ᵇᵃⁿᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵒⁿ ʰᵉʳ ; ʰᵃʳᵐⁱᵒⁿᵉ

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13

Harry once more woke in his large bed to find Hermione clinging to him, this time though she was under the bedcovers too. A slight exploration of his hands resulted in a contented sigh from his girlfriend, along with confirmation that at least they were both wearing pyjamas. "Hermione, what are you doing here?"

She was obviously not fully awake yet but Harry at least managed to decipher the word 'nightmare' from her mumblings. "Sorry you had a nightmare love but you need to get up, bad dreams would be the least of our problems if your dad caught us like this."

A now almost awake Hermione popped herself up onto her elbow to correct her boyfriend. "No Harry, you had the nightmare. Holding me seemed to be the only thing that drove it away."

"Well that certainly makes more sense. You still need to move though, before we get caught."

This was Hermione's cue to snuggle in even more. "Relax Harry, we have a chaperone."

Harry lifted his head to look over the snuggling Hermione and spotted the big black dog curled up on the sofa, Padfoot was snoring. Here was his chance to talk about what was most prominent in his mind. "Hermione, about what you said last night..."

Hermione pulled him back down to join her, she missed his warmth. She also wanted him as close as possible while she explained the facts of their lives to him. "Harry, until we hear back from Madam Bones there really is nothing to discuss. If there's another method for getting that thing out of you then we don't have to talk about this. If there isn't, then we still don't have to talk about this."

Harry was about to complain until she kissed him into silence. "You dove into a freezing cold lake and fought off mermen to rescue me, am I then just expected to stand by while the ministry cart you away to be killed? Not going to happen, especially if I have a means to help."

"You know there's no way your mum or dad would go for this, and I don't blame them one bit. I will not be the cause of a rift between you and your family, please don't ask me to."

"Harry, do you remember what you said to Ron that day at lunch?" Hermione then displayed that prodigious memory of hers to repeat Harry's words verbatim. "You're my friend Ron but Hermione is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, you need to understand the difference."

"That works both ways Harry. For me, this ring you put on my finger means we're going to get married, have children and spend the rest of our lives together. What does it mean to you?"

"Everything you've just said would be all my dreams come true."

"Well Harry, apart from the children bit, I'm ready now. Our ages may be against us but we're both older than our years, just think of some of the shit we've been through together."

It was Harry's turn to kiss Hermione quiet now. "I would rather think of all the good times we had together, and the best of those was certainly the Christmas holidays. I want to be with you Hermione, more than you could possibly know, but I want the both of us to have it all. That means our families all around us. Sirius and Tonks, your mum and dad, is that too much to ask?"

"Glad I at least made the list this time Harry."

Both had been so engrossed with each other, neither had noticed Tonks enter the bedroom, she was now sitting beside a wide awake and grinning Sirius.

It was his godfather who asked the question they all wanted to know the answer to. "It's not too much to ask Harry, it just might be too much to achieve at the moment. Do you have any ideas on the matter?"

"Yes, if we want to be taken as adults, then we need to act like adults. Hermione's father never got around to having the talk with me that he promised, I think now would be a good time. I need to speak to him about marrying Hermione."