Title: The Impossible Desire
Author: ginger_veela
Beta: kjp_013
Established Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Infidelity Pairing: Harry/Cho
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2,771
Warnings: Infidelity, mature sexual content
Summary: She knows what you need right now, the same thing you need every time you make this masochistic journey: to be put back together again after you fall apart.

Notes: Happy (very, very) early birthday, Lee! I'd intended to write you something a little less bleak, but...this happened. /0\ Thanks for all your fantastic and inspiring fic over the years. Wishing you many happy returns!

Many thanks to Katie, my beta/Britpicker extraordinaire. All insufferable wackness is entirely mine. :D

The Impossible Desire

You think about that first time as you're boarding the Muggle train for the long trip to Edinburgh, the too-bright lights of the pub and the too-bright laughter and the way her eyes met yours and rolled as if to say, How did we end up here?

You knew how you ended up there. You were on a break, again, tossed out of the flat you shared with Ginny—the one that was too small for a baby, according to her, her mother, and everyone else to whom she'd been voicing her growing concern that maybe you weren't the marrying kind after all.

You weren't sure she was wrong.

You weren't pissed, that first time, much as you'd like to blame someone or something else for your actions that night. You were a little tipsy, to be sure, but you slid off your barstool without crashing to the floor, didn't stumble once on your way over to her booth. You watched her lips move around the shape of your name, watched her smile widen into a full-blown grin, and you tried to remember the last time Ginny looked at you like that.

You couldn't.

You made awkward small talk with Marietta until she had the good grace to visit the loo and not come back, and then you made surprisingly easy small talk with Cho, which turned into serious talk, and when you confessed you hadn't a place to sleep that night and your best (now married) friends were tired of you stringing Ginny along and had declared their sofa off-limits, she didn't hesitate to offer hers.

In retrospect, you wonder how you could have thought you'd actually sleep on her sofa that night. It's not as though you'd split up because you'd stopped finding each other attractive. It's not as though you'd never wondered what it would be like to do more than kiss her. And given that you and Ginny were on a break, again, it's not as though it was technically cheating.

The first time.

The train is hot and stuffy, but you're surrounded by Muggles, so cooling charms are out of the question. You ask yourself again if it would really be so bad to Apparate, but you can't risk it; last time, your invisibility cloak slipped en route, and you'd had your work cut out explaining why you'd been spotted by a wizard journalist in Scotland when you were supposed to be on assignment in Wales. Travelling by Floo isn't an option, either, given what you might accidentally discover—or rather, who might discover you—upon stumbling out of her hearth.

Whoever said illicit liaisons were glamorous never rode a Muggle train in July.

The sweltering conditions aren't enough to stop the flashbacks, though. Your nipples harden, remembering how hers brushed your chest when you pulled her down to kiss you mid-fuck; your fingers clench of their own accord, remembering the silkiness of her hair fisted between them. You fight to stop your hips from moving, remembering how goddamned good it felt to be inside her.

You hate yourself for still knowing that feeling so well.

She hasn't aged at all since school, it seems to you. It surprises you every time you see her again, the moment she opens her door with that gentle, tortured smile of hers and ushers you inside.

You've aged considerably; there's no denying it. Gray hairs encroach at your temples; a permanent worry line bisects the lightning scar on your forehead. Your daughter traces your crow's feet sometimes, laughing, and tells you that you're an old man.

Your daughter who knows you, that is.

The routine never varies; you attend to the important business first. You follow her under your invisibility cloak down the street to the Muggle primary school; the football game is about to start. An hour's not much time, not nearly enough, but you take what you can get, when you can get it.

She looks up from tying her football boots and waves at her mum before dashing off down the field. Cho waves back and sighs.

"She got her letter."

Your heart swells with pride; this is the chance for which you've been waiting all these years. You lecture once a fortnight at Hogwarts; you'll finally be able to see her, really see her, not from a distance beneath an invisibility cloak but up close, face-to-face. Perhaps she'll need extra tutoring for her DADA class; you could teach her the Patronus charm, just as you taught her mother. Perhaps you could hug her, without arousing alarm or suspicion, the first time she succeeds.

"She'll sort Ravenclaw, I reckon. Brilliant, that one."

"The letter's not from Hogwarts." Cho looks away. "She's going to Beauxbatons."

"What?" You almost grab her arm before you realise you can't without being discovered. She looks at you then, eyes brimming.

"She has to, Harry. We can't chance it."

You feel a sick, swooping sensation, not unlike the time you fell through the trapdoor beneath the three-headed dog your first year, but this time no Devil's Snare catches you; you just keep falling and falling. "James is a year younger," you hear yourself say, as if from a distance. "They'll likely sort different houses-"

"That didn't stop us, did it?" Cho's voice is full of sadness. "They're brother and sister, Harry. It's unthinkable. And it would be our fault if it happened."

"Who are you talking to, Mum?" Your daughter bounds up to you, plaits bouncing, and reaches for the water bottle Cho's holding. Cho hands it to her.

"No one, love. Just thinking out loud." Cho nods at her teammates. "Aren't you supposed to be playing?"

"Coach is starting the new girl today. Can I go to Amanda's after the game? Her mum said it's all right."

Cho nods. "Be home for supper."

You could reach out and touch her, right now. You've only been this close to her once before, that fateful December morning in Diagon. You'd been Christmas shopping for James, hand in gloved hand with a very pregnant Ginny, and nearly smacked into Cho, who was chasing a toddler flying a toy broomstick through the shop. You hadn't seen her since the night you slept together, and you covered your discomfiture with a forced laugh, an offer to help her catch her kid. You snatched the girl off the broomstick mid-flight, holding her just long enough to hand her back to her grateful mother.

It was long enough to see her eyes.

Those eyes are staring at you right now as she sips her water, even though she can't possibly see you, as though your genetic link has somehow forged an even stronger, more ineffable connection. You want to freeze this moment, memorise every freckle on her face, but a second later she's wiping her mouth and handing the bottle back to Cho.

"Bye, Mum." She jogs back to her teammates, taking your heart with her. It's your cosmic comeuppance, divine retribution for your early ambivalence about parenthood, that your firstborn will never know you except from history books and newspaper articles. That you'll never kiss her goodnight. That you'll never dance with her at her wedding.

That she'll never know you're her father.

You can't bear to watch her anymore, so you walk back to Cho's house and let yourself in. Her husband's a Muggle policeman; you know, from long experience, when his shifts begin and end, so you've no concern he'll come home and find you. You pull off your cloak and sit in the armchair, face buried in your hands.

You hear the door open and shut, feel gentle fingers wrapping around yours, leading you to the bedroom. She knows what you need right now, the same thing you need every time you make this masochistic journey: to be put back together again after you fall apart.

There's nothing to be said that hasn't been said before, no reason for pretence. You undress each other in silence, the lace curtains dappling her skin with late-afternoon light, and you think about how different this is from your first time. What began as a one-night stand, a foolish escape, has become a sacred ritual: you connect with your daughter by making love to her mother.

Her body is as familiar to you now as your own, and it's changed over the years. Her hips widened slightly after giving birth; her breasts softened—from breastfeeding, you assume, like Ginny's. You drag your tongue over her nipple, making her shudder, and it's not the same as being there would have been—not the same as if you'd watched, fascinated and humbled by the powers of a woman's body, the way you did with your other three—but it reminds you of the one good thing that's come from this, the one good person, and that you helped create her is nearly enough to absolve you of your sins.

You know exactly how to make Cho come now, unlike that first night with the fumbling and false starts. This is the most selfish part of these unforgivably selfish pilgrimages: Ginny long ago stopped responding to your touch. She fakes it like a pro, and if your powers of observation were those of an ordinary wizard instead of an experienced Auror, one who's learnt to pick up the faintest of clues from interrogating suspects, you might miss the tiny details that give her away: the false catch in her breath before she pretends to come, the too-rhythmic clenching of her internal muscles.

You can't remember when everything about your marriage wasn't a lie.

This, however, is both truth and beauty: the way her neck arches as you lave her folds; the quickening of her breath as you suck the small, hard knob within them; the way her hips buck and she clutches your hair when you slide a finger inside her, pressing up; the way she begs you, with the flush of her face and the rapid rise and fall of her chest, to bury yourself between her shaking thighs.

You remember how she felt that first time, hot and wet and impossibly tight; it's not the same anymore, because it's so much better and worse. Better, because the reckless abandon that fuelled that first encounter has been replaced with knowing touches, purposeful caresses that build on one another until the pleasure's unbearable, and then you bear it even longer. Better, because the taut skin and hard muscles of youth have been supplanted with the yielding of wisdom, the suppleness of understanding. Better, because when she lets go, the honesty of her gasps and cries is your permission to let go too, your justification for the lies and the cover-ups and the heartache.

Worse, because no corporeal pleasure can erase the knowledge that you've already lost one of the four most precious gifts you'll ever receive.

You hold each other afterwards for rather longer than you should dare; the stars circling the face of your watch tell you you should have left a half-hour ago. You bury your face in her hair, still soft and silky after all these years.

"I'm her father. Her real father. We should have decided together."

"Her real father will be home soon," Cho replies, a hard edge to her voice. "The one who's raised her. The one who thinks she's his."

You take a deep, steadying breath. "I know, but-"

"You should go now."

In that moment, you know this is the last time you'll see her.

Or your daughter.

You rise and dress in silence, unready to believe that this is the end, but when Cho pulls on a dressing gown and reaches for the small photograph on the bedside table, you know with certainty.

She presses the picture into your hand. "Take it."

You shake your head. "I can't. Ginny could find it."

The look in her eyes is unfathomable. "It doesn't matter anymore."

Ginny's waiting up for you when you stumble out of the fireplace late that night. She looks you square in the eye.

"How was Brighton?"

You shrug your shoulders. "Another day, another Galleon." You remind yourself to kiss her cheek once you've dusted yourself off, to not avoid her gaze.

Her eyes soften. "You look sad."

You force a smile. "Not at all. Happy to be home."

She takes a deep, shaky breath and looks away. "It must be very painful. Having a child who'll never know you."

Your heart drops into your stomach; your legs tremble so hard you're afraid you'll collapse. You sit down on the edge of the hearth and run a hand over your face.

"How long have you known?"

"As long as you have." You don't need to look at her to know she's crying. "She has your mother's eyes, Harry. Your eyes."

Somehow, you find the strength to stand and make your way to her chair. You drop to your knees and lay your head in her lap.

"I'm sorry." Your voice sounds like a small animal being strangled. "God, Gin, I'm so, so sorry."

Her fingers are gentle in your hair. "She's a beautiful girl." She pauses. "The kind of girl James could fall for. Or Albus."

You raise your head, all the pieces falling into place. "It was your idea. Sending her to Beauxbatons."

She nods. "I paid a visit to her mother last month."

You think for a moment. "You were on assignment. Covering that match in Surrey."

She shakes her head. "I was dealing with more urgent matters than Quidditch." She averts her eyes. "Cho agreed it was necessary."

A wave of sorrow crashes over you; you wonder if it's possible to drown in the absence of actual water. "I'm her father," you mutter. "I should have had a say."

"You lost your say when you chose to have an affair." Her hands shake in her lap. "You've already destroyed my life, Harry. I won't let you destroy your children's lives as well."

Your life goes on, because it has to.

At Ginny's request, you never discuss the affair again. It's the least you can do, considering what you've put her through. The kids know something is off, of course; Lily catches you sleeping on the chesterfield in the study, even though you're exceedingly careful, week after week, to wait until the kids are asleep before tiptoeing downstairs with a pillow and blanket.

The next day, Ginny lets you back into your bed.

You think about how she could have put a stop to it long before she did, the compassion it must have taken to allow you to see your daughter all those years. You think about how every out-of-town case—even the real ones—must have broken her heart, how she never knew with certainty if you were really working or in the arms of your lover.

You hate yourself even more than you once did, for putting her through that hell.

You channel your grief into salvaging your marriage—realising, maybe too late, how badly you've taken her for granted. The first time you make love again, you give it your all: reacquainting yourself with each inch of her skin, taking your time, watching and listening and responding to each sound she makes, each flutter of her eyelids and twitch of her hips.

When she fakes her pleasure, yet again, you tell yourself the intimacy will take time to rebuild. That you'll get there somehow.

Eventually.

You're scouting for an empty classroom for your lecture when you find it, tucked away in a dark corner behind a pile of old desks. It's tall, of course, but not nearly as tall as you remembered. You were only eleven the last time you looked into it, after all.

You pull off the dusty sheet covering it, run your hand over the carved frame. You think of what Dumbledore told you, all those years ago: It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live.

Sod it. Dumbledore never had children.

You pull it into the centre of the room and wait. A smiling, ginger-haired woman appears to your left in the dark reflection; a black-haired woman appears to your right. One by one they come forward, putting their arms around you and around each other: James, Albus, Lily.

And your daughter with your mother's eyes.

You seat yourself on the floor, the sun dropping below the horizon outside the classroom window, and stare.