AN- For Pottermum and the Ginny Lovers Secret Santa Writing Gift Exchange. (Already posted in AO3)
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Childhood Sweethearts
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1989
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Harry woke up in an unfamiliar place, it was a large room with room dividers set up everywhere for privacy between what must have been several beds. He lifted his head as much as he could off his pillow and saw through blurry eyes that there were at least four or five beds on the other side of the room from him, so there should be the same on the side of the room he was on.
It was likely a hospital.
He didn't recall needing to go to the hospital.
The last thing he remembered was walking home from school, several yards behind his cousin and his friends.
Did he get hit by a car crossing the road?
He tried wiggling his fingers and toes and could see that he was able to do that, but everything hurt and it caused a small whimper to escape his mouth.
"You're awake!" an excited voice said from his left in a whisper.
He turned his head towards the voice and watched as a girl around his age maneuvered herself around the divider in the space between the wall and came over to stand over his bed. She had shoulder length ginger hair, loads of freckles and a huge grin on her face.
"I've been hoping you'd wake up soon. Are you thirsty?" She didn't wait for a response, she just took his cup from beside the bed and held it up to his lips, encouraging him to drink some down. "There, that should feel better."
She was right, it did. He hadn't realized how parched he was.
"You've been unconscious for a while now, I figured you'd need that." She hopped up a bit and sat down on the side of his bed, handing him his glasses from the same bedside table. "My names Ginny. I've been here for a day and half. Mum says I've probably got one more day to go before I'm good as new again." She held up her leg to show that it was wrapped in bandages. "I've got twin older brothers that like to make things explode; I got too close to whatever they were blowing up this time. They're in for a world of trouble. I think I'll make them feel really bad about it when I get home and make them do my chores for a week."
He wasn't used to someone talking to him this much and didn't quite know what to do about responding. "Do you know what happened to me?" he asked her, his voice coming out really raspy.
Ginny gave him another drink of water before putting the cup down and heading for the end of the bed and picking up a clipboard. "Says here you…" she frowned. "Someone hit you really hard!" She looked up at him again in concern. "Do you know who hit you?"
"I don't remember. Last thing I remember is walking home from school."
She frowned at the paper in front of her again. "I don't know what a lot of these words mean. I think it says you're going to be okay." She put the paper back and came back to sit on his bed again. "I've been sleeping most of the day, pain potions and what-not, so I'm wide awake now; and my leg doesn't hurt too bad anymore. You look like you're still in pain though. Do you want me to call for the matron?"
"Not yet," he said quickly. She was being so nice, he didn't want a grown up to come over and expose to her that he was a freak and have her not want to talk to him again. She gave him another drink from his cup. "My name's Harry."
"I know," she said excitedly. "Harry Potter. I've been wanting to meet you for ages. Didn't think it would be here though." She looked around the room before looking back at him. "I heard you live with Muggles. What's that like?"
He didn't know if his head injury was making her sound confusing or if he just heard her wrong. "What's a Muggle?"
"Oh, maybe you call them something different. My brother, Bill, said that in America they're called 'no-maj', or something like that. But, you know, people that don't have magic," she shrugged.
He squinted at her in confusion. "Magic isn't real."
Now she was looking at him like he was crazy. "What are you on about? How much potion did they give you?!"
"Why do you keep calling it 'potion'? It's medicine."
"It's potion, and magic is real!" she told him forcefully.
"Show me some magic then," he challenged her.
Now she crossed her arms and glared. "I can't do magic yet! I'm only eight. You need to be eleven before you can do magic. Except when it's an accident."
He let out a laugh, which he cut short because it hurt his ribs to laugh. "That's ridiculous."
"I'm not ridiculous! You're ridiculous. Face it, you've got injured really bad and now you've forgotten about magic. Which is crazy because you've been doing it since you were a baby. Everyone knows the story about you, The Boy-Who-Lived."
"The what?"
Now she looked concerned. "Do you really not remember anything about it? Not even about your mum and dad?"
"You know who my mum and dad are?" he asked in amazement.
"Sure, James and Lily Potter. They died on Halloween 1981 because of You-Know-Who, but you didn't, you somehow managed to bring down You-Know-Who and survive, even as a baby. That's amazing. But, it's really sad too. Everyone's been wondering where you got to." She gave a pause to stare at him expectantly. "Well? Where'd you get to? Who are you living with now?"
She knew the name of his mum and dad. How could a girl a year younger than him know who his mum and dad were?
"I live with my aunt and uncle, and their son. But, wait, you know who my parents are? And what were you saying about Halloween?"
Harry struggled to sit up in his bed and Ginny helped him as she told him a story about an evil wizard that came after his family, it sounded like a children's story that she had memorized. Either she had an incredible imagination, or he'd fallen into Wonderland where nothing made sense anymore.
"Miss Weasley!" a Matron's voice called out softly, startling the pair of them. "You aren't supposed to be getting out of bed! Did you wake the poor boy up?"
"I didn't wake him up!" Ginny defended. "I've been helping him and keeping him company! Did you know that no one has told him he's a wizard? And he won't believe me."
Harry watched as the Matron's eyebrows went up and she looked between the two of them in surprise. "Well, get back to bed. I need to look him over."
Ginny scooted back around the curtain as the Matron came closer to him and pulled out a stick that shot a light out from the end of it and did some kind of Star Trek scan of him as he stared at it with wide eyes.
"Told you magic is real," Ginny said, still peeking around the curtain.
"Miss Weasley," the Matron scolded again and Ginny ducked back behind the curtain after giving him a big smile.
Harry stayed right where he was, letting the Matron poke and prod at him with her wand and hand him little glass containers of liquid for him from her never-ending pocket. She told him about how he'd been found on the street by a 'squid' that brought him to the hospital, where they discovered it wasn't the first time he'd taken a beating. She told him the Healers were going to be talking to him more in the morning about his living situation.
One or two of the containers of liquid the Matron gave him made him really groggy and he fell back asleep before she'd left the room. When he woke up again there was a lot of light coming in through the windows and the curtains between the beds were all folded back against the walls. There were a few other kids he could see, but Ginny was gone from the bed beside him. On his nightstand though there was a Get Well Soon card for him, the first card of any kind he could recall getting, and it had a little picture of the two of them drawn in crayon. She wrote 'magic is real -Ginny', and it made him smile.
True to the Matron's word, there were Healers that stopped by his bed and had several questions for him about his upbringing, asking him about what he ate, where he lived, what he learned. He didn't know if he should be answering them with complete honesty; if his aunt and uncle found out that he had admitted he lived in the cupboard under the stairs and was usually left to go hungry then he could get in a lot of trouble with them. He decided to be only somewhat honest and let them know he had a pretty small room and ate 'enough'. It didn't seem to satisfy them though, and then someone from the government showed up and he knew that he was going to be in big trouble with the Dursleys.
The woman kept saying she was from the Ministry and he didn't understand half of what she was going on about, then from across the room an older woman that was sitting bedside to who was possibly her grandson came over.
"Am I hearing right that you've been stuck living with your mother's awful sister?" she asked him directly.
"Did you know my mum?" Harry asked in surprise.
"She was quite close with my boy and his wife." She turned to the lady from the government, "there is no way that Lily Potter would have signed off on him living with them. You have to move him away from there. Why, look at the size of him. Boy, when was the last time you had a decent meal?"
Harry could only sit there and blink owlishly at her as his cheeks started to burn up.
"He's being neglected, isn't he?" she stated more than asked. "Who stuck him there? It was that Dumbledore, wasn't it? Well," she sniffed, "of course it was. He might be the Headmaster at Hogwarts, but he's never actually cared for a child, has he."
It seemed like the lady from the government didn't know what to make of this woman any more than he did.
"Right then, you," the old woman pointed to the lady, "get me whatever forms are needed, I've got plenty of room at mine for him to start getting raised properly. My Neville could use some socializing too. Isn't that right, Neville?" she called across the room to her, probably, grandson.
Neville and Harry made eye contact. Neville seemed just as scared as everyone else was of his grandmother. He also looked like he might have the chickenpox, except the lotion covered spots on him were letting off small amounts of smoke.
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1990
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Harry sat at Neville's bedside in the Children's Ward of St. Mungos playing exploding snap with him while they waited for Gran. Neville had gotten himself in trouble with Uncle Algie's plants again and this time it was bad enough that he needed another visit to St. Mungo's. They were here often enough that he wondered if Neville wasn't intentionally getting himself injured just enough that he'd require a visit so he could sneak up and visit his parents when he didn't have visitors.
A lot had changed in the last year of Harry's life; moving in with the Longbottom's, getting three square meals a day, gaining an introduction into the wizarding world, having a boy his age around all the time that actually wanted to play with him. Harry had thought that Neville hadn't realized just how good he had it when he'd just moved in, but then they made that first trip back to St. Mungo's and Harry met Neville's mum and dad on the permanent ward and it was just so sad to see that Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom were still alive in body only. Harry thought his mum and dad might have gotten the better end of the deal.
"Back again, I see," said a somewhat familiar voice right beside Harry's ear, which caused him to jump and the tower of cards to tumble and explode.
Harry spun around and saw the same girl he'd met in that very same hospital wing last year. "Ginny!" he remembered and stood up, instinctively going to give her a hug.
She hugged him back enthusiastically. "Have you figured out I was right yet?" she grinned up at him when they pulled away from each other.
He chuckled. "Yes," he rolled his eyes. "Magic is real. I had no idea though. I was living with Muggles then. Now I'm not!" he moved aside so he could make introductions. "Ginny, this is Neville. Neville, Ginny. I don't know if you two met last year or if you just missed each other."
"Harry's told me about you," Neville told her brightly. "He's still got your Get Well Card."
"Neville!" Harry hissed.
"You do?!" Ginny beamed.
"Yeah, he basically-" Harry stopped Neville from saying anything more about it by picking up one of the smoking cards and flicking it at his face. He didn't need to be embarrassed about how he kept the card she gave him in the nightstand beside his bed.
"I've gotten better at drawing since then. Should I make you one?" she asked Neville.
"What are you doing here again?" Harry asked her. She looked to be perfectly healthy.
"It was the twins again, but they didn't get me this time, they got my brother Percy." She gestured over to the corner of the room where there were a few people with ginger hair surrounding a bed. "He'll be fine, he should have known better than to try and clean up their room. It's his own fault really."
"Did he get burned too?"
"No, he can't tell us exactly what happened because every time he opens his mouth there's some kind of bird like twittering that comes out and his hands and fingers aren't right, so he can't write it down either."
She said it so calmly but the two boys were terrified at the idea that something like that could happen.
Ginny saw the look on their faces, "he's going to be fine. The twins just finished up their first year at Hogwarts, there's no way they're capable of doing lasting damage."
"Ginny?" a man who was likely her father came over. "Who's this that you're talking to?"
"This is Harry and Neville," she told him happily. "Remember how I told you that I met Harry here last year when I burned my leg?" She turned back to them. "You guys should come over to The Burrow sometime, that's our place. Me and Ron don't go to Hogwarts yet; Ron's a year older than me."
"Are you really Harry Potter?" her father asked.
Harry just nodded, he had that question asked of him a lot whenever there was a new person that stopped by the house for a visit; it was getting old.
"That must make you Neville Longbottom," he smiled. "I knew your parents, I also know your grandmother. I'm alright with you two popping around ours if she is. I know my Molly, that is, Ginny's mother, wouldn't mind. I've no doubt that Augusta Longbottom has you boys better trained at being polite than my lot is."
"Hey! I'm polite!" Ginny protested.
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1991
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The little spat started off with Ginny being stubborn and sulky. She'd been growing more and more pouty the longer they spent there and he didn't know what was going on. He, Ron and Neville had just been talking about what it was going to be like when they got to Hogwarts and all the stuff they wanted to do that year.
Then, out of no where, Ginny threw a handful of mud at them.
Ron got angry at her immediately and threw a handful back while he and Neville looked on in surprise until they got another handful thrown at them, that was when he reached down to take some mud in his hand too and threw it at her. If she wanted a mud fight, he'd give her a mud fight. He didn't realize that she wasn't just playing until he'd chased her around down the hill to the side of the pond where there was even more mud and they wound up wrestling in the reeds. He wound up tossing her into the water without thinking and felt immediately bad, until she yanked on his ankle and sent him into the water as well.
"What are you playing at?!" he finally yelled at her.
"What am I playing at? What are you playing at? You and Neville have been ignoring me since you showed up because you were all too busy planning out your year together. I thought I'd have at least one more month before I wind up losing you as a friend but I guess I was wrong." She splashed water at him then.
"What are you talking about? Why are you losing me as a friend?"
"You don't think I see where this is going? Because the twins used to play with me too. Percy used to play with me also. Then they went off to Hogwarts and suddenly I was too young for them to play with anymore. You're a year older than me Harry and that hasn't meant anything until now. Now that you all have your Hogwarts letters you're going to go off and be different and forget all about me; even though you were my friend first!"
"I'm not going to forget about you!"
"Yes, you are! You and Neville, and definitely Ron." Her chin started warbling and her lip trembling.
Had they been ignoring her since they'd shown up here over an hour ago? He hadn't meant to be excluding her, he was just excited that he'd gotten his letter and they were going to be heading off to school in a few weeks.
A tear leaked out of her eye and she immediately splashed her face with water to try and cover it up. He shifted through the shallow water to get closer to her and put his arm around her shoulder. "I'm not going to forget about you. Just because I'm going off to Hogwarts doesn't mean I'm going to forget about my first friend I ever made."
She put her head on his shoulder. "You will though," she sighed. "You'll write a bit at first, then maybe once more around Christmas, then possibly once in the second term. Then you'll come home from your first year and when or if you pop over here for a visit it will be to see Ron, not me. And next summer I won't get to be as excited as the three of you about what Hogwarts is going to be like, because with so many of you already there I'm always going to be 'too young' to waste any of your time with."
He hugged his arm tighter around her. "And what I worry about is that I'll get sorted into the wrong House and have to watch as the only two friends I'll have at Hogwarts go off and have fun without me. I'll be really crap at all my classes and do something so incredibly stupid that I get expelled before the year is out. With that much worry I'll have to keep in touch with you because if I don't have you on the outside, then I've got no one." He felt her look up at him but he was still keeping his focus on the other side of the pond. "Then, you'll be the one starting school and because you're so cool and fun, you'll have everyone wanting to be your friend and you will forget all about me."
"Never," she whispered and gave a kiss to his cheek before resting her head on his shoulder again.
They sat there in the water for a few moments of silence, both lost in their own world of worries.
"Friends for life then?" she asked, intertwining her fingers with his.
"Always."
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1993
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He found her sitting in the orchard, ripping up the blades of grass around her. It looked like she'd been there for a while, given the state of the earth around her.
Her first year at Hogwarts had not been ideal and he should have paid more attention to her. He knew Ron and the other Weasley boys felt really bad about not noticing, but Ginny had been a little bit right about her prediction of how it would all play out after he, Neville and Ron left for their first year; it had been busy, they had made a lot of friends and found interests that made it difficult to remember to send her a letter as often as he'd meant to. But she'd laughed it off and forgiven him for it last summer. Maybe she hadn't been as honest about the forgiveness part, he hadn't noticed at the time. And, when she started her first year it was like she didn't have that much time for him either. He hadn't paid much attention to how she'd been spending her time because it had been a crazy year again.
He'd seen her around the castle, she had friends in her year. They'd hung out at several meals together, averaging at least one a day where they would sit together and catch up.
Finding her in the Chamber of Secrets had been a knife to his heart. Then finding out what had really happened, what she'd been unknowingly doing all year…
He was not a good friend.
She didn't need him feeling bad about the way he'd ignored her though, she needed him to just be her friend again, like how they had been before school.
He went and sat down beside her.
"I'm not in much of a talking mood right now," she grumbled.
"That's okay. Can I say something though? And can you let me get it all out?"
He took her silence as a 'yes' and sucked in a deep breath. "Her eyes are dark as a chocolate frog, her hair as pretty as a sunset." Ginny's head shot up and she looked startled. "She's the best friend of mine, I've missed her a long time, and would do anything to make her smile."
She stared at him for several heartbeats before the corner of her mouth started twitching. "I don't think either of us will be winning any poetry contests."
"I never plan on entering one," he told her as he handed her the piece of paper he'd written the little limerick on.
"You actually wrote it out?" she said with a single breathy laugh. "Did you think you'd forget one of the five lines?"
"No," he rolled his eyes. "I just thought you might like to have it."
Her brow creased as she looked down at it, then her eyes shot up to his in surprise. "Did you keep the one I wrote you? Harry, that was a joke! I wanted to tease you!"
"I know," he grinned. "And it worked. I've never been more horrified. That doesn't mean I didn't keep the first Valentine I'd ever been sent. I tucked it into the Get Well Card you made me when I was nine."
Now she gave him a genuine smile and he scootched closer to put his arm around her shoulders.
"You're too good to me," she whispered as she leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Ditto."
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1996
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He'd been itching to have some reason for them to go to The Burrow, or for Ginny and Ron to come to theirs, since the summer started.
The last few years had been crazy, that was a given; the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Voldemort coming back, nearly everyone being out to blackball him and Dumbledore, and it was really just Neville, Ginny and Hermione that had stood with him through that all. Ron was there for the most part, but not just after his name had come out as the fourth Champion.
Plus, he couldn't forget Sirius.
He would never forget Sirius.
He was still mourning the loss of his Godfather, but Sirius more than anyone would have told him not to be so busy being in mourning to miss what was right in front of him; and that was Ginny.
It probably all started when he asked her to be his date for the Yule Ball after Cho turned him down, not knowing that Neville had got there first. Initially he thought, well, they were all just friends, so that wasn't a big deal, and he found someone else to go with. His date for the Yule Ball wound up going off with someone from Durmstrang almost as soon as the dancing started and he spent more time dancing with Ginny than anything else anyhow. Her being placed at the bottom of the Black Lake for him to rescue, that should have been a pretty big indication that she meant more to him than just being his friend.
Then Ginny got a boyfriend.
Whew, did that one hit him sideways.
And Michael Corner of all people?
He bit his tongue, tried not to make it look obvious when he saw her laughing with the Ravenclaw Prat. They didn't seem too serious or 'couply', so he just did his best to avoid Michael altogether.
Then they broke up, and he was so relieved. He felt like he had her undivided attention again and it made him happy, even with everything else at Hogwarts being wrong, Ginny was back at his side more often than she had been and that felt right.
But to hear on the train that she'd decided to go out with Dean Thomas! Where in the hell had that come from? He'd felt like he was frozen to his seat when she clapped back at Ron with that one.
When did they even find time to talk to each other? Had Dean started cozying up to her while he, her supposed best friend, was dealing with the loss of yet another link to his parents? Dean was supposed to be his friend too, surely he knew that Ginny wasn't meant for him.
Ginny wasn't supposed to have gone on a date with Neville either, even platonically, she wasn't supposed to have had her first kiss with Michael bloody Corner, and now he, Harry, knew it was up to him to shut down this Dean Thomas business before it even started.
It was only a week into summer break and Ginny and Ron were coming over for the afternoon.
"Hey, Neville," he called out from Neville's doorway to his room. "Could you do me a favor and sort of 'distract' Ron for a bit in the kitchen so I can have a private chat with Ginny?"
Neville looked up from the Herbology catalogue he was flipping through. "Sure," he said casually and looked back down at the catalogue and turned the page. "Finally going to tell her you're in love with her?" he asked casually.
He froze.
He hadn't ever said anything of the sort. Ginny had told him she loved him from time to time, the words naturally spilling out of her mouth as they were saying farewells for certain periods of time, or if he helped her figure out a spell for DADA. She'd never said it as though she was in love with him though. And he'd never said it to her like that either… or ever actually.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked carefully.
Neville looked up at him and rolled his eyes. "Seriously? Mate, you've been pinning for her for nearly a year, at least. You can't be so blind as to have not noticed all the other guys that would like to have a shot with her, and I promise you, I only see her as a friend, but if we didn't have that foundation there I'd probably fancy her too. She's pretty, smart, funny, great at Quidditch, exactly the type of girl for you. And she fancies you too; you've both just been too stubborn to say anything to each other about it."
He felt optimistic at that last sentence. "You think she fancies me too?"
Neville scoffed, "of course, she does. You both just don't want to upset the balance on the off chance that one of you doesn't feel the same way."
"But, how do you know for sure that she does?"
Now Neville gave a sigh. "How is it that I'm the one struggling to pass all my classes and yet I seem to be the only one that can see what is so clearly obvious?" He shook his head and put his catalogue down. "Alright, let's try this; do you think that Ron and Hermione fancy each other?"
Now it was his turn to scoff, "yeah, of course they do. They'll never tell each other that though."
"There you have it. Your immediate reaction about that is the same that everyone else has that knows you and Ginny properly; of course you like each other, but will you ever admit it?"
That was enlightening.
Had it really been so obvious to everyone that he fancied her and she fancied him and they were both just dancing around it? And was that possibly why she wound up breaking up with Michael? Or had she started dating Michael in the first place to make him jealous?
"Stop overthinking it," Neville told him. "Just go to your room and figure out what you're going to say to her."
He nodded and did as he was told. Two hours later when the Weasley's arrived though, he still wasn't sure how he was going to admit it to her.
Both she and Ron asked how he was holding up, they sat down on the couch for a bit and listened to some stories about what the other Weasley boys had got up to, then finally Neville told Ron to follow him into the kitchen to get some snacks and it was just he and Ginny there.
Ginny turned to face him on the couch they were sharing and reached to push his fringe away from his forehead, something that she did regularly that always felt nice. "How are you really?" she asked him.
How he was 'really' was currently all consumed with thoughts of the two of them kissing, he couldn't blurt that out though.
"Are you really seeing Dean?" he asked straightforward.
She blinked in surprise. "Er, no. Not really. He just asked if he could write me over the summer. He hasn't yet though."
"Good," he nodded. "You shouldn't go out with him."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Why?"
Of course her immediate thought would be that he was trying to be protective of her, no doubt her brothers had brought up her dating life already, possibly one by one.
"Because I don't want you to," he said lamely.
"You don't want me to?" It was hard to tell if she was getting defensive or curious. "I didn't know you cared about my love life."
He didn't like the phrasing of that at all, and he knew they were running out of time; Neville could only keep Ron occupied for so long. "Be real, you don't love Dean, and you didn't love Michael, I could tell."
"And how could you tell that?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Because I know what it looks like when you love someone, and you don't love them, you love me," he blurted out.
Her shoulders sagged from the shock of hearing that. "I… what?"
"And I love you too," he added hastily.
She still didn't move and he figured it was now or never, he'd never get up the nerve to try this again. He leaned forward and cupped her head with one hand, pulling her toward him just enough so their lips could meet. Finally.
He'd only kissed one other person one time before but this was a very different experience. He'd had nothing to lose with Cho, he could be losing a piece of himself if Ginny wound up pulling back and slapping him for trying this. His heart was in his throat, his whole body felt like it was trembling with anxiety and he was going to break out in a sweat all over.
He did feel her shift, but it wasn't to push him away, her hands came to his shoulders and she pulled him closer against her, kissing him back. He let out a breath of air through his nose that he hadn't realized he'd been holding in and started kissing her back properly.
By the time he registered the noise of the other two coming back from the kitchen a few minutes had passed and he and Ginny were completely wrapped around each other; her hands were in his hair, his was wrapped around her back, the other holding onto her knees where they were laying across his lap. He pulled back at the sounds and sucked in a deep breath.
"They're coming back," he whispered.
"Who?" she asked, looking just as dazed as he felt and it made him smile. "Oh!" she looked up and toward the door. She then shuffled off his lap and back to her previous position. "Er, what does this…?" she started to ask.
"Would you be my girlfriend?" That part at least he'd worked out he wanted to ask her before they showed up earlier.
"Yeah," she grinned.
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1997
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He'd been sleeping terribly already when he woke yet again in the night, this time because he heard the curtains around his bed being moved, and he'd frozen.
With the Headmaster having died, the whole world was on high alert for Death Eaters to make their move to start taking over things for their master, and here he was frozen in his bed when he should have been reaching for his wand and casting the first hex that came to mind.
The hand that he felt touch his foot through his blanket told him it wasn't an enemy though; it was Ginny.
He didn't know whether he would have preferred it be a Death Eater that was coming for him right now.
He'd just broken up with Ginny, only hours ago. His fitful sleep should have been due to him knowing it was time to step up and hunt down the Horcruxes, or over the death of Dumbledore that he'd been witness to, but it hadn't been; he simply had been losing sleep over the image of Ginny's face when he told her it wasn't safe for them to be together anymore.
Anyone capable of making a Horcrux had to be incapable of love, because he didn't need to kill in order to know what if felt like for a piece of his soul to be ripped away from him, all he had to do was replay the events of his last afternoon and what he'd said to Ginny to make her believe they were through. She just hadn't listened to him when he told her they needed to end it, so he'd turned cruel, telling her he'd only ever been using her, that she couldn't possibly have believed that they were going to be together forever, telling her that any kind of happily ever after she'd been picturing for them was a joke. Each lie, each time he'd opened his mouth and thrown in her face every one of the worst fears about how the two of them would end up apart, it tore at him until there was nothing left in his chest but a hollow hole where his heart used to be.
Her eyes had gone wide with shock when he started and by the time he was done there was no life left in them, she hadn't cried, she hadn't screamed or yelled that he was telling lies, she hadn't slapped him across the face; those were the reactions that his Ginny would have given him.
He worried that he hadn't just broken them up, but that he'd broken her.
Now she was here, crawling into his bed like she had done several times before.
And if she was coming here in the middle of the night to kill him, then he deserved it.
Instead, she crawled in next to him, getting under the covers like she usually did, and cast several charms, like she also had several times before; freezing and silencing the curtains, a warming charm for the blankets… the contraceptive charm.
"Ginny, what are you doing?" he asked, trying to sound as monotone and disinterested as possible.
"Did you really think I'd let you get away that easily?" she whispered as she settled against him. His voice he could try to make sound disinterested, but his body reacted to her the way it always did; she snuggled in and he moved his arms and hands instinctively to hold her, one under her neck and the other at her thigh trying to pull her as close as possible. "If you want the rest of the world to think that we aren't together then fine," she whispered against his neck, sending shivers down his spine, "but I could see your heart breaking with every word, Harry. You love me and we do belong together."
"Ginny," he said with a pained voice.
"No," she growled. "You're trying to protect me, but lying and having us both heartbroken isn't going to help anything. I love you, Harry. I've always loved you. Even if you half meant what you said to me, that wouldn't stop me from supporting you, it wouldn't make me turn my back on my family. I'm a Weasley, I'm a Pureblood. If the worst happens and the Death Eaters take over the school next year, and the Junior Death Eaters take over detention, how do you think they're going to treat me?" He tensed up and felt a cold shock run through him at her insinuation. "I've read about what happens in war, Harry, what soldiers can get 'carried away' doing, and this is war. You're not dumping me for real, we're not ending things on bad terms." She put her hand to his cheek and turned his head to face hers. "If you meant any of what you said to me earlier then you can push me out of this bed right now."
He hadn't meant any of it, and he couldn't ever push her away from him like that again, he wasn't strong enough.
Instead, a sob escaped him and he kissed her.
He kissed her because she was completely right, because she meant more to him than anything else ever would and because the thought of what could possibly happen to her in the throws of the oncoming war terrified him.
She helped muffle his sobs as his emotions all came flooding to the surface, first with kisses, then simply by holding him. He wound up laying on top of her, his head on her chest, squeezing his arms around her tight enough that it was a wonder she could still breathe. It was cathartic the way he was letting it all out, and exhausting. When he was finally done with his breakdown, and the residual tremors from his exhaustion stopped, he found comfort in his cheek resting on her chest, her hand playing with his hair.
"You're too good for me," he whispered.
"There you go, lying again," she whispered back, he could hear the soft smile in her voice.
He rolled his head so he could plant kisses on her chest, then he shifted up so he could plant them on her lips. In doing so he found they were in a very familiar position, with her legs on either side of his hips and his hand trailing up her side under her top to massage her breast.
Slowly they lost themselves in each other, removing their pyjamas one article at a time, then he was inside of her and going as slow as possible, trying to memorize everything that was happening and trying to relay that he cherished her and always would.
()()()
1998
()()()
The clean up of the castle was underway, it was day two of it, all that was left on the battlefield was rubble as the real Ministry had stepped in to help clear the bodies away the previous day.
After the final showdown with Voldemort, Harry had lasted all of about two hours before he crashed. Hard. There was the initial celebration that it was over, Ginny had come running into his arms and they finally shared a kiss after months of only being able to dream about each other, then he'd had a shower and stuffed half a plate of sandwiches in his mouth before passing out for twelve solid hours.
Day one of clean up he'd helped with in between being forced to sit down and explain all that had happened, first with the Order of the Phoenix, with Ginny holding his hand, then with the Ministry, again, with Ginny holding his hand.
Now the volunteers that were around the castle and grounds were all working on specific projects and there was some space to breathe again.
So, of course, the first thing his girlfriend does is drag him into the last standing Quidditch change room and pull him into the showers with her.
"I can't tell you how many dreams I had about you while you were away that took place right here," she told him as she kissed down his neck and undid the buckle on his belt.
"Oh really?" he grinned as his fingers worked at the buttons on her shirt. "Tell me more."
"Mmm, sometimes I called you Captain, sometimes you called me Captain," she said with a nip at his bottom lip. "Every time though, it wound up with us shagging in the shower."
"Oh fuck, I missed sex," he groaned and pushed down his trousers hastily, his erections springing out under his pants.
"Oh yeah?" she teased, gripping him gently through the cloth. "No opportunities for it on the run?"
"None, even wanking opportunities were pretty thin; would not recommend." He pushed her own trousers over her hips and pulled her shirt off to fondle at her chest.
Ginny turned around and pressed her back against his front, wriggling her bum against him while he groaned. "Guess I was better off than you on that front." She took his hand and slid it under her knickers so he could feel how wet she was. "Because I was able to touch myself every night and think about all the dirty things I wished we could be doing together."
He'd pictured what their first time would be like once the war was over, his imagination pulling up a nice big bed with rose petals and candles, maybe a few times he thought about them getting hot and heavy impulsively in an alcove or against a tree or something, but he hadn't anticipated her being so forward and wanton like this.
It was a huge turn on.
"Did you lock and charm the doors?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied breathlessly. "Did you use the charm?"
"Yes." She took his hand and pulled him farther into the shower room, but didn't lead him towards the showers, instead she pulled him over so they were standing in front of the sinks, in front of the mirrors, and bent over to brace herself on the counter. "I want it like this."
His eyes went wide. "Really?"
Her eyes locked on his in the mirror. "We can get more intimate about it later. Right now, I want to feel that you're back. It's been nearly ten months so neither of us is going to last long, but when this round is over, I want to be very, very sore."
This primal growl that he didn't know he could make came rumbling up through his chest and he granted her request. She was so wet that his first thrust into her was one quick and entirely satisfying movement. They both groaned appreciatively at the invasion, and her demand that they fuck in front of the mirror was even more appreciated as he got to see her body again at all sorts of angles; he could watch himself sliding in and out of her, see the curve of her back, the bounce of her breasts in time with his thrusts, the way she licked and then bit her lip between moans and he could lock eyes with her reflection and see the lust in them.
She was right, it didn't last long, but it was so incredibly satisfying.
()()()
1999
()()()
Harry held little Teddy's hand as he lay sleeping in the crib at the Children's Ward at St. Mungo's, feeling a world better knowing that the little guy was going to be alright now. Andromeda had Floo called the day before saying that he'd been running an incredibly high fever for the entire day and was inconsolable.
Now they knew it was due to the full moon, his little body was acknowledging the hereditary lycanthropy on a small scale. The Healers had loaded him up with fluids and pain potions so he could sleep it off. The next full moon cycle they would be prepared for it so it wouldn't affect him so much.
Ginny came over to stand beside him and put a few pastries she'd gotten from the cafeteria on the table beside the cot before leaning over and sweeping her hand gently over Teddy's forehead, just like she did with Harry's. "I'm so relieved he's going to be okay," she sighed and rested her head on Harry's shoulder. "This was pretty scary, not knowing what was going on. I can't believe my mum had seven of us." She looked around the Ward, "or how she must have felt when each of us took turns staying here."
Harry chuckled. "Yeah. I thought I'd been through traumatizing events before, but to have someone I love so much, that is so small, be in that much pain and not able to tell me why…" he just didn't have the words.
Ginny kissed his cheek. "You are an amazing Godfather. And one day you're going to be an amazing dad."
He felt a warmth coil around in his stomach, the same sensation he always felt when Ginny mentioned something like that that involved what their future would look like.
It had been difficult over the past year with her finishing her last year at Hogwarts and him starting up with the Aurors. They met up every chance they got though, and she'd spent her Christmas and Easter breaks half at The Burrow and half at his flat, which was now officially their flat. After all they'd been through the year previous, this past year had been a walk in the park in comparison. And Harry now had Teddy that he took care of for a few hours at least once a week; he'd become a pro at nappy changes, after Gran and Andy had walked him through the first twenty or so anyhow.
His life was going great, and it all started heading in this direction in this very Ward.
He looked down at Ginny then and felt the weight of what he'd been carrying around in his pocket for weeks become even heavier.
"Ginny?" he whispered.
She rested her chin on his shoulder and looked up at him with a content smile.
"It's been ten years since I first met you, right here."
Her eyes went wide for a moment and he could tell she was thinking back, remembering their first ever interaction, and she grinned. "I told you magic was real."
He grinned back at her. "As always, you were right. And I think you're right too that I'll be a good father one day, because I know you'll make sure of it. But there's a few more steps to go before that happens… and I want to take the first one right here, where we started." He pulled the ring out of his pocket and held it up for her to see.
She sucked in a breath and stood up straight, looking down at the ring.
Harry slipped down onto one knee, "I know we're young, but so were our parents, and they are our example. We love each other, we're going to be together forever, and I want to make that official. So, will you marry me?"
Her cheeks were flushed, he saw her sway slightly and worried she was about to fall over, instead she knelt down in front of him too, a blink of her eyes forcing a tear of happiness to roll down her cheek. "Of course I will," she grinned.
()()()
