Nobody talks about the war. It's an unwritten sanctity. That is, to those who were actually in the war.

But talk to somebody and they'll say but they were, they were in the war. They followed every battle and every lead. Now, I admire good journalism just as much as the next guy but I gotta say that that pisses me off. They weren't there. They didn't stand with curses flying through the air. They weren't disoriented by all curses flying in every direction and they didn't just start cursing anything black praying that you didn't accidently kill the wrong person, a person on the light side. Kill the light and it'd be murder. Murder the dark and it's heroism.

I spend an extensive amount of time planning my escape. Faking my own death, causing my own death, running away...like I said, escaping.

I can never pinpoint the precise reason why. My marriage seems perfect("Golden" according to Witch Weekly which supplies a full evaluation every other week) and my daughter is the best thing in my life. Mary-Kate was born almost two years after I married Rebecca. I was twenty-one at the time and she was turning twenty-five that March. We were young and in love by reflex. We had had our first date when I was sixteen and she was finishing up her first year of college. We dated up to her matriculation at Med. school, had a short falling out, and I proposed the day she graduated.

Yeah, Rebecca's a squib. Her parents never had any reservations about it despite their own renown magical abilities. Over the years they left the magical world to form their own lives in the muggle world with their daughter which I eventually did as well. But what lives they lived, the upper class aristocratic life.

I'm still best mates with Ron, and Hermoine I see when she gets a break in her schedule. Alchemist's really are terribly busy. I hold a steady subscription to the Daily Prophet so I keep up. It just doesn't interest me any more.

And yes, there was a stir when my relationship and eventual marriage to Becca became public. Imagine, Harry Potter,The-Boy-Who-Lived, Savior of the wizarding world had married a squib! I swear, sometimes I think people don't know a bloody thing other than blood. I was happy. I mean, the happiest I ever could be.

Mary-Kate was a catalyst for me. Just as I was beginning to learn how to be a husband I had to become a father. My approach to her was cautious. I changed her and held her and fed her when Becca couldn't. But later, it was Mary-Kate who crawled to me and first said, "Dadda." And it's she today who tugs on my pant leg and instigates play. I love that baby girl. I'm no good for her, but I love her.

Mary-Kate's three now and Becca is twenty-nine. Becca gave up her strive to be a doctor for authoring prestigious medical books. It was her decision. She said she wanted to be able to work at home and be with us, her family. She's never regretted it.

Becca brings in so much from her publishings that I could easily have gone unemployed. But because of my non-diminishing pride and various "sugar momma" jokes by my friends I took a small job at a coffee house. 9 to 2 Mondays through Fridays, 11 to 4 on Sundays, Saturdays off. Becca didn't see the point at first but understood later, relating to my situation. She now makes me bring her home a low fat cappuccino and a strawberry muffin every day.

She can understand the need to be self-reliant. As I've clarified, Becca's family is wealthy and respected just about everywhere. Bill, Becca's father was the most successful lawyer in West Virginia of his time. He began a law firm that he passed on to Becca's younger brother, Jackson that's highly successful to this day. So successful in fact, that our grandchildren probably would have been financially secured if Becca hadn't cut herself off from her family. Becca wanted to work and more than anything work in the medical field. But that wasn't all there was to the separation.

I, being the sad little orphan of the wizarding world as Bill always saw me as (mind you, this is before I started shagging his daughter) didn't come close to stacking up to what Becca's parents pictured for their little girl. But it was a case of the wealthy man's daughter abandoning her riches for true love, which I assume was me. However, Lillian wouldn't have her daughter walking out of her life like that and forced her husband to at the very least, "consider me." Well, he's done a bit more than that, and sometimes I think he genuinely approves of and possibly even likes me...once again, sometimes.

I'm told that Ronalds women are the patriarchs of the family and I believe it. Only now, Becca wasn't a Ronalds any more. She was a Potter. I told her that she didn't have to take my name. It's not that I didn't want her to. On the contrary, I did so very much but by that time I understood well the prestige of the Ronalds name, but Becca insisted and therefore of course got her way.

Now, my twenty-sixth birthday is quickly approaching and I find myself torn. I love my wife and daughter more than I could ever love anything else. I have a steady, though small, group of friends, just the way I like it. I'm financially secured. I am technically still young, but still I'm overtaken by not unhappiness but rather reprimands for not being happier and appreciating everything I have, because really it's a lot. Becca says I am, "in a funk. Just a lifelong funk." It's all shrug-worthy to me.

"What do you say we go out to dinner tonight? Huh?" Becca wraps her arms around me. "Just get out of the house. C'mon you need it." She prods me.

I hold her waist and my forehead brushes against hers. Whenever we're like this all my plans for escape vanish, and I can never imagine going through with any of them. How absurd to even think that I could leave her.

For the moment I'm peaceful and sigh softly. You always tell me I do things softly: Walk, talk, eat, live. I only half pretend to take it personally when you say things like that as a blow to my masculinity but then again you're only half serious, I hope.

"What are you doing with me?" I ask.

"Saving you." The standard response.