Intromit: to introduce; to send, put, or let in.

May 14, 2026

A young man stood outside the green door at the top of Waverly Tower. The collection of London flats, mostly inhabited by Ministry of Magic workers, frequently saw people loitering about this green door, waiting for the well-connected people who lived on its other side to come home. There were a couple residents of the household who rather liked the important air it brought to the otherwise unremarkable flat, but on the whole the practice was most irritating.

This young man, however, was not an ordinary loiterer. He wore dress robes, surely, and his hair was combed with the obvious effort of one trying to make a good impression, but it was easy enough to see that what brought him to this door was not a statement for the press, an interview with the high-ups, or even an important message to be delivered. No, what brought – or perhaps dragged would be a more accurate word – this particular loiterer to the green door at the top of Waverly Tower stood a few paces behind him brushing her short red hair out of her eyes as she leaned anxiously over the stair rail.

"This is a bad idea," Howard Garfield said for perhaps the fifth time that afternoon.

"No, it's not," his girlfriend insisted, letting go of the rail and striding back to his side, fiddling anxiously with the butterfly clip that held her short apple-red bangs in place. He liked the way she fidgeted like that, wrinkling her nose and biting her lip. There were marks on her lower lip from all the time she spent worrying it between her teeth. He had noticed them when… but that was beside the point.

Howard looked distinctly the worse for wear considering all he'd been doing that afternoon was sitting outside an apartment. His robes were ruffled, his palms sweaty, and a flustered look hung about him. But a flustered look always hung about Howard Garfield.

"Luce, I'm telling you, this is a bad idea," he said in a low, serious voice, blue eyes earnest. He didn't often speak so seriously and the freckles smattering his nose and cheeks made him look particularly young and naïve when he did. "If you just told him –"

Lucy cut him off, shaking her head wildly so that her choppy hair swirled like flame around her face. "It has to be like this," she insisted. "Trust me. Mum's… different than Dad. She understands things better. He'll like you. I know Dad will. And then we can tell him."

Howard swallowed audibly. "And if he doesn't? I mean, I'm not exactly the bloke every father wants their little girl to end up with. I'm two years out of school, haven't held down a job longer than six months, and only got two N.E.W.T.s, one of which was Muggle Studies. I'm a Hufflepuff for crying out loud!"

"And since when has being a Hufflepuff ever been a bad thing?" Lucy cut in, reaching up to take one of the hands Howard had flung into the air.

"I'm going to tell him, Lucy," Howard sighed, and it was more a lament than anything else.

"Don't you dare –" Lucy began, a dangerous fire coming to her eyes. Lucy had somehow missed out on the famous Weasley woman temper, but on rare occasions, some hidden vestige of it reared its fiery head.

"I won't try to," Howard interrupted before Lucy could build up into a threat. "But I'm so jumpy, it'll probably come tumbling out the first time I open my mouth. Wouldn't that be great? 'Hello, sir, nice to meet you, and by-the-way-I-knocked-up-your-daughter.'"

Lucy smacked his arm (none too lightly) and looked about the deserted landing fervently. "Don't just say it like that!" she hissed. "You've no idea who could be listening up here."

"You can't honestly think this'll be kept quiet?" Howard asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Dad and Molly are both home," Lucy told him in a furious whisper.

"What? Then what have we been doing out here?" Howard asked, running a nervous hand through his straw-colored hair and glancing anxiously at the door.

"Waiting for Mum –" Lucy started to explain, but before she'd gotten very far, the green door flew open.

"Lu! What're you doing hanging about out here?"

"Erm, hi, Daddy! There's someone I want you to meet," Lucy Weasley fairly squeaked.

And as she pushed an unwilling and ghostly-looking Howard into the flat ahead of her, she hissed in his ear that she would jinx his mouth shut if he so much as thought about spilling their three-months-along secret.

A/N: So I didn't expect this to go where it did on the outset, but now I've got a whole backstory. :) Lucy's about nineteen in this. She's not a rebel-child by any means, but she and Howard…well, we might see a bit more of them if I find the right word. I've been meaning to do a Lucy story for ages. I PROMISED I'd get around to other next gen! :)

In other news, May is extremely busy. Hence my abysmal lack of updates. Halfway through this month and I've only got three chapters up. It's sad, I know it is… and this weekend is just not looking like prime catch-up time. Physics sucks. For me anyway. And for my updates. Hopefully I'll talk to you soon though!