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The first time she said it was after Bill and Fleur's wedding. She hadn't wanted to be one of those stereotypical girls who cried at a wedding, but as she watched them, all she could think about was Harry and how it still seemed like such an uncertainty that they would ever reach that point themselves. That they would survive that long.
He hadn't been able to hold her hand, or it would have blown his cover. She had to work hard to resist the urge, to the point where she tucked her hand beneath her thigh and pressed down hard. She just wanted to hold his hand and silently promise him that everything was going to be okay, that they were going to beat Voldemort and then no one would ever threaten Harry again and they would get married and grow old together. But she couldn't do that. She couldn't even promise it to herself. There was just too much uncertainty.
They got out of the tent at the earliest opportunity, stepping out as the reception got underway and conversations turned inward among the different groups. Hermione finally took his hand, though it felt strange because of his disguise. And she wanted to say everything that she'd been thinking, but the words wouldn't come out.
There were three words in particular that she wanted to say, three words that she hadn't said yet. She had known it for a long time, of course, known it far earlier than would be appropriate in most relationships at their age. But she and Harry had never had a common relationship. They had been best friends for years, and gone through so much together. How could she not know?
But she hadn't said the words yet, because she had a feeling they would terrify him. As far as she knew, no one had said those words to him since he was a year old. He had no memory of anyone saying them to him, nor had he ever said them to anyone.
But now she felt that she needed to say it. She needed to tell him that she loved him, that she wanted her future, whatever future she might have, to be with him. That she would be by his side until the end, whether that came in a short time by Voldemort's hand or in a hundred years. That every time she looked at Bill and Fleur tonight, she saw herself and Harry in their place.
But she couldn't say any of that when he didn't have his own face. She wanted to see his emerald eyes react to her words. She wanted to see the fear, the hope, the love in those eyes that she adored.
"You're quiet," he said softly, squeezing her hand. She looked down at their joined hands, wishing that it was his true hand that she held, and not one that was a little too thick, the fingers a little too stubby.
She dropped his hand. "Sorry. It's just..." She gestured to his face.
"The disguise?"
"Yeah."
He gave a helpless shrug. "Yeah, I know. It's a—"
"There you guys are." They turned at Ron's voice. He was approaching them, his gaze darting back and forth between them. "Is everything alright?"
He had finally adapted to their relationship, even though it had taken yet another near-death experience for it to happen. This one had been a result of him drinking poisoned mead after becoming the unintended victim of Romilda Vane's attempt to love-potion Harry. Harry had saved his life, and then he'd been laid up in the Hospital Wing for a bit. Lavender didn't leave his side the whole time he was in there, and he finally accepted that he would never receive that level of affection and devotion from Hermione.
He and Lavender dated until the end of the year, when he broke up with her after Dumbledore's funeral. He was determined to go with Harry and Hermione on their mission and knew he wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts for their seventh year. And he also worried that Lavender would be targeted for dating the best friend of Harry Potter. She had been heartbroken, of course, but had accepted his reasons, so long as he promised to give them another chance once Voldemort was gone once and for all.
That had been the first time she said Voldemort's name.
"Yeah, mate, everything's fine." Harry placed his disguised hand, the one Hermione had dropped, on Ron's shoulder.
"You're not... I mean, you don't want to leave yet, do you?"
"No, of course not." Disguise or no disguise, Hermione still wanted to dance with her boyfriend.
* * *
Ron fell asleep first that night. Harry and Hermione gave him the couch, while they cuddled in their sleeping bags on the floor. Harry quietly told her what he had seen through Voldemort's eyes, how Malfoy had been made to torture Rowle.
"All of this is because of me. It's because I keep getting away from him. Everyone else is getting hurt."
"Don't say that, Harry. You heard Arthur, the Weasleys are all safe. Everyone we care about is safe. They're not being hurt because of you."
"As long as I don't go near them." His gaze dropped. "I shouldn't have gone to the wedding."
Hermione scoffed. "You were hardly the only one of Voldemort's enemies at the wedding. The attack would have come anyway."
The guilt remained on his face, and he looked at Ron.
Hermione leant up and kissed his chin. "Listen, Harry, we're going to do this. We're going to get the horcruxes and we're going to beat him, and the sooner we do that, the sooner we can all be safe. Until then..." She trailed off at the doubt in her boyfriend's eyes, and kissed him again. "We're going to do it."
"You're not safe with me."
"I'm not safe without you, either. They'll come for me, regardless." She reached up and pulled on his head until his lips were within reach. "If you think you can ever persuade me to leave your side, Potter, think again. Because that's never going to happen." With that, she kissed him.
He fell into the kiss, wrapping her tightly in the wonderful warmth of his arms. They snogged for a while, until a snore from Ron broke them apart for a brief laugh. And it was amazing that they could still laugh, however briefly, with everything that was occurring in the dark world around them.
Her heart pounded. He was above her now, his eyes thin rings of dark emerald. And she thought about the wedding, and all of the thoughts she'd had. And the words came. "I love you."
He froze, as she had known he would, and so she pressed on. "I love you, Harry. At the wedding today, all I could see was the two of us up there in Bill and Fleur's place. That's what I want with you. We're going to beat him, and then I want to be with you forever. I want to marry you, have a family with you, spend a long, wonderful life with you. We're going to beat him, and then we're going to do all of that."
He stared down at her, his breathing shallow. She could feel that his heart was beating as fast as hers was. But he didn't move, and he didn't say anything.
And that was okay. She raised her head and kissed him. "It's okay, Harry, you don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. I needed you to know. That's what we have to look forward to, after we win."
He blinked, and it was a few more seconds before there was any other reaction. He leant down and returned her kiss, and then kept kissing her, and she pulled his body tight against hers.
* * *
She didn't say it again until the night Ron left.
They had known it was coming. Ron had been struggling for a while, really for the whole time they'd been out in the wilderness. He wasn't cut out for this sort of life, for roughing it and being self-sufficient and living day to day, never mind the way that the locket made every negative emotion they had feel that much stronger. And it might have been worst for Ron, who was worried about his family.
So when the time came, Hermione mostly felt relief, although she certainly felt guilty for that. Ron would be safer this way, and so would they. They would be able to move about more freely and efficiently. She and Harry had both always been efficient. And they could operate in the Muggle world, a world they had both grown up in and knew as well as its magical counterpart. This opened up many options for them.
But Harry, of course, didn't take it as well. He was angry, hurt by Ron's words. He took Ron's abandonment just as he had done three years ago, in a silent fury beneath a stoic exterior. But Hermione knew him so much better now, and she wouldn't let him wallow.
"It's better this way," she said softly. "He'll know that his family is safe."
Harry gave a small, quick nod, not looking at her.
"Harry..." she strode up to him and tilted his face towards hers, kissing him. "We knew this would happen. He isn't a soldier. He's not cut out for this life."
"But none of us are, are we? He's right, Hermione, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm dragging you all over the country with no idea how to get us any closer to winning this war."
"You're not dragging me anywhere. If anything, it's been the other way around, hasn't it? And we're going to figure it out, Harry. Everything that we have to do, we're going to figure out, just like we always have.
"And once this is all over, once Snakeface is gone and everyone's safe, we'll sort out all our issues. We'll mend whatever relationships need mending and have a happy future together." She winced as this brought her parents to mind.
"If there is a happy future for us."
"Harry..." She practically growled out his name, and kissed him hard. "What did I tell you? We're going to have a happy future. We're going to beat him and then we're going to grow old together. We're going to get married and have a family and have wonderful lives." She stared into his eyes, willing him to imagine the future with her. "I love you, Harry."
His breath caught, and his gaze softened, and then he kissed her.
* * *
The first time he said it was after Godric's Hollow.
She had watched him as he stared at his parents' grave, after they discussed the words. She watched the tears fall from his eyes, and didn't say anything to try and stop them. This was a time when he needed to cry. Instead, she took his hand, even though it felt strange again because of their disguises. She squeezed, and he squeezed back, and then she conjured the wreath for him to place. And then they left, and he put his arm across her shoulders, and she put hers around his waist.
And then everything went to hell. And it was her fault, all her fault. It had been her idea that Dumbledore might have given Bathilda the sword. It was her who had allowed Harry to follow the old woman on his own, accepting the silly thought that Dumbledore had wanted Bathilda to give the sword to Harry and only Harry. It was her who had cast the blasting curse. It was her who had left Harry defenseless.
Sooner or later, Harry would have to battle Voldemort, and now he would have to do it without his wand.
The guilt pummeled her. How could she have been so dim? Voldemort had known what they would do, had placed the snake there as a trap. And she had lead Harry right into it.
Voldemort had outsmarted her.
She sat at the table in the tent, staring numbly at the book she had taken from Bathilda's House, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. She hadn't opened it yet, couldn't bring herself to. She couldn't bring herself to do anything except wallow and be furious at herself. She had never felt so disgusted with herself.
There was a noise, but she didn't look up. Instead, she hid the book back in her bag. She didn't want them to have to deal with whatever was in that book yet. Right now, he had to recover. He had to recover from the result of her folly.
He entered the room and looked at her, and she couldn't meet his eyes. He silently approached and sat down beside her, and took her hand. She stared at his hand. She didn't feel worthy of holding it, but she didn't let go. She needed that hand, more than she had ever thought she would. She needed him.
Her eyes slowly traced up his arm, stopping at the wound, the bite from Nagini. Somehow, there hadn't been any poison when she cleaned the wound. She didn't know how; they knew from Arthur just how dangerous Nagini's venom was. But Voldemort had wanted Harry captured, not killed. Could Nagini somehow control whether or not she poisoned her victims? Could snakes do that?
She was in love with a boy who could talk to snakes, and yet she had never bothered to do much research on them, at least not since the basilisk.
"I never knew that my mum was older than my dad."
"Huh?" She finally looked at his face. His gaze was fixed on the table.
"Their birthdays were on the tombstone. I hadn't known."
She remembered. Lily's birthday had been the 30th of January, and James's the 27th of March.
"I saw it all through his eyes, everything that happened," Harry went on. "He relived it all when he arrived in Godric's Hollow. My dad, and then my mum. He never actually meant to kill her, you know."
Hermione knew that. It was the only explanation behind Dumbledore's theory that Lily's sacrifice had saved Harry from the killing curse. Voldemort had never meant to kill Lily that night, which enabled her to sacrifice herself for Harry.
"But she stayed put. She wouldn't get out of his way. She forced him to kill her, instead of me."
Harry's hand tightened around Hermione's, and she squeezed back.
"And then, well..." His other hand rubbed at his scar. "He didn't understand what happened. He still doesn't understand it, not fully... but I do.
"It took me a long time, though. When Dumbledore first told me the prophecy, it didn't make sense. What power could I have that the Dark Lord didn't? And Dumbledore was very vague about it, of course, like everything else."
Hermione's mind briefly flitted to the book she had hidden in her bag.
"But when I looked at their tombstone tonight, I realized that I do know. They were there, side-by-side, forever. In life and in death." His thumb idly rubbed the back of her hand. "My mother loved my father, and she loved me. That was how she protected me, with a power the Dark Lord couldn't understand. And I realized that I do know it."
His gaze finally moved, shifting from the table to their joined hands. "My dad and I really do have a lot in common. We both loved quidditch, got into all kinds of mischief... and we both fell in love with brilliant Muggle-borns."
She stared at him. Did he realize what he just said?
"And older women, at that."
She didn't have it in her to feel indignation at that comment.
His gaze finally met hers. "I really wish they could have met you, Hermione. I know that they would have been really, really happy about me ending up with you."
She didn't know what to say. He should have been furious with her. She had destroyed his wand, taken his most important possession from him before he would need it most. He should have been as disgusted with her as she was with herself, not sounding like he was on the verge of saying that he—
"I love you, Hermione."
All thoughts left her. Her head went silent.
"What my parents had, in life and in death, that's what I want with you. Once we win—and we're going to win—I want my future to be with you, whatever that entails. As long as I'm with you, by your side, I'll be happy."
How could he sound so confident now, after he had lost his wand? How could he know they would win, at a time when things felt more hopeless than ever?
"I love you," he repeated. Then he leant over and kissed her. The kiss was long but tender, not quite like any they had shared before.
And her doubts faded, overwhelmed by the confidence that radiated from him through every spot where their skin touched. They would win, somehow. "I love you too."
* * *
They didn't say it again until Shell Cottage.
Ron came back and they were the trio again, and another of the horcruxes was finally destroyed. Harry told Hermione what the locket showed Ron, and they agreed not to flaunt their relationship in front of him.
And then they met with Xenophilius Lovegood and Harry got his sudden obsession with the Deathly Hallows, and a rift began to grow between them.
It wasn't like anything that had happened before. They'd had small arguments, but they generally tended to be on the same page about things. Now, however, Harry seemed to suddenly be grasping at an impossible tale, at these three mythical MacGuffins that might overpower Voldemort. It seemed that his sensibility was finally giving way to desperation, and Hermione had an increasingly difficult time tolerating it. She loved Harry deeply, and she couldn't stand to see how he cast aside all logic with more and more unlikely claims about Dumbledore's secret plan. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't persuade him to see reason.
And it all came to a head the night they heard the radio address, and Harry seized on the speculation that the Dark Lord was abroad, claiming that it confirmed his belief that Voldemort was searching for this unbeatable wand.
And he said Voldemort's name.
The next several hours were a blur of terror and pain. The Cruciatus Curse was worse than she ever could have imagined. She had wanted to die, wanted it all to end.
And then she was lying on a bed in Shell Cottage, and Fleur was treating her. And Harry was afraid to face her, though he insisted that she be there when he questioned Griphook and Ollivander. And Ollivander confirmed the existence of the Elder Wand.
Harry had been right.
She had retreated to her room in the cottage, locking the door and lying on her bed.
Harry had been right about the Elder Wand.
"Mudblood, and proud of it!" she had told Griphook. The word had left a bitter taste in her mouth. And that bitterness had only grown with the conversation with Ollivander.
"The concept of magic itself is an assault on the notion that anything is impossible." Dumbledore had told that to her back in her third year, the first time that they discussed the time-turner. But she had always viewed those words with skepticism. Magic couldn't be everything. Not all fantasies could be real, just because magic could make them so. There still had to be a line, a boundary, that even magic couldn't cross. And these Deathly Hallows, gifts from Death itself, should have been beyond that boundary.
But that was just her Mudblood way of thinking, wasn't it? She was still so new to magic, relatively, and yet she was determined to believe that she knew its limitations, that she could fully grasp the expanded possibilities that magic provided and distinguish them from that which remained impossible. She thought that she was so smart, but she was so very wrong.
There was a knock on her door, but she ignored it. His voice called her name, but still she ignored it. There were a few seconds of silence, and then, "Alohomora."
She looked towards Lestrange's wand on the nightstand, but didn't reach for it. There were a few more seconds of nothing, as he waited to see if she would react at all. Then he tentatively opened the door. "Hermione?"
She didn't look at him.
He shut the door and approached, until he stood beside the bed. There was another moment of hesitation, and then he climbed on, lying down behind her and putting his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
She swallowed, her mouth feeling dry. "For what?"
"You were right. I should have stayed focused on the horcruxes."
She turned halfway towards him, looking up at the rose-gold-colored ceiling. "No, you were right. The Elder Wand is real, apparently, and it's a good thing that we know he has it now."
"But if I hadn't... I never should have..." He rested his head against her shoulder, getting a handle on his thoughts and forcing them into coherent sentences. "It's my fault that you were tortured. It's my fault that Dobby is dead."
The mention of the fallen elf sent a stabbing pain through her gut, and she looked away again.
"I'm so sorry," he murmured.
Then he began to pull away and rise, but she grabbed his arm. "Stay."
She met his gaze as he looked at her, his eyes full of uncertainty and regret. She pulled on him until he was lying beside her again, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
"Just stay," she told him. "Just be with me."
His face was close enough now that his eyes darted back and forth, peering at hers in turn.
"I love you." She closed the rest of the gap and pressed her lips gently against his. When she pulled back, his eyes were calmer, his regret giving way to affection.
"I love you too," he said softly.
She smiled and buried her face beside his, breathing him in as she closed her eyes.
They had both made mistakes and none of it mattered now. They were still together and they still had everything to fight for.
* * *
He stood at the mirror, rubbing his face. He had just used a shaving charm for the first time in weeks. Turning, he looked at where she leant across the doorframe behind him. "How do I look?"
So bloody handsome. "Like you're seventeen again."
He smiled and turned back to the mirror, and she came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and peering around his shoulder.
"The goblins won't be happy to see me."
"You defeated the man who terrorized them."
"And I destroyed half their bank in the process."
"I'm pretty sure you weren't alone in doing that."
"True, I seem to recall Lestrange being there as well."
She winced and slapped his side, then pulled him around until he was facing her. "I'm going with you."
"You don't have to. I'm the one who's going to pay the reparations."
"Exactly. I need to make sure you know how to negotiate and don't give away our children's entire trust funds."
His eyes widened and his jaw flapped soundlessly, and then his gaze darted downwards towards her stomach.
She rolled her eyes. "Our eventual children, Harry! Very eventual." She smiled at the comical relief on his face. "I still have every intention of spending my future with you."
"Likewise." He leant down and kissed her.
She ran her hand along his newly-smooth cheek, and looked into his emerald eyes as he pulled back. There was still pain there, and loss. But there was also hope. And of course, there was the evidence of his most important power of all. "I love you."
"I love you too."