Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Harry Potter
Note: This is actually a canon fic which takes place after the epilogue with Deadly Hallows. This is about Harry and written from his point of view his relationship with Ginny. Most people who know my stories know that I do not think that they should be together. I didn't like the way it was written but anyway I couldn't help but make my own point of view about it.
Why this fic was written is the reason because in Deadly Hallows Harry mentioned there would be time to talk later, hours and days and maybe years in responds to Ginny. It is in chapter 36 of the book.
Pairing: mentioned Ginny/Harry but only in passing
Title: Silence has fallen
Author: Laurenke1
Point of view: from Harry Potter
Silence has fallen
I sit here and I look at the old picture of when we were still happy I guess. If I can even use that word. Albus Severus Potter blinks up at me with Lily's eyes; he is the very picture of me. Small as I was at the age of 11 while James Sirius ruffles his hair and grins that grin that always makes me wonder just how much my son takes after his grandfather.
Lily waves at me from the picture; smiling and I cannot help but smile back, tracing my fingertips over the moving picture. Ginny smiles at me but it is a cold smile, a smile I have grown oddly used to in the nearly 15 years that we have been married now.
It doesn't affect me anymore, not as much as it used to anyway. It kind of snuck in I guess. I don't really know where the silence that hangs in between us snuck in.
In the first few days after the Final Battle, when there was still so much to rebuild and so much people to bury and to mourn, there was barely any time to talk. Oh and Ginny and I have spoken many times about it and everything really.
Back in those days life still held a certain appeal to me. The future was open to me, as they say but nobody really understood that I didn't want the fame and glory. I still don't. Now I am head of Auror headquarters and the job is nice surely but I don't want the fame with something that happened 17 years ago.
I never wanted Voldemort to murder my parents and then to go after me. I never wanted the responsibility of having to kill him at the age of 17. I look at my own children now, James who is becoming a teenager, was very different from what I was in those days.
He is loud and taller then I was. But perhaps that had to do with the fact that he never had to sleep in a cupboard like I did. I close my eyes, allowing my thoughts to drift for a moment. The realisation of the abuse still leaves me gaping for breath and knowing that something could have been done to prevent me from going back to the Dursley's every summer, still makes my blood boil.
I open my eyes again and trace the picture again. Ginny's eyes are cold as well now. She is glancing at something off to the left side of the frame, something I can't see and then she leaves. I watch her go as Albus gives me a sad look and James seems angry.
At first I think my eldest son is angry at his brother for something that Albus has done but then James turns away and crosses his arms over his chest. Lily goes away from where she has been standing near Ginny and goes to stand by James and Albus, who both wrap their arms around her. I then understand, James is angry at his mother for leaving.
James has always been Ginny's favourite, as with Lily. She loves all of our children but she has always been just a little bit colder with Albus, a little bit less loving or forgiving just as she has been towards me.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I wouldn't approve of any other names then Albus and Severus. True, his namesakes may not have been the nicest of people but they were good people and without their influence in my life I wouldn't have been where I am today.
I realize that now. I didn't realize that during my schooldays but I guess that you have to grow up in order to see such things, among other things as well. Yet sometimes on a dark day, I cannot help but think what would have happened if one of them hadn't tried a bit harder to save me from that wretched place I called home, would things have turned out differently then?
It is a question I keep asking myself more and more these days. I hear the door slam close downstairs and I flinch before I release a huge breath. I am alone, Ginny has gone out for the evening like she does every evening and I am alone with Lily.
It is like she can hear me thinking about her because suddenly the door opens and she stands in the doorway. I glance up through my glasses at the door and lift and eyebrow. "Evening, dad, mum has gone out again." Her read hair is tied back in a pony tail and she steps into the room.
"Yes, I know, darling. Has she mentioned to you where she was going?" I put the picture back on the desk and mention her over. Lily's brown eyes are dark in the light that comes into my study. I study my only daughter. Her eyes are slightly red and I ask. "Have you been crying, Lily?"
She looks up at me and it strikes me how young she looks. She is only 10 and she will be leaving for Hogwarts next year. She has Ginny's red hair and her brown eyes. You wouldn't know that it was my daughter unless you looked closely. She has my slight frame and she will be pretty, just like her mother.
I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her towards me, making shushing noises as she sniffled. "I just miss Al, dad…."
For some reason I don't believe her. My daughter may be a bit spoiled, she is my only daughter after all but she never cried for no reason and certainly when she was the only one at home.
I pat her shoulder less awkwardly as it seems that the dam breaks as she hiccups. "Mum was so happy today that Al left that it hurts, dad. She was whistling in the kitchen and smiling like she used to…."
I remember the sight of Ginny's face when she read the letter that Albus send us upon his arrival and sorting. My son, my second born who was unlike his older brother, a true Gryffindor to the core as were his namesakes, had been sorted in Slytherin. I wasn't really surprised; Al's question before he boarded the train had me think as well.
Yet Ginny hadn't been so amused. She had told me to shut up in an icy cold voice and had snapped at Lily to eat her supper. She had then disappeared through the door to her own private office and I heard the door lock itself and the flare of the floo, Ginny had been talking to somebody.
I sigh as I gather Lily closer to me. How did it come to this?
In the beginning of our relationship we often spoke to each other, taking the time and usually spending whole nights together doing just that, talking and making love. She was a professional Quidditch player as I finished my Auror training. It took a little time for us to be comfortable and find something to do and for me to stop worrying about the future; Voldemort wouldn't be coming back this time.
I still look over my shoulder sometimes, unable to truly believe it. In the first few years it was the hardest to let go, we had lost so many people in the war. Yet I quickly settled into a routine, dating Ginny, visiting my godson Teddy Lupin, and my training.
Ginny and I got married after two years, early yeah maybe but I wanted to marry her. The look on her face when I went down on one knee, finally in her opinion was breath taking. Molly had a field day with planning the wedding but I allowed them, even when it was too much fuzz in my opinion.
Ginny was pregnant quickly with James but by that time she had stopped with her Quidditch. Yet the look on her face whenever a match was on is something I will never forget. We always enjoyed going to the matches and the children like to fly just as much as we do, James even plays Quidditch for the house team.
I guess that we started really talking to one another when she said that she didn't want to go to graves on the day Voldemort fell. I understand that she doesn't want to live in the past anymore, doesn't want to remember it but it is a bit strange that she doesn't want to go and visit Fred's grave.
Of course this didn't go well with the rest of the family when I turned up alone. Molly nearly went so far that I order Ginny to come with me. If there is one thing that Ginny hates it is being ordered about and being told what to do.
I sigh again and push Lily away to wipe her tears away. "Hush, mum will come around. She is just a bit shocked that Al was sorted into Slytherin."
"But you said that it didn't matter in which house you would be sorted, just as long as you did your best." She was sniffling slightly and I wonder how much she has heard about our row when I first told the children about Hogwarts.
It was a pretty big row. In the years since we have been together we have both changed, I know that but Ginny has changed for the worse. She hardly is at home anymore at night, staying away late and always snapping at me when I call her to ask if she is coming home for dinner.
I know I am not the easiest man to live with. My past catches up with now and then as do my memories. They never really disappeared I guess, nightmares from what Voldemort did and the suppressed memories from Dudley's. I know that my fame is still very real, even nearly 20 years after the actual event and that reported still haunt my steps but they have grown bored with me I guess.
For a moment I thought that it had been happening to Ginny to, that she had grown bored in our marriage. I mean we both have our jobs and the children and life is no longer exited. Well life cannot really be as exited as living in a war, I guess and for a while I tried my best to surprise Ginny and to make our life less boring.
I thought that our life was great but I went out of my way to include Ginny. I took her with me on a mission once, against the rules of course and we have been away for a week without the children but all the good it did was to make her colder. She said to me, hurting me really badly when she did so, is that she never wanted to go away with me again. It was better if we both had our different lives and just only met at home.
I still don't understand to this very day what made her say that. She doesn't want to be near me and it bloody well hurts.
"Dad, do you think mum is happy with the fact that Al was sorted into Slytherin? I mean you told us that that guy Severus you mentioned was a Slytherin as well." Lily looks at me with those brown eyes so like her mothers and all I want to do is turn away and avoid looking at her.
I force a smile on my face and say. "No, your mum wasn't happy with the fact that Albus was sorted in Slytherin at all. But like I said before, it doesn't matter to me."
"But I don't want to be the cause of a row between you and mum." Lily's eyes tear up again and I brush them away and say forcefully.
"Lily, you are never the cause of a row between us."
"But Al always is or James. I don't think mum likes us at all….she always says that she should have thought better about this marriage and that she wants to be more like Marcel…"
I can feel my stomach drop and horror floods me. I know who Marcel is. He works with her as a Quidditch reporter and she works with him many times, away to games during the weekends and such things.
Marcel is everything I am not. He likes fame, sometimes he reminds me of Lockheart, the worse Defence against the Dark Arts teacher I ever had during my second year at Hogwarts. He is good looking and likes to live his life in the spotlight. I am very private where he is in the Daily Prophet atleast once a week when he either has a new fling or a row with somebody.
I tend to smooth things over. I don't like it when Ginny and I fight at all and I perhaps should stand up more. I notice that Lily has fallen silent and she is looking at me with a horrid expression on her face.
I gently place my hands on her shoulders and say. "Lily, you know where your mother has gone, don't you?"
She gives me a terrifying nod and I trace her cheek with my finger tips, continuing. "You know that I always hate it when Al and James fight or you and your brothers, right? You know that your uncle Ron and aunty Hermione say that I should stand up to your mother more often right? You also know that a marriage is a sacred bond to me and I expect people to be truthfully to me. So please, tell me where your mother has gone?"
"But you might get angry and hurt her accidentally?" Lily whispers as I shake my head, feeling myself growing calmer with each passing second.
"I won't hurt your mum, Lily I promise. She isn't worth me hurting her anymore. She has hurt me too badly already…No please tell me where she has gone!"
"She has gone to Marcel, like she does nearly every night and then she comes back with flushed cheeks and a happy smile until she sees you, daddy…" Lily worries her bottom lip between her teeth and I smile calmly at her.
It is as I feared. Ginny is having an affair but instead of being angry like I suspected that I would be, I know now. There is a time and place for everything and perhaps Ginny and I had our time. I have been staying with her for too long, putting up with things no sane or normal person would put up with.
It is because of my past but now I remember a man who has fought for me, angered me and even gone out of his way to be nasty to me and who made me feel like I mattered. Those people who have died had gotten one thing right, sometimes something is worth fighting for, worth dying for and sometimes it isn't.
I have been keeping my peace for too long, just for the sake of being loved. But I know that Ginny doesn't love me, she never has. She might have on one occasion but she doesn't anymore and my love has fled with something I knew a long time ago.
"Lily, go and get your stuff. We are leaving for Ron and Hermione's tonight. Just take all the stuff you need, we will be coming back tomorrow to get the rest." I watch as Lily looks at me frightened before smiling and then she runs off.
I stand up slowly, looking across the room. Everything I hold dear has been shattered tonight in the silence that has fallen between us but I know now that I will come out of this stronger because I am Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. I don't know what I want yet but it doesn't matter, I have time, but for now I know that it is time that the silence is shattered and I will do so gladly as I walk out of the office and close the door on the life I have led and know that I, together with my family will be fine. The silence has shattered and will never fall again.
The end
I hope you liked it. Any comments, flames, questions are welcome. So review of course.
