Hermione found Harry standing alone against a wall of the ballroom, looking extraordinarily serious. Despite the fact that it was his birthday and his party, he seemed to be standing far apart from the rest of the crowd, so far sunk into thought she felt it might take a fishing line to retrieve him.
She put a hand on his shoulder, and he jumped. 'Hermione!'
'Did I startle you?'
'Yes — just a little.'
'What were you thinking about?'
His eyes seemed to slide into focus as they studied her face, the green deepening to nearly black. 'Nothing. Do you want to go somewhere? Talk, maybe?'
'Yes.' Hermione jumped at the chance to be alone with him. 'We could walk on the balcony.'
They left without anyone noticing, through the French doors that were partly concealed by a pillar wreathed in fairy lights. Outside, the cool air struck Hermiones face and bare shoulders, making her shiver, although the night was fairly warm. Moonlight spilled over the pale stones of the balcony, lighting the garden and the empty gazebo wreathed in white lanterns, striking cool sparks from the rims of Harrys glasses.
Hermione took his hand. 'Over here.'
She led him into the shadow of an archway, against the high wall of the Manor. He looked at her inquiringly.
'I wanted to give you your birthday present,' she said.
'I thought we were meant to be doing presents at midnight,' replied Harry, mildly curious.
'I wanted to give you this present in private,' Hermione said.
Harrys eyebrows went up. 'Does it involve exotic dancing and chocolate syrup?'
'No,' said Hermione firmly. 'For that you?ll have to wait until Christmas.'
Harry grinned. Taking a deep breath, Hermione retrieved the small box she had so carefully wrapped from a pocket of her dress, and handed it to Harry. She watched as he took the box from her and tore away the wrapping, his quick and clever hands flicking the catch aside and snapping the box open as deftly as he often caught the Snitch. She held her breath, watching him — his dark green eyes widening behind his glasses, the uncertain look on his face as he raised those same eyes to her — and her heart skipped a beat, as it always did when he looked at her so directly. Everything about Harry was direct, his gaze, his walk, his movements, his speech, the way he loved her. He said, looking down at the box and then back up at her, 'This looks — expensive. Hermione, I — '
'It wasn't expensive,' she said, raising her chin. She could see herself reflected in the dark circles of his pupils.
'It must have been. It's a beautiful watch,' and Harry reached down and took the pocket watch uncertainly by its silver safety chain, and lifted it out of the box. The moonlight struck a point of cold fire along the rim of the watch's face. 'I've needed a watch since fourth year, but I couldn't-'
'Turn it over, Harry,' she said, and he did, and she watched his eyes widen as he looked at the inscription carved there.
'Sirius gave it to me,' she said, her words spilling over each other in her haste and nervousness. 'To give to you — he said it was your father's, your mother gave it to him when he turned seventeen and it never left his wrist after that until the night he — until Sirius found them, and he took it off your father's wrist but it was broken.
He put it in the bikes saddlebag, and when Hagrid gave it back to him this year, he tried to get it to work right again, he took it all over Diagon Alley but no one could fix it, so he wasn't sure what to do with it, and he gave it to me to see if there was anything I could think of. I took it to London, to a Muggle watch repair shop, and they fixed it straightaway — that's why the wizarding shops couldn't fix it — they fixed it right off, and I had them put that inscription in under the original one — Harry, I hope you don't mind — '
She trailed off at the look in his eyes, and very slowly he glanced down and read the inscriptions again, the one very old, worn and rubbed away a little, and the one below it brand new.
For James, with love from Lily, your best friend.
And underneath that:
For Harry, with love from Hermione, your best friend.
'I hope you don't mind,' she said again, and Harrys eyes flew up, dark and a little incredulous.
'Mind?' he said, a faint ragged edge to his voice. Words seemed to fail him entirely then; he put his arms out, and she went into them with a feeling of relief, as if she were shedding a heavy burden. His hands stroked her back and she could hear them whisper against the satin of her dress, and then they were on her bare skin and she tilted back her head and reached up and took his glasses off so that he could kiss her, and he kissed her.
At first she was aware only of Harrys mouth on her mouth, his hands sliding down her sides to grasp her waist and pull her more firmly against him, the sweet taste of him and the steady uninterrupted pounding of his heart. Kissing Viktor, kissing Ron, had never felt right. Kissing Draco was like visiting some beautiful and distant country terrifying in its foreignness. Kissing Harry was coming home.
It was the music she heard first. Rising around them, piercing in its sweetness and distinctiveness, utterly beautiful: phoenix song. She pulled away from Harry, whispered against his lips, 'You hear that?'
and he nodded, and tightened his arms around her.
'Like the first time,' she said, a little wonderingly, and looked up as something brushed her face. It wasn?t snowing this time — instead, gazing up, she saw something she had never seen before or could have imagined: the stars, brilliant as diamonds, seemed, as she watched, to be detaching themselves from the black velvet of the night sky and fluttering downward, surrounding her and Harry in a cage of sparkling lights. She knew it was an optical illusion, just as the snow had not been real snow, but it was nevertheless heartbreakingly beautiful. The stars, each the size of a fingernail and a brilliant silver-gold, piled themselves at her feet, lit on her shoulders, tangled themselves in Harrys night-black hair. She looked at him, his eyes like green jade, following her own gaze upward.
