Happiness

Hermione smiled sheepishly as she handed over a thin, neatly-wrapped box as they sat, cuddled, on the king-sized bed, cheeks flushing with slight embarrassment.

"I hate that you got me a castle and that this is all I could come up with, but.." She trailed off, noticing the look on his face.

"What is it?"

"It's a letter, that I wrote to you, with everything that I love about you."

Draco's eyes lit up as he scanned through it, cheeks flushing red at halfway through.

"You can't possibly believe all this about me. I'm not even worth half of you, Granger-" He choked on tears. "I'm Death Eater scum. I'm darkness. You're the Gryffindor princess, the pure, untouchable goddess." He jumped off the bed, staring at her now with a mixture of wonder and hopelessness as his doubts streamed out of his mind.

"How can you love someone like me?"

Hermione looked at him. "I've heard, before, that you were the Slytherin prince. I've also heard that opposites go well together. So goddamnit, if you're darkness, and I'm light, well.."

She trailed off as she stood up, brushing her hair out of her eyes, and she moved forward and boldly pulled him to her. Lips met, fingers became entangled in hair, and joints tumbled together as they fell backwards onto the bed, removing layers one by one until there was nothing separating them.

***

Ginny sighed as they shifted through the mounds of receipts and paperwork and all the things from the past two months, establishing what needed to be kept and what could safely be thrown away. Harry entered the room, carrying a thin box and a sombre expression. Ginny raised a brow.

"Please tell me whatever's in there is not something else that needs to be added to here." The dining room table was already full to overflowing, papers drifting gently to the floor as more and more were added. Harry sighed, rubbing his eyes and knocking his glasses onto a stack of paper. Ginny picked them up unconsciously and handed them to him. Harry huffed in annoyance as he slid them back on his face, opening the box.

Inside lay the letters they'd received from Hermione on Christmas day, along with the last glimpse of her Ginny was sure they'd ever see. The colour drained from her face; her eyes widened, almost comically.

"My god. I thought we-"

Harry finished her sentence. "-Tucked them away where we'd never see them again? Yeah, me too. I guess we put it in the pile to sort out this month, to avoid it for a little longer."

Ginny's lips pursed into a thin line, shoving the box away from her and sending more paper flying down to the ground.

"Let's put it off again."

Harry clasped her hand with both of his, looking her in the eyes. "I don't think we should, Gin. It's not good to wait. We'll do it now, and we can get it out of the way. We're gonna have to let it go, so may as well let it go now."

Ginny sighed. "I know, I just don't want to."

"Well, if we don't do it now, we won't ever do it. So.."

Ginny bit her lip. "Alright, let's do this."

Carefully, as though handling a precious relic, Ginny lifted out the letter addressed to her.

By the end of the letter, there were fresh tear stains on the parchment, smudging the ink. Ginny sniffled. The letter hurt. It was so brutally honest that Ginny had cried the first time she'd read it, avoiding all questions by running to her room and not coming out until the tears were dried and the letter tucked away in a loose floorboard she'd discovered when she was twelve.

Harry had made her take it before they left.

Harry, on the other hand, hadn't put his away until the day after Christmas, refusing to let go of it until boxing day. Ginny had found him, black hair an absolute mess, glasses slightly askew, hunched over in low lighting as he read and re-read the letter. Ginny had soothed him to sleep that night, and she'd never asked to see the letter.

Harry's throat constricted as he re-read the letter again, to be able to come to terms with it but not able to.

His fisted grip nearly crumpled the letter, but he restrained himself. The tears that fell were not tears of anger at Hermione, but at Hermione's belief that he was mad. Mad at her for running away. How could he be? How could he be mad at her for escaping? He knew it took a lot to break her. So it must've taken one heck of a lot to convince her to go.

But the tears were also directed at his own shortcomings. Hermione - she thought he was capable of standing up on his own, Ron on one side and Hermione on the other, and that she could take herself silently out of the equation and he'd be brave enough to carry on without her. They'd always (well, almost always, he supposed) been a trio. Nothing could tear them apart, nothing could break them.

Except destruction from the inside.

And so he was upset that she thought he could even be mad, upset at himself that she believed enough in him that she was convinced he'd manage, even okay, without her- let alone be happy with his life.

How was he supposed to be happy without her?

But if she believed in him- he had to. He could. It would be a matter of remembering her belief in him, and then honouring it.

***