Epilogue, Part 2

The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well…

Or it would be once they got home.

"Right," he said once the train had disappeared from view "home time."

Ignoring Ginny he turned to Hermione and asked "Fancy stopping in the Leaky Cauldron for a bit of lunch?"

"Sounds like heaven," replied Hermione, taking a hold of Hugo's hand.

Harry linked arms with her as Lily slid her hand into his and together they left Platform 9 ¾ behind them without another look at Ron or Ginny.

As they exited Kings Cross station and began heading in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron, Harry thought back on the last few years.

Following the war he had been in two minds about getting back together with Ginny. She had been under the impression that she could just come up to him and shove her tongue into his mouth and then everything would be as it had been a year before.

But it hadn't. Harry was a changed person, far more different that even he had realised. His experiences over the course of that year had affected him deeply, in ways that he just could not explain to someone who had not been there.

And Ginny had not been there.

She had wanted to know, but she couldn't understand when he told her.

Hermione understood though, because she had been the only person to be there beside him through it all… except when he had walked through the forest to face Voldemort and what he had thought would be his certain death.

Hermione knew, but she had seemed determined to try and make a relationship between her and Ron work. Ron, who didn't understand either, not really.

Because he had left.

When they had been alone together, Harry had thought that his relationship with Hermione had begun to change into something more.

But then Ron had returned, and whatever had begun to develop between Harry and Hermione had shrivelled up and fizzled out.

So with Hermione determined to make things with Ron work Harry had gotten back together with Ginny in the end.

Things never again felt quite as they had before their year apart. But Harry had deluded himself.

He convinced himself that things would get better after their first time together.

They didn't.

He convinced himself that his doubts would go away once they were married.

They didn't.

He convinced himself that having children would put everything right.

He was wrong.

As fun as their first time had been, it hadn't felt right. As beautiful as Ginny had been on their wedding day, it still hadn't felt right. And as much as he loved all three of his children, there was no escaping the feeling that their mother was the wrong person for him.

The cold, hard truth was that, with Hermione unavailable, Harry had settled for Ginny.

He had done his best to be a supportive husband to Ginny in spite of his doubts, but she did not make it easy. Her Quidditch career as starting Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies had been something that Harry could get behind and support her with, but there had been rumours that she had used his fame to get herself on the team.

Harder to deal with was the job she took after retiring from the professional sport. Quidditch correspondent was an important position at any wizarding newspaper, but her choosing to take this position at the Daily Prophet of all places had been a tough pill to swallow.

Since the end of the war Harry had done his best to keep out of the pages of the Daily Prophet, choosing instead to do any and all interviews with the likes of The Quibbler, Wizarding World News or even Witch Weekly.

However, Ginny working for them seriously altered this. Apparently his being the husband of one of their staff meant that they could attempt to contact him whenever they liked looking for an interview or to get a quote regarding his thoughts on the news of the day.

It drove him insane, but when he tried to talk about this with Ginny, she had burst into tears and accused him of being unsupportive.

For a long time after that, Harry had simply taken the "grin and bear it" approach, just to keep the peace.

Meanwhile Ron and Hermione's relationship had been on the rocks for a while. Hermione had been convinced that she could get Ron to change, but that had proved to be extremely difficult. The final straw had been when Ron, in the middle of a heated argument, had expressed his opinion that Hermione should have given up her career when their daughter, Rose, had been born.

Cue marriage counselling.

Not that the wizarding world had such a thing to offer, of course, and going to the muggle world for this had really grated on Ron.

Things had not improved.

Of course, Ron completely overlooked the fact that if Hermione didn't work they would have no money.

Everyone's advice to Ron had been to stick with George as co-manager of the joke shop. He was quite good with coming up with new ideas for products (though he was certainly far from being the "how" guy) and some of his more childish qualities actually made him a very effective salesman in that particular kind of establishment.

But despite everyone's arguments against it, Ron had left the joke shop in order to become an Auror. He was convinced that having Harry Potter, who by then had risen rapidly through the ranks to become a senior Auror, as his best friend meant that he would get through the training program reasonably quickly and that he would rise to Harry's rank in no time.

That hadn't happened. Harry and his Auror partner Susan Bones had worked hard to get the Auror office to stop its whole "it's not what you know, it's who you know" approach and instead go for the best. After all that work, Harry was in no position to pull many strings for Ron.

This, of course, resulted in a three year training course taking Ron four and a half years to complete. Luckily Harry had not been above pulling a few strings with the rest of the Department of Magical Law enforcement to get Hermione promoted so that she at least could put food on her family's table.

Even after completing his training Ron had not advanced. No one could justify promoting him.

Once Hermione had challenged Harry, asking him why he couldn't pull a few strings to get Ron promoted. It was then that Harry had to reveal the sad truth – he had been pulling every string he could and calling in every favour he was owed just to prevent Ron being fired, something that Susan had never been comfortable with, but Hermione had been extremely grateful for.

Pretty soon though, Harry ran out of favours to call in, and all the strings had been cut. Ron was given a constant patrol duty of one small street just around the corner from the Hog's Head Pub in Hogsmeade, and there he had stayed, on his own and out of the way.

Inevitably, Ron and Hermione's marriage counselling had failed and the pair divorced. This made headline news that resulted in the tearing apart of Harry and Ginny's relationship once and for all.

Harry had not wanted to do that interview about Ron and Hermione's divorce and had made that fact abundantly clear to his wife. That did not stop Ginny from doing the interview herself, nor did it stop her from blabbing all of his thoughts on the matter.

Realising that Ginny did not actually care about him in the slightest, instead preferring all the perks that being married to him brought her, Harry had moved out of their home the same day the article had appeared in print.

The kids had been devastated but they had all got through it.

Two years after their respective divorces, Harry and Hermione had gotten together and had never been happier.

It turned out that the whole reason that Hermione had been so determined to make things work with Ron had been because she had convinced herself that Harry hadn't been interested in her.

It was a shame. So much could have been avoided had they just talked to each other after the war, but they never really got the chance until it was too late.

Their deal with their ex partners was that on days like this one where the kids went off to Hogwarts School, they would all get together and support them. The truth was that Harry was convinced that without him making sure that Ginny turned up she'd probably forget and go off to follow England's national side in a friendly against Portugal (as had happened on two of their anniversaries and three of his birthdays, though not always that specific matchup.) Hermione was certain that Ron would forget full stop.

The group of four entered the Leaky Cauldron, receiving a warm welcome from the other patrons.

"Hi, Hannah," said Harry to the pretty Landlady as they reached the bar "what's for lunch?"

"Chicken and leek pie with mashed potatoes and vegetables or an eight ounce sirloin steak with potato wedges and onion rings." replied Hannah "And for the kids we have spaghetti and meatballs or fish-fingers and chips."

"Spaghetti!" cheered Lily happily.

"Fish-fingers!" shouted Hugo.

Harry chucked and turned to look at Hermione enquiringly.

"I'll try the chicken and leek pie," she said.

"And I'll have the steak," added Harry.

"Great," said Hannah "and to drink?"

"Four butterbeers." answered Harry.

"Ok, just take a seat at that booth over there and I'll bring your drinks over in a minute."

Harry thanked the wife of his best friend, Neville Longbottom and let his family over to the table.

"Oh, by the way," Harry said in a low voice to Hermione as they took their seats "I'm gonna have to fire your ex-husband."

"Why?" asked Hermione in genuine puzzlement.

"You know how he finally got his driver's licence?"

"Yeah?"

"Guess how he got it."

"Oh, great."

Harry nodded sadly "Yep. We knew that the confundus charm had been used on a driving instructor and sorted out the ensuing mess, but hadn't found out who did it. Now I've heard it straight from the horse's mouth."

"So why didn't you arrest him at the station?" queried Hermione.

"Because it's my day off," replied Harry "Don't worry though. I'll send Susan a quick owl when we get home. He'll be spending the night in a ministry holding cell."

Hermione shook her head and commented "Well, I did spend years warning him…"

"Yeah," said Harry as he reached out and took her hand "but he's not your problem anymore. And soon enough he won't be mine either."

Hermione smiled and rested her head on his shoulder

Lily and Hugo had missed this interplay. These days The Leaky Cauldron had a golden Labrador in residence and she had come up to get petted by the two kids.

Harry smiled and rubbed his thumb along the back of Hermione's hand.

As he did so, he noticed that something was missing. There was no ring on her finger.

Well, he would soon put that right. Hermione's birthday was just over two weeks away and already he had the prefect present for her.

Then, and only then, would all be well.

Just a short one shot based on some recent Potter-related news. Never again can anyone tell me that I am wrong to support the Harry/Hermione paring whilst despising Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione. If you don't know what I'm on about, follow the link below, but lose the spaces!

/ www . daily mail . co . uk / tv show biz / article - 2550453 /JK - Rowling - admits - Hermione - married - Harry - Potter - instead - Ron . html