Castles

by pebblysand

"To him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals." A canon-compliant, post-war tale.

15. out of glue (sharp edges)

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out of glue (sharp edges)

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So, right. Picture this.

Picture this and close your eyes on it. Picture this and make it real.

In his head, he falls in love with her. In his head, she is the girl of his dreams.

There is substantiated evidence for this. She is: beautiful, and kind, and soft, and they never fight. She listens to him, gives him options, respectfully waits until he makes decisions - never pushes. She has opinions, of course, and slowly, as time passes, she learns to express them, learns not to fear of everyone running away. They're a couple. They work on things. And, maybe, if the tale goes on for pages, in the spring and early summer of '99, without a single mention of her name, it is because life with her is simple, and doesn't need thousands of words to exist. She occupies a space like neither of them knows of loneliness, anymore, like dying isn't something he thinks of, anymore. So, right. Picture this.

The Boy Who Lived finishes the job in the summer of 1999. At the tender age of nineteen, he retires. Amicably, but firmly; he steps out for a while. Has always dreamed of it - going away (not coming back) but it's become more tangible lately, the reality of an actual possibility. In his head, Kingsley still becomes Minister; he just reforms at his own pace. Ron and Hermione miss him, of course, but the Channel isn't that wide. They come and visit, sometimes with Teddy at the holidays. It's not ideal (and it takes some time getting used to), but Harry is following his girlfriend. It is a Thing That Normal People Do. He is happy. Happy enough. Gets back to England for Christmas or Easter, or whenever he wants. And, ironically, Mr and Mrs Weasley love her. They like that she is calm and careful, and: 'She is a great girl for you, Harry.' She gives him love and peace of mind and stability. And, in this scenario, Ginny still plays professionally; her abilities were never in question, even in this alternate reality. Eventually, she gets better. Eventually, she marries another player; he is rich and kind to her. They live happily ever after.

Someday, Harry and the girl settle in a house somewhere in the country, that place with the waterlilies. They get married and have kids who speak French and English, like Bill and Fleur's will. She does her designs and sells her clothes and he lives off his parents' inheritance, takes the little ones out fishing at the weekends, or something. Maybe the kids are Muggles, and they don't have to deal with any of it.

So, right. Picture this. Picture this because it's important. Picture this because this is not only a story about love, it's also a story about choice. And, choices - well, they only ever really exist within the realm of their alternatives.

So, the real love story - it goes like this.

The truth is: Ginny isn't some sort of evil mastermind, in May and June of 1999. She doesn't lie, or manipulate, or (as the press sometimes insinuates) keep Harry locked up in the basement of Grimmauld Place. What happens, that year, is much less dramatic. She's just - herself. Pursues him the same way she did in Hogwarts because what worked once might work twice, and Hermione is incredibly smart. Ginny calls him out, but she also makes him laugh in equal amounts and slowly, he finds that wherever she is, is where he wants to be. There is something so very appealing about being sought after, wanted, especially by someone he used to think didn't love him back. 'That leaves me six weeks to change your mind,' she says, like a challenge accepted. Like: I do want you, I was wrong, let me show you. In the other girl, there is the calm and the post-war quietness he so desperately needed, last year. But, in Ginny, there is motivation and intent, and courage, and the wilderness of Fred and George and fireworks and barricades. A spark. Magic, really.

So, maybe that's what happens. Maybe, it's also magic he falls back in love with.

They see each other five times, over those two months. It might not seem like a lot, but it's more than they've seen each other this whole year. To be fully precise, it is: five times, plus one where they almost do, but don't - apparently, that's a thing with love stories. The fact of the matter is that Ginny keeps writing to him. And, he keeps writing to her, too. As the days get longer, especially in Scotland; she reminds him of evenings spent on the grounds, laughing, neverending. She reminds him of the colour of the sky, the milk in the night, faded baby blues at the edge of the horizon, facing south. In London, it rains for days, like an avalanche, then it is too hot. Spring is stable in its inconsistency like pieces of wood glued together, sharp edges and angles and imperfections.

In the Muggle world, that time of year, the news cycle is engulfed by something they call 'Y2K'. Come 2000, all the Muggle technology will supposedly cease to function, causing nothing short of an apocalypse. As far as Harry is concerned, they've lived through a bunch of apocalypses already, so what's another one? Even his Muggle girlfriend doesn't seem to care much - it's not like her survival still depends on the well-being of computers. Dean seems to be the only one who truly cares after falling headfirst into using his parents' computer to draw and design flyers for C.A.S.H.C.O.W. He prepares them, then prints them, then adds magic - to the exact lines and figures he wants, like a Muggle/Wizard hybrid. I have to say, I've never seen anything like it, Ginny says, sometime in June. Harry knows it is a stupid thing to get annoyed at, like this is Sixth Year and he is watching them snogging on leather booths of the Three Broomsticks again. We have people writing to us just to ask how he does it! It's kind of cool 'cause then we can convince them to donate, haha. I hope the Muggles fix the whole thing.

The works on Grimmauld Place officially have officially come to an end, as of the third weekend of May. The last room to get done was Opal's (Regulus's) and Harry can't deny the relief he feels when he sees the last buckets of paint finally disappear into storage, and the dust being magicked away. The place still has its quirks, of course: there is a door on the fourth floor that won't open (Ron has suggested a troll might have died and decomposed in there, which is why they've decided to leave it alone) and the attic is still full of Kreacher's things. Mrs Black's portrait, the heads of what Harry supposes were his dead relatives - Hermione insisted he needed to have a space to himself. The only other room they've left untouched is Sirius's; Harry reckons he might do it himself - someday. Kreacher insists on clean sheets, tidying and freshening the place every day with a dedication Harry's godfather himself probably never had. Neville and Luna are planning to move in permanently after they graduate from Hogwarts; this might require a small reshuffle of rooms, but otherwise, the paint is dry, the furniture assembled, and the pureblood decor is gone.

Like they've all cleaned the war out.

Kreacher still has a chat with his old mistress every day, though. Harry pretends he doesn't know, Hermione pretends she doesn't care, and Ron says that elf's just barmy, anyways. To be honest, reining in the habit isn't something Harry feels needs to get done with any particular kind urgency. It's not hurting anybody and Kreacher has been happy, lately. Happier than he was in Hogwarts, far from what his home has always been. He has people to serve who don't mistreat him, and in light of the fact that they've completely overhauled his beloved Noble and Whatever House of Black, Harry considers the response a proportionate one.

Hermione is still regularly nudging him to free the elf, conversations he's so far tried to avoid as much as humanly possible. Primarily because he gets the feeling that this student hall sort of situation does need a housekeeper of some kind to function, lest they all quickly descend into a much filthier environment than anyone is truly comfortable with. Also, because, while he could, of course, free Kreacher and continue to employ him in his current capacity in exchange for payment, Kreacher has come to know a lot about Harry himself, his friends, the way they live, and the things they say. Freeing the elf would mean taking a sizable risk with their collective privacy. Hermione has repeatedly argued Kreacher 'loves' them now, and would never do that, but the look Ron discreetly threw him on those occasions was enough to convince Harry that his doubts were at least somewhat justified. Especially in a scenario where Kreacher might interpret his newfound freedom as him being sacked and insulted. When Harry asked around earlier this year, he was told the life expectancy of house elves is around three-hundred years, and although the elf won't admit it, he reckons, after investigating the matter with more cooperative portraits around the house, that Kreacher is at least two-hundred-and-fifty. At this stage, he wonders if the kindest and safest option isn't to simply let him be.

In the wizarding world, the news cycle mostly revolves around Alecto Carrow, that spring. It was to be expected. Her sentencing is spinned by the Ministry to an unparalleled degree of perfection: she ultimately chose the cowardly way out, refusing to face her victims or anyone else, and agreed to a plea bargain. Everyone falls for it, because it is typical and believable, and it's not like she is going to contradict them, laying quasi-brain-dead in a prison cell. Harry makes a declaration to back Kingsley, says that if they are to believe in justice and freedom and all of the Right Things, they also ought to believe in free will, and cannot ethically force defendants into trials they don't want. It is the kind of moral compromise that keeps him up at night. Ginny says is less conflicted - when it's us or them, I prefer it to be us, she says. In reaction to the Ministry's decision, Xenophilius Lovegood (who has been trying to buy out his guilt since the end of the war), runs a series of portraits in The Quibbler, interviewing those who would have liked to testify at trial. It's a weak fix, but it is some sort of recognition of her victims, and Harry didn't even have to ask. A few days in, Seamus Finnigan gives one of the most brutally poignant accounts of the war in Hogwarts Harry has read since Ginny's letters, and when the article comes out, he and Dean are whispering, hands close but not touching, in the living room. 'Aren't you worried your parents will read it?' Dean asks.

Seamus shrugs.

Luna, though, claims that Alecto Carrow was silenced. No one has heard from or seen her since the decision was announced - and even Ministry workers don't seem to know where she is being held. Michael Corner laughs, along with Justin, who shakes his head and says: 'Nah, she's just a coward, like the whole lot of them.' Luna says Alecto Carrow knows Kingsley is a Muggle, that this is why the Ministry made her disappear. Both Dean and Seamus turn around sharply at this revelation, as well as Ron, Neville, and Hannah Abbott. 'He doesn't want it known, obviously, it would be quite the scandal, people would think he is not fit to govern. But, I think he's a good Minister. I told Daddy that Alecto Carrow is a very evil person, and that Kingsley is doing great, so we agreed to bury the story.'

Ron laughs so hard he almost chokes, the announcement leaving the whole room in stitches, a very welcome distraction as Harry quietly escapes to the bathroom to vomit. Afterwards, he sits on the cold, tiled floor for a while, not wanting to get up, or look in the mirror. Hannah finally alohomora-s the door, says nothing and sits next to him. She signed her immunity agreement the very moment he brought it to her, explained everything. 'Of course,' she said. He handed her the bottle of ink Kingsley had sent him to sign, the magically binding one. She didn't even read any of it. 'That's not even a question.'

She is silent for a minute, that day, maybe two, until she closes her eyes against the bright lights. 'This too shall pass,' she tells him, then, like his conscience is a plant that needs time to acclimate, and he hopes to God and everything that she is right.

Kingsley's campaign also picks up, later that month. And, between work, the preparations for Ron and Hermione's wedding, and the events, interviews, and fucking cocktail parties he is now forced to attend, Harry's – busy. There are: hand shakes and 'how are you's, and, 'of course, I would love to take a picture's; being a performer in a circus is distracting but it also does wonders to keep his mind off things. It's like you're yourself, but also not, he tells Ginny because with the words he has, it's the only way he can think to describe it. His general attitude is that sacrifices must be made for The Cause and the Minister of Magic is amused. Like: the kid who killed the darkest wizard of all time - he is almost more annoyed with having to respond to questions from the Daily Prophet than with being on the receiving end of a killing curse. Figures.

With regards to Ron and Hermione, Harry's told them everything he could tell them about his deal with the Ministry. They know he traded his help in Kingsley's campaign for full immunity and something that made Alecto Carrow go away. Hermione's prodded him with questions he didn't particularly like, enquiries Ron's tried his best to contain. Harry thinks Ron knows. Or, at least, knows he would rather not know. Hermione wants to convince herself she does.

She reminds him he can tell them anything. He says: 'Yeah, sure,' and leaves it at that. 'Are you sleeping with Ginny again?' she asks him one morning, point blank, because this is not about Alecto Carrow anymore, it's about information. Hermione likes information. Information is safe and comfortable and the world isn't as fucked up and scary with information on hand.

'Nope.'

She seems to study his face. Can tell when he's lying, but can also tell when he's telling the truth. 'Well, she's still sneaking out, you know?' she sighs. 'Our N.E.W.T.s start in a month.'

'What do you want me to do?' he snaps a little. 'I'm not married to her.'

Hermione rolls her eyes.

The fact of the matter is that a bit like Kreacher's, Ginny's habits are not ones Harry feels should particularly try to rein in anymore. First, because whatever she does, she avoids the papers, thus reducing the harm done to others. Second, because as far as he knows, she isn't hurting herself, or even fucking around, anymore. I think you had a point, she told him, a couple of days after they got back from the memorial. After he hugged her goodbye as they left and she whispered in his ear: 'Thank you,' and 'I love you,' and the words sounded like he felt, not exactly like romance but more like: if there was only one person who could survive an apocalypse, I'd want it to be you. He felt her body close and held tighter. Well, kind of, she added in her letter. I think it did make me happy for a while. I just don't think it does anymore.

So, these days, when she goes out, she flies. All night. Leaves for hours at a time, even flew over the Shetlands once, hundreds of miles into the sea. Do you think I could push up to the Faroe Islands? she asks. He tells her that sounds positively insane. I think they already have midnight suns there, this time of year.

Gin, that's three hundred miles over the North Atlantic.

So?

He puffs out a laugh, shakes his head with a smile on his face. She sends him a postcard the next day.

When it comes to his own immunity agreement, he asked Hermione to read it before signing it. It was a whole lot of legalese, a long list of events and functions he agrees to attend on behalf of the Ministry, a confidentiality clause preventing him from ever telling anyone about the agreement itself, and this:

The Undersigned agrees that he or she will not commence, maintain, initiate, or prosecute, or cause, encourage, assist, volunteer, advise or cooperate with any other Person to commence, maintain, initiate or prosecute, any action, lawsuit, proceeding, charge, petition, complaint or claim before any court, agency or tribunal against the Ministry of Magic or any Persons ever employed by the Ministry of Magic arising from, concerned with, or otherwise relating to, in whole or in part, any of the matters discharged and released in this Agreement.

'That wasn't in ours,' she observed the following weekend. They were at the wedding shop again; she had to go in to see if the dress adjustments fit. She's been back at his a few times to phone her parents - they've had warmer conversations, but they've yet to RSVP. Hermione held her hair up that day and looked at herself in the mirror, the tulle of the fabric a halo around her feet. He likes the relationship he has with her and Ron, these days. They seem to have finally eased into whatever this new dynamic is. Like: they are best friends and kids and siblings and grown-ups all at once, but like they are also each allowed separate lives. It's taken time to comprehend that their survival doesn't depend on them telling each other everything anymore.

'That you can't sue them,' she added, then. 'For anything the Ministry did to you. Seems Kingsley's learnt a few tricks. Covers September 1995 to September 1998,' she paused. Caught his gaze. 'Ginny said hers was only last year.' Her tone was fake sort of matter-of-fact. Harry didn't say anything. 'So, I suppose they want yours to include Umbridge, too.'

He wanted to laugh. He kind of wanted to cry, too. What could they possibly give him? To make up for the scars on his body, the fear in his stomach, his anger, and his love, and the dead and the things he's lost. 'I don't need more money, Hermione.'

There were tears in her eyes. 'You won't ever get -'

What everyone else got, he knows. Trials and testimonies and if not justice itself, at least a chance at it. He smiles and shook his head again, got up to stand next to her. She was wearing heels - taller than she usually is. 'I don't care. It's over,' he told her. There was something tender, almost motherly in her gaze, like it was the two of them in a forest again and she was reluctant to let him sacrifice himself. 'Come on, you've got to test this dress,' he forced a grin. 'Dance with me.'

When the salesperson re-entred the room, Hermione was laughing against his shoulder as they swayed together and from the look on the woman's face, she definitely thought they were fucking. It made him laugh like nothing had ever mattered less.

Later, though, he warned Ginny: You might need the money.

I know, Hermione said. I do, but honestly I don't want theirs.

So, for them, that's how the war truly ended. With a settlement agreement on a rainy Sunday afternoon, with his full name and the day's date scribbled in magical ink at the bottom. There will be no ceremony to commemorate that particular brand of fucked-up, but neither of them really mind.

The first time he sees Ginny, that month, he's annoyed with her, actually. It's stupid. Dean and the others have decided to organise a party at the house to celebrate the end of the reno, lift everybody's spirits after the trials and the memorial before N.E.W.T.s revisions begin to truly take over people's lives. The date is set for the 12th of June, a few weeks from now, and as far as Harry knows, they've invited most of Seventh Years, as well as colleagues from the Auror office, some of Hannah's friends from Hogwarts, the D.A. and their friends, boyfriends and girlfriends and siblings.

So: he invites her, obviously. Reckons they've seen each other now, so that particular plaster's been ripped, and it doesn't make sense for literally everyone she knows to be in a place she isn't. It's on a Saturday, he tells her in a letter. I reckon we'll just keep the Floo open from the Gryffindor Common Room. Considering the amount of Aurors in attendance, he's not particularly worried about security. I don't mind if people bring their friends, he says. I just don't want the press to get in. Or weirdos.

The reply she sends the next morning is what starts everything. I don't think that's a good idea, she says and with that, the party becomes the time they could have seen each other, but didn't.

He frowns. Keeping the Floo open, you mean?

No. I mean me coming.

Initially, he's taken aback. No, scratch that: he is Fucking Annoyed. Feels like she is doing this rollercoaster thing again: love me, love me not, let me tell you I love you, want to change your mind, but really not. Months ago, he would have felt aggravated and hurt (and, maybe he does, still, a bit) but these days, he's just over it. Thought their conversation at the memorial had helped things move forwards, not backwards. Like: what the fuck? He tells her he's thinking of leaving the country, she tells him she loves him and will fight to get him back, then the moment he gives her the opportunity for them to actually see each other - talk - she backs out. Okay, fine, he answers, and in turn, she must sense the tension in his words because she doesn't write for days.

That is of course until the following Friday, when Harry exits his building to go for a run at 5 AM, and she is there. Like: right there. Standing on the pavement in the fragile morning light that's fighting to filter through the clouds. She is in trainers and Gryffindor shorts and a running jacket. He hasn't spoken to her all week. 'I'm not avoiding you,' is the first thing she says.

He looks up, quick, at the window of his flat, and she follows his gaze like she knows exactly what he is looking out for, but makes no further comment. He glances at her next and feels like he has to physically tear his eyes away from staring at her bare legs. Her jacket is fitted around her hips and her breasts - there is a part of his brain that just wants to take it off, begging to be acknowledged.

'Okay,' he says.

They run for over an hour, that day. He takes her through his usual route, down to the river banks and up Westminster, then through Hyde Park up to Kensington Gardens. They don't talk much, partly because he's not quite sure what to say and hasn't fully gauged the situation yet, and partly because she does this really annoying thing where, whenever he slows down a bit she picks up the pace, and like yeah, okay, of course this isn't a competition but he's fucking competitive anyway. By the time they finally stop, sit on a bench in the park by the side of a gravel footpath and watch a couple of birds fight over a piece of bread, the air is warmer and the leaves are green in the trees around them; it is spring again and he is fucking dead. She passes him her water bottle because he forgot to pack one and he aguamenti-s it like three times, struggling to catch his breath.

'Fuck, you're fit,' he chokes out, his brain clearly lacking the oxygen necessary for it to function fully. The words file out of his mouth and she bursts out a laugh. He pretends to roll his eyes, realising what he's just said (well, yeah,she's fit but also fit like that, too, not gonna lie), but he also smiles. God, he's really missed her laugh, these past few months.

She nudges his shoulder, grinning. 'Well, I hope that eased your concerns about my Quidditch tryouts?'

There, he actually rolls his eyes.

Here's the thing: she is scheduled to tryout with almost half a dozen teams, from now until mid-June. She's already had one (Puddlemere - for a Seeker position, so not really what she wants but as he'd anticipated, it was a good trial run), and so far, Harry's got to admit that he's felt as nervous and invested in the whole enterprise as if he, himself, was the one flying. Or, actually, maybe more. He couldn't sleep the night before, sent her three letters in one day with cut outs of technical articles he'd read in Quidditch Daily and became pretty sure he was going insane, waiting for her to write about how it went. She did well, per her own assessment, and quickly thanked him for his input before relentlessly taking the piss ever since. No, no, it's cute you care this much, I swear. Fucking pathetic, he is.

This being said, there is a playfulness in her chocolate-brown eyes when he crosses her gaze now; she smiles. 'I think you just miss playing,' she tells him.

He sighs, nods. Because: of course, he never wanted to play pro, but it doesn't mean that for years, Quidditch wasn't his favourite escape and these days, the running and the Auror gym barely scratch the surface. When she tells him about the Shetlands, his first thought is how much he wishes he could come with her and yeah, maybe there is a part of him that is living vicariously through her - a little bit. There is an internal Ministry League, he explains, that morning, but the sign-ups are in January, so he's got to wait another seven or eight months to get to those. He sighs at the thought.

'You didn't sign up this year?' she asks distractedly, her fingers toying with the cap of her water bottle.

He gives her a quick glare. 'Yeah, strangely enough, I had other things to think about last January.'

'Oh,' she acknowledges. 'Sorry.'

In the end, they sit there for a while, that morning. The sun rises and gets warmer against their faces, she opens her jacket to reveal a white T underneath. Harry wonders if he should tell her to Appparate back to Scotland before her classes start, but it'd be a bit rich of him to pretend to care about Hogwarts discipline. Plus, it's nice being here, next to her. They chat about everything and nothing, the weather or something, until she finally tells him: 'I just don't think it's a good idea for me to attend parties, at the moment.'

He frowns. Studies her face. There is something in her eyes he can't quite identify. Her fingers are fiddling again, with the hem of her shorts. 'It's just a bunch of friends, Gin,' he counters. She shakes her head, won't look at him until suddenly, she is staring straight into his eyes and she is the only person on planet Earth.

'And, friends of friends,' she confirms. Her smile isn't bright. 'And, people I might have slept with.' (Oh.) 'And, it's not even that,' she adds, quick. 'I don't feel bad about that, it's just - I don't want to get in a mood and do things I regret.'

He holds her gaze, challenges. Tries not to think about who on the list of invitees she might have slept with. It's a thought, but not a good one, and he's adult enough by now to know it'll just send him spiralling. 'Like what?' he asks, instead.

'Like trying to sleep with you when you're not mine yet.'

Her bluntness sucks the air out of his lungs, that morning. Whatever he thought she was going to say, it wasn't that. When he looks back, her gaze on his is daring, curious, and he is quiet for a bit, pondering his next words. 'You could have said that in a letter,' he settles on. His voice is neutral. It's not a reproach just - an observation. She nods.

'Maybe.' Pauses, glances down again. Their trainers in the dirt of the footpath. 'There's something about saying it out loud though. Like that stuff you said at the memorial I can't get out of my head.' His heart is trying to get out of his chest again. 'You know the sky's blue, right?' He nods, frowning. Can't quite tell where this is going. 'And, you know it's blue because you've seen it like this for a while. So what if someone barged in tomorrow and told you it's actually green. What would you think, then?'

Harry looks at her, that morning, and thinks he is not a writer. Thinks he fucking hates metaphors. 'Like me telling you he raped you?' he asks. 'That what you mean?'

The words come out of his mouth, she turns away, her high ponytail flicking to the side with the suddenness of the movement. He isn't surprised. She's not wrong: when you think about it, there's something about saying words out loud. He expects her to leave, but she doesn't. Just looks straight ahead at the plane trees. Her voice is low when she says: 'I'm just trying to keep my head above water, you know?'

He sighs, nods. 'Trust me, that, I know.' He's been there before. More times than he can count.

So, all things considered, although he probably shouldn't, that morning, he puts his arm around her. Puts it around her and pulls her close, until her head rests on his and she isn't looking directly at him anymore, but it doesn't matter. He can feel her, the heat of her body against his shoulder, and he never wants her to disappear ever again. They're going to get through this, he thinks. They're going to be happy, eventually.

It takes her a long time to speak again, that morning. When she does, she pulls away just a bit, just so that she can cross his gaze again. 'You looked up at the window earlier to make sure Mia wouldn't see us together,' she simply states in a whisper.

Just like that, it's his turn to look away. He sighs and nods and admits. 'Yeah.'

To tell the truth, actually, ironically, over May and June 1999, he and Mia spend some of the best months they've ever spent together. She seems relieved, having told him her truth and put the ball in his court. On her end, she hasn't rescinded her offer for him but also hasn't brought it up again either, like it's his decision, not hers. For him, of course, that's only made everything harder, and in a strange turn of events, he's become the one who lies to protect her. Because he loves her. Because she loves him and he never ever meant to hurt her. And, right now, there are things that are starting to stare at him in the face in a way that makes him want to look away. Like: the way his heart races whenever Ginny is closeby. The way he now smiles every time Christopher gets back from Hogwarts. The way sex isn't the only thing he dreams of, when he shuts his eyes at night and thinks about her. In his head, they lay in the sun and talk for hours on end, and they kiss and they laugh and she drives him nuts sometimes, but he wishes he could be around her all the time. He wants to know everything - every little thing about her. The good, the bad, the ugly. The way she and her brothers used to run circles around Molly when they were little. The day she broke open the chickens because she thought they deserved to be free and fly away. The day her cat got into a fight with another car and the animal Healer cast a green spell so that the poor thing wouldn't feel pain anymore, and they never had cats again after that. The way Amycus once put something in her tea, too, not because he couldn't have her otherwise, but because he wanted her to wake up naked in her bed knowing he'd done things to her she couldn't remember. He wants her, the whole package, everything.

Of course, he's not going to tell Mia any of that.

So, instead, he spends time with her. She revises for her exams when he's at work. They laze about in bed at the weekends, sometimes go for a walk up in Camden. They do the markets, she buys clothes and fabrics from the charity shops and they stroll down the locks. There are bars and laughs, pink and yellow neon lights - they even fuck in a pub toilet, once. It's a bit stupid and a bit reckless and definitely not his best performance but they giggle like teenagers and it's fun, anyway.

One afternoon, they are in bed, in her flat for once, and she is wearing a t-shirt that, at some point in History, must have been Dudley's. It is grey with a faded design at the front, worn at the collar and at the seams and Harry confesses some of the things. 'I saw Ginny the other day,' he says. 'We went jogging.'

He hates himself for it. For telling her, not telling her; Mia shakes her head and laughs something bitter, rolls over. Dudley's old shirt reveals a hint of her pants underneath. She stands to go to the bathroom. 'Right,' she just says. 'Okay.'He sees the hurt in her look and catches her wrist before she can escape. Gently nudges her to turn back, face him. He wants to keep her close, tell her he is thinking about Paris, tell her he doesn't want this to end, either, tell her - 'Don't be like that, please.'

She shakes her head. Smiles sad. 'Like what? Like I'm jealous?'

He sighs and mutters apologies he does mean, though they never feel like enough, because it's not that he saw Ginny that's the issue, it's the fact that he knows he should lie about it, now, and he tugs gently at her wrist, because he doesn't know what else to say. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Mia lets herself fall back in bed with him. She kisses him, then, kisses the line of his jaw and the skin of his neck like she is staking a claim, leaving love bites like: mine! He feels his heart race againt his ribcage and it occurs to him that just a few weeks ago, she might have also kissed his lips, trying to say this.

Andromeda and Teddy come to visit him at Grimmauld Place about a week later. It is almost June, by then, and the weather is warmer, nicer. Harry is strangely nervous about showing Andromeda the finished works - this is the House of Black and perhaps a little bit hers, too. He also saw Ginny again over the weekend (time #2) but with absolutely nothing to report apart from the fact that it was her father's birthday. They saw each other, literally, but not much else. She came for roast, the house filled with so many people they couldn't get more than a minute alone and the only thing Harry remembers from the whole afternoon was the way her look felt like it was cemented onto him the whole time. She had this air of mischief about her that warmed something deep inside his stomach and when Hermione said: 'Come on, Ginny, we need to head back and study,' he didn't even bother trying to hide the glare he threw her. With a look, his best friend dared him to say something, which he didn't, before Molly asked, oblivious as she re-entered the kitchen: 'Oh, Andromeda, have you seen Grimmauld Place, yet?'

Which - well, here they are, now, he supposes.

That morning, Teddy eyes the potted plants the Hufflepuffs have placed in a row against the windowsill with childish curiosity - they take in the near-summer sun and fill the room with scents. Herbs, mostly, nothing magical - just parsley and mint, and thyme - Teddy generally likes to reach for them whenever he is here, holds the leaves tight in his palm, macerating, before showing them to Harry. The little one looks and smells, and tastes, even when Kreacher insists in the background that the plants are beneath the standards of the house. Gardening is not for Blacks, he says, but for peasants who can't afford to buy these things at the market, certainly not for the masters to touch with their bare hands. Harry is about to open his mouth to say - something, he's not sure - when Andromeda calmly interrupts: 'Kreacher, will you go clean the bathroom? I'd like to give Ted a bath before we leave.'

The elf's big eyes find hers from across the room. The standing rule Harry's had in place for months is that Kreacher must obey all those who live in the house as though they were him, but Andromeda does not live here and for a moment, Kreacher pauses like a Muggle computer, endlessly roaming. Andromeda does not look away, Teddy still bouncing in Harry's lap, until Kreacher finally sighs and Disapparates. Harry sends her a curious look.

'He will always obey blood,' she says.

They talk about the elections, that day. The table in front of them is full of leaflets for Wizards for Change, the wizarding world's first official political party. Created by Kingsley in the wake of the memorial (Kingsley is still surfing the wave of his regained popularity, following his public reconciliation with Harry) the enterprise has undoubtedly ruffled some feathers, lately. Forget the one-on-one back-room alliances of the Wizengamot; the interim Minister and his candidates are now running for election with an actual programme, detailed and spelled out on papers to be handed out by his recruits on Diagon Alley. He's given interviews on the wireless, and managed to pass a bill through the Chamber bringing the number of geographically elected seats to twenty, making a third of the Wizengamot democratically elected. Additionally, five members from the Sacred Twenty-Eight families have agreed to surrender their seats to the people's will (including Kingsley himself) and the Ministry further commandeered the Gaunt, Crouch, Lestrange and Malfoy seats due to a lack of occupancy.

In total, this has brought the overall number of elected seats to 29 - better than ten, but still too few to grant Kingsley his much needed 31-seat majority through a popular vote, even assuming all-around win that Wizards for Change, in all of their circumscriptions. Mrs Weasley (who, like the rest of them, seems to have reluctantly come to the conclusion that supporting Kingsley is the lesser of two evils), has half-heartedly tried to convince Muriel to let go of her precious Prewett seat to no avail meaning that now, on top of the rest of the wizarding world, Harry has to suck up to her, too. One weekend, the woman has the audacity to tell him she thinks Kingsley is too brutal in his reforms compared to 'the lovely Mr Booth,' who, from what Harry has seen, is basically Fudge, 2.0. This causes Ron to quip: 'Maybe we could argue she's gone senile, then I think Mum would get her seat,' but Harry can't imagine bringing on yet another legal battle, after months spent in courtrooms. Plus, given the frostiness these past few months, he's not even entirely sure Molly would indeed vote for Kingsley when push came to shove, so it's probably better to leave the woman in.

Andromeda's face is now on posters in Diagon Alley. She is running for a seat representing the South-East against a bloke who used to work for the Department of Mysteries. On all of the official comms she's shown Harry, her name is hyphenated. 'Kingsley thought it'd be better - appeal to both sides,' she explains. Harry says nothing, always secretly baffled by the Slytherins' ability to compromise. 'I can't decide which one should go first. What do you think?'

Harry stares at the two quasi-identical posters for a moment, confused as to why she would even ask him. Andromeda Black-Tonks the one on the right reads, or: Andromeda Tonks-Black. Soon, he's read them so many times the words are a mush in his head. 'I can ask Hermione,' he settles.

It makes her laugh.

A couple days later, on the 26th of May, Ginny dramatically announces she epically failed her tryouts with the Magpies. Reading her letter, Harry can't tell if it was that bad, or if she just considers it a mediocre performance. It was her first tryout as Chaser so regardless, it is a bit of a bummer. She missed goals, she claims, and took a Bludger to the side - decided not to say anything in the hopes it wouldn't be noticed, had to play another two hours with three broken ribs. Madam Pomfrey was apparently livid when she got back to Hogwarts, and Harry sends her an entire paragraph full of concern and why-would-you-take-that-risk, to which she responds: You got hit in the face by your own beater, I don't think you're in a position to lecture me. It annoys him and he doesn't respond for a while.

The Tornados go better, though. Harry knows this for a fact, because he is there. It is the third time he sees her, that May, though he doesn't exactly tell her. And, is him showing up to check she is alright an overreaction to the aforementioned incident? Probably. Does he take a day off work to go anyway? Obviously, yeah. Of course, it's an impulsive move, probably a bit stupid, but he does have the foresight not to show up as himself, lest his presence attracts another press mob, on top of everything else. Instead, he sneaks into the stadium under the Cloak, then sits in one of the back rows, with blue eyes, blond hair and a heavy, fake beard, so that no one will bother him. He just wants to be there, you see? Wants to see her play. Plus, he hasn't been to a game in what feels like half a century.

She flies well, that day. Like: really well. Like: he's not seen her fly since last Christmas when he was already finding it hard to keep up but now, objectively, he couldn't. Not only because he's not flown in six months but also, there is an ease to her movements like she almost becomes one with her broom, a dancer in the sky. She controls a dive over a hundred feet like the height is nothing but air and frankly, Harry can't take his eyes off her. She has this - aura (charisma, maybe?) - on the field; he's not seen it since that game at the World Cup. She plays ferocious, like her revenge on the Magpies and the world at large, nicks the Quaffle right from under the other Chaser's nose more than once. When she races the whole length of the pitch with the ball in her arms at a speed he's never seen anyone play before, Harry is on the edge of his seat, a hand anxiously draped over his mouth. It's a good thing he didn't just rely on the Cloak to stay hidden, he thinks, he wouldn't have managed to sit still under it.

It's not just him, though. He is positive that most of the coaches and recruiters on the Tornados staff, all the way down in the first rows of the stands, can't keep their eyes off her either. In the morning, they let all the candidates fly alone, one after the other. They are instructed to race, then score into a single moving hoop, flying around the stadium at record speed. Fifteen minutes to prove their worth, each. Ginny is last to compete, her last name a bit of a curse and after lunch, the ones who've made it to the second round are put into teams, test them in real-game conditions. Ginny still misses a couple of shots, but less than any of the others. He cringes, at one point, when she almost gets hit by a Bludger (again), can't tell if she meant to dodge this last minute, or if it was just a very close call. He rolls his eyes. They play for about an hour before everyone gets sent home, bar for two of the three Seekers they have left.

Harry agrees. The one who caught the Snitch during the game is actually the weakest. He caught it by chance, right in front of him. They need to see what the other two can do.

And, it's stupid. He is so invested in this, his gaze following the players around the pitch, that he doesn't even notice her approaching until she is sitting right next to him.

'You didn't have to come,' she tells him.

He jumps up in surprise like he's not gone through ten months of rigorous Auror training and supposedly has eyes in the back of his head; it makes her laugh. In front of them, they've just released the Snitch; he steals a quick glance in her direction. She is still in her Quidditch gear, smiling. 'You know, the Prophet's right,' she adds. 'Auror training did do you good. You look like the posh pureblood boy Muriel surely wishes I was dating.'

He groans. Did what he could with changing his appearance. It's not like his own impulsivity in coming here gave him much notice. She is cracking jokes, though. Probably not that mad he showed up in the first place. That's a good thing. 'I don't know what you're talking about,' he says, in character. She just snorts.

'So,' she insists, shifting. 'Since you're here. What did you think - honestly?'

Of course, he tells her. Drops the act eventually, relaxes next to her and smiles; still distantly eyeing the Seekers play, they go through her entire performance, 'I think you were the best,' he says. She opens her mouth, he interrupts, an incredulous look on his face. 'Honestly.' It seems to calm her nerves, eventually. Halfway through their discussion, she asks him to change his appearance again - 'Oh my God Harry, they're down there!' she says pointing at the bottom rows, a good hundred metres ahead of them. 'They'll never be able to see your face.' Plus, she adds: 'for the love of Merlin, that blond looks stupid on you, it's distracting.'

Considering the latter (because, well, does he really want to look stupid in front of her?), he throws a quick look out to confirm what she's saying, before relenting. She's kind of right. Everyone is focused on the game, not on them. So, away goes the hair and the make-up. He does keep about a half an inch of the beard though, probably enough to hide his face.

It turns out he was right about the Bludger, she says, which is annoying. She didn't near-miss on purpose. 'Can't you be careful?' he asks, slightly exasperated. She smiles. Lets him feel his feelings for a while.

'Do you think they noticed?' she finally asks. He tuts but shakes his head nonethless.

'No. Was looking at their faces,' he grunts, quick. Crosses her gaze for a second, before swiftly focusing on the Seekers on the pitch. He can't help it. The lad with the curly red hair is a fucking idiot. 'Come on,' he hisses under his breath. 'It's right there!' Ginny shakes her head in disbelief. 'I think you managed to make it look like you did it on purpose,' he adds. Ginny lets out a breath. 'That first goal you missed, though, you could have made it. You need to work on your aim when you're coming in from your left, you can't always afford to go around -'

She smiles, like liquid in her mouth. 'Yeah, that's when I noticed you were here.'

That - takes his gaze off the game. Long enough for him to lose the Snitch. 'Ah, sorry,' he mumbles. Though, is he, really?

Ginny looks out, back at the game. The stadium has emptied since they started chattinh. Most of the candidates and their families have gone home; everyone else's gaze is glued to the sport in front of them. Suddenly, he feels her eyes back on his face to a point that he can't not look back, and he loses all hope of finding the Snitch again. 'What?' he says.

And, there. Then. She kisses him. Like: straight on the lips, before he can do anything. Something explodes in his chest and he tells himself he is not in love with her. Not anymore, not all at all, not in the slightest. She's just one of his best friends.

Her mouth opens. His moves against it. Off its own accord, without much thought; his brain has left fucking the stadium. He kind of gets, now, how and why she kept kissing him last winter, even though she was with Matthew. There's something magnetic about it. Their tongues touch, just about, and there's a hint of her teeth and the flowers in her shampoo and the varnish of her broom. Eventually, she pulls away. She tastes like fruit. He stares at her. She shakes her head. 'I've got to go,' she says. 'I just wanted to do that in case you go to Paris and I never get to do it again.'

His mouth falls open and somehow, he can't figure out what to say so that day, he watches her walk away. Her Quidditch trousers are unbelievably tight around her bum, and he's kinda hard just thinking about it and it's fucking embarrassing. He looks back at the game just as the red-headed idiot victoriously catches the Snitch.

He still doesn't think they'll hire him.

Mia asks him how the game went when he comes back and he says: 'Alright.' (God, he thinks she should dump his arse.)

Unfortunately, he ends up missing Ginny's tryouts with the Harpies in early June because he is stuck in work. He and Robards are meeting with Muggle law enforcement so Harry wants it on record that he makes Great Sacrifices for The Cause, that year. The blokes are a bit rough and sceptical about the merits of cosying up with 'magicians' initially but when Harry shows them he can make walls simply disappear, they become more cooperative. They all seem to have family in the wizarding world, which does help, though when one of them finally asks why the name 'Potter' sounds familiar, Harry just shrugs and says: 'I dunno, ask your sister.' It makes Robards laugh a lot more than the coppers themselves and when the boss finally explains, one of the men says: 'Oh, so he's dead now, is he? It's shoot to kill with you boys then?' Harry grits his teeth.

In the end, they have a body on their hands, buried in the woods with no obvious sign of struggle, and Harry agrees to go take a look. In exchange, they promise to get a bunch of Aurors to attend some of their trainings, particularly on interrogation techniques (turns out it's harder to get the truth out of suspects when Veritaserum is banned). It's another one of those exchanges of services, but it is a start.

He meets with Ginny afterwards. At his place - Mia's at work and it is lashing rain. Ginny gives him another play-by-play account of her tryouts over tea while he smokes out the window. He's resolved to quitting about five times in the past month. It's the interviews and the politicking and Mia and everything that's doing his head in. Having Ginny in the flat strangely puts him on edge, too, like: his girlfriend lives here and also every time he blinks, Ginny is pressed between his body and the wall like last year and late summer nights and this was the best sex I ever had and he blinks again and there she is fully clothed playing with the string of her tea bag. It's fucking weird is what it is. Especially since last time and the way he can still feel her lips on his.

'Well, okay,' he speaks. Words to distract himself. 'You fucked up one pass, that's not the end of the world.'

She sighs. Gets up to open his fridge, puts milk in her tea. He puffs a cloud of white smoke out the window. 'If you'd seen that frown on Gwenog Jones's face…'

'Ah, come on, they all do that. They wanna look tough,' he counters. 'You fly fucking well, Gin.' Information that bears repeating.

She smiles. Something discreet but confident - her gaze drifts around his flat - he can't help but wonder if she thinks it's changed, since she was last here. If Mia's presence has had an impact on it somehow. If she's noticed, too, that he cleaned this morning, which had absolutely nothing to do with the fact she was coming. 'Thanks,' she says. 'Anyway, I should go -'

'-Have you ever played Muggle video games?' he blurts out.

(He just wants her to stay, okay? Just wants her to stay.)

When Mia gets home around five, Ginny is still there. Harry obviously didn't mean for this to happen but they started playing Mario Party on his N64 and the both of them got ridiculously competitive at making little ghost figures fly all the way down to the finish line and then one thing led to another and here they are. The key turns in the lock covered by the sound of the two of them screaming at the screen - they don't hear her coming in until she says: 'Hi…..' standing at the entrance, immobile.

Ginny stills. Harry freezes. 'Oh, er, hi -'

Mia's expression changes the moment her eyes land on Ginny. Recognition flashes over her face, and something else he can't quite identify. 'Oh, hi!' she smiles. Her voice is unnaturally high. She crosses the room, bright, completely ignoring him (he's got up from the couch on autopilot, now standing in the middle of the room), to shake Ginny's hand over the back of the couch. Ginny throws him a quick look before returning Mia's smile. 'I'm Mia, you must be Ginny, right?'

He wants to cringe. Disappear into the floor. Or, both. 'Yes, yes, of course, Harry's told me all about you. How are you? It's good to finally meet you.'

His panicked gaze hovers between the two of them like he is the main character in a 1920s Muggle silent comedy and he is suddenly reminded of a statistic he heard in Auror training, about how 70% of violent crimes are committed by men. It makes sense, now, he thinks. Girls seem to kill each other with - er, - politeness?

The two of them chitchat for a few minutes while he wonders what would be the most painless way for him to die, right now, while the unrelenting music from the game unforgivingly loops in the background - it's giving him a headache. 'Well, anyway, you both enjoy your evening, I'll be off,' Mia says.

'Oh, please, don't feel like you have to - I'm leaving in a min-'

'Oh, no, please,' Mia smiles, insists. 'I just came to drop these,' she points to the floor, a couple of tote bags by the coat hook. 'I'm having dinner with my father,' she says, looking directly at Harry for what feels like the first time since she entered. He grits his teeth. She likes to mention her father, these days, whenever she wants to annoy him. It drives him nuts that she still talks to him, after everything.

'Right.'

'Ginny, it was so lovely to meet you,' Mia adds, still smiling, then goes to hug Ginny. They exchange yet another round of niceties (will this ever end?) before Mia turns back to stand in front of him. Her eyes have a fire in them he's rarely ever seen before and, out of nowhere, she does something she's almost never done in public before: she kisses him. And not just that, she kisses him right there, open-mouthed, for a while, like they're in fucking bed together and he feels like there is nothing he can do other than to just stand there, and kind of participate. By the time she pulls away, it feels like she is this far from feeling the space between his legs with her hand. She steps back. 'Harry, I'll see you later, yeah?' she says.

After the door bangs shut in her wake, he thinks women don't commit violent crimes because they can just kill people with looks, too. Basilisk style. 'You know what? Fuck you,' Ginny suddenly spits out at him - venom and fangs and all of that. Silently, she summons her Quidditch bag, her cloak, starts putting it on but can't find the hole for her other arm and violently yanks it off, holds it against her. The way she is looking at him now is the way she looked at Ron in Sixth Year when he 'caught' her snogging with Dean and almost called her a slut and Harry's chest monster felt confused in its roaring and she ended things by telling her brother he had as much experience as a twelve-year-old. 'You keep telling yourself you're protecting her,' she just snaps, before banging the door shut, too.

It is the fourth time they see each other, and it doesn't end particularly well. When Mia gets back, around ten that night, he opens his mouth and: 'Don't -' she tells him.

So, he doesn't. And, for the rest of the week, things are awkward and tense as fuck between them - she sleeps on her side of the bed with her back to him. She seems more angry than hurt, really, which is new for her - when he tries to soothe things with offering sex because that's always worked in the past, and she shrugs and says: 'Sure, whatever you want.' It's possibly the least appealing answer on the planet so obviously he backs away - her gaze narrows on him when she adds: 'So, that's where you draw the line. Interesting.'

He doesn't understand what she means, but is too afraid to ask.

Kingsley announces an alliance with Fudge, later that week. It is the 4th of June, and to celebrate the occasion, it is fifteen degrees and still lashing rain. He had the decency to inform Harry of the project beforehand, not that it actually sweetened the taste of bile in his mouth. 'He just wants some sort of cabinet position, so we'll give him the Department of Magical Transportation,' Kingsley said. Pre-emptively raised his hand to stop Harry from having an automatic go at him. 'We need him to swing a few of the non-elected votes.'

Harry rolled his eyes and bitterly pointed out that it's not like anyone actually needs magical transportation, anyway, not like it took him three months and half a dozen owls to get an appointment for his Apparition licence, due to the mess they've become. 'And, I'm me. Think about what it's like for normal people.'

Kingsley nodded, but didn't budge. 'Well, I can't magic votes out of thin air, me, I don't particularly like him either, but it is what it is.'

To celebrate the occasion, too, Ginny gets rejected from every single team she has tried out for, that week, bar from the Harpies. And, even there, she doesn't get an offer. Just: an invitation for a one-on-one interview with Gwenog Jones on the 20th. Harry stares at her letter for a good thirty minutes after she tells him, thinking he might have somehow read the words wrong. And, there is the way she tells him, too: I'm still frustrated with you but I thought you should know.

I don't get it, he writes back, immediately. Not the part about her being frustrated, obviously. It's just that: he was there at her trials with the Tornados. She was the best out of all the chasers they tried. Objectively. And, if she flew half as well with the other teams, she should at least have gotten something. He writes back: Did they explain?

You know they don't. They just send you these templated, 'thanks but no thanks' letters. Look, it's fine. I'll go to the interview, see what happens. I'm told if they want you, they just give you offers. No one gets interviews. So, I'm not getting my hopes up. Maybe I was so bad they just want to have a laugh. I've two weeks to focus on my N.E.W.T.s. I'll just get a ministry job or something. It was stupid to believe I could do this.

He genuinely wants to scream. Ginny, it's NOT alright. Do you want me to come next weekend? We could meet in Hogsmeade or something.

The bad news appears to have softened her. He likes it when she is not mad at him. He is trying to keep his head above water, too. No. I'll just cry on your shoulder again, she tells him.

I don't mind.

I do.

All weekend, he's not entirely sure how he resists the urge to Harry-fucking-Potter it and storm the Tornados (and all the others, to be honest) to demand an explanation. Resists the urge to write to The Prophet to complain as well. There is that, and Kingsley and Fudge in his head, plus the fact that whenever Mia's at the flat, she just sits and snaps at him. She's acting like a different person, these days, someone angry and bitter, but he guesses he deserves it, takes it and says nothing. Lets the rage and the confusion bottle up (and bottle up, and bottle up) because whatever Ginny says, he really does want to protect her from all the harm in the world. He doesn't understand why she doesn't just leave him, if she's so bloody furious with him and, like all things with girls, he only understands what the fuck happened after it is too late. After he's done something even more stupid with all that rage and punched her father in the face.

Now, for the record, he does have extenuating circumstances, okay? The fact of the matter is, when it happens, it is around 10:30 at night. Harry is coming home from work after a long day, on top of everything else, and the two of them are standing in front of his building, talking. In the fading evening light, he recognises the man from the Muggle magazines she showed him a few months back. Middle-aged, white, with a buzzed cut - Harry sees him and thinks: prick. You let her fucking starve. The rain has finally stopped, that night, the weather still rather chilly; he notices she is holding herself, arms crossed under her breasts to keep from the cold. Mia is standing on the landing, him a couple of steps down against the wrought iron railing.

Now, again, for the record, Harry was going to ignore them. He and the man have never met, have no real reason to meet, especially considering the current state of affairs between him and Mia. So, when he notices them outside, Harry plans on: a polite neighbourly nod before slipping inside. That is before, though, he comes within earshot of their conversation, and -

'So, that's your plan for the future? Live off your boyfriend's money? Mia, you can't be serious.'

'Dad, I got the internship-'

'-Which will pay you what? For six months? And, then, what? I don't think you understand how much money I spent on your education for you to simply throw it down the -'

Harry is in front of their front door, by then. And, in hindsight, it would have been so easy to just - use his key. Get in. Get a Heineken from his fridge. But: there are tears in Mia's voice when she tries to explain, and seeing her cry because of this arsehole makes him want to retch. 'I'm good at this, Dad,' she chokes. 'Please -'

Harry turns around. And, just like that, it's too late. 'Right,' he says. His voice is loud and clear and cold. 'How much money do you want, exactly?'

Mia closes her eyes. Mutters: 'Harry, please,' in a breath. Her father's loud cackle covers it. He decides he doesn't fucking care. He's going to do this if it's the last thing he does for her. 'No, seriously, how much money do you want?' he snaps. Stomps down the stairs to level with them. 'I gave her, what was it, Mia?' He looks at her. 'Seven thousand for a term. Multiply that by, what - six semesters? Forty-two thousand? You know what? I'll make it forty-five, I'm feeling generous -'

Mia's father barks out another laugh. Turns towards her. 'Oh, so you live with him, too? Great. Well, maybe make sure he puts a ring on it before you get yourself pregnant like your m-'

Well, at least, Mia's father never gets to finish that sentence.

It's not hard. With the element of surprise, Harry's fist hits the man square in the face before he can think (clearly). And, yeah, maybe it's Fucking Stupid, but it's also right, and it feels good. Harry supposes you could argue the man's nose that was just there, asking for it. He feels the bone break under his knuckles and warm blood on his fingers, and -

He later tells Ron and Hermione. Gaze stuck to the floor, tail between his legs sort of thing. Ron laughs: 'You just… Went for it?' Harry sighs. He's not proud of it, but he also kind of doesn't regret it. 'Mate, I mean, I've seen you duel idiots but fist fights?'

'Well, he's a Muggle.' Harry rolls his eyes. 'I wasn't gonna curse him.'

Ron snorts. 'Right, so, what happened then?'

'Oh, Ron, don't encourage him.'

'Says the girl who punched Draco Malfoy in the face.'

Hermione purses her lips, says nothing.

Well, Mia screamed bloody havoc, is what happened next. She'd never seen him like this, and he hates that he probably scared the shit out of her, that night. But, to be honest, he paid for it, too. Quickly found out that despite all the rich, businessman attire Mia's father sports these days, Mr David Williams, Dot Com millionaire, also grew up on a council estate outside of Manchester. For his troubles, Harry got a split lip and a black eye (if he let his best friends into his flat, that day, it was mostly to get Dittany off Hermione - 'Oh, absolutely not,' she tells him, scandalised. 'You face the consequences of your own stupidity,') before his Auror training kicked in and he managed to tackle the man to the ground. Mia shrieked again, desperately trying to get in between them; her dad shouted 'Alright! Alright!' as Harry twisted his arm behind his back and heard a crack, finally released him. In front of Ron and Hermione, later, he takes his glasses off and hides his face between his hands.

Mia went to A&E with her father, that night. He didn't blame her. They were in there for a few hours, until three or four in the morning. When she came back, the sun was rising, hints of pink in the night, and Harry was surprised she used her key to get into his flat. He never thought he'd see her again, after that.

She looked at him. He was sat in the semi-darkness on the floorboards facing the door, his back against the wall. Her eyes were red when she sat down, cross-legged in front of him. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt again. 'You dislocated his shoulder,' she said.

'He's a dickhead.'

She let out a sigh. Smiled something tired that looked like her old self again. 'Both things can be true,' she said.

And, afterwards, they were quiet for a while. Things felt slow and calm between them, like they used to be. He looked at her and wanted to pull her close. He wanted to take her hand. He wanted the world to be kind to them. 'You're brilliant,' he just said, instead. His voice cracked and he felt tears clouding his vision, closed his eyes for a moment. 'You deserve so much better than this.'

She looked down to her lap, then back up to him. 'Better than him or better than you?'

By then, he wanted to cry, too.

She said: 'You're not coming to Paris, are you?' like a statement, rather than a question. Which was a good thing, really, because he couldn't answer that. Didn't want to answer that.

'I don't want this to end,' he said.

'I know.'

He closed his eyes, shook his head. 'I don't know how to end it.'

'Yeah,' she said. There was a pause; she caught his gaze. 'So, you're hoping if you fuck it up enough, I'll do it for you?' His gaze narrowed on her face. God, he thought. There it was. 'I think the past couple weeks have shown we can both play that game and it doesn't really lead anywhere.'

He wasn't sure whether to laugh, or cry, or maybe both. He smiled. 'I'm a fucking coward, aren't I?'

'No,' she smiled. Reached out, took his hand in hers. In movies and love stories, break ups are always these bright, flaming things. He thought, not for the first time that year, that no one prepared him for this. 'It's just that the only way you've ever known to say goodbye to someone is by watching them die,' she said, then. 'But, I'm not dead or dying, so maybe this is harder, somehow.'

It felt like he couldn't breathe, looking at her, that morning. The dawn had started to break, a blue glow through his window; he spoke stupid words that he wanted to heal everything. 'I don't want to hurt you,' and 'I don't want to be an arsehole,' and -

She nodded, smiled. Her fingers danced over the back of his hand; he wanted to never lose her. 'Well, you have to, though,' she said. ''Cause this is on you. It's your call, not mine. I need you to be the bad guy. And, I need to hate you a little bit,' she smiled again, sad. 'Which is frankly hard to do when you punch people in the face, standing up for me when I can't, even after everything.' He looked up to her face and tears were rolling down her cheeks. He wanted to charm them away. 'But, I need this to be your fault,' she smiled again, like she was laughing at the thought. 'I need to cry and eat ice cream, sing sad songs and call my friends and call you an arsehole, you know? I don't think I can get over this, if I don't.'

And, she kissed him, that morning. He knew it from her gaze before it happened. It was gentle, ever so slow, and she brought him up to his feet, backed him against the bricks lined up between the windows. His head dislodged one of Luna's paintings off the wall, and the rain fell again on his right arm as they moved. She kissed him, then, and kissed him again, and he kissed her back and before he knew it she had her hand down his jeans and it took his mind off things. Off the things he didn't want to think about, like it did that first night, when they kissed in the back of a taxi and like later, when he pulled the condom off and threw it in the bin and thought: right, this is it.

They laid in bed after they were done - what felt like hours. He couldn't take his eyes off her face, couldn't say a word. Strangely, he wanted his mum to be there. To be there and to hug him, and call him brave.

'Mia,' he eventually said. Said that or something like it, he'd turned the words in his head over and over so much, they sounded cold and rehearsed and just like they should. 'Mia, I'm not coming to Paris. It's not the life I want. And, I'm in love with someone else. And, I think we should stop seeing each other. I think we're done.'

She stared at him for a moment. 'Really?' she just said. 'You're doing this after sex?'

'Yeah.'

It was the worst possible moment, and therefore the best possible moment. She rolled out of bed and said: 'Right. Fuck you,' called him an arsehole and slammed the door shut behind her. He closed his eyes the moment she was gone and fucking sobbed like a child.

And, so, in June of 1999, love stories, they also end. Like this.

To be honest, he's a pathetic, teary mess for most of that week. First, because his face fucking hurts, and second because at least, the last time he got his heart broken, he had someone else to blame for it. He calls in sick to work and hides under the covers for three days straight, raids all the chocolate in the house and doesn't shower once. This sucks. He wants Giulia to tell him he's a good person. He wants his mum to hold him and tell him he's a good person. Mia packs her life into boxes in less than a day, cardboard piling up in her living room through her window, then fucks off in the night - to Manchester, he supposes. Christopher won't stop pecking at his fingers every time he tries to feed him. Ron and Hermione come to check on him on Day 3. When, in reaction to Ron's earlier question, Harry pathetically almost wells up again, saying: 'Then we broke up, I guess,' Hermione's look goes soft and tender. 'Oh, Harry,' she says.

Ginny writes to him - an owl she borrowed from someone. I heard. To her, he pours his heart out. He tells her everything, about their conversation and the sex and what Mia asked of him, and what he did and: Hey, Ginny says. You did the right thing. He hates being a fucking adult, he tells her, and he wishes Sirius was here, and his parents were here, and this is Fucking Hard, and he didn't love her like that, but still. Okay, Ginny says. You get to be sad about it for a week. You cry and you feel your feelings and whatnot, then you wake up and you move on. It was your decision, not hers. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself too much.

Harry scoffs, reading her words. That works? Just putting a timer on it?

I don't know. But, it's what I tried to do when I broke up with you.

The next day, Harry finally drags himself into work, Robards takes one look at him and says: 'What the fuck happened to your face?'

He shakes his head. 'Not work-related.'

'Oh-kay.'

He drinks too much at the party, that weekend. Not like he did in September, not in a self-destructive way, just - he lets go. Lets the whole thing go. And, sure, he wakes up that Sunday very hungover, sprawled on the sofa in front of the fire, glasses askew, and with the worst headache he's had since Tom was alive, but it doesn't feel as bad as it should. It feels like being young and making mistakes and owning up to them. Hermione later tells him he seemed happy, actually.

'I mean, I think you just let go, really,' she smiles. And, well, that sounds much better than the last time he got drunk. 'You played cauldron pong and gigglewater totter,' she says with a sigh. The embarrassment makes him look down to his shoes. 'Then you insisted on hopping on Seamus's broom - thankfully Ron stopped you.' (Oh, God.) 'Then you just sat on the sofa and swayed a bit, watching people and smiling to yourself. And, then,' she adds. 'Then, you became maudling and I came to sit with you for a bit. You called me Mia and said you hoped I would be happy eventually.' (Right). 'Then you said you were in love with Ginny.' (OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD). 'Then you fell asleep and just kind of drooled on my shirt. We left you to sleep downstairs. I took your wand. Here,' she says with it in her palm.

He wants to go back to sleep for the rest of his life, come to think of it.

Hermione isn't the one who wakes him, though, that morning. That would have been too tolerable for Harry Potter and his Stupipd Life. No, that day, Harry doesn't even know what time it is (early, too early) when the Floo erupts with an unknown intruder barging right into the new and improved Grimmauld Place living room. Harry scrambles for a wand he can't find, still hazy and half-blind, and instead, lands on the neck of a beer bottle. He holds it up - an unfit, very much Not Terrifying replacement, especially when he comes to the unfortunate realisation that the bloody thing wasn't empty, the contents of which have emptied straight onto his lap the moment he held it up, making it look like he just pissed himself. Great. He stands, there in his now drenched jeans and smelly t-shirt and gingerly readjusts his glasses with his left hand. Blinks. About twenty times. Then comes to the painful conclusion that they must have forgotten to close up the Hogwarts Floo connection.

'Mr Potter.' A raised eyebrow. Harry immediately drops the bottle in a panic; it shatters on the floor.

'Ppp-ppp- professor.' Fuck, he sounds like Quirell, now. He shouldn't have jumped up like this. He is going to vomit on her feet. 'What - what - what are you doing here?'

'Oh, I've come to find out where half my student body went last night, I presume.'

For a moment, Minerva Fucking McGonagall stands there, looking around Grimmauld's sitting room. At a loss for what to do, so does Harry. Neville is still snoring away on a chair by the window. And, judging by the: food everywhere, empty cans on the floor, remnants of all the plastic cups they used for drinking games and the paper aeroplanes someone had the brilliant idea to charm to float about the place which are now tiredly swaying mid-air, Kreacher himself must have had a great time with his punch last night, too, and decided the clean up could wait.

Harry decides he wants to die again.

'Professor, this isn't -'

He trails off. Minerva McGonagall, all 5 feet 5 inches of her, looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish his sentence. She feels taller than him. He can't find – words. 'Mr Potter,' she says. 'You're going to go shower. Then, we will talk. I will be in the kitchen.'

'I -' No. 'Yes, of course,' he stammers.

Objectively, being killed by Voldemort might have been a better outcome, all things considered.

She - unfortunately - is in the kitchen when he reappears, a painful twenty minutes later. He'd secretly hoped he might have dreamt the whole incident (nightmared, more like) but, no. He's vomited, showered, brushed his teeth - in that order, thank fuck. He is Never Drinking Again. Or hosting house parties, for that matter.

McGonagall has made tea. She offers him biscuits, which he turns down for fear of throwing up again. 'Nice house you've got here,' she says. Her look roams over the space around them. The kitchen isn't as bad as the sitting room, he decides. There's just - platters of food and empty dishes. Everywhere.

'Professor, I -'

He, again, does not know what to say. She lets the silence sit between them. She is enjoying this, he thinks. He would rather escape on a dragon. Looks down to his socks; his big toe is sticking out. The floor sticks. He's almost stepped onto a broken canapé.

'I'm … sorry?' he finally articulates.

'Well, that is a start,' she acknowledges. Smiles. 'Come on, sit down, have tea with me,' she adds. 'There are some things I came here to tell you.'

With a single wave of her wand, the chair and the table clean up, in front of him. Frankly, he can't think of anything to do, other than to obey.

She lectures him for half an hour. About five minutes into it, he decides that this is positively more embarrassingthan the time Mr Weasley spoke to him and Ginny about sex. He briefly wonders if he's going to get detention, lose half their house points (or worse, get expelled), before remembering that he's not in school anymore. She talks to him: about the dangers of alcohol for his liver, about the risks he's taken letting people he didn't know into the house, especially given some underaged kids, like Dennis Creevey, were clever enough to sneak past the age-restricting charms Hermione put on the Floo. 'I will admit that I bear some responsibility, too,' McGonagall says with a smile. Harry looks up, frowns. 'We both know that lately, discipline in Hogwarts hasn't been what it used to be.'

And, for a moment, that morning, he looks at her, and wants to ask why. Wonders what it must be like, to try and keep kids in school, give them detention and lines, after a year of torture and fear, and watching their best friends die. They've all had to adapt. More or less successfully, really.

'You know,' she says, then, like she is almost thinking out loud, but also not. 'Albus always told me not to speak for the dead. He claimed that they are not here, and that whatever they feel is buried with them. As such, I will not tell you that he, or Mr Black, or Mr Lupin, or even your parents would have been proud of everything you have accomplished. That is not my place. But, I would like to let you know that in spite of this small... hiccup,' she says, smiling and looking at the state of the room around then. 'I certainly am. You've not only survived, but you've made a home for your friends here, and helped those who needed the most. You are eighteen, and you make the same mistakes most eighteen-year-olds make,' she smiles. 'Considering everything, I think we ought to call that a win.'

Well, he thinks. Shit.

Later, she instructs him to send Kreacher to work at Hogwarts when he wakes up, and demands that they all clean the house by themselves, without the help of a house elf. Harry laughs and says: 'Yes, professor.' He takes the punishment and, you know, it's fine.

He is fine.

And that, in June 1999, feels fucking good.

Ginny has her interview with Gwenog Jones on the 20th. It is scheduled for four o'clock in the afternoon, the day before her N.E.W.T.s. I'll head back to Hogwarts afterwards, she tells him. He wishes he could see her, but it makes sense. I'll write right away, I promise. It is better than nothing.

So, obviously, when he Apparates home from work, that night, eager to see if a letter has arrived, he is surprised to find Kreacher in the flat. 'What is it?' he asks.

'Master is needed at the house.'

Harry frowns. They've cleaned up the place. The party was almost over a week ago. It took them two days and numerous trips to the chipper to try and shove as much grease and carbs down their throats to soak up the alcohol, but they did it. 'Please tell me they're not having another party?' Harry groans.

'No,' Kreacher confirms, solemn, which is a slight relief. 'Master has instructed Kreacher to obey the orders of the current occupants of the house as though they were his own,' Kreacher observes. 'Kreacher has been instructed not to tell Master what is going on.'

What? For Merlin's sake, he just wants one quiet night. Is that too much to ask? 'Fine,' Harry sighs again, though, grabbing his cloak.

Kreacher frowns. 'Kreacher thinks Master may want to change before we go.'

'Change?'

Harry looks down at himself. His Auror uniform looks… Fine? There is no blood on it - sure, a few stains here and there, but - 'Yes,' Kreacher nods, eagerly. 'Maybe put on a clean shirt and maybe, well, at least clean Muggle jeans.' He says the last word with the utmost contempt. 'If Master does not have clean clothes, Kreacher will clean some while Master is in the shower,' the elf adds, decidedly. 'And, perhaps, Master would like to put on some cologne. And, shave. Kreacher has also brought Dittany for Master's face, although Kreacher now sees that is almost faded.'

Harry stares. Laughs. 'Kreacher, is the Queen at the house?'

'Which Queen would that be?'

Harry bursts out a laugh.

The truth is, though, whatever he expected, when he gets to the house, it's not that. The place is unbelievably quiet (or typically so, considering this is a Sunday evening before exams in Hogwarts). Harry notices Katie Bell and Opal softly talking in the sitting room, but that's about it. Kreacher takes him down the corridor to the stairs. Harry raises an eyebrow. 'If Master will please follow me.'

'I don't feel like I've much of a choice,' Harry quips.

'That is true,' Kreacher nods. (NODS?!)

They climb the four flights of stairs up to Sirius and Regulus's floor. 'What are we here for?' Harry asks when they stop on the landing, a bit out of breath. Kreacher points to the door between the wall of Sirius's room and the bathroom. The troll door. 'Please, if Master could come with me.'

This is it, he thinks. This is how that bloody elf finally gets him killed. 'Kreacher-' Harry warns but the elf's hand is already on the handle and -

Oh.

There is no troll. Harry's gaze roams around for a few seconds, his legs glued to the ground like stupefy. He stares. Kreacher is already past the threshold, looking rather impatient, and, 'Please, Master, come in.'

It's a garden. Well, no, not a garden, actually,a terrace. A fucking… thousand-square-feet-or-something terrace. And, it is - floating? Well, no, actually it seems attached to the house on three of its four sides, but only as far as the canopy above their heads goes. After that, there is a view of London, and a railing Harry can hardly distinguish because of the hundreds (thousands?) of luxurious potted plants distributed all around them. And, Jesus, there is a tree in the middle, and a small fountain. A whole tree. And, there are: seats, and tables, and deckchairs, a table to play ping pong. Everything is bright, colourful, the flowers and the leaves and the furniture - vintage, mix-and-match, and -

There are candles floating around the place. Like fairy lights. The air is cool, summer - a garden, water and a light breeze. Harry stares. 'Kreacher, what is this?'

But, then: 'Hey,' she says.

(Time #5.)

She presents this as her 'side hustle,' a bit later, as they start to walk around. He must look even more confused, because she laughs, then, and her lips are a raspberry, pinkish red, and her hair falls down her shoulders in soft waves. He doesn't know where to look. Her, or everything else. 'Been working on this for the past six weeks, I'd say.' He can't - figure out what to even say. Looks around and every time he finds for his gaze to land, he notices something new. Wait, is that an orange tree?

'I -' he stammers. 'How?'

She laughs. 'Magic?'

She got Bill to open the door, she explains. Harry doesn't say much, in complete awe. 'You probably don't remember but when we were here in '95, you said you wished the house had a garden so that we could get out. And, I remember Sirius said there used to be a balcony or something, but his mother warded it off after Bellatrix threw a cat down it one summer.' (Right.) 'I found it behind the door; it was super small and unstable but I thought - well, I couldn't doa garden, it would have been too complicated with the wards on the ground, but I could probably extend this, you know? You're not afraid of heights, so.'

She takes him through, shows him around. His jaw is dropped most of the time. The place is a maze of plants, small cocoons of deck chairs and sofas, at times almost a thick forest. When they finally get to the other side, the edge of the terrace is framed by a wrought iron railing, overlooking East London, rows and rows of rooftops and brick houses. There is a park, in the distance, which he assumes to be Primrose Hill. 'Can anyone see us?' he asks, leaning against the railing. She smiles, shakes her head.

'Nope.'

'Ginny, this is -' insane, he wants to say. Brilliant. Unreal. She smiles, again, and leans in next to him, looking out. It is about seven thirty in the evening, golden, summer light pouring in.

'It wasn't just me,' she admits, quick. 'Nev and Hannah helped with the plants,' she smiles. 'There's a kitchen garden, too.' (What?) 'And Dad helped me with the extension itself,' she says. 'Then, I don't know, everyone brought in, well, the spare furniture, the lounge chairs, the sofas. Luna did most of the spell work on the concealment charms and the weather - we made it so that it can't rain.' (He -) 'They wrote you a letter, if you want,' she says, pointing at one of the tables behind them. 'You can read it later, but it basically says thank you. For everything.'

'Gin, there was no-'

'Oh, yes,' she smiles. 'There was need.'

'I-' he starts. Thinks back to all the times he's been at the house these past few weeks, the party even, and - 'I had no idea.'

She grins. 'Well, that's the point of a surprise, isn't it?'

They spend a little while longer just standing there, talking, pointing at the new art, décor, he didn't notice. In the far corner, there is a massive sculpture of a bulldog, painted in all kinds of bright colours. Eventually, Kreacher reappears with two glasses and a bottle of champagne. 'That's from Seamus,' Ginny explains. 'His parents have an off-licence.' Harry grins. As their glasses clink, the both of them still leaning over the railing, he turns back towards the garden and notices: the wisterias growing against the walls, magically hung overhead, and the pink bougainvillaeas dripping down, a parterre of daisies. 'We've all kinds. Muggle and not,' Ginny supplies. 'No petunias, though.' Beneath their feet, the floor is all decked, dark grey wood.

'Gin, I'm speechless,' Harry finally says. Hasn't felt like this since… Molly gave him her brother's watch, come to think of it.

She beams. 'I can see that, yeah.'

Eventually, she steers them towards a table. Round, large white plates, and soft, fancy, napkins, folded into accordions. Candles. 'You know, no one's ever asked me on a date before,' he jokes.

'Oh, I'm not asking.' He laughs. So: 'Come on, eat with me,' she tells him.

Kreacher serves them a three course meal. Entrées - salads with rocket and calamari and summer, basically. By the time they arrive, Harry's brain has recovered enough from the initial shock, and the champagne is starting to warm him up nicely. They've settled in the shade of trees as the sun slowly sets - the longest of June days. 'So, how did it go?' he asks. Cannot hold his tongue any longer. 'With Gwenog Jones?'

Ginny's eyes settle on his; she takes her time to answer. Lets out a long, drawn-out breath. Not a very good sign, he thinks. 'Well, at least, I found out why I didn't get any other callbacks,' she tells him.

'What do you mean?'

She describes: a twenty-seat conference room, and no one but she and the Harpies captain in attendance, that day. 'She just sat across from me. Shook my hand.' Harry nods. 'Then she summoned a pile of about fifty magazines to land between us. Told me point blank it didn't matter how good a flyer I was, no one would ever hire me if that was the kind of press I was going to bring.'

He freezes. Quicker than he can even think, Ginny reaches out and grabs the champagne flute from his hand, sets it down on the table between them. 'Don't break that glass,' she quips. 'Your money paid for it and it's kind of expensive.'

'Fuck, Gin -'

'It's fine, -'

'It's fucking not -'

'Well, anyway,' Ginny settles, cutting him off. He glares. 'She said she had a joker, every season. Someone she can take on against the advice of her board. She said I was the best flyer she'd ever seen in ten years so she was like, "convince me," basically.'

He picks up his fork automatically, bringing another mouthful to his lips without eating it. Well. Shit. 'So, how did it go?'

Ginny relaxes. Maybe that's why he does, too. Shrugs and shakes her head. 'Honestly, I don't know.' She holds her fork to her mouth, too, and chews for a bit. Takes a sip of her drink before continuing. 'You know how when you take an exam, it's all a blur after? Kinda feel like that.' He nods. 'I just told her I was done,' she adds. 'That I hadn't gone out-out since the memorial. That I couldn't control what the press printed about the past but that it wouldn't happen again.'

'She believed you?'

Ginny sighs, again. Pushes food about her plate. 'I couldn't tell. She was very hard to read.' He twists his lips. Once again, resists the urge to Harry-fucking-Potter it. 'She asked me about you, too, actually,' Ginny adds, smiling. He frowns. 'She asked how "done" you and I were. Said she wouldn't like that kind of publicity either, if we got back together.'

'And, what did you say?'

(He asks this very casually. Like his heart isn't going a hundred miles per hour).

Ginny puts down her glass. Holds his gaze. 'I told her I was in love with you. That I didn't know what you wanted, but that I hoped we'd get back together someday. That I couldn't lie about that.'

'Fuck, Gin -'

'It's true.'

Harry sets his jaw. 'Not worth losing your only shot at playing professionally, though.' (He is terribly aware of the elephant in the room he is not addressing, here.)

'I actually think it is,' she says.

Kreacher coming to get their plates interrupts that particular bout of Very Intense eye contact.

That evening, somewhere between mains and desserts, the night falls around them. Floating candles prove useful and the food Kreacher's made is good, just enough to eat well, not enough to fall asleep. He serves pasta with broccoli and pancetta. 'I think he's learnt it for tonight. He was very excited,' Ginny whispers, grinning. Harry can't help but laugh.

They talk about Mia, that night. Not that he brings it up, but in light of what Gwenog Jones said, he actually asks if she regrets the dating and the going out. There is no judgement in his voice, he's just curious, and she says: 'I don't know, it's complicated.' She asks if he regrets Mia and he wants to laugh - same, yeah. He wonders if perhaps, these were the mistakes they needed to make.

They talk about Amycus, too. Not for the first time (certainly not the last), but they do talk about him. 'Do we have to talk about him?' Ginny rolls her eyes, faking a smile. Somewhere between: let's just forget about this, and please can we talk about something else. Harry's expression is stern when he replies -

'Yeah, I reckon we do.'

She is about to object again, he can tell. Object and try to get him to let it go but no, this is actually something he wants to know. 'When you said I was the war, last year. That you couldn't forget the war if you were with me. Did you mean I reminded you of him?'

Her mouth falls open, ever so slightly. He can see the tip of her front teeth in the candlelight, waits. She looks away, then back at him. 'You don't want me to answer that.'

'I actually fucking do.'

Her gaze is piercing. He can see that she braces herself, expecting him to walk away. 'Then, yeah,' she says. 'You're Harry Potter, and you're the war, and he's my war, so when I looked at you I thought of him. And I hated myself, too, because I couldn't even tell you.'

It hurts. Hurts more than he thought it would; he tries to hide it and ploughs on. There is something that's worth it, though, because now he knows she's telling the truth. Now, they're going somewhere, you know? 'Okay,' he nods. He's staying there, not letting go. 'And, now?'

There is the slightest shake of her head, then. She looks down to their plates, then back at him. 'Now, it's different,' she says, then meets his gaze again. 'Now, you're Harry again, in my head. I don't always think about the war when I look at you. I think about good things, too.'

'Good,' he smiles. She does, too.

'Yeah.'

He extends his palm up towards her, then, and they agree. Right there and there. 'We tell each other when we're thinking about him,' he says. 'Whenever and whatever it is. Tom, too. They dead and we're not, and I don't want them fucking with our heads again.'

He doesn't think he moves for the ten, long seconds it takes her to bite her bottom lip, consider his words, before shaking his hand.

Then, he smiles, breathes again. Sits back against the back of his chair and she is smiling, too. Nods.

'Master Harry, dessert?'

They finish the champagne laying on deck chairs under the stars. It's romantic. Of course, it is – she planned it. Ginny isn't some sort of evil mastermind, in May and June 1999, but she does work on it, at least a little bit. There is the garden, and the candles, and the bubbles, and the chocolate; she makes an effort. He can't say he dislikes it.

'Can I ask you something?' she asks. He nods. Downs the last remnant of the bottle in his glass, then sets it down on the floor. 'Do you mind? That I "fucked half the wizarding world"?'

She is sitting up straight, now, so he does too. Kind of uncomfortable against the fabric of the chair - they're too low, close to the ground - but he wants to look at her. She is hiding behind the rim of her own glass. 'Well, I don't like it,' he admits. He's not going to lie. 'But it's not -' He pauses, looking at her, and can't help but think back of that day Ron almost called her a slut, the way the monster in his chest also roared in approval of his best friend's words. Now, it's like: objectively, you could say that she's probably done "worse," but in other ways, so has he. They're not kids. And, she never owed him anything. More importantly, he never owned her. 'I'm not stupid,' he sighs. 'I know what most people would think. But I - I reckon maybe I'm not most people. It's more -' he hesitates. It seems silly. The heat in his cheeks. 'Well, you hear all of that and you wonder how you compare, you know?'

She stares at him and doesn't move an inch. There is the smallest hint of a smile that forms on her lips. 'Oh, you compare fine.'

'"Fine"?' He hears himself chuckle and cringes at how nervous it sounds.

'Very fine, actually.'

She bites her lips and won't let go of his gaze and, fuck, he needs to say this before his brain leaves the place again. 'Gin, I don't want to rush this,' he says. 'If we are going to do this, I don't want to fall into this headfirst and fuck it up again.'

She is silent for a moment, then laughs. 'Hi Hermione Granger, what are you doing here, and what have you done with Harry Potter?'

He snorts, supposes she has a point. He wants this, though. Wants this so much he's actually willing to wait. She catches his gaze, mischievous, adds: 'So, what you're telling me is that you don't want to sleep with me on our first date?'

He laughs. There is magic in her eyes, and he thinks it's there in his, too. 'Yes,' he says.

'Well, will you kiss me, at least?'

Now, picture this. Picture this, close your eyes, make it real because in his head, he leans in to kiss her and her mouth tastes sweet. Like her lip balm, like girl and Kreacher's chocolate. Their lips collide just there, on his brand new terrace, in the candlelight and under the stars, and he remembers this moment for his entire life.

Picture this because, in reality, when he leans over to kiss her, the fucking deck chair gives out under his weight, the moment he tries to move to one side. The booze isn't helping his balance, so before he slips, Harry pathetically tries to hang onto her to stop his fall, which only causes her own chair to fall with them. And, instead of romantically kissing in the moonlight, they both end up sprawled out on the floor. He still remembers the moment for a long time, though, because it's been a while since he last laughed that hard.

They do sleep together, though, that night. Not like that, but after he does manage to kiss her (eventually, thank God), and they lay on the floor of the terrace with her head on his chest, he tells her to spend the night. They're not drunk, but she's probably had a bit too much to cross-country Floo or Apparate, and just thinking of the Knight Bus makes him nauseous. 'Stay here,' he says. She can get back before her exams tomorrow morning. 'Sirius's room is free. Take it.'

She says nothing for a bit. 'Harry -'

He speaks quick. Doesn't want to overthink it. The dead aren't here. They're dead. And, they have to keep on living. 'If you can cope with the…' he looks for the right word. 'Questionable décor,' he laughs. 'It's yours.'

She kisses him, then. Warm against him, he runs his hand through her hair. 'Stay with me, then,' she mutters against his lips. There is a smile in her voice. 'I can keep my hands to myself if you can.'

(Well, you know. He's never been one to turn down a challenge.)

The next morning, Harry wakes to the sun pouring into Sirius's bedroom. He feels - groggy, like too much sleep. Blinks himself awake, feeling either for his wand, or his glasses behind him. His palm lands on the latter; the moment his eyes adjust, he sees her laying on her side, watching him. Her smile is shy, like a first night. 'Hey,' she whispers, low. 'Morning.'

'Did you watch me sleep?'

'Yup,' she smirks. 'You drool. Gross.'

He runs his palm between his mouth and his pillow like an idiot. It makes her laugh. He rolls over onto his back. 'What time is it?'

'9:20.'

Right. He doesn't have work until the afternoon, so -

He freezes. Immediately turns back again to face her. 'Gin -'

She holds her finger to his lips. Closes her eyes for a second. Breathes.

She woke up at seven, she explains. Thought: alright, I'll stay a bit longer, I have time. Then, it was eight. She thought: I should go, now. 'And, then,' she sighs. 'Then another half hour went by, and I reckoned I could still make it, just skip breakfast. Then it was nine and - they always give you fifteen minutes extra, don't they? If I could Apparate to the gates, then run into the exam room, maybe I could still make it.' As she speaks, he feels her index finger move, trailing against the side of his cheek. 'But now it's 9:20 and I never wanna go inside this fucking castle ever again,' she says.

He gapes. 'What if -'

'Then, I'll figure it out. I'm pretty resourceful, it turns out.'

It takes him almost half an hour to accept it, if he's being honest. She could still take the other exams, he tells her. Then, he tries to guilt her into thinking Hermione will blame him (which she will), or that McGonagall will blame him(which she might), or even that her mother will blame him, (to which Ginny replies: 'Only one of us is scared of my mother'). It's just past 10 AM when he finally relents, rolls over to study the chandelier again. 'So, we're both dropouts,' he says, then.

'Yeah.'

Their gazes cross. He looks and there's her face, not just the side or a distant glimpse but the whole lot of it, and there is the space of her and the space between them and all of a sudden, it is June. Again.

'Let's stay here for a bit, yeah?' he says. She smiles. Close.

'Yeah.'

In the end, he sees Mia one last time before she leaves. It's a few days later, she'd told him when her train out of St Pancras was (before it all), and he remembers. She drops back at her flat to pick up her stuff and by the looks of it, probably hoped he wouldn't be there. Out on the front steps of their building, that afternoon. She's got two suitcases and three tote bags. 'I wanted to say goodbye,' he tells her.

Air comes out of her mouth, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. She shakes her head, closes her eyes. 'You know, bad boys don't actually say goodbye.'

'Do they not?' he asks. (And, 'is it?' - awkward, that is. Like after that first night). Mia seems to fight a smile.

'They don't apologise either.'

He puts his hand on his heart, faux-swearing. 'I'm not,' he says. 'Though, I am so sorry.'

She rolls her eyes. Smiles. 'Don't be. I just wish I was her, is all.

(Broken hearts, all of that. Written in the starts, from the start.)

She sits down next to him, that morning. And, they share a cigarette, waiting for her cab. Mia breathes in a drag, puffs out smoke, looks at him. 'She's The One, isn't she? Tell me at least you're not leaving me for some rando you'll dump in two months.'

He snorts. Shakes his head to himself. This conversation is weird. This whole year, maybe, has been weird. 'Yeah,' he nods. 'She is.'

'Good.'

'Yeah.'

They both laugh.

Later, he tells her she is the reason he's alive. Without much preamble, without much of anything - she is the reason he made it. And, they might not have been soulmates but they were something, and he wants her to know that. He wants her to know that and she smiles, and nods and tells him: 'Did it never occur to you you're the reason I'm alive, too? I think we both needed each other, Harry.'

So, in the very, very end, he tells her: 'Take Christopher.' He blurts it out but it feels right, like the one thing he can do, for her and for that bloody owl, and - she laughs. 'Seriously,' he insists. It's nice that they can still laugh about things. 'That owl hates me. Nearly bit my fucking fingers off when I broke up with you.' She chuckles. 'I think he's out now but when he comes back, I'll tell him to go find you. He will, trust me.'

'Okay,' she says, like: why the fuck not? He wants to pull her close, into a hug. Instead -

'Look, we could -'

'What?' she shakes her head. Her words aren't mean, but they are firm. She knows him well enough to know what he was going to say. 'Stay friends?' she asks. 'I don't think so. This,' she gestures between the two of them. 'Hurts,' she says. 'And, I'm not bulletproof.'

'Mia, I -'

'I know,' she nods. 'But, you said it yourself: I deserve better, and I think you were right. You taught me to stand up for myself. So now, go,' she adds, after running a hand over her face. 'I never wanted to be the one who leaves.'

He looks at her. Can't take his eyes off her. Doesn't want to, but he stands anyway, that morning. She's right. It's for him to do, not her. So, he turns on his heel, in the middle of a Muggle street, and disappears.

It's okay. June is hope. June is all will be well.

June is everything that comes next.

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