Intermezzo, Part 1/5
September 1, 2003, 7:15 pm
Harry had checked his watch at least three times in the last half hour, but this was the first time that the date had struck a familiar note in his brain. All of the Hogwarts students would be back at school now, enjoying the feast and talking excitedly of their summer with friends. Wait, England was ahead by five hours, so they would all be asleep. Or was it behind by five hours and they were still on the train? He never could remember which way the time changed when he was on a mission.
The mission, right. It had a mission codename, but really, this was more like an assignment, a task. A chore, now that he thought about it. Harry sighed and checked his watch again.
Where in the hell was she?
Ginny was really not the sort of witch to spend thirty minutes in the loo getting ready for a party.
Harry began to pace. He was glad he wasn’t on a broom; hovering a hundred and fifty feet in the air for that long would get quite uncomfortable, especially with no Golden Snitch to distract him. Instead, he was on a magic carpet, disguised by a Disillusionment charm and quietly suspended outside Room 511 of the Flamingo Hotel. Not very speedy, but good for surveillance work.
In retrospect, taking, no, asking, for this assignment had been utterly daft. Why he thought it was a good idea to be this close to Ginny and watch her parade around with some other bloke (American, no less) must have involved some good firewhisky and an Obliviation hex, he thought wryly. But he knew he hadn’t been Obliviated. The memories were still there.
March 2, 2003
Hermione, Ron's new bride of three months, had thrown a wildly successful surprise party for his birthday. Harry and Ginny had been the last to leave except for George, who had passed out on the sofa. They Floo’d back to Harry’s flat sometime after two.
“You’ll stay, won’t you?” Harry asked as he shrugged off his cloak and helped Ginny with hers.
“Yeah, but don’t expect any action tonight. I’m knackered and just a little too pissed.”
Harry recalled the following morning so vividly that it felt like being in a Pensieve. They’d both slept in and woken to bright sunshine streaming into the room. He was rock hard, and when Ginny turned from the spooned position she’d been in to nuzzle against his chest and flick her tongue playfully around his nipple, he knew she was randy, too. Their lovemaking was a long, slow fuck. It was something they’d been perfecting - taking their time, enjoying lots of foreplay. When he entered her, it wasn’t the clumsy poking of their first times together, or the frantic rutting of the many times after that, it was an agonizingly slow stroke that he knew both stimulated Ginny’s clit and reached deep inside to elicit the most exquisite sounds from her. They pulled back from each other and met again in a languorous, intentional coupling that left them both completely drained and energized at the same time.
The rest of the morning had been nearly as good. They showered, and Ginny made breakfast while Harry made coffee. The sunshine had given way to a dull drizzle, and they spent hours reading The Sunday Prophet and playing chess before heading to the Burrow for Sunday dinner, something they did nearly every week.
Later, Harry thought he should have known it was too good to last. Someone, he couldn’t now remember who, though he suspected it was Bill, asked casually during dinner that day when Harry was planning to propose to Ginny. The usual buzz of conversation halted, and Harry felt for a moment like he’d been on the receiving end of a Petrification charm.
“Uh, dunno. Hadn’t thought about it, really,” he mumbled around a mouthful of potatoes.
Ron was looking determinedly down at his plate, and Harry could not bear to chance a glance at Ginny. Surprisingly, it was Mr. Weasley who came to his rescue. “Well, of course not. You’re still young. Only out of Auror training two years now. You’ve got plenty of time.”
Everyone who stayed after dinner had jobs assigned, and doing the dishes generally fell to Harry and Ginny. They were in the kitchen, alone, when she brought it up.
“Have you really never thought about it, Harry?”
“About what?” Trying to buy time or play stupid was hopeless, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Getting married.” She gave him a sidelong glance, but her tone was still friendly.
He shrugged. “Not really, I guess. Seems like we just got through Ron and Hermione’s wedding. Merlin, I didn’t think I’d survive all the planning and arguing and last minute jitters...”
“But, Harry,” Ginny said very patiently, “that’s different. Having a wedding is not what marriage is about.”
“Well, you can’t be married without a wedding,” he said stupidly.
“I know,” said Ginny, impatience now lacing her voice. “But being married is not about dresses, and flowers, and who sits where, and what china you pick, it’s about being together. Sharing a life together. Maybe having children together.”
Harry felt a surge of bile in his throat at the mention of children and swallowed hard to keep himself from getting sick into the tea towel. He loved Teddy, he really did, and he cherished the weekends they spent together, but he was quite happy not to be responsible for him on a daily basis. Being a godfather seemed a lot easier than being a father.
He managed to recover enough to say in an almost normal voice, “But we are together, Ginny. We do share things.” He pointed the tea towel toward the green jumper she was wearing, one her mother had knitted for him. “And...and...” He was now waving the tea towel in the air, literally flailing “- and you’re way too young to have children anyway. And some people never have children.” He thought of Sirius.
“Mum was pregnant with Charlie by the time she was my age,” Ginny said to the suds in the sink. Drawing a breath, she turned to face him fully. “But that’s not the point. I’m not in any hurry to have kids, Harry. Really. And certainly not seven of them. Maybe just one or two - someday.”
“Fine, someday,” he huffed. He set the tea towel to its intended purpose of drying the dishes Ginny had washed. Calmer now, he took a step toward her. “Look, Ginny things are great between us. I like everything the way it is. Why would we want to change it?”
She took another breath and continued.
“Because I think I’m ready for more. The last five years have been so wonderful, Harry, really. But I keep thinking it could be even better. I know we’re together, but we’re not together together. We have separate flats and separate bank accounts - we don’t go shopping or do laundry or -“
“Since when do you do laundry?” Harry cut in. “I’d be happy to bring over my dirty robes if you’ve developed a sudden interest,” he shot at her.
“Harry.”
“Honestly, Gin. If that’s what you’re thinking - that you’re missing out because we don’t fight like Ron and Hermione about you leaving clothes on the floor or me spending too much on furniture - then I’d say we’re well out of it.”
“Harry.”
“I mean it.”
“I don’t think you do. You know that Ron and Hermione are really happy.” She paused and gave him a small smile. “They would be a lot less happy if they didn’t have something to bicker about.”
She had a point. Ron was undeniably and annoyingly joyful; he walked around Auror headquarters lately like he’d just won the lottery. Harry had once made the mistake of asking Ron why he fought with Hermione so much. With pink ears and muttered undertones, Ron replied, “Because she’s bloody sexy when she gets into a good rant.” Harry felt his cheeks heat at the memory and looked determinedly down at his feet.
“Hey,” Ginny said, striking a conciliatory note as she grasped both of his hands. “I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. Nobody is more surprised than I am that I’ve been thinking about this stuff. It’s just - well, of course my career is important to me, but....I just... Will you at least think about it?”
He drew her close for a hug. “Yeah, sure.”
The subject dropped for now, he asked, “Are you coming to the flat?” By some unspoken convention, "the flat" was Harry's place; "your place" was Ginny's flat that she shared with Luna. Because Harry didn't have a flatmate, it was at his flat that they spent most of their time together. They'd discussed moving in together more than once, but keeping separate living arrangements allowed them most of the benefits of living together without incurring the wrath of Molly Weasley.
“Not tonight, Harry. Mum and I are going to work on something for the new baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you first,” he said, just before kissing her and disappearing into the fireplace in a flash of green flame.
It was an old joke. They’d been talking about their first kiss one day, and Harry had said, “I just looked around the Common Room, and I saw you.”
“I saw you first,” said Ginny. “You walked through the portrait hole, and I started running toward you, and I just couldn’t stop.”
March 20, 2003
Harry was in a meeting so tedious he was wishing he’d dug up Percy’s cauldron bottom report to bring along for some interesting reading. Instead, he asked himself why it was that he was so averse to the idea of marriage. He started by thinking of people he knew that were married; maybe finding some good role models would be inspiring.
The Dursleys - he shuddered. No inspiration there.
Mr and Mrs Weasley - hmmm. He loved them both, no doubt. And they loved each other, Harry was sure. But he didn’t like to think about himself and Ginny in the same mold - he working in a Ministry office all day and coming home to a chaotic house. And the thought of raising children that were even a little like George and Fred. Hero of the Wizarding World or not, he wasn’t sure he was up to that.
His parents - well, he supposed they loved each other, though he had precious little proof of it other than his own existence. What he knew of them came mostly from what their friends remembered, and that was probably tainted by later events. After all, he wondered, if not for his fascination with the Dark Arts, Snape might have been Lily’s first choice.
Harry had had not a little difficulty accepting the fact that his mother had some positive feelings for Snape. Other than the obvious consequence of his not being born, he wondered how differently things would have been if she’d married him instead. Or worse, what if Voldemort had spared Lily and Snape had ended up as his stepfather? The implications were too horrible to even think about.
Regardless of their love for each other, his parents had still ended up dead when they were younger than Harry was now. Snape got to live longer, but was just as dead.
Come to think of it, being married and in love had not been any great lot for Remus and Tonks, either. Remus was downright miserable when Harry had first found out about their marriage.
True, there was no war now to threaten a young marriage. In a weird way, maybe it was easier to get married during a war the way his parents or Bill and Fleur had. Like Ron had said, “Now or never, isn’t it?”
On the other hand, Harry thought, knowing that you could die at any moment made contemplating marriage that much harder in his view. It had been hard enough to leave Ginny to go and fight Voldemort. He wasn’t sure he could have done it if they’d been a little older, and married. The responsibility of being bound to someone like that was a bit overwhelming.
Then again, his Auror work was dangerous on occasion, and professional Quidditch had been rated the fourth most hazardous occupation by the Ministry the previous year. Would Ginny want him to quit his job if they got married? Surely not. Would he want her to quit? Well, if she wanted kids, he didn’t think she could very well play while pregnant.
And why was marriage such a big deal anyway? Dumbledore wasn’t married, nor Professor McGonagall, nor Sirius. Well, said a little voice in his head, not many dating opportunities in Azkaban are there? He wondered, not for the first time, what Sirius’ life would have been like if he hadn’t been sent to Azkaban. He was handsome and popular - maybe he would have found a girlfriend - or a boyfriend, Harry thought with a smile.
Kingsley wasn’t married, or even Charlie. His list of happily unmarried people was getting longer than his list of happily married (and not dead) people. He was still grinning as the meeting finally, mercifully came to a close.
Sitting in his flat alone later that night, reviewing his mental lists again, he had to admit that not having a role model for a good marriage was a point, or at least an excuse, for not wanting to take the plunge. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Ginny. He did. But love was easy. Love had led his mother to sacrifice herself without a thought and Dumbledore to protect him at the cost of Sirius Black’s life. Love for his friends had enabled him to face Voldemort more calmly than he would have thought possible.
Hadn’t he always wanted a family? Wasn’t that what the Mirror of Erised showed him all those years ago?
Yes. The love and the want were there. Loyalty, too; after all, he’d been friends with Ron and Hermione for almost half his life. He knew that would never change, but he also knew that it was different to being married.
Constancy was the problem. Loving and living with someone day after day for years and years no matter what. That was the hard part. When it came right down to it, he had to admit that he was afraid. Afraid that he wouldn’t be good at it, for long enough. He had many talents, but maybe being a good husband just wasn’t one of them. He would feel awful if he broke Ginny’s heart again but worse if there were a marriage bond involved. It was unnerving to think that the thing he wanted the most was the one thing he was most afraid of having because it could be lost.
He wasn’t too surprised when he came out of the shower the next day and was greeted with the aroma of frying bacon and fresh coffee. Ginny hadn’t spent the night, but she did this sometimes - showed up and cooked for him. Ginny and her mother were different in many ways, but the desire to keep him fed seemed to be genetic among Weasley women. He heard the sound of eggs cracking as he toweled off and dressed for work before coming into the kitchen. Planting two promising kisses on her neck, he took the plates from the counter.
“Mmmm,” he said, crunching his bacon. “I love you.”
“Good,” she said somewhat distractedly. “Maybe that will help.” He noticed that she was dressed very nicely, wearing a dark green sweater that he’d bought her for her birthday last year, and she wasn’t eating. Ginny was always hungry for breakfast.
“What’s this about?” he asked unnecessarily. He was pretty sure he knew, and damn it all, his Gryffindor courage was nowhere to be found.
“I was going to cook you dinner and have candles and wine and everything,” Ginny began, “but I thought I’d get too nervous to eat. Somehow I thought I’d be braver at breakfast.”
She drained a glass of pumpkin juice and looked evenly at him.
“Will you marry me, Harry Potter?”
He could tell she was nervous as she sat there chewing her lip, and he felt no small amount of affection. She looked so lovely in the morning light; she had even curled her hair. He wondered idly if she was wearing the lingerie he’d also gotten her for her birthday under her clothes. He never found out.
He watched the look on her face change from hopefulness to anxiety. When it was clear that he didn't have a ready answer, she said, "You said you'd think about it."
"And you said that you weren't trying to pressure me."
Her face flushed, and her look of anxiety was rapidly changing to one of anger. "That was three weeks ago, Harry!" She stood, hands clenched at her sides, chest heaving.
"I thought," she said through gritted teeth, "that you would have thought about it by now. I even thought that maybe you were getting hung up on picking out a ring, which I don't care about, or figuring out how you were going to ask me, and maybe I was saving you the trouble. Which was obviously stupid of me. We've been together since the war; Harry, you either want to get married or you don't. " Her right hand was twitching dangerously close to her wand.
He didn’t actually say no, but he didn’t say yes either. He couldn’t remember everything he did say, but he clearly remembered the heartbroken look on her face.
“I guess that’s it, then.”
“Look,” he said desperately. “Can we talk about this later? I have to go to work.”
“I never figured you for a coward, Harry.”
As he grabbed his workbag, Harry mumbled something about having an early meeting and paperwork to do. “I’ll see you later, okay?” He turned to face her with his hand on the doorknob. “We can -“
“Not if I see you first,” she spat, and then she was gone.
After a few unproductive hours, Harry returned to the flat. He didn’t really expect her to be there, but he wasn’t prepared for how completely she had left. The chill in his spine began when he hung up his cloak in the closet and noticed that her spare cloak was no longer hanging there. Not only that, but all of her scarves, hats and mittens were gone too. The bedroom had been stripped clean of her clothes, even the Harpies t-shirt that had been under the bed for a month. Only his toothbrush in the bathroom. A few trailing locks of hair were all that could be seen of her in the picture of them taken at Ron and Hermione’s wedding. Her books and magazines - all gone.
The chill turned into a cold terror the longer he roamed around the flat. She’d punctuated her absence by leaving his freshly pressed laundry atop a crisply made bed newly outfitted with clean sheets. His cupboard was full of his favorite foods, and there was cold butterbeer in the fridge. The kitchen was in a rare state of cleanliness.
In the oppressive silence, everything around him screamed that she loved him, and hated him, and she wasn’t coming back. He grabbed a butterbeer and sat down.
He slept on the sofa that night and congratulated himself the next morning on how well he was handling it. Maybe being single wasn’t so bad, after all. He shaved, just like always, and stepped into the hot shower. He opened the shampoo, and when the flowery scent that he knew so well assaulted his nose, he threw the bottle, hard, against the wall. This had the effect of splattering shampoo everywhere and drowning him in her scent. Damn her! She took every other bloody fucking thing of hers, why did she have to leave that? He leaned his forehead against the wall and wept.
End part 1