Just Life

Just Life

By FenrisWolf

CHAPTER ONE

On a small island in the Outer Hebrides, an ancient stone tower rose out of the mists of the North Sea. Some 30 meters in height and 20 meters across, it rested on a promontory above the western shore of the island, with the waves crashing on the rocks below. A student of British archaeology would have identified it as a broch, though he might have been surprised at its intact nature. The tightly dressed stones were covered with lichen, but no one had stripped the upper courses for building materials, nor had its solid mass ever been breached by siege, storm or time. It was, all in all, probably the most magnificent example of its kind anywhere in the British Isles, but no Historical Register listed it, no tourist guides showed it, and no archaeologist had ever explored it. Dun Dubh, the ancient, ancestral home of the Blacks, was unplottable, and had been so for centuries, along with the island upon which it stood.

No other structures existed upon the island. Neither pier nor fishing shack desecrated its shores; no crofter's cottages squatted on its craggy hills. There was the island, raw and wild and untamed, and there was the broch, and there was the man standing at its top.

He was tall and spare, dressed all in greys; grey jumper, grey pants, grey boots. The oilskin duster he wore had once been black, but exposure to the elements had faded the material until it, too, was a dull grey. His hair was black, an unruly thatch that stood out in every direction, even when damp from the mist like it was now, but even that seemed to be surrendering to nature, as strands of prematurely grey hair swept back at both temples.

Looking at his features, one first thought of a man who enjoyed being out in the teeth of the elements. His skin was brown and leathery, with creases on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the sun, winds and rain. Someone who was keenly observant might have noticed the sallow color under the brown, the hint of something breaking down in the system, but then again, perhaps not. His cheeks were gaunt, not the gauntness of starvation, but pared down, as if every bit of excess flesh had been carved away, leaving nothing but sinew and hide. His lips were a thin slash, and the wrinkles that marked the corners of his mouth could only have been called 'laugh lines' by someone with a sick sense of humor.

The only hint of real color in the entire, brooding figure was in his eyes; green they were, a grey-green that matched the waves rolling in off the North Sea. Perhaps at some time in the past they had been a different shade, as they were the type that some referred to as 'changeable', but if they had been, that was long ago. Now they were hooded, refusing to expose whatever lay behind them to the world outside.

The figure remained there, gazing out over the ocean, as the twilight faded and the night turned pitch black. The sky was overcast and it was a new moon, so not a scrap of light broke the darkness. He could no longer see the waves crashing on the rocks below, but he could hear them, the ebb and flow of their thunder throbbing through his feet, dulling his senses.

There was a sharp crack and a voice spoke out of the darkness. "Harry Potter, sir! You is not eating again! Harry Potter did not eat what Dobby fixed for dinner last night, or for breakfast or lunch. Harry Potter, sir, promised Dobby that he would take better care of himself!"

The figure at the edge of the tower spoke quietly. "I'm very sorry, Dobby, I did promise, didn't I?"

The house elf huffed into the darkness. "Yes, Harry Potter, sir, Harry Potter did promise Dobby. And Harry Potter never goes back on his word, ever!"

The man once known as the Boy Who Lived chuckled tiredly. "No, I suppose he doesn't. Very well, Dobby, you lead the way, and I'll see what I can do about appreciating your efforts." There was a loud crack and a soft pop, and the roof of the broch was vacant, empty save for the rivulets of water that condensed from the night air on the cold, grey stones.

~~~~~

Harry sat on the hard bench before the fireplace, turning the envelope in his hands over and over. It had arrived three weeks ago, with his monthly correspondence that Professor Dumbledore forwarded to him. He'd immediately sent back the enclosed RSVP with his regrets about not being able to attend, but hadn't been able to bring himself to dispose of the actual invitation.

Master Ronald Weasley, Wizard

and

Mistress Hermione Granger, Witch

request your presence

for their exchange of vows

to be held in the Great Hall

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

on Monday, May 31^st, 2010

at 7:00pm

He knew they'd been together for years; he knew his withdrawal from the wizarding world had thrown them together, and he'd convinced himself he was happy for them. Ron had loved Hermione for as long as he could remember, though it had taken until their seventh year at Hogwarts for him to admit it and confess his feelings for her. Hermione had been less sure, but in the peaceful days after Voldemort's fall, she had found solace for the pain of their losses in Ron's arms, solace Harry knew she needed and deserved; solace he knew he could never give her.

When he was capable of being honest with himself, Harry admitted that it was in part his awareness of his friends' needs that had driven him to the sanctuary of Dun Dubh. He'd been afraid that his continued presence would force them to stay apart out of concern for him, and he couldn't take the guilt for that on top of everything else. So when he discovered the title and charms to the Black ancestral home among Sirius' effects following the War, he withdrew there, calling upon Dumbledore to be his Secret Keeper and using as his excuse that he wanted a break from the adulation of all those who wanted to honor The Boy Who'd Won.

At first he'd thought that a break was all he would need, some time to collect his thoughts after the trauma of the last years of the War, time to decide what to do with the rest of his life. But as time passed, he realized that not only did he not have any idea what to do with his life, he'd didn't even know how to live. The brutal scars created by spending his formative years living with relatives who scorned and abused him, followed by more years of worrying about his coming confrontation with the Dark Lord, had left Harry with raw wounds, wounds that he had no idea how to go about healing. It was hard enough at 11 learning that his parents had died to save his life; they were distant memories, somehow more dream than real. When people he knew and had grown to love started dying, and dying to save him, he dealt with the pain the only way he knew how, the way he had learned in ten years living in a cupboard under the stairs. He swallowed the pain, scarred over the wounds, and got on with what he had to do.

The last years of the War turned out to be the worst. The Death Eaters came more and more out into the open, and the members of the Order of the Phoenix, many of who were the closest thing Harry had ever had to family, had opposed them, often at horrible cost.

Sirius had only been the beginning. Next to fall was Alastor Moody; Constant Vigilance was no match for an ambush by a dozen Death Eaters, but it did allow him to take all but one with him. Tonks had been the next one to be attacked; she'd survived, but only barely, and only her skills as a metamorphmagus had made it possible for the mediwizards to heal her. Even so, she'd been an invalid for the rest of the war, and her biting wit and sharp mind had been sorely missed.

Then, in an act that finally led to the long-overdue purging of Death Eaters from the Ministry of Magic, Percy Weasley had fallen. Not only fallen, but gone out in a hero's death, saving an entire schoolful of Muggle children from a Death Eater attack. Harry remembered attending the memorial service, and how shattered the Weasleys had all been, Molly and Arthur especially. He knew they would never forgive themselves for still being estranged from their stuffy, awkward son when he died, no matter how magnificently he had lived up to the Weasley reputation for courage.

After that the names were a blur, until the last year, the months just before the end. The first blow had been when Colin Creevey was caught doing surveillance work for the Order, and tortured to death. Shortly thereafter, during an attack on Hogsmeade, Fred Weasley fell while protecting a group of third year Muggleborns who happened to be in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes when the Death Eaters came. As was often the case with twins, when Fred died a piece of George died as well, and the grim, revenge-driven man that had emerged from his grief was nothing like the inveterate prankster that had been an older brother to Harry.

Another loss waited for Harry that year. Two weeks after the raid on Hogsmeade, Voldemort struck in person, this time at the oldest of Harry's magical friends. Hagrid had gone on another mission for Dumbledore as an ambassador to the giants, hoping that if he could not persuade them to fight for the Light, he could at least convince them to remain neutral. He'd been gone for a week when, at dinner in the great hall, a Harpy eagle had swept in and dropped a parcel at Harry's feet. Inside was Hagrid's severed head, his features still twisted in the rictor of the Cruciatus curse. Burned into his forehead was the letter 'V', and Harry knew that once again a friend had paid for Harry's friendship with his life.

Then came the awful, final day, when the Light and the Dark finally met in open battle on the fields below Hogwarts. The fighting went on for hours, until the moment when Harry, with what he thought was the last of his strength, opened a portal to the Chaos realms and cast Voldemort through. With the Dark Lord gone, a chain reaction ran through his forces, as all the spells and geas he had used to bind them to him unraveled.

First to go were the dementors, who apparently had linked their essences to Voldemort's, perhaps in an attempt to protect him from whatever special power Harry was supposed to have. When the portal closed, the link backlashed into the cloaked figures, sending them up in columns of green flame. Next went the inner circle of Death Eaters, the failsafe spells of their Dark Marks shattering their hearts. Harry still remembered the strange look of peace on Severus Snape's face as he fell victim to the brand he'd worn as a spy for the Order for most of his life.

With the core of the Dark Army gone, the remaining forces fled, the lower ranked Death Eaters scattering in hopes of achieving anonymity for their crimes, the giants and the assembled Dark creatures fleeing into the Forbidden Forest where Aragog and his children destroyed them in memory of their fallen friend, Hagrid. The forces of Light rounded up those prisoners that either were too injured or too stunned to flee, intending to turn them over to the Ministry for justice, and it was then, when it all was supposed to be over, that the last blow fell. One of the stunned Death Eaters revived as he was being carried to the apparition point and lashed out at the person carrying him with a dagger he had hidden up the sleeve of his robe. He was weak, the dagger was dull, and it wasn't much more than a scratch, but silver is deadly to werewolves, and Remus Lupin died in Harry's arms.

Harry had blanked out when the person he considered his last connection to his parents died; when he came back to himself, there were no more prisoners to be transported. There wasn't even a trace of Voldemort's forces left on the grounds of the school. According to what Dumbledore told him later, when Remus died Harry had screamed, and the scream had rolled out from him in waves, like an enormously powerful Banishing charm. Every creature of Voldemort's it touched, human or not, alive or dead, disappeared forever.

Professor Dumbledore tried to tell Harry not to blame himself for lashing out in a moment of extreme stress, but what Harry never told his mentor was that it was not the act he blamed himself for, it was his failure to find a way to perform it earlier, when it might have saved more lives - when it might have saved Remus. His parents' last friend had died because Harry had not been strong enough to save him.

~~~~~

Harry didn't really have any clear memories of the next few weeks. The members of the Order of Phoenix and their auxiliaries in the Army of the Light had been busy mopping up isolated pockets of Voldemort's supporters, as well as helping the Ministry try and keep a lid on the riotous, hysterical celebrations that kept erupting at the Dark Lord's final defeat. Harry, however, had been so completely drained by that last act of wild magic, Dumbledore had snuck him off to 12 Grimauld Place and fed him a sleeping draught designed to make him rest until his energy reserves were restored to more normal levels. He ended up sleeping for a full seven days, and waking to find the house empty except for Dobby and Winky, who had been watching over him for the Headmaster.

Once he's gotten his bearings, Harry decided that the last thing he wanted to do was see anybody, even (or especially) his closest friends. His nerves were too raw, the new wounds too fresh, for him to be able to deal with anyone. At his request Dumbledore continued to conceal Harry's whereabouts, though he insisted Harry write to his friends to let them know he was alive and awake so they could control their frantic worry.

"You can't wall yourself off from everyone, Harry," Albus had said, his expression more open than Harry had ever seen. "It isn't healthy to shut everyone out; trust me, I know."

Harry never said so, but he disagreed. Shutting people out was the only way he'd survived growing up with the Dursleys. When he went away to Hogwarts he thought he'd be able to put that way of life behind him, and had opened up to his new friends. But opening up had led to more pain, more wounds; he couldn't push his friends completely away, not so long as they depended on him to keep them alive, but now...

When he found the deed to Don Dubh buried amongst Sirius' effects it seemed a godsend; someplace he could get away to collect himself, to start to heal. He'd gotten into a huge fight with Dumbledore over it, but in the end the headmaster relented and took on the role of Secret Keeper for the young man who'd paid such a high price to save the world. Harry had promised it would only be a few weeks, and at the time he'd meant it, but the weeks turned months, and the months, years.

~~~~~

Dobby had shown up after the first week, sent by Dumbledore to look after his friend, Harry Potter, sir.

Harry had been sitting in the kitchen of the broch, mopping up the last of some conjured stew with a piece of stale bread when a loud crack! announced Dobby's arrival. "Master Harry Potter, sir! You should not be eating food you make! That is what a house elf is for! That is what Dobby is for!"

Harry coughed and choked for a moment before catching breath. "Dobby? What are you doing here? Why aren't you at Hogwarts, with Winky?"

Dobby puffed up his chest proudly. "Professor Dumbledore is sending Dobby to help Master Harry Potter, sir! Dobby is worried that Master Harry Potter has no one to look after him, and tells Professor Dumbledore so. And Professor Dumbledore agreed with Dobby, and said that Dobby should come take care of Master Harry Potter for so long as Master Harry Potter stays!"

"And what about Winky? Is she showing up, too?"

Dobby looked decidedly uncomfortable, but continued. "Winky is staying at Hogwarts to take care of Professor Dumbledore, Master Harry Potter, sir. Winky would like to come with Dobby, but Winky knows other house elves can't be trusted to take proper care of Professor Dumbledore. Winky knows Professor Dumbledore is important friend to house elves, Master Harry potter, sir, almost as important as Master Harry Potter!"

Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead, trying to stave off the headache that was coming on. It was true that the ancient emptiness of the broch was more oppressive than he had expected, and that he wouldn't mind a little company. Dobby, for all his boisterous eagerness to please, did not rub his emotions raw the way his schoolmates would have. However... "All right, Dobby, you can stay, but on one condition."

"Anything, Master Harry Potter, sir! Dobby will do anything for Master Harry Potter!"

"Then you have to stop calling me 'Master' and 'sir'."

Dobby looked stricken. "Dobby doesn't know if Dobby can do that, Master Harry Potter, sir. Dobby doesn't think it would be right to do that."

Harry sighed. "I know all about the house elf codes, Dobby, but you managed it before, when I was at Hogwarts."

"But that was because Dobby was a Hogwarts house elf, Master Harry Potter, sir! Dobby was working for Hogwarts, not Master Harry Potter! Now that Dobby is working for Master Harry Potter, Dobby must show Master Harry Potter proper respect!"

"Then you can't stay, Dobby." At the little house elf's stricken expression, he tried one more time to explain. "Please, Dobby, try to understand. I don't want, don't ever want, to be anyone's master. I don't want anyone, ever, calling me sir, at least not until I have a long, grey beard like Professor Dumbledore's. I'm tired, Dobby, and all I want to be...is just...Harry Potter." He closed his eyes and leaned back, expecting his little friend to leave. He was startled, therefore, to hear a soft voice speak.

"If that is what...Harry Potter...wants, than that is what Dobby will do. Dobby doesn't want M - Harry Potter to be sad any more, Dobby doesn't want Harry Potter to be lonely any more. Dobby will stay here and take care of Harry Potter. Dobby will take care of his...his friend."

Harry opened his eyes and smiled tiredly. "Thank you, Dobby."

~~~~~

Now here it was, almost ten years later, and his best friends were getting married. He was glad for them; he was, even if he knew he would never be able to bring himself to attend the ceremony. Time had not healed his wounds as he'd hoped; if anything, they were worse than the day they'd been inflicted. On the rare occasions he was honest enough to admit it, he knew that his self-imposed solitude was destroying him, but he didn't know how to break out of the cycle, didn't even know how to ask for help.

The potions he brewed in his dungeon lab (and wouldn't Snape have been amused by that) helped him make it through the worst nights, as did what else they were capable of doing. He knew Dobby wasn't happy about how much of the Lethe he took, but he would be frantic if he realized just how often Harry had to stop himself from taking too much. He even had a special vial of it hidden away, concentrated to three times its normal potency. Harry brewed it once a year, just to keep it fresh, on the anniversary of the final battle, and somehow knowing that he had that option carried him though the darkest times. He wondered, briefly, if he would make it past the wedding without taking it, and shrugged. It might be time, after all; it had been ten years, it would hardly come as a shock to the Wizarding World when the word got out that the Boy Who Lived, didn't--

Harry's thoughts were jarred by a twinge in the back of his head, one that had become so unfamiliar that it took him a second to identify it. Something had just past through the island's ancient outer wards, the ones established at a time when the lord of the broch had to be ready to repel invaders at any time of the day or night. When Harry had performed the ritual that transferred the lordship to him, the connections to the wards had been part of the package.

He closed his eyes and visualized the island and the surrounding sea, creating an image like a Muggle satellite map in his mind. Yes, there it was; a small object, couldn't be more than one or two people. At the speed they were moving they had to be flying. Well, it was uncommon, there wasn't very much else out here, but it had happened once or twice. The inner wards he had added would shunt them around the island, and then he could get back to his thoughts...

The reaction was stronger this time, as the object sailed though his inner wards without batting an eye. After the initial shock of having his defenses so easily breached, Harry's eyes narrowed. There were only three people in the world who were linked closely enough to him to punch through his barriers like that, and of those three, only two were likely to be flying. The inner ward had given him a much clearer picture of what was approaching, and he knew it was a single person, flying low over the water, homing unerringly in on Don Dubh. The question was, which of the possible two it was. Guiltily, Harry knew who he hoped it would be, but even as he descended the spiral stairs, he tried to quash that hope. Hope was for people who were alive, after all...

Harry stood inside the entrance to the broch with his eyes closed, monitoring the wards as his visitor came in to land. The moment they touched down he knew, and his breath caught in his throat; he wasn't ready for this, he couldn't handle this, but Merlin, he wanted this. He waited, and at the first tentative knock, the door swung inward.

"Hello, Harry."

"Hello, Hermione."

~~~~~

'Merlin, she looks wonderful,' he thinks. He remembers the still slightly gawky young woman just out of girlhood, so busy saving her friends and the world that she had no time left to explore what her womanhood had to offer. The gawkiness is gone, transformed into the grace of a woman aware of who and what she is, and all the possibilities life has to offer. She's wearing a thick, golden brown jumper that sets off the highlights in her hair, and a divided woolen skirt in Hunter Green, the type worn for riding...dear Merlin, she came by broom, Hermione who barely made it through Madame Hooch's basic classes. Sturdy boots and leather gloves complete the ensemble, and I catch Dobby out of the corner of my eye whisking away her cloak and broom. 'I missed that,' Harry thinks, his throat closing up. 'I missed seeing her finish growing up and becoming this vision..." Suddenly he realizes where his thoughts are going, what he is feeling, and slams his barriers back in place.

'Merlin, he looks terrible' she thinks. She remembers her friend, the serious young man desperately trying to protect those he cared so deeply for, how he'd cracked a bit more at each one he lost, and how broken he'd been the last time she's seen him, cradling Remus' body with tears pouring down his face. She hardly recognizes the ghost of her friend in the figure standing before her. Gaunt and worn, in shabby clothes with, oh god is that grey in his hair, and his eyes, his eyes were like looking into the pits of Hell. The naked look of pain in them spears through her, and then, without warning, they turned...flat. Suddenly there was nothing of Harry to be seen; just an impenetrable barrier behind which she knows her friend is hiding. 'Oh, Harry, why did I wait so long?'

She's staring at me; I know I look like death warmed over, but I didn't know I looked that bad. She looks like she might start crying; I don't think I could take that... "Harry? Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Hm? Oh, right, sorry, Hermione, I'm a bit rusty on the social graces. Won't you please come inside?"

Harry steps aside and I pass through the inner curtain wall and into the broch proper. I recognize the basic design from visits my parents took to archaeological sites while on holiday, but the reconstructions I'd seen can't do the reality of Don Dubh justice. Of course I realize that Harry's home is a wizard's dwelling with all the differences that entails, but still.

He leads me into what appears to be the main common room; there's a trestle table with benches on either side, and a couple of stools by the hearth, but nothing I would call comfortable. Harry notices and grimaces, then holds out his hand and transfigures two of the stools into a pair of large, well-padded wingback chairs. I get a thrill out of seeing him do wandless magic again, but the thrill falters as I realize the act is meaningless to him, just polite rote.

We sit in the chairs I've conjured and stare into the fire. Hermione is obviously tired from her journey, and I decide to let her choose her own time to tell me why she's here. Besides, it's...nice...to have her sitting across from me again. All she needs is a copy of Hogwarts: A History and a quill to nibble on while she reads and we could be back in the Gryffindor common room.

~~~~~

There was a loud crack as Dobby appeared, carrying a tray with biscuits, cups, and a large pot of tea with steam rising from the spout. "Hello, Miss Hermione Granger! Dobby is very glad Miss Hermione Granger made it here safely! Dobby knows Harry Potter is glad, too, but it might take Harry Potter a day or two to tell Miss Hermione Granger so!"

Hermione's eyes sparkled at Dobby's antics, and then a slight look of puzzlement crossed her features. "Dobby? You don't call Harry 'Master' - of which I heartily approve - but you call me 'Miss'? Why is that?"

"Dobby does not call Harry Potter 'Master Harry Potter' like Dobby should, because Harry Potter made Dobby promise not to. But if Winky heard Dobby call Miss Hermione Granger anything but Miss Hermione Granger, Dobby would not be alive to help Harry Potter any more!" Hermione giggled, and was relieved to hear a slight snort from Harry's direction. If he still had the ability to laugh, he had the ability to feel, and maybe, just maybe, she could help him.

"Well, Dobby, I wouldn't want to make you do anything that would deprive Harry of your friendship, but would you mind terribly if, the next time I saw Winky, I asked her to let you speak to me the way you do Harry?"

Dobby looked a bit nervous. "Dobby does not want to make Winky angry. Winky has a terrible temper, and throws things at Dobby, and makes Dobby sleep in the coal bin, and--"

Hermione laughed at Dobby's panicked reaction. Apparently Dobby was more than just a bit henpecked, and finding out that house elves and humans had the same sort of relationship problems as humans made her feel a bit better about Harry. She knew that Dobby was devoted to him, and now she knew the little house elf probably had a very good idea what sort of problems her best friend was having. Suddenly a huge yawn surprised her, reminding her just how tiring her journey had been.

~~~~~

He looks at her, laughing and teasing Dobby, and he wonders again what has brought her to seek him out after all these years. Shouldn't she be home, getting ready for her wedding? Shouldn't she be making plans for her future with her soon-to-be husband, talking about careers, homes, and children?

He thinks of Hermione with children of her own, and knows that she would be a good mother. He knows she wants a career of her own, but her mother had managed a full-time job and raising a daughter who turned out, in his own admittedly biased opinion, fabulously. Hermione will be able to do the same, if for no other reason than she doesn't know how to give anything less than her all to anything she does.

He tries to imagine himself as a father, and draws a complete blank. The only comparison he has, the only memory he has, is of Vernon Dursley, and while he might not have any clue as to the right way to treat a child, he has a perfect example of the wrong way to do so. Harry feels the warning chill down his neck that tells him that the Ogden's will not be enough tonight; fortunately it had been almost a week, so it should be safe to take the Lethe potion again.

She watches out of the corner of her eye as faint changes of expression flicker across Harry's face. Amusement, curiosity, wistfulness, longing, and then, just for a moment, pain, stark and bare in his eyes. Then the shutters go back up, hiding his feelings, burying whatever is tearing him up inside. 'You're not alone, Harry,' she thinks. 'You may not know it yet, but you will never be alone again.'

~~~~~

Harry led the way up the spiral stairs to the chambers above the common room. "I'm afraid that most of the broch is still a bit of a mess," he apologized. "It's all protected under the preservation spells, but there's about a couple hundred years' worth of cobwebs, dust and grime on top of them." They passed several doors that looked like they hadn't been disturbed since the last time the Blacks had been in residence, and came to one that was clean and shining, with polished brass and richly figured wood. "This is my room," he said unnecessarily, and pushed the door open.

Hermione wasn't certain what to expect, but the cozy, cheerful room she faced certainly wasn't it. Where they weren't lined with bookcases, the grey, stone walls were covered with thick tapestries to block the chill. A large fireplace took up most of one wall, with comfortable seating before it. The bed was a massive, canopied four-poster with rich velvet curtains and a thick, goosedown comforter. On either side of the bed was a nightstand, and a brightly lit candelabrum hung from the ceiling. "Harry, it's charming!"

Harry shrugged, and Hermione finally understood that the room's appointments were a matter of complete indifference to him. Seeing the bright smile on Dobby's face, she realized who was responsible for her comfortable surroundings, and resolved to compliment him on his efforts to take care of her friend when they had a moment alone.

A thought occurred to her, and she frowned. "Harry, you said you hadn't done anything with the rest of the rooms?" When he nodded, she continued. "Well, if I take your room, where will you sleep?"

Harry shrugged. "It's not a problem, Hermione. I can kip in front of the fire in the common room for a couple of nights." His eyes became, if possible, even more hooded. "I don't sleep much, anyway, so it's no big deal."

Hermione bit her lip and turned away so he couldn't see her expression. It came as no surprise to her that Harry wasn't sleeping well; anyone with a hint of common sense could tell that just from looking at him. She also realized that he thought she was just there for a short visit, but decided to wait until the morning to explain things to him. "All right, then, Harry, I'll see you in the morning." She heard a click and turned around to see him closing the door of a large cabinet on the far wall. He nodded, not meeting her eyes, and left the room.

Dobby looked after him with an anxious expression, before turning back to her. "Dobby is very glad Miss Hermione Granger has come," he said in a tone quieter than she had ever heard from him before. "Dobby is worried about his friend Harry Potter, but Dobby does not know what more he can do for his friend. Dobby hopes Miss Hermione Granger can help where Dobby cannot."

"I'm certainly going to try, Dobby; I didn't make that long flight to do nothing, and now that I've seen him..." Hermione bit her lip. "Dobby? Is there anything you can tell me about what's been happening? I know something's wrong, anyone who looked at him could tell." The little house elf looked torn between the desire to help his friend and the fear that he was betraying him. "Dobby? Please? Help me help him."

Finally he nodded. "Dobby does not know what is wrong, but Harry Potter does not sleep, sometimes for days he does not sleep. Harry Potter also does not eat unless Dobby reminds him, and sometimes not even then. And...and Harry Potter sometimes does things that scares Dobby, very, very much." He looked up at Hermione, and she saw the concern that was naked on his face. "Sometimes Dobby is afraid...that Dobby is going to lose Harry Potter."

Hermione felt a chill shiver through her heart as she realized just what he was trying to say to her. "Thank you, Dobby, for trusting me enough to tell me. I won't ask you not to worry, but I am not going anywhere, and neither is Harry if I have anything to day about it." She sniffed, and suddenly had to fight a huge yawn; her trip across the North Sea had drained her more than she had thought. "Good night, Dobby; we'll talk some more tomorrow, but now I have to get some rest."

Dobby smiled and nodded, raising his fingers to snap out of the room, but then paused. He seemed to struggle with something for a moment, then spoke. "Dobby knows how hard it is to rest in a strange place. If - if Miss Hermione Granger has trouble sleeping, Dobby thinks she might find something that will help in the cabinet." He pointed to the tall, wooden structure in the corner of the room, and then cracked out of sight.

Hermione frowned. Clearly Dobby had been trying to tell her something, and had pushed himself as far as he could to say that much. She knew that as tired as she was, and as comfortable as the bed looked, she was not going to have any trouble sleeping. Harry, however, was having trouble, so if Dobby was directing her to something to help her sleep...

She approached the cabinet and eyed it critically; two meters tall and as much wide, made out of dark, Caribbean mahogany with double doors that were latched shut. She tugged on the handle, and was only briefly surprised when it swung open under her touch. After all, Harry was practically living as a hermit; there really wasn't any need to lock anything, was there?

Hermione's musings jittered to a halt as the light from the candelabrum fell on the cabinet's shelves. Row after row of potion bottles lined the top two levels, most of them covered in a light layer of dust. She opened one from the uppermost left corner and sniffed, wrinkling her nose as she recognized a simple sleeping draught. Identifying it was easy; her post-graduate thesis had been on the types of potions used to help those traumatized by the War, and much of it had concerned all the various forms of sleeping draughts that were brewed, from the innocuous to the dangerously addictive.

Hermione tried further down the shelf, and was rewarded with a more complex sleeping potion, one strong enough to meet most needs without becoming habit-forming. Shifting again, she found one that was far more potent, including several substances that were controlled both in the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. Alarmed, she continued to check the bottles, each one she tested being more powerful than the last, each with more potentially dangerous side effects.

She was truly frightened when she got to the third shelf. There was no longer a myriad assortment of bottles, just a long line of identical phials, with gaps here and there where one had been taken. Noting the complex preservation seals on the stoppers, she chose not to open one, instead drawing her wand and tapping it on the cylinder. "Revealo," she whispered, and watched as the ingredients of the phial listed themselves in the air. "Oh, no," she breathed. Lethe.

Lethe was probably the most powerful sleeping potion ever developed, and the most effective. Unlike the Dreamless Draught, it allowed a person to get a normal night's rest, with the proper amount of REM sleep to restore a body's resources. It was also 100% effective at blocking unpleasant dreams, flashbacks and nightmares, no matter how traumatized the person taking it. Created not long after the fall of Grindelwald, the Wizarding medical community had hailed it as a godsend, and had begun prescribing it right and left, with fantastic results.

That had lasted about six months, until reports of troubling side effects began to emerge. By the time a year had passed, no one was prescribing Lethe, and the mediwizards were struggling to deal with its aftermath. Lethe was brilliantly effective, too much so; with no nightmares to provide a vent, the subconscious found other avenues of expression. Manic behavior, psychotic breaks, fits of homicidal rage, suicide, the list went on and on. It had been one of the worst disasters in the history of potions, and here was Harry with a shelf full of the vicious brew. 'No wonder he looked such a wreck,' she thought, and started to close the cabinet, when her eyes were drawn to the sliding doors hiding the bottom two shelves. She pushed one open, and grimaced. Row after row of Ogden's Premium Krakatoa FireWhiskey, easily several dozen bottles, and below them, on the floor of the cabinet, the broken remains of easily as many empty ones. The one thing worse than Lethe was Lethe combined with alcohol, and it looked like Harry had been buying out the distillery.

Hermione closed her eyes and fought back the tears that tried to form. She should have come years ago, and to Hell with anything Harry had said. She had known there was something wrong when he chose to isolate himself, but she had allowed herself to be convinced that he had a right to whatever peace he could find, even if that meant shutting her out of his life. Only now she knew that the peace had been an illusion he'd spun to keep everyone at a distance, and meanwhile he had been destroying himself by inches. If anything, it was a testament to what a powerful wizard Harry was; anyone else would have been dead or driven mad ages ago.

She threw herself onto the bed, burying her face in the pillows. All that was in the past. She was in time; once she set her mind to a task she accomplished it, and Harry wasn't going anywhere without her at his side, ever again.

~~~~~

CHAPTER TWO

The next morning the grey light of a North Sea dawn crept through the leaded glass of the broch's windows and across Hermione's face, waking her from a restless slumber. It took her a minute to realize just where she was; her mind always seemed to be just a few paces behind her body in the morning, which was one of the reasons she'd always hated travelling. Fortunately, the disorientation she felt always passed quickly.

She found Harry already sitting at the table in the common room, picking at the food before him with a glazed look in his eyes that Hermione recognized. It was a look she'd seen far too often when visiting the substance abuse wards at St. Mungo's. "Good morning, Harry."

A bit more awareness crept into his expression as his gaze focused on her. For a minute she thought he didn't recognize her, and then he spoke. "Morning, Hermione. Sleep all right?" His voice was only mildly interested, the tone one would use talking to a casual acquaintance, not your closest friend. Even though she knew that that disconnectedness was one of the side effects of the Lethe, it still tore through her heart like a knife.

She took a firm grip on herself before replying. Now was not the time to confront him about his problems; first she had to get him used to having her around him again, then she might be able to get him to open up to her. "I slept very well, thank you, Harry," she answered, seating herself at the table. "Your bed is remarkably comfortable; I don't think I've ever woken feeling this rested."

Harry shrugged, taking a sip from a glass of water. "I think Dobby performed some enchantments on the bed to make it that way, house elf magic. I know it was bloody awful when I first got here." He chased some eggs around his plate for a minute before pushing his plate away.

Hermione frowned. "Is that all you're going to eat?" She felt like kicking herself as he grimaced for a second. "I'm sorry, Harry; here I am, seeing you for the first time in years, and in less than twenty-four hours I'm nagging you."

Some of the fog cleared from his eyes and he chuckled a bit. "It's all right, 'Mione; to tell the truth, I kind of miss being nagged. Imagine that," he mused, picking up his fork and taking another bite of his eggs.

They didn't talk any more, just sat companionably at the table. Dobby kept popping in and adding to the spread of food, smiling at Hermione when he saw Harry nibbling on this and that while he kept her company.

After breakfast they made their way to the common room, settling into the chairs Harry had Transfigured the night before. Neither seemed willing to be the first to break the silence, and it was Harry who finally spoke. "It was quite a surprise to see you again, and on a broom no less, Hermione. At first I was sure it had to be a trick; I thought brooms were only for Quidditch-mad nutters like Ron and me, not for sensible people like you."

"When you date the Professor of Flight at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for close to ten years, Harry, you learn to ride a broom rather competently, whether you want to or not. Besides, it is a useful skill to have, as I just demonstrated, I believe."

Harry frowned. "Speaking of a certain redheaded professor, shouldn't you be getting ready for your wedding, not gallivanting halfway across the North Sea?" Suddenly his expression shifted to one far more guarded. "You aren't here to try and change my mind about attending, are you? Because if you are--"

"There isn't going to be a wedding, Harry; we called it off."

There was a moment of dead silence. "Really?" And after a minute: "Why?"

"Yes, Harry, really. As to why...well, it's complicated--Harry, would you mind terribly if I don't go into details right now? Something happened, and I needed some space to sort things out in my head, and I remembered how we used to talk things over when we were in school, how you used to straighten me out when I got into a flutter. After Ron--after we decided to call it off, all I could think of was seeing you again. I knew when I got your RSVP that you weren't going to come to me, so I came to you."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "That reminds me; just how did you manage to get here? The whole island is unplottable, it has been for centuries. Did Dumbledore--?"

"Winky."

Harry paused, looking momentarily dumfounded. "What--wait--Winky told you how to find me?"

Hermione sighed exasperatedly. "Honestly, Harry, you know how the Fidelius Charm works. Only your Secret Keeper can reveal your location, and Professor Dumbledore wouldn't betray your trust."

"Then how--"

"Winky told me how to find Dobby, Harry," Hermione said, smiling. "I knew Dobby hadn't been around Hogwarts for years, and it would have taken a very good reason to keep him away from both Dumbledore and Winky. It had to be a reason Winky was happy with, too, because she wasn't upset that Dobby was gone." She smiled primly at the amazement on Harry's face. "So when I decided I needed to see you, I just went to the kitchens and asked Winky for a guide to take me to Dobby. The rest was just flying."

He chuckled. "Trust my Hermione to find a loophole in a Fidelius Charm," he said admiringly. Her heart gave a little flip when he said 'my', but she decided to leave well enough alone. "Well, if you're really here for a visit, I guess I'd better see about getting another room ready. I can't sleep on the rug in front of the fire, that's Snuffles'..." his voice trailed off, and for a split second she saw the grief that was hiding behind his eyes. Then it was gone again, buried under false cheerfulness as he called for Dobby's help in readying quarters for their guest.

That evening, after a second bedroom had been cleaned and aired out and Hermione settled into it, they returned to the common room for dinner. Much to her surprise (and apparently to Harry's) Dobby had decided that a proper banquet was needed to welcome their first real guest. A proper banquet table, its surface covered with snow-white linen, had replaced the trestle table of breakfast, and solid but comfortable dining room chairs had replaced the benches. Bone china (bearing, she noted, the Hogwarts' crest) lay in place of the battered pewter plates, and lead crystal stemware stood where the tankards had been. Gold-plated place settings flanked the china, and beautifully chased candelabra provided the illumination. Hermione knew that a house elf's innate magic made light work of all the preparations, but the thought that had gone into it touched her deeply.

The food was equally sumptuous, matching and surpassing anything she had ever seen in the Great Hall, and there were so many courses she just nibbled a bit on each to keep from making herself ill. By the time Dobby served a flaming Fruit Fool for dessert she was replete, and gratefully retired with Harry to the now familiar common room chairs to digest.

They continued to talk, or rather Hermione talked and Harry listened, with occasional prompts from him when the conversation lagged. He seemed endlessly curious about everyone's lives since the War, and Hermione began to be concerned at the surprise he kept showing, especially about things she knew she'd told him about in her letters. When he expressed amazement that Angelina and George had gotten married, she couldn't hold it in any longer. "Harry, I don't understand why this is all coming as a surprise to you. Didn't you read my letters? You did receive them, didn't you?"

He flushed for a second before mumbling; "I guess it just seems more real when I hear it than when I read it. Words on paper just don't mean as much..." He took a long drink from his glass, and Hermione started when she realized the liquid was no longer water, but a glowing, reddish amber: Ogden's FireWhiskey.

Harry stared moodily into the fireplace, and she cleared her throat. "Harry? Can...can I ask you...about the drinking?" He flinched, but she bore on; "I saw the empties in the bottom of the cabinet, Harry. I know you're drinking a lot; too much. It isn't good for you, you know that."

"It helps."

"Helps how?" She winced as his eyes took on their shuttered look. "Please, Harry, we used to be able to talk to each other about our troubles. Won't you tell me what's wrong?"

He was silent so long she began to be afraid he wouldn't open up to her, and then he sighed. "You know what a mess we were all in, what a mess I was in, after the last battle." She nodded, coaxing him, and he continued.

"Everyone was celebrating the end of the War, everyone was looking forward to getting on with their lives, but I just felt...adrift. Something that had been hanging over my head since I was eleven years old was finished, and I didn't know what to do. I shut myself up in Grimauld Place to think, but even that didn't help. Too many people, both in the Order and out, knew how to get there, and every time one of them came by I got wound tighter and tighter. Then, when I was cleaning up some of Sirius' old papers, I found the deed to Dun Dubh.

"It seemed like a miracle; someplace far away and completely new, where I could get my head straightened out without people bothering me all the time--even you and Ron. I went to Albus and explained what I wanted to do, and asked him to perform the Fidelius Charm. He wasn't too happy about it, but I was determined, so in the end he agreed to do it with a few conditions.

"It took a couple of weeks to tie up all the loose ends, such as setting up a trustee for my business affairs, and arranging regular contacts with Albus on a monthly basis. He refused to let me cut myself completely off from everyone, and insisted that he be permitted to act as a conduit so my friends could keep in touch with me.

"Anyway, after everything was ready, the headmaster performed the Fidelius Charm, and I moved to Don Dubh. He also arranged for Dobby to follow and take care of me. I know it doesn't look like it, but Dobby really does a good job. I'm afraid I just haven't been cooperating too well with his efforts," he acknowledged, taking another long drink.

"For the month or so it was wonderful; I spent most of my time exploring the island, both on foot and by broom, and just enjoyed being out in the weather. I especially loved being out in the storms that roll in off the North Sea, though I think it still scares Dobby when I go flying off into a squall line on my Firebolt. When I wasn't exploring the island, I was exploring my new home; there are at least a dozen levels below ground, storerooms and strong rooms and Merlin knows what else. Some of the passages lead to the caves that honeycomb the cliff below the broch. There's even a fully equipped potions laboratory, one that Snape would have felt right at home in."

He fell silent again, swirling the Ogden's in his glass before draining the dregs. "It was about two months later that the nightmares started." He glanced at her, and she tried to project encouragement to him. His hand twisted in an odd gesture, and the glass was full of firewhiskey again. Taking another drink, he continued. "At first they were the sort of nightmares you'd expect to have after a war, or at least that's what I guessed. Flashbacks of some of the battles, some of the...dead... I thought it would get better. Other people had suffered losses during the war, and they handled it. I figured I could, too. I just needed more time, that was all.

"I guess you know what's next; they didn't get better, they got worse. More frequent, darker. They changed, too; instead of just replaying things that had happened, they...altered. Different people, different outcomes. Some mornings I had a hard time remembering who had lived and who had died. Those mornings were...very bad." He darted a glance at her and her eyes stung as she realized how she had figured in those dreams.

He took another long drink and Hermione realized his speech was starting to slur. "After one really bad night, I remembered Sirius talking about drinking Ogden's FireWhiskey. The 'Panacea of the Ages', he'd called it. I was desperate enough to try anything and asked Dobby for a bottle. He wasn't happy, but he gave it to me.

"I think after the first drink I was hooked. I was a real lightweight; one glass was enough to put me out for hours. I woke up feeling lousy, but at the same time I was rested. No dreams." He took another drink. "It takes a lot more to do the job these days...a lot more..." He finished off the glass and tossed it into the fire, where the traces of liquor went up in a sheet of blue flame. "I guess I've been more or less drunk ever since."

Hermione waited for him to continue, but he seemed to have come to a stop. After a few minutes of silence, she decided to push the discussion. "And the potions, Harry? What about them?" His shoulders hunched, but she pressed on. "You know I saw them, Harry; they're in the same cabinet as the Ogden's. I earned my first doctorate in Potions Theory; did you think I wouldn't recognize them?"

"I knew I should've locked that bloody cabinet..."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I already suspected. Seeing the cabinet just confirmed it for me." When he didn't reply, she continued. "Let me guess; after a while, the firewhiskey wasn't as effective, and the nightmares came back, worse than before. And with a complete Potions laboratory and your NEWT in Potions, you decided to brew something that would work better than getting drunk every night."

"No, I decided to brew something to take in addition to getting drunk every night," he snickered, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Harry, it's not something to joke about! Mixing potions and alcohol is risky at best, and the stronger they are, the more dangerous it is!"

"I'm fine, Hermione."

"Harry, you are a great many things, some of them quite wonderful, but fine is not one of them."

He sighed, "Yeah, I know." He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. "You were mostly right; the Ogden's worked fine, still does most nights, but then the other dreams started..."

"Harry?" she prompted. "What dreams?"

Instead of answering, he asked a question of his own. "Why did you call off the wedding, Hermione?"

Now it was her turn to look at the floor. "I--I don't really want to talk about that right now, Harry."

"No, you just want me to strip my soul bare for you, like we were still back in the Gryffindor common room. Well, we're not in Gryffindor any more, Hermione. It's been ten years, and things, people, change." He ignored the hurt look in her eyes. "You're asking an awful lot of me, but don't want to be open in return. I can't tell you the whys of the potions if you can't be honest with me."

She searched his face, biting her lip. "If I tell you the reason we called it off, and what led up to it, do you promise me you'll tell me why you need the potions?" He nodded. "Including the Lethe, Harry? I do know what it is, what it does," she finished as he flinched.

She let the silence hang between them for a couple of minutes, letting him get used to the idea that she knew exactly how he had been abusing his body, then she spoke. "Harry, what's happened to us? We used to be able to tell each other anything. You and Ron were my best friends, not because of the crazy things that kept happening to us, but because we understood each other. Even when we were fighting, and Merlin knows we did that often enough, we all knew that where it mattered, we could count on each other." She searched his face, trying to gauge his response to her words. "I know it's been hard for you; if anyone has earned the right to go off and be a hermit if they want, it's you, and I've tried to let you go if that's what you needed, but I miss my friend. Please, talk to me?"

He stared into her face for a few moments, and then looked away. "All right, I'll...I'll try." he whispered. "I don't know if I can open up any more, Hermione, but I'll try. I owe you that much, at least."

"Thank you, Harry," she said softly. They sat quietly for a while, just watching the flames flickering on the hearth. "Do you want me to go first?" she said at last.

"Please."

She frowned a bit as she tried to decide the best way to explain what had happened, not just the events of the last few weeks, but everything that had led up to it. "There's so much, I don't know quite where to start," she admitted.

"A very wise man once told me the best way to tell a story was to 'start at the beginning, keep going until you reach the end, and then stop.' Seems to make a lot of sense," Harry replied.

Hermione smiled slightly. "That sounds like something Professor Dumbledore would say."

"Actually, I believe Albus did say it, though I seem to recall he said he borrowed it from somewhere else. Still seems like good advice."

"Hmm, I suppose it does. Well...Ron and I had been seeing each other before the end of the War, of course. Nothing too serious; no one even knew if they were going to be alive in a week, so we were all pretty much living in the moment. You remember what it was like."

"Yes, I do..."

"I don't think any of us were prepared for it all to be over. One minute we were struggling to scrape up enough forces to give Voldemort pause, the next he was gone and all that was left was the tag end of his Death Eaters. Everything was a bit mad for a few weeks, and by the time we noticed you were missing it was too late; you were out here on your unplottable island, and Dumbledore was your Secret Keeper.

"I don't know who Ron was more furious with, you for taking off, or Dumbledore for letting you go. Since you weren't around to yell at, he took it out on the professor. He said some incredibly nasty things, I think it was the only time I've ever seen the headmaster mad at anyone. They ended up barely being civil to each other for years over it.

"I was hurt, too, but I just told myself it was something you needed to do, and that you'd eventually come back. I just couldn't conceive that you were gone for good. Ron and I started dating again, more seriously this time. I was doing my post-graduate work on charms and potions, and Ron was trying to break into playing Quidditch professionally. After about a year we moved in together.

She sighed. "Looking back, I can see it wasn't perfect; in fact, we always had a lot of problems. The thing was, no one who hadn't been with us during the War could understand what we'd been through, and the few people who had been through it all had formed their own pairings. I guess Ron and I stayed together more or less by default.

"Everything stayed pretty much status quo for several years, and then there were some major upheavals. First, I finished my doctorate and was offered the Charms professorship at Hogwarts; Flitwick was finally retiring, and I was his personal choice to succeed him. At the same time Madame Hooch was offered a coaching position on an expansion team in the Australian Quidditch League, and when she left, Dumbledore offered the post of Flight Instructor to Ron. He'd made a minor name for himself in Quidditch circles, and between that and his war record, there were no questions asked. However, since we were both on staff at the school, there was some pressure from the Ministry to 'formalize' our relationship, so as not to set a bad example to the students.

"To make matter worse, Ginny eloped with Dean Thomas. Of course they'd been seeing each other for years, and everyone was happy for them, but it still scuttled Molly's hopes to have a huge ceremony when Ginny finally 'settled down'. But while it let Ginny off the hook, it well and truly stuck the gaff in me.

"You know that Arthur and Molly had all but adopted me when Voldemort killed my parents; I think Molly thought of me as having a second daughter to fuss over, and I know Ginny thinks of me as her big sister, someone to turn to when her brothers act like complete prats. So with Ginny's news, I more or less became Molly's last chance at planning her 'daughter's' wedding. Every time Ron or I were at the Burrow, or she and Arthur visited Hogwarts, the hints got broader and broader. She just wore us down, and last Yule we decided, 'what the heck' and announced our engagement."

"Sounds like everything was going great," Harry said softly.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? And in a way, I suppose I have to thank Molly, because if she hadn't pushed at us so hard, Ron and I might have just coasted along for years the way we were." She shook her head. "As it was, the engagement brought a lot of things back to the surface that we had just glossed over. Ron's a dear, but it always felt like there was something missing between us. I know he felt it, too, and we started having terrible fights. Our friends put it down to 'pre-wedding jitters', and I think I convinced myself that that was it as well. And I used to talk about Ron being thick...

"The last straw came about two weeks ago. Ron came home and found me crying; I'd been working on the guest list, checking the responses against the invitations, and one of them...set me off."

~~~~~

Two Weeks Earlier

"Mione! I'm home!"

Ronald Weasley hung his cloak on the rack by the front door, setting his Firebolt in the broomstand, and went looking for his fiancée. They'd planned on meeting for lunch to go over the final guest list, and he was a bit surprised when he didn't find her waiting at the table. "Mione? Hello?"

He checked the kitchen and her office, and then the small library, but still found no sign of her. He was about to go back downstairs, when he heard a noise coming from their bedroom. Recognizing the sound, he pushed to door open, and was only slightly surprised to see Hermione's form lying on the window seat, sobbing, some papers clutched in her hands. He approached her and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Hermione? What's wrong?"

Her sobs hitched a few times before she got them under control. "I'm sorry, Ron, I don't know what came over me. I was checking the day's owls against the lists, and I got to thinking about all the friends we lost, all the ones who...should be here..."

Her voice trailed off as he took the 'Regrets To Inform You' card from her hand and turned it over, confirming his suspicions. "So, not even for this?"

She bit her lip. "It's not his fault, Ron; he's been through so much--"

"It's been ten bloody years, Hermione," he snapped back. "Whose fault it is doesn't ruddy enter into it any more! Especially not when I see what it does to you." She refused to meet his eyes and stared out the window, the tears running down her cheeks. He watched her for a few minutes, this woman he'd lived with for five years and loved for far longer, and finally sighed. "Hermione, we need to talk."

~~~~~

"We ended up talking for hours, really talking, like we hadn't since before the end of the War. I don't think Ron and I had ever had a talk like that, come to think of it. At the end of it, he told me he was calling off the engagement." She smiled sadly. "He said he loved me too much to let me marry him when he knew I was really in love with someone else."

There was a pause. "Are you?"

"Am I what, Harry?"

"In love. With someone else."

This was the moment she had been dreading since she's arrived and seen the state he was really in. "It took me a little while to get past the denial, but...yes. Yes, I am in love with someone else; I think perhaps he's the only man I ever will love, I just couldn't admit it, either to myself or to him."

"Oh." Another pause. "Do I know him?"

She leaned forward and put her hand on his. "Don't you understand, Harry? It's you I'm in love with, it always has been."

She waited for his reaction. Ever since her talk with Ron, and him telling her his reasons for calling off the wedding, she'd been playing this scene over and over in her mind. When she's arrived at Dun Dubh and seen what he'd done to himself, she'd revised her expectations for this moment, but she still had hopes for the outcome.

Ron had said that he was sure Harry loved her, he just didn't know how to tell her, and her whole future depended on him being right about his friends' emotions. Considering what a prat he could be at other times, she supposed she should have been more cautious, but the second Ron had told her what he thought the situation really was, everything had clicked into place. Now it just remained to be seen if Harry would feel the same.

"Harry? Did you hear me? I said I love you."

Harry flinched. "No..." he whispered. "You don't...you can't..."

Hermione moved out of her chair and knelt in front of him, both her hands on his. "It's true, Harry, please, try and believe me. I love you, I think I've loved you since you and Ron rescued me from the troll in first year."

His face was growing ashen. "Hermione...you don't know what you're saying...please..."

"Harry James Potter, I am in love with you. I have no shame and no pride, and I will keep saying it until you believe me. I. Love. You."

Finally she began to see it in his face: he believed her. What came after the belief was what frightened her. Shock. Anger. Fear. And finally, despair, bone-crushing, soul-destroying despair, and seeing it made Hermione understand at last why there was a whole shelf full of Lethe in Harry's bedroom.

The last look in his eyes was enough to make her draw back, just for a second, but it was enough to break the spell. With an inarticulate groan he jerked his hands free of hers, staggered up from his chair, and fled the room, leaving her sitting there on the floor, her only company the fire burning on the hearth.

~~~~~

By the time Hermione regained her composure enough to look for him, he was gone. She decided to give him a little time to adjust to her declaration before seeking him out, but when twenty-four hours had passed with no sign of him, she began to get nervous. By the end of the next day she was beginning to feel frantic, and only Dobby's assurances that he was still on the island kept her from going completely over the edge.

Nor did what she'd found in his chambers help her state of mind. The second day of his absence she'd decided to look through his desk, hoping to find a clue to where he was hiding himself. Instead she found two things that raised her concern to whole new levels.

The first thing was a box containing all the correspondence she'd sent Harry during his sojourn on the island. What worried her was that, except for the first half dozen, they were all still sealed. She'd checked, and somehow wasn't surprised to find that the last one he'd read had been the letter where she told him she was getting serious about Ron.

The second, and far more frightening thing was also held in a box, but this box was spelled to shield its contents from detection, then physically concealed behind a false panel on Harry's desk. Hermione's methodical nature had noticed the irregularities caused by the concealed compartment, and had puzzled it out. The elaborate concealment piqued her curiosity; since he'd hidden it when only he and Dobby were living on the island, it obviously had to be something he didn't want the little house elf to know about.

It took her a while to work through the box's protections; warding charms had never been her strongest suit, but she had had to master them for her degree. As she worked through the layers of charms, she began to get twinges from the contents of the box, but it wasn't until she lifted the lid that she knew for certain what it contained.

Lethe potion, concentrated to a deadly level.

She recognized the variation; after its debacle all except a very small group, the Wizarding world's version of the Muggles' Hemlock Society, abandoned Lethe. Absolutely painless and 100% lethal, it was the last resort of terminally ill witches and wizards who decided to end their lives on their own terms. Due to its deadly nature, its creation and use was supposed to be strictly monitored, with some of the key components placed on the Restricted Ingredients list.

Hermione sighed and gently closed the lid. She wasn't surprised Harry had hidden the potion from Dobby; the house elf had clearly been upset by his use of the regular Lethe, there was no telling what he might have done if he knew Harry kept a potion handy that could have only one purpose. The question was, what should she do about it?

She thought about it for several minutes, and then opened the box, carefully removing the vial and standing it up on the desk. She then cast the series of charms that subtly altered the deadly potion, so that instead of causing death it would trigger a form of stasis until the appropriate countercharm was administered. To anyone who didn't know what to look for, the original potion seemed unchanged.

With what she felt was the most immediate threat to Harry's well-being negated, Hermione felt better about leaving the broch to search for him. She reclaimed her Firebolt from Dobby and quartered the island, but the barren, windswept landscape seemed to offer little in the nature of hiding places. After a frustrating day of peering down gullies and beating the larch bushes, she once again confronted Dobby.

"I am sorry, Miss Hermione Granger, but Harry Potter ordered Dobby not to tell where he is hiding. Dobby may be free, but Dobby is also loyal, and would never disobey Harry Potter's orders."

"Dobby, I have to find him, I have to. You know that Harry is in trouble, and I'm terribly afraid I may have made things worse, not better. I have to talk to him to set things right."

The little house elf shook his head, looking unhappy. "Dobby can not tell where Harry Potter is, " he repeated. A small glimmer appeared in his bulbous eyes. "All Dobby can say is where Harry Potter is not. Harry Potter is not in the tower, Harry Potter is not in the dungeons, and Harry Potter is definitely not in the passages that lead to the sea caves in the cliffs under the tower." He looked up at her expectantly and she smiled.

"Thank you, Dobby."

~~~~~

"Harry?"

There was a scraping sound, and then a sigh. "In here."

Hermione looked around the passageway, frowning. The natural rock walls of the cave had been polished smooth by countless millennia of wind and wave action, and there weren't any branches or openings nearby. Suddenly a hand appeared from what at first seemed to be solid rock, causing her to eep in surprise. The undulating surface of the wall had concealed a narrow crevice, and Harry beckoned her to follow him.

A short distance and several tight turns later, the crevice opened up into a small chamber, dimly illuminated by light filtering in from several small cracks high in the wall. A pallet lay on the floor by one of the walls, and a wooden crate supported a single thick candle. "Harry, why are you staying in here?"

He shrugged. "It feels comfortable."

"Comfortable?" she asked, her tone clearly disbelieving.

He nodded, dropping into a cross-legged seat on the pallet, his eyes staring off into space. "It feels like home."

Hermione looked again at the pallet and the crate, lying cold and alone in the dim light, and suddenly remembered the address that had appeared on his first Hogwarts letter: 'Harry Potter, The Cupboard Under The Stairs...' For the first time she thought she truly had an idea of what his childhood had been like, what living with the Dursleys all those years had done to him, and she felt a spike of white-hot anger at his abusive relatives flash through her. With an effort she quashed it; time enough later to settle accounts with Vernon and Petunia, right now her concern was with the tormented young man before her. "Harry..."

"Let me guess; 'We need to talk'?" He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. "I don't think I have the strength for any more talks, Hermione; I'm just so tired...of everything..."

"I know, Harry, believe me, I do understand, but we started a conversation in front of the fire, and we need to finish it."

"Do we?" he asked, his expression blank. "Seems to me you said what you came to say."

"Yes, Harry, I said what I came to say; I know it bothers you, and I won't ask why just yet. But you didn't keep your part of the bargain, Harry." At his look of confusion she asked, "You promised to tell me about what was troubling you, remember? Why you started taking the potions, why you're taking the Lethe? You promised, and I'm not leaving until you keep that promise."

They stared at each other, her expression determined, his expression unreadable, for seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes; at least the light had not changed appreciably when he finally spoke. "Where do you want me to start?"

She thought about it for a minute. "You said the Ogden's wasn't effective anymore..."

He chuckled bitterly. "Yes, good old Ogden's, the Panacea of the Ages. Should've known its warranty had expired along with the Age of Voldemort..." he muttered. He looked up, finally noticing the lack of seating, and conjured a cushion for her. As she settled onto it, he continued. "I suppose I shouldn't complain; the Ogden's is effective most of the time, Sirius was right about that, at least."

Hermione frowned. "Harry, the dreams, were they about Voldemort again?"

"You'd think they would be, wouldn't you, but no, I haven't had a single one of those dreams since the war. Guess he really is gone for good if he can't mess with my head any more. No, these dreams were about the war, about some of the people who didn't make it out the other side, especially those who didn't make it because I'd screwed up again."

"Harry--"

"Please, Hermione, I don't want to hear the 'It's not your fault, Harry Potter' lecture again, all right?" he interrupted her. "Besides, it's not me you need to convince, it's my subconscious, and he's notoriously hard of hearing." He smiled slightly when she huffed at him. "Really, Hermione, I do understand; it's just that, when the dreams start, I have to distract myself to break the cycle; the Ogden's works just fine for that, and unlike a Muggle, I can brew up a healing potion to repair any damage the alcohol does to my system."

"That's beside the point, Harry," she chided him. "All the drinking is doing is masking the symptoms of whatever is producing the dreams. You can't spend your whole life at the bottom of a bottle of firewhiskey."

"Worked for Mundungus..."

She snorted. "And we all know what a sterling example of Wizarding success he is. Honestly, Harry!"

He smiled crookedly. "Admittedly a bad choice for a role model. Not that it really matters..." he trailed off, his gaze drifting off into space again. Hermione began to feel alarmed as his eyes took on the haunted look she remembered from her arrival, their color fading against his complexion that had paled.

"Harry? Harry? Harry!" she shouted, trying to break him out of his reverie.

He flinched, and some life returned to his expression as his eyes met hers before shifting away. "Sorry..." he said, staring at his hands.

She eyed him narrowly. "Harry, where did you go just now?" His eyes flickered at her, his features taking on a guarded look. "Harry, you promised. And what did you swear to me on the platform after sixth year? I remember if you don't," she warned.

A bit more animation returned to his face. "I remember," he admitted. "I swore that if it was within my power, I'd never break a promise to you again." He grimaced. "Merlin, I must have sounded like a pompous twit."

"No, you just sounded like yourself, Harry, holding yourself to a standard that no one else expected." She smiled a little at his doubtful glance. "That doesn't mean that, on this one occasion, I won't hold you to your word. You obviously need to talk to someone, and I seem to be elected. So talk. What is it that is so terrible that it has you taking Lethe to drive it away?"

He was silent so long that she began to be afraid that even his stubborn sense of honor wouldn't overcome his reticence, but finally he spoke. "Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey...my own little slice of Hell on Earth." He looked down at the floor, as if ashamed of admitting his weakness. "When the nightmares come, that's where I am. And I know, I know, that's where I'll always be. That there will be no letter, no Hagrid, no Hogwarts, that it was all just a fantasy dreamed up by a boy locked into the cupboard under the stairs, to explain what he'd done that made his aunt and uncle hate him so much."

"Oh, Harry..."

He withdrew into himself, hunching over with his knees drawn up to his chest, and refused to meet her eyes. "The first time it happened, I couldn't sleep for days; I think I scared Dobby half to death. I kept asking him to tell me about the war, about where everyone was. Once I calmed down enough to separate what was real from the nightmares, I decided I might need something stronger than the Ogden's on hand. That's when I brewed the first of the potions. Fortunately it was about a month before I had another bad one, so I had time to get something ready...or at least I thought I did."

"I take it, from the assortment of potions in the cabinet, that it didn't work?"

"Oh, they work fine, as far as sleeping draughts go; Snape was a greasy git, but he did know potions. No, the problem was, they didn't stop the nightmares, they just made it impossible to wake up from them." He finally raised his tired eyes to hers. "I thought I was going mad, Hermione; I still feel that way at times. That's part of the reason I stayed out here, I don't trust myself around too many people at once. It would hardly do for the Boy-Who-Lived to suddenly go postal and start Kedavering the tourists, now would it?"

The sound he made was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and Hermione felt her own breath hitch at this fresh sign of how close to the edge he really was. "So after the first potion failed, you tried the others?" she pressed, not willing to let him close back up on her.

He nodded. "I had to do something; I could tell they were getting worse, and I had to find some way to control them." He noticed her expression and sighed. "You don't have to say it. I don't know why I didn't tell anyone...or maybe I do. My whole life, I was denied the right to choose what happened to me. From the moment Voldemort decided Trelawney's damned prophecy was about me and not Neville, I had this--this destiny hanging over my head. I think I was afraid that, if I went to anyone for help, I'd lose control of my life again." He shook his head. "Pretty damned stupid of me, wasn't it?"

"Not stupid, Harry," Hermione said softly, "just very, very human."

They were both quiet for a bit. "I'm not barking, you know," he said at last, startling her. "I know what the Lethe can do to me--will do to me if I keep taking it. I had it brewed for two years before I took it the first time."

"Then why...they got worse, didn't they? The nightmares?" she asked, trying to imagine what sort of visions could have driven him to such lengths.

"Yeah, you could say that; I think I was actually starting to get a handle on them, or at least learning how to tolerate them. I was cutting back on the Ogden's, and I actually managed to take control of the cupboard dream. I discovered a book in the broch's library on lucid dreaming, and practiced until I could influence what was happening." He shook his head. "I should have left well enough alone."

"What happened?"

His eyes darkened again. "The bad ones, the ones with the cupboard, used to hit about once a month; it got to where I could almost feel one coming, brace myself for it. The night I finally took control, changed the outcome, it was liberating. I woke the next morning believing I might eventually be able to have a life again." He grimaced. "Idiot. That night the new nightmares started.

"I'm in the cupboard as usual, but I hear voices laughing in the living room, and they sound so happy, I have to go see what's going on. I walk down the hall, and see a group of people talking together, smiling." His eyes grew opaque. "It was Mum and Dad, and they were talking with Sirius and Remus. I don't remember just what they're saying, but they're all smiling.

"Then my mum sees me, and she gets angry. 'What are you doing out here?' she yells." Harry ignored Hermione's cry and kept speaking, his tone growing flat. "Then Sirius says, 'I don't know why you keep him around, Prongs, you know he's just going to get us all killed.' And Remus says, 'You should have just drowned him at birth, you and Lily can always have more.'

"My Da doesn't answer them, he just grabs me by the arm and drags me back to the cupboard. He shoves me inside and locks the door, and then he says, 'You've already murdered us, boy, don't make us have to look at you as well.' And then I wake up." He looked up, half afraid to see Hermione's reaction, and was startled by the sight of tears running down her cheeks. "Hey, don't cry..."

She sobbed and threw herself forward, hugging him fiercely. He patted her back awkwardly, and then gradually brought his arms around to hug her back, feeling the knot in his chest loosening for what seemed like the first time in years. "It's all right, Hermione, really, it is..."

"No, it's not, Harry James Potter!" she said fiercely. "You are not going to sit there and tell me it's all right when this is eating you alive!" She eased back until she could look into his face, her arms still around his neck. "I hope that someday you can forgive me for waiting so long to come to you, Harry; I know I'll never forgive myself." He opened his mouth to object, but she put one hand over his lips. "Please, hear me out?"

She paused for a second to collect her thoughts. "Harry, you are a brave, kind, decent man, who is too damned modest for his own good. You also, through no fault of your own, have more baggage to deal with than any dozen other people, and part of that baggage is that you've never learned how to ask for help when you need it. What's more, growing up the way you did has left you convinced, deep down inside that you don't deserve help, when nothing could be further from the truth.

"You have people who care about you, Harry, who want you to be happy. They are your real family, not those self-righteous Muggles on Privet Drive! The only reason you've been alone all these years is that you made everyone believe that you wanted and needed to be alone, when obviously nothing could be further from the truth. And don't believe for one minute that I won't be giving Albus Dumbledore a huge piece of my mind the next time I see him, either!

"Now then, the first thing you are going to do is start taking care of yourself properly. Half the battle in keeping a healthy mind is a healthy body, and you are going to stop abusing yourself as of this moment! You are going to eat properly, drink properly, and rest properly. Yes, I know about the Lethe, but while you may have passed your NEWT in potions, I think I can say without being immodest that I know far more on the subject. There's been a great deal of research on potions for sleep disorders since Lethe was developed, as well as potions tailored to help people transition from it to a safer mixture. It won't be pleasant, but you'll survive, and you won't go mad in the process. Dobby and I will see to that, and if you think Dobby won't help me, you just see what happens after I sic Winky on him!"

"Hermione...I can't...you can't...I won't let you throw your life away this way!"

"That's good, because I'm not throwing my life away; I'm going to spend it with you, and there's nothing you can do or say that will change my mind," she said firmly.

"But--why would you..." He swallowed, shaking his head. "Hermione, you deserve so much more than this, than taking care of...of a cripple." Now it was his turn to shush her before she could interrupt. "You can sugarcoat it any way you want, but that's what I am; a cripple who couldn't even tell the woman he...loved...how he felt. You have so much to give, Hermione, you should be with someone who can give you a normal life." He tried to let her go, but she just pulled him close, her arms wrapping around him as he shivered.

"Oh, Harry," she whispered, "there's no such thing as a normal life; there's just life. You have to let yourself live, my love, for yourself, and for me. All these years we've been apart, I haven't been living, not really. I've been going through the motions, because the one person who made me feel really alive wasn't there. It's time to let the past go. It's time to live, Harry, for both of us."

She brought her hands up and cradled his face, looking searchingly into his haunted, pain-filled eyes, and then gently brought her mouth to his. At the first touch of her lips he jerked as if from an electric shock, his whole body going rigid. She continued the kiss, gently, making no demands, but letting him know that she was there for him. He was shaking, his hands digging into her shoulders so hard she knew she'd have bruises in the morning, but she didn't care. All that mattered was getting through to Harry, to make him understand, to believe in her, even if he couldn't yet believe in himself. Suddenly his resistance crumbled, the tension flowing out of him as he crushed her lips with his. He buried his face in her neck, sobbing out the years of pain and loneliness. He was hers, her Harry, and she would never let him be alone again.

EPILOGUE

He stood on the top of the tower, looking out at the approaching storm, a small smile on his face. The careworn lines were still etched there, though they were no longer as deep. The green eyes still held ghosts, but the ghosts were at peace now, and the gaze that swept the restless ocean was no longer haunted.

"Harry! Are you up here again?"

He smiled and turned, watching as his wife appeared at the top of the stairs leading down into the tower. She stopped, her fists on her hips, and glared at him. "In case you have forgotten, Harry James Potter, we have guests coming for dinner, and the common room is a sight! You can't expect Dobby and Winky to do everything around here, you know!"

He chuckled and stepped away from the parapet, meeting her halfway as she crossed the tower to him. He hugged her close, feeling the slight swell of her gravid belly against his stomach, and felt a wave of peace wash though him, as relentless and inevitable as the incoming tide.

"Harry? You've been spending a lot of time up here lately. Is there anything wrong?" she asked, a touch of worry in her voice.

He smiled into her hair. "No, Hermione, nothing is wrong. I just keep marveling what a difference two years can make, that's all." His eyes darkened a bit. "When I think of how things might have turned out, what I almost did..."

She hugged him fiercely. "But you didn't, Harry, that's all that matters. We made it through together, and nothing will ever come between us again."

"Nothing," he agreed, closing his eyes.

~~~~~

The first six months of those two years had been harrowing indeed. First had come a month of endless agony as he went through withdrawal from the Lethe. Hermione had hardly ever left his side, and in the end Dobby had had to summon Winky and enlist her aid in making sure Hermione didn't make herself ill while she struggled to save the man she loved.

Eventually the worst was past; on the morning of the twenty-ninth day after he stopped taking the addictive potion, he awoke for the first time clear-headed, free from its effects. Hermione spent the next two months rebuilding his reserves and restoring his health, using a combination of potions, charms, infusions, and most importantly, love.

After three months, Harry was ready to face what was for him going to be the most difficult part of the healing process. He voluntarily checked himself into the psychiatric ward at St. Mungos to undergo therapy, in the hopes of finally exorcising, or at least bringing under control, the demons that had tormented him since childhood. This Hermione, for all her love, could not help him through. He needed to face his terrors and conquer them without using her as a crutch, or he would never be whole. All she could do was offer him her love, without question or reservation, and in the end, that was enough. He could not allow himself to betray her faith in him, and as a result, was finally able to bring to bear that same determination that carried him through his struggle to defeat Voldemort. It was the hardest six months of his life, but in the end, he walked out of St. Mungos healed, with scars it was true, and whole for the first time in his life.

~~~~~

The terrain was not quite so barren any more; though still unplottable, it now had a scattering of small, cozy cottages nestled in a dell near the center of the island, less than a village but more than a community. Some of the occupants lived there year-round, having found a sanctuary to rest their own wounds. Others, whose lives were still too intertwined in the outer world to sever all ties, spent their holidays there, socializing with the friends who understood the scars they all bore.

The tower was also still unplottable, of course, though it was now called Dun Caire; currently home to only four occupants, preparations were being made for the arrival of a fifth. It was to announce that upcoming event that the night's dinner party was planned, and for a while the tower was filled with light and laughter, before returning to its peaceful repose.

On a small island in the Outer Hebrides, in a stone tower rising out of the mists of the North Sea, with his friends near him and his one true love beside him, the Boy Who Lived...lives.

~Fin~