Chapter 7

A Long Talk

by Cherokee Girl

Disclaimer I do not own Harry or any of the other wonderful characters J K Rowling created I'm just borrowing them.

A authoresses' Note Well here's chapter seven I hope you like it and a big THANK YOU to all my WONDERFULL reviewers you guys have been great.

After dismounting the Harley and listening to the portrait of Mrs. Blacks tirade as we entered number 12 for the second time that evening Harry took me by the hand.

"Here let me give you the grand tour" he said "and then I'll show you to your room I think Dumbledore had your stuff sent over while we were out."

Harry showed me the kitchen and the study the various bedrooms, bathrooms and the library and finally led me to a bedroom across the hall from his.

"Well this is your bedroom I hope you like it I tried to fix it up for you, Hermione helped me so I hope it's to your liking if not I'll see what I can do to make you more comfortable." he said a blush starting to color his handsome face.

I was awestruck once I entered the bedroom it was absolutely lovely Harry and his friend Hermione must have put a ton of work into it . The walls were painted a lovely shade of pale yellow a shade that reminded you of sunshine on an early spring morning. The trim was done in a sky blue giving the room a bright airy feeling. Where as the rest of the house had a rather claustrophobic oppressive feeling to it. There was a large four poster bed with sheer curtains around it, and a lovely old quilt done in the same colors as the room that looked as though it had been hand made I noticed it was done in the wedding ring pattern.

"A early wedding gift from Mrs. Weasley." said Harry as I gently fingered the soft fabric.

"Please tell her I love it and that it's the most beautiful quilt I've ever seen."

"You can always tell her yourself Sunday she has invited us for dinner she really wants to meet you" he said.

"I will" I answered enthusiastically.

"So what do you think of your room?" he asked.

"Oh Harry it's wonderful." I said smiling "I love it I really do."

"Good." he said "I was a little scarred that you wouldn't."

"Yeah I thought this would be the perfect room for you." he said pointing to the window. "It has a great view of the garden and it lets in the late evening sun you can watch some really amazing sunsets from here."

I went and peeked out the lace curtains and could just make out the silhouette of a garden statue in the moonlight below. "Oh and you have the biggest closet in the whole house." he said pointing to the double doors on the opposite wall I looked inside and sure enough it was the biggest closet I had ever seen. "And to top it all off you have your own bathroom." he said I stepped inside to see that the yellow and blue theme had been carried over into the bathroom which had a large tub a separate shower a golden colored sink and of course a loo it was really very nice I couldn't wait to try out the tub.

"Well thats the grand tour." Harry said with a smile "I hope you like it and please feel free to change things, decorate whatever this place could definitely use a feminine touch." I took a last look at my bedroom taking in the mahogany furniture and the portraits on the wall. I noticed that Harry had even left another bouquet of roses yellow ones that matched the room perfectly.

I followed Harry back downstairs to the study "So you ready for our little talk?" he said motioning for me to sit beside him on the couch.

"Yeah I said where do you want to start?" I asked.

"Well There was something I wanted to ask you" he said "I felt that as messed up a things are somethings should be done properly"

With that Harry go down on one knee and looking me straight in the eye his emerald green ones searching my blue ones "Sayward Mc Neill I know this probably isn't everything you had your heart set on, and I'm probably not who you imagined you'd be with". "But I still think given time and patience, friendship and understanding, that we can make this work that we can turn an unfortunate situation into a happy marriage." "We just have to try we have to become friends first and maybe we will grow to love each other." "But please let me try to give you this one moment the way you probably dreamed it would be." Then reaching into his pocket Harry pulled out a velvet box and opened it. Inside was a one karat princess cut diamond engagement ring set in a rose gold band that had been cut to look like a vine wrapped around the stone. There were several tiny emeralds that were set to look like leaves, and several rubies and sapphires set to resemble small flower buds. It was the most beautiful and intricately made ring I had ever seen. I know that I held my breath for several seconds just staring at it. Harry took the ring out of the box and with trembling hands held it out to me, while taking my hand. "Sayward?" He asked after a few moments had passed without my having said anything. I was in a complete state of shock not even in my most romantic fantasies and daydreams had I dreamed of this moment being so romantic so perfect. Finally after a long tense moment for Harry I said yes, and Harry slipped the ring on my finger. Harry was a little bit misty eyed as he pulled me into his arms for another one of his breathtaking kisses.

We kissed for several minutes. Harry still being careful not to get carried away, although he did run his tongue over my lips until I parted them and let him search my mouth with his tongue. While Harry gave me my first french kiss my mind was working overtime. I remember thinking this is different but it 's nice too I hope, and I hope I'm doing this right but it doesn't seem as though he's complaining any. Just then Harry broke the kiss and looked deep into my eyes smiling before letting go of me and sitting back on the couch.

"Harry I um Harry." I said trying again to gather my thoughts. "That was better than anything I ever imagined. And I'm starting to be very glad that we were paired together what you did was so sweet how could I not say yes that I will try to make this work, that I will try to learn to love you when your trying so hard." I said and suddenly feeling brave I kissed him, and we spent another few minutes kissing, before Harry once again took control of he situation reminding me that we still had things we needed to discuss.

"Well where should we start?" I asked. "What do you want to know?"

"Well he said tell me some things about you, like what was your life like before all this happened?" I just want to know things like. "What kind of things do you like or dislike you know general stuff?" Asked Harry.

"Well lets see I had a really normal childhood until last year, my parents were great and I loved them a lot." I said trying not to start crying, I still had trouble talking about them. I saw a flicker pain and what looked like guilt in Harry's eyes before he asked. "So what were your parents like?"

"Well mum was the strict one and dad was the softy." "But mum had a great sense of humor and she could sing too, she had the prettiest singing voice."I said trying to remember all the special things about them. "Dad played the violin and mum played the piano I remember we spent many nights around the piano singing and just having a good time, mum even taught me to play."

"What else do you want to know?" I asked.

"Which one do you look more like?" Harry asked.

"Well I look a lot like my mum, but I got the curly hair from my dad."

"So what else do you want to know?" I said.

"Um I don't know how about whats you favorite color?" he asked.

"Purple I answered and yours?" I asked.

"Red." Harry answered and then playfully added "whats your favorite food?" "Um lets see." I said. "I guess I don't really have one, pizza I guess if I had to choose just one.

"So whats yours?" I asked joining in the game.

"Um steak" said Harry after thinking for a minute.

"Ok I got one" he asked "favorite song?"

"Um thats a hard one" I said "currently it's probably either Breathe or This Kiss by Faith Hill"

"Those are pretty cool" he said "I think my favorite right now is November Rain by Guns n' Roses that or the song Yesterdays, they both kinda have a special meaning for me."

Authors note In my story while the wizarding world doesn't pay much attention to many muggle things they love our books and music and if you were ever to listen to WWN you would recognize most of the songs hey I dunno any wizarding songs so had to go with what I know hehe

"Ok favorite book?" asked Harry.

"Jane Eyre." I said.

"Oliver Twist or A Tale of Two Cities." said Harry.

"Ok." I said "Whats your biggest dislike mine is.." But before I could finish we both had started to say a lier.

"Well thats good." Harry said with a laugh. "We both value honesty."

"Now" he said. "We've covered some of the silly stuff now lets talk about some of the serious stuff. I'll start with my life story there are things I will need for you to know before you can understand some things about me.

"Ok" I said. feeling the change in the room as Harry's magic started to stir

"Somethings." he said. "I will just have to show you."

With that Harry turned into a raven. I knew that he was an animagus but what surprised me is he had more than one form, this was extremely rare. Harry next turned into a large black stallion with a white lightening bolt shaped patch of hair on his forehead. Then he changed back into himself.

"I learned that at the end of my sixth year when I was training to defeat Voldemort." "Secondly don't freak out over this one" he said before he began to speak in parseltongue. "A little unintentional gift from Voldemort the night he first tried to kill me, oh and then there's this." He said moving a chair all the way across the room with just a wave of his hand. "But only a very select few know about this." he said starring at a book on the end table suddenly it flew across the room and slid into place on the bookshelf.

"Telekinesis" I asked amazed.

"Yes" said Harry. "But there's more" Harry held out his hand and an energy ball formed in it before he closed his hand putting it out.

"And last but not least there's this" He said. And suddenly I could see his magical aura coming of him it was silvery white and extremely powerful. The pictures on the wall rattled, a glass vase shattered, it felt as though a currant of electricity was running through the room, the gas lamps flickered before going out. And then Harry took several deep breaths and was his normal self again. With a wave of his hand the lights came back on and the vase was repaired.

"Wow" was all I could say.

"Well there it is you've seen most of the powers of the most famous wizard alive." Harry said starring at the carpet. I could tell he didn't like putting on a show of his powers it rather embarrassed him.

"Now for my life story you know my parents were James and Lily Potter, and that they were killed on Halloween night when I was just a little over a year old." he began. "You probably know that whole story very well what you may not know is that it was my mothers sacrifice of her own life for mine that saved me that night." I could see the pain and guilt in his eyes again and the sadness had crept back into his voice. I was beginning to notice how swiftly his moods could change. "It was an ancient form of blood magic." he continued. "And it gave me a protection from Voldemort that is why I had to go live with my Aunt and Uncle, I was protected by my aunts blood let's see you know all about the prophecy, and my being Godric Gryffindors heir, you know most all that and how I defeated Voldemort from reading the papers, it's been all over them for awhile. And then his eyes became an angry dark green and his facial expression became hardened his voice had an palpable note of hurt in it but he continued on as if telling a story he had just witnessed instead of personally lived through. "Now what you may not know is I was severely abused by my aunt and uncle. I gasped in shock but he continued on as though he were someplace else a million miles from the comfortable sofa in the cozy study. "As a child I was beaten, starved, locked in a cupboard under the stairs, yelled at, verbally abused, treated like a slave." he then looked up his soulful green eyes full of pain and fear. "Sayward I didn't have a good childhood, and to be honest I've seen some terrible things things that haunt me even now. His voiced cracked a little as he said the next words. "I'm afraid of what kind of husband I'll be I'm even more afraid of what kind of dad I'll be, I mean you always here that people who were abused grow up to be abusive and that scares me. I took his hand holding it in my own and gently rubbing over the callouses and feeling how sweaty his hands were becoming he's so nervous I thought. But Harry continued on seeming to draw a little comfort from my gesture. "And then there are all these damned powers I have, if something were ever to happen and I turned bad I would be worse than Voldemort and that is even more frightening. Just looking at him in that moment I knew that Harry was nothing at all like Voldemort, yes I had heard that there were uncanny similarities. But the honesty and the vulnerability that Harry was showing at the moment let me know that Harry was very different in all the ways that really count. Harry continued to talk although he had started to ramble on in his nervousness. "I don't know if it's fair for me to put someone else through hell just because their stuck with me. I could tell from the way Harry was pacing nervously and from the fact that his voice was so shaky that this was a touchy subject for him, one that he had not fully dealt with yet. It had only been a year since Voldemort's defeat and everything was still so raw to him, and talking about it and demonstrating his powers only seemed to be reopening the wound.

"Harry please just calm down your not evil I can tell that much, I saw your aura it is indeed a very strong one but one of the purest I've ever seen. And as far as your upbringing, and how it will affect your parenting the fact that you realize that it was wrong speaks volumes for the fact that your not like they were." I tried reasoning with Harry. I didn't know at the time he had a habit of blaming himself for everything. "I've seen personally that you have a kind and gentle nature, as long as you remember to do pretty much the opposite of what they did to you you should be a wonderful father." I said smiling up at him trying to convince him that even if he had doubts about himself that I didn't.

Harry finally stopped pacing and sat down. "You really think so" he said.

"Yes I know so." I said "You need to have a little more faith in yourself Harry, you've overcame so much your emotionally stronger than you think you are."

"Harry I really think we should move on to talking about the future now" I suggested. "Promise me though that one day when your ready, when you feel closer to me you'll tell me everything. I waited until Harry nodded his promise to continue. "I can see it still upsets you and I know the feeling all to well, I still have trouble talking about my parents sometimes it's just like the hurt hasn't healed enough yet.

"Yeah I know what you mean." he said.

"So lets talk about the wedding." I said.

"Yes thats a great idea." said Harry."

"Why is it other than the press knowing about us that makes you want to do it so soon?"

"To protect you." Harry whispered once again starring at the floor avoiding my gaze.

"From what?" I asked.

"Deatheaters." said Harry. "We haven't caught all of them yet, and we have information that they want to kidnap and kill you to get revenge on me for killing Voldemort." "There are credible rumors that Lucius Malfoy is trying to become the next dark lord so that he can continue Voldemort's agenda" "There are even reports that some of Voldemorts other followers are even researching a way to resurrect him although that is highly unlikely to ever happen."

"If thats all your worried about wouldn't I still be safer at Hogwarts" I asked. "Not as safe as you are here no after Hogwarts was breached last year during the final battle some of it's protective wards were damaged and are still not as strong as they once were." Harry answered "The wards on this house however have never been breached in hundreds of years, and when we used as the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix it was placed under the fidelis charm and made unplotable since Dumbledore is the secret keeper I 'm not to worried about anyone ever finding out where I live." said Harry confidently. "And on top of all that I added my own wards so this place as far as security goes is probably safer than the Ministry Headquarters. I am the only person who can apparate inside the house. And the floo works pretty much the same way anyone can floo out but only I and a select few can floo in, although I can talk to pretty much anyone from it. The same goes for portkeys unless the portkey is made by me it will not activate and I have made portkeys for me and you should we ever need them."

"Ok." I said wondering if Harry was maybe just a little bit paranoid "But why the rush on the marriage?"

"Well I don't want you to live with me and not be my wife that would look wrong, and since we have to get married by the end of the summer we might as well do it sooner than later." he answered.

"What about planning for the wedding can we get it all done in so short a time with so many people getting married?" I said wondering how we could put together the nice wedding Harry had talked about before in so short an amount of time.

"Well yeah it seems to me that most people will be waiting as long as possible so right now shouldn't be as busy, but now that I think about it maybe next Saturday is rushing things a bit so how about the Saturday after next.?" He said.

"Sounds good to me." I said.

"What about the time" We have to pick a time for the service to a reminded him.

"Does Saturday June 15th at five in the evening sound good to you" he said smiling.

"Yeah sounds perfect to me" I said.

"So now we only need to figure out where we want to have it." I said.

"How about the Great Hall at Hogwarts?" said Harry.

"Sounds great to me." I said And so that was decided.

"Who do we want to be in the wedding since we already decided we want Professor Dumbledore to officiate I asked.

"Well" said Harry "I want Ron as my best man. And you mentioned not having anyone to give you away, so may I make a suggestion how about Remus. He was my dads other best mate and Sirius got to be best man at my dads wedding because it took place during a full moon, and then Sirius got to be my godfather because my father felt that it wouldn't be safe to leave a small child in the care of someone who became a werewolf once a month. Although I thought about having him as my best man Ron is my best friend and he is who I really want to be best man. So since Remus became another father figure to me especially after Sirius died, and since neither one of us have a parent to do the job I think that we should honor Remus by asking him to do it.

"Yes" I said. "Thats sweet yeah I really would like that."

"Now" Harry said. "You need to pick bridesmaids."

"Well thats easy" I said "Dierdre, Antigone and Ginny if she wants to."

"Ok" said Harry "I believe we have that taken care of and tomorrow we can start looking for everything we will need."

"That just leaves one thing left to discuss and we've both shied away from it all night" Harry said.

"Yeah" I know. I said but it's kinda awkward to talk about though.

"Yeah but we still need to" Harry said. "I know it's worrying you to death and that it's what scares both of us the most about all of this." Harry said gently trying to approach the subject with as much tact as possible. "But we need to talk about it before we're faced with making any decisions about it." I could tell Harry was embarrassed to be talking about it but still he went on rather bravely. "I want you to know that I won't be pushing you to do anything with me anytime soon. I know that after the wedding most people will expect us to have um done things, but that can wait awhile until we know each other better. I'll wait until your ready until then you have your room and I have mine, and I'll respect your feelings about the whole thing.

"But Harry" I said. "We still Have to have a baby that won't happen unless well unless we you know do it." I said getting more embarrassed by the second.

"Yes but we have a whole year and I thought we could wait at least until we've been married say six months or so, that would still give us six months to try if it didn't happen right away." Harry reasoned. "That would also give you time to adjust to everything, and I'd well just feel a lot better about this if you were older even just a few months older. I know I can't stall until I'd feel comfortable with getting you pregnant, because that would be several years from now but if I can put it of a few months then I will."

"Alright but are we just going to decide that on our six month anniversary that it's time to do the deed or are we going to see how things feel" I asked him. "I mean there is chemistry between us right unless you were faking it tonight."

"No I wasn't faking" said Harry. "I do find you attractive and yes I did get turned on tonight but still I think we should wait. I wanna wait until I'm sure that your ready, but that may not be possible so I wanna at least wait as long as possible."

"Me too Harry but what if I decide I'm ready before the six months is up."

"Well" Harry said looking very surprised. "I hadn't thought about that I didn't really think that you would, I sorta thought that six months was rushing things."

Then Harry looked at me with a very serious look on his face. "Did you only start thinking that you might be ready earlier after we started kissing tonight." "Um yeah" I said shyly. "I liked it and well I started wondering you know what would it be like."

"Sayward" he said gently. "I know that it's normal to be curious and that is one of the signs that your almost ready, but it doesn't mean that you are ready. It only means that your starting to consider it as something you might possibly want to do someday. Sweetheart curiosity is really a bad reason to decided that your ready. And besides in normal relationships people don't just jump from a few passionate kisses to going to bed together it takes more time and work than that. And well there are other things to enjoy first before you take it that far.

And like the innocent I was I had to ask Harry what those things were. "Well" Harry said "Ah some of the um things um oh Merlin!" he said running a hand through his raven hair, as he began to blush furiously and once again pace the floor. "Um did you by any chance have um you know the um "Talk" before your parents died. I mean did your mum you know explain um things to you.

"Like what" I said.

"Like um the um birds and the bees or um the er um facts of life" he said blushing even more deeply if it were possible.

"Well yes" I said "she explained that I'd be getting my period soon probably while I was at school and, well how babies are made but she kinda avoided a lot of the details but yes she explained the important parts."

"Um did she give you the things you shouldn't let boys do to you part of the talk" he asked. "Um no" I said. "she said we'd talk more about boys later when I was older but we never got the chance because she, um well you know I said.

"Ok" he said. "Then let me try to explain there are things that I can um do to you and that you can do to me that well feel really good and can lead up to um er um us um ah oh bloody hell!" he said. "I sound worse than a ignorant schoolboy there are things" he said taking a deep breath before going on. "that can lead up to a couple having sex" he said. "Ok there now I've said it" he said shaking his head as if he were starting to get a headache. "I know you must have heard older students talking about making out" He said apparently feeling a little better now that he had said the word and gotten that awkwardness out of the way.

"Yeah" I said.

"Well thats what they were talking about." he said.

"Oh." I said understanding finally starting to dawn on me. "Harry" I asked mustering all the courage I had. "You said that those things feel really good, so then I guess that I shouldn't be afraid to try them so could we you know do some of them. I asked I knew that I was blushing far worse than he was now.

Harry was taken a back to say the very least "Ah ok" he said "first yes we will but no not right now." I'll introduce you to new things we can do only when I feel your ready, and we'll move at a slow pace cause I won't you to be ready before anything happens. That I want you to promise me now that if I do anything to you that for any reason at all you don't like it that you will tell me to stop.

"Ok" I said. "But Harry can I ask you something?"

"Yes" he said.

"Have you done it before and if you have?"

Harry cut me off there "Ok I guess you do need to know that." Yes I have the first time was in my sixth year with a girl I'd had a crush on since my third year. We kinda had an on again off again relationship but one night things just sorta got out of hand and one thing led to another and we did it. Her name was Cho and we went out for a few more months after that before she was killed by one of Voldemort's follower's, anyways she was killed by Bellatrix Lastrange and well thats one of the reasons that I killed Lastrange during the final battle she had killed both Sirius and Cho. There was no one else until after I defeated Voldemort and had started playing for the Cannons. And then there were a few girls who well lets just say I was drunk and so were they and we used each other. It was only twice before I realized that it was risky and just felt wrong. That what I wanted was love not a series of one night stands with drunken strangers. Here lately for the past eight months or so theirs been no one. "So really" he said. "All I want is to settle down with a nice person who understands me, and can put up with my crazy life and still love me. He said while wearing a half smile "So if you think you can do that I'll be happy" he said. All I want is a quite, happy, normal life with a wife and kids and a house, and hey you can even throw in Rover and the white picket fence for all I care. "I just want some peace from here on out." he said collapsing back onto the sofa looking as though he was mentally exhausted.

"Well I think I can do that." I said leaning over and kissing his forehead. "Besides maybe we should call it a night" I said. "You look like your getting tired and well it's late, and I'm getting a little tired we can always talk more later not everything has to be ironed out all in one night.

"Yeah" he said before giving me what we both had only meant to be a good night kiss, but one that turned passionate almost instantly. We kissed like that for several minutes before I realized that I was running my fingers through Harry's dark hair, and his hands were roaming down my shoulders toward my breasts while his lips were moving from my mouth to my neck. I knew Harry was starting to loose control and that I was starting to get in over my head but he hadn't been lying it did feel good. Just as I started thinking what was the harm in letting him go a little further I mean I was curious, Harry pulled away abruptly.

"Sorry" he said "I promised I wouldn't do that and I intend to keep my promises but it does appear as though it is going to be harder than I originally thought, why didn't you tell me to stop?"

"Well because I liked it" I said blushing before adding "and well I am curious."

"Ok definitely time for bed" he said leading me up the steps and giving me one last rather chaste kiss on the cheek.

"Goodnight" he said before turning and going to his room and shutting the door.

I went back inside my bedroom to find that my trunk had arrived and my things had been put away neatly. And that there were two house elves standing in the corner smiling. "Is everything to Misses liking?" the male one asked.

"Yes" I said "And your names are?" I asked.

"I is Dobby miss and this is Winky and we's work for Harry sometimes when we's not working for Dumbledore in the kitchens at Hogwarts, Harry is our friend Miss and he freed Dobby, Harry Potter is a great wizard and Miss is lucky to be with him, for Harry Potter is very kind". The house elf said his large eyes almost filing with tears.

"Well it is very nice to meet you Dobby and Winky" I said "And please go ahead and go on to bed Harry and I won't be needing anything else tonight were both going to bed."

"No Miss" Dobby said almost as though he were frightened.

"Harry Potter will need Dobby and Winky tonight we will stay up" he said before both elves disappeared.

After a few minutes of wondering what in the world the house elf could have been talking about, and pondering over the events of the past several hours. I found one of my nightgowns hanging in the closet and after brushing my teeth and getting changed. I hoped into the soft warm featherbed beneath the beautiful old quilt and fell fast asleep.

Well I hope this chapter answered some of your questions I know it started a little slow and the first several questions they asked each other were a little silly but the point is they were both embarrassed and were dancing around the real subject for awhile not everything is worked out yet but you can see that things are heating up between them that there is chemistry between them and that they make a good couple they compliment each other and value a lot of the same things I also drooped some hints at things they will be important in later chapters and Dobby and Winky's appearance is important why do they stay nights with Harry at Number 12 the next chapter will answer that question and will also be partly from Harry's POV and the chapter after that will have appearances by Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys Author and Molly will explain a little bit about Wizarding Law and Magical Marriage practices. As for Saywards friends Antigone and Dierdre we will be catching up with them soon to. So once again thanks to Sarahamanda, Uten, Frankie46, Rachel A. Prong, Makotochi,Phsychochick991 and Brownlow-babe You guys rock thanks for the tips the inspiration and the encouragement hope you enjoy