The Problem of Ginny
The sound of Harry scraping butter across half-burnt toast dominated the silent kitchen table.
"I'm sorry," Ginny apologised weakly, "it's just that the baby..."
Harry didn't respond—or even do so much as lift his eyes of the toast—for several minutes. After taking a few bites of toast and chewing emotionlessly he paused and spoke, staring off at some indistinct stain on the carpet.
"I'm going to be late tonight. I'm meeting Hermione at the pub."
Ginny set her knife down and stood up.
"What?" Harry shouted angrily, looking at Ginny for the first time that morning. "Why do you always do this? You don't understand how things were—you were too young!"
"I wasn't too young for you," Ginny said in barely a whisper, before turning on her heel and storming out.
Harry scowled when first he saw that Hermione had brought Ron to the pub. Ever since the New Years party a few years back with Hermione and the mistletoe there had been a lingering tension between them. Ron had never told Ginny, but he'd been avoiding Harry ever since. After a few pints, however, Harry could start to feel the old comradarie come back, and they found themselves laughing and reminiscing over their time at Hogwarts.
"And then—" Ron blurted out the words between gasping laughs, "Snape made him eat it all!" Harry patted Ron on the back, nodding his head vigorously as tears rolled down his cheeks. Hermione rolled her eyes and excused herself to the bathroom.
"Oh Harry," Ron sighed as he regained his composure, "Why don't we hang out like this more?"
"I hear you man," Harry chuckled as he wiped away the tears, pausing to take a swig of his beer. He reached into the bowl on the table in front of him and pulled out a fistful of peanuts.
"I mean," Harry mused as he cracked open a shell, "I seriously want to. I really miss you, man."
"So then what is it?" Ron asked, grabbing a handful of peanuts himself. "What changed?"
"I mean, it seems like I'm always at work," Harry heard him self start to explain. He stopped. Against his better judgement, he decided to be honest. "I... I guess it's just that Ginny. Well, she just won't leave me alone anymore."
Ron fell silent and stared at the empty shells in front of him. "Harry..."
"I just don't understand, Ron," Harry blurted out suddenly. "Why does she have to be such a nagging c—"
Harry could taste the blood before he even realised what happened. The chair was on the floor beside him and Ron towered above.
"Ron!" Hermione screamed as she ran from the bathroom door across the pub to their table. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Just shut your mouth Harry. Shut your bloody fucking mouth!" Ron yelled as Hermione held him back.
"I—" Harry struggled for the words. "I just—"
"Go home, Ron," Hermione begged. "You're drunk and you can't think straight."
"I can, Hermione. It's this bastard who can't. I'm going home, and I don't want to see him ever again." Ron flicked Harry the V as he walked backwards towards the door. "I always told Ginny she was too good for you." Ron slammed the door behind him.
Hermione grabbed a handful of napkins from the table and crouched down in front of Harry. She dabbed at the blood that was running freely from his nose. "He really did a number to you, didn't he?"
As she wiped away the blood, Harry couldn't help but think back to that New Year's Eve. Hermione had told Ron that the two of them had been drinking, and that it hadn't meant anything, that it was just some good fun between friends. But Harry knew better. Their youngest had been born only seven-and-half months later, and there was no way that Hermione hadn't known. She definitely hadn't been drinking.
"Oh Harry," Hermione pouted, the majority of the blood cleaned from his face. She brushed back his hair, her fingers lingering on his scar. Harry leaned forward, putting his hands around the back of Hermione's head and pulling her towards him. She started, breaking away.
"You really don't get it," she lamented, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "you really, truly don't."
Hermione stumbled back, grabbed her purse from the table, and ran outside.
When Harry came home the children and Ginny were already in bed. He crept into the room quietly, sliding onto the bed softly, so as not to wake his wife. He lied there silently staring at the ceiling for well over an hour, feeling Ginny's warm breath on his shoulder, completely unable to sleep. He eventually gave up and slipped out of bed and down the stairs.
Harry pushed open the door under the staircase and walked into the cramped, box-filled space. He walked up to a stack of cardboard boxes and moved the top two boxes in the stack of and into the hall. The bottom box was in rough shape, beaten and stained by years of humidity and neglect.
The tape sealing the box had become so brittle with age that it simply broke away as Harry opened the flaps. He reached into the box and pulled out his school robes, some of his textbooks, a dull, inert snitch, and the wooden box that held his wand. Harry laid these out on the floor and sat down beside them.
Harry picked the robes up and felt the fabric between his fingers. They were stained in places, and full of small holes. He heard a tearing noise as he turned them over, and so set them back down. He leafed through the pages of the books and saw his messy writing filling the margins. How long had it been since he'd last cast a spell? He tried to open box to look at his wand, but either the wood had warped or the hinges had stuck, and he couldn't get it open without a struggle.
What had happened? It used to be so simple, even when Voldemort had been trying to kill them. Even when he felt at his most hopeless, something had always happened to set him on the right path. Dumbledore, , McGonigal, Sirius, even a vision of his parents would somehow point him forward, let him know that he was headed in the right direction.
Those days were so long ago now, and no one was left to help him. Even his parents wouldn't know what to say even if he could somehow talk to them—they'd never made it this far. By now there were done. They'd done their job, made sure that their boy had lived.
And he'd lived, but what now? Was he even still living? The emotional whorls and eddies of his teenaged years were well behind him, and everything felt so flat and pressed and unchanging.
He wished he knew where it had all gone wrong, how he'd fallen so out of touch, how his friends had all gone their own separate ways, how Ginny became interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and mortgages. Harry stared at the wand and the robes and the dust-covered snitch with its corroded silver wings and sat there for hours, thinking about all those quidditch games they used to play when they were children.