Title: Untitled

Author: Tinuviel Henneth

You would be mad to not know he loved her. Mad, or possibly living high in the Andes with the Incan ruins. Or American. Or Muggle. Whatever. The point is that he loved her.

She wasn't much taller than the House-elves at the end of her Seventh Year, barely came to his elbow, but then, he was astoundingly tall. Nigh on seven feet, he insisted frequently, but really he topped off somewhere near six foot six. In a world where most wizards didn't even reach six, this was a feat indeed, though not as grand as he would have liked it to be. After all, his height wasn't really something he could consciously control, and often it was annoying to be known solely as "that tall Slytherin bloke with the dark hair" rather than by name.

She had been in the courtyard, watching a pack of First Year Muggle-borns warily examining broomsticks. She was not doing any homework or her so-called "light reading." She was cringing at the memory of her own flying lessons that First Year, how horrible they had been. Ron told her that she ought to be glad that Neville was worse than her at something (aside form the fact Ron himself had worn this excuse out several times over) and Neville was not a Muggle-born, which should have comforted her. It fell short, though, when she would remind him that Neville wasn't really good at anything, and would remain that way until Fourth Year when he started to just come into his own.

"Haven't you got some revising to do for the Arithmancy exam?" she heard him ask from behind her and to the left. While her hackles raised an inch or so-- a natural response to proximity with a Slytherin and nothing personal towards him-- she didn't bother to turn to look at him.

"Yes," she said in a calm, cool tone of voice. She offered no other explanation-- possibly because she didn't have one but more likely because she wasn't interested in sharing her reason with him-- and he accepted that.

She did not, however, expect to have him sit down on the grass next to her, lowering his overly-long body down into a position that would certainly have been detrimental to his "alive and breathing" status if Death Eaters would have attacked at exactly that moment. When someone with legs three and a half feet long sits on a flat surface, resuming a proper footing with a straight spine takes a bit of effort. When he went and did precisely that, she pivoted her head slowly, just enough to convey to him that he was certainly most unwelcome to join her, especially so publicly as he was daring to.

Years later, after the War and all its subsequent messes had been cleaned up, he told her that he had loved her since that day in the courtyard with the Firsties. She smiled and kissed him and asked why he was telling her such a certainly close-guarded secret. "I was wondering if you'd do me the honor of marrying me, then," he said, with not even a third of the suave front he'd hoped to project when he asked her. She didn't seem to mind and threw her arms around his neck (launching herself rather high into the air to do so).

Several nights after that, she asked how much he loved her, feeling silly about it but needing to know if her own feelings were justified. The kind of woman who either loved not at all or with a devastating ferocity, Hermione had long mastered effectively turning her feelings on or off to suit a situation. He told her that he would have tripped backwards through time to save her if he had to, no matter how far back he had to go, even if it meant he had to unmake their entire relationship. Anything, he said at the time, was worth her still alive. At the time, it didn't seem rash to say something like this: "Even, love, if you don't know or love me back." He stroked her hair, and then her arm, and whispered to her over the pillow, "Even if we both end up worse for my meddling, so long as you're alive."

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