Love Actually in the Potterverse

Chapter One: A Crack in the Golden Trio

Next to Harry lay Hermione. Next to Hermione lay something oversized and striped. Despite the numerous nightgowns she owned (the more "imaginative" ones purchased for her by Harry), she always ended up commandeering his pyjama tops. But the pyjama top had been somewhat excessive for their previous activity, and had been ripped off with such force that half the buttons had sprayed across the room. He smiled and nestled into the mattress, looking forward to two more weeks of quality time - and similar incidents - with the woman he had decided to share the rest of his life with.

"Harry, I'm worried about Ron," Hermione said.

Harry sighed inwardly, but settled his new wife deeper in the crook of his arm. Sheetplay had an effect of Hermione similar to what wine had on most other people. Afterwards she would confess that she had secretly thought he had been right during the argument they had that morning, that her NEWT results had not been quite as high as she had led everyone to believe, that she had made a rare mistake at work and been yelled at by a colleague that day. Basically, she got honest. And vulnerable. "In what way?" he asked.

"Do you think he's become distant the last few months?" she asked.

Above her Harry frowned, but forced himself to adopt a teasing tone. "Of course he's distant," he said. "He's a man. The great non-communicators, remember? He'd watch the Chutley Canons lose 250-nil before talking honestly and openly about his feelings." That was a favourite accusation of Hermione's.

"Oh, you do like to tease," Hermione muttered, but without much heat. It was true enough. After the defeat of Voldemort - his defeat of Voldemort - and the worming out of the last Death Eaters, he had discovered a playful side of his personality that he had previously lacked the time or means to develop. After all, being told that either you or Voldemort were curtains was not exactly conducive to jokes. He was happy he hadn't been the butt of that one. "Are you listening to me, Harry?"

"I am listening," he protested. "I was just trying to figure out where you got the impression that Ron was acting strangely. I haven't noticed anything wrong with him."

"It's not him specifically," Hermione expanded. She drew away from Harry, then sat up in bed and began to slip back into the pyjama top. Merlin, she was pretty. He couldn't stop looking at her. Not that it had taken him four years to notice that she was a girl, unlike Ron, but it had taken him much longer to realise that he wanted to marry her. She realised the top no longer had any buttons and contented herself with holding it closed. "It's the way he treats me."

The pyjama top disappointed him for two reasons. The first was that it covered her up. The second was that her act of putting it on made him realise that she was serious about a conversation. A serious conversation. When he had other things on his mind. As soon as he registered the thought, he told himself off for being selfish and resolved to listen to his wife. Or at the very least nod sympathetically every so often. No, that was bad. He was going to pay attention to her. Not the subtle curve of her belly, now darkened from the Malaysian sun, or her long, lean legs - but her. And he would start by taking his eyes off her legs. "Hermione, I'm sorry, but I really don't know what you're talking about."

"I can't believe you haven't noticed," she said. Her voice had risen slightly. "So typical of a man! You mean you've never wondered why he never misses a single Quidditch match that you two arrange to go to, but always finds excuses not to come to anything when he knows that I'm going to be there? Why he only invites me to things where it would be rude not to - like a New Year's party - and even then, he spends most of the night avoiding me? Why he kept on making excuses to be somewhere else whenever I tried to talk to him at our wedding?"

Harry blinked. "That's ridiculous. Why would he want to avoid you? He was the best man, remember?"

"I don't know why," Hermione said miserably, the fire going out of her. "I just know that he is. You can't really say no if someone asks you to be the best man at their wedding, and even so, I'm not sure he would have said yes if you hadn't been the one to ask him. Harry, I don't think he even likes me anymore!"

Harry hastened to reassure her that it was just not true, and that Ron liked her fine, but Hermione would not be abated. "The three of us used to be inseparable. While we were in school they used to call us the "golden trio." We had no secrets from each other, but now it's like there's a wedge between us. I don't know what happened to us." She abruptly burst into tears.

"Oh, come on now," Harry soothed, pulling her back into his arms so that she now sobbed on his chest. Now that she mentioned it, Ron did appear to be avoiding her. "I'm sure it's nothing personal. Look, he's never had a serious relationship, and Dean tells me that things ended badly between him and Susan Bones. Perhaps he's just jealous of what we've got. And perhaps he feels uncomfortable because his two best friends are a couple, and he feels like he's got no one left."

"That's not true," Hermione sniffed. "He'll always have us. And I don't know what I can do to make him see it. Look, I don't want to cause trouble between the two of you. I know he's your best friend, but do you think you could talk to him and find out why he's acting this way? I'd hate to think that I've done something to hurt him without knowing what it is."

"No problem at all," Harry assured her. "He is my best friend, but so are you. You're my wife and I love you. Remember that. You're the two most important people in the world to me, and I don't like to think of you not getting along. Of course I'll talk to him." Truthfully he had been closer to Ron than Hermione during their Hogwarts years, but since the why-the-hell-not whim and the dare from Seamus Finnegan that had led to he and Hermione dating, she had become just as precious to him as Ron was. As far as he was concerned, they were both his best friends. How could you choose between someone who was brother to you in everything but blood and the woman you would love for the rest of your life? You just couldn't. The feelings he had for both were so strong, yet so different. Hermione snuggled closer to him, and despite his concern his stomach tightened in anticipation. Yes, very different.

"Thank you." Hermione's eyes were still wet, but at least she was smiling now. "And I love you too." They lay together in silence for a few moments, then Hermione said, "You know, I'm still a little upset."

"Yeah?" Harry said, feigning nonchalance. He knew where she was going with this one. This was a game he often played with Hermione Grang - Hermione Potter. He still got a thrill whenever he thought of her new last name. Their last name.

"There is something you can do to make me feel better though."

"And what's that?" Above her head he was grinning. "Make you a cup of tea?"

"No."

"Give you a massage?"

"You could start with that."

It was a struggle to keep from laughing. "Well, Hermione, what do you want me to do to cheer you up? I'm afraid I'm all out of ideas."

Hermione sat up and shrugged off the pyjama jacket. "Well, luckily for you, this time I have a few of my own."

* * * * *

"Caspian?" The man on the landing of the upstairs of a Surrey house knocked on the door. No response. "Caspian? Before the house elves bite." Still no response, although that was to be expected. The man sighed heavily and swept a hand through his shaggy and prematurely grey hair. After two cups of tea, Remus Lupin had returned upstairs to face the unenviable task of waking up his adopted teenaged son.

"I'm still asleep," croaked a voice muffled by bedclothes.

Outside Remus rolled his eyes good-naturedly and leant against the door. "You can't talk in your sleep, Caspian."

"You'd be surprised at what us Squibs are capable of."

"Apparently not getting out of bed on time." Remus entered the bedroom, navigating carefully over the assorted clothes and Playstation games to perch next to his stepson's cocooned form. "Come on, Caspian, it's nearly nine-thirty. Ron said he'd be around after ten to take you to see Ginerva at the publicity firm."

"Ginny, yeah?" A head of mussed up blond hair peered curiously over the edge of his quilt. "She's a bit of alright, that one." Remus tut-tutted in disapproval. "Sadly, she only said that she would let me take her out to dinner after I turned twenty. So as luscious as the youngest Weaslette is, until I can truly profit from the situation even she's not enough to tempt me out of bed on a cold November morning."

"Maybe not, but I may be."

"Oh come off it, Remus, you're hardly my type."

"That's not exactly what I meant, young fellow my lad, and you know it." He drew his wand out of his pocket and waved it over Caspian's head. "Lasciaquam!"

A bucket of water materialised out of thin air to upend over the hapless seventeen year old. He shrieked and bolted out of bed. Remus gave him a warm smile and spun his wand around behind two fingers in an uncharacteristically showy gesture. "Not fair," Caspian said weakly.

"I'm your father. It's my prerogative to be unfair. And after all, you need something to tell your therapist twenty years from now. Now the shower, my boy, hit the shower!"

Caspian growled and stumbled towards the bathroom at the end of the hallway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Remus dried the puddles on the wooden floor with a flick of his wand then returned downstairs to set about making scones with strawberry and cream for breakfast, the boy's favourite. A peace offering of some sort was definitely in order. Whistling out a Mozart tune, he switched on the kettle and meanwhile set out spooning cream into a bowl. The jets of water from the shower hitting the aluminium floor meanwhile thundered above him.

Five minutes. Then ten. Then fifteen, and the boy still wasn't out of the shower. Remus grabbed the broom and banged the handle on the ceiling above his head. "Come on, Caspian!" he called. "Ron will be here in less than twenty minutes!"

"Alright, alright, keep your knickers on," Caspian retorted crossly. The water stopped and Caspian's footsteps stomped along the floor. A minute later the body materialised, tugging down a t-shirt over a toned torso. A towel was still draped over his shoulder. "Where's my grub?" he demanded cheerfully.

"Over there," Remus said, nodding over to the breakfast bar. "If you save some of the cream, you can have it with your coffee. I find it makes quite a nice change to milk."

"Oh, I like mine short and black. Just like my women," Caspian quipped.

Remus rolled his eyes. "You will refrain from talking in that manner in front of Ginerva, won't you? She's always had a lot of time for you."

"Don't worry, Pops. I know who to behave myself around. It's the fundamental character trait of us Malfoys." Remus yelped as he gave his bottom a flick with the towel. "I think if I really work my charm on her, I could lower her limit to eighteen before she started dating me." He took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. "Although that Parkinson's a rather tidy piece of work, don't you think? Got an arse you could balance a serving tray on, that one. Do you think if I told her I was twenty, she would shag me? And that boss of hers, phwoar. Some women appreciate a younger man who hasn't learned any bad habits and who they can mould to their exact tastes."

"Caspian, I am eating," Remus said pointedly. "On second thoughts, I think I will accompany you and Ron." Caspian buried his head in his hands and groaned. "Although I've never had any complaints from Professor Granger or any of your other teachers-" Caspian attended Dumbledore's, a wizarding school set up specifically for squibs and the non-magical siblings of Muggleborns who wished to learn more about the wizarding world "-I have to see proof of this good behaviour for myself."

"Just what I need," Caspian muttered, heaping a small mountain of cream onto his scone half, "an old fogey cramping my style."

An old fogey? Remus thought, gazing at himself in the microwave window. Am I really that old? True, there were crow's feet around his eyes and his hair had been belying his age for the last decade, but his green eyes still twinkled youthfully. Never mind. I can still groove. He switched on the transistor radio above the sink and a Rolling Stones song filled the kitchen. "Well I told you once, and I told you twice. But you never listened to my advice," he sang, waggling the dishcloth playfully at Caspian.

Caspian gave him the finger and buried himself behind The Daily Prophet. Remus chuckled and began to rinse the dishes.

* * * * *

Ginny Weasley bent over her desk, her lips moving in concentration as she pieced together the fact sheet about the upcoming novel from the famous crime and romance writer, Oliver Wood. Oliver was a family acquaintance, and with the furore over his famous girlfriend and her former teammate, Holyhead Harpies Chaser Katie Bell, cheating on him, she thought he could do with some good publicity for once. In the cubicle next to her own she could hear the scratching of a quill as Neville Longbottom dictated his own fact sheet, which was about the movie currently being made about the four founders. A feather tickled the back of her neck, and she shrieked and almost knocked over her inkpot. Spinning her chair around, she prepared to give whoever had distracted her a right ear-bashing.

"Coffee?" Caspian Malfoy grinned.

"Caspian!" Ginny cried, throwing herself into his arms. "It's so good to see you, and my, you get taller every time I see you." Her delight turned to a slight alarm as Caspian slid his hands under her arms and lifted her into the air. "Um, Caspian, I'm wearing a skirt."

"You've got stockings on," Caspian said airily. "No harm there."

"They're only thigh-highs," Ginny confided in a whisper.

"Oh," Caspian said sheepishly, and put her down. Her brother was watching on disapprovingly. Remus was shaking his head. Over her shoulder he could see Neville turn a deep shade of red. "Er, sorry about that. Thank you to you and Ron both for making time for me."

"Not a problem," Ginny said sunnily. "So, what I can do for you boys?"

"My school's having a Christmas talent show," Caspian explained. "I know that these things usually stink, but this might actually be pretty cool. We've some really good acts this year, including Elizabeth Granger. She's got a great voice. I asked Ron if we could maybe put an ad in The Independent Wizard, but he said that you should be the first port of call."

"He said right," Ginny smiled. "Ron wouldn't know the first thing about spin. When we both finished our Journalism correspondence course, he refused to join me in working in publicity and advertising."

"Yeah, well unlike you, I didn't feel entirely comfortable with crossing over to the dark side," Ron scowled down at her. "What you don't get, Caspian, is that journalists deal with exposing the truth and publicists do their best to hide it."

"That's a bit harsh, don't you think?" Ginny challenged him. "You have to concede that both sides can be a little culpable of telling the truth but not the whole truth. For example, your colleague Blaise Zabini got Witches Weekly to run a piece about how there was something going on between Tonks and one of her co-stars, including photos of the two of them together at a supposedly intimate dinner. They were together at dinner, but with the film's director, Ernie McMillan, who was cut out of all the photos."

"Oh come on, you can't judge a whole industry by a few hacks," Ron protested. "Besides, Blaise isn't so bad. Maybe his sources were misinformed. I mean, I haven't ever had a problem with the bloke personally. He even offered to do one of my stories so that I could meet with Caspian today, even though entertainment isn't his beat. Oh shit," he realised, "that means he's going to the set of that movie. Tonks is going to kill me."

"See?" Ginny said. "Slytherins never offer an unconditional favour. Whoever said to "never look a gift horse in the mouth" had obviously never met one. Caspian, the first thing to do is to create a fact sheet, like the one I'm working on here. Now the key is to put the most important information at the top, then the next most important, and then all the way through so that the least important is at the bottom. This makes it more helpful for the reporter who gets this fact sheet to figure out what he needs to put in the article, and what he can afford to leave out. The next most important thing is to make sure that it's well-written. Reporters often have less than ten minutes to turn these into articles - or they're just lazy bums who leave everything to the last minute like my brother - so the less rewriting they have to do, the more likely your client's piece is going to end up in a rag." She turned triumphantly to her brother. "See? Publicity is a learned skill."

"That's a matter of opinion," Ron shot back.

Neville's head popped over the top of his cubicle, timely diffusing an argument. "I'm putting together a fact sheet on up-and-coming events. There's still a couple of spare inches, so if you give me all the details, I can just add it to what I already have."

"Oh thank you, Neville, that is sweet of you," Ginny gushed.

"Neville? As in Neville Longbottom?" Caspian gaped. Neville's shy nod confirmed this. He had slimmed down significantly after high school, but due to a late growth spurt around the same time period, was still a big man. From someone so physically imposing this was a strangely self-conscious gesture. "My god, I've been dying to meet you. I've been told that you're the only reason why my future wife is still with us today."

"Your future-?" Neville blinked.

"Oh, now Caspians just joking," Ginny said.

"No, I'm not," Caspian deadpanned, but winked at Neville. "Seriously, I heard you took on, like, five Death Eaters to save her. That was amazing. Listen, Starbucks gave us an extra coffee just now. Would you like one? I'll give you the choice between a straight black and a mint latte."

"I'll take the mint latte, if that's alright with you," Neville said, looking slightly flustered by all the positive attention being lavished on him. "And please saying thank you to that Starbucks bloke for giving you an extra one. It was awfully nice of him."

"I'll be sure to pass that onto him," Caspian said, winking at Remus. Despite his brutal humour his son didn't have a mean bone in his body and was more laughing with Neville than at him for his lack of knowledge of the Muggle world that, due to his limitations, it had become necessary for them to both live in. It had been difficult to adjust to at first, but by now had become a kind of in-joke to them among other wizards. "And it's definitely alright. Dude, I owe you way more than a coffee. On New Year's Eve I'm so taking you out so we can get disgracefully slaughtered together. My shout."

"Oh no you're not," Remus said quickly.

"Thank you, but I'm not a big drinker," Neville said politely. "But if you come around to my cubicle, we can put our heads together and come up with something about your school talent show. Here, have a seat." He flicked his wand at the space next to him. A comfy armchair appeared, only to slump to one side as it only had three legs. "Er, so wandwork isn't my forte," he concluded sheepishly.

"Don't worry, it's leagues better than mine," Caspian reassured him airily, walking around to his side of the barrier. "All we need to do is put these dictionaries underneath to balance it and - voila - it's complete."

"Thank you," Neville said. As Caspian settled himself into the chair, he turned and mouthed to Ginny, "That's a Malfoy?"

Ginny nodded back, beaming. Aloud she said, "Thanks for looking after him, Neville. You're so good to me."

"About time you realised," Neville muttered under his breath. Remus, Ron and Ginny - who had turned back to the other two - didn't appear to hear him, but next to him Caspian gave him a searching look.