He wasn't sure whether he ought to buy Ginny something. He didn't think she wanted anything material; in fact, he worried she would shoot him one of her devastating, raised-eyebrow expressions – you thought I'd like this? – if he suddenly presented her with a small velvet box. It would be an accident, and she'd smother it down in a moment, but still, he worried he'd see it. He wanted to give her something. But he just wasn't sure.
It's not that Ginny wasn't romantic. She'd surprise him with a garland of flowers around their headboard, or send him a thoughtful note by tiny owl when her team was away, the paper completely filled with her cramped handwriting.
It's just that she was so practical. Why don't we put the money toward our vacation fund? If we visit America, I want to do it properly – New York and California!, he could hear her saying. Or try for World Cup tickets next year? She was experiential. She claimed not to care about objects. He believed her – he did. But he cared about objects. He never used to consider himself sentimental, but after worrying about this for weeks and months, he was forced to reevaluate that self-assessment.
He knew Ginny wouldn't want a ring. He knew that. And yet, somehow he found himself in a Muggle jewelry shop, keeping an eye on the darkening London sky and feeling slightly uncomfortable in his Muggle clothing. He never thought he'd prefer his robes to jeans and sweaters, but after more than five years at the Ministry, he felt underdressed without the smooth fabric over his arms and flapping about his feet.
He and Ginny were already engaged. They'd talked about it for years, starting with one glorious, miraculous conversation the day after Ginny left Hogwarts for the last time. They weren't really considering marriage then – weren't even considering themselves affianced – but in one laughing, sunlit moment, Ginny had mentioned their future children, Harry had done a double-take, and Ginny beamed at him. She was so cognizant, so proud of the hint she'd dropped that Harry wasn't sure if it had been a slip or a deliberate, casual, affirmation of their future.
Later, in the garden of the Burrow, as Mrs. Weasley and her sons brought inside the remnants of Ginny's party, he and Ginny had sat facing the setting sun, feeling the last vestiges of summer evening warmth on their skin. Harry had taken a deep breath, clenched his fist – on the hand that wasn't around her shoulders – and said, "I want to marry you."
Ginny didn't look at him. In the moment's pause before she responded, he panicked. Had he misread her earlier comment and self-satisfied expression? Was this too early? They'd only been truly dating again for a year…
"I want to marry you, too."
"Not right now, I didn't mean – in a while – we're so young, still," he hurried on, desperate to clarify before she could add a devastating but to her blissful reply.
"I know." Now she did turn to look at him, utterly serene, the sunset setting her hair on fire. "Not now. But I do."
After that, everything was easy. Harry helped her tour tiny flats. She wanted to live alone for a time, having never done so before. Not to mention, with her Quidditch salary, she'd be making far more than he was in his cramped Ministry cubicle.
Later, they searched for a slightly-less-tiny apartment to move into together. It was cramped, but she loved it, and so did Harry. It faced east, so the space flooded with natural light in the mornings, and that was when they saw each other most. Still, they spoke of marriage easily and loosely, at some point in the future.
"When we're married," Ginny had said one morning, after knocking the kettle off the tiny range and splattering Harry's shoes with boiling water, "I want to live in a house. Not a flat. I want a proper kitchen. And east-facing windows."
And Harry, who had been biting back a sharp rebuke, and considering hurling the kettle at the wall, felt his irritation slip away.
Now, he was twenty-three, and she twenty-two. Still young, but he was ready. She was too. Last week, she'd come home late, hair damp from the showers after an evening match, but bursting with enthusiasm over a critical score, and he'd already been in bed, reading. She made two cups of tea and brought them into the bedroom, slipping in beside him under the covers.
Harry took one sip, biding his time while Ginny skimmed the back of his book.
"Let's get married."
She looked up, eyes wide for one moment. Then she set her cup on the bedside table, and gave him a long, chaste kiss.
"Okay, let's," she said. "I love you."
He admired so many things about Ginny, but her plain-spokenness was one of his favorite parts of her. She knew how she felt, and told him so, whether it was a withering critique of his cleaning spells, or a sudden, devastating declaration of love.
And that was it. They were engaged. A few days later, she'd mentioned the fall for a wedding date, and they'd casually begun planning, reaching out feelers for locations, sharing the news with the Weasleys and their friends over Sunday teas and evening drinks.
Everything was so easy with her. Everything except this.
"Did you say you were looking at engagement rings, sir? We certainly have a fine collection here, I can walk you through some of our options…"
The Muggle shopkeeper obsequiously led him to the largest display in the store.
She wouldn't want a ring. Her parents didn't wear them; few wizards did. He certainly had no love for Muggle customs. So why was he here?
Obediently, he listened to the clerk's explanations of a few of the larger pieces, detailing the many setting options, the pricing schemes, the credit options, the secondary stones…
He imagined presenting the ring to Ginny, skipping over her initial reaction. He imagined sliding the ring on her finger, imagined it catching the sun while she was flying, imagined it winking at him as she opened the door to their flat or as she stepped out of the shower. Tantalizing. Endearing. But not, he had to admit, her style.
"Thanks," he said suddenly to the clerk. "I think I've seen my options. I'll definitely return if I decide to make a purchase."
The clerk blinked, and tried to salvage the sale – perhaps he cared to see some of the less extravagant pieces, or perhaps, modern young man he so obviously was, a diamond alternative would appeal to him?
Satisfied in his spur-of-the-moment decision, Harry thanked the clerk again and exited the store.
A few days later, he Apparated to Diagon Alley after work. He didn't know where he was going. He found himself wandering down the cramped street, glancing thoughtfully at Quality Quidditch Wear – though surely they wouldn't have anything appropriate – before noticing a tiny shop, barely wider than the width of the door. The sign looked respectable enough – Few's Fine Jewelry.
Inside, the display cases were overflowing with items of varying metals, stones, and substances, a far cry from the sterile, modernist trays of rings in the Muggle shop. He peered at a delicate ring of intertwined hair-width gold, interspersed with tiny gemstone flowers. He was reminded of her clever spell decorating their headboard with flower garlands. But no – no rings, he told himself sternly.
Already, Few's seemed more in line with Ginny's style, with the cozy, slightly shabby, overflowing Burrow. One carton, resting on top of a display case, was filled with small gold and silver baubles. He picked one up, a tiny witch's hat. It immediately began wrinkling its brim and hopping determinedly around his hand.
"Charmed Charms."
He looked up – a witch stood at the back of the store, clearly the proprietor of the shop.
"Perfect for a bracelet or necklace," she continued, coming toward him.
A charm bracelet – now, there was an idea.
"Do you have a broomstick? Or maybe – maybe a Snitch?" He bent over the small box and began searching through it, bypassing a dragon, which huffed fiercely as his fingers brushed it, and a small cauldron, whose surface began to bubble convincingly.
The whole box at once seemed to be roiling with tiny movement, the charms clattering against each other. The witch glared at him. "Look what you've done," she tsked, and waved her wand once over the carton. Immediately, the charms fell silent.
"Here's a Snitch," she said, deftly fingering through the box until she plucked it out and dropped it into his palm. "And a broomstick."
Harry was immediately struck with doubt. The charms were pretty, certainly, but would Ginny like them? He'd never seen her wear a bracelet. She had one or two ancient, battered necklaces she dragged out of her dresser for special occasions, and a few pairs of earrings, but he knew those were heirlooms, hand-me-downs from various aunts and grandmothers and older cousins.
He knew she'd put on this necklace immediately, and smile, and kiss him gratefully, but would she love it? Would she understand this was meant to symbolize how much he loved her? That he wanted her to cherish it as Muggle women cherished their wedding rings?
He knew she wouldn't. She would want to, but it simply wasn't the way she viewed jewelry. And Quidditch wasn't what united them. It was a shared interest, and it brought them together, but that was superficial – Harry wanted to express something so much deeper. He just didn't know how. Abruptly, Harry turned over his palm, and the charms fell back into the box.
"Thank you," he said to the witch, "but these aren't what I'm looking for."
Now what? He was back out on the street.
He checked his watch. Time to get home – Ginny would be there soon. Inspiration flashed for one moment. Could he get her a watch? Certainly symbolic, he mused, paralleling the watch her parents had given him when he turned seventeen. But she already had one, and she wasn't seventeen anymore, and he wasn't her parent but her partner, hoping to find something to link them together…
Frustrated, he turned on the spot and Disapparated. Ginny was already home.
"Mum wants us to come to dinner on Sunday," she said, hugging him as he shrugged out of his jacket. "Shall we?"
"Sure."
"I think she has all sorts of wedding ideas to throw at us," Ginny went on, wrinkling her nose. "And I think Percy will be there too, so I'm sure he'll be sanctimonious as hell, just because his wedding was so perfect…"
Maybe he could draw Percy aside and ask his advice. At least he'd be more likely to get a straight, if extremely thorough answer out of him. Unlike Ron, who would shrug, make a crude remark, and change the subject.
Resolved, he kissed Ginny briefly on the lips. "I'll handle Percy," he declared playfully, and reached behind her to open a cupboard. "I'm starved. What should we eat?"
Two days later, Harry stumbled blearily into his office. It was too early. Certainly too early to talk to Hermione, who was waiting just outside his office door, ready to pounce. Unlike him, she was apparently wide awake, and bursting to tell him something.
"You're late," she observed as he slung his bag onto his desk chair. "You'll make me late for my meeting down on the Fourth Floor."
"Sorry," he mumbled, unable to conjure any further conversational components.
"Guess what?" she continued, apparently refusing to let his exhausted demeanor dampen her enthusiasm. "We're coming to dinner on Sunday, too, by the way," she added as an aside. "Molly asked Ron yesterday. Anyway, Crookshanks keeps escaping out of our flat window – I'm not sure how, it's really secure – and disappearing. I've been a bit worried, actually. But yesterday a neighbor from a few doors down knocked on our door. He's made a friend! And – er – fathered some kittens!"
She paused for effect, waiting for Harry to contribute.
"I felt really guilty, at first," she went on, impatient with his grogginess, "I know we should have checked to see if he was fixed, my parents would disapprove – but I assumed he would be sterile. Most Kneazle crosses are, you know. And he's quite old now! In any event, the couple are looking to give away the kittens, so if you know anyone who's interested, let me know! And stop by to see them – they're really cute."
Unsure of what, exactly, had just transpired, or why Hermione found this news urgent enough to leave her bustling office to venture down to his first thing in the morning, Harry nodded numbly and continued the rest of the way into his office. Then the pieces clicked, and he did an about-face, tripping on the doorjamb as he rushed out again.
"Hermione!"
Six weeks later, Ginny loved the kitten. He knew she would from the moment he Apparated home with Hermione that evening and saw the orange-and-white kittens in the Muggle apartment. The first night, the kitten cuddled between them on the bed, purring contentedly, awakening them several times throughout the night to play, pouncing on their fingers.
She loved the kitten, but Harry wanted her to know. This was the ring, this was the charm bracelet and the necklace, and the watch – this was the symbol of their new life together. He thought about writing a note, but worried it would come out too silly. She was the one who could write love letters, not him.
Instead, the morning after they acquired the kitten, when she woke up them up early, biting playfully at Ginny's elbow, sunlight streaming into the flat, he commented casually, "She'll be great with the kids. And she'll love the house – maybe there'll even be a few mice in the backyard for her to hunt."
And Ginny looked at him, and smiled, and understood.
Welcome! This was my first jaunt back into the world of fanfiction in a long, long time.
If you liked this, I'll be posting a Neville story sometime next week. It'll be similar in tone – though less fluffy! – and take place at about the same time (a few years post-DH).