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It’s a busy Tuesday morning when the silver otter bursts into his third year Defense class, drifting above the students’ heads before bounding on and around his desk—always three bounces, as if it’s simply too excited to stand still.
He stops in the middle of his sentence on hinkypunks and looks at it with a mixture of curiosity and dread.
“Harry!” Hermione’s voice floats out and echoes through the chamber, breathless and eager as always. “You’ll find out soon enough because I suspect Kingsley’s going to write to you by tomorrow, but I wanted to be the first to tell you! Meet me at the Three Broomsticks at half-seven later—our usual table? I have exciting news. I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
The otter squeaks as it bounces once, twice, then a third time, before it vanishes with a pop.
He blinks. Then he looks up and meets a roomful of wide-eyed, curious stares.
“Erm,” he mutters, scratching the back of his neck. He cringes when he wonders how many of them registered ‘our usual table’ before he hears the end of it. “Sorry about that.”
“Was that…” one of his students looks at him awe-struck, her voice reverent, “Hermione Granger? War heroine, Hermione Granger?”
Her friend corrects her, looking just as astonished. “You mean, Head of the Department of Magical Reform, Hermione Granger!”
The small boy sitting behind them frowns. “You mean, the Brightest Witch of her Age, Hermione Granger!”
Murmurs break all over the room, and a corner of Harry’s mouth twitches as he raises his hands to calm the sudden pandemonium. He hears whispers of “Three Broomsticks” and “usual table” that make him wince, and he knows he needs to do immediate damage control before it escalates.
“I apologize for her unexpected Patronus interrupting our very invigorating lesson,” he says, smirking a little as he imagines the flush that’ll creep up Hermione’s neck when he tells her about the kids’ fawning later, “but yes, that was my friend Hermione. And now, if we can go back to—”
“Is she just your friend though, really?” A different girl raises her eyebrow from her seat near the back of the classroom. “Professor Potter,” she tacks on hastily, to slight titters from nearby classmates.
He tries his very best to keep from laughing, despite the flush he feels creeping up his neck. “I don’t think gossip’s relevant to our lesson today, Miss Wilson,” he says good-naturedly—though he realizes he should’ve just said yes to her question when his non-answer spurns even more curious murmuring. He stifles a sigh then turns back to the blackboard, raising his voice so he’s heard clearly over the din. “Now, back to hinkypunks…I know it sounds boring now, but stick with me, it’s quite an interesting lesson, really…”
He spends the rest of the class fielding stray questions about Hermione, wondering what she could possibly need on a random weekday that would require a bit of urgency, and trying not to think of what else his students might be saying about them as he fights to keep the flush of his skin under control.
::
The Three Broomsticks is subdued for a weeknight.
He waves at Madam Rosmerta, who grins cheekily and raises a half-full glass of butterbeer at him, just as the door shuts behind him. Removing his scarf from his neck—a worn green one with gold snitches embroidered all over it that Hermione knitted for him ages ago—he takes a quick scan of the crowd and finds Hermione sitting in their booth towards the back of the room, scribbling furiously at a thick wad of parchment. He notes she’s using a pen—one of the Muggle things she introduced to her office at the Ministry—with a certain fondness.
As if sensing his presence, she looks up and catches his eye.
The room suddenly feels enveloped with warmth when her face breaks into a smile, like she’s so happy to see him—and it’s odd, the way that smile fills the inside of his chest, too.
Actually, he’s been slowly coming into the realization that it’s been happening a lot lately, but he’s not going to wade into dangerous territory and think much about that today.
Or ever.
Because her smile gets impossibly bigger as he gets closer, and she meets him halfway to throw her arms around his neck in that intense Hermione way of hers, and yep—definitely dangerous territory.
::
He blinks up at her over his second glass of butterbeer. “A transition program?”
“Yes,” Hermione says, already on her third glass. She takes a swig then licks daintily at the foam on her upper lip, and Harry absolutely does not follow her tongue with his eyes. “It’s phase two of my Muggleborn Integration and Protection Bill.”
He nods. She’s been working on that for the past two years now, and according to the last letter she sent him just last week, it’s nearing presentation to the Wizengamot in a few months. “That’s wonderful, Hermione. I know how hard you’ve been working on this.”
He thinks the flush on her cheeks looks pretty in the dim firelight of the pub, but he files that thought away. “Thank you, Harry. I can’t believe it’s all finally coming together.” She brushes her hair impatiently over her shoulder as she leans forward in that way she gets when she’s excited and about to launch into a massive knowledge-sharing monologue. “It’s one of the cornerstones of the bill. The Muggleborn Integration Program’s meant to help ease them into the wizarding world, instead of just having someone from the school come over to their houses on their eleventh birthday to tell them, ‘hey, you’re a wizard!’”
“That’s what happened to me,” he nods, solemnly, remembering Hagrid’s pink umbrella and Dudley’s horrifically awesome pig’s tail.
She smirks. “Exactly! So this program—Muggleborn ten-year-olds and their families will be given the opportunity to attend a few orientation seminars and integration classes before their first year, so they can be fully up to speed about the wizarding world before they start at Hogwarts.”
Harry watches the glint in her eye with a fond smile. “That sounds amazing, Hermione,” he says, soft and earnest. “Honestly, I wish we had that when we were kids—both of us. I know you had McGonagall. I got Hagrid, and he was great, of course, but while I'm not Muggleborn, I knew next to nothing when I started. Barely even knew how…famous…I was, then.”
She grins. “Except you’re still famous now, Mr. Potter, and you still underestimate how much.”
He rolls his eyes, kicking her gently under the table.
“But seriously,” he says. “That sounds good. When are you planning to get it implemented?”
“Next term or the one after that is the ideal,” she answers, “if we get enough time to finalize everything by then. And that’s where you come in, actually.”
“I was wondering when you were going to get to it.” He gestures at her practically full plate, most of its contents untouched in her eagerness to chat. “Maybe take a bite of your food first before you go on.”
She waves her hand dismissively, then leans even further across the table. Her eyes are bright and happy and very brown, and he startles when he notes the specks of green in them and the way his heart jumps at the realization. “I’ve been talking to McGonagall and Kingsley about it over the past couple of weeks, which is why I’ve been so busy and haven’t been able to write much…but I’ll be doing a residency at Hogwarts for the next couple of months!”
“Oh!” Now Harry understands why she was so excited to tell him about it. “You mean you’ll be staying at the castle full time?”
“Yes!” Hermione beams. “I’ll still be popping in at the Ministry and my flat, of course, but McGonagall says I’ll have my own quarters and everything, in the teachers’ wing. We’ve discussed it with Kingsley, and we feel it’s best for me to be there so I can be hands-on—talk to the kids firsthand, collect feedback, meet with the professors, that kind of thing.”
He nods his head. “Especially because so many kids came after the war.”
“Exactly.” She tucks a curl behind her ear, more serious now. “I need this to work, Harry. And that means I need to be there fully.”
He smiles. “That makes a lot of sense.”
She beams, triggering a flutter in his stomach. “Plus, we’ll be living together again—well, sort of. And only for a bit, ‘til the pilot’s done, but still! Isn’t this exciting?”
She’s still grinning prettily up at him, her eyes bright and excited, and yes, it is quite exciting, because since he started at Hogwarts and she started climbing up the ranks at the Ministry, they’ve been busy living separate lives. They still see each other often, during Sunday brunches at the Burrow or the occasional dinner and drinks with Ron, the quick Floo calls and the regular letters—but it’s not quite the same as seeing her everyday, isn’t it?
If he’s honest with himself, he’s gotten so used to her presence since they’ve been on the run together, that the difference after the war—spending nights alone at Grimmauld trapped in nightmares that leave him panting and clawing for someone who wasn’t there anymore—has been jarring and disorienting.
Even upsetting, sometimes: the way he’d turn his head in his bed and expect to see a cloud of her wild curls. Or when he’d come down to breakfast and stare at the empty seat across from him at the kitchen table. Or when he’d spend time in his study at Hogwarts and could imagine the quick scratch of her quill and her frantic muttering in the background.
The prospect of spending so much time with Hermione again, in the same space, after so long, should feel exciting. And it does. He is.
But his hands are clammy and his chest feels tight in a very confusing way he refuses to acknowledge, and just—
He feels things now that he shouldn’t. That he absolutely shouldn’t because she’s his best friend and also his other best friend’s ex-girlfriend, and it’s just—the idea of seeing that smile every day again is—
He lets out a breath.
“Very exciting,” he says, hoping his voice sounds casual and not at all like he wants to run for the hills when her grin widens and she nudges his foot playfully under the table.
—terrifying.
::
Hermione Granger—war heroine, Head of the Department of Magical Reform, and her most-hated “Brightest Witch of her Age” moniker that tabloids and mass audiences still refer to her as—arrives at Hogwarts in a flurry of excitement and hushed reverence that Harry would find funny if he wasn’t so damn nervous.
It’s irrational, he knows. This is Hermione. His best friend Hermione. The same curly-haired girl he met on the train when they were eleven. The same girl whom he spent nearly a year with, living in a sad old tent. The same girl who bossed him around over homework, nagged him about his spell-o-taped glasses to this day, while also saving his life so many times he’s lost count.
The same know-it-all swot who is as brave and bossy as she is gentle and clever, has grown into this…confident young woman who’s currently walking down the halls of Hogwarts, talking a mile a minute to McGonagall and looking flustered at the attention she’s getting from students who stop and stare.
She’s changed a lot, but also hasn’t in many ways. Her clothes are more mature and sophisticated, but her fingers still fidget at the ends of her sleeves. Her hair is still wild, but it’s more tameable now, tucked neatly into a loose bun that highlights the slope of her neck. And maybe she thinks no one notices, but she’s carefully looking around the entrance hall as she talks, like it might still hold ghosts—and he hates how knows exactly how that feels.
Her smile is still the same, though.
“You’re sweating,” Neville—Professor Longbottom now—comments from beside him.
“What?” His neck turn is sharp and a little too defensive. “Well, I mean. It’s warm.”
“In the middle of September, sure,” Neville replies with a snicker, as Harry flushes.
“Shut up.”
“Something you want to tell me, Harry?” Neville says, still looking very amused for his own good. “I think I’ve clearly missed something. I mean…if what the kids have been whispering in class about is true, then…”
Harry sighs and adjusts the same knitted scarf around his neck with a nervous twitch. “Didn’t take you for someone attuned to school gossip, Nev.”
“No, not really,” Neville agrees. “But I am attuned to my friends, and you, my friend, look to be someone in deep—”
“Don’t say it,” he grumbles through gritted teeth as Hermione and McGonagall get closer.
Hermione’s grin is wide and happy. “Harry!”
Before he knows it, his arms are full with a slender waist and a familiar scent that warms his insides even more.
Which is insane, because he just saw her last Sunday at the Burrow.
He is quite aware of the stares and the wide eyes surrounding them after she pulls away, but his eyes are just on her.
“Welcome back,” he says with a grin of his own. He adds cheekily, “Miss Granger.”
She rolls her eyes, then goes to hug Neville as McGonagall turns to him.
“Please do join us in my office this afternoon at three, Professor Potter,” she says, a glint in her eye. “Miss Granger has some plans you might be interested in joining.”
“Oh,” he blinks, like an idiot. “Me?”
“Indeed.” The glint in her eye, if possible, gets even brighter, and he clears his throat and raises an eyebrow at his best friend.
“I want you to be my Hogwarts co-lead, Harry!” Hermione chirps, taking his wrist excitedly. “It just came to me the past week while I was drafting the curriculum pilot. I need your teaching expertise, and I wanted to tell you in person.”
“She requested you specifically,” McGonagall adds pointedly. “It would be ideal to get your support for this program, as we are also anticipating backlash from…” her mouth purses, “the general wizarding population.”
Harry watches Hermione’s mouth set to a grim line. He knows she’s faced plenty of problems and opposition in the past—powerful Pureblood circles and Ministry officials with outdated beliefs—and is viewed as a bit of a radical influencing the Ministry.
There is no hesitation.
“Of course I’ll help,” he says quietly. “Anything you need me for.” Hermione squeezes his arm, a grateful expression in her eyes. “I’ll be there at three later, Headmistress.”
“Excellent,” McGonagall says, looking satisfied.
“Headmistress McGonagall is just going to show me my quarters, but I’d love to catch up with you both…maybe get a little tour of the castle before the meeting?” Hermione says, eyes wide and annoyingly persuasive.
“I would love to join,” Neville says, but because he’s grown into an adult menace, apparently, he adds, “but I’m afraid my afternoon’s full with lessons with fifth and sixth years; we’re covering snargaluffs and mandrakes today, exciting stuff. But I’ll see you at dinner later, Hermione. I’m sure Harry wouldn’t mind having you all to himself today.”
Harry’s jaw tightens as he commands his face not to react as Hermione turns those eyes on him.
“I’ll be over at the east wing for a bit to get settled,” she says, “but I can meet you by the lake in an hour, same spot, if you’re not busy?”
“I’m free,” he mumbles, like he hasn’t switched schedules with Professor Vector just to make sure he can be here for Hermione’s first day. He feels Neville’s amusement radiating off him, prickling at his neck.
“Great!” She squeezes his arm, then turns back to an equally amused McGonagall. “Shall we go ahead, Headmistress?”
Harry and Neville watch them disappear down the hall, very much aware of many pairs of eyes who have seen—and maybe even heard—the entire exchange.
There’s a brief pause.
“I was going to say earlier that you’re in deep denial,” Neville starts, “but now I think you’re just in deep shit.”
Harry reddens and groans. “Merlin, I said shut up.”
Neville only laughs. “I will. But not because you told me to.”
He claps him on the shoulder once, firm and knowing, before heading back toward the greenhouses.
Harry adjusts the scarf around his neck before realizing he’s still standing stupidly in the middle of the corridor. He starts moving in the opposite direction, suddenly feeling like he needs air.
::
The thing is, Harry’s not exactly sure when it started—or even how.
One moment, she’s Hermione.
Then the next, she’s Hermione.
And yes, there’s a difference.
Because this time, her smile stays with him. This time, his heart starts pounding when she catches his fingers in hers. This time, the few moments he gets to see her feel like a breath of relief, like a gentle pull at the weight he’s been carrying around since the war.
This time, he remembers the tent in a different kind of detail. He still remembers the hunger, and the hopelessness, and the cold. But he also remembers a song crooning through the radio as they spin each other around under the canvas, her surprised laughter a soothing balm. The scratch of her quill as she takes endless notes. The soft pattering of snow as they huddle under the covers, trying to share warmth.
He remembers the slide of her hand across his chest, fisting over his heart, as she wrinkles her nose in sleep, and he burrows his nose in her hair. Remembers waking up with a kind of comfort he hadn’t thought was possible inside that tent.
He remembers her scent, clinging to his bedsheets, long after morning’s come and gone, until night falls and it’s time to share space again under the pretense of warmth.
She still wears the same perfume now, sometimes. The green scarf he wears somehow manages to retain the scent too, but he’s not sure if that’s just wishful thinking.
It’s always been comforting.
But he doesn’t remember it hitting him like this.
::
He watches her out of the corner of his eye as she looks out at the Black Lake and takes a breath—and for a minute, it’s like the world stills as she holds it in, too.
They’ve been walking and talking for about an hour now, having made their way from the lake to the Quidditch pitch and back. They’ve finally paused for a bit under the big oak tree they used to study under with Ron on lazy afternoons.
She’s been talking a lot throughout the walk; she’s already told him about her initial plans for the curriculum, the current talks at the Wizengamot, the grumpy Pureblood at the Ministry who keeps challenging her bill. Now she’s fallen silent, but he can tell there’s something there—like she’s bracing herself for something.
Like a ghost.
Or maybe…a memory.
“You okay?” he asks finally, a bit sorry to break her reflective peace.
“Yeah,” she says softly, not glancing at him still. “It’s just been…odd, being back. I wasn’t sure how to feel about today. Coming up the front gates felt weird, because the last time I passed through them before term, I was sixteen and arguing with Ron because you were missing from the platform.”
His mouth twitches. “I was a bit preoccupied with Malfoy kicking me in the face.”
“As you do.” She glances at him, her smile small, but there. “The castle halls were a different beast altogether. I don’t know, it was just…there are all these…wonderful memories I have, of running off to class, getting breakfast in the Great Hall, studying in my little corner in the library, or even reading out here, under this same tree…” Her hand reaches out to touch the old bark, his eyes tracking her movement. “The last time we studied here, I remember Ron fell asleep and drooled all over my essay for Professor Slughorn.”
He laughs, “Pretty solid resulting blow-up from that one.”
“The essay was due that afternoon and I had to siphon off his drool and fix the ink smudges, Harry,” she complains, grinning. “And you were there with Ginny too, remember?”
He clears his throat. “I remember.”
“Kind of crazy the way things are so different now, don’t you think? You here, me at the Ministry. Ginny off with the Harpies. Ron flourishing at the joke shop. We used to be such kids.”
When he looks back on it, sixth year feels like a completely different time. Teenage relationships, potions, the Prince’s book, Dumbledore, Draco, the Horcruxes. So much childish normalcy, but they were fighting to shine through the heavier bits. If he really thinks about it, that had probably been their last shred of peace before it had all started to unravel.
They’re all completely different people now. Even the castle feels different, sometimes.
“You still talking to Ron a lot?” comes out of his mouth before he can stop himself, and he hopes she doesn’t notice his wince.
“‘Bout the same as you, I suppose. We’re all pretty busy.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“I miss him, though. I don’t miss our relationship, but I do miss him.” She’s picking at the tree bark, eyes flicking upwards. “And you.”
“Yeah, we’ve been…” He huffs out a breath. “I miss you, too.”
Her mouth tugs upwards, her foot nudging his almost shyly. She probably doesn’t mean it the same way he does, but he means it all the same.
They fall silent. The Giant Squid surfaces in the distance, and he watches it drift lazily in the water for a minute. Remembers a time when sitting out here, in peace by the lake, was something they used to do together just because they could.
Her fingers are tracing a knot in the bark when she says, “I miss this tree.” She sighs. “I miss when things used to be easy. I have so many good memories of Hogwarts. But coming back here…what I’m reminded of more is the war. Seeing you, seeing that old scarf…it helps remind me of the good things.”
His heart jumps.
“Hogwarts has changed so much,” she says quietly. “Not on a physical level. The magic here…it’s lighter again. But also like…”
“Like it’s grieving.”
Her eyes are glistening. “Yes. Still.”
He nods, his fingers reaching out despite himself to cover the ends of hers still resting on the tree trunk. “I think it’s always going to be there now,” he says, his voice soft, “that magic. That feeling. Like the castle’s reminding itself and everyone that walks through it about everything that happened here. About everything we all fought for.”
His hand reaches out further. She meets him halfway, slotting her fingers through his in such a gentle way that makes his heart ache. “I think it’s more bittersweet,” she says, “and a tad bit hopeful, even though it’s sad. Like there are all these horrors, but…there’s also all this light shining through.”
The wind shifts, and he looks at her, at their entwined fingers, and he thinks of how her voice and her words have always steadied him when it felt like everything else was breaking.
“That’s beautiful,” he tells her. “I hadn’t thought of it that way before. I’ve been feeling the grief the castle’s been carrying a lot, to be honest. Since I first came here, and that was…Merlin, nearly five years ago.” Something bigger lodges itself inside his throat, like an unspoken truth kept secret, and is finally ready to be heard. “But then I see all the kids…my students. Especially the younger ones, the ones who weren’t here during the battle. And they help me remember the good things, despite everything. And that helps. I think the castle feeds on that, too—all those memories and the things that make life beautiful and worth living.”
Her smile is trembling when she clutches his hand tighter. She’s warm. Always steady. Her other hand straightens the scarf around his neck, fingers lingering on his skin. He tries to remind himself to breathe.
She whispers, “So let’s give it more good things to remember.”
::
He and Hermione easily fall back into old rhythms, like no time has passed, and he thinks the next few weeks feel like a warm embrace.
She researches in the library, gaining friends and starting discussions with interested older students—especially the Ravenclaws who listen and debate with awe. They eat meals together with Neville, mostly at the faculty table, sometimes with the Gryffindors when his students pull at his arm and insist they join them. He spoons food onto her plate, she pours him coffee with three sugars without asking, then hands him the leftover treacle tarts, smiling when his face brightens up. Neville looks at them like he already knows something they don’t.
They spend his free afternoons and most evenings in her study—the private one attached to her living quarters that McGonagall declared as their working space for the project. Sometimes he finds his gaze lingering at her profile in the firelight, almost in disbelief that she’s here with him, back in the castle. Realizes he’s missed this version of her—the one that talks with her hands, mutters to herself under her breath, and gets too deep, too caught up in everything.
Sometimes he catches her looking too, a thoughtful expression on her face. She doesn’t blush when he meets her eyes—he does, embarrassingly—but Hermione just smiles, like she’s holding back a secret. Her ankle brushes against his, but her head is down, back to her parchment, and he can’t help but think that the touch feels deliberate, even careful, somehow.
It makes his pulse thrum wildly, but makes the warmth settle deeper inside his chest, too.
Hogwarts is less cold these days—like the warmth is burrowing itself into the spaces between grief. Co-existing.
Like the castle is remembering more good things, and it—
It just feels nice.
::
After the war, he’d chosen not to pursue an Auror career. He’s had enough war to last him a lifetime, and after everything—after everything and everyone they’ve lost—he’d just wanted a little peace. And normalcy. And calm.
It was Hermione who had brought up the idea of coming back to Hogwarts. Who had told him he was a great teacher with the D.A. That he always had this smile on his face, whenever one of them finally got a tricky spell right—like pride was just radiating off of him. Like he was in his element. Like he’d found a place for himself. Maybe he had.
He’d blushed at that one.
But he’d looked at McGonagall’s letter, the one that had arrived at Grimmauld’s kitchen window two months after the war.
By the next month, he’d started a year of apprenticeship and training, and then four years later, here he was.
“You’re really good with them,” Hermione tells him now, after watching him talk gently to a shy first year who had been tugging at his robe, hesitant to ask a homework question after class. The student, little Olivia, had beamed up at him after, then had practically skipped down the hall in glee.
“Stalking me now?” He smiles, walking up to where she’s leaning against the wall, studying him.
He can’t read her expression exactly, but her eyes are soft. “They love you.”
He’d told Hermione on her first day back, that the kids help make the halls of the castle a little brighter every day.
He doesn’t know how to tell her that she shines light in the corners that are a little colder, a little harder to reach. That every time she’s here, with him, the warmth radiates.
“I think I found a place for myself,” he says instead, echoing her old words from five years ago. “Thanks to you.”
She shakes her head. “That’s all you, Harry Potter.” Then she smiles. “It suits you.”
::
October rolls steadily along. Curriculum planning is consistent and productive, and he finds himself looking forward to more evenings in her study, cramped over tables and arguing over structuring and filing. Her notes are spread all over the shared desk, stacks of parchment with annotations in the margins. She color-codes their files, corrects his grammar in the lesson outlines, and laughs when he teases her about her over-analyzing and over-organization.
It’s familiar. It’s them. It works.
::
Sometimes, though—arguments are inevitable.
“I still think we should open with wizarding governance,” Hermione mutters during one of their more granular lesson planning sessions, scribbling away at a document.
Harry sighs. The fire is crackling, the desk scattered with drafts, mugs, and a half-eaten treacle tart. They’ve been working for hours, and tensions are a bit high, because they’ve been debating about this for a while. “Hermione.”
“Harry,” she counters, voice even. “If they don’t understand wizarding laws, they’ll never grasp how vulnerable they are in this system.”
Harry leans back, frustrated. “I’m not saying it isn’t important,” he says. “I’m saying we’re going to lose them in the first session if we start with politics and legislation. These are ten-year-olds, Hermione.”
“They’re ten-year-olds about to be dropped into a world where ancient laws on bloodline purity matters,” she responds coolly.
“I know that,” Harry answers quietly. “Believe me, I do. But if we start with laws and history, they’ll only feel like they’re already behind. They need something that will make them want to stay and listen.”
Hermione pauses, mouth set. She’s not angry, he realizes. Just thinking.
“I know you want to give them all the protections,” he says, “and all the tools they need to survive.”
“I do.” Hermione looks down at the parchment in front of her. “And I know you don’t want them to shut us out.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“You think I’m pushing too hard.”
“I think you care so much,” he replies carefully. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. This program exists because you care so much. I’m just saying…let’s give them roots, and something to hold on to, before we try to give them armor.”
The fire pops as she falls silent.
The younger Hermione in their Hogwarts years probably would’ve pushed back. The teenage Harry would’ve let his temper and his pride get the better of him. He knows that. They both have different philosophies sometimes, different approaches. The only difference from then and now, Harry thinks, is that they know how to listen better.
“What if we compromise?” Hermione says after a pause. “We start with something emotional—Diagon Alley orientation, magical identity, wizard-Muggle relations through the years. Then we weave in the governance bits across the next few sessions. Would that work, do you think?”
Harry smiles, nodding. “That sounds good.”
Her face looks like she’s still reflecting. But open, and listening. Like she’s taking a breath, reorienting herself.
“I can help tweak the opening lessons,” he offers. “I’ll look at your initial drafts. I’ll try to find a midpoint where we can still talk about legislation that’s more kid-friendly. You’re right—we can’t completely disregard it. We just need to soften it.” He nudges the treacle tart toward her, a truce. “And eat something. You get feisty when you’re hungry.”
A corner of her mouth tugs upwards. “You’re lucky I love you.”
He clears his throat, ignoring the way his pulse quickens. “I really am.”
She toys with the treacle tart for a second before breaking it in half and offering it to him. “I’m lucky too, you know. That you’re my partner in all of this.”
His smile, and his entire face, is warm. “Cheers, Hermione,” hitting his half of the sweet treat with hers, and he thinks her answering laugh never fails to be a bright spot in his day.
::
Mid-way into lesson plans, he knocks on her door and finds her sitting by the window overlooking the Black Lake, staring off into the distance.
“Hi,” he says slowly, surprised to see her not working. “I asked Winky for some tea. She remembers how you take it.”
Her smile is small as she accepts the mug he’s charmed to keep warm. “You’re both the best.”
He settles gently into the window seat next to her, their knees bumping together. “You okay?”
It takes her a minute to nod. “Yes, I just…” She rubs at her temples, looking like she’s been at this for hours, and she probably has. “I’ve been having some problems with that lesson on magical ethics. There’s so much to cover and I want to make sure we don’t miss anything, and I got myself stuck into a corner.”
“Where is it?”
She waves half-heartedly at the closed folder on the coffee table, near the fireplace. “Left it there. I needed to take a minute to regroup.”
He nods, squeezes her knee, then makes to stand. “I’ll take a look.”
“No, it’s okay. I can get to it later—”
“Hermione,” he says, voice gentle. “You’re running on fumes.”
Her eyelids lower when he touches her shoulder, hand light. Her breath hitches as it slides to curl around her neck, his thumb dipping to press into her collarbone.
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
“For what? You have nothing to be sorry for.” His thumb draws lazy circles, feeling her pulse, steady under his skin. “Take a minute, drink your tea. You don’t have to get everything done tonight.”
“We’re a bit behind schedule; we need to be able to do initial briefings with the sample group in less than two weeks. I just…”
“That’s right—we’re behind schedule. We.” He waits until her gaze lifts to his again, and he notes the bags under her eyes with concern. “We’re a team, remember? Let me pick up some of the slack. You don’t have to do everything by yourself.”
She sighs, picking at the hem of her oversized orange jumper—one he vaguely recognizes as an old one of Ron’s. “I like knowing what’s going on,” she says. “It makes me feel…more in control, I suppose. Like everything’s more manageable if I’ve got an eye on all of it. Because if this all fails, people will say things—and I don’t want it to fail. The board’s already 50/50 about this all, and I don’t want—”
“I know,” he agrees. “But it can get too much for just one person.”
“You have lesson plans, Harry. And classes. You’re already here practically every night, you already wrote the opening lesson. I don’t want to—”
“Hey, I said yes to being your co-lead on this thing,” Harry cuts in. “I know what I signed up for. I’m your partner.” He smiles. “Let me take care of it. Okay?”
She hesitates. He gently nudges her chin up with his thumb until she sighs again and nods, smiling in a tired sort of way. “Okay.”
He smiles. He lets go of her neck, then tugs playfully at a curl that’s escaped her bun. “Atta girl.”
She flushes and swats his hand away. But she’s smiling.
“I won’t mess up your notes,” he promises. “Probably.”
Her mouth twitches. He takes it as a good sign.
::
They start doing more groundwork through initial student briefings for Muggleborn first and second years. McGonagall’s given them one of the old dueling rooms near Harry’s office, and now Harry and Hermione stand in front of their test batch of eight kids—all blinking up at them, eager, nervous, and full of questions.
One little Gryffindor boy, Ethan, squints at Hermione. “Are you married to Professor Potter?”
Harry’s eyes grow wide as some of the kids start giggling. “Erm.”
Hermione flushes, glancing at him with an equally alarmed look. “Oh,” she says, flustered. “Oh, no, no. Professor Potter and I are just friends.”
He clears his throat, exaggeratedly. Then winces. “Best friends.”
“Oh.” Ethan frowns. “That’s not what my grammy says.”
Whispers break out around the room—an unexpected assault on the funny tingle in his chest. Hermione looks at him helplessly. But there’s redness on her cheeks and a small twitch on her lips, like she’s trying her best not to laugh.
“Alright, settle down.” Harry claps his hands to get the kids’ attention, trying to get back on track.
But he can’t stop smiling.
::
“How did you and your families feel,” Hermione asks the kids later, “when you first found out you were witches and wizards? When you first got your Hogwarts letters?”
They’re all seated on the floor now, in a wonky circle. A “listening circle,” as Hermione had called it—a safe and comfortable space for the kids to talk and open up. Harry sits opposite her, right next to Ethan, who is still throwing them suspicious, almost accusing looks. He observes her quietly as the kids talk, sees the furrow in her brow, the notes she jots down on her nearly-full parchment. He knows she’s already probably filling in the margins with ‘spell glossaries, Floo addresses, Gringotts 101.’ The thought triggers a smile out of him.
“It was my eleventh birthday party,” a tall Hufflepuff boy shares. “My aunt Rebecca got a nasty scare from the Hogwarts owl. Her scream scared it away. Then my dad fainted when he read the letter.”
The kids titter. Harry grins. “Sounds like a memorable party.”
“My mum was super surprised,” another girl wearing the same house robes pipes up. “But I think she was just relieved.”
“Relieved?” Hermione repeats.
“Because I was making stuff float in the air,” the girl says, shyly, “and we couldn’t explain why. I think she was getting scared, even though she never said it. Headmistress McGonagall was very nice to explain it to us. Now she’s not so scared anymore. But still confused with everything that’s happening.”
“Owls still confuse mine,” the tall boy says. “Mum says she never knows how to reply to my letters properly. I wish we could get Muggle post at Hogwarts somehow.”
“I was excited to get all the spellbooks,” a Ravenclaw girl shares. “But they’re all written like we already know this stuff. My dad was a little grumpy because we both didn’t know a lot. And we didn’t have anyone else to ask.”
“We didn’t know what a Floo was,” adds her friend. “Or how to find Platform 9 & ¾!”
Harry nods. “It was the same for me, too. It was a good thing our best mate Ron Weasley’s mum was there to come to the rescue.”
Whispers start breaking out excitedly at the mention of Ron. Hermione rolls her eyes at him good-naturedly, probably already thinking of how Ron would have preened at the attention.
One Gryffindor girl, Sally, raises her hand. “I’m the first witch in my family in ages,” she says, a little shyly. “I think it was my great-great-great grandfather who was a wizard before me. He was a Squib, so he lived like a Muggle, married a Muggle… My dad was surprised when my letter came, and my mum just cried.”
“Why was that?” Hermione asks gently, putting down her quill.
Sally wrings her hands. “She said she was scared for me.”
Her friend, Meilin, puts an arm around her and rests her chin on Sally’s shoulder.
Hermione meets his eyes across the circle.
“That’s why we’re building this,” she tells Sally, gaze still on him. “So it won’t have to be scary anymore. So your parents don’t have to be scared, either. We want to protect you.”
The kids are quiet.
Ethan looks up at him, his eyes bright and glistening. “You’ll protect us, too,” he says, “right, Professor?”
Harry pauses. For a brief second, he sees a flash of himself on the younger boy’s face—Harry may not be a Muggleborn, but he recognizes the same confusion, the same hope. The same desire to belong.
He places a hand on Ethan’s head, fingers brushing across his curls. “I promise, mate,” he says, and he means it.
::
As the students filter out the room, Harry watches Hermione from where they both stay seated on the floor. Her gaze is far away, and he wonders what she’s thinking. If she’s carrying much of the weight from the kids’ stories like he is.
Before he can speak, however, he notices Sally’s friend, Meilin, hanging by the door, one foot still inside the classroom, looking hesitant, like she’s debating something in her mind.
“Meilin,” he calls out, “everything alright?”
The little girl nods, movements frantic.
Hermione frowns. “Are you sure, love?”
“Yes, Miss Hermione, I just...” Meilin takes a deep breath. “I just wanted to say thank you. You’re my hero. My parents are not from here, and back in the Muggle world…sometimes my classmates would say, ‘Oh, you don’t belong here, Meilin. You’re different. Go back to where you’re from.’” Her bottom lip trembles. “Hogwarts is the first place where I thought…maybe I would finally belong. But I’m different here, too.”
Hermione is already standing up. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Meilin falls into her embrace, tears glistening in her eyes. “I have a younger brother, Miss Hermione,” she whispers, her chin resting on Hermione’s stomach as she looks up at her. “His name is Yichen, and he’s eight, and he’s starting to show signs of magic, too. I don’t want him to feel scared here. I want to protect him.”
“Being Muggleborn is different, Meilin,” Hermione says, kneeling so her face is level with the little girl’s. “It’s special. You were given a very special gift—you have magic in your fingertips. You are magic. And that’s what makes you belong here. You have a place here. And so will Yichen. I’m not going to let anything change that. I won’t let this school be a place where you’re scared; I’ll do my best to make you feel safe. I promise you that, okay? Because I want you to see the beauty that maybe your fear might be hiding from you. That Hogwarts, and the wizarding world, can be scary sometimes, but it can also be full of magic and love—and sometimes those things feel like the same thing.”
Meilin looks at her, transfixed.
So does Harry.
“Okay, love?” Hermione says, brushing a thumb under Meilin’s eye to catch a tear.
Meilin nods against her stomach. “Thank you, Miss Hermione.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long while, and Hermione runs her fingers gently through the younger girl’s soft black hair.
She meets Harry’s eyes over Meilin’s head. He doesn’t know when he stood up, but he’s there, hovering at the edges, just within reach.
She’s blinking too many times, her chest rising and falling rapidly. But her breathing evens out when he puts a hand on her back—up and down, up and down, in a slow, steady rhythm.
When she looks at him again, her eyes are glinting with something harder. Something like resolve. Like determination.
His breath catches. He thinks she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
::
By unspoken rule, they find their way back to the lake, sitting at the base of the old oak tree. The cold is more biting now, everything covered in a layer of frost.
Hermione is quiet. She’s pulling at the crunchy frosted grass absentmindedly, fingers twisting the blades before letting them fall. Harry doesn’t say anything, just watches. Just breathes her in. Just lets her have her moment.
After a while, she says softly, “Do you think it’s going to work?”
“What is?”
“This. The bill, the program. The integration plan. Do you think it’s actually going to work?” Her voice is unsteady, like she’s afraid of the answer.
“I think it already is.” Harry nudges her gently. “Meilin said you were her hero, didn’t she?”
Hermione winces at that. Her eyes flick up to his, then away. “I still hate that word.”
There’s a long pause.
“It makes me feel like a fraud,” she says eventually, her voice tired. “After I failed my parents, I just wanted to…maybe get the chance to do more. A way for me to right a wrong somehow, you know? In a way this program is my own penance. That maybe if I could help these kids and their families understand the world they’re about to enter, maybe they wouldn’t feel as lost, or afraid.”
He just nods. His fingers sift through the grass too, picking them up and then letting go, mimicking her movements.
“I don’t want to be a hero,” she continues. “I just want to do something good. I want this to mean something.”
Harry watches her quietly. “It already does.”
She shakes her head, but doesn’t argue.
“I just…I need this project to succeed, Harry.” She pulls harder at a chunk of grass, some loose soil flying. “Not because of politics—Merlin knows how much I hate those hypocrites at the Ministry—but for them, the kids. They’re the reason why I’m doing all of this.”
“You’re doing this because you care,” he says gently. “Because you always have.”
They don’t speak for a minute. Just continues to play with the frosted grass between them. He watches her, brow furrowed, eyes dark, mouth set in a thin line.
“And for what it’s worth,” he adds, putting a hand on hers to still her, “you already are making a difference. Those kids listened to you. They believed you would protect them, that they’re not alone. That they’re more than what the world expects them to be. That’s what you’ve always done for me, too.”
Her eyes are stunned. “Oh.”
“And I promise, we’ll see this project through. All of it.” He smiles, steady and quiet. “I believe in this cause—and you, most of all.”
Her mouth trembles. Her hand goes to his shoulder, and before he knows it, her face is pressed into the crook of his neck, her breath warm against his skin, shaky and uneven.
“When did you start knowing exactly what to say, Harry Potter?” she mumbles, tone almost accusing.
He just laughs, cupping her neck gently. “Mostly guesswork, to be honest.”
She lets out a teary sort of laugh, then shifts just slightly, and he feels the faintest press of her mouth against his jaw. A whisper of a kiss that sets his skin on fire.
Then, softly, “Thank you.”
::
The wind starts to shift in late November, as they’re working on their first big presentation to McGonagall. Almost all the trees now stand bare against grey skies, and light snowfall leaves the grounds covered in a thin layer of white. Holiday decorations are starting to go up around Hogsmeade, and within the castle walls, fires are lit, warming charms are cast, and the magic hums more, as if preparing itself for the Christmas cheer.
For Harry, there’s a sense of stillness that comes with winter, especially after the war—one that feels quiet and almost melancholy, as if emotions are crystallizing, too.
He doesn’t really feel that way the morning he wakes up with a mild hangover, mouth tasting like firewhiskey and regret. He squints against the morning light as he blindly gropes inside his cupboard for some Pepper Up, downing two bottles in quick succession until the fog starts to clear from his mind.
He doesn’t remember how much he had drunk the night before. Just that the firewhiskey had felt good down his throat—and by the time the fourth bottle had rolled around, he’d found that it got easier to fall asleep when thoughts were fuzzy and his mind was suspiciously numb.
His stomach sways and his head throbs in bursts throughout the day, while a lingering memory at the back of his mind threatens to come to the surface. He pushes it back stubbornly, and finds that the more Pepper Ups he drinks, the less effect they have on him—just like what happened with the Dreamless Sleep the night before. Which was why firewhiskey came into the picture in the first place.
By the time he gets to Hermione’s study after his last lesson, he knows he looks like a wreck. The last Pepper Up he’d taken just an hour before has already worn off, and he struggles to keep his head on straight as he grunts out a hello and starts pulling stacks of documents in front of him.
“Everything alright?”
He looks up to find Hermione studying him from across the table, hand still and frown defined.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, dropping his gaze. “Had a rough night, is all.”
They’re silent for a minute, but he feels the weight of her stare, and he knows he should’ve just taken a rain check on today’s planning session, because there’s no way Hermione will let this go now.
“Maybe you should take a break tonight,” she says finally.
He shakes his head, stubborn. “No, no. I managed to get through my classes today—”
“And you look like you’re about to crash,” she interrupts, not unkindly. She puts her quill down carefully, clearing the parchment away. “You’re exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not going to pressure you to talk about what’s wrong, Harry,” she says. “But I’m not going to force you to work when you’re feeling particularly shitty, either.”
He sighs, giving up the pretense. One of his hands closes into a fist on the tabletop as he tries to get his emotions in check.
“Just...” He lets out a deep breath. “Nightmares. The usual.”
It’s nothing new, of course. They both know they still get nightmares, even five years later.
They’ve just gotten better at hiding the effects.
“Is that all?” she asks, and honestly, she knows him too well.
He concedes. “No.”
She nods. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. But I just want you to know I’m here to listen.” Her hand slides across the table, across the scattered parchment, quills, and pens, and touches his closed fist. “It may not have seemed that way the past few years, and I’ll forever be sorry for that. But I hope you know that I’ll always be here every time it gets bad.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just nods, even though his heart physically aches.
They sit like that for a long while, the silence only broken by the wood cracking in the fire.
“Are you still taking Dreamless Sleep?”
Her tone is not accusatory. Just…thoughtful. Even tentative.
He shrugs, leaning back in his chair. His fist opens slowly, fingers unconsciously seeking hers where they still touch his skin. “It doesn’t always work, especially when I start taking it too much. Sometimes…” he pauses. “Sometimes firewhiskey helps. When—when things don’t stay quiet.”
Her fingers dance slowly across his outstretched palm. She doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
He can’t meet her eyes when he says, “Last night, I took a few bottles until I passed out.”
He hesitates, watching their hands.
“There was this kid, yesterday,” he continues. “Slytherin, might be a first year. Haven’t really noticed him before, but he walked by me in the hall—and he had a big camera around his neck, one of those heavy film ones. He had blond hair and big front teeth, and I know that because he smiled at me when he passed me.” Harry stops, takes a breath as Hermione’s hand finally closes more firmly around his. “I…I just stared after him. Maybe for too long, but it just…caught me off-guard. He…he reminded me of…”
His voice trails off, but Hermione is looking at him like she already knows. “Oh, Harry.”
“It’s not just the resemblance,” he continues. “It’s just that…this boy is healthy, and happy, and alive, and I just remembered that Colin Creevey isn’t.”
He closes his eyes, feels his breath stutter loudly in the silence. Vaguely, he registers that Hermione’s other hand has slipped across the table to cover his, too—and that added warmth grounds him a little. Like he’d been looking for it since yesterday.
Like he’d been looking for it all along.
“I wish I could tell you when it gets easier,” Hermione says quietly, her voice trembling. “I don’t know the answer, myself. Probably no one really does. But I think the best we can do…is honor them. And we do that by remembering what they died for. And honoring the love they left us. By loving, and living.”
When he opens his eyes, they’re wet and burning. “It’s not always easy.”
“I know,” she whispers. “Grief can be a…really odd thing. Sometimes it just jumps out at you when you least expect it, even when you thought you’d gotten it out of your system. But it just means you loved them so much. That their love lives in you still. We just…learn to live with it.”
He lets her touch ground him for a moment longer.
“Can I…” he says haltingly. “Can I stay here tonight? Just for a bit?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Stay for as long as you want.”
::
He ends up in her bed, facing her. There’s a respectful space between them that feels like a phantom memory. Her sheets, her room, her hair—they smell like her, like the green scarf he always wears, like the tent and memories he’d like to keep forever.
This kind of proximity is nothing new.
But tonight it feels like it is.
Moonlight streaks in little strips across her skin. Warmth radiates from her body in an almost tantalizing way that makes him want to reach across the small distance—in a way he’s never really allowed himself to think before. His pulse is beating steadily, faster than normal.
It jumps when her hand touches his jaw—tentatively at first, then more firmly—cupping his face and scratching almost lazily at the beard he’s let grow a bit over the years.
“Sleep,” she murmurs. “I can hear you thinking.”
“I’d like to.” Then he says, truthfully, before he fully thinks about what he’s saying, “But you’re a little distracting.”
Her hand stills and—oh, Merlin.
He’s wondering how to disentangle himself from the sheets and maybe throw himself off the tower when he feels her other hand, coming up to rest on his chest to still him.
“Your heart’s beating a little fast,” she whispers.
His breath hitches.
“Do you want a Calming Draught?”
“No,” he says. Then, since he’s already said too much, anyway—and maybe he’s feeling a little sleepy and a lot more reckless now—he continues, “Just you is enough.”
He hears her suck in a breath, too.
Then the hand on his face drops down to his neck, thumb cruising over his pulse.
“Close your eyes, Harry,” is all she says. “I promise to be here when you wake up.”
He just listens and follows her lead.
He doesn’t dream, but she keeps her promise in the morning.
::
He’s just arrived in Hermione’s study, winded from the day’s classes, when he first sees it: the day’s issue of the Daily Prophet, tucked somewhere by the edge of the desk.
“Potter and Granger: Secret engagement incoming?”
A photo of him and Hermione in Hogsmeade, right in front of the town’s only jeweller shop, is splashed on the front page. He’s sure that that photo had been taken last week, when they’d made a quick quill and parchment run to the village.
This explains why whispers and stares had been following him around all day. Well, more than usual, anyway.
“Another one?” he comments dryly as he drops into his usual seat.
Hermione snorts, silently pushing a ready-made cup of tea, kept hot with a warming charm, in his direction. “At least our Muggleborn program’s getting a bit of promotion on the side?”
“As a by-the-way, but silver linings, I guess.”
He sips the tea gratefully as he gives a quick glance down at the photo on the paper: it’s him and Hermione, laden with shopping bags, mid-conversation. Her head’s tipped back as she laughs; but he’s just grinning, watching her, eyes glinting like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
He swallows, suddenly uncomfortable.
He looks happy.
He’s looking at her like…like she’s the one bright spot in his day. And she is, which makes everything a lot more terrifying because he feels so seen.
“At least they’re getting creative…sort of,” he says, clearing his throat and shoving the paper away. “We didn’t even go inside the jeweller’s and they’ve got us engaged already.”
“Leaves it wide open for our secret wedding in next month’s breaking story,” she says, and they laugh.
“You’d think they’d have gotten tired of writing about us by now.” He hides behind his cup, hoping that he sounds casual to her ears. “Or not make front page news, at least.”
She shrugs, but Harry notices she’s stopped writing, and instead is fidgeting with her quill. “It’s an easy story to run,” she says. “Lots of material, history…old news to rehash and new ones to make up.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Honestly, Harry, since Ron and I broke up two years ago I’ve sort of accepted that you and I will always get entangled, one way or another.”
She says this all in a rush, her face heating up in a way that makes him pause.
“Wouldn’t be so bad, anyway,” she mumbles, already picking up her parchment again, “being married to you.”
Harry’s mouth opens to reply, then closes.
Opens again. Closes.
Finally, “What?”
“In a fictional...hypothetical sense,” she adds hastily.
He sits there with his cup of tea frozen in mid-air.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, recovering slightly. “Hypothetical.”
They sit in oddly awkward silence for a few minutes. Hermione stands to tidy the stacks of parchment and folders beside her. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he just clutches at his teacup like a lifeline, feeling like he’s about to pass out.
“Hypothetically,” he says, voice tentative, hoping to break the sudden tension, “we’ve been engaged for like five times this year alone.”
The side of her mouth goes up as her eyes flick to his. “It’s a long engagement.”
“We’re busy and famous,” he grins. “We’ve got no time to plan a wedding.”
She rolls her eyes, and the air shifts to something a bit more easy and familiar again.
His heart still pounds in his ears, though, and he wills his hand to stay steady as he keeps drinking his tea like they haven’t just been talking about hypothetical engagements and marriages in the last few minutes.
“Do you ever think about it?” she asks, still busy organizing and reorganizing files, not looking at him.
“Think about what?”
She hesitates. “About…about getting married. Starting a family. That kind of thing.”
“Oh.” He curses himself for instantly reddening. “I mean—I dunno.” He clears his throat again. “I never really thought I’d survive the war…let alone think about things like that.”
She nods, slowly. Her hands are fidgeting again as she moves papers she’s already moved. Smoothens out parchments she’s already smoothened. Straightens quills that don’t need straightening. Like she’s not sure what to do. Like she’s thinking hard about what to say next. “Not even with…you know, with Ginny?”
He feels like this is the most uncomfortable conversation he’s ever had in his life, his mind going to places he’s had to file away—like whispers of ‘We should just stay here…grow old’. Her face after they found each other after the battle. Her hand on his neck as they slept in her bed.
“No.” He coughs again. “Not really. And that was ages ago; we were kids. But I never really thought about it. We weren’t even together after the war. It just didn’t…cross my mind then, I suppose.” He pauses, scratching the back of his neck to rub away the awkwardness of this entire situation. “But, er…what about you?”
“Oh, um.” She stops, visibly flustered. “Maybe. Sometimes.”
He doesn’t want to, but it comes out of his mouth before his brain catches up. “With Ron?”
He doesn’t know how to explain the relief he feels when she winces. “Goodness, no,” she laughs. “Even at eighteen, I never really... Even when we were together, it just didn’t feel right. We both knew it.”
He nods, not really knowing what to say next.
“I have been thinking about it sometimes,” she continues, her voice quiet. She sinks back down in her chair, hands in her lap, not really pretending to do anything anymore. “Not really marriage, per se, but more like…finding that one person you trust more than anyone. Like someone who could just be…who could just be your person.”
Silence falls once more. The only sound in the room is the magical clock, ticking away on the wall, the sound of the fire, and his heart, beating so loudly he wonders if she hears it, too.
“Yeah,” he says finally, voice quiet.
Her gaze meets his over the candlelight.
Then she whispers, “Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong places.”
His heart gets stuck in his throat.
“Maybe,” he says, voice hoarse. He realizes he’s been gripping the side of the desk too hard and lets it go with a shaky breath.
They don’t talk about it anymore after that—but his heart stays pounding in his chest the entire night.
::
Harry paces near the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, hidden somewhere behind the greenhouses. The grounds are quiet. The wind is biting, a little sharp, the kind of cold that he hates—but today, he doesn’t really care.
He’s supposed to be doing final edits to their presentation for McGonagall in two days’ time. He’s supposed to be integrating some of the last-minute adjustments Kingsley’s sent them yesterday to their final drafts. He’s supposed to be working; he has a class with the sixth years in an hour.
Instead he’s out here—burning nervous energy, restless thoughts. Still thinking about the marriage conversation he and Hermione had the other night. One that hasn’t left his mind since then.
Especially the way she’d looked when she talked about finding her person.
Like she was trying to tell him something. Like she knew exactly what he was thinking.
Like she was taking a tentative step forward.
Like she was waiting for him to meet her halfway, like he always does.
“You’re going to wear a hole through the grass, mate.”
He turns to find Neville, lingering at the edge of a nearby tree, hands shoved in his pockets and looking unsure about what he’s walking in on.
Harry grunts in response, not slowing his walk.
“You alright?”
He tries to wave it off. “Just tired,” he says. “Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Uh-huh.” Neville keeps watching him march around like an idiot. “And this is helping?”
“Sort of.”
His friend sighs. “Don’t lie to the bloke who watched you trip over himself in sixth year over a girl.”
“That wasn’t over a girl.”
“Sure.”
“And this isn’t about Ginny.”
“But it is about a girl, then.”
Harry freezes in his step for a half-second before he resumes his circular path. “I didn’t say that.”
“You hesitated.”
Harry’s boots crunch against the frosted grass, his breaths coming out in puffs.
“If it helps,” Neville continues, “I just came from Hermione’s office, and she was acting really odd and fidgety, too.”
“Nothing happened,” Harry says, without thinking—again, like an idiot.
Neville looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “Okay.”
Harry sighs loudly, running a hand through his hair. Paces again. Ruins his hair again. Paces. Again and again and again.
“Mate.”
“Neville,” Harry grits out, “as you can see, now’s not really a swell time.”
“You look like you’re having an existential crisis,” Neville says, unhelpfully. “Or a nervous breakdown, maybe. Can’t really tell for sure.”
He pauses and pulls at his hair once more.
He’s tired. His thoughts have been running rampant for the past two days. He’s restless.
He’s bursting.
“Maybe I am.”
“About Hermione?”
Another pause.
“Finally figured it out, have you?” Neville says. Not even questioningly. Not teasingly. Just…matter-of-factly. Like he’d just been waiting for Harry to come to the realization all this time.
Harry lets out a breath, then nods.
“I think I might be in love with her,” he mumbles, scuffing his shoe against the frozen ground as his heart pours out of his mouth—his deeply kept and denied secret held most dear just itching to spill out.
Neville nods, smiling a little. “I know, mate.”
“I think I’ve known for a while.” Harry shrugs. “Maybe for a long time, and—it just feels so overwhelming. It’s Hermione, and I’m stumbling around like an idiot around her because she smiled at me. It feels so big and new and familiar at the same time. Like maybe it’s been there all this time, how I feel. And Merlin, it’s…terrifying. She makes my day better when I see her and she doesn’t even know.”
“Maybe she does.”
“She can’t.” Harry runs a frustrated hand across his face. “It’s just…I don’t want to lose what we have. We’ve been friends since we were eleven, and she’s Ron’s ex-girlfriend and I shouldn’t even be thinking about this. It’s Hermione.” He huffs out a breath, meeting Neville’s thoughtful eyes.
“Mate,” Neville says, his voice oddly steadying. “I don’t think I’m the one you need to say all this to.”
“What if...” Harry swallows with difficulty. “What if it’s just me?”
“You don’t know that.”
He shakes his head almost violently. “She might not even feel the same. And then I’ll just ruin everything.”
“Harry.” Neville steps closer and puts a hand on his shoulder, his touch and voice calming him. “You’ve always kept things buried. You’ve always put yourself last. And you’ve always stopped yourself from wanting things.” He takes a heavy pause. “After everything we’ve been through…we all deserve a little light in our lives, don’t you think? Isn’t that what Dumbledore always used to say? You already love each other. But maybe…maybe a different kind of love this time.”
Harry lets out a deep breath. Nods once, stiffly, like he’s still working out what Neville’s told him inside his head.
“She’s happier, too, you know. She laughs more, when she’s with you.”
Harry freezes. Just listens. Just thinks.
“I know you’re scared, Harry,” Neville says quietly. “But maybe it’s time for you to be selfish for once…and go after something just for you.”
::
She’s back at the dueling classroom.
It’s the night before their big presentation, and the energy that permeates the room is a mix of nerves and determination and sheer will. She’s busy scribbling away at some parchment, making last-minute adjustments, her face softly illuminated by the candlelight.
Outside, the castle is blanketed in a layer of gently falling snow. The castle is mostly quiet, with most of the students already back in their dorms after a long week of classes and papers they’re rushing to finish before the holiday break.
Harry stands in the doorway for a moment, taking her in.
Hermione’s started pacing. Not in an agitated way—mostly working off nervous energy; she has a piece of paper in one hand, gesturing wildly in the air with the other as her mouth moves in quiet murmurs he can’t fully catch from afar. She hasn’t even noticed him yet, and he doesn’t really want to interrupt her train of thought—she cares so much about this project, and about this cause, and he just wants to let her have a moment of peace.
But her Patronus had bounced into his room, asking him if he could drop by for a second, and really—he could never really say no, not to her.
He thinks about what Neville has said—about love, and selfishness, and want. About letting the happiness in. About letting himself want something for once.
He wants her, and for once, he lets himself feel it in full force—the way he’s been in love with her for god knows how long, in a way that’s terrifying and real and honest all at once.
He knocks gently on the door. “Hey.”
Hermione stops pacing when she sees him, eyes wide with something like—fear and anticipation. “Hi. You got my Patronus.”
He walks up to her, notices her chest heaving slowly. He runs a hand down her back, sliding it a little lower as he rubs up and down. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just…” She takes a deep breath. “Just nervous about tomorrow.”
“Breathe, Hermione.”
He doesn’t let her spiral. Instead, he waits until her posture relaxes under his touch, until her breathing starts to match his, almost unconsciously.
“It’s just going to be McGonagall,” he reminds her gently. “She already believes in this. In you.”
“I know, it’s just…I guess I got too inside my head for a bit,” she admits. “McGonagall’s the first step, but there’s also the board to think about. The Wizengamot…the public. I’m not scared of what they’re going to say about me; I’m just scared they’ll think this is too idealistic. That it’s not…realistic enough.”
“Then we’ll show them how real it is—how real it can be.” His hand finds the dip of her waist. “I’ve heard what those kids have to say—all the shit they have to go through. They believe in this, too, and they’re counting on us. They’re what matters. We’ve got a long way to go, but I’m willing to brave whatever bullshit everyone else throws at us if it means protecting those kids.”
Her bottom lip trembles.
“You believed in this before anyone else did,” he says, gently reaching out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “They’ll believe in you, and they’ll believe in this, too.”
Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t pull away.
After a beat, she nods.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”
She looks up at him then—in a way that feels like she’s peeling away the layers and just seeing him. She doesn’t look confused, nor afraid. Just…calm.
“You should get some rest,” he says finally. “We’ve got an early day tomorrow.”
She nods, quiet. That thoughtful look is still in her eyes—like she’s trying to figure out a stubborn puzzle she can’t solve. Like she’s trying to understand this version of him, and this new tension simmering between them.
“You should, too,” she says, after a small pause.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then, before he can overthink it, he cups her jaw in both hands and leans in. His lips press into her forehead, and he feels her breath catch, warm against his neck as he leans his body closer.
This isn’t the first time they’ve shared a kiss on the forehead, or on the cheek. But this is the first time he feels his heart splitting open, everything he carries so deeply and secretly laid bare for her to see.
His mouth lingers, and he faintly registers her fingers catching on the front of his robe before he pulls away.
Her eyes are wide as she looks up at him. His heart is thundering inside his chest.
“Goodnight,” he says.
“I…goodnight,” she whispers.
He smiles faintly, then leaves without another word, feeling her gaze following him as he goes.
He carries the look in her eyes with him all the way to sleep.
Like it’s an unraveling.
::
They meet at the doorway of the dueling room once more, Hermione bundled in her winter cloak, smiling a little as she tugs lightly at the end of the green scarf around his neck.
Her smile is quiet, a little nervous as she slips her hand into the crook of his elbow. He reaches out to squeeze her hand, feeling her exhale.
“You can do this,” he murmurs, thumb brushing against her knuckles.
“We can,” she says.
He watches her chin tug upwards, watches her morph into the confident, clever woman the Ministry’s come to know.
He’s always known that about her, though.
::
She’s quietly confident as she talks. A slight tremble in her voice in the beginning soon smoothens out into a clear tone that reflects her emotions in every inflection. She explains the philosophy behind the program, from orientation, to integration, to the main intent: to bridge the gap in magical access and cultural knowledge, and to protect all Muggleborn children from vulnerability.
“Children like Meilin…from race to blood, the system’s always been unfairly against them, both in the Muggle world, and in ours,” she says. She meets Harry’s eyes, and he gives her an encouraging nod. “This program is one of the steps we can take to protect them as they join a world entirely new to them. As they step into a castle that should be a place of acceptance—not of prejudice.”
“And it goes beyond just giving them protection,” Harry adds, voice soft. “We’re arming them with the knowledge they need to find their way. We hold their hands. We go slow. We tell them what they need to learn, but we also show to them that they’re accepted. That they belong.”
Hermione nods, smiling at him. “And we want this castle to be a place where they could. A home—for every single Muggleborn that walks through its gates.”
::
After they present their entire curriculum, McGonagall flips through their proposal scrolls, humming and tutting as she marks pages with a quill. Hermione leans back in her seat, and Harry catches her eye.
“You were brilliant,” he mouths at her, smiling at her blush.
Her smile is warm, and lingers longer than it should. “So were you.”
He feels her hand slide onto his lap, slipping between the spaces between his fingers under the table, away from the Headmistress’ view. Her touch is steady, and grounding. He feels more than hears the deep breath she releases.
He covers their joined fingers with his other hand, marveling at how they fit so perfectly together.
::
“This might be the one of most important things Hogwarts has done in decades,” McGonagall tells them, voice measured but warm. “It speaks of change…real change. One that I fully support and will fight to make it happen.”
Harry’s heart swells as he watches the grin form on Hermione’s face.
McGonagall looks at them over her spectacles, a hint of a smile on her face. “I have a few notes, but all quite minor. We will just need to hold a few mock sessions with the students first, get their thoughts, feedback…but I think this will be good to present to the Minister and the board by early spring next year.”
“We can hold our first mock session by next week, possibly?” Hermione says, voice a bit breathless as her fingers tighten in his. “Before the Christmas break?”
“That sounds good,” the Headmistress nods. “If all goes according to plan, we can most likely have a small program to introduce it by the spring. A luncheon for the families of the Muggleborn children—a way to formally introduce your program to the community, get their initial thoughts.”
“We can take lead on that, Headmistress,” Hermione says, already jotting down notes.
McGonagall smiles when Harry nods beside her. She sits back for a minute, just looking at them.
“You did brilliantly,” she comments. “You work well together. As I’ve come to expect, of course. But this is excellent work, indeed.”
“This program wouldn’t be what it was…if it wasn’t for Hermione,” Harry replies, glancing down at their joined hands. “She’s the heart of all of this.”
McGonagall shakes her head. “Both your hearts were shining through every word,” she corrects softly.
Hermione says, “Thank you, Headmistress,” and Harry smiles, catching her eye. She doesn’t look away; just smiles back, eyes bright and glistening.
Neither of them let go of each other’s hands until McGonagall dismisses them.
::
He convinces her to go to a Muggle village just beyond Hogsmeade the following weekend—a quiet Sunday away from the castle, a breath of fresh air from weeks of legislation and policy and curriculum planning.
The village is tiny—just a handful of shops and homes, all strung up in twinkling Christmas lights and decor. Harry and Hermione have no real itinerary or agenda; after a lunch in a small cafe, they just walk along the snow-covered streets, laughing over something Ethan said in Harry’s class, feeling oddly free to be out in the open where no one can flash their faces on the front page of the Prophet.
Later, they find themselves in a bookshop Hermione drags him to, before they settle down in a quiet cafe with steaming mugs of cocoa as holiday music plays softly in the background.
Hermione props her chin in her hand, watching the snow fall outside the window. “It’s so quiet out here,” she says. “It’s even quieter than Hogsmeade.”
Harry hums. “It’s odd being surrounded by quiet after weeks at the castle, surrounded by kids,” he grins knowingly.
“I’ve definitely forgotten what it feels like,” she laughs. “My flat’s always been so quiet when I get home from work. But being up at the castle…everything’s just felt so busy. And full—in a good way. But I miss this kind of quiet sometimes, too. The kind of quiet that lets things settle.”
Her eyes flick toward him.
He swallows. “Have things been settling, then?”
“A little,” she says. “I feel like I’ve settled at the castle somehow. I have to remind myself it’s temporary.”
He nods, not wanting to think about her leaving anytime soon.
“But I think some things are…” she pauses, “…still shifting.”
A silence passes between them—oddly charged in a way that makes his heart beat a little harder inside his chest.
He clears his throat. “All set for tomorrow, then?”
She nods, shoulders dropping as her hands cup her still-warm mug. “We can do one last rehearsal tonight, if you want.”
“You’ve already got the whole mock lesson memorized, Hermione.”
“No, I don’t,” she grins, swatting at his arm and pretending to be offended. “We can’t all be like you, you know—you’re the one who’s irritatingly good at improvising but still managing to trigger an emotional landmine.”
Harry grins. “I don’t plan on it; it just comes out.”
“That’s the irritating part.” She looks down at her cocoa, smile soft.
“About what we’re going to say tomorrow, though…about the war,” he says, shifting to a more serious tone. “I’ve been thinking about it a bit. I don’t want to say anything wrong, or traumatize the kids unknowingly. I…I want to be careful, but honest. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I want them to understand the stakes, the people we lost…but I don’t want to focus on the bad. I want to show them that there’s something good in all of it, too.”
Hermione breathes in slowly. “Yes,” she murmurs, “even if they were hard to find.”
His mouth curls up into a tentative smile when her eyes find his. “Not all of them.”
::
They’re back in a listening circle in the dueling room, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
It’s all the same eight kids in their first pilot group—all looking at them and listening in rapt attention. The energy is warm, open.
They go through the introduction of their lesson on Hogwarts: school history, magical customs, the founders, the houses, the Sorting Hat. Everything that’s in Hogwarts: A History, Harry notes in his head with a smile, but made easier to consume for the kids, with Muggle parallels and references they might understand better. Careful, but no sugarcoating. Just raw, organic, and real.
It goes well; the kids are curious, hands raising tentatively, questions being asked in shy, hushed tones into the safety of their listening circle. They answer them patiently, smiles easy and warm.
About halfway through, Olivia’s hand rises, eyes hesitant.
“Yes, Olivia?”
“Professor Potter…” she begins, chewing on her bottom lip. “Were you…were you scared? During—during the war?”
The room falls silent as Harry’s breath stills.
“All the time,” he answers after a brief pause.
“Really?” Olivia’s eyes are shiny. “I was reading about the war in a book, and there were drawings, like it was a storybook…but it was real. And you were a kid. Like us.”
“I was.” Harry looks at Hermione. “Miss Hermione and I both were.”
“I thought you and Miss Hermione and Mr. Ron were all very brave,” the little girl continues, voice softer and more shy. “I finished the story. I was scared for you too, the whole time.”
“It was scary,” Harry agrees, hands on his knees as he tries to gather his thoughts. “We didn’t know what we were doing most of the time. But you know what?”
“What?” Olivia whispers.
“I never felt alone.” Harry smiles, meeting Hermione’s eyes across the circle. “I felt hopeless sometimes. Other times, I felt sad, or like I wanted to disappear. It wasn’t easy. But I never felt alone. Because I always knew there were people who loved me, who wanted me to win, and live. And they stayed, despite everything. And that love—that’s what saved me. It’s what Voldemort never had.” He pauses, looks down at his hands. “It was my greatest power. Not spells, or cool tricks. Just love. It’s what kept me alive.”
Hermione doesn’t speak, but he hears her breath catch. When he looks up, there are tears in her eyes.
Ethan notices, tugging gently at her hand from beside her. “Miss Hermione, are you okay?”
“Oh…yes, I’m fine.” She nods, wiping discreetly at her eye. “Just…started remembering things.”
“Did you…were you with Professor Potter, too, Miss Hermione?” Sally asks.
Her brown eyes bore into his again.
“The whole time.”
“Were you scared, too?” Olivia pipes up, knees tucked to her chin, arms folded around them like protection.
“I was. Just like Professor Potter.” She exhales. “But love is a powerful thing. I never felt alone, either. Even when it seemed…dark…and we’d lost hope for some time.” She brushes her hand through Ethan’s hair when he leans against her shoulder as if to comfort her when her voice wobbles. “But you don’t realize love is what carries you. When you let it in…everything gets brighter. You feel more whole. The hope peeps in, like a tiny secret.”
The room is still, broken only by the murmur of voices and footsteps outside the classroom. Hermione can’t bring herself to look at Harry, but his eyes stay trained on her, heart in his throat.
“Someday,” Olivia says, breaking the silence, “I want to feel that kind of love, too. A superpower that defeats the bad guys.”
“You might already feel it, and you just don’t realize it yet, because it’s just there, soft and quiet,” Hermione says, smiling gently. “This kind of love—it’s what you share with your families, your friends. Your teachers—like Professor Potter, who loves all of you.”
“And with people who never leave,” Harry adds. “Like your best friends.”
Hermione looks at him, finally. “Like best friends who become family.”
Harry smiles despite the overwhelming feeling creeping up inside his chest. “Sometimes love is just staring you in the face and you don’t realize it. But when you do…” he says to the kids, “let it fill you. Don’t let it go. It can be scary. But…” he glances at her again, “it got me through the war. It helped me survive, despite all the bad things happening around me. And it gets me through every day, even now. I think it’s our greatest power of all.”
The kids are wide-eyed, enraptured. They murmur, tug at their sleeves, asking more questions.
He feels the weight of her gaze, and he doesn’t think he breathes properly for the rest of the session.
::
The students filter out, still buzzing and talking. Some are whispering about the war, the tears, the way they looked at each other, but Harry doesn’t pay them any attention. He stays behind, watching as Hermione lingers by the window, arms folded tightly like a protection.
“That was…something,” he says.
“Remember what I said yesterday,” she says, slowly, “about you triggering an emotional landmine? You just did it, all over again.”
He shrugs, not really apologetic.
“You were brilliant,” she continues. “What you said…about love being our greatest power.”
His smile is small, gentle. “I meant every word.”
“So did I.”
There’s a long silence between them—years of words they never said pressed into that lingering quiet.
“It wasn’t just a landmine,” she says. “I think you blew everything wide open.”
He takes a step forward, swallowing with difficulty. “Hermione…”
“Harry.” She whispers it like a warning. Or maybe a plea.
“I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“You didn’t. It was me who said too much.”
“You didn’t,” he echoes.
She looks at him. Really looks. Like she’s seeing right through him, into his very soul, and seeing the way he holds it bare, because he’s tired. He’s tired of trying to fight it, or deny it, or rationalize it. Because it’s always been there. It’s always going to be there. The want, the intimacy. The sheer, terrifying feeling of longing.
“I have to go meet McGonagall,” she says, looking apologetic, breaking his gaze.
His heart shoots up his throat. “Hermione…”
“I’m not—I don’t want you to think I’m running,” she says quickly. “I’m not. I swear I’m not. I want to…I want to talk about this.”
The thing is, he knows her. He knows her so well, down to the threads of her magic—and he feels it reaching out, nudging his, tentative.
He nods slowly. “I do, too.”
“Will you…” There’s a shift of her foot, shy and unsure. “Will you meet me at my quarters later? Before dinner?”
Her eyes are scared—but they are clear. Even hopeful. Honest.
Her magic feels like hope too, blooming inside his chest.
::
He’s distracted the whole day. He floats through the rest of his classes. He answers questions on autopilot. He watches out for a familiar head of brown curls as he walks through the halls, counting down the hours.
The wind shifts, like the castle knows how he feels. Like something is shifting. Like he’s on the cusp of something big—something he’s been waiting for for the longest time, finally just at the edge of his reach.
His heart rate doesn’t slow down the whole day.
::
When he enters her quarters later, hair untidy and robes disheveled, she’s already there, pacing the floor.
“I’ve been practicing what I’m going to say the whole day,” she says, without preamble, not even giving him the chance to set down his things.
“Me too,” he admits, slowly. He puts his satchel down, then his folders, and adjusts the green scarf around his neck. “I’m…this is really scary for me, too.”
“I know,” she says, taking a deep breath. “But I want to be brave.”
He nods, unsure what to say next. So he waits for her to gather her thoughts, and lets her take the lead.
“You’re still wearing that scarf,” she says suddenly, throwing him off-guard.
He falters. “Er, yes.”
“Do you realize,” she says, eyes shining, “that every time I see you in it, all I remember is your face in the tent when you danced with me?”
His heart stills.
She reaches over to tie it more securely around his neck, chest heaving a little. Tears cling to the end of her lashes, and without thinking, he reaches up and catches one when it rolls down her cheek, his thumb brushing gently across her skin.
Her breath is shaky as she closes her eyes at his touch, hand coming up to wrap around his wrist.
“I wear it all the time,” he says, voice rough, “because it always reminds me of you. Because I realized through the years that I miss you all the time, too. That maybe it just means I can’t be away from you. And maybe I don’t want to.”
“Harry…”
“You being here again, seeing you everyday…” He takes a deep breath. “It just made me realize other things.”
Her eyes are on his scarf. “Like what?”
“That I don’t want to keep loving you from a distance.”
She looks up at him, eyes wide and glistening.
“I’m not—Merlin, I’m not asking you to love me, too,” he says quietly, fingers curling around her neck. “I don’t need anything back. Maybe you don’t even feel the same way I do, but I…I just needed to say it. I’m in love with you. I think I have been for ages, and—I needed you to know.”
Her eyes are searching as he steps closer, breathing in like she’s bracing for something. “Harry…”
“Just—tell me to stop,” he murmurs. “If you’re not sure, or if you need more time—”
She shakes her head. “We’ve wasted enough time,” she whispers, “don’t you think?”
The kiss is tentative at first, like a question. Like a shy step, like they’re trying to navigate what comes next. But he feels it under his skin, the way her magic touches his, entangling his entire body with a satisfying hum. His hand shakes when he cups her jaw, angling it higher, as her mouth pulls away a little, her breath ghosting against his lips.
He feels the laughter bubbling up in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him, because the lightness he feels now—it’s how he feels up in the air on his broom, zooming through the sky; or when his Patronus bursts out of his wand in a bright glowing light; or when he’s at the Burrow, surrounded by the family who accepted him as one of their own; or when he looks out at the Black Lake and remembers the happiest moments of his life in the first home he’s ever had.
This feels even bigger—like his heart is catching all the light bursting from the smile gracing her lips.
“Harry,” she whispers, her tone sounding like she can’t quite believe what’s happening. Her forehead leans against his, and he breathes her in as her shaking fingers clutch at his scarf.
“I love you,” she breathes out, then suddenly, those fingers are sliding into his hair, and her mouth is slanting against his, tongue slipping in his mouth, hot and wet and wanting. His hands find her waist, and it all tumbles out of them—grief, and longing, every ‘what if’ they’ve denied themselves before, but are finally grasping with arms wide open.
Everything soft breaks.
Her back slams against the wall, and Harry’s not sure how they got there. But her fingers are sliding up his stomach under his robes, under his shirt, and the kiss is not slow, or neat, or shy. It’s years of want, embedded into every touch. It’s the answer to the question they’ve never been able to ask, the piece Harry’s never really realized has been missing all this time until they’re here, stumbling into shelves, into her bedroom door, onto her bed, kissing and panting and laughing.
Eventually, the kiss slows down, though his heart does not. Their breathing evens out, after. He chases her lips when she pulls away, and she laughs against his kisses, the sound light and suddenly overwhelming.
Her forehead presses against his again as they share a breath. His smile has never been this big, his heart feeling like it’s bursting.
“Well,” she says, breathlessly; she’s laying on top of him, bodies pressed together in places he’s never let himself imagine before, and there’s laughter in her voice that completely undoes him all over again. “That’s going to complicate dinner.”
He laughs—really laughs, loud and free.
::
They skip dinner.
Instead, they stay entangled in her sheets, her legs wrapped around his waist as she straddles and grinds softly into his lap, his lips on hers.
He’s panting into her mouth when they break apart. “I don’t know how…how I can go back to not having this,” he says, breath uneven as she keeps her slow, relentless pace. “Not seeing you everyday.”
She pauses, fingers brushing against his cheek as she cups his face.
“I’ll be going back to the Ministry more, when the new year rolls around,” she says. “But I’m not leaving the castle just yet.”
“I know. But it’s not quite the same.”
“I know.” She doesn’t say anything for a bit, just studies his face as he drinks her in. “We’ll make space. We’ll do better than we used to do.”
“I want to,” he agrees. “I want to do better. I’ll make time. Even if it’s just a few hours. A dinner in London, or a Floo call every now and then, instead of just every other week.”
She lets out a breath, thumbs brushing against his beard. “Maybe…if you can take evenings off…I’ll always make sure there’s space in my calendar. For dinners, dates. You staying at my flat for a weekend.” She blushes deeper. “That kind of thing.”
He grins, rubbing the redness on her cheek, oddly relieved he’s not just the one fumbling. That confident, self-assured Hermione Granger’s stumbling through her words, too. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“You’ll have to remind me. When I get too busy, or too deep into work. Okay?”
“I will,” he says. “Every time.”
“Okay.” Her mouth brushes against his forehead. “It’s a date, then.”
“Technically, it’s a series of standing dates.”
She rolls her eyes, flicking his cheek lightly. “Prat.”
He grins, hands slowly running along her waist, like he’s gathering thoughts. Or courage. “What are you doing for the holiday break?”
“Well,” she says. “Thought I’d pop into my flat for a bit. I believe it’s missed me.”
“Any Christmas plans?”
Her eyes are dancing when he looks up at her again. “What are you asking?”
“Well,” he echoes, a little shy, a little bold. “Grimmauld feels pretty lonely during the holidays. Kreacher usually feels a little sad cooking for just me and him…”
She smirks. “Not going over to the Burrow for Christmas?”
“I’m stopping by for Christmas Eve dinner, like always,” he clarifies, raising an eyebrow. “The rest of the break’s fair game.”
“Maybe I can stop by the rest of the time, then,” she says, voice annoyingly casual. “Help with the quiet. Maybe decorate a little?”
He grins. Imagines her spreading color and warmth around the gloomy walls of his house, like she does everywhere else.
Imagines a reality where it’s like that everyday, and the sudden longing feels big and overwhelming.
“I’d like that,” he says softly.
“Then it’s a real, actual date, then,” she murmurs, before leaning in again, hips starting to move once more.
His smile widens into her kiss, even as he gasps. She kisses him like she’s savoring him.
::
Hermione Granger does everything thoroughly, Harry soon learns. Everything, quite thoroughly.
She kisses him like a lifeline, tongue dipping into his mouth like a caress. Grips his waist with her legs with surprising strength as she grinds harder on his lap. Fingers tangle in his hair, pulling at the strands as he fights for his life just to stay breathing.
He doesn’t stop her when her hands slip under his shirt, or when her body shifts against him as she moans into his mouth, like she’s been waiting for this for as long as he has.
His breath catches as her fingers trail across his chest, moving downwards until she fumbles with the waistband of his trousers. “Hermione…”
Her hand slips under the material, brushing against him through his boxers.
“Hmm?” she says, breathless, as her hand moves to slide against his skin until she’s taking his cock, stroking up and down with mind-numbing, agonizing slowness.
“I…” He gasps as her thumb swipes over the tip. “Merlin.”
His mouth finds hers again—filthy, panting, wet—as his hips jerk upwards involuntarily into her touch.
“We don’t have to—” he pants, “—rush anything.”
She laughs lightly against his mouth as she starts moving her hips over his thigh, and he falters when he feels her warmth, even through the layers of clothing. “Bit too late for that.”
Her grip tightens, and his swear comes out in a loud groan against her jaw.
“I want to,” she says, “if you do.”
His heart stutters when she leans down and kisses him again, slower this time. Softer. More sure.
“Okay,” he breathes.
“Okay,” she echoes, and then her other hand moves, pushing his trousers down, as she keeps his grip on him steady and unrelenting.
He fumbles with the buttons of her blouse, nearly ripping them off as he tugs the material off her arms, followed by her bra. His mouth finds her neck, moving down, his tongue slipping into the dip of her collarbone.
“Prat,” she says again, laugh breathless as she tilts her head back. “That was my favorite shirt.”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” he says absentmindedly, tongue tracing a path down her chest until it swirls around the peak of her breast. His fingers trail up her thigh, brushing the edge of her underwear until he slips the material to the side and sinks a finger into her wet heat without warning.
“Harry,” she gasps, her hand on his cock stilling as he pumps his finger inside her, thumb brushing against her clit as she keens. He sucks on her hardened nipple, making her cry out, and he grins into her skin, wanting to hear his name tumble out of her mouth like that again and again.
(Later, he hears it once more, said like a prayer, as he makes her come around his tongue.)
::
“You’re beautiful,” he breathes out, swallowing her moan as she takes him in his hand and guides him to her entrance. Her thighs are shaking as she settles onto his lap, her hair is a tangled mess, and her cheeks are flushed red—and really, he’s just being honest because he can’t look away. “Shit, Hermione, you’re—”
She laughs a little as she sinks into him, effectively shutting him up.
::
She moves above him, slow and deep and deliberate.
His hands are on her hips as he meets her thrust for thrust, tongue flattening against her collarbone as she gasps and pants above him.
He hears her mutter a spell, and he’d be impressed at her wandless magic, if he weren’t so impressed with the way she spins her hips and makes his vision white out behind his eyelids.
“I love you,” she breathes against his temple.
His head moves as his mouth searches for hers. “I love you, too,” he says, before he kisses her again.
His fingers fumble against her clit as her pace quickens, movements stuttering and uneven. “Hermione,” he pants, dragging his mouth against the skin of her jaw. “Fuck.”
Her lips are against his ear.
“Come inside me,” she whispers, and it is his undoing.
::
They stay tangled in her sheets, after, their sweat cooling against the draft from the window propped slightly open. He manages to lift his arm enough to perform a wandless cleaning spell before he tugs at her sheets, using it to cover them both as she pants against his neck, her legs still tangled around his.
The quiet is only broken by the sound of their breathing, and his pulse ringing in his ears. He shifts slightly beneath her, feeling her leg tighten around his reflexively before it loosens. One of her hands moves up his chest, then pauses, like she’s unsure what to do next.
This is entirely new, slightly awkward, but not unwelcome territory.
His breathing evens out enough for him to say, “We missed dinner.”
“Hmm.”
“We both missed dinner.”
She cracks one eye open, then glares. “Yes, my stomach understood you the first time.”
His mouth twitches into a grin. It’s a familiar beat, edging into something soft. Like they haven’t just changed the course of their friendship with something that felt like a reckoning and an inevitability all at once.
“We both missed dinner,” he says again, pointedly. “And my very nosy, very observant students will have a field day.”
“Oh.” She stills, then laughs against his skin. “We can be discreet.”
“Can we?”
He says it too quickly, he knows. She props her chin up on his chest and looks at him like she does, too, her gaze quiet and searching.
His fingers curl around her hand on his chest. “I just…I don’t want this to be a one-time thing.”
Her voice grows soft, but sure. “It’s not. I meant what I said. I love you. And we’re going to make space for us. For this.”
She reaches up, lips touching his, and he melts into her touch.
He should feel terrified. And overwhelmed. And maybe a part of him is, because he’s suddenly aware that he’s wanted this, her, for a long, long time, and now it’s all real. Now it’s open confessions and promises and no more pretending. They’re living in this moment, wrapped up in a bubble in the castle, but the next part—them figuring it out, trying to make it work, and letting the rest of the world see—is another scary thing altogether. They’ve always been everything to each other. Now it’s just more.
“Stop thinking, Harry,” she says. He looks down and finds her watching him with a thoughtful look in her eye.
“That’s my line.”
She doesn’t allow him to misdirect. “I don’t regret this.”
He runs a hand through her hair, brushing it gently off from her face. “Neither do I.”
She runs a finger along his eyebrow, then his nosebridge, then his mouth, her touch featherlight. “We’ll figure things out together, like always. And I’m not going anywhere, no matter what.” She smiles, kissing the tip of his nose. “Can’t get rid of me, not after everything.”
He softens as he cups her face and presses their foreheads together. “I would never want to.”
::
The shift is not totally visible.
It stays in lingering glances, or hands finding each other under desks. In hushed whispers and hidden notes and smiles that feel like a secret. In afternoons huddled around her desk, hunched over papers; late nights learning each other’s bodies intimately; early mornings with his head between her legs and tongue lapping at her center as she comes.
Neville looks at them with narrowed eyes, like he’s figuring out a puzzle. McGonagall hums whenever they sit down for meetings, eyes knowing behind her glasses, like she’s withholding comments out of pure professionalism. Ethan purses his lips as he watches them talk and lead their listening circles and group discussions, still suspicious and waiting for them to slip.
They don’t.
::
Hermione Apparates to Grimmauld Place three days before Christmas Eve, a duffel bag slung on one shoulder, arms laden with a magically extended box of holiday decor.
“I’m filling this place with color,” she greets him, putting down the box and throwing herself into his arms in a hug that nearly knocks him flat. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“What do you mean? I like the doom and gloom,” he says, laughing when she sticks her tongue out at him.
He watches her wave her wand around the flat for the rest of the day, cleaning and organizing and decorating the spaces with enchanted holly and Christmas lights and stockings along the mantel. Giving the flat life, a bit of holiday cheer—and a bit of herself, as well, he realizes with a smile, when he finds her rearranging the books on his shelf according to the colors of the rainbow.
He finds a suspicious-looking mistletoe above the kitchen doorway, and her smile is mischievous when he pulls her to him, making her squeal and giggle into his kiss. He wakes up to her beside him, early morning sunlight and shadows strewn across her face, and he swallows the urge to want this exact moment to be his every day.
They make hot cocoa and sit in front of the fire, old Muggle holiday tunes playing softly from the wireless. They talk about his students, and the first years, and updates on her meetings with Kingsley—but mostly they settle into the comfort, and the routine, and the quiet.
On Christmas Eve, they Apparate to the Burrow. He watches her embrace Ron with a smile full of fondness. Watches Ron tease and aggravate her, his own smile soft and content. Ginny greets him with a hug, no lingering tension or awkwardness. Just…warmth.
They talk about the bill, and their program, over dinner when Arthur asks. Ron claps Harry hard on the back, tells him and Hermione, “You’re doing amazing work, making a real difference out there for those kids,” and Hermione bursts into tears and doesn’t let go of him for a long time as Harry looks at them with a smile.
The three of them meet on the rooftop after dinner, and get drunk on firewhiskey and memories. Ron squints at them over his bottle, and when he meets Harry’s eye, just raises an eyebrow before downing the rest of his drink.
Harry flushes a deep red, then pretends it’s just the alcohol when Hermione notices.
::
The days fold into weeks when the new year rolls in.
Now that they’re moving forward with mock sessions and upcoming meetings with the school board, Hermione starts going back to the Ministry more, spending two or three days a week back in her London flat. Harry pretends his thoughts don’t wander when she’s not in the castle, like he’s looking for a phantom leg that’s not there. He pretends he doesn’t count down the days ‘til she’s back, or that his entire face lights up when she walks into the dueling classroom wearing his jumper under her traveling cloak. He pretends like whispers from the older students don’t follow them when they enter the Great Hall one after the other, and he definitely pretends that he doesn’t pin her against the door and devours her mouth the minute she enters his quarters.
Their next few mock sessions go well. They expand to more test groups, including some second and third year Muggleborns who are still finding their footing, and their listening circles start growing, with more kids opening up and asking questions. They invite Neville to sit in sometimes, answering curious queries about the wizarding world that only a Pureblood who grew up in a magical home would know.
Meilin is less shy now, excitedly telling stories about her family to the other kids. Ethan brings notes, including a list of questions he’s curated from his curious family members. Harry cracks jokes that make Hermione’s eyes roll to the back of her head but cause giggles to break out throughout the room, so he considers them a win. Neville tells him, “You’re as subtle as a bludger,” when he catches Harry staring at her in a session, but Harry just grins when he tells him to shut up.
McGonagall looks over their notes, observations, and curriculum adjustments with an approving nod. Kingsley sends them an owl sometime in February with further revisions, letting them know that his office is open for a presentation with the board by late March, making Hermione squeal excitedly and tackle him to the carpeted floor of her study, breathless laughter ringing in his ears.
He wants to bottle it up, save it for a gloomy day when she’s not there.
::
March comes along quietly.
In between late nights working for their board presentation, they sneak off into broom cupboards and make out against dusty shelves; Hermione throws up all the privacy spells she can think of as he lifts her by the thighs and thrusts into her with urgency, her cries mixing with their stuttered laughter as they try their best to stay quiet. They go on little Sunday excursions to other Muggle villages, drinking coffee and discovering bookshops and shopping for trinkets and little treats for the kids. Harry spends his time alternating between his office and her quarters, the Invisibility Cloak coming in handy when he needs to go back to his own room in the mornings.
Late afternoons and nights are spent working; they’re nearly there, just a couple more revised drafts and outlines, and soon the board will see everything they’ve been working on. Needless to say, Hermione’s nervous and overzealous—muttering about protocols and course prerequisites over lunch, making adjustments to previously revised sections, and writing and rewriting paragraphs until Harry gently steals her quill and pulls her to bed.
He doesn’t tell her, or maybe he doesn’t need to say it.
But he’s been sleeping better—with her legs looped around his and her steady breathing against his neck—than he’s ever done in years.
::
The day of their meeting with the board, Hermione dresses in a sensible blazer and slacks—formal Muggle clothing, an act of defiance. He follows her lead and wears a coat and tie, one she adjusts for him before they enter the meeting room, Harry’s hand a warm presence on her back.
McGonagall sits on one end of the long table, Kingsley on the other. Both their eyes are kind, and encouraging, and Harry feels Hermione take a deep, steadying breath as she mentally catalogues the rest of the people in the room.
“Hey,” he says, voice low. His hand is still on her back, rubbing small circles to help calm her down. “Look at me.”
He waits until she does.
“They’re going to believe in you, the way the kids do. The way we all do.” He pauses, wishing he could press his lips to her forehead. “This is going to work.”
She nods, squeezing his arm as she readies herself.
“You’ve got this,” he whispers. “Don’t be afraid.”
She opens her eyes and flashes him a tiny smile.
“I’m not afraid.”
Her posture is confident, and calm, and strong as she clutches her stack of parchment and makes her way to the front of the room, addressing the gathered group politely. She looks completely in her element, and when her eyes find his, for a second Harry forgets how to breathe.
::
It goes surprisingly well until a grumpy old Pureblood—Harry hasn’t bothered remembering his name—questions why Muggleborn children would need extra protection and “special treatment”. Hermione doesn’t raise her voice, but her eyes could cut through glass.
“They possess magic like everyone else in this room,” she says evenly, “and yet they remain the target of bigotry. They’re made to feel inferior from the beginning. They’re not even properly equipped before they join the wizarding world. What makes them lower beings compared to the rest of you, aside from your preconceived notions about their blood?”
“They’ve never deserved that magic in the first place,” the old man spits out, sneer contorting his grotesque face. “That includes you.”
“Mr. Selwyn,” Kingsley’s voice cuts in sharply. “That’s out of line.”
Hermione doesn’t flinch, though—just looks at the man, Selwyn, with a calm sort of fury.
“It does include me,” she says. “But it’s funny how magic chose us anyway, don’t you think? That it lives in our blood, making us a part of this world whether you like it or not.”
Her gaze sweeps the room, meeting the eyes of every attendee.
“Magic isn’t anyone’s to gatekeep, or give away, or dictate who ‘deserves’ to have it. It’s not an heirloom, or a birthright. Magic lives in every magical child whose name appears in the Book of Admittance. And the very point of this program, and of this bill as a whole,” she continues, flattening her parchment against the surface of the table, “is not for us to prove we deserve magic. It’s for us to build a safe space where we don’t have to fight to belong.”
Selwyn scoffs, leaning back in his chair in a lazy, defiant way that makes Harry’s blood boil, only held back by the warning look Hermione shoots at him. “Good luck with that, Miss Granger,” he drawls. “Expect to face plenty of opposition. As long as the Sacred Twenty-Eight lives, Mudbloods like you will never truly have a place in our world.”
“Selwyn!” McGonagall’s voice rings out, not even bothering with pleasantries. Kingsley’s already on his feet, hand out as a warning; Harry’s entire posture has changed too, ready to jump up and follow his lead.
“It’s alright, Minister, Headmistress,” Hermione says, holding up a steady hand of her own. She sits back coolly in her chair, her expression unchanged. “Mr. Selwyn’s just proof that we still have a long way to go. And he’s a reminder of why our work matters.” She turns to the sneering man. “You might think it’s still 1998, Mr. Selwyn. But Voldemort is gone.” She ignores his unmistakable flinch at the name. “Your world as you know it, with the Sacred Twenty-Eight, is dying.”
She smiles grimly. “Ours is just getting started.”
::
The room empties in a flurry of whispers and excited chatter. Hermione’s still calm and composed, but Harry recognizes the stunned, almost disbelieving look in her eyes as she shakes people’s hands and murmurs her thanks to each member who congratulates her on their way out, and ignores the ones who turn their backs. Her movements are stilted and hesitant, like she’s not exactly sure what happened, if it was all real.
He walks towards her as she turns to him, her lips slowly curling into a smile.
“They’re actually giving us the greenlight,” she says, breathless and in awe.
His hand is on her waist before he can really think about it. His heart feels full, especially with the glint in her eyes and the way she radiates sheer and utter happiness. She’s always been a force. But this—this is more than that. This is her proving her place.
He pulls her in and wraps his hands more firmly around her, lifting her off the ground as she lets out a quiet squeak, her hands grasping his shoulders to steady herself.
“Harry,” she laughs, “the door’s wide open. I’m at work.”
“I don’t care,” he mumbles stubbornly, his mouth finding its way to her temple and pressing there for a long, long moment. He feels her relax in his arms, all her built-up tension and passion melting away to beats of comfort and relief. “Bloody hell, Hermione, you were brilliant.”
He lets her down, her body sliding against his in a way that’s not quite appropriate for a government office, leaving them both flushed.
“Selwyn, what he said…” She sighs, hands on his chest. “He’s not going to be the first to push back on this.”
“I know,” Harry says. “You handled it quite well.”
“I said it earlier, we’ve got a long way to go.” Her smile is resigned, but determined. “We need to make a lot of adjustments still. More presentations. Plus the Wizengamot battle, anticipated public backlash, questions…maybe even some threats from what’s left of the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’. It’s an uphill battle from here on out.” She quirks an eyebrow. “Ready to receive some Howlers and death threats?”
He shrugs. “We’ll burn them together.”
“My hero,” she laughs, her smile melting into softness. “I couldn’t have done this without you, you know.”
He opens his mouth to reply, but someone clears their throat by the door before he could. They jump, turning to find Kingsley, his eyes sparkling with something like mischief.
“Wanted to catch you both privately to congratulate you before you left,” the Minister says. “But looks like you’ve already been busy celebrating.”
Hermione quickly pushes at Harry’s chest, hands clasping behind her back as she clears her throat; he would have laughed if he wasn’t so startled. “Thank you, Minister. It, er, means a lot.”
Kingsley chuckles as he looks at their reddening faces.
“You two did excellently.” His smile is warm and knowing. “And may I just say…happiness looks good on you.”
::
Hermione finds herself back in the Ministry more and more, caught up in legislative meetings that span days at a time. Harry’s left at the castle—helping McGonagall and the rest of the faculty plan the luncheon, a soft introduction of the integration program to the families of the Muggleborn students, as spring starts to show signs around the castle grounds. Snow is melting, the grass turning green. The lake slowly unfreezes, the Giant Squid once again making a lazy appearance in the distance. Leaves start covering the tree branches, flowers begin sprouting in the bushes.
Whenever Hermione returns to the castle, they steal moments out in the sun, back under their favorite tree, magical shields up to hide them from prying eyes.
For once, they don’t research, or draft proposals, or argue about lesson plans.
They just sit out under the sunshine, and let the warmth of Hogwarts’ magic slowly take root, like hope starting to blossom again through the castle walls.
::
The luncheon feels like a breath of fresh air.
Kids and their families are mingling and laughing. Select Ministry officials, a handful of members of the board, and even carefully invited press chat and dine together under the springtime bloom and sunshine.
McGonagall and the rest of the Hogwarts staff have gone all out—beautifully decorated round tables sit under a large white tent, with flowers dotting the landscape, and music drifting in the air. The sound of chatter and laughter can be heard throughout the crowd, the energy buzzing with a certain lightness. Meilin runs up to them, dragging a shy little boy who could only be Yichen behind her by the hand, their parents following with small, unsure smiles. Meilin babbles excitedly to her family about her and Professor Harry, and Harry grins when Hermione flushes at the little girl’s wide-eyed praise.
He stays close to her, one hand on her back as they navigate the crowd. He knows people are looking, wondering, watching with squinting eyes at the way he doesn’t leave her side. But he pays them no mind.
His eyes are trained on her smiling face the entire time.
::
“When we first began drafting the Muggleborn Integration and Protection Bill,” Hermione says later, standing at a podium at the front of the gathered crowd, “our goal was always the same: protect our Muggleborn children.”
She pauses, eyes scanning the audience until they land on Meilin, looking up at her with awe as she holds onto her mother’s hand.
“During my residency here at the castle, my resolve only grew stronger when I met the kids,” she continues, smiling down at the little girl. “One of them didn’t know how to find Platform 9 & ¾. One of them had to cram reading Hogwarts: A History to catch up on what they missed, just like I had when I was eleven.” A light chuckle echoes through the crowd. “Another one walked into the castle in excitement, but instead of simply feeling amazed and welcomed at an entirely new world they were being introduced into, they just felt scared—like they were intruding. They walked into classes not knowing things other magical children already knew. They held their wands and felt like they had to earn their right to wield magic, just like the rest of the school.”
Harry watches her from the sidelines, a lump in his throat.
“They walked into this world, hoping for a place to belong,” Hermione says. “And this program—it’s for all of them, the ones who were told they didn’t. It’s for every Muggleborn student who will ever walk into this castle not knowing how to send an owl, or deal with mirrors that talk and pictures that move.”
Hermione lets out a deep breath, looking down at her parchment. “There will be additional education, and reform. There will be extra classes, field trips, orientations and seminars for the parents. There will be additional transportation and modes of communication. We want to equip all of our Muggleborn families with everything they need to navigate the wizarding world and feel like they’re a part of it.”
The crowd is listening attentively, Harry observes, parents nodding and taking notes, children whispering, journalists snapping photos. It’s Hermione Granger in her element—and Harry has never been prouder.
“It's going to be a slow build, and we'll face opposition,” she goes on. “So I'm counting on your support as we push forward. Headmistress McGonagall, Minister Shacklebolt,” she turns to the faculty table, “this all wouldn’t have been possible without your support and encouragement. To all the Hogwarts professors who took the time to consult with us, offered suggestions on the lesson plans, and helped us craft our learning materials, you have our warmest gratitude.”
There’s a long pause as she smoothens her parchment before her gaze lands on him.
“I’d also like to express my deepest thanks to Professor Potter,” she says, eyes shining, “whose protective nature, and selfless heart, shines through in all of this.”
Chatter breaks through the crowd as Harry freezes completely, feeling eyes swing curiously in his direction.
“This program is stronger because of you, Harry.” Her voice is soft and honest. Her eyes say the rest. “Thank you.”
Harry lets out the deep breath he doesn’t realize he’s holding when applause breaks out, passing through his ears like static. His eyes are wide and bright, and hers are twinkling as she claps along and murmurs something else to the crowd.
But Harry barely registers any of it—the cheers, the flashes of cameras. He just watches as she leaves the raised platform and makes his way to his side, hips bumping gently against his.
He clears his throat as the crowd’s eyes all start going back to McGonagall, who’s taken the podium once more. “That wasn’t in your cue cards,” he says out of the corner of his mouth.
She’s not looking at him as she smiles. “No,” she agrees, “but I thought I’d take a page off your book…and improvise for once.”
“You just triggered an emotional landmine,” he mumbles, reddening when she laughs.
He pretends to be embarrassed, but he takes her hand, anyway.
::
Their fingers hang loosely between them as they walk towards the lake—just far enough from the crowd to steal a moment alone as the festivities begin to wind down. The chatter falls to a faint hum the farther they get.
Hermione turns to him when they reach the oak tree, eyes shining.
“It was a good day,” she says.
He watches the way sunlight catches her hair, the slight flush on her cheeks from the warmth. “It was,” he murmurs. “The kids, the families…they were all so happy.”
Their hands swing between them gently, still joined.
“Uh-oh.” Her eyes focus on something behind his shoulder. “We’re being watched.”
One of his eyebrows lifts. “Are we?”
“Mm-hmm.” She steps forward slightly, hands going to his chest, then his shoulders, until she’s sliding her arms around his neck.
He holds his breath as he watches her, fingers finding her waist, and he waits for her lead. “This okay?” he asks, leaning even closer.
“Mm-hmm,” she says again, her mouth curling into a smirk that does odd things to his heart as she plays with the hair at the back of his neck. Then she says, “Want to make front page news?”
He laughs against her mouth as his hand finds her jaw, kissing her openly, easily—with the whole school behind them and the warmth of her filling his insides.
::
They find their pilot group of first years crowding around the Daily Prophet when they step into the dueling classroom the next morning. Harry spares it a glance, sees a photo of them kissing under the oak tree splashed under the big headline, and rolls his eyes.
“Of course that would make the front page,” Hermione comments as she peers at it from behind him. “Not the luncheon or the program. Just the really important stuff.”
“The program’s secondary news, at least,” Harry laughs, as the kids suddenly scatter when they notice their presence.
“Professor Potter! Miss Granger!” Little Sally breaks off from the group, eyes wide and a little too innocent. Meilin beams from beside her, trying to hide another copy of the paper behind her back.
Ethan holds no such notions, marching up to them with his nose furrowed. “I knew my grammy wasn’t lying!”
Hermione laughs as Harry grins, ruffling his hair. “Sorry we kept you guessing, Ethan.”
“I wasn’t guessing,” Ethan insists, defensive. “I knew I was right! You kissed Miss Hermione, in front of everybody. That means you’re married.”
Harry tries to fight his laugh. “We’re not married yet, mate.”
Ethan shakes his head. “You kissed her before breakfast, too—I saw you!”
Harry, unprepared, starts sputtering. Olivia hides giggles behind her hands as Hermione chuckles too, eyes bright as she pats him on the shoulder.
“Accept you’re losing the battle, Harry,” she says, “and you said not married yet.” Then she leans over to kiss him on the cheek, right in front of all the kids.
The kids start giggling louder, nudging and elbowing each other with glee. Ethan just crosses his arms in front of his chest, looking justified.
Harry grumbles, cursing the blush blooming on his face. “You did that on purpose.”
“I had to,” Hermione says, rubbing his back. “Can’t have Ethan still believing in a lie now, can we?”
He rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning.
The castle feels warmer lately, like its magic is humming again. He lets the feeling envelope him, his heart singing a tune that sounds like familiarity.
::
The world feels hushed as she closes the door to her quarters behind her, the sound echoing through the empty hall, like it’s letting out a sigh. It’s Sunday morning, and her shelves are empty, her bed made, wardrobe tidied—her entire life at Hogwarts for the past seven months, packed away into an extension-charmed suitcase Harry holds in one hand.
He holds hers in the other.
They walk slowly past the lake, past the oak tree, and through the Hogwarts gates to Hogsmeade—not in a rush, not needing to say much. Hermione’s twirling a flower with her free hand—a parting thank you gift from Meilin, who’d charmed it to fade into different colors every ten minutes. Harry squints up the sky, at the streaks of sunlight peeking through the leaves like they’re saying hello.
They make it to the Apparition point, just beyond the village boundary, near the edge of the forest path that would take them to the Muggle villages they’d frequented over recent months. He puts her suitcase down, turning to face her with an almost resigned look on his face.
Her smile is soft and knowing, and when her hand reaches up to touch his cheek in that gentle way of hers, he swears she takes his heart in the palm of her hands, too.
“I’ll see you Tuesday?” she says quietly.
He leans into her touch involuntarily. “Mm-hmm,” he hums. “I promised you standing dates.”
“Don’t let me down, Potter.”
“I’d never dream of it.”
Her hand drops to tug lightly on his scarf. “You’re wearing it again,” she comments, playing with the tattered ends. “I’ll knit you a new one for your birthday.”
“I like it.” He shrugs. “It feels like I’m carrying you with me.”
She flushes, startled, obviously not expecting his answer.
The kiss she gives him is slower, more knowing. Like she’s trying to say something in her touch. Like a promise that doesn’t need to be said out loud to be understood.
When they break apart, foreheads touching, she murmurs, “I’ll carry that one with me, too.”