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SIYE Time:14:53 on 28th March 2024
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Tiny, Tiny Increments
By Calliope

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Category: Post-DH/AB
Characters:None
Genres: Angst, Fluff
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 14
Summary: Crisis prevention > crisis handling. Relates to my story "Missions."
Hitcount: Story Total: 5982



Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work.



Author's Notes:
I'm just kind of popping them out lately, aren't I...anyway, here's my obligatory "morning after" one-shot, and one line is inspired by "High Fidelity," as is the title, and it's vaguely related to my story "Missions," though you don't need to read that first. But you could.




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Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had sat and done…nothing. He was on the common room couch, staring into the fireplace, vaguely considering lighting a fire. It was quite early in the morning and he needed neither the light nor the warmth, but he had been dreaming of sitting next to a crackling fire on this very couch more times than he could count over the last several months.

Other than that one dilemma, his mind was quite blank. There was nothing that needed to be done: no Horcruxes to be found or destroyed, no plans to make, no attackers to avoid or fight…nothing. Harry was still rather on the fence as to whether or not he liked the now-unfamiliar feeling. He hadn’t decided whether he felt relaxed or offensively lazy.

He didn’t look away from the fireplace when he heard the soft click of a door closing behind him. He didn’t shift his gaze when footsteps shuffled towards him, or when the scent of flowers grew stronger with every breath he drew, or when it became as intense as ever as the source of it was spread across his lap. He just absentmindedly buried his hand in the fiery hair, stroking it, marveling at its silkiness in the back of his head as he continued to deliberate his now two decisions — fire or no fire? Leisure or indolence?

It wasn’t so hard to make one choice, at least. Harry drew his wand from the tied belt of his dressing gown and pointed it at the fire, muttering “Incendio.” Flames erupted in the logs, making cheery popping noises.

Finally, Harry glanced down at Ginny, her head resting on his thigh with her hair flowing over his lap. It struck him that this was the first physical contact they’d had since they broke apart at Ron’s entrance on the morning of Harry's birthday. Her eyes were on his, red but quite dry. She did not smile. “Morning.”

“Morning,” replied Harry. As he knew he would, he felt better in her mere presence. He wished she would smile, but he understood why she couldn’t. He would take care of that later, he thought, and having made another decision lifted his spirits a bit further.

“Did you sleep all right?”

“Better than I have in months,” said Harry honestly. “Though it probably was due to utter exhaustion more than anything else.”

Ginny nodded.

“What about you? Did you sleep well?”

“No.”

Harry didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. Well, actually, there was loads to say, but all of it seemed somehow inappropriate at the moment. He gazed at her, drinking her in. He had spent so many months thinking about her until it caused a physical ache in his chest…he didn’t think he would ever be able to stop touching her now that he had her back. His fingers slipped through her shining hair and she shut her eyes.

The two were together for long minutes of silence until it was broken — by Ginny’s stomach rumbling.

“Are you hungry?”

Ginny opened her eyes and turned faintly pink. Harry memorized the exact shade.

“Ravenous,” she said.

Harry nodded. “Kreacher,” he called, and with a loud crack the elf was in front of him.

“Yes, Master Harry?”

“Can we have another tray of sandwiches?” he asked, aware that Ginny had turned her head to stare at Kreacher in amazement. He felt her cheek against his thigh more acutely than he would have thought possible through his thick dressing gown and pajamas.

Kreacher sank into a deep bow. “Of course, Master Harry.” He disappeared again.

Ginny turned her face back up to Harry in wonder. Harry could only shrug and say, “He’s not so bad, turns out…” and then they were silent again until Kreacher reappeared with a heavily laden sterling silver sandwich tray, garnished with parsley. Ginny sat up and quickly seized a sandwich, taking an enormous bite. Harry quickly shifted a bit so that their thighs were still touching as they sat side by side on the couch.

Kreacher hovered. “Can Kreacher do anything else for Master Harry?”

“Gin?”

Ginny shook her head, her mouth full.

Harry turn back to Kreacher. “No, thanks, Kreacher. That’s all for now.”

Kreacher bowed even more deeply and was gone with another crack.

Harry helped himself to a sandwich as well, but ate slowly. Ginny was already on her second and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. When she had finished her third, she said, without looking at him, “You know, it’s really unnerving when you watch me eat like that.”

“Sorry,” said Harry, but could not tear his eyes away. Her voice was still unbearably flat, but the words she had said were so much like her usual self that it gave him hope.

And then there was silence again while they both ate. Harry counted three sandwiches for himself and five for Ginny before they both seemed satisfied. Rather than sinking back down with her head on his leg, Ginny leaned into Harry and he put an arm around her shoulders, unable to resist pressing his mouth to the side of her head and taking a deep breath in through his nose as it was buried in her hair. They gazed into the fire. Harry wondered whether anyone else was going to get up soon and whether he wanted them to.

Ginny’s breathing, he realized after a while, seemed vaguely labored. When he nudged her in a silent question, she turned her face to his. Her wide brown eyes had returned to their usual color, but she was pale and drawn.

He was, therefore, quite surprised, when she clearly said, “Kiss me, Harry.”

Harry felt his face flush. “Are you — I mean…” he trailed off. Ginny couldn’t possibly know how badly he wanted to follow her instructions, but somehow it didn’t feel right.

She shut her eyes, but kept her face turned to Harry’s. “At least the hunger was something, it was a…a physical emptiness, and now I’ve just this hole inside me that won’t be filled, and I need to…I need to feel something other than this, Harry.” She opened her eyes again and they were pleading, and Harry hated it. “So you’ll either have to kiss me, or I might have to go over there and stick my hands into the fire.”

This time Harry didn’t hesitate. His mouth met hers and it was everything he had remembered during those long months sleeping in the forest and wearing more bits of Voldemort’s soul around his neck. Ginny brought her hands up to clutch the collar of his dressing gown. She curled her legs into herself and let her bent knees fall across Harry’s lap, and Harry took hold of the backs of her knees to hold them there. His other hand went to her back, fingers splayed, feeling as much of her weight against him as he could. It was not until Ginny’s mouth dragged Harry’s open and her tongue slid against his in the most marvelous way that he finally accepted that this was not one of his fantasies, one of the daydreams that he had dwelled on so thoroughly he could almost convince himself it had happened…

They parted, but neither moved their hands and their faces remained a breath apart. Harry kept his eyes closed and felt Ginny’s breath against his lips; it slowed and calmed. He opened his eyes and abruptly, her face was buried in the crook of his shoulder. Her breathing remained quite regular, but Harry was sure he felt a single hot tear slip down his neck, over his collarbone, and down underneath his pajamas down his chest.

As they had already so many times that morning, they fell into silence. And in that moment, with Ginny so quiet, and sad, and horribly miserable, and so unlike her usual self in every way, Harry knew that he loved her. Though he’d just spent almost an entire day sleeping, the realization made him suddenly feel very tired again.

“I thought you’d died, you know.” Ginny had spoken the words into his dressing gown, the collar of which she was still clutching. “We all did.”

“I know…” Harry said, searching for something to say. “I tried to,” he managed to add rather lamely.

“I know.”

This threw Harry. “You did? How?”

“You announced it to the whole Great Hall.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Ginny shifted her weight forward and Harry used the hand on her back to help her shift it further. The hand on her legs pulled them across him, and then she was sitting on her lap, and she was sitting up straight and looking at him. Her eyes were once more dry, and she looked very serious.

“Harry, we need to talk.”

“Okay,” said Harry hesitantly, preparing himself for the interrogation about where he’d been and how he came to be at Hogwarts and a lot of questions he didn’t particularly feel like answering at the moment.

“We need to talk about what’s going to happen now.”

She had surprised him a second time. Harry racked his brain. “Well, there are a lot of things to take care of…” He deliberately avoided any mention of funerals. “We’ll have to start repairing the castle, and Kingsley will rebuild the Ministry, and there will be plenty of trials — not to mention we’ve got to decide what to do with the dementors,” he added as the thought struck him.

“That’s not what I meant, Harry.”

“It’s not?”

Ginny rolled her eyes, but still did not smile. “Let the trained adults take care of that, Harry. You’ve done your job for a while. You get to be a teenager again.”

“I guess I do,” said Harry slowly. “Then are you talking about finishing school?”

“No — though that should probably be a conversation topic soon,” said Ginny thoughtfully. “I meant you.”

“What about me?” Harry couldn’t see where this was going. It almost seemed like it was going to be a long, defining relationship talk, which they’d never had and he wasn’t keen on starting. Somehow that didn’t seem like Ginny’s style, though.

Ginny took a deep breath. “Okay.” She shifted herself yet again, so her legs were now on either side of Harry’s and she was facing him, being sure to stay far enough towards his knees that it stayed decidedly non-sexual. Harry felt his face flush again anyway as his hands fell to the outsides of her thighs, and then she took his face in her hands and studied it. “I’m not going to ask if you’re going to be okay.”

“Good.”

“But I do need to know if you’re planning on wallowing in this.”

“Pardon?” Harry had never in his life been so confused in a conversation with Ginny.

“We both know your whole life up until about yesterday has been about beating Voldemort.”

“Agreed.”

“And now he’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not.”

“On the whole, I think not.”

“Good, then we’re on the same page so far.” Ginny paused and her fingertips dragged slightly across his cheeks. Harry’s eyelids slid down a bit, but he kept his eyes trained on her. “So I need to know that you’re not going to fall into some big — existential crisis over this.”

Harry furrowed his brow. “Come again now?”

“If you want, I can spell it out for you and be done with it,” said Ginny. “Yes, your destiny has been fulfilled, yes, your suicide attempt was unsuccessful, yes, now you face the rest of your life with no job set out for you, and yes, Harry, you can take a break now. All it means,” she continued insistently, “is that you can do whatever you want now.”

Harry gazed at Ginny, thinking suddenly that it was very bright and warm in the common room and almost wishing he hadn’t lit the fire. “Anything I want,” he said, slowly and deliberately.

“Anything you want,” whispered Ginny. “Because frankly, I can’t deal with sitting around and waiting for you to figure that out while you moon over the fact that you don’t have any more quests to go on. So whatever you want.”

“Okay,” said Harry, as he moved his hands to her hair and pulled her toward him to kiss her again. And just like that, his decision had been made for him…relaxed it was.

-o-

And later that day, after they were joined by other members of Gryffindor and their families wanting to take a day of rest in front of the still-roaring fire, Harry remember to ask Hermione if she knew what kind of dragon they had ridden out of Gringotts.

“You know, I can’t be sure,” said Hermione contemplatively, ignoring Ron’s unwilling snort as she had ignored the cheers of the entire common room when she had perched herself on his lap. “I could narrow it down to a few species…”

“Can you describe it to me?” asked Charlie Weasley from his place a couple of chairs down, with remarkable lack of enthusiasm. “I could tell you.”

As Hermione listed off the traits of their escape method from the wizarding bank, Ginny turned to Harry quizzically. Her legs were once more draped across his lap, her back against the arm of the chair, to the mixed dislike and approval of the members of the Weasley family. “Why do you want to know what kind of dragon it was?”

“Can’t you guess?”

Ginny shook her head.

“So I know what species to tell them when they ask, of course.”

“What ‘they’?” said Ginny, clearly perplexed. “The reporters?”

“Nah,” said Harry. “The artist.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Harry?”

“I want to get it tattooed on my chest.”

Ginny’s hand flew to her mouth and her shoulders jerked, her eyes wide. It might have been a laugh, though it sounded more like a hiccup. Harry looked at her hopefully, trying to decipher which one it was.

But as her hand lowered, the corners of her mouth turned up and suddenly, for a moment, she was smiling.

(Mission accomplished.)
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