A/N: This piece is based on J.K. Rowling's now infamous quote, where she said, in reference to Harry/Hermione, "It could have gone that way". This piece is also a sort of alternate ending to another one-shot I wrote, "Last Dance". Enjoy.

The music trails off, until we are left in silence. We slowly spin to a stop, reluctantly coming apart from each other. I look up into her eyes and am suddenly drawn in, unable to look away, unable to tear myself away from them. I am a moth drawn inexorably to a candle, powerless to resist her gravity, her presence, her light. She looks back at me, eyes filled with something that defies description, something that only deepens the void, the emptiness that sits inside of me. The promise of an entire future, a new future, dances in her eyes, an irresistible temptation.

A strand of hair falls across the right side of her face, waking me from her spell. Without even willing it, I reach out slowly and gently brush it behind her ear. I allow my hand to trail down through her silky hair, everything else in the world forgotten.

I stop thinking. I forget, for a moment, that she is my best friend, that I can't possibly lean in and kiss her, no matter how badly I want to, no matter how deep within me that desire runs. It would ruin everything, our entire friendship, the closeness we've had all these years, the relationship that I've grown to value more than anything else in the world. I come so close to stepping towards her, but I stop myself. I have to. I couldn't live with myself if I ruined this.

I'm about to walk away, about to commend myself for my self-control, when she kisses me. Stunned, it's a second before I start to kiss her back. It feels even more… even more right than I imagined, and the small part of my brain that continues functioning is amazed that I was about to throw this away.

Then she ends the kiss, as quickly as she started it, taking two quick steps away from me.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I know this isn't… this isn't what you want. I've ruined everything now. I don't know what came over me."

"Hermione," I say, closing the gap between us, placing my hands on her warm shoulders and looking deep into her eyes. She looks worried, her eyes filled with guilt. There's no doubt in my mind though, not anymore, not now that I know that she feels the same way, now that I know this won't be a mistake. "If you don't think this is what I want, you clearly weren't paying enough attention."

She smiles, tentatively, giving me the courage to continue.

"I used to think that you were my best friend, and so this couldn't happen, but I was wrong. This is happening because you're my best friend, because you know me better than anyone else, because you've always been there, at my side, through everything. Hermione, there's nobody I'd rather spend the rest of my life with than you, nobody who I trust more, nobody who I admire more, nobody who I love more."

I can tell from the look she's giving me, even before she speaks, that she feels the same way.

"I would have stayed, even if you weren't hunting Horcruxes," she says. "I've had enough fighting, enough funny faces, enough jealousy and insecurity and stupidity."
I put my arms around her, her head resting perfectly on my shoulder.

"So have I," I whisper. "So have I."

We rest there for a blissful moment by the warmth of the fire, finding shelter from the cold world in each other's arms.

"The Horcruxes," she says, not lifting her head from my shoulder. "There's still three more to find. I know we've talked about this before, but given how much it meant to him, are you sure he wouldn't have—"

"—hidden one in Hogwarts?" I finish. "I don't think so. He wouldn't have taken the risk of leaving one so close to Dumbledore. The one place we should look, though, is…"

We talk for much of the night, at first about Horcruxes, but then about what will come after, about what we want to do once Voldemort is dead. I'm not surprised that she wants to go back to Hogwarts and finish her NEWTs, or that she wants to work with the Ministry, where, as she put it, she can "eliminate the most injustice". I wish I had her certainty in her future. I don't know what will come after for me. I guess it comes from spending the last seven years of my life as a marked man, never able to escape Voldemort's influence, especially now that I know that one of us must kill the other. But for now Voldemort has dropped out of my mind, driven away by love. I'm sure Dumbledore would approve.

We fell asleep that night with her hand in mine and mine in hers. I slept peacefully, free from dreams or premonitions or prophecies.

I need her.

She gives me confidence, hope, faith, that we will - we must - persevere. I am warmed on the coldest nights just by her hand in mine, her breath on my cheek, the playfulness in her voice.

There's no point in being the Boy-Who-Lived if you have nothing worth living for. She is the reason I fight, the reason I choose the stark wasteland of life over the easy serenity of death. Because the time to choose has arrived, and we must all make the choice between what is easy and what is right. And there is no doubt in my mind that she - that we - are right.

Ron comes back a couple of days later. At first, nothing changes. They fight, of course, and then she forgives him, and then we move on, in search of the next Horcrux. I think he realizes that something has changed, after a while, even though we don't tell him.

I wait to tell him until after the war is over, with a bottle of Firewhiskey on the table between us. He doesn't need it. He tells me that he had already guessed, and that it was probably better this way. He does warn me that I had better treat her well, and wishes us the best.

He marries Luna a couple of years later, in a beautiful ceremony held by the ocean. I'm honoured to be his best man.

Ginny, unfortunately, doesn't take the news quite as well. I sit her down with the same bottle of Firewhiskey, and try to be as gentle as I can, but she interrupts me mid-sentence with a ferocious Bat-Bogey Hex. She stormed out of the room, grabbing the bottle on her way out, leaving me to stumble around the Burrow until I ran into Hermione, who lifted the hex. I tried to talk to Ginny again the day after, apologizing for leading her on, and things went much better. I managed to dodge the hex, as well as two of the three ornaments she threw at me.

Eventually she understood that I hadn't meant to hurt her, and that there was nothing she could do to change my mind, and now me and Hermione have her and Neville over for dinner a few times a year.

And as for Hermione and me, we waited a little longer than the others, maybe because we had waited so long to begin with. We had the ceremony at Hogwarts, on the same grounds where so many people gave their lives in the fight against Voldemort. They sacrificed everything to defeat a man who knew no love, nor kindness nor friendship, because they believed in those powers, the powers of which Voldemort knew not. It seemed appropriate to celebrate the happiest day of our lives, a day filled with love, a day that could never had happened if not for their courage, someplace where we knew they'd be watching.

It's our anniversary tomorrow, our first, and as I sit here by the fire, reliving the chain of events that set all of this in motion, I'm struck by how fragile the whole sequence is. If Hermione hadn't had the courage that night to take the risk that I was too scared to take, then none of this would have happened. It's bizarre to even consider, but I could easily have married Ginny, our differences forgotten in the aftermath of the war, and if Ron had smartened up just a little bit sooner, he could have built a life with Hermione. I'm relieved it turned out this way, of course; everyone seems to be happy, but it's just so odd to consider a world where it could have gone that way.