Castles

by pebblysand

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

16. out of gold (promises)

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out of gold (promises)

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They leave, that summer.

Not like: a confrontational, fuck-you move. Not like: the fantasies Harry used to have, taking off and slamming the door shut behind him, letting it bang in the face of the whole of the wizarding world, letting Dumbledore, and Tom, and the press, and the war die out like a flame starved out of oxygen. They're not savages. They wait until Kingsley wins the elections. Until Ron and Hermione get married.

But, they do leave.

It's Ginny's idea. After she moves into Grimmauld to escape her mother's wrath, the howler and 'GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY! WE JUST RECEIVED A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL! I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU WOULDN'T SHOW UP FOR -' and all of that. In the morning, Errol collapses onto the kitchen table over their late breakfast - Ginny has to go fetch water and spoon-feed him a snack. 'Mum should retire you,' she says, petting his head gently. 'You poor thing.'

It's a week - maybe, two - before Harry moves into the house as well. Temporarily. He's been sleeping in her bed more often than not, lately, and it just sort of happens. His flat reminds him of last year (and of - well - someone else) and he doesn't very much like that. Also, his lease came up for renewal a few weeks ago, tacked with an 12% rent increase and he didn't do much of anything about it. Not like: he couldn't afford it, but more like: the mould on his ceiling came alive in a dream one night and vehemently protested. Plus, last month, he wasn't sure whether he was a) going to jail, b) going to Paris, or c) whatever else, so. Now, he's got, like, 3 days left to vacate.

He's the richest homeless guy on the planet.

Back in June, Ginny needed all the help she could get with her terrace project so it's not like she kept it a secret. Because of their shared history, Harry supposes that many of their peers guessed (rather correctly) that her intentions for putting all that work in weren't entirely platonic. Since then (and since he's moved in with her), the Grimmauld rumour mill has outdone itself of course, and although the talk hasn't hit the press quite yet (it's probably only a matter of time, sadly), everyone around them, from her brothers, to her parents, to Kreacher (!) seems to now have an opinion on their relationship status. Between work, the elections and all that wedding prep going on, Harry frankly couldn't really care less - he's busy, you see (and, again, at least, they're gossiping about something that makes him happy) - but one morning, Dean Thomas spots the two them laughing, sitting outside on the lounge chairs of the terrace in the summer sun, Ginny reading her dirty romance books and Harry watching her read her dirty romance books, and thinks it wise to ask: 'So, you're sleeping with Ginny again?' he says.

Harry looks at him dead in the eyes and he's not even sure what possesses him to say: 'Yes.' Just like that, without even thinking about it. Ginny laughs, later, when he tells her.

'You do know we're not, right?'

'I don't know,' he shrugs. 'Define "sleeping."'

She bursts out another laugh.

They're not, like, actually having sex, you know, if that's what Dean was asking. Not that it's any of his fucking business, as far as Harry's concerned, so. And, well, the people around them - the ones who matter - know what they need to know. Her parents - that they've been on a date, that she's staying at the house, that Harry lives in his own flat (technically, until the 16th - oops). Ron - that they've started seeing each other again, that they don't want to mess it up, that they're taking things slow. Hermione - anxiously eyeing Harry with nerves and 'is this good? Are you good? You shouldn't -'

'We're still not sleeping together, if that's what you're asking,' he smiles. Heat in her cheeks ('I wasn't -') 'We're just -'

He's not even sure how to define it, to tell the truth. They're not sleeping together, sure, but they are together. But not like: together-together. More like: spending as much time as they can - together. Going to the cinema - together. Teasing each other while getting chips from the chipper - together. Visiting Andromeda and playing with Teddy in the afternoons - together. It's not much, and they haven't had much time - and, he hasn't even said 'I love you,' yet - but it's something. Something warm and fuzzy and summery and slow and right.

Hermione must hear the calm in his voice. Unlike many things (unlike last year), there is nothing frantic about whatever this is. Her smile is large across her face. She pulls him into a hug. 'Oh, Harry,' she says.

They're not - healed, you know. They're together, sure, but they still have things to work through. And, frustratingly, so little time to do so. At night, Ginny still has nightmares, he quickly finds out. Wakes up out of breath with her hands wrapped around her own neck like someone is choking her and she is trying to fight them off and the only difference between '98 and '99 is that he knows what that's about, now. Harry doesn't sleep with her, but he sleeps next to her, and he learns that the best way to calm her is to trace patterns against the bare skin of her arm with his fingers. 'Shhhh, hey,' he whispers. 'Shhh.'

Once, when she can't get back to sleep, she asks how he got rid of his and he just - shrugs. Tells her: 'I don't think I did.' And: 'They just changed shape, I guess.' He remembers a time when he used to stay awake, afraid of falling asleep; now, he stays awake because he replays every decision he's ever made in his head. The moment he decided they would go and search Hogwarts for Horcruxes. The moment he decided to throw himself in the line of fire last December, tried to save Giulia but didn't, said the words 'Avada Kedavra,' and meant them. The moment he decided to nail Umbridge, too, felt like she should be shot up against the post, and the moment he, for some reason, couldn't do the same thing to Draco. He wonders if the Malfoys should really have been saved, if they deserved to be saved, if Kingsley will be a good Minister even though he seems to have let concerns about economics overtake everything else, and - 'Alecto,' he says.

Ginny sighs. Her fingertips toy with the fabric of his shirt in the dark. He should get up - he's got work in an hour. His voice is low and gruff and the moonlight sketches shadows over her face. 'I dunno what's worse,' he says. 'The overthinking or the nightmares.'

That night, she tells him about a time when she used to just have thoughts, too. Thoughts she used to press down into feet of parchment in the candlelight. 'I didn't have nightmares when I was sleeping with him,' she observes. 'They came later. After. When I found out he was dead, actually. I dunno why.'

His lips move against the top of her forehead. 'Do you wish he wasn't?' he asks. He wonders if grief is possible, there. Not grief, but maybe something like it, something with a different name they haven't found, yet.

'I don't know,' she says.

Her fingers toy with his hair, tugging it behind his left ear. She touches the scar on his forehead. She is so close - he can't believe how close. 'I think we need to get away,' she suggests. 'For a while, you know.'

So, they do.

She chooses America. Calls it: 'a bit bonkers,' which promises to be interesting. This is the late 90s - there's still something sort of "aspirational" about it. 'Plus, you've never been out of the country, so maybe somewhere they speak English is better,' she tells him, grinning. She is laying on her stomach on Sirius's bed (her bed - their bed, he corrects), wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts tight around her bum, surrounded with Muggle and Wizarding travel guides, spines broken, open flat around her, the tip of her quill caressing her bottom lip. He can't take his eyes off her. 'There's Australia, too,' she adds. 'But, I reckon maybe that might not be an association we want.' She pauses, fakes shivers. 'Also, it's winter.'

The summer is hot, that year, and the fabric of his uniform sticks to his skin as he stands, smoking out the window. Hermione will kill him if she finds out he smokes in the house, sometimes. 'Alright,' he smiles. Somehow, it's the scariest and easiest thing in the world, all at once. 'Okay.'

'Good,' Ginny says. Sits up a bit, looks at him. 'I'm organising, you're paying.'

He nods, laughs, bends down to kiss her in the morning light.

He tells Ron and Hermione about it. Again, they're not savages. Swears up and down and back and forth that he will be there for the wedding. Ron asks: 'So, you're really dating now?' Hermione says: 'How long, though?'

Harry shrugs. That, he's not sure. He's spoken to Robards who wasn't happy, of course, but what could he do, really? Sack him? Lose yet another headcount? Harry can line up about six weeks of paid time off with the hours he's worked, apparently, plus - whatever he decides to take, unpaid. 'If she gets the Harpies, we'll have to be back by the end of September, anyway,' he says. 'So, I don't know, eight or nine weeks. Tops.'

'That's a long time, Harry.'

He laughs. 'Yeah. I'm aware.'

Sometimes, he feels like he's earned it, you know?

By the time they make it to New York, after a Portkey from London to Kirkwall, then another from Kirkwall to Reykjavik, Reykjavik to Nuuk, and then down North America, he wonders if it was actually such a good idea, though. Maybe, they'll regret it. Maybe, they'll want to kill each other. Maybe, they really haven't thought this out. It takes them around five hours, which is a little less time than Muggle aeroplanes - the Portkey sickness on top. They land in the Transportation Office in Manhattan and there is a man there whose job it is to hand travellers a bucket.

'I'm alright,' Harry says. Ginny takes one look at his face and laughs.

'You sure, dear?'

(They don't, though. Kill each other, that is. Of course, not.)

Harry also tells Kingsley, before leaving. Not that he particularly wants to but he needs his help to get Ginny a visa. Quicker than trying to get her passport considering that, to the Muggle government, she simply does not exist, but still not without its hurdles. MACUSA hasn't been too keen on British immigration lately, something about war refugees flooding their shores. 'So, you two are seeing each other again?' Kingsley asks.

He wins the elections on the 6th of July 1999. A negotiated majority filled with compromise, but a majority nonetheless. Thirty-two seats out of sixty. Fifteen of the twenty geographical constituencies of Wizarding Britain (including Andromeda's), as well as six of the nine formerly hereditary seats that were put up for election. The Longbottom, Ollivander, Slughorn and Prewett votes also go his way, and Fudge manages to swing a couple of lifelong members in his favour. It's a political, mathematical exercise but, well, the numbers align.

Ron and Hermione are wedded on the 11th. He and Ginny are gone by the 15th.

The day of the ceremony, it rains. Not like: a romantic downpour in the heat of Bali - palm trees, monkeys, and crisp, fat drops on warm, tanned skins. No. More like: boring, miserable English rain falling in straight lines and bouncing off the leaves of apple trees. A lacy curtain that moves with the wind like the air itself is damp - heavy, silver clouds menacing behind the marquee. It's a shame, really, the way it was twenty-five, just yesterday.

'They're saying it'll clear up around one, dear,' Mrs Weasley says. She is an optimist, today. Marrying off her children, one by one - not in a perfect, chronological order, but still. Over the past few days, Harry has been privvy to a few not-so-subtle nudges in Charlie's direction, until Ginny saved him between two mouthfuls of Molly's potatoes, saying: 'Next time Mum asks, you should bring home a dragon.'

'Ginevra, don't give him ideas.'

Ginny's parents aren't too keen on their little trip. The elephant in the room: 'How many rooms will you book?' and Mrs Weasley has repeatedly tried to warn Harry about their safety. She knows he cares, knows he gets scared when people he loves could get hurt - it's his weak spot. Ginny glares: 'It's America, Mum. Not the Wild West.'

'Sis, that's literally the Wild West,' Percy says.

They're legal adults, Harry tells himself. Likes to think that he's man enough not to worry about what her parents might think. And, well, to be honest, he wants to go away with her more than he worries. So, there it is.

Hermione sleeps at Grimmauld, the night before the ceremony. Ron, at his parents'. This is one of those traditions that Harry was never quite aware of until it hit him square in the face, watching Ron pack his bags, grumbling about 'never drinking again,' after the stag. 'You've been sleeping in the same room for two years,' he observed, which caused his best friend to stare at him with eyes wide as Quaffles, coughing: 'Don't tell Mum that.'

His fiancée was supposed to stay at Grimmauld and get ready there until the big reveal, but instead, seems to have chosen to Apparate to the Burrow at the crack of dawn, running around like a headless chicken and throwing instructions in her pyjamas about how to build a waterproof shield over their heads. Mr Weasley has already called in Bill, Charlie and Percy for reinforcements. They will do the spell work and everything will be fine, he promises, kindly tolerating Hermione's instructions like he isn't an accomplished wizard over thirty years her senior - he seems to have understood that arguing with Hermione is a little bit like arguing with Molly. 'Oh, this is awful. Awful. What are we gonna do? All the seating is outside, I -'

'Why are you panicking?' Fleur interrupts, then. She is sitting on an armchair by the Floo, nursing Victoire. It is a remarkable fact that Ron hasn't even tried to steal a glance at her tits since she and her husband got here. Harry looks at her and can't decide if she means this to come off as abruptly as it does. 'It is good luck. "Rainy wedding, happy wedding."' She catches Bill's look. 'Do you say zat?'

Hermione ventures out into the garden to inspect the damage shortly afterwards and Harry hears her snap under her breath: 'Well, it's not her bloody wedding, is it?'

By then, Ginny is sipping tea, next to him. She followed Hermione here, will herd her back to Grimmauld later, help her into her dress. 'She is worried about the weather,' Ginny says. A low, matter-of-fact tone between the two of them.

Harry catches her gaze. Smiles. It sounds wild, put like that. 'She is worried about the weather,' he confirms.

The weather was glorious on Fleur's wedding day, he remembers, so maybe the woman is onto something.

Next to him, Ginny chuckles, shoulder bumping his.

The wedding itself is - everything your would expect from a Weasley wedding, really. Aunt Muriel calls Ginny's dress an 'absolute disgrace,' - burgundy, satin, floor-length, cinched at the waist, with a plunging v-neck down to the end of Ginny's sternum. Her back is bare, bar from straps over her shoulders that cross in the middle and hold the dress in place - there is a that slit running all the way up her right thigh that leaves very little to the imagination and God, that thing is tight around her bum in a way that makes Harry wonder if she's actually wearing underwear. 'You can't wear that,' Ron says, and she looks down at her outfit in mock-confusion, and frowns when she reaches her feet. 'Oh, those?'

She still has her slippers on. Grey and fluffy with cat ears, she raises her foot to show her brother. 'Well, no, obviously I'm wearing heels.'

Harry and Ron get ready in Ron's bedroom at the Burrow. Quickly decide to stay hidden there until the actual ceremony. Guests have started arriving; they both ran upstairs after the Muriel incident. 'Hermione invited her,' Ron rolls his eyes, now. He is laying on his bed in formal robes, flipping through a Quidditch magazine. Harry's sat on the floor, playing with the Game Boy he bought himself a couple weeks ago. Loosely trying to catch a Bulbasaur. 'Said she'd hidden the fam and all. Was the correct thing to do. Like Luna's dad - well, I guess they're neighbours, that would have been rude. You know what though?' he adds, eyeing the mess around them, everything from wedding gifts to dirty shirts. 'I am kinda glad we're not getting married in my bedroom.'

Ron is nervous, babbling. It's kind of endearing.

By ten, the garden is finally sorted, shield up and waterproof, mismatched wooden chairs all aligned in neat rows. Fifteen minutes later, Harry is summoned to go meet Hermione. Ginny pulls Ron's bedroom door open without much of a preamble, says: 'You need to get a move on, she's ready.'

'Merlin's balls!' Ron shouts back. He brandishes the magazine at her. This startles Harry enough that he loses track of what Sasha was telling him on the screen. 'Don't barge in like that I could have been NAKED!'

'Well, you're not,' Ginny shrugs. 'And, it's not like I haven't seen your little willy before, Ronald. Remember that summer when you kept wetting your bed and Mum -'

'-Well, HARRY could have been naked!' Ron suddenly objects, pointing at him.

At the mention of his name, Harry looks up from the game he's been trying very hard to focus on. Ron is glaring daggers at his sister but she seems to choose to respond by saying nothing. Just - frowns. Then, arcs an eyebrow. Ron's gaze changes targets and, to avoid it, Harry makes the near-fatal mistake of looking directly at Ginny. Her lips are pinched and her cheeks full, sparkles in her eyes like the giggles are threatening to full-on spill out, rogue bubbles from a pot. It's contagious, unfortunately, and Ron is now glaring at the both of them indiscriminately, like this isn't a sentence that he should have thought about before letting it slip out of his mouth.

'You need to stop messing with his head,' Harry chuckles to her on the way down, later. They are walking past George and Percy's rooms, a dirty rug drowns out the sound of their footsteps on the landing. Ginny laughs.

'He needs to get used to the idea.'

She steps in front of him, blocking his way. She is tall, in her heels, not tall-tall but Hermione-tall, it surprises him. They are close, now, and Harry watches her chest rise and fall between them and the fact that they haven't - well, you know - doesn't mean that he hasn't thought about it, lately. A lot.

'You're staring at my tits,' she observes. He kind of jumps, letting out an awkward laugh. 'Most boys apologise when they get caught, you know?' she adds.

'Right.'

He looks up, then, pointedly into her eyes. They were just there, you know? On display. And, it's true, they haven't - well, okay, once. Kind of. Harry doesn't even know what the fuck that was. They were in the middle of clearing out Sirius's room. It's a thing that they do, now, whenever Harry has a free afternoon. She offered after he awkwardly told her she could stay there for the time being, said: 'I meant to do it earlier, I just -'

'Do you want to do it together?'

He let out a sigh of relief he didn't even know he'd been holding. Suddenly, the whole idea of having to go through Sirius's things, which he'd been postponing for close to a year, felt a lot less daunting. 'Yeah, I'd like that, actually,' he said.

Some of the stuff, Harry's decided to keep, so they put in storage in the attic. The rest has been slowly going into the bins. That day, they decided to tackle the wardrobe, though, and ended up pissing themselves laughing with all the things they surfaced in there. Wigs, crazy hats, joke-shop costumes. They found huge packets of magical glitter at the bottom - Ginny threw some in his face like a snowball and, well, the rest was History, really. They built forts on each side of the room to defend their positions with Sirius's old clothes, sheets and pillows, the entire place drowned in every colour of the rainbow. Harry laughed so hard his stomach hurt and in the end, they both ended up laying in bed, breathing hard, exhausted, drenched in glitter that took days to get rid of. Harry later found out magical glitter can't be scourgified, you see, and: 'Oh, no, you'll have to work to get rid of it,' Ginny grinned, giggling.

'Well, I'm not the one who's got to live here,' he chuckled, teased, and dropped a quick, casual peck against his lips. His heart started racing again - in a good way.

'Yeah, kinda brought this upon myself, didn't I?'

She stared up at the ceiling while he surveilled the mess they'd created (so much for cleaning Sirius's bedroom, he thought), and his eyes landed on the posters opposite them. She'd already taken down a few banners off the wall, so he wondered out loud: 'You're keeping the ladies?' A topless woman raced on her broom in front of them; Ginny laughed and shook her head.

'Just taking them down little by little,' she said. 'Those permanent sticking charms are good. Took me three hours of spellwork to take down the Matilda's Midnights there,' she explained, voice tired but warm, as she turned on her side to look at him. There was a light discoloration to that part of the wall, as well as a sizeable chunk of plaster missing. Harry decided he'd eventually need to find out more about Wizarding music bands from the 70s. 'I'll work something out eventually,' she added. 'Not that I really mind.'

He's not sure why she said that, to tell the truth. He's not sure why she said that, not sure why it sounded like an afterthought, like something she wasn't even paying attention to, and not sure why his brain went where it went, that afternoon. Harry nodded, closed his eyes with exhaustion, then thought for a minute before looking back at her sharply. There was mischief in her eyes and oh, she knew exactly what had just occurred to him. 'What?' she asked.

'Are you -' he frowned. Didn't even know what he was even asking. She'd never mentioned - well, she was only ever with - He caught her gaze; she held it. There was a streak of purple glitter down her temple. She laughed bright and full of teeth.

'Am I what, Harry?' He rolled his eyes. Closed his eyes. Opened them again when he realised the only thing he could think of, now, was that topless girl on a broom permanently stuck on Sirius's wall and -

Ginny burst out a laugh, then, again, and finally chose put him out of his misery. The teasing look disappeared from her face and she chuckled, honest; he finally dared look at her again. 'No,' she said, then tilted her head to the side. 'Well, I don't know,' she shrugged. His eyes didn't leave her face. 'Once, a few months ago.' He raised an eyebrow. 'We were at this bar,' she said, quick. Her partying streak, he supposed. 'This girl came and talked to me. She was - pretty? I don't know,' she shrugged. He gave her a bit of a disbelieving look. She laughed. 'Well, anyway, I wanted to try. Best to try everything once, isn't it?' Merlin. It was the start of July and the room was a million degrees all of a sudden, the sun pouring through Sirius's large, sash windows. 'It was fun,' Ginny added. 'We went back to her place, this big Muggle building. I wouldn't do it again, I don't think, but I don't know -' She looked at him. 'It was kinda hot in the moment. Different.'

He swallowed, looked away. Shifted. Tried to keep his voice as matter-of-fact as he could. 'You didn't tell me that,' he observed.

'We weren't speaking,' she shrugged. 'I can tell you about it now, though. If you want.'

Honestly, he's not even fucking sure why. Why that, in his head, just did - something. He should have been jealous, he thought. The idea of how many people she slept with last year never a nice thought. And, yet. This was - slightly different, let's say. He remembered one of her letters, last spring - I wish I was attracted to girls - and the interesting dreams that ensued. He tried very hard not to look at her but felt her shift next to him, closer. Her voice dropped lower. 'Oh-kay,' he could hear her grinning. Ah fuck, this was fucking embarrassing. 'Is it the girls together thing or the threesome thing?' she asked, casually. Too casually.

He wanted to disappear. Vanish into the mattress. Never have to look anybody in the eye again. But, also, like - well. 'I dunno,' he coughed out. It wasn't - the kind of thing he'd ever explored. He's not even sure, come to think of it, that it's the kind of thing he'd like to explore in real life, to be honest, it all seems like a bit much, but the way it looked in his head was - pleasant. And, before he could really say anything else, that day, Ginny had settled fully at his side, speaking low in his ear. It was the tone of her voice, too, just -

'Okay, I guess we'll find out,' she said. 'Close your eyes.' He did. 'So -'

She spoke to him, that afternoon. Just - spoke to him. Nothing else. And, yet: his pulse quickened and he kept his eyes shut (shutshutshut) because the film that was playing in his head was too fucking good to miss out on. She talked about a girl with red lips and soft long, brown hair, and how they kissed, swayed to the music of a Muggle club, and went home together. She lived with flatmates, Ginny said, and so they had to be quiet, and she talked about smooth skin under her fingertips and, 'I didn't think I'd enjoy it,' she said, 'but then -' She talked about feeling the girl's lips on herself and how she couldn't help but cry out, and he tried not to move, not to twitch, and it wasn't hot until it was (like, really, really was) and the hard-on in his jeans was becoming painful and there was no fucking way she couldn't see that, too. Harry fisted the sheets and the stupid glitter around them and said: 'Stop. Just fucking stop,' because fuck - and, Ginny laughed, low and sweet and wet, next to him.

'Do you want me to stop?' she asked and well of course he bloody didn't, not really, but also this was so (so) embarrassing, and he couldn't help but think about how they hadn't locked the door, how anyone could have come in at any moment, and he prayed (prayedprayedprayed) that Ron was still at work. Ginny paused her story for a second, then, waiting for him to open his eyes before she spoke again. 'Go on,' she said. He followed her look. His t-shirt had ridden up; she was eyeing the bulge in his trousers. 'I don't mind.'

Well, of course, you don't mind, he thought to himself, you're not the one looking absolutely ridiculous, here, but fuck it, he also decided, quick, undid a few buttons and wrapped his hand around himself. She smiled, and she started talking again, and -

Well, it didn't take him very long.

He blinked - a few times, afterwards. When the high came down and his heartbeat started to slow again and he began to wonder: what on Earth even was that? He finally dared look at her, then, and she had this mischievous smile on her lips that he just wanted to wipe off with a kiss. 'All good?' she asked. He rolled his eyes to himself. Fuck, that was a bit embarrassing. She chuckled. 'Didn't think it was gonna turn you on that much but okay, I'll keep it in mind…'

He burst out a lazy laugh because: oh well, it was done, anyway, and he could still feel a bit of heat in his cheeks. He crossed her gaze, knowingly. 'Okay,' he smirked. 'How much of that was real?'

She laughed, loud, against him. 'Some.' She smiled. 'I enjoy a… creative licence, let's say.'

He burst out a laugh.

So, yeah, anyway. A few kisses here and there and a handjob he technically gave himself. They're fine for now, he thinks. They're taking things slow, you know?

Later, on the day of the wedding, he finds Hermione in her bedroom at Grimmauld. She is ready, too. Standing beautiful in the dress that she danced in, with him, just a few weeks ago - she is now looking out the window. Turns around as he softly knocks on the open door, smiles when she sees him. Her make-up is discreet, glowy, like none of the world's worries would ever dare touch her. Her curls are still there, not straightened but beautifully defined, held back in a complicated up-do, a few loose strands framing her face. He's only ever seen her with her hair wild or straight, but never this. He raises an eyebrow. She smiles again. 'Ginny,' she explains.

Her parents are here, today. They only decided to fly over last week, and Ron almost rescinded their invitations, for all the stress it caused Hermione. Her mother visited Hermione's aunt in Cambridge before the wedding, the one who thought her sister had just disappeared on her without a trace, and filed a police report about it that thank God, no one at the Ministry never found. Hermione watched, listened and swallowed her guilt, the remarks and the we-didn't-raise-you-like-this. But, her parents came and, as a result, Harry offered (many times, since they landed), to give his place to her father. He's been on the receiving end of some nasty looks, too, but that's not really what it was about. Hermione shook her head. 'I want it to be you.'

'They're your parents,' he reminded her. 'He's your father.'

She smiled. Not indifferent, but like after the war. 'I do love them,' she said. Looked away. 'We are different people,' she added.

A week later, on her wedding day: 'I think I'm supposed to offer you an out,' he says. The house is quiet around them, everyone already at the Burrow. Harry stands against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. 'If you want it.' He prays (prayspraysprays) that she doesn't.

She laughs. 'Like a getaway car?'

'Easier with side-along, probably.'

'Right,' she smiles. Pauses. 'I don't need a getaway car, Harry.'

'You sure?'

She beams. Nods. 'Very, very sure.'

'Good,' he grins.

The wedding - happens. It is: everything you would ever want from a wedding, bar from the rain, of course. Ron and Hermione are surrounded by their family and friends, and, even with the weather, it is warm, under the marquee. Hermione walks down the aisle to Canon in D and she is gorgeous, does not trip on her feet, arm wrapped around Harry's. Ron waits for them at the altar, tries to hide tears that glisten on his freckled skin when they reach him. He takes Hermione's hand from his best mate's and squeezes, firm, and smiles, and breathes. 'Thanks for bringing her,' he whispers. Harry nods, closing his eyes with the movement, briefly. Hermione blinks away the sparkles in her own eyes and smiles so wide her cheeks could split. Mrs Weasley is crying, too, and Mr Weasley, and fuck, now, even him. Ginny will take the piss, later, he thinks. The music stops, and the same small, tufty-haired wizard who presided over Dumbledore's funeral, and Bill and Fleur's wedding, is now with them again.

'Stop,' Ron laughed. 'Man's a celebrity. Does 90% of the weddings, booked out 'till 2002! Had to convince him to drop a wedding in Mallorca to come here, pull the Golden Trio card and everything!'

Harry couldn't stop chuckling. Anyway, they both say: 'Yes, I do.'

There is a break in the afternoon, after the ceremony, and the weather does improve for the party. The rain stops and the skies show just a hint of blue, snaking between the clouds. At dinner, there is just the right amount of drama when Hagrid accidentally knocks over a table and sends chocolate cake straight into Muriel's lap. The food is good - so is the music and the dancing. There are no Death Eaters. No revelations about Dumbledore. No nightmares, just: the smiles and the happy tears and the summer of it all. Hermione insisted on a mix of Muggle and wizarding songs in their playlist; she and Ron's first dance is to Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. She dances with her father, too, later, and relaxes, smiles when he says things in her ear no one else can hear. With Harry, she laughs at a joke he whispers about Xenophilius Lovegood's outfit and he closes his eyes with her in his arms, tries to make a memory of it, tries to make a memory of everything. A memory of: happy. This is happy.

He steps out for a smoke a while later and Ginny comes to find him. She sinks down next to him on the small step that separates the kitchen from the garden, kicks off her shoes the soles of her feet against the cool of the grass. 'They're fucking killing me,' she says, and he laughs.

'So,' she asks. 'Ready?'

New York is fun, to be honest. A bit like London, but bigger, wider, and up (up, and up, and up). More rats. Smellier public transportation. Loads of construction and scaffolding, for some reason. Coffee with ice, coffee in alarmingly large plastic cups - to-go. Brick buildings and dark pavements, skyscrapers. The smell of food leaking out of basement vents, underground winds from the subway trains. Exhausted carriages that rattle loudly, and 'I'll just hang onto you, then.'

They stay five nights. Visit Muggle and Wizarding landmarks, get over the jetlag. The heat is suffocating, better if you sit out in the park with ice lollies in your mouth. Damp and July - clouds gather during the day and get their revenge at night. Torrential downpours like you wouldn't believe - American skies are loud when they get angry. Little white boxes hung out the windows and, 'Is that how they make cold?' Cool. Jumpers shoved hastily down backpacks - for inside.

They splurge on the hotel - a bit. Stay in the Upper East Side with a view on Central Park and Harry rationalises it by claiming they'll probably find worse, later. Ginny isn't Ron, she isn't embarrassed about him paying for things, but she has drawn up a budget, which she's trying to get him to adhere to. 'I know you've millions in the bank,' she tells him, laughing. 'I just don't think you should be spending millions on one trip.' She takes custody of his wallet after he almost buys a cool-looking, gold celestial globe in an antique shop in Greenwich and: 'What on Earth are you going to do with that? You dropped out of Astronomy.'

He laughs.

She does let him buy a polaroid camera, though. At first, Ginny insists she doesn't see the point (the pictures don't move!), until she realises they develop instantly and subsequently takes over all photographing duties. Most of the shots are a disaster (half of his face cut out, her finger in front of the lens - 'Oh, it doesn't self-correct?') but if Ginny is anything, it's stubborn, Harry thinks. He can't stop giggling as she burns through dozens of films for entertainment, tries to tell her to stay still but she calls blurriness 'artistic,' and 'This is so much fun! Look at your face! It's like you've got two heads!'

They eat too much, that week, and, after they figure out how to transfigure restaurant business cards into Muggle licenses that state they are 21, drink a bit too much, too. In America, there are new words for everything: parking lots and popsicles and trash cans and cookies - food menus with too many options and this tone they have where everything is exciting! and amazing! Repeatedly, Harry looks at her and can't help but be blown away by the fact that they are here, on another continent, the two of them, having lunch in a diner like that's a normal occurrence, like they've somehow transported into one of those films he used to see the Dursleys watch on the telly. Last year, Apparating around Devon already felt like a treat, and now they are here.

On the Wizarding side, New York is also quite a sight. MACUSA is located here which makes the city the capital of the Wizarding world, hundreds of miles away from Washington. The building is open to visitors to admire its architecture - wizards taking over a construction site in the space of a few years, and turning the structure into a completely different building, once activated by the right spells. He and Ginny debate on going, wondering if Harry Potter walking in uninvited into a government building is a good idea, and decide against it. They're not that much into architecture, anyway.

The wizarding world is hidden in plain sight, here, rather than gated. Muggle places merged into wizarding ones as the city was being built. At the Wizarding Gallery of Art, hidden in the basement of the MOMA, public bathrooms have switches that spark floating balls of light, rather than electric bulbs. The aircon blows in from the same sort of units that the Muggle world uses, but the buttons on the control panels can be activated by wand, as well as touch. Bakeries are filled with Muggles on the outside, the quick-quick-quick pace of orders churned out as people rush into work, until you walk through a hidden door in the back, and the place changes into a Wizarding café with flying trays and bagels that speak out the names of those who ordered them.

Harry gets recognised - sometimes. As wizards are more scattered, here, there isn't one neighbourhood with everyone in it, so it is less overwhelming than at home. Plus, while most people have heard about the war, they haven't lived through it. His face is more of the who's-that-guy-he-looks-familiar? kind, rather than that of the Hero of the Wizarding World. America has different heroes, they find out. Former presidents of MACUSA and celebrities like Goneril Sheridan, whose songs seem to be playing in every shop they visit. Ginny even develops a mock-dance routine to what seems to be the woman's best known hit, Dancing with a Dream, and Harry can't stop giggling at it.

He wonders if they should be more careful. If they should stop holding hands in public. If they should stop kissing on train platforms. It's not the idea of people knowing that they're together which bothers him, it's the gossip and the headlines and the way that he sometimes feel like his own image doesn't belong to him. Like the press has created this fantasy-version of himself, someone who looks like him and sounds like him but isn't actually him.

They are at the hotel, one morning. Ginny's hair is wrapped in a towel, little droplets of water trickling down her bare shoulders - she's just come out of the shower. 'Maybe, it's better if it breaks now,' she suggests, tentative. They talk, these days. Have conversations about things. 'The place's too big, they won't follow us around, here. And, by the time we get back, it'll be old news.'

Harry is quiet for a bit, pondering over it. He hates this, but also can't say she's wrong. Doesn't want to volunteer information to feed magazine pages and yet, there is a sense of undeniable peace that's been permeating the air, since they've been away. Something like: whatever happens, happens. 'The things they said about you last year, though,' he adds, quick. She sits at the side of the bed; it dips to his right. 'I could have killed them.'

Ginny smiles. Sighs. Long and heavy. Her touch against his arm. 'Very chivalrous of you,' she quips. 'But, trust me, not worth it.'

He can't help but laugh.

On their last day, they score last-minute tickets to see the Weird Sisters live in a venue around Union Square. Ginny screams out lyrics at the top of her lungs until her voice is hoarse and she is not a good singer, Harry finds, a hilarious, endearing and exhilarating detail about her he hadn't yet learnt. 'This was fun, wasn't it?' she says, though, as they file out onto the street, beaming, and he kisses her amidst tourists and Muggle police sirens because he can't believe it. They're alive, they're here. She's right: to hell with everything else.

They buy a car before they leave New York. A 1987 dark green Ford Taurus GL which they purchase for $500 from some skinny bloke with very thick glasses who put an ad in the paper and insists the car's name is Barb. 'Take good care of her,' he says, and freakishly kisses the roof goodbye as they part - Harry tries to look anywhere but Gin, knowing that if he does, he won't be able to hold back the giggles and they'll be two entirely lost hopes. Inside, the seats are a suspicious sort of faux-velvet fabric; it smells like cigarettes and dead fish, and 'Well, if Barb breaks down, we can always fix her with magic,' Ginny suggests. They don't even need a car, Harry knows, not with Apparition, but Harry has a decade of Muggle films spied on behind the Dursleys' backs in his head and Ginny will try anything. The moment they get out of the "parking lot," Harry remembers the day Giulia insisted that driving the patrol car wasn't - at all - like driving Muggle ones, and bitterly regrets the high ambitions he set for himself. The fact that the cars are coming down the wrong side of the road doesn't exactly make things easier, and Ginny giggles when he says: 'Okay, we're going to take things slow.'

Outside the city, the highways are wide, though. And, Barb's an automatic. After a couple hundred miles, it gets easier.

They head north, on account of the heat. Ginny has a vague itinerary planned - cities and places marked in her travel guides that might be worth seeing. 'I think we can stop in New Haven for lunch maybe?' He nods. 'Then, stay at Martha's Vineyard? It looked pretty in the pictures.'

They spend a few days around Cape Cod, enjoying the beach and drinking white wine. Stay at Brenda's BnB, a woman with a 1950s perm and a perpetual hyper, chipper tone to her voice who seems to call every resident 'darling.' By the time Harry comes downstairs after having carried their bags up to their room, Ginny has told Brenda they entire life story. They are newlyweds from Dorset on their honeymoon and, 'Oh, no, we don't have the rings, yet,' she laughs. 'Harry, here, got the wrong sizes!' A conspirational tone in Brenda's ear. 'Men, you know?'

Brenda is howling with laughter by the time Harry makes it to the reception desk, and 'Well, you two have a great time here, folks!' she shouts at their backs (why does everyone in this country shout?). They go out to explore and Ginny wraps her arm around his, chuckling. 'Don't ask,' she says. 'Just go with it.'

He does.

On the island, there are quaint little wooden houses with petunia cascading down hanging pots and a lot of chatter about a plane crash a few days back, some dead politician's son and his wife. They visit Falmouth next, a town where everything is white, bar from the window panes - sometimes, a rogue light shade of blue. The money of it all reminds Harry of Brighton - bigger and without cliffs. Up the coast, the beaches are wide, windy, and the water's not much warmer than it is at home. The sun is hot, but the air more breathable than in New York; they take off their shoes and run down the dunes to meet the waves, tall grass at the edges. Ginny's eyes are bright when she picks up an empty seashell and tells him to listen into it. She kisses him with the wind in her face and her hair is everywhere - her smile is everywhere.

Harry breathes the ocean in.

'You're sleeping better,' she tells him, one morning. They are having eggs and bacon at Brenda's small "restaurant" area on the ground floor of the hotel. Here, again, the tables are white and the chairs blue, and the plates white and the napkins blue, with little white boat drawings on them. Harry looks up to cross her gaze. It's strange to think they've already been gone a week. Her face is flushed with yesterday's sun, a spatter of freckles on her cheeks. 'I woke up before you this morning.' She pauses. 'You've been smoking less, too.'

He supposes he has. Smiles. 'You?'

'Yeah,' she says. The shy quietness of mornings far away. 'I think me too.'

They move on to Boston that weekend. Hop on a Muggle walking tour to hear about tea thrown in a harbour, and visit an old boat. Harry likes Boston; it's this strange hybrid of New York and back home, taller buildings but also the houses are solid, not like you could just punch a hole through the walls. They eat ice cream by the water, boring over Ginny's wizarding guides again. 'Okay, I think we should drive up to Salem,' she says.

It's a mistake. They make those, too, sometimes. Find out they're not that bad. Just stay one night.

The thing is: back when he'd told Ron and Hermione about the trip, Salem was the one place she had insisted they must visit. Went on for ages about wizarding heritage and museums and sights - everything they needed to know about the Trials. Yet, Harry can't explain it but the moment they get out of the car, up there, he wants to leave. The Muggle town is small, and the wizarding side is mostly made up of monuments and memorials and Muggle/Wizard wars. They walk around that afternoon and their eyes scan silently over lists outlining hundreds of names, hundreds of dead - Muggles and sometimes magical people who got caught up in the wars. It reminds him of Godric's Hollow. It reminds him of the month of May.

That evening, he and Ginny eat a quiet dinner at a restaurant with multicoloured string lights wrapped around the porch and it feels weird that people even live here. They get back to their hotel and neither of them sleeps until the wee hours of the morning - when Ginny wakes up at five o'clock, she is screaming. He whispers sweet nothings into her hair until she calms down, then says: 'Let's just leave, yeah?'

She exhales. 'Yeah.'

After a small loop through New Hampshire and Maine, they leave the coast behind and drive inland.

America isn't very dense, they soon find. There are forests that seem to last for hundreds of miles, and sometimes back roads where for hours, you don't encounter another soul. On those days, they drive fast and roll down the windows, listen to the Muggle radio at full blast. Ginny says she likes: Blink 182 and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, decides they will drive all the way to California solely because of Californication. Harry laughs at a song he feels he probably shouldn't laugh at, some guy rapping about which Spice Girl he wants to impregnate, and Ginny asks: 'The Spice Girls, they're British, right? I feel like I've heard that somewhere.'

She buys a CD in a shop where they stop to get "gas" ('It's nonsensical,' Ginny laughs. 'Who calls a liquid "gas"?') and she masters the intro to Wannabe in less than three times.

Their next wizarding stop is Misty Village, the US equivalent of Hogsmeade, right outside of Ilvermony. Except - well, unlike its name suggests, Misty is less of a village and more of a wizarding… city. With bars and clubs, and restaurants, high buildings and busy streets. Harry's never seen this many wizarding people before, busier than Diagon Alley on a Saturday; there is a festival going when they arrive, a parade of hundreds of people on brooms strangely dressed like topical birds and loads of food stands from all around the world. A high number of tourists seem to have congregated there for the event and although this is a wizarding town, it's actually rather easy for them to get lost in the crowds. The next morning, the young man working the reception desk of their hotel tells them a letter has arrived for them via owl and would they like to see it?

Harry expects an answer from Ron and Hermione. He sent them a postcard from New York; they wrote back when he and Ginny were in Boston. All was well back home, they said, and Mr Weasley asked if they bring back some plugs, had heard they were different, over there. Harry wrote again from Salem, telling them the place was depressing as fuck and that they were clearing out, and given that the letter looks heavy, he supposes this will be Hermione sending pages, lecturing him about History.

Ginny is standing a few metres away, vaguely looking through the hotel's display of postcards and magical pamphlets; she picks up a few leaflets to look through at breakfast. He opens the letter automatically and unfolds it - freezes.

His eyes are caught by the logo at the top. Then, well, he realises it isn't, actually, addressed to him. Suddenly, his hands are shaking. He shouldn't read - can't not read - and, well, now he is reading, and -

Ginny looks up at the same time he does. 'What?' she says.

He hands the letter over to her. Seconds later, she jumps into his arms. 'OH MY GOD!' she squeals. 'OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD!'

It's almost been a month. Gwenog Jones really took her sweet time with this, he thinks.

Of course, they celebrate, that day. Spend their time walking the streets, browsing the aisles of a small artisan's market, stalls selling hand-carved wand handles and personalised t-shirts that change colours according to your mood. Ginny buys herself a straw handbag with a pink pompom and they get milkshakes to drink alongside the canal. The area is shaded, people strolling with pushchairs and shopping bags along the paths, they sit watching narrowboats navigating the locks until sunset. Over dinner, they share a bottle of wine, then head for a bar with loud music, floating instruments charmed to play by themselves. Ginny downs three gin and tonics, and forces him to dance. 'I'm gonna be a professional Quidditch player!' she half-slurs, half-shouts in his ear, grinning from ear to ear, and the way she stresses the word 'professional' sounds a bit wrong; he laughs. Her happiness is infectious - she is infectious - puts her hands up to the beat of the music, jumps, and falls onto him a bit. He stopped drinking a while back, on account of the fact that one of them should probably be sober enough to find their way back home and he thinks he likes it even better like this, being able to watch her dance, drunk on booze and glee, chaotically stumbling into his arms. This is a good kind of chaos, he thinks.

She is flushed, close, warm against him. The bodycon dress she chose to wear has ridden up a little bit and he's holding her with his palms just over the curve of her bum. She is close, temptingly so. 'Kiss me,' she says. He does.

The camera is bright when it flashes in the dark.

Oh, sure, Harry sees him, afterwards. The flash disappears and his face immediately turns, hand leaving Ginny to reach for the wand in his back pocket, but it's already too late. They are in the middle of the dancefloor, being pushed slightly to the side by drunk, swaying people ('Oh my gawd, this is my song!' some girl behind him shouts) and by the time his brain clocks on what happened, the guy's already out. Harry looks around at a loss for what to do, can't possibly run after him lest he wants to cause a stampede and hexing his general direction would surely result in someone else getting hit. He closes his eyes, forehead dropping against hers. 'Fuck,' he says.

Ginny looks up, bites her lip. 'Sorry, I didn't -'

But: 'You know what? I don't fucking care,' he interrupts, right there. His mouth crashes down against hers before she can apologise again for something that has asbolutely nothing to do with her. She was right, that morning in New York, he decides. It drives him fucking nuts, but the tabloids will write about them until the end of their lives and there's not a bloody thing he can do about it, except to not let it ruin tonight. Come to think of it, he sort of wants the bloke to come back, now, get more pictures. Their faces splashed all over London - they can write all about it, if they like. 'Whatever,' he says. 'It's just us. That's what matters.'

Ginny chuckles - bright and loud - nods. He takes her hand and makes her twirl; she comes stumbling back into his arms. 'Okay. I love you,' she says.

They rush back to the hotel.

Her lips are still locked to his when he opens the door with his wand. It gives behind his back and they stumble in, and his hands on her thighs and her hands everywhere. Harry stabilises her against the wall and her back hits the switch that turns on the lights; they both jump, then laugh in surprise. But, then, they - slow down. Still. Foreheads pressed together again, all Harry can hear is her heavy breathing. In the artificial brightness, he notices her make-up has smudged under her eyes a little, and he's kissed the lipstick off her lips. Her hair is a mess, wild around her face, and yet, she's the most beautiful she's ever been. 'What?' she asks, her gaze narrowing. She sways into him a bit.

He pulls back. Swallows.

Now, here's the thing.

It really used to be about them taking their time, at the beginning. Back when they were in London - all eyes on them and he was a bit busy in his head. It hadn't even been that long since he broke up with Mia, since Ginny had dropped out of school - he wanted them to have a breather. Hell, she wanted them to have a breather, too. They had fun, flirted, joked around, kissed - it was good. All good.

But - it's been different, these days. They've been happy, joking, laughing - of course - but Harry can't deny he's been a bit more distant - guarded - these past couple weeks. Especially since they left New York and the newness of the trip came down a bit, since they got into some sort of routine. There's been moments. The two of them laying in bed, enjoying each other's company, and Ginny kissed him, and the kiss deepened, and he pulled away after a bit, hoping that she wouldn't notice. He's always made sure to have excuses. 'I really need the loo,' or 'Let's go down to breakfast, I'm starving,' or 'God, I'm exhausted.' Now, he feels her slip away from between him and the wall. 'Tired, right?' she asks.

Harry closes his eyes.

He goes to the bathroom for a piss. When he comes out, Ginny is rummaging through her bag. 'It's freezing,' she says. Her voice itself is cold - she'd pointed it out to him when they arrived and he'd loosely tried to fiddle with the aircon again, didn't understand how it could be both magical and not, and quickly gave up in favour of going out. Now, he feels like a complete twat. 'Can't find my fucking jumper,' she curses, throwing what looks like a dress back into her suitcase.

'Sorry, I -'

She shakes her head. Stomps towards the bathroom. Almost shoves him out of the way.

'Gin -'

'You never asked.'

'Asked what?'

'How many?'

Her arms are crossed over her chest. Protectively, he wants to guess, but then there's a fury in her gaze he hasn't seen since her fight with Ron in sixth year. He sets his jaw. Doesn't pretend he doesn't know what she means. 'Is that really a thing people ask?'

'Yeah,' she snaps. He has this strange thought that she sounds like her letters from last February. 'Girls - rarely to your face. Witch Weekly would love to know, let me tell you.'

'Well, do you want me to ask?'

'Do you want to know?'

He sighs. Looks to the side and rolls his eyes. This is stupid. It seems bizarre anyone would even keep count. And, didn't he tell her it didn't matter? 'I dunno,' he speaks quick. 'If you want to tell me…'

'Hm.'

Her voice is curt. She is standing by the door to the bathroom, now, dark kohl smudged at the underside of her eyes. He wants her to shower and brush her hair soft, the roses of her conditioner and come snuggle in bed next to him. He wants to sleep.

'I suppose you'd want know how damaged the goods are, right?' She shakes her head. 'Liked it better when you didn't think I'd fucked half the wizarding world, didn't you?' She sighs. 'You fucking hypocrite.'

And, it's like water, right? The way it simmers and then just boils, all at once. He wants his wand in his hand. He wants to explode something. The rage chokes up his throat and her eyes are red and glassy and the words file out of his mouth ice-cold. 'Ginny, you're drunk,' he says.

'Right,' she scoffs. 'That's a new one.'

She moves towards the inside of the bathroom - he grabs her wrist; she yanks it out.

'Go fuck yourself,' she says, and slams the door in his face.

He wants to barge in. Could barge in, he thinks; she's locked it but alohomora exists. Regardless of how livid he is, though, it still feels wrong, the more he thinks about it. Instead, he waits outside until she comes out. Mulling over a few chosen words like: what the fuck are you on about? Ten minutes. Twenty. She is trying to outlast him, he realises, waiting for him to go to bed and at least pretend to sleep. After thirty minutes, he is so fucking enraged he gives in. Grabs his jumper and a packet of cigarettes and slams the door shut. Chain-smokes sat by the canal outside until he sees her turn off the lights.

The next morning, they set off to Niagara Falls. In the car, Ginny's eyes are hidden behind dark sunglasses and they get McDonald's for breakfast, in strained silence. Harry finds a phone on the road to call Dean's mobile, gets him to put Hermione on. 'Yeah, the picture's everywhere,' she says.

'Fuck.'

'It's fine,' she says, sounds like she is trying to reassure him. 'It's just - there. You two look drunk, but happy.' He hears her smile, sighs. 'You're happy, right?'

There's over three hundred miles to the border with Canada. Harry just - drives. The radio is a quiet lull between them until the tune of Just My Imagination loops in his head and he just slams the thing off with his hand. They drive in silence after that, and the tyres of cars against the tarmac almost sound like ocean waves.

'Are you gonna be like this for the rest of the trip?' she wonders out loud.

'I didn't fucking ask,' he snaps.

The more he thinks about it, the angrier he gets, really. Can't fucking believe she's made it about that. As though after everything they've been through, he'd still be the kind of bloke who cared how many people she's been with. Like, he lied to her, too, the first time she asked and he said he didn't like it, but that he didn't mind it. He wants to sleep with her. He doesn't want to sleep with her. And, he doesn't fucking know why, and: trust me, it's driving me nuts, too, he wants to tells (scream at her, as a matter of fact), especially when he gets fucking hard just thinking about it. Last summer, everything was difficult but the sex was always the one thing that worked, between them, and now everything is better but every time his hands are on her skin, he freezes. He wants to slam the car into a tree like that will shock him into living.

'I told you I didn't care,' he says. 'I'm not bloody lying.'

She looks down, then up at him. He wishes he could see her eyes. 'Okay,' she finally says. 'I'm sorry.'

He's still - angry. But, Niagara is tacky. Niagara is tacky and it's a bit of shithole in a way that neither of them expected and it's hard not to make fun of it. All-you-can-eat buffets where Muggles float looking for a table, carrying their trays aimlessly, lost at sea like elephants on an iceberg. Ginny buys Harry a snowglobe that looks more like a pile of plastic vomit and calls it an early birthday present. It is the 30th of July. 'You know what? I should mail that to Kreacher,' he says, in spite of himself, and tells her stories of maggots for Christmas. She laughs as they lean against the railing and watch water pour down. Wonders out loud if the view is better on the Canadian side.

They tour the town (there isn't much to see) and when the late afternoon turns into the evening, they come back after dinner. The views are prettier at night, actually, they almost make him forget about the town and the lights reflect against the fog, the force of water and three-hundred-foot cliffs. Ginny is getting goosebumps from the chill and so he stands behind her, wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on her head, breathes in the air and closes his eyes for a bit. Neither of them slept very well. 'I'm just scared,' she says.

That's one thing he can relate to. 'Yep,' he nods. 'Me too.'

'We can go home if you want,' she suggests, after a while. Her voice is low and barely carries over the tumult of the river. Harry wonders if anyone has ever tried to jump. Wonders what it would feel like to take a plunge. Ginny turns around, her back against the railing, to face him. They are close, touching everywhere. 'If you've had enough,' she says.

'No.' He shakes his head. His lips on her forehead. A moment. London and their world will crush them if they don't figure this out now, he thinks. And, he wants to figure this out now. 'Let's go to Chicago.'

They spend his birthday on the road down the coast of Lake Erie. Buffalo is even more of a shithole than Niagara. They buy a cake in a convenience store and Ginny lights candles with her wand, the chocolate fat and creamy in their mouths. As a present (a real present, not the snowglobe) she gets him a map of the US. A blue line following their itinerary so far, and all their souvenirs tacked. The polaroid pictures, ticket stubs, receipts of the places they've been, of the meals they've had, little sticky notes describing her favourite memories. 'We can add to it as we go along,' she says.

He smiles back like no one ever died.

In the Midwest, they enter what Ginny jokingly refers to as their '"America is bonkers" era,' when they later tell Ron and Hermione about the trip. After a couple of weeks spent mostly in cities and coastal town, they come to the conclusion that the rural USA is weird. By which Harry means: most things, in life, are a certain amount of 'weird', but this is extra special.

Guns in supermarkets. Motels by the side of roads with outside corridors like low-rise council estates, gigantic car parks and décor that feels like it wasn't even in trend when it was in trend. Permanently stained red carpets, curtains with large roses, bedspreads that feel like plastic, Muggle TVs resting on shelves affixed at improbable heights, wood panneling on the walls and ceilings, Bibles in bedside drawers, vending machines and bizarre art. In the bathrooms: yellow tiles. And, green tiles. And, red tiles. The word 'water' out their mouths which causes endless confusion in the diners they stop at. Ginny perfects an impression of 'wahdder' that either gives Harry nightmares or the giggles, he can't decide. Most places they sleep in indicate vacancies with neon lighting from the 60s, also clearly the last time they hired new staff. Some of the most affluent areas seem to be located just miles away from trailer parks left in complete disarray and lawyers advertise slip-and-fall cases on large billboards like dial 0-800-AMBULANCE-CHASER and get your money back NOW. Jesus, Mary, Joseph and their friends are everywhere, promising redemption and hell in equal measure; he and Ginny once eat a burger sat in a car park where to Harry's left, a sign advertises the sale and rental of 'adult videos' next to a poster that reads: 'JESUS IS WATCHING YOU.'

Ginny asks: 'What are adult videos?'

In Toledo, they meet a bloke named André who seems to be one of the very few sensible people they've met since leaving Misty Village. He is from Detroit and claims they should 'go North in Michigan,' It wasn't part of their original plan but it's not a massive detour and they've got nowhere to go in particular, anyway. 'Drive up to the Peninsula,' he says. 'It's great out there. Get back to Chicago on the other side.' Ginny questions Harry with a look and he shrugs.

'Yeah. Why not?'

Michigan has one road that goes North, a two-lane highway Harry is convinced could take them up to the Pole if they just stayed on it. It's the straightest road he's ever been on (and that's saying something considering the last few weeks); they cross towns that all look alike, little roads with grass-covered pavements and little wooden houses with American flags hanging over large porches and perfect "lawns," forests green with the summer and streaming streams. The car beats a rhythm against the cracks in the motorways, poorly fixed snow injuries. 'Must look dreamy in the winter,' Ginny comments, absentmindedly scratching her legs. She sets her feet on the dashboard now and they bicker about it - he tells her it's dangerous, she reminds him that she's a witch. When they stop in Ann Arbor, they hear Muggles screaming as they cruise down a river in floating tubes, immediately sign up to do the same. An overall fun experience until the dusk breaks and they get raided by an army of vengeful mosquitos.

As they travel around the Great Lakes, with the sun on her face, Ginny sleeps in the car. She does that a lot, Harry notices, and it kind of makes him wonder if she sleeps at night. She found the time to create that map she gave him for his birthday without him noticing. They are laying in bed when she says: 'I don't want you to die.'

His hand stills against her arm for a second. 'I'm not going to die.' He hasn't thought about it in a while.

'Ever?' she smiles.

He chuckles. Low like the dark. 'Okay, well, maybe that's a bit unrealistic.'

She laughs against his chest. A whisper.

He wonders if she will fall asleep tonight. If the kisses he drops in her hair and the touch of his fingers will help her alleviate her fears, someday. They do, at times, she says. Her hand is flat against his shirt again. 'You didn't say goodbye.'

He closes his eyes. His breath like water in his throat. They're the hardest words he's ever had to hear. 'I'm so, so sorry.'

They stop in Mackinaw City before crossing over, then spend a day and a night in Marquette. The waters of Lake Superior are crystal clear and turquoise blue. Sometimes, the forests of pine trees are so close to the shore it looks like they are bathing their feet in.

Harry is not sure if it's the nature or the calm of the place, but they end up staying a lot longer than they had originally anticipated, up on the Peninsula. They find a hotel in a small town, little log cabins with direct access to the lake; they have their own kitchen and a large bed with pristine white sheets - when the window opens, they can hear the birds and the water and the wind. They almost stay until mid-August, a few days after her birthday. That night, there is a nice restaurant, a bottle of white wine, and a book he brought over from London. All You Need to Know about the Harpies, An Anthology by former player, Avaline Donalds. 'Bit of a gamble there, Potter,' she smiles, teasing. 'What if they'd said no?'

'I dunno,' he laughs. 'I'd have improvised.'

There is a sense of serenity here that Harry has never quite experienced before - thousands of miles between him and London, but also between them and the world at large. They eat salads and blueberries; the latter they are bigger, juicier than in England. Sweeter. All the souvenir shops sell jars of cranberry jams and chocolates. Everything is slow and quiet. During the days, the temperatures rest in the low to mid twenties. Ginny once gets her swimming costume out and runs into the water swearing at the top of her lungs about how bloody freezing it is. It makes him laugh to tears. In the mornings, they get up lazily, take the car and check out a few locations recommended by her travel guides. In the afternoons, they sit by the lake in the hotel gardens, deck chairs by the shore and wooden tables in the shade. Ginny reads; Harry sleeps. She's run out of wizarding books, has started picking up Muggle romances in shops along the way, periodically asks him what things are (baseball and helicopters and amusement parks). She reads out to him the juiciest passages and he pretends to be annoyed by it. In the evenings, she wraps herself in a Gryffindor jumper to keep from the chill and they go out for walks, eat at restaurants framed with fairy lights and sit outside.

'Go on,' she says. He shakes his head.

'I don't swim in lakes anymore.'

Especially lakes so wide he can't see the other side. 'Scared of the Merpeople, are we?'

'Er,' he pretends to hesitate. Laughs. 'Yes.'

She grins. 'Most boring task to watch, that was. Just staring at that bloody lake for two hours.'

'Oh, I'm sorry you got bored.'

He likes the way she teases him, he finds. Likes the mischievous smile on her lips and the way she looks at him like she's wondering if he'll take the bait, rise to the occasion. When he does, her smiles spills across her face like the crowds move in and out of King's Cross - not at all, then all at once. He wants to kiss her all the time and sometimes he does, her lips red like berries and his hands in her hair. 'You have a thing for my hair,' she observes.

Unabashedly: 'Yes.'

'You know, sometimes I think they were scared,' one day. She pauses, shrugs. 'Him and his sister, I mean.'

The thing is: Michigan brings that, too, that year. Harry's not sure when it happens, somewhere on the road or later in the towns they explore or at the edges of sunsets, but their conversations become more than just - whispers or confessions written in the dark. It is broad daylight when they talk, sometimes, to the tune of birds in the trees and the lapping of water. A woman is walking a boxer terrier in the far distance, the dog running in to dip its paws, then back again. 'I don't mean like an excuse but I don't know. You have to be pretty desperate to be that cruel.'

Ginny understands people, he's noticed. Not that he, himself, isn't capable of empathy, but sometimes, things need to be explained to him in a way that they don't, for her. Occasionally, she uses her skills like a weapon. Ron and their sixth year and you've never snogged a girl before. Most times, though, it's the way she watches the couple at the neighbouring table and says: 'She's pregnant and she hasn't told him. She's wondering if she should tell him.'

'How'd you know?'

He reckons she is a legilimens. 'She hasn't touched her wine,' she laughs. 'When he went to the bathroom, she emptied half of it in that bush there.'

Harry grins, challenges. 'Could be feeling sick?'

'Okay, but why would she lie?'

She smirks and shrugs like I got you, there, and he could just sit here and talk to her for hours, he thinks.

'Sometimes, I feel like I could write books about these people, you know?' she adds.

'You don't know them.'

But: in her head, she does, she explains. They've been pregnant before, she tells him, and she lost the baby. She knows it isn't her fault - not really - but she still aches for the way his smile fell when she told him, and she loves him so much, she says, she isn't sure she could stand having to go through it again. Harry listens, that night, as Ginny tells him stories about the Muggles around them, their little house in the suburbs and their dog, Max, and his kind but overbearing mother. 'Bit sad,' he tells her. She smiles.

'Well, he also gets paid to watch paint dry.'

He chokes on his drink. 'Excuse me?'

'Yup. He's got to time how quickly paint dries for his paint manufacturing company.'

'Riveting.'

Stories need humour and tragedies, she tells him.

Ginny purses her lips when she speaks about her mother, later. They are walking back, the sun is setting. She suggest they should stop for ice cream. 'Mum says she and I don't understand each other,' she says. 'But I don't know, I reckon I do understand her.' She pauses. 'I'm good with people. I just … don't agree.'

He turns his face to look at her, briefly. The bridge of her nose and the pink of her lips. 'Does that bother you?'

'No.' She shakes her head. 'I love her and she loves me.'

They sit out in the garden again, that night, and watch the end of the sunset. He smokes a cigarette. He's on two to three a day now, morning and evening and sometimes after lunch. Ginny's tried them, coughed, and vowed to never try again. Like when she asked him to teach her how to drive and she almost crashed twice and he had to authoritatively put an end to it to protect Barb's life.

'Yeah, I guess that makes sense,' he says. Not about her mother but about the Carrows. Though, maybe, the thing with her mother does, too. They are sitting at one of the picnic tables in the sun when they talk about it the next day; he extends his legs in the grass and yawns. 'Tom was scared of death.'

'You're not?'

'No.'

In the shade, her eyes are dark like the bark of pine.

'I don't want to die,' he clarifies. 'It would suck.' An awkward laugh. It would suck because he likes it here, he thinks, specifically, being with her. He wants this - for a lot longer. All the time in the world. And, Ron and Hermione would be sad. He doesn't want to die, now that they're all finally happy. 'But, I don't know. It is what it is.'

Ginny twirls a can of Arizona Iced Tea in her hand, like she is weighing it. 'I was scared,' she says. Admits it like a weakness - he reckons that probably just makes her normal. 'Sometimes I thought he was going to kill me.' She sighs, shakes her head. 'But like I said, sometimes he just - I don't know, he was nice, you know? I mean, genuinely. His sister would get the Slytherins practicing curses on us and he'd tell her I couldn't be there cause I had detention. I - I'd see Shay and Nev come back with cuts and bruises everywhere and I just - I felt guilty, you know? All I had to do was spread my legs and give him what he wanted. I mean, yeah, sometimes he liked making it painful but sometimes I just had to make him believe I wanted it. I reckon that was the hardest part, actually. Trying to figure out what he specifically wanted on that particular day.'

Her voice is casual. She is reading out to him a treacle tart recipe. Harry says nothing for a while. Just surveils the way her hair frames her face, thick and parted in the middle, locks tucked behind her ears. The sun grazes her shoulders, lengths golden. 'Did he believe it?' he finally asks. Can't quite explain why. 'When you said you wanted it?'

She narrows on his. Not hostile but more like she didn't expect the question. She seems to consider it for a second. 'Yeah, I think so,' she says. 'Or else I'd be dead, I reckon.'

Above their heads, in the green of all of its many small leaves, a bird sings a short tune in the trees. Harry, strangely, thinks about Hermione. About Hermione and how at age sixteen, she explained to him how Cho felt.

He wonders if girls just get better at reading people because their lives depend on it.

That night, when he wakes up around three, Harry thinks Ginny is in the midst of a nightmare. Her body is tense next to him, her breath short, quick, and her eyes closed. The moon shines a soft, white light over her features through cheap, flimsy curtains. It is only after a minute or so, when he blinks himself really awake, that he notices her right hand isn't around her throat but under the covers. She is biting her lip and suddenly, all he wants to do is lift the duvet to look. He doesn't, too afraid she'll realise he is up, if he moves. Her left hand has ridden north under her shirt over her right breast, just where the top sheet stops, around her midriff, and suddenly her lips part - ever so slight - and a moan escapes her mouth. It is the single sexiest sound he's ever heard.

He wants nothing more than to touch her, that night - help her - but something keeps him at bay, unwilling to interrupt. He can tell she's close; he witnesses the moment, just there, when she slips over the edge. Her quick breaths turn into another moan and she bites down on her bottom lip before a gasp escapes anyway. 'Harry,' she whispers. His breath catches in his throat. Is it silly: how the monster roars? Next to him, he feels her legs shaking.

The next morning, he wants to ask what that was about but he doesn't know if that would be appropriate. They are late checking out of the hotel anyway.

They drive down to Chicago. Spend the rest of the week at a fancy hotel in the Loop; it's strangely nice to be back in a city again, civilisation and the world around them. Harry hadn't noticed, but he'd started to miss it. Now that he's got something to compare it to, Chicago feels like an odd mix of New York and Boston. Big and small, old and new. The sun shines and the weather is hot like the middle of August but the nights are starting to cool. He and Ginny walk the streets; she takes pictures of tall buildings. They sit in the park with Muggles to watch live music performances in the grass. They go up a skyscraper with a view of the Lake and they're told that up until last year, it was the tallest building in the world. 'Imagine flying up here,' Ginny whispers in Harry's ear and he looks down at the streets and feels the air in his lungs, the freedom of a freefall. They enjoy the scenary with her back against his chest and his chin in her hair again, staring out the window. North of the Loop, everything looks to be under the construction, something about the millennium. Every time Ginny talks about flying, there is this longing in his chest. The look on his face makes her laugh. 'We need to hire brooms at least once on this trip,' she declares. 'I can't with the puppy dog eyes.'

He laughs.

Over pizza thick enough to count as cake, they talk about London, that night. Maybe it's being back in a city - they look at high apartment buildings and Ginny asks what he intends to do (where he intends to live) when they get back. He sighs. It's not that he doesn't like Grimmauld, per se, but there's just too many people there, and Ron and Hermione as next-door neighbours - it's complicated. He loves them - dearly - but he's had his own place for a year now, and thinks they get on better when everyone has their own space. 'I reckon I'll look for somewhere else,' he says. 'You can stay, though. Obviously.'

'You didn't want to stay at the old flat?' Ginny asks, that night. They haven't talked about it, he realises. There wasn't much time, back home, not as much as there is here. He shakes his head as a response. Doesn't really tell her why, but he reckons he doesn't need to. Her smiles becomes curious, but shy. 'And, how do you feel about that?' she asks.

It's a fair question, of course. How he feels about Mia. A couple months have passed. Water, bridges and all that. 'Still a bit guilty, I think,' he admits. Winces. 'You?'

'Still a bit jealous, I think.'

'Don't you reckon I have more things to be jealous about?'

He likes it when they talk like that. No jabs, no fights. It's easier to have conversations about last year when the facts outlined are just that - facts - and not personal attacks. Ginny rests her elbows over the table, fingers interlocked, her chin over her hands. 'That's different,' she corrects. Doesn't sound offended. He breaths a sigh of relief. 'I was having sex with strangers,' she acknowledges. 'You were in love with her.'

'She said I was in love with you.'

Everything seems to go quiet around them, then. It occurs to him that he hasn't said it, yet. She hasn't brought it up, of course; he wonders if it bothers her, or if she's just giving him time - like with the sex, now. They haven't talked about that in a while, either. Ginny's gaze finds his. He worries she can see into his soul. 'Oh-kay,' she finally just says.

The next day, they head south. Have about a month left before Ginny needs to get back for the Harpies (and, Harry supposes, he should go back to work, eventually). She feels strongly about making it to California. 'We could go all around,' she points on the map between them, the big loop to Seattle, then down. 'But then this way we can go to the Grand Canyon, and Vegas…' He chuckles. Another place he thought only existed on the screen of the Dursleys' TV.

'You think we could write to Trelawney, ask her to give us an edge with the card games?' she quips.

He laughs. 'Trelawney couldn't even predict what cards are in her own hand, Gin.'

Their last night in the city, he has this strange dream, a nonsensical mash-up of different conversations. Trelawney is levitating on a broom over the construction site in the Loop, gesticulating wildly at the visions in her crystal ball. 'You know what would look exquisite here?' she asks Harry like she expects an answer. He looks at her dumbfounded. The wind is blowing her hair up around her head in a halo. 'A giant bean reflecting the world.'

He tells Ginny over breakfast the next day and she can't stop laughing.

They leave Illinois on the 16th of August 1999. Ginny draws a big line with a sharpie down the six states they need to cross and settles in the car knowing that they are going to be living in it for the next while. 'Okay, so we've got: Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona,' she says. Claims it should take them about twenty-five hours to cross the continent, to which Harry laughs and kindly tells her that at the pace they're going, they'll probably be there by the end of the month, if they're lucky. 'Well, that's because you, my friend, drive like an old lady.'

He rolls his eyes although, to tell the truth, she's not wrong. He's been refusing to drive more than five or six hours consecutively because a) it's not like they're in a rush, and b) it's pretty fucking boring. Since the car park incident, he categorically refuses to let Ginny drive - they've paid money for this car and as shit as it is, writing it off wouldn't be the best use of their limited funds. 'You're welcome to Portkey over if you want,' he teases and she grins again, makes a face at him.

'Ha-ha.'

The drive west is - hard to explain. America - the middle of it - seems to be this strange place between civilisation and the lack thereof, between humans and the lack thereof. Illinois and Missouri have trees on each side of the roads, hundreds of miles of an endless forbidden forest, until one day they seem to wake up in a motel surrounded by cornfields and livestock - they are in Oklahoma, now. Everything looks the same but a different kind of same and Harry can't remember when that changed.

They laugh in the car, the two of them. They laugh in the car and they play games, I spy and twenty questions, and Ginny reads him long excerpts from her travel guides to keep him entertained, things about Native American tribes and centuries of wandless magic heritage. They explore more obscure radio channels, the rhythm of Spanish music and the Bongo Bong song. The Muggle world around them is all horses and shiny lorries driving down wide motorways and land - just land, empty land, so much fucking land with miles (miles) between farms - 'If we drove west half this much in England, we'd be in the middle of the ocean,' Harry jokes, once. They have these strange existential conversations about who owns all that land, and what they use it for, and why on Earth would anyone ever need this much space.

Texas, once they cross over, is mostly neatly cut grass and golf courses, money drowning in water in the middle of the desert. Outside is hot, but a different kind of hot, especially after they make it into New Mexico the next day. Opening the door of the car is like opening the door to an oven and later, people in Arizona tell them to leave their windows slightly open, or else the sun might explode them. There are questions to be raised as to why the fuck humans would choose to live here, in Harry's humble opinion, and Barb's aircon exhausts itself halfway through the drive, emitting a loud groan before fully giving out. They start relying on cooling charms instead, and Ginny changes into a crop top that might as well be the top half of a bikini, the entirety of her stomach exposed. Harry thinks she doesn't know what that does to him - or, actually maybe she does, because there's no way she can't see the way the lorry drivers stare down at her tits every time he passes one of them. Her seat reclined and her bare legs stretched out onto the dashboard. He keeps his eyes straight, look focused - too focused - on road in front of them.

She's still reading her books, new ones she picked up in a Muggle bookshop in Chicago - she claims to be interested in exploring Muggle 'literature.' 'Oh, this one's kinda good,' she says, so after a pretty grim couple days in Oklahoma spent listening to her read about the Trail of Tears, Ginny seems to have decided to read porn to him, now. She isn't touching him, she isn't even looking at him, and yet the sound of her voice is the Worst Thing On The Planet right now - Harry frankly thinks they should go back to the bloody Spice Girls, at this rate. It goes on forever, her voice tone and well-times pauses, building "suspense" in all the right places, and her breath is shallow and he thinks about how it would feel against his neck. How his palms would slide up her stomach, and how his mouth would plant kisses on her breasts. 'In the dark, he feels her wetness, slick against his fingers,' she says, and -

He pulls over in the dirt at the side of the road. There is no one around them - no one and nothing; those two-way lanes in the middle of the fucking desert - and he opens the door and slams it shut behind him. She laughs, like loud and pissing herself laughing and, ugh, fuck you, he thinks. Walks about twenty steps out into the middle of fucking nowhere, amidst cacti ('I never thought they just grew like that,' Ginny said the first time they saw one, 'Out in the wild,') and the likely presence of animals that could kill him with a bite. Harry runs a hand over his face dislodging his glasses and the heat is bloody unbearable, spreading in his neck up his cheeks - he readjusts them back on. In front of him, there is dirt, red-ish sand, railroad tracks and in the very far distance, mountains.

When he finally turns around again, Ginny is leaning with her back against the side of the car, smiling a sort of enigmatic, self-satisfied smile that he just wants to wipe from her face, still in that bloody top of hers that's riding up. It is late in the afternoon, the sun just about to dip below the horizon. 'Are you alright, Potter? Or do you need a moment?'

He doesn't dignify that with a response. Just rolls his eyes and glares, walks back and around the car again without saying a word, settling back against the wheel. The door on her side opens, closes; she pulls her seat back up straight and drops down next to him. Harry finally dares look at her face. 'Don't do that,' he warns. 'I swear if you keep doing that I'm gonna crash this fucking car.'

She smirks. He rolls his eyes (again). 'Oh-kay,' she says. Her eyes are burning at the side of his face. 'Though, not like you could do something about it,' she chances.

And: he could. She's made it painfully clear to him that he could. Just talking about it, looking at her in the golden hour; it makes him want to kiss her, take her clothes off and do it right fucking there, in the car. He vaguely wonders if people have done it in this car before. Then, he thinks he'd actually rather not know. 'Let's just not -' He shakes his head. Slams the radio on with his palm, and now bloody Dido sits there with them. I can't breathe, she says, and - yeah, pretty much, yeah, he thinks.

He is avoiding Ginny's gaze, he knows. His eyes find her lap instead. She is wearing a red pair of athletic shorts that rise just under her bellybutton. Her look follows his and suddenly they are looking at the same thing.

He's seen her scar before. Last year, but also recently, her t-shirts riding up when she's changed or stretched, and sitting in her little, sexy bikinis at the beach. It's not a secret. Yet, for some reason, he looks away, now, quick, and back at the road, tells himself he's going to start the car again. 'Do you want me to hide it?' she asks.

He freezes.

In England, she wears short shorts and skirts and dresses that show off her legs and her curves in ways that make Aunt Muriel rage, but never this. Never crop tops, not anymore. He supposes her family would ask questions.

'No -' he says.

'It's not particularly attractive, I don't blame you.'

'Ginny, don't,' he snaps, sets his jaw. She's doing it again, isn't she? This time, he consciously doesn't rise to the bait. 'I just -' He shakes his head. 'I just thought about him, that's all. Nothing more.' He's not sure why he can't seem to sleep with her, yet, but an ugly scar on her stomach is really bloody not it. For the love of God, it'd be pretty rich of him given that his own chest looks like a war zone.

A large pick-up truck races down the motorway next to them, air whooshing in their direction, and yet, Harry doesn't even turn to look at it. Ginny bites her lip but stays quiet, glances out to the desert out the window, pink skies and oranges and reds - he wants to apologise and he's not even sure what for.

After Dido finishes her song, he turns on the ignition for something to do.

They are quieter, over the next few days. Not quiet like: they're not talking - more like: they're both a bit in their heads. That night, Ginny wakes up screaming again and after she finally falls back asleep, Harry gets up and walks around the car park, chain-smoking half a pack of cigarettes. He misses running. The sun is rising by the time he brushes his teeth and gets back into bed; she doesn't move, laying on her side, just breathes, and he's pretty sure she's faking it.

Things get better - slowly. They keep driving, past Albuquerque, and at least, by then, they have things to do. Ginny's travel guides indicate a cluster of historical landmarks within the wizarding grounds of Navajo reserves; they get educated about American Muggle and wizarding History, have things to talk about when they get back to their hotel that aren't just their own micro-tragedies. The kind old man who acts as their tour guide to teach them about ancient magic strangely makes Harry think of an odd mix between Dumbledore and Hagrid - they send the former a card from the wizarding post office with pictures of all the animals they've seen. The nights are colder out in the desert and in the car on the way back, Ginny sleeps with his jacket wrapped around her in the dark.

Out in the middle of nowhere, the two of them stick out like sore thumbs. In cities, people seemed to notice and enjoy their accents - now, they're just confused at the mere presence of foreigners. Once, they stop at a diner and Harry absentmindedly gazes out at the electric poles in the distance; the nice woman who serves them asks if it's the first time he's seen electricity. People here seem to live in their own world, populated by "pick-up trucks" and rattlesnakes, and he catches himself wondering what they would think of London. What they would think of Grimmauld Place and all these buildings sandwiched together, and the bricks of estates, and the stones of Whitehall. Harry wonders what he, himself, thinks of London, too, and wonders for the first time in a long time how Kingsley is doing. Between Michigan and here, they haven't caught sight of any Wizarding press in weeks. Hermione has only ever said good things in her letters, Ron signing them at the end and saying he hoped all was going well. Harry signed with love the ones Ginny wrote back. He's not particularly worried. Guesses that if the apocalypse really was to happen, they'd find out soon enough.

Even at the wizarding reserves, people are too far from the rest of the world to give a crying fuck about who The Boy Who Lived is. 'Oh, you're from England? I heard there was trouble there. Is that over already?' That's all they hear, really. It's refreshing. Still, they get recognised in the strangest places, sometimes. Once: a painfully kitsch Route-66-themed petrol station on the last leg of their journey to Grand Canyon. The desert around them has become impossibly drier, dead trees by the side of roads and nothing but the rhythm of their tyres driving over the tarmac. It is about five in the afternoon when they stop for "gas," a bottle of water and a wee, and funnily enough, out of the both of them, the one who gets recognised is Ginny. This, frankly, makes Harry's day - month, year - everything. The shop is owned by a middle-aged couple and their early-teenage daughter who gasps the moment they enter the place - not at Harry's scar, but at her very recognisable red hair. 'Oh My Gawd,' she says, 'Are you Ginny Weasley?'

Once Ginny frowns, shyly, a quick stream of words: 'They said you just got signed with the Harpies, is that true?' And: 'Apparently, you had a 70% conversion rate in school. Oh my God, it's true? That's INSANE!' 'Well, I'm on the Thunderbird team at Ilvermony, I'm hoping to make captain. Best teams are in England, I really hope I can go play there when I'm eighteen. My parents are Muggles, they don't want me to. MOM, come! Look, it's Ginny Weasley!'

Ginny signs her first ever Quidditch autograph on the back of a black-and-white Route 66 postcard and Harry thinks this is legit one of the best days of his life. There is something about seeing her be recognised for the things she's accomplished, for the things she's most proud of, not for some stupid Witch Weekly articles, that just warms him up from the inside, like a winter mug of hot chocolate. She shares discreet, amused, teasing looks and smiles with Harry at the fact that they haven't recognised him, yet, and the fun spills, filling the space between all of them. She doesn't say his name, just introduces him as her "boyfriend," and they shake his hand like he's just some normal bloke, getting petrol with his famous girlfriend. It's great to see her get noticed, and himself forgotten, and he realises he'd love to live in a world when he can just be that: Ginny Weasley's plus one. The kid is over the moon, too, becoming more and more of a loud, excited chatterbox by the minute, asking Ginny for advice on what teams to try out for, and when.

It's all fun and games until just as they exit the place, Ginny with her hand already on the door, the family still smiling and waving them off in the background, the girl shouts: 'OH MY GAWD. You're Harry Potter.'

Harry can't help but laugh.

They get invited to dinner at their house. 'Please, it'll be fun,' the mother says - Harry thinks they like to see their daughter happy and are just the kind of people who like company. Ginny accepts immediately without consulting him, agrees to follow their car a few miles out of Flagstaff. They were supposed to get to the Grand Canyon tonight, Harry sighs, and now they'll probably have to sleep in town before heading up in the morning. 'We're wasting a day,' he says, like he cares about how quickly they get there. Like they couldn't just Apparate if they really wanted to. Harry's tense the entire drive, hands flexing around the steering wheel. 'They're nice,' Ginny says. He stares out at the road. 'You need to socialise.'

'I socialise plenty.'

'Yes, with Muggles. The moment someone recognises you, you're ready to run away to the other end of the continent. We're sharing a meal, that's it.'

'They say they're Muggles, Gin,' he grumbles. He is being ridiculous, he knows. It's just - 'I feel like we're going into these people's house not knowing if it's safe -' he adds. It's not his own life he's concerned about. He'd jump in front of a curse for her, no questions asked, but then he did just that, with Giulia, and yet - 'I mean,' he sighs. 'How do they have not one, but two magical children, Gin, really?'

It came up during their polite chit-chat at the shop. The girl, Jessica, has an older brother, also in Ilvermony. 'My husband was adopted when he was two,' the mother supplied, smiling. 'So, obviously, we don't know -'

'He's a squib,' Ginny says, now. 'That's how.' The degree of certainty in her voice makes him pause. Harry stares at her for a good ten seconds. She shakes her head, sighs. 'There used to be this belief that it was better to just -' she hesitates. 'That it was better for them to be raised by Muggles,' she adds, diplomatic. 'Around one or two would have been the age where they'd have started to have doubts about his magical abilities.'

'Fuck.'

Well, now, he can't think of anything to say to that, really.

Anyway, there is no big murder plot, it turns out. Ginny was right. Jessica, her brother Chris, and their parents are just all nice people who invite them to eat homemade tacos out in the garden of their house. Their daughter insists on showing Ginny everything she can do on a broom and her brother asks Harry about the Aurors. She is thirteen, he is fifteen. The dad runs the petrol station which used to belong to his adoptive parents, he says, and the mum helps. She used to be a Muggle therapist in a previous life, she explains, and after that, Harry politely kind of avoids her like the plague, as though she'd be able to psychoanalyse him with the most superficial of small talks; he makes Ginny want to take the piss out of him, he can tell. 'We used to live in the city,' the woman explains with a smile. 'Then, we moved out here after Greg's parents died, took over their business, you know? Now, I sit behind the counter and diagnose truck drivers in my head,' she laughs.

It's a great evening, overall. The kids are fun to be around, enthusiastic, and Harry feels a bit like Tonks must have felt at Grimmauld, looking at them with a mix of fondness and amusement, back when he and Ginny were teenagers themselves. Harry hates that he almost finds it odd, how human kindness can just exist without any expectations and yet, he feels like he is breathing easier, by the end of the night. Goes in to use the loo and when he comes back, the wife is speaking again. 'You two seem good,' she says, soft, looking at Ginny. It's just the two of them - the dad's down in the garden, throwing a Quaffle out for his kids to catch. 'I mean, Jess is so intent on going to England, we looked it up, you know, they said -'

Harry can only imagine what she read. And, her daughter being Muggleborn (kind of), it would have been - He leans against the doorjamb. Sees a sad smile at the side of Ginny's face, but also something determined. 'We're trying to make the world a better place,' she says. Looks out at the kids in the garden. 'For us, and for them, you know?'

The woman is kind, Harry decides. They all are. She smiles, too. Brighter. 'That's not easy,' she acknowledges. 'Especially after what you've been through.'

Ginny snorts, laughs. 'Well, you know,' she adds. 'We have our moments.'

That night, as they drive down to the hotel they ended up booking for the night, the mood has significantly lifted, between them. The radio is playing warm tunes in the night and Harry speaks before he can obsess over his words again. 'I kept thinking it could be us, you know?' he says.

He is keenly aware of the way her eyes dart up to the side of his face. He keeps his focus on the road. 'Living here you mean?' she jokes.

He laughs. 'No, I mean -'

What he means is: being married. Having kids. Playing Quidditch in the garden. Kissing each other goodnight. Being open and kind. He shakes his head.

'Forget it,' he says. 'It's stupid.'

He parks the car. An empty space in the middle of the motel car park. His hand is on the handle of the door again when she speaks. 'It's not stupid,' she says to him. His breath catches in his throat. 'I felt it too.'

And: 'I want to believe you.'

He is almost as surprised as she is, that night, when the words finally file out of his mouth. The way he looks at her and wants - wants this - so much, but -

He wants to believe her, you see? He wants to believe her when she says that she loves him, every night before they fall asleep. He wants to believe her when she says that she felt this, when she says they could be forever, too. He wants to believe her when she kisses him, body flushed against his, and says that she wants him. But -

She's said those things before, hasn't she? Made him believe those things before, and it all came crashing down on him like it didn't mean a thing. And, didn't she make Amycus, of all people, believe the same thing? Believe that she wanted him, believe that the sex was her idea, even, and what if -? He doesn't want to be that guy, never wanted to be that guy, the guy who forces her into something she doesn't want, and how on Earth could he be certain? Certain that she wants this - all of this. He wants to believe her, because he wants something tangible and risk-free.

Ginny blinks, rapidly, that night. Her shaking hands in her lap; he wants to touch her. Comfort her. Can't bring himself to move. Her voice cracks when she speaks. The night is dark, lit by cars and street lights. She sounds like she did a year ago, out on the front steps of Grimmauld. 'So, do,' she says. ''Cause I can't prove that to you.'

The door opens. She stands. It shuts in his face. He is frozen - for a minute. Maybe five. Then -

He's not losing her. Not again. Not to this.

Fuck it, he thinks.

The Millers are surprised but not displeased when he Apparates back to their house, that night. He is is a hurry - there is no time to drive. 'Harry?' Nicole, the mother, says. 'Did you guys forget something?'

Once he has what he was looking for (with a cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die promise to Jess and Chris to bring them back tomorrow), he Apparates back to the motel. Throws everything they need in the boot of the car, before going to see Ginny. She's frustratingly locked the door; he alohomora-s it. The room is dark; she's in bed, tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, pretending to sleep, he can tell. He throws a jumper and his jean jacket on top of her face - the nights are cool here, and she's always cold. 'Come on, get up,' he says.

'Merlin, leave it alone,' she groans. 'Let's just sleep, I'm tired.'

It's not even midnight. He rolls his eyes. 'Fine, you can sleep in the car.' He puts on a jumper himself and adds: 'Come on. Let's go.'

He's not giving her much of choice, here, but given everything, he thinks that's fair.

In the car, she asks where they're going. 'You'll see,' he says.

The truth: they fly over Grand Canyon, that night.

It's like: freefall. It's like -

They find a quiet spot to take off from, past any other living soul. At the edge of the cliffs, the Earth opens. The ground runs, abruptly stopping - a dive down deep. The sky is alight, that night, with the moon and a draped snake floating in the dark, a hundred million pinpricks of stars. Harry's never seen anything like it, not in England, not in the most isolated of forests, and the shadows cast make the mountains almost move with the breeze. Hundreds of feet below, water whispers its secrets with the rustling of leaves blowing up the canyon. Ginny looks at him and he can see in her gaze that she's momentarily forgot her words, forgot to be mad at him.

It's like: the rift is wide. Wider than he ever thought it would be, wider than it looked in the pictures of the guides that said the fault line was larger than the detroit of Gilbraltar. There is a chill in the air, the altitude and the desert; hard to believe it was over thirty-five this afternoon. Millennia of layers of rocks beneath their feet, galaxies spread out above them like facing the centre of the Earth, bright and shiny and fuck, he thinks, is that the Milky Way? Hazy and purple above their heads, a cloud of blue hued tones - after they take off, he flips upside down for a while, looking up, like gravity will never win against him.

It's like: freefall. When Ginny races past him, on brooms that resemble her brothers' old Cleansweeps, a feather in the air in the immensity of it all, and the weight like stripped off her shoulders nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, she lets go off her broom, stabilises herself with her feet and flies quick with her arms in the air, shouting. Screaming. The happy kind. The free, raw, animalistic kind that echoes through the night, like breaking through chains and her hair flies wild around her face. He catches up with her for a second and she is beaming, again, exhilirated, high on dopamine, laughing, and: 'Try,' she tells him, loud over the wind in their ears. 'Scream!'

He laughs.

He does.

It's stupid.

It's freeing.

Like: the air that's been stuck at the back of his throat, clogging his lungs for years, finally being let out in clumps. Ginny roars, loud, then gains speed, screams again - this time, the same moment he does. Maybe someone hears them. Maybe no one hears them. Harry doesn't really care.

Later, that night, they race each other down to the very bottom of the cliffs by the river, then back up, zizagging between rifts and rocks and rugged edges. Harry follows her lead, the back of their brooms caressing the scars of the Earth as they take sharp turns. He screams again. It's liberating. 'Louder!' she shouts back at him, giggling.

He has no idea how long they fly for. The minutes turn into hours, the mindless exhilaration into animal spotting and her index finger to her lips. 'Shh, look, is that a mountain lion?'

They stop to lie down in the dirt of a plateau at the North Rim, looking up at the sky. At the far edge of the horizon, the dark of the night is fading into lighter hues. They could watch the sunrise here, he thinks. Turns his face sideways to look at her; she is still grinning, mesmerised by the sights, like watching magic in a glass jar, their chests rising and falling in sync, intoxicated. Looking at her feels like catching a Snitch, like a plunge, racing to the bottom of cliff. They've pulled back up at the last minute, he thinks.

Ginny turns her face to face him, bites her lip. 'Harry,' she says, out of breath, catching her breath, a physical kind of ballgame, but it's not her turn to speak. It's not for her to say this. It's for him. I want to believe you, he thinks.

So, do.

'I love you.'

And, you see: love, they say, is an act of gamble and an act of faith. A risk-ladden freefall. Broomless. Trusting that she will catch him. Be brave.

He is. She does.

Like: her right hand reaches out. She grabs the handles of both their brooms in her palm. Her left hand spreads open between them, palm up. He closes his eyes. Breathes in, out. Interlocks his fingers with hers. Love is a chance, but it's also a choice, he thinks.

When he opens his eyes again, their palms let go of each other and they stumble, landing inside their motel room. A rough transition between the grandiose and mundane, and a bed that protests loudly whenever they move, and carpet that reeks like centuries-old cigarettes. Flowery curtains so stiff they could stand up and walk away. This is the least romantic place in the world, Harry thinks, smiling to himself, and yet it couldn't matter less. He climbs on top of her, her hair like a halo dancing on unmade sheets; he stops to look into her eyes, brushes a couple strands away from her cheeks. 'Do you want this?' he asks.

'Yes,' she smiles. 'Do you?'

By then, the sun is rising again, rogue at the edge of the window, it leaves a single streak of gold down the bridge of her nose. He kisses her, strong and hard, then pulls away. 'Yeah, I do,' he says. A different kind of golden band promise.

And, so, the sex, that night - that morning - is like:

They kiss. Once, twice, then too many times to count. As though: he melts into the heat of her touch, the warmth of her skin under his fingertips when he trails his palms up her sides and under her jumper. There's a hunger to it he didn't anticipate. Thought they'd be slow and shy, and tame. But: they aren't. Have all the time in the world yet not enough of it, and he wants to make an imprint of this moment in his brain, have it there to remember until he is a hundred years old - so old - laying in their bed and counting the wrinkles on her face. He pulled her out of bed, earlier, in a way that he'd almost forgotten, and finds that when his touch trickles up her ribs, she isn't wearing a bra.

She pulls back, laying deeper into the mattress, looking up at him. Harry can feel her heart hammering against his palm. 'I want to tell you,' she whispers - confesses - then. He is holding his breath. 'You say you don't care, but I do. It's part of me, too.'

It hits him. Straight in the face. Like: of course. Like: what an idiot. He almost wants to laugh. This is why he needs Hermione to explain things to him, sometimes. He doesn't always get it on first try. He touches his nose to hers, close.

'Twenty-eight,' she says.

It could have been a hundred, to be honest, and in that moment, it wouldn't even have mattered. His gaze holds hers, now, seemingly for hours. When he kisses her, he pours in all the things he's ever felt for her. 'Okay,' he smiles against her lips. 'I love you,' he says.

She flips them over, later. There are too many layers of clothing between them and he laughs at her determination to get rid of them. She steps away from him and he sits at the edge of the bed, looking at her not believing his fucking luck - they've done this before, it's not new, he tries to remind himself, and yet it feels like it is. It feels - more real than it did last year. Ginny looks at him in the morning light and Harry wonders what she sees. Quick breaths and lidded eyes, she doesn't speak. Just - steps in, close; he helps her pull his own jumper and t-shirt over his head, in the same movement. Her gaze settles and he's not sure why he feels so fucking vulnerable, then, like he's naked in front of her. Her eyes trail down from his face to his chest - not touching, just looking - and he realises the last time she saw that bruise Tom left on his chest, he hadn't told her about dying in the forest.

Wordlessly, she steps back. Harry watches her pull her jumper over her head, her face disappearing for a moment before her hair falls back down again in a cascade; he is mesmerised. Wants to touch, to pull her to him, but doesn't. There's something unavoidable about the unflinching control she seems to exhibit, like she leaves her own shirt on with a sense of her purpose and determination. He crosses her gaze; her lips are slightly parted when she moves again.

Her tracksuit bottoms and knickers pool at her feet. Her t-shirt (formerly his t-shirt, he smiles) falls down to her thighs, covering her just about, and his breath hitches in his throat. She bites her bottom lip, like the sexiest, fucking thing in the universe, and steps over his legs again, her crotch hovering a few of inches above his knees. Harry doesn't move - can't fucking move - thinks he might come right now at the mere idea of running his palm up her legs. He looks away - makes himself look away - and at her face. 'You can touch,' she says. 'If you want.'

(Oh fuck, he thinks. This is going to be the fucking death of him.

And, you know what?

He doesn't mind.)

When he does - touch, that is - caresses the soft skin of the inside of her thighs with two, teasing fingers, Ginny hums, smiling. Then, he reaches up, runs his fingers - Her breath hitches. He sees it, the moment when he touches her, slick and wet (fuck, she is so fucking wet) and her eyes snap open. He takes control, just a bit, and she lets him, leaning into his touch, slow and ever so slight. He brushes his fingertips against her clit - she moans.

Slowly, carefully, she pushes him back down with his back against the mattress. The bed squeaks. Her knees on either side of his hips. He smiles as she kisses him.

His hand reaches between them again - she presses into him, mouth trailing down the line of his jaw, his neck; the feeling of her against him is doing things he can't quite put into words yet. His fingers continue to dance over her clit and when he slips them inside her she exhales, moans, loud. He moves and her kisses get sloppier, weight heavier against him as her legs become weaker. He takes advantage to flip them over. Again, she laughs against him. 'Shit,' she mutters. He grins.

She's on her back, now, looking up at him, and after lazily sucking love bites down the column of throat that seem to make her legs tense and her toes curl, he crawls down. She sits up a bit, her gaze catching his as his palm pulls the hem of her shirt up. 'Harry, you don't have t-' but then his fingers are inside her again and his thumb is massaging her clit and the words die against her lips.

'Do you want me to?' seems like a much more appropriate question, here, and so that is the one he asks, instead. Her t-shirt is pooled at the bottom of her ribs; he pushes it up to trail his mouth down the line of her sternum and over a pinprick of beauty spots over her ribs, then down to her stomach. He pauses there, looks up to crosses her gaze. 'Cause I want to.'

He barely touches her again and her breath catches in her throat, head tilted back towards the ceiling. 'Ah, fuck, yeah, okay,' she says - a quick, panting jumble of words. He laughs, short breaths against her skin as his mouth trails down.

It's not all roses and butterflies, of course, that night. After she comes - twice - arcs her back at the touch of his mouth, her hips buckling as she cries out, not giving a fuck about the paper-thin motel walls or any potential neighbours, she lays on her back next to him. Breathing hard, staring at the ceiling. He plays with the hem of her t-shirt a bit, grinning to himself, his fingers tracing loose patterns against the skin of her stomach as she catches her breath. 'Merlin, that was -' she laughs. He laughs, too. 'Much better than last summer,' she adds.

He's got this stupid, self-satisfied, Cheshire cat smile across his face when she finally turns to look at him, so large it's probably rather obscene, and a stupid (stupidstupid) thought suddenly hits his brain: I've had time to practice. He doesn't say it, but she must bloody read it in his eyes because suddenly, a flash of recognition washes over and he wants to say something - anything - to take back that cringey, gauche thing he hasn't even fucking said, and he wants to disappear deep - far - into the ground. He thinks back to their conversation at the restaurant, and: 'Still a bit jealous, I think,' - it makes his skin crawl. Now, though, Ginny laughs. At him, mostly. 'Harry,' she says. 'Harry, look at me.'

Reluctantly, he does. 'It's fine,' she whispers. 'Just kiss me.'

Her t-shirt finally comes off, too, later. There's his mouth there, tracing the outline of her breast - he could stay here, mapping out all the places on her skin where his lips make her moan until the end of times, he thinks. She is gorgeous: clammy, naked against him - she tastes like salt and girl and like the heat of summer.

His own tracksuit bottoms are next. Ginny's hand snakes down between them and wraps around him and it's his turn to not think straight. She is incredibly slow, and so fucking good at teasing, arching an eyebrow at him when a low groan escapes from the depths of his throat - he hears the sound in his own ears and can't help but laugh, like: what on Earth was that? She goes at it again and this time he catches her wrist. 'I'm sitting here reciting the hundred uses of Boomslang skin in my head trying not to come, Gin,' he blurts out. Her chuckle sings around their shitty motel room. 'You're gonna have to stop this.'

'Hm, really?' she hums, her voice low and teasing. 'I guess I'll have to try something else, then.'

And, for a while, she does. Her mouth, her lips, trail down his neck and over his chest, lazy kisses and love bites down to his heart - it feels nice. Makes his breath catch sometimes, but it is less of a risk, for now. That is until after a bit, he realises what she's doing, where she's heading, and tenses. 'Gin,' he says.

She must hear his voice sounds different, he reckons. Not like: this is hot and mildly amusing and also let-me-warn-you-before-this-ends-too-soon - more like: stop. She stills, looks up at him. She's level with a space above his belly button, just where his Hugarian Horntail tattoo starts - he bites his lip, can't look at her.

'Can you not -'

It's awkward. She frowns. Not offended but more like: well, I want to, and: it's kinda my turn, now. He thinks the look on his face is what gives him away. Makes her pull back. She crawls back up to lie down on her side next to him - they are two diagonal strokes in the middle of the bed. 'I thought you'd done it with her,' she says.

Flat on his back, he looks up to the ceiling. Closes his eyes, then, and sighs. He did, didn't he? Let Mia wrap her mouth around him and it was alright, after a while. But - this is her and this is their first time (their second first time, really) and he doesn't want to ruin it by freaking out. He doesn't want to ruin it with his fucking visions of Amycus Carrow's dick in her mouth, and he's not even sure why that out of everything is what has stuck in his psyche but it has. And, even now, he's had the thought, and it's there, and he tries to blink it away and shake his head and fuck, he thinks - and says. He's being ridiculous, a fucking idiot, he's being -

'Hey.' Her palm is soft over his heart. 'Talk to me.'

'It's fine. I just -'

'You're thinking about me and him.'

He wants to dig the heels of his palms into his eyes.

'Hey,' she breathes. She is so soft, like silky sheets. 'It's fine.' The slightest tug at the corners of her mouth. 'Me too, you know?' she says.

Is it strange, then, that he feels relief, rather than shame?

Seconds pass, between them. Outside, they vaguely hear the motorway. Her mouth drops a quick peck to the side of his shoulder. 'Do you want to stop?' she asks.

'No.' Honestly, the speed at which the word leaves his mouth is just a tiny bit embarrassing. 'I just don't want - that.'

She grins, chuckles lightly. 'Oh-kay,' she says, then. Climbs back on top of him again. His hands settle on her hips, thumb caressing the scar on her stomach for a bit. 'Let me help you think of something else, then.'

He does. Very, very quickly does.

By the time he buries himself inside her, later, the sun is fully up. It filters through the curtains and they have laughed again, scrambling around the bed trying to find one of their jumpers, to find one of their wands in the pockets. Ginny found hers first and quickly pointed it between them, ready to do the spell. She sent him a questioning look as he balanced his weight above her, and giggled when he said: 'If you ever wonder if I trust you again, let me remind you that your wand is pointed directly at my dick right now.'

'Oooh,' she laughed, fake-enigmatic. 'And, you're not nervous?'

He burst out a laugh. 'Oh, I'm very nervous.'

'Hmm,' she singsonged and rose to press her hips against him for a hot second.

'Gin -'

'Yeah,' she laughed, caught his gaze and muttered the words. He felt the spell's warmth loop softly around the both of them for a moment before it disappeared. 'Okay.'

As he guides himself into her, then, he watches as the long column of her throat expands with a low moan and it's like - well, you know. All those stupidly romantic metaphors about sex - the ones about pieces of puzzles fitting together and all that. It's stupid, but sometimes it's true. Something like: he moves into her and listens to her, the way she breathes and the way she feels and the way she wraps so tight around him, meets him. And, because it's stupidly romantic and cheesy (or maybe because he's just in the zone - or, maybe, because she is in the zone), he can feel his orgasm build just as she pants quicker, under him. 'Harry,' she gasps, loud, head titled backwards and he takes advantage of it to drop kisses and suck at her pulsepoint - she lets out a moan that fills up the room and, no, that is the sexiest thing he's ever heard. He's close, so fucking close, thinking he's going to have to count the hundred uses of Boomslang skin again. She says words at him, incoherent at first, and, 'Don't worry,' and 'I already -'

Oh no, he thinks. No way in hell he's not bringing her there again.

She ends up falling over the edge seconds before he does anyway, cries out as her name tumbles from his lips - the wave of it all washing over the both of them. They breathe. Hard, fast, high and spent - it fits. And, maybe it's romantic because it fits, or maybe it fits because it's romantic. He's not sure and can't bring himself to care.

Eventually, reluctantly, he pulls out - away from her. Rolls to her side, trying to take his weight off her a bit but she pulls him close, arms wrapping around him like they would holding a pillow to her chest and, 'Don't you dare move,' she says. He laughs. They end up shifting just a tad, him on his back and her half-pressed on top of him, skins damp. It's hot - she must have turned the aircon off when she walked in last night and the place smells like her fruity shampoo and sex and she says: 'Let's stay here for a bit, yeah?'

'Yeah.'

He falls asleep, he thinks. So does she. Their limbs intertwined and her cheek pressed to his heart.

In the afternoon, they finally move. Apparate back to the Canyon to say farewell to it, to extend their thanks to grandiosity, maybe, and Ginny leans into him, hand in his, her head on his shoulder. He breathes in. 'I love you,' she says and, 'Yeah,' he smiles. 'Me too. As I already said.'

She laughs and hits his arm.

They drive the car back to Flagstaff. Bring the brooms back to Jess and her brother, and go on their merry way.

So: in '99, their trip, it ends like this. With the rest of the drive and a few days spent in Las Vegas, making fun of drunk Muggles and catching up on two months of no sex in the Bellagio premium suite Ginny allows him to splurge on. She seems determined to get him over his no-blowjob phase which becomes a bit of a laugh, to be honest and, 'Seriously, what's the worst that can happen?' she challenges. 'You think about it? Then, we talk about it,' she shrugs. 'He's dead. Fuck him.'

Well, put like that, he supposes.

(They try.

It does get better, after a while.)

They reach LA on the 15th of September after a short detour driving down the coast of California. They have a couple of days left; their many Portkeys back are booked for the 19th. The city is every bit as mental as Vegas, but differently so. There are too many cars and too many peroxided Muggles and again, too much space. Harry is starting to miss the density of London, he thinks. He's starting to miss stupid things, like pubs and Oxford Circus and walking down to Tesco. In Venice Beach, people try to sell them CDs; one bloke sporting dreadlocks and cargo pants gets very offended when Ginny says: 'Oh, you have CDs, too? Like the Spice Girls?'

They take a bus that takes them around the high-fenced walls of the stars' homes which is extra funny because neither of them knows who these people even are. In Long Beach, Ginny dips her calves into the Pacific. Harry sits in the shade of their umbrella, watching her. 'This was good,' she states, 'wasn't it?'

And: 'Yes,' he says.

They were only gone two months, but it feels like a lifetime. A lifetime that has hushed down the ocean waves, calmed the both of them. 'You know what I didn't miss?' Harry jokes. 'The Daily Prophet.'

Ginny laughs. Her chin is resting over the back of her hands, crossed over his chest. LA is a bigger city. A city with wizards, obviously. And, well, they've distantly caught sight of a few headlines. The foreign press. About him, about them, about Kingsley's government, mostly. All the things that make up their lives back home. It can wait another couple days of blissful oblivion, he decides.

Instead, now, he crosses her gaze. Smiles. He's been smiling so much, lately, hasn't he? And, he's not sure why, but he feels a bit nervous about that one. Not sure if she'll think this is moving too fast but at the same time, they're been together 24/7 all summer, you see, and he can't imagine being away from her. 'Do you want to move in together when we get back?' he asks.

'At Grimmauld? I thought -'

'God, no.' He laughs. Can't imagine living with her and Ron in the same place. 'I mean, having our own flat?' he chances. Nervously bites his bottom lip. 'Might take a while to find something we both like but -'

'We split the rent,' she insists. He rolls his eyes. 'Seriously, Harry.'

'Sure, fine.' It's stupid, he's got the money, but this is maybe a conversation for another time.

She smiles. Bright like liquid in her mouth and she is smiling, now. 'Then, yeah,' she says. 'Okay.'

Sometimes (sometimes) things are easy, between them, you see?