Spring was welcomed early that year, settling in around mid-March and truly present by the beginning of April, making everything chilly and wet rather than freezing and wet. It was still a welcome change from the snow that had been constantly falling and melting into a slushy mess as soon as it hit the ground, and the streets outside Twelve Grimmauld Place were filled with the brightly-colored rain jackets and umbrellas of spring.
It was one of those exceptionally lazy Sunday mornings. Lying partially awake, Harry could hear the rain dripping in the gutter outside the bedroom window, and he snuggled down deeper into the blankets.
"Hm?" Neville asked sleepily, lifting his head from the pillow.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep."
"Mm hmm. Righ'." Neville threw an arm across Harry's chest and pulled him close before his arm went lax and breathing deepened again. Harry allowed himself a small smile. Neville might never again be a sound sleeper after what he'd gone through in his last year at school, but he certainly knew how to fall asleep at a moment's notice when he wanted to. Harry laced his fingers through Neville's and lay in a contented half-doze, listening to the rain.
He could hear movement downstairs. Ginny normally wasn't an early riser, but apparently the baby was, kicking and moving about for all he was worth and waking her. Harry contemplated getting out of bed and going down to the kitchen, maybe make some breakfast, but that would involve throwing back the lovely warm sheets, and ducking out from under Neville's arm, and reaching all the way across the nightstand to put on his glasses, and it all just seemed like far too much work at the moment.
He turned onto his side, facing Neville, who furrowed his brows slightly even when asleep. His mouth hung halfway open and his slightly louder breathing was not quite snoring. Harry smiled slightly and kissed him on the forehead. Neville opened one eye.
"Mmmph. What time is it?" he asked as he rubbed his eyes.
"Quarter of eight. You shouldn't be awake."
"I've already slept two hours later than I usually do." Neville yawned, arching his back in a lazy stretch. He pulled Harry closer to him, inhaled deeply as he buried his face in his hair. "You smell good."
"I need a shower."
"Doesn't matter. You smell like you."
Harry closed his eyes and settled into Neville's arms. He only got to have him on the weekends; Neville stayed at Hogwarts during the week, though they seemed to be developing a pattern in which he'd stay the night at least once or twice after dinner during the workweek as well. He felt the familiar warm morning ache in his groin begin to stir, now that he was awake; he ignored it for now.
"We doing anything important today?" Neville asked. Harry could feel his voice rumble in his chest.
"Yes. We're staying right here for a couple of years. And then we're going to go eat something, and then we're coming back here." Harry pecked a kiss on the underside of Neville's chin, the only spot of his face easily accessible at the moment.
"Hmm, Ginny might get a bit put out if we ignore her all day."
"Ginny's a big girl, and we've got books."
"You make it sound very tempting." Neville kissed the top of his head and gave Harry a little squeeze, sighing contentedly. Harry squeezed back.
"Are you happy?" Harry asked suddenly. "With how things have turned out, I mean?"
"Hm? Course I am. I've got you, haven't I?"
"And what about Ginny?"
"What about her? She's a sweetheart. We were mates in school, you know...connected that last year...it's good to know her all grown up, now. She's an amazing lady." Harry listened for traces of jealousy in Neville's reply, was slightly surprised to not detect any.
"So you don't...you're not..."
Neville drew back slightly to bring Harry into his field of vision. "We had differences. We've worked them out, mostly. And..." he hesitated. "She's a good foil for you. You seem to realize how...ridiculous you can be sometimes, when you've got someone so similar to reflect your arguments back at you. I think when we argue, now, you have a thought for what you're saying."
Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"And...I know it sounds mad, but she seems to fit in. With us. Like she was something we were...missing." Neville shrugged. "Am I happy? Yeah. I really am." He looked intently into Harry's eyes. "Are you?"
"Yeah," Harry said, snugging up against Neville's chest again. "I really do have everything I could ever want. Except you during the week, I suppose."
"You'll have that during summer holidays. And Easter holidays, those are coming up."
"Summer hols will be odd. We'll have a baby around."
"There is that. I imagine you won't be getting too much sleep."
"What, you won't be helping?" Harry asked playfully.
"Course I will. You know I will. Don't be ridiculous." He gave Harry another squeeze. "We're in this together. All of us."
A shriek from downstairs split the happy morning silence like a knife. Harry sat bolt upright in bed, his heart suddenly pounding, and then he had grabbed his wand from the bedside table and disappeared down the corner. Neville could hear his footsteps thundering on the stairs. Neville didn't waste time with stairs; he grabbed Harry's forgotten glasses and his own wand and Apparated directly into the kitchen. He still arrived only seconds before Harry, but that was enough time to take in the blood spattered on the tile of the kitchen floor and Ginny looking very pale as she sank into a chair.
"What happened?" Neville demanded, thrusting Harry's glasses into his hands behind him. "What's wrong?"
"I...it's nothing, I just cut myself on the lid of the kipper tin...but..." She shook her head, eyes staring somewhere very far away. "I don't actually remember coming down to the kitchen. I was going to sleep last night, and now I'm here." She returned her gaze to Neville and Harry in front of her, her eyes troubled. "It's more than the forgetfulness I've been having. I...it's like I wasn't even aware I was doing anything until I cut myself."
"Did you hurt yourself badly?" Harry asked, reaching out to take Ginny's hand. She gave it, and Neville shuddered; a great gash spread across the entire palm. "How did you manage to do this?" he asked, his eyes full of concern. "A kipper tin isn't that sharp."
"I don't know," she fairly wailed. She looked so frightened and shaken that Harry took her in his arms, stroking her hair. Neville took the bleeding hand and drew his wand over the cut, muttering one of the overly-complicated skin-knitting incantations he'd had to learn before Pomona would let him near the Razorspine nettle. The skin sealed itself back together, leaving a thin white scar behind on her blood-smeared palm. Ginny hissed in pain—the spell did feel a bit like burning—and then settled into whimpering tears. Neville held her hand in both of his as Harry continued to hold her to him, rocking her slightly and murmuring soothing words.
Neville's eyes scanned the kitchen. He did not see a tin of kippers anywhere.
It took a significant amount of both morning and tea to calm Ginny down. The post had come and gone by the time she had stopped shaking and they all realized they were absolutely ravenous, and Harry busied himself with a griddle and eggs while Neville separated the post.
"Market day today," Harry observed over his shoulder. "We're out of sausages."
"Didn't we just buy some?" Neville asked.
"Yes, and I ate it all," Ginny replied, voice still slightly trembling, belying her earlier ordeal.
"All of it?" Neville gaped. Ginny managed a laugh.
"Never underestimate the hunger of a pregnant woman. Especially when sausage is the only thing that sounds good at the moment. I could have eaten a bushel more."
"I will never understand you," Neville proclaimed as he buried himself behind that month's issue of The British Journal of Applied Magical Herbology.
Harry prodded at the eggs on the griddle with his wand; they wobbled at him. He only half-listened to the banter behind him as he watched the egg whites go opaque, but as he levitated the eggs onto toast a minute later a snatch of conversation snapped at his attention.
"We're still arguing about the surname, actually—"
"No we're not," Harry said as he plunked plates down in front of Ginny and Neville, who was still engrossed in his magazine. "We decided already, it's James Potter-Weasley."
"I changed my mind, which means we're arguing again." Ginny calmly dolloped marmalade atop her egg and toast. "I don't want to hyphenate. It's more of a Muggle thing, you see?"
"Justin was a Finch-Fletchley. And there was Professor Grubbly-Plank," Harry pointed out.
"And Justin was Muggle-born, wasn't he? I can't speak for Professor Grubbly-Plank, but I'd be surprised if one or both of her parents weren't Muggles. Or she may have remarried, that's one of the only times you'll find wizards and witches hyphenating their surnames." Ginny took a bite of her toast after this little speech.
"But he's as much a Weasley as a Potter, if we're not married," Harry protested. "And we're both going to be raising him."
"By that logic, he should have Neville's surname too, as Neville's going to be playing Daddy near as much as you," Ginny pointed out.
"I vote we not rob London of all its syllables," Neville interjected, not lifting his eyes from his magazine. "Besides, James Sirius Potter-Weasley-Longbottom doesn't even have a pronounceable acronym."
Harry ignored this. "That's not what logically follows, Neville's godfather, he's not the actual father—"
"Monogram would look like rubbish, too, all scrunched—"
"Neville, hush," Ginny said briskly. Neville smirked into the pages he was reading, although Harry got the feeling he was not actually reading, just studying them intently. "You're the head of the household, that means he gets your surname."
"Oh?" Harry said, eyebrow flying up. "Did you hear that, Neville? I'm suddenly head of the household."
"Thank god," Neville said, absently feeling for his toast. "Maybe you'll all do your own damn chores now without me harping at you." He dodged the strawberry that Ginny threw at him, an impressive feat as he still hadn't looked up from his magazine.
"What can possibly be in there that's got you so enthralled?" Ginny demanded, reaching over and snatching it. Instead of protesting, however, Neville bit back what looked to be a smug grin—though he couldn't seem to control his eyebrows as they went up in a self-satisfied way—as her eyes scanned the article title and she squealed.
"What?" Harry asked, leaning across the table to grab it. She held it out of his reach, reading it aloud instead.
"'Non-Interference and its Effects on the Long-Term Maturation of Dragonsnap Pods, by Neville Longbottom,'" she read in a grandiose voice.
"You got published?" Harry asked in disbelief. Neville was obviously trying not to look too pleased with himself.
"Passed the peer review last month. This issue just went into print yesterday."
"When were you going to tell us?" Ginny demanded.
"I've been waiting at least a quarter hour for you to ask me what I was reading," Neville replied, grabbing the journal back from Ginny. "You know I don't gloat unless the stage has been properly set."
"When did you find the time to do the research?" Harry asked.
"Well," Neville said with a twisted smile, "It wasn't exactly intentional research. I planted the Dragonsnaps back in fourth year and kind of...forgot about them. Pomona never threw them out. I rediscovered them in the greenhouses what, ten years later, and lo and behold." He smirked. "In herbology, this kind of study is considered completely valid if you do it on purpose."
"What, forget about it?" Ginny asked.
"No, set something up and leave it for several years with no intervention, then come back. Pomona told me I should write a paper and submit it for publication. I did. And now I am a published Herbologist." He allowed himself a satisfied smile, then looked to Harry. "So. James Sirius Potter, then? We're done with all that?"
Harry made a face. "It has to be Potter?" he asked plaintively.
"Yes," Ginny and Neville said together, before glancing at each other and laughing.
Harry knew when he'd lost. The best he could do was lose graciously. He let out an exaggerated sigh. "At least the monogram won't be scrunched, I suppose. We've got to consider the important things, after all."
Harry ripped the top sheet of the calendar off, staring at the date. May 6. How could it possibly be May already? It almost seemed as though the days went by faster based on their proximity to June. There was a knock at the door that made Harry jump before he pointed his wand to open it. Jameson stood on the other side, a sheaf of files in his hands.
"Good morning, Potter. Enjoying the new office?"
"To be quite honest, sir, I'm still not sure what to do with it," Harry said, looking around at the bare walls. "I'd hardly got used to having a desk yet. Now I have walls and a door with a window and a filing cabinet and a little rug under my chair."
"If you pull the shade down over the window, it's a great place to take a nap," Jameson advised. Harry smirked.
"Still don't think I should have one. An office, I mean."
"You should have gotten an office when you made Auror," Jameson said dismissively. "You've been moving up the ranks so fast that you'll have my office before long."
"Oh, I doubt that," Harry said, feeling his ears begin to burn. "I've got a long way to go yet."
"Not that long, and if I get things my way, you'll be wearing my badge before your son gets his first broomstick. Speaking of which, here's the approval for your leave of absence next month. Enjoy your last few weeks of full nights of sleep." He handed over a green sheet of parchment to a dumbfounded Harry. He'd strongly suspected that Jameson was grooming him to be head of the department, but he'd had no idea that Jameson thought he'd be ready so soon. He'd only been a full Auror for a year, and with the ministry for five. There were dozens of Aurors with years of seniority over him, a few with decades.
"I'm...flattered, sir," he said, taking the parchment.
"Only because you don't give yourself enough credit. When I retire, I plan to leave the department in capable hands. You're easily the most capable man we've got on this floor. However, that is some time off. Right now, I need your capable hands handling this." Jameson handed over the rest of the files he was holding. Harry flipped open one of the files to see it contained photographs of jewelry and trinkets that somehow looked sinister.
"Dark objects?" Harry asked, flipping through the pictures.
"Every one of them. Confiscated in a raid two nights ago. However, the chap got away—and the team that raided the place are fairly sure he took a case of stuff with him." Jameson tapped the page Harry was looking at, a picture of a magnificent gold torc set with gigantic sapphires. "What was left behind was nasty enough that they're very worried about what he got away with. That piece there will boil the wearer's blood when a trigger word is said."
Harry shuddered. "I'll never understand why people make things like this."
"Neither will I. Anyway, chasing down Dark blokes that leave little trail seems to be your forté. You'll be working closely with the Misuse of Magical Artifacts office; your liaison will be Jennifer Stout. You've resources for the typical squad of one Junior Auror and five Hit-Wizards. I imagine you'll be using your regular team?" Harry nodded, turning the problem over in his head, making a list of what he could do today to get the ball rolling before the weekend. The Dark artifacts would have maker's marks on them somewhere, that might tell him where they were from, although tracking down previous owners would likely be a waste of time...
He looked down at the folders in his hands. "And this folder?"
"Dark Arts dealers in the area. The ones who sell these sorts of things for 'historical value.' They're usually not too particular about keeping receipts, but a few of those on the list will cooperate if you ask some very specific questions. And keep Willoughby appraised of everything that is going on, since he's the one who will be taking over the case while you're off next month."
"I'll do that," Harry said distantly, flipping through the pages of the second folder. "I like Willoughby. He's like a bulldog, doesn't let go once he's onto something."
"Much like yourself, Potter. Have a good weekend." Jameson winked inexplicably and left Harry's office, closing the door behind him. Harry blinked. What on earth had the wink been for?
Harry's day passed in a flurry of activity. He met with his liaison in the Misuse of Magical Artifacts office, assembled his default squad—only Perry would have much to do until they had leads to go on, but they still needed to be alerted to the investigation—and made a list of the Dark Arts dealers he would call upon early next week (assuming, of course, they were where they had been when last seen). He turned down a request to be interviewed by The Daily Prophet. He pinned his maps up on the stark white walls, in an attempt to make his office seem more personal. He wasn't positive if he'd succeeded yet; it still looked like someone else's office, but now with his maps on the wall. He turned down another two requests for interviews; suddenly it seemed he was a hot topic for some reason. He somewhat guiltily chucked the day's Daily Prophet into the bin. He hadn't had a chance to do more than glance at the headline, and wasn't particularly interested in the summary of the new statutes the Ministry had passed in the last week (an article that looked to take up the entire first page and continue on pages 2, 3, 7, and 12). By six o' clock, satisfied that he'd had a productive day, he swung his robe over his shoulder and strode to the lobby.
"Congratulations, Potter," someone called behind him, just before he had intended to Apparate. He turned, trying to pinpoint who had said it, but there were far too many people, although many of them seemed to be beaming at him. He glanced around, but the longer he stood, the more people seemed to be turning to look at him with broad grins. Nonplussed, he shrugged, and turned tightly on the spot for home.
"Anyone home?" he called as he opened the door. It was usually a useless question; Ginny nearly always was, and as it was Friday, he'd be surprised if Neville wasn't already here as well. Tonight, though, only Neville answered.
"In the living room. C'mere, I've got something for you."
He sounded excited. Harry laid his robe over the banister of the stairs—that would drive Neville mad later but it wasn't his fault they didn't have a place to put a coat rack—and stepped into the living room.
"What is it?" Harry asked. "And where's Ginny?"
"She's visiting her mother. I...asked if I could have you to myself this evening." Neville smiled shyly, and Harry raised an eyebrow. Neville hadn't been shy with him since they first started dating.
"Right on, then." He spotted what Neville was holding, and a grin broke out on his face. "I forgot that book came out this week!" Neville handed it over, his face oddly composed. "Thanks, Nev, I..." he paused. The book didn't feel quite right. He sat down in his chair and flipped open the cover...and froze.
"Harry," Neville said, kneeling down in front of him, now completely unable to hide the smile that spread across his face as he rested both hands lightly on Harry's knee. Harry almost couldn't hear him, he was so focused on the hollow carved within the pages of the book, inside which was nestled a ring, brushed gold with a smooth border. "We've spent nearly seven years talking about Someday. And Someday's here. The Ministry passed it yesterday. I'm sure you read about it."
Harry licked his lips, mind whirling. "Read about what?" he asked stupidly.
Neville laughed, almost nervously, fishing the ring from its hollow in the book with shaking hands. "I can finally ask you, and have it be real to everyone, not just us. Harry, will you share the rest of your life with me? That is to say, will you marry me?"
Harry blinked, dumbfounded. What was…was this really happening? "Yes! Of course!" He blurted, scared that if he didn't play along, it would all go away. He stared in disbelief as Neville took his shaking left hand in his own, sliding the gold band over his knuckles. It felt conspicuous there, heavy and shining and real, and Harry almost could not take his eyes off it, but did, to look into Neville's beaming face.
"Shall we go have dinner?" Neville asked in an overly casual voice. "I'd like to go brag about my new fiancee to anyone who will listen."
"Fiancee," Harry repeated numbly, eyes going back to the ring. He felt like laughing himself senseless. He also felt slightly like throwing up, his stomach was churning with so much emotion.
Fiancee. He was going to be married. To Neville. To the man he'd shared more than half his life with, and had loved to distraction for much of that, whom he'd feared he'd lost forever and had found again. A giddiness bubbled up within him, and he threw his arms around Neville, laughing for lack of words to say, kissing him wherever he could plant his lips.
"I didn't even know it was up for consideration," Harry managed to say after several minutes of this, during which Neville had somehow replaced his position in the chair and displaced Harry to sitting partly on the chair's arm, partly on Neville's lap. "I haven't been reading the Prophet."
"It was very quiet," Neville said. "Buried in an old list of bylaws they were overturning or amending. They came across this one, deliberated for thirty minutes, and then wrote it into a new law: any two persons of legal adult age, of sound mind, may make a Bonding Vow of Matrimony as performed by a Ministry or otherwise qualified official, provided two witnesses are present. And the Ministry will recognize it as a legal marriage, not just a registered Unbreakable Vow."
"That must be why people were smiling at me all day today," Harry said, suddenly making the connection. "Our relationship is one of the more public ones. I had people I didn't even know offering me condolences when we broke up."
"Stupidest thing we ever did," Neville said, resting his chin atop Harry's head. "Let's never do that again."
"Oh, is that what this means?" Harry teased, twisting the ring around his finger. Neville smiled and held his hand to look at the ring.
"I actually got this the week after we got back together," he admitted. "After not having you for what seemed like forever, I knew that I wasn't going to let you go again. But I was too chicken to give it to you. It was too soon, or we'd just had an argument, or some other ridiculous reason. But I read the Prophet this morning at breakfast—McGonagall pointed it out to me, actually—and I knew that I had to do it tonight." He drew Harry closer to him. "It's really happening. Finally. We're going to get married."
Harry's heart warmed considerably as he nestled into Neville's chest. He was quite sure that there was little in the world that would be able to wipe the smile from his face.
"Dinner, then?" Neville asked. "There's about three dozen people waiting at the Leaky Cauldron to help us celebrate." Harry looked up sharply. Neville shrugged. "You know Ginny's very bad at keeping secrets. It might be four dozen by now."
"They can wait a half hour more," Harry said. "We're going to do some celebrating by ourselves first."
Neville's answering smile was every bit as mischievous as Harry's.