The disintegration of Harry's and Ginny's four year marriage came as a shock to everyone who knew them, Harry and Ginny included. On the outside, their marriage was something to be aspired to: the wives and husbands of the other aurors in Harry's department would ask their significant others why they couldn't be more like Harry and leave work at six o' clock sharp each evening to be with them, instead of heading out to the pub or staying late. And Ginny seemed happy with her life, too - she'd left professional Quidditch to have her babies, but she still got out of the house regularly, had dinner at least once a week with the other Weasleys, talked about coaching Quidditch at Hogwarts once the children grew older... Just a week before Ginny announced the split the Potters had been voted 'Most Likely to Live Happily Ever After' at a Gryffindor reunion party at Dean Thomas' place, and from the way Harry had had his arm around Ginny's waist all night as she laughed and reminisced and sipped cocktails everyone had thought they seemed very happy together. And they had been very happy together. All the way till the end.

In hindsight, Ginny wondered how she could have missed the signs. The first and most glaringly obvious sign being the end of their sex life shortly after she started to show with their youngest, Lily Luna. At first she tried to pass it off as normal - maybe Harry didn't want to risk hurting the baby - but then Lily was born, and a whole month passed without Harry once reaching for her, and then Ginny tried to initiate and Harry responded, but nothing for another month... Ginny nearly went crazy trying to figure it out. Harry couldn't be sleeping with someone else - how could he, when he was home by six each day? Still, she sniffed his shirts and turned out his pockets to make sure. No traces of foreign perfume mingling with his cologne. No lipstick marks. Nothing suspicious falling out of his pockets. Her next guess was that some form of post-war traumatic disorder was belatedly kicking in, stealing his libido, but Harry seemed so normal in all other aspects of his life...

The day the Potters' marriage ended, which began as a lazy Sunday afternoon just like any other, hit Ginny like a slap in the face. She walked into their room to pick up a change of clothes for Lily. Harry was sitting on their bed, his trousers off, wanking furiously. Ginny's first instinct was to back out of the room very quickly, but then it struck her that it had been a year - a whole fucking year without fucking - since Harry had shown any signs of having a sex drive, and so she marched back into the room and that was when she realized the magazines Harry was struggling to put away even before attempting to pull his pants back on were magazines of men. And then Ginny lost it.

ˆHe didn't understand why she wanted him out of the house - "I've never cheated on you Ginny, I swear on James' life" or why she was so livid and so crushed - "Our marriage hasn't been a lie, Ginny, I love you more than anything", and he pleaded with her to let him stay - "Don't take the children away from me" - but he packed his bags and left anyway. It was impossible to tell who was sobbing harder.

Three months later, the doorbell of Harry's new London flat rings brightly. Following Harry's failure to reply to the first ring, it rings again, this time accompanied by vigorous knocking.

"Open up, Harry! I know you're in there!"

The door finally opens. "Ginny?" Harry's surprise shows on his face. "You read my letters?"

Ginny smiles a little. "I did. I read all of them the moment I got them, but it took a while for me to calm down and come and see you."

Harry takes in the sight of her - the way her impossibly red hair cascades over her shoulders, still slightly wet from the afternoon rain, the way the first lines have already crept onto her face without him realizing. He wants to hug her, but he thinks better of it. "Come in," he says instead.

Harry puts the kettle on and joins Ginny at the kitchen table. He picks up an apple and tries unsuccessfully to spin it on the table top.

"How are the kids?" he asks as the apple falls on its side for the third time with a defeated little thump.

"They miss you a lot. James and Albus have asked about you every day for three months. When you left James wouldn't eat until I told him why."

"You told them?" Harry asks.

"I said you had to go to France for work," Ginny says miserably.

"I did go to France for work," Harry acknowledges. "It's not a lie."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't have gone if we hadn't split up."

"Hard to say. Things are afoot in France. People disappearing but no bodies showing up... I was sent to investigate because one of our Ministry people disappeared in Normandy, right under her family's noses. I might have to go back, actually - we think the recent Brighton disappearances are related to what's been happening in France."

"Harry." Harry falls silent, and then Ginny starts again, "I'm sorry for keeping you from the kids. It was really, really selfish of me. I want you to be in their lives again."

"What will we tell them?"

Ginny's face crumples. "That we're not in love with each other anymore."

"I love you, Ginny," Harry says quietly.

"But it's not the same is it?"

Another month, and all wounds seem to have healed. All of Ginny's wounds, that is. The children (apart from baby Lily, whose ignorance is bliss) are still sore about only getting to see their father on weekends, and since James has decided Harry and Ginny are equally to blame for ruining his life, both are getting the silent treatment from him. Even their attempt at winning him over by buying him a toy broom when it's not his birthday do little to placate him, although he does spend a lot of time with his broom, zipping up and down the garden and flying dangerously high especially when he knows his parents are watching.

It's on one of these weekends when Harry and Ginny are lying in the grass, watching their four year old attempt gravity defying stunts on his toy broomstick, that a weird idea takes hold of Ginny and refuses to let go.

"Harry," Ginny begins suddenly. "Have you ever fancied another man?"

"Erm, I dunno..."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Ginny demands.

"I mean it's hard to talk about it..."

Ginny rolls her eyes. "I've had three of your babies and you've practically seen my insides while they were being pulled out of me. Now spill," she says authoritatively, and suddenly Harry has a vision of her turning into her mother.

"I mean yeah, I've been attracted to other men. It's usually just a passing crush, though, I've never felt anything serious."

"Do you want to meet someone?"

"Maybe," says Harry, sensing where the conversation is going and not liking it.

"I think you should meet someone."

"Maybe," says Harry.

"I'm going clubbing in Soho this Friday night with a couple of Harpies and we were thinking of checking out this new club, Pot of Gold-" Harry groans before she can finish - "you should come."

"Wouldn't I be a better parent if I stayed and looked after the kids?" Harry protests weakly.

"Nope," says Ginny, "Mum's already agreed to take them. She's really looking forward to Friday, actually. Do you really want to get into her bad books by taking the kids away from her?"

Harry groans again.

Clubbing is every bit the nightmare Harry suspected it would be. He hates the music, hates its jagged, metallic sound and the insistent pulse he can feel all the way in his ribcage. Most of all, he hates how old it makes him feel. He recognizes nothing except what seems to be a remix of a Weird Sisters track Ron used to play over and over again in the dorms, but the music has been processed (tortured, Harry thinks) to the point that it, like its counterparts, is alien and no longer of Harry's time.

He bobs awkwardly, one point in a circle formed by him, Ginny and her two Harpie friends. All three women seem more at home than he is in a club populated almost exclusively by gay men, and they dance exuberantly while Harry clutches his beer like it's a lifeline and tries not to make eye contact with anyone.

Unfortunately he gets recognized anyway.

"FUCK ME MERLIN ARE YOU HARRY POTTER?" A man - no, a boy, really - stops in his tracks and leans uncomfortably close to Harry's face, trying to discern if what he sees on Harry's forehead is what it is. He's wearing a mesh shirt and nothing underneath, except a neon dragon tattoo that flies about his chest and changes colour every few seconds. His breath smells like alcohol and cranberry juice mixed in careless proportions.

"Not so loudly, please," Harry says, but the boy only goes "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU" very loudly, and boldly (rudely, Harry thinks) sweeps Harry's hair off his forehead and confirms his suspicions.

The next thing Harry knows his circle of four has expanded to a much larger circle of ten as the boy's friends and dance partners are hailed over, and his scar is marveled at by each newcomer in turn. Harry doesn't catch most of the names shouted at him over the deafening music and doesn't remember the ones he manages to hear, but the boy with the neon dragon tattoo is called Enoch, and he's even younger than Harry thought.

"SEVENTEEN?" Harry asks hoarsely, while Enoch wraps his arms around Harry's waist and starts to dance.

"I'M OF AGE," Enoch shouts back cheerfully. "HOW OLD ARE YOU?"

"Too old for this," says Harry and looks pleadingly in Ginny's direction to ask if they can go home yet.

But Ginny seems to be having too wild a time to want to go home. One of the men in the group has hoisted her onto his shoulders and she's swinging her feet and giggling like she's sixteen again.

Harry does end up taking someone home at the end of the night- Ginny. When she can barely stand he puts his arm around her gently but firmly, ignoring her protests that the night is still young, steers her out of the club and apparates them home. He catches her when she staggers and holds her hair back while she throws up from the nausea of apparating while drunk. Then, when he's cleaned her up and tucked her into bed, he apparates back to his flat and goes to sleep alone.