When Hermione awoke, the first thing she felt was the soft, slow circles of a calloused hand on her arm. Her eyes snapped open as her mind flooded with the last moments of consciousness she could remember, jolting her body upright. Immediately, green eyes came into view and gentle but firm hands pushed her back down onto the bed. When finally her vision cleared, Harry's worried face stared down at her. Her arm, of its own accord, reached up to caress his cheek and he immediately leaned into her hand.
"Wha-" she paused to clear her throat. "What happened?"
Looking up at Harry, she saw his features darken for an instant before being replaced by such a caring look in his eyes that her cheeks threatened to turn pink if they hadn't been so pale. He was quiet for a moment until he spoke.
"You were wonderful Hermione, you managed to stop the escaping Death Eaters, but you were knocked out in the explosion…" Harry mumbled softly. He dropped his voice to a whisper, "Thank Merlin you're alright."
Just then a nurse bustled into the room, and only then did Hermione realise she was resting in a hospital bed in St. Mungo's. The nurse busied herself with waving her wand over Hermione and murmuring diagnostic spells under her breath before speaking up in a wry voice. "What Mr. Potter didn't mention, is how you were more than knocked out honey. I was going to come in here to show you the scar that you would have for the rest of your life from some magical debris that had penetrated you, but it appears it's gone," the nurse almost harrumphed, shaking her head. "I've never quite seen the form of healing magic Mr. Potter performed on you after he apparated you both here, but you have him to thank for that."
Hermione's eyes darted to Harry's, which had never left her face, roving over her features in an endless attempt to cement his memory of her in his mind. That look is enough to make any woman swoon, she had thought to herself, not noticing the flit of envy that crossed over the nurses features for a moment when she caught sight of how Harry was looking at her.
Harry, for his part, didn't look like he had heard the nurse at all, and simply asked, "When can she be released?"
The nurse, looking satisfied with the results of her diagnostic spells, looked back down at Hermione and shook her head in disbelief. "I would normally advise that patients stay for at least a couple of hours after recovery to be sure all injuries have surfaced, but I can't find anything else wrong with Ms. Granger." She looked over to Harry on the other side of the bed, "She's free to go, with the promise that you will force her to take it easy- at least for the day."
Hermione saw gratitude flicker across Harry's face as he nodded quickly and looked back down at her to smile. The nurse had just reached the door to the room when she turned back and let part of her professionalism drop. Speaking mostly to Harry she said, "I'm not supposed to say this, but there's a rather large crowd waiting just outside to see both of you, and I won't mention the army of reporters and nutcases that have flooded the lobby downstairs… fair warning."
With that, the nurse left the room, making sure that the door never remained open enough to give anyone outside a view of the couple at the bed. When the door had opened, Hermione heard a roar of voices all clamouring to ask the nurse questions that muffled to a dull rumble once the door clicked shut.
"Do you feel like you could stomach apparating back to your flat?" Harry spoke softly to her, running a thumb across her forehead and causing her heart to involuntarily make a little leap.
For a moment Hermione's features scrunched up in confusion, "Harry I feel fine honestly, but you know that places like St. Mungo's have anti-apparition wards, and so does my flat."
She heard him chuckle as he placed a quieting hand on hers, pulling her up to sit on the side of the bed in front of him. "Hold on tight," he said, and without so much as a pop Hermione landed on the floor of her living room. Her knees gave way and Harry's arms swiftly swooped her body up, depositing her down onto her couch.
It took her a moment to comprehend what had just happened, a question hanging on her lips. Harry spoke up before she could though, "Yes… I uh, well I know you'll have questions for me." His hand went up to rub at the back of his neck as he began pacing back and forth across her living room. "Just, let me say one thing, and that's to reassure you that your flat is still safe and no one else is able to apparate into or from the wards you placed."
Hermione noticed his fingers starting to fidget, absentmindedly going up to touch his scar. He was right, she had been worried about that, but she was still shocked as to how they had apparated from within the hospital to her flat. And not to mention, she realised, the strange comment the nurse had made about Harry's healing magic, how Harry had found her, or how they had arrived at the hospital at all. She hadn't realised she was speaking these questions out loud in a flurry until a hand threaded into her hair and started sifting through her curls. Her voice cut off mid sentence and her eyes looked questioningly at Harry, standing over her with his hand stroking her hair.
"I suppose I deserve all that, trying to pull one over on the brightest witch of her age," he sighed and then laughed. "I'm not sure where to begin to be honest."
Hermione looked at the man standing in the middle of her living room and was suddenly struck with a memory of the same man, years younger when he was just a boy, his glasses slightly askew and his hair as untameable as ever. "Why don't you start with the last two years, where did you go? And why couldn't I find you?"
She didn't mean for her questions to come across like an accusation, but she couldn't help the hurt her pride had endured at failing to find him from tingeing her voice.
Harry sighed and began pacing. "You almost caught me," he said with a laugh. "Multiple times actually."
Hermione's mind raced through all of the possible times that she felt she was close to finding him as Harry continued.
"There was one time-" he broke off to point at Hermione, "-you're a bright witch, you know that?"
She couldn't help herself and blushed at the praise before opening her mouth, "Harry I don't know, I tried everything I could and each time that I failed I got more and more disappointed with myself."
She had started to look down, her smile from his previous levity fading. Harry placed his hand under her chin and tilted her face to look up at his warm smile, melting away any self deprecation that had started to creep into her mind. He began speaking again, moving to pace as he talked and using his hands to articulate his words. She never really got tired of the way he would rant to her about quidditch or Snape or some such topic because of how little he usually got to express his true self. Hermione felt herself entranced in a nostalgic way, reminded of those simple evenings, the war and Voldemort ignored and teenagehood embraced.
"...and well, there wasn't much for me to do but transfigure my clothes into rags and charm my hair to grow long and grey so that the hiker's description of me wouldn't fit. And sure enough, who showed up a week later in a frozen and forgotten village in Tibet but my Hermione." Harry was talking so animatedly about the times that she had nearly missed him in one country or another, that she forgot to feel upset about the topic. She saw in the man before her the very same boy she had spent almost seven full years getting to know as a best friend. Even during their sixth year, when the biggest and longest argument they had ever had threatened to dismantle their whole relationship, she still found it easy to make up with him. It was like the things that every friendship grated on and found difficult, were made smoother with Harry. Not to say that those things didn't happen, sixth year being a perfect example, but it was just… easier.
"...and unbeknownst to me, every time after I helped someone or saved a life, I was directionless; lost without cause or purpose." Harry finally sat down beside her on the couch, pulling her legs up to rest on his lap as he paused for a moment. "I hiked up a lot of mountains searching for that purpose…" he trailed off. "And yet each time I would reach a peak, my thoughts drifted to you… to you and the Weasley's, and Teddy, and all the others, like there was some magnetic pull inside my brain. I resisted it every time, successfully convincing myself that it was safer and better for me to stay away, that if I just found what it was that could guide me and be my compass, I could live."
Harry had focused his eyes steadily on her as he spoke, keeping her anchored in reality where her real Harry was telling her this instead of some figment of her imagination or a dream version of him she had often found herself talking to over the past two years.
"What happened Harry? What changed?" Her voice came out soft and sounded quiet to her ears, and she was glad when it seemed he was spurred on by her question.
"One day, it hit me. It hit me and I just… acceded. I let that magnetic pull drag me right to the door to your flat. I had just helped create a peace treaty between two warring tribes of merfolk in America, when it finally hit me over the head. The reason the tribes had been at war had spawned from some poorly timed words said during a meeting of the elders, and the event that sealed the treaty of peace was an equally stupid pair of merfolk, one from either tribe, that found themselves in love. I had to ask myself how something so life-shaping as war could come around through a broken relationship, and how could that very same life-altering war become obsolete through a relationship as well. Because, I surmised, people are the answer. My parents and Sirius are the answer. My surrogate red-haired family is the answer. My godson Teddy is the answer. You, Hermione, my best friend and compass, are the answer. To me. To my life, and to my direction. Who would I have fought the war for if not for you, and for them?"
Tears now flowed freely down both of their faces, though notably Hermione's was flushed from hearing how he labelled her. Still, their eyes remained locked together in an emotional embrace while Harry continued. "I don't think I will ever stop apologising for how long it took me to finally submit to the only direction that ever really mattered in my life, but I'm here to embrace it now." Harry's fingers traced the side of her face, "I'm here to embrace you."
And embrace they did. A face full of hair was all the warning Harry got when Hermione launched into him, her arms crushing him in a clasp he never wanted to leave- never should have left- he added to himself.
After a long moment, Hermione pulled away with a questioning look and opened her mouth, "Harry, you still never told me how you got us out of the hospital, or how you even found me. And don't think I haven't noticed all of your wandless magic as if it's nothing!"
If she had known how she looked in this moment, she might have been embarrassed, but Harry secretly loved the face she made when she asked a question in class or when she realised there was something she hadn't learned yet. Smiling at her, he took on a strange look of pride.
"And just what is that look for Harry James Potter," she said, crossing her arms in mock seriousness.
Harry, for his part, just grinned harder. "Hermione, did you know that your patronus had changed?" he asked.
Hermione's eyes widened. "Oh," she said, and started blushing. Quickly, she started rambling to Harry to explain how in previous years her happiest memory used to summon a patronus had always been her and her parents at the otter exhibit when visiting the zoo. It changed however when being on the run, she had been trying to cast it while on watch and Harry was asleep in the tent when she realised she couldn't summon one using that memory, chalking it up to her actions of erasing her parents memory and tainting her memory of them as well she supposed. So, with her cheeks red, she explained how the memory that finally summoned her patronus was less one memory as it was, and instead every memory that she had of Harry smiling, of being happy, the one thing that made her happy above all else being his happiness. And to her surprise, instead of an otter leaping from her wand, it had been a silvery doe. "So… there you go," she said, dropping her eyes.
Harry didn't let her get so far, his face darting in to capture her lips with his. It was many minutes later when the two finally broke apart and Hermione smacked his arm lightly, "You can't keep distracting me Harry, tell me about your magic, did you somehow discover a new form of apparition?"
Harry chuckled again, "No, though if anyone could do that, I'm sure it would be you." Sighing, he scrubbed his face and sat back. "Honestly I've been trying to figure it out as well, and from what I've found there are two things," he began. "The piece of Voldemort that had attached to my soul seemed to dampen my abilities somewhat, almost like a handicap, and with it removed I can feel my magic present. Kind of like the feeling you get when you hold your wand in your hand, but I don't need a wand to feel it or use it, at least, not unless I wanted to use my magic more powerfully. And second, it appears that apparition wards, or really many wards for that matter, have no effect on me. I know now that the reason for this is because my magic still labels me as… the Master of Death."
Hermione had been listening intently but gasped at this and covered her mouth with her hand. "But how can that be? I thought you left behind the elder wand, and you didn't take your cloak with you," she said from behind her hand.
"I was confused as well, and ruled out the whole Death thing until there was a rather unmistakeable clue while I was visiting and helping out a small village in Africa. I had just finished with digging and creating a clean water well and was invited into a home to rest and eat when I was stopped in the doorway. I couldn't move past the threshold no matter what I tried. Caught by surprise, the whole village realised something I didn't and turned on me, lighting torches and attacking me to get me to leave. Only later when I thought about what it could be did I notice in my memory an iron horseshoe hanging about the doorway. I visited a library to read up on such artefacts and it apparently was used as a ward against evil spirits… and death."
Hermione felt like her eyes couldn't widen any farther than they already were, but he kept going.
"Then I remembered something that Dumbledore had told me, about the Elder wand passing to whoever had beaten the last wielder in combat, and I realised that although I didn't hold each of the Hollows on my person, I am the wielder of each, and none have passed to anybody else…" Harry trailed off and absentmindedly rubbed his scar.
She recognised that grimace, the one he wore whenever he wished something was not about him. Her heart went out to him, to the boy underneath that wished he could live a normal life. She almost opened her mouth to comfort him but, realising he needed to get it all out, she simply intertwined her fingers with his and stayed silent.
"Anyways," he continued after a moment, "there are certain benefits I suppose, the biggest one being how I was able to get in and out of both the Ministry and St. Mungo's by apparition. Apparently all of our currently used magical wards have some sort of hidden clause that authorises the personification of Death," he said, grinning at her. His face turned thoughtful briefly and, almost talking to himself, he said, "Not that I really want the title, I suppose I would relinquish it when I give my Cloak to my son or daughter if I ever have one… or Teddy for that matter."
Before she could stop herself, a question slipped past Hermione's lips when he finished.
"Do you want kids, Harry?"
Harry seemed caught off guard by her question and, blushing a little, she hurriedly added, "Not that you have to answer, I-"
He cut her off with a finger to her lips, deepening her blush.
"Hermione, I would want nothing more than a family to call my own," he said quietly and earnestly, his face dangerously close to hers.
She tried opening her mouth again but this time his finger was replaced by his lips, and she couldn't help the moan that escaped her. The two lost themselves in each other while time captured the passing moments, forever sealing them in memory.
Suddenly, a loud tapping came from the kitchen window and the couple jumped. After sharing a relieved laugh, Hermione got up to let the barn owl fly in and land on the counter. Harry had gotten up as well and untied the letter attached to the owl's leg. Once untied, the letter immediately sprang into the air, forming a mouth and began yelling at the top of its lungs, "HARRY JAMES POTTER. YOU ARE INVITED TO A WELCOME BACK PARTY AT THE BURROW TOMORROW AFTERNOON. DO NOT BE LATE."
The Howler repeated its message twice more before catching on fire and falling into ash on the floor. Harry and Hermione looked at each other and before they could say anything, a second owl flew through the open window, landing beside the first. Cringing, Harry untied the letter attached to the second owl. It repeated the same motions as the first Howler, but this time turned to face Hermione as it began screaming, "HERMIONE JEAN GRANGER. WE KNOW HE IS BACK. DO NOT LIE TO US. COME TO THE BURROW TOMORROW AT NOON TO WELCOME HIM."
When the ashes of the second Howler eventually floated to the floor, the pair made eye contact again and their look of shock quickly transformed into unashamed laughter, with Harry crouching down and clutching at his stomach and Hermione having to grab the kitchen table for support. When their laughter finally subsided, the two wiped their eyes and moved to let the owls out and close the window.
"I would have been an idiot to think I could avoid the Weasley storm forever," Harry chuckled, moving to sweep Hermione up in his arms. She felt more than heard from her position pressed into his chest, a contented rumble that seemed to emanate from within Harry's chest. Feeling a small satisfied smile slip onto her face without any intention to leave, she settled into his embrace, their bodies swaying ever so slightly while standing on her kitchen floor.
They spent what felt like an hour- but in reality what must have been only minutes- each lost in the arms of the other. A stifled yawn from Harry broke the spell, causing his hand to drift up from tracing circles on her lower back to cover his mouth. When Hermione spoke, she could feel her speech slur as a yawn of her own threatened to overcome her, "D'you want to come to beeaaaagh-." Her hands shot up to cover face and couldn't help the corners of her mouth from turning up in amusement.
Harry blinked back his tiredness and chuckled, patting the top of Hermione's head and stepping back to move towards her bedroom. "Just need to hit the loo and I'll hop in bed after," he said over his shoulder, already pulling his shirt over his head.
Something happened then that Hermione had never experienced before. It was a small thing really, but as she watched his form retreat to her bedroom, her eyes lingered on his back as it became more and more exposed. She only realised how she was staring when he disappeared through the doorway and had to shake herself. The memory of the muscles on his back rippling in a subtle way as he pulled his shirt over his head began to turn her cheeks pink. In a way, Hermione had always taken notice of Harry's body- if only to ensure he was healthy and unhurt as he so often wasn't either after a summer at the Dursley's or after a quidditch match- but viewing him this way, with her eyes drifting across the well defined arches of the strong muscles that criss crossed his back, was sending signals to parts of her body that she had not previously associated with him.
Resolving to continue her exploration of Harry's back sooner rather than later, Hermione pulled out her wand to cast some cleaning spells on the soot left by the Howlers and the drops of rainwater that the owls had brought in. She was halfway down the hall towards her bedroom when her pocket vibrated. Her muggle phone, forgotten in her pocket since the previous day, began to buzz without end. A quick check of the flipped up screen showed Anna's name with the number 43 next to it. Hermione sighed and smacked her forehead with her palm, mentally berating herself for how she left her friend the last time they talked and for not updating her at all since then.
A few minutes later, when Harry emerged from the bathroom into her room, he noticed her hunched over and focused on the little blue screen sitting in her hands.
"What's that you got there? It looks like something I once saw my uncle with." Harry moved to sit down on the edge of the bed beside her and let his hand instinctively move to caress the top of her back and shoulders, which in turn caused her to lean into him as she continued pressing the tiny buttons on the lower half of her device.
After almost a minute, Hermione flipped the screen down and put it away, looking up into his eyes with a smile. "Hmm?" she questioned before clueing into his words. "Oh, it's a way for muggles to communicate with each other over large distances. It was originally a design conceiv-" Harry cut her off with a kiss to her lips, and she allowed herself to melt into him. When he pulled away, he didn't say anything but just looked at her and smiled. Hermione put on a look of false anger and smacked his chest lightly before smiling at him. "Yes, well, I'll have to introduce you to someone that I met two years ago," she said simply, letting her hand entwine with his resting in his lap. She couldn't help but admire how easily their hands slipped together, remembering how second nature it quickly became as their friendship developed through the years.
"I think," Harry said as he leaned back onto her bed, pulling her along to lie next to him, "that as long as you're with me, you could introduce your friend to me as Draco Malfoy and that would be okay." He surrendered to a triumphant smile at hearing her laugh at his joke, and then allowed silence to reign some time before speaking again, his tone turned serious and questioning. "So what now? Where do we go from here?" He looked down at her, her head tucked into his shoulder, and raised his eyebrow.
It was at least a minute before she said anything, and then she lifted herself up to meet his eyes as she willed as much emotion as she could into her voice and through her eyes in order to emphasise the weight of her words.
"Harry, with me at your side, I will go anywhere. You are my compass, lead and I will follow."
to be continued
A/N:
Thanks to everyone that read my first multi-chapter fic, I appreciate all of you that left comments or just simply enjoyed reading :)
I had originally planned to add a couple extra chapters to the end here but I realised that the concept was starting to get away from me. I still feel that there could be more to tell, but that if I ever return here it will be in a second part.
Apologies to anyone that was invested for letting so much time get between the last chapter and posting this final one (cue every writer's excuse ever).
Thanks again and may the next fic you find be even better!