The home of Harry Potter and his family was a large estate on the outer edges of London called Clymene Court. It was the second structure to stand on the property, the first having burned to the ground in the seventeenth century. Though a noble Muggle family had built both estates, only wizards had occupied Clymene Court for the past two hundred years. The grounds—which included terraced gardens, a small pond, and a formidable driveway—were drenched in Unplottable and Muggle-repelling charms, much of it Harry's own creation. The manor itself stood three stories tall and had twenty-three rooms, including a ballroom, banquet hall, library, conservatory, and several salons and spacious lounges. In addition to these, there were twelve bedrooms, Harry and Ginny's far and away the largest and grandest in the house. When all the children were home, four bedrooms were occupied with one room set aside for Mrs. Weasley should she wish to use it.
The remaining bedrooms were guest rooms.
Tonight, Harry chose the guest room closest to his personal study on the third floor. Carrying a toothbrush, razor, and towel, he let the water run in the washroom for several minutes, clearing out the pipes. Then, he went down to Lily's room to kiss her goodnight. She was far too consumed in recounting the match to notice the tension in her father's face. He kissed her pale cheek, promising to take her to Diagon Alley the next day to buy Falcon memorabilia before the national final.
Shutting the door to her room, he caught sight of Ginny. She spared him a glance before disappearing into their bedroom.
He thought of following her. He could try apologizing again, or tell her she was being ridiculous and insist on sleeping in his own bed.
But Harry returned to the guest room and, several minutes later, pried apart the bed's stiff, unused sheets and climbed inside.
"Nox," he mumbled, disliking the solitary timbre of his own voice.
Sleep would not come tonight, he was sure of it.
He could not escape the feeling that it was all going wrong. Not twenty-four hours ago, he had decided not to jeopardize his relationship with his wife, to hold himself distant from his best friend. His friend who did not reciprocate his feelings, who was taking the difficult and brave step of righting things with her husband.
In making that decision, Harry had felt a sense of security, like a lost traveler who finally recognizes the path home. Yet, here he was. He'd spent the entire day with Hermione and things with Ginny were worse than ever.
He stared at the pale strip of light underneath the door. It was far too quiet, the room far too cold.
He felt afraid.
It wasn't because he and Ginny had never slept apart before. They had. Five or six times in their marriage, Ginny had chucked him from their bedroom and, on one or two occasions, Harry himself had chosen to sleep elsewhere. Nor was it because Harry knew Ginny could hold powerful grudges or that he felt he was truly in the wrong about the opera.
No, it was something else—a fear that Harry could not, and had never been able, to put into words. Because this fear came from a time before words, before thought. It was his first memory. In some ways, it was the most powerful memory he had. A primal, instinctual terror that defined the first ten years of his life. A fear of abandonment, rejection, exclusion.
When the fear came to him—as it did now—it came like a thunderclap. A strange, cold panic laced with desperation and a bone-deep certainty of his own worthlessness. It was all encompassing. It blurred the barrier between reality and the mind so that the fear seemed to stretch on forever, without end.
It was not that Harry had a desperate need to be included, to be loved by everyone. It was not that at all. It was simply that without the relationships he currently had—his wife, his children, his friends—Harry was entirely sure he could not live, could not function, could not survive.
Harry had not been lying in his fifth year when he said the only reason he escaped Voldemort so many times was because there had always been someone to help. This pattern held true for Harry's entire life in the magical world. The only thing that had gotten him through the search for the Horcruxes was knowing Hermione was still there, that they needed each other. The only thing that got Harry through the forest to meet his death was the blessed sensation that his mother and father stood beside him. And when Harry married Ginny, he'd done so with the knowledge that he would also be marrying into her large and wonderful family. It meant loneliness would forever be kept at bay.
He could not risk losing her. He could not be left alone. The thought was enough to send a shock of stomach-twisting panic through him. He knew, in the morning, he would do anything to make Ginny forgive him. Groveling and humiliation were wholly within the realm of possibility if that was what she wanted.
Anything—anything—was better than this.
Something cool touched the corner of Harry's eye. Slowly, as though in a dream, he brought a hand to the side of his face.
Fuck's sake, he thought angrily, smearing away the tear. Enough.
At some point, Harry must've fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. Still, when he awoke at seven that morning, his entire body ached. He stumbled into the washroom and looked in the mirror. The face that looked back was not flattering, but he lacked the energy just then to shower or shave.
The house was very still, and Harry, matching his surroundings, walked noiselessly through his own home. He tried to push the haze of exhaustion from his eyes, for what he was about to do required a clear head. Descending the grand staircase into the foyer, Harry heard sounds from the kitchen. Closing his eyes briefly, he rounded the corner and found Ginny at the sink, washing her hands. Over the hum of water, she heard his footfalls and turned.
"Good morning," she said. She looked tired but she smiled slightly.
"Morning," Harry rasped. He cleared his throat.
"I'll get you some water."
She moved to the icebox and returned with a glass, perspiration dripping off the sides.
"Thanks," he mumbled. The water felt wonderfully cold on his throat.
Ginny returned to the counter and began pouring two cups of tea.
"Lily's still asleep. Do you want some toast or something?"
Harry blinked. "Er, sure…that'd be nice. Thank you."
Ginny waved her wand at a stack of bread already out on a plate. She watched as the slices turned a crisp, golden brown.
"Jam or butter?"
"Butter," he said, voice clearer now. He had always hated jam.
She nodded and, hesitant, Harry went to the table and sat down. His elbow ran across the Sunday Prophet. The Falcons' victory over the Cannons was emblazoned on the front page, a large moving picture of Jacob Turlington catching the Snitch on repeat. Ginny's byline led the main article.
She came to the table and placed the plate of buttered toast before him.
"Thanks," he murmured again as she took her usual seat.
For several minutes, they were silent. It was a sound that had characterized many of their breakfasts over the years, but today it was a different, uncomfortably pulsating thing.
Harry wracked his mind in search of something to say. He briefly thought of mentioning her Prophet article, perhaps noting its prominence. But, he resisted. It would only remind her that he hadn't been at the match.
Yet, he knew he must speak.
"Ginny?" he rasped. He cleared his throat. "Ginny?"
She looked up at him with polite interest.
"I—er—I'm sorry about yesterday. I really am." He paused, trying to think of more to add. "I promised you I'd go to the match, but I got caught up in things. I thought I was helping…but I should've gone and met you, or least told you I was late. And I didn't tell you about the opera. I'm sorry. I can cancel the tickets if you want. We don't have to go."
Ginny looked at him for a long moment. Harry barely breathed.
"Thanks for the apology," she finally said, "and you don't have to cancel the tickets. I've thought about it and we can go."
His mouth fell open slightly. "We can?"
"Yes. I mean, it does sound sort of entertaining," she replied, pausing to blow on her tea. "Ron did say we could dress up and I remember someone telling me that opera is the highest form of Muggle culture or something like that. So, I suppose that might be interesting to see. You've already bought the tickets, so we'll go."
"Are you serious?"
She smiled. "I was too quick to judge something I haven't seen. And, in the end, it's only one night…"
Harry leaned back, running a hand through his particularly unruly hair. "That's—that's great, Gin. Thank you."
"It's fine," she replied. She took another sip and reached for the Prophet. "Are you going in today?"
"No, I don't think so. Lily wants me to take her to Diagon Alley. You going to work?"
"No."
"Oh."
Ginny flipped a page of the Prophet, her eyes expertly running down the columns.
"So," she said evenly, "I guess we have some free time, then…especially before Lily wakes up."
Harry stared, certain she couldn't be suggesting...
"Perhaps I can return the favor from the other night."
After that breakfast—and the inexplicable morning sex—Harry's life returned to something like normal. Over the next several weeks, Harry and Ginny cooked dinners together, helped Lily with her homework, debated Quidditch prospects, traded gossip, and had sex regularly. On a couple occasions, he'd shown up at the Prophet to take Ginny to lunch, which always sent flutters across the newsroom. He listened to the Continental Quidditch finals with her for four nights straight and they shopped for Mrs. Weasley's birthday present together.
The day after their reconciliation, Harry returned to work. He briefly thought of finding Hermione for lunch, but Yvain and Cassy left early that morning. Hermione and Lakey were traveling to Scotland to obtain an affidavit from a friend of Theo Callahan's.
Over the next few weeks, Hermione's work only became more consuming. It seemed the only time Harry and Hermione saw one another was in the corridors of the Ministry. They exchanged short, earnest sentences—checking in with each other—but nothing more. They did not have lunch. Harry did not visit her. Normally, Harry might've felt adrift or agitated by her absence. But now, he felt a placid and steadying sort of emptiness. It grounded him. It was like when someone moves to a city and learns to live without seeing the horizon, without the sunset. It was a small anchor of longing—not forgotten—just ignored.
But it was not just Hermione's trial preparations that imposed a sudden distance between them. Harry's work also a reliable distraction. The Irish Minister of Magic was scheduled to visit Britain in early November and Harry was kept busy seeing to the security arrangements. Protests were expected. Three years ago, the Irish Ministry had arrested two British alchemists who'd been studying clurichauns in Kilkenny. The wizards had yet to be released from the Irish equivalent of Azkaban (Kilmainham) as the Ministry was convinced they were English spies. There was further controversy due to the fact that Ireland still employed Dementors, a practice outlawed in Britain fifteen years ago.
At about the same time Harry was planning all this, Duncan entered the Agrippa School. He was exempt from the more magically focused classes. For example, during Elementary Principles of Magic, a class in which students were guided through "mind-focusing" exercises to better control their magic, Duncan would conveniently spend an hour in the deputy headmistress' office. In one of the rare instances when they met alone, Harry pointed out to Hermione that Duncan's classmates would surely begin to notice his continued absence from the same class. Hermione discounted his concern, arguing Elementary Principles was a large class of some thirty students. No one would notice he was gone.
In truth, Harry thought Hermione had a bit of a blind spot when it came to Duncan's education. She was so determined to keep him enrolled she could easily overlook the complications of sending a Muggle child to a wizarding school. For one, while most of Agrippa's classes were standard reading, writing, and maths, all the classes incorporated some element of magic. In maths, for instance, Duncan was asked to convert Galleons into Sickles, a currency he had no experience with. In writing class, he was assigned essays on what magical career he wished to pursue. And in history class…he read about the subjugation of witches and wizards to Muggle intolerance and bigotry. There was no avoiding the presence of magic at Agrippa.
Yet, for the time being, it was fine. Duncan had Lily and Hugo, the only students who knew what he was. Though they were in different classes, the three could have lunch together and it became a regular occurrence for Lily and Hugo to bring Duncan to their homes to complete their homework. Lily and Hugo helped Duncan fudge his way past the magical assignments and Duncan, who appeared good at every subject, helped the other two with their maths and reading.
By October, Duncan had become a part of Harry's extended family. And when Halloween finally came, the boy was naturally included in their plans.
Harry began that Halloween in front of a bleached white tombstone in a small graveyard.
It was his parents' thirty-sixth death anniversary. They would have been fifty-seven years old.
He'd come alone this year. Ginny had excused herself, saying she needed to finish Lily's costume, and besides, Harry darling, there was no reason they had to go on this particular day. They could go on another, less busy, day of course.
Harry knew Ginny did not like the annual trips to Godric's Hollow, though he didn't understand why. If he'd been able to see her mind, he would've known that she did not like the change that overcame him with every visit. When they were dating, she'd loyally stood beside him each Halloween at the grave of James and Lily Potter (the Firsts, she called them in her head). But, once the children were born, the visits became uncomfortable for her.
Harry would sit the children down on the deep emerald grass and tell them of the grandparents they would never know. He would explain to James and Lily—as small and uncomprehending as they were—that they were named after two very special people.
Brave people. Strong people.
Invariably, Harry's eyes would grow bright, the meaning of his words lost in shaky breaths, and the children would cast worried glances at their mother.
Ginny hated seeing him like this. She liked to pretend this part of Harry didn't exist. She could not give him that hard, blazing look of respect when he was a weepy mess. She didn't know how to comfort him, so she let it become a ritual. Harry would go through his tearful half-memories and longings while the children nodded their heads sadly, awkwardly. Then, Ginny would lead the children away.
Harry would stay kneeling by the grave. Sometimes just for five minutes, sometimes an hour. Even from a distance, Ginny could hear him mumbling things that sounded like prayers to other gods she'd never known.
Swiping away tears…
Picking leaves off the grass…
Scraping hardened moss from the letters with his thumbnail...
She hated every minute of it.
But for Harry, these moments were agonizing and wonderful. He loved having Ginny and the children beside him. Close to their grave, Harry felt warm waves of nostalgia and could-have-beens wash over him. He felt they were almost a proper family in those moments. Three generations put together. In harmony at last.
Yet, for all the visits he had made to this spot, the most memorable was always the first one. The one he shared with Hermione.
She'd been able to read his mind then. No sooner had he wished he brought something to place on their graves than she magicked a wreath of Christmas roses. She explained the meaning of the inscription—The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death—when he had assumed it was a twisted Death Eater mantra.
No, she had explained. It's about defeating death by living beyond it.
Love always outlives Death.
This had comforted Harry. He had liked her interpretation. The meaning rang through him like a deep bell—ancient and new, mysterious and revelatory. An Old Truth.
Sensing his desire to leave, they had wrapped their arms around each other and passed silently through the snow, the kissing gate.
But, Harry did his ritual alone that morning. Cleaning off the grave, running his hands over their names.
He conjured a wreath of autumn flowers and placed it below the old quotation.
He passed silently through the kissing gate, alone.
When Harry returned to the house, the bustle of activity soon brought him out of his thanatopsis.
Under the supervision of Mrs. Weasley, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny prepared a large feast complete with sweet-stuffed jack-o'-lanterns and five-foot-long candy snakes. After dinner, they set the children loose in one of the few predominantly magical neighborhoods of London: Whitechapel.
It was a rather dodgy area, full of witches and wizards in their early twenties with no fixed career paths. But it was almost a rite of passage to live there at some point in your life. Indeed, Harry and the others had lived in Whitechapel for four years after they graduated from Hogwarts.
Now, as the children ran from brownstone to brownstone, Harry and the others watched carefully from the street. Every Halloween, the Ministry mandated that all magical residences within three kilometers of Muggles cast strong Muggle-repelling charms across the thresholds of their homes. To a Muggle, the house would either appear abandoned or that a bowl of candy had been left outside the door. As a result, Lily had to repeatedly drag Duncan across the barriers to get him inside, as the Muggle boy was always convinced the house was empty.
Yet, Duncan quickly learned that trick-or-treating in the wizarding world was much more exciting than its Muggle counterpart…and taken much more seriously. There was always a fifty-fifty chance you would be tricked in the most fabulously magical fashion and receive no candy at all. The young wizards who lived in Whitechapel tried to outdo one another with their terrifying creations. Besides the standard decorations, some flats went so far as to hire ghosts for the occasion, install boggarts in hall cupboards, and fill bowls with squishy, but fake, acromantula eggs.
Once Duncan understood the process, he and Lily became the most adventurous. They charged into houses and ran out screaming when it became clear there would be no candy. Hugo usually hung back or clung tightly to Lily. It was a rather amusing picture as Lily was dressed as a princess and Hugo as a knight. Duncan had chosen to be an elf, his face painted bright green. Ron, after pointing out that only Muggles believed elves were such a shade of green, found a set of pointed ears for him in Diagon Alley.
Among the adults, Harry was the only one who hadn't attempted a costume despite protests from his wife and Hermione. His excuse was he already was a costume. Since the defeat of Voldemort, the Harry Potter "look" had become a classic around Halloween. Indeed, as Harry stepped out of the way of a group of sprinting children, he saw one of the girls was wearing a Gryffindor scarf, a lightning bolt drawn on her forehead.
"You reckon there's more trick than treat houses this year?" he asked Ron.
"People are getting stingy with the candy," Ron grumbled, shaking his pockets, where he was stashing a good portion of Hugo's sweets.
Ginny laughed. "I guess that would be bad, seeing as half the candy comes from you these days."
Ron shrugged. "It's just the recession."
Since Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had acquired Honeydukes in 2002, Halloween was typically a boom time for Ron and George. Judging by the amount of candy Lily had given Harry to keep safe, there was no shortage of sweets this year.
"I doubt that," said Harry, laughing. "You're going to make a killing, as usual."
At that moment, the children burst out of another house. They were laughing uproariously, which could only mean there had been candy. Spotting their parents, Lily and Hugo ran towards them, Duncan following after.
Ron returned Hugo's bag of candy. Hugo stared at it, noting its inexplicable lightness. He eyed his father distrustfully, but dumped the new candy in with the rest.
"Mummy!" he shouted at Hermione, his suit of armor clanking as he pranced to her. "You hold my bag, okay?"
Hermione took it. The children ran off towards the next house.
"Little git is catching on," Ron mumbled dispiritedly.
The others laughed and continued on, Harry bringing up the rear.
A moment later, Hermione drifted away from the others and fell into step beside him. She wore pointed tiger ears, her attempt at a costume. It reminded Harry of her late cat, Crookshanks. Somewhat hesitantly, she shifted Hugo's candy to her other hand and looped her arm through his. Harry felt the dark heat pass through him, all his senses narrowing down.
They hadn't touched like this for some time.
"What's up?" he heard himself say.
"Nothing," she said softly. "I was just thinking how nice it is having Duncan with us. It's almost like having Teddy back."
He laughed, a low rumble. Hermione's eyes grew slightly unfocused.
Harry's family had already had one "unofficial" son in the form of Teddy Lupin. But Teddy was grown now and had recently left Britain after bidding a rather passionate goodbye to Victoire Weasley on Platform 9¾. What he was doing now, no one was exactly sure, but that was usually the case with Teddy. Last Harry heard, he was bunking with friends in New York trying to start a band.
"Yeah," said Harry. "It is nice."
Hermione squeezed his arm and a warmth seemed to pass from her to him, like tea in hot water. His heart thrummed in his ears.
"Did you go to Godric's—" she said quietly.
But Harry felt someone watching them. He looked up in time to see Ginny turn away.
Harry cleared his throat and released Hermione.
"Gin," he called, catching up to her. "Lily's given me too much candy. Take some, will you?"
As Harry handed fistfuls of sweets to his wife, Hermione came to walk beside Ron, but Harry caught a glimpse of her face before it was shielded by her curls.
She had looked unhappy.
Why had she looked like that? That was the question that bothered Harry the rest of the night as he put Lily to bed, as he lay with Ginny in his arms.
It could not have been because of him. They were speaking normally, of Duncan and Teddy. What would cause her to look that way?
Was it because I pulled away?
The thought felt like heresy. A direct challenge to the rules and rituals he'd promulgated for himself these last few weeks.
No. He could not think like that. He reminded himself—as he had every day since Oxford—that she did not feel that way for him. Her feelings were not like his. She did not spend every spare particle of energy finding ways not to think of him. She did not devise clever distractions for herself to keep from thinking of his lips. She did not touch herself when she was alone, imagining how he'd look when she made him come.
He reached out in the dark, searching for that steadying emptiness. It seemed elusive now. No more an anchor than the roots of sapling in a storm.
He thought of how easily she had pierced that emptiness with the touch her hand. It made a mockery of his wards, his defenses around the scaffolding of his normal and happy life. He hated how easily his body responded to her, as easy as breathing.
Why did it feel that way with her? Why did she make him feel like there was something more than what he had, which was already so much?
And then, he let himself think of something he'd denied himself for weeks. He thought of the overwhelming rightness when they'd kissed. That overwhelming sense of good. Like the universe—for the briefest moment—had been harmonized to a pitch he'd never known existed.
Ginny shifted in his arms and turned away from him.
And just like that, the fear returned. It was unbearably strong, stronger than the goodness and the rightness. It always won.
Harry closed his eyes, shutting out the silken canopy above.
He could not go down this path. He could not afford to start from scratch every time she touched him. If not for his family's sake, then for his own. He must get a hold of himself or the fear would do it for him.