I looked out onto the sparkling blue waters of the bay, sweeping wind-tousled hair behind one ear as the sailboat scudded along on the water. Turning my head, I watched as Harry and Teddy hurried to obey Artemis's shouted instructions, quickly raising the mainsail and setting the boom. With a loud crack, the sail caught the wind and billowed out, the small sailboat immediately picking up speed and pressing me back against my seat.
Teddy stood in the bow, too-long sandy hair swept back by the wind, one hand holding securely to the rigging as the boat bounced in the swell of the bay. Harry sat down next to me, looking utterly windblown and happy as he kissed my cheek. "All right?" he asked over the sound of the rushing wind.
"Yes," I said, nodding at Teddy. "He's going to ask you for his own boat one of these days."
"Hm, I might ask myself for one," Harry smiled, teeth white in his tanned face. After a few years here, he looked like he'd lived in California his entire life.
"It's a good thing that I don't get seasick then." I leaned forward and drew his face down to mine for a soft kiss.
"Oh goodness," Diana said as she came up from the galley, awkwardly balancing a tray with several wineglasses. Harry sprang up and took the tray from her, setting it on the deck. "Thank you. I haven't got my sea legs yet. Here." She handed him another tray, this one full of different cheeses, fruit and assorted crackers.
With a teenager's unerring sense for food, Teddy plopped down on the deck next to the tray, inhaling several pieces of cheese and half a bunch of grapes. "Where are we going?" he asked when he finally paused to take a breath.
"Out to the Farallons and back," Artemis said from his station at the wheel. "Keep your eyes peeled; we might see some great white sharks!"
"So no swimming, all right?" Harry said, earning a teenaged roll of the eyes from our godson.
"Duh, Harry. It's too cold."
"And when has that stopped you?" Harry asked, sipping his wine.
"That's surfing and besides, I have a wetsuit." The two of them continued grumbling back and forth and I smiled, sipping from my own wineglass as Diana settled down next to me.
"Those two," she said fondly as they continued to argue.
"Yeah. Neither one of them can stand for the other to have the last word," I said as Teddy gave a disgusted snort and retreated back to the bow of the boat, pointedly turning his back on Harry.
Shaking his head, Harry joined Artemis at the wheel and I turned my attention back out to the water. The Golden Gate Bridge loomed closer and closer, reminding me of the enormous stone figures in that Fellowship movie. "So, how has your second year of residency been treating you?" Diana asked, bringing me out of my reverie.
"Oh, it's been very hectic but not as bad as the first year. I thought I had seen it all at St Mungo's, but I'm learning that Muggles can be very creative when it comes to injuring themselves," I said warmly, thinking about a few recent incidents.
"I understand the shifts can be very long and tiring," Diana said with a sympathetic look, shifting her eyes to Harry momentarily.
"They certainly can. Sometimes I'd be gone for two solid days and then sleep for another two days when I got home. The first year you're a bit like an indentured servant and it's only slightly less so in the second year when the new first-year residents come in."
"That must have been a difficult adjustment for the both of you, being newlyweds."
"Well, we weren't exactly newlyweds by then, thank goodness!" Suddenly conscious of it, I turned my wedding ring around my finger, automatically looking for the glint of gold on Harry's left hand.
"That's true, I suppose," she said with a conspiratorial grin and I felt a flash of heat rise to my face as I thought back to the early months of our marriage. I'd thought that nothing much would change since we'd been living together for more than a year by then, but I found that actually being married to Harry had made things different in subtle ways I hadn't quite expected.
Casting my eyes toward him again, I felt my heart skip a beat at the sight of him standing with his hands on the wheel, listening carefully to Artemis as he coached him past another sailboat. He'd long lost the look of an overworked Auror and stood straight and tall, t-shirt plastered to his body by the wind. He saw me looking at him and stuck his tongue out, making me laugh. So often in my mind's eye I saw him as the boy I'd fallen in love with and I had to remind myself that he would be thirty-two soon.
And I'll be thirty-one, I thought, sticking my tongue out back at him.
"Have you given any thought to starting a family?" Diana asked, intruding on my thoughts of my husband.
"Have you been talking to my mum?" I asked with a grin, laughing when the other woman flushed. "We haven't really discussed it. I've been so busy with school and now the residency that the timing hasn't really seemed right just yet." I looked toward the bow where Teddy was leaning much too far forward for my taste. "Besides, we've had Teddy with us since he started at St Ambrose's, so we're not exactly lonely."
"Teddy!" Harry barked from the stern. "Back it up, yeah? I'm not fishing you out!" Groaning that Harry was no fair, Teddy theatrically threw himself down on the deck and lay on his back, taking off his shirt to use as a pillow as he took advantage of the sun. His hair cycled through the colors of the rainbow until he finally settled on a blue that matched the water around us.
We passed under the Golden Gate and out into the open water of the Pacific Ocean. Artemis took the wheel back from Harry so he came and sat back down next to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. "Did you have fun steering the boat?" I asked, snuggling into his warmth. The wind was fiercer beyond the protection of the bay.
"It's a ketch, love," Harry said, nuzzling my neck and giving me a shiver that had nothing to do with the colder air.
"Isn't a ketch a kind of boat?"
"Well, yes—"
"Then I rest my case."
"Weasleys," Harry said, rolling his eyes as he picked up his glass of wine.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sailing around the rocky islands, looking for whales and sharks. Teddy was the first one to spot a whale's spout, shouting, "Thar she blows!" in his best pirate voice. After that first one, it seemed there were whales everywhere and we were even treated to a couple of them jumping up into the open air and slapping back down onto the water with thunderous booming sounds.
"Oh! Look over there! A shark!" Teddy yelled, pointing as he leaned far over the starboard railing, causing Harry to grab the back of his shorts before he fell into the water.
I looked and saw the fin cutting through the water like a knife. I grinned at Harry and shouted, "We're going to need a bigger boat!" earning a groan from both him and Teddy.
"Ginny, that's terrible," Teddy admonished, turning his attention back to the shark swimming quickly away from them.
As Artemis expertly guided the boat around the rocky islands, I saw an island that looked like it was awash in seals of several different kinds. Their incessant barks carried over the water, making me think of Marella and Rònan. I wonder how they're doing? I wonder if they've had any more pups? Harry kept me updated on Moira Langston and her brother Morgan, neither of whom seemed to bear him any ill will for his part in the disappearance of their nanny, but I hadn't really thought of Marella in years.
I remembered the words the selkie had said to me on China Beach. If there is ever a time ye have need of me, get to yonder rock or the ruins and call my name and I'll come, aye? I shook my head as we turned for home. I still have no idea what I would have need of her for.
Once back in the sheltered waters of the bay past the Golden Gate, Artemis let Teddy take the wheel for a while, much to the boy's delight. "Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Take cover for it's Dread Pirate Teddy comin' for ye!" he shouted lustily, waving an imaginary cutlass.
"Dread Pirate Teddy?" I asked Harry, raising an eyebrow at him. "Doesn't have quite the same ring as Dread Pirate Roberts."
"What else possibly could?" Harry responded, giving me a smile that set my heart to fluttering in my chest.
That night, when it was just the two of us again, I thought about Diana's question. Ever since we were married, I'd been getting that same question from my mother, Fleur, Sarah, my brothers and even from Hermione.
"Did you hear what Mum said tonight?" I'd complained to Ron one evening when we were at Grimmauld Place. "She started in with all of that 'when I was your age' business!" I looked at my brother as he gently patted baby Rose's back. "It's no fair, you and Hermione are off the hook." I held out my hands and he carefully passed the baby to me. I nestled her sleepy weight against my own shoulder, rubbing her back to get her to burp.
"Well, to be fair, things were different back then, yeah?" Ron said reasonably. "Everyone had been going through a tough time and I guess they figured they'd better be getting on with things. Get the next generation going."
"I suppose," I said, not really agreeing with Ron. Someday, I'd have to ask Mum what drove them to have such a large family, but that wasn't a conversation I felt comfortable with just yet. Rose finally burped and I looked down at the baby's sweet face. I loved all of my nieces and nephews, but so far hadn't felt the need to have a baby myself.
But now as I lay in the dim bedroom with Harry next to me, I kept turning over Diana's question in my mind. I have one year of my residency left. If we start soon, I'll be done with it by the time I'm due and then I can take my time and decide what I want to do next. I smiled at the thought of Vijay Malhotra's constant entreaties to come work for him at SF Thaumaturgical. He would be over the moon if I finally took him up on his offer.
Seized by a feeling of excited possibility, I turned on my side and looked at Harry, boyish in repose despite the gray at his temples. Prodded by that sixth sense of his, he opened his eyes and squinted at me. "What?" he asked, voice rough with sleep.
"I love you," I said, leaning in to kiss him.
"Love you, too," he mumbled, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close.
It's going to be a busy summer, I thought as I lay in the circle of his embrace. Maybe we'll start after the summer holidays.
For the next few days, I kept my decision to myself, feeling almost like I was keeping a secret for a friend. "Girl, what is going on with you?" Ben asked as we grabbed a hasty lunch one afternoon.
"What? Going on how?" I asked, nonplussed.
"You, you're just … I don't know, like you got a little bit of sumthin' sumthin' going on, you know?" he said, waving his hands at me. "Like you know something the rest of us don't."
"Well, you know that's always true," I said with a mischievous smile. "I always know something you don't know."
"Ugh, give it a rest, Samantha," he said, twitching his nose at me. He'd been so proud when he could finally do it just like Elizabeth Montgomery in that old TV show that I'd almost baked him a cake. "Are you and Harry trying something new?"
"Now you give it a rest," I said, gathering up the detritus from lunch. Not yet, we're not.
"Harry, can you put toothpaste on the list?" Ginny called from the bathroom, her words garbled by the toothbrush that was undoubtedly in her mouth.
"Yeah." I picked up my wand from my bedside table and gave it a flick, muttering, "Toothpaste," under my breath.
A moment later, she came into the bedroom and sat on the bed, smelling minty fresh. "Harry," she said, "I want to start trying for a baby."
"You want to what?" I asked, not sure I had heard her correctly.
"I want to start trying for a baby," she said, confirming that I had indeed heard her correctly.
My mind went blank and I simply stared back at her, struggling to process her words as she sat and looked patiently back at me, waiting for me to catch up to her. I put the book I was reading face down on my chest. "Right now?" I asked, sounding incredibly stupid even to myself.
"No, not right this minute," she said, smiling at me and ruffling my hair. The mellow light from the bedside lamps made her look utterly amazing and I once again thanked my lucky stars that I'd managed to get her to marry me.
"Um," I began, sitting up in the bed and clearing my throat, "when?"
"Well, we've got a busy summer planned, so I was thinking once things settle down and you and Teddy are back at school." She leaned in to kiss me and whispered in my ear, "I don't want to ruin any of our summer fun with morning sickness." Picking up the book, she marked the page and leaned over me to set it on the bedside table, her breasts brushing against my bare chest.
She took her time, placing the book with exaggerated care, bringing most of her upper body in contact with mine, setting my pulse pounding in my ears. I sat up, gently pushing her onto her back as she squeaked in surprise. Now it was my turn to spread myself all over her and I did so with abandon, kissing her everywhere I could reach.
Her hands were warm on my shoulders and she moved her head to one side, presenting me with the enticing column of her throat. I pressed my lips to her fluttering pulse, imagining I could feel the strong beat of her heart resonating with my own. Her small sighs and gasps still had the power to make me feel like I was eighteen and desperately trying to figure out what she liked; every sound she made letting me know I'd done the right thing.
Afterwards, as we lay tangled up together, she sighed and put her lips next to my ear. "That was an excellent practice session," she purred, her low voice making my skin tingle.
"I'm so glad you think so," I whispered back, darting my tongue out to her shoulder, tasting the sweat of our efforts on her skin. I'm most definitely not eighteen anymore, but the feeling of her warm body next to mine had its own kind of magic and before too long, I was the one flat on my back and she was the one using my sounds as her guide.
Later, sated and heavy with sleep, my thoughts continued to whirl in my head. Before Ginny, the only real thought I'd given to a family was not accidentally starting one. As I thought about it, I realized that I'd just kind of always assumed that a family would appear one day, like in Teddy's bloody Pokémon game. Come on, Potter. You're old enough to know that children don't appear out of nowhere, I chided myself as I settled more comfortably next to her and gave myself up to sleep.
The summer passed in a blur of hospital shifts interspersed by trips to the mountains to camp and hike and to the beach to lay on the sand and surf. Harry and Teddy had both recently discovered kiteboarding, trying to outdo each other with daredevil flips high in the air that left my heart in my throat. I preferred my own board to stay in contact with the water and reserved my flying for when I had a broom underneath me.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," I said when Harry flopped down on the blanket next to me one afternoon after a particularly high-flying session. He had the top half of his wetsuit peeled down and was still breathing hard from his exertions.
"Do what?" he asked, sitting up on one elbow.
"That," I said, waving my hand at the others out on the water, skating across the waves like manic water bugs. Teddy was still out there and as I watched, he used an incoming wave and the power of the wind to hurl his lanky body at least thirty feet into the air, executing a backwards flip with a howl of delight that was clearly audible over the crashing of the waves.
"Why not?" He sat up and squeezed some of the water out of his hair, looking at me with a genuinely quizzical look on his face.
"What if you get hurt?"
"I happen to know an excellent Healer," he said, reaching for my hand. When I moved it away from his grasp, he frowned. "What's wrong?"
What was wrong? I'd never ever told him not to do something before. I'd cheered him on or joined him in things the average person, Muggle or wizard, would consider insane. But since I'd been thinking of starting a family, flinging oneself up into the air with only thin fabric and wind to slow one's fall seemed foolhardy in the extreme. I shrugged and looked away, not sure how to voice my concerns without sounding like a killjoy.
Teddy proved an able distraction as he sailed to the edge of the water, shouting for Harry to come help him get detached from the board. He gave me his "we'll talk later" look and jogged over to help the struggling boy, the both of them immediately moving into one-up mode as they compared stunts.
The rest of the afternoon wasn't exactly awkward, but there was a definite undercurrent that Teddy picked up on, eventually abandoning us for a group of kids his own age. I watched him laughing with the other boys as they tried their level best to impress the girls, all the while aware of Harry pretending to read next to me.
"Are you going out again?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the waves.
"Nah, I thought I'd stay here with you," he said, his tone carefully casual.
Inwardly frustrated with my attitude and my sudden inability to allow Harry to be himself, I stuffed myself into my own wetsuit and went to commune with the waves. After catching a few subpar ones, I sat astride my board, rolling up and down with the swells as I waited for my perfect wave. Looking back toward the beach, I saw Harry paddling out to me on his own board. Pulling even with me, he sat up, straddling his board and holding out his hand, a question in his eyes. I took it and he squeezed mine hard, the look of relief on his face making my heart thump.
"All right?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah." I let go of his hand and turned to look back out to sea, eyes scanning the horizon.
"That looks promising," I heard him murmur and I agreed as I watched the wave barrel toward us, forming that perfect curl that all surfers love and wait for. "Shall we ride it in together?"
I turned to him as I positioned my body flat on the board, ready to catch the wave I've been waiting for and gave him a daring grin. "Only if you think you can keep up," I said, paddling fiercely as the swell of the incoming wave shot me forward.
"First day of school," Ginny said as she tightened my blue-and-gold tie. "Nervous?"
"Nah, more excited. All of those fresh faces, dreams just waiting to be crushed," I said with a silly grin, kissing her on the tip of her nose.
Out in the kitchen, I heard the kettle start to whistle and I hurried out to take it off the burner, nearly tripping over the cat in the process. Teddy sat at the bar, tapping away at the phone Gin and I had gotten him for his fourteenth birthday in April. Stuart jumped up on the bar and Teddy absentmindedly broke off a piece of bacon for him.
I poured the hot water into the waiting mugs, dunking the teabags several times to try and hurry them along. "First day of school," Ginny sang as she came out of the bedroom. She was wearing my favorite scrubs, the ones with little owls all over, and kissed Teddy on the cheek. "Sophomore this year! Don't be too hard on the Freshmen!"
"Ginny," Teddy admonished, not quite wiping her kiss off his cheek, "don't you think I'm getting too old for this sort of thing?"
"For what? Kisses on the cheek from your godmother?" She raised her eyebrows at him and quick as a flash, grabbed his face, planting lightning-fast kisses all over his cheek and the side of his head, reducing the aloof teenager to a giggling boy in seconds. I hid my smile in my cup of tea as she came around and picked up her own mug, adding milk and sugar as she preferred.
Teenaged aloofness recovered, Teddy resumed tapping at his phone, the bleeps and bloops indicating that he was having an intense conversation with someone or several someones, even though his face belied no trace of it. He suddenly gave a short bark of laughter and stood up. "I'm going to head off. I've got to meet Duncan and the others so we can go over our class schedules."
"All right," I said, fully aware that "go over class schedules" meant "check out the girls and boast about our summers". "I'll see you in class, yeah?"
He grunted an inarticulate response and bent to pick up his school bag. "Let me look at you," Ginny said, moving to stand in front of him. He bore her attention good-naturedly as she fixed his hair, straightened his tie and brushed the lint off his blazer. As I watched them, I realized that Teddy now topped her by more than half a head. He's going to be taller than me, I thought, maybe as tall as Ron.
"Am I good enough to go now, Ginny?" he asked when she finally stepped back.
"Yes," she said and I thought I saw a sheen of tears in her eyes.
"Finally." In a move that surprised the both of us, he dipped his head down and planted his own quick kiss on her cheek. "See you tonight." In seconds, he was whisked away by the Floo, leaving a cloud of soot and powder in his wake.
Setting down my mug, I hugged Ginny from behind. "You okay?" I murmured, kissing the top of her head.
"Yeah. He's just growing up so fast." She sighed and turned to face me, putting her arms around my neck, her warm brown eyes looking into mine. "So, school has started again."
"It has." I sneaked a look at my watch. Teddy's leaving had reminded me that I needed to get going myself.
"And I've started my third year of residency."
"Hopefully along with a less crazy schedule," I said, realizing that she was backing me into the worktop.
"I think things have settled down enough, don't you?" she asked, giving me a slow smile and pressing her body against mine.
"For what?" I asked, genuinely nonplussed.
"For what?" she echoed, brows drawing down in consternation. "What did we talk about in July?" Oh. I didn't want to tell her that I had forgotten, but after that time on the beach, I sort of had. My face must have given me away, though, because she let me go and turned away, rinsing our empty mugs in the sink and shooing Stuart away from the leftovers on Teddy's plate.
"Sorry," I said sheepishly, putting my hands on her shoulders. "Been a busy summer, yeah?"
"Do you still want to?" she asked quietly, still not looking at me.
Her question gave me pause. Did I? My heart beat faster and I already knew the answer. "Yeah, I do."
She turned to face me, her beautiful smile lighting up her face. "Then let's start tonight."
I felt like something had short-circuited in my brain and all I could do was stare at her for several seconds before I managed to swallow and mumble, "All right."
She shook her head at me and went up on her tiptoes, delivering a scorching kiss before pulling back. "That'll give you something to think about," she said with that Cheshire Cat grin of hers.
Desperately hoping I wouldn't splinch myself, I Apparated to work, that kiss still tingling on my lips. The first day back is always hectic with learning new names and re-acquainting myself with the quirks and behaviors of recurring students and I had a job of it with Ginny's promise ringing in my ears.
Juanita noticed my distraction at lunch when I sat staring off into space as she chatted to me about her summer trip to her father's village in Nigeria. "Harry, are you okay?" she asked with a frown when I'd failed to respond to one of her questions.
"Hm, oh yeah. No, I'm fine," I said, embarrassed to be caught woolgathering.
"What's going on in there?" She waved her finger at my forehead and I shook my head.
"Just thinking about the upcoming school year. Lots to do," I said, even though that had been the furthest thing from my mind. In my mind, I had been newly sixteen and suffering through The Talk with Mr Weasley and Ron in Mr Weasley's garden shed.
It wasn't Mr Weasley's fault; he was an old hand at it having been through it with Bill, Charlie, Percy and the Terrible Two. The problem was Ron and me being utterly unable to control our embarrassment as we shifted around on the uncomfortable stools while Mr Weasley held forth on the thoughts and feelings that we'd no doubt begun experiencing. When he got to kissing, I nearly broke and ran out, memories of kissing Cho battering my brain to pieces.
"Now, I am going to teach you something very important," he said, taking out his wand. He proceeded to tell us, in excruciating detail, exactly how babies are made. And he wasn't coy about it—none of this "when a mummy and daddy really love each other" nonsense—he was precise and while he didn't use overly-clinical language, he definitely got his point across. I glanced at Ron and saw his mouth was hanging open, mind clearly blown.
"And now that you know how babies come about, here is what you must do to prevent one." Ron and I leaned forward, concentrating on learning this most essential of all magic as he showed us the incantation and wand movement. I knew right then that I wouldn't rest until I could cast this spell wandlessly.
"That's it?" Ron asked after Mr Weasley had made us practice it a few times. "What exactly does it do?"
"It kills off all of your little swimmers," Mr Weasley said garrulously, pointing his wand at his son's crotch. Ron quickly put his knees together in defense. "It renders them completely unable to fertilize a woman's egg."
"Uh …" Ron began, frowning in concentration. "So … nothing comes out?" I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that he'd asked the very question that had been on my own tongue.
Mr Weasley thought this was hilarious and slapped his knee in mirth as Ron turned the brightest shade of red I'd ever seen him turn. "No, something will still 'come out'," he said reassuringly once he'd got his laughter under control. "If it's any consolation, Bill asked the same thing."
As we left the shed with this new knowledge, a thought occurred to me. Mr and Mrs Weasley must have wanted this enormous, crazy family that I was madly in love with. With that little spell, they could have prevented Bill, Charlie, Percy … probably not Fred and George, those two were indomitable … Ron … Ginny. But they didn't. They wanted every single one of them. And then I had a thought that literally stopped me in my tracks. My parents. They could have done the same thing, especially living in such dangerous times as they had, but they didn't. The undeniable proof that I was wanted and not some random occurrence was a revelation.
That night, I was acutely aware of Ginny as we went through the regular everyday tasks of making dinner, eating dinner, and finally cleaning up after dinner. The way she moved easily around me in the kitchen in our well-practiced dance, the sound of her laugh when Teddy told her about his first day back at school. The secret looks she gave me across the table.
"You know, I thought living with a teacher would make school easier," Teddy grumbled good-naturedly when I nagged him to get a start on his schoolwork. "It's no fair that you have lunch with Ms Okefor every single day."
"Yes, and all we do is talk about how much of a slacker you are," I said as I sat on the sofa, rubbing the aches out of Ginny's feet.
Teddy harrumphed and shuffled off to his bedroom, leaving us alone on the sofa with only the cat and the noise of the telly for company. We spent the evening chatting about our days and I found I was having a hard time focusing on the conversation. I felt like a runner in the ready position, waiting for the crack of the starting gun.
Finally, it was ten o'clock and Ginny rose from the sofa to prod Teddy to get ready for bed, holding out her hand for his phone and plugging it into the charging station in the kitchen. To be completely fair, we had to put ours away for the night as well and I had an alarm trap set that would silently alert us if any of the devices were tampered with before seven o'clock in the morning.
Feeling at loose ends, I decided I'd get ready for bed myself and took my time brushing my teeth, using the opportunity to examine myself in the mirror. Usually I looked at myself just enough to make sure I wasn't going to embarrass anyone when I stepped outside, but this time I really looked. Six years in California had given me a year-round tan, making my green eyes stand out even more. I'd started going gray during all of that Horcrux business a few years ago and I wasn't completely convinced that had nothing to do with it. Ginny soothed my ego about it by saying that she found the gray at my temples very distinguished and sexy.
Shirtless, I took a quick look around to make sure I was alone and I struck a few poses, pleased to see that running, yoga and keeping up with Teddy had kept me in shape. "Oh, very pretty, Potter," came Ginny's voice from the doorway and I nearly jumped with surprise, her laughter giving me a hot flush.
"You weren't supposed to see that," I mumbled as she continued to giggle.
"Aw, come on." She came all the way into the bathroom and hugged me. "You are the least vain man I know. It's good to see that you're just like the rest of us. Besides, you're hardly an old, done man."
"The gray gets me sometimes," I said, self-consciously sweeping a hand through my eternally unruly hair.
"You don't have any gray anywhere else," she said, sweeping her hand over the hair on my chest. "Oh. It seems I stand corrected." I looked down and sighed at the single gray chest hair that rested in the tangle of black. "Perhaps I need to conduct a thorough survey?" Her hand slid slowly down my chest and stomach, coming to rest squarely on my crotch.
"Hmph, only if I can do the same for you," I said, bending to kiss her, the touch of her lips combined with her hand on my cock bringing me completely erect. In what seemed like seconds, we were on the bed and she was under me, brown eyes looking into mine with complete trust and I hesitated.
"What's wrong?" she whispered, legs tightening around my hips.
"I've never …" I began, fighting to get the words past the abrupt constriction in my chest. "I've never … consciously … not done the spell."
A look of understanding dawned in her eyes and she nodded, stroking my cheek with her thumb. "I know, love." And she did know, knew all about the witches who'd tried to make a fast Galleon with their claims that I'd gotten them pregnant. "Tonight doesn't have to be about that, all right? We can just have fun."
I looked down at her and even though her face didn't betray a single sign, I knew how much that had cost her. I knew that once she'd made a decision to do or have something, she didn't let anything get in her way; her hummingbird tattoo was ample evidence that even I couldn't stop her. Pushing aside my own uncertainty, I kissed her, feeling her breath explode into my mouth as I slid slowly into her.
September bled away in a never-ending stream of patients, leaving me exhausted and longing for my overworked student days. I had early mornings and late nights and if it hadn't been for weekends, I'm certain I would have gone mad. Harry and I made the most of those weekends, always saying yes when Teddy asked about spending a night over at a friend's.
One early October afternoon I found myself staring into space as I was supposed to making notes for a patient's discharge. The insistent beeps of an alarm brought me out of my reverie and I settled my stethoscope around my neck, not quite running to the room with the strident alarm, but when I arrived, the nurse on duty had already quieted the alarm and tended to the patient, a sweet old lady in for gallbladder removal.
"Thank you, Carla," I said, picking up the chart and scanning the latest notes.
"It was no problem. Her pulse oximeter had just slipped off. I taped it on more securely," she said, adjusting the IV lines. She looked at me and frowned. "Are you okay, Dr Potter? You look a little tired."
"Well, that's just part and parcel around here, isn't it?" I checked my watch. "I don't have rounds for another hour. I'm going to see if I can catch a nap." Carla nodded and I headed off to the staff break room and the famously lumpy sofa.
Thankfully, it was deserted and I laid down on the sofa, putting a smelly pillow over my head to block out some of the light. Half an hour, I told myself, trusting my internal alarm clock to wake me up. I have been tired … have I been more tired than usual lately? I wonder… I thought back to when I'd last had my period, right at the end of August and my heart beat faster.
I'd expected to go through a few cycles, but it seems Harry and I caught things at just the right time. Now completely energized, I sat up, counting furiously in my head. Yes, I should have started last week. "Oh my God," I said out loud, my voice sounding loud in the empty room.
After finishing my rounds, I left the hospital instead of sticking around to finish up paperwork, Apparating to my favorite potions supplier. Back home, Harry and Teddy were already home and working on dinner. "How was your day, love?" Harry asked as he stirred the simmering pot of red sauce on the cooker and Teddy industriously chopped Italian sausage.
"It was great!" I said as I set my shopping bags down on the worktop, getting a raised eyebrow from him for my enthusiasm.
"Good to hear." He kissed me on the cheek and went back to his sauce. "Teddy, that's enough sausage. Go ahead and toss it in the pan."
"I'm going to go down to the lab, all right? Come get me when dinner's ready." I grabbed my potion ingredients and left the apartment, catching sight of Harry's bemused grin.
Downstairs in the garage we called our Potions lab, I turned on the overhead lights and set my things down on the worktop. Soon I was busily chopping ingredients while the cauldron heated over the gas burner Harry had installed when we moved in. My headphones were in and I hummed along to "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" as I carefully measured out water we'd gathered from a free-flowing spring in Calistoga and kept in a five-gallon jug.
Once the water was steaming, but not yet boiling, I carefully added the ingredients and stirred them with a silver rod. Soon, the smell of lilacs filled the garage and I sat down on the stool to wait as it cooked down, setting a timer for when I needed to do the wandwork.
As I sat there, listening to music and keeping an eye on the cauldron, I tried to gauge how I felt. I thought back to last time, when Harry had come to my flat seeking comfort after killing that man. I'd been so certain that I felt different, that I felt the newness inside of me and I searched for that same feeling again, but I didn't feel any change. My timer went off and I picked up my wand, waving it in the prescribed motions over the cauldron, nodding in satisfaction when the potion went from dark purple to vermillion.
"What's that you're brewing there?" Harry asked as he shut the door into the lab behind him.
I looked up at him and smiled. He had a spot of red sauce on the shoulder of his tee shirt, the red standing out starkly against the white. "I'm late," I said.
"You're what?" He frowned in puzzlement and then his eyes opened wide in shock. "Already?"
"Maybe. That's what this is for." I gestured to the bubbling cauldron and turned off the fire underneath it.
"What is it?" He came closer and looked into the cauldron, wrinkling his nose at the smell of lilacs.
"Pregnancy Detecting Potion. I put a few drops of blood in and if it turns clear, I'm pregnant and if it turns cloudy white, I'm not."
"And you need all of that?"
"No, I made a big batch. It's good to have on hand. I'll just need a single vial."
"Can you do it now?"
I shook my head. "It needs to cool for twenty-four hours first. I'll try it tomorrow night."
"Um, okay then." Harry stood, looking adorably shy and scratched the back of his neck. "Dinner's ready."
"I'll be right up. I just want to get this covered." He nodded and stood looking at me. "What?" He grinned and shook his head, grabbing me up in a tight hug, immediately letting me go when I wheezed.
"Oh, God, sorry!" he said, face flaming.
"It's fine, Harry! You're not going to hug the baby out of me!" I said, pulling him close. "We'll know tomorrow, all right?"
"Yeah." He kissed the top of my head, whispering, "I love you."
"Love you too," I murmured against his neck. We stood like that for a while until I felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
"Teddy. He wants to know if I got lost getting you," Harry said with a snort as he read the message.
"Guess we'd better get up there before he eats everything." I conjured a cover for the cauldron and shut out the lights, Apparating back up to the apartment.
The next morning, I woke up feeling more energized than I had in weeks and Harry looked at me, utterly bemused as I buzzed around making tea and putting together a quick breakfast for everyone. As I was plating up bacon and eggs, he raised an eyebrow at the song I was humming. "Bruce?" he asked, sipping his tea.
I stopped and realized I'd been humming "Glory Days" and gave him a sunny smile. "Well, he is the Boss," I said, kissing him on the cheek.
"Gross," Teddy said, eyes glued to his phone.
Back in our bedroom, I dug around for a clean scrub top and my hand brushed against the drawer that held the wands we'd had made by old Ollivander himself. Water horse, selkie and thunderbird. Which one will choose you? I thought, resting my hand briefly on my abdomen.
The morning went by in a whirl of patient rounds and paperwork and I felt like I could tackle twice the workload. I made jokes with the nurses and flirted shamelessly with patients three times my age. Like that old song, I could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. In our staff meeting that afternoon, I sat down next to Ben and he nudged me in the arm. "Look at you, Miss Thing," he whispered. "What's gotten into you?"
"I'll tell you later," I whispered back as the meeting started.
An hour later, I wasn't feeling quite as spectacular as I had been and Ben had noticed, shooting me a concerned look as I shifted around in my seat to try and relieve a burgeoning backache. Finally, the meeting ended and I stood up, feeling an unmistakable whoosh as I did. No, I thought as I momentarily froze in place before gathering up my things. Ignoring Ben's question, I hotfooted it to the ladies loo as quickly as I could, throwing my papers down to the floor of the stall as I yanked down my scrubs and knickers.
So much blood … should there be that much? On the toilet, I hunched over, curling in on myself as I felt the onset of what was shaping up to be the worst cramps I'd ever experienced. I felt faint and I forced myself to take deep, slow breaths until that black graininess faded from my vision. I guess I was just late, I told myself as I cleaned up, checking myself in the mirror, using my wand to banish any lingering effects from the short cry I'd had on the toilet.
Outside, Ben stood in the hallway looking anxious. "Are you all right?" he asked, blue eyes concerned.
I forced myself to give him a wry smile. "Harry tried a new curry recipe last night and I don't think it quite agreed with me," I said, pushing out a chuckle.
"Oh, goodness, is that all? You were in there for a while and I was starting to get worried!" We walked down the hallway together, trading hospital gossip and all the while I felt like a mere shell of the amazing, awesome Ginny I'd been that morning.
When I Apparated home that night, Harry was on the sofa, laptop open as he typed earnestly away. He had a pencil in between his teeth and another one stuck behind his ear and he looked up when I silently appeared in the lounge. "Hey, you," he said, setting his work aside and getting up to wrap me in his strong arms. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking down at me with a frown.
I shook my head, unable to muster up the energy to tell him what had happened. "I'm going to get a shower. Where's Teddy?"
"Homework," he said, allowing me to disengage myself from his embrace. "I saved you a plate."
"Thanks," I said, not really feeling the urge to eat. In the shower, I turned up the spray as hot as it would go, watching as blood-tinged water ran across the white shower floor and away down the drain. It was just stress making me late. Too much work, too much thinking about … other things. Too much pressure, I guess. I consoled myself with these platitudes, but deep down, I knew I was just fooling myself. I was regular as a clock and always had been. Harry used to joke about setting his watch by me.
Dry again and dressed in my oldest, most comfortable pajamas, I looked at the bed, contemplating just getting into it and pulling the covers over my head, but I knew that was as sure to bring Harry in here as if I'd Summoned him. Gathering my courage, I went back out into the lounge and saw him puttering around in the kitchen, rearranging things that didn't need rearranging.
Catching sight of me, he picked up a covered plate and set it on the breakfast bar along with a glass of water and silverware. He removed the cover and revealed a lovely chicken breast drenched in homemade alfredo sauce on a bed of spinach linguini, as fresh as if it had just come off the cooker. The sight of it turned my stomach.
"That looks lovely, but I had a snack not too long before I left. I'm not hungry tonight, love," I lied, pushing away from the bar. "I'm going to go down to the lab, all right?"
"All right," he said after a long pause, re-covering the plate and setting the Preservation charm back on it. "Do you need me to come with you?"
"No. I'll be fine." I Apparated silently to the Potions lab we'd set up in the garage, staring at the cooled cauldron. Lifting the lid, I peered at the contents, giving them an experimental stir with the silver rod. The color had turned from vermillion to a rich mossy green; it had come out perfect. I wanted to pour it down the utility sink. Just pour it all down and wash it away, just like the blood in the shower.
Tears blurred my vision as I stood with my fists clenched, waging a war with myself. You'll need it. Those ingredients were expensive. You really shouldn't waste magic like that. "Fuck. That. Shit," I said out loud, the curse words sounding even worse for their rarity.
"Gin?" I hastily wiped my eyes when I heard Harry's soft knock on the door, glad he hadn't Apparated directly into the room.
"Yeah?" I called back, turning to get a rack of empty glass vials from a shelf. As heartbroken as I was, I just couldn't waste a perfectly good potion.
"Are you all right? Did something happen at work today?" he asked, taking the rack of vials from me and setting them on the worktop.
Despite my fervent wishes, the tears started up again and I screamed inwardly at myself, utterly fed up with this weepiness. Sobbing and hiccuping like a lost child, I leaned my head against his chest as he made soothing noises and rubbed my back. After what seemed like forever, I was finally able to speak again. "I started my period today," I said, bracing myself for his questions.
He didn't ask any, though. Didn't tell me that everything would be fine, that things were hectic and unsettled with him and Teddy resuming their regular schedules and it must have just been the extra stress of that plus entering the third year of my residency where I had to rely more and more on myself and the knowledge I'd worked so hard to gain over the last six years. He didn't tell me any of the little lies I'd been telling myself all afternoon. The only thing I heard from him was a soft exhalation and a quiet, "Oh."
We stood like that for a while before I finally broke away from him and turned my attention to decanting the potion into the vials. Respecting my reluctance to talk, Harry helped, securely stoppering the vials and setting the full ones into the wooden rack. I conjured the labels, leaving off the date this time. Cleanup finished, I smiled up at him and took his hand, walking with him up the stairs rather than Apparating back up to the apartment.
"There you are," Teddy said, pausing in plundering the refrigerator, "I was getting ready to have a rager of a house party."
"It'd be the last thing you ever did," Harry said in an overly-friendly tone. He squeezed my hand and went to join Teddy at the refrigerator. The glass of water was still on the bar and I drank it down, suddenly parched, watching the two of them paw through the freezer, looking for sustenance.
Teddy grabbed the pint of Chunky Monkey and two spoons, holding one out to me in a question. I took it and he grinned, opening the lid to our mutual vice. "How was work today? Did you save someone from Death's door? Diagnose anyone with lupus?"
I took a spoonful of ice cream, slowly licking the sweetness from the spoon. "Teddy, you should know better," I admonished, "it's never lupus!"
"That's just on that show," he said, shoving a huge spoonful in his mouth and going cross-eyed from the immediate brain freeze. "I'm sure someone in that place has it."
"Well if there is one, I didn't see them today. I did see someone with situs inversus."
Teddy frowned and spooned up another glob of ice cream. "What's that?" he mumbled around the spoon in his mouth.
"It's where your major organs are on the opposite side of the body from where they should be," I said, smiling at his horrified look.
"Wait, what? So his left eye was where his right eye should be?"
"No. Look," I said, putting my hand on his chest, "your heart is here, right? And when I want to listen to it, I know just where to put my stethoscope." I thumped the left side of his chest and took the pint back from him. "This bloke came in and his heart is on the right side, so when I put my stethoscope on the left and didn't hear anything, I was quite surprised!" I fished out my own glob of ice cream and caught Harry's eye. He inclined his head at the covered dish and I shook my head, content with sharing the ice cream.
"What did you do when you didn't hear anything?" he asked, wide-eyed in amazement.
"Well, I obviously knew he wasn't dead, so I just moved my stethoscope over until I heard something." I shrugged and handed back the ice cream. "I told him that some warning would have been nice and he didn't know what I was talking about. He had no idea."
As we chatted, I felt my melancholy lift. Teddy had inherited his father's knack for making even the most hopeless of situations seem less so.
"Okay, kiddo, time for bed," Harry said, earning a groan from Teddy who passed over his phone. I held out my cheek for his goodnight kiss and he obliged mock grudgingly, shooting Harry a crisp salute.
In our own room, I nestled into Harry's arms, finally feeling a measure of peace return to me as we lay quietly. "Are sure you're all right?" he asked, his voice a low rumble in my ear.
"I'll be all right," I said after a long sigh. "I'm just disappointed." I looked up at him, running a finger along his stubbly jawline. "How about you?"
He shrugged, eyes closed. "A bit disappointed, too. When you said you were late yesterday, I thought we'd done it already." He opened his eyes and smiled down at me. "I thought we could go back to having fun."
My mouth fell open in consternation and I slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Harry James Potter, are you saying that sex with me is a chore?"
"I would never say that, my love," he said, nuzzling my neck and nipping the skin lightly. I turned my face up to his, seeking out his soft lips. He held me close in his arms, making me safe and loved.
There's no hurry, I thought as his lips slid over mine and down along my jawline, following the curve down to my neck. We have plenty of time.