Mr. Tambourine Man

Harry apparated to his flat. He was tired and exhausted and his wrists felt sore from the never ending paperwork he had to finish. It was nearing 8pm. The engagement party of Ron and Hermione was less than a few minutes ahead. His wife was furious. She was in the bedroom slipping into her black dress. She never liked to be late for a party.

“You’re late. Why are you late?” she snapped.

“I had to stay in for work,” he answered, leaning against the bedroom doorway with his arms crossed. “I’m sorry.”

She turned her head to him. “Well, just don’t stand there. Get ready!”

Harry sighed and walked over to the closet. He looked through the few formal suits he owned. Many of them given as a gift from Ginny except one. A dark green formal suit that Ron and Hermione had given him last year for his birthday.

However, Harry knew it was Hermione who did the picking and paying of the suit while Ron’s name was just included because it was almost expected. He hadn’t worn yet. He pulled it out of the closet. How much was this suit? He asked himself. It, indeed, looked expensive.

“I think, I’ll wear this,” said Harry, showing the suit to Ginny.

“That?” she almost spurted out with disgust. “It’s a bit too fancy don’t you think?”

“It’s like any other suits I have in here, except this one is dark green.”

“It’s still too fancy. Lack of taste,” she began to look through the closet. “Why don’t you try this one on.”
She pulled out a black suit. The one Harry had worn and worn to nearly every party or dinner he attended. It was the one Ginny had given to him for their second anniversary, just two years ago.

Harry shook his head. “That’s almost four years old. I think, it might not fit me anymore.”

“I doubt you changed physically. The only thing that did grow is your cock.” She touched him between his legs as if she was already getting in the mood for love.

“I think, I’ll stick with this one,” he finalized the little argument, and began to dress himself in the green suit.

Ginny shook her head disapprovingly as her husband stared at his reflection in the mirror. The suit fitted him perfectly. The color and style of the suit complemented his dark handsome look. However, his wife seemed irritated and disgusted at him for picking to wear the suit as they drove to Ron and Hermione’s large estate.

She was still mad by the time they arrived at the estate, refusing to take Harry’s arm or hand. However, Harry didn’t seem to care at all about her attitude. She had the same personality when they started dating, he thought, and it was still the same when they got married.

There were many cars parked outside the mansion. When Ron greeted them at the door Harry spotted a pile of broomsticks at a far corner. Old Hogwarts classmates, Ron’s teammates from the Black Hawk a new Quidditch team, and some former co-workers of Hermione had attended the party.

“You certainly knew she was going to say yes,” said Harry to Ron, who just smiled. Ginny went off somewhere and was lost in the crowd. Harry didn’t bother to look for her. He walked around a bit. He saw Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil chatting and squealing like they did in the old days. Padma Patil and an older man seemed to be flirting with each other. Within the crowd, Harry couldn’t find Hermione.

The House Elves were dressed in a waiter uniform and carried trays of empty glasses. Harry approached one of them and asked for a glass of whiskey. The empty glass was magically filled to the brim of the copper colored liquid.

A drink in one hand and the other hand in his pocket, Harry found a secluded corner far from the cheering, luaghing, and dancing crowd.

“Hey, Harry, long time no see,” Neville said as he approached him.

“Neville,” said Harry. “You look different.” Neville Longbottom indeed turned from awkward scrawny teenager to a full grown handsome young man. His thick hair was slicked back neatly with Sleek Eazy gel.

“I hope in a good way,” he chuckled.

“Of course.”

“How have you been? I haven’t seen since...”

“Seventh year.”

“We’ve lost touched.”

“Yeah.”

“I hear you’re married to Ginny Weasley.”
“Yeah. How about you? Are you married?”

“No, but I am seeing someone. I’m just happy the way things are with her. I don’t really want to talk about marriage and all that. Too much of a commitment, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course, you know.”

“Well, I’ve got four years of commitment experience.”

“I bet...”

Harry raised an eyebrow and slightly tilted his head in offence.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What?”

“When you said ‘I bet’.”

“I just meant-”

“You just meant that it’s hard to believe that I, Harry Potter, has been faithfully committed to a marriage.”

“Now, Harry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Sorry,” Harry shook his head realizing he had overreacte to those two simple words.

“What is it, mate? Problems in the marriage?”

Harry shook his head once more. “No, it’s just that we’re both working, and it’s difficult to have some real decent alone time...together.”

“Yeah, it can be tough on relationships.”

The two men fell into silence. They took sips of their drinks and looked at the dancing and laughing crowd. The alcohol was getting into their systems.

“Holy shit,” muttered Neville.

“What is it?”

“Look who’s here.” He pointed to a young man about their same age. His blond hair slicked back, and he was wearing a white suit with a black tie. Draco Malfoy, Harry instently said in his head. The two of them let their eyes wandered elsewhere as Draco Malfoy approached them. Harry noticed Malfoy wasn’t wearing his usual cocky smirk.

“What is it, Malfoy?” asked Harry, almost snapping at him.

“Just came to say hi,” Malfoy replied. “How’re you, Neville?”

Neville walked away, muttering, “Fuckin’ prick.”

Draco turned to Harry in confusion.

“He hasn’t quite gotten over the public humiliation you caused back in Hogwarts,” answered Harry.

“Well, that’s all in the past.”

“Sometimes the past just never goes away.”

“No, but there are a few regrets and most of the time we feel we should have done something sooner because later is just too late.”

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but a pair of small delicate hands whose skin were soft and gentle covered his eyes. He felt a pair of lips barely brushing against his left ear as her hot breath brushed against his skin. He knew the soft hands, the lips, and hot breath didn’t belong to his long red hair wife. No it didn’t.

“Guess who?” she asked, sweetly almost innocent.

Harry smiled. “My little bookworm, Hermione.”

Both laughed as her hands uncovered his eyes. Draco was gone. The music had stopped. The crowd had disappeared. And it was just the two of them together. Harry turned around to see her. She was still the beauty he had seen at the Hogwarts graduation ceremony. Though she had grown a bit older over the six years, each year she had gotten much more beautiful. Now she was engaged to be married to Ronald Billius Weasley.

“Congratulations,” muttered Harry.

Hermione went on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

They were silent for a moment until Hermione placed an arm under his and led him out of the room. While they walked side by side they talked.

“I see you’re finally wearing the suit Ron and I gave you last year,” she said, running her hand across the fabric of his arm sleeve.

“Yeah,” he replied. “It’s nice a suit. It must’ve been a fortune to get it.”

“You’re worth every Knut.” She smiled at him.

Harry looked at his surroundings. They were in a hallway of doors. “Where are we exactly,” he asked.

“I want to show you something. It’s a room I use for some privacy. I’ve been running around doing this and that to get everything prepared for this party. I use to relax and get some ideas.”

“What kind of ideas?”

“I’ll show you.”

She left his side to open a door at the end of the hallway. Harry followed her into the room as she quickly closed and locked the door. The walls were decorated with paintings. The floor was covered with a large white sheet stained with different colors of paint. There were a several canvases in the room; some blank and others unfinished.

“I didn’t know you paint, Hermione,” Harry said in awe.

“It’s just a hobby I’ve picked up lately.”

“Since you’ve quit the job?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

Harry began to walk around the room, observing each painting. There was one that caught his eye. A woman sitting at the edge of the bed. Her bare back was to the observer, her hair was in a loose bun, her waist and buttocks were covered by the wrinkled bedsheets. Her eyes were closed, and her face seemed to be sad. The woman instantly reminded Harry of Hermione.

She wasn’t alone in the painting. A naked man was with her, standing to the right. He had a lean muscular body and a long penis. But his head was not included in the picture as the top edge of the canvas had no space for it. However, Harry knew it was supposed to be Ron.

“Why did you leave out the head?” he inquired.

“There’s no space at the top, as you can see.”

“You could’ve done something to still include it anyways.”

“Yeah...I could have done something.”

Harry’s eyes then wandered to another painting. One was of Ron and Hermione in a typical portrait of a husband and wife to be. He noticed the necklace Hermione was wearing in the portrait. An emerald heart.

“That one is nice.”

“Ron had a photographer take a picture of us last week. I took the photo and painted the image on a canvas using oil.”

“You are the most talented woman ever, Hermione. You’re a walking talking Encyclopedia and now you’re an artist. That’s extraordinary.”

“Is that bad?”

Harry smiled and shook his head. “Not at all.”

Hermione wrung her fingers together and stared at him for a moment. Harry could see the large diamond ring Ron had given her. “I have a mix of other works too, that I have put together in an album. I want you to see it.”

Harry’s smile never faded. “Ok.”

While she went into another room connected to her personal art studio, Harry continued to peek through some of the unfinished sketches. There were some blanks and some sketches of nature he skipped through fast. He stopped immediately when he spotted a sketch of a head he knew that was his own. He stared at it, without realizing Hermione had come to his side with the album in her arms.

She coughed, and Harry turned away from the sketch. She smiled at him. Her eyes sparkling with a twinge of happiness and joy. The two sat together on a sofa covered with the same white sheet he had seen on the floor. They slowly flipped through the pages, each was a photograph of them as the trio at Hogwarts.

However, there was more of him and Hermione side by side, sitting on a rock by the lack or under a shady tree. The last page was of a scenery. It was a night view overlooking the ever expanding Hogsmeade in the newly rennovated The Shrieking Shack, which was finished by the end of their seventh year.

Only Harry and Hermione ever got to go see the new Shrieking Shack the night before it opened to the public, the night before they graduated, and before everyone separated to make a life outside of Hogwarts.

Hermione started to silently cry. Harry took no notice as he continued to look at the photo trying to remember what happened that night. Funny, he couldn’t remember it. The more he thought about it, it hurted his head. Though he did remember being there with Hermione. Hermione sniffled, and Harry finally took notice of her crying. He placed an arm around her shoulder, and brought her closer to him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head, still crying. “Nothing...”

“Just tell me.”

“I can’t say because you wouldn’t remember it anyways.”

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I can and I will remember whatever you have to say. I always do.”

“Not all the time.”

“Hermione...”

She continued to cry.

“Oi! There you are!” Ron had barged into the room looking excited and absolutely too happy. “Come on, we’re about to do the muggle karoake Seamus had brought!”


Until midnight Harry kept his distances from Hermione, Ron, and his wife. He kept the album Hermione had given him under his jacket. He drank glass after glass of whiskey, rum, and vodka. The laughing, the cheering, the dancing and the loudness of the music made him dizzy. He found Ginny chatting and laughing with Padma Patil and Luna Lovegood.

“I wanna go home,” said Harry, his words slurring.

“What?” Ginny strained to hear his words.

“I said I want TO.GO.HOME!”

“I guess, I’m tired as well, sweetie. We’ll go home.”

They went home without saying goodbye to either Ron and Hermione or to any of their friends. Ginny got ready for bed while Harry remained wearing his suit and sat at the table in the kitchen. He flipped through the album; slowly turning each page. His eyes finally lingered on the last photo. What did happen that night at the Shrieking Shack with Hermione? Why couldn’t he remember?

He didn’t go to bed with Ginny nor made she sure she was perfectly fine and sound asleep. Instead for six long hours he thought and thought about Hermione and the Shrieking Shack.