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September 2007
Hermione Potter was not one for hyperbole or cliche, but it wasn’t too far off to say that she absolutely, without a doubt, hated the creature that was Rita Skeeter. It was an indisputable fact and had been since Hermione’s fourth year at Hogwarts when the slimy little bug had published slanderous articles in The Daily Prophet about herself and her best friend Harry Potter.
For a while, Hermione had dirt on Skeeter that allowed her to keep the reporter on a short leash. However, after the war, Skeeter had gone to the Ministry, registered her animagus form (lying through her teeth about when she completed the transformation, of course), and had wiggled her way free of Hermione’s control.
Harry, after the war, wanted as little to do with the press as possible. Hermione wasn’t surprised and had, in fact, supported his efforts to stay out of the limelight (those efforts taking care of any hope of a relationship Harry had with the youngest Weasley). However, for whatever reason (Hermione was convinced that Harry had gone at least a little insane), Harry had agreed to a deal with Rita Skeeter that would allow the reporter to write ‘fictionalized’ versions of Harry’s life for the muggle world despite most of the story being completely true. The books would be sold in the wizarding world as well, but classed as a non-fictional account of Harry’s life from ages 11 to 18.
Hermione, of course, had read all of the books as they came out. When she finished the last page of the seventh and final book, she threw it across the room. “This is rubbish!”
“What’s that, sweetheart?” Harry asked, looking up from the comic book he was reading.
“Rita Skeeter!” Hermione screeched, taking her feet out of Harry’s lap, standing up and pacing back and forth in front of the sofa. “I just finished reading the last book in her series about you. ”
Harry looked at his wife sheepishly. He knew that she would never let him live it down that he’d allowed Skeeter to talk him into the deal in the first place.
“Well, guess what? She wrote the last one, and it has you marrying Ginny Weasley of all people. And I got stuck with Ronald! How dare she!”
“I mean, it’s not really that far-fetched is it?” Harry asked. “Now hear me out,” he said, when she gave him a hard look. “I was with Ginny for several months during sixth year and you obviously had a thing for Ron — you even kissed him in the Chamber of Secrets during the battle! It seems like she wrote it based on those real-life events rather than on our current relationships.”
“Harry, are you really defending that horrid woman?” Hermione huffed, crossing her arms.
“Of course not, love,” Harry said, getting up from the sofa and wrapping his arms around the witch. He placed a kiss on her temple and he felt her arms uncross and wrap around his middle.
“So, what are you saying?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s Rita Skeeter we’re talking about. Anyone who has two brain cells to rub together doesn’t believe a word she writes anyway. Second, look at it this way — for the most part, these are going to be the most popular in the muggle world. With her getting the details wrong, it makes it more anonymous for us.”
Hermione sighed. “You might be right, but it still bugs me. There is no way either of the redheads were going to be our life partners. Ronald was in love with Luna even then, though he didn’t know it, and Ginny is still in love with herself, Draco Malfoy’s arse and Quidditch.”
“Yes, she sure does love the game, and I’m not touching that bit about Draco’s arse. Now come on, tell me what’s really bugging you.”
“My parents are probably going to read this. My mother doesn’t know that I kissed Ron that one time. This is definitely going to be something she holds over my head until the end of eternity despite coming to my senses long ago when I married you. The good news is Ginny won’t be reading it. She’d definitely get a kick out of it though, and wouldn’t let me live it down. It’d be worse than those articles in fourth year, but this time Rita has you with Ginny, instead of me with you and Victor in some scandalous love triangle.”
“Well, you should get ahead of it and just tell her. She’ll have less ammo if it comes from you. Besides, I’m sure you have some dirt on your mother that you can use to keep her quiet. If not, ask your dad. You’ve got him wrapped around your little finger, he’ll give you some dirt to keep your mum from being able to cause you too much trouble.”
Hermione sighed. “You’re right, of course. You have to promise me, Harry. No more shady deals with Rita Skeeter!”
“I promise,” Harry said, laughing. He leaned close and kissed Hermione’s forehead and pulled her into his chest.
October 2007
Hermione was blushing up a storm. She’d been curious since she’d first heard about fanfiction, so she’d decided to sit at Harry’s computer and check it out. She knew that Rita’s books had been a major hit in the muggle world and that there was a major following online, but she hadn’t anticipated others writing their own stories based on the events from Rita’s books.
Being who she was, she didn’t start off with Harry Potter fanfiction but instead found some fan-made stories for her favourite novel, Pride and Prejudice . She had read several really excellent stories and had become immediately hooked. She’d had to pry herself away from Mr. Darcy and company in order to actually check out the Harry Potter stuff.
That’s where she ran into a lot of problems. First off, there was a lot of really bad writing out there in the fandom. She’d bypassed a lot of stories simply because they were not well written at all. Then she got into one that claimed in the description to be an AU or what she later learned to be an Alternative Universe setting. It was in progress, but it was very entertaining. That was until she got to the part where the author had her fictional self start acting like a slut with every person at Hogwarts. That’d just pissed her off, so much so she’d almost left a review that would have blown the Statute of Secrecy out of the water. Ah, her lecture would have been glorious, but she managed to keep herself in check.
The worst part was the smut. She found stories where she was paired with almost everyone that was named in Skeeter’s stories, though there seemed to be three favourites: Ron, Harry and Draco Malfoy. There were even some that had her paired with Draco and Harry (though she saw none with Ron and Draco, which made sense since they couldn’t get along in real life either). Reading about herself pinned between her Harry and Draco Malfoy in the most erotic of positions was seriously disturbing for her (and more than a bit arousing, though she wouldn’t admit that to anyone for any amount of gold).
She could admit that some of the stories about her and Harry were really hot, but they were mostly mortifying. To think that there were people out there thinking about her having sex not only with Harry (which was bad enough even though he was her husband) but with any man in the wizarding world? It was so terrible that it left her simultaneously furious and embarrassed.
“Hey, sweetheart, what are you doing?” Harry asked as he came into their flat after a long day at work.
He shrugged when there was no answer from his wife. It wasn’t unusual for her to get so involved in something that she didn’t even know he was in the room. He smirked as he considered the many ways he could distract her from her current obsession. He walked up behind her where she was sitting at the computer then proceeded to kiss her neck in the place he knew she enjoyed the most.
It turned out to be a terrible idea as it shocked Hermione so much that her head jerked back and hit him right in the nose, causing both to shout “OW!”
“Harry, when did you get home?” Hermione asked, rubbing the back of her head where a bump was already forming.
“Just now.” Harry sputtered out, his hand covering his nose. He pulled his hand away and blood started to drop to the floor.
Hermione quickly jumped into action and grabbed her wand from the table. Pointing it at Harry’s nose, she said, “Episkey!” Hermione didn’t hear his nose crack back into place as it wasn’t broken, but it healed immediately, stopping the flow of blood. She waved her wand silently a few more times to clean up the blood covering her husband’s face and the bit that had dripped onto the floor.
After, Hermione just stood there looking into her husband’s eyes, biting her lip in embarrassment. She couldn’t tell if she was still embarrassed by the sex-infused fanfiction she was reading or because she just smashed her head into her husband’s face. Either way, she could tell her face was red, the flush growing darker with each passing moment.
Finally, she gathered up her Gryffindor courage and said, “I am sorry for almost breaking your nose. I didn’t realize you were home.”
Harry laughed and pulled her to him. She was almost grateful that he was holding her still; otherwise, she would continue to fidget. “I noticed. I called for you and you didn’t respond. What have you been doing?”
“Oh nothing,” Hermione said, looking away. “Just messing around on your computer.”
“Did you figure something new out on it? Let me see!” Before Hermione could stop him, Harry moved around her and sat down in front of the computer. Hermione just stood there waiting for him to discover what she had been reading.
After what seemed like forever, Harry turned around and raised his eyebrows at her. “What is this?”
“Oh, uhm. A story?” Hermione felt a flush creep up her neck and onto her cheeks once more. How embarrassing! She hadn’t actually been reading the story she had up; she was just curious and now she was caught.
“I see that,” Harry drawled. “But what is this? Why does it have our names? And are we having sex in writing?” He looked almost horrified at the thought...or was he just curious. She had known him for over ten years and they had been married for two, but at this moment, she could not read his facial expressions.
Hermione just couldn’t seem to find her voice. Harry must have realized she was struggling and stood up from the desk to wrap his arms around her. “Come on, you can tell me,” Harry whispered in her ear. “It’s just me. I won’t make fun.”
She buried her face into his neck and nodded. After taking a deep breath, she pulled away. “It’s called fanfiction. I heard about it from my mother. I read a few from my favourite book Pride and Prejudice and they were wonderful, but the reason I was on the fanfiction website is that I was curious about the fanfiction based on the Harry Potter books.”
“The stuff that Skeeter wrote? I thought that was done?”
“Well, it is,” Hermione replied, “but it has a huge following in the muggle world, which has spawned a movie franchise and all of this fanfiction. It seems that people are just as unhappy with the epilogue as we are.”
“Hey, speak for yourself. I thought it was hilarious that she had Draco Malfoy losing all of his hair.”
Hermione snorted. “If the only good thing about the epilogue is our childhood nemesis ageing horribly and balding there is a serious problem.”
She paused before continuing. “I mean, I could maybe...and I am putting a hard emphasis on maybe, see you married to Ginny —”
Harry tried to interrupt, but Hermione just talked louder covering up his protests. “—but naming your child Albus Severus crosses a line. Is Rita out of her mind?”
“Well...yeah,” Harry said, thinking that that bit was obvious.
Hermione gave him that look like really ? “Thank you for answering my hypothetical question, dear.”
“That’s what I’m here for!”
Hermione just rolled her eyes and placed a kiss on Harry’s hair in response. “I’m going to make dinner. We can talk more about this fanfiction I found while we are eating.” With that, she sashayed off to the kitchen immediately, eager to continue their conversation.
“Harmony? That’s the name they gave us?” Harry asked as he finished drying another plate. Dinner had been great, but the conversation had been...unusual. Hermione was sitting at the table, finishing her coffee.
“Yeah. That and you’ll see the abbreviation HHR a lot too. And Harmione. It’s apparently our ship name.”
“Ship name?”
Hermione nodded and explained. “When two characters are paired together, they combine their names to come up with their official ship name. Like if you were paired with Ginny…” Harry made a face. “I’m just saying hypothetically!” He gestured for her to continue.
“As I was saying. If you were paired with Ginny, your name would be Hinny and if I was paired with Ron, our ship name would be Romione.”
“I like Harmony,” Harry said, once she had finished explaining. Hermione was taken aback but tried not to show it.
“And why’s that?” she asked casually.
Harry waited several moments before responding as if he was thinking carefully about his response. He walked over to her and swiveled her chair, moving in between her legs. Tucking her hair behind her ear, Harry placed a soft kiss on her lips before pulling away and grinning at her.
“Because we are in perfect harmony.”
Hermione almost melted in her seat at his sweet words, despite them being overly corny. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him with such fervour that if she was standing, she would have surely fallen. Moments later, Harry picked her up and carried her into their bedroom, showing her how perfect they really were together.
The next day, Harry sat at his computer giggling like a schoolgirl. Hermione, who was standing behind him, kept swatting the back of his head repeatedly, though it seemed to be doing no good.
“Some of these pairings are hilarious, Hermione!”
“Mortifying is more like. Besides, you haven’t seen some of the people that you’ve been paired with so I wouldn’t laugh so hard, mister.”
“Oh, yeah, like who?”
“Well, I saw one where you were paired with Molly Weasley.”
“Ewww. Seriously?”
“Yup,” Hermione replied, smugly. “Not so funny now, is it?”
“Ugh, definitely not,” Harry said, mimicking throwing up. “I think I am done.” He pushed back away from the desk and stood up. “You might be able to sort through the rubbish and find something you like, but I’ll take a pass. If you find a good one of us together, let me know. That could be very interesting if you get my drift,” and he waggled his eyebrows before walking away.
Hermione laughed and swatted his arse as he walked past. She knew exactly what he was implying.
“Hermione, what are you doing?”
“I’m writing.”
Harry shrugged his shoulders and walked up behind his wife. For the last several weeks, she’d spent much more time on the computer than she normally did. He knew that she’d become a bit obsessed with the fanfiction that she had found, even sharing a few of her favourites with him which sparked some roleplay in the bedroom.
How that could lead to her clicking and clacking on the keyboard like it was going out of style, he didn’t know.
“Ooookay, What are you writing?” He asked as he leaned over her shoulder to get a better look at the monitor.
“Nothing!” Hermione said, hurriedly covering up the screen.
“Hermione? Are...are you writing fanfiction?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“Why? Harry asked. “What’s the point? Besides, didn’t you say that you hated those stories?”
“Well, fanfiction is the best way to fix those books that Skeeter wrote stories,” Hermione said, defending herself.
“Oh, okay. So you’re fixing the story?”
Hermione blushed. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘Not exactly?’”
“Well, I might have contributed something else,” Hermione admitted, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Can I read it?” Harry asked eagerly.
“NO!” She shouted, pushing away her husband, encouraging him to find something else to do while she worked on the story.
He badgered her for a while but when he realized she wasn’t going to give in and let him read, he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and waited for her to join him.
A few days later the reviews were pouring in, and Hermione was instantly addicted to the feedback. That was until she realized that the trolls that infested every other area of the internet also had access to the fanfiction site.
Her first review that she really didn’t like came from a guest account.
Bob (Guest)
This story sucks. You should really learn to write better before you post a story. Besides, we all know that Hinny is the best ship and only ship. JKR says so.
What the hell? Why didn’t he sign in? If only he had, then she could have told him where exactly he should shove his ideas, but no! Hermione was seething. How dare this random person review her story, and then not allow her to reply!
“Grrrrr!”
“Hermione?”
“Harry? What are you doing home?”
“I tore my shirt on a mission today and needed to change. A better question is, why are you screaming at the computer in the middle of the day on your only day off?”
“Well, I published that fanfiction last night.”
“Oh, you did?” Harry asked, distractedly. He was running late and had to get back to the office. But first, he needed to find a shirt that fit. He really needed to relent and let Hermione take him clothes shopping; even the thought of that made him shudder, however
“Yes. And a lot of people liked it! But then I got some negative reviews. That was okay too, but then there’s this guy Bob. What kind of name is that anyway? Anywho, he didn’t sign in, and that means I can’t reply to his review, and it just makes me so angry, and Harry are you even listening to me?”
“Uh, not really, sorry sweetheart. I really need to get dressed and get back to work.”
Hermione sighed. “Fine. Try not to get hurt again, Harry. I saw those bruises.”
“It was nothing. I’ve gotta go.” He came up to her and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I don’t care what those idiots on the internet say, I know your fanfiction was brilliant, just like you. I’m going to go back to work, but try not to hex anyone, okay.”
Hermione pouted. “Okay.”
Hermione had just finished creating an account on the new social networking site, Facebook. It seemed like a good idea and it would help her connect with those in the muggle world who she had lost touch with over the years.
After adding several friends and accepting a few friend requests, Hermione saw on the right-hand side of her feed it said 'Suggested Groups'. The first group caught her eyes as it said, Harmony & Co. (18+) and below saw that it already had several hundred members. Curious, she clicked on it and was brought to a page that described the group.
It read:
This group is celebrating ⅔ of the Golden Trio, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.
And below it:
Group Type
Club
Hermione’s heart was beating so fast and wanted to click 'join group', but realized that she couldn’t join it under her real name. It could be seen as breaking the Statute of Secrecy. She quickly logged out and created a new account under her fanfiction penname, Emma Potter. Hermione quickly moved through the process having already done it once.
She typed the group name in the search bar and it popped right up. Finding herself on the same page from before with the description, Hermione clicked on Join Group. She was prompted with a question asking for her birthdate. After answering, Hermione browsed Facebook and its features anxiously awaiting to be accepted into the group.
Hermione squealed out when she received the notification that she had been approved. With shaky hands, she clicked the notification and she was brought to the group. She gasped.
Before she could look at anything, Harry came running into the room.
“I heard you scream. Is everything okay?” Harry asked, now walking seeing that she was visibly uninjured.
“Harry, oh my gosh, I should have called for you right away. Look at this.” Harry peered over her shoulder.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Well this is Facebook and its—” Harry gave her a look and she stopped talking.
“I know what Facebook is, Hermione,” he told her grinning. “We saw it on the news last night remember? I meant what are we looking at on this screen.”
Hermione blushed in embarrassment. “Oh! Well, this is a Facebook group and look! I found one that is dedicated all to the Harmony pairing.” She looked up at him from the computer screen. “So that means basically all about us.”
Hermione started scrolling through the main page and it was filled with photos, posts, and fanfiction recommendations.
“Ohmygod! Harry, do you see this?” Hermione squealed.
“I see it!” Harry replied. “Wait, what? What am I looking at?”
“This is my story; the fanfiction that I have been writing. Look at all these people following along!” She screeched again and Harry covered his ears.
“What is it now?” He said searching the page again.
“Nothing! I am just so happy about this. I was really upset about that one review who said he loved you and Ginny together, but this just makes it all better. Do you think I should tell them I am the author?”
Harry shrugged. “Is this Facebook under your real name?”
“No. I didn’t think it was a good idea to join the group as Hermione Potter or Hermione Granger as that could be seen as breaking the Statute of Secrecy. I created a personal account and this account under my fanfiction name,” she explained.
“Well, I think they’ll know that you’re the author then.” He pointed to the screen. “Look you have a notification.”
Hermione clicked on the notification. It brought up the same photo they were looking at, but the person who had accepted her into the group had tagged her into the photo.
The comments were already pouring in. They all were along the lines, “Ohemgee, you’re the author,” or “I love this so much. Please tell me you’re continuing it!”
Hermione turned around to Harry and grinned. “Looks like I am going to have to continue the story, doesn’t it?”
Harry grinned right back. “Just don’t get lost and miss the story right in front of you.”
“What story is that?”
“The real story of us.”
Hermione melted at his words. But what he said was true. Sometimes you could get lost in stories and a fantasy world that you actually forgot to live. She vowed to never let that happen.
Pulling away from the computer, Hermione wrapped her arms around Harry’s middle. “I love you,” she murmured.
“And I you,” Harry replied with a soft kiss. Hermione pulled away.
“How about Chinese takeout and a movie?” she asked.
“That sounds great!” And with that, Harry went to pick out a movie and Hermione to pick up the phone for takeout. Rita Skeeter might have taken liberties with the epilogue, but she was right about one thing...all was well.