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"I think I’m too old for this," Hermione stubbornly mutters, standing in front of the large mirror and nervously smoothing the perfectly aligned fabric of her dark green dress. It looks quite modest, covering everything from her neck down to her knees.
Harry understands the sentiment, despite her being only ten months older than him. Things had seemed so much simpler when they were at Hogwarts, and even after she graduated. Nothing compares to the confidence and recklessness of youth – they had spent it all, often for the wrong reasons.
"I think you’re exactly the right age," he reassures her, picking up her coat from the wall peg and helping her into it.
“I’m nearly forty,” she says, her lips curving into a smile – a shaky one, though, Harry notices.
Her birthday had been only a few weeks ago, but the image of Hermione’s uncertain expression as she stared at the mass of candles covering almost the entire surface of the cake still lingered in his mind.
It’s gone with a slight shake of his head.
Yet his hands remain on her shoulders, gently brushing up and down her covered arms. Harry can sense her doubts, her stress, and her worries beneath his fingertips. It’s something that has always been there – during the war and even before, at Hogwarts, when they were just naïve, stupid kids. He swore he would never be the cause of that.
He broke his vow.
Because it’s him who pushed her. It’s him who suggested setting her up on her first-ever blind date, simply because it’s hard to jump back into the dating game in your late thirties on your own.
It’s even harder when you’re divorced.
But the handsome detective from Scotland Yard, who charmingly refuses to be called anything other than his equally attractive last name—Watson—whom Harry had known for almost a year now through the Auror division’s collaboration with the Muggle Police Forces (not without the help of the Brightest Witch of her age, of course), is in the same boat.
And it hadn’t gone unnoticed when the detective’s gaze lingered on Hermione more often than would be considered appropriate. Being a Muggle, the man had no interest in her status in the wizarding world. His attraction was purely for her - for who she was.
So when the third pint of Guinness is finished in a small London pub, and the detective’s lips curl up yet again after Harry slips Hermione’s name into the conversation for what feels like the thousandth time, he makes a blunt offer as a first-time matchmaker.
“Oh,” the surprised look on the detective’s face quickly shifts to a confused one. “I thought you two-” Watson gives him a meaningful look and vaguely gestures with his hands.
Harry laughs heartily, though his collar tightens, and he adjusts his tie in the sudden warmth of the pub. “We’re best friends.”
“I’m aware,” the detective replies in a strange tone. “And… you’ve never...?” he drawls, narrowing his eyes.
“No!” Harry interrupts, immediately ordering another pint, hoping it will soothe the sudden dryness in his throat. “Never.” The beer arrives, and he takes a long sip before loudly clearing his throat.
It doesn’t help. His throat still feels parched.
But Watson beams, seemingly not noticing.
Convincing Hermione of that, though, was the tricky part.
"If this goes wrong, it’s all on you," she says, her intense gaze practically burning a hole in the mirror.
“We travelled back in time once. I’m sure you can handle going into a nice restaurant in London.”
“If I can make it there without breaking my legs,” Hermione sighs loudly, glancing down at her covered feet. “I can’t believe I’m going through the torture again because of you.”
Harry only smiles at her reflection. His own face against her temple looks a bit smug, he admits to himself.
As she walks away, her steps unsteady on high heels as curses land softly at her feet, his eyes on their own are drawn to her skinny ankles. When the door closes, he catches sight of his reflection in the looking glass, the touch of grey at his temples visible, and he doesn't quite understand why he suddenly feels so lonely.
“Sherlock?” Harry arches an eyebrow as he steps into the kitchen, a white envelope pressed between his fingers. The poor postman had looked completely lost, wandering back and forth between houses number 11 and 13 until he spotted Harry and ended his miserable search.
“It’s a joke,” Hermione laughs, comically jumping in an attempt to reach for the envelope, which he lifts higher with each of her tries. “C’mon, Harry, what are you, seventeen? It’s not funny!”
“I beg to differ – it’s hilarious,” he laughs too and childishly snakes around the kitchen as she chases him. “He gave you a nickname!”
“I think it’s rather clever,” Hermione argues, finally catching him and practically dangling from his raised arm, though her tone is somewhat playful.
“Watson and Sherlock. Where do I fit into this relationship? Oh, no…” Harry gasps dramatically as she pulls on his muscles. “Does it make me Mrs. Hudson?”
“I don’t know,” Hermione blows the loose lock from her face and swiftly wraps one arm around his neck, bringing his face closer. “Did she spy on them through her windows?”
His eyes fix on a freckle on the left side of her nose, one he somehow never noticed before, and he realizes he’s suddenly frozen in place.
He regrets not shedding his robes the moment he walked in.
“I could use my wand, you know,” she breathes out after what feels like an eternity, and he feels the warmth of her breath on his lips. “Hex you.”
“Try me,” he whispers, not knowing why the sight of her eyes widening sends blazing heat down his spine.
Her lips are slightly parted, the bottom one a touch fuller than the top.
“No need,” Hermione leans even closer and swiftly snatches the envelope from his loosened grip before releasing him and taking a few steps back. Harry scratches the back of his neck, his fingers itching to touch… something.
“Because of you, I’m now out of breath,” she playfully slaps the envelope against his chest and beams at him with a glint in her eyes before tearing the seal apart.
Harry feels both amused and irritated as he loosens his collar and finally rids himself of his heavy robes. But the skin at the back of his neck remains warm where her fingers were just a minute ago.
For the past two weeks, she’s worn her smile the way she wears her mother’s old sweater—with a mix of special care and effortless ease, as if it’s always belonged. The handsome detective has been appearing more frequently on the road in front of the magical townhouse he cannot see, and Harry catches himself lip-reading while sneakily peeking from one of the windows at 12 Grimmauld Place.
Even though Hermione isn’t living here. Technically.
Since the Weasley-Granger house was finally sold and Ron moved back to the Burrow until he could find a place of his own, Hermione had been left running between her parents' old house and Grimmauld Place. The latter was far more convenient for travelling to the Ministry through its fireplace.
For once, Harry was glad he hadn’t rushed to sell the grim townhouse.
So she took one of the bedrooms on the first floor, and the small space slowly became decorated with her belongings—like the large mirror leaning against the wall opposite her bed, which she often uses these days to scrutinize her appearance before heading off to another meeting with the handsome detective.
Meetings, she calls them. Because they are all about work.
It hasn’t escaped his attention, though, that in the meantime they’ve managed to have two meetings that weren’t work-related at all.
When the ridiculously handsome Detective Watson escorts her back from the second one, and Harry once again watches them talking on the sidewalk, he tells himself he’s just excited to have been right, for once, about someone's romantic prospects.
He tells himself it’s because he’s just watching over her. Just to make sure she’s safe and comfortable.
He tells himself it’s because he ought to, like the brother she never had would.
He tells himself it’s because he loves her. Like a sister, that is, he adds hastily in his mind, though none of it is said out loud.
So Harry watches as their hands touch, as casual hi-and-bye kisses land on her cheek. And when, for the third time, his collar tightens around his throat for what seems like no reason, he rubs his neck, convincing himself it’s because he hasn’t been able to move on yet.
That’s the reason he tries to cling to as he finds himself at the Leaky Cauldron, at an hour when the intentions of its patrons are as transparent as daylight. The rooms fill up quickly when the burn of liquor courses through your veins.
When he drains his glass, fearing that all his eyes will see is long, sleek ginger hair, he’s surprised when he doesn’t. But he’s terrified when his alcohol-fuelled, hooded gaze only registers those with brown curls.
Of course, Hermione arrives less than a minute after he sends his Patronus, mumbling something incoherent with his drunken mouth. She’s always been a good friend, after all.
The brown curls his fingers brush against when she comes to greet him in the morning, still clad in the same clothes she wore the day before, feel unbelievably soft. She pulls away, but his hand chases after her, wanting to touch them again.
He doesn’t.
“What time is it?” he squints against the bright light streaming through the living room window. Harry groans, slowly sitting upright. His body feels stiff, his head heavy. There’s no escaping the first signs of a hangover, even in the Magical World.
“Time to get up,” Hermione says, passing him a sobering potion as she kneels in front of the couch. The light gets caught in the waves of her mane, dancing along with the bright speckles of the glint in her brown eyes. She’s wearing her mother’s old sweater – the knitted woollen fabric so long it covers her knees. Her bare legs look even paler against the dark wool.
He empties the glass in one long sip, his face burning.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, sitting beside him.
“I won’t do it again,” Harry mutters, twirling the empty glass in his hand.
“I know,” Hermione gently squeezes his knee. “I was just hoping you’d be able to avoid it.”
He tears his gaze from her fingers and meets her soft brown eyes. “There are four of us who went through the divorce, remember?”
He does remember, of course. “The Daily Prophet” and “Witch Weekly” haven’t allowed him to forget yet.
So she stays over again, tending to him like he’s coming down with an illness. After talking about everything and nothing for hours, when the living room is once more drawn into darkness, they’re huddled together on the couch.
“This sweater feels nice,” Harry says sleepily, threading his fingers through the loose loops.
“It does,” she whispers against his shoulder, tugging at the long sleeves as if she wants to hide her whole self inside it.
Her cold bare feet rubbing against his sock-covered ones, he feels drunk again.
He knows the sobering potion won’t help this time.
The next time he wakes up, her head is resting on his chest, the throw blanket lying beside them, their legs tangled, and his cheeks hurt from the stretch of his lips.
He makes her breakfast before she leaves, chuckling at her futile attempts to flip a pancake with a shake of the frying pan.
“Show off,” Hermione mutters, crossing her arms over her chest as he flips yet another pancake with practised ease. Harry grins, but she flicks her wand, and the pancake makes an artful pirouette on its own.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” he glares at her, aghast.
“I used my hand, didn’t I?” Hermione teases, shaking her wand before squealing as Harry dashes toward her, wrapping his arms around her waist and trying to snatch it from her. They laugh as he spins her, catching her small wrist and wrapping his fingers over hers, clasping the wand.
Her hand feels so small in his grasp.
“Never thought of you as a sore loser,” she manages, catching her breath as she locks her glinting gaze with his. Her breathing warms his lips.
“The Boy Who Wins, aren’t I?” His lips stretch into a lopsided grin, but he feels it falter as her eyes swiftly take him in.
“You’re no longer a boy,” she whispers, her words grazing his lips and sending familiar warmth down his chest and lower and lower and lower…
His grip tightens around her waist.
The burning smell forces him to jump away.
“Pancakes, shit!” Harry rushes to the pan and ends the heat with the flick of her wand, which he hasn’t realized he managed to snatch. The heat from the butter masks the flush creeping up his face.
But when he turns around, she’s no longer in the kitchen.
He pretends not to notice the open package on her bed containing one of those boogie lingerie brands Ginny used to buy. He tells himself it doesn’t bother him.
He knows this is a lie.
It’s the third date next Friday.
She looks happy. Whenever she comes and stays over, she looks so damn happy, and he should be happy for her. With his own hands, he put her back together after she was nothing but pieces of a broken heart. But again, this is a lie, he reminds himself. His hands had only placed her in another man’s embrace.
Who then made her happy.
A man whom Harry considers a friend.
A man whom he suddenly finds inexplicably annoying.
He watches again from the window, with borderline envy, as the handsome detective leans closer, obscuring the view of her face.
He averts his gaze and walks away from the window with a painful pang in his chest.
This isn’t the first time Harry’s seen his friend kissing her, nor is it the first time his friend whispered something in her ear.
And when she comes over after, he can’t help but think it’s not the first time she talks about someone with that glint in her brown eyes, which makes her look younger and more alive somehow.
The glint that he so often sees when there are just the two of them.
And the sight of it makes him feel irritated.
And irrevocably, inexplicably, madly aroused.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” is a question his mirror reflection cannot answer. Harry splashes his shaved face with cold water and trails his fingers over the faint grey in his hair.
The annoyingly handsome detective aged much less.
Later, lying in a bed too big for one person, he blames the divorce and the absence of a woman to share his bed with for suddenly agonizingly aching for his best friend.
She visits more often now, and stays over almost daily, and he wants to scream in her face with those glinting brown eyes that her presence is the last thing his craving body needs right now. Her perfume has seeped so deeply into his couch’s cushions that just walking by sends its scent invading his nostrils like an army, awakening those sickening, forbidden thoughts he has been fighting so hard against.
Not hard enough, as his lonely bed has witnessed in the middle of the night, with his clouded mind occupied by her clad in that old sweater, cold feet rubbing against his, while her fingers slowly drive him mad.
Not hard enough, as the walls of his bedroom resonated with the echo of his weak attempts to stifle his moans at the images of her rocking over him, letting him touch her all over.
Not hard enough, he repeats in his mind, standing under the cold shower’s relentless stream, trying and failing to shake off the vision of her standing before him, skin glistening bright like her eyes, as droplets cascade lower and lower and lower…
So it’s getting harder and harder not to tell her.
To not daydream about her plump lips, which she bites when deep in thought or while reading a particularly interesting book.
To not hold her just slightly longer when she comes over and before she leaves.
To not allow his gaze to linger on the curve of her neck.
To not let it fall lower and lower and lower…
He doesn’t rush home on Friday, burying himself in case files. But when he catches himself going over the same line for the tenth time, he shuts the folder and snatches his Auror robes from the coat hanger.
Grimmauld feels quieter than normal. Harry sheds his robes, throwing them over the back of the dining chair and runs his hand through his hair.
He wants to laugh, hoping he can stifle the pain in his chest through the power of his will.
The sound of the creaking boards above makes his heart skip a beat. He runs up the stairs before his mind can even process the sound.
There she is, wearing her mother’s old sweater, her bare legs adorned with sock-clad feet. Brown curls are tucked into a messy bun atop her head. He stares, unblinking, as the drumming in his chest sends tremors to his fingers.
He is in front of her in the blink of an eye. He doesn’t remember moving. He doesn’t notice her crossing the distance either and only realizes what happened when he catches the reflection of the two of them in the large mirror from the corner of his eye.
“You’re here,” he breathes.
She nods, eyes wide, and the glint shines from their depths.
“What about your date?” The question rushes out before he can stop himself, his gaze flitting from that tiny freckle on her nose to the brightness of her eyes.
“Date?” She looks confused, but his frown seems to urge her to explain further. “They were work meetings. I made it very clear in the first one. We never-”
His lips find hers before he can ruin the moment by saying something even more stupid.
Soft, warm, and responsive. Her lips are everything he has been dreaming of – and so much more.
When he presses her body flush against his, she wraps her arms around his neck, lifting herself up and bringing herself even closer. He thinks he should’ve kissed her that time in the kitchen. He wanted to. He wanted it so badly; he is sure of it now.
His mind halts at the feel of her fingers beneath his shirt.
He breaks the kiss to gently lower her onto the bed. Her lips are dark and swollen, and he can’t resist the urge to trace his thumb over the curve of her bottom lip before moving lower and lower and lower…
But as his fingers tug at the hem of her jumper, she covers his hand with hers.
“We don’t have to do anything,” a whisper against her lips and he pulls away to focus on her eyes.
There are still troubles and worries beneath his fingertips, his lips. He knows she can feel the same under her delicate palms.
“What if it doesn’t work out?” Her voice is so quiet and small that he feels like he’s lip-reading again.
But he understands. He would have understood even if she hadn’t said it out loud. Both divorced, both believing those relationships were for a lifetime.
Both were wrong.
But it hasn’t been them. Now it’s them.
“Then we won’t regret not giving it a chance.”
Her gaze is so bright, the whole room seems to light up.
“I wish you could see me… before,” Hermione stutters slightly. “I don’t- I’m not…”
Her lips tremble, and she seems unable to finish as the words die in her throat with a shallow breath. He stares at her, bewildered.
Hermione shifts her face, taking her gaze away, but he cups her cheek, and their eyes meet again – brown in green.
“You are,” his voice is firm and earnest. “You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” and the brightness in her gaze reaches an unlimited quality.
“You really have terrible eyesight.” Her watery smile makes something ache inside his chest.
He can’t resist kissing her again.
The sweet sounds she makes every time he brushes his tongue over hers set his skin on fire.
When their lips part hesitantly, she releases her grip on his fingers and nods, her eyes searching his. He hopes that whatever she is looking for, she finds it in them.
Harry pushes her sweater off, helping her ease it over her bushy mane. When the knitted piece drops to the floor, so does his jaw.
So much. She is so much more.
When he finally forces himself to peel his gaze away from her curves, he kisses her hard, desperately pressing himself between her parted legs, letting her feel just how deeply seeing her bared affects him. Her gasp is lost amidst their entwined tongues.
He brushes his lips against the curve of her smile before trailing down the column of her neck, grazing over the thin, barely visible scar that Bellatrix left with her cursed knife.
Because of him.
He feels her breath hitch beneath his open mouth as he descends down her collarbones, capturing the beautiful flush of her tender skin and tracing the faint scar left by the Dolohov curse.
Because of him.
He feels her fingers thread through his hair as he maps the peak of her breast with his tongue, something inside him roaring in triumph at the sensation of it hardening instantly under his caress.
Because of him.
He traces every inch of her exposed skin with his mouth, his tongue and his fingers. Every wrinkle, every dimple and rough patch. Every unevenness, every mark of maturity and age.
She may not have had them before, but he is ready to spend the rest of his life worshipping her. He wants to hear her sound like this again and again, knowing that…
This is all because of him.
As he hovers above her, her trembling fingers push aside his fogged glasses before their lips coil together again. He feels her deftly undoing the top button of his shirt, then the next, until her hands roam blindly, lips still locked with his, and with a swish, his clothes land in a neatly folded stack beside her sweater.
“Show off,” he murmurs, a smile tugging at his lips, and she has the decency to blush before he deliberately slides against her now uncovered core.
The feel of her slick heat makes him groan into her mouth. “How… how long?”
Hermione bites her lip in that familiar way. “Today or in general?”
He gapes at her before kissing her hard, fear coursing through him that he won’t be able to hold on much longer.
She nods when they break apart next time.
He is inside her within seconds, and his chest blooms with how much he loves the feel of her, the scent of her. How perfectly they fit, how responsive she is – just one touch makes him shiver.
So he tells her, heatedly whispering in her ear all the things he’d only shared with his bed. He watches with twisted satisfaction as a deeper blush spreads across her cheeks and neck.
As their bodies meld into one, his fingers lovingly trace her shapes, while his eyes remain spellbound by the glint in hers, which with each push grows brighter and brighter until she gasps his name, clinging to him as he follows, her name slipping from his lips what feels like a thousand times.
The morning sun casts warm stripes across the wrinkled linen. Her back presses against his as his lips trace a wet line from her shoulder to the spot where it meets her neck, lingering up to her ear.
He feels her smile stretch against his forearm and buries his face into her curls.
“Can you breathe?” Hermione murmurs quietly, amusement lacing her tone. “I’ve got so much hair it strangles even me sometimes.”
Harry laughs, coughing slightly as some of her wild locks stick to his lips. He raises himself on one elbow and catches their blurry reflections in the glass surface of the large mirror leaning against the wall.
“You don’t see it, do you?” he asks, gently tracing his fingers from her shoulder, brushing up and down her arm. Hermione turns to face him, but he can no longer sense any doubt or stress beneath his touch. He motions with his head to the mirror. “How beautiful you are.”
She follows his gaze, locking her eyes on the shapes of their tangled limbs. Without his glasses, he struggles to decipher what is him and what is her, but from where he sits, they seem one and whole.
He shifts his gaze to her face, close enough that his near-blindness isn’t an obstacle to catching a glimpse of the delicate pink blooming across her cheeks and neck. When brown meets green, calm, and the glint in her eyes feels limitless.
“I don’t need a mirror to see,” she whispers, reaching to cup his cheek. “You already showed me.”
Hermione smiles, her eyes searching his, and he knows she’s found exactly what she was looking for within their depths.