Hindsight

Betrayal

Harry was standing by the sink, cleaning up after their dinner. Outside in the living room, the television was on. The perverted BBC was extolling the sentence of death by hanging handed out to a group of secondary-aged children for allegedly making jokes about Regent Voldemort. Harry ought to feel disgusted, but that was by far not the most unpleasant thing he had heard on the news in recent years.

Hermione sat at the kitchen table, her head lying on her arms. Her face was sickly pale, as it had often been for much of the last four-or-so years. Harry had long since given up on any lingering hope that he could get her mind off the horrors of the present, for he could not practice what he had tried to preach, either.

'How are you?' he asked softly, concerned that she looked even weaker than usual.

'Tired. The afternoon training was hard.'

Harry sighed. The standard justification of 'the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle' was but a joke these days. For both knew that they had as much chance of singlehandedly carrying the uprising against Voldemort as the Chudley Cannons had of winning the European Quidditch Champions League Cup. Nowadays, they only trained for something to do, something to keep them moving.

'Do you want to get some sleep?' Harry asked.

'No. Not yet, anyway. We've never been able to sleep without a good shag first.'

'We don't have to – '

'I want to. I need to. And you know you need it, too,' Hermione cut him off, 'It's the one bloody thing that we can do that's not all darkness and horror and war.'

Harry could not find any arguments to that. As much as he wanted Hermione to rest, he could not deny her the one and best respite they had from the constant fear.

'Want to get on it now, then? So you can go to sleep earlier?'

Hermione nodded weakly.

Harry walked over to her and pulled her to her feet. He placed a chaste kiss on her lips before carrying her to the bedroom. That was not an act of passion, it was an act of need, for Hermione was weak, and he did not want her to exert herself.

Hermione threw off her top immediately and stripped off her trousers. She laid down on the bed. Her movements were lethargic.

'Why don't you just lie there and relax?' Harry suggested with the hint of a grin, 'I'll do all the moving.'

'Always so bloody noble,' she teased weakly, smiling.

Harry straddled her and penetrated her almost immediately. There was no strength for passionate lovemaking most days. They could show their affection and love in other ways – most of all just by being there, alive, for one another. Sex's only purpose had been relaxation and escape for years now.

Harry thrust repeatedly while Hermione moaned softly and tiredly beneath him. It was taking a little more effort tonight than usual to bring her to climax, but Harry enjoyed the hard work, knowing that he was doing it for her sake.

Hermione shook a little as she reached her orgasm. Harry followed her a few seconds later. Totally spent, he collapsed on top of her.

'I love you so much,' Harry whispered into her ear, 'I will follow you wherever you go.'

Both of the young adults knew what he was implying. There was no point in living if the other died. They were each other's whole world, their only world. It was better to follow the other to the grave than to go it alone in the horrors of society under Voldemort.

'I love you more,' Hermione replied, 'And I'll never leave you on your own.'

Harry rolled off his wife and cuddled her in his arms. She was the only thing that mattered in the world. And that was not an exaggeration.