Chapter 15 – Getting ready for departure
The wedding was approaching fast, Luna was serene and carefree as usual and Ginny with the help of Hermione (to counterpart Luna's lack of practical sense) had improvised themselves wedding planners and were supervising everything from their respective countries.
The venue, following Luna's wishes, was going to be on the beach in Australia to enjoy the warmth of their summer.
Luna had expressed moreover the wish of a hen-do there and asked Ginny and Hermione to join her a week before the event to enjoy a holiday together on the seaside.
Ginny was over the moon.
'Do you mind? Mum could go and pick Sunrise up from kindergarten so you don't have to mind about working late' she asked him excited as soon as Luna's request was made 'We never got a holiday all together and this may be our last chance!'
Harry, seeing her excitement, smiled 'Go and enjoy yourself'
They were sitting on the sofa, Sunrise had been asleep for already an hour, and they were enjoying the warmth of the living room's fire.
'Are you going to come to the wedding though, are you?' she had asked then narrowing her eyes suspiciously, the cheerfulness swept away in a blink.
'I'm not sure I'll be able too. It's quite far. It will take me almost thirty hours by plane' he answered wearily. This had started to be an almost daily conversation and very often finishing with Ginny's grump.
'With floopowder it's only gonna be a few hours at most! They never even ask you for papers!' she replied pleadingly.
'First of all, I strongly disapprove of it. It's dangerous and absolutely unmotivated'
Ginny rolled her eyes as he continued 'And anyway you know what it means going by floopowder; the whole Australian magical community will be there waiting for me arms open' he grunted bitterly.
He always avoided using magical transportation system as it was a giveaway of any of his whereabouts. Every time he used it to travel to a different country an aggregation of politicians, influent people and simply curious were there to welcome him and that always marked the beginning of invitations of every kind.
'But it's Luna's wedding!' she snorted this time unnerved 'We never go anywhere! We never do anything, for once I'm asking you one thing!' she ranted on 'You could stay only a few days! And the magical community will find it out anyway floopowder or not! They always know!' she concluded snappish.
It was indeed true that he avoided doing minibreak of any kind; it was always motive of distress being recognised and bothered everywhere.
It seemed there were always reporters who had as ambition in life to tail him wherever and discover as many things as they could about him.
Harry, knowing very well to what kind of mood this conversation was leading and wanting very much to spend a relaxing evening between cuddles, tenderness and hopefully something more, took a sudden resolution to make it bend toward his wishes.
'You are right.' he said closing the newspaper he was perusing abandoning it on the coffee table next to an open Witch Weekly Ginny had been reading in the afternoon. To confirm her affirmation there was an article about them visiting Brighton during Christmas holiday. A picture of the whole family had been taken with them walking on the pier. Albus was taking a picture of the landscape, James was showing a seagull to Sunrise and behind, him and Ginny hand in hand were closing the line. The article was already speculating about their next holiday destination.
'Let's make a deal' he said turning to her who instantly sprung to attention 'I'll work extra hard in the next few days. If, nevertheless, I won't manage to track the guy down I'll come there by floopowder only for the day and I'll be back the next.' She nodded a bit grumpily 'But if I do track him down before then and your parents agree, we leave them Siry and, trying to be as discreet as possible, we take two weeks for travelling, just me and you. What do you think?'
Since having James, they had never managed to go on holiday just the two of them. It wasn't easy for him to get days off outside summer and Christmas time and in those periods, they wanted to enjoy the kids' company as much as possible, therefore it was several years they couldn't indulge in the pleasure of a romantic trip.
For that reason, the answer took the form of an acute shrill of delight and he found himself suffocated by Ginny's enthusiasm as she threw her arms around his neck and started to cover his face with kisses.
'That's a lovely idea! Mum and Dad will agree for sure! Do you think you'll be able to? How far are you in your research?'
Harry, laughing at this enthusiastic response, answered her 'We may be on a good track but keep excitement under control. I cannot promise you anything'
Ginny didn't even hear his answer all taken by the prospect that was unravelling under her eyes 'It's going to be so nice! We could go and visit the Great Barrier Reef! I always wanted to go there! And then we can do a boat trip, stay in a nice hotel! I'll buy a guide tomorrow'
Harry interrupted her getting slightly alarmed 'Ginny, I said I cannot promise you anything. Don't go planning everything yet!'
Ginny turned suddenly stern as if only at that moment realised he was there. She loosened her arms from around his neck 'What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the office working? I don't want you to see at home before eight tomorrow!' she admonished him.
Harry laughed and pinned her in his arms 'I'll do my best, my love. But will you love me anyway even if I don't manage to?' he whispered playfully in her ear.
She tilted her head smiling 'I don't know… We will see how much effort you'll put in it.'
That evening concluded very satisfactorily for Harry and the next day he found himself whistling while walking to work, a thing that hadn't been happening for a while.
Luna's event had given him an idea and he was quite keen to put it into action. He couldn't wait to see Ginny's reaction and grinned thinking how Siry would have been happy in those days at the Burrow. Ted was right. He only needed to make his life as pleasant as possible. Easy.
In high spirit, waved cheerfully at the groupies who loudly hooted back all sort of appreciations in a way that made an old witch scowl disapprovingly and stepped over the door of the Ministry full of purpose and with a smile on his face.
The days followed one another very quickly. And the good mood vanished as quickly. The wizard was leaving traces, mistakes along the way, spies were working undercover in the darkest circle and was slowly starting to give results. Harry was working tirelessly, determined to solve the situation as fast as possible. Some disappearance occurred in the muggle world too giving precious cues. Harry was collaborating with muggles' law enforcement in incognito to gather information. He took most of the dangerous tasks on his shoulders as he didn't want to be responsible of any other deaths among his colleagues and was getting home very late every night.
Ginny was growing steadily more preoccupied with each day, witnessing him returning at home later and later, very often in an impenetrable gloom and always shattered to death.
At one-point she had forbidden him to get back after eight o'clock.
'Are you crazy or what?!' she hissed under her voice not to wake Sunrise up when one day he had been back at one o'clock in the night reaching a peak of seventeen hours work without intermission to eat or repose. She was waiting for him in the kitchen and had attacked him as soon as he stepped in.
'I don't care about anything nor anybody!' she continued 'You don't get back at one o'clock in the morning! It is just not right! Without calling or warning me in any way!' she kept hissing tapping a minacious finger against his chest 'And I was here worrying sick, alone! And you who the fuck knows where!'
Harry, with a fuzzy mind brought by tiredness, was soon unnerved by her rebuke but hearing her swearing the irritation disappeared in a flash, it didn't happen very often and opened his consciousness on the reason of her vehemence.
'Don't you dare do it again!' she kept on hissing but Harry, perceiving some tears in the corner of her eyes, draw her in his arms while she was still scolding him furiously and, despite her flailing to free herself, he kept her pinned in that embrace.
'I'm fine' he simply said.
Hearing it she paused and, after a moment, letting her hands that were trying to push him away drop, succumbed to sobs 'I thought… I thought…' she wailed under her voice.
'I'm fine' he only repeated her.
He had always done his best to screen her from the gruesome and the disturbing of his job but, year after year, she couldn't fail to understand how dangerous it could get. The inferi episode had been on every newspaper and it wasn't difficult to add two plus two and realise that only a fluke had saved Harry in that occasion.
On keeping a sobbing Ginny against him and stroking her hair consolingly, Harry reflected that maybe the moment to retire was getting closer, perhaps he could ask to be relocated, perhaps he could find a job in the Quidditch environment. If there was something good in his situation was that every career was open to him. He only needed to pick and choose.
When Ginny grew calmer and got back to her steady and stern self, forced him to gulp down a soup and she lined down some new unbreakable rules:
Not working after eight o'clock
One day off per week, possibly two
Eating regularly. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner
(Last but not least) Always do what Ginny says because she knows best
Only when he agreed to everything was he allowed to go to sleep. And without informing him, she switched off his alarm and sent a note to his department informing that he would have got in late.
He slept until midday.
He almost had a heart attack finding out the next day but then he noticed beside the deactivated alarm clock a very stern note from Ginny reminding him the rules laid out in the evening and an order to eat some lunch before going to work.
That night he was back at the stroke of eight, Ginny regained her composure and usual cheerfulness and Harry promised himself not to let her worry in that way anymore. The day of her departure was approaching, and he didn't want her to leave with a sense of foreboding, by her part she hadn't mentioned again about their trip or Dark Wizard's capture, afraid of triggering him again in a frenzy of over work.
The evening before her departure, Harry was sitting on the edge of the bed watching Ginny busy in rummaging in the wardrobe occasionally pulling out a dress, observing it critically, and then either tucking it in the big open luggage on the bed with a smile, or shoving it back mercilessly in the wardrobe with a frown.
When she had informed him of her wish to go, Harry had agreed serenely seeing how much her heart was in it, but now, watching her gaily filling her luggage, could only think that the following day for a week he would have been alone and that thought sobered him considerably. He wasn't used to being by himself without her. Not used to sleep in that bed without her presence. He considered bleakly whether to sleep on the sofa the next day to avoid the sense of forlorn in no having her by his side.
His gaze wondered lazily on the open luggage and something colourful caught his attention. He fished from it a small triangle of fabric.
'What's this?' he asked in a fit of contrariety to Ginny.
She, emerging from the wardrobe, looked at it fleetingly 'A swimsuit' she said before putting back again her head between her clothes.
'A swimsuit?' Harry mumbled with a frown.
'Yes of course, it's hot there and we are planning to enjoy the beach as much as possible' her voice came between the noise of hanger moved here and there.
Harry looked again at that flimsy little piece of fabric and rummaging in the luggage found the other part, two more insignificant triangles. He remembered Ginny wearing it only the summer before and his frown grew marked.
With this inconsistence, not much covering, piece of swim wear in his hands asked again 'Let's get this straight. Is it just gonna be you, Luna and Hermione, right?'
An affirmative murmur came from the wardrobe.
'And Sean?'
'I guess so. He is from there'
Harry rummaged deeper in the suitcase to see what she had packed. Many summery dresses, one more unsuitable for holiday-with-female-friends-without-husbands than the one before, under Harry's opinion.
'And he is gonna do a stag party, I imagine' he mumbled sourly continuing his exploration in Ginny's luggage.
'I didn't ask but I suppose so' she murmured and then coming out from the wardrobe with two dresses turned to Harry.
'Harry, which one?' she asked showing them to him.
Harry, watching those two definitely too short, definitely too see-through to be wore without-him-on-her-side dresses, stooped his head on one side in consideration.
'Why don't you take some witch robes? You only packed the one for the wedding'
She laughed 'We are going to be among muggles, it would look strange, and you never liked them anyway, why do you want me to take them now?' she asked observing critically the two dresses, draping them on her body alternatively in front of the mirror.
Harry didn't answer. He never liked them, it was true, but their ankle length and shapeless fit seemed all of sudden very fetching considering he was not going to be around.
'Which one?' Ginny pressed on waving the two dresses in front of him.
Harry, mutinously, pointed to the one that seemed slightly more covering and Ginny, obviously, after weighting them up some more packed the other one.
'And there are going to be all Sean's friends at his stag party, I suppose?' he asked with the swimsuit still in his hands while Ginny had walked from the wardrobe to the bathroom choosing carefully between the hundreds of bottles on the sink.
Ginny looked at him as if he was a bit dumb 'I should say so. Certainly, he is not going to celebrate by himself.'
Harry pictured in his mind a pack of Australian tan guys of barely twenty-six at a stag party and remembered in a flash all the stag parties he had participated as well. Not many to be honest but enough to know what they were talking about. After Ron's one he could barely remember his name. He was sure not to have done anything to repent only because Percy, always sober, had supervised the whole thing.
He took a step farther in his train of thought and saw Luna who in her worst day didn't look older than nineteen, blonde hair, blue eyes and then he saw on the other side Hermione, good looking, quite curvy and then in the middle of them like a nymph he saw his Ginny, slender, cat golden eyes… He craned his neck to look in the bathroom; she had a silky cream nightie on that shifted morbidly on her fair skin, her lean legs moving gracefully around the bathroom…
He putted the two groups together on an Australian beach and didn't much like what he saw.
'I think I've been a bit hasty in my decision of letting you go.' he said moving his gaze from the swimsuit to her, his vision completing itself in Ginny with that minimal swimsuit on surrounded by the Australian pack. He darkened considerably 'I'm starting to change my mind'
Ginny laughed filling her beauty case to the brim with cosmetics 'It'll be fine'
'I don't know, I see too much competition taking the shape of fit twentyish Australians guys and I don't like it much'
'Fit Australians in their twenties are not going to look at a thirty-seven-year-old woman. Don't worry.' She said shoving the beauty case in the luggage.
'I wouldn't know' Harry said 'Luna is marrying one of them'
Ginny chuckled 'You can sleep tight' she said standing in front of him taking his face between her hands 'There is no competition'
'Really?' he said not very convinced dropping the swimsuit that glided on the floor without a sound to take her waist enjoying the sensation of the silk slipping under his fingers.
An affirmative murmur came back.
'Can I know why?' he asked looking up.
'Are you fishing for compliments?' She asked puckering her lips prettily.
'Maybe' he said half smiling, sliding his hands under her silk nightie to touch the silk that lay underneath 'I'm not going to hear them for a long week, I need to store them now that I can'
She simpered 'Well, I must find somebody handsome, somebody that make me laugh, brave and sweet' she said softly while Harry was freeing her from one of the two silks, the roughest, leaving her covered only with her perfect nakedness 'You can go on if you like' he murmured brushing his lips on her flat tummy.
'Somebody who is quite sexy, a good man and a good lover…' she continued running her fingers in his hair and then grinning added cheekily 'And on the top of that, he must have incidentally saved England from the darkest wizard of all times. It kind of restricts the circle to only you, I dare say'.
'Alright. You got me' he smirked hauling her on the bed with him.