“I’m the dumbest ass in the history of dumbassery”, Harry said to himself. “Hermione deserves the right to tell me ‘I told you so’ until I die”.

“That’s a given, but why exactly?”, Hermione smilingly approached from behind and startled him.

“You were right about me and Lyra, and I was such a stupid idiot, you should charge me an idiot tax”, he smiled back ruefully. “You see, when I started looking at other girls after the Triwizard Tournament, I felt there’s something wrong. I ignored it, because there’s always something wrong. Then she saw me flirting and started avoiding me and looking at me like she wants to kill me. I concluded her dear Voldemort is back and she can no longer afford to have me as a friend, or even a frienemy. I missed our talks and I was angry at her for breaking us up. On the other hand, whenever I tried something with other girls, something was off, and something was missing. Everything was missing, actually, and I didn’t understand what. I thought Voldemort broke my brain by trying to break into it constantly, and I freaked out. Then I started hunting Lyra when I figured out she’s trying to kill Dumbledore, until I cornered her in the girls’ bathroom and hit her with that terrible thing, and when I held her bleeding body, I felt that thing that was missing coming back to me, and everything in my memory that resembled it lit up at the same time, and it was all her. It was like half of my brain coming back from deep coma. I stopped being angry and depressed all the time, and I understood that it was all because I missed her, and it’s not what I thought it was. I never had a name for what we are to each other. It’s not like anything I felt with other girls. It doesn’t feel romantic. She feels like a body part, honestly.”

“She’s your wife”, Hermione nodded.

“What?”, Harry fumbled in shock.

“You heard me. She’s not a girlfriend. It’s not a school romance. She’s not a friend. I’ve seen you together. I never saw anyone who isn’t married for at least ten years be like that. She seems to know, but you”, she sighed, “You should be hammering nails into hard wood with your head, because your head is harder than any rock”.

“Damn”, whispered Harry. “How did I managed to mess this up?”

“You were emotionally very invested into being oblivious”. She took an apple and left.

…

“Do you see the colour of my eyes?”, Lyra asked while they sat under a tree in the park.

“Of course I do”, Harry smiled.

“It’s in my family for untold centuries. It’s one of the genetic markers of a magical lineage. It was preserved because of our pure blood. You object to my arguments regarding pure blood. Do you like my eye colour?”, she asked, playing with his hand.

“I love your eye colour. It’s beautiful”, he answered honestly.

She slightly blushed. “I’m glad to hear it. However, since you argue for intermixing with the muggles, does that mean you would like my eye colour to vanish forever? Never to be seen in future generations?”

“That’s a hard question. I have to answer ‘no’, but that’s mostly because I’m very partial. I find you beautiful and I would not want any part of you gone. However, that’s hardly a political argument, and it’s also not fair”, he smiled. “But let me use another equally unfair argument. I have green eyes, and I inherited them from my mother. You object to intermixing with muggle-borns. Would you want my eye colour gone?”

“Harry Potter, that was a low blow and you know it”, she turned crimson.

“Par for the course, I guess”, he smiled at her silver eyes. “And if you and I married and had kids, and one of them had my eye colour, would you consider it a lamentable loss for the purity of your family line?”, he snickered, watching her embarrassment.

“Harry Potter, when we get to the point where we have children, their eye colour will be the least of our concerns”, she answered seriously.

“When?”, he noticed.

“When”, she confirmed.

…

“Hermione is right”, he thought, remembering. “I was truly emotionally invested into being oblivious, because nobody can be this stupid by accident.”

…

“You were right”, Harry smiled at his wife who nursed their third child, “I never cared about their eye colour”.

“It’s a win in either case”, she smiled back.