Home is Where the Heart Lies || Harmione

Chapter 1.1

Harry can't pinpoint the exact moment where everything changed, but after the Battle of Hogwarts ends, he keeps finding himself going back to that day at Godric's Hollow when he visited his parents.

With Hermione.

The war is over, Voldemort defeated, and Harry's fulfilled his role in saving the Wizarding World, but why can't he bring himself to be happy? There's a weary numbness, a hollow feeling that's settled deep into his bones and all he can think about is how much he has lost.

He thinks of standing in front of his parents' graves and trying not to crumble against the prospect of the family he could have had. Wondering why. Why did it have to be his parents? Was he doomed to stumbling through life with everyone he loved dying and leaving him, with nowhere and no one to belong to?

Hermione took his hand then and he almost choked on his tears in relief, at the stabilizing force her presence gave him.

She always did have a way of centering him.

_____

Harry joins the Aurors.

Everyone is thrilled—exultant even—that the Boy-Who-Lived will be personally involved in hunting down the stray Death Eaters and leftover forces of Voldemort that remain in hiding.

It's only right, their whispers reach his ears, for him to finish the job. It's his calling.

Everyone is thrilled. Everyone besides Hermione.

"You don't have to do this, Harry." She says to him one evening while visiting Grimmauld Place.

Harry doesn't know why he came back here, to this dreary old place where the memories of Sirius linger in the shadows. But Kreacher is here and that grumpy elf would probably feel lonely all by himself and—and he didn't have anywhere else to go, really.

"I don't know what else to do," Harry tells her honestly.

He remembers the surprised look Ron had given him when he had expressed his doubt about his career path.

"Blimey, Harry. Is that even a question? What else would you do? You're the Man-Who-Conquered now, things will be smooth sailing for you there!"

Ron has suffered from the war too, with his own moments of somber silence whenever Fred is mentioned, but he seems determined to move on. To push forward and go back to his cheery self, taking advantage of their fame to enter this new stage of life with aplomb. Harry can't find it in himself to feel the same.

He remembers Ginny approaching him and wanting to rekindle what they had before he went off on the Hunt. But she looked at him with those same eyes—those eyes of worship, of adoration, that he's confronted with everywhere lately, and his heart froze. He tried desperately to regain some of the passion he had felt in sixth year, that casual joy from the normalcy her presence had given him—but he felt nothing. She expected him to move on too, for everything to go back to the way it was, and he doesn't understand how she can expect him to be the same as before, after everything he's suffered and everything he's lost—

He feels nothing.

"Harry?" Hermione asks, her concerned voice shaking him out of his thoughts.

"I'm just tired of this void in my life right now. I just want to do something," He looks at her, pleading for her to understand with his eyes. He doesn't have to say it out loud; he just wants to feel again.

"I know." She sighs, and Harry can't help but notice the bags under her eyes and the slump in her shoulders. "I feel the same."

Ever since Hermione found out that her parents would need to be hospitalized in St. Mungos for months to even have a chance of recovering their memories, she has been restless and frazzled.

"I'm not going to Hogwarts for my eighth year," She confesses. "Everyone expected me to— McGonagall even planned on making me Head Girl—but I can't go to classes and pretend everything is normal and... It's just not the same without you and Ron there."

She pauses on Ron's name and winces, clearly recalling the last time she had mentioned him to Harry. It had been after their one and only date, a date that had ended in disaster.

"The kiss during the battle—oh, honestly! I don't know if it was adrenaline or nerves or what in the world I was thinking. But it's clear to me that Ron and I are better off as friends."

"If you're not going to Hogwarts, where will you go? And where are you staying?" He tries not to let the worry seep through his voice.

"Probably the DMLE. At least if I join them, I can put my frustrations into making changes and being useful. Maybe you and I will even bump into each other at the Ministry." She attempts to smile, but it doesn't last. "I'll probably stay at my parents' house. The one I made them leave behind."

Harry is overcome by an unsettling feeling of wrongness. Hermione has always been so full of energy and passion and life that it hurts to see her like this. So worn out, so tired, so lonely. He doesn't like the idea of her all alone in that house, surrounded by the memory of a happier time with her parents and riddled with guilt. He doesn't like the idea of her being anything but happy.

And before he knows it, he's blurting it out: "Stay with me."

"What?" She cocks her head at him. He finds it strangely adorable for some reason.

"Stay here. At Grimmauld. There are so many rooms here and we could both use the company. We've already cohabited for months on end in that tent, so this shouldn't pose a challenge."

His mind scrambles to find more reasons but he just ends up repeating himself, almost desperately. "Stay."

She laughs and a weight Harry didn't notice was even there lifts off his shoulders.

"All right," She rolls up her sleeves and there's a familiar, determined glint in her eyes. "But if I'm staying, we're doing things properly this time. We have to get this place in good order—upstairs is still so dusty, I'll need to speak to Kreacher about a plan. We need to draw up a list: Who will do the groceries, how will we divide the housework? Oh! And I'll need your help moving some of my belongings..."

She's on a roll, listing off things they'll need to do and Harry just nods along, basking in the knowledge that she won't be leaving anytime soon.