story. I have something like another thirty or so chapters in my hip pocket to share with you, so if you're still interested in my story, please don't hesitate to let me know! Sorry this took so long, but here you go, the next chapter in "In This Life I Was Loved By You"… lots and lots of love from Turice

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

Harry Potter sat alone cross-legged on his bedroom floor, leaning against the four poster bed he had once shared with his wife. It was two thirty in the morning on a Sunday. Hermione was nestled under the covers in the bed behind him, breathing deeply, sound asleep. They had been out dancing on Saturday night, having fun together for the first time in a long time. Harry would not let himself think of the night as their second first date, but he couldn't help laughing over the fact that she was now asleep in his bed. He'd said to her that he wouldn't mind sleeping on the couch if she wanted to come home with him after the dancing and sleep at his house. What they both got out of the promise was the underlying knowledge that he wouldn't hit on her that night. For now, they had kept their promise to be friends. She was an old friend crashing in the comfort of a friend's house. At least, that's all she felt. He wanted more. Just one more time, he wanted to lay her down on the bed, feel the silky female skin beneath his fingers as they made love. But no. She had taken his promise to the fullest extent. There was no lovemaking between the two of them tonight. Harry had the hardest time watching as she dug through his chest of drawers before falling into the bed, looking for her favorite old shirt of his to sleep in as a night shirt. She found it. So there she lay, in his Quidditch jersey from their seventh year and snuggled under the down comforter. He loved how soft she looked when she was asleep. He had sat in the armchair he kept next to the bed for an hour after she drifted off to dream, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath, watching as her lips curled into a gentle smile, her dreams reflected on her face. He noticed a few wrinkle lines that hadn't been there the last time he'd sat like that in the middle of the night, just looking at her, almost ten years ago. She had always had an affection for popular Muggle music. Harry knew her favorite song was an oldie by a group called Aerosmith. What the band name meant, neither of them had any idea, but Hermione loved to hear "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing". She said that was how she'd always felt about life with him. She never wanted to miss a minute. He had to admit that he really could stay awake just to hear her breathing, and watch her smile as she slept. He'd missed a whole ten years' worth of things with her. And while she was gone, this was one of the things he'd sorely missed. The ability to just look at her.

Harry couldn't stand any longer to sit, his heart feeling too tumultuous, so that was how he ended up where he was now. Sitting on the floor, a box of their old things spread out in front of him. There were old love letters, tokens that showed how much they had loved each other even as teenagers. There were cds they'd played and danced to in the moonlight. She loved to dance. It was one of the things she'd spent countless nights teaching him to do when they'd sneak out of the dormitories at Hogwarts when they were supposed to be in bed. It took her the better part of two years to teach him every dance she knew, but by their fifth year, they were probably the best dancers nobody knew of at Hogwarts. They spent the nights together, following the moonlight to whatever room it was brightest in that night, sometimes dancing to the music coming from the small stereo they toted around, or just swaying in silence, wrapped in each other's arms.

The most precious of precious things in the box were the photographs. Another of Hermione's hobbies, besides dancing, was photography. She documented everything, any given chance she had with him, she snapped pictures. She did it so often it was on the verge of annoying. That was how she earned one of two nicknames Harry had for her: Shutterbug, or just Bug for short. He laughed as he picked up a photo of the two of them playing on an ice patch she'd paid someone else to take. The little people in the picture were running, having a fun time when the black haired boy slipped as he held the brunette's hand, pulling her butt first onto the ice next to him, laughing the whole way down. They could not have been more than sixteen at the time.

There was a drawing sitting in with the photo collection. It was one he'd found in one of her diaries after she'd gone. By the date at the bottom of the simple colored pencil illustration next to Hermione's loopy signature, Harry knew it was drawn when they were twelve. It was a recreation of their first kiss. They had been so young and innocent at the time. Hermione had done a fantastic job of making the look in his eye match that of the one he knew she saw right before their lips met. She'd made his nose look really big, and her own eyes too small, but the scenery was great. They were sitting beside the lake at Hogwarts, alone at sunset on an unusually warm night in October in their second year. Hermione had been nagging Harry and Ron to get some studying done, but as always, Harry didn't listen to her. He instead convinced her to sneak out with him again. They spent the rest of the evening alone together, cuddled together watching the giant squid swim. It was right as the sun was disappearing over the water when Hermione took her head from Harry's shoulder and placed her hand on his chin, turning his face to hers. Just like in the romance novels she loved, the pulse of the world stopped for them. Harry caught his breath as he leaned in to her, gently taking her bottom lip between his, tasting this miracle for the first time. He remembered so clearly the butterflies, the shock at what she really tasted like, and how it felt to have her soft breath mixing with his in the air between them as they prolonged the kiss, neither any more willing to break the liplock than the other.

It amazed Harry even now how he found himself so infatuated with a stubborn, bushy-haired, buck-toothed know-it-all at the age of twelve, nevertheless that he actually married her almost a year and a half after that kiss. But whatever drew him to her, it was still pulling him now. Harry stood up against the base board of the bed, shaking his sleeping legs awake, and looked at her.

He remembered everything about her, from the way she tasted to the way she smelled. He remembered the look in her eye as she opened them for the first time every morning. He remembered the feel of her soft body folding underneath his hard physique the first time they'd made love. He knew they had been way too young when they'd tumbled into bed together for the very first time. They should have waited until they were older. Much older. Sirius and Remus had been right when they were trying to talk him out of it as he drank the last sip of the aging potion Hermione had made. But something stronger than he'd ever felt before in thirteen years had told him he knew what he was doing. He could have had her all those years growing up anyway, whether they'd been married or not, but there was something extremely intimate about marriage. He needed her to be that close to him. He needed to know that no matter what, she was behind him. He'd gone without loving or being loved for thirteen years. And now here was this girl who had proved she loved him as much as he was afraid to love her.

Was he glad they'd gone through with it? By all means, yes. But in hindsight, they took extreme risks that no thirteen year olds should take. As proved by what happened when they were twenty, he felt he was very literally putting her life in danger. Had Voldemort found out any earlier than he did, he could have tried to kill Hermione sooner. And if in case he had, she was too young and inexperienced to defend herself. She'd of course argue with that and bring up the point that she had faced him before and lived, but Harry had taken a vow to protect her.

Even if it wasn't said directly in the exchange of wedding vows, all the time he was promising to love her forever, in the back of his mind, he was promising more. She had promised her life to him, and hers was a life he'd protect at all costs.

He got goosebumps on his arms as he looked at her sleeping peacefully in his bed and recalled watching her fall in the Department of Mysteries. He'd rushed to her, Neville too, and checked to make sure she was alive. As far as Neville knew, they were checking on their friend. In fact, Harry Potter was checking on his wife, by far the most cherished person in his life. Fifteen years old, married, and inches from death because of him. He'd almost put a stop to their love affair right then, because the thought of her dying because of him was too much for him to bear. He loved her too much. Too much to risk losing her like that. He remembered being unbelievably close to tears when Neville had pronounced he had found her pulse. He had her blood all over him and look what could have happened.

Harry shook the thoughts from his head. What happened fifteen years ago was just that: fifteen years ago. It was no use thinking about it now. Regardless of all they went through, she was alive. She was right there in front of him. And she continued to fight alongside him every time they went to battle whatever the Dark wizards threw their way. She continued to stand up for him to Voldemort…

The thought hit Harry like a ton of bricks. Hermione could stand up to Voldemort! It slapped him that Hermione, the girl he'd known for what felt like forever, was his shot at overthrowing the power of Voldemort forever. His Auror mind was working at breakneck speed, though it was three in the morning. If he could get her to a battle, protect her until they got themselves near to Voldemort, she could make it so Harry could finally destroy him. He knew she was powerful enough to hold her own against her bloodline, and weaken Voldemort so Harry could take a crack at him. It was crazy enough that it just might work. There were kinks in his plan, as his plans always have when they first come to existence, but that was another place she could help him. Harry didn't want to get his hopes too high as he moved around the corner of the bed, intent on waking her up. He wanted so badly to be out of the job he had now. If she agreed to work with him, maybe, just maybe, there was hope after all that their children might someday see a world free of the terror that is Voldemort.

"Hermione. Hermione, wake up…"

Meanwhile…

Sirius had left Lauren asleep on his couch. He was walking alone in London, trying to remember which street to turn on to get to the Leaky Cauldron. He hadn't been there in so long, instead preferring to frequent the Three Broomsticks, but since the incident with Lauren and Harry, he hadn't been back. That's not to say that he would never go back. It's just that he wanted to get drunk without anymore reminders about why he was trying to get sloshed in the first place. He didn't need to be there. He had enough ghosts in his own mind that he could barely deal with. He just wanted some whiskey.

He pulled the door open and stepped into the desolate pub. There were small candles on each table, but the flames were so low that they hardly made any difference. Sirius crossed the floor amid stares from the patrons. He would never get used to having his face recognized. He thought about how he was either a criminal or a hero to all these people. He had fathered the woman who was key in the downfall of Voldemort and he himself had devoted what little of his life he had left to defeating the monster. That made him respectable to some. Others, those who were hard up for a good conspiracy story, still believed he had joined forces with the man nobody knew to be his father and was the reason his best friend was dead. They still thought he wanted to murder the father of his grandchildren. Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course. He loved Harry as much as he loved his daughter and their two children. But some people had nothing better to do with their lives than sit on a barstool and discuss long-solved cases.

He plopped down on the hardback chair at a table in the middle of the room, just to prove he could stand the stares. He had yet to decide whether he was proving to the others he didn't care about how long they looked, or to himself. Either way, he was grateful for the distraction when a pretty blonde sauntered up to him. She had a nametag attached to a white polo pulled too tight across her breasts. Glancing quickly at it and averting his eyes to keep his dignity, he saw her name: Michelle.

"What can I get for you?" she asked in a voice kin to a kitten purr. Thoughts went through his male mind that weren't appropriate to speak aloud. She was cute, but looked young. Hermione was probably older than this woman was. It was totally out of character for him to sleep with a stranger, but it had been far too long since he'd had anyone near him, and he was human, after all. Since his daughter was born, and the whole time he'd known her as a teenager, he'd had trouble crawling into bed with just anybody, like he'd done when he was hardly any older than his teenaged daughter. It never used to phase him, but something about Hermione made him feel guilty, and woke him up to the risks that were involved. Given, had he always had the same attitude he had now, he wouldn't have had a child at all. It just went to show that sometimes good things come from even the most heavy mistakes a man could make. But right then, he needed a woman, and if you forgave him the pun, this one had pretty much fallen in his lap.

"A night with you would be nice, but since you're busy, I'll take a fire whiskey." He toyed.

"Oh, you're bold aren't you? Well, Mr. Black… Oh don't look surprised. Everybody knows your face, if not your name… I like boldness. It's rare I meet a man who can match just how bold I am. I get off in an hour. We can get out of here. I certainly don't want to drink the alcohol I'll need for tonight in this place. What do you say?"

"Sounds like a plan." He smiled at her as a Mason jar full of beer went flying past his head, obviously thrown from one of the jealous patrons.

Little did Sirius Black know just how much Michelle would be in the coming months, because, just like the creation of his first child, another life was coming to being from his recklessness