Chapter 14: Family

We are having breakfast in the kitchen. I'm having my ham and eggs, he's eating honey from the jar, having abandoned his toast after just two or three bites.

I told him I asked around about Sectumsempra. It didn't feel right to keep it from him that I have been talking about him with other people.

"Stop obsessing about those old school stories. I'm not sick, okay? Who did you talk to, anyway."

"Lin Row. And Hermione."

At the mention of Lin, he just raises an eyebrow. But Hermione's name makes him put his spoon down.

"Hermione. The girl with the left hook who's also a walking encyclopaedia. Does she still talk like she swallowed a book for breakfast? She must have hexed Weasley. He isn't the type to go for clever girls with no tits. He's the type that goes for bimbos. Yeah, I'd suspect her to be part-Veela, with the way she managed to tie him down. But then she can't be, not with that kind of hair. She looks like the bottom of a broom after an especially rough Quidditch match."

"Okay, you're talking about my friends here?" I say, putting up my palms. His sneer fades. He's silent for a minute or so, then he says, all nonchalance, "You aren't going to introduce me, are you."

"They know you."

"You know what I mean."

"Of course I'm going to. They are my friends, and you are..."

I break off. He smirks.

"You're going to have to work on that introduction, Harry." -

When I walk up to our table in the Flying Pumpkin with my bacon butterbeer that Friday night, Ron and Hermione are already there. Ron is checking something on his Y-pad and slurping pumpkin soup, and Hermione is sipping at her horrible soy beer, and they are holding hands. They aren't wearing any rings. I don't know why I suddenly notice these things. I don't know why I ask that question when I sit down either, but suddenly it's out there, hanging in the air.

"Ever thought about getting married?"

Ron goes on looking intently at his Y-pad as if he hadn't heard. Hermione turns to me, squinting at me over her mug.

"What, you want us to get married? How old-fashioned."

"I don't think it is."

"Yeah, because you're gay. Because you've spent so much energy campaigning for same-sex marriage to be made legal…"

"I haven't, really."

"Yeah, okay. But you're still a special case. You lost your parents when you were a baby. Of course you'd have fantasies about happy family life. That's what you saw in that mirror, didn't you. The mirror that shows people their heart's desire. It's natural that for you, it would be your parents, your family. Love, faith, belonging."

"So maybe I had fantasies about love, faith and belonging. What's wrong with it."

"Only that it's just that, a fantasy. An Ideal."

"So you're saying that any marriage is doomed? That my parents would have split up if Voldemort hadn't killed them first?"

"Okay, sorry, Harry. You're right, no personal references. Let's try again. Okay. Marriage. Wanting someone to belong to you forever. Wanting to own them. Thinking of your partner as being yours. It's just wrong on so many levels!"

"Getting generic. Try again."

"Okay, marriage is a concept of yesteryear! At best, wedlock is one option out of many these days, and not the most attractive one you'd have to conclude if you have a look at the statistics. And it has been an instrument of female oppression for centuries. With women's economic status on the rise, they aren't financially dependent anymore, so no need for anyone anymore to make promises that are hard to keep."

"And what about you? Personally?" I say. She throws a furtive glance at Ron who still seems to be engrossed in his Y-pad.

"I don't need a wedding ring," she says firmly.

"O Merlin, let that be not true, please!" Ron exclaims, throwing the Y-pad into his pumpkin soup and slapping himself in the face, then pulling at his hair with both hands like he wants to rip his scalp off.

The only explanation is he just bought a fifty carat diamond engagement ring.

"O Merlin," he repeats, "the Cannons took another goal, they're going down!"

Hermione looks slightly miffed.

"Harry was just asking if you intended to pop the question anytime soon."

The look he gives me is priceless. Wtf with freckles.

Later in the bathroom he confronts me, fuming.

"That wasn't cool, mate, putting me on the spot like that!"

"Don't you want to marry her?"

He looks flustered.

"Don't you?" I press on.

"That's not the point here! It's not your job to bring it up!"

"So, will you? Bring it up?"

He shrugs, looking close to hysterical. As close to hysterical as he can get, being Ron Weasley.

"Maybe. Eventually. When I'm ready. When it's the right time. When I've got everything sorted out," he says.

So he actually is planning to propose. I should have known. That's why he's been so strung up lately. Feelings of being inadequate. Fear of rejection. Practicing the talk.

And Hermione preached just now how she so doesn't need that shit of yesteryear. But he didn't listen, so he doesn't know.

I could tip him off, but I decide not to. Because I've still got the feeling everything is going to work out with the two of them in the end. With or without a wedding ring.

And I?

I like things to be simple. Ever since I defeated the Dark Lord, I've been perfectly content with what I had, my everyday life as a single. Voldemort gone, my scar not hurting. Everything being well.

I've never felt the need for big concepts like Forever, or Happy Ever After. Or Finding The One. The only marriage I've ever seen at work from up close is the Dursleys', and let's just say theirs wasn't the most inspiring example.

But still, family.

Hermione is probably right with what she said about me. But she'll never truly understand. She will never know the desperate emptiness I feel deep down whenever I'm staying at the Burrow with the Weasleys, the burning envy at the shared everyday routines, at the natural way everybody just belongs.

Yeah, there is something about family. And if I know one thing, it's that Hermione's two dentists have given her far more than perfectly corrected teeth. And Ron will never reach the level of awareness to understand he had the best life imaginable as a kid.

Of course I'm a grown-up. I don't believe there's The One somewhere out there waiting for me. I don't want to own anybody.

Or Draco.

Only every time I think about what would be the adequate term to call him when I'll introduce him to Hermione and Ron at last, there's the word my.

Like in, my flatmate. Or my carpool buddy. Or my best gay friend.

Or my heart's desire.