Hopeless

Viopathartic

A/N: Hello guys and girls! I know that this chapter was a little late, but I have been so busy during the summer! School starts in about a week and I still have to finish some work. So this post might be the last of mine for a while. I have to get adjusted to school first. Then I will decide on when to write and when to post.

This chapter was quickly written so please ignore the grammatical errors and such.

Thank you.

"Harry?"

I awake from my memories, suddenly invaded by another voice. I take a quick look at alarm clock by Hermione's bed and realize that it is close to eight in the morning.

I think Anne realizes the oddity of the scene she was witnessing. "Why are you in Hermione's room?"

I rub my face with my hands, wiping away any traces of tears. Clearing my throat, I quickly turn around and smile. I see that Liam is already awake and he too sleepily rubs his eyes.

"Oh," I blubber, "I was checking if she was awake to talk, but she's not so…" I stand up from my seat and make my way to Anne. "I'll take him." Liam doesn't seem to recognize me because he stares at my face for the longest time. Finally, he smiles as best as a sleepy three year old can manage and stretched his arms to me.

I get a hold of him and run so that Anne wouldn't get the chance to ask me any questions.

At the time, the best choice for me was to stay away from Hermione. Keep my distance.

You don't know what it was like. Honestly, you don't. You may think I am a coward for giving Hermione up so easily. For letting Ron take her away from me. But if you were there, to see how happy the Weasleys were even though they lost nearly half of their family…

They were ecstatic to see their youngest son alive and well and with the girl who they all believed would be the best choice for Ron. They celebrated because after everything, Ron was happy.

The blood on the note reminded me of how much everyone sacrificed for me. A death in return meant one more day for Harry Potter to live. Harry Potter must survive, for he is our savior. No matter what they cost, we will do everything to aid him in the battle against Voldemort.

The Weasleys never even got to properly bury Fred because Death Eaters took him away. As for Charlie, the Reducto curse left nothing for the Weasleys to mourn. Ginny was the only one whose body still remained, and with my heart screaming to apologize, I watched as she was buried in the cemetery specifically reserved for the war.

Hermione and Ron being together brought a new ray of hope and happiness, a calm to the people who faithfully waited for the end of all the fighting. Whenever they held hands, I saw a smile of pure joy on Mrs. Weasley's face. You would never have guessed that she lost a few of her children in the most unforgivable ways. Whenever they shared a chaste kiss, the whole room would towards them and sigh.

What kind of person would then step in and announce, "Uh…nope, Hermione's kind of mine"? Who was I to take away their happiness when they were the ones to give me mine in the first place?

It hurt, you know. Of course.

Hermione had forgotten me. Not voluntarily but still. Ron had forgotten Luna. Not on purpose but still.

A day after Hermione had woken up, after I had done the worst possible thing in the world…I experienced a bout of madness. No one knew of it because I was confined in my room. I had suddenly sat up, believing that I had a plan to keep Hermione safe and away from Ron. I flirted with the idea of locking Hermione up at Grimmauld Place and leaving her with a life supply of books. That way, she'd be safe because my home was protected with multitudes of ancient spells, and only I would be able to see her, being the owner of the place.

However, that would have never worked.

She would have finished every book in three months and demand for new ones. Plus, she's not the type to sit and obey. She'd fight, and there was no denial; I would have certainly lost.

Hermione doesn't know that nearly half of the people she works with in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are part of my division. I work as an Auror in appearance. I take all the missions that regular Aurors receive, tackle the cases, then come back looking for more. But Kingsley offered me a job and the bastard knew that I wouldn't disagree.

My official job is to be an Auror, but on the side, I have much more authority. I lead a division of more experienced Aurors who could whip someone's arse with a just few spells. Most of them were part of the war effort. Others were sons or even grandsons who decided to follow their relative's footsteps. They act as part time bodyguards and part time coffee brewer/file reporter/assistants.

Truly, though, we are in charge of cleaning up.

That means we chase the bastards who were lucky to escape two years ago and show them that their luck had limits. Thirteen Deatheaters were reported to have escaped. Today, we managed to round up seven. The other six that are still roaming free used to be part of Voldemort's inner circle. Most loyal, most trained, most deadly. Key character: Dolohov.

Some of my Aurors, the dimwitted ones, suggested that perhaps the remaining Death Eaters died. I then reminded them that Voldemort managed to hide out in the Forbidden Forest and feed on unicorns while more than a thousand minors lived in the castle just a few miles away. That shut them up.

Hermione may have employees, but at heart, they all report to me. I'm in charge of everything, but that doesn't stop me from forgetting why I had signed up for this in the first place. It was for her. For her protection.

I kept my distance after the war. When Hermione and Ron asked, I would go out to lunch with them. Of course, I didn't enjoy it much, but I managed to reveal to them my daily life as an Auror. I visited The Burrow on Sundays. Those were the days where everyone gathered to mingle and such.

Some of the newspapers even acknowledged my distance from Hermione and Ron.

A Secret Love Affair Revealed?

A Love Triangle Gone Bad?

I didn't understand. It was like…the longer I spent apart from them, the closer the two became. Was their memory of me getting weaker and weaker because I was no longer there to remind them of my presence?

Sometimes, in my morose pity, I'd sit in my living room and listen to Kreacher's steps as he wobbled along the floor above my head. A small burst of triumph would sneak up upon me and I would think, "I am no longer in love with her!" Then I'd continue on with my reading or something, falsely believing that my feelings for her had finally disappeared.

Then I'd look at the clock and see that not even a second had past and my thoughts would turn to the feeling of Hermione's kissing and the dizzying effect of her eyes…

I had never thought of them to be the couple people would rave about. I had lived with them for seven years. I had listened to their banters that quickly turned sour and the arguments that left the two treating each other with the cold shoulder for months in time! I had never thought that Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley would reach the time where marriage seemed possible and pregnancy seemed thrilling.

But never trust my thoughts.

After all, I'm still in love with Hermione. My thoughts are usually bitter and in desperate moments, Ron's death is perversely thrilling to me.

Oh, the life that I live.

Harry Potter, the loyal and truest Gryffindor.

When I get to the kitchen, Hedwig is perched outside, holding a string that's wrapped around a stack of envelopes in her beak. She tilts her head once seeing me, and then once I get closer, she lightly taps against the window.

I glance around me, checking if anyone's awake. Once the coast was clear, I approach the window and wandlessly open it, letting Hedwig into the room. Liam delightfully laughs when seeing Hedwig up close. He reaches a hand out as if to pet her, but I quickly stop him; I'm not sure how well Hedwig acts to strangers.

"Hello, Hedwig," I say to her. I had her stay at my office since I couldn't bring her with me. At least she seems glad to see me. "Hopefully you didn't bring me any work stuff."

Hedwig hoots and turns away from me as if trying to deny delivering anything that would upset me. I smile and pet her softly on the beak.

"You better go; Hermione's parents know you, but we also have muggles over too."

With that, Hedwig flaps her wings and sets off into the sky. Liam lifts his arms up like he wants to catch her, but Hedwig teases him and flies higher out of his reach.

I dread reading more reports, but I might as well get it done with. With that thought, I set Liam down into his booster chair, and he happily complies. He begins to occupy himself by playing with his bib which I put on him for mess control.

While he's doing his own thing, I check my mail. Most of the letters were messages from my team. I even got a blank envelope with no return address! It must be from Eli or Wit. I put it aside, deeming it insignificant. One of the men, Silas Trake, had hurriedly scribbled that Hermione was not at work and that he was requesting for back up. I throw the parchment down in disgust. Quick and agile they might be, but cunning was a different story.

"Hi!"

I turn around and Liam looks at me almost expectedly. He wants me to feed him, although I have no clue how…

…what do three-year-olds munch on? Do I give him something healthy? What, I need a manual for this.

I'm going to do what Anne did yesterday. Choosing my plan of action, I head over to the cabinets and search for four multi-color small bowls, and yes, I find them behind the cups.

I place them right in front of Liam, just so that he can't reach it from his chair.

First bowl: Red. Cereal.

Second bowl: Blue. Oatmeal (with spoon)

Third bowl: Green. Macaroni Cheese

Fourth bowl: Yellow. Gerber, banana flavored (interestingly enough, Hermione says it means 'to throw up' in French)

Liam looks serious as he debates his choice of breakfast. When I first saw Anne doing this to him, I thought that giving him choices would just cause more trouble and more cooking. Later, she explained that if they didn't do this, Liam wouldn't eat anything.

"So, what are you going to chose, Liam?" I ask conversationally to the toddler. To the toddler, I repeat. You can just guess my level of insanity. I drop to my knees so that I am eye level with him. Using wandless magic, I levitate all four bowls. Liam won't tell. The toddler's eyes widen and he smiles as his hands reach out greedily. "Red or blue or green or yellow? Or red and blue or green and yellow. Or—"

Finally, Liam grabs the red bowl, effectively spilling some cereal onto the floor.

I made the other bowls sit down, sighed, and then bent down to clean the food up.

Suddenly, Liam starts to jump up and down in his booster seat, not caring that his knees were banging up against the top each time. I grab bowls, just to make sure that they don't fall. What the bloody hell is he getting so excited about?

"There's my little Liam!" A jolly voice calls from the entrance. I pop my head up over the counter to see who it is.

He's probably Anne's husband. He was already dressed in casual jeans and a plain white t-shirt. From the looks of his soaking dirty blond head, he just got out of the shower.

"Ah," he says, once he sees my messy head.

"Hello," I say. I don't think he knows who I am because I've only seen him while he was sleeping.

"Hi…uh, you must be Hermione's guest, right?"

"One of them, yeah. I'm Harry."

"Jacob." We shake hands. "So, making the little guy breakfast?"

"Yeah."

"And what did he choose?" Jacob makes his way to his son's chair and peeks into the red bowl. "Of course, cereal." Liam smiles and uses his small, chubby hands to feed his father some of his food.

"Hello," a voice of an angel says from behind me.

What a morning to wake up too. I feel like collapsing when I see her at the doorway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her hair, uncombed and everywhere…I must touch it.

Restrain yourself, Potter.

"Hi," I breathe. I probably sound like a lovesick fool.

Wait, I am one!

HAHAHA.

Hermione yawns again and heads over to me. I expect her to give me a friendly hug, but Hermione decides to drag her hand through my hair and continue on walking. I stiffen at the sudden touch.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You're telling me that no one has ever caressed your hair."

"If you mean caressing like what you're doing, then no. You're the first," I answered, closing my eyes.

"Does it feel good?"

Her hands lightly skimmed my hair and sometimes they'd massage my scalp. It feels too good.

I mumbled my appreciation. "Mmhmm."

I snap out of my internal flashback and glance at Hermione and Jacob to see if they noticed. Hermione yawns as she steps onto the tip of her toes and reaches for a small mug from the cabinet.

Jacob, however, was tracing circles on the countertop. He catches me looking at him and momentarily meets my eyes before bringing them back down. I see a small trace of a smile forming.

He noticed.

Suddenly, a mug was thrust into my face.

I blink before realizing that I was standing in front of the coffee machine. Might as well make it now.

"How do you like your coffee?"

The two of us were at Grimmauld Place, and it was eerily quiet. Maybe it was because Hermione decided to wake me up. When I first saw her in the state I was—groggy and disoriented—I thought she had a nightmare. It actually turned out that I was the one screaming and thrashing around in my bed.

"Honestly, after years of watching me drink coffee—"

"Well, I never took great notice of what you drank, Hermione."

Harsh. Stupid. Dumb. Anymore synonyms?

"2 teaspoons of sugar and a tablespoon of cream. And don't you forget it," she warns, choosing to forget my comment and glaring as if threatening me.

"There. Try it," I said as I handed her the cup after following her instructions. She gave me a smirk.

"It’s a pass."

She takes a small, experimental sip of the mug that I hand her.

"This is perfect, Harry! How'd you know what I like?"

"Honestly," I purposely reply, "after years of watching you drink coffee—"

"Now that's weird," pipes in Jacob who then earns an elbow from Hermione.

"Sorry for him. Harry, this is—"

"Jacob," I say.

"Harry. Good to meet you," he says, shaking my hand again and bowing with mock respectability.

Hermione rolls her eyes. "Anne and him were childhood sweethearts. I'm afraid Jacob is still stuck in the childhood phase."

"So…" Jacob drawls loudly, ignoring Hermione, "Harry, what time did you get in yesterday?"

"Yeah, what time?" Hermione asks, stirring her coffee for the sake of stirring.

"Oh, stop feigning, Hermione!" Jacob teases, grinning. He turns to me and adds, while munching on his own bowl of cereal. "Hermione lost some sleep over you; even though everyone else was asleep, she stayed up until midnight, I'd say."

His cousin-in-law shoots him a look, and I wonder why she tried to hide it from me. "I was only worried!"

Am I pathetic or what…because I feel a flutter in my heart, just because of her words.

"Well, I came home around 2," I answer, hoping my tone was casual and disinterested.

"Where'd you go?" Jacob asks curiously.

The both of them turn their gazes on me.

The heat's rising in the room and it is suddenly hard for me to speak. Her gaze is penetrating, and I'm wondering…what kind of worry is she feeling?

"My friend's house."

"Girlfriend's?" Jacob presses. He grins at Hermione. Bastard.

"If you mean a friend who is a girl, yes," I say, making my tone cool and clear.

"Hmm." For some reason, Jacob sounds unconvinced. "I have never heard of a guy just talking with a female friend and then coming home at two in the morning. Are you sure the two of you weren't doing anything--?"

"Jacob!" Hermione scolds, casting a quick glance in my direction.

"Yes. Talking, that's all we did. Hermione knows that Luna is just a friend." I turn to Hermione who has her arms crossed.

I'm getting the feeling that I'm trying to defend myself too much.

"Okay, fine, you caught me. We had sex, alright."

Jacob bursts out laughing, effectively spitting particles of food onto Liam who then screeches.

"Harry!" Hermione's blushing.

Jacob starts laughing and Hermione's turning red again.

"Hermione, honestly," I say to her overdramatically as I put a hand on her shoulder, "do you think I'm that stupid to have sex before—"

"I want to set some boundaries," she stated matter-of-factly. I cock an eyebrow and turned away from Hedwig who I was feeding. She hooted in indignation.

We were in my bedroom at Grimmauld Place. The both of us and Ron were on a mission together—Order business. We were supposed to head out in two days.

"Boundaries…" I pretended to think. "I'm afraid it's not in my vocabulary."

"Well, learn it. We will not have sex until we are legally married."

"Legally? Then how can we get illegally married?"

"There are ways…but that's not the point. Sex is not an option for our relationship right now."

"Then we shall break up," I said with mock seriousness.

Hermione suddenly frowned and I laughed at her reaction.

"I'm only kidding! But we're eighteen. Adults," I said, pulling her by the waist so that she was flush against me.

She smiled sweetly and gave me a small kiss. "Harry, if our relationship in—oh, I'd say five years—is as good as it is now, we will have plenty of time to experiment and to do whatever."

My hand slides off her shoulder, and Hermione falls silent.

That was the wrong thing to say; she's having a damn baby and I--why, Merlin, did I say that! Stupid. Go on and jump off a cliff, Harry.

I glance briefly at Jacob, who pretends to take no notice as he's feeding Liam, and then I desperately try to get Hermione to look at me.

"Hermione…"

She gently shakes my hand off her arm. "I'm fine…"

Before I could even begin to apologize to her, the whole house wakes up.

"Hey, honey. What's going on?" Anne walks into the room, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Granger and Ron.

"Harry and some girl named Luna had sex last night."

"WHAT?" Every women (other than Hermione) and Mr. Granger (I think I hear Ron) yell incredulously.

"Kidding," Jacob and I say but me with less enthusiasm. I swear—that sentence just came out. I didn't mean it, Hermione, really.

As she walks to greet her son, Anne slaps her husband's chest.

Hermione hops down from her stool, and along with feeling guilty, I'm amused to watch her jump such a height. The table is pretty high. "Time for introductions!"

"Jacob. You know Mum and Dad. This is Ron—"

The two men shake hands, and then Hermione turns to me again, but before she can open her mouth:

"I've already met Harry. Seems like a nice guy to marry, Hermione," Jacob teases, winking at me.

Every movement stops. Liam, noticing the change in air, stops throwing his food onto the ground.

Huh. I'm actually kind of proud that people mistake me for Hermione's boyfriend/fiancé all the time. But then I see Hermione's horrified expression (as if being engaged to me was so terrifying) and my pride just falls…splat.

Anne hisses at her husband, "Oi, wrong guy!" She gives me The Look again. I'll save some time by referring to the odd, searching look that she has been giving to me lately as The Look.

Jacob winces from his wife's tone, notices that Hermione's blushing, that Ron's glaring at me (great!), and begins to apologize profusely, "Shite. I always do this; you know, assume when I shouldn't even be assuming. Sorry."

"I thought," he points directly at me, "he was… well, because of the way Harry was looking at…er... again. Sorry."

He turns to me and grimaces.

I shrug. As if I don't care. Pssh, I don't look at Hermione in any way. What was Jacob on? Bastard.

"So…" Anne drawls in a way that's similar to her husband, "since we're here, learning each other names, we want to learn something new. Tell me, Hermione, how was the proposal?"

Hermione blushes and looks over at Ron, and Anne giggles at her reaction.

…I notice that the knives are over by the sink. How many steps will it take to get there?

Jacob sighs, distracting me and turns to me on his stool. "You know, when I met Anne six years ago, her giggle was something I fell in love with first. Now...it's just bloody—"

"Finish that and you and I will get a divorce," threatens his lovely wife, wagging her slender finger. But I guess this was some game of theirs because Jacob merely pulls on her finger and kisses it.

Hermione, who was waiting to answer Anne's question, begins, "Well, we were at The--I mean, Ron's old house and it was a get together party. Some guests were coming back from their honeymoons or distant jobs and schools so everyone met up at one location. Everything was going fine; Ron was eating as always ("Hey!") and me and Harry were playing with the little ones."

She casts me a brilliant smile, seemingly forgetting my previous accidental comment, and I return it with one of my own. I distantly feel Liam crawling onto my lap; his mum wasn't paying attention to him so he left her.

"Suddenly, Ron taps me on the shoulders while I was holding one of the tods and he gives me this nervous, shy look. I only realized what he was doing when he got down on his knee and whispered—"

"Hermione, will you marry me?" My god, I was so damn nervous. I looked down at my hands which were visibly shaking as they held the ring.

I couldn't believe that I actually persuaded her to come to the Room of Requirement. She had been cooped in that library for so many days. We had returned from another Voldemort tracking mission and Hermione had gone straight to researching mode. But now she was mine. Dinner was perfect, the environment was perfect, and then, I was on my knees. 

We were not dressed spectacularly. Our date was more of a secretive escape. Ron and Luna were covering for us. I was glad that I could count on those two lovebirds.

Sometimes, when I was not around her or my friends, I wondered when this—the war—would all end. It seemed like it was going to take forever to defeat Voldemort's supporters and get him.

But when I had Hermione with me, I thought otherwise. It was as if she was there to keep me generating positive thoughts. That was one of the reasons why I' was holding a ring for her. Ron helped me pick it out and Luna tagged along. I described it and they hunted it. With teamwork, we had found the perfect one.

I believed that we stayed in the same position for more than five minutes. Hermione was dressed in a fitting pair of jeans and a decorative blouse. They were a bit disheveled since we had…er…talked before this. Her hair was bunched up in a bun, but nothing could have stopped her hair from letting loose. Her gaze was fixed on the ring, which, I must say, was probably the prettiest ring ever.

"Are you—"

"Serious? No, not really. It's a joke, of course," I nervously said. I was restraining my body from collapsing because I wanted an answer before going unconscious.

"It took a moment because I was so shocked…but finally, I said—"

"Yes! Yes! I can't—oh, Harry—" and she grabbed my face with both hands and—

"—kissed him. But for some reason, I felt like I've already been proposed to…" Hermione trailed off thoughtfully. Everyone looked at her oddly.

"Hopefully not!" Ron says and everyone laughs.

"No, Ronald," Hermione says in an affectionate voice, "I'm positive that you're the only man to propose to me."

I laugh bitterly.