The Love I Wish I Had

Disclaimer: No, I don't own the Harry Potter characters. I am not JKR and I do not intend to be.

Title: The Love I Wish I Had

Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, OC

Pairing: Harry/Hermione

Rating: T

Word Count: 1,349

Summary: This is the story of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger's love, told from the eyes of their daughter.

Author's Note: This, I guess, would be officially AU, considering the events of Deathly Hallows. But, frankly, I don't care. Never shall the H/Hr ship die.

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Ask Audrey

Audrey Potter

Today, as many of you may or may not have noticed, is the fifth of November. No, I will not be writing about gunpowder treasons that people have apparently forgot, nor will I be answering your questions on relationships and how to make them successful. Well, I may be answering one of your questions, but it will not be in my usual column format. For the past two years, I have been answering your questions about romance, love and lust, dating and marriage. I am not married nor am I currently in love. But for all my life, I have been surrounded by love. Impossible love such as that of a werewolf and Metamorphmagus. Forbidden love like that of my 'Uncle' Draco and 'Aunt' Ginny. Or even crazy love, that sometimes doesn't make sense, like my 'Uncle' Ron and 'Aunt' Luna. But none of their loves can even be compared to the most influential love I've experienced in my life; which once again brings me to the fifth of November.

Thirty years ago, to this date, my parents, Harry James Potter and Hermione Jane Granger-Potter, were married. For my twenty-four years of life I have watched them, eye wide, wondering if anything I could find could ever match their love. Through thick and thin, disasters and Death Eaters, they stood side by side. Even before they ever realized that they were in love with one another, they stood together.

I remember the stories that I had been told about their years at Hogwarts. Serving as bedtime stories to lull me and my siblings to sleep, Mum and Dad would recount the tales of how they met and the battles they faced fighting the Dark Lord. Meeting on the Hogwarts Express when they were just eleven, my father found my mother to be a bookish know-it-all and my mother didn't think much about my father either. It wasn't until after my father and his best friend, Ron Weasley, saved my mother from a troll did they forge a friendship that will last for all of time. They told me tales of a basilisk, dementors, and Triwizard Tournaments. I remember sitting with my eyes wide listening to them speak, lost in their memories.

Even when my father dated Ginny Weasley and my mother, Ron, they remained friends. When those relationships fell into oblivion, they sought comfort in each other's arms. Their relationship wasn't a rebound like some would make it out to be, and after thirty years, that fact should be proven. My mother would always recount the story to all five of us children, and each time, she would speak it with more passion and love than the last. My father had surprised her at St. Mungo's, where she worked, and took her out to lunch at the park. It had been three weeks after Ron and my mother had broken up, and somehow, my father sensed her stress and sadness. In the park, my mother and father spoke of their failed relationships, offering comfort to one another. It was then, that my mother recounted, that their eyes met, and they kissed. She described it as beautiful and wonderful, and all of the adjectives in between, earning 'ewws' from my older brother, Will, but I was lost in the stories.

The media was hard on them. Even if they didn't get together so soon after their respective break-ups, they still would have been hounded by the media. My father was Harry Potter, after all. It had to be difficult, and it must have seemed that the whole world was against them at times. But they prevailed. I vaguely remember rumors running rampant when I was younger for my hair was more red than brown and freckles spotted my cheeks. Some horrible reporter named Rita Skeeter had claimed that I had been the consequence of an affair that my mother had been having with Uncle Ron. I remember laying in my room, as my older sisters, Ophelia and Helena, tried to console me. It wasn't until my mother a father came into the room and took me in their arms did I begin to feel better.

Mum told me how she would never think of hurting Daddy that way, and that she loved him just too much. My father explained that I looked like a younger version of my grandmother, his mother, who I inherited my red hair from. They wiped away my tears, and held me and each other. Later that night, I overheard them talking angrily about the article and Rita Skeeter. My father was threatening to show her why she shouldn't mess with his family, while my mother tried to play the voice of reason. She was afraid he would do something he might regret, and he was afraid of my mother's name being dragged through the mud. But finally, their debates subsided, and they stared into each other's eyes, and held one another. It was one of the most beautiful moments I had ever seen.

It was true, that had their rows, but what couple didn't? She would lock herself in the study and he would storm out of the house. Doors would be slammed and screams would shake the halls. But later, after the blood and temper had cooled, they would make up, and hold each other. All five of us, Will, Ophelia, Helena, Edmund, and I would all be sent to Grandma Weasley's or Uncle Ron and Luna's, for a sleep over as they would make up, a thought none of us would truly like to imagine. Sometimes, one of us kids would walk into the den, and accidentally come upon Mum and Dad snogging on the sofa, oblivious to the world around them. We never caught anything else, and we never wanted to. They saved that for the bedroom.

At times, my parents were separated, working driving them to different places. My father took the position of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor the year before Will and Ophelia started Hogwarts, leaving us for weeks on end. However, every day Mum would write him a letter, and every day, he would write one back. I remember the smiles on her face when she would read the letters. I never read one, for they were private. But they made Mum smile and she was happy.

When they visited Hogwarts, for graduations, or for my father to show my mother the work he had accomplished, they would tour the grounds, hand in hand, smiles on their faces, lost in each other. They would circle the lake, blissful and full of love. Nothing would get in their way. I had never seen love that strong between two people, and wondered if I ever would again.

They stayed strong together, when things were easy, or when times got rough. My father held my mother's hand when little Edmund was attacked by a Death Eater one Christmas, promising her everything would be okay. They supported one another when Ophelia ran away with the new Muggle Studies professor, who was ten years her senior, and spread their love to them when they returned to our fold. They held each other and comforted one another when my brother's wife lost their baby, and gave support to the grieving parents. And they held one another when my sister said her 'I do's' to Oliver Wood Jr. on their wedding day.

So, now I must end my tale of love. This isn't a story of a child adoring their parents' marriage, looking at it through rose-colored glasses. But it isn't. I have aged and matured, experienced love and loss, and can look on what they have and say, 'I want that someday'. I am nowhere near that mark, and I probably will never be, but all I have is the hope. Maybe, my readers, you will learned something from this article. I know I have from writing it. So, here's to you, Mum and Dad: I am Audrey Anne Potter, and I want the love that you have.

Fin