Friends by Antosha

Index

Chapter 1: Friends
Chapter 2: Fame
Chapter 3: The F Word
Chapter 4: Family
Chapter 5: First
Chapter 6: Forever
Chapter 7: Folly, Act I
Chapter 8: Folly, Act II
Chapter 9: Folly, Act III

Chapter 1: Friends

Author's Notes: This was my second post-DH take—one a bit more concerned with the fallout of the war.

Thanks as always to my beta, aberforths_rug!

Remus and Tonks’s was the worst. Not that the others hadn’t been dreadful–Colin’s, which was just unreal, Dennis pale and unblinking by the grave with their Muggle parents; Mrs. Weasley wailing at Fred’s, gathering her remaining children to her expansive bosom so that all that Harry could see was a forest of red hair and blotchy faces. And one bright, brown eye, locked on his.

He hadn’t been able to find an opportunity to talk to Ginny; it hadn’t seemed right, when there was so much else to deal with, when there were things that needed to be acknowledged first. And there was so much that the two of them needed to talk about. At the reception after Fred’s he had so wanted to sneak her away, but anywhere that Harry went there was a press of people–friends, well-wishers, reporters. Romilda Vane had shown up in a set of black robes that looked much better suited to a night club than a memorial and had sniffled and rubbed as close to Harry as she could until he had hissed, “You’re sixteen, for God’s sake! Did your mother let you leave the house in that outfit?”

Romilda had burst into tears in earnest, and had fled; Ginny shot him a blotchy smirk and then went back to consoling her mother.

Tonks and Remus, though…

There were very few mourners–even after all that had happened, few mourned the death of a werewolf; and Tonks was tarred as a half-breed blood-traitor by one group, a Black by another, a renegade by many in the MLES, and the degenerate who married and coupled with a murderous creature by most of the rest.

Most of the surviving members of the Order were there, but only Charlie represented the Weasleys. Bill was at Shell Cottage with Fleur, who was feeling ill, Percy was back in hospital–though the Healers were very pleased with his progress–and George was in no condition to attend a second funeral the morning after his twin’s, nor were their parents–the Healers had apparently given them enough Dreamless Sleep Potion to keep them out through the afternoon. Ron had left with Hermione immediately after Fred’s service to collect her parents from Australia. Charlie mumbled glumly to Harry that he and Ginny had drawn straws to see who would represent the family at the Tonks’s service, and who would keep picking up the pieces at home. “I won,” Charlie said.

“Lucky you,” grunted Harry, wishing more than anything that that long straw could have ended up in a smaller, softer, less burn-marked hand.

“Funny,” Charlie said, though his smile was somber. “She said exactly the same thing.”

As the small group congregated by the dual gravesite, Harry saw Andromeda Tonks standing beside the wizard with the tufty hair who had presided over Dumbledore’s funeral and Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Her face was as pale as Harry remembered her sister Bellatrix’s being, but the deep sorrow that etched it was an expression that Harry couldn’t imagine Mrs. Lestrange ever wearing. In her arms a tiny baby blew bubbles and tried to eat the hair that seemed to have much more grey in it than Harry remembered seeing on his one meeting with Tonks’s mother the year before.

Teddy.

Harry’s godson.

Behind them Harry spied a head of wild, dirty blonde hair. Standing slightly apart from the other mourners, Luna swayed, tree-like, in a white dress that looked quite lovely on her, but that would have been far more appropriate if she had been getting married than attending a burial. As she leaned gently from side to side her lips moved, and Harry was seized with the sudden certainty that she was reciting her own eccentric farewell to the dead. As the lovely sing-song voice of the presiding wizard droned on, Harry wished that he could hear whatever it was that she was saying or singing; he was sure that he would find far more comfort in her odd words than in any platitudes the nice old gent might spout.

There came the now-familiar burst of flame, and the two corpses were encased in a block of granite.

It was finished.

A line quickly formed to offer Mrs. Tonks condolences; Harry made sure that he was last. He noticed that Luna had wandered off among the other gravestones and seemed to be talking to them.

“I’m really sorry for your loss, Mrs. Tonks,” Harry murmured when he finally reached the front of the line.

She favored him with a sad smile that immediately brought to mind her daughter’s, and Harry found himself truly crying for the first time. “You know you must be in bad shape,” she said, handing him one of the conjured handkerchiefs that she was holding in her free hand, “when Harry Potter can find your lot tragic.”

He took the handkerchief and returned her smile. “Tonks… Nymphadora was… the best. She was just… And Remus. I…”

“I know, Harry,” she answered, and the tears were flowing down her aristocratic cheeks again. She rocked little Teddy, who was fast asleep. “They were very proud to be counted your friends.”

Harry started to say he regretted it, that he wished that they hadn’t been his friends–that they might have survived–but he couldn’t. He knew that it wasn’t true. “Sorry about your husband, too,” he sniffled, and she nodded.

They stood there, weeping, for a good long time. When he finally felt as if he could talk, Harry said, “I know there wasn’t a ceremony or anything, but Remus asked me to be Teddy’s godfather. If you need–”

“Teddy will stay with me,” Andromeda said, and for the first time since they had actually been introduced, Harry saw some of the Black fierceness in her eyes.

“Of course!” Harry agreed, relieved. He had considered the possibility that Mrs. Tonks might wish to be rid of a constant reminder of her loss, but the idea of raising a baby, when he was only seventeen himself… “But please–if there’s anything that I can do. Any time that I can help... Money–I’ve got more than I can use, including some that you and he are more entitled to than I am…!”

At this Andromeda laughed moistly. “Merlin!” she said. “Can you imagine what old Aunt Walpurga would say if Teddy or I were to step into that house? The blood traitor and her half-breed grandson?” Again, her smile had a Tonks-like air of mischief to it. “Well, I turned my back on the Black family long ago, Harry, and I want none of what was theirs. But thank you. I think we will be fine–but I can’t say that a helping hand would be unappreciated. Raising babies is hard work.” Leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek, she added, “And a child needs a man around sometimes, Harry. I couldn’t be prouder than if my Teddy had you for a role model.”

Blushing and continuing to cry, Harry thanked her and they parted with a commitment from Harry to spend at least two afternoons every week with his godson. Harry had wanted to promise more–to come every day–but Andromeda had insisted. “You’ve a life to live, Harry. There are other worthy demands on your time and heart than this one, I think.”

Harry approached the tombstone: though it was grey, the stone was shot through with veins of purple that Harry felt sure that both Remus and Tonks would have approved of. He began tracing the two names with his fingers.

“Can’t believe it,” sighed a gruff voice–Charlie. “She was my best mate at Hogwarts, Tonks. Potions partners for seven years. First Hogsmeade date. First kiss. I mean, not like we were aflame with passion, or whatever it is that silly Days of Destiny program that Mum listens to is always on about. It’s just hard to think…” He shook his head; the hair seemed finally to have grown out from the wedding the previous summer.

“Yeah,” Harry muttered. “And Remus…”

“If ever a bloke deserved happiness… Well, I guess they had it, even if it wasn’t for very long.” Charlie’s bluff gaze found Teddy and his grandmother, who were thanking the wizard who had presided over the funeral. “Oi,” said Charlie with a start. “Speaking of blokes who deserve some happiness. My little squirt of a sister wanted me to tell you that she has the rest of your birthday present, and maybe you can come by this Saturday to collect it. That this Saturday happens to be a day when Mum and Dad are going over to Shell Cottage to spend some time with the eldest and his lovely lady, and that Ginny’s arranged for me to take George back to his shop for the first time…. Well, that’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Probably,” Harry said, very aware that not only was he continuing to cry, but his cheeks were turning rather red.

“Listen, Harry,” said Charlie, an atypical seriousness in his tone, “our Ginny is as tough as nails. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t treat her right. She’s more than capable of making your life miserable if you don’t–and six… And five brothers will back that up.”

“I won’t,” Harry answered fervently. “I could never hurt her. I promise.”

“I think that’s a promise you’ve already broken, Harry.” Harry was suddenly very aware that Charlie’s shoulders were nearly twice the width of his own. “It’s only because Ginny herself made it… painfully clear that she knew you never meant to hurt her that you haven’t had a visit from the lot of us who are still standing. So I’m just saying–”

“There’s only one person in the world whose needs I care about anywhere near as much as I do Ginny’s,” Harry said, looking into Charlie’s deep blue eyes, “and that’s my godson’s.”

Charlie frowned at him for a moment and then nodded. “Okay.” Charlie started to walk away, but turned back. “Oi, Harry?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Dunno what gift it is that Ginny’s got in mind for you, and I really don’t want to. But whatever it is, take it from me–birds love to be thanked properly. So do it right.”

Thinking that this was probably yet another tidbit from the book he’d never had a chance to read–Twelve Failsafe Ways to Charm Witches–he smiled. “Right,” he said as Charlie grinned, waved and departed. “Absolutely.”

Harry turned back to the tomb, his mind filled with images of bright eyes and soft, flower-scented hair and… So many things to say. To talk about. Hell, Remus, he thought, wish I could have asked you for some advice. And then he considered the two who lay beneath the stone, and realized that Remus was even more useless with the whole romance thing than Harry was himself. And Tonks probably would have been much more helpful, but her advice would almost certainly have been humiliatingly practical.

He found himself laughing as he cried; he removed his glasses, which were useless at this point, and laid both hands on the stone, which was warming in the late spring sun.

“Laughing at funerals is a good sign,” said an airy voice not far from him. “It keeps the Nargles from running wild.”

Barely startled–as if he had been expecting just such a statement–Harry laughed. “We wouldn’t want that,” he said.

“Oh, no,” said Luna, and then did something that she had never done: she circled her arms around his chest and lay her head on his shoulder. Harry found the gesture comforting, but at the same time it was so out of the usual sort of thing that passed between them that he stood stiffly in her hug for a moment before patting her back awkwardly. “Oh, Ginny was right,” Luna murmured into his neck. “Your shoulders are very nice.”

“Nicer than Dean’s?” he asked, his laugh thinner than normal.

“His are lovely, but yours truly are nice, Harry.” She snuggled in and sighed. “She talked all last autumn about how she missed them, and now I see why.”

“She missed… my shoulders?”

“Well, she missed other parts as well,” Luna answered. “Your eyes and your neck. Your lips. Your chest–”

“Right,” Harry said briskly. “That’s good to know.” Harry’s mind, which he had spent a year disciplining not to think of her at all (except perhaps as a moving dot on a map) suddenly began cataloguing all of the very various parts of Ginny, seen and unseen, visible and ethereal, that it had missed. There were many. “So! You and Dean!”

“Do you think so?” Luna asked, slowly releasing him.

“Sure,” he said. He hadn’t really thought about it much–just noticed the time they spent together at Shell Cottage, and a couple of times holding hand. Now that he thought about it, Harry thought it was lovely–Luna deserved to have someone great, and aside from Neville, who seemed to feel about Luna the way that Harry did about Hermione, Dean was one of the few boys that he could think of who really deserved her. It was easy to admit it, now that Dean was no longer a rival for Ginny’s affections: he was a good bloke. “Yeah. I think so.”

“How nice,” Luna said. “His shoulders may not be as pleasant as yours, but I’m rather fond of his sternum, and he kisses rather well. Also, he is very kind to my father without being at all condescending, and not many people are.”

“Luna,” Harry said, and after months of not even thinking of it, the image of Xenophilius Lovegood’s fear-twisted face suddenly filled Harry’s mind, “is your dad okay?”

“I think he’s rather wonderful,” answered Luna, who was now trailing a finger along the edge of the tombstone.

“Yeah,” mumbled Harry. “But… When after… We were here–”

“When he tried to turn you over to the Ministry Death Eaters, you mean,” Luna said, and her voice had an unusually hard edge to it. “I was very angry with Daddy about that. You could have been hurt, and then you wouldn’t have been able to help rescue me and Mr. Ollivander and the rest. Daddy is wonderful, but he is sometimes a bit lacking in vision.”

“But they didn’t hurt him?”

“Oh, no,” answered Luna, her tone tranquil once again. “Hermione’s stratagem worked. They were very pleased with my father for being so cooperative. They didn’t beat him or curse him at all.”

“Good,” Harry said. As Luna smiled back at him, another memory came back. “Oh! Luna! I’m so sorry! Your room! We ruined it.”

“Oh, Harry,” said Luna, her fingers touching his left shoulder lightly, “it was only the floor and my bed. The part of my room that I truly cared about is perfectly fine.” She gave him a sunny smile, and instantly an image of five beaming faces came to him, bound together by chains of friendship.

“Do you think you’ll be adding Dean up on your ceiling?” he asked.

She stared at him placidly for a moment. “I don’t know. That would be nice. But Harry, even if I never find another friend to add to my ceiling, the five of you will always be there, and that will always be enough.”

“Oh,” he said, and, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Harry.” Luna smiled again and then leaned down and whispered to the tombstone. “Do not worry about young Theodore. Your mother will take very good care of him, Nymphadora, I am sure, and Harry will help her. And we will help him.” And then, lifting the train of her white, lacy robes with one hand, she waved goodbye to Harry with the other and disappeared with a pop so quiet that he could have almost convinced himself that it wasn’t there.

Only he knew that it was.

Back to index

Chapter 2: Fame

Author's Notes: You are who your actions and choices define you to be.

(Takes place a week after Friends; I'm thinking of calling this series The F Words ;-).)

Fame

Sitting in his best black robes, which Kreacher had pressed and brushed until they positively glistened, listening to one speaker after another describe a person that he wouldn’t in a million years recognize, Harry decided that he would rather have been back at one of the funerals.

True, Fred had been, as Mr. Diggory said, “warm and generous to a fault,” but glancing down the length of the head table at a line of grave faces beneath bright red hair, Harry knew that they were thinking as he was that Fred would have hated this. Hadn’t he said…?

But that had been about his wedding–the wedding Fred would never have. In a way, Harry thought, Fred had got his wish: he’d never had to bother with all of the fuss of getting married. Harry glanced down the table again, spying Ginny, who was looking out into the packed atrium of the Ministry with bright eyes and her chin held high as if daring anyone to try to make her start to cry.

What would she look like in white, rather than black? What would it feel like to stand, holding those small, strong hands, staring into those same bright eyes?

Would she still be interested? Perhaps someone else…

But she wanted to give him the rest of his birthday present. Whatever that meant.

For a moment, that morning in her room so long ago pushed the present away and he could feel the slide of her lips against his, her hips against his, her unique, floral scent and the warmth of her hair between his fingers…

Then the audience clapped politely, and the present pushed its way back into his awareness.

Beside Harry, Hermione sniffled; Ron, who was looking thoroughly bored, nonetheless squeezed her hand.

The rest of his birthday present. What did that mean?

Professor Flitwick began to rhapsodize about Fred’s imagination and his innate skill with Charms–and the ways in which those skills had saved lives during the past, dark year. This Fred at least was one that Harry could recognize.

Looking out into the first row, Harry found the Grangers, newly returned from Australia, looking happy and tan, beaming up at their daughter. The last year–the war, the terror, the deaths–hadn’t happened for them, and Harry couldn’t help but envy them.

Beside them sat two families who looked as if they would rather eat ground glass than hear about Fred Weasley’s virtues: the Malfoys, who were still looking much the worse for wear, and a trio that could only be the Parkinsons. Draco looked supremely uninterested, and Pansy kept swatting his hand from off of her knee. Of the six, only Narcissa Malfoy seemed to be able to maintain an expression of polite interest.

It was possible, Harry thought, that he felt more warmly and more forgiving of her than towards any of the rest because he owed her his life.

Three rows behind Pansy, Harry spotted another head of black hair that he could have done without having seen: Romilda Vane, who was wearing the same ridiculous set of robes that she’d worn to Fred’s funeral. Her face was turned towards the podium with an expression of studied fascination that Harry didn’t buy for a minute, in part because she had her torso faced towards him, her arms pressing together a cleavage that had never held any interest for Harry, but certainly not at a ceremony such as this.

Finally Kingsley got up and made the actual presentation–Order of Merlin, Second Class. George got up and accepted it, speechless for once, the huge audience applauded and Harry’s sense of ill ease quadrupled. Like the crowd, who began to lean forward, he knew what was coming next.

Thankfully, there would be only one testimonial: Professor McGonagall. Standing tall and ramrod-straight as ever, she strode to the podium, touched her wand to her throat and began to speak. “Over the course of nearly fifty years as a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it has been my pleasure,” she said, her voice echoing in the huge space now unencumbered by any monumental statue, “it has been my pleasure to teach students who were great scholars and taught me more than a thing or two about my own subject; great citizens, who re-imagined the social structure of Hogwarts and of our society; outstanding theorists and spell-weavers whose imagination and skill when it came to magic knew no bounds.”

Peering out into the crowd. McGonagall closed her mouth in its familiar straight, thin-lipped line before the edges twitched up, cat-like. “Harry Potter was never one of those students.”

The audience gave a quiet collective gasp; Hermione let out a huff of surprise. Then, at the other end of the table, Ginny snorted and Harry couldn’t hold it in any longer–he had to laugh, and his laughter set off a long rolling wave of tittering that broke across the hall.

When the crowd had finally quieted again, Professor McGonagall continued, “Please don’t misunderstand me–Mr. Potter was a more than passable student. I am given to understand that when it came to Defense, he was first in his class, topping even the indomitable Miss Hermione Granger. And he was of course an excellent Seeker. Yet he was not what we usually think of at Hogwarts as a student leader.” She leaned forward on the podium, something that Harry had seen her do to great effect a thousand times in the classroom–but never from the side. “Yet as we have all discovered Harry Potter is truly the best kind of leader–one who leads not by speeches or by force of will, but simply by example. From the time that I met him, Mr. Potter’s senses of justice and of duty and his utter lack of a sense of self-preservation were so close to the core of who he was that scarcely a year went by while he was at school in which I did not fear quite seriously for his life at least twice. Against his own stated intentions, he became the conscience of the school in the fight against the hatred and bigotry represented by the so-called Lord Voldemort, when, during the two most shameful periods in which it was my duty to serve as a teacher at Hogwarts, an underground group of students known as Dumbledore’s Army chose him as their teacher and–whether he acknowledged it or not–as their role model. Throughout the year in which Dolores Umbridge terrorized students and faculty, attempting to turn the night of the Dark Lord’s return into the balmy day of denial, and during this past year, when Hogwarts became as much a prison as a place of learning, Harry Potter’s steadfastness, his courage and his unwillingness to settle for what many of us heard Albus Dumbledore refer to as that which was easy, as opposed to that which was right–all of these served as beacons to the community at Hogwarts and throughout wizarding Britain. For we all knew that while the Death Eaters and their friends continued the attempt to throttle the best of what we have to offer, yet while there was breath in Harry Potter’s body, he would not rest, would not submit, would not stop fighting until justice truly was served and the Side of Light truly victorious.”

Bright-faced, McGonagall paused to catch her breath, and Harry found that he too was breathless–he did not think that he had ever heard his one-time head of house speak so forcefully at such great length. She continued again, her expression more somber. “Many followed Harry’s example over the past year, fighting on when all seemed hopeless. Some paid grievously for doing so. Some died. And yet we fought on because we knew and trusted that Harry himself would do no less. Nor did he. In spite of his tender years and of the great risk to his own person, he waged the campaign that eventually made it possible to vanquish the dark shadow that lay across our bright land. He delivered himself up to Voldemort to save those of us who were fighting at the castle, and through that act protected us more potently than even he could have known. He delivered himself up in the sure knowledge that he was walking to his death, and yet when that long night at last gave way to dawn, it was Voldemort who lay there dead in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, his army defeated, and not this young man. It is my honor, my privilege and my pleasure to present to you this young leader–this young hero. Harry. James. Potter.”

If Harry had thought that he was breathless before it was nothing to what he felt now as the entire throng let out a roar such as Harry had never heard. He felt as if he were Apparating, squeezed under the weight of the tumult. Astonished, he sat there, mouth agape, as a sound rolled over him, until Ron and Hermione began pushing him up and towards the podium. He stumbled, blinking, to where Professor McGonagall stood, smiling broadly, and he was so overwhelmed by a feeling of warmth for this stern Scot that he did something he could never in a million years have imagined himself doing: he threw his arms around her and embraced her.

“Oh, my!” Professor McGonagall stiffened in Harry’s arms–it shocked him to realize how much taller than her he now was–before patting his back with a fluttering hand. “That will do, Potter,” she said in what was no doubt meant to be a stern tone, and Harry released her. She was standing imperiously again, but her cheeks sported vivid red circles as she strode back to her chair, and Harry smiled as the ovation washed on.

“Not going to hug me too, are you?” rumbled a low, unmistakable voice in Harry’s ear, and Harry was suddenly reminded of what was about to happen. Turning, he saw that Kingsley Shacklebolt was grinning, but apprehensive.

“Think you’re safe,” Harry mumbled, and Kingsley smiled, casting a Sonorus as he turned to crowd who stilled.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the acting Minister for Magic, his bass tones rattling the glass windows that overlooked the atrium, “there is very little for me to say. All of you know Harry Potter, or at least believe that you do. All of you know what he did to end the war and to sweep away the corruption that had attempted to choke our society at its source. When the Wizengamot passed the act founding the Order of Merlin over four hundred years ago, the virtues that were to qualify one for membership were enumerated as follows: valor, charity of spirit, honor and humility. I have known Mr. Potter for the better part of three years, and in that time have personally seen him embody each and every one of those virtues not once, but on numerous occasions. It is with a great sense of honor–and perhaps a little humility on my own part–that I present to Harry James Potter the Order of Merlin, First Class.”

Harry bowed his head as he had been told to do at this point, and he could feel the lump in his throat growing as Kingsley slipped the ribbon on which the heavy medal hung around his neck.

As Harry straightened, about to thank the Minister formally, he was knocked breathless as Kingsley’s arms crushed him.

“Didn’t say I wouldn’t hug you,” Kingsley laughed in his ear.

“Thanks a lot!” Harry laughed, rubbing his ribs only partly for effect. The Ministry officials on one side didn’t seem to know what to do with all of these displays of affection, but beyond them, Harry could see the entire Weasley clan laughing. All but Fred. And of course Ron, who was on the other side, his own brand-new Order of Merlin bouncing on his chest in time with Hermione’s matching medal as they both cheered and laughed.

There was another loud ovation, this one less deafening than the first, but no less lengthy. Harry looked out into the audience, looking for and finding familiar faces. There were no frowns now. Even the Malfoys were smiling, though Harry didn’t blame them for smiling less than warmly. He wasn’t sure that they were even capable.

Kingsley touched his wand to his own neck and then to Harry’s before stepping back from the podium, leaving Harry entirely alone.

Again the multitude fell silent, and again, Harry felt the weight of their anticipation press down on him.

Taking a glass of water and draining it without feeling any less dry, Harry looked around the audience, knowing how to start but not sure that he could. He hated speaking to groups, and here a thousand witches and wizards were waiting to hear what he had to say–more, he realized, remembering at last that the Wizarding Wireless Network was carrying this event live.

At one of the tables towards the back set up for the members of the press, Harry saw Luna Lovegood’s unmistakable mop of dirty blonde hair. She seemed to be smiling as calmly as ever, and seeing her seemed to fill him with some of that same calm; when at last he began to speak it was to her moon-like face. “Minister Shacklebolt, members of the Wizengamot, ladies and gentlemen…” He took a deep breath and found that he felt less nervous with every word. “Thank you. Thank you. I am overwhelmed that you have given someone as young as I am so great and so heavy an honor. Seven years ago, I didn’t even know the magical world existed, and yet here I am, singled out to accept its most prestigious medal, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that in addition to gratitude, I felt more than a little humbled.”

There was a round of quiet applause. The glass of water on the podium had magically refilled itself, and so he paused and sipped from it.

In the first row, the Grangers beamed up at him. Draco Malfoy was peering up at the ceiling while his father scowled down at the floor. Pansy simply scowled.

Good.

They were listening.

“As Professor McGonagall said, I’m not much for speaking, but I do want to say this: I’ve been singled out a lot over the years–some of it good, and some of it not. Some of it was because of things I did, and a lot of it wasn’t. The first day I came back into the wizarding community, I was swarmed by dozens of people who treated me like a celebrity because I was the Boy Who Lived, because of something that I didn’t even know about that my mum had done; she sacrificed herself for me in a way that protected me from Voldemort.” Harry paused, grinning grimly at the inevitable group shudder at the taboo name. Luna continued to smile at him serenely. “I’ve realized since then that it didn’t matter whether I was the one who vanquished the Dark Lord or was telling lies about the Ministry–people needed to believe that someone was doing those things, and I was there for the job. I’m proud of what I’ve done over the past seven years–learning magic, making friends, starting the DA, helping to fight against all of the injustice that Voldemort”–he didn’t bother to pause this time; let them get used to it–“and his supporters in the Ministry was trying to inflict on our community. I fought him, and I’m proud of that; in the end, he’s gone and I’m here, and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of the things that Professor McGonagall and Minister Shacklebolt said about me, not least because I respect their opinions a lot. But everything that I’ve done, everything that this medal symbolizes, was done with others. The price for the battle against Voldemort”–this time there was hardly a ripple, though the Malfoys flinched–“was paid by many, many people, fighting for themselves, fighting for each other: purebloods, half-bloods; and many, many Muggleborns, but even Muggles themselves. It was even paid by beings we don’t even think of as being our equals: werewolves, centaurs, goblins, giants, and house elves. They all fought–all–every bit as much as me or anyone else up here carrying one of these wonderful medals. They fought, and like Professor McGonagall said, some of them died so that all of us could live in a better world.” Pausing for breath again, Harry realized that the table where Luna was sitting, still smiling beatifically, was immediately in front of the Floo where the Cattermoles had made their escape. He wondered briefly if they were okay. He’d have to ask.

Shaking his head, he continued, “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m proud of this medal, proud that you’ve seen fit to give it to me. But everything that I did to come anywhere close to deserving this, I did with others.”

Again, Luna nodded; Draco Malfoy seemed to be rolling his eyes but his mother was gazing up shrewdly, a thin finger over arched lips.

As Harry was about to go on, Hagrid’s dulcet Dorset tones boomed out from somewhere near the main entrance. “Ya didn’t have no one with yer when ya walked into Old Snake Face’s camp and let him take a shot at yer!”

A murmur of agreement swept across the hall. Harry blinked.

The scene had been described in detail in both The Quibbler and the Prophet’s accounts of the battle; Xenophilius had got the story from Luna, who had got if from Harry himself, but where Rita Skeeter had scavenged it out, Harry could only guess. Hagrid perhaps, or the Malfoys.

“No one was with you then, Harry!” shouted a woman whom Harry did not recognize, and a number of voices joined hers.

People need to believe, Harry thought, blinking again, though his mind focused on the memory of that moment, of watching the green light of the Killing Curse burst from Voldemort’s wand, and he found himself turning to look at the face that had filled his thoughts then. Not blazing now, but bright and no less fierce, and open.

Without turning from her, Harry said, “I was never alone. Never.”

: :

As the applause rolled on once again, Harry stood in the midst of a crowd who were pressing up to congratulate him. Some of the faces surrounding him were full of an adulation that rather turned his stomach; he had to remind himself to be polite.

People want to believe.

Others had rather more thoughtful looks on their faces.

Chuckling into Harry’s ear, Kingsley murmured, “Werewolves! Goblins! House elves! I hope you know that you put the boot to everything that most wizards hold dear–not just the pureblood fanatics, but the everyday witch and wizard as well!”

“He knows!” squealed Hermione–who had helped him write his speech–and hugged him nearly as hard as Kingsley himself had earlier.

As Harry thanked the members of the crowd who were thronging up to him–he recognized Doris Crockford from that first day at the Leaky Cauldron so many years before; she broke into tears when he remembered her name–he kept looking for Ginny and her family, but they had withdrawn to a corner behind the stage, waiting for Harry to finish.

Andromeda Tonks, who had left Teddy with Molly Weasley’s old Aunt Muriel in order to accept a medal for her daughter, happened to walk up just as her sister pressed in from the other side. The two Blacks, their features giving witness to what everything else in their lives had denied stared at each other stonily and Harry felt dull ache shoot through his gut; he couldn’t stay silent. “Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy.” Turning to Mrs. Tonks, he said, “Your sister saved my life, that night in the forest. If she’d wanted to, she could have exposed me to Voldemort, but she didn’t.”

Mrs. Tonks pursed her lips, but looked her sister in the eye for the first time.

Through the throng behind Narcissa Malfoy, Harry could see her husband and son skulking, looking clearly ill at ease.

“I’m glad you found Draco,” Harry said to Narcissa. “I’m glad you found your family.”

The sisters flashed identical grey gazes at him and then at each other. “I was sorry to hear of your loss, Andie,” said Narcissa, not terribly convincingly–though at least she said it–and extended her hand.

“Thank you,” curtly answered Andromeda, pausing a moment, and taking it.

: :

The last group to surround Harry were the members of the press–the Wizarding Wireless Network News, the Prophet (“When did you know that you were the Chosen One, Harry?”), Witch Weekly and Teen Witch Weekly (“What’s your favorite dessert, Harry?”), La Presse Magique (“Ees eet true, ‘Arry, zat you ‘ave spent much times weeth ze younger daughter of Jean-August and Appolline Delacour?”), The Salem Gazette (“When are you coming to the States, Harry?”) and of course, The Quibbler, represented both by Luna and by her father, who looked much more like the blithe wizard who had attended Bill and Fleur’s wedding than the nervous man that Harry, Ron and Hermione had visited the previous winter.

As the last of the other reporters wandered away, taking loud bets over whose article would garner the largest headline, Mr. Lovegood ambled forward, Luna at his side, and extended his hand. “You are looking very well, young man!”

“Thanks, Mr. Lovegood. You too.”

“Do you mean,” Luna asked, “for a man who spent much of the past few months in Azkaban, or compared to the way he looked the day he tried to turn you over to the Death Eaters?”

Mr. Lovegood stared down at his feet like a chastened schoolboy, but Luna continued to smile at him.

“Both, I suppose,” Harry muttered.

“I am terribly sorry about that,” said Xenophilius, his smooth brow bent.

Before Harry could answer, Luna said, “It’s all right, Daddy. Harry understands that you only did it for me. Though it was a rather silly thing to do.”

Her father nodded thoughtfully and gazed at Harry.

“Yeah,” agreed Harry, thankful not to have to manage this conversation on his own.

“Well,” said Mr. Lovegood, glancing around to make sure that no one was terribly close by, “I must admit, I learned that I am, perhaps, not as worthy of Questing for the Hallows as I had hoped. You on the other hand, my boy…!” He beamed at Harry. “Definitely the epitome of a worthy Quester! Wouldn’t you say, Luna, my love?”

“Oh, yes, Daddy,” agreed Luna, smiling at Harry.

“Tell me,” whispered Xenophilius, “is that wand that you took from You-Know-Who really the Elder Wand?”

Harry tried to think how to answer this and decided that–since so many people had heard him talking about it during that last battle–the truth would have to suffice. “Yes, sir.”

“Wonderful,” sighed Xenophilius, an expression of transported rapture on his face that bore a striking resemblance to his daughter’s. “May I… see it?”

“Not at the moment, sir,” Harry said. “It’s hidden away, and I would be very happy for it to stay that way.”

“Ah, yes, yes,” murmured Luna’s father, nodding sagely but sadly. Then his expression turned shrewd, and he whispered, waggling his eyebrows significantly, “Are you perhaps hiding it under that rather remarkable Invisibility Cloak that Luna has told me of?”

“Er,” muttered Harry, peering at Luna, who seemed to be turning slowly in place, staring up at the ceiling. “Not at the moment.”

“I don’t suppose there is any hope of finding the Resurrection Stone as well… do you?” Xenophilius Lovegood looked at the moment like nothing more than a very old, very excited child.

Before Harry could answer, Luna took her father’s arm. “Of course not, Daddy. Now come along. We need to get the story finished so that we can get the special edition out to your subscribers in the morning.”

Harry gaped. Luna knew about the Stone–he had spoken with her about it at Shell Cottage. Yet clearly she chose not to reveal the full truth to her father. She led Mr. Lovegood away towards the bank of Floos on the far wall; just as they were about to step into the flames, she turned toward Harry and winked.

Winked! With eyes the size of Luna’s it was hard to miss, but nonetheless more than a bit shocking.

The custodial staff were beginning to clear away benches and clean up.

Harry shook his head.

A crowd stood near the elevators: eight heads of red hair. Harry strode toward them, his eyes focused on the smallest of them, who seemed to be looking determinedly Not At Him.

“Finished with your adoring public?” joked Ron.

“Oh, stuff it, Won-won,” teased George, though by his expression, his heart wasn’t in it. “If I had to watch another bird bat her eyes at you tonight, I’d have puked.”

Bill grinned a bit more fully. “Mostly I noticed a lot of older witches fussing over your hair, Ronnie. That Skeeter woman looked ready to eat you for afters, you rascal.”

“Well, you know Rita,” said Percy, lips pursed. “Anything for a story.”

“Percy!” gasped their mother, “how can you even think of making such a joke!”

“Hey,” laughed Charlie, “who knew that he could joke at all?”

“I am perfectly capable of delivering a witticism,” Percy muttered.

“Yeah, right,” snorted George.

“All right, George,” Percy said stiffly. “Say Knock, knock.”

With a bewildered snort, George took up the challenge. “Okay. Fine. Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” answered Percy, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Who…?” George gaped at his brother, his face contorted first in confusion, and then in laughter–low and groaning at first, but then full and loud and infectious. The whole family was roaring within seconds, and Harry couldn’t help but join in. It felt as if it had been far to long since he had truly laughed, and to see the Weasleys, who had been through so much…

When Ginny’s eyes, bright with amusement, at last met his once again, he thought perhaps that he had never felt quite so good. The applause was lovely, but this–

“Coming by the Burrow tomorrow, are you, Mr. Order of Merlin, First Class?” wheezed George as the laughter finally began to fade–though it echoed on through the huge, now-empty hall.

“Oh, yeah,” answered Charlie before Harry could respond. “He’s got to collect the rest of his present from Ginny, of course.”

Ginny’s gaze dropped to the floor; her skin, which had been mottled red by laughter, now flushed an even, deep crimson.

“Right, the one that we’re all supposed to be out of the house for,” said Ron. He crossed his arms over his be-medaled chest. “This wouldn’t be the birthday present that I interrupted last year, now would it?”

Ginny leveled a look at him that could have stripped paint, but Ron didn’t flinch.

Mr. Weasley attempted as always to keep the peace. “I’m sure that whatever it is that Ginny wishes to give Harry, it is perfectly appropriate.”

“Yeah,” snorted Charlie, “perfectly.”

“Perfectly appropriate,” Ron added, “for a girl to give her ex-boyfriend.”

“Who she’s hardly seen in a year,” said Bill, still smirking.

“In her bedroom,” said George, his missing ear giving his grin a particularly grim look.

“While her family is out of the house,” concluded Percy with a tut.

“Of course anything that your sister and a good boy like Harry could get up to will be perfectly respectable!” scolded Mrs. Weasley. “Honestly, boys, I can’t believe that you could imagine anything else!”

The brothers gave a chorus of nos and of course nots but Harry could tell that they weren’t buying it for a minute. “We were simply winding them up, Mother,” said Percy, but even he seemed to have an evil twinkle in his eye.

The horrible thing was that, in fact, there was nothing at all appropriate or respectable about what Harry hoped Ginny might be giving him the next day; ever since Charlie had passed her invitation along at Remus and Tonks’s funeral, he had been trying to shove down inappropriate, disreputable images and impulses that flooded his brain as he attempted to work on the speech that he’d delivered tonight. As the image of Ginny’s face, of the sunlight tangled with his fingers in her hair, her scent, the feel of her lips, of freckles dancing on pale skin, her fingers on his neck…

The speech was done. There was nothing holding back those images now.

Harry glanced back at Ginny, his mouth open, but he found that her gaze now was shut to him, though her eyes met his. What was she thinking? What did she want? What had she planned?

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry,” she said, in a low voice, and when a couple of her brothers snorted, she shot them a look that silenced even Bill.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ginny,” Harry answered. “Will one o’clock be all right?”

She nodded.

“And feel free to stay for dinner, Harry,” Molly added, as she began to bustle her children towards the Floos.

“Goodbye,” Harry called, and they all answered in kind, even Ginny, though she did not look back before disappearing into the green flame.

Once they were gone, and Harry was alone, he plopped down on one the last remaining benches.

“Er, sir,” said a mild voice. Turning, Harry almost expected to find a house elf, but instead looked up into the oddly familiar, meek face of a wizard in the blue robes of the Ministry’s custodial staff. “Need to clear that away, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh!” said Harry, springing to his feet–suddenly aware of just how much he wanted to sit. “Sorry!”

“No problem, Mr. Potter, sir,” said the man with a self-deprecating smile and Harry suddenly gasped.

“You’re… Reg Cattermole!”

The man blinked–he wasn’t as short as Harry remembered; when Ron had taken on his persona, Harry himself had been Polyjuiced into the body of the much taller Runcorn. “I… You… Remember me?” Reg stuttered.

“Of course!” Harry answered excitedly. “How are… I hope your wife and family–?”

“Oh! Mr. Potter! Thank you,” Cattermole blurted. “You remembered! I didn’t think… They’re fine. We’re fine–my wife, you see, has some cousins in Toronto, so we visited there, and when you got rid of You-Know-Who–the very next day, mind!–I got an owl from the Ministry saying that all staff were needed, and that I was to report back at once, and all charges…” He began to tear up. “You… You saved my Mary, Mr. Potter. She’d have been in Azkaban if it weren’t for you, and Merlin knows if she’d’ve survived that, and our kids… Thank you. Thank you!” He was blubbering now.

“You’re… Anyone…” Harry held out his hand, not knowing what else to do, and Reg Cattermole grasped it, and began pumping it energetically. “I… It was the least I could do.”

“But you was the one what did it,” Reg said, still shaking Harry’s hand, still crying. “Oh, Mr. Potter. Anything I can ever do for you, ever… Here!” He let go of Harry’s hand and plucked a rumpled program of the evening’s events from the bag of rubbish that he’d been collecting. “D’you think you could sign this for my wife and the kids. They’ll never believe I actually talked with you. You’re the kids’ hero, Mr. Potter, that’s a fact. They think the world of you.”

“Er… Fine,” Harry said, feeling more and more embarrassed. He began to pat his robe pockets for a quill; Reg plucked a bent self-inking one from the rubbish as well–one of the reporters’ probably–and Harry signed the program, To the Cattermoles–I’m so pleased that you came through together. Yours, Harry Potter.

Reg beamed down at the piece of parchment. “Thanks, Mr. Potter. Thanks. It’ll mean the world.”

“Any time.”

The older man laughed. “Run into my share of famous folk, working here at the Ministry, but none so regular as you. Don’t change, Mr. Potter. Don’t let fame change you.”

Shaking his head and smiling, thinking of Rita Skeeter and of a cupboard under the stairs, Harry answered, “I’ll try.”

Reg pumped his hand once more, carefully tucked the program away, waved and moved on to clearing away the last remaining signs of the presentation.

Walking across the barren hall towards the Floos, fingering the medal at his chest, Harry found his thoughts circling around the idea of fame, and family, and of the bright-eyed face that always seemed to occupy a still place at the center of his mind.

Back to index

Chapter 3: The F Word

Author's Notes: This chapter was written for the HPGW Ficafest's Seventh Wave. The prompt was "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally." :-) Thanks as always to my friend and beta aberforths_rug.

It was unseasonably warm in Devon–much warmer than London–but a cool shard in Harry’s chest kept him from appreciating it. As he walked towards the Burrow, the splinter twisted. What would she be wearing? Would she be–? Would the Weasleys really leave them alone in the house?

The rest of your birthday present...

What did she mean?

Harry knew what he thought Ginny meant when she’d told Charlie to let him know that she wanted to give Harry the rest of his birthday present. Hadn’t he spent months daydreaming about what might have happened if Ron hadn’t interrupted last summer?

He’d done more than daydream.

But she couldn’t really mean that, could she?

What did she mean?

It was clear that Ginny’s brothers had the same expectation that his own desires kept forcing on his imagination–and Harry was quite certain that the fact that they were thinking along the same less than exactly honorable lines as he was only increased his discomfort.

The closest thing to a real home that Harry had ever known loomed ahead, even more ramshackle than he remembered. Boards covered several of the windows, the upper floors seemed to list at an even more improbable angle, and someone looked to have tried unsuccessfully to Scourgify off the remains of a graffiti war: Blod Traitors and a crude drawing that suggested that the Weasleys were an even closer family than they appeared overlapped POTTER LIVES! and Save a cockroach, kick a Death Eater.

In one of the upper, unboarded windows, there was a glint of copper. Looking up, Harry saw Ginny flash a nervous smile and gesture for him to come in.

With a deep breath, Harry entered.

Inside, the Burrow seemed to have been returned to something like normal. Clean and cluttered, the kitchen exuded contentment and the scent of lavender soap. The hands of the family clock, which for the past two years had all pointed resolutely at Mortal Peril, were now scattered around the dial: Traveling, Work, Visiting… All except one, which simply pointed to Gone.

And of course Ginny’s, which rested firmly at Home.

“Up here!” Ginny's voice echoed down from the third floor, and, with a deep breath, Harry turned and climbed the long, uneven staircase.

The climb had never felt longer.

The house had never been so quiet.

She was waiting for him in her doorway off the third landing. He remembered glimpsing her bright eyes through that door the day he had first visited the house. She did not snap the door shut this time, but stood there, eyes every bit as bright, hair around her shoulders, wearing…

She was wearing jeans and a green top with a pattern of what Harry knew to be tiny flowers. They were the clothes that she had been wearing the last time they had been alone.

“Hi,” he said, a little shakily.

“Hi,” she answered, and Harry was relieved that her voice sounded as strained as his. She gave him an off-center smile. “Happy birthday, ten months later.”

He stepped towards her; she did not retreat. “Hey, we can decide you’re early for my eighteenth.”

“Okay,” she snorted; her eyes crinkled into little half-moons. “So, you ever meet up with any of those Veela?”

“Nope. Must've missed them.” His shoe touched hers. “Wasn’t looking. Didn't want to.”

Her eyes rounded open again; her mouth too opened wide, and she flushed, apparently triumphant. He stared down at her, at the blazing look that had kept him company even through their long, dark separation.

“Good,” she answered, her hand finding his shoulder.

It felt as if Harry were falling into her, though neither of them had moved. “Your hair. Was in a ponytail. Last time.”

“Not by the time Ron stomped in.” Her other hand touched his cheek; his own hands slid around her, one at her waist, the other past her shoulder and into her hair; and they were kissing again.

It felt… It was as natural as breathing–as if nothing had ever interrupted this kiss, that everything that had happened in the last ten months had been nothing more than a troubling dream. This was real.

Harry knew that there were things that he needed to say to her: Missed you, and sorry, and even, Merlin, love you. But he didn’t think that he was capable of saying those things out loud yet, and so those feelings poured into the kiss for now.

She seemed to hear him–seemed to be sending back the same message.

He had forgot how small she was. Had forgot, too, how warm her lips could be, and how the light could somehow be even brighter when it was filtered through her hair.

Thinking back, later, he didn’t remember their feet moving, nor his own hands. Her hands he was exquisitely aware of–of the way her fingers twisted the fabric of his shirt against his back and his hair against his scalp–but until they stumbled against her bed and fell onto it, he had been totally unconscious of the fact that his right hand had found its way under her top and up the smooth skin of her back so that his thumb was tucked under the clasp of her bra.

They didn’t stop kissing as they fell, though Ginny gave a quick grunt of surprise when his weight pressed down on her.

They had done some things during the amazing twenty-seven days between their first kiss and Dumbledore’s funeral. All of them had been accomplished while fully clothed. Harry hadn’t felt ready to go any further than that, and Ginny had seemed comfortable too–in retrospect, they had probably both known that that month was just an interlude, the calm before the proverbial storm.

But now, pressed together on her bed, her heavy breathing matching his own, the war over, her family having explicitly given what amounted to their blessing, nothing seemed to be in the way, and so for the first time Harry felt beyond ready; he felt all of the need and hunger that had built up over the long year and all of the years before roaring within him, as if the monster that he had come to know so well during sixth year had at last burst free of its shell, its cage, and left hand joined right beneath her top, and his body howled at the smooth heat of her, and she…

And Ginny…

Ginny was rigid against him. Around him–her legs clenched around his waist, her fingers clenched in hair, in shirt. Lips tight around his tongue.

Rigid, but vibrating.

Harry blinked. Pulled his tongue from her mouth. “Ginny?”

“C’mon,” she panted. Her eyes were squeezed tight, her cheeks were pale, and she looked more as if she were steeling herself to have a tooth pulled than aflame with passion. “G’wan.”

"Ginny?"

"G'WAN!" she said through clenched teeth. She pressed up against him, and he realized that his right hand had slid around so that it was cupping her breast. Shivering again, he began to withdraw his fingers. "NO!" she cried, her eyes flying open.

"Ginny..."

"Don't you want to?" she growled, pushing up so that his fingers were trapped between them.

He blinked down at her. It wasn't that the creature inside of him had gone away; it was more as if, looking at her face, feeling her tensing beneath him, it had transformed into something... Something larger. Larger and calmer–though no less insistent. "Yeah," he murmured. "Yeah, more than anything, only..."

"What?" she said, eyes and nostrils contracting in a manner that Harry knew well enough to be a sign of real danger.

Harry did what came naturally with Ginny. He spoke the truth. "You're upset."

Her eyes flew wide again, though her nostrils remained slitted.

"You're... angry."

"Angry?" Her belly hardened against his own and her eyes narrowed once again. "Angry?" The word erupted from between her teeth. "Yeah, I'm bloody angry! I'm angry with my bloody Troll-brained brothers for taking something bloody personal and bloody important and turning it into some sort of stupid bloody joke. I'm angry that after everything, my bloody parents still somehow think I'm too young and you're too bloody nice actually to get up to anything inappropriate even though Mum was pregnant with Bill before she was too much bloody older than you, and I can feel just how bloody nice you are, Potter... MERLIN!" Tears were beginning to dribble down along either of Ginny's temples; she blinked furiously. "I'm bloody upset because I've wanted to be alone with you for a bloody year, and I know you've wanted to, I've wanted to, and now here we are, and all I can bloody think about is how bloody angry I bloody well am because I want to, but I don't think I bloody can, but you're a boy and you're not supposed to notice things like that only, of course, you're noble–"

"It's okay," muttered Harry, not at all sure that it was.

Ginny punched Harry's shoulder. Evidently, she was just as ambivalent. "And you! I'm bloody furious with you! A bloody YEAR. And I knew it, I know why, but I'm still just... Not even a note, not even once we were both stuck after Easter. And then I finally see you again, and the first bloody thing you ask me to do is stay in the Room of BLOODY Requirement! And I know WHY, Harry, and I understand, but it still made me want to bloody scream, and then you go off into the bloody night, without even bloody saying GOODBYE, and then the next BLOODY time I see you, you're bloody DEAD and I wanted to die too, oh, Merlin, Harry!" She was weeping without restraint, face blotchy and wet and beautiful, and Harry tried to wipe away her tears, but she swatted his hand away, and so he rolled them over instead, so that she is resting on him. His hands were on her back once again. He held her as she heaved.

When her breathing finally steadied, she lay her head on his chest and whispered, "Angry with Fred for dying. And George for living. Angry with Percy for taking so bloody long. Angry with Charlie for not being here more. With Bill for not taking me to you." She sniffed, wiped her nose on the shoulder of his shirt and nuzzled under his ear. "Angry with Ron for getting to see you every day. Angry with myself, mostly myself. Because I knew why, Harry, I really did, and I agreed with you–I knew if I gave in and talked Bill into sharing the Secret, if I went to Shell Cottage, I'd have never been able to leave, and I couldn't do that to you, it was such a small sacrifice if it meant that you could kill the bastard. But then, seeing you dead, and I wanted to die too, I did, because the last thing I'd ever done was run away from you–I was so happy that I'd finally been let out of the Room, but all through that awful night, I kept looking for you, I kept feeling you, but you weren't there, and I was such a bloody pillock, all caught up in my family and my b-boyfriend and it was all so bloody petty."

"It wasn't petty," Harry whispered back, and she blinked at him. "And you did feel me."

She pushed up slightly and stared down at him. "When I was with Regina."

"Regina?"

"Regina Stoops. Colin's girlfriend. We were both there when he died. And I was just trying to get her inside, and then I suddenly felt..." Her nostrils flared in memory. "It was like I could smell you there. You were under the bloody Invisibility Cloak!"

He nodded. "I... I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to stay so badly, but I didn't know..." He shook his head. "I did know. I knew if I stopped and talked to you I'd never be able to leave, and then you'd die too, and then–"

"Stop, Harry, stop," spluttered Ginny. "Don't–"

"I had to, I know... I'm so sorry, I know, but I swear–"

Her fingers stilled his mouth. "No, Harry, I know." Her eyes were round and full and dark; her hair hung down on either side of his face. She bit her lip and frowned. "I know."

He nodded.

"Harry," she whispered, "at the award ceremony, you said... What did you mean?" She leaned closer until her nose was almost touching his. "That you were never alone..."

"When he was about to kill me, when I knew he was going to cast the Killing Curse on me, and I knew it would make him mortal, I wasn't thinking about him. I wasn't..." All that Harry was aware of in that moment, lying there on Ginny's bed, was the wide circle of her eyes and the uneven splash of her breath across his own lips. Their world was bounded by the curtain of her hair. And yet the image that had filled his mind in that awful moment was just as clear as her eyes, her breath, her hair. It was as if the image of her face as she ran across the Common Room, the first touch of her lips on his, were superimposed across her very immediate presence. "All I was thinking about was you. About the look you give me sometimes that's like the sun coming up and then everything's good. You were everything that mattered, and remembering that look made it all okay."

For a moment, the blazing look in his memory and the blazing look above him merged, and Harry truly felt as if he were staring into the sun, so that his eyes ran, but he did not care.

Then she began to frown again, and the looks diverged. "No, Harry, it didn't make anything okay; I mean, I'm glad you were able to do what needed to be done, though I don't understand exactly why it had to be done, why you had to bloody... but–shut up, it's my turn to talk–I know you're going to bloody well tell me, because I want to know, and you bloody well owe me that much, do you hear me? I want to know what in Merlin's name made it necessary for you to bloody die, okay? I mean, we all knew we might, it's the only thing about Fred that makes it bearable, knowing that he knew like we all did what might happen, but none of us had to bloody walk into it with our bloody arms open, so I want to know what the hell you were thinking, okay? Shut up, it's my turn. Because, yeah, I want to know, but I swear Harry, I've seen you dead once now, and I don't ever, ever want to see that again, do you hear me? So don't you ever even begin to think about running off and sacrificing your bony arse without me, Harry Potter, because watching it once nearly killed me, when that Lestrange woman attacked Luna, I thought, I'm going to go with Harry, so next time, no more going on your own, you hear? Do you...?" She sat back, scowling, and the sunlight from the window caught her face, so that even though she was clearly still upset, she was beautiful, and Harry couldn't help but grin. "WHAT? What's so bloody funny, Potter, I'm absolutely serious, do you hear me?"

"Yes!" he said, but he was giggling.

Her eyes narrowed; she looked more wary than angry, yet Harry knew that her temper could be provoked again easily; even so, he couldn't help but snort. "If you tell me I'm beautiful when I'm angry, I'll kill you, Harry, I swear. I'm absolutely serious about all of this."

"I KNOW!" he said and let loose a roar of laughter.

"Don't make me hex you," she snapped, leaning back down. It was meant as a threat this time–Harry respected the threat–but her hair fell back down and cut off the outside world again, and he couldn't help but laugh on. Looking by parts bemused, perplexed and annoyed, she tried to wait him out, but he couldn't seem to stop. "Harry."

"Sorry," he said, and his hands, still beneath her top, grasped at her shoulder blades, as if by holding on to her he could take control of himself once again. It didn't quite work, but the feeling of her skin beneath his hands was wonderful, even if he could feel her shoulders tensing. "Sorry," he repeated, and tried to take a deep breath once again. His diaphragm continued to flutter, but he was able to calm himself somewhat.

When he was breathing somewhat regularly, Ginny said, her voice very, very even, "So. What was so funny?"

"Um." Harry tried to gather his thoughts. "Beautiful. Even when you're not angry."

"Thank you. And?"

"Um." Her face was masklike, still as it so infrequently was. Harry took another breath and went on. "First time I was here, that summer... before your first year. I never heard your voice, really, not till you threatened Malfoy at Flourish and Blotts, and Ron said how weird that was, because... normally you never shut up."

Her expression softened somewhat, though it seemed more a shy echo of the face she had used to wear around him so often than the warm face he had come to know so well. "Yeah. Funny."

"I love to hear you talk. I love to see your face. I love holding you and kissing you, and God, even when you're angry, I love it, I promise, I swear, I never want to be apart from you, not ever, I can't promise I won't try to protect you because I always will, but I promise, I won't ever run away from you to do it, I–"

They were kissing again. Harry continued to promise silently, continued to stitch himself closer to her, cell by cell and thought by thought, and she was making promises back, he knew.

"I think that's the one thing I'm angriest about, Harry," Ginny said huskily some time later. She was still above him, poised like a lioness atop her prey. "That you walked away from me over and over and... I know it was what we'd agreed, but... That morning, Luna told me you'd gone off with Ron and Hermione and all I wanted was to cry and to hold you and..."

"I... Sorry," Harry said again, and he knew he'd be saying that a lot more, though it probably wasn't truly necessary. "You... Your family. Your mum needed you."

"She needed Ron too," Ginny murmured, looking dangerously close to tears again. "She needed you. I needed you."

"You have me now."

She smiled, still a bit moistly. "True enough."

"You always will," he continued, and he found that, sad as she was, he was giddy again. "Always. Happily ever after. Ginny, we have the whole future ahead of us. It's ours. I'm yours."

Again they kissed. It wasn't frantic, now, and it wasn't timid either; hands began to move again, and bodies, but just at the point where Harry could feel his old friend beginning to howl once more, Ginny stiffened against him again, and he stopped.

"Sorry," she said.

"No problem," he whispered into her ear. "We have all the time in the world. The whole future."

She smiled at him, a look like wonder blossoming across her face. "You're using the F Word."

He blinked at her. "The...?"

"You never..." She blinked back and shook her head, so that her hair tickled his cheeks. "Last summer, before the wedding, I was talking with Hermione, and she was complaining about Ron and how he never talked about feelings and I said you never did that much either, but that was okay, I usually knew what you were feeling, the thing that bothered me most was that you never talked about the future. At all. As if–"

"As if I didn't plan on living." Suddenly, he didn't feel like laughing at all.

"Yeah." She stroked his chin. "Yeah. And she said that was it. That you had all of these hopes and dreams inside, but you couldn't let them out, that the Dursleys taught you not to do that, and then always having Tom after you made you never let yourself think too much about after."

"Smart girl, that Hermione."

"So you've said." She kissed him gently. "So. Those hopes and dreams. They can come out and play now?"

He pulled her down to him and murmured into her lips, "Oh, yes. Yes. Yes."

***

Eternity has nothing to do with time.... Eternity is now.

–Joseph Campbell

Back to index

Chapter 4: Family

Author's Notes: Hadn't intended to write any more of this, but surprised myself.

Happy St. Valentine's! ;-)

Family

The Weasleys gathered outside the Burrow and, as a group, peered up at the third floor.

“Reckon it’s safe to go in?” Ron asked Charlie. Charlie simply shrugged.

“Well,” murmured George, “can’t have lasted long.”

Charlie wrinkled his nose. “Not the first time, at any rate.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Percy, “there is that.”

Fleur giggled, wan as she was, and Bill joined her, while Ron’s face contorted in disgust. “Merlin,” he groaned, “how many times d’you think–?”

“Boys!” barked their father, “How can you possibly imagine…?”

Molly turned what she thought of as her dragon’s eye on her children and then upon her husband. “I don’t notice you being in a hurry to burst in there, Arthur Weasley.”

They all shrank from the door.

With a snort she turned from them and walked into her kitchen.

: :

If Harry was touching Ginny a bit more than was strictly necessary in order to put the kettle on, he could be forgiven, perhaps, for jumping when the front door burst open and Molly Weasley swept in, looking very much as she had the first time he visited the Burrow. He had seen what she was capable of with a wand all too recently, and so it wasn’t unnatural for him to note her resemblance to a large, protective beast of prey.

“Hey, Mum!” Ginny chirped. “We’ve just started tea.”

Mrs. Weasley froze in the doorway, and for a moment Harry’s heart was in his throat. Then she blinked, smiled and strode into the room. “Tea would be lovely, dear,” she said, a little higher than usual, perhaps, as she hung her summer cloak on the hook just inside the door, and sat at the table.

Harry turned to Ginny, about to ask what he should or shouldn’t do, but Ginny just winked, which left Harry rather speechless.

In all honesty, all that Harry could think about in that moment was her face. Her smile. The smell of her hair. The feel of her skin beneath his fingers. Hopes and dreams…

There was a quiet scuffle at the front door as all of the Weasley men–and Fleur–shuffled in, each seeming to want to be the last to enter. Somehow, by dint of lack of seniority perhaps, Ron ended up in front. “Hey, Ginny. Hey, Harry. Nice weather, i'n’it?”

“Yup,” said Harry. He turned to Mr. Weasley. “Nice at Shell Cottage?”

“Oh, yes,” said Arthur. “Very lovely.”

“London, too,” coughed Charlie, and all of the Weasley men coughed in agreement. Fleur giggled again, and Harry could feel Ginny’s back vibrating against his.

“Shall we have a seat, gentlemen, Fleur?” asked Percy, even more stiffly than usual, but rather than take the mickey out of him, his brothers all nodded solemnly and arranged themselves at the table, staring down at their hands.

“Oh, Harry,” Ginny said, her voice low in a way that Harry had never heard it except under very private circumstances, “maybe we should have cleaned the table. After, you know–”

“Ginny!” squealed Harry, as all of the members of her family–even Fleur and Mrs. Weasley–leapt to their feet with looks of horror on their faces.

Ginny snorted, threw her arms around Harry’s shoulders from behind, snorted again, and finally burst out into loud trumpet peels of laughter. “YOUR FACES!” she howled. “Merlin, your faces, it’s just priceless!”

The assembled Weasleys stared at her, and then at Harry, and he felt more than a bit of a threat behind their blank expressions. “Ginny,” Harry whispered with growing desperation.

“And you, Mum!” snorted Ginny into Harry’s shoulder. “‘How can you even think that a good boy like Harry would get up to anything disrespectful–’ HA!”

“Ginevra–” began Mrs. Weasley in a low voice.

“W-we just t-talked,” Harry spluttered, “really.”

Before her mother could answer, Ginny crowed, “And snogged a good bit!” As her family’s faces all began to turn white, she added, “No more than I’ve seen every single one of you lot do–even you, Mum!”

And they all turned red.

The kettle began to whistle the tune to “Hot, Strong Cauldron of Your Love,” but no one thought to remove it from the flame for what felt to Harry like an entire lifetime. Finally, Molly Weasley sat once again in her chair, the one closest to the stove. Without turning back to Harry and her daughter, she said, with something of her usual cheerful authority, “PG Tips, dears, in the cupboard to the right of the sink. Third shelf from the top.”

Ginny prepared the tea, and Harry Levitated cups and saucers to everyone. Ron, who refused to look Harry in the face, the hypocrite, followed his preternatural sixth sense to where a stash of freshly bake scones were hidden. Charlie Summoned a pot of lemon curd from the fridge, and, as Ginny poured out, Harry watched as the color in everyone’s face returned to normal.

Their expressions ranged from mortified–Percy–to bemused–Bill and George–to perplexed–Charlie and Mr. Weasley–to positively flummoxed. Ron, of course.

Mrs. Weasley looked as if nothing more or less were happening than a family tea, while Ginny looked happier than Harry had ever seen her, and as she finally sat beside him, a wave of affection overcame his sense of self-preservation; he grasped her hand right there in plain view. For a man who had felt very close to dying for the second time in a month, Harry was feeling quite wonderful.

Ron, of course, was distracted by food and by his thoughts, whatever they might be. As the youngest Weasley brother dug into his third scone, Harry broke the silence. “Blimey, Ron. You ought to be careful, turning that color! I haven’t seen anyone go quite that shade of magenta since…”

As Ron blinked at him, chewing on, Harry suddenly realized that there was something that he had forgot. “Mr. Weasley?”

“Er, yes, Harry?” Arthur Weasley peered at Harry over the top of his cup with trepidation.

“How are my relatives?”

“Your–?” Mr. Weasley’s anxiety melted into sheer confusion.

“Aunt Petunia, Dudley, Uncle…” Harry pointed at Ron, who had stopped mid-chew, but was still blinking. “Mr. Diggle and Hestia Jones took them off someplace safe, but, I mean…” Harry was suddenly aware that the entire table was staring at him. “Are they…? Well, I mean, do they even know the war is over?”

“Bugger,” hissed Bill, earning slaps on the back of either hand from his wife and his mother. Ignoring their rebukes, Bill muttered, “Mad Eye was their main contact. And Remus was the backup. I don’t know that anyone even knows where they are.”

“Well,” Ron said, swallowing at last, “it’s not like you care, is it, Harry?”

Looking around at them, at the sea of freckled faces that were more his family than the Dursleys had ever been, he surprised himself as much as them by answering, “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

: :

As it turned out, Kingsley knew exactly where they were, since Remus had decided that, Moody being dead, he himself needed a backup. The interim Minister insisted–despite protests from half a dozen secretaries (Percy among them)–on accompanying Harry to the Dursleys’ safe haven on the Channel Islands.

Ginny insisted on coming along, but it was generally decided, much to Ron’s chagrin, that the sight of any of the other Weasleys was more likely to put the Dursleys on guard than at ease. Ginny made very sympathetic comments to her brother about how difficult it must be to be left behind, which made George laugh and Hermione titter. Ron wisely shut up, for which Hermione kissed him.

This kiss was the main topic of conversation at the Burrow for the next two days.

Of course, it did ease Ron’s disappointment that Kingsley’s schedule forced the party to leave at just after dawn. Ron decided that, all things being equal, a lie-in might be a better choice than visiting Harry’s relatives after all.

As they strode out the Weasleys’ front door, Kingsley wasted no time turning to Harry and asking, “So, Harry, what are your plans?”

Ginny bristled, stepping protectively between Kingsley and her boyfriend, but Harry just laughed. “You’re the third Minister for Magic to ask me that.”

“Well, it’s a real question,” Kingsley said with a sad smirk. “I may not be as desperate for your help as my predecessors were, but there’s no question that everyone–inside the Ministry and out–is curious about where you’re headed.”

“Mr. Shacklebolt…”

“Come on, Harry. Kingsley, please.”

Harry shook his head and placed his hands on Ginny’s square shoulders. “Kingsley. I like you a lot more than I did Minister Scrimgeour, but I’ll say the same to you as I did to him. I don’t want to be anyone’s poster boy.”

“Who said anything about a poster boy?” Kingsley chortled. “You’re a celebrity, it’s true, but you’re also a bloody talented wizard, and we could use you in any number of places. The Ministry is desperately short-handed these days; between the casualties from the war and sweeping out some of the trash, there’s not a department that couldn’t use you.”

“I…” Harry blinked, and pulled Ginny closer to him. “I was thinking of going back to Hogwarts.”

“Huh,” grunted Kingsley. “I suppose I can’t blame you.” He winked at Ginny, but his expression remained thoughtful as they started walking towards the Burrow’s boundaries once again.

Harry and Ginny’s hands swung between them. He felt suddenly, blissfully free.

They had nearly reached the paddock when Ginny suddenly squeezed Harry’s hand and stopped. “Mi–Kingsley?”

“Yes?”

Ginny looked back at Harry, a funny expression on her face that put him in mind, for some reason, of Lupin. “If Harry’d said yes, what would you have asked him to do?”

Kingsley peered at the two of them. “Minerva tells me you wanted to be an Auror, Harry. Is that true?”

Harry had so many things running through his head in that instant that he couldn’t even begin to think what to say beyond, “Yeah.”

“Still considering it?” Kingsley’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Harry was suddenly aware that dark circles showed through the dark skin beneath them.

Harry peered down at Ginny, whose face was now gathered in exactly the same thoughtful, sad smile she had given him at Dumbledore’s funeral so long ago. “I… I hadn’t really thought about it. I’ve been a bit… distracted.”

Kingsley smiled. “I can’t think why. Well, the Auror department was decimated; we haven’t had a new trainee since Tonks anyway–constant cutbacks shut down the academy. There were casualties during the war, and I’m sad to say that some of us turned out to be… unfit. Fully staffed, the department is meant to have thirty-six Aurors in the field, plus another fifty or so support staff. I can field a dozen now, and most of them are reaching an age where de-gnoming the garden sounds a lot more attractive than facing some madman spitting curses. We need new blood badly, and I won’t deny having Harry Potter join the department would make people feel a lot safer, not to mention making the Wizengamot more willing to open up the purse a bit.”

“Thought you didn’t want a poster boy,” grumbled Harry.

“I don’t. I’ve seen you fight, son, and I know your character. You’d do the Aurors proud. But politics is also politics, and sadly I’m the one stuck with the job of running this mess until we can get a proper election organized and I can go back to having fun on the job, dodging hexes.” Kingsley laughed, rumbling, contagious, like a very tall, very dark-skinned Father Christmas. Ginny joined him, and even Harry couldn’t help but smile. “So, what do you think?”

Harry shrugged again and looked down at Ginny.

Again she gave him that bemused look, though there was more of a smile there this time. “He’s got a people-saving thing,” she said to Kingsley.

“Thank Merlin for that!” Kingsley chuckled. Then he peered at the couple a bit shrewdly. “I’ll need to open up the academy again, and the old building’s so thoroughly cursed we’ll have to pull it down and rebuild. And we’re too short-handed to maintain much of an Auror presence up at Hogwarts, despite the fact that the school’s boundary spells were compromised during the battle, and they’ll need even more help this year.” He smiled. “I don’t suppose Minerva and the governors would mind if I were to run the Auror academy out of the school for a year or two, do you?”

Ginny’s smile brightened, and Harry could feel himself begin to grin too. “No, sir. I don’t.”

“I think my brother Ron would be interested in joining as well,” Ginny added. “And a few of the other members of the DA–Susan Bones, for sure, and Terry Boot.”

“Wonderful,” said Kingsley. “The more the merrier–you trained those DA tykes well, Harry, and any Bones is always welcome in MLE.” He extended his hand. “So, are we on?”

After another look at Ginny, who nodded, Harry took it. “Yeah,” he said. “Absolutely.”

“Welcome to the family!” boomed Kingsley, pumping Harry’s hand, and they all laughed.

: :

They arrived on Fee Sark a few moments later, where the sun was shining and the coast of Normandy glimmered on the horizon.

“Nice weather,” said Kingsley, and seemed more than a bit put off when Harry and Ginny began to giggle. Stiffening to his full, imposing height, he muttered, “Well, you don’t always get that on the Channel.”

“Never been, sir,” Harry managed to say before he and Ginny both burst into guffaws.

Shaking his head, Kingsley led them across the tiny island towards a low, lone house that stood near the eastern cliffs. As they approached, Harry began to feel nervous; the house seemed to be missing parts of two walls and there didn’t seem to be any signs of life. “Kingsley? It… It looks deserted.”

“Ah!” said Kingsley, knocking a fist against his own forehead. “Sorry, I forgot. Look at me, both of you, please.” When they had complied, he looked around for a moment and then whispered, “The Dursleys are concealed at Siren Farm.”

Harry was confused–why bother to tell them that? But when he turned back to their destination, he understood. What had looked like a single, abandoned farmhouse was a small collection of buildings: a house, a garage–though where one would drive to, Harry had no idea–and several smaller outbuildings, including what looked to Harry to be a broom shed. All where brightly painted, sparkling in the early morning sunshine.

At the front of the house, a figure knelt, working on a flowerbed, and Harry knew even from this distance that it was Aunt Petunia, even as he knew without being able to say why that something was wrong. Different.

“Is that your aunt?” Ginny whispered as the trail they were walking brought them to the end of a fallow field and up to the garden gate.

“Yeah,” Harry murmured, though he felt as if he almost couldn’t recognize her; something about her posture…

“She doesn’t look so bad,” Ginny murmured.

Harry was about to answer–how, he wasn’t sure–when Aunt Petunia looked up. She gave a startled smile and stood.

As Kingsley opened the gate, three more figures appeared. Dedalus Diggle, wearing a bright purple dressing gown not terribly different from his usual robes, stepped out of the house, wand drawn in one hand, a tray with two steaming mugs in the other, while the door to the small building that Harry had thought was a broom shed burst open, revealing Hestia Jones and a shirtless, sweaty person who Harry could only assume was Dudley.

“That’s your fat cousin?” muttered Ginny under her breath.

The blond hair was right. The height was right. Even the red face looked very Dursley-ish. But this boy was chiseled, muscular and lean as some marble sculpture, and he stood in front of Hestia, a metal bar grasped threateningly before him.

“Blimey,” Harry gasped, “Big D, you look good.”

Dudley–for Dudley it had to be–frowned, but before he could respond, Dedalus barked, “Where did Harry Potter and I first meet?”

Harry blinked. It was amazing how in just a few short weeks the habits of suspicion and distrust had been forgot. “Uh. At the Leaky Cauldron, I think. Hagrid was bringing me to buy my wand.”

Dedalus nodded, and when he lowered his wand, Hestia and Dudley stood down as well.

Suddenly, Harry was wrapped in a set of thin arms that had never held him so tenderly before. Aunt Petunia sobbed as she grasped him. “Oh! I’m so glad that you’re all right!”

Harry had no idea how to answer this–it was even more alien to his expectations than a fit Dudley or an aggressive Dedalus Diggle. He patted her back and stared, first at Ginny, who gazed back at him with her jaw open, and then at Dedalus, at Hestia and at Dudley.

“Been right worried about you, Harry,” Dudley said, standing at ease, though his biceps still bulged.

“You have?” Harry said, stunned.

Hestia chuckled. “Of course we all have. You’re our hope. Is everything all right? We haven’t heard a thing all these months.”

“Did have a spot of bother just after Easter,” chirped Dedalus, much more his cheerful self. “Death Eaters attacked Hestia and Dudley while they were out on a training run.”

“Dudley took out the first,” added Hestia, looking proud. “Roundhouse kick nearly knocked the stupid git’s head off. Served him right. I got the other two while they were gaping.”

“Always said you’d have made a good Auror, Hestia,” laughed Kingsley.

“And spend all that time writing reports and drinking bad tea? Not on your life.” The three older wizards all chuckled. Petunia continued to sniffle into Harry’s shirt.

“Where’s… Uncle Vernon?” Harry asked. It wasn’t that he wanted to see his uncle, certainly, but there was something odd going on, and Harry still couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Ah,” said Dedalus Diggle, sober again.

“Er,” mumbled Dudley.

“He passed away,” Aunt Petunia said. “Heart failure.”

It shouldn’t have made Harry sad. Merlin, the obvious humor of it should have made him want to laugh. And yet he found himself saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” and meaning it.

“Thank you,” Petunia said. She still had not released Harry. Looking up at him, she said, “I realize that there was not much love lost between you, but he always did try to do what we thought was best for you. And those last months here, well…” Unaccountably, Aunt Petunia began to pinken. “Not having work to go to, not having all of our responsibilities… His last few months really were like a second honeymoon for us. It was like spending time with the Vernon I fell in love with all those years ago all over again.” She beamed up at Harry.

“Er,” he began.

“Not a bad way to go, either, lucky old bastard,” snorted Hestia.

Beside him, Dudley hissed, “Hessie!”

Harry had no idea what they were talking about–the idea of a happy Vernon Dursley, a Vernon Dursley content with something other than yelling at people, was so far beyond his understanding that whatever it was that Hestia was trying to say about the way he died…

Harry looked at Ginny, who seemed as perplexed as he was; Kinglsey was sniggering. Aunt Petunia…

Aunt Petunia was blushing like a schoolgirl, and suddenly Harry felt certain he knew just what Hestia had been talking about. Looking at the gruff witch standing with her elbow on his cousin’s shoulder, Harry spluttered, “You mean, Uncle Vernon died…?”

“With his boots on,” snorted Hestia.

Dedalus Diggle tittered. Dudley winced, and Harry couldn’t help but join him.

Aunt Petunia recovered her speech first. “I will always know that he went… happy.”

Ginny was looking dangerously close to laughter, which Harry implored her silently to hold in. “Well, that’s good, then,” he said. “Still, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Harry,” Petunia said. Then she straightened up, releasing him at last. With four crisp swipes of her fingers, she erased any evidence that she had been doing anything but gardening for the past half-hour. “Now, are things going well?”

“Is You-Know-Who still in control of the Ministry?” Dedalus piped up.

Dudley added, “Those masked bastards made it sound like hell out there.”

“They were quite happy to tell us you were dead, Harry,” Hestia spat, “though none of us believed them. When I Obliviated them, I made sure to add a memory in of running into you and a small army over in Brittany. Hopefully that confused the bastards a bit.”

Again Kingsley laughed. Harry looked down at his aunt. “It’s over,” he said. “I killed Voldemort. We won.”

“You… killed him?” Petunia’s eyes grew wide.

Harry nodded. “Well, he killed himself, really.”

“Way to go, Harry!” said Dudley.

“He was brilliant,” said Ginny, grinning.

Petunia turned, noticing Ginny apparently for the first time. “Oh!” She stepped back, hand to her chest, looking much more like the Aunt Petunia that Harry knew.

“Um, Aunt Petunia, Dudley,” Harry said stepping over to Ginny and taking her hand, “this is Ginny, Ginny Weasley. She’s…” He looked down at her. What was she? Anything that he could call her seemed either too enormous or too small.

“I’m Harry’s girlfriend,” Ginny supplied. Smiling brightly with the morning sun blazing in her face.

“Of course you are,” Petunia said, still looking shocked. “It’s just…”

“I look like Harry’s mum?”

“Not… Not really. You don’t look terribly like Lily at all. But when I first saw you, there is something, yes, it was quite uncanny.”

Harry looked down at Ginny. His clearest images of his mother were all from her girlhood. From Severus Snape’s memories. The girl in those memories was taller than Ginny, clear-skinned and auburn-haired, with the green, almond-shaped eyes that greeted Harry every time he looked into a mirror. She looked nothing like Ginny.

But there was something, Aunt Petunia was right. A fire. Something.

There was, too–it made Harry’s heart hurt to realize–the fact that Snape’s memories of Lily Evans were colored with the same desperate combination of admiration and desire that Harry himself felt for Ginny. The main difference there was that Snape had spoiled any chance he might have had with Lily. Harry–through luck and his girlfriend’s apparently bottomless capacity to forgive–had managed to see things through to the other side.

“In any case,” Harry said, finally, to his relatives and their minders, “it’s over. You’re all free to return.” Four blank faces greeted his gaze. “You needn’t stay here.”

“Well,” burbled Dedalus, “that’s wonderful news about You-Know-Who’s defeat, at any rate!”

“Here, here,” agreed Hestia, who was frowning at Dudley.

“We… We can go home?” Petunia asked, though she did not look terribly excited at the prospect.

“Well,” Kingsley said with a cough, “I’m afraid that the night that the charm broke… The Death Eaters destroyed your house in Little Whinging.”

“Oh,” said Petunia, as if he had told her that a television program would be delayed because of a news bulletin. Harry was astonished that his relative’s house had been destroyed, but flabbergasted that his aunt barely seemed concerned.

“I have breakfast ready,” Dedalus said, “or rather, Bunty has. She always makes too much, so I’m sure there’s more than enough for the three of you–kippers, tomatoes, bubble-and-squeak, eggs, chipolatas–Bunty does make the most marvelous chipolatas. Everybody, do come in and let us continue our conversation over a lovely meal.” He handed one of the still-steaming mugs in his hand to Harry’s aunt, and the two of them turned and strode towards the house.

Hestia threw Dudley a t-shirt and followed the other two. Kingsley and Ginny were looking at Harry as if he understood what was going on, which he didn’t. As Dudley pulled his shirt on, Harry asked, “Uh, Dudley?”

“Yeah, Harry?” The shirts sleeves stained to contain Dudley’s arms.

There seemed to be so many things to ask. “Bunty? Who’s Bunty?”

Dudley, who had been starting to follow his mother and the others, stopped in his tracks. “You…? You don’t know Bunty?”

Harry gaped at Ginny and Kingsley, looking for some sort of help. They had none to give.

“She knows you!” Dudley chuckled. “Goes on about you all the bloody time. Your biggest bloody fan. C’mon,” he added. “Dedders’s not kidding, she puts out a great spread for breakfast. You don’t want to miss it. Hell, just thinking about it, I’m starving.” With another low chuckle, Dudley strode towards the house.

Harry looked back at Kingsley once again, but the Minister for Magic was looking rather sheepish. “Can you handle a side-along back to Devon, Harry?”

“Of course he can,” Ginny piped in, her lips pursed in what Harry assumed was either disapproval or curiosity; he felt both.

“Banquets and parties every night for the past fortnight,” said Kingsley, shrugging his large shoulders. “Mrs. Shacklebolt has me on a strict diet, and a second, full breakfast definitely isn’t on the menu. Besides, I hadn’t planned on staying, didn’t think there’d be anything to do but deliver the message and send them on their way. I really do need to get back to the Ministry; we’ve got Thicknesse’s trial this morning, and I can’t be late for that.”

“Of course not,” Harry conceded. He might have felt more anxiety had Ginny not been there with him. He extended his hand. “Thanks for getting us here.”

“My pleasure!” Kingsley answered, smiling broadly as his enormous fingers closed around Harry’s. “Old Talionis Fairbanks is taking care of running Magical Law Enforcement at the moment. I’ll have him get in touch, shall I?”

“Yeah!” Harry agreed, surprised at his own enthusiasm.

“And have the others owl him too!” Kingsley called. When they waved in acknowledgement, he grinned, leapt the gate, and disappeared.

Ginny took his hand, and Harry felt, once again, supremely, idiotically happy. “Head in for some kippers and sausages, shall we?”

“Sure,” Harry said. “But first–”

They hadn’t had an opportunity for a good snog since his first day back at the Burrow. They quickly remedied that situation, and then strode into the farmhouse hand in hand.

: :

Harry somehow ended up separated from Ginny at breakfast. He was seated between his cousin and aunt, while she sat across from him, between Dedalus and Hestia. Her foot, however, had managed to find his beneath the table. At least, he hoped it was Ginny’s foot.

The table was piled high with food–enough, Harry thought, to feed most of Gryffindor and possible some of Hufflepuff. Dudley ate like a man who hadn’t seen food in weeks; this wasn’t a surprise, as he’d always had what Aunt Petunia had insisted on calling a healthy appetite. What shocked Harry, however, was the fact that his cousin seemed to eat the vegetables and fresh fruit with the same gusto as what Harry had to agree was the first-rate fry-up.

“So, Bunty cooked all of this?” Harry asked his aunt. It was odd to be sitting beside her during a meal; odd to have her pass him the tray of sausages or the tea.

“Yes,” Aunt Petunia said, her face set in a kind of rapture that Harry had only ever seen when she had persuaded Uncle Vernon to buy a gleaming, self-cleaning oven for her kitchen when Harry was seven. “She’s quite marvelous.”

“Um, so is this her house?” Ginny asked, clearly seeing that Harry was confused.

“Her…?” Aunt Petunia’s eyebrows shot up, making it look even longer than normal.

“No, Harry,” chuckled Dedalus, “this is your house. One of four, as I understand it, including the old Headquarters.”

“Four?” Harry goggled. Across the table from him, Ginny shrugged, eyes wide.

“Well, there’s this one, it was your grandparents’ summer home; as everyone knows, there’s the one in Godric’s Hollow, though, sadly, that’s obviously not… Well, then of course there’s the Blacks’ old home on Grimmauld Place, and the cottage in Hogsmeade.”

“Though that one’s got a reputation for being haunted,” said Hestia, neatly filleting a kipper with her wand.

“Haunted?” said Dudley, stopping his remarkable demonstration of food consumption for the first time since Harry and Ginny had sat.

“Well, it’s only in the last quarter century or so,” Dedalus answered. “When I went to school with Carlus–your grandfather, Harry, you look so much like him, same knobby knees–he would take me there on Hogsmeade weekends and we’d visit his parents. Your great-grandmother, Harry, was a Prewett, and Miss Weasley here can tell you what wonderful bakers Prewetts are wont to be.” He sighed happily. “Alas, when last I visited Hogsmeade, the house was quite shut up. As Hestia says, it had got a reputation as–”

“The most haunted house in Britain,” Harry gasped. “The…” Again he looked at Ginny. Again she shrugged, though she was smiling now. “My family owned the Shrieking Shack?”

“Owns it still, as I understand it,” said Hestia.

“Oi, Harry,” snorted Dudley around a slice of orange, “must be rough knowing where to go to bed at night!”

“I didn’t know,” Harry said, and then turned to his aunt and repeated, “I didn’t. Honest.”

“No,” said Petunia. Her face remained relaxed, but she seemed to be thinking something through.

“Ghosts, though,” said Dudley with an exaggerated shudder.

“Nah,” Harry said, his head swirling, “that was just a story Dumbledore put about so Lupin could have a place to hide during the full moon. My dad, they were friends, it must have been my dad’s… Lupin’s…. He was a werewolf.” A wave of sorrow–never far away these days–began to wash over him; Ginny reached between a tray of chipolatas and a basket of bananas and squeezed his hand.

“Werewolf?” said Dudley.

“Remus?” gasped Dedulus and Petunia, together.

“You say was, Harry?”

“He died,” Harry whispered. “In the last battle, at Hogwarts.” Everyone at the table nodded. Harry and Ginny had given them a very quick summary of the events of the past year, but they hadn’t spelled out the full cost of the war. “He and Tonks, both.”

“Oh, damn.” Hestia, whom Harry had never seen who any emotion aside from good humor and–once–rage, began to cry. “Oh. Poor… Is Andie all right? That must have hit her something awful.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I mean, she’s okay. But yeah. She’s raising Tonks and Remus’s son, Teddy, my godson, he’s great, and… I think she and her sister Narcissa have kind of patched things up a bit, which is nice.”

“Never could stand Cissy,” sighed Hestia. “Empty-headed bint. But life’s too short, and family is family.”

Inexplicably, Aunt Petunia patted Harry’s hand–which was still covered by Ginny’s–and smiled.

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “So, um, this Bunty? Is she… a cousin of mine or something?”

Again, the Siren Farm inhabitants looked both amused and perplexed by his question.

“Harry,” said Ginny, voice and face warm, “I think she’s got to be a house elf.”

“Oh.” Harry felt incredibly stupid. Of course, meals like the one before him, and a cook hidden away, serving the house… Then a cold weight settled on him. “Oh. Merlin. She belongs to me too, is that it?”

“Well,” said Dedalus brightly, “she is bound to the house, and the house is yours, so yes, I suppose that she does!”

“Oh,” Harry said. He didn’t want another elf, another creature bound to him, for which he was responsible–

“Dobby wasn’t your elf, Harry” Ginny said quietly from across the room. “He was your friend. That’s what he told everyone who would listen.”

“Yeah,” Harry conceded. Knowing that Dobby had died by his own choice relieved Harry’s sense of guilt in some ways, but deepened it in others. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. So, um… Bunty?” he called.

There was a crack, and a round head appeared immediately behind Ginny’s shoulder. “Yes, M-master?” came a squeaky voice.

Harry stood and walked around the table. Bunty was short, even for an elf, and prodigiously plump; clearly where years alone had left Kreacher half mad, they had given Bunty a chance to sample her own wares. Harry had heard Ron joke that you should never trust a skinny cook; if so, Bunty clearly was to be trusted. Kneeling down so that they were the same height, Harry said, “It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”

“Oh!” Bunty cried, tears beginning to run along her wide nose. “Master Harry is already meeting Bunty, but Master Harry was only a baby when he is meeting Bunty, perhaps Master Harry does not remember–?”

“No, no,” Harry said. Elves emotional outbursts were no longer new to Harry, but they continued to overwhelm him. “I… I’m sorry that I haven’t visited–”

“Oh!” cried Bunty again, “but Master Harry is here now! If Bunty had only known that Master Harry would be coming back to Siren Farm, Bunty would not have prepared such a poor breakfast for his welcome–!”

“It’s wonderful,” Harry blurted. “Wonderful meal, isn’t it, everyone?”

All of the people at the table agreed loudly that it was.

“Master Harry is too kind to say so!” Bunty blubbered. “Oh, it has been so lovely these last ten months, serving guests and family of the Potters once again.”

“And you have done very well, Bunty,” said Aunt Petunia, with a great, happy show of noblesse oblige.

“Master Harry’s aunt is very kind,” Bunty sniffled. “Master Harry’s aunt is always very kind to Bunty.”

Harry looked from Petunia to the elf and back. “That’s… good.”

Petunia smiled that new-oven smile again, and Harry could see it: the one creature in the whole magical world of which his aunt would not disapprove, that would, in fact, make his aunt’s every dream come true. A house elf.

“Aunt Petunia, Dudley, I’m really sorry that your home… That the Death Eaters destroyed the house on Privet Drive looking for me.”

Petunia frowned slightly; Dudley shrugged.

“Would you like to stay here?”

Now Petunia’s face became radiant. “Oh, Harry. I… That would be lovely.”

“Would that be all right, Bunty?”

The house elf dissolved into tears, throwing her chubby arms around Harry’s shoulders.

Harry patted her on the back, gently detaching her. “I’ll take that as a yes. What about you, Big D?”

Dudley chewed on one chiseled cheek and looked at Hestia; for a moment, Harry was worried–Hestia Jones was not an unhandsome witch, by any stretch of the imagination, but she was easily twenty-five years Dudley’s senior…

Hestia patted Harry’s cousin on the shoulder in a manner that smacked more of comradeship than romance, and Harry felt relieved. “He’s got something he wants to do,” she said.

“Do?”

“Er,” grunted Dudley awkwardly, shoulder muscles bunching under his shirt. “Yeah.” He glanced at his mother who nodded, misty-eyed as she often was around her son. “Gonna join the army,” Dudley said at last.

“The army?”

Dudley nodded. “It’s because of you, see?” When Harry shook his head, Dudley plowed on. “When we first got here, nothing to do, Hestia here started training me, just to keep me from going of my nut with boredom, you know? And so’s I wouldn’t be useless if it came to a fight. And we talked about you, and the Order, and how you lot were all risking your lives to help people, to save people, and I thought, right, here’s the one thing I know I’m good at, only I want to do it for good reasons, you know, instead of…”

Instead of beating up ten-year-olds in the park, Harry thought. “Yeah.”

“Couldn’t join the Order, though, could you?” joked Hestia.

“Nah,” answered Dudley with a smile. “Then after Dad… er. Yeah. Well, I was kind of angry, and nothing else to do but train and fight, and then those masked bastards showed up, and we showed them what for, me and Hessie, and I thought, right. Going to join the army when this is over. SAS eventually. If they’ll have me.”

Hestia grunted, “They’ll have you.”

“Wow,” said Harry.

“Yeah,” said Dudley.

“Oh, Dudley,” gushed Aunt Petunia as she had done so often, “I’m so proud of you.”

And for once, Harry could not disagree with her.

: :

When Ginny and Harry finally waddled out the front door, the inhabitants of Siren Farm–Harry’s summer home–waved warmly in farewell. Aside from Dudley, none of them would be leaving any time soon. Dedalus’s house too had been destroyed, though he seemed even less concerned than the Dursleys, and Hestia lived with her sister, Morag, who would be deep in training for the upcoming Quidditch season and would, Hestia said with a laugh, “be a right bint for the next two months.”

“Thanks for coming,” Harry said, squeezing Ginny’s hand.

“Are you joking?” she laughed, “I got to meet the famous Dursleys–two of them, any way–see yet another of your houses, and talk to Morag Jones’s sister!” Ginny and Hestia had talked about the Holyhead Harpies for a while, quite losing the Dursleys, though Harry and Dedalus tried to explain the ins and outs of Quidditch to them. Mostly, Harry watched Ginny, who seemed positively giddy once she realized that she was talking to her idol’s sister; seeing her beaming left Harry feeling quite giddy himself.

Family.

As they hopped the fence–which was a lot harder for them than the much taller Kingsley–Harry asked, “So, um, do you think your parents would mind if we stopped off someplace on the way back?”

“Oh?” said Ginny with a grin that was more than a little wicked, “Going to show me yet another of your houses, are you?” When he didn’t answer, but merely stood there, mouth open, she laughed. “Mum always promised to bring me to Godric’s Hollow when I was little, to see the statue and the house. Somehow, she never did. And of course…” She stopped short, suddenly looking up at him more timidly than she had done in years.

“Of course?”

“Merlin, Harry, I’m sorry, I just thought…” She shook her head. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the same for you. I’m sorry, never mind.”

“No, what?”

“Well,” she said, blushing, “there’s a rose garden there, at the back of the house. It’s supposed to be, you know, one of the most romantic spots in Britain.”

Grinning, he kissed her, and was pleased when she abandoned her embarrassment and kissed him back. “That sounds great,” Harry said. “Definitely. We can stop there second.”

“Second?”

“I… I was thinking maybe we could drop in at Mrs. Tonks’s and see Teddy. I haven’t seen him this week. Do you think she’d mind?”

“’Course not,” answered Ginny; her lips found his again, and he could feel them smile against his own. “Family’s always welcome.”

Family. “Okay,” Harry said, taking her hand and turning.

Back to index

Chapter 5: First

First

“It seems odd, doesn’t it?” Hermione said wistfully. She leaned back against Ron’s shoulder and picked at a bit of paint that was sticking to her hair. “Not to be on the Hogwarts Express today?”

We weren’t on it last year either, thought Harry, but he knew what she was on about.

Dean laughed; Ron shook his head, pulling her closer, and chuckled, “Come on, Hermione, we’re a five-minute walk from the front gates. Once our slave driver here”–he thrust a thumb towards his sister–“tells us we’re done for the day, we’ll be up at the school hours before the rest of the students arrive. Since when have you ever complained about getting to school early?”

“Ginny’s not the slave-driver,” Luna pointed out. “This is Harry’s house. Ginny’s merely the foreman.”

Wiping multi-colored paint splatter from her wand, Ginny laughed, “Thanks, Loony!”

“You’re welcome,” said Luna with a smile. “Are we done, by the way?”

“Yup!” Ginny said, patting a freshly painted wall. “This Shack Shrieks no more!”

They all laughed, and Harry grinned at them. Ron, leaning back against a drop-cloth-covered bed, his arms around Hermione as if they had always belonged there; Hermione finally looking as if she weren’t surprised to be so close to him. Luna, her eyes closed—had Harry ever seen her with her eyes shut?–her white smock decorated with splattered paint and doodles of fanciful creatures that Dean, his head in her lap, was continuing to draw; Dean, finally looking as if he had filled some of the emptiness in his soul, painting .

Ginny, looking at him.

“Thanks guys. I really appreciate all of the work.”

“Well,” chuckled Dean, putting a last crumpled horn on a Snorkack, “it’s not as if we weren’t already up here most of the summer rebuilding and cleaning and painting the castle. And you feed us better than McGonagall did!”

“Hear, hear!” chortled Ron as Hermione swatted him, muttering, “It’s not Professor McGonagall’s fault that they only got the kitchens up and running again last week!”

“Oy, Kreacher,” Harry shouted down the stairs, “did you hear what Dean just said?”

“Yes, Master!” called the house elf, who had catered lunches to Harry’s work crew throughout August. “Kreacher is most gratified to have his service please Master’s guests. Is Master’s party ready for luncheon?”

“Don’t have to ask twice!” hooted Ron, leaping to his feet, pulling an astonished Hermione with him.

“Come along, Dean,” Luna said, standing and peering down with apparent wonder at her smock. “Perhaps Kreacher has made us Plimpy soup.”

“Uh, don’t think you find Gulping Plimpies this far north,” Harry suggested.

Luna’s face fell, but not too far. “Perhaps it will French onion, then,” she sighed. “I love French onion soup.”

As he followed Luna out the door, Dean smiled, winked, and was gone.

He was about to follow them down to the kitchen, but a small, familiar hand found his. He turned to Ginny; the whole of what would be his bedroom was white, excepting the pale green trim on the window sills and door frames, and her hair flamed all the brighter, even with a fleck or two of white still scattered here or there among the copper strands. “Coming down to lunch?” he asked, finding his voice.

“In a minute,” she said, stepping closer. She smiled. “Haven’t had you alone in a bedroom in a while.”

He met her halfway. “Last time, I seem to remember a lot of crying and yelling.”

“Quite a lot of snogging, as well.”

“True.” They kissed, and as always it left Harry breathless–no longer like something from someone else’s life, but miraculous nonetheless.

After a moment, Harry stepped back. “So. Are you still, you know…?”

“Angry?”

Harry shrugged. “Yeah.”

Ginny started to say something, but then closed her mouth. Eyebrows pursed, she started to speak again when a bellow wafted up the stairs: “Oi! Potter! Kreacher won’t serve out till you’re down here!”

Harry reached out and squeezed Ginny’s hand. “Come on. We should have known not to keep your brother waiting for food.”

Smirking, she led him towards the door. “Meet you back up here after lunch?”

“I’ll have to ask the owner of the house.”

“You do that, Harry.” Hand in hand, giggling like school children, they went down for lunch.

: :

By the end of lunch–which had in fact featured French onion soup–they were all happily arrayed around the table that they had discovered to be still intact in the cellar and that Dean and Luna had returned to gleaming condition. Dean and Hermione were discussing the legislation that Kingsley Shacklebolt had proposed to guarantee Muggleborns’ rights in the future; Dean actually seemed to be even more adamant than Hermione that it could have gone farther. Luna was regaling Harry and Ginny with a story about Hagrid’s shock when she had shown him a Humdinger living in one of the oaks of the Forbidden Forest–a Common Humdinger, not a Blibbering one, but a Humdinger nonetheless. Ron surprised everyone by getting up from the table first.

“You feeling ill, Ron?” Ginny asked.

“No, no, just, you know, wanted to help get Hermione moved in.”

Hermione stood, very demurely, looking at a spot on the floor six feet ahead of her–looking, in fact, anywhere but at the four remaining at the table or at Ron.

Ginny started to speak again, but Harry beat her to it. “Ron? You do know that the house elves will already have moved everything up?”

“I simply wanted to show him a few things in the Head Girl’s quarters,” Hermione said, and immediately started to blush, before Dean had even managed to snort, “I bet you did!”

Ron and Hermione left with as much dignity as they could manage, but the others didn’t even wait for the front door to close before they all started to laugh.

“Going to be hard for them, not having all those dark, empty corners to sneak off to in the castle!” chuckled Dean.

“Yes,” mused Luna, “that will rather diminish the extent and frequency of their sexual activities.”

“Sexual…?” asked Harry, caught a bit off guard; he’d supposed that his friends had simply been sneaking off at every opportunity just as he and Ginny had to kiss and to talk. “You mean they…?”

Dean blinked, Luna stared and Ginny gawked. “Merlin, Harry,” she said, “don’t you and Ron talk about anything?”

“Well,” he spluttered, looking down into the empty bowl, “not about that. I mean, think about it…” He looked at her pleadingly.

“Oh. I suppose. But that didn’t stop Hermione from telling me everything, even if it was about my brother.”

“I should hope not,” Luna added, in what was for her a very firm tone. “Speaking of which, Dean, now would be a good time for us to go back to your room at the Three Broomsticks. It is a shame that you have decided not to come back to school, but that being the case, it seems as if we should take advantage of this opportunity to have as much sex as we can before I have to be back up at the castle.”

Dean was not as dark-skinned as Lee or Angelina–or even the Patils–and so it was always rather entertaining to watch him flush. It certainly couldn’t be called a blush, but it was close enough, in Harry’s mind. As he stood, mouth open, he seemed to be looking at the same spot on the floor that had so fascinated Hermione.

Luna linked her arm in his. “Thank you for the lovely lunch, Harry,” she said. “I’m glad we could help get your house ready. I’ll see you both up at the school.”

Harry and Ginny waved goodbye as they left, and then looked at each other. Ginny looked as if she were about to ask something when Kreacher appeared between them with a loud crack. “Is Master finished? May Kreacher clear away?”

“Of course,” Harry said.

“Great lunch, Kreacher,” Ginny said.

“Mistress is too kind.”

Harry stared down at the elf, who was giving them a particularly disturbing smile. “Er, thanks, Kreacher. Listen, you’re done for the afternoon, okay?”

The toothy, ragged smile grew. “Of course, Master. Once Kreacher has finished cleaning up, Kreacher shall return to Grimmauld Place.”

“Great, Kreacher.” Harry had realized, with some regret, that though Kreacher belonged to him, he was bound to the House of Black; sending him to work at Hogwarts for a year had been expedient, but had been very difficult on the elf. They had come to an agreement that Kreacher might come and assist Harry at his new home, which Kreacher saw as purely a temporary abode, but that the elf would remain at the home to which he was bound. “Thanks.”

“Kreacher lives to serve.” As he began to Levitate the dirty dishes, the elf added, with what looked distinctly like a smirk, “Kreacher took the opportunity to prepare Master’s bed. For the night.” He bowed low, hands raised to keep the china in the air. “Master. Mistress.” With another crack, he and the dishes disappeared.

Harry looked at Ginny, who was blushing and frowning. “Does… Does he call lots of witches… that?”

“No,” Harry said. Hermione had always been ‘Master’s friend’–at least, once she had ceased to be ‘the Mudblood’–while Luna was usually ‘Master’s unusual friend.’ Harry had heard Kreacher call Ginny ‘Master’s lady friend,’ and, long ago, ‘Blood Traitor spawn,’ but never– “No.”

“Oh.” She pursed her lips for a moment and then cocked an eyebrow at him. “So, shall we inspect his work upstairs?”

“Uh,” Harry said. “Yes.”

: :

Harry’s room, which they had left covered in drop cloths, was sparkling. Sunlight poured through the window, Harry’s robes were all hanging in the closet, and the bed…

The old four-poster was made up, the silk coverings a deep, lustrous green, turned down…

A red rose in a bud vase stood on the nightstand.

“Wow,” Ginny said. “Kreacher works fast.”

Harry nodded. Not for the first time, Harry felt a pang of regret at reclaiming his great-grandparents’ house. At claiming this room. The bed, at least, was the same one that he had seen Sirius sit on, the night they had met. The night that Harry had learned the truth.

Harry took a deep breath and let it out.

Ginny’s arms lifted, open. “Come here,” she said.

Harry stepped into her arms, and it was sunlight, and timeless. They had kissed dozens of times since the end of the war, and every time seemed like the first, and every time seemed unique, and now seemed perfect. They melted together and there was no tension now, no sense that this was the first or would be the last, and then they found themselves once again on a bed–not falling this time, but there nonetheless–and clothes began to disappear, and flesh presented itself to lips and fingers, and all seemed just as it should be. The only moment when they stopped was just at the point where they were about to cross into truly new territory. They leaned back from each other, each breathless, each looking for an assurance from the other that was evident without any need to search. Ginny nodded, and Harry plucked his wand from the pocket of his discarded jeans, casting for the first time a spell that had never been part of any Hogwarts lesson, but that every male student over second year learned and practiced. Then the wand was gone, and the wait was over.

When he found himself staring up into her face again, sunlight spilling through her hair again, two thoughts managed to occupy his brain at the same time: one was that, really, nothing had changed; the other was that it felt as if a massive invisibility cloak had been pulled from the world and everything seemed different....

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” He ran his fingers through her hair, which had somehow managed to become tangled all to one side. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling, leaning her cheek into his wrist. “You?”

“Yeah.”

She lay down against him, and the feeling of her, of all that mysterious flesh that had seemed so frighteningly tantalizing now felt simply natural, and in some way that felt quite marvelous.

Still…

“Sorry.”

She pushed back up and peered down at him as if to check whether he had gone mad. “For what?”

Suddenly, he felt as if he were looking into the sun, but he didn’t feel as if he could tear his eyes from hers. “Sorry… I wanted… You didn’t…”

Her eyebrows bunched, and then she kissed his nose. “We’re not going for perfection or anything. Don’t worry.” Her lips met his cheek. “Next time, okay?”

“Okay.” He raised his mouth to hers.

Some time later, he was catching his breath again, running a finger along one high clavicle. “Ginny?”

“Yeah?” Her eyes were closed.

“Are you still angry with me?”

Her mouth became very small and her eyes flashed open, very large; she looked once again like the girl who had awoken in the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago, awaiting his judgment. “Harry.” She looked up at him for a moment, shook her head minutely, then nodded and sighed. “I feel all kinds of things about you, Harry. I love you, and I’m proud. Proud of you. Proud that you love me. You make me happy, and sad, too, sometimes, because of all of the things that have happened to you, to us.” He started to answer her, but she ran a finger across his lips. “Mostly happy. And yeah, I still do feel all of those things I was yelling about the last time we were lying on a bed together, and I probably will be for a while, but honestly, Harry, you’ll know if it’s a problem. It’s not what I’m feeling most of all. Just something that’s there, that we’ve talked about, that I know will get better.”

He sighed and kissed her finger. “Don’t know how you do it. I can only usually figure out one thing that I’m feeling at a time. If that.”

She grinned up at him. “Such a boy sometimes. Not that I’m complaining. So. What one thing are you feeling just now?”

“Happy, believe me. But I guess also…” He looked away from her.

“Also?”

“Afraid?”

She sat up, so that they were facing each other once again. “Afraid?”

He tried to elaborate, but found that he couldn’t, and so he simply nodded.

She pulled him close, winding herself around him until there was no space between them. “Never known you to be afraid of anything before,” she whispered.

Never had anything I couldn’t stand to lose, he thought. Holding her tight, he whispered back. “First time for everything, I suppose.”

Back to index

Chapter 6: Forever

Author's Notes: Written for a catchmysnitch monthly challenge; the prompt was singing valentine. :-)

Your eyes are as bright as a thousand wand spell,

As a Chaser you are the best, easily.

You're simply divine,

Oh, will you be mine

Now and forever, Ginny Weasley?

Back to index

Chapter 7: Folly, Act I

Author's Notes: This is the first "act" in a three-part chapter.

Harry stumbled back into the Shack, limbs trembling, but relieved. He’d lasted another term without dying, and without Talionis or Robards booting him from the program. And they had got Easter holiday week, in spite of Robards’s obscenity-larded grumbling. Talionis had given them a sort of ceremonial tongue-lashing by way of celebrating the day and told them all he was sick of their pasty faces, that it was just as well he’d be spared the displeasure of having to look at them for a week, and they’d better be ready to work hard for a change once their holiday was done. Harry’d never been so happy to be insulted.

Party tonight at the Burrow.

Week with Ginny, without having to sneak back and forth… quite as far.

Flying. Helping her get ready for the Harpies tryouts.

Talking to the Weasleys.

That thought dropped a heavy weight in Harry’s stomach, even as it set his fingers tingling.

Leaving his kit by the front door–he’d be taking it soon enough–he wandered into the kitchen. As he had hoped and prayed, Kreacher greated him there, a chilled glass full of butterbeer on a tiny silver tray. “Thanks, Kreacher. Robards was off his nut today. You’re a life-saver.”

“Master is too kind.” Kreacher waited, tray and eyebrows raised, while Harry quaffed off the first half of the drink. When Harry lowered the glass, he was still standing, expectant.

“Yeah, Kreacher?” Harry asked; he had grown used to the house elf’s passive intrusions. “What’s up?”

“Master has a visitor.” The thought that this statement brought to Harry’s mind–Ginny!–evidently made itself clear on his face, as Kreacher continued, “A wizard visitor. I have put him in Master’s study.”

“Thanks, Kreacher.” Couldn’t be Ron; Kreacher wouldn’t have called Ron a visitor, since Ron spent most nights at the Shack–the ones when he hadn’t snuck up to the castle to spend the night in the Head Girl’s quarters, or kipped down in George’s flat after helping out at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. The elf would have said Master’s friend or, more recently, Mistress’s brother.

After polishing off the rest of the butterbeer in a single pull, Harry deposited the glass on the tray, wiped his mouth obediently with the napkin that Kreacher pulled out of the air, watched the elf make his customary disappearance back to Grimmauld Place, and made his way across the front hall to the room that Kreacher insisted–rather more optimistically than accurately, Harry thought–on calling the Study, which was furnished with a few empty bookshelves, a bare table, two chairs, and one Neville Longbottom.

“Hey, Neville!” Harry extended his hand and was surprised that his friend’s grip, which had grown enthusiastic if not bone-crushing over the past year, was soft, almost timid. “What brings you here? Susan still threatening to skin you alive?”

After the debacle at Professor Slughorn’s at St. Valentine’s, where Neville had inadvertently found himself escorting both Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott, Neville had been very quick to make his own preference between the two best friends–Hannah–clear. Though Susan had accepted the choice graciously, she had made a point of not telling Neville this; she’d been shooting venomous glances at her friend’s boyfriend from the new Auror table in the Great Hall. When the other cadet from the DA, Terry Boot, had asked her why, she’d given them a hard grin. Don’t want him to forget never to mess with a Hufflepuff.

“No, no,” Neville said, but his eyes seemed focused on Harry’s belt buckle. “Susan’s told me I’ll live, but…” Neville’s eyes flicked up, and Harry caught a sudden glimpse of the determination that had made Neville one of the leaders of Dumbledore’s Army the previous year, and had, coincidentally, made him quite popular with the girls ever since. “It’s made me think, Harry.”

“Think?” Harry tried to guess where Neville was going with this, but couldn’t. Collapsing into one of the chairs, he shrugged at Neville, encouraging him to continue.

Neville sat opposite, eyes still locked on Harry’s. It was a full ten seconds, however, before he took Harry’s cue. “It’s about Ginny.”

Ginny. Tonight. The Weasleys. “Ginny?”

Neville nodded.

“What about Ginny?”

Sitting straight as a broomstick, Neville started to speak, but then paused, his expression frozen between that newly familiar air of grim resolve and the terrified look he had worn so often in years past, especially in Snape’s presence.

“Neville?” Harry prompted. “What about Ginny?”

“Kissed her,” Neville said in a kind of strangled whisper.

Harry understood the words, but they made no sense. He sat there, blinking at his friend. “Kissed–?”

“Ginny,” said Neville, nodding minutely. “Twice. Last year.” His eyes widened. “She didn’t, you know, kiss me, mind, I just want to point that out, but yeah, Harry, I kissed her, on the lips and all, and I feel really rotten, I wanted to say something, but it never seemed like the right time–”

Harry held up his hands and the torrent stopped. Neville’s face was flushed and his eyes bright; burnished red crescents appeared on his cheeks. He sat, lips pursed, still very straight, but blessedly silent.

They’d kissed? What the hell did that mean? And why hadn’t Ginny ever mentioned anything? Probably because it wasn’t worth mentioning. Or maybe… “Neville,” Harry said, holding back the urgency he was feeling with his tongue as if he were tamping down the urge to vomit, “when?”

The flood began again. “Last winter. After Luna was taken on the train back, it was awful, you know, everyone was so terrified, but Ginny, she… Well, she and I decided that the DA needed to continue, that it was all the more important, with The Quibbler silenced, we needed to keep the fight going, you know?”

Harry nodded numbly but Neville had already moved on. “Spent a lot of time together, planning, you know? And you were gone, and Hannah’s a Muggleborn, so she wasn’t here, obviously, and Susan was, but she and Anthony….” Neville paused for a moment, either because Harry’s expression was beginning to make him anxious, or because he was surprised by the volume of prattle he was pouring forth.

Harry sat and breathed.

“Well, anyway,” Neville continued, eying Harry nervously, “lot of time together, since, basically, we were the leaders, but Snape and the Carrows were watching us like hawks, so we couldn’t get out much–not until we figured out how to keep the Room of Requirement open to the three common rooms, anyway–wouldn’t half have given an arm for your Cloak and that map she said you had–and she and, yeah, well…”

Harry un-ground his teeth and gave Neville what was meant to be an encouraging nod.

Neville gulped audibly. “Yeah. Well. She’s, you know… Amazing. And…. And…. And smells so nice, like freesia, only not so cloying, and we were in the common room late one night, we’d just pulled off a raid on Mr. Potatohead’s classroom–that’s Amycus–and she’d been brilliant as usual, stunned a couple of Slytherin Prefects before any of the rest of us even knew they were there, and we sent the others up to bed and talked the raid through, a debriefing, sort of, and she was sitting there in front of the fire, her face all glowy the way it gets, you know?”

“I know.”

“Bloody hell.” Neville took another deep breath, not holding it this time. “She was right there, and I didn’t even think about it, I just sort of leaned forward and kissed… And she didn’t back, I swear, it was me, she was totally gobsmacked, we sat there after for like five minutes and she didn’t say a word–hadn’t seen her that quiet since she first came to Hogwarts and then only when you…. And I wanted to die, but I didn’t… I just… And finally she just sort of started talking to me, looking into the fire. About you. And Hannah. And Susan. And Dean. And Luna, even, how hard it was, not knowing where she was, Ginny said she would have loved to talk to her just then… How worried she was, and how we were, you know, friends and all, and that that was the most important thing, coming through together.” Neville sighed in relief, having placed the load squarely on Harry’s shoulders.

“Thanks, Neville.” Not the whole load, however. “And the second time? You said…”

“Yeah,” said Neville. He was looking down at the floor now, but his gaze was far away. “Same, basically. Few weeks later, just before she didn’t come back from Easter … She… One of the Ravenclaws in her year, Siobhan, a girl who’d been really awful to Luna, actually, got caught by Alecto–Mrs. Potatohead–putting Support Potter and Lovegood Lives on the wall right opposite the Muggle Studies room, and that cow was cursing Siobhan something horrible. We all thought she might kill Siobhan, actually. And Ginny–we couldn’t intervene any more, because they’d figured out that having the students curse each other wasn’t a very effective punishment, so it was the Carrows who’d have done it, and they’d have bloody well killed Ginny for sure, they’d come close before…” Neville shuddered, and Harry felt a spear of cold pass through him, realizing that as much as he and Ginny had talked, there were things beyond a pair of kisses that she hadn’t told him about the previous year.

“Anyway,” continued Neville, “Ginny’s right behind the old cow, casts the slickest Confundus you’ve ever seen. One moment Carrow is cursing that girl something awful, the next, she’s blinking at all of us, asking what we’re doing blocking up the hallways. That corridor emptied in about two seconds flat, and if Hermione hadn’t told me a thousand times that you couldn’t Apparate inside of Hogwarts, I’d have said it’d have had to been by magic.” Neville shook his head. “So I walked back with Ginny, and she went through this tapestry, a shortcut up–”

Harry willed his bruised hands to relax. “I know it.”

Now Neville nodded. “Yeah. So I followed her, and she…” Neville’s hands, green-stained and calloused, clenched together between his knees. “She was… Crying.”

Harry blinked. “Crying?”

Neville nodded. “Hadn’t seen her cry like that, ever. I mean, we all cried at the headmaster’s funeral, but… Sitting on the ground. Just… Crying.” He looked up, then down again. “Then. Um. Then. Kissed her again.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Dunno why. Just…”

The front door to the Shrieking Shack burst open, and Hermione’s voice rang through the house. “Harry? HARRY?”

In spite of himself–in spite of wanting to hear the rest of what Neville had to say–Harry stood and called out, “In the study, Hermione!” He’d got too well attuned to that panicked tone over the past eight years not to respond immediately.

Neville too stood, eyes narrowed, face suddenly regaining its hard edges.

Hermione ran into the room, her hair wild, her eyes wide, her hands wringing tightly before her. “Oh, Harry–”

Chest pounding, jaw tight, Harry asked, “Is it Ginny?”

Hermione froze for a moment and frowned. “Ginny? No. No!”

One nightmare gave way to the next. “Where’s Ron?”

Now Hermione simply looked uncomfortable. “Ron? He’s fine. Fine. He… He just had to talk to the Head Auror.”

After the brutal dismissal they’d all just received from Talionis, Harry was shocked that Ron would willingly seek him out. “You’re kidding!”

“No,” she moaned, wringing her hands twice as hard now. “He… Ron will tell you all about it later.”

Harry stared at her, shifting his head as if trying to get a clearer view.

“What is it, Hermione?” asked Neville, voice low and urgent, his earlier nervousness evaporated.

“Yes!” Hermione gasped, nodding as if he had just asked a particularly brilliant question. “It’s Luna!”

“Luna?” said Harry and Neville in unison; Harry guessed from the tone that Neville was just as bewildered as he was. Harry reached out and stilled Hermione’s wildly wringing hands. “Was she taken again?”

“No!” Hermione gasped. “No, no, she’s still… She hasn’t left yet, she hasn’t been…” Her face contorted. “She… I think… I think she’s lost her mind.”

Harry backed up, trying and failing to keep a dubious expression from his face.

Apparently, Neville didn’t even try. He simply laughed. “Hermione, on good days–”

“Luna is highly eccentric,” Hermione said, her face suddenly very still. “But she always behaves according to her own kind of logic. She… I’m worried about her. She’s acting oddly–even for her.”

“Is this about that letter this morning?” Neville asked. Harry vaguely remembered a Ministry owl depositing a Muggle-style envelope on the plate next to Ginny’s; he’d been focused entirely on watching the spectacle of his girlfriend eating her oatmeal–very, very slowly…

“Yes!” Hermione cried. “It was Dean, he sent her a letter breaking it off.”

Harry looked at her, waiting for more. Luna had talked to Harry for months about her relationship with Dean being strained. Hermione looked at him, eyebrows raised as if she’d made her point.

“Hermione,” muttered Neville, apparently as dubious as Harry, “you heard her. She told us all it was a relief, and how nice it was to have that settled. She looked totally fine–well, as far as Luna ever looks fine.”

“That’s the point!” Hermione said. “She looked totally unconcerned. Blythe as ever, but we all know she cared for him. And then, after Ancient Runes, she went on about what a nice day it was even though it was pouring this morning, but then she started to babble on about snow and ice, and then at lunch she was talking to Ginny all about Snorkacks and polar bears, and I was starting to be nervous–after all, she hasn’t mentioned Crumple-horned Snorkacks in months…”

“Hermione,” asked Harry, “was it Crumple-horned Snorkacks she mentioned, or Great-horned?”

“What DIFFERENCE does it make, Harry? She came down just now carrying skis, for heaven’s sake! SKIS. In APRIL! You must see, she’s clearly decompensating!” Tears were beginning to brighten her eyelashes. “Her mental state has always been precarious, and after being trapped in the Malfoys’ cellar for six months, it’s amazing that she’s been as resilient as she has, but…” Hermione swiped the back of her thumb across her eyes to clear them. What she saw clearly didn’t please her. “And you two can smirk all you want–Ron was the same. How can you stand there…? Don’t you care for her at all?”

Neville spoke up, which relieved Harry enormously. “We love her, Hermione, come on. But this is Luna we’re talking about. Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a bit? I mean, there’s probably some perfectly logical… Well, fairly logical explanation.”

Hermione let out an exasperated growl and wound her arms together more tightly than Harry had seen her do since Ron’s return the previous year. He stepped forward, trying to think of a way to calm his best friend, when the front door banged open, letting in a blast of damp spring air, and the voice Harry had been longing to hear all day called out, “Hullo! Loverboy! Your mistress is here!”

“In here!” Harry called back. Though his head and heart still felt overburdened by his friends’ revelations and his body ached from the punishment doled out by his teachers, Harry couldn’t help but grin to see her sprint into the room, flaming hair and black robes flying behind her. She let go of her trunk, which floated in mid-air, and leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and her lips around his in a manner that drove anything else quite out of his mind for the moment.

Once they’d snogged away for a bit, Ginny mumbled against his lips, “Hey, Neville. Hey, Hermione.”

“Hey, Ginny,” Neville wheezed as if he’d been hit in the stomach.

“Mistress, Ginny?” sniffed Hermione.

“Oh, yeah,” Ginny answered, and Harry could feel her lips grinning against his own.

Harry backed his face away from hers and stared into her brown eyes. “Only temporarily.”

Ginny squawked in mock indignation, gave him a gentle bite on the ear and then lowered herself.

“I mean,” he said, feeling the blood in his body try to flow in two totally different directions, “legally, you brat. You’ll always be the mistress of my heart, and all that, and I want–”

She kissed him silent once again, less emphatically this time, but no less effectively. When they parted, she was grinning, and Harry knew that he must look as if he’d had a Cheering and a Confundus Charm placed on him simultaneously. Ginny turned to Hermione, who was standing next to Neville, her arms still crossed. Both were staring at their shoes. “It’s because Kreacher started calling me Mistress, that’s all. The batty old elf never called me anything nicer, that’s for sure.”

“Ah,” Hermione said.

“So, you joining us for George’s birthday, Neville?” Ginny asked. “We’d love to have you there.”

Neville blushed and stared at Harry. “Erm, no, no, thanks, I’d love to but I’m going to meet Hannah once she gets off her shift. I’m, um, bringing her for dinner to Gran’s.”

“That’s wonderful!” Ginny bounded over to Neville and wrapped him in a hug that made Harry’s heart lurch; he couldn’t think why until he saw the panicked expression on Neville’s face and remembered what Neville had wanted to tell Harry earlier. Ginny kissed Neville on the cheek; he turned as red a Tentacula flowers. “Hannah’s wonderful, your Gran will love her! And she’s a lucky girl, Neville, don’t forget that.” She gave his cheek a gentle buss.

“Erm, yeah,” said Neville, his voice sounding quite choked. Harry somehow couldn’t break eye contact.

“And you, Hermione? You ready to go?” Ginny continued, clearly unaware of the discomfort she’d sown in her wake. “Where’s my lazy-arse brother?”

“Ah,” said Hermione, biting her lip, “he… He and I will join you at the Burrow. He had to talk to the Head Auror.”

“To old Dragonbreath?” said Ginny, bemusement warping her smile. “Why on earth–?”

“Just some details Ron wanted to discuss,” Hermione said, her face once again set stiffly. “Now, Ginny, perhaps you can explain to these two boys why Luna’s behavior is so worrisome?”

“Luna?” Ginny said, eyebrows arching.

Hermione let out a gasp. “Surely you’ve noticed how… extreme her behavior has been all day–since Dean’s letter arrived. Having your first real boyfriend reject you–by letter no less–it’s no surprise that she’s taken it hard, but I’m terrified that she–”

Ginny shook her head as if to clear it. “Taken it hard? She’s fine, Hermione!”

“Fine? Fine!” Hermione said. “She’s running around talking about Snorkacks and polar bears, attacking everyone with skis. For heaven’s sake, you are her best friend, aren’t you worried about her at all?”

Ginny blinked at Hermione. “Come on, Hermione–”

“Ginny!” snapped Hermione, her face looking positively thunderous. “You’re all just like Ron, all of you, you don’t care at all about another person’s suffering!” Spit sprayed from her mouth as she leaned forward, poking a rigid finger toward each of them.

“Hermione–” started Neville, backing away with his hands held up.

“LUNA IS LOSING HER MIND!” howled Hermione, tears flowing, her face twisted in a manner that made Harry wonder about his friend’s own sanity.

Once again blast of April wind passed through the room and announced the opening of the front door. A misty voice called out, “Do you think so? Oh, that would be a shame, since I have such lovely plans for this week.”

Luna sounded so much like herself, and her response seemed, in fact, so rational that Harry felt whatever anxiety Hermione had managed to instill fade. It came rushing back, however, as soon as Luna entered the room.

Luna was dressed in fur from head to foot–what animal could have provided the fur, Harry could not even begin to guess, since it was mostly a shade of purple that Harry had only ever seen on Tonks’s head interspersed with small stripes of green. Over one shoulder she was carrying, as Hermione had said, an enormous pair of skis, and in the opposite hand she held a large canvas duffle. Her wild hair tumbled out from under her fur cap, and it was the most normal thing about her appearance, since her face seemed to have been covered with some sort of yellowish salve, and over each eye she seemed to be wearing some sort of seashell. Harry stood, mouth open but unable to speak. Judging by the silence, Ginny, Neville and Hermione had been struck just as dumb.

 “Oh, how nice,” Luna sighed, “here you all are.”

“Luna?” whispered Ginny, though it seemed clear to Harry that the apparition before them was their unusual friend.

“Has he come yet?” Luna asked, her smile showing brilliantly against the tallow-like unguent on her skin.

“He?” Hermione croaked. “Oh, Luna, you know Dean–”

The figure in fur cocked her head and seemed about to speak when she was interrupted by the characteristic splutter and flare of the Floo connection in the kitchen opening. “Hello? Hello?” came a reedy voice.

“Oh!” said Luna, turning quickly so that Ginny and Harry had to duck to avoid being hit by her skis. “Hello!” She ran back to the door much more agilely than Harry would have expected her to be able to.

Harry looked around at his friends. They were all shaking their heads. With a laugh, Harry took Ginny’s hand and followed Luna across the hall; he could hear Hermione and Neville trailing behind.

When they reached the kitchen, they discovered Luna speaking to a tall figure in an almost identical outfit. Harry found himself wondering if it weren’t some elaborate April Fool’s joke.

The taller figure piped, “So wonderful that you’ll be able to join us, Miss Lovegood!”

“Join you?” asked Hermione, her voice low and dubious.

Two heads clad in purple and green fur hats turned towards them. “I’m joining the expedition for a week,” Luna squeaked, bouncing on the soles of her feet.

“That’s wonderful, Luna!” said Ginny.

“Hello, Mr. Potter!” said Rolf Scamander–for that was who this new arrival had to be. “Luna here told me that this was the most convenient Floo connection to the school–I hope you don’t mind!”

“No, not at all!”

“Expedition?” asked Hermione.

“Oh, yes,” said Luna, still bouncing. “Mr. Scamander and his father invited me earlier, you see, but I’d been planning to spend the holiday in Hammersmith. However, when I received that letter this morning, I knew that I could go after all! I’m joining the expedition in Svaalbard for the next week.”

Hermione’s face was slack; she seemed to have lost even her skepticism. “Scamander?”

Harry grinned. “Hermione Granger, let me introduce Rolf Scamander. He and his father are researching a new edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”

Hermione’s eyes grew to saucer-like, Luna-like enormity.

“Indeed!” crowed Rolf. “And as luck would have it we’ve just come across a nesting ground for Great-horned Snorkacks.” Hermione’s jaw dropped, but Rolf continued. “Miss Lovegood, your timing is excellent, and I’m overjoyed that you were able to equip yourself so well on such short notice!”

Beneath the goop on her cheeks, it looked as if Luna might be blushing. “I had prepared myself. Just in case.”

“How fortunate!” said Rolf, clapping two fur-mittened hands together. “Well, we should be off. We’ve got to Floo to Scapa, then Hexenhavn, then Longyearbyen, then we Apparate–”

“Mr. Scamander?” interrupted Luna, who never interrupted anyone.

“Yes?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment.”

“Oh,” answered Rolf, standing suddenly much straighter. “How nice.”

“Hmmm,” agreed Luna.

Cocking his head and peering at her through the shell-like objects that Harry assumed were some sort of goggles, Rolf Scamander trilled a long series of warbling notes.

In response, Luna turned away from him, her skin clearly pinkening beneath her sunscreen, then cast her gaze back over her shoulder; she responded with three throaty hoots that made her sound like a rather excited mourning dove.

“Bandicoot mating ritual,” whispered Ginny.

“Ah,” responded Harry.

“Goodbye, everyone!” gushed a grinning Luna, placing a mittened hand in one of Rolf’s. “See you all in a week!” And with a flash of green, the mad pair were gone.

“Wow,” said Neville.

“Yeah,” agreed Harry.

Harry looked down at Ginny, who was smiling, but whose eyes were moist. When she saw Harry looking at her, she shrugged. “Happy for her.”

Harry pulled her closer and nodded into her hair.

“Well,” said Neville, eyes averted, “I’m off. Got to get down to the station before the train leaves.” He waved and strode toward the door.

“You could Floo from here!” called Harry, but the closing door announced Neville’s departure.

“I should be getting back up to the Castle as well,” Hermione said quietly. “Ron and I will see you at the Burrow.” Hands folded crisply before her, she too left.

“Well,” said Ginny, a smile brightening her whole face for what felt like the first time in weeks, “that was fun!”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, lost in contemplation of her face. Her face all glowy the way it gets, Neville had said, and Harry had known just what he’d meant–was seeing it before him.

Neville kissing Ginny. Ginny kissing…?

No.

A pair of lips softened Harry’s. “Hi,” Ginny said.

“Hi.”

She nipped at his lower lip. “You’re all gloomy.”

“Not really,” he said. “Just, you know, thinking.”

“’Bout what?”

“If I could answer that question simply, I wouldn’t have to think.” He placed his hands on her ribs, where he could feel her breathing, could feel her heart beating.

“You sound like Luna,” she teased, threading her arms around his neck.

“But not as warmly dressed,” he said, which caused her to snort. “You’re in a good mood,” he added. It was true: between NEWTs and the tryouts for the Harpies next weekend, Ginny had been very subdued for the previous month, but now she looked very much herself.

“I’m done thinking,” she murmured, pressing herself against him in ways that left them both much less interested in talking for some time. 

Back to index

Chapter 8: Folly, Act II

Author's Notes: My apologies for the slow updates! There is more of this storyline to come, I promise.

Back to index

Chapter 9: Folly, Act III

Author's Notes: Here, finally, is the last "act" of Folly, the seventh installment in my F Words series.

This was written as a response to the Fortune Cookie challenge; the prompt was "There is a crisis looming, be ready for it."

Harry stumbled through the Floo after Ginny, dropping his own broom and the beat-up rucksack that had served him for luggage since he, Ron and Hermione were on the run. “Ginny, what the hell do you mean, you’re not going to–?”

She gave him a warning flick of the chin that said clearly, Look around.

With a blink, Harry took in his surroundings. Ron and Hermione were staring owlishly at Harry and Ginny from the Burrow’s battered oak kitchen table. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were standing by the sink. Mrs. Weasley was trying to smile at the new arrivals, but she was wringing her hands, which was never a good sign. Mr. Weasley had his hands on her shoulders; it looked very much as  if he were trying to keep her from launching herself through the ceiling.  “Hello, Ginny, Harry, dear. How lovely that you’ve come. Now we’re almost all here and we can have a lovely birthday party for... for George.”

“We wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” said Harry.

“‘Course we’re here, Mum,” Ginny murmured, giving her mother a kiss on the cheek. Mrs. Weasley’s fingers never stopped working at each other.

Concerned, Harry took a step forward. “Uh, Mrs. Weasley–?”

Arthur Weasley gave a small, firm shake of the head, and Harry felt his mouth close. “Molly, dear,” Mr. Weasley said quietly into his wife’s ear,  “there’s plenty for us to do before Lee and Angelina and the others get here–Ginny, will your little friend Luna be joining us?”

“No,” answered Ginny and Harry. Hermione gave a sort of strangled laugh. Harry felt obligated to elaborate. “She’s gone hunting… er… Snorkacks. Great-horned Snorkacks.”

“Ah, what a shame,” said Mr. Weasley, though he looked more relieved than disappointed. “So, children, perhaps you could go up and get the birthday boy... ready. For the party.”

Before Ron could ask whatever it was that he was about to ask, Ginny answered, “Sure, Dad. C’mon, Harry.”

He followed her dutifully, trying not to take too much notice as Mrs. Weasley turned to her husband and began to sniffle. As he reached the first landing, he heard Hermione pushing Ron up the stairs behind him. He took Ginny’s hand. “Ginny–”

“What the hell was that all about?” hissed Ron as reached the landing. 

“Honestly, Ron,” Hermione tutted.

Ginny answered her brother, her eyes on Harry’s, her hand still in his. “Fred’s... death. The idea of going up to the twins’ room must be too much for her. Even at Christmas she never went in there without crying.”

“Really?” asked Ron. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I ever forget, but... It’s been almost a year.”

Hermione tapped her boyfriend on the arm. “But this is the first birthday since. Anniversaries and firsts are hard. Isn’t that so, Harry?”

“Uh, yeah. I suppose.” He tried to think of anything like it–the first Christmas after Sirius’ death, perhaps. But all that Harry could remember thinking of at the time was the glow of Ginny’s face as she decorated the tree or picked maggots out of his hair. “I guess.”

Ginny scanned his face. “Harry...”

“What do you mean, you’re not trying out for the Harpies?” Harry blurted.

She stared at his chest. “Harry...”

“Harry?” asked Hermione.

Ron’s jaw dropped. “You’re not...?”

Ginny’s eyes flashed up. “No. I’m not.”

Harry squeezed her hand. “But...?”

She pulled her hand free and looked back at his chest. “I can’t. Ever since the last match. Everyone thinks I’m a sure thing, but I know I’m not, and I can’t go back to school and tell everyone I tried out but didn’t get it. I can’t.”

“Ginny?” Harry reached for Ginny’s  hands again, but she held them at her shoulders. “Come on. That’s just–”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t say it, Harry.” 

“But–?”

Hermione intervened. “Harry, it is, after all, Ginny’s decision.”

He tried to grasp Ginny’s hands again, but she threw them behind her back. Harry grabbed her shoulders instead. “You can’t just... not try. That’s not like you at all!”

Ginny’s nostrils thinned and her jaw jutted out. Harry knew that if he let her grab her wand from her pocket, he’d be at the receiving end of a world-class Bat-bogey Hex, something he’d managed to avoid to this point and very much hoped never to experience. “It is your choice, Ginny, honest, but I don’t understand–”

“Ta,” growled Ginny.

“Uh, Harry, Ginny, just, you know...” Ron said, and Harry turned to him, blinking. When did Ron ever actually act the peacemaker? “Just don’t, you know, be hasty.”

“Yes, o wise one,” snapped Ginny.

“It’s just...” Ron seemed to be trying to hide behind Hermione’s hair. “It’s just, I know, you know, that there are times, you know...”

“Ron,” Harry asked, “What the bloody hell are you on about?”

Ron stood to his full height; Hermione took his hand and gazed up at him. “Just, sometimes, it’s a good idea when you realize you’ve made the wrong choice.”

Harry could feel Ginny turning, felt her at his shoulder, knew that she was looking at her brother with an expression of bewilderment as complete as his own. “Thanks, Ron.”

Hermione squeezed Ron’s hand. “Tell them, Ron.”

Ron looked down at his feet, took a deep breath and looked right at Harry. “Talked to Talionis today. I quit.”

Harry looked at Ron.

“It’s just… I know we said we’d do it together, and I know it’s really important–the Ministry needs Aurors, and the wizarding world needs Aurors. I just… It’s you, Harry. It’s what you want to do, what you’re good at. The bloody best. It’s like Susan–she’s got it in her blood. Or Terry, he’s nails in all the MLE statutes and regs and stuff, he loves it all. But me? I’m only there because…” Ron stopped, blinked miserably at Harry, and then looked down, pleading, at Hermione.

Squeezing his hand again and smiling, she stepped in. “Ron’s realized that he wasn’t very happy these past few months. He’s been miserable these last few months.”

“I know,” Harry sighed. 

Ron snorted. “Wasn’t just about being happy, ‘cause, come on, since when has being a miserable git stopped me doing anything? It’s that I’m terrible at it–at most of the work of actually being an Auror. You know?”

“Ron–” Harry began.

“No, come on–I’m absolute pants at it. Pursuit? Statutes? Stealth? Hell, old Dragonbreath told me I made Tonks look like a bloody Lethifold. Okay, the actual combat spells–the things you taught us fifth year–those I was good at. And strategy. Not that the next Voldemort is going to sit down and settle things over a game of chess. But the rest? Pants.”

Ginny asked, “And you’re not… disappointed?” When her brother shook his head, she turned to glare at Harry.

For the first time, Ron looked Harry straight in the eye. “Well, I loved being with you, Harry, and Susan–even if she did seem to enjoy kicking my arse way too much–and Boot and Emery and the rest. And Hermione’s going to be at the Ministry next year. But…”

“I understand,” Harry said, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“I…” Ron began to look down, but stood his ground. “I didn’t want you to think that I was running away again. Like, you know, last year.”

“Daft git.” Harry pulled Ron into a hug. “Told you last year: you didn’t run away. Well, okay, you stomped off in a fit of Horcrux-inspired pique. And you spent the better part of the next two months trying to run back.” He patted Ron’s back brusquely, leaned back and looked up. “Of course I understand!”

A grin like daybreak broke out on Ron’s face, and Harry suddenly realized just how long it had been since he had seen Ron truly smile. “Wicked! Thanks.”

Harry started to step back but Hermione, who was quickly boiling over from sniffling to blubbering, pulled him back in to a three-way hug. Between his friends, Harry saw Ginny staring at them, her eyes and nostrils slits. “Come on,” he said, not certain why she was angry, but recognizing the signs all too clearly and desperate to escape an explosion,  “let’s fetch the birthday boy.”

The four of them clomped up the stairs to the second landing. Ron, who was clearly feeling giddy, hammered on the door whose sign still read, Fred and George’s Room: Enter at Your Own Risk. “Oi! Old man! Come on down to the party before the prune juice is all gone!”

They stood there, awaiting whatever rejoinder George might send back, but were met with nothing but silence–a sound foreign to the Burrow. 

“George?” called Harry. “Your mum wants you downstairs.…”

More silence.

Hermione, who had already had one full-blown panic attack earlier that day over Luna’s odd behavior, looked as if she were well on the way to another: chewing her lip, wringing her hands, her eyes growing round and wide as Luna’s herself.

“George?” Ginny said. Whatever signs of anger she had been displaying moments before were replaced by signs of worry. Putting her hand carefully on the knob–touching anything anywhere near the twins’ room was always an iffy proposition–she cracked open the door and led the group in.

The room, which had been essentially a storeroom when Harry had last seen it, was neat as a pin and devoid of any sign that Fred and George had lived there for seventeen years. The walls were beige and bare. The two desks were utterly uncluttered. The bedspreads, which Harry remembered as being two violently clashing shades of purple, were a matching pale yellow.

On what had been Fred’s bed, the surviving member of the Terrible Weasley Twins lay on his side, curled into a tight ball. His knees were pulled so tightly in front of his face that Harry could only see George’s broad forehead; the long nose, the mischievous eyes–even the missing ear was hidden from view. 

Harry started to rush to George, the first responder training he’d been getting over the past few months clicking in. Ron was right beside him and just a step behind. Ginny, however, managed to reach her brother faster than any of them. She touched George’s neck with those thin, clever fingers–taking a pulse, Harry realized–and then let out a breath and held her hand up, as if to say, Give us some room. She knelt. “It’s awful,” she said to George. No Don’t worry or It’ll be okay–just it’s awful. She wrapped her arms around George, hugging him gently.

An odd, vibrating sound seemed to bubble up from George’s middle. At first, Harry hoped that it was a laugh–that George was about to shout April Fool! and tease them all for falling for his trick. But quickly Harry realized that the sound was neither more nor less than a year’s suppressed sobbing. George twisted in his sister’s arms, throwing one brawny arm around her waist, and began to bawl.

Ginny–tiny Ginny–held him and rocked him, there in the middle of what had been Fred’s bed. After a while, Ron sat at the end of the bed, and Hermione sat tentatively beside him, both facing Ginny and George. Uncertain, wishing that there was anything that he could do to help, Harry sat by the pillows and watched as George slowly cried himself out.

Ginny, too, was weeping. Ron was looking away, but Hermione kept dabbing, first at her own eyes, and then at his.

Harry didn’t feel like drying the tears coursing down his cheeks.

When at last he had subsided, and Ginny looked as if she were about to let him go, George pulled her hard against him. “D’you know?” he moaned. “Do you know what today is?”

Ginny looked up at them, speechless, blank-faced. 

“‘Course we know,” said Ron. “‘S not bloody fair that he never made twenty-one.”

George laughed now, but it wasn’t at all reassuring. “Not just that. Not just. Not just that we’ll never be the same age ever again. But he was... He and Angie...” George curled himself up against Ginny again, dissolving once more into tears.

As George began to run out of steam again, Percy’s clipped, worn voice broke in. “Fred and Miss Johnson were going to get married today. She’s just come; I’m afraid she’s rather poorly as well.”

For the first time, George looked up, his face blotchy and wet. 

Tentatively, Percy continued, “She said that... that Fred...”

“Fred thought it’d be a great joke,” spat George. “Married on April Fool’s.”

“Hmm,” coughed Percy. With an uncharacteristic smirk in his voice, he continued. “I suppose it was so he’d never forget his anniversary.”

George’s jaw dropped, and Harry felt his own follow suit. Harry was about to kick Percy in the shins–when he heard that choked, vibrating sound again. He turned, expecting to see George consumed once more with tears. Instead, George was  laughing. Red-faced and choking. But laughing.

Ginny, who was still hugging her brother, looked shocked, but quickly began to giggle herself. Contagious, the laughter spread to Ron and to Harry. Even Hermione seemed to be tittering behind her handkerchief.

Again, the cycle worked its way through. Wiping his eyes on Ginny’s jumper–the jumper Harry had taken such pleasure in removing just an hour before–George snorted, “You’re dangerous, you are, Perce!”

“Thank you,” answered Percy, looking rather pleased with himself. 

“Come on, George,” Ron said. “Sounds like Angelina could use your help.”

Nodding and giving Ginny a squeeze, George stood and began to walk out the door. “Let’s get the party started, eh?” He began to walk unsteadily toward the door. 

Ron stood and took George’s arm over his own shoulder. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk with you about, George,” he said, and they walked past Percy and out the door, Hermione trailing behind them, her handkerchief in shreds.

Harry began to follow, but Percy stopped him. “Actually, Harry, Father said that he received your owl this morning, and that he and our mother would be waiting for you in their bedroom.”

Harry thought at first that Percy must be joking again–but then he remembered that he had in fact contacted the elder Weasleys. And then he remembered why. “Uh. Great. Thanks.”

“Harry?” Ginny was peering at him, arms crossed. 

Harry felt as if he jumped back into the frozen pond in the Forest of Dean. Ron was nowhere nearby, and Ginny didn’t look at all in the mood to jump in and pull him out. “Uh, you go ahead, Ginny, help out with George and all. I’ll be right down.”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, but then widened. “O... kay. See you at the party.” She turned on her heels and flounced down the stairs, clearly Not Happy with Harry.

As he heard them descending the stairs to the ground floor, he followed, turning left on first landing to enter the senior Weasleys’ bedroom for the first time. 

Mrs. Weasley was sitting. facing away from Harry with her head against her husband’s chest. They were at the end of their bed–which bore a bedspread that was as extravagantly floral as those in the twins’ old room was plain. Mr. Weasley blinked at Harry. “Ah, yes. Harry. I think we–”

“Did you know that Ginny’s decided not to try out for the Harpies?” Harry blurted; he’d had no idea that the words were going to leave his mouth–they certainly weren’t the words he’d practiced over the past few weeks.

“Uh, no, no, we didn’t,” Mr. Weasley said.

“We oughtn’t to let her, ought we?” The fear that had frozen his mind just moments before had given  way to nervous heat. “She’s got to try out, hasn’t she?”

“Ah,” said Mr. Weasley, and stroked his wife’s head. “Harry, in my experience with women in general–and with Ginny in particular–it isn’t a matter of letting. They’re going to do what they want anyway, and if you try to stop them, you’re going to find yourself paying for it for quite a long time to come.”

“But–!” 

“Which doesn’t mean that you can’t encourage her to see things from a broader point of view. So long as you’re willing to listen–truly listen.”

“But–!” Harry was about to tell the Weasleys all of the reasons that it would be disastrous for Ginny to give up on her dream at this point, but as he marshaled his arguments, he saw the wisdom in what Mr. Weasley was saying. “Oh.”

Mr. Weasley nodded, but then cocked his head–a very Ginny-like gesture. “Now. Was that the reason that you wanted to speak with us?”

“Uh, no.” Harry took a breath and tried to gather the threads of his much-practiced argument back together in his mind. In his jeans pocket, his hand found the ring case. “I... That is... Ginny... Can...? Will...? May...?” There he ran out of steam.

Mr. Weasley simply smiled blandly at him and continued to stroke his wife’s hair. 

After a moment during which Harry found himself feeling more and more incapable of saying anything further, Mrs. Weasley batted at her husband’s hand. “For goodness’ sake, Arthur.” She turned around to face Harry, her eyes red as Harry had not seen them since Fred’s funeral. “Of course you have our blessing to ask her, Harry. I hope you would never question that you are the only boy we’d ever even consider good enough for Ginny.”

“The only boy stubborn enough,” Mr. Weasley said with a mild smirk.

Mrs. Weasley batted at her husband again, this time with more force. “And I hope, Harry, that you know better than to question Ginny’s own views in the matter.”

“Uh, thanks,” Harry answered, once his throat allowed the passage of air.

“Now,” said Mrs. Weasley, standing and clapping her hands together, “we need to finish getting the tables set. All the guests arrived and nothing for them to eat?” With that, she strode past Harry out of the room and down the stairs. Mr. Weasley stared after her for a moment, his mouth open, and then followed her, leaving Harry alone.

“Okay, then,” he said, and went to join the party.

: :

In the coming years, Harry was able to remember that afternoon with crystal clarity: Neville’s secret, Hermione’s panic, Luna’s wild appearance, the sweet lovemaking session beneath the table in the Shack, Ginny’s angry exit, George’s catatonia, the Weasleys... What he could scarcely remember, however, was the party itself. The events that followed it, and those that preceded it, sure. But of the actual party? Scarcely a thing.

One memory that he would retain was of sitting on the Weasleys’s lumpy sofa, watching George and Ginny dance with a kind of wild abandon that Harry could only envy in the moment. Angelina, who had been all but silent all evening, was leaning her elbow lightly on Harry’s shoulder and watching along. “Nice to seem some fun,” she sighed.

“Yeah.” Harry turned toward her, taking in the dark circles on her dark cheeks. “I’m so sorry about Fred, Angelina.”

“Thanks,” she said, and then turned to him. “Can I tell you a joke?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I loved Fred, don’t get me wrong. But George was always the one I fancied.”

“Really? But, I thought...”

She snorted and turned back to watching the manic brother-and-sister dance that was taking up more and more of the sitting room. “Everyone thought. Hell, I guess I thought. I mean, I only started seeing Fred because I thought it was George who’d asked me to the bloody Yule Ball sixth year. Should’ve known. I mean, they were both bloody fools, but George was actually the thoughtful one. In comparison. He’d’ve never just popped out and asked me as soon as the ball was announced like that. Should’ve known. Had to have been Fred.”

“Yeah.” Harry watched her; a smile was beginning to push its way up through her features. “And now?”

“Now?” The smile disappeared. “Doesn’t matter, does it? All either of us can think about when we see each other is Fred. I doubt either of us is going to be looking for company any time soon.”  Her low nostrils flared in a snort. “Bloody fools.”

If Harry had answered her, he could never remember. And he’d ask himself more than once whether the fools she was talking about in the end were just the twins.

But that conversation would be one that Harry would happily recall over the years–at Angelina and George’s wedding, at the births of their children, and even when he and Ginny Floo’d over to their flat one night for dinner to find the two of them trading hexes and screaming at each other, blaming each other for the burnt lamb roast.

Love is like the grass pushing up through the cracks in a city street; people can try to pretend that they can conquer it, or that it isn’t there, but it always comes back.

: :

The next thing that Harry could remember in later years was following Ginny out of the full-to-bursting Burrow into the chill of the April night. She led him out toward the paddock, steam flowing back over the silver-washed red of her hair and giving her an even more fearsome appearance. 

Harry had nearly to sprint to keep up with her.

Just as he thought that she might be trying to lose him–that she might run into the wood nearby–she grabbed onto one of the worn posts that marked the paddock’s perimeter and turned on him. “I’m furious with you.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know why?”

He was about to answer as truthfully as he could–that he thought she hadn’t liked the idea of him telling her what she should and shouldn’t do–but what Mr. Weasley had said earlier flashed through his mind and he thought that, perhaps, this might be one of those times when shutting up and listening was called for. “I’m not sure.”

She stared at him for a moment and then threw her hands up in the air. “Neither am I!” Looking down at Harry’s shoes, she leaned back the fence, her arms crossed. “I mean, I know what you bloody said that set me off. No one likes to make a bloody decision and then be told it was the wrong bloody one. I wanted to bite your bloody head off. And then, of course, it was all okay for Ron to bloody quit.... But the thing is, I know you were bloody right.”

“You... You do?”

“Of course I bloody do!” Again she flung her hands up. “I’ve been sneaking out here to fly since I was tall enough to open the latch on the broom shed! I love flying, I love playing Quidditch. It’s me. It’s who I am. A chance to play for the bloody Harpies is a bloody dream come true.” She was breathing hard, gouts of steam streaming from her nostrils.

“So...?”

“So I know I should try out. I know... I know I bloody have to.” She crossed her arms again, but instead of looking fierce, she looked lost. Her eyes were still downcast and her chin was beginning to tremble. “But I can’t. I can’t... I can’t stand the idea of bloody failing, Harry. Of everyone looking at me  I feel as if there’s so bloody little I’ve accomplished on my own–compared to you, say, or Hermione or my git of a brother or... or Neville.”

Neville. Neville kissing her... “You’ve–”

“Shut up. I know you’re going to say I have, or that you love me no matter what, or something else just as lovely, but Harry, there are three bloody things in my whole life that that I’ve ever been truly proud of. One was the DA last year, and hey! When the DA joined the battle last year, where did I start the night, Harry? Another was Gwenog bloody Jones asking me to try out. And the other was you. You saying, you know...”

“I love you.”

She flashed him a pained grimace of a smile. “Well, yeah. Not that those aren’t wonderful, really bloody wonderful things, but Merlin, I feel like such a whinging, bloody, foolish girl, but if I lost either of those things, I couldn’t stand to lose–”

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, and stood there blinking.

“Till death do us part?”

“Yes.”

He walked toward her, holding out a hand that, somehow, held the ring box that he’d dropped so often in his kitchen. He opened to box, took out the ring that he’d found in his vault, took her hand and slipped the ring on. “Me too,” he said.

They both looked down at Ginny’s hand, and then up at each other. Her face, which had been pale, was in full bloom. She frowned. “But–”

“You’ll be brilliant. And even if you don’t end up making the team this time no one’ll think any less of you. Definitely not me. I’m not going anywhere.”

She folded herself beneath his chin. “Mph.”

“Also?”

“Mph?”

“Morrison retired at the end of last season, you know that, and Susan just told me that her cousin–whose wife is the Harpies’ team Healer–told her that McKerrigan’s pregnant with her third, and isn’t likely to be flying next season at all. That’s two-thirds of their starting Chaser line. And they carry a full reserve squad. Gwenog might pick up one from another team, but she’s going to want at least one younger player to train up. So you going to tell me that there are two Chasers your age who’re better than you?”

She peered up at him; now her eyes went from rounded to narrowed–though unlike earlier, there was a glint of humor there as well. “Are you saying my making the club won’t be a big deal?”

“Never.”

Smiling, she pushed up on her toes and kissed him, and it felt very right.

Some time later, they were lying on the damp April grass; he had conjured a pair of blankets, one for them both to lie on, and one to throw over themselves. They were still dressed, but the night was cool and evening mist was beginning to close away the world.

“Harry?”

“Mmm.”

“You meant it, right? Getting married.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She shifted in his arms. “Was that what had you so jumpy today?”

“A bit. Knowing that I was going to talk to your parents. But also...”

Pushing up, she rolled and looked down at him. Her moon-chased hair streamed down either side of his face. “Also?”

“Neville.”

“Neville?”

“He came, because... He wanted to talk. To tell me.”

She looked down–no fear there, no artifice, just curiosity.

“He kissed you.”

“He–?” Her face twisted, but then relaxed. “Oh. Yeah. Twice. I... forgot.”

He grinned. “Lucky me.”

“You want to get lucky, do you, Harry?” Her eyes were dark with promise.

He began to pull her toward him, but she slipped out of his grasp. When he groaned in surprise and disappointment, she laughed and skipped away from him. He sprinted after her, but six older brothers and years of training on a broom had taught her how to stay just out of his reach. They sprinted around the paddock, Ginny just ahead, zigging and zagging, both of them laughing. 

I get to do this for the rest of my life, he thought as they completed the circuit.

Suddenly, she turned and stopped, standing back on the blankets. Harry slammed into her and they tumbled to the ground, still laughing, but kissing now, as if each were trying to erase any separation from the other.

As their embrace passed from snog to something more, Ginny groaned and pulled Harry tight. “April Fool,” she sighed. 

April Fool, he thought, and released himself utterly to the moment, and to folly.

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