2000:
Harry hummed to himself as he cooked over the stove, his focus on getting the pancakes flipped over perfectly and not on the witch in the doorway who watched him amusedly.
“Pancakes?” Hermione murmured, a small smile tilting at the corner of his lip when her voice stopped his running thoughts.
He loved how she was able to silence the noise.
“Is there a problem with pancakes?” he asked, plating them next to the bacon and hash he had cooked as well.
“Never! Not when it’s…” Hermione drifted off, flourishing her wand and casting a quick tempus, a small giggle escaping at the time she saw. “Eight o’ clock at night. Harry, what in the world!”
When he finally looked up from plating her food, she stood smiling in the door frame with her curls cascading down past her shoulders. Her hand was placed on her hip, drawing his attention to the way her sleep shorts left very little of her legs covered. However, what truly grabbed his attention was the way she practically drowned in his old Seeker jersey, knowing fully well POTTER was strewn across the back. She looked bloody gorgeous.
She looked like his.
But she wasn’t. Not yet at least. A fact that was beginning to piss him off.
“You looked like you needed a little love. Besides, I heard you mention to Ron that your father used to do this.” He set her plate down at the seat next to his, grinning when she padded over happily, her fingers twisting her shirt anxiously.
“You even did the bunny ears?”
Harry sheepishly looked at the disfigured shape of a bunny he’d manage to even burn slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’d say it’s a poor attempt-” but he didn’t have time to finish because Hermione launched into his arms, her tiny body pressed against his as she hugged him tight.
Gods, her perfume.
He swallowed his groan, pressing his lips against the top of her head before she let go, his heart pounding when her dark eyes looked into his and her fingers curled against his sides. “Harry, you didn’t have to go through all the trouble, really!”
“Did it make you happy?”
“Of course, I was really missing my dad.”
“Then it’s no trouble at all,” Harry murmured, relishing the way she looked at him as if he hung the moon for her. “You’re never any trouble, Mia.”
___________________
2001:
Harry jumped at the sound of someone knocking on the bathroom door, the sound loud enough for him to hear over the music in his ear. He ripped out his headphones as he tossed the wet flannel into the sink and as he made his way over, the loud knocking becoming incessant banging that grew louder with each pound against the wood. He lazily opened the door with an arched brow to reveal a furious Hermione Granger tapping her foot as she stared up at him.
“Harry James Potter!” She smacked his bare chest, not once but twice as she pushed further into the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub across the room as he shut the door behind them. “Did you tell Theodore Nott I wouldn’t be interested in him?”
Wet (quite literally), partially naked (three words from her and he’d be completely if he had his way), and actually terrified, he smirked.“If I said yes; what’s my punishment?”
“Gods! You’re insufferable,” Hermione let out a breathy whine, causing him to choke on air at the sound of it.
He wondered if he could make her do that again.
“You can do better anyway,” Harry muttered, turning back to the mirror and to finish up shaving.
“That was Theo Nott, the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding world!”
“And? I’m the bloody fucking Chosen One.” Harry cocked a brow at her in the mirror, watching as she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest and one leg over the other.
“What’re you going to do? Chase away every wizard that comes my way? What if one day, I want to marry?”
“You do know it’s you and I that are going to get married, right?” He asked matter-of-factly, rolling his eyes at her little scoff as he wiped the remaining shaving cream off his face before turning and kneeling down in front of her.
“Do you really think someone like Nott can keep up with you, Mia?” He placed his hands on her knees, his fingers teasing the edge of her skirt.
Harry tried not to pay attention to how her breath hitched, but it felt so damn good, knowing he could do that to her.
“No, no, someone like Nott couldn’t keep up with me.”
___________________
2003:
“Oh, fuck,” Harry groaned, watching as she bounded down the stairs, her tits looking absolutely magnificent.
“How do I look?” Hermione asked as spun in a circle, watching his last name sparkle on the back of her jersey as she wore his number.
Like you should be in my fucking bed.
“I can already see complications with this outfit.” He sighed, leaning against the door in his kit as he ran his eyes over her. “You shine so bright I’ll be in the viewing box trying to catch you instead of the snitch.”
His heart soared as if he was doing a dive at breakneck speed at the sight of her. The way her head tilted back as she laughed, exposing the column of her throat.
Gods, he just wanted to run his tongue along it, leaving little nips and marks.
“Harry James–you're a terrible flirt.”
“I am my father’s son. However, while we’re at it, those jeans are quite distracting too.” He sighed, looking down at her with mock disappointment.
“Oh? How so?” At the sight of her tiny little pout, Harry tilted her chin up as he pulled her closer to him, a devious smirk spreading across his lips.
“Well, for starters, they’re still on.”
“Harry!” She smacked his chest and he grabbed her hand, pulling her flush against him. “Keep flirting with all the witches like this and soon, Rita will be saying you’re sleeping with us all.”
He couldn’t help but laugh as she buried herself in his chest, letting his magic pull them as he apparated away.
___________________
2005:
Harry pulled his fist back and slammed it into Cormac’s face, snarling when the wizard whimpered, begging him to stop.
“Yeah? You want me to stop? You can fuck off with that.”
At the next hit to his jaw, Harry enjoyed the splitting of skin on his knuckles. It meant he caught Cormac’s teeth and he hoped he fucking knocked them out.
He could still see Hermione’s broken, bruised skin where Cormac bit her in his mind.
When he felt the bracelet he’d always worn since they were on the run years ago vibrate– pulling him into an apparation to where she was, he panicked.
A thousand scenarios went through his head but what he wasn’t expecting was Cormac Mclaggen pinning her against the wall, covering her mouth as she thrashed.
Harry saw red.
“Harry, stop it, you’ll kill him!” Hermione cried, and he froze when he felt her tiny hands wrap around his arm, tears streaming down her face. “Please stop, I don’t have anyone here I can’t lose you too.”
Harry threw Cormac against the wall, watching him fall into a heap at their feet, breathing ragged and still very much alive.
Unfortunately.
“Do you need Mungos?” he whispered, Hermione taking his fingers and slowly unraveling them from his clenched fist.
“I need to go home.”
So, Harry took her with him.
___________________
2007:
“Have fun with that fling, Granger. Let me know when you’re ready for a real husband,” Harry sighed, looking up from behind the rim of his fire whiskey.
“Granger? What- Harry, are you alright?” Her doe eyes were wide and bright as she watched him carefully. Like she was always watching him it seemed.
“I’m trying it out. You seem to have a thing for petulant, bitchy wizards who think your beautiful name has too many vowels for them to pronounce.”
Hermione stood, shocked, as she smoothed her tiny black dress down.
“It’s just one date with Draco.”
Harry just shrugged, taking a sip of whiskey and looked up at her.
He could see it now.
Her straddling his hips, her arse sitting perfectly between his spread thighs as he hitched that fucking dress up so he could touch-
“Harry! Did you hear me?” She waved her hand in front of his face, nothing but concern lined with utter frustration in her eyes.
“Hm?” He murmured, his eyelids heavy as he watched her mouth move, wondering how it would feel against his when he would make her moan.
“You said to let you know when I’m ready for a real husband?”
He did say that- yes. He couldn’t speak so he simply nodded, never taking his attention off her.
“Well, you haven’t even asked me out yet, Harry.”
___________________
2009:
Harry had her pinned against the wall, his mouth ravishing hers, leaving her lower lip swollen and red from being bit and teased. “Oh fuck, Harry,” she whined, and he swallowed it whole, the way his name sounded rolling off her little pink tongue.
Having trapped her between his chest and the wall, he took in how her body fit against his perfectly, how much he fucking loved her teeth sinking into the flesh of his forearms as he nipped and kissed the soft spots on her neck that made her whimper.
He drowned in the high he got from her nails scratching down his back, his forehead resting against hers as she rolled her hips, her cunt rubbing against the evidence of his attraction.
“Merlin,” Hermione breathed, a moan slipping past his lips as she slipped a hand between them, her hand running down his length. Harry let out a choked gasp, his head swimming as he tried to recover with a weak retort that it was just him in the room, not Merlin.
He was trying desperately not to think about how the girl he’s fancied for a near decade was currently touching his cock like it was her favorite quill, stroking the length as if she were lost in thought.
Fuck it.
“Tell me the three words, say them right now and I’ll promise I’ll take care of you. I’ll be so fucking good to you, Mia,” he groaned as her lips met his chest, kissing everywhere she could reach from where he had her pinned. His fingers ran along the waist of her denims, near freezing at the button, waiting for a sign, anything that he could keep going.
She had too many clothes for his liking.
“I love you.”
Harry, shocked because that was not at all what he was expecting, picked the witch up and threw her over his shoulder, taking them to his room.
On his bed, he whispered praises along the inside of her thighs, relishing in the way her fingers threaded through his hair.
In his sheets, he discovered the sounds she made when he slid into her, feeling her flutter around him as they became one.
Under his comforter, with each thrust into her, he discovered just how beautiful Hermione’s eyes were when she was in love.
In his arms, where she was fast asleep, he whispered that he loved her too.
___________________
2011:
“Harry, you can’t convince me that the Egyptians built the pyramids with magic,” Hermione sighed, looking over at her husband who gave a noncommittal shrug. He was reading a book upside down, but Hermione didn’t care to comment on that at the moment.
“I don’t know, they seem far too pointy for a chisel and a spike.”
“Not everything comes from magic though. Some things are just simply unexplainable.”
Harry looked her over, before tossing his book aside, disregarding her gasp as he pulled the book from her tight grip and marked it, setting it down on the table. He then reached over and grabbed her arms, pulling her to him until she straddled his lap.
“How do you explain ten magical years?”
Hermione furrowed her brow, getting comfortable as he ran his fingers down the sides of her arms, watching the chills dance along her skin.
“I fell in love with you on the run, Hermione. You can’t tell me magic didn’t bring us together. Every lumos, every expelliarmus, every patronus led me to you. Magic is all I know.”
“That doesn’t mean we come from it though. Most of that was just you and I, being us.”
He looked her over, just wishing for once he could show her how beautiful her magic looked to him and maybe she’d be in as much awe as he was.
“If you didn’t get your letter at eleven, I would have never met you.”
When Harry saw her lips part with realization, he smiled softly.
His silly witch, ever so practical.
“I’ll always believe in magic, because magic gave me you,” he murmured, tickling her sides ever so slightly to elicit a giggle that still made his heart skip.
“Harry James Potter, you must be using a spell to still be charming me all these years later.”
Letting out a content hum, he shrugged as he took her face in his hands and gently kissed her lips, and then her forehead, feeling their bond soar to life as their magic mingled together.
“Whatever you say, Hermione Jean Potter.”
However, Harry knew that it wasn’t him keeping them together like this, but the very magic that’d been with him since his first letter of the hundreds Hogwarts had sent.
Since he won against Voldemort.
While he waited for his wife.
It was over ten, full and lively years that he got to witness every day, how love truly was the most powerful magic.
Finite.