Ch 37 Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil
Priyanka Johanna Patil is from My Dear Professor McGonagall's story "The Twenty-Five Labors of Dumbledore's Army, as are her parents. You can find her stories on tis site. Padma Patil and Anthony Goldstein are, of course, JK Rowlings characters. What I have done with these characters was inspired by Professor McGonagall's story, but it is part of my "Almost Happily Ever After" universe. Thanks for permission to use the characters, Lucy.
Readers, this chapter about Padma and Anthony can be skipped without missing anything important in the story.
It was Tuesday, March fourteenth, and Harry's desk was finally clear. He was tempted to ward his door so no more paperwork could sneak onto his desk. The worst of the chaos of the last few months seem to have temporarily cleared up. Hopefully Cleopatra, Albus's seventeen-year-old bride and the reincarnation of some old fertility goddess, was learning how to keep her need to project the joy of procreation and motherhood under control. Harry wasn't quite sure how having three children had turned into six, now that Ginny was pregnant with twins, not that he minded.
Anthony Goldstein peeked into the office, informing Harry, "Mary Lou Creevey said you were not busy, and I should just walk in."
Harry smiled. "Come in, Anthony. For the first time in what seems like forever, although it has only been about five months, I don't have any urgent things hanging over me."
"I have some invitations to deliver in person," Anthony said. He handed Harry three invitations.
The one on top read, "Solomon and Golda Goldstein invite you to the wedding of their son Anthony to Padma Patil." The date was the following Sunday. It was being held at a Temple, with a rabbi officiating.
"Golda Goldstein?" Harry remarked, rolling his eyes.
Anthony laughed. "She wasn't Golda Goldstein until she married my father, and he said she could keep her maiden name, so I guess it is her fault."
The next invitation was from Padma's parents, inviting Harry and Ginny to the Hindu wedding of their daughter to Anthony the same Sunday afternoon.
The final invitation was from Anthony and Padma inviting Harry and Ginny to a wedding reception on Sunday night.
"How long did it take to arrange this?" Harry asked as he waved the three invitations.
"Depending on how you look at it, a couple of months, or maybe twenty years," Anthony answered. "The baby finally made us decide.
"How do you and Ginny stay so much in love after all the years you have been married? You still kiss and hold each other like newlyweds. And excuse me for saying it, but Ginny looks more like her mother than the cute little girl you married."
Harry reflected, "There IS more of her to love. Her mother was the first mother I remember, the person who really took the place of my mother. I love it that she is such a good mother to our children. I fell in love with her spirit, her fire, her personality. I like it that she is curvy, but I loved her when she was too thin and bony when she was playing for the Harpies."
Anthony asked, "Could Padma and I talk to you and Ginny? What Padma and I are embarking on is, or ought to be, I guess, very different than the casual, convenient relationship we have had for the last twenty years."
"Let me call Ginny right now," Harry replied.
Ginny Potter was in the Potter's Drawing Room at Grimmauld Place engaging in some structured playtime with her youngest, Minerva. At five Minerva was what she had always been, an exceptionally easy child. She felt down to the baby bump, just visible sooner than she had been for the last four pregnancies. Having twins would do that.
Her Magi Mobile rang with Harry's ring; He usually didn't call during the day unless there was something he needed to talk to her about. "Hello, Harry. What is on your mind?"
"I have invitations to Anthony and Padma's weddings, one Jewish, and another one Hindu, and a reception that they are putting on. They want to know how we stay so in love?"
"You let me get mad from time to time, and I let you go to church, something I really do not understand?" Ginny mused. "I'm a horny broad that keeps you worn out enough that you don't have time for anyone else? You're so damn noble you wouldn't anyway. I don't know. We just married and lived Happily Ever After, more or less."
Harry laughed. A sense of humor did help. "Almost Happily Ever After? Could they come over for dinner tonight? Maybe we can share our secret for living almost happily ever after."
"Seven," Ginny replied. "Minerva will be good for a couple more hours, after her nap. You have all these nice little babies, and then they grow up to be teen-age hellions. Well, Albus was never a hellion, and he's ended up being more trouble than all the rest of the cousins put together."
"Seven?" Harry asked Anthony.
"We will be there at seven," Anthony replied.
"I will let the Elves know we are having company," Ginny told Harry, just before terminating the connection.
Harry laughed again. "Ginny had all these wild brothers, and friends, and children. Nieces and nephews too. Now the grandchildren, Molly and Arthur's great grandchildren, are starting, and they are mostly a wild bunch. And we have this nice, calm, totally average little girl, and I think it is driving Ginny crazy."
"Padma and I will see you at seven," Anthony announced as he took his leave.
About ten to seven Anthony called to ask if they could come over via the Floo, so Harry opened the Floo connection for them. When the couple came through the Floo Harry told them, "Ginny is up in the living room. We can talk there until dinner is ready. Usually the Elves have it ready a few minutes after guests arrive."
Harry led the couple up one set of stairs, through a center hallway, to the comfortable living room. Ginny was sitting in a love seat, with Mitzi sitting in a chair next to the love seat. Minerva was laying on the floor, coloring in a book, her legs idly kicking in the air.
Harry announced their guests. "Ginny, you remember Anthony and Padma. Minerva, this is Mr. Goldstein and Ms. Patel."
"Hello," Minerva said.
"What are you doing?" Padma asked Minerva, coming over to kneel next to the child.
"Coloring in a Muggle coloring book," Minerva explained. "These are Disney Princesses. I LOVE Disney Princesses. Mum dresses like a princess when she and Daddy dance at the big balls in Switzerland."
Harry explained, "The prince and the princess each picked up a sword, and together they slayed the dragon. Then the princess dragged the prince along to see her father, the king, and told him, 'Now that we killed the dragon together I want to marry THIS prince.' And her father looked at the determined expression on his daughters face and let her marry her prince."
"That's NOT how the fairy tales go, Daddy," Minerva insisted, sitting up and putting her hands on her hips, doing a very good imitation of her mother and grandmother.
Ginny held up her hands and shook her head. She was never going to live down saying yes and assuming Harry had proposed after convincing him to put the engagement ring he had found in the Potter family vault on her finger. Not that he ever minded. He knew she never wanted to be the stupid helpless princess.
Anthony and Padma both laughed. They knew just what Harry was referring to. Ginny was anything but a helpless princess, as her engagement and wedding demonstrated.
"Yes, dear," Harry replied to Minerva. "Anthony, remember those two words if you want to stay happily married. Yes, dear."
An Elf announced that dinner was ready, and all five Magi went into the dining room. Mitzi excused herself, because, "I go to eat dinner with my mate and children."
The Potter dining room took up less than half of the main floor of their Grimmauld Place townhouse. The furniture was good sturdy classical English furniture, and the room was decorated but not over decorated or fussy. The floor was wood. The dining room table could easily seat eight, but there were five place settings at the table, with a youth chair, not a high chair but one higher for Minerva to sit on in between two of the chairs on one side of the table, and two other chairs on the other side.
Minerva sat between her parents, and Anthony and Padma took the seats on the other side of the table. Harry said a simple prayer and the group started dinner.
Dinner was a simple affair, with a chicken casserole dish, green beans, and a salad, all in dishes on the table from which you served yourself. Harry and Ginny put food on Minerva's plate and helped her cut up a couple of larger pieces, after which she neatly and meticulously served herself.
Harry showed Ginny the invitations, and she read them. "Is this why it has taken you two so long to get married?" she asked the couple, waving the three invitations.
"Not really," Antony replied, before turning back to his meal.
"Well, sort of. Can you work at falling in love?" Padma asked, interrupting her meal. "In our culture there are a lot of arranged marriages, with the bride and groom not always even knowing each other before the wedding. Sometimes the marriages are awful, but sometimes I think there are as many happy marriages that are arranged as there are where the couple gets married for love.
"In the western fairy tales the couple meets, falls in love, and then they get married and move in together. It seems to have happened that way to most of the couples we know. Sometimes they move in together before they get married, but the falling in love usually comes first. It didn't exactly work out that way with us."
"We had been friends, but never boyfriend and girlfriend, before the battle," Anthony started.
"After the battle it seemed like everyone was paired up, except for us. So we just gravitated towards each other, being a couple just to round out the groups of couples."
Padma continued, "We agreed that this was an arrangement of convenience. We even went on dates, always with each of us paying our own way, just because we knew the other was not seeing anyone else, and most of our other friends were seeing someone."
Anthony then explained, "We both lived with other people the first year. Padma had two roommates that, well I will let her explain."
"They hadn't been involved in the war, and all they could talk about was boys and pretty clothes and stupid things. At least they were not gross and disgusting like Anthony's roommate."
"Padma is right. He was just terrible. I was desperate to escape. So I found a two-bedroom apartment, and asked if Padma would share an apartment with me. It was only a year lease."
Padma continued, "I thought we could try living in the same apartment for a year. We hadn't even kissed, and Anthony had always been a gentleman, and we thought we could just be roommates until one of us found a boyfriend or girlfriend."
Anthony then said, "It actually took two years of living together before we became 'friends with benefits,' as one Muggle phrase has it. We started not because we were falling in love. We didn't think we were falling in love. Padma was the one who suggested it. I knew of too many boys who took advantage of girls, and I respect Padma way too much to push her to do something she does not want to do."
Padma said, "We signed six one year leases, and then Anthony suggested that since this living together was becoming a habit maybe we could sign a three-year lease. And then he asked if we should think about getting married. We had been to meet the other's parents, but Christmas and other major holidays each went to their own house."
Anthony groused, "My parents had been hinting that I get married, but wanted Padma to become Jewish, something she did not want to do."
Padma complained, "My parents didn't want me to marry a practicing Jew. I thought there would be a war or something when we talked about getting married by a rabbi under a canopy."
Anthony sighed, "It is a good thing we signed a three-year lease, because the three years after we suggested to our parents that we might get married were the toughest of our relationship."
Padma admitted, "Towards the end of the three years I found out I was pregnant, but with all the tension and fights I did not want to bring a baby into this mess. I terminated the pregnancy, and never told Anthony. He just found out about it this February."
"Padma is right. We were not emotionally ready to have a child, despite being together for ten years."
"Anthony and I have been together for well over twenty years now, and we both agree that we really are ready to commit to staying together for life. There is obviously a real strong relationship, even if we never went through a giddy romantic stage. So when I saw Cleo, and she projected that strong desire to become a mother, and perpetuate the Magi race, I stopped taking the birth control potions. I told Anthony that if I became pregnant we were going to get married, even if none of our parents agreed."
"I agreed," Anthony said. "I was sick and tired of being worried about what our parents would say, and one way or another I wanted something more for Padma and me."
Padma continued, "So I became pregnant, and we told Anthony's parents that we would get married under a canopy by a rabbi, but we might be married in a Hindu ceremony too, and they could come or not. And we told my parents that they could arrange a Hindu ceremony, but that we were trying for a Jewish ceremony too, and they could come or not."
Anthony added, "We told both of them that if they wanted to see our children then they would have to accept Padma being Hindu and me being Jewish."
Padma wondered, "I do not know if we just wore them out, or if it was because we were confident in our position, but it worked. But Ginny, Harry, as committed as we seem to be to each other, are we in love? Are Anthony and I in love?"
Ginny explained, "I was told by a wise woman just before we were married that love is a decision, not an emotion. She had just lost her husband two weeks before at the Battle of Hogwarts, and the man she was with had lost his wife. Between them they had six children, and they needed to build a life for themselves and their children. They never would have thought to become lovers if either of their spouses had been alive. The night after they buried their spouses they had sex for the first time. Rosemary said that after they had become intimate for the first time they both cried, just bawled, for their lost spouses, but also because there was joy in the commitment they were making.
"I think Michael and Rosemary Appleleaf are very happy together, because they have worked very hard at falling in love and in staying in love."
"But you and Harry always seem to be so natural together, like being in love was never hard work for you," Padma responded.
"Harry on the run, without me, for a year, was easy?" Ginny scoffed. "And then when he does come back and kills Riddle all these witches write to him and try to throw themselves at him. There was a reason I wanted to be engaged, be married, as soon as I could arrange it. I was terrified. Oh, Harry had all these noble reasons, but I was just terrified I was going to lose him.
"Then he goes into Auror training and has to leave for two weeks at a time. I almost lost it again. Harry and I both saw the mental healers then.
"Then when I was at the Harpies it was my fault that I could not spend much time with Harry, or with Teddy.
"A good marriage is hard work. It is worth every minute of it, but it is hard work, Padma, Anthony."
"I would never want to be married to someone else, but something seems to be missing," Padma lamented.
"Have you signed a betrothal contract?" Harry asked. "When are you going to get the spells that us Magi have to bless your marriage?"
"Merlin, it's taken us twenty years to get this far," Anthony stressed. "I'm not sure if we could stand arranging another big production."
"I'm sure Hermione could arrange something tonight, if she is free," Ginny exclaimed. She looked around the table, noticing that in between all the conversation the adults were mostly through with dinner. Minerva was finished. Ginny picked up her Magi Mobile and said, "Hermione."
"Hello Ginny," Hermione answered.
"Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patel are getting married, and we need a formal marriage contract and maybe a ceremony. Could you please do it for them," Ginny pleaded.
"Where are they?" Hermione asked.
"We are finishing up dinner here at the house," Ginny explained. "We mostly finished while we have been talking, but we do have dessert to serve. Where are you?"
"Right next door, working in my study. Ron is doing something at the store, but he is only a Floo away. Come over here in half an hour or so."
"Thank you, Hermione." Ginny put down her Magi Mobile. "We will be going over to Hermione's house in about half an hour. We have time to finish dinner, and time for me to escort Minerva to her bedroom. The Elves can see to getting her to bed, and I will kiss her goodnight when we get back."
"I will be good for the Elves, Mum," Minerva said.
The five Magi finished their simple dinner, including biscuits and coffee or tea for dessert (Minerva had milk) with just a little time to spare.
A little over half an hour later Harry and Ginny, Anthony and Padma, walked down from the main floor where the dining room was, to the ground floor where the kitchen was, through the Closet that was shared between the two houses, and in into Ron and Hermone's house. They entered the kitchen, went up to the main floor with a living and dining room. The first floor was mostly a library, the second and third floors were bedrooms, and the fourth floor was an enormous, book-filled office for Hermione, with a modest section for Ron as well.
"You do a lot of stair climbing in these houses," Padma remarked, looking around. Most of the office was neatly organized, with a fascinating mix of magical and Muggle technology. One corner was obviously for Ron, with a similar mix of Muggle and obviously magical or old fashion appearance, but nowhere near as neat. Later, when she reflected on it, Padma decided that someone other than Hermione must have decorated some of the rooms of the house, but the office was pure Hermione, very practical without a whole lot of what you might call decorating.
"That's what living in a town house is like," Hermione confirmed. "Lots of stairs. You are not getting married in a Magi ceremony, Anthony, Padma?"
"We are having a Jewish ceremony, because my parents and I are Jewish, and then a Hindu ceremony, because Padma's parents are Hindu. I'm not sure we have time to fit in still another ceremony."
Hermione assured the couple, "I think we can do something tonight." She took out her wand, and said, "Magi-Google Jewish Weddings of Magi."
Three books flew to Hermione's desk and opened to reveal articles about Jewish weddings and Magi. She explained, "The secure Wizards World Wide Web is pretty thin on specifics yet, so I invented a book type search engine to find things." Hermione looked up Hindu weddings of Magi the same way.
"All you need is a formal marriage contract, and a brief ceremony," Hermione explained. "You need someone authorized to perform the ceremony, but as Assistant Minister of Magic I have the authority to witness weddings and have."
Documents were duly filled out and signed, with Harry and Ginny as witnesses. Hermione said a spell, and sparks flew around the couple. The Harry and Ginny did a binding spell, and another one for safe pregnancies, and children. Hermione and Ron did a spell as well.
"You need to do one more thing to seal the marriage," Hermione told the couple. "You really ought to have sex within twenty-four hours."
"Is sex better once you are engaged?" Padma asked.
Hermione looked at Ron, who shrugged his shoulders. "I do not remember sex being any different," she reflected. "After sex it was really good to know that this was a till death do us part thing.
"Ron and I were intimate before we became formally engaged. The formal engagement, the contract, that really did make a difference. In the law of the Magi in most countries the formal contract is more important than the ceremony.
"The weddings were important because they were a public expression of our lifetime commitment, but the formal contract was really in many ways the most important thing."
Anthony and Padma took their copies of the wedding contract home and proceeded to consummate their marriage.
A week later Anthony and Padma came into Harry's office.
Harry started with, "Mary Lou said you needed to talk to me about scheduling."
Padma said, "I understand that you will have enough help by June. I would like to be part time from then until about a month before the baby is born."
"Do you know when you want to come back?" Harry asked.
Padma looked at Anthony, and they said to each other, "You start."
Padma whispered, "I'm not sure we want to come back. I'm tired of working with bad people."
Anthony then continued, "The formal marriage did way more than we expected it to at first. Not about sex, exactly, although it has been really good. We have been talking about our futures, about money, about what we wanted to do with our lives, in a way we never did, maybe never could, before."
Padma explained, "Both of us have had ancestors who lived to one hundred and forty or even one hundred and fifty. So we are young for Magi, for witches and wizards.
"We always treated the apartment as a temporary place. The bedrooms are small, as are all the other rooms. It has not cost a lot to live there. We mostly ate at home, and although we did go out it was seldom to a place that was really expensive."
Anthony agreed, "We could easily have lived on the salary of one Auror. We both saved more money than we spent. When we went to Gringotts to give each other access to our vaults we found that because of the magical marriage we only had one vault, and all the gold is shared. We now have twenty times the yearly salary of one Auror saved. Half that amount will buy us a modest house."
Padma swooned, "I would love a little house, with a garden.
"To be honest about it, neither Anthony or I really wanted to become Aurors; we did it because you, and the Ministry, needed us to. So, we asked each other what we wanted to be when we grew up, what we wanted now.
"Harry, I don't know. I think I would like to take a few years off to be a mother to our children. I think maybe I want more than one, but not as many as you and Ginny are having. After they are at Hogwarts I just do not know."
Anthony explained, "My family has a business that makes household goods, mostly for the kitchen. A great-grandfather, a grandmother, and an uncle are running the business. The uncle has two daughters who do not want to be in the business, and a son that no one wants in the business.
"When I graduated from Hogwarts there were two more generations, the oldest who resisted retiring even though he was old and crotchety. The business is ready for me now, and I would like to see if I like it."
"What does the business do?" Harry asked.
"We made household goods, mostly for the kitchen,' Anthony explained. "We are actually more and more charming Muggle things. We have non-burning frying pans, and knives that stay sharp unless someone too young holds it. You can set the age, and the knives magically become very dull.
"We have a lot of electrical appliances that we have charmed to work by magic. We even have a Ron Weasley Crackpot."
Harry almost lost his coffee at this remark. "You have a magical version of Hermione's crock pot?"
Anthony laughed. "Ron told us about it, and how good the meals were. Of course, Ron is not exactly a gourmet."
Padma was also laughing, and she let Harry know, "The one thing we have in abundance is kitchen appliances."
By the end of the meeting, they had retirement dates for both Padma and Anthony.
The next day Ginny received a call from Padma. "I do not know where we want to live," she explained. "You have family who live different places. I've just never had to think about it."
"I am free tomorrow morning," Ginny assured Padma, "as long as you do not mind Minerva coming along. Meet me at Grimmauld Place at half past eight."
The next morning Padma was at Grimmauld place, coming in through the kitchen Floo. Ginny took her outside, showing her the large garden areas behind the townhouses. Part of some of the garden areas were attached to the adjoining house, but much of the area was obviously meant to be shared.
Ginny waved her hands, pointing out all the houses visible from the garden area in back of twelve Grimmauld Place. "Magi have purchased the entire block, one to fifteen Grimmauld Place, and one to fifteen Newbright Street. All the gardens in the back are combined. Above the townhouses are two floors of Elves, and then rooftop gardens.
"A lot of the Aurors live in these townhouses, but probably not even a quarter are Aurors."
Ginny thought some more. "There are some Muggles living here, but they all have some connection to magic, usually with magic children."
"Is there a school around here?" Padma asked.
Ginny explained, "Several of the families here home school their children and run a co-op school. There are several three generation families, and even a couple of four generation families in the complex. The rest of the children are taught at the New Burrow property. Come over there with me."
They took the Floo to Potters New Burrow. Ginny walked out the front door and over to a short street. "This is the little subdivision of Ottery St. Catchpole that we have on the Potter property. My parents, Andromeda Tonks, Teddy and Victoria Lupin and their crew live in the New Burrow over there, plus a lot of Elves in the smaller fourth floor and attic. Mum still works teaching the little children, mostly pre-school now."
Padma had been to the New Burrow property when Harry had Aurors and their families over, but she had never paid much attention to the short street that went off from the main roadway. On either side of the street were modest homes, mostly two-story, none tiny but none exceptionally large.
Ginny pointed out, "That house belongs to the Appleleaf Family. Rosemary Appleleaf teaches some of the older children. Her foster son Tom and daughter Cinnamon are the Transfiguration Teachers at Hogwarts, so their children are educated there.
"That house belongs to Cindy Base Hudson and Henry Hudson. She is one of the women expecting because of Cleo. Her son Richard married my niece Molly Weasley, and they and their children live in what was an apartment for her Muggle parents. The parents were wounded by Death Eaters during the last war, and she took care of them until they died. Molly is working with her mother teaching the youngest children.
"That is the Prewett house. Fiona McGonagall Prewett was secretly married to my mother's brother Fabian before he was killed, and left England as soon as she knew she was pregnant. She lives with her son Patrick and his wife Mary Sue, who was a Harpie with me, and their three children."
The Prewett house was larger than some, with what Padma guessed was a mother-in-law apartment off to one side of the two story home.
Ginny went on to tell Padma who else lived in the little subdivision, and some of the other magical families not in the subdivision but nearby.
"Have you looked anywhere else, Padma?"
"We don't want to live in Hogsmeade, and we don't want to live in the city. Some of these houses are just what I have always dreamed of. A modest size house, four bedrooms upstairs, a nice downstairs, a little garden, a place for children to play, that's my dream, Ginny."
Within the week Anthony and Padma had contracted with Griffin and Grunt, the magical contractors, to build Padma's dream house for them and for the daughter, Priyanka Johanna Patil-Goldstein, they were expecting.
2022