Everything At Once
By: bonafake
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Author's Note: I finally finished this thing! It's been at least a year, but - it's done! Finally! I hope everyone enjoys this last section. If you do, I'd love it if you left a comment! Thank you all for sticking with this little story. I'm on Tumblr at bonafake, along with ao3!
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On the day that Regulus Black finally recognized the fact that he was deeply, truly in love with Hermione Granger, Harry Potter saved the world.
It was not world-saving in the way most of humanity engages in, where they do one good deed, like donating a meal to a starving child, or the kind that superheroes do when they pull people out of volcanoes. No, this was a different kind of world saving, the one where the brave and dashing hero overthrows the horrid and evil dictator and they all live happily ever after, with their somewhat psychotic boyfriends and start teaching defense arts at their childhood school. At least, that was the kind of happy ending Regulus imagined for Harry. He was pretty sure that was the happy ending everyone else imagined for him too. It was the happy ending he deserved, at the very least.
"We need to go save the world," Harry said, looking at them seriously and narrowing his eyes. It was hard to take him seriously because he was lying on his stomach with an Operation game board in front of him.
Draco turned from the chess game he was playing with Hermione, who looked to be in the process of winning.
Regulus had never been good at chess. He looked down, jabbed his tweezers into the heart, and sighed as the buzzer went off again.
"What for?" Draco asked, looking at his boyfriend with something resembling annoyance. "I've almost won."
"No, you haven't," Hermione said.
"Whatever. Harry. Why do we have to go?"
"To save the world," he responded patiently. Regulus was pretty sure Draco was looking for a bit more clarification.
"No, I mean how?"
"By just―by doing the thing!"
Hermione crossed her arms at Harry and narrowed her eyes. "Harry. Make sense, or Draco and I will go back to playing chess."
"Fine."
Regulus didn't think Harry was able to form coherent sentences―either due to the mind-scrambling capabilities of early-morning blowjobs from somewhat psychotic boyfriends, or the fact that he hadn't had to properly articulate his thoughts since he'd been leading a rebellion, not just four teenagers in hidden cottage. Regulus was wrong.
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"I'm not sharing a broom with him," Draco said. His jaw was set.
"What the―" Regulus sighed. "We only have three brooms, Malfoy."
Draco shrugged, and passed the remaining broom to Hermione.
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Hermione turned to him. "You don't mind, do you?"
He shook his head no―though he didn't know what she was talking about―the planned attack on Lord Voldemort, his previous master, or about the broom ride. He knew he would have answered no to both of them. It didn't matter.
She turned back to Harry, and told him off for scuffing his boots on the floor of the Ministry and―
Oh.
He knew now.
"Well?" she interrupted.
He loved her.
It was an earthquake.
They were going to save the world today.
He tried to take a deep breath. That was something that people did, nowadays, wasn't it? "Whatever you say," Regulus said. He smiled. it seemed like the right thing for him to do.
She looked at him suspiciously. "You've never been this aquiescent before."
"I know, it's kind of weird," he said. He smiled again, almost against his will. His lips were chapped, and he was in love.
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His breath came in shallow, harsh pants. He leaned back against the wall and pressed his fingers into his eye sockets.
The green flash―
He could still see them all falling, the sound of bodies hitting the floor of the Ministry with a dull thud.
That green―
It was almost like―
Regulus closed his eyes.
The voice in his ear was a soft whisper. It got under his skin, needles pricking through whatever his consciousness was thinking. "You're here," it said. "You're okay."
He could feel himself sinking towards the ground, cracked concrete underneath him. "You're okay," he heard again, and―
Hermione.
He opened his eyes.
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"I don't need a trauma blanket," he said. "Why is there a trauma blanket?"
"Because you underwent trauma," Hermione said. She was also underneath a trauma blanket. Her hair was wild around her face, and her eyes―oh, that was right.
The world shook off its own trauma blanket, and―
He was in love.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
He nodded, tugged at his shirtsleeves, and cast the blanket off. The sirens were screaming. Regulus could hear them from a block away. "I'm fine," he said, absently.
"You have hair in your face," she said. Her mouth curved, the corners of her lips turning upwards.
He brushed at his head.
"Good job," Hermione told him. She turned to face the street. He could feel his eyes following her motion, like magnetically attracted rocks. He could feel his heart pushing at his chest from the inside.
He didn't kiss her. He looked down at his shoes, the black leather still scuffed with chalky, white dust. "I think I need new shoes," he said. Hermione looked down.
"I don't think you need them," she said.
"I think I want them."
She pursed her lips and said nothing. Say anything, he thought. Say anything, to me. She looked at the flattened street signs and kicked at the white dust on the ground.
###
"You should not have done that," said Kingsley.
"Yeah, but," Harry said. "We definitely won, so."
Draco gave him a look. "Harry," he said. "Shut up."
"What, just because some Death Eater smashed a piece of concrete into his lungs?" Hermione asked in mock surprise. "That's no reason to shut up, Draco, be reasonable."
Harry coughed hackingly. "Yeah, Draco. I'll talk however much I―"
Hermione rolled her eyes and steered him towards a chair. "You sit," she told him. "And don't you dare talk." She turned to Draco. "Don't egg him on. Or let him get up."
"But we just saved the world," Harry said.
"Shut up," Hermione and Draco said in unison.
Regulus smiled at Hermione. It felt as though his lips were cracking, like he was being splayed open. He wanted her to eat him raw.
He was in love.
It was an earthquake.
###
The hospital room smelled sterile and the floors were very white and clean. "I can't believe we had to take him to a muggle hospital," Draco complained. "He's the savior of the goddamned Wizarding world."
"And you destroyed St. Mungo's with a single Bombarda Maxima," Hermione was quick to counter.
"Still," Draco huffed.
"He's going to be alright, though?" Regulus asked. He felt like a child. He was a child. He was in love.
"He'll be fine. He was in the medical wing every single year since his first at Hogwarts," Hermione said. She smiled, softly. Sadly. "He fought a troll for me, once."
"And he tried to murder me with Sectumsempra once, so I think we all know who he loves more," Draco cut in. His tone was joking, but he looked towards the entrance to the operating rooms anxiously.
"You should―" Regulus stopped, surprised to find himself speaking. "You should get yourself some coffee."
Draco glanced at him, surprised. "Yeah," he said finally. "I guess I will."
He left. The door to the emergency room closed behind him.
Hermione gave him another small, sad smile. "That was good," she said.
He forced a tight laugh. "Thanks."
"No, really."
They lapsed into silence. He looked down at the floor. Her shoes were wrapped around the legs of the plastic chair. "I think―"
"I think―"
He stopped. "You first."
"No, no, go ahead."
He wanted to push the words out. He did. "I think you're the reason I'm here," he said. His eyes hadn't moved from the white hospital tiles, and her feet, still curled around the metal chair legs.
"I thought so, too," she said. An admission. "And that scares me. It―look, Regulus, the only other person I've fallen in love with like this died. He was killed during the blood-traitor purges while his sister and mother and father all watched. And I don't―you scare me. This scares me. I need―I need time."
He took a breath in. "Okay," he said. "I can give you that. All the time you need."
"Okay," Hermione said. She looked up at him.
###
The world didn't end.
Harry Potter won the war.
Draco Malfoy bought a ring.
Hermione Granger took a student teaching position.
Regulus Black stayed in love.
He gave Hermione time, space, and he would have given her everything on the continuum if he could've done it without tearing the very fabric of existence. He gave her small smiles and an antique cuckoo clock and a room in 14 Grimmauld Place and he gave her time.
She took it, and she gave him updates on the condition of Harry's maybe-collapsed lung and enough galleons for a real trip to Ollivanders for his wand and a key to her place in muggle London and a short, sweet kiss on one fine day in early December.
"I'm done waiting," she told him.
"Oh," was all he could say, and she kissed him again, and they were okay.