"Come on Hermione, you could at least try to be more sympathetic," Harry wheedled at his stone-faced friend. "You're the one who's punched him in the face!"

"I believe you've done the same thing. Multiple times," Hermione responded (in a notably unsympathetic fashion), and took a slow sip of her tea. By this point in their conversation — exhaustively going back and forth over the same exact things for the nth time — it was beginning to grow cold.

Still, she was here, sat on Harry's sofa after a long day at the Ministry, once again doing her best to calmly sit and listen to him rant, and hopefully help him through all the changes happening in his life as of late. It was her turn, after all. She and Ron had been tag-teaming it rather effectively if she did say so herself, but Ron had taken it last time, and besides, he was out on field duty for a case tonight anyway.

Frankly, she was certain she and her husband had completely opposite approaches to the situation, because Ron had never grown out of his hatred for Malfoy either, so she was sure he mainly just commiserated with Harry's misfortune. But she also knew he wouldn't go without trying to encourage him to behave anyway (after all, he had grown and she was proud of him. Though it was still much easier to give the advice than to be in the situation yourself, and she doubted he'd be much different than Harry were they to switch shoes right now).

To be quite honest, she wasn't sure she'd ever forgive that prejudiced, snot-nosed little git for everything he'd done to them — to her — either.

She was sure he had changed (trusted that McGonagall wouldn't have hired him had he not, since she had never been as soft as Dumbledore, nor had she ever been particularly fond of Malfoy to begin with), but that didn't change the things he'd done, and it didn't mean she wanted to forgive him for it. It didn't mean he deserved it. But she could be the bigger person when necessary. Cordial didn't necessarily have to mean friendly; it was just that, for Harry, it did. He wasn't good at putting on a fake face or swallowing down his emotions.

But, still, that didn't change the reality of the situation he was about to find himself in, and constantly fighting with Malfoy would only make the whole situation worse.

"You're both going to be teachers, Harry," she reminded him evenly. "You can't go around bickering all the time in front of the students — or," she added, before Harry could interrupt, "away from the students. You'll never be able to hide it from everyone and it's horribly unprofessional."

"And," she continued, "do you really want to draw more attention to yourself for that? I know you hate being Harry Potter and having everyone up your arse, so do you really want students writing home about what Harry Potter's done now? Wouldn't it be better to just be normal and not cause any fuss? I doubt he's eager to cause any fuss either, being a known Death Eater — I'm sure parents are already quite unhappy with his placement and he very well knows that and won't want to make it any worse for himself."

She sighed before going on, "You were hoping for this to be a change of pace from the Auror corps, weren't you? How is it going to be a less stressful job if you're constantly rowing with Malfoy?"

Harry crossed his arms and sulkily conceded, "Fine. I'll do my best, but if he starts it I can't make any promises."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Just be an adult, Harry." She took another sip of her tea and grimaced slightly, as it had now gone fully cold. The sacrifices she made in the name of friendship. She set it aside on the table and crossed her legs, looking back over at Harry. "I think this change of pace will do you good, you know. If you commit to it properly, that is."

"I thought it would too," Harry grumbled. "'Til I heard about that git showing up."

Hermione waved a dismissive hand. "Stop being so pessimistic; you've not even gotten there yet, and your whole experience doesn't have to revolve around him. All going well, he'll just be an awkward little sidenote buzzing 'round the edges and that's all. Just focus on your classes, alright? Merlin knows, you do terribly without something to fixate on, and you need to stop fixating on Ginny and moping about already."

Harry scoffed. "What'd I do to earn such brilliant friends?" he asked sarcastically 

"Excellent question," Hermione answered seriously. "You'd be lost without us."

She looked even more exasperated upon seeing his expression. "Look, it isn't that we don't sympathise — we've been showing you sympathy and support and trying to help you through it for over a year now — but at a certain point, that isn't the most helpful thing to do anymore. You need to pick yourself up, and if we don't help you do that we aren't being very good friends. If you keep refusing to start picking yourself up, sometimes that involves giving you a few pushes. It doesn't have to feel nice, but we don't want to see you so miserable all the time. You can be happy, Harry, this is not the end, and quite honestly, this isn't even the catastrophe you're building it up as."

"Oh, yeah, please do tell me how the end of my marriage and the entire future I'd planned along with it is absolutely dandy." 

Hermione pursed her lips sourly, but Harry thought he was perfectly within his right to be a bit belligerent. He had loved Ginny since he was a teenager, they'd been married for five years, and he'd planned to be together with her for the rest of his life. He had planned to start a family together, he had wanted—

"Well since when have you needed someone in your life?" Hermione burst out, and Harry just blinked at her.

Since... Well, he'd had Ginny for so long, what was he supposed to do without her there? Of course he needed someone.

Hermione didn't give him a chance to respond though, continuing right on: "You never even dated in school besides her! You fancied Cho Chang for a bit, but you only went on, what, two dates? She kissed you and you just called it wet and got bothered by her crying over her dead boyfriend!"

"Hey!" Harry said. "How was that not supposed to be at least a little awkward?"

"It was the only thing you talked about, Harry," she said plainly. "And I understand," she added, as Harry opened his mouth to complain, "that you two just didn't work out, for many reasons, but you weren't terribly broken up about it. The wet kiss seemed to bother you more than anything else."

Harry frowned.

Hermione clearly caught onto his expression, as she continued in a slightly kinder tone: "What I mean is, even when you got with Ginny, you didn't seem to miss her much once you broke it off when we went on the run. Ron splinched himself trying to get back to us because he couldn't bear to be away, but you didn't even think to bring Ginny with us in the first place, even though you were afraid Voldemort might go after her."

"That's not fair, of course I missed her," Harry said, feeling more than a little wronged. "But bringing her with us— it would've just put her in more danger—"

"No more danger than she was anywhere else in the country. But that's not my point," Hermione said, as Harry opened his mouth to speak again. "When you finally saw her again you didn't even... If it had been Ron, I wouldn't have been able to keep myself away from him, or at least let him know that I was relieved to see him again and had missed him dearly and been worried about him. But you...well. You had other things to do. And that's it, right? I don't mean this in a mean way, Harry, but Ginny never seemed like a priority. She was important, yes, but never vital."

"I loved her!"

"I never said you didn't, Harry."

"I was protecting her. And I was literally saving the wizarding world, of course I had other priorities!"

"Again," she said. "Not my point."

Harry crossed his arms. "Then what is your point?"

Hermione sighed a deep sigh, as if she held the weight of the world on her shoulders, which rankled Harry quite a bit, because she was being quite unfair. However, he could admit that her next words were truthful, even if they stung.

"You rushed into things, Harry. We both know why you and Ginny didn't work, and it's because your priorities didn't align. You've always been so self-sacrificing that it got in the way of a happy married life. But that doesn't have to be your future. You're only twenty-five, you have plenty of time to meet someone new if you want to!"

He understood what she was getting at, but at the same time...he still didn't get why everybody else seemed to be able to work it out while they were the only ones who fell apart. Was everybody else just so perfectly matched? That didn't seem likely to Harry.

"Well you and Ron are making it work!" he deflected defensively instead.

It was a useless argument, though. Maybe things would have turned out better if he and Ginny had waited to get married the way Hermione had insisted on doing before accepting Ron's old proposal, until they were stable and advanced in their careers to her satisfaction. Exactly so, in fact. She had proposed to Ron in the same breath as informing him of her promotion to head of the Muggle Liaison Office at the Ministry, before she'd even entirely gotten through the door upon arriving home.

"It's different," Hermione said predictably. "Ron doesn't... I already said your selflessness gets in the way of a relationship. And we love that about you, but you have to understand that it's hard for Ginny to never be first."

"Of course she was first!" Harry protested.

"Really? Ahead of everyone who needed your help?"

Harry was silent.

"Look, Harry," Hermione told him. "I don't think it's a bad thing, but I'm just trying to tell you where things went wrong. And I'm really happy you're putting yourself first for once, and I think this teaching job is going to be great for you, but you never even thought about quitting the Aurors for her."

"Well— Well⁠— It was important," Harry said helplessly. "They needed me."

"Yeah, but she needed you too. And if you wanted to have a family, who did you plan to look after the kids? I'm not criticising you, Harry, but I'm with Ron because I know I don't ever have to worry about him prioritising work over our eventual family, unless it's life or death. You need to find someone who fits with your priorities and think ahead next time you go starting something up with someone."

Harry's mouth twisted slightly, but he accepted her words anyway. "Fine. Maybe you're right, I...I didn't think ahead, I just wish... I just wish that it could have worked anyway."

Hermione reached over to pat his knee. "I know. I think this will be good, though. I think this will be better. After a while. Just give it some time — give it a proper shot and you'll see."

"I'll try if it really makes you feel better. Properly."

Dolt, Hermione thought fondly, and valiantly resisted rolling her eyes. Apparently he still had a ways to go before everything she said got through to him. "It's not about me feeling better."