All things relating to Harry Potter remain the intellectual and legal property of JK Rowling.
Author's Notes: I've nearly finished the script I had to get written by the end of the month, it just needs reading through and editing now. So, my reward to myself is to write the next chapter of this! I've missed it. I hope you've missed it too, but not too much! Sorry for the wait. The next thing I'll write is a long overdue new chapter of 'Banging', in case anyone has been following that as well. The last time I'm updated that was in August!
The chapter title is the name of a drink I used to love as a student – half a pint of lager, half a pint of cider, Pernod and blackcurrant. Delicious but deadly! I don't think I could manage one these days. I'm not recommending it to anyone, just explaining the title. It's the name of a drink, The chapter's set in a pub.
Warnings: Mild violence. Mild drunkeness. Mild het.
Chapter 25: Red Witch
Ginny bent her swollen body over the cot.
"He's not asleep yet," she whispered.
"We'll be fine, won't we James?" her mother cooed at the heavy-lidded toddler fiddling with his fluffy toy wrackspurt.
"I don't want you getting him out again and playing with him like last time!"
Molly avoided her eye.
"Mum!" Ginny's voice was low and dangerous.
"He woke up and he wouldn't settle. I do know what I'm doing. Now, I can see that Harry's anxious to get going."
Harry was indeed keen to leave the house. It wasn't so much that he was anxious, it was more that he had been standing, ready, in the same position for fortyfive minutes while the women fussed and he was bored rigid.
"We don't want to be the last ones there." He said in what he hoped was a mild tone.
"Why not?" Ginny snapped, straightening up too quickly and then wincing at the ache in her back.
"Well, you need a seat. The pub fills up. Don't you want to see Hermione? And Luna? The three of you can swap digestive symptoms like last time." Harry pulled a face.
"And poor Harry can talk to people who aren't pregnant for a change. Isn't that right, Harry?" Molly gave him a sympathetic look.
He worked well with Hermione and Luna; the three of them operated a Creature Rights charity out of Grimmauld Place. They were committed, amusing, dependable and efficient colleagues whose attitudes complimented each other – even though a few of the creatures Luna spent time trying to protect probably didn't exist. But they were both huge with child. Like his wife. And Fleur. He thought he'd spotted Hannah Abbot-Longbottom throwing up in Diagon Alley, so he suspected that Neville would be making an announcement tonight, too.
Harry wanted to drink beer with other people who could drink, talk Quidditch instead of changing units or nipple creams. He also wanted to see George. Just look at him. It had been weeks. Between them the three women closest to him had had one reasonable request after another which had resulted in secret last minute apologetic owls to Wheezes. He closed his eyes and leant back against the wall, waiting for his wife to shuffle her overloaded pelvis across the room to the fireplace. They were going to Floo to the Leaky, not that there was any definitive evidence linking Apparition and birth defects, but Ginny wasn't going to take the risk.
A loud group of their friends filled one corner of the pub. While he helped manoeuvre Ginny through the crowded room onto the table where most of the women sat, he scanned the room for his lover's shape. He found him standing at the bar with Lee and Charlie. They were laughing. Lee's hands formed shapes in the air as he told a story and the two red-heads shook with mirth. Sharp jealousy stabbed at Harry.
He backed away from his wife and colleagues as quickly as could without being too rude, collecting their requests for (soft) drinks and heading to the bar. By the time he got there, though, George and the others had moved over to the pool table to join Seamus. Harry added an extra beer to his order, thinking that he might be able to take it over to George, but it was noisy and hot and he was grumpy, so he ended up drinking it himself as he levitated the fruit juices across the room and shoved his way over to take Ron a pint and sit with him.
Ron tried to ask something practical about nursery equipment, but Harry stopped him.
"I've had it up to here with babies, mate. Sorry."
Ron relaxed then and started talking about the Cannon's new Beater. It was safe ground. Harry handled his side of the conversation with little effort. It was like slipping on an old T-shirt for someone who's been in a suit all week. He had positioned himself with a good view of the games tables, lazily admiring the shapes George's body made as he stretched and bent over the table, or fidgetting with his cue as he waited for Charlie, Lee or Seamus to take their shots. People kept putting full pint mugs in front of Harry and he kept emptying them.
Neville had gossip about the school and Percy had hints of scandal at the Ministry. The first hour or two passed gently and warmly and Harry's tension drifted off. When the pool players came over to join everyone else, he started working on a plan to catch George's eye and sneak off to the loos together in a way that might not be noticed.
But once the whole group had assembled, there was a cough and Harry realised that the two champagne bottles which were floating through the pub were heading for them, and that Seamus wasn't sitting down. He was standing beside Dean and Dean was standing up, too. The two men exchanged a nervous glance, then Dean said loudly, "We've got an announcement."
A hush fell gradually over their side of the room.
Dean chewed his lip, then added, "We're hoping you'll drink some champagne with us to celebrate that, um ..." he looked at Seamus.
"We're getting married," the Irishman finished.
Harry's fogged brain tried to make sense of that, for some reason he was thinking of the Patil twins and a double ceremony, but it was Neville who asked, "Who to?"
"Each other," Dean explained.
Silence stretched on. Harry looked at the, mostly guarded, faces of his friends. He tried to avoid George, but somehow his gaze ended up in that direction. George was looking back at him.
"Congratulations," Audrey said eventually.
Once she'd said it, voices around the table began to repeat it. Some chimed in with other platitudes about being very happy together, or questions about dates and venues. Harry tried to will his throat to work, to force out some neutral phrase.
"I didn't know men could marry each other," Luna said. Even she didn't ask how long they had been more than flatmates, why they'd never said anything before.
"Oh, yes," Percy replied, "It's a little known statute but there is a clause in the Bonding Laws." He started describing the complexities of the paperwork needed and the lengthy processes and rituals involved, offering Dean and Seamus any help they needed with completing it all.
"Oh, shut up, Percy!" George snapped. "You're not the only person who can fill in a form, you know. Stop being so boring!" He reached for a glass of champagne, though he was already slurring his words.
"Leave him alone!" Harry hadn't meant to be that loud. "Give Percy a break! He's being helpful."
"Mind your own business, you don't know what he's like." George replied.
The large group watched them warily.
"Yes I do! He's all right. But you won't leave him alone. All the time I've known you, you've been bullying him."
"Leave it," Percy whispered urgently.
But Harry didn't leave it. Dean and Seamus' announcement had made him feel agitated and he wanted to be angry, he particularly wanted to be angry with George. "You and Fred -" he started. He knew that would be enough.
"What?" George pushed through the crowd until he was standing over Harry. "What did you say about Fred?" He grabbed Harry's shirt and hauled him upright. "Nobody criticises Fred around me!"
By now their friends had become very vocal, particularly the women, shrill and panicky. Harry and George stared, flushed, into each other's faces.
"Just because he's dead -" Harry spat. He never got to finish his sentence, because the two of them were thrown backwards, away from each other, by a red flash from old Tom's wand.
"Take it outside, boys," the landlord growled quietly.
George stood carefully, took another step back, brushed himself off and started to apologise to everyone, to promise Tom that they'd behave themselves, they didn't need to go outside. So Harry swung a punch at him.
He never made contact, Tom's wand moved too fast. His decades of experience with drunks sent them spinning through space and they landed hard between tall bins on the cold stone floor of the alleyway behind the pub.