In Search of the Most Sincere – A Tale of Halloween and Things that Matter

a/n – This bit of pumpkin harmony is based upon the Potterverse that belongs to JK Rowling and all of the recognizable bits of that belong to her and her various and sundry corporate partners.

Also, various bits of the Peanuts universe of Charles Schultz have wandered into this story and all of the rights to that world are maintained by his family and their corporate entities. No infringement is intended and all rights to both worlds are retained by their respective owners.

And if this story were to be dedicated, it would be to the concept and character of Linus van Pelt, who of all the memorable characters of both worlds seemed to have the firmest grasp of what is important. What matters.

So, without further ado, as Linus would say, "Lights, please."

Chapter One – By the Light of the Silvery Moon

1045 pm 31 October, 1999 – Hell Coppice, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

As the moon rose above the trees surrounding the clearing, the faint sound of an apparition told Hermione Granger who had joined her since virtually no one was able to blind apparate into a place they'd never been to that quietly other than …

"Harry James Potter, fancy meeting you here," Hermione said a bit wistfully. "Who dimed me out, my Mum or my Dad?"

Smiling, Harry brushed a wrinkle out of the dress robes he was wearing and walked over to her, pulling Hermione into a loose hug.

"Actually, it was Crookshanks and your laptop," Harry said with a soft smile as he brushed his cheek against the top of her head.

"Snooping through my browsing history, again," she asked with a smile. "And just how did Crooks betray me this time?"

"When I got to the house, neither Helen or Alex would give me a clue as to where you'd gone off to," Harry said as he held her at arm's length, searching for … something in her face. "However, Crooks got my attention by raising a ruckus over your laptop." Pausing for a moment, he added, "On which he'd pushed that jack-o-lantern that Alex had carved on top of."

Taking hold of his arm, Hermione gently guided Harry over to the spot where she'd been sitting. As she gracefully folded herself back to where she was sitting with her back against the massive pumpkin that was sitting there, she arched an eyebrow at the knowing look in his eyes.

"I might have 'helped' a bit," she said defensively as Harry joined her on the ground. "I saw that posting about the pumpkin patch that those American exchange students had planted in this clearing in the middle of the coppice, so I thought …"

"Dragon dung fertilizer?"

"Heavens, no," Hermione said. "That's nasty stuff and you need proper equipment to use it without injuring yourself." Looking at Harry and blushing, she added, "I checked with Neville, he said that the hippogriff based stuff was good enough,"

Smirking slightly as Harry was staring at the number of massive pumpkins that surrounded them, she patted him on the hand reassuringly. "While it's a bit … unusual to have this many larger than normal pumpkins in one spot, it's not really noteworthy. It's not as if they're the ones that Hagrid used to grow for the castle?"

"True," Harry conceded. "If you were using the stuff Hagrid used then you'd have jack-o-lanterns big enough to park your mum's Spitfire in."

"Don't you dare mention that where Helen can hear you," Hermione chided. "You know how she gets about things. Especially that bloody car of hers."

"Language, Hermione," Harry cautioned with a chuckle. Ignoring the glare she was sending him, he added, "I like her car."

"You would," she huffed. "It's a seeker's car for certain. The woman is a respected medical professional, she shouldn't be tooling around town in …" Breaking off, not finding a suitable word to describe her mother's cherry-red vintage Triumph Spitfire convertible that she had bought when she found out she was pregnant twenty years ago, Hermione simply concluded with, "That car."

"You're still annoyed about the vanity plates," Harry replied, chuckling as he remembered Hermione's reaction every time she saw her mother's car with the plats 'Mis Fault' proudly attached. "After a decade, you'd think you'd be over it. I still think that sticker on the Range Rover is funnier."

"Don't get me started on 'My other car is a broom'," Hermione growled. "That twit Percy tried to get Kingsley to give me an official warning about violating the Statutes after he delivered those forms and saw the Rover sitting at the curb."

Putting his arm around her, Harry pulled the fuming witch closer to him and waited for her to relax into the embrace before continuing,

"That still doesn't explain why you're sitting all alone in the middle of a pumpkin patch, on tonight of all nights," Harry said conversationally while watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Pulling away a bit, Hermione stared at Harry, finally noticing how he was dressed. "And you're just a tad overdressed for spending a quiet night at Number 12, which was your plans the last time I heard." Shaking her head in disbelief, she sighed. "I thought we decided that we weren't going to the Ministry Ball tonight."

"We did and we're not," Harry answered with a mysterious smile. "Though Ronald seems to blame me for you not going to the Ball tonight and scuppering his latest master plan to get you back."

Staring at Harry in disbelief, Hermione was silent for about two minutes before she opened her mouth to speak. When nothing came out, Harry simply nodded at the gobsmacked look she was giving him.

"Do you want to hear how he was planning on getting you back?"

Finally finding her voice, Hermione took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Back? We went out for ninety-six hours. And if felt like a serious of blind dates because he either forgot everything he'd every learned about me or he'd been paying exactly no attention for the previous seven years so I'd hardly say there was anything for him to 'get back'."

Crossing her arms in front of her, she huffed noisily and glared as if the absent member of the 'Trio' was there to experience her ire. "Honestly, I would have paid extra for tickets on the red-eye the night before, that five a.m. boarding call for Sydney wasn't a moment too soon."

Trying not to smile, Harry simply leaned over and kissed her gently on the temple. "Not to be a 'told you so', but this is your fault."

Staring at him in amazement, Hermione opened her mouth to reply just as the implications of the entirety of Harry's statement caught up with her. Which took her back to the conversation that the two of them had watching the moon rise over the Timor Sea when they realized everything had changed.

Blinking twice, Hermione slowly closed her mouth and swallowed before hesitantly nodding in agreement. "We should have acknowledged the fact we were together when we came back to London with my parents. I just wanted …"

"You just wanted to give everyone a chance to adjust to all of the other changes that were going around before we 'announced' that we were dating," Harry finished for her. "Though I think that our 'Eighth Year' should have been clue enough for everyone."

"Well, yes, one would think that the fact we were the Heads, shared a suite and the only way your room was so suspiciously neat was that you never spent any time in it would have clued in most of our friends," Hermione said with a smile.

"That and the fact you're living at Grimmauld Place when you're not at your parents' home here in Oxford, I would agree."

Shaking her head, Hermione gave him another look before she pointedly looked at the dress robes he was wearing. "If you're not wearing that so you can entice me to the Ministry Ball tonight so Ronald can work his nefarious plan, then why?" Seeing him start to pull an innocent face, she added, "Because since I have to threaten you with bodily harm to get you to dress smartly, I'd like to know exactly what got you to wear those robes I bought you in Paris last spring."

Arching an eyebrow, Harry just smiled mysteriously as he stood up. Looking around, he spotted a section of the pumpkin patch that was sparsely covered in vines with only a few of the orange pumpkins present.

His wand dropping into his hand from the wrist holster he was wearing, Harry gave a flourish in the direction and the pumpkins gracefully moved and the vines were relocated. Ignoring Hermione's "Show off", he then conjured a fifteen by twelve platform of finished wood to occupy the now open space and turned around to smile at his astonished friend.

"One of the things Ronald said tonight rang true enough that I decided to do something about it," Harry began as he walked back over to where Hermione was standing. "Since we both decided not to go to the Ministry Ball tonight, I won't take the blame for 'spoiling another Ball' for you, but I have spoiled my share of evenings for you over the years."

"Nonsense, Harry," Hermione said with an amused tone. "If anyone spoiled the night of a Ball for me, it was Ronald with the aftermath of the Yule Ball."

"Au contraire," was Harry's reply as he reached into his robes and pulled out what appeared to be a doll's outfit on a miniature hanger. Cancelling the charm that shrunk it down, Harry was suddenly holding up the dress that Hermione had bought in Paris on the same trip last spring when Harry and gotten the robes he was wearing.

"If I'd been honest with myself, I would have asked you to the Yule Ball right off the bat and then that whole scene in the Common Room would have been avoided," Harry said as he presented the gown to Hermione with a slight bow. "Your dress, Mademoiselle."

"Harry, I don't think that I'm quite up for getting dressed in the middle of Hell Coppice just like that," Hermione replied with a slight blush.

"While I'm not quite as rude as someone was, I do feel compelled to ask, 'Are you a witch or not,' Miss Granger," Harry came back with a grin.

As the memory of that moment when they were trapped in the Devil's Snare their first year came back to her, Hermione chuckled as she took the hanger and bag from Harry's hand. "Well, yes sometimes I forget that there's a magical solution to some problems."

Inspecting the lot and finding that Harry had managed to bring everything, including the pair of dancing slippers she usually brought to balls, she'd employ the switching charm to change them for whatever shoes she'd worn to dinner when the dancing began, she looked at Harry and blushed again.

Twirling her finger in a circle, she said, "Turn around Harry while I change."

Blinking in surprise, the number of times they'd changed in front of each other, not to mention other activities, seemed to make this a bit much, Harry blurted out, "You do plan on using the switching charm, correct?"

"Of course, but you know that there's a fraction of a second while the two outfits swap that I'll be standing here starkers so turn around."

Seeing the look on his face, she smirked. "It doesn't have to make sense. Since Daddy knows you were coming after me, if we go back to their house after whatever madness you've got planned, you can tell him 'No, I didn't watch her change' when he asks." Pausing for a moment, she added, "And he will ask."

Grumping about the lack of logic, Harry turned around. Looking around to make certain they were unobserved, though the Notice Me Not charms she had cast earlier around the pumpkin patch should ensure that no casual observers could get close enough to notice her transformation, Hermione finally cast the switching charm to swap the jeans and jumper she was wearing for the formal dress that Harry had brought for her. Swapping her trainers for the dancing slippers with a casual flick of her wand, and transforming the messy ponytail her hair was in into something a bit more elegant, she finally decided she was ready.

"You can turn around now," she said as she watched him carefully.

The way his face lit up when he turned around, and the look in his eyes caused her to blush and feel warm all over. "I take it I'm acceptable for whatever it is you've got planned for tonight?"

"More than acceptable," Harry breathed out, being taken back for a moment to that feeling he had when he realized that the beautiful girl with Viktor Krum was his best friend. "You're as beautiful as you were that night when I realized what a fool I'd been."

"Why, thank you good sir," she replied with a slight curtsey. "And you look very dashing tonight," she added with a smile. "I'd say that whoever planned your wardrobe had excellent taste but I'd be bragging."

Taking her hand, Harry brushed his lips over the back of her knuckles before looking up into her eyes. "Would you do me the honor of giving me the dance we should have had that night?"

Looking around, Hermione smiled fondly as she nodded. "Of course, do you plan on humming a waltz or shall I?"

"Actually, I think I've got that covered," Harry said mysteriously as he led her over to the small dance floor that he had created. As they stood in the center, Harry cast a charm that created, for them, an area large enough to effortlessly waltz while not disturbing the plants around them.

Reaching into his robes, and missing the impressed look on Hermione's face as she marveled at his adaptation of the space enhancing charm to what was, essentially an uncontained area without walls, he removed a small stone bowl that looked as if it was a miniature pensieve.

Which, was a good thing because that's what it was.

"George finally got it working," Hermione asked in surprise as she stared at the small rune covered bowl.

"Yes, after you explained exactly how those CDs and CD players worked, he was able to adapt the concept to a pensieve that plays 'recordings' of performances.

Holding up a goblin silver disk covered in runes and labeled 'Yule Ball, 1994 – DEG', Harry knelt down and placed it inside the small bowl and stood back up with a flourish.

"George remembered someone who was there for most of the night, so he was able to get her to donate her memories of the music for the Ball when I told him what I wanted to do with this a couple of weeks ago."

Holding out his hand, he looked into her eyes and asked, "May I have this dance?"

As Hermione took his hand, his off hand waved and the music began that took her back to that Christmas Night in the Great Hall. However, this time, instead of dancing with Viktor and being terribly self-conscious, she was dancing with the one man she had wanted to dance with that night and every night since then. And that made all of the difference.

As they moved around the floor to the stately strains of the waltz, she reveled in the feeling of moving in time with Harry. Moving effortlessly back and forth, they danced as if they'd done this a thousand times. Refusing to think of anything but the feeling of Harry's hand and hers, and his hand on her waist, Hermione allowed herself to be drawn into the moment of the music and her partner.

As the first waltz ended, they flowed into the next song, which allowed them to dance a bit closer together. Reaching up and brushing her lips across Harry's cheek, she smiled at him.

"This is perfect," she said as he blushed at her action.

"Why a pumpkin patch," Harry asked as they settled into dancing to the next selection from that long ago Ball.

"Ah, that," Hermione replied. Looking around at the moonlit glade in the midst of the woods, she parried with what to Harry was a total non sequitur.

"Does this place look sincere?"

"Beg pardon," Harry asked as he twirled Hermione out and then back in. "Did you just ask …"

"Does it look sincere," Hermione asked again.

Seeing that Harry was looking at her as if she'd gone a bit mad, and taking a flashback to the Devil's Snare when Ronald has asked her if she was, she chuckled.

"No, I'm not mad. You know that Mum has cousins in America," she explained. Seeing his nod, she smiled at his acceptance.

"When I was growing up, I enjoyed reading the Peanuts comics, and one of the characters really resonated with me."

Seeing the smirk on his face, she rolled her eyes. "And no, it wasn't Lucy. Actually Linus' character resonated more with me, even though people would say I'm more like his sister."

Seeing his nod of encouragement as they moved into the next song, she smiled as they set the pace for the next song before taking up the thread.

"Every Halloween, Linus would sit out in a pumpkin patch and await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin." Seeing the confused look on Harry's face, Hermione explained how Linus had somehow taken the concept of Father Christmas and adapted it to Halloween.

"And according to Linus, the Great Pumpkin would appear in the pumpkin patch that was the most sincere. He would rise out of that pumpkin patch and fly around the world with presents for the children of the world."

"That's … different," Harry concluded as the danced together. "And you're …"

"Waiting for the Great Pumpkin?" Tilting her head to the side a bit, she smiled sadly. "I think I was just looking for a bit on sincerity and solitude. If the Great Pumpkin happened to stumble onto me, then fine." Seeing the knowing look, she added, "I think I've begun to appreciate Luna's philosophy that it's the search for things that's important sometimes and not the finding of them."

As the song they were dancing to wound down, they stopped and Hermione curtseyed in response to Harry's bow. The music dropped back to a background level as Harry waved his hand and a round table covered with a linen cloth appeared along with two chairs nearby.

As Harry escorted her over to the table and helped her into his chair, he could see that she was thinking.

"Sickle for your thoughts."

"Isn't the going rate a knut," she replied as Harry seating himself beside her. Reaching over and putting her hand on top of his, she smiled wistfully. "Things were simpler then."

Chuckling, Harry agreed. "True, I was fourteen, stuck in a tournament for adults with the threat of Tom Riddle hanging over me and my life was totally scripted out by a Headmaster who was either a Machiavellian mastermind or going around the twist depending upon whom you listen to. That was much simpler."

"Goof," she said as she squeezed his hand. "What do we do now; do we start 'dating' and wait for the hullabaloo from that to die down before we move forward?"

"We could," Harry allowed as the small box he had retrieved from his family vault dropped into his hand from where he had concealed it in the sleeve of his robes. "Or we could simply go with what we sincerely want to do."

Before Hermione could say anything, Harry was out of his chair and kneeling beside her, on one knee, holding up the black velvet clad box while staring into her eyes which were progressively getting wider as she realized what he had planned.

"Skip dating. Skip 'easing people into it'. I should have gone with what I wanted to do that night in Australia when I finally got the nerve to tell you that I loved you and I was fairly certain I had since that night in the Infirmary when I saw you lying there in the moonlight, petrified."

Before she could say anything, he simply said, "Halloween has been a disaster for me, most years. Our first Halloween together, I faced down a troll. Tonight is a bit scarier because I want you to marry me. Hermione Jane, will you marry me and make me happier than I've ever been?"

Staring at the diamond and sapphire ring glinting in the moonlight, Hermione looked up into Harry's eyes. Unable to speak, she simply nodded as he took the ring out of the box and slipped it on her finger.

As her arms went around him, she pulled him into a hug and whispered, "Yes, Harry. I'm yours for all time. Of course I'll marry you."

As the music that had been playing started into a ballad by the Weird Sisters that they had obviously covered since Hermione vaguely remembered from the radio when she was growing up, she smiled as Harry stood and drew her up along with him. Tilting her head to the side, she rose up a bit and wrapped her arms around him tighter as they began to kiss.

As the newly engaged couple kissed in the moonlight, celebrating their engagement and coming life together, the vines in the pumpkin patch began to rustle.

And unbeknownst to either one, a massive shape began to rise from the depths of the pumpkin patch. A massive representative of Cucubita pepo fully five feet across rose silently from the pumpkin patch. It rotated in place, as if to look at the kissing couple mere yards away who were totally unaware of its presence.

Moving slightly, as if to nod approvingly, the massive pumpkin rose into the night sky, heading out into the world to do whatever it is that flying pumpkins do on Halloween.

For what could be more sincere than Love?

a/n 2 – The location of Hell Coppice, sometimes listed as Hell's Coppice, is a wooded area near Oxford, which is where I've placed the Granger residence in my little corner of fanon. Seeing the name, I thought that it might be an interesting place to place a story, and according to Google maps there's a clearing near the center of it with something growing there. Why couldn't it be pumpkins?

a/n 3 - edited 1 November, 2013 for minor spelling and word choice corrections. Thanks to alix33 and gloria for the catch.