Harry shook his head. "I still can't picture that. I was sure that he'd stay in the Misuse of Muggle Artefact Department, fiddling with his spark plugs and what not."
"Yes, well, Kingsley did a good job of convincing him otherwise and the country's better off for it, I think," Hermione replied.
"The others?" Harry prompted after she had been silent for too long.
"Molly enjoys being a grandmother and bustling about the Burrow," Hermione said. "She's forever trying to get everyone together for meals. She misses you, though, always saying that 'all of her kids should be here, even the missing one'."
"She was suffocating me, Hermione, I had to get away from her" Harry stated, staring down at his plate. "I know that she was still grieving from Fred, but it felt like she was using me to compensate – plan out every facet of my life, where I lived, what job I was to do, even who I was to marry. Did you know that about a month before I left I accidentally came across a little book that detailed every detail of my and Ginny's wedding? We weren't even together and she was still planning it."
"I'm sorry, Harry," she said sympathetically, laying her hand over his. And she could relate; she was sure that Molly had a similar book for her and Ron.
"Ron's doing well at the Canons," she said, trying to change the topic. "There's some talk of him becoming the Assistant Coach as well as being the Keeper. I don't see him as much anymore, of course, not since you left."
"I'm sorry," Harry said.
"Don't be," she told him. "We didn't work as a couple, really that was a spectacular error on both of our parts, I'm sure that I don't know what we were thinking! We simply can't help but argue all the time. We're still friends, we're simply on separate paths."
"And he blames you for my leaving," Harry said in a burst of rare insightfulness. "He expected that if anyone could get his best mate to stay so that he didn't have to grow up and do things for himself and could be there to hang out and play chess and go drinking whenever he wanted, it'd be you."
"I won't say you're wrong, Harry," Hermione replied. "Five years ago, he was a lot like that. But he has matured some since then."
"Enough to not be angry for 'abandoning him'?" Harry asked.
"Possibly," Hermione finally decided.
Harry gave a single nod as though it answered a hundred questions.
"And Ginny?" he eventually asked.
Once again, Hermione found herself sighing, an action that was beginning to really annoy her.
"Ginny's … Ginny," she began lamely.
"Well, that's helpful," Harry deadpanned.
"Hush, you," she admonished. "It's taken Ginny a long time to get over you and quite frankly, I don't think that she ever really will. Sure, she's been dating off and on, a lot, these past few years, but I doubt she'll ever find someone that'll measure up to what she's looking for."
"Me," Harry stated flatly.
"Well, yes."
At that, Harry shook his head. "What she wants is something that never existed. I'm not the boy in those ridiculous stories. I'm not The-Boy-Who-Lived."
"Yes, and Ginny knows that; she's known since she was eleven," Hermione told him before rushing on to cut off whatever he was about to say. "Yes, she grew up hearing those stories and developed quite a crush on him. You. Whatever. But then, at the end of her first year of Hogwarts, what happened? She woke up to find you standing over her, sword in hand, dead monster behind you and you'd just saved her very life. You, Harry Potter, instantly surpassed all of those books of The-Boy-Who-Lived in her mind; she realised that the reality was better than any story."
"But she never really took the time to get to know me," Harry complained. "All she ever wanted was the fame and celebrity status that came with being the girlfriend of The-Boy-Who-Lived. I never wanted that; I hate that."
"I know, Harry" Hermione sympathised, "and it took Ginny a long time to come to terms with that as well. I don't think you would have ever worked well, but you could have worked as a couple and Ginny knows that. Unfortunately, you're the measure that she holds every other guy up to and it's impossible to find anyone that good. Well, except for maybe Neville, but he's taken."
"Why, Hermione, are you saying that you measure other guys by my standard as well?" a playful Harry asked.
As much as she tried to control her blush, she wasn't sure that she was exactly successful. In lieu of an answer, she quickly changed the topic.
"Really, the only other really important ones from back home, I've already told you about – Teddy and Andromeda. And now that you've settled, you should see about having them out here. You don't want to be an absent Godfather, after all, and sending bundles of gift back doesn't count! Quality time, Harry, that's what the two of you deserve."
"I know, Hermione, and I've been seriously thinking about it," Harry replied. "But I wanted you to see what I've put together first. Guess I'm still wanting you to look over my homework and check that I haven't been making a right mess of things."
"Oh, Harry, you could never do that," she told him. "What you have here is extraordinary. It's like a breath of fresh air after stuffy old England. I can see why you like it so much."
"Enough for you to move here, too?" he asked, somewhere between playful and hoping.
"You know why I can't, Harry," she told him. "The work I'm doing with the Ministry is incredibly important, not just to the common witches and wizards, but for every species who live there. I'm helping to build something that will change the very nature of our society and I can't turn my back on it, I'd always feel that I'd left something undone and you know that I could never do that."
"I guess that I'll just have to enjoy the time that I get to spend with you now, then," Harry replied, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand.
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