It Begins

Friday dawned sullen and sodden as the rest of the week. The only silver lining of today was Harry rolling over at 6am to find James was still fast asleep. For the first time in who-only-knew-how-long (and yes, as a parent he felt incredibly guilty for that), James had slept through the night.

Though Harry automatically glanced towards the staff table when he entered the Great Hall, he was entirely unsurprised to find his hope for Hagrid's return dissipated. Instead of celebrating the return of his friend, he turned his mind to more pressing problems - such as the mountainous pile of homework he had to do, or the fact that standing right in front of him was Ginny, who was making out with Michael Corner.

"Urgh, gross!" James groaned dramatically, shielding his eyes with his hand as he approached them. "It's bad enough when we have to see you and -"

"- Leave them alone, James," Harry said, slapping a hand across his son's mouth before he could say anything even more incriminating in front of the whole school. He directed the very unimpressed teenager around his future-wife and her ahem 'boyfriend', arriving at the table where the other Potters had congregated. To Ron's sympathetic look, he merely said pointedly, "Morning."

When he stepped into a seat beside his daughter, she leaned over and quietly asked, "Dad ... are you and mum okay?"

"We're fine, sweetheart," he reassured her quietly. "We're just keeping up appearances, that's all."

He could tell the kids didn't believe a word of it by the glance that Al and Scorpius shared on the other side of the table.

When he really stopped to think about it - and he had been doing everything in his power not to - he knew things were not totally okay with his marriage. Quite aside from the complications of living life as teenagers once more, Harry and Ginny had not sat down and had that awkward conversation: 'Hey, we've been married forever but now we're teenagers again and what does this mean for us?' was a conversation they had both been quite successful at avoiding, at least until now.

Knowing he had more pressing issues to worry about than the fact that his wife was still making out with her boyfriend right behind him, he turned his mind back to the things his fifteen-year-old self should be worrying about, such as the mountainous pile of homework waiting for him and the prospect of yet another detention with Umbridge.


At five o'clock that evening he knocked on Professor Umbridge's office door for what he sincerely hoped would be the last time (though he knew from previous experience it definitely wouldn't be), and was told to enter. The blank parchment was ready for him on the lace-covered table, the pointed black quill beside it.

"You know what to do, Mr Potter," said Umbridge, smiling sweetly at him.

He dutifully picked up the quill and glanced out through the window, idly noticing he had a distant view of the Quidditch pitch in the distance. He could see the Gryffindor team soaring up and down the pitch, while half a dozen black figures stood at the foot of the three high goalposts, waiting on their turn to Keep. It was impossible to tell which one was Ron, who Harry knew would be there trying out all over again.

I must not tell lies, Harry wrote. The cut in the back of his right hand opened and began to bleed afresh.

I must not tell lies. The cut dug deeper, stinging and smarting.

I must not tell lies. Blood trickled down his wrist.

Where he once would have chanced another glance out the window, Harry intentionally kept his eyes glued to the parchment in front of him and his focus on not letting his pain show in his expression.

I must not tell lies.

I must not tell lies.

The parchment was now shining with drops of blood from the back of his hand, which was searing with pain. When he finally looked up, night had fallen; the Quidditch pitch was well and truly no longer visible.

"Let's see if you've got the message yet, shall we?" said Umbridge's soft voice half an hour later.

She moved towards him, stretching out her short ringed fingers for his arm. And then, as she took hold of him to examine the words now cut into his skin, pain seared, not across the back of his hand, but across the scar on his forehead. At the same time, he had a most peculiar and unsettlingly familiar sensation somewhere around his midriff. He wrenched his arm out of her grip and leapt to his feet, clenching his teeth to stop himself from vomiting in response to not only the pain, but the sudden panic he felt deep inside his chest.

He remembered this feeling. This feeling had given him nightmares long after the nightmare came to its inevitable conclusion.

She looked back at him, a smile stretching across her wide, slack mouth. Softly, she said, "Yes, it hurts, doesn't it?"

He did not answer. His heart was thumping hard and fast in his chest, in a way it hadn't since that awful night right here in the Castle so many years before.

"Well, I think I've made my point, Mr Potter. You may go."

He scooped up his schoolbag and left the room as quickly as he could.

Stay calm, he told himself as he sprinted up the stairs. Just breathe. You just have to breathe.

"Mimbulus mimbletonia!" he gasped at the Fat Lady, who swung forwards once more.

A roar of sound greeted him. Ron came running towards him, beaming all over his face and slopping Butterbeer down his front from the goblet he was clutching. Harry, however, didn't give his best friend a chance to share the good news about making the Gryffindor Quidditch team. With his trademark tunnel vision in place, Harry darted through the crowd of celebrating students and made a beeline for his dormitory.

The moment the door shut behind him, he collapsed in a heap on the floor, surprising even himself with how much this was affecting him. He knew it was coming, after all; it's not like it was a surprise this time around. He found himself absently raising his hand to eye level, examining the words etched into his skin and idly wondering whether the blood dripping down his wrist would stain his clothing.

He was entirely unsurprised to see his wife's slipper-clad feet step through the doorway not five minutes after he'd arrived. The familiar faded green slippers approached him slowly, and then Ginny - dressed in her comfiest sweat pants and his favourite old t-shirt - gently sat herself beside him.

"It's starting, isn't it?"

He'd never been more relieved that she knew him better than he knew himself. He hadn't had to so much as say a single word, and yet she already knew what was going on.

Silently, and still barely holding himself together, he gave a single nod of his head. Wordlessly, she reached over and pulled him into a comforting hug, which had always been his cue to let go. He knew he needn't worry about pretences or judgement here; Ginny was, and will always be, his safe place.

Had anyone else walked through that door in the hour that followed, they would have been greeted by the sight of Harry Potter, broken on the floor and legitimately in tears. Ginny, however, wasn't phased. Content to be his strength in this moment, she held him close, running a hand through his hair occasionally and whispering calming words in his ear every now and then. There was something so intimate about this moment, though there was nothing romantic about it.

"Thank you," he whispered eventually, once the tears had run out. "I know you have better -"

"- There is no better thing I could be doing, Harry," she told him firmly. "I love you. I always have, and I always will. There is no place I'd rather be then right here by your side."

He looked away at that, not trusting himself to speak right now. That familiar, awful feeling in his stomach was back - he was angry.

"I'm not going to ask you to forgive me for playing my part here," she told him, knowing by the look on his face alone exactly what he was thinking. "But I need you to know how much I love you, Harry James Potter. I hate that I dated him, but -"

"- But it's a part of our story," he sighed, knowing - not liking, but definitely knowing - she was right. "It's history."

Ginny placed a gentle kiss on his temple, but audibly gasped when he turned his head as though he were about to kiss her. However much he might have wanted to, he didn't.

They sat there, lips impossibly close, staring at one another for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, he whispered, "I love you, Gin. But I don't want to change our story."

She grinned. "No. It's perfect exactly as it is."