An Invitation for Tea ~ Chapter Four
Title: An Invitation for Tea
Author: goingbacktosquareone
Ship: Harry/Ginny
Rating: R
Warnings: Adult Situations, Explicit Language
A/N: If I had a witty summary for this story, I would give it to you. The most I can say is it's about healing, redemption and Dudley.
Author’s Notes:
Again, there are three people who help make this story come to life. Without their support and well-intentioned nagging, this story wouldn’t be what it is. My many thanks go to Kezzabear for her snarky, late-night confidence boosters; Melindaleo for her insightful and laughter-inducing character studies; and finally LadyChi, for being an all-around faithful, honest and super-duper-fantastic beta. You guys rock!
So without further adieu, here is your next cup of Tea. Please click the review button at the end of the chapter to let me know how you found it!
Cheers,
Jen
Chapter Four
Snapshots and Reminiscences
“Merlin’s pants!” exclaimed Ginny as the pictures spilled out over the table. Surprise was evident on her face as she grabbed a handful and started rifling through them indiscriminately. “There must be hundreds of them here,” she gasped, her eyes bright with excitement. Picking up a group shot of Dean, Seamus, Ron, Harry and Neville playing Exploding Snap in front of the common room fire, elbowing each other playfully and laughing at some unheard joke, Ginny covered her mouth with a closed fist and smiled in remembrance of those long-lost leisurely evenings in Gryffindor tower. She missed the camaraderie of her schoolmates and the easy days of life at Hogwarts before the war had changed things - stolen the brightness and innocence from their eyes, making them adults before they were ready.
“They were Colin’s,” explained Elizabeth warmly. “After…” she stopped and cleared her throat uncomfortably. “There were literally thousands of pictures after he died. They were everywhere. No one really had any idea how many he’d taken. He had them under his bed and in the closet; there were parcels packed away in an old trunk in the cupboard - we just kept finding boxes of pictures. Then there were rolls and rolls of undeveloped film; some of them still haven’t been processed,” she rambled on, looking out into the pub, pondering her words over a drink of Butterbeer.
Elizabeth continued. “No one wanted to do anything with them. It was almost like they expected Colin to walk back through the door and deal with the mess. My aunt Liddy was going to bin them one day but I wouldn’t let her. She was frantic. Said she couldn’t have them in the house anymore so I volunteered to take them all away, sort them out. But I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Thank goodness for Dudley. Between me and my Aunt Liddy, I’m not sure who was more upset by the time we finished moving all the boxes. So Dudley just stepped in and took over. There were just so many…”
“Dudley?” asked Ginny, raising her eyebrows. “He helped you do all this?” she said, gesturing to the pile on the table and spotting a shot of the day she’d played Seeker against Ravenclaw for Harry in her fifth year. She was flying around the Quidditch pitch on Harry’s Firebolt with a fierce, determined expression on her face: she wasn’t about to lose that match. She examined the set of her mouth, the glint in her eyes and remembered how much she had hated Snape that day… and how the thrill of Harry’s broom beneath her had unleashed the dream of playing professional Quidditch. For the first time her equipment had matched her skill and she’d been forever lost to the meaningless drudgery of Ministry jobs and things her Mum would find acceptable…
“He was just so understanding. We would sit and try to figure out the ages of the photographs based on both Dennis’s and Harry’s ages. We spent months sifting through the boxes and sorting them into what we thought was some sort of meaningful order before we put them into albums.”
Ginny was embarrassed to find she’d nearly missed everything Elizabeth had said while she was caught in her memory of the Quidditch match. She refocused her attention, realizing Elizabeth was talking about Dudley. She snorted. “Understanding. Thoughtful. Helpful. These are not words I would’ve ever thought I’d hear to describe Dudley. You’re sure we’re talking about the same person?”
Elizabeth gave her a thoughtful look but did not comment. “Colin must’ve taken two or three pictures at a time whenever he shot something. These are what I would consider duplicates, I guess. When we finished Aunt Liddy was happy I convinced her to save them, but she still hasn’t been ready to look through the albums. Dennis has, though. He said we got things mostly right.”
Ginny couldn’t help herself. Lunch was all but forgotten. In front of her lay photos literally chronicling the time she and Harry had spent at Hogwarts - with the exception of her sixth year, of which there were only a few. The only pictures from that year were taken when Colin had been called back to the school with his DA medallion for emergencies. He had always made sure to bring his camera; then he would leave again and she would count the excruciating hours as they passed; waiting for news, any news, of Harry, Ron or Hermione. As she shuffled through the massive pile before her, she caught glimpses of times she’d all but forgotten: Quidditch matches, games of Gobstones in the common room, study sessions in the library, Hogsmeade weekends, meals in the Great Hall, DA meetings… Each picture brought with it another memory; some funny, some sad. But it wasn’t until Ginny really started inspecting the images that her interest was piqued.
“What is it?” asked Elizabeth, rising up from her chair to see which picture Ginny was inspecting so keenly. Ginny motioned her over and Elizabeth moved to sit beside her. Ginny chuckled and pushed the pile of pictures back a bit and laid the photo on the table, giving them both ample space to view it.
“See this?” explained Ginny, pointing. “This is the Great Hall. Colin must’ve taken this during our fifth year.” She showed Elizabeth an image taken at lunch in which Ginny, Dean, Seamus, Ron, Hermione and Harry were all clearly visible, eating and laughing at the Gryffindor house table. Colin had captured more than just a mealtime conversation amongst friends. Ginny was fast realizing Colin had been very perceptive - very perceptive, indeed.
“I’m eating lunch with my ex-boyfriend Dean and his best friend Seamus. They were both dorm-mates with Harry and Ron. That’s my brother, there,” explained Ginny, indicating a red-haired boy talking with his mouth full of what looked to be a very sloppy sandwich. Ginny then singled out the scowling girl across the table who appeared to be giving the bad-mannered boy a thorough routing. “This’s actually his wife now. They tip-toed around each other the entire time they were at school… It was such a headache with them rowing all the time. Anyway, her name is Hermione.”
“And that’s Harry,” stated Elizabeth grandly, pointing to the messy-haired boy who was staring intently down the table from behind his glass of pumpkin juice, oblivious to the row taking place right beside him. Elizabeth grabbed her Butterbeer and took another long drink, smacking her lips with a satisfying sigh as she put the bottle back down on the table. “This stuff is great. It reminds me of creaming soda, only it’s better. It’s hard to explain.”
“Creaming soda?” asked Ginny with an arched brow, forgetting about the photo for a moment.
“It’s a fizzy drink,” explained Elizabeth. “I used to drink it all the time when I was little. It reminds me of summertime - sort of sweet and buttery, like liquid caramel. Anyway, before I changed the subject I wanted to say what I’ve seen in that picture a dozen times: Harry is giving you the steamiest stare-down I have ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy look quite like that. But actually, Dudley noticed it first.”
Ginny looked confused. “Dudley noticed it?”
“Oh yes! See how you’re laughing there? See how your boyfriend puts his hand on your arm and grazes your, well… er - ”
“Breast?”
Elizabeth colored and laughed softly. “Yes. I was about to say he was taking a bit of a liberty. Anyway, Dudley was sorting pictures one day and he made an off-hand comment about seeing his cousin glaring at some bloke feeling up a really pretty girl. Then as we looked at it, Dudley realized the look on Harry’s face was pretty similar to a how he’d be after Dudley would rough him up a bit. He made a comment about Harry being angry and wondering if he fancied you. So I took a better look and it was obvious. Then I started looking for more of it in the pictures. Harry had it pretty bad. Almost every picture we found from that year with the two of you in it was the same way.”
Ginny sighed, watching teenage Harry stare icily at Dean in the picture. Elizabeth went on, gesturing to the pile on the table, picking up a shot of Harry walking with Ron down the corridor while giggling girls gestured and mooned over him as he passed. “He only looked at you. In all these other photos girls are practically falling over themselves and you and… Hermione? You’re the only two girls who don’t act silly around him.”
“Well that’s because Hermione was totally in love with my brother,” replied Ginny with a chuckle. Ginny picked up another picture of Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team walking onto the pitch for a match with Slytherin. “See this? This is why all the girls were falling over him.” Shuffling around for another shot of Harry and his Firebolt, she grabbed one and showed it to Elizabeth. “There is nothing sexier than this boy on this broom. Nothing.”
Elizabeth laughed. “What are they doing? They’re obviously playing a game. Dudley didn’t know either. That’s where I found some of the best pictures. Gosh, Colin took scads of this game! Most of them were of Harry doing something mental. Dudley was really impressed, I think, by some of this stuff.” Elizabeth had isolated several pictures where Harry was chasing the Snitch: one illustrated a perfect Wronski Feint and another showed him zooming through a barrel roll and hanging off his broom in a sloth-grip to nab the Snitch. Alongside them lay photos of Harry falling from the sky after the Dementor attack in his third year and one of his magnificent, bone-rattling landing to end the game against Slytherin in his second.
“This stuff?” asked Ginny incredulously, grabbing her heart. “This is only the best sport known to mankind. This is Quidditch.” She immediately started hunting for more pictures to aid in her explanation. “Right after school I started playing professionally with the Holyhead Harpies.”
“You were a professional?” asked Elizabeth in disbelief, her eyes wide with anticipation of Ginny’s answer.
“You bet your knickers I was,” gloated Ginny. “I’d still be, too, if we hadn’t decided it was time to start acting like adults,” she sighed, pointing to the bump in her belly. “I shouldn’t say it that way… I complain sometimes, but I really wanted this, too. Some days it’s hard - leaving the team to start a family. I write for the Daily Prophet now, though. I’m a Quidditch reporter. In fact, I submitted a story on an upcoming match just before meeting you today.”
“Well at least you get to stay involved.”
“Yeah, but it’s just not the same. There’s just something about being on a broom. You have to do it with me sometime,” Ginny offered with a gleaming, far-off look in her eyes. “Quidditch has a feeling. It’s like broom-polish; sweat and old leather mixed with the odour of cut grass and the way your skin smells after you’ve been out in the sun. The wind is in your hair, whipping you about every which way even though you’re completely in charge. You can go as high and fast as you like with no one to tell you what to do or give you limits… It’s being completely free and relaxed but absolutely in control. It’s exhilarating.”
Ginny sighed wistfully and cleared her throat, returning from her reverie. “But Harry’s been so good. He’s always wanted a family, y’know. And with never really having had one at all, I just felt like it was time. We’ve been married over four years…” Ginny suddenly felt ashamed, realizing the woman next to her probably thought she still wanted to be in the air instead of raising a family with Harry. Her passionate descriptions had brought back all the thrill of the sport but none of that compared to the happiness she now felt about becoming a mother. She’d gladly give Quidditch up again and again just to witness the sheer glee she’d seen in Harry’s eyes when she’d told him she was pregnant.
Elizabeth nodded sadly. “Your ex-boyfriend wasn’t the only thing Dudley noticed in Colin’s pictures. It was hard for him to see Harry in all these pictures looking so small and lost at times, so alone. It was hard for me to watch.”
Ginny realized where the conversation was about to go. Knowing things could quickly become unpleasant, she steered the topic elsewhere. “Maybe we should order lunch?” Elizabeth agreed, returned to the other side of the table and the two women quietly went over their menus. After the barkeep had taken their orders, they merrily went about putting the photos back into some semblance of their original order. When the food arrived, Ginny and Elizabeth both enjoyed their sandwiches with gusto, polishing off their chips while calling for more Butterbeer.
“So, you played professional Quidditch?” asked Elizabeth, resuming the earlier conversation.
“I did! We have a pitch at the house, so the next time you come over I’ll show you the basics,” offered Ginny. “Basically, it’s played on a broomstick. There are seven players on each team. Three Chasers, which is the position I play; two Beaters, one Keeper and one Seeker, which is the position Harry played in school. The Chasers use the Quaffle, which is a type of ball, to score goals. The Beaters have bats and use a larger, harder ball called a Bludger to try to keep the Chasers from scoring. The Keeper minds the goals and the Seeker looks for the Golden Snitch.”
“The Golden Snitch?”
“The Snitch is what it’s all about, actually,” answered Ginny merrily. “Each goal is worth ten points. But the Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty. Whenever the Seeker catches the Snitch the game is over. And usually, whichever team gets the Snitch wins.”
“Sounds interesting,” answered Elizabeth flatly, sounding a bit overwhelmed.
“It’s only the best thing ever,” said Ginny, grinning wildly. “I grew up in a really large family; all my brothers played Quidditch. But because I was a girl they wouldn’t let me on a broom - so I’d sneak out at night and steal their brooms from the shed to practice. But that’s not the way it’s going to be for my baby; we’ve already got this one a training broom!” she said, rubbing her tummy affectionately.
“A training broom?” asked Elizabeth, her face painted with concern.
“Oh, well it only flies about a foot off of the ground. It’s perfectly safe. Harry had one until…” Ginny stopped suddenly, realizing the conversation had managed to wind its way back to the inevitable. Elizabeth cleared her throat uncomfortably.
“They abused him, Ginny. I know that. Dudley knows that. I don’t know what to say. We don’t really expect forgiveness. I guess we’re just hoping Dudley can make amends somehow. He’s really changed. He really has. I don’t think he understood what family life was all about until he went into hiding and saw how other families interacted. He thought the way his parents treated Harry was just the normal way of doing things. Dudley’s sorry. He’s really sorry. He realizes what he missed out on now. They could’ve been brothers, y’know.”
Ginny took a deep breath and lowered her gaze. Anger was bubbling in the back of her throat. When she spoke, she was careful to keep her voice measured. “If you want to know the honest truth, I don’t know much about it, actually. Harry won’t talk about it at all, Elizabeth, just like he won’t tell me about the worst parts of the war. So don’t give me rubbish about Dudley being sorry and how they could’ve been brothers. If Harry’s life with the Dursleys was so bad he won’t talk to me about it, then it’s worse than anything I can possibly imagine - including seeing him battered and bleeding and laid out on the ground like some sacrificial lamb, dead in front of my very eyes.” Ginny sniffed contemptuously and squared her shoulders, ready for debate.
The woman across the table made a low, strangled sound, her eyes reddening with tears. “Dudley’s told me bits and pieces. He’s not proud of it. What I’ve heard is terrible. Just those bits and pieces make me wonder how Harry didn’t just run away screaming.”
“He had to live there. In order to stay alive - to be protected - he had to live with his aunt,” snapped Ginny. “She stuffed him away and pretended he didn’t exist. She sent him to us after holidays half-starved and looking like he hadn’t seen the sun for weeks. That woman was…” she couldn’t continue. Rage had made its way into the pit of her stomach; she felt tears threatening to burst forth, prickling behind her eyelids, waiting for permission to fall.
“Evil,” Elizabeth spat. “Well, maybe that was too harsh for Petunia - but not for Vernon. That man is nothing but a thorn in the side of humanity. If I never see him again it will be too soon. Just knowing he’s going to be related to my son or daughter makes me sick, Ginny. He’s a bigot. He’s a hateful, spiteful, bigot.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” said Ginny, blushing. “I guess I didn’t picture you feeling this way about Dudley’s parents, especially so passionately.”
“Oh I hate them,” retorted Elizabeth. “So does Dudley. Everything they ever told him was a lie. Vernon turned him into a bloody bully. It wasn’t until he was shut away in that safe house that he started to realize things weren’t really as they seemed, that his parents had misrepresented absolutely everything. Unfortunately for Harry, he was the one on the receiving end of their inability to accept what they couldn’t control.”
“Oh…” replied Ginny softly, feeling a bit overwhelmed by what Elizabeth was telling her.
“Our relationship started to get serious about the same time we really started sorting these pictures.” Elizabeth grabbed a photo from a stack taken during Ginny’s first year. “What? Harry’s maybe twelve years old here?” The picture appeared to be taken near the beginning of the term, as Harry’s skin still had a sickly pallor and his shoulders were slumped with the sadness and mistreatment of having spent the holidays with his family.
“Yeah, he’s twelve there.”
“Look at him. Look how skinny he is! Look at all the other boys! Compared to the rest he looks positively scrawny!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “I’ve seen childhood portraits of Dudley - let’s just say the word that came immediately to my mind was ‘porcine.’
Ginny snickered as Elizabeth continued her train of thought. “How can two boys come from the same home be so vastly different? One so light he’s nearly translucent and the other so heavy you could use him for demolition?”
“I really don’t know,” offered Ginny, signaling for more Butterbeer as the pub started to fill with the first of the afternoon, end-of-day stragglers. “They had Harry locked in his room for most of the summer before that school year. All I remember is my brother going mental. Ron would stalk about the house barking at our owl, Errol, as if the poor thing had something to do with the reason why he hadn’t heard from Harry. He sent letter after letter after letter… Finally the poor thing took to hiding in the kitchen cupboard whenever Ron was about. Mum would just open the door a bit and let him hop in. Poor Errol - he was such a good owl. Bloody slow, but he got the job done,” Ginny said smiling.
“Anyway, Ron finally worked up enough of a snit my brothers Fred and George were intrigued. So they took my dad’s flying car one night and broke Harry out of the Dursley’s house - ”
“Did you just say a flying car?”
Ginny laughed. “My dad loves Muggle things. When I was little he got a hold of an old Anglia, which he hid in the shed until he’d figured out how to enchant it to fly. Once he’d tinkered about with it and was sure it was safe to drive about without being detected, there was no way Mum could make him get rid of it.
“So Ron convinced Fred and George to help him break Harry out of the Dursleys - because he was positive something had happened to him since he hadn’t received an Owl all summer. The story is there were bars on his window and three different types of locks on his bedroom door. The kicker? They were feeding him through a cat flap.”
“A cat flap!”
“A cat flap,” Ginny repeated. “From what I heard from Ron and Hermione later on, feeding would be a relative term. I think it was more like they pushed food through every now and then.”
“Good God. All that happened while Dudley was downstairs stuffing himself?” Elizabeth took a drink and sat a moment, looking stunned and mortified.
“Well, at least Dudley’s told you about the cupboard. Getting that much off his chest had to help his conscience, especially when he had two bedrooms all those years,” said Ginny thoughtfully. “There’s just not a lot I know about what went on there. I know the Dursleys basically used Harry as a servant and treated him worse than one. I know he never had a birthday or a Christmas until he came to us. He’d never been hugged until my own mother did it. It was heartbreaking to watch, especially when our family was so large and close-knit.”
“Wait a minute,” said Elizabeth, motioning with her hand for Ginny to stop what she was saying. “I knew about the sparse holidays and birthdays, but not that they ignored him all together. I knew about the housework and chores. Did you just say Harry was never hugged?” Elizabeth’s voice had raised an octave and taken on a slightly screechy tone. “Did you just tell me he slept in a cupboard?”
“Er, I…I guess I assumed you knew most of these things already,” stated Ginny uncomfortably, arching her eyebrows with concern. When you acted so angry about the Dursleys I just figured Dudley had explained these things to you. But yes. Harry slept in a cupboard off the hallway just outside the kitchen until his eleventh birthday. When his Hogwarts letter came addressed to ‘The Cupboard Under the Stairs’ the Dursleys were afraid they’d be in trouble if someone checked up on them.”
“Are you talking about the one with the lock on it?” breathed Elizabeth.
“I don’t know,” answered Ginny. “I’ve never been there. I don’t want to go there. I’m afraid of how I’ll react,” she answered with a shrug. “I’m not exactly known for being good with my temper. I tend to be quick with my wand.”
“I’m starting to wish I had a wand. They sound dead useful,” Elizabeth deadpanned. “I mean, think of all the naughty things you could get up to with one. Right now I’m thinking of about ten things I’d like to do to my husband to make him regret his terrible behaviour to his cousin.”
Ginny’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an ‘O’. “You’re not going to do anything to him are you? Merlin’s pants! I’m not going to be the one to start something ugly, am I?” she asked.
“Don’t worry, Ginny,” Elizabeth reassured her. “There’re just a lot of things I thought Dudley had told me I’m now finding are only half of the truth. He may have grown up. He may be different. But old habits die hard and if I’m having this baby and we’re making a family together, I damn sure want to know what I’m up against.”
“That’s funny,” quipped Ginny, tilting her head with a wry smile, “I feel exactly the same way.”
The two women looked at each other for a moment as the tension from their conversation broke with their shared laughter. They both chuckled for a few moments before both returned their attention to the piles of pictures before them.
“Why is Colin’s first year so sparse compared to the other years, Ginny?”
Just as Ginny had thought their conversation was about to take a more positive turn, Elizabeth had brought up her awful first year. Taking a deep breath, she decided to just tell the story and be done with it.
“Did Colin ever tell you about the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts?”
“No. I know Colin was sick a lot that year and didn’t write home. That’s about it. He was a bit more quiet than usual that summer, but by the following year he was back to normal again.”
Ginny nodded. “He was back to normal the following year. You’re right. But he really wasn’t sick. He was Petrified.”
“Petrified?” asked Elizabeth. “You mean like a tree or something?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” explained Ginny. “We actually have a spell that will do it for a short-term duration; but Colin’s was more serious. One evening, after a Quidditch match, Colin was sneaking about in the corridor to get into the hospital wing. He was trying to take a picture of Harry, who’d had his arm de-boned by Professor Lockhart.”
“Did you just say de-boned?” asked Elizabeth weakly, settling her forehead into her hand.
Ginny snorted. “I did. Professor Lockhart was a dandy. He couldn’t cast a spell to save his life. When he went to heal Harry’s broken arm after a crash on the Quidditch pitch, he removed the entire bone. Harry spent a whole night in the hospital wing re-growing it. And let me tell you, Skele-Grow is one nasty potion. Re-growing bones is very painful.”
“You can re-grow bones,” stated Elizabeth slowly. She was clearly overwhelmed.
“With magic anything is possible, dear,” smiled Ginny. “Let me get back to the story or we’ll be here until tomorrow.”
“Sure thing.”
“Anyway, Colin was Petrified by a Basilisk, which is a very large, deadly snake. Normally if you look at it with your naked eye it causes immediate death. But Colin was lucky. He was looking through the lens of his camera so he was only Petrified.” Elizabeth gasped. “There were several others, too. My sister-in-law Hermione was also Petrified. All the students attacked were Muggle-borns.”
Ginny stopped and took a drink, steeling herself for the rest of what was to come. She didn’t fancy telling the next bit, but it was part of Colin’s history as well as her own. She owed it to him to tell Elizabeth the truth.
“What did the staff of the school do to stop this from happening?” asked Elizabeth, enraptured.
“Nothing, really,” admitted Ginny. “The only other time the Chamber of Secrets was opened a Muggle-born girl died. It was opened by Tom Riddle - and he went on to be the worst wizard to ever walk the earth.”
“Who was that?”
“Voldemort.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Whoa. He put a Basilisk in the school? And no one knew it? So who let it out this time?”
Ginny gulped and took a deep breath. “Me.”
“You!” breathed Elizabeth, looking horrified.
Ginny’s stomach was churning with anxiety. Keeping her head high, she went on. “When we purchased my school books before school started that year, an enchanted diary was purposefully slipped into my cauldron by one of Voldemort’s inner circle. They wanted the Chamber to be opened. It didn’t matter whose body they used to do it. I just happened to be the one who ended up with the damn thing. It also didn’t hurt that my dad was involved in passing some very important Muggle legislation that year, either. Involving me was just another way to discredit my family.” Ginny stopped and looked away, remembering the guilt she’d felt for becoming so wrapped up in the diary and falling so helplessly into the Death Eaters’ trap. Tears rimmed her eyes and she carefully wiped them away before taking a drink and a deep breath, resuming her story. “Physically, my body opened the Chamber. But mentally, I had been possessed by Voldemort.
“So, much like Colin, I have bits and pieces of my first year missing from my memory. I know I did horrible things because I saw the evidence of them on the days that followed. I would wake up with dirt in my bed or grass in my hair…my face would be covered with grime. One time I woke up covered in blood. I was so terrified, yet so scared to tell anyone for fear of someone thinking I’d gone round the bend.
“And then one day I went down into the Chamber and I wasn’t supposed to come back. Y’see, the diary had become so strong it was literally sucking the life from my body - I had resorted to using glamours to hide my appearance from my brothers so they wouldn’t know. The boy who created the book was using it to come back - Tom Riddle was using it to return to life.
“But Hermione is so smart: she had figured it out what was happening before she was Petrified. One day while Ron and Harry were visiting her in the hospital wing they found a note she was holding in her hand, which helped them figure it out, too. They found the entrance to the Chamber and came after me.”
“But what about the snake-thingy? What about that boy?” peppered Elizabeth, hungry for more of the story.
“Remember the dandy professor?” asked Ginny as Elizabeth nodded. “Well, Ron and Harry went to Professor Lockhart, who was our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that year. When they got there, he was about to skip out, so Ron and Harry forced him to join them in the Chamber. Lockhart ended up trying to do something mental, which blew up half the tunnel into the Chamber and left Ron stuck behind a pile of rocks; so it was just Harry. I was unconscious, so I really don’t know a lot but what he’s told me and what I’ve heard from other people. Basically, he killed the Basilisk with a very large sword by stabbing it through the roof of its mouth. However, at the same time the snake also pierced his arm with one of its fangs, which are highly poisonous. Harry then used one of the fangs and stabbed the diary, killing it as well. It sounds far-fetched, but it’s what happened. When I came to, Harry was dying.”
“Dying? Harry was dying, you say?”
“The Basilisk poison works quickly. I was never as scared as I was at that very moment, Elizabeth,” Ginny admitted somberly. “Somehow I just knew he couldn’t die - that I needed him, even though I was only eleven and had no idea how my life was going to turn out. Isn’t that silly?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Elizabeth with a small smile. “Some people are just meant to be together.”
“But we were sitting there and Harry was holding his arm and looking at me, telling me I had to go back to Ron. I was crying like a hosepipe,” Ginny remembered, reaching up to bat away tears that had finally started making their way in slow tracks down each of her cheeks. “And then the most wonderful, beautiful thing happened. Professor Dumbledore’s Phoenix came: Fawkes dropped a tear on Harry’s arm and healed him.”
“Is there anything magic can’t do?” asked Elizabeth warily.
Ginny shook her head and smiled thinly. “Other than bringing back the dead, I don’t think so. No, I take that back. I’ve just thought of something.” The story had left her sick to her stomach and yearning for a moment alone.
“What’s that?” asked Elizabeth, now looking very curious.
“It can’t use the loo for you. Merlin, I’m about to burst!”
Ginny, who could hear Elizabeth chuckling behind her as she made her way to the bathroom, was hoping desperately she wouldn’t find it occupied.
* * *
Harry glanced at his pocket watch and realized he’d been sitting at his desk most of the afternoon. Yawning and reaching his arms out beside him in a long stretch, he bent the cramp out of his neck and stood up. He waved his wand over his desk, sending reports to safekeeping and walked to the door of his office, grabbing his satchel off the chair as he passed by. He was anxious to get home and hear how Ginny’s lunch went.
Locking his office door, he turned round and nearly walked right into Hermione.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going there!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be sneaking up on people as they lock up,” replied Harry with an obtuse smile. “May I walk you to the elevator?”
“Sure,” said Hermione brightly, lugging an extremely large tote of what Harry hoped wasn’t additional work.
“Do you want me to carry that for you?”
“It only looks heavy. I’ve placed a Weightless Charm on it. Have you heard from Ginny?”
“No. Actually, I thought I would’ve by now. She said she’d Floo me when she got back,” said Harry with an aggravated expression. “She almost never forgets to do those types of things, although she did say she was going to do some shopping. She probably just lost track of time.”
They stepped onto the elevator and rode it quietly up to the ground floor. When the doors opened, they spilled out into the lobby and approached the queue at the Apparition checkpoint. Harry stepped in behind a tall, gray-haired witch in burnt umber robes, waggled his eyebrows at Hermione and made a rude gesture while nodding in the elderly witch’s direction. He loved winding his best friend up. She slapped him on the arm and made a hushing motion, which caused the witch to turn round and eye them cautiously.
“Pardon me,” said Harry with a boyish grin and a twinkle in his eye as the witch took her place at the checkpoint. She sniffed haughtily and then Apparated away, leaving Harry and Hermione laughing out loud the second they heard the crack of her departure.
“Harry!”
“I’m sorry, Hermione. It’s just too easy. Let a bloke have a bit of fun. She’s going to go home and tell someone she was just goosed by Harry Potter,” he said, stepping onto the platform. He smiled and blew her a kiss while concentrating intently on his destination. A moment later he appeared on the garden path just outside his front door, still shaking his head and laughing about taking the mickey out of Hermione.
“Potter!” Harry startled and threw his satchel aside, wand at the ready. “Where is she?” thundered Dudley, stalking up the walk toward Harry. His face was set with worry lines, his body rigid and tense from stress.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” spat Harry, holding his wand out in front of him in a defensive stance. “I’m only just arriving home to find you shouting at me in my own garden. I didn’t invite you here. We’re not quite back to unannounced visits yet. What do you want, Dudley?” Harry still had his wand in his hand but realizing Dudley wasn’t about to rush him, he reached over and picked up his bag, eyeing Dudley warily.
“I want to know where my wife is. She was just supposed to go to lunch. She never came home.”
“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” countered Harry. “Don’t you think you’ve jumped to a bit of a conclusion, coming here to accuse me?”
“I just want to know where she is!” shouted Dudley, the notorious Dursley vein standing out on his forehead. “She’s not answering her mobile! She said she’d be home!”
“Whoa there, Big D,” said Harry, holding up his hands and gesturing while simultaneously casting a non-verbal Calming Charm.
“What did you just do?” asked Dudley, whose shoulders were slowly inching down as he started to breathe more deeply.
“Just an everyday Calming Charm,” answered Harry. “I want to get to the bottom of this without having a shouting match in my garden… Or having to send you home to your wife in pieces,” he said glibly, arching an eyebrow to let Dudley know he was serious about using his wand.
Dudley slowly nodded his understanding.
“Now… Would you like to come in and speak to Ginny or would you like to have a nice walk out here? It’s up to you.”
“Ginny’s not home, either.”
“She’s not?” asked Harry, his voice rising slightly.
“Mate, do you think I’d be this upset if I’d talked with Ginny?” asked Dudley dubiously. “They’re both gone. They’re both just gone,” said Dudley slumping to the ground where he wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his head between his knees. “You’ve got to find her, Harry,” he said weeping uncontrollably, tears rolling unchecked down his face. “She’s all I’ve got left now… She’s all I’ve got left…”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Harry, taking in the desperate, pathetic scene before him, Apparating away without another word. A second later he found himself in Grover’s Corner, glancing around to re-familiarize himself with the territory. Noticing the sign for the Pewter Tankard, he hurried that way, hoping the barkeep would have an idea of what time the ladies had left.
As he walked into the crowded pub, he pushed past the bar. There, in the corner sat Ginny and Elizabeth, oblivious to the people buzzing around them. They were deep in conversation; the table was covered in something Harry couldn’t quite see. Shocked they’d been sitting in the pub all this time, Harry made his way toward the back to join them.
“May I join you?”
Ginny looked up in surprise. “Harry! What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same question, love,” answered Harry blandly. “It’s nearly half-six. Have you been here all this time?”
Ginny and Elizabeth both coloured as Harry pulled out a chair and straddled it. “What is all this? Are these all pictures of Hogwarts?” Harry briefly went over the stacks, picking up random pictures.
“They’re Colin’s pictures,” answered Ginny. “They’re ours now. Elizabeth brought them to me. She’s got all the originals in albums. These are just duplicates. After Colin died she organized everything.”
“Blimey,” breathed Harry, fanning the stacks. “Colin must’ve taken a gazillion pictures of me.”
“He did,” laughed Elizabeth. “That’s why there were so many duplicates.”
“I don’t think I was able to walk around without flash going off in my eyes until my fifth year,” muttered Harry. “Until then I had permanent stars going round. Every time I thought I was good Colin would take another picture.”
Ginny and Elizabeth both nodded and smiled.
“But so much for reminiscing. We’ve got to get out of here. You’ve got to get home,” said Harry sternly, pointing to Elizabeth.
“Why?”
“Your husband is at our house, nearly done in. I had to pull my wand; he reminded me of my uncle for a moment. Sounded just like him, too. I had to use a non-verbal Calming Charm on him.”
“What!” exclaimed Elizabeth and Ginny together.
“Let’s just get you both back so we can sort this out,” said Harry, packing up the box of pictures with his wand. “You’re Flooing home?” he asked Ginny, who glanced at Elizabeth before replying.
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
Harry left the pub and made his way back to the Apparition checkpoint on the street. He was tired and ready to settle down for the night. He wasn’t looking forward to another evening entertaining family. He was already feeling as if the situation with Dudley and Elizabeth was changing his life and spinning it out of his control. Not sure quite what to do about it, he turned on his heel and Apparated back to the garden. When he glanced over to the doorway, Dudley was gone.
Author: goingbacktosquareone
Ship: Harry/Ginny
Rating: R
Warnings: Adult Situations, Explicit Language
A/N: If I had a witty summary for this story, I would give it to you. The most I can say is it's about healing, redemption and Dudley.
Author’s Notes:
Again, there are three people who help make this story come to life. Without their support and well-intentioned nagging, this story wouldn’t be what it is. My many thanks go to Kezzabear for her snarky, late-night confidence boosters; Melindaleo for her insightful and laughter-inducing character studies; and finally LadyChi, for being an all-around faithful, honest and super-duper-fantastic beta. You guys rock!
So without further adieu, here is your next cup of Tea. Please click the review button at the end of the chapter to let me know how you found it!
Cheers,
Jen
Chapter Four
Snapshots and Reminiscences
“Merlin’s pants!” exclaimed Ginny as the pictures spilled out over the table. Surprise was evident on her face as she grabbed a handful and started rifling through them indiscriminately. “There must be hundreds of them here,” she gasped, her eyes bright with excitement. Picking up a group shot of Dean, Seamus, Ron, Harry and Neville playing Exploding Snap in front of the common room fire, elbowing each other playfully and laughing at some unheard joke, Ginny covered her mouth with a closed fist and smiled in remembrance of those long-lost leisurely evenings in Gryffindor tower. She missed the camaraderie of her schoolmates and the easy days of life at Hogwarts before the war had changed things - stolen the brightness and innocence from their eyes, making them adults before they were ready.
“They were Colin’s,” explained Elizabeth warmly. “After…” she stopped and cleared her throat uncomfortably. “There were literally thousands of pictures after he died. They were everywhere. No one really had any idea how many he’d taken. He had them under his bed and in the closet; there were parcels packed away in an old trunk in the cupboard - we just kept finding boxes of pictures. Then there were rolls and rolls of undeveloped film; some of them still haven’t been processed,” she rambled on, looking out into the pub, pondering her words over a drink of Butterbeer.
Elizabeth continued. “No one wanted to do anything with them. It was almost like they expected Colin to walk back through the door and deal with the mess. My aunt Liddy was going to bin them one day but I wouldn’t let her. She was frantic. Said she couldn’t have them in the house anymore so I volunteered to take them all away, sort them out. But I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Thank goodness for Dudley. Between me and my Aunt Liddy, I’m not sure who was more upset by the time we finished moving all the boxes. So Dudley just stepped in and took over. There were just so many…”
“Dudley?” asked Ginny, raising her eyebrows. “He helped you do all this?” she said, gesturing to the pile on the table and spotting a shot of the day she’d played Seeker against Ravenclaw for Harry in her fifth year. She was flying around the Quidditch pitch on Harry’s Firebolt with a fierce, determined expression on her face: she wasn’t about to lose that match. She examined the set of her mouth, the glint in her eyes and remembered how much she had hated Snape that day… and how the thrill of Harry’s broom beneath her had unleashed the dream of playing professional Quidditch. For the first time her equipment had matched her skill and she’d been forever lost to the meaningless drudgery of Ministry jobs and things her Mum would find acceptable…
“He was just so understanding. We would sit and try to figure out the ages of the photographs based on both Dennis’s and Harry’s ages. We spent months sifting through the boxes and sorting them into what we thought was some sort of meaningful order before we put them into albums.”
Ginny was embarrassed to find she’d nearly missed everything Elizabeth had said while she was caught in her memory of the Quidditch match. She refocused her attention, realizing Elizabeth was talking about Dudley. She snorted. “Understanding. Thoughtful. Helpful. These are not words I would’ve ever thought I’d hear to describe Dudley. You’re sure we’re talking about the same person?”
Elizabeth gave her a thoughtful look but did not comment. “Colin must’ve taken two or three pictures at a time whenever he shot something. These are what I would consider duplicates, I guess. When we finished Aunt Liddy was happy I convinced her to save them, but she still hasn’t been ready to look through the albums. Dennis has, though. He said we got things mostly right.”
Ginny couldn’t help herself. Lunch was all but forgotten. In front of her lay photos literally chronicling the time she and Harry had spent at Hogwarts - with the exception of her sixth year, of which there were only a few. The only pictures from that year were taken when Colin had been called back to the school with his DA medallion for emergencies. He had always made sure to bring his camera; then he would leave again and she would count the excruciating hours as they passed; waiting for news, any news, of Harry, Ron or Hermione. As she shuffled through the massive pile before her, she caught glimpses of times she’d all but forgotten: Quidditch matches, games of Gobstones in the common room, study sessions in the library, Hogsmeade weekends, meals in the Great Hall, DA meetings… Each picture brought with it another memory; some funny, some sad. But it wasn’t until Ginny really started inspecting the images that her interest was piqued.
“What is it?” asked Elizabeth, rising up from her chair to see which picture Ginny was inspecting so keenly. Ginny motioned her over and Elizabeth moved to sit beside her. Ginny chuckled and pushed the pile of pictures back a bit and laid the photo on the table, giving them both ample space to view it.
“See this?” explained Ginny, pointing. “This is the Great Hall. Colin must’ve taken this during our fifth year.” She showed Elizabeth an image taken at lunch in which Ginny, Dean, Seamus, Ron, Hermione and Harry were all clearly visible, eating and laughing at the Gryffindor house table. Colin had captured more than just a mealtime conversation amongst friends. Ginny was fast realizing Colin had been very perceptive - very perceptive, indeed.
“I’m eating lunch with my ex-boyfriend Dean and his best friend Seamus. They were both dorm-mates with Harry and Ron. That’s my brother, there,” explained Ginny, indicating a red-haired boy talking with his mouth full of what looked to be a very sloppy sandwich. Ginny then singled out the scowling girl across the table who appeared to be giving the bad-mannered boy a thorough routing. “This’s actually his wife now. They tip-toed around each other the entire time they were at school… It was such a headache with them rowing all the time. Anyway, her name is Hermione.”
“And that’s Harry,” stated Elizabeth grandly, pointing to the messy-haired boy who was staring intently down the table from behind his glass of pumpkin juice, oblivious to the row taking place right beside him. Elizabeth grabbed her Butterbeer and took another long drink, smacking her lips with a satisfying sigh as she put the bottle back down on the table. “This stuff is great. It reminds me of creaming soda, only it’s better. It’s hard to explain.”
“Creaming soda?” asked Ginny with an arched brow, forgetting about the photo for a moment.
“It’s a fizzy drink,” explained Elizabeth. “I used to drink it all the time when I was little. It reminds me of summertime - sort of sweet and buttery, like liquid caramel. Anyway, before I changed the subject I wanted to say what I’ve seen in that picture a dozen times: Harry is giving you the steamiest stare-down I have ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy look quite like that. But actually, Dudley noticed it first.”
Ginny looked confused. “Dudley noticed it?”
“Oh yes! See how you’re laughing there? See how your boyfriend puts his hand on your arm and grazes your, well… er - ”
“Breast?”
Elizabeth colored and laughed softly. “Yes. I was about to say he was taking a bit of a liberty. Anyway, Dudley was sorting pictures one day and he made an off-hand comment about seeing his cousin glaring at some bloke feeling up a really pretty girl. Then as we looked at it, Dudley realized the look on Harry’s face was pretty similar to a how he’d be after Dudley would rough him up a bit. He made a comment about Harry being angry and wondering if he fancied you. So I took a better look and it was obvious. Then I started looking for more of it in the pictures. Harry had it pretty bad. Almost every picture we found from that year with the two of you in it was the same way.”
Ginny sighed, watching teenage Harry stare icily at Dean in the picture. Elizabeth went on, gesturing to the pile on the table, picking up a shot of Harry walking with Ron down the corridor while giggling girls gestured and mooned over him as he passed. “He only looked at you. In all these other photos girls are practically falling over themselves and you and… Hermione? You’re the only two girls who don’t act silly around him.”
“Well that’s because Hermione was totally in love with my brother,” replied Ginny with a chuckle. Ginny picked up another picture of Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team walking onto the pitch for a match with Slytherin. “See this? This is why all the girls were falling over him.” Shuffling around for another shot of Harry and his Firebolt, she grabbed one and showed it to Elizabeth. “There is nothing sexier than this boy on this broom. Nothing.”
Elizabeth laughed. “What are they doing? They’re obviously playing a game. Dudley didn’t know either. That’s where I found some of the best pictures. Gosh, Colin took scads of this game! Most of them were of Harry doing something mental. Dudley was really impressed, I think, by some of this stuff.” Elizabeth had isolated several pictures where Harry was chasing the Snitch: one illustrated a perfect Wronski Feint and another showed him zooming through a barrel roll and hanging off his broom in a sloth-grip to nab the Snitch. Alongside them lay photos of Harry falling from the sky after the Dementor attack in his third year and one of his magnificent, bone-rattling landing to end the game against Slytherin in his second.
“This stuff?” asked Ginny incredulously, grabbing her heart. “This is only the best sport known to mankind. This is Quidditch.” She immediately started hunting for more pictures to aid in her explanation. “Right after school I started playing professionally with the Holyhead Harpies.”
“You were a professional?” asked Elizabeth in disbelief, her eyes wide with anticipation of Ginny’s answer.
“You bet your knickers I was,” gloated Ginny. “I’d still be, too, if we hadn’t decided it was time to start acting like adults,” she sighed, pointing to the bump in her belly. “I shouldn’t say it that way… I complain sometimes, but I really wanted this, too. Some days it’s hard - leaving the team to start a family. I write for the Daily Prophet now, though. I’m a Quidditch reporter. In fact, I submitted a story on an upcoming match just before meeting you today.”
“Well at least you get to stay involved.”
“Yeah, but it’s just not the same. There’s just something about being on a broom. You have to do it with me sometime,” Ginny offered with a gleaming, far-off look in her eyes. “Quidditch has a feeling. It’s like broom-polish; sweat and old leather mixed with the odour of cut grass and the way your skin smells after you’ve been out in the sun. The wind is in your hair, whipping you about every which way even though you’re completely in charge. You can go as high and fast as you like with no one to tell you what to do or give you limits… It’s being completely free and relaxed but absolutely in control. It’s exhilarating.”
Ginny sighed wistfully and cleared her throat, returning from her reverie. “But Harry’s been so good. He’s always wanted a family, y’know. And with never really having had one at all, I just felt like it was time. We’ve been married over four years…” Ginny suddenly felt ashamed, realizing the woman next to her probably thought she still wanted to be in the air instead of raising a family with Harry. Her passionate descriptions had brought back all the thrill of the sport but none of that compared to the happiness she now felt about becoming a mother. She’d gladly give Quidditch up again and again just to witness the sheer glee she’d seen in Harry’s eyes when she’d told him she was pregnant.
Elizabeth nodded sadly. “Your ex-boyfriend wasn’t the only thing Dudley noticed in Colin’s pictures. It was hard for him to see Harry in all these pictures looking so small and lost at times, so alone. It was hard for me to watch.”
Ginny realized where the conversation was about to go. Knowing things could quickly become unpleasant, she steered the topic elsewhere. “Maybe we should order lunch?” Elizabeth agreed, returned to the other side of the table and the two women quietly went over their menus. After the barkeep had taken their orders, they merrily went about putting the photos back into some semblance of their original order. When the food arrived, Ginny and Elizabeth both enjoyed their sandwiches with gusto, polishing off their chips while calling for more Butterbeer.
“So, you played professional Quidditch?” asked Elizabeth, resuming the earlier conversation.
“I did! We have a pitch at the house, so the next time you come over I’ll show you the basics,” offered Ginny. “Basically, it’s played on a broomstick. There are seven players on each team. Three Chasers, which is the position I play; two Beaters, one Keeper and one Seeker, which is the position Harry played in school. The Chasers use the Quaffle, which is a type of ball, to score goals. The Beaters have bats and use a larger, harder ball called a Bludger to try to keep the Chasers from scoring. The Keeper minds the goals and the Seeker looks for the Golden Snitch.”
“The Golden Snitch?”
“The Snitch is what it’s all about, actually,” answered Ginny merrily. “Each goal is worth ten points. But the Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty. Whenever the Seeker catches the Snitch the game is over. And usually, whichever team gets the Snitch wins.”
“Sounds interesting,” answered Elizabeth flatly, sounding a bit overwhelmed.
“It’s only the best thing ever,” said Ginny, grinning wildly. “I grew up in a really large family; all my brothers played Quidditch. But because I was a girl they wouldn’t let me on a broom - so I’d sneak out at night and steal their brooms from the shed to practice. But that’s not the way it’s going to be for my baby; we’ve already got this one a training broom!” she said, rubbing her tummy affectionately.
“A training broom?” asked Elizabeth, her face painted with concern.
“Oh, well it only flies about a foot off of the ground. It’s perfectly safe. Harry had one until…” Ginny stopped suddenly, realizing the conversation had managed to wind its way back to the inevitable. Elizabeth cleared her throat uncomfortably.
“They abused him, Ginny. I know that. Dudley knows that. I don’t know what to say. We don’t really expect forgiveness. I guess we’re just hoping Dudley can make amends somehow. He’s really changed. He really has. I don’t think he understood what family life was all about until he went into hiding and saw how other families interacted. He thought the way his parents treated Harry was just the normal way of doing things. Dudley’s sorry. He’s really sorry. He realizes what he missed out on now. They could’ve been brothers, y’know.”
Ginny took a deep breath and lowered her gaze. Anger was bubbling in the back of her throat. When she spoke, she was careful to keep her voice measured. “If you want to know the honest truth, I don’t know much about it, actually. Harry won’t talk about it at all, Elizabeth, just like he won’t tell me about the worst parts of the war. So don’t give me rubbish about Dudley being sorry and how they could’ve been brothers. If Harry’s life with the Dursleys was so bad he won’t talk to me about it, then it’s worse than anything I can possibly imagine - including seeing him battered and bleeding and laid out on the ground like some sacrificial lamb, dead in front of my very eyes.” Ginny sniffed contemptuously and squared her shoulders, ready for debate.
The woman across the table made a low, strangled sound, her eyes reddening with tears. “Dudley’s told me bits and pieces. He’s not proud of it. What I’ve heard is terrible. Just those bits and pieces make me wonder how Harry didn’t just run away screaming.”
“He had to live there. In order to stay alive - to be protected - he had to live with his aunt,” snapped Ginny. “She stuffed him away and pretended he didn’t exist. She sent him to us after holidays half-starved and looking like he hadn’t seen the sun for weeks. That woman was…” she couldn’t continue. Rage had made its way into the pit of her stomach; she felt tears threatening to burst forth, prickling behind her eyelids, waiting for permission to fall.
“Evil,” Elizabeth spat. “Well, maybe that was too harsh for Petunia - but not for Vernon. That man is nothing but a thorn in the side of humanity. If I never see him again it will be too soon. Just knowing he’s going to be related to my son or daughter makes me sick, Ginny. He’s a bigot. He’s a hateful, spiteful, bigot.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” said Ginny, blushing. “I guess I didn’t picture you feeling this way about Dudley’s parents, especially so passionately.”
“Oh I hate them,” retorted Elizabeth. “So does Dudley. Everything they ever told him was a lie. Vernon turned him into a bloody bully. It wasn’t until he was shut away in that safe house that he started to realize things weren’t really as they seemed, that his parents had misrepresented absolutely everything. Unfortunately for Harry, he was the one on the receiving end of their inability to accept what they couldn’t control.”
“Oh…” replied Ginny softly, feeling a bit overwhelmed by what Elizabeth was telling her.
“Our relationship started to get serious about the same time we really started sorting these pictures.” Elizabeth grabbed a photo from a stack taken during Ginny’s first year. “What? Harry’s maybe twelve years old here?” The picture appeared to be taken near the beginning of the term, as Harry’s skin still had a sickly pallor and his shoulders were slumped with the sadness and mistreatment of having spent the holidays with his family.
“Yeah, he’s twelve there.”
“Look at him. Look how skinny he is! Look at all the other boys! Compared to the rest he looks positively scrawny!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “I’ve seen childhood portraits of Dudley - let’s just say the word that came immediately to my mind was ‘porcine.’
Ginny snickered as Elizabeth continued her train of thought. “How can two boys come from the same home be so vastly different? One so light he’s nearly translucent and the other so heavy you could use him for demolition?”
“I really don’t know,” offered Ginny, signaling for more Butterbeer as the pub started to fill with the first of the afternoon, end-of-day stragglers. “They had Harry locked in his room for most of the summer before that school year. All I remember is my brother going mental. Ron would stalk about the house barking at our owl, Errol, as if the poor thing had something to do with the reason why he hadn’t heard from Harry. He sent letter after letter after letter… Finally the poor thing took to hiding in the kitchen cupboard whenever Ron was about. Mum would just open the door a bit and let him hop in. Poor Errol - he was such a good owl. Bloody slow, but he got the job done,” Ginny said smiling.
“Anyway, Ron finally worked up enough of a snit my brothers Fred and George were intrigued. So they took my dad’s flying car one night and broke Harry out of the Dursley’s house - ”
“Did you just say a flying car?”
Ginny laughed. “My dad loves Muggle things. When I was little he got a hold of an old Anglia, which he hid in the shed until he’d figured out how to enchant it to fly. Once he’d tinkered about with it and was sure it was safe to drive about without being detected, there was no way Mum could make him get rid of it.
“So Ron convinced Fred and George to help him break Harry out of the Dursleys - because he was positive something had happened to him since he hadn’t received an Owl all summer. The story is there were bars on his window and three different types of locks on his bedroom door. The kicker? They were feeding him through a cat flap.”
“A cat flap!”
“A cat flap,” Ginny repeated. “From what I heard from Ron and Hermione later on, feeding would be a relative term. I think it was more like they pushed food through every now and then.”
“Good God. All that happened while Dudley was downstairs stuffing himself?” Elizabeth took a drink and sat a moment, looking stunned and mortified.
“Well, at least Dudley’s told you about the cupboard. Getting that much off his chest had to help his conscience, especially when he had two bedrooms all those years,” said Ginny thoughtfully. “There’s just not a lot I know about what went on there. I know the Dursleys basically used Harry as a servant and treated him worse than one. I know he never had a birthday or a Christmas until he came to us. He’d never been hugged until my own mother did it. It was heartbreaking to watch, especially when our family was so large and close-knit.”
“Wait a minute,” said Elizabeth, motioning with her hand for Ginny to stop what she was saying. “I knew about the sparse holidays and birthdays, but not that they ignored him all together. I knew about the housework and chores. Did you just say Harry was never hugged?” Elizabeth’s voice had raised an octave and taken on a slightly screechy tone. “Did you just tell me he slept in a cupboard?”
“Er, I…I guess I assumed you knew most of these things already,” stated Ginny uncomfortably, arching her eyebrows with concern. When you acted so angry about the Dursleys I just figured Dudley had explained these things to you. But yes. Harry slept in a cupboard off the hallway just outside the kitchen until his eleventh birthday. When his Hogwarts letter came addressed to ‘The Cupboard Under the Stairs’ the Dursleys were afraid they’d be in trouble if someone checked up on them.”
“Are you talking about the one with the lock on it?” breathed Elizabeth.
“I don’t know,” answered Ginny. “I’ve never been there. I don’t want to go there. I’m afraid of how I’ll react,” she answered with a shrug. “I’m not exactly known for being good with my temper. I tend to be quick with my wand.”
“I’m starting to wish I had a wand. They sound dead useful,” Elizabeth deadpanned. “I mean, think of all the naughty things you could get up to with one. Right now I’m thinking of about ten things I’d like to do to my husband to make him regret his terrible behaviour to his cousin.”
Ginny’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an ‘O’. “You’re not going to do anything to him are you? Merlin’s pants! I’m not going to be the one to start something ugly, am I?” she asked.
“Don’t worry, Ginny,” Elizabeth reassured her. “There’re just a lot of things I thought Dudley had told me I’m now finding are only half of the truth. He may have grown up. He may be different. But old habits die hard and if I’m having this baby and we’re making a family together, I damn sure want to know what I’m up against.”
“That’s funny,” quipped Ginny, tilting her head with a wry smile, “I feel exactly the same way.”
The two women looked at each other for a moment as the tension from their conversation broke with their shared laughter. They both chuckled for a few moments before both returned their attention to the piles of pictures before them.
“Why is Colin’s first year so sparse compared to the other years, Ginny?”
Just as Ginny had thought their conversation was about to take a more positive turn, Elizabeth had brought up her awful first year. Taking a deep breath, she decided to just tell the story and be done with it.
“Did Colin ever tell you about the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts?”
“No. I know Colin was sick a lot that year and didn’t write home. That’s about it. He was a bit more quiet than usual that summer, but by the following year he was back to normal again.”
Ginny nodded. “He was back to normal the following year. You’re right. But he really wasn’t sick. He was Petrified.”
“Petrified?” asked Elizabeth. “You mean like a tree or something?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” explained Ginny. “We actually have a spell that will do it for a short-term duration; but Colin’s was more serious. One evening, after a Quidditch match, Colin was sneaking about in the corridor to get into the hospital wing. He was trying to take a picture of Harry, who’d had his arm de-boned by Professor Lockhart.”
“Did you just say de-boned?” asked Elizabeth weakly, settling her forehead into her hand.
Ginny snorted. “I did. Professor Lockhart was a dandy. He couldn’t cast a spell to save his life. When he went to heal Harry’s broken arm after a crash on the Quidditch pitch, he removed the entire bone. Harry spent a whole night in the hospital wing re-growing it. And let me tell you, Skele-Grow is one nasty potion. Re-growing bones is very painful.”
“You can re-grow bones,” stated Elizabeth slowly. She was clearly overwhelmed.
“With magic anything is possible, dear,” smiled Ginny. “Let me get back to the story or we’ll be here until tomorrow.”
“Sure thing.”
“Anyway, Colin was Petrified by a Basilisk, which is a very large, deadly snake. Normally if you look at it with your naked eye it causes immediate death. But Colin was lucky. He was looking through the lens of his camera so he was only Petrified.” Elizabeth gasped. “There were several others, too. My sister-in-law Hermione was also Petrified. All the students attacked were Muggle-borns.”
Ginny stopped and took a drink, steeling herself for the rest of what was to come. She didn’t fancy telling the next bit, but it was part of Colin’s history as well as her own. She owed it to him to tell Elizabeth the truth.
“What did the staff of the school do to stop this from happening?” asked Elizabeth, enraptured.
“Nothing, really,” admitted Ginny. “The only other time the Chamber of Secrets was opened a Muggle-born girl died. It was opened by Tom Riddle - and he went on to be the worst wizard to ever walk the earth.”
“Who was that?”
“Voldemort.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Whoa. He put a Basilisk in the school? And no one knew it? So who let it out this time?”
Ginny gulped and took a deep breath. “Me.”
“You!” breathed Elizabeth, looking horrified.
Ginny’s stomach was churning with anxiety. Keeping her head high, she went on. “When we purchased my school books before school started that year, an enchanted diary was purposefully slipped into my cauldron by one of Voldemort’s inner circle. They wanted the Chamber to be opened. It didn’t matter whose body they used to do it. I just happened to be the one who ended up with the damn thing. It also didn’t hurt that my dad was involved in passing some very important Muggle legislation that year, either. Involving me was just another way to discredit my family.” Ginny stopped and looked away, remembering the guilt she’d felt for becoming so wrapped up in the diary and falling so helplessly into the Death Eaters’ trap. Tears rimmed her eyes and she carefully wiped them away before taking a drink and a deep breath, resuming her story. “Physically, my body opened the Chamber. But mentally, I had been possessed by Voldemort.
“So, much like Colin, I have bits and pieces of my first year missing from my memory. I know I did horrible things because I saw the evidence of them on the days that followed. I would wake up with dirt in my bed or grass in my hair…my face would be covered with grime. One time I woke up covered in blood. I was so terrified, yet so scared to tell anyone for fear of someone thinking I’d gone round the bend.
“And then one day I went down into the Chamber and I wasn’t supposed to come back. Y’see, the diary had become so strong it was literally sucking the life from my body - I had resorted to using glamours to hide my appearance from my brothers so they wouldn’t know. The boy who created the book was using it to come back - Tom Riddle was using it to return to life.
“But Hermione is so smart: she had figured it out what was happening before she was Petrified. One day while Ron and Harry were visiting her in the hospital wing they found a note she was holding in her hand, which helped them figure it out, too. They found the entrance to the Chamber and came after me.”
“But what about the snake-thingy? What about that boy?” peppered Elizabeth, hungry for more of the story.
“Remember the dandy professor?” asked Ginny as Elizabeth nodded. “Well, Ron and Harry went to Professor Lockhart, who was our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that year. When they got there, he was about to skip out, so Ron and Harry forced him to join them in the Chamber. Lockhart ended up trying to do something mental, which blew up half the tunnel into the Chamber and left Ron stuck behind a pile of rocks; so it was just Harry. I was unconscious, so I really don’t know a lot but what he’s told me and what I’ve heard from other people. Basically, he killed the Basilisk with a very large sword by stabbing it through the roof of its mouth. However, at the same time the snake also pierced his arm with one of its fangs, which are highly poisonous. Harry then used one of the fangs and stabbed the diary, killing it as well. It sounds far-fetched, but it’s what happened. When I came to, Harry was dying.”
“Dying? Harry was dying, you say?”
“The Basilisk poison works quickly. I was never as scared as I was at that very moment, Elizabeth,” Ginny admitted somberly. “Somehow I just knew he couldn’t die - that I needed him, even though I was only eleven and had no idea how my life was going to turn out. Isn’t that silly?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Elizabeth with a small smile. “Some people are just meant to be together.”
“But we were sitting there and Harry was holding his arm and looking at me, telling me I had to go back to Ron. I was crying like a hosepipe,” Ginny remembered, reaching up to bat away tears that had finally started making their way in slow tracks down each of her cheeks. “And then the most wonderful, beautiful thing happened. Professor Dumbledore’s Phoenix came: Fawkes dropped a tear on Harry’s arm and healed him.”
“Is there anything magic can’t do?” asked Elizabeth warily.
Ginny shook her head and smiled thinly. “Other than bringing back the dead, I don’t think so. No, I take that back. I’ve just thought of something.” The story had left her sick to her stomach and yearning for a moment alone.
“What’s that?” asked Elizabeth, now looking very curious.
“It can’t use the loo for you. Merlin, I’m about to burst!”
Ginny, who could hear Elizabeth chuckling behind her as she made her way to the bathroom, was hoping desperately she wouldn’t find it occupied.
* * *
Harry glanced at his pocket watch and realized he’d been sitting at his desk most of the afternoon. Yawning and reaching his arms out beside him in a long stretch, he bent the cramp out of his neck and stood up. He waved his wand over his desk, sending reports to safekeeping and walked to the door of his office, grabbing his satchel off the chair as he passed by. He was anxious to get home and hear how Ginny’s lunch went.
Locking his office door, he turned round and nearly walked right into Hermione.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going there!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be sneaking up on people as they lock up,” replied Harry with an obtuse smile. “May I walk you to the elevator?”
“Sure,” said Hermione brightly, lugging an extremely large tote of what Harry hoped wasn’t additional work.
“Do you want me to carry that for you?”
“It only looks heavy. I’ve placed a Weightless Charm on it. Have you heard from Ginny?”
“No. Actually, I thought I would’ve by now. She said she’d Floo me when she got back,” said Harry with an aggravated expression. “She almost never forgets to do those types of things, although she did say she was going to do some shopping. She probably just lost track of time.”
They stepped onto the elevator and rode it quietly up to the ground floor. When the doors opened, they spilled out into the lobby and approached the queue at the Apparition checkpoint. Harry stepped in behind a tall, gray-haired witch in burnt umber robes, waggled his eyebrows at Hermione and made a rude gesture while nodding in the elderly witch’s direction. He loved winding his best friend up. She slapped him on the arm and made a hushing motion, which caused the witch to turn round and eye them cautiously.
“Pardon me,” said Harry with a boyish grin and a twinkle in his eye as the witch took her place at the checkpoint. She sniffed haughtily and then Apparated away, leaving Harry and Hermione laughing out loud the second they heard the crack of her departure.
“Harry!”
“I’m sorry, Hermione. It’s just too easy. Let a bloke have a bit of fun. She’s going to go home and tell someone she was just goosed by Harry Potter,” he said, stepping onto the platform. He smiled and blew her a kiss while concentrating intently on his destination. A moment later he appeared on the garden path just outside his front door, still shaking his head and laughing about taking the mickey out of Hermione.
“Potter!” Harry startled and threw his satchel aside, wand at the ready. “Where is she?” thundered Dudley, stalking up the walk toward Harry. His face was set with worry lines, his body rigid and tense from stress.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” spat Harry, holding his wand out in front of him in a defensive stance. “I’m only just arriving home to find you shouting at me in my own garden. I didn’t invite you here. We’re not quite back to unannounced visits yet. What do you want, Dudley?” Harry still had his wand in his hand but realizing Dudley wasn’t about to rush him, he reached over and picked up his bag, eyeing Dudley warily.
“I want to know where my wife is. She was just supposed to go to lunch. She never came home.”
“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” countered Harry. “Don’t you think you’ve jumped to a bit of a conclusion, coming here to accuse me?”
“I just want to know where she is!” shouted Dudley, the notorious Dursley vein standing out on his forehead. “She’s not answering her mobile! She said she’d be home!”
“Whoa there, Big D,” said Harry, holding up his hands and gesturing while simultaneously casting a non-verbal Calming Charm.
“What did you just do?” asked Dudley, whose shoulders were slowly inching down as he started to breathe more deeply.
“Just an everyday Calming Charm,” answered Harry. “I want to get to the bottom of this without having a shouting match in my garden… Or having to send you home to your wife in pieces,” he said glibly, arching an eyebrow to let Dudley know he was serious about using his wand.
Dudley slowly nodded his understanding.
“Now… Would you like to come in and speak to Ginny or would you like to have a nice walk out here? It’s up to you.”
“Ginny’s not home, either.”
“She’s not?” asked Harry, his voice rising slightly.
“Mate, do you think I’d be this upset if I’d talked with Ginny?” asked Dudley dubiously. “They’re both gone. They’re both just gone,” said Dudley slumping to the ground where he wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his head between his knees. “You’ve got to find her, Harry,” he said weeping uncontrollably, tears rolling unchecked down his face. “She’s all I’ve got left now… She’s all I’ve got left…”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Harry, taking in the desperate, pathetic scene before him, Apparating away without another word. A second later he found himself in Grover’s Corner, glancing around to re-familiarize himself with the territory. Noticing the sign for the Pewter Tankard, he hurried that way, hoping the barkeep would have an idea of what time the ladies had left.
As he walked into the crowded pub, he pushed past the bar. There, in the corner sat Ginny and Elizabeth, oblivious to the people buzzing around them. They were deep in conversation; the table was covered in something Harry couldn’t quite see. Shocked they’d been sitting in the pub all this time, Harry made his way toward the back to join them.
“May I join you?”
Ginny looked up in surprise. “Harry! What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same question, love,” answered Harry blandly. “It’s nearly half-six. Have you been here all this time?”
Ginny and Elizabeth both coloured as Harry pulled out a chair and straddled it. “What is all this? Are these all pictures of Hogwarts?” Harry briefly went over the stacks, picking up random pictures.
“They’re Colin’s pictures,” answered Ginny. “They’re ours now. Elizabeth brought them to me. She’s got all the originals in albums. These are just duplicates. After Colin died she organized everything.”
“Blimey,” breathed Harry, fanning the stacks. “Colin must’ve taken a gazillion pictures of me.”
“He did,” laughed Elizabeth. “That’s why there were so many duplicates.”
“I don’t think I was able to walk around without flash going off in my eyes until my fifth year,” muttered Harry. “Until then I had permanent stars going round. Every time I thought I was good Colin would take another picture.”
Ginny and Elizabeth both nodded and smiled.
“But so much for reminiscing. We’ve got to get out of here. You’ve got to get home,” said Harry sternly, pointing to Elizabeth.
“Why?”
“Your husband is at our house, nearly done in. I had to pull my wand; he reminded me of my uncle for a moment. Sounded just like him, too. I had to use a non-verbal Calming Charm on him.”
“What!” exclaimed Elizabeth and Ginny together.
“Let’s just get you both back so we can sort this out,” said Harry, packing up the box of pictures with his wand. “You’re Flooing home?” he asked Ginny, who glanced at Elizabeth before replying.
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
Harry left the pub and made his way back to the Apparition checkpoint on the street. He was tired and ready to settle down for the night. He wasn’t looking forward to another evening entertaining family. He was already feeling as if the situation with Dudley and Elizabeth was changing his life and spinning it out of his control. Not sure quite what to do about it, he turned on his heel and Apparated back to the garden. When he glanced over to the doorway, Dudley was gone.