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Milestones | ||||||
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Category: Post-DH/AB Characters:None Genres: Angst, Fluff, General, Romance Warnings: None Rating: G Reviews: 30 Summary: A selection of one-shots, told from Ginny's POV and focusing on the lives of her and Harry directly after the battle. Kind of a follow on to my one-shot 'Silence', but it's not necessary to read that one first. Hitcount: Story Total: 12914; Chapter Total: 2308 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: So usually, I sit on chapters for weeks before publishing them, because I just love torturing myself with indecision. This chapter was written in two days and finished 5 minutes before publication. (I may have had a very slow week at work). Please be gentle if there are mistakes. As always, constructive criticism is welcome! |
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Ginny still wasn't sure how this day had turned out so badly. It had started well. She'd woken to snow falling softly outside, a fluffy white blanket on the grounds around the Burrow. She could feel magic in the air with Christmas around the corner and felt, for the first time since Fred had died, that maybe they could celebrate something properly now. She'd had an idea that she'd take Harry to the village to buy Christmas presents. Ottery St Catchpole was a predominantly muggle village. The only other wizard families nearby — the Diggorys and Lovegoods — weren't likely to be visiting the village and would certainly not cause them any trouble. They'd only go into the muggle shops though, she thought, just in case. They'd be able to go around unnoticed and just enjoy the day together without being recognised. How naïve. They'd not even reached the village before Ginny realised, too late, how much the Burrow's wards were protecting them. Nothing terribly bad had happened — no Death Eaters or people trying to attack them — but she hadn't really understood, before, the depth of fascination that Harry inspired in people. The village was teeming with wizards. Really, she should have expected it. The wizarding community was tight knit. It wouldn't have been hard to find what area they lived in, even if the exact address was warded. She just hadn't thought, this far after the war, that it would be an issue. Objectively, it was quite funny. The wizards were doing a terrible job of blending in. Everywhere she looked there were cloaks in garish colours, pointed hats and wizard's robes. One witch walked around with an owl perched precariously on her shoulder, its head tucked securely under one wing as it slumbered. A tiny, wizened old man looked at first glance like a muggle, until she realised he was wearing flip flops in the snow and had disguised his wand very poorly as a spatula. Groups of children squatted on the floor, shrieking every time the Gobstones game they were playing spat out its nasty-smelling liquid at them. It had been mayhem once they'd been noticed. The moment they'd appeared, there'd been a stampede towards them as they all cried out for Harry's attention. They didn't seem to want much from him — not really — but they’d reached out hands to grasp his shoulder, or his arm, or to pat his face, just delighted to be in his presence. He and Ginny were quickly surrounded and pulled apart. Caught in the mob, Ginny had lost sight of Harry as he'd politely and repeatedly shaken hands and asked for some privacy. She'd been pushed and shoved, the crowd all eager to battle their way through to him. One old witch had jabbed an elbow so violently into Ginny's stomach that she'd doubled over, temporarily winded, and had finally lost her patience. She'd raised her wand to bat-bogey hex the old crone when Harry had appeared suddenly at her side, looking murderously angry, and had grabbed her hand and apparated them away. They landed on a hill a short distance from the Burrow. Ginny could see the crooked outline of her home against the dull white sky, safe behind invisible wards. She turned her head and saw Harry standing next to her, facing away, one hand rolling his wand against his leg in agitation. She felt a terrible wave of guilt. Which was stupid really, given that it wasn't her fault that Ottery St Catchpole had suddenly turned into a Harry Potter fan convention. It was her idea to go there though, so she felt guilty all the same. The stiff set of Harry's shoulders was enough to tell her how he felt about the trip. The look on his face, however, when he turned to her, was anything but angry. He looked exhausted. His eyes seemed dull, even against his pale skin. Ginny had come back from training camp a few days earlier and hadn't failed to notice the purple smudges under his eyes, but he'd seemed to upbeat, so happy to see her, that she'd thought it was just down to the late nights he and Ron were putting in at work and living it up in their bachelor pad. Not that Grimmauld Place could really be called a bachelor pad, she thought. It was still far too stuffy, far too creepy in places. The rooms they'd cleared out and redecorated though — fumigated, where necessary — were now almost cosy, reminiscent of the Gryffindor common room, with squashy armchairs and boxes of sweets scattered around. Now that Molly had stopped visiting every other day and their work often meant they missed dinner at the Burrow, Ginny had assumed that Ron and Harry had just descended back into their fifteen-year old selves, staying up late playing chess and regretting it the next day when they had to go to work. She wondered now if there was another reason he was so exhausted. Looking at him, he seemed much more tired than just a few late nights. He looked devastated, an absence of energy that made staying on his feet possible through sheer force of will. He heaved a sigh and she felt a cold tendril of fear in her stomach for the first time. “I'm so tired of this, Gin.” She stiffened, bracing herself. Surely he couldn't mean... “Tired...of us?” She asked quietly, dreading the answer. He jerked his head up to meet her eyes. “What? No, why would you think that? I'm not tired of us. I'm tired of this,” he gesticulated vaguely around them and Ginny, although as confused as ever, felt a slight lessening of the knot in her chest. “I'm not quite following, Harry.” He sighed again. “I'm tired of it being this hard to spend time with you. It's been eighteen months, Gin. Eighteen months and they still want to worship me as some kind of hero when I just want to be left alone.” Ginny moved closer to him and he reached out absentmindedly and pulled her against his chest. “You are a hero to them, though,” she said gently. She felt him take a breath to argue with her and put a hand up to stop his response. “I know you say that anyone would have done what you did, and it's not really heroic when you have no choice and blah blah blah, but it is, Harry. Even as a child you did it without thinking.” She realised her mistake straight away, because of course he’d been a child for all of it, really. Been much younger than anyone should have been to face such trials. She pressed on anyway. “Nobody made you go after the Philosopher's Stone in your first year. Nobody made you save me from the Chamber in second year. You just did it, because it’s you. It's not just the war that you're a hero for, it's all of it. Ever since you came into the wizarding world you've been fighting, and it's such a normal thing for you to do that you don’t even think it's anything special.” She expected him to start denying it, but he just stared at her, mouth slightly open. “Merlin, I want to marry you,” he laughed weakly. Ginny raised her head so fast that she nearly knocked Harry’s front teeth out. “What? You want to- Now? I mean, obviously not now now, but...we're too young, Harry! My career's barely started, we don't have anywhere to live — unless you throw Ron out and I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you did, but-” Harry stopped her with a kiss. He ran a hand through his hair when he pulled back and blew out a frustrated breath. “That's not what I'm saying. I know you're not ready for any of that. Merlin, I'm not ready. But I'm done, Gin. I don't want anyone else. I just want you and me, maybe some cute little red-headed babies in a few years. We'll see. Whatever you want. Whatever makes you happy.” Ginny noticed the faint red flush on his cheeks as he admitted this, and her stomach fluttered. “But I'm so tired of it being this hard,” he admitted. “I just want to pretend that we're a normal couple. After the war we came straight back into this relationship — and I'm not complaining — but we missed out on all the fun, light-hearted bit at the start. I just want to go on a date with you where Hermione has to tell me what to wear because I'm so clueless, and Ron laughs himself sick at me, and I stress over whether to hold your hand or not. Just stupid things. Not Aurors and interviews and crap. Can we just...forget? Just for a while, that I'm me and you're you, and just pretend that there isn't this weight of expectations hanging over us?” Ginny's heart throbbed. She wanted what he'd said. Wanted more than anything to just live a normal life with him. But they weren't normal, either of them. She was the girl who'd opened her heart to Voldemort's soul, and he...he was Harry Potter. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, and she couldn't forget it. So she just gazed at him, closer and further away than they’d been in months, each silently watching the snow drift around them like ashes. *** All she could say was, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Hermione had come up with the solution, and it was so simple that Ginny couldn’t understand why she’d not thought of it before. The older girl grinned at her over the bubbling potion and Ginny beamed in response. Of course, it wasn’t quite the same as going out as themselves, but it was better than getting mobbed. Hermione ladled the Polyjuice potion into two flasks and stoppered them up before handing them over to Ginny. “Remember, you have to take it-” “Every hour,” Ginny interrupted. “I know.” Hermione nodded and started vanishing the potion supplies in front of her. Ginny stared down at the bottles in her hand and wondered if she was doing the right thing. Why should they have to hide? Why couldn’t people just leave them alone? As angry as she was though, she understood why people reacted to Harry like they did. She’d done it herself, as a child, and all he’d done then was have the fortune not to die as a baby. It was even harder now, not to be awestruck by someone who’d done the things he had as a teenager. Not that he was perfect, she thought with a snort. Only last week she’d gone to see him at Grimmauld Place and had found him slumped asleep on the sofa, mouth open, surrounded by chocolate frog wrappers and crumpled up bits of parchment, a strong smell of dirty socks in the air. She’d woken him up rather unceremoniously by spelling the curtains wide open and charming the kitchen bin to come swinging into the room to scoop up the rubbish. Harry — famous hero and Auror, master of Defence Against the Dark Arts — had scrambled to his feet, looking around confusedly for the intruder, and had tripped over the handle of his Firebolt 250 (who keeps a broomstick on their living room floor? Ginny had wondered), before scowling up at her through a mop of messy black hair. Ginny, of course, had nearly wet herself laughing, and it had taken a great effort for her to calm down enough to soothe his stubbed toe and bruised ego. He was better than Ron though, she thought, and gave a shudder when she considered the state of her brother’s room at Grimmauld Place. She’d only caught sight of it once, through the closing door, as he frantically threw dirty plates and odd shoes into his wardrobe before Hermione came over for a visit. Harry's room had at least been passably clean, the few times she’d managed to get in there before Molly had interrupted them. She had a distinct suspicion that her mum had spelled it to alert her whenever Ginny crossed the threshold. It didn’t matter too much though; she’d not spelled the broom shed at the Burrow, and luckily neither Harry or Ginny was scared of spiders. Ginny thanked Hermione and went off to Grimmauld Place to find Harry. Even as the house shuddered into view in front of her, she still didn’t know how he was going to react. Hermione had reassured her that Harry would just be pleased to spend time with her, but the memory of that day on the hill outside the Burrow, when they’d looked at each other like strangers, kept coming into her head. She slipped into the house and stood listening for a moment. After the initial round of renovations, Harry and Ron had somewhat lost their enthusiasm for decorating, and the hallway was still as sober and unwelcoming as ever. She knew part of the reason was that it was hard for Harry, being here when Sirius had hated it so much. He couldn’t bring himself to part with it though, the last tangible reminder he had of his godfather. She padded softly downstairs and into the kitchen, where the muted hum of a radio drifted towards her. Harry was sat at the table, reading a newspaper while clumsily spooning soup into his mouth from a bandaged hand. She looked him over quickly and was relieved that he didn’t seem injured anywhere else. Before she could say anything, Harry had spun, raised his wand and hauled her into the air by an ankle. She shrieked and pulled her blouse down — or rather, up — from where it fell over her face. Harry smirked at her. “Harry!” she exclaimed. “Let me down!” Harry raised one dark eyebrow and tutted. “Now, now. You should know better than to sneak into the house of an Auror, Ginevra.” Ginny squirmed as she rotated slowly in mid-air. Harry knew she hated her full name. “Harry James Potter you put me down now!” she snapped furiously. Secretly, it was hard to be angry at him when he was looking at her like that, with a spark in his eyes and laughter on his lips. His mock-stern face cracked into a grin and he was raising his wand to release her when the two potion flasks in her pocket made their way loose and fell, with a loud thunk, onto the kitchen floor. Harry froze, wand raised, as he stared at them. He took a few steps backward, his face instantly wary, and levelled his wand at her heart. The look on his face was equal parts horror and panic as he bent to unstopper one of the bottles, wand hand never wavering. “Polyjuice potion?” he whispered. His green eyes met hers and she realised her mistake, realised how this would look to him, that she’d appeared in his house with Polyjuice potion. He thought she was an imposter. “Oh Merlin, Harry, no!” she cried. She struggled again to get free from the charm, but it was no use. “It’s me, it’s Ginny! I’m sorry, just let me explain!” Even as she spoke, she realised how little use it would be. It was exactly what an imposter Ginny would say. She wracked her brain to come up with something that only she would know. Her brain provided her with nothing but white noise. “Flu Hermione!” she exclaimed. “She helped me brew the potion, ask her about it, Harry!” She could see him wavering slightly. After all, Grimmauld Place was spelled; it would have been almost impossible for someone to find him here — unless they’d tortured the real Ginny into telling them the location. She felt a throb of fear in her stomach when she thought of him realising that. He must be terrified. She was starting to feel faint, a mixture of panic and the blood rushing to her head. Harry was watching, his face a mask as he fought with himself about what to do. Eventually, quicker than she would have thought possible, even for an Auror, he disarmed her, let her loose, and put her in a full-body bind. He caught her before she crashed to the ground and laid her gently down. He avoided looking at her the whole time, but she could see the pulse beating frantically in his throat. He strode away to the fireplace and threw in the flu powder, yelling for Hermione. Ginny could see a sliver of his stiff back as he waited for an answer. Her nose started itching fiercely from the dust on the floor. Hermione’s puzzled face appeared and Harry crouched down to speak to her. He kept glancing back at Ginny. She could just make out their low voices and thought that one day she and Hermione — and maybe even Harry — would laugh about this. Right now though, all she wanted to do was cry. There was a scuffle as Hermione climbed bodily out of the fireplace. “The problem you have, Harry,” she was saying, as she walked over to Ginny’s prone form, “is that I could also be an imposter. How do you know that I’m the real Hermione? I told you we should have set up safe words.” Ginny groaned internally. Hermione was right of course, but why, why would she say that when Harry was already so wound-up? Harry stood back near the fire. His wand was still out and pointing in their direction, but she thought he’d lost his conviction. He ran a hand over his face and gazed at her wretchedly. Hermione sighed. “That night in the tent, after Ron left,” she said quietly. “You tried to distract me with a game of chess, and I know you lost on purpose to try to cheer me up.” She moved slightly closer to Harry, her hands up like she was cornering a wild animal. “You thought it hadn’t worked, but it did, a bit. It made me really realise for the first time that I had the brother I’d always wanted, even if his prat of a best friend had broken my heart.” Ginny couldn’t see Hermione’s face, but she could see Harry’s and it was twisted in uncertainty. He raised his head and looked straight at Ginny. He didn’t move or make a sound, but her body released suddenly from the bind and she pushed to a sitting position with a groan. “That first time we went to the lake, after our first kiss, I told you that when I was eight I once clipped your face out of a newspaper and said goodnight to it every evening before I went to bed, and you didn’t laugh or call me crazy even though it’s one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever done.” She scrambled to her feet. “Apart from this,” she mumbled. There was a beat of silence, in which she and Harry stared at each other and Hermione pretended to ignore them. “Well, I guess I’m not needed here,” the older girl announced brightly. She gave Harry a quick pat on the shoulder as she passed him at the fireplace and murmured something that Ginny didn’t hear. With a whoosh of green flame, she disappeared. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the dripping of the kitchen tap. Ginny pulled out her wand and fixed it, but she saw Harry half-raise his own wand in alarm before catching himself. She stuffed her hands back into her pockets. He cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he rasped. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that for ages.” She shrugged. “The tap in the bathroom at the Burrow always drips and it drives me crazy. I have to fix it every other week.” They were talking like strangers again, she thought despairingly. The complete opposite of what she’d wanted. “I’m so sorry, Harry,” she whispered. He sighed, and ran a hand across his face. “Hermione said you were trying to surprise me with the potion so we could go out without being hassled,” he said. He was avoiding looking at her. “I’m sorry I overreacted, it’s just-” “No, it’s my fault,” Ginny interrupted. “I shouldn’t have turned up here with Polyjuice potion. It was stupid. I just wasn’t thinking.” There was another beat of silence. “We really should have a safe word,” Harry conceded. “Maybe I could do that thing you like, you know, where I suck on your earlobe and-” “Eww, Ginny, no! What if I was a Death Eater?” Harry laughed at last, and Ginny relaxed slightly. “Then I’ll know it’s not you when they don’t like it, won’t I?” she laughed back. They looked at each other, smiles fading slightly. “I really am sorry,” she said quietly. “I thought for a second that some Death Eaters had got you,” Harry admitted. She could see the remembered horror reflecting in his eyes. “And all my training just went out of the window and all I could think about was getting you back, but you looked so much like you and you sounded like you and-” Ginny stumbled over to him as he buried his head in his hands. “Ssshhh,” she soothed, rubbing his back. “I’m sorry. I’m here and I’m ok. It was just a stupid mistake.” He curled his body over hers and nodded against her neck. “Out of curiousity,” he mumbled into her skin, “who were we going to go out as?” “I kind of hadn’t thought that far ahead, actually,” Ginny admitted. “I thought we could just Accio some hair off some random muggles on our way out.” Harry snorted. “Knowing our luck, we’d get some escaped convicts or something.” Ginny laughed. Harry straightened back up slightly and she laid her head against his chest. “It’s not going to help though, long-term, is it?” she whispered. “We can’t just keep pretending to be other people.” Harry shook his head. His hands were soft against her waist. “I didn’t really mean those things I said, that day,” he rasped. “Or, I did mean them, but I don’t want to pretend that we’re other people. I love you. I just want to spend time with you.” He turned his face into her hair and inhaled. “I’m just so tired, Gin,” he admitted quietly. Ginny’s heart throbbed. She pulled away from him and he gave a small sound of protest before she reached up and framed his face in her hands. “Let’s just stay here and spend time together, then,” she whispered. She took Harry’s hand and led him, unprotesting, up the stairs and to his room. When Molly arrived, out of breath, four minutes later, she found them fully clothed on the covers, curled around each other like quotation marks, Harry snoring softly. Ginny blinked fiercely up at her mother as she gaped at them from the doorway. Ashamed, Molly pulled out her wand and summoned a blanket to drape gently over the slumbering pair as she quietly closed the door behind her. |
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