WRITTEN FOR THE HOUSES COMPETITION, YEAR 7, ROUND 7
House: Ravenclaw
Class: Muggle Studies
Standard
Prompt: [Colour] Beige
Word Count: 1932 (google docs)
. . . . . . . .
Boxed In
. . . . . . . .
The walls are beige.
Ginny stands in the empty front room – 'family room', the real estate agent had called it, with a knowing smile that made Ginny's stomach curdle. It's a nice enough room, she supposes. Wide windows adorn one wall, letting in an abundance of light, and the curtains are a soft crème that reminds Ginny of her mother's trunk of old dress robes. The one sticking point is the walls.
If only they weren't beige…
Her foot taps, the perfectly respectable Muggle flats Hermione lent her beating against the carpeted floor. She stares at the boring, beige wall in front of her like it'll change colour if she looked at it hard enough. The Muggle dress she bought in an actual Muggle store is sticking to her back; she can't risk using a Cooling Charm here in Muggle London, and something called the "AC" – whatever that is – is apparently not yet working.
The beige burns her eyes, and for a moment, she's genuinely worried that she'll go blind from staring at it too long. What would that do to her career, she wonders? A Chaser needs to be able to see. Probably. One could always improvise – magic was limitless, or so Hermione was fond of saying.
Ginny always swore she would never become her mother. From the moment her mum first shoved a dirty dinner plate into her hands and ordered her to help clean up after her brothers, Ginny vowed that this would never be her life. She would never be a housewife, subject to the whims of her household – not that her mum was subject to anyone's whims. No, Ginny meant beholden; expected to be the backbone of the house, to fuss and clean and cook for a horde of children that she produced.
She swallows, blinking. One of her hands travelled to her stomach involuntarily, first patting, then pushing her skin inward, as though she were checking to make sure there was no baby bump.
Ginny always wanted to be a Chaser. Her mum married right out of Hogwarts, and considered that the path Ginny should take as well. She should marry Harry, and they should settle down to create their own warren of children.
But it's only been two years since Ginny graduated from Hogwarts, three years since the war ended, and Ginny has a career – she has a career, and she has a wonderful boyfriend in Harry, and that's enough. It has to be enough, because she knows for certain she doesn't want more – doesn't want a ring, doesn't want babies, doesn't want a house with soulless beige walls.
"Gin?" Harry pokes his head around the corner that supposedly leads to the kitchen.
She turns sharply, feeling caught for some absurd reason. "I'm here."
He ambles around the corner, wearing the neutral smile that he learned somewhere between ending the war and enduring the endless press junkets afterwards. His hands are in his pockets, and he projects ease in a way that Ginny doesn't believe for a moment as he joins her, looking out the window.
"It's nice, isn't it?" he remarks. "All the light."
"Yeah," Ginny says dully. "Nice."
There really isn't another word for it. The house can't be more than simply, blandly nice, not with the beige walls surrounding them and boxing them in.
She isn't sure how they had gotten here. One moment, Harry was speculating at how much Grimmauld Place might go for on the market, or at least how much a decent cleaning crew might cost, one that could get all the Darkest things out of all the nooks and crannies. The next, Ginny's mum was insisting that Grimmauld Place was no place to raise children, just look how Sirius and Regulus had turned out, they should get a nice house with a nice backyard in a nice neighbourhood where their babies could grow up.
Somehow, that had led to this: viewing houses with a saccharinely polite realtor in perfectly nice neighbourhoods where Ginny and Harry would never be able to fly for fear of accidentally breaking the Statute of Secrecy.
She takes a deep breath, wiping her palms against her skirt, pivoting to face the wall. The beige walls are out of her line of sight, but she can still feel them itching at the edges of her brain.
They're here because they want to build a life together. Ginny knows that, she keeps telling herself that. They're here because they want to build a life together, and this is what building a life together means: marriage, children, and lifeless beige walls.
The agent, who had stopped in the entryway, smiles smugly. "I'll give you two a moment," she says. "When you're ready, come out to the backyard, and I'll show you the garden."
"Thank you," Harry waves her off, and goes back to looking out the window. A red car drives past outside, making a ghastly sound and exhuming smoke. Ginny looks away, and the beige walls suck her gaze in again.
Harry stands stiffly beside her, his hands in his pockets, closed off to the world.
Ginny bites her lip.
It's been like this for a while. Since they mentioned fixing up Grimmauld Place at Sunday brunch, and her mother latched onto the idea of Ginny and Harry moving out of Grimmauld Place and into a 'family home', Harry has been growing ever more distant.
Ginny has been afraid before. She's fought for her life against wizards twice her age; against a singular witch with three times the training and talent. But nothing compares to this, to the fear that she's losing Harry – that he knows this isn't what she wants, playing Happy Families with beige walls. That he'll turn to her one day and realise that Happy Families is what he wants, and she won't be enough for him anymore.
The idea is unbearable. No part of her wants to live in a world where she doesn't get to wake up to Harry's brilliant smile every morning.
Her heart is in her throat, fear making it hard to swallow. This has to stop. Ginny's a Gryffindor; she's never let herself be bulldozed over before, and hell if she's going to start now.
"Am I going to have to quit the Harpies?" It doesn't come out at all like she had planned, strong and confrontational. She sounds quiet, sad, – almost lifeless.
Harry turns to her sharply, his green eyes honing in on her and searching her expression. "What?" Confusion is written all over his face, like he knows that something is wrong but he doesn't understand what. Like he's never even considered that Ginny might need to quit her job to become her mother.
"It's a nice house, a nice neighbourhood," Ginny says, spinning. She ignores the beige walls, even though the colour seems to be leaching out of them, creeping across the carpet towards her. "Everything we've been looking for. Do you like it?"
Harry swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. His shoulders fold inward slightly. Ginny straightens. She's had three years to know Harry, to learn him beyond 'the Chosen One' and 'the Boy Who Lived', and she realises now that he's as scared and nervous as she is, if not more so.
"I can't live here," he says softly, ducking his head. "Ginny. I can't. I can't be the man mowing the lawn until it measures perfectly the whole way across. I can't go off to work every day and leave you with a kid – I can't – Ginny, do you want me to?"
"No!" she bursts out. "Never, Harry, I don't! I don't want to stay at home. I want to fly for the Harpies as long as they'll have me, I want to love you as long as you'll let me. I don't want to live in this house with its awful beige walls, because I think Grimmauld Place could be really lovely if we hire the right cleaners, and I know it means something to you that it was Sirius' home."
Harry huffs out a bout of relieved laughter, his shoulders sinking like she's just taken a huge weight off of them. "God, Ginny, I don't want to live here either, it's far too similar to Privet Drive."
Ginny feels almost giddy with relief. "Is there a cupboard beneath the stairs?" she asks, almost flippantly. She's not thinking. As soon as she does, she winces, reaching out and taking Harry's hand.
His jaw is tight. "There is," he acknowledges, and Ginny hopes beyond hope that the agent didn't do more than point it out as they walked past it.
She takes his other hand anyway, drawing him towards him. His head tilts down, until they're standing, their foreheads touching, breathing in each other's air. She squeezes his hand, reaching up and running her fingers through his hair.
"I couldn't be a father," he whispers to her. "I'm too broken."
"I can't be a mother," Ginny returns. Harry's thumb strokes the back of her fingers, and he rests his other hand on her hip. "We're enough, aren't we?"
She feels, more than sees, his smile, and the tension that has haunted them for the past month seeps out of the room.
"We're enough," he repeats. "I love you."
"I love you," she says softly, drawing him closer to her and gently pressing her lips to his.
"Hem – sorry to intrude," the agent interrupts.
They pull apart, Harry turning to her with his public face on. "Very sorry, we got a bit… caught up," he says.
"Oh, I completely understand," the agent says, her eyes twinkling. Ginny sees visions of a large sales commission dancing in her eyes. "Did you want to see the backyard, then?"
"I think we've seen enough," Ginny says, glancing at Harry.
He nods. "We have, thanks," he says.
"Ah," the agent says, her smile wavering. "Yes. Well, if you have any more questions, feel free to call me at the office – here, I have a card right here – best wishes on your home search, of course, and I hope to hear from you soon!"
"Excellent." Harry takes the card and tucks it into a pocket, then takes Ginny by the hand, leading her towards the door. She revels in the feel of his callouses, in the weight of his hand in hers.
There are no words to describe the relief she feels, that she and Harry have walked out of this mess on the same page and together, sans suburban house.
She's going to have words with her mother the next time she sees her. Words about boundaries.
They leave the agent behind, walking to the car that Harry hired especially for their house-hunting. Ginny gets in, and straps herself in grimly; she's never gotten used to the way that Muggles travel. Harry glances at her as he turns the engine on, the twinkle back in his eyes and a smile hovering around his mouth.
He rolls the windows down. "Just to the Apparation point, love," he says. "Then never again."
Ginny smiles. She leans her head out of the window, the rushing air so similar to the feeling of being on a broom making the vehicle ride slightly more manageable. The house for sale that they had been visiting becomes smaller and smaller in the funny side-view mirror, and Ginny feels lighter and lighter the further away it is.
It gives her no small amount of pleasure to leave those stagnant beige walls behind.
a/n: beta love to sekdaniels and Lady S!