Compilation of Hinny Works

by LegendDairy

I've got too many Hinny one-shots, and there are more coming. So they are all going to be posted here instead of individual stories. And Harry/Ginny pairings only, no others. Will be updated sporadically.

57. Contact and Other Dreams

Prompt from Iwik & others- A scenario where Harry is cursed and cannot make human contact, until Bill is put on his case.

AN- The other specifics of the request were changed because the story demanded it (the story in my head is its own entity).

I will not be getting into the specifics of how Voldemort met his downfall in this story because it is a one-shot, and because it is annoying to have to revise the sequence of events for that in one-shots.

()()()

Contact and Other Dreams

()()()

This office was nearly the same as all of the other ones that he had been in. They were usually about the same size, always the fireplace off to one side, bookshelves along one entire wall, desk in the corner and a seating area in the middle. Two chairs in the seating area; one for him, one for them.

The them in these cases weren't a plural, it was a 'single person' them. It referred to the person that was supposed to fix him.

This was the third 'them' that he was going to try.

They were all very different people in terms of their methods, beliefs, basically everything, but the offices were always the same.

This them was younger than all the other ones and Harry had met him before too. They had met in passing during the war, before he had been cursed.

Bill Weasley had done a good job during the war fighting against the Dark Lord and he'd been a rising star in his career with Gringotts, now he had a small practice on the side to take on special cases, operating out of his home.

It had been a bit annoying arranging this. They'd sent several owls back and forth, Harry never divulging who he was, just the series of events that led him to having and discovering what this affliction of his was.

The saddest part was that he hadn't realized he'd been cursed for so long after the fact.

He didn't have anyone; that had been the main factor. He was an orphan and had been raised by his Godfather whom he had travelled with around the world and had amazing experiences, but very little in the way of a meaningful social life. His going to Hogwarts had been a discussion, but Harry kind of liked the way they lived a nomadic life; just going from one adventure to the next.

Sirius had unofficially worked for Gringotts finding treasures here, there and everywhere.

They came back to Britain to help with the war when Harry had been just old enough to contribute properly in the fight but they hadn't told anyone who he was because he had a known name, and Sirius had worked very hard to ensure that he didn't have a known face.

And then Sirius had died in the final battle.

He'd died with a smile on his face though.

Sirius had actually died right alongside one of Bill Weasley's brothers.

If Sirius had made it through the war then Harry would have been able to discover his curse sooner. Sirius had been the only person that he had any kind of real contact with for as long as he could remember.

See, the problem was that Harry couldn't touch anyone.

It wasn't that his hands wouldn't allow him to reach out or that his touch would cause him to go blasting backwards. If he did attempt to touch someone they wouldn't even get some kind of electrical shock if there was any contact, it was that he could not physically get close enough to them that he would feel their touch at all. If he would attempt then his hand would simply hover an inch away from them, the same in reverse as well.

People simply could not get close enough to him for contact to occur.

In terms of curses there certainly were worse one's out there but he hadn't had much of an opportunity to be in physical contact with others before the war, and what was a future without physical contact with another person? Never to know the warmth of a hand again, never to feel a hug or a kiss?

Never to be with a woman.

Certainly, he had grown up fantasizing about being with so many different women, being enchanted by the many bodies lying about sunbathing on the beach or a cute girl that had smiled at him at a restaurant. It had been completely normal teenage daydreaming. He had simply never had an opportunity to play any of those daydreams out.

When he found out that he couldn't touch people it hadn't been in an attempt to play out one of those daydreams, he had been walking down a street and someone had taken a tumble on uneven pavement in front of him and he'd reached out instinctively to catch them and couldn't.

Initially he thought he was just misremembering what happened because it had been over so fast.

Then he needed to check because it was driving him mad; so, when he was at a store getting groceries, he intentionally tried to graze his finger along the cashier's finger when they handed him change.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't touch his cashier with a simple graze of his finger, he couldn't clasp hands with someone for a handshake, he couldn't even accidentally bump into someone when on a packed underground train car.

Nothing.

He couldn't figure it out, he didn't know who had done it or when exactly it had been done. Likely it had been cast on him during the Final Battle. The last person he had physical contact had been Sirius when they gave each other a hug before going different directions in the castle.

At least there had been that. His final moment with the person he loved more than anything had a lasting impression for more than just that reason.

He was lonely though and not too afraid to admit it.

That was why he had started consulting on this issue.

It had been five years now.

Four years ago he had given up on trying to find the counter curse himself. He had read everything in his Godfathers library and branched out.

Harry had followed in his Godfathers steps and continued working with Gringotts, going through their mentor program and getting his training and qualifications made official since he had been doing everything he was 'learning' for as far back as he could remember, now he would have the documentation to prove it.

It was while he was in Myanmar that he reached out to a local shaman about his issue.

Yes, the shaman had an office that looked like this one. Most people thought of shamans and pictured meditating men in Tibet or something, but they had offices too.

No amount of potions, meditation or anything else that they had recommended had helped.

A year later he had moved on to working in Peru and tried someone else. They had been a little more scholarly than the shaman but had essentially boiled down to trying to slap and kick him with no results.

It took a while to get over that disappointment.

But now, here he was, trying again.

The difference between this office and the other offices he'd been in were the pictures. Bill Weasley had several pictures in his office and they weren't of famous so-and-so's that were known for this and that and had signed the photo. No, these were of his family. The Weasley family was the largest in Magical Britain and Bill had been procreating. Mrs. Weasley, Bill's wife, had shown Harry into the office and was visibly pregnant with her third child. No doubt his brothers were busy populating the world as well.

Lucky bastards.

Grinning redheads were moving around behind framed photos on every bookshelf.

Mocking him.

They looked like a very rowdy family too. And loving. And touching.

Literally touching. Each photo had them hanging off each other; giving piggyback rides or just arms around the shoulders or giving hair ruffles.

It was a sea of touching and smiling redheads.

And it was making him grumpy seeing them all.

Sirius had always been quick to clasp an arm around his shoulder or ruffle his hair and he missed it so bad that it hurt.

From outside the room he heard a bunch of little girl squealing and a deep rumbling voice responding to it followed by a chuckle. A moment later the office door opened.

"Sorry to keep you," the deep voice of Bill Weasley greeted him and he closed the door, throwing up a silencing spell.

"I haven't been here long," Harry told him.

Bill nodded and took off his jacket, hanging it up on the back of the door and coming around to his chair. He looked just the same as he did when they had met in passing the few times before. Once when he was thirteen he and Sirius had gone to Egypt because Sirius had a big meeting with one of the Head Goblins there and Harry had been left to his own devices while Sirius was in his meeting. He had joined up to go on a tour of the pyramids and the Weasley's had been there on the same tour. He remembered the twins were pranking their older brother and he remembered Bill being the voice they listened to over their parents.

He was sure that Bill didn't remember him from then. The only member of the Weasley's Harry ever remembered talking to was the youngest, and it was just to tell her there was nothing to be scared about, explaining that all the curses had been lifted in the tunnels they were going into and the stories were all just to make it seem more scary than it was.

Bill still held the same broad shoulders, lean form and sun kissed skin now that he did then, there were just more scars and lines on his face to show the years that had passed.

"Interesting problem of yours," Bill started.

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Yes, it was interesting, confounding and fucking irritating. That's why he was here, trying again to rid himself of the problem.

Bill chuckled and took a seat across from him. "I recognize that look. How badly do you want to just scoff and make a snide comment?"

That surprised him. Most people who caught him making that expression with his slightly pursed lips would attempt to change the conversation or just shift awkwardly.

Sirius would have called him on it like that though.

Harry's shoulders relaxed and he felt a sheepish smile trying to tug at the corner of his mouth. "I may have had something in the realm of calling you 'Captain Obvious' whirling around in my mind."

"Ha! I've no doubt," Bill grinned. He moved forwards to sit on the edge of his seat and reached out. "Do you mind if I give it a try?"

It was always the first step. Harry held out his hand as though they were going to shake hands, but their hands only hovered an inch away from each other.

"Interesting." Bill's brow furrowed. "And I feel no inclination not to continue trying, I simply can't make skin contact."

"Yep. Interesting," Harry deadpanned.

"Alright, Mister Anonymous, that's enough with the attitude. I'm sure you've been through the ringer over this for several years and have heard it all, but this is the first time I'm seeing it, so you'll just have to deal."

It might have been the fatherly way that he was scolding him, but what he had just said was making another grin want to tug onto Harry's face. He hadn't had too much in the way of parenting. Sirius had been more like a fun uncle that occasionally had to bring down the hammer. And Bill wasn't being harsh about telling him off. It was a good thing that Bill was immediately comfortable enough to talk to him like that right from the off.

"I may be a bit surly about this," Harry inclined his head in apology. "I'll try to keep it in check."

"Glad to hear it." Bill got up from his chair and went over to his desk. "Now, in your letters you say you are pretty sure that it happened when we were all at the Final Battle at Hogwarts?" He looked up from the pages and directly into his face. "I don't remember seeing you there. Though, there were quite a few things going on."

"I arrived before sun-down. I was with Sirius Black."

Bill's face fell and a ghost of emotion washed over him for a moment before it dissipated. He nodded and looked back down at the parchment. "And not a single memory of a spell hitting you that you didn't recognize, or one that's spell didn't match its color?"

Color? Harry repeated in his mind.

"Color?" he reiterated out loud.

"Yes, if someone cast a spell at you, yet said a different one out loud." He went over to the wall opposite his bookshelf and waved his wand at it so it would turn into a blackboard. "Let's track your night as best you can and try to remember every color of spell you might have been hit with."

So, they did. They went through the whole night, something that Harry had done over and over again in his mind, on paper and relayed to a few people before to try and find out when it happened.

After hours of back and forth with Bill asking questions that Harry was doing his best to answer, there was a knock at the door.

"Pardon me," Bill said as he went around the furniture that was now stacked with books and papers from them looking up all the different spells and side effects that could have been used and opened the door to his beautiful wife on the other side.

"Dinner is ready, if your guest would like some, I can make up another plate?" she asked and smiled kindly at him.

Bill turned to Harry and raised his eyebrows in offer.

"I wouldn't want to impose," he said. Though the smell now wafting through the door was now making him realize just how hungry he was.

"It is no imposition. I will bring it for you both," she said breezily and went back to the kitchen.

"Do you normally take on extra work on the weekends?" Harry asked Bill. It was a Saturday and Bill had a family with two children under the age of five and another on the way.

"Rarely. Fleur is okay with it happening occasionally though. My mother is always eager for the grandkids to come over to hers for visits too. She would have had Victoire and Dom today but I am about to become an uncle once more," he grinned.

"Oh!" Harry said in surprise. "Shouldn't you be at St. Mungo's or something then? We could have rescheduled."

"Oh no," Bill waved off his concern. "I'm an uncle a few times over now and I know how long labor can take. It could be another 24 to 48 hours before I'll get called to meet the little one."

Harry just nodded. He knew nothing about babies or how long it took for them to be born. He'd only seen it in movies and those generally skipped over the actual labor time and just showed the sweaty, cursing mother-to-be.

The door to the office opened again and Fleur came in belly first with two bowls followed by the eldest child who was holding two bottles of Butterbeer.

"Thank you," Harry told her sincerely as he took the bowl and the drink offered.

Bill cleared off a spot at his desk for them to set their food down on. "Now," he continued their earlier discussion after Harry had taken a mouthful of the Bouillabaisse. "After you left Hogwarts, where did you go?"

Harry wanted to keep his mouth closed and savor the food a bit longer. He wasn't the most creative in the kitchen and didn't make anything quite this flavorful himself so it tasted delicious on his tongue. "My house in London," he managed. "It was inherited to me that night and did have Dark Artifacts in it at one point, but Sirius had assured me they had all been disposed of ages ago."

Bill took a few more mouthfuls of his dinner and then looked at him thoughtfully. "Who are you?" he asked finally.

Harry knew it would come up at some point, it was inevitable. It was mixed responses that he received. Most in Britain though would look surprised or skeptical when they found out who he was, though he'd only told a dozen or so people. The team he'd done his Gringotts apprenticeship with hadn't asked him too many questions, and there hadn't been any times that Bill and his paths would have crossed with how Harry had been stationed away from Britain when Bill had moved back.

"Harry Potter," he admitted.

Bill nodded. "I wondered," he said thoughtfully. Then it happened, his eyes travelled up to Harry's forehead which had his fringe covering up that scar of his.

It was inevitable, everyone's eyes travelled up to try and find the scar that made him a household name.

It was mostly just Britain that he was known in. There was even a statue of him as a baby with his parents in the community where they had been killed and he had supposedly stopped Lord Voldemort.

That bit was debunked now, but his infamy had lived on.

They finished their dinner in silence and Bill sat back in his chair with his elbows on the arm rests and his fingers knotted together, staring over Harry in thought. "I think that is as far as we will be able to take this today," he told him. "Why don't you come back next Saturday and I'll bring a pensieve. We will go through your memories of the battle and see what we see."

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise at that suggestion.

He had been through some of his memories in that fashion before, and they weren't pleasant. They wouldn't be pleasant for Bill either because he had been there and saw all the devastation that had happened from their side as well.

"I know," Bill said sadly at Harry's expression. "I'll have a decent bottle of scotch for us to enjoy after."

()()()

Over the week that passed until their next meeting Harry had done his best to conjure up all the memories of the Final Battle that he could so that they would be as clear as possible for his next session with Bill.

He was currently on leave between jobs from Gringotts and didn't have much else to do. He was taking trips into the Muggle world and going for hikes along the beaches with no end goal in mind, simply letting his mind wander and enjoying the sights. It was what he did to get his mind off the fact that he was so alone.

Now it was Saturday again and he was heading back towards Bill's home with an unbreakable glass vial in his pocket that contained his sharpest and longest memory of that entire night. He'd gone through the memory himself a few times to see if it triggered something else that he missed.

There was actually one part that hadn't been in as sharp of focus before that his gaze had lingered on for longer these last few times around.

He'd pulled this memory from his mind more times than he cared to recount, but after his communication back and forth with Bill there was one small part that he hadn't paid much attention to before, and now he did.

It was the Weasley's.

Their whole family had been there, and though he had spent a small amount of time with them before when in Cairo, he hadn't recognized them the night of the battle. His mind had been focused on the foe they were there to fight. This past week when he'd been falling into his memory he was able to pick out nearly every Weasley and was unable to stop himself giving the youngest one a few looking's over with each trip he took.

She and her mother had been fighting when he and Sirius had shown up because the mother thought she was too young to be there. The girl had countered with the fact that she had been left there by them that whole year and she wasn't going to leave them by themselves now, then gone running off to join the fight.

That wasn't the only time they had been near one of the Weasleys that night either. He had fought alongside the brother that was his age, helped push gargoyles off the roof of a few turrets to have them smash down on the heads of Giants with another. He'd blasted a few Death Eaters down the stairs with one closer to Bill's age.

And then there was the incident with he and the girl when they'd been redirecting a few Death Eaters as some of the students that remained were trying to get more supplies from the Potions closet. He and she had each taken turns saving each other. They had their own Death Eater they were fighting off and when Harry was too focused on his own, the other Death Eater that she was battling aimed a curse at him which she pushed him out of the way for.

Her hand had made contact with his shoulder.

He had missed that before this week. She had actually been the last person to touch him.

Then both Death Eaters had focused in on her and Harry had used the Killing Curse on them, and it worked.

It had been the first time he'd cast it and he felt horrible immediately. Something about using that curse just ate at a piece of you when you used it, and he'd done it twice.

But she'd smiled at him.

Before this week, when he'd relived that moment in his memories, he'd remembered that smile and the warm brown eyes. It had helped him move past what he'd done in that moment and keep on fighting. He hadn't retained much else about her from in that moment on previous revisits save for her smile and her eyes.

This time he had been able to recall her hair and some of her freckles, her purple jumper had made an appearance in the memory as well.

Now he could associate the girl from that memory to the one that he had spoken to the five years before that.

And maybe they were destined to meet every five years because as he walked up the sidewalk towards Bills house he saw her walking towards it from the other direction.

Her hair was down now, her pale and freckled skin was likely as sun kissed as it could possibly be given her complexion and she was wearing jean shorts and a flowy blue tank top. She had a grocery bag full in one hand and she was looking at him. She was looking at him as though she was trying to place where she knew him from.

Her expression would likely be mirrored in his own face if he hadn't been seeing it in the pensieve every day for the past week.

He still didn't know her name though.

Their pace happened to land them both in front of the gate to Bill's yard at the same time.

"Hello," Harry greeted her, fighting to keep a blush off his face and avoid direct eye contact.

Why was he blushing, you wonder? Well, after calling up his memories to refine missing pieces the past week and spending quite a while remembering exactly what she would have actually looked like after seeing her face in some of those pictures from Bill's office last weekend. Well, he may have enjoyed pieces of those memories. He'd played out their interaction after he'd killed those Death Eaters ending a different way in his mind twice this past week while his hand had been occupied down his pants.

And she'd grown more attractive since then.

It had been an innocent fantasy, he'd had them plenty of times before, but rarely did he have to encounter the object of his fantasy after having it.

"Hello," she greeted back, her head tilted to the side slightly and squinted at him, still trying to place him. "Are you headed here?" She was pointing up to Bill's house.

"Er, yes. I have an appointment with your brother. Er, with Bill," he told her.

She let out a little chuckle. "Normally I would require the clarification on which brother, but this time I had that figured out," she teased.

"Right," he let out a soft chuckle of his own. "I guess you would have."

Then he did make eye contact.

Her eyes were still a deep brown color, but in this light he could see flecks of gold in them, and a line of dark around the outer part of the irises. They widened as she stared into his own eyes.

"You!" she whispered. "You were the one that… we fought together! And- and Cairo!" She was keeping her volume low and took another step closer to him. "That, that was you, right? In, in both those places?"

"You remember me in Cairo as well?" he asked in surprise.

Her expression lost the dumbfounded look and color rose to her cheeks as her grin widened. "You'll think it's stupid, but it was because of, well, because of your messy black hair and green eyes. You look exactly like a few dolls I had growing up."

It was his turn to be dumbfounded. "I look like your doll?"

Inexplicably, she let out a snort of laughter. "It isn't really that funny, but." She needed a moment to collect herself because clearly she did think it was hilariously funny that she had a doll that looked like him.

Harry was finding it hard to keep a smile off of his face as well as he watched her struggle to regain her composure. There were tears of mirth forming in her eyes and though they had barely been talking to each other for more than two minutes he could tell he wouldn't mind spending more time with her.

There had been so few female interactions he'd had over the years. Not romantic one's. It hadn't exactly been a 'what's the point' type train of thought for him, it was just that he'd been focusing on work and spending far too much time daydreaming and dealing with his misery over his situation to be decent company for a lady.

"Oh, you must think I'm insane," she wiped her eyes. "Sorry, it's just that when I realized after… the second time, that you were the same boy that calmed me down about those tombs we visited in Cairo, well I started making up that you were my doll come to life to help me! Can you believe it?! How mad would that be? But you know how it is, have a few too many drinks around a bon fire with friends and all sorts of rubbish thoughts and ideas start spilling out of the recesses of your mind." She had calmed down now and was shaking her head at herself.

He did know. There had been a few times he was sat around a fire with other curse breakers and listened to the ridiculous stories and tall tales that came out of nowhere. He'd grown up with hearing them from Sirius, it was how he learned all the stories of the shenanigans that his father and friends had gotten up to at school.

"I'm don't normally sound this crazy," she told him. "Coming here after a full-on week between work and helping out with my new niece. Tagging in so that Fleur can get some rest since Bill is. Well, I guess Bill is busy with you today," she realized.

"It was a baby girl then?" Harry asked. "Bill mentioned one of his sister-in-law's had gone into labor last week, but he didn't seem in a rush to be there for the birth." It still surprised him. Sirius had said he was there in the hospital when he was born. Though Harry had been the first and only for that group of friends.

"Yes, a little girl," she said brightly. "So glad I'm not the only female born Weasley anymore. I'd been carrying that torch by myself for far too long. Now there's almost enough for us to overtake the boys. With wives included anyhow," she added.

"Ginny, Harry," Bill had come out onto the porch and greeted them.

There, now he knew her name. It was likely short for something, but he didn't know what.

Ginny waved at her brother and moved to open the gate. "Did he just call you Harry?"

"Yeah."

"Huh, what are the odds. That was the name of my doll." Then she froze as she was moving through the gate and turned back at him.

It hit them both at the same time what that meant.

She'd grown up with a Harry Potter doll.

And she'd just realized he was Harry Potter.

Harry wasn't sure what to say. He supposed he should have been some kind of flattered about it, but he'd been kept out of the limelight his whole life and had worked to keep it that way so he didn't have a big head about it. And she was a pretty girl that he'd just been getting on with rather well in their limited interaction.

Let's not forget he'd wanked a few times this week to thoughts of her also. And now she was even more attractive than she had been in his memories.

"So," he started, deciding to push forward with some confidence, "does that make me dreamy or adorable?"

That kicked her out of her shock. "I'm going to abstain from answering that, Harry Potter," she smiled with a twinkle in her eye that he very much liked seeing there.

"Thanks so much for this, Gin," Bill gave her a quick hug. He stayed on the front porch as she went inside the house and there were resounding squeals of delight from within coming from Bill's girls, it looked like they were excited to get some quality time with their aunt. "My wife is needing a lay in today, so I called Ginny over to mind the girls."

"Is she alright?" Harry asked.

"Oh, fine. Just pregnant is all. Needs a little extra relaxation now and again. Ginny was happy to step in," Bill told him. "Now. Did you have the memory?"

"I do." Harry patted his pocket. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

Bill frowned in sadness. "Yes. Like I said, I've got the scotch at the ready."

Three hours later the two of them came back out of the pensieve and fell backwards into their chairs on opposite sides of Bill's desk, both with their eyes rimmed with red, Bill's worse than Harry's since Harry had been the one reviewing the memory over and over again before today.

Harry's reaction this time was had more to due with feeling terrible that Bill had to see it all again.

"So," Bill coughed and tried to compose himself. "Sorry," he shook his head, "I need this before we can continue." He got up and went to his book shelf, pulling out three books and taking a bottle of scotch and two glasses from behind it. He poured a healthy amount into each, handing one to Harry and raising his other in salute, likely to his fallen brother, before taking his first mouthful.

Harry wasn't a big fan of scotch but wasn't going to turn it down. He took a small sip and continued to sit and wait until Bill was ready to talk again.

Bill finished his glass and poured himself another before he spoke again. "I didn't see any spells cast in your direction that didn't match their effects. You are quite good at dodging them too."

"Thanks," Harry nodded solemnly.

"And you were very helpful in that fight. Really got around the castle and likely saved a lot of people."

"I'm not here for complements," Harry told him wryly. "We all helped. Your entire family was there, helping. You just saw how many of them I fought alongside."

"And I couldn't help noticing a few of them that stood out a little clearer in your recollections," Bill told him with a smirk.

Harry felt heat rising to his cheeks. He'd been unable not to recall Ginny like that in the final memory. She had practically glowed with radiance in the final rendition.

And now she was just in the other room too.

"Don't worry about it," Bill shook his head. "She's a pretty girl. Smart too, witty, amazing Quidditch player. Ginny's great. You'd be mad not to fancy her a bit."

"Aren't you supposed to be warning blokes to stay away from your sister? Not encouraging them to pursue her?"

Bill smirked at him again. "It's not like you could take advantage, now can you?"

Harry's mouth fell open in shock from that comment. He'd never been teased about this before. So few people knew his affliction, but still.

It was a bit funny though.

"Well, I guess it's your job to make sure I can take advantage, now isn't it?" Harry quipped back.

Bill let out a bark of laughter. "Alright. That'll be how you can celebrate. I figure this out and I'll give you my blessing to date my sister."

"And get a good pile of gold to spoil your family with," Harry pointed out. He was paying Bill for his time, but he'd promised a thousand Galleon's if Bill managed to rid him of the curse too.

"I'd shake your hand on it, but, well," Bill gave a shrug and held back his laughter.

Harry grinned at that. It was nice to joke about it a bit. It would be even easier to joke about it once it was no longer an issue.

If that ever happened.

"Now," Bill sat up properly. "The only part that I'm unsure of is when you were in the Great Hall when He fell," Bill pointed out.

Harry hadn't been able to make sense of that either. It was most likely due to exhaustion and relief that caused him to pass out for a moment. And that was what he relayed to Bill.

"I'm not so sure about that," Bill shook his head. "It was at the same time as You-Know-Who was defeated. Tell me, did you ever talk to Albus Dumbledore? Did he ever reach out to you when you were growing up?"

"No. Sirius hated Dumbledore because of his involvement with what happened to my parents. Even if he had reached out I couldn't see Sirius returning an owl or responding in any way. We went to Britain help at the end of the war, and Hogwarts for the battle, but I've never had a conversation with Albus Dumbledore."

"Well, I know he was going around the last few years before You-Know-Who came back to power attempting to find a way to kill him for good. There is a chance that something about what he did during the battle could have affected you somehow. His final downfall could have been what cursed you given the unknowns surrounding what happened the first time we believed he'd been defeated."

Harry hadn't ever heard about something like that happening before. He'd attempted to research it before though, to no avail.

And he felt now that Bill was going to go down this path and would wind up just as disappointed as Harry had.

Harry opened his mouth, but Bill cut him off.

"I know a few of the people that were standing near you when it happened," Bill said thoughtfully. "I'm going to reach out to them and see if they remember it. I'll gather a few more memories from them and review it. If they all remember you simply passing out, then we can rule this out. If something looks off about it, we'll continue down this road. Sound good?"

Harry paused in surprise.

"Ye- yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea," Harry said.

Other people.

He hadn't considered that before. Getting another person's memory of it could very well tell them what happened to him.

"Good. That's all we can do for today then. Did you want to stay for dinner?" Bill invited.

()

That night Harry went home feeling a lot more hopeful than he had in a long time. He felt light from the Scotch that Bill had been sharing with him, and his cheeks actually hurt from all the smiling and laughing he'd been doing during dinner.

Ginny had still been there and she'd made spaghetti bolognaise. While Bill had been bringing up a plate to Fleur in the master bedroom both he and Ginny had been challenging her young nieces to eat their dinner in the loudest and messiest way possible.

It was very immature but the silly, happy expressions on the little girls faces had been well worth it.

He and Ginny had talked a bit as well. She too enjoyed hiking and had just wrapped up her last week of the Quidditch season and was now on a few months break before she started back up into training. All that was on her docket for her time off was leisure activities and family obligations of the childcare nature.

He made his way into his study and went to the hutch on the far side of the room, pulling a snuff box out of the drawer and taking out a rolled piece of paper, bringing it to his lips and lighting the end of it with his wand. He inhaled deeply and held his breath for a few moments before letting it out.

This was his reward for a good day.

Sirius had introduced him to cannabis when he was fourteen, said since he didn't have anyone else his age around to be a bad influence that it was his job as guardian to be that influence. It was all about proportions, Sirius had told him, he said it was one thing to get baked and sit around on your arse all day, it was another to earn it.

The day he'd given Harry his first joint it had been because he'd completed his Transfiguration OWL one year ahead of when he would if he'd attended regular school. The remaining OWL's he'd been fifteen for, but for Transfiguration Sirius had been an excellent tutor.

Harry thought about him every time he allowed himself this little indulgence and knew he needed to be in the best moods before lighting one up.

This evening he was in a very good mood.

Having a meal prepared by a beautiful and vibrant woman like Ginny, being silly with adorable little girls and having Bill thinking of a new approach to figure out his curse. He felt like they were really onto something.

The next morning Harry awoke to a tapping at the window.

Pulling himself out of bed he got his window open and a very excited small owl flew in, the bird did a few laps around the room before landing on the dresser and hopping closer and closer to Harry on one leg with the other stuck out, letter affixed to it, looking very proud of himself.

Harry ripped open the letter and was amazed to see if was from Ginny.

Harry,

It was great meeting you yesterday. Officially anyhow, guess we've met a few times. Anyhow, we were talking about hiking yesterday and I wondered if you've ever done Hadrian's Wall Path? I was planning on going today. Thought I'd extend an invite. If you'd like to join me, I'll be at Turret 49b, West of Gilsland, at 9:30. It's a flat stretch, more about fresh air in the countryside than endurance.

Hope to see you there,

Ginny

He reread it three times just to be sure he wasn't reading it incorrectly.

She wanted to spend more time with him?

She wanted to spend more time with him!

He checked his watch to see how long he had before she proposed to meet him there and he still had two hours to get there.

Just enough time to shower, shave, eat breakfast and figure out where exactly Gilsland was and Turret 49b.

He wound up being just over thirty minutes early. He'd packed a small backpack with food, water and coffee enough for the both of them just in case and was trying to settle his nerves as he sat on the wall. All around him were fields filled with green grass and a few cows here and there.

He was excited.

More excited than he probably should have been for a man in his early twenties that was going on a hiking not-a-date.

Seeing her in person yesterday before his meeting with Bill, then having dinner with her, he could admit to himself now that he fancied her. It hadn't just been the memory of her that he'd been revisiting over and over again during the past week.

She was simply so full of life and spirit. He still had yet to get to know her properly, but there was something about her. Something about the way she carried herself and this look in her eyes like she could read him perfectly.

A loud crack emanated right beside him and he jumped, pulling his wand out of instinct.

"Whoa!" Ginny raised her hands up in surrender. "Relax. It's just me!"

"Buggering fuck!" he exclaimed and lowered his wand, willing his heartbeat to slow back down. "You have got the loudest Apparation I've ever heard! Nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Oh. Yeah," she looked apologetic. "That's why I chose this spot at this time. Highly unlikely that there would be any other hikers around considering normal start and finish times and locations. You aren't the first person I nearly made wet themselves."

"I didn't wet myself," he was quick to defend.

"That's why I used the word 'nearly'," she teased and tossed him a saucy wink. Her expression changed quickly from a look of teasing to a look of pleasure. "I'm glad you decided to come."

"I was glad you extended the offer. I normally stick to hikes along the coast to get the view of the sea."

"Nice to change things up every once and a while though, isn't it?"

"It is. Have you done this one before?"

Ginny nodded. "Different stretches of it that all add up to 84 miles, which is how long it is, except it was the same stretches a few different times."

"Because?" he wondered why the same stretches instead of completing the entirety.

"You heard how loudly I Apparate. Some stretches of the trail are just too populated for me to risk it."

"Understood," he nodded. "So, shall we?" he held his arm out in the westward direction.

"We shall."

They walked in silence for a minute, the whole time his brain was scrambling around in an attempt to find a topic for them to talk about. If the entire hike was going to be flat like the path that he saw before him then neither of them would be getting winded, so carrying on a conversation wouldn't be an issue.

"Did you find it strange that I invited you this morning?" Ginny asked him.

"What?! No! I- I was glad for it. I didn't have anything else planned for the day, besides maybe getting out for a hike."

"Good," she nodded. "The reason I asked though was because I felt like our fourth encounter should be a planned one instead of by chance. And I was hoping I wouldn't have to wait another five years."

He gave a chuckle. "I was hoping for that as well. I really enjoyed myself yesterday with you and your nieces."

"And we really liked having you there. You are an expert at slurping spaghetti."

Harry let out a loud laugh at that. "I tell you, my cheeks actually hurt when I got home last night from smiling so much."

Her own smile turned to a frown of concern. "Do you not smile often?"

Mentally he shifted uncomfortably at that question. No, he didn't smile often. Usually, he was a right grumpy bastard. "Er, just, I'm not usually in situations that call for that amount of laughter."

There was another minute of silence between them. It was a loud silence that was punctuated by the sound of their footfalls on the dry dirt path.

"You work with Bill then? For Gringotts?" Ginny broke the silence.

"I do," he said quickly, holding on to this new subject like a lifeline. "Curse Breaker as well. Not nearly as high ranking as he is."

"Well, he has got a decade on you," she chided.

"Yeah. He's, er, consulting on something for me. Not something for Gringotts. It's a, um, side project. Something that's been a bother for a few years, and I've consulted with others on it to no avail. Bill though, he's the first that's found a different approach to look at it that's got me hopeful."

"Bill is a smart one. He was always who I turned to for advice as well. Seems to know how to take a step back from the situation and see what I missed and give advice."

"That's what I've been told." He didn't want to carry on talking about this subject now though. It was all he ever thought about and with his current company he wanted to enjoy himself. "So you're a Quidditch player?" he asked. "What's that like?" She hadn't talked about it much yesterday.

"Yeah, I'm a Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies. Not got much game play yet, still earning my keep."

"Still, a professional Quidditch Player!? That's awesome."

From there their topics for conversation flowed easily from Quidditch to Diagon Alley to Treacle Tart and changes at the Ministry. The hours stretched on with no awkward pauses between them. They stopped for a picnic at noon to find that they had both packed food that morning with the other in mind and had a full buffet to choose from.

"This is the twenty-mile point," Ginny announced at mid-afternoon as the sea came into their view in the distance.

"Was that your goal for the day?"

"I have surpassed my goal for the day," she told him with a big smile. "I was aiming for a four hour walk and we accomplished that two hours ago."

"Just the good company that kept you going then?" he waggled his eyebrows.

"You know, it just might have been," she said saucily.

Be bold, he told himself. "If we're wrapping this up for the day, when can I see you again?"

A knot had formed in his chest when he asked. On some level he knew, knew, that she was interested in him, but his experience with the fairer sex was that of a pre-pubescent boy so his hands were already sweaty simply implying that he wanted to spend more time with her.

"As it so happens I am flush with time off right now and this wall is about four times longer than what we've travelled today. Want to walk the length of it with me? Start tomorrow at the same time?"

That was an interesting proposition. Then they could accomplish the full walk from coast to coast together.

"I've never been to Newcastle upon Tyne," he said, essentially giving her his answer. Newcastle upon Tyne is where the wall started, or ended as would be their case.

Her brilliant smile told him she knew what that response meant.

So, that's what they did. For four days they trekked together, sharing conversation and lunch and sunshine, sometimes rain.

She'd told him stories of what it was like growing up in such a large family and he told her about his travels with his Godfather, they'd commiserated over the war and the final Battle.

It was so nice to have someone to talk to like this. There was no topic that seemed out of bounds for her. In fact, some of her stories of her school years involved salacious details about what her dormmates had been getting up to with their boyfriends and just how far along she'd gotten with her own by comparison.

He wasn't too keen to hear her personal details there and hadn't been able to help picturing himself in the place of those boyfriends in hidden alcoves.

The only thing he hadn't mentioned, blaming the fact that it hadn't come up, was his curse.

There hadn't been a point in the past four days that she'd attempted to touch him though, so he wondered if she knew. Wondered if Bill had told her.

Unfortunately, he was too chicken to ask her outright.

The end of the fourth day on their hike the sun had been baring down on them. They'd been walking through urban areas as well so the breeze was non-existent and made the sun more powerful.

"Urgh," Ginny groaned. "I can't wait until we get to the end now. I'm absolutely stripping down and going for a swim in the sea."

Harry was so hot and uncomfortably sticky at this point that her comment didn't even have him bringing up images of her stripping off her clothes.

"I'll join you in that."

They wandered off course of the wall, which was difficult to follow now through the suburbs, and headed towards the signs for the beach in Tynemouth.

The blast of sea air hitting them when they'd come out a side street and crossed the road before the beach was incredibly refreshing. They made their way down the hillside to the expanse of sand and both dropped their bags and began stripping down to their underclothes. Ginny cast a spell discretely to change her bra and knickers into a swimsuit, Harry followed her lead on that with his boxers.

The salt water was absolutely frigid, but so welcome.

He dunked his head under as soon as he'd gotten deep enough for the water to hit his hips. Popping his head back out of the water he wiped his eyes and saw Ginny had done the same.

His overall self no longer being influenced by the discomfort of over-heating, he now had the piece of mind required to appreciate how the two of them were currently scantily clad and only a foot or so away from each other. The waves were coming in and water rocking up and down enough that with them both standing on their knees he was getting a good view of her chest.

Her hair was dripping wet and hanging down to just below her cleavage, the expression on her face making him want her even more. She looked so satisfied with her face turned towards the sunshine and her eyes closed.

"Merlin, that feels good," she moaned. "So worth it."

"So worth it," he muttered back in a daze.

"Hey, Harry?" she asked, calling his attention up to her, now opened, eyes. She floated a bit closer to him. Her brown eyes were shining amber in this lighting.

"Yeah Ginny?"

"Are you ever going to kiss me? Or do you wait for the girl to make the first move?" She was grinning. She was teasing him, clearly she had no idea how much she was teasing him though.

He felt like every nerve in his body had relocated to his chest and was attempting to force him to move towards her and close this distance between them. Like they were both magnets and it was their entire purpose to be stuck together and for him to do as she asked and kiss her. To never stop kissing her.

In the back of his mind he knew that it wouldn't work.

But it was worth a try, wasn't it?

He shifted his knees so he would float towards her. They were only inches apart now. He reached out for her, willing his hands to come and rest on her hips, mentally feeling what it would be like to have her chest pressed up against his own and lowering his lips to meet hers.

His hands never made contact with her hips though. His chest remained hovering and inch away from hers, and his lips, Merlin how he tried to get them to close the distance.

It wasn't happening though.

"I can't," he nearly cried. The happy bubble he'd been living in over the past few days popped and brought reality crashing back down around him.

He was still cursed.

"You can't," she repeated, sounding completely dumbstruck. Ginny moved back from him, staring at him incredulously. "You can't?" she said once more, this time sounding offended.

It was clear that she thought he was rejecting her. "Ginny, wait." He didn't want her to think that. "It's not," he started, but she cut him off.

"Is this the way you normally behave when you've placed a girl in the friend-zone? I know we've been getting along brilliantly, but I rather had a different ending in mind."

"No, it's not," he started again but she turned around and started heading back to the beach.

Harry got to his feet quickly and trudged through the water to cut her off. "I want to," he said desperately. "You've no idea how much I want to."

"Funny way of showing it," she said and tried to move around him.

"I physically can't," he got out loudly through gritted teeth.

That caused her to pause, confusion showing in her knit eyebrows. Her gaze went downwards to his trunks, and that was when he realized that there was a part of him beginning to show how much he physically wanted to touch her.

"Really," she deadpanned.

His hands went downwards to attempt to cover that up.

"Ginny, I'm cursed," he blurted out. "That's why I've been working with Bill. I physically can't touch you, or anyone else for that matter. I haven't been able to touch anyone since the Battle and I've no idea why."

That truly got her attention and she stared at him for a long while. "You, you can't touch anyone?" She took a step towards him, searching his face to see if it was true.

"Try to touch my arm," he told her.

Slowly, she reached out, but not to his arm, her hand came up to try and cup his cheek. Even though her hand never made contact, he still instinctively closed his eyes and leaned in for the touch.

"You can't be touched," she said in awe.

"For five years now I've been working on how to remove the curse. I've been all over the world looking for answers. A solution. That's why I'm working with Bill." He gave a single huff of laughter despite the situation, "we have an agreement that if he does find the answer that I'm allowed to pursue you."

Ginny took a step back in surprise at that. "What?"

Harry gave her a sheepish grin. "We went through my memories of the Battle. I'm afraid that when it came to the time that you and I fought together it was quite obvious to him how hard I'd been focusing on recalling that particular memory of the night."

A proud blush came to the apple of her cheeks. "Really?"

Harry nodded. "Ginny, it turns out that you were the last person I touched before this happened to me. I'm really hoping that we find the counter-curse that you're the first person I get to touch when we do." If he was going to lay it all out for her then he figured he may as well lay it all out for her.

The red that rose to her cheeks moved down her chest and he could swear he could see her nipples harden through her suit. "I'd like that," she whispered and leaned forward as though she was going to attempt pressing her body up against his.

"So, can we keep seeing each other?" he asked hopefully

"Yes."

()()()

With his day job at Gringotts and two children with one more on the way, understandably, Bill was having trouble finding the time to track down those that had been standing around Harry during those missing moments when Voldemort fell. And an even harder time trying to find one that he knew well enough that would be understanding about keeping a request for such a memory quiet.

It was a few more Saturday's later that they met up in Bill's office and Harry spent his time perusing the shelves while Bill went into the pensieve a few more times to attempt to recognize more people from Harry's fuzzy recollection of what they looked like.

He had one memory from someone that had been near, but not near enough to see when Harry fell. They hadn't been looking in that area when that occurred, but they had gotten a look at a few more people around him and since they'd known some of those people when Bill came out of the pensieve the last time he looked like he'd discovered something.

"Podmore!" Bill exclaimed when he came back out. "He was just behind someone standing behind you and should have been able to see what happened to you over their shoulder if he stayed where he was through the whole fight."

"And you know this Podmore person well?" Harry asked. He vaguely recollected someone with that name. He thought they'd been imprisoned at some point during the war.

"Yes. Well, well enough. He was in the Order with me and works for the Ministry. I should be able to get in touch with him and try to get his memory this week."

One more week, Harry thought morosely.

"You knew this wasn't going to be an easy ride," Bill said at the expression on Harry's face.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I've just been feeling a little more motivated than usual to find the answer."

Bill held up his hand. "I so don't need the details as to why."

Bill knew that he and Ginny were spending a lot of time together. Over the past few weeks there was rarely more than two days that passed without them seeing each other and she was the reason why he was feeling a little more motivated.

The expression on Harry's face was enough for Bill to roll his eyes at him. "Now I don't know if I want to help you anymore," he said in jest.

"Hey, you know I'd treat her right! Be respectful and all that."

"I've no doubt. It's what she'd do to you that I'm worried about."

()()()

Harry wasn't used to having anyone visit his home, and he'd certainly never made dinner for anyone besides Sirius, and Ginny wasn't someone he wanted to just scrap together whatever was in the cupboards.

It was a month now that they'd been together and she was so amazing to spend time with, he wanted to impress her. So, he'd gone to the butcher shop and got the thickest and best cut of steak he could and spent hours marinating it while he prepared other sides.

Bill's joke about what she'd do to him would she were able to touch him had simply added to the fire making him want to impress her enough to keep her coming around and not give up on him.

By the time she showed up he knew he'd gone a bit overboard. There was mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, shrimp cocktails, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, green bean casserole and a treacle tart for dessert on top of the steak.

When he led Ginny into the kitchen so he could finish preparing the meal her eyes went wide.

"I know you've seen me eat before, but this is a bit more than I can handle," she commented.

"Er, yeah. I got a bit carried away," he chuckled.

"Geez, you would think you were trying to get laid or something. And here all I brought was a feather," she said and took a seat at a stool at the kitchen island and took a shrimp from the cocktail glass.

"A feather?" he puzzled.

"I'll tell you later," she winked.

They'd had meals out several times over the past month, gone on more hiking treks, Ginny had found walking tour booklets and they'd discovered hidden gems in the oldest parts of London. They had also found themselves in several situations where if things were different, he was sure they would have been getting up to all kinds of funny business in darkened corners or farmers' fields.

He had seen her appetite and knew that this was overkill. "Guess I'll just have a lot of leftovers for meals through the week."

The conversation flowed as it always did between them and she gave high compliments to him over each food item, though she took much smaller portion sizes than he was expecting her too.

"Now then," she said as they put the remainder of the food away. "Is it time to retire to your study, or get a tour of this place?"

"You want a tour?"

"Yes. This place is huge and I'm curious."

He led her through the first floor, opening all the doors so she could have a look, telling her all about how Sirius had grown up there and the backstory that followed, then they went upstairs and showed her the rest of the rooms until they got to the roof and the patio area that was set up there.

"This is lovely," Ginny commented. "You can see so much of the skyline from here."

It was his favorite part of the house as well. The air felt fresher on the rooftop than it did from the street and you could see much more of the sky.

"If I could have this rooftop escape but be far enough outside of the city to see the proper night sky, that would be great."

"You should come to my family home sometime then. One night when we're having a party or something. We get the bonfire going and the drinks flowing. It is always a good time. We're out in the country with several acres to ourselves. There's a pond and a Quidditch Pitch and a small forest."

He'd heard this all from her before, but he loved hearing it every time. He could picture her as a little girl running around after her brothers through fields of green with two red pigtails trailing behind her in the wind.

"Did you want me to grab us some drinks and we can sit up here for a bit?" he offered.

She hesitated, there was something in her eyes that told him she had something else in mind. "Yes, drinks would be good," she said.

He chose not to question her hesitation and was back a minute later with two drinks. He handed Ginny hers and she took a sip, then lowered her glass and gave him this look that he couldn't define. Then she licked her bottom lip before drinking down the rest of her beverage.

"Uh, I may have put two shots of gin in that," he warner her.

"Good," she nodded and put her cup down. "Because I want to tell you what the feather is for now. Before I lose my nerve."

"What's the feather for?" he asked slowly, no idea what was going on.

"Not up here," she shook her head. "Downstairs," she bit her lip and let it slide through her teeth, "in your bedroom."

His eyebrows shot up and Ginny started walking back towards the door leading down. Harry watched her walk away and hastily downed his own drink before following her.

Clearly, she'd noted which one was his bedroom because she didn't make any stops on her way there. She was standing by his bed when he reached the room, facing him and holding a feather in her hand.

"I want to try something," she told him and took a step closer.

He wasn't sure what this was about, but the energy coming off of her was intoxicating. He could tell that this was going to lead somewhere good, he just didn't know where.

He closed the door behind him and took a tentative step towards her.

"I know we can't make physical contact, however there are other things that we could be doing," she said softly and held up the feather in her hand then raised it to his cheek. The feather touched him there and he leaned into it as it grazed down his face, then did the same as it touched the other side. "By now, if you didn't have the curse, we would have been well beyond this point in our... physical relationship," Ginny continued in a low voice as the feather continued to stroke him softly, his eyes closing to appreciate the feel of it more. "We would have been sharing kisses, touches, hugs, cuddles and all other kinds of intimate shows of affection."

He heard something fall to the floor and opened his eyes to see that it was her dress. She was now standing before him in only her bra and knickers and he felt all the air leave his lungs at the sight.

"You would have seen me without these as well by now," she said referring to her undergarments.

He'd seen her in her transfigured bathing suit, but this was different.

They were in his bedroom, and she was starting to undress.

"Take off your shirt," Ginny ordered.

He hadn't noticed it until now that her pupils were dilated. He was very interested in seeing just what she had planned that was causing that reaction and decided to follow her lead. His hands came up and started undoing the buttons from the top down, her feather stroking up and down the exposed skin and sending shivers through his entire body.

He got to the last button and dropped his shirt to the floor so it could join her dress.

She then began pacing around him, his eyes drifting closed again as the feather travelled around with her; against his stomach, up to his bicep, down his side, around to his back. It felt heavenly. When she came around to his front his eyes were still closed and he could sense that she was drawing closer to him. He then felt her hot breath against his chest and his eyes shot open, his breathing now shallow.

She was standing as close as the curse would allow and still trailing the feather down, her breath against his skin making his eyes roll back as she began to follow the feather downwards, and then back up again.

He was already painfully hard when she came as close as she could to his ear. "Take off your trousers."

He did as she asked right away and kicked them to the side, not at all embarrassed about how he was tenting in his boxers. He saw her face when she looked down at him. The way she was biting her bottom lip led him to believe she was quite happy with what she'd done to him.

She then locked her eyes on his, the feather travelling down to trace along the waistband of his boxers.

"Ginny," he panted.

"Harry," she purred back.

It physically pained him that he couldn't touch her right now.

"Tell me what you would do to me if you could," she whispered.

"What?" he asked. He didn't know if he had that in him. This was the most intimate he'd been with anyone, dirty talk wasn't something he had any experience with. It caused a bit of panic in him to be asked to share his fantasies over what he'd do to her if he could.

His hesitation must have been written all over her face because, mercifully, she took the lead again.

"How about I give you this?" She held up the feather. "You can use it to trace the path you wish your hand could take." She took a step back after she gave him the feather and reached behind her to unclasp her bra and let that fall to the floor at her side as well. "And then my hand will do what yours can't."

His eyes went wide. Not just at the beautiful view of her bare breasts before him, but of her offer.

She was willing to touch herself for his viewing pleasure?

Now he was very glad that she waited until they had a bit of drink in them first.

His hand shook slightly as he raised the feather. Before it could touch her skin he found his voice. "Lay back on the bed," he told her.

She moved back until her legs touched the mattress, her eyes never leaving his. She didn't look as nervous as she had a few minutes ago. It was clear how much he was already loving this and they'd only just started.

Ginny shifted back so that she was laying completely on the bed, right at the end so he could walk around her. She was still up on her elbows looking up at him though.

"You won't have free range of movement with your hands like that," he told her, finding his nerve. "Lay back."

She did, and he took a moment to figure out where he wanted her to start touching herself.

He decided on her neck.

The feather touched her just below her left ear and slowly moved down to her clavicle. She shivered at the feel of it and it caused her breasts to shift around. Merlin, he wanted to touch her breasts.

Ginny's right hand came up to touch her neck and follow the path that the feather had travelled. He couldn't help himself tracing the feather down the middle of her chest, between her breasts and then coming down along the underside of one, then the other. He then unconsciously held his breath and raised the feather over her soft mound and around her hardened nipple.

Her hand followed that path as well, except she was cupping and massaging her breast instead. He managed to stop himself from drooling and then saw that her eyes were closed and there was a smile playing about her lips.

She was enjoying this as much as he was.

He paid attention to her other breast now, then her other hand came up to join in the fun.

With both her hands occupied he felt the need to adjust himself beneath his boxers. He let out an inadvertent groan at his touch though.

Ginny's eyes popped open at the sound and she gave him a saucy grin. "Are we moving on to this part already?" she asked, her own hand going to her knickers.

"Does that mean that if I…" he couldn't bring himself to say the words. He wanted it to be true. He wanted her to spread her legs and let him rest between them and watch from as close as possible while she pleasured herself.

He didn't need to finish his sentence though because she was already sliding her hands down her stomach and slipping her thumbs under her knickers and sliding them down her legs and pulling them down to her ankles.

Slowly he walked around to the side of the bed so that he could get the frontal view of her. He could barely believe this was happening. His eyes zeroed in on the place between her legs. She must have groomed for him because what he saw was a small patch of ginger curls in a neat little triangle and an unobstructed view of her sex below that.

She'd come here with the feather and known exactly what she wanted to get up to tonight. That got his blood going even more and he palmed himself again through his boxers once more. She hadn't yet started touching herself there yet though.

"Ginny," he whispered in desperation. He needed to see her fingers going down between her legs and showing him just how she wanted to be touched.

"Not yet," she teased, her hands going back up to her breasts.

"I want you to," he panted. If she wanted him to talk her through it, he would try.

"And I want you to lose those boxers," she told him, pinching her nipples gently between her fingers.

He hesitated for a moment. She was on full display for him though, so it was only fair. Harry slipped his boxers to the floor to join her knickers. Ginny came back up on her elbows now to get a good look at him full frontal before her.

"Very nice, Potter," she said before biting her lip and scooting down the bed to get closer to him, rolling her hip in a come-hither way. "Come closer," she whispered, letting her hand travel down between her legs properly now, his own hand grasping himself and giving a few full pumps before he climbed between her spread legs.

He continued to stroke himself as he watched her fingers navigate the wonder that was her sex. His eyes darted up to see her own were trained on his hand movements as well. He looked back down at how her two fingers were focusing on a particular spot just above where he was desperate to slide into her. His hand sped up as her fingers began working her over faster.

She must have gotten tired of her weight resting on one elbow because she lay back, her head arching back in enjoyment of what she was doing to herself. "Climb over me," she pleaded. "I want you as close as you can get."

He was quick to acquiesce. His free arm came down to rest beside her allowing him to hover over her, his hand still working him over just south of her own.

"Oh, I wish you were inside me," she moaned, her panting growing louder.

"Fuck, I want that too." He was imagining what it would feel like. She would be moist and warm around him. They would be able to feel the heat coming off each other as they worked up a sweat.

"I would want you to start out using your tongue," she told him. "Using your tongue right where I'm touching myself right now. Over and over again until I scream."

His hand started pumping faster and his breathing grew erratic.

"Then you'd kiss your way up my body and you'd be inside me before I even recovered. Pounding into me so I don't even have time to recover before I'm on to my next."

At this point he was amazed that he hadn't already cum. This incredibly sexy woman was wanking away in front of him and telling him how she wanted him to work her over. He was trying to push back his finish though. This was the hottest thing he could have imagined ever happening to him. He needed to hear everything she wanted him to do to her.

Her tongue darted out of her mouth and licked her top lip, the movement of it made him think she wanted to taste him. He certainly wanted to taste her.

She gave a whimper before continuing, her hips gyrating below him. "Ah! Oh, then you'd turn me around so I was on all fours and you'd take purchase behind me."

"Oh fuck," he groaned. The image of that nearly pushing him over the edge.

"You'd ride me like that, using me for your own gratification until you ca-AME!" she screamed the last part and arched off the bed.

Ginny hadn't even relaxed from that position before he was shooting off himself and groaning loudly, his seed landing mostly on her stomach.

When she did relax back against the mattress she lowered her leg and he rolled over to fall down beside her, both of them panting.

For all intents and purposes, they'd just had sex. It was as close to sex as he was capable of, and he hoped they could do that again. "That was incredible," he panted.

"I thought you might like it," she panted back.

"I'd never even considered…" he started but couldn't quite find the words. "How did you even come up with…"

She rolled onto her side, away from him and he saw her reach over the side of the bed and heard her cast a cleaning spell, then she rolled back over to face him. "You might not have noticed it, but I fancy you quite a bit. That fancy has had me picturing a few scenarios on how to take off the edge with how randy I am for you. That there was just one of the ways I'd come up with."

"O-one of?" he dared ask for her to elaborate.

She gave him the biggest grin. "All in good time, promise. I'm fairly greedy for it as well."

()()()

Harry awoke the next morning feeling better than he had in a long time. The light was coming in through his window and illuminating the room in a warm glow. He felt like that warm glow was coming more from the woman stretched out on the other side of the bed though.

That had been the best night of his life, and to wake up to her laying beside him, her still naked body only half covered in a top sheet, it was just the cherry on top.

She was hugging a pillow, her hair askew and mouth open hanging open. It wasn't the most adorable expression on her face, but it was still a great sight to see first thing.

She let in a loud rattling sleep sound that had him fighting back a laugh and apparently that was the sound she made before she woke up in the morning because a moment later her eyes popped open.

Ginny blinked a few times before her bleary eyes met his own and she smiled sleepily. "Did you just stay up all night watching me sleep?"

"No," he chuckled. "I woke up only a moment ago, I swear. Was enjoying waking up to your snoring face."

"I don't snore!" she protested.

"Right, my mistake."

"I don't!" She gave a stretch and hugged the pillow closer. "I make beautiful music with my nose whistling that is reinforced by operatic breathing."

"That is a better description of it, yes."

"I thought so." She shifted a little closer to him, unconcerned that the sheet slid further down her body when she did so.

"What would you like to do today?" He didn't have anything planned, he hadn't expected her to stay the night and was now hoping that she wanted to simply lounge around in bed all day and maybe try out a few more of those scenarios she'd come up with.

"Well, I usually go home to the Burrow for Sunday lunch. The whole family does," she said leadingly as she came up onto her elbows and bit her lower lip.

"Oh," he wasn't sure what else he should say.

"Do you want to meet them?" she asked him flat out.

He couldn't help being surprised by the question. Bill knew about his curse but it wasn't something that he wanted broadcasted to the rest of her family. He didn't need it getting out and publicized. There may not have been much interest in his story anymore, but his name was still one that everyone in their world knew. And he didn't know the rest of the Weasleys.

"Ginny," he started.

"We could say you've got a cold you're recovering from," she suggested.

He could hear the hopefulness in her voice. She really wanted him to meet her family. This was a whole weekend of firsts for him. With her eyes as big and pleading as they were, plus she was still naked and slowly shuffling even closer to him. How was he supposed to say no to her?

"Okay," he croaked out.

"Really?" The grin on her nearly split her face in two. She bounced up onto her knees and excitedly moved to straddle him.

He sucked in a breath when she did. It was strange to see her sitting astride him, and inch of air stopping her soft, creamy thighs from touching his side. Her hands came down as though they were going to be resting on his chest, but didn't meet.

"I wonder how hard I could try and press down like this," Ginny wondered aloud. He could tell she was attempting it, like all she had to do was press through an invisible bubble in order to get to him.

"I've had someone trying to kick and punch me before," he told her.

"But did you have something behind you stopping you from moving back?"

"Yes."

She huffed through her nose. "One day," she said.

The way she said it told him that she believed it would be true. He himself was still hopeful that one day it would be true. Right now he didn't want to reflect on it, he just wanted to appreciate the sight before him. She was completely unabashed about being naked with the sunshine allowing him to take in all of her freckles.

How he wished he could kiss every single one of them.

Until then though, "do you want to join me in the shower?"

Five hours later Ginny was giving him the walking tour of The Burrow. The house she grew up in was a sight to behold. Her mother and father were both lovely and they seemed to buy that he wasn't being rude in not shaking their hands. Ginny had fed them the story that he was on the other side of being under the weather but didn't want to be rude by not coming to the lunch she'd invited him to.

A few of her brothers and their girlfriends/ fiancés/ wives showed up, along with her nieces and nephews. It was an almost overwhelming amount of family. Luckily that meant that he didn't have too much attention paid to him in the chaos.

It was fun being around all the madness that stemmed from the kids running around and the brothers arguing with each other. The food was also incredible.

"Your parents host this ever weekend?" Harry asked her as they headed out to the pond, his belly fuller than he could ever remember it being.

"They do, and they love it. The house is so quiet through the week now with all of us moved out. It gives mum something to look forward to. We might have had several spats growing up, but I like knowing what's going on with my brothers and their families as well. It's how I can tell when Aunt Ginny needs to step in and spend some more time with my nieces so that their mums and dads can take a break."

"That is really great." He heaved a big sigh and rubbed his stomach, "and I am so full I really just want to lay down."

Ginny chuckled. "Another reason to come to the family get togethers. Come on, we'll have a kip on the grass by the pond."

They passed the afternoon watching clouds as their digestion settled and he did fall asleep, waking when it was nearing dinner and time for them to go their separate ways.

Ginny picked a large leaf off a nearby tree and traced it down along his jaw and to his lips, telling him that was her new way of kissing him goodbye.

()()()

Harry and Bill came out of the pensieve the following Saturday with just as many questions as they'd gone in with.

Bill had managed to secure several persons memories of the Battle now after getting Sturgis Podmores that had been in Harry's proximity and seen his collapse. Piecing all of them together into something that gave a real look at what had happened to him had taken a lot of time and concentration on Bill's part.

Unfortunately, they still weren't sure what caused the curse.

There was no question that it was linked to Voldemort's downfall but why something that linked him to Voldemort since he was a baby would cause him to be incapable of touching people after his death was just mind boggling.

"He had Horcruxes," Bill repeated over again, going through the chart they had on his office wall where the were mapping out causes and side effects linked to potential causes. "All his Horcruxes would have been destroyed though, otherwise he wouldn't be dead."

"Is he though?" Harry suddenly wondered suddenly, a lightbulb going off in his head.

"What?" Bill rounded on him, astounded at the question. "We all saw his body."

"Yeah, but what happened to the body?" Harry asked, wanting to roll with this potential theory. "Was he cremated? Did everyone take a stab at it until it was an unrecognizable heap of body parts? Is it in a coffin somewhere for people to spit on his grave?"

Bill blinked at him once before a smile was tugging at the corner of his lips. "He was buried in a Muggle cemetery next to his Muggle father."

"What?" Harry was floored. That would have been the ultimate revenge for someone like him. "Was he buried under his birth name?"

"Yes." Now Bill was properly smirking. "And there was a strong shield placed around the grave to repel any Death Eaters that might try and call him up again from beyond the grave, or simply want to move him to a more prominent location." Bill pulled out a map of Britain and pointed out the location. "It wasn't broadcast where he was buried, but I couldn't help asking Shacklebolt, so I know where it is."

Harry nodded unconsciously a few times as the gears turned in his mind. "I think we need to dig him up."

It took some convincing. Not as much as he thought there might be, but some. The Weasley's were game for a challenge it seemed. It was certainly the trait he saw shared between Bill and Ginny.

Both Bill and he had brought their kits they used for when they were at dig sites. This may be considered grave robbing rather than curse breaking, but with all the spells and dirt in place it wasn't much different from what they would encounter at the bottom of a mine shaft or abandoned cave; both situations they'd been in.

It was always best to start off the Muggle way until they could feel the magic beginning to protest. They didn't get more than a foot down before the shield was felt. It was a strong spell as well, and lucky they had both had training with these spells because it required two people to take it down. Half an hour they worked away at removing the spell and were both knackered by the end.

The remainder of the dirt they lifted away with a spell and raised the coffin. It wasn't a nice coffin either. No one wanted to waste more money on disposing of this bastards body than they absolutely had to. It was sealed just enough to keep the mice and insects out of it, otherwise it was basically just plywood that was nailed together.

There were a few more spells to remove before they could get the lid up.

Once it was up though… they both gave pause.

The body inside the coffin, it looked like that of a dead man. One with no nose and no hair, resembling a snake and with very pale, almost translucent skin. But it did not look like a corpse that had been buried in the ground for five years.

"Shouldn't he be more," Harry started.

"Yeah. Yes he should," Bill replied, walking around the coffin and be sure to keep a few feet distance.

"Even if… I mean. He's been underground for five years. Surely… even if it were a coma he would still be…" He couldn't wrap his mind around it enough to finish his thoughts.

"Erm," Bill looked down and must have thought what he did next was the most logical step. He picked up a branch from the ground and gave Tom Riddle Jr.'s foot a hard poke.

The foot gave a lot of resistance before it moved. It moved from the pressure of the branch very unwillingly and then it stayed in that position.

"That is not right," Bill exclaimed.

"Rigor mortis wouldn't still be affecting the body!" Harry said, astounded.

Bill looked up at him. "I don't think he's properly dead."

Harry looked away from the body then and to Bill. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, the last line of the prophesy that Sirius had shared with him so many years ago replaying in his head over and over again.

"Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives."

Is this what it meant? He had to kill whatever was left of Voldemort? He'd been raised to believe that prophesies were a lark perpetuated only by those that put stock in them. But if someone had believed in the prophesy in the first place, namely the body in the box before them, then perhaps it did have to be at his hand that the final blow was served.

No problem then.

He pulled out his wand and immediately cast the killing curse at the body of the former Dark Lord. The green light shot out of his wand and the light from it looked to go inside the body making it glow green. The mouth of it opened as the light pooled in that area and a wisp of dark smoke floated out.

Harry and Bill looked at each other dumbfounded.

"Er, do you feel any different?" Bill asked.

Harry did a mental check of whether there was any sensation telling him his curse was lifted. "Er… no."

Bill scrunched up his face. Clearly, they were both at the point of this all being guesswork. He held out his hand, asking if Harry wanted to try touching him.

Harry hesitated though. For two reasons; one- he wanted it to be true, that this was all he'd needed to do to lift the curse, and two- he wanted Ginny to be the first person he touched if it was true.

"Bill, I've come to think of you as more of a mate and all, but in all my dreams of finding out that I no longer had this curse, not a single one of them involved me discovering it with some burly man while standing in a graveyard covered in dirt."

Bill barked a loud laugh at that and shook his head. "Alright then. Well, lets get this bastard covered back up and lowered into the ground."

They looked back at the body of Tom Riddle Jr and whether it was their imagination or not, it looked like the body was resembling a five-year-old corpse more and more by the minute.

When Harry got home the first thing he did was send a letter to Ginny asking if she could come over, then he got into the shower and was trying not to let his nerves get the better of him. His heart was racing though, his damned optimistic brain playing out the situation that was going to unravel once Ginny got here, how they were going to start with their hands touching, then wandering, then they'd be kissing and wind up so filled with passion that he would shag her against the wall in the entryway.

By the time he got out of the shower he was trying to calm himself down for two reasons.

Merlin, why didn't he just give Bill a pat on the back or something?

No. No. He wanted Ginny to be the first physical interaction he had after so long.

It wouldn't be that much longer either. She would likely be coming over soon and then he could either end the evening wrapped in her embrace or the two of them could get pissed on the roof and she could spend the evening convincing him not to jump off it.

It was only thirty minutes after he had gotten dressed that Ginny arrived through the Floo.

"Hey. I got your letter. What's the big news?" she asked bounding into the kitchen. She looked like she was ready to celebrate, even before he said anything.

He found himself frozen though. Both scenarios playing out in his mind and causing his tongue to be completely tied.

"Harry?"

"Ginny," he replied back. Okay good, he was still capable of speech. His heart was racing even harder now that it was the moment of truth.

"Harry," Ginny drew closer to him. "Whatever it is, it's going to be okay."

"What if it isn't though?" he asked.

Ginny sucked in a breath. That must have been enough to tip her off about what he'd called her over here for. She licked her lips and gave a swallow, her brown eyes growing wide. "What ever it is," she assured him. "Either way."

He felt a stinging behind his eyes as he looked at her. He was so desperate for the curse to be gone now that his emotions were getting the better of him.

"I love you, Harry. I'm not going anywhere," she promised.

He chocked back a sob at that, it surprised the both of them how abruptly it came out of him. He hadn't been prepared to hear her say that. "I love you too," he told her, only just then realizing that it was true.

Of course, he loved her. They'd only been together for a short while, but these past few weeks had been like living in a dream and he was desperate for that dream to become a reality.

Ginny bit her bottom lip hard to stop her chin quivering, a soft expression on her face and her eyes growing glassy. She reached her hand up and held it as close to his face as she had ever been able to before.

He held his breath, part of his heart beginning to break thinking that she couldn't move her hand any closer. His eyes shut from the devastation.

Then he felt it.

Her fingers were against his cheek, her palm was cupping the side of his face. It was so warm.

His eyes shot open and saw his own wonderment reflected in her own. She raised her other hand to his chest and slid it upwards to cup the back of his neck.

"Ginny!" he grinned.

"Harry!" she exclaimed.

Then he leaned down and kissed her. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Her lips pressed against his own, his hands started to wander against her incredible body. Every spot on her he'd been dreaming of touching he now did.

The scenario he'd been hoping for with the two of them shagging against the wall in the entryway had now morphed into them snogging passionately in his kitchen and him lifting her up onto the counter, her legs wrapping around his waist to pull him close.

"Ginny, I want to-" he started with his lips making their way down her neck.

"Shut up and shag me, Harry," she demanded.

His magic must have assisted with the moment because he hadn't even touched his trousers before the button was undone. He hastily shoved them over his hips and heard a ripping noise that turned out to be from Ginny attempting to hastily remove her knickers.

And then he was inside her and it was like he was able to take a deep breath for the first time ever. It was warm and wet and made his head completely fuzzy.

"I'm not going to last," he warned her.

"I don't care, you can spend all night making it up to me," she panted and ground herself against him.

He liked the sound of that!

Grasping her bum, he tried to pull her even closer. She lowered herself so that she was braced on her elbows, then suddenly he was the one supporting nearly all of her weight as he lifted her bum off the counter and lowered her to the height he wanted, driving into her again and again as they both cried out in pleasure.

It was an embarrassingly short amount of time but he couldn't hold it back and he came. "Fuck!" he yelled out with his finish.

"Good boy," Ginny purred.

He lowered her down so her legs could touch the floor and lowered himself so he could bury his face in her chest while he caught his breath.

"We should get married," he blurted out. Partly due to his euphoric state, partly because he couldn't imagine being with anyone else.

Ginny let out a laugh of disbelief. "How about you ask me that again in a few months and maybe I'll say yes."

So, he did.

And she did.

()()()

AN- This one took on a life of its own. Didn't really know where it was going, it decided for me.

That was fun.