Always by IslandPrincess1

Rating: G
Genres: Drama, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 30/07/2007
Last Updated: 30/07/2007
Status: Completed

Even the most successful people in the world need a little reassurance every now and then. But
with friends as close as these, that can lead to trouble.... Now to reel you in: light romance,
mention of Teddy, barely any H/G and R/Hr.... Read, read, read.... :)




1. --
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**A/N:** *Had no idea where I was going with this**, truthfully**. That's the
trouble with post-book release fics, you have grand ideas to make yourself feel better and then
lose a sense of direction, end up with stories without plots and finally abandon them altogether in
favour of twisting canon. Luckily not a problem that affects me, I just got this on a whim last
night and it didn't turn out the way I intended. Will have to do another to get that way
then.*

*I was honestly pleasantly surprised and almost overwhelmed by the response to the last story.
Thank you all so very much. I'm always surprised that people want to read what I write, so
it's always wonderful to read your reviews. It reassures me that I've been coherent and
encourages me to write more. XD!* *Otherwise, happy reading.*

**Disclaimer:** *Ha-ha, I've said it before and I will say it again. She can keep this
stuff; I'm just playing for a while.*

*******

**Always**

*******

It was a well-practiced habit that each evening when Harry clocked in at Auror Headquarters in
the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he would take a detour to Hermione's office in the
nearby Wizengamot Administration Services with a cup of coffee and a smile. She would still be
preparing to leave, though many of her colleagues were long gone for the day, packing away files,
sorting work to take home and that which she could leave for her secretary to put away. When he
appeared in the doorway, without looking up she would ask, “Just arrived?”

This was obvious, but tradition, and in the name of it he would reply, “Yes, and you're
still here.”

“I've got a lot of work to do,” she would say, still not looking up.

He would then snort, call her an irretrievable swot and a workaholic and remind her, in a voice
that was frightfully reminiscent of Mrs Weasley's, “But Hermione dear... if you would only go
home a little earlier... I'm sure you and Ron could do with a romantic evening every now and
then....”

Then Hermione would look up, and scowling, say, “Between her and my mother I think I'll go
mad, now I understand what Tonks used to talk about.”

And then Harry would present the still-steaming cup of coffee as a peace offering and sit with
her until she either chased him away to work or one of his colleagues begrudgingly came to retrieve
him. It was habit, tradition, a daily ritual that he felt compelled by some subconscious force to
repeat. He could not begin his shift without seeing her off, and he liked to think that she could
not end her day without seeing him begin his.

But today was different.

It was not that there weren't days when they missed each other at work. Sometimes he would
be called into duty and go directly where needed, not returning until hours, and on one occasion,
days later. Sometimes she would leave early for a family or personal emergency, and he would be on
pins on needles until the next day when he saw again. And then there were vacation times where she
would visit with her parents in Australia or some other more exotic locale, or he would travel to
some place he'd never been but she'd insisted he would enjoy. The pictures filled the few
free spaces left on the walls of his cubicle and desk, and overflowed unto the floor in many places
of his flat.

It was not that there weren't times when they simply couldn't be bothered to just wave
at each other across a floor. Sometimes he was too tired and needed to get a head start on the
files on his desk. Sometimes she would be too busy to notice he hadn't come and took advantage
of the opportunity to get out of the office faster. And sometimes still they just needed the time
to themselves, no excuses.

And it certainly wasn't that there weren't occasions when they had a falling out and
didn't want to see each other at all. They may be best friends but that did not mean they
didn't have the intermittent fight.

But today, none of these reasons could apply. In fact, it wasn't really anything serious.
Hermione's desk merely looked as if she'd just stepped out to the loo and would be coming
right back. No sign of a struggle, of a hasty departure or anything out of the ordinary really, but
something just felt different. Since he'd come into the Ministry for the day in fact, something
had felt... different.

Her secretary was still at hers though, and looked up at him with a smile, the overtly
flirtatious one she always reserved for him, and said, “You come around more than her boyfriend....
She'll be back in a minute. Do you want me to get you another coffee?”

Harry shook his head. “I don't really like it, but she's obsessed with the stuff. When
did she step out?”

Her secretary, Kendra, turned back to her desk looking just a little crestfallen, and replied,
“Five... ten minutes ago.... But you know Hermione, if someone approached her in the hall asking
for help she's going to drop everything and try to help them.”

He smiled a little at that, and suddenly Kendra was beaming. Then she looked back at the open
office a moment and began, “You could go in to wait for her... if you like.” He looked up at the
office too, and then she added conspiratorially, “I think she's got something in there for your
godson actually, Teddy... is it?” When Harry nodded, she continued, “It came special delivery from
the Magical Menagerie this afternoon, but the poor dear must be starving and she just....”

Harry did not hear the rest of her statement; instead he hurried into Hermione's office,
abandoned the coffee on a shelf near the door and went round to her desk. In the centre of it was a
plain old cardboard box and in the box was a small black shaggy puppy. It was so small he could
hold its entire body in one hand, but he could imagine it about half the size of a man, growling
menacingly at any who dared to hurt him, chasing after his train as he went back to school....

He nearly knocked the box over when Kendra said from the doorway, “She called him `Padfoot',
what a funny little name, eh? But I guess if you're called `Hermione' and you haven't
changed it yet you must have a thing for funny names.”

Harry just smiled at her, without looking up. His eyes did not want to leave the box and its
precious cargo within, as if he feared that should he the little dog would vanish under the flap
forever....

“Of course, if that's an Irish wolfhound it wouldn't be long before its towering over
its young master, isn't Teddy five... or six...?” asked Kendra.

Harry nodded, then cleared his throat and replied, “Yes, four, actually, and just this morning
when I was woken for breakfast he read me back to sleep from his favourite book. He's going to
be really smart.” Kendra smiled now, and Harry continued, “But I wouldn't be too worried about
Padfoot here, if he's anything like his namesake he's going to be really gentle.”

Kendra made to say something to this, but then a departmental missive came zooming through the
doorway and into her hand. She opened it, read it quickly and then apologising, walked back to her
desk, leaving Harry to the puppy. And no sooner than had she gone than did he reach into the box
and lift the sleeping puppy out. It barely stirred, but he could feel its beating heart and
breathing like tremors through its hot, fragile little body.

He had to wonder what made Hermione get Teddy such a pet; Crookshanks certainly wouldn't be
pleased to see it. He wondered what possessed her to call it Padfoot; didn't she know how much
even thinking about Sirius sometimes hurt?

He replaced it in the box and sat on her chair without thinking about it. The puppy still did
not stir, and Harry sat drumming his knuckles softly on the hardwood desk, looking about the
office. Its colour was inconsequential and bland, and the fact that Hermione kept it immaculate and
devoid of any personal mementos made him wonder how she could stand it day after day. Well it was
not entirely devoid. He reached across the desk and took up a picture frame, a magical photograph
of him, Hermione and Ron before the war. It was long before it in fact, back in their First Year at
Hogwarts, when they were all innocent.

Ron would have laughed at that. He remembered snorting himself at Fred and George calling
themselves innocent in his Third Year when they presented him with the Marauder's Map. The
Marauder's Map made him think of Sirius and Remus and he promptly replaced the picture and
removed the box from the table. When he looked up again then, it was to see that Hermione had
returned.

Leant against the doorframe, with a file in one hand and the other on her hip, she asked, “What
are you doing at my desk?”

He smiled and put his feet up on it at once, “Waiting for you. Where have you been?”

She quirked an eyebrow, and then replied, “I had something to do; I have a job you know.”

“Your coffee's probably cold,” he said and nodded to the cup on the shelf.

At once Hermione rolled her eyes, “I'm a witch, no problem.”

Harry took his feet from the table and stood up, “But it's not freshly-brewed hot, and I
believe that changes the flavour.”

Hermione took the cup from the shelf and left the doorway to come to her desk. “You don't
drink coffee, how do you know the flavour's changed?”

“Some things just don't taste right when magic's used on them,” he replied simply and
walked around the other side of the desk to allow her the chair. Before she could sit though, he
asked, “Why'd you get Teddy a black dog?”

Hermione's eyebrow arched again, “You've got something against black dogs?”

“No,” said Harry. “I only bother when they're named Padfoot. Why?”

She looked at her desk in confusion a moment and then looked down to the box by her feet.
“Harry, I could have stepped in it!”

“You didn't, why'd you call it Padfoot?” he asked, not letting his gaze leave her as she
bent over and lifted the box back up onto the table.

“I hope you don't mind but.... Teddy has you and his grandmother to tell him about them, he
has you to give him everything he wants and needs, and then Ron and Ginny to give him toys and
Quidditch posters... I... I felt left out so I bought him a puppy. And boys like dogs don't
they?” she replied, trying her best to stifle the flush of embarrassment creeping up her face.

Harry wasn't going to let her get away with that. “You're jealous of the rest of
us?”

She snapped her gaze back up to him with a glare, “I'm not *jealous*. Teddy's your
godson, and we're your friends so we get equal attention from him... I just....”

“You *are* jealous! I don't believe it!” exclaimed Harry, astonished.

Hermione's eyes narrowed further and she said, “Little boys like dogs, I read that once so
I'm just getting him a dog.”

“A dog that will be bigger than him in a few months? A dog that can sleep in his bed, keep him
company when he's lonely and protect him when he's in trouble? A dog that he'll have to
spend a lot of time taking care of? A dog that, every time he looks at it, will simultaneously
remind him of the uncle he never met and the person who gave it to him?” he asked.

Now Hermione folded her arms and looked away from him, determinedly staring at the box. Harry
just continued to stare at her, quite smug, and then after a moment she said, “Don't you have
work to do?”

This drew his eyes to the clock on the wall. By rights he should have been at his cubicle
checking the cases he still had to follow up and looking out for any new ones fifteen minutes ago.
But he wasn't going to let her get away with it that easily. He turned back to her and said,
“Hermione, look at me.”

After a minute she relented, but not by much, only her eyes shifted to his face. He began,
“Hermione... he's four, you always give him great gifts, and the stuff Ron and Ginny and me
sometimes bring is usually broken by the end of the week.... Actually, I should be jealous because
though I don't really bring him anything better and he's too young for half of the stories
I want to tell him about his parents and Sirius. You always have something he likes. Merlin,
Hermione, you even got him a story book about Metamorphmagi, when his grandmother, who already
raised one by the way, had trouble explaining why Victoire doesn't change like he does. You
don't have to compete with us, you're already the best.”

At this Hermione seemed to relax slightly, but then she replied, “Actually... I'm kind of
jealous of Teddy really....”

Harry's eyebrows vanished into his fringe. “What?”

“He gets your undivided attention,” she replied.

His eyes widened further, and he asked, “And what am I doing now? What do I do every day when I
come here to see you? Or when you owl me for help? Or when you just want to talk? Am I not giving
you my undivided attention?”

She had the grace to blush, and then said, “I'm being silly, I know. But I think I'm
getting nostalgic about school... I miss when it was just you, me and Ron.” She reddened markedly
further, and hastily added, “I mean, I wish... I miss....”

Harry did not offer to help; he just took his usual seat before her desk until she dug herself
out of the hole she'd created. Eventually she said, “What am I, crazy? I don't miss school
where the year couldn't end without us facing near death. I think I'm bored with my job
really... I couldn't be an Auror, no way, but I miss when we had something to do beyond
this.... I feel so frustrated with my job sometimes. It'll be years before I can do more and
Kingsley's gone a long way to help, but I'm not just fighting old rules and laws, I'm
fighting a mentality, ideologies and traditions that have been around for centuries. It'll be
years before anything really different happens at this rate. My great-grandchildren may still be
fighting for wizards to recognise that it is their prejudices that have caused so many problems and
wars.”

Harry left his seat and went round to her chair, got down on his knees and took her hands into
his before replying, “A lot has already changed, and you of all people should understand that it
will take a while. We're not going to be standing at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in
fifteen years sending our children off to school with everything sunshine and roses among wizards.
We may certainly be changing the way those children interact with one another now, but it may take
another generation or two before the problems that made us enemies with their parents are properly
rooted out. It seems... so far away, but change does not come overnight, and certainly not of this
kind.”

Hermione looked down at him with an expression of mild surprise. Then she asked, “Have you been
wearing Ravenclaw's diadem while you sleep?”

“I may not be the smartest wizard in the world, but I like to think that I know a thing or two,”
he replied, with a mock-glare. Her embarrassment was genuine. Then, with a softening expression, he
added, “At least I hope so; I don't want Teddy to suffer through school. I don't want him
to suffer like his Dad did. Professor Lupin might have been a good man who had a sense of humour
about everything, but he was still damaged in the end. He still suffered, he was still afraid of
what would happen to his son and Tonks, wanted to run away from them to protect them from himself,
and he shouldn't have had to. The only reason he should have left them was because he was more
useful to them in battle than at home, and not because he didn't want to be like a stain on
their lives. I regret some of what I said to him, but I don't regret my making him stay... do
you remember his face when he told us Teddy was born?”

Hermione's eyes were shining with unshed tears now; her voice was barely above a whisper
when she replied, “Yes.”

“I can't remember him ever being happier, not even all the time he was with Sirius.... Damn,
he should be here with Teddy now. I mean the way he died has done wonders for werewolves, but if he
could speak for himself about them... tell the truth and not Scamander's bile...” he trailed
off as Hermione slipped one of her hands out of his grasp and put it over his.

When he looked at her puzzled, she said, “I think he doesn't mind as much, considering the
person speaking for him now... considering the person taking care of Teddy now. You're the best
substitute he could have asked for, and one day you'll be as great for your own children.”

At this Harry snorted, “My own children? I'm an immature pillock who's more concerned
about snogging pretty birds and going to the pub on the weekends. I might have earned the moniker
`The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Defeat-The-Dark-Prat', but that's about it for responsibility and
maturity. Hell, when you think about it, I was more or less a tool; Severus Snape was the one who
deserves credit for getting Moldieshort's arse kicked. And Narcissa Malfoy, because if she
wasn't so concerned about her Ickle Drakeykins that story would have ended much
differently.”

Hermione pulled her hands from his and said coldly, “I don't like when you joke about things
like that.”

“It's true,” said Harry, plainly. “I've been extraordinarily lucky, from having you and
Ron to help me from day one to the wonderful *deus ex machina* that saved my skin every time
it came to facing Riddle. Children, unfortunately, are not raised by luck though, so I am eternally
grateful to have Mrs Tonks and you undo all the damage I do to Teddy whenever I'm with
him.”

She stifled a laugh now and playfully swatted his arm, then stopped staring at him a while
before releasing a slow, deep breath. Harry quirked a brow, “What...?”

She shook her head, and said, “Sometimes I think Ginny doesn't deserve you.”

Then her expression changed rapidly. Her eyes widened in shock, her jaw dropped and her hands
clapped over her mouth as her expression became horrified behind them. Harry looked at her in shock
too, and then asked, “Hermione...?”

She pushed her chair back, to escape his clutches, but he went with her. Grasping her hands to
stop himself from falling flat on his face, he repeated, “Hermione...?”

Now she spoke, and surprisingly her voice came out like a plea, “I'm so sorry, I don't
know what made me say that. I'm clearly tired, I should go home and get some sleep, I'm not
thinking straight....”

She stood, probably to begin packing up her papers, but he rose with her and asked, “Why did you
say that?”

She stopped and looked at him at once mortified and puzzled, but then replied with a groan,
“Because I'm an awful person.”

Harry rebuked her lightly, “No, you're not, just a jealous one....” When she looked up at
him sharply he continued, “Which is weird, considering you and Ron... or did I miss something?”

Hermione closed her eyes, “That's why I'm an awful person; things are fine between me
and Ron.”

“They're not if you're saying stuff like that,” said Harry.

“Would you accept that I'm a coward and a flake?” she asked.

Harry smiled, “I'd sooner believe that you don't like the idea of another woman being my
centre of attention. Well I'm here to tell you, Hermione Granger, that you will always be first
in my mind. Always.”

“How is that going to work?” asked Hermione, turning back to her papers but peering at him from
the corner of her gaze.

“There is no question,” said Harry, quietly. “You're my first in everything, hands down, and
no one, not even... Ginny, is ever going to change that.”

She could not stifle the broad grin that broke out on her face, not even if she wanted to. Harry
found himself grinning back, looking at her, and then was assaulted by a wild desire to lean over
and kiss it off her face. But as soon as it came to him, someone peered in the door and said,
“Potter! I've been looking all over for you—don't know why I didn't come here
first—anyway, we've got a sighting on that Death Eater you mentioned in the last meeting,
it's him all right.”

They both looked up at the man in the door, but he was already turning to go, and Harry at once
made to follow. But when he stood at the door he turned back and repeated, in a singsong voice,
“Always....”

She laughed, “If you're trying to make me feel better, you're only succeeding to
annoy.”

He shrugged. “Don't forget to feed the puppy by the way, you better not be responsible for
traumatising my godson.”

Her laugh disappeared to be replaced by a scowl, “Why you... you git!”

He did not reply to this but instead continued walking out of her office. If she only knew, it
was more as if he were trying to convince himself that he hadn't just thought to kiss her....
Because that would be silly right? She could read him like a book, knew him better than he knew
himself and he had practically just sworn to her three times that she would always come first in
his life, so obviously he was crazy for thinking about kissing her. That wasn't someone you
kissed... right...?

*Fin*

**A/N:** *And I'll leave it at that, naughtily. So, what do you think?*

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