I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing

I will wear white trousers and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

TS Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Eyelids firmly shut, his head squeezed against the pillow, Harry heard Hermione mutter "Finite incantatem," and felt the light in the room blessedly dim. She gave a familiar, quiet sigh as she collapsed onto her side of the bed, and the heavy old bed, in answer, groaned back.

He opened his eyes and saw her bushy head silhouetted against the moonlit window. "Hey, beautiful. What brings a bird like you to a place like this?" he muttered.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed, "I thought you were asleep." Her hand found his cheek.

He wrapped his square fingers around her long slim ones and kissed them. "I was." Then he decided not to lie. "Almost, anyway. Tough day?"

Again, she let out a long, weary breath. "Can I say that keeping Percy on was the worst mistake I ever made? Any time I want to try to have the least significant conversation -- this time it was a Floo call to the Minister in Lichtenstein, to coordinate some plans regarding the new Troll treaty -- he insists on being present."

Harry grunted. Who cares about Percy? Not even Ron cares about Percy any more. But Hermione has to put up with the prig every day... "He resents you," Harry muttered, trying to sound supportive. "Resents you for making it to the top, while his backside's ossified into the same chair it's occupied since Fudge got chucked out."

Hermione squeezed Harry's hand in hers, and strokes his bare chest with the free one. "He resents everything," she said. "Me. Ron and Ginny teaching. Fred and George making such a fortune. I think he even resents the memorial bust of his dad at the entrance to the Ministry."

"Hmmm. I always wondered why you didn't marry Percy... Ouch!"

Hermione released the small clump of chest hair she'd almost yanked out. "Stupid git," she sneered.

"Me or Percy?"

"You, of course." She went to kiss the angry spot on his chest, by way of apology. "How were the kids today? I barely got to talk to Minnie on the Floo. What was she so upset about?"

Harry groaned. Minerva was always angry about something -- usually something impossible that Albie had done. The really annoying thing was that Albie always had that beatific look on his face; one couldn't tell whether it was utter innocence or self-satisfaction at a prank well played. "As nearly as I can tell," Harry said, "she thought Albie had jinxed her lunch."

"Had he?"

"Well, it's hard to say. You know dragon meat -- it's meant to have spots. Anyway, once she'd pulled her head out of the hearth, she informed me that we were all horrible and she hated us all, and that she was going to live with Ginny and Neville and Ron and Sidi at Hogwarts, because they love her. That she couldn't wait till she starts school next year, because she's sure they'll never let a bad-breathed boggart like Albie in, and then she'd never have to see any of us again." He looked at the ceiling, wondering if he'd be able to see the star-shaped crack in the dim light if he had his glasses on. "I barely saw her for the rest of the day. She did her lessons in her room, ate supper up in the playhouse, and went to bed straight away. And to think, I used really to look forward to having a family."

Hermione rested her head on his chest. Could she hear what was going on in his heart? "I'm sorry I couldn't help," she said, her voice both muffled and amplified by his sternum.

"Nah, to be honest it made me feel a bit better that you couldn't calm her down any better than I could."

"I mean, I'm sorry I had to work late. Did she really call him a bad-breathed boggart?" she asked, a small hint of a smile in her voice.

"Yeah, gift with words, that one." He could see her righteous, furious face, surrounded by black ringlets; it was the image of Hermione's when they'd first met. He didn't tell Hermione how he'd shouted at Minerva that she mustn't say things like that -- that he already knew what it was to be hated by your family, and to be without a family for that matter, and that she mustn't say hateful, hurtful things. No words in reply -- she'd slammed the door on him. And through it all, Albie had sat on the floor, levitating blocks into a tower that reached almost to the rafters, a look of bliss on his face. No wand, just wiggles of his fingers. Amazing.

A feeling of grief, of loss, of.... of SOMETHING welled up inside of Harry, threatening to choke him. He took a deep breath. "Got an owl from Sidi," he managed to say.

"Oh?" She sat up. They hadn't heard from their eldest daughter since the second week of the term. "What did she say?"

"Well, you can read it if you want." He reached under his pillow for his wand. "Lumos. Damn, Lum..."

She plucked his wand from his hand and rested herself back on his chest. "I'd rather you just tell me. I can read it in the morning."

He took several deep breaths, just to try to calm himself. "Well, let's see. She's going on her first Hogsmeade weekend next week. Apparently, one of the Weasley's is already trying to get all of the Third Years to pitch in to try to buy some firewhiskey."

"Oh, dear," said Hermione. "Which one."

"She didn't say, but I bet it's my namesake." Fred and Angelina's son Harry was showing great promise; it looked probable that he would break his father and uncle's twenty-four-year-old record for detentions. "Anyway, she says she went and talked to Ginny about it after Transfiguration. So hopefully my name won't be sullied any further this week." He shifted and wrapped his arms around her head.

"How are classes?" Hermione muttered into his bicep.

"You would ask," Harry teased, dully. "You know she got your brains. She said she aced all of the first set of exams."

"Good for her. She has your self-confidence, then. I never felt that I'd aced any exam until I got the test back."

"And she still swears we're wrong about Snape being tough at Potions -- how did she put it? The headmaster might be a 'right old bugger, but he's nothing compared to Nott.'"

"She shouldn't say things like that about Severus," she said, disapproving.

"What? He is a right old bugger. He may have saved my life, but that doesn't mean I have to like him. Anyway, Flitwick's still Flitwick, and Ginny's apparently really popular. The students love her class." The image of Ginny, her flame-red hair now streaked with ash, standing in McGonagall's place just seemed wrong. Even after all of these years, Harry couldn't imagine her or Dumbledore dead. He shook his head -- to deny the memory, to clear the cobwebs, to hold back the tears, he wasn't sure.

"I'm sure they love her," Hermione said. "She's brilliant. And young faculty are always popular."

Yes, Harry thought, but so many of them are young, now. Even Remus had retired. Only Flitwick and Grubly-Planke of the old guard -- well, and Binns, but he was hardly there. And forty... Ginny would be forty next year, and forty, as Harry was very certain, was not exactly young. Even for a wizard. "And Ron keeps trying to get her to try out for Quidditch. Says that every Potter for the past fifty years has played on the Gryffindor team, that she's a better flyer than she thinks. But she is convinced that that's another set of genes she got from your side of the family." Unwilling to avoid it any longer, Harry pressed on. "And of course, Ginny's husband always makes Herbology wonderful. She said even having had him and Ginny visit all those times when she was little, she still feels like it's an honor to take class with the Man who Bloody Lived."

Hermione reached up to Harry's face again. This time he didn't take her hand away, and she could feel the wetness. "Oh, Harry." That was all she could manage.

"I'm not bloody jealous of bloody Neville!" Harry snapped. "So you don't need to tell me not to be. I love him more than any man alive, except Ron. But look at me. I can't even manage a damned light spell reliably any more. When Voldemort died, he took part of me with him, right? So now what am I? A half-blind, muttering, old almost-squib, unfit for anything but raising the Minister of Magic's children -- and doing a right muck-up of that, mind you -- and pretending to write a set of memoirs that no one will want to read, except maybe his daughter, just because it might tell her more about the wizard who defeated Voldemort." Now that he was no longer holding them back, tears and anger poured out of him. Savagely, he pulled his head away from the top of Hermione's and wiped his face with the pillowcase, which was already damp, but served the purpose.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione repeated wearily. "You know that's not true. Neville may have cast the spell, but if you hadn't been there, those of us still alive would be fighting Voldemort still. Everyone knows that. It was Neville and you -- and me and Ron, too, and Ginny and Luna and Tonks and Remus and Moody. Everyone knows what you did Harry. Everyone knows the sacrifices you made and the courage you showed. Everyone knows it was you who taught Neville how to use his wand properly in the first place. No one has forgotten, Harry." She ran her hands over his eyes, trying to soothe away the tears.

"Right," Harry muttered, trying hard not to sound old and bitter.

"You know he can't stand it, don't you? Neville?"

Harry's face twisted. "Of course Neville can't stand it. It's horrible constantly having people tell you how wonderful you are, what an honor it is to meet you. What an honor it is to be you. But at least he's still doing something. At least he's teaching -- not because of what he did, but because Snape knows he's the best there is at Herbology."

Hermione seemed to be staring at him through the darkness. "Did you know, Harry? Ron told me the last time I saw him that apparently Binns spends three weeks with his NEWT classes on you. A little on Neville and the rest of the DA and the Order, but most of it on Voldemort, Dumbledore and you. So you must have made quite a splash, if you managed to make an impression on that old ghost."

In spite of himself, Harry gave a wet laugh. "Gosh. I rate almost as much as the Pixie Revolt of 1582? Poor buggers, stuck with three weeks of me, at the end of a miserable seven-year journey!"

Hermione smacked him on the shoulder. "No one's forgotten, Harry," she repeated.

He shook his head. "Yeah, maybe not. I don't mean to sound so..."

"It's OK, Harry, you get to feel what you're feeling."

"Thank you for the pronouncement, Minister." He took a deep, deep breath and sighed out, a hot, heavy, full sigh. "It's so funny. I never thought I'd miss it. And it's not the notoriety I miss. The stares. The smirks. The awful sense of the world on my shoulders. But feeling like I could actually DO something, knowing I was here for a purpose..." The tears began to flow again. "Hell, I've served my purpose. Count the kids and I still finished my worthwhile work when Albus was conceived."

"Stop it, Harry. No self-pity."

"It's not self-pity!" Harry spat. "It's... I don't know. It's a feeling that I'm just, all done, I suppose. I'm a wizard, Hermione -- a poor excuse for one, but a wizard nonetheless. With any luck I could be hanging around for another hundred years or more, and to what purpose? I've been sitting up here, seriously contemplating suicide, and realizing I probably couldn't even do that properly any more, and besides, Hermione, the one thing I couldn't stand is hurting you and the kids."

"God, Harry, please. Don't even... Are you really thinking that?" Now Hermione's voice began to thicken. "Harry Potter. I thought you were dead once. Don't you make me go through that again."

The two of them clung together, both weeping, knowing that nothing was resolved, but at least they were weeping together.

Eventually, their breathing began to steady. Each began to wonder if the other mightn't have fallen asleep.

"Harry?" Hermione whispered.

"Yeah," said Harry, feeling sadder and lighter than he had in years.

"Do you know when I fell in love with you?"

"God! I dunno. That time at the Hog's Head?" Their first time together, really. Snowed in at Hogsmeade during their seventh year. A passion of torn robes and stunned explorations. And both of them feeling guilty that they were somehow cheating on Ron. "I mean, you certainly screamed it loud enough then."

"God, Harry, no." She gave a throaty laugh. He could tell that she was blushing. "I learned all sorts of other things, but no, I already knew I wanted to spend every day with you for the rest of my life."

"Well, then, was it when I spent all those months crying in my butterbeer to you about Cho?"

"Merlin's balls, Harry! You were so dense. But I figured if I explained how things worked long enough you'd finally figure out what was going on eventually."

"Girls," muttered Harry, a perfect caricature of Ron when he was a teen. They both chuckled. "Fine," he said finally. "When? I give up."

"I fell in love with you, Harry Potter," Hermione said, very seriously, "the first time I laid eyes on you, on that first train up to school."

"Lord, Hermione, you weren't even eleven yet." In his mind's eye, Harry could see it perfectly: Hermione in the doorway, hair like a huge helmet, big front teeth not yet fixed. She'd been looking for Neville's toad, Trevor. Her eyes had met his, and then, like so many others' that first day, had slid up to his forehead. Her expression was quizzical, as if examining some fascinating, previously unknown phenomenon. "Well," Harry muttered, "you were just enamored of my scar."

"No, Harry. I didn't know who you were until you introduced yourself. Remember, I'd grown up among Muggles, too. So the scar just seemed like... a scar. But your eyes -- those melted me absolutely. I felt that I had to get to know this boy whose eyes were like an ocean I could drown in, so full of all this... FEELING. So I invited myself in. So I could get to know you."

He smiled. "And so you could show off."

"Yes, well, that too. Telling you about everything I'd read. I just wanted to impress you."

"Scared the hell out of me, actually."

"You got over it. I've loved you since that moment. Not the scar. Not the Boy Who Lived, whoever he may have been. You. And I love you more now than I ever did."

And Harry began to weep again -- not the weary, heavy tears that had nearly smothered him before, but high, clear showers of tears that seemed to purge his body of decades' worth of dirt and pain. He tried to tell Hermione he loved her too, that he loved her more than any man deserved to love. That he couldn't remember when he'd first realized he was in love with her, but that it didn't matter, that it didn't matter at all, because he was. But he couldn't say a thing, and so he held on to his wife as tightly as he could, wetting her coils of graying hair with his weeping.

And she reached up and stroked the smooth skin beneath his receding hairline -- the bare spot on his forehead where, once upon a time, long, long ago, a brave, frightened boy had born a silvery, lightning-shaped scar.