I'm a fan of the interaction between Harry and Hermione (obviously), and I think that's all I have to say regarding a bio.

Some background thoughts on Harry/Hermione and the story Fundamental Compatibility:

[Minor spoilers here]

I wrote this as a bit of a personal challenge in preparation for Epilogue Day (September 1, 2017), attempting to incorporate changes in character perception from JKR (and others) over the years. It's not an ideal story format, given the multitude of date constraints, which then had to be superimposed on a plot of romantic discovery.

Nevertheless, I want to address one aspect that came up in several reviews, regarding H/G and R/Hr. Everyone has their opinion on those pairings, but I explicitly wanted to work from a "no bashing" framework, which I believe is the only way to do epilogue-compliant (or close) fics. Harry and Hermione aren't stupid: they wouldn't marry people they didn't love and believe they had something with.

And I understand JKR's pairings as conceived within "secondary school" kind of relationships. I absolutely see teenage Harry and Ginny being able to hook up and perhaps even stay together for a couple years. I can also believe that in a situation where "marrying the high-school sweetheart" is common after a war or whatever, that they'd end up together for longer, probably lasting a decade or more before the cracks really started to appear.

Ron and Hermione is a little more puzzling as something that gets beyond a "high-school exploration" territory. I can understand physical attraction and the whole "opposites attract" thing leading them to experiment, especially with a War going on and wanting to be close to someone they know and trust. (And let's face it, Hermione has difficulty connecting to people outside of Harry and Ron.) I can also potentially see Hermione "settling" for Ron if another better option didn't appear, which is a bit of how it plays out in this fic. Ron is one of the few people who stands up to her and has the respect for her to do so, even though the combativeness that results may not be healthy in the long run.

But one thing that should be clear is that Harry and Hermione didn't and do not "suffer" in their relationships with Ginny and Ron, at least in my account of them. For roughly 15 years after the War, they have passable, if not always ideal, relationships. (The vast majority of relationships in the world are nowhere near "ideal.")

So, why Harry/Hermione?

This may be "Harmony" heresy to some, but I actually don't believe Harry/Hermione would be a very good long-term pairing AT HOGWARTS either. Like Ron and Ginny, Harry and Hermione have too much growing up to do. (What percentage of teenage romances actually end up working well as relationships that last for decades?) But I believe the ways that Ron and Ginny will mature (and they will) are less potentially compatible than H/Hr.

When writing fanfic, it's common to take the "easy way out" and write the lemon where H/Hr (or whoever) gets together at some point at Hogwarts, and then you just imagine them living happily ever after. But I believe Harry and Hermione are very rightly concerned at the outset about their friendship and how romance could completely screw it up.

Which is why I see them, at best, almost literally "stumbling" into a romantic encounter as they do in the Prologue. But what would have happened after that encounter? I thoroughly believe, even with all their "harmonious connections," that they'd go through some pretty rough patches until their mid-20s or so too, possibly in ways that could permanently scar a long-term relationship. It's a bit of a "cheat" to thus give them to H/G and R/Hr, where Harry and Hermione have to work out their "issues" with other partners as they mature.

Harry is obviously very damaged from his upbringing, and Hermione lacks a lot of interpersonal and coping skills. As the two of them ultimately note in this story, when they first met, they had a lot of problems (as do all teenagers). Harry is bull-headed at times and doesn't always listen to Hermione, and Hermione is bossy, antisocial, and a bookworm. These things don't bode well for a long-term romantic relationship, but I believe they'd both grow out of these traits with time. As friends who don't have to deal with the stresses of constant contact living together as a couple (and the stresses of children, etc. together), they have the "breathing room" to cement their platonic attachment.

It thus seems to me much more believable to read H/Hr fics where they get together several years after school, after Harry finally has the maturity to realize that Hermione really is the one who's always there for him, and Hermione has learned to temper her controlling nature a bit. They've handled a lot of this by the time we first see them together after the beginning of this story (in 2005), though there are still remnants: Hermione is quicker to lose her temper initially and overconfident at her intellectual abilities, while both Hermione and Ginny recognize that Harry is still inconsistently thoughtful toward them. As the years pass, Harry grows to love Hermione's intellect, even when he doesn't always comprehend it, and Hermione softens her attitude. A final element thrown into the mix is Harry's humor: Ron did have the ability to make Hermione laugh and to entertain her, but Harry increasingly finds ways to bond with her that way (even though she's initially resistant), which finally fills in perhaps the one significant gap that drove her toward Ron in the first place.

So, while I don't think it would take 19 years to work out the stuff that would make romance actually easy for them, I also don't think it would have likely been just a "happily ever after" had they continued in their stumbled-upon interaction of the Prologue. In some ways, I think they begin to rediscover their love around the time that it would have worked for them ideally anyway. However, by that point they're already in other committed relationships. (Blame JKR, not me, for that.)

A final element to note is that I thoroughly believe it's possible for platonic and romantic love to mix (isn't that the point of Harmony to begin with?). That also means it's very possible for platonic love to exist between people who are otherwise attracted to each other. Hence, Harry and Hermione don't really "suffer" in this story by being apart unless they deny their platonic relationship -- and that basically doesn't happen. There's a short period where they basically entrench around their families to have more kids (which are a huge distraction and time sink, so would there even be much time for platonic friendships?), and there's another period where they back off from each other physically but clearly remain close friends otherwise. But it's not really until the last couple years before the epilogue that the true possibility of romantic love comes to them. As Hermione makes clear at several points, what's most important to them both is their friendship and the emotions that go with that. Hence the Doctor Zhivago quotation at the end about the nature of love, in its ideal form. Romance (and ultimately sexual contact) is merely the "whipped cream" on top of the continuous foundation of pumpkin pie.

Or, at least, that's my philosophy on Harmony.