#head dorms

“Do you like it? I put in on just for you.”

A horrible sense of deja vu slams into James as he whips his head up to peer at his dark doorway – eyes strain to make sense of the form in the shadow. A moment later, a breath escapes him as he looks at Lily –  his Lily – as she enters the room. 

It’s immediately obvious she’s sober; the tentative way she walks, the way her hands wring nervously. James congratulates himself on noticing any of this when she’s standing in his Quidditch Jersey – just his jersey – in his room, completely by choice and without a drop of firewhisky in her system.

“Is this alright?” She tugs at the hem of the large shirt as she pulls her lip between her teeth uncertainly. He vaguely acknowledges – through the fog of admiration – that she must have nicked his shirt, before he also realises he hasn’t said a bloody word and her face is beginning to fall. 

“More than alright, sorry you rendered me speechless for a moment…you’re so…well I don’t think beautiful even begins to do you justice.”

She flushes prettily, ducking her head down as she shifts her weight. 

“Want to come here?” He holds the cover of his duvet open for her; looks on in disbelief as she scurries to his bed quickly, slipping under the cover until she’s close – but still much too far away – enough to smell. He inhales deeply through his nose, nostrils flaring at her scent.

“I wasn’t sure if it was too soon to joke about, but, well, I umm, I want you to know I do still want to be here even when I’m not smashed.”

“It’s not too soon,” James assures her. “I was just very distracted.” He trails his fingers along the boundary of fabric and skin.

“You’re not without distractions yourself.” She glances down at his bare chest, biting her lip. “May I?”

“Yeah.” He nearly stops breathing as her nails trace a soft pattern down his abs. “Can I touch you ?

“Please.” It’s whispered a breath from his mouth as she leans in to capture his lips. 

The third time they kiss it’s slow and sensual, new and familiar all at once. James thinks he could call her lips home, could greet dawn and dusk attached to them; taste them until he runs out of oxygen.

“Is here okay?” He whispers as they part briefly. Just long enough to let their heavy breaths mingle together. His larger hand slips up, lightly caressing the swell of her arse.

“James.”

“Yeah?” He stills his hand, ready to backtrack at one word from her.

“Everywhere is okay.” 

“Me too.” He squeezes the flesh of her before flattening his palm and pulling her flush against him. He slips his hand up to her back, supporting her as he flips them over so he can hover over her, one forearm holding his weight while the other hand learns the map of her skin. Lips crash together again, more desperate this time; tongues slip past parted lips.

His heart nearly beats out of his chest as he cups her through his jersey. Her nipples rise like bread as he teases her through the thick material of his jumper, before sliding it up so he can devour her breasts with no barrier.

He throbs wildly against his underwear as she lets out her first whimper at the feel of his lips. 

“You’re perfect.” He tells her. She is. She’s like a goddess laid out before him, fanned red hair on the pillow adding to her ethereal glow.

“Are you wet for me Lils?” He ventures in a daring whisper, groaning as her eyes snap open to look at him, pupils blown.

“Why don’t you find out?” It’s an invitation James doesn’t need twice. His fingers trace her through her knickers – pulling another delicious whine from her lips – before he slips under to her soaking flesh, lightly skimming up and down as he gets a feel for her.

“Shit, you are .” Lily is breathless as he circles her clit, dipping his fingers inside of her to spread the juices of her arousal. He pulls one more breathless cry before pushing the fabric up so he can pepper kisses across her naval. “Can I please taste you?”

She props herself up on her elbows – brow furring into a minuscule frown that means she’s nervous – as her eyes dart over his face, so James waits, pressing one gentle kiss on each side of her belly button. “You can change your mind,” he reminds her. “We don’t have to continue if you’re not comfortable, I –”

“It’s not that!” She bites her lip. “I want to continue…I just haven’t done this before.”

His eyebrows knit as he recalls the months Lily spent with Alden Fawley. She must read his confusion – guess what he’s thinking about – because she flushes slightly. “I thought you guys…I heard you got caught in…” He fumbles, unsure if he wants to think about the night he’d overheard that particular tidbit of gossip.

“Yeah, we did. I’ve done the fingering and the sex, just not this .”

James feels an irrational surge of possession that he’ll be her first if she’ll let him.

“Well you look delicious,” he says truthfully, glancing down at the wet spot visible through her knickers. “I really want to taste you, but only if you want to too.”

She holds his gaze for a moment before her expression softens, she lifts her hips with a moaned assent and a whispered I trust you ,  humming as James pulls her knickers down, sucking the inside of her thigh before – unable to resist the pull of the delectable looking feast in front of him –  leaning into the wetness between her legs so he can properly devour her.

She’s wet and shaking and oh so sensitive. James exploits each moan with a swipe of his tongue as he drives her closer and closer to ecstasy. He ignores the ache and throb of his own desire as he buries his face into her, groaning alongside her when her thighs begin to tremble, squeezing his head tight between her legs as her fingers pull at threads of his hair.

James keeps a gentle pressure on her – lets her hips guide her pleasure – until her fingers push at his head instead of pulling him closer. He plants one parting kiss on her wet lips before trailing gentle open-mouthed kisses up her body until he can kiss her again.

“You’re really good at that.”

Pride fills him to the brim, escaping in a soft bashful smile. “I’m glad you thought so.”

Lily pulls him down, lips moving slower this time, but no less sensually, as her hands skim tracks of fire down his abs. He sucks in a breath when she traces the outline of his erection through his pants; her lips stretch to a smirk as she squeezes him.

His brain clouds as her hand slips past his waistband – all he can remember is repeating her name over and over again – until she scoots down, rubbing the head of his cock against her soft folds. “Lils, you feel so good.”

“I want to feel more of you,” she confesses, letting the head of his cock rest at her entrance in invitation. 

“Fuck.” He sinks into her  – she’s wet, warm and all-consuming – swallowing her moan as his pelvis grinds into her. “I won’t last long,” he confesses, flushed. “Are you on the potion? I’m sorry, you –”

“Don’t be sorry, James.” She squeezes around him. His eyes flutter closed. “I’ve on the potion; you can finish inside.”

“I want to get you there again,” he murmurs. “Tell me what you like.”

“Circles,” Lily guides his hips until she’s whining after every stroke, “and can you…” she gestures at her breast as she trails off into a low moan. He cups her breast, thumb teasing her nipple as he alternates between watching her face and the place their bodies join. “Mouth,” she requests, arching her chest into him.

James sucks the pebbled flesh between his lips,  flicking his tongue over her. It’s all she needs to crash into pleasure – juices gushing around his cock as she sighs in his ear – and that is all he needs to follow, throbbing inside her quivering walls as he releases into her, hips stuttering, eyes fluttering, breath short in gasps. 

July 1998

The knife bit deeply and Hermione screamed. Bellatrix’s foul breath spilled into Hermione’s mouth and nostrils as she questioned Hermione. Nothing mattered but making the pain stop, nothing mattered, not Harry, not Ron, but she held and didn’t tell. The knife bit again and again. Bellatrix’s teeth ripped at Hermione’s shoulder and she whispered to her in between questions.

“Greyback’s next for you. He likes a bit of sweet meat. Tell me how you got it and I’ll kill you quickly. It doesn’t have to be Greyback.”

Then she was back to screaming questions at Hermione. Bellatrix’s eyes glowed at Hermione’s pain-filled writhing.

Hermione pushed it away; she knew it was the nightmare again. It wasn’t as bad here at the Burrow and she pushed. Bellatrix stretched like taffy and snapped, then she saw Greyback coming, but she turned him into a corgi with a crown like the Queen’s. She stood and willed Malfoy Manor to go away.

Hermione woke up, drenched in sweat, touched the spot where Ron had slept just the week before and sighed. She held his pillow to her face, but his scent had already faded. He’d come back once to get some more of his clothes and a small trunk of possessions and then had left immediately back to his training. The nightmares hadn’t been as bad when she was sleeping with Ron, but they were coming back stronger again. She rested in bed for a long time, her head down in her hands. Suddenly, a knock came at her door and a hand slid an official looking envelope under it, followed a moment later by a magazine with a lurid ad for ‘Potions of Prowess for Men of Discernment’ featuring a very phallic looking wand that covered the entire back cover. Hermione knew it had to be an issue of the Quibbler .

“Dear, you should probably read the letter before looking at the Quibbler,” Molly’s voice came from behind the door.

“Thanks, Mrs—Molly,” Hermione said, rising to get the letter.

The letter was from the Australian Department of Muggle Relations. She picked it up and slit open the wax seal.

…regret to inform…further memory manipulation could be detrimental…cannot authorise restoration of memories…they are thriving…seem happy…Sincerely.

The words danced menacingly around behind her closed eyes; they spiralled and twisted and her stomach churned with vertigo. She’d expected the worst, but now that it was confirmed, she found she hadn’t really been ready for it. When she started to cry, it surprised her. She gulped in big breaths of air, but they came out explosively in heaving sobs. Tears streamed down her cheeks and onto the oversize shirt of Ron’s that she wore to bed. She didn’t know how long she’d sat there on the edge of the bed with her tears smearing the ink on the evidence of her crime against her parents when Harry opened the door already dressed for the day in jeans and a T-shirt.

He crossed the room in two loping steps and sat next to her on the bed. He pulled her close and let her cry on him until her sobs subsided and her hitched breathing grew more regular.

“I did this to them,” she said, shoving the smeared letter into his hands.

He read it quickly and kissed her forehead.

“You saved them. If they’d stayed, the Death Eaters surely would have killed them.”

“But is what I did any better? I didn’t ask them; I just assumed I knew better. How is it different from ‘Magic is Might?’”

“It is different. You saved them because you love them. ‘Magic is Might’ doesn’t care about love, it only cares about control.”

“I suppose…” she started to say, but Harry cut her off.

“Don’t suppose, it’s the truth; don’t be hard on yourself. I know how it is to be without your parents.”

“Not going to tell me that it’s going to be easier for me because I know they’re still alive?” Hermione asked, a little acid in her voice.

“No,” Harry said simply. “No, that sounds like shit. It’s going to be fucking hard. I’ll be there for you; anything you need, you call me. Okay?”

She’d told Molly recently that Harry was like her brother and it was true; he was her brother and she was his sister and he’d always be family to her.

He tossed the letter on the desk and picked up the Quibbler curiously. When he turned it over, his face reddened in anger.

“What is it?” she asked and he held the magazine out to her.

The front of the magazine was a full-page, grainy, long-range shot of Hermione and Ron sitting on a blanket in the Burrow’s garden. He was holding out a ring to her and she was reaching out toward his hand. The caption under the Quibbler masthead read ‘Wedding Bells for our Saviours?’ She thumbed the magazine open to the article. Harry could see more pictures of Ron and Hermione in the garden, some from the same day and some from other days. There were a couple of photos of Harry and Ginny there, too. He couldn’t read the article over Hermione’s hands, but he knew what it had to say from the way her face went from sadness to anger to flaming rage. When she’d finished, she threw it across the room, grabbed her wand and a second later, the magazine exploded in a shower of confetti. A little fragment of a photo of her and Ron kissing landed on her lap and she ripped it apart.

“This fucking rag!” she yelled.

“Was it bad?” he asked and she rounded on him.

“It was a total fucking invasion of our privacy! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck” she got louder with each shout.

“He said that Ron and I have been secretly engaged for weeks and that we were going to get married in a big event when we receive our Orders of Merlin. It’s so dumb. Even if Ron and I got married, we wouldn’t do it in a big spectacle. The article made us out to be giant egomaniacs just riding your coattails. They put words in our mouth without interviewing us: not like I’d sit for an interview with the Quibbler anyway. I just don’t know how they can make stuff up wholesale.”

She flicked her wand at the confetti bits of the magazine and they flew into the bin, then she set them on fire. No smoke came from the fire and the bin didn’t catch alight, but no trace was left of the magazine after a few seconds, not even ash.

“Do you want to hire a barrister?” Harry asked.

Hermione shook her head.

“It would just give credence to it with publicity and I don’t want any more publicity, good or bad. Do you?”

“No. You’re right,” Harry said.

“I wonder if I damaged him also when I erased his memory of us?” Hermione asked, flopping heavily back on the bed. Harry understood she meant Xenophilius.

“I don’t think so; Luna would have said something.”

“I need to get out of here today, go somewhere, do something. If I knew what I needed for sure for Hogwarts, I’d go get my supplies. Or at least I would if I had money. Now I know how Ron always felt.”

Harry dug in his pocket and pulled out some Galleons.

“Why don’t you go to Flourish and Blotts and buy yourself some books, my treat.” He tried to push the money at her, but she pulled back.

“I can’t take more of your money, Harry.”

He grabbed her hand, opened it, stuck the coins in, and closed her hand over them..

“You can and you should. I have more than I need and it can help you. Get yourself something nice, treat yourself to lunch, visit George and bring me back something from WWW or some sweets.” He closed her hand.

“I—thanks,” she said.

“You probably should wash and put on some clothes though before you go or the Quibbler will have more interesting pictures.” He nodded at her bare legs and tear-streaked cheeks.

“I have knickers on under here,” she said, swatting him.

“I know, but the Quibbler would say something like ‘Temptress and Seductress.’”

She laughed and then sobered up instantly.

“I don’t understand how Luna can believe so much of the Quibbler, so much of her dad’s lies.”

“He’s her only family; her mom died in an accident when she was small and Xenophilius raised her. Seems natural that she’d look up to him.”

“I guess. I’d hate to lose her as a friend because of her father, but if she’s always going to bristle at criticism of him and the Quibbler, then I don’t know if I can be her friend.” She sighed and started digging in her pack for clothes.

“You haven’t put your clothes in the dresser?” Harry asked, nodding toward it.

“It seems too permanent.” She started to shuck off her sleep shirt, then stopped and stared at him pointedly.

“I’m going, I’m going. Have fun in Diagon Alley. Forget the letter and the magazine. Bring me some sweets.” He leaned over, kissed her forehead, then left.

Later, Harry heard Hermione leave through the Floo and went in search of Ginny, who wasn’t in her room. He finally found her feeding the chickens with Crookshanks supervising from outside the coop. He scratched Crookshanks on the back of the neck and Crookshanks butted his hand vigorously when Harry stopped. Harry laughed and kept scratching Crookshanks until the cat got up and stalked off, tail up.

“Aw, that was cute,” Ginny said as she put the feed bucket away and carefully cleaned up the spilled feed to keep away rats and gnomes.

“He’s a good moggie,” Harry said, watching Crookshanks disappear into the weeds of the garden.

“Yeah,” Ginny said, taking Harry’s hand. They headed toward the kitchen door.

“Did you talk to Hermione before she left?”

Ginny shook her head.

“I saw her and she looked upset, but she’d flooed away before I could talk to her.”

Harry thought for just a moment, then told Ginny about the letter and the issue of the Quibbler.

“So it had photos of us also?” she asked.

“It did, but I couldn’t see them clearly. Most of the photos I could see were of us snogging or Ron and Hermione snogging.”

“Could you tell where they were taken from?” she asked. He nodded and pointed to just outside the Weasley’s property. Ginny called Crookshanks, who came trotting out of the garden. She knelt down, whispered in his ear and pointed off at the grass where the photographer must have been hidden. Crookshanks listened in a very un-catlike manner, then stalked off, low to the ground into the tall grass. A moment later there was a commotion and the unmistakable sound of someone Apparating away. Ginny laughed as Crookshanks came trotting back, tail up with a camera strap in his mouth. He followed Ginny and Harry into the kitchen. Harry dug around and found a tin of tuna and gave it all to Crookshanks on a plate. He took the camera strap and hung it on a coat peg.

They were just about to head up to Ginny’s room when a knock came at the front door. Harry was closest so he opened it. Luna was on the other side, in a short yellow floral dress. An enchanted bright orange Japanese-style parasol floated over her head. She had a necklace of daisies and her wand behind her ear. Her large silvery eyes stared around the entranceway before landing on Harry.

“Harry!” she said gleefully as she stepped forward and hugged him. The parasol folded up, shrank and slid itself into a hidden pocket on her dress When Harry stepped back, Ginny hugged Luna and kissed her on the cheek. Luna returned the kiss on Ginny’s cheek.

She came in and Harry closed the door behind her.

“It’s been a while since Bill and Fleur’s wedding,” she said apropos of nothing.

“Yeah,” Harry said.

“What brings you here?” Ginny said, leading Luna to the sitting room.

“I was hoping Hermione was here,” she said quietly.

“Is everything all right?” Harry asked, noticing Luna’s tone.

“I was hoping to see her before she saw the latest edition of the Quibbler.” Luna looked at everything but Harry and Ginny.

“It’s too late for that. She was…” Ginny looked at Harry who shrugged.

“Vexed?” Luna asked.

“She threw a right old wobbler,” Harry said. Luna blinked.

“She was extremely angry, shredded the magazine, binned it and lit it on fire,” Harry clarified.

“Oh,” Luna said and lowered her head.

She sighed slowly, a sound that Harry had never heard from her and she kept her eyes down for a long time before raising them to meet Harry’s.

“Will you tell her I was here and I’m sorry for what my father did? I told him that it wasn’t true; I know that Hermione loves Ronald, but there’s no way they’re getting engaged right now. He’s going to join the Aurors and she’s going back to Hogwarts.”

“How do you know that? Both of those?” Harry asked.

Luna tilted her head and looked at him like he was an interesting bug or a talking dog.

“Well, Neville got a letter from the Aurors and he said that you and Ronald and Hermione had also. Neville’s not going to do it but I know Ronald will…it’s just what he’d do. In the same way, I know Hermione would want to go back to Hogwarts.”

“And you,” she pointed at Harry. “I’m not sure what you’ll do, but I think you’re coming back to school with us?”

Harry nodded.

“Daddy wouldn’t listen to me. He said it was obvious that they’re getting engaged because so many people got married young after and during the last war, like Molly and Arthur. I told him that Hermione was different, but I don’t know why he was so set on it.”

“Would you like to stay for dinner and wait for Hermione?” Ginny asked. She got up and sat next to Luna and took her hand.

“No, I need to help Daddy. He’s been trying to repair the tower, but he’s not as good at it as Mum was, or I am for that matter. Please just ask Hermione to forgive him and I’ll keep trying to make him understand.” She squeezed Ginny’s hand and stood abruptly.

As she was leaving, she turned and spoke.

“Oh, and let her know she was right. It was an Erumpent horn; I can tell from the damage. Apologise for me for that, too. Just apologise for me all around, I guess.”

Harry moved to talk to her, to grab her, but she closed the door in his face and he heard her Apparate away before he could open the door again.

“I’ve never seen Luna like that before, have you?” Harry asked.

“I—yeah.” Ginny took Harry’s hand and pulled him toward her room. He started to ask a question, but she squeezed his hand in warning and pointed at her ear. Harry understood she meant that someone, probably Molly, could be listening.

When they got to Ginny’s room, she closed the door and put the Silencing Charm on it. She sat on her bed and patted the spot next to her.

“You don’t know what it was like at Hogwarts last year. Everyone was scared, frightened of what they might have done to them or what they might be forced to do to others. Neville, Luna and I took on a lot with the DA in the Room of Requirement, but we were scared too.”

She sighed.

“Even Luna was scared. I—we…” she paused.

“You slept together; it’s okay, I already knew.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

“What? How?”

“The map: when we were on the run, I’d watch your name on the map and imagine I was there holding you. If you went into the Room of Requirement, it would disappear, but I saw your name and Luna’s together in both your dorm and hers. Whatever happened there happened there and I know it didn’t have anything to do with me.”

Ginny let out a long breath.

“I was so scared you’d be angry.”

“No, I get it. Don’t tell Hermione or Ron I told you, but at one point Ron left for a time and it was just Hermione and me. We almost…well, but we didn’t…it would have been weird. So I understand the need to be held and loved and don’t begrudge you that at all.”

“Thank you, love.” She lifted her face and kissed him lightly.

“Luna was like that then. She hides it better than anyone I’ve ever known, but she was so scared and lonely and so was I. And so was Neville. But if you had the map, you knew about that, too, right?”

Harry nodded.

“Same thing. It’s in the past, we weren’t together and they gave you what you needed. I’m glad they were there for you and you for them.”

He elbowed her lightly.

“I gotta know, though, am I better than Neville?”

She reddened, then laughed when she realised he was just winding her up.

“Hmm. I don’t know. I’ll have to check again.” Her hand slid under his shirt and they lost the next hour and a half.

“I love you,” she said when she got up to shower. She paused at the door and made sure her mother wasn’t watching before creeping down the hallway on tiptoes. Harry used his wand to clean up and slid his clothes on just in time before Molly knocked on the door.

“Harry, dear, can you help me with the runner beans?” her voice called from behind the door.

“Sure, Molly, be right there.” He met her in the garden a moment later and helped her tie up beans to stakes.

“Please, dear, I want you two to be careful,” she said eventually.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Ginny wants to play professional Quidditch, so no getting her pregnant, okay?”

“I—I,” Harry stammered. “We’re being careful. I’m using the charm and she’s using the potion.” He felt like he could fry an egg on his face.

“Okay, then,” Molly said simply and changed the subject.

Later that night, long after dinner, Harry was reading a book on Quidditch strategy when Hermione’s unmistakable knock came at his door.

“Come in,” he said.

She opened the door, came in with a big bag under her arm and closed the door. She sat on the bed while Harry stayed at his desk. She dug in her bag, rummaged a moment and then tossed a couple of Mars bars at Harry, who caught them.

“I went to Flourish and Blotts, but there were too many people who wanted to talk to me and ask me questions and get my autograph, so I went to Gringotts, changed my money, and went into Muggle London. I thought you might like a Mars bar.”

Harry had already unwrapped one and bitten into it. Hermione smiled as she watched him chew. It was the first real smile he’d seen from her that day. When he could answer, he said, “thank you.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve bought books that weren’t for school. Thank you for lending me the money.”

“You don’t have to ever pay me back; it’s a gift.”

“Thank you then for the gift.” She pulled out a thick book about brain chemistry and memory and another smaller paperback fell out with it. The paperback featured a shirtless blond man in a cowboy hat on a horse, both of them improbably muscled. The title splashed across it read, 'Untamed Bronco.' Hermione blushed and stuffed it back into her bag.

“That’s for later, since Ron’s gone,” she said. Harry laughed.

She tapped the book about the brain.

“I want to see how Muggle and Wizard view the brain and memory and where they agree and disagree. We might be different, actually different physically than Muggles.”

Harry picked up the book and flipped it to a random page. He didn’t understand more than a quarter of it.

“Does this make sense to you?” he asked, pointing out a passage. She read it and nodded.

“I’ll have to look up other resources, but I can muddle through it.” She took the book back and put it in the bag.

Harry suddenly remembered. “Oh, Luna came by today. She was really upset that her father had run the story about you. She said she tried to stop him and he wouldn’t listen. She also said she was sorry she didn’t believe you about the Erumpent horn and that she knows now it had to be an Erumpent horn from the damage.”

“That makes me feel better,” Hermione said after a long pause.

“I’d never seen Luna so upset before, but Ginny said it was a lot like when they were fighting with the DA while we were on the run. She knew somehow, in her Luna-like way, that you were going back to Hogwarts and Ron wasn’t and that you wouldn’t accept an engagement right now. You know how she is; she notices stuff.”

“Yeah, she does,” Hermione said after another long pause. She wiped her eye, which was tearing up again.

“I’m going back to my room now. Thanks again, Harry; I needed the day out.” She got up to leave. He caught her arm.

“You want company?”

She shook her head, leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

“I’ve got Untamed Bronco.”

He let go of her arm. She left, closing the door behind her.

The rest of July passed in a warm haze until the week of Harry’s birthday. Hermione went back to Diagon Alley and Muggle London several times to buy more books and she visited St Mungo’s to talk to the Healers there. Harry spent the time practising Quidditch with Ginny when he wasn’t helping with the housework, gardening, feeding animals and all the other work around the Burrow. The day before his birthday Parvati Patil came to visit and she spent a long time holed up in Hermione’s room. When she came down late in the afternoon, she didn’t say goodbye to Harry or Ginny and her makeup was streaked like she’d been crying.

After dinner, while washing up, Harry leaned over and whispered to Hermione, “Everything okay with Parvati?”

Hermione glanced around to make sure no one else was in the kitchen.

“She’s going back to Hogwarts with Padma and she was a bit…” Hermione paused, searching for a word.

“Scared? Freaked out? Hesitant?” Harry asked.

“A bit of each, but also worried about…um…us?” Hermione’s whisper was very small.

“Ah,” Harry said, not knowing what else to say. The Map had given up Hermione’s secrets about her and Parvati a long time ago. Hermione knew Harry knew, but they’d never really talked about it. Harry knew that Ron knew and that Hermione and Ron had come to some agreement about it, but it wasn’t his business.

“I told her I wasn’t sure and we’d just have to see. I’ll come by your room later?”

Harry nodded and they finished the washing up. He was practising duplication Charms when Hermione knocked and he told her to come in.

She closed the door behind her and silenced it.

“Look, I know you know about Parvati and me and you’ve never pressed me on it.”

“None of my business and Ron seemed to be okay with whatever you two had decided, so I stayed out of it.”

She sat on his bed and he watched her from the desk chair.

“Thank you for that,” she said after a long pause.

“The thing with Parvati is…complicated but simple, I guess.”

“You don’t have to explain; I get it. You were lonely and scared and took comfort from each other. You’re not the only ones.” Harry got up and sat next to her on the bed and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him.

“Yes, it was that and you’re right, others did the same.” She met his eyes. “Ginny told me about her and Luna and her and Neville, but it’s not exactly the same.”

“You don’t owe me any explanation,” Harry said.

“No, but I just want you to understand how it was. It wasn’t just about being scared and lonely. I needed someone to talk to who wasn’t you or Ron, someone…” she struggled for words again.

“Female?” Harry suggested and she shook her head then shrugged and snorted a single laugh.

“Maybe, but no…um, I don’t know how to say it without hurting your feelings.”

“Just spit it out, pretend you’re Luna.”

“I needed someone around my intellectual level, or maybe just more empathetic that I could talk to.”

Harry blinked then laughed genuinely.

“You’re not angry?” Hermione asked.

“Just a tiny bit, but I know that Parvati is much more your intellectual equal. But, why not Padma, then?” He was mostly joking.

“Because I didn’t share a dorm with her, so it would have been much harder to sneak into her bed to talk and snog.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Hermione sighed.

“This has been so heavy for so long. I knew you knew, but I didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

“So what’s up between you and Ron right now, just so I don’t step in it?” Harry squeezed her to him. He felt tears start to soak through his shirt and kissed the top of her head.

“We’re being open right now. Either of us can see other people, but we’ll still try to be together, maybe. I just think we’re going different ways. School loves don’t always follow you after school and sometimes it just doesn’t work. I do love Ron, but I don’t know if I want to be married to him and live that family life with two kids and the white picket fence. I want…I want more, something different, to make a difference in a bigger way.”

“I get it. I think I want the opposite now. I want smaller. I just want to go back to school and have a normal year and be with my girlfriend. I think I do want that family and the small life, but I want you to always be a part of it, to. Friends always?” Her tears increased on him and his eyes started watering, too.

“Yeah, friends always,” she snuffled then laughed again.

“I’m tired of crying. I’m going to spend some time reading and then go to bed. Are you sneaking off to Ginny’s room tonight?” She elbowed him, sat up and wiped her eyes.

“Not tonight; I think Molly wants us to cool it a bit.”

“All right, see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight.”

She left and he lay back on his bed for a long time, picturing the quiet family life with Ginny and their children. What Hermione had said about school loves made him think and he hoped Ginny wanted the same thing. He vowed to talk to her about it tomorrow. He looked at his watch and realised that it was now today and it was his birthday. He got up and crept down to Ginny’s room. He didn’t knock and when he came in she was asleep with her hair pulled up in a knot. He sat down on the chair and watched her for a few minutes, then slipped into bed next to her. She stirred sleepily and slid over. He spooned up against her and soon her breathing lulled him into sleep also.

They woke up to noises in the hallway, obviously Arthur getting ready for work.

Harry kissed the back of her neck which elicited a shiver from Ginny.

“Good morning, love,” she said and turned around in his arms to kiss him.

“Good morning,” he said and kissed her again.

“I thought we’d decided to take a bit of a break to get Mom off our backs a bit?” she asked.

“Yeah, but something Hermione said last night bothered me.”

She arched an eyebrow at him and he knew it meant to go on.

“She said she wasn’t sure she wanted the quiet family life with kids and that she wanted to do something that made a difference and I knew that I do want the quiet family life and I want it with you. I know you want to play Quidditch and maybe I do, too, but after, can you picture us with kids, happy, doing good but not vitally important jobs?”

“Yeah, not seven kids of course, but two or three. Are you proposing, Harry?” She gave him a light kiss.

“Not officially, but I did want to make sure we were on the same page. I wanted to make sure this was…I don’t know, serious? For you too.”

“Very serious,” she said and slid her hand behind his neck to pull him in tighter.

“I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time and now that I’ve got you, I’m not going to let you go. I do want to marry you, not now, but when we’re done with school. I do want children, your children, but not for a while either.”

“Good,” he said, his voice muffled because she had his head tightly pulled into her chest.

“I should get ready for the day,” he said and started to pull back.