By the Sea

*

When it was all over, they took a little house by the sea. It was up a cliff, far away from anywhere; the sort of place only wizards would live, because getting to the grocer's without Apparition would just be ridiculous. It was Harry who had found it, and he loved that the house was big enough for four, but small enough to keep everyone close.

Mornings were quiet. Ron and Ginny left early, off to run one of Fred and George's shops; they were becoming quite good at it, from what Harry understood. Hermione settled in the lounge, reading and writing, and even though Harry had been told - more than once - he couldn't say what all she was about. And Harry turned his attention to the house, to pipes that leaked and windows that didn't open and mouldly patches that he hoped weren't the beginnings of a Bundimun infestation. He wasn't spectacularly good at it, but when he got things right and a problem disappeared it felt absolutely fantastic.

Afternoons were quieter still. Sometimes they started with a nap after lunch, and sometimes with a broom-flight down the coast. Then came time in the little garden he'd scratched out near the back door, sheltered by the house from the strongest breezes. In the warmest, sunniest spot was a mix of magical plants that Harry hoped he was doing right by. Around them, not so much in rows as in haphazard little groups, were peas and lettuces and the like, and far more radishes than the four of them could ever eat. He'd got a bit over-enthusiastic with those tiny little seeds - he'd remember to do it differently, next year.

When the sun began to dip and the air grew cooler, Harry filled a basket with things that looked good and took them inside, where he and Hermione would see about dinner. Neither of them were world-class cooks, but Harry knew the basics and Hermione had a book, and they were moving from dry baked chicken and potatoes to things with creamy sorts of sauces.

The house was made of noise in the evenings, and Harry liked that too. Food went well with laughter and stories and discussion-turned-debates on the state of the wizarding world today. Harry found he had very little to say on that subject, that he was content to let them - and everyone else - decide on assimilation or retreat without him.

There was no Quidditch on the wireless, not yet, so news programmes and songs of questionable musical merit became the soundtrack to their after-dinner hours. On the nights that Ron and Ginny brought home things from the shop to work on or play with, the radio was joined by booms and zaps and funny little sizzling sounds (and, occasionally, shrieks and what were you thinking?!s and full-on explosions).

And when all that was left were soft night sounds, sweet, close smells and red hair on his pillow, when Ginny smiled and asked how his day was, Harry answered, always, nice.

*

The late afternoon breeze turned sharper. Harry stood at the table one day, peeling carrots and watching Hermione, who was frowning over a page in her cookbook. When she looked up, he said, "I was thinking about building a little greenhouse."

Understanding flashed in her eyes. "It's the only way Neville's plants will make it through the winter."

He knew the look on her face, though, and he waited. He didn't mind, not really, even when he got annoyed; it was what she did, and Merlin knew if she thought of every last way something could go wrong, then he didn't have to.

"But oh, Harry, you will get Mr. Weasley to help you, won't you? Because you have to be really careful, remember what happened in the bathroom, if something goes wrong that's an awful lot of glass to come shattering down on you."

Harry sighed. All indicaters pointed to that never, ever being forgotten. It had been pretty impressive, though, seeing all the tiles fly off the wall at once. "'Course I will," he said. "And maybe we can find a book, with some blueprints or something."

Hermione looked comforted, and Harry flicked his wand, watched the carrots split into bite-sized pieces, and flicked it again to send them sailing over to the pot on the stove. "What next?" he asked.

"Do us some onions?"

"No problem." He started, and after a few moments, was struck by a thought. "Why don't I get some extra boards, and build some shelves in the sitting room? For your books."

He hadn't had the idea long enough to have thought about her reaction, but Harry would've expected her to be pleased, or excited, or perhaps worried about the chances of some sort of bookshelf-accident. Not to go like this, all still and shuttered.

A second later Hermione was walking away from him, and he watched as she turned the tap, began soaping her hands. "That's really nice of you," she said into the sink, "but I don't know if you should go to all that trouble."

"Why not? I want to."

Her back was to him, but he could see her sigh in the rise and fall of her shoulders. She turned off the water, and when she spoke, it seemed far too loud. "Because this isn't the way things go, and you know it."

Did he? Harry supposed, maybe, that he did. He thought about the future, about four rings and two houses, and said, "There's plenty of time."

"I think so too," Hermione said quietly, hanging the hand-towel up neatly to dry. When she turned, she was wearing a smile that someone else might have believed, and she took her place beside him, saying, "It calls for celery, do you want me to skip that?"

"Yes, please." He shuddered in mock-horror, because it was expected, and went back to the onions.

*

They made shelves.

It wasn't terribly hard to do. Harry got some brackets, and Hermione measured and re-measured, then made marks on the wall to show where they should go. Together they stained the boards a dark brown that Hermione called 'walnut' and Harry thought looked rather nice.

Ron, predictably, had things to say about their project. He went on at length about the bizarreness of having enough books at age nineteen to fill an entire wall from floor to ceiling, and followed that up with a story Harry frankly didn't believe - something about an old wizard's books who'd got tired of their library and tried to take the rest of the house by force.

But he didn't say what Hermione had said, or anything like it, and that was just as well. Harry reckoned all he'd have to offer in return was a shrug.

On weekends, Ginny helped Harry outside, where the greenhouse was taking much, much longer. He had decided to site the greenhouse right against the side of the house, where it would be out of the wind, get residual heat from the house, and only need three walls and a sloping sort of roof. Deciding that probably been the easiest part of the job. He was gaining a fast respect for people who did this for a living - the whole thing would've collapsed in on him several times over if Ginny hadn't been quick with stabilising spells.

"What do you think?" Harry asked, late on a Saturday afternoon. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. "Is this going to be the crookedest building in England, or what?"

Ginny grinned, and put down the hammer she'd been holding to come over and give him a kiss. "Possibly," she said, surveying it from his arms, "but I've never put too much stock in things looking just so. Just means the flaws are where you can't see them."

"That's good then," Harry said. And, a beat later, "Although, a bloke could take that personally. . . ."

She rolled her eyes, then kissed him again. "And here I thought I was being deep," she said. "Come on, let's clean up, we've time for a walk on the beach before dark."

"Let's," Harry said, smiling, and wondered if he was meant to bring the blanket.

*

October was a month of changes. Charlie got married in Romania to a girl who loved fire-breathing creatures as much as he did. Bill and Fleur had their baby, a girl with tufts of blonde hair and charm so strong that Harry thought it should come with a Ministry warning.

And on a Thursday, Hermione left.

Just going to visit my parents, she told Harry, nothing's wrong, nothing at all. But there was something about her, resolve maybe, that Harry didn't think visiting her family required, and she didn't say when she'd be back.

She and Crookshanks left while Harry was still on his first piece of toast, and he spent the day shifting from one silent task to another, never quite settling on anything.

Two days passed, then three, and Harry took to watching Ron. It was obvious that he missed Hermione: it was in the slump of his shoulders as he sat on the couch alone, in the way he let Ginny tell the best wacky customer stories all on her own. But he wasn't showing any of the classic Ron-signs of distress, either - no snapping for no reason, no complaining about the madness of women - and Harry decided that his first guess, that Ron and Hermione had had a tremendous row, was off the mark. And that either he'd misread things entirely, or Hermione had done a better job pretending things were fine when she'd said goodbye to Ron.

A week, and then Harry asked Ginny, "Have you spoken to Hermione?"

"No," she said, as she plaited her hair for the night, "no, I haven't."

"Has Ron?"

"Not that I know of."

He stretched out, pulling up the covers. "Seems odd."

She shrugged, eyes still intent on her hair. "I don't know. I'm never away from my family long enough to miss them, but I can see it'd be different for Hermione."

And he wouldn't know either, Harry thought. But then, maybe he did - family came in all sorts of packages - and maybe that was why he was so, so, whatever he was, with her gone.

Or maybe it wasn't. Harry thought about that, and tried to sleep.

*

On Monday afternoon, Harry put down his spade, went inside, and washed his hands. A few seconds later, he appeared behind a large shrub in the Grangers' front garden.

No-one answered his knock. Of course they weren't home, her parents were at work and Hermione was off at a library or bookstore or something. This was silly, and leaving a note would be even sillier.

Harry looked round the street where Hermione had spent half her life. It wasn't so far removed from Privet Drive, at first glance; one house after another, all impossibly neat and almost exactly alike. But he knew the house behind him had been warm in a way Number Four hadn't, and he was glad of that.

Harry turned to look one last time, and the door was open.

On seeing Hermione, he thought: not silly at all. Her face was perfectly blank, and she didn't say hello, just asked, "Is something wrong?"

"No -"

"I didn't think so," she said. "You knocked too calmly for that."

"I just -" Harry supposed he'd thought she'd be pleased to see him, no matter what. He hadn't expected to feel like this, like he had to explain himself, and he wasn't prepared. "I just dropped by."

"Ah." She smiled a tight smile. "I'm glad you did."

"You don't look it," he grumbled, like a twelve-year-old.

"Well, I am." She looked out across the garden and sighed. The sound was loud and exasperated and very Hermione; it encouraged him. "You mean you haven't worked it out yet?"

"No," Harry said, "and it's not looking like I ever will, so why don't you just tell me?"

"All right." Hermione glanced at him with wet eyes, then focused on a bush. "I heard the knock on the door, and I thought it might be you or Ron. One or the other. I looked out the window, and right in that second, before I thought about anything - I was so happy to see you."

"Because I wasn't Ron?"

She sighed again. "No."

Harry knew what getting hit by a Bludger felt like. This came pretty close. "Oh."

"Yes, oh," Hermione said, and she was crying openly now. "So I don't think you should come in, and I don't think you should tell Ron you came. I'll tell him. . . what I need to tell him, when I'm ready."

Harry thought he should say something, do something. He thought he should make her stop crying. He considered patting her on the shoulder, and then a few other things, while he stood and stared.

"I shouldn't have come," he said finally.

"Don't be an idiot," Hermione snapped. "I came here hoping to miss you least; that was the plan. It didn't work out, obviously, but that's not your fault. And now I know. It's good to know."

He considered telling her that she didn't know anything; it was an aberration or cold feet or something. But Harry knew better. If Hermione had proved something to her satisfaction, then it was so.

And it was wrong of him, very wrong of him, but he tucked three warm words away for later: she chose me.

He'd never had the slightest idea that he might be an option.

"Will you be coming home?" Probably the stupidest question in the history of stupid questions, but he needed to know.

"To get my things," she said. She smiled, and it was sad, but it was real. "I suppose I'll see you then."

*

Outside was wind and howling rain, a wild night made wilder by the echoing crash of waves on rock. Harry had picked up some curry on his way home, and now he set cartons of chicken and rice on the low table in front of the couch. They would sit close together, he and Ron and Ginny, dipping poppadoms in chutney and burning their tongues on supposedly-mild lime pickle.

And they did, half an hour later, under warm lamp-light with the Weird Sisters almost drowning out the storm; and Harry still felt like the house was coming down around him.

"Surprised you went out today," Ron said, around a mouthful of curry. "'s awfully wet."

"I -" Harry should've been able to handle that easily, but here he was, like a fish. Mouth open, closed. Open, closed.

"It wasn't raining all day," Ginny pointed out, stabbing the last piece of chicken with her fork. "Besides, never look a gift curry in the mouth."

"Hey! I was going to eat that!"

"I cleaned my plate first," Ginny said. Her smile was triumphant, and when she took a large bite, Ron howled.

Three. That's what they were now. And while Harry knew that three could fit as well as his own skin, this three wouldn't, it wasn't right; and anyway, it wouldn't last. Harry wasn't sure what words - what names - Hermione would use, but it wouldn't matter; anything left unsaid would be written on her face, on his.

So: two.

It was how things went.

Objects began moving around him, zooming by on their way to the kitchen. Plates, then forks, then knives, and in no time at all the table was clear. Ginny's methods were at once alarming and extremely efficient.

The next thing to come flying through the air was a chessboard.

"Ah," Harry said. "Who gets to lose to you tonight?"

"You," Ron said.

"Aren't you lucky?" Ginny said. She squeezed his hand. "I've work to do."

She curled up at the end of the couch, Bill's old Advanced Charms text in one hand and a tin-opener in the other. Harry eyed it, then the Weasley grin curving on her lips, and decided that yes, it would be possible to live without eating tinned food ever again.

He and Ron settled in and began to play. Some nights they teased and taunted their way through their game, turning it into a spectator sport, almost. Tonight, though, the chessmen did most of the talking, and Harry let them. He was too busy studying Ron to talk; Ron, whose world was about to break open, who didn't know it was coming.

When his eyes weren't on Ron, they were on Ginny. Because Harry knew, now, why Hermione was in no hurry for I do's and forevers, and he had no choice but to think, really think, about why he'd not slid a ring on Ginny's finger. He wondered if Ginny understood better than he did. He wished there was some way he could ask her.

The night wore on and grew quieter, no more thunder, no more wind. There was less of Harry's army on the board than discarded beside it, and they were grumbling, talking about mutiny. When the queen joined their ranks, they jeered so loudly that Ginny leaned over and told them in no uncertain terms to shut up.

"Your turn," Ron said.

Harry glanced from his friend to the chessboard and back again, and in that moment the picture focused: he was looking at Ron, Ron who had seen something coming for a very long time, but had no moves to make.

Harry slid his bishop along three spaces, and waited.

One way or another, they were all going to lose.

*