Chapter 11
Harry and Ginny did not have much chance to talk that night; Ginny had to turn in early. But Harry stayed for an hour more to oversee Bill and Charlie as the two checked and reinforced the Burrow’s wards - too preoccupied with his own thoughts to make more than a cursory check of the wards. They often made such rechecks as a security measure; more so when something had disturbed the wards.
By the time he returned back home to Grimmauld, Ron and Hermione had already retired to their rooms. Harry himself went directly to his own room but found he could not sleep. In the end, he decided to Apparate back to the Burrow and set up his camping tent directly under the Centaur’s tree. The house already lay dark and quiescent and he moved quietly about. When morning arrived, he left quite early without letting anyone inside the house know that he had spent the night at all.
He did not head towards the Ministry, though. When the Wigtown Wanderers kept refusing his overtures for a meeting, Harry made a few inquiries - there were very few spheres in the wizarding world that turn their doors to his face and he got not only the venues, but also the time of the Wanderers’ practice schedules. The Wanderers thought, too, that they would be clever with the Ministry and held their practices in the wee hours of the morning. But, of course, Aurors keep all manner of hours and so Harry Apparated to one of the Wigtown’s practice Quidditch pitches in Eskdalemuir, several miles northwest of the Wanderers’ homecourt.
The Wigtown’s protective wards were so laughably weak that he was able to puncture through it quite easily and Transfigure into a blackbird mere seconds after his Apparation inside the field. The practice had already started, but Harry made his usual security checks.
The players flew like red birds against the grey sky, dull and bereft of clouds with the onset of autumn; the constant flashes of the photographer’s lens on the ground the obvious reason why the Wanderers were wearing their uniforms for practice – doubtless, the pictures would be featured in the team’s beefy calendar come yearend. But the Wigtown Wanderers had none of the instinctive and elegant formation of birds. Instead, each player of the team seemed to move to a syncopated beat all his own, darting in and out of the sky with seemingly no pattern nor design nor purpose to his movements. The players seemed more concerned with avoiding getting hit by a Bludger than actually scoring a goal. One Chaser in particular whom Harry recognized as Cundick kept haranguing the Beaters if the Bludger flew so much as a meter near him, frequently making angry gestures towards his silky head of artificially highlighted blond hair.
None of the players nor any of the staff on the grounds noticed the little blackbird hovering in the Quidditch pitch where they had been practicing - the bird sometimes flying here or there, sometimes sitting perched on the edge of the fabric roof protecting the grandstand, but never ever leaving the Quidditch pitch.
At one point, Cundick was almost hit by a Bludger. He wheeled around towards the offending Beater, shouted angrily, and then flew down in an obvious tiff and so the practice game for the day ended. The team’s officials down on the grounds were obviously dismayed that the practice had been cut short, but the other players didn’t seem to mind and flew down after Cundick. Then they all started walking back to the players’ dugout under the stands. Harry Disillusioned himself immediately from his Transfigured form and followed suit.
“I just had my hair done in Italy! In Italy! Does anybody have any idea how much it cost?!” Cundick kept shouting to no one in particular as the team filed into the locker room, the team assistant shutting the door close as the last player entered the room. Then the players started to remove their clothes to take a shower.
Harry suddenly felt the need to make his appearance known. “Hello,” he said, ending the Disillusion spell that hid his presence from the men. He was seated on one of the long benches in the room, his arms crossed casually across his stomach and his long legs stretched out in front of him. The players, in varying states of undress, all jumped a foot in the air. Cundick however, made a curious attempt to cover himself, closing his knees together and placing an arm across his exposed chest and a hand in front of his crotch. But when he realized that the others well all staring at him, he immediately straightened up and affected a manlier stance.
“Mr. Potter! What are you doing here?!” Cundick cried angrily in an attempt to cover his embarrassment.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “I believe you’ve been sent several official Ministry requests for a meeting,” he said in a tone of voice that made it clear he was in no mood for pointless chatter, his temper these days so hairline thin it would be easy to lash out at anyone at the merest provocation.
“Look, we told you, we have nothing to do with what happened at the Harpies victory party,” said one of the Parkin players nervously. There were three Parkins on the team. The one who spoke still had his Keeper gloves on, which would make him the Parkin who distributed the Potion X-spiked drinks at the party. “We’ve never even played them. We have no reason to sabotage them.”
“It’s not why I wanted to speak with you,” said Harry calmly. “I just wanted to know where you got the Potions X you used in your own party. And don’t even bother denying it, we have Veritaserum testimony of you giving them to your guests.”
“You can’t hold against us something that happened almost a year ago!” Cundick said.
“And we don’t know anything about illegal potions either,” another player said.
More protestations of innocence and defiance would have come but Harry quelled them all with a look. “We can either do this the long way or you can just tell me who supplied you the potion.”
The assistant who all this time had been watching warily at the sidelines, spoke, but only after casting a nervous glance at the players. “They don’t have a supplier, Mr. Potter. They aren’t regular users. It was just that one time.”
“Yeah, we would have been banned from Quidditch if we were,” Cundick said, nodding his head, as if only now remembering.
“So you got them from Knockturn Alley?” Harry said, furrowing his eyebrows. He didn’t care how hard an illegal Potions user these players were. But where else would casual Potions users pick up the drugs? Harry was dismayed, nonetheless. Most of the Potions runners in Knockturn Alley were fly-by-nighters, day-earners, selling Potions so they could get a free hit themselves. So small time the Ministry do not even bother trying to arrest them.
Cundick, the Parkin Keeper, and the assistant all looked at each other guiltily.
“But you do remember the person who sold you the Potion X?” Harry asked.
“Well, we didn’t use names. We’re not that stupid,” said Cundick.
The assistant eyed Cundick with an expression that said ‘Could’ve fooled me’ but then comported himself better when he saw Harry looking at him.
Harry turned to Parkin. “But you remember his face?”
“Not really. It’s a bit dark.”
“But you do remember picking up the Potions?” Harry said, throwing the question at the three guilty faces who all nodded dumbly. “Then I would need your memories of the night you bought the Potion. That’s all I want.”
“You will not use it against us?” Keeper-Parkin asked, with obvious relief.
“No. If I wanted to, I could easily file a case against all of you for mere possession, not to mention illegal use and distribution.”
All the players looked at Harry aghast. But Cundick, still acting a dick, spoke up. “So you’re not trying to sabotage our game with the Cannons? We know your best mate’s a huge Cannons supporter.”
Harry barely prevented himself from rudely staring at the ceiling. He pulled a deep breath instead. “The memories?” he prompted.
“Uhm, we don’t really know how to extract memories,” the assistant said uncertainly.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it myself,” Harry said. He uncrossed his arms and stood up, then walked over to the three players to retrieve their memories. When it was Cundick’s turn, however, there was a rapt look upon the player’s face as he lifted his face up to Harry and closed his eyes, his lips parted slightly. Harry made short work of that one.
Harry immediately left and headed to the Ministry where he viewed the memories in the Pensieve unearthed and forgotten in the bowels of the Ministry. Before Harry joined the Auror Department, nobody had any idea what it was used for. Even now, few knew of its existence – only the most trusted of the Ministry employees could use the magical object and only with Kingsley’s or top-tiered Aurors’ consent (so in total, numbering three).
Harry did not recognize the drug runner who sold the Potion X to the Wigtown Wanderers. He was also wearing a hood which would make it more difficult to case Knockturn Alley for the suspect. Then Harry called in the other members of his team to get a good look at the suspect, hoping they could identify the dealer. But not one of them could.
“Maybe we should put up posters asking anyone for information about the man,” Gavin said in the meeting that followed afterwards.
“That would broadcast our involvement or the Ministry’s at least,” Matt, another member of the team said. “Only two cases are big enough to warrant such level of interest: the Galina case and the Harpies case. Both Auror cases.”
“Besides, the man is not a suspect yet,” Gibbons said. “We don’t know if he had anything to do with the Harpies poisoning. It would be against the law to even name him as a person of interest in this case unless we have a clear basis for declaring him one. We don’t have anything that would tie him to the Harpies case.”
“We could haul him in for Illegal Potions Trade for the Wanderers party,” Gavin said.
“And then what?” said Gibbons a bit angrily. He hated being contradicted. “He’ll pay a fine and after spending the maximum six months jail time for the offense he could easily walk away. In the meantime, any two-bit lawyer he would hire could file a case against us, preventing us from forcing him to give testimony if there’s no formal case filed against him. What then?”
Gavin shrugged. “We could give him Veritaserum.”
“Yes we could. But only if he agrees to it. Under the current government, it is already illegal to force someone to take Veritaserum. Something about ‘right against self-incrimination’ or whatever Ms. Hermione Granger wrote in the damned law.”
“ – for which our esteemed colleague here, Mr. Potter, gave his staunch support,” Ray put in.
“My apologies,” Gibbons said, glancing at Harry, though not at all looking sorry. “What I’m saying is, unless Potter does his hocus-pocus thing – which would have to be completely under the table, mind - we won’t get anything from the suspect,” Gibbons continued. “Remember the memorandum the Minister attached to this case: completely by the book - ”
Harry was watching all these quietly. He didn’t even mind Gibbons, he was used to the elder Auror. He’d already thought of all the possibilities, all the avenues of investigation through. The Penseive reviews did not turn anything significant. But Harry did not view it as a wasted exercise. You never know if you might have overlooked one small factor. He was determined to go through this case with a fine-toothed comb. That was the only way to save this case. He leaned forward and placed both arms on the desk, clasping his hands together. “Any other inputs?”
“If this Wanderers runner was the one responsible for the Harpies fiasco, he’d be on the lookout for reports in the papers,” Matt spoke directly to Harry. “He’d know that you’re back now and likely working on the case. He would have gone underground. I know I would.”
Harry turned his face towards the part of the wall pretending to be a window where cottony clouds scudded eastward against a background of crisp, blue sky. There was one more concern at the back of his mind. George. He’d become a bit of a wild card since Fred’s death, easy to take offense and quick to strike for any slight, real or imagined. If he got wind that Harry was zeroing in on a suspect and George chanced upon that suspect first, it would not be a wild guess what George would likely to do.
Harry turned to Gavin. “You and Ray keep an eye on Knockturn Alley. I don’t have to tell you to go undercover, do I?”
“’Course,” said Gavin, cheerfully.
“I’ll be joining the search from time to time,” Harry added. He then turned to Matt. “Did you get the lab report on the Potion X that I requested?”
“Yes.” Matt then pushed a folder towards Harry who then glanced down at the summary report. The amount of mallowsweet, belladonna and ashwinder eggs had been increased, in proportions which no one with a modicum of Potions knowledge would have foolishly committed. He inwardly whistled. The Ashwinder eggs alone cost a pretty knut. No mistake. This was done deliberately. By whom and for what purpose, he had yet to find out.
He looked up and once again turned to his men. “How about the statements from the families and friends of the deceased?” The MLES managed only to get interviews from few of the dead Harpies victims’ families and friends, a huge lapse which they were now only trying to make up for.
Matt looked first at Gavin, with whom he was given the assignment. “Several.”
“Problems?” Harry asked.
“Not really,” said Matt. “We just have a lot of time to make up for.”
“And opportunities,” piped in Ray helpfully. “One of the victims was an American tourist. Her family has already collected the body and returned to the US. So we didn’t get any statements from them.”
“It’s not our fault,” Matt said hurriedly. Unlike Ray, he didn’t much like getting caught slacking on the job. “The case was still with the MLES then, but we’re working on it.”
“Kimberly Wales,” Harry said, reading the name of the American victim.
“Tourist. A fan, I think,” Matt said. “Here barely a couple of weeks when she attended the party. Brought there by one of the players. But she’s been cleared to attend weeks before.”
“There’s no one in that party whose identity wasn’t cleared weeks before,” Harry said flatly. “That’s not the issue. Someone managed to still spike all the food and drinks,” he added. “What about her family?”
“Muggles.”
Harry neither liked neat nor convenient endings. “We need to go there and get statements from them,” he said after a pause. “Ray and Gibbons.” The elder Auror would keep Ray in check. “Two weeks enough?” he said, looking at the two Aurors. Ray was grinning from ear to ear as if Christmas had come early. “Ten days, then,” Harry said firmly. “ - including weekends. But not now. It’s not a priority.”
“Killjoy,” Ray muttered under his breath. Harry ignored it.
Harry turned back down to the files in front of him again and saw more missing background files. “There’s two more here,” he murmured.
“We have every bit of information for every victim except for three,” Gibbons admitted.
“One of the guards. The one you sent us to check again,” said Gavin. “Had no family. Lived alone. Nobody even claimed his body at St. Mungo’s so the Ministry itself made his funeral arrangements.”
“What about his neighbors? Colleagues?”
“Always kept to himself, kept his head down. Nothing came up. Just an ordinary bloke. Unlucky enough to die.”
“Came home to work every morning. Brought his own food. Went home on the clock.” Matt added. “No red flags.”
Harry shook his head. “In some cases, no-red-flags actually is a red flag. I want you to go back and interview anybody who knew him.”
“We’ll work on it, Harry,” volunteered Matt, looking at Gibbons who nodded.
Harry looked down at the name of the third dead victim. The chief caterer. Muggle-born. Husband missing since the war. Two children. A boy and a girl who now live with their grandparents. Ominous that when he looked further down for contact information, the name and address given was Harpies management.
He looked up from the file and addressed the room. “”And the caterer?”
“Unless you want to curse a Muggle, you can’t go near her parents,” Ray said.
“Why?”
“Hates us, the father does,” Ray shrugged. “Blames us for the death of his daughter.”
“Has no one tried to talk to him yet?”
“Tried, yes. But as I’ve said, he didn’t want to have anything to do with us. Not the most cooperative of all witnesses.”
“Where does he live, does anybody know?”
“Withcall in Lincolnshire,” Matt said.
Harry waved his hand and a holographic map of England appeared in front of him. He scanned the map for Lincolshire and quickly located Withcall.
“Who needs Muggle technology when we have Harry, eh?” Ray nudged Gavin beside him who chuckled as well.
“Okay,” Harry said, then turned to Ray. “We’ll talk to him but after we’ve the Wanderers’ runner. We’ll use a Ministry car.”
“What, are we going to drive there?” Ray asked incredulously as if Harry suggested they fly to the moon or do something similarly ridiculous. Seriously, wizards have become too lazy.
“Well, we can’t just walk right in the middle of a farming village without an obvious means of transport, can we?” Harry pointed out.
“But you can do that magic-ahead thing. You know, when you send a Shield or spell ahead of you when you Apparate or Portkey somewhere. I’ve seen you do it. You can just send an anti-Muggle charm.”
Harry raised an impatient eyebrow. He had not made it a secret that he disliked performing magic on Muggles unless it was necessary. But his reputation for being slow to anger made the people around him – including a few of his colleagues - develop a tendency to act flippant around him. But he had no patience for such foolishness now. “We either go by car or we walk.”
He adjourned the meeting then and retrieved the Pensieve to be taken back to his office. It was just for show, where Harry was actually keeping the Pensieve these days was a secret only known to a few.
He went back to his office and found Ron poring over some old history books. Harry read upside down the title of one of the books, Ancient Marriage Customs.
Ron looked up to Harry and raised his eyebrows. Years of friendship and the two best friends had learned to communicate with simple gestures and facial expressions. So Ron, in effect, was telling Harry, Is there something you want to tell me?
“The Cannons have no chance their first game next season,” Harry said seriously.
Ron made a disgruntled face. “Ass,” he mumbled, but Harry only grinned as he walked over to his desk and stowed away the Pensieve.
“I won’t be dining home tonight,” he said. “Will you please tell Kreacher?”
“Ah, no, Harry,” said Ron with a frantic expression on his face, “he’ll burn the food again!”
“Alright, you can just tell him that I’ll be doing fieldwork tonight. Ask him to go to Andromeda’s after dinner and stay there for the night.”
“Lying to your house-elf,” said Ron airily, leaning back in his chair and putting up his legs on top of his desk with his hands clasped behind his head. “Wonder how that’s going to go down in the end.”
Harry only shrugged his shoulders. He took some fresh clothes he kept stashed in the tall cabinet in the room. He was going to shower and change in the Aurors’ bathroom.
Ron cocked his eyebrows. “Going somewhere?”
Harry grinned hugely back at Ron. “Home,” he said, then left the room.
After having showered and dressed, Harry went down to the Magical Transportation Offices at Level Six and requested a blanket Floo Clearance for himself so that he could immediately connect any fireplace to the Burrow. As a top-level Auror with the Ministry’s highest security clearance, he was entitled to such. But he wouldn’t deny that he was doing so for purely selfish reasons. He wanted to be able to get to the Burrow the quickest way possible. Ginny often needed to see her Healer, and Harry planned to accompany her at all her scheduled Healing appointments.
He then left the Ministry to Apparate to the Burrow. Soon as he entered the Burrow’s wards, he instinctively looked up, feeling eyes upon him. Ginny was standing, waiting for him in the balcony on the third floor of the house, a hand around a wooden post holding up the roof, looking intently down at him. Harry frowned; there was a biting chill in the air, here tonight on an autumn evening. In a thrice he Transfigured into a bird and flew directly towards her and transformed back in front of her.
Ginny laughed delightedly. But Harry produced the warmest fur cloak he could conjure and wrapped it around her. “It’s cold,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” Ginny said, and she pointed to the corner of the balcony where a dragon’s tooth was set to stand, dragon’s breath fire blazing.
“Oh,” Harry said. “Then you don’t need this.” And he made to remove the fur cloak but Ginny grabbed hold of the cloak by her shoulders.
“No, I’ll keep it. This is your first gift to me.”
“Ehrm.” Harry scratched the back of his neck, reddening.
Ginny eyed him suspiciously. “What?”
“Nothing.” Harry was never going to admit that he often sent Ginny gifts through mail ‘as a Quidditch fan’, nothing extravagant that it would draw attention – just pillows, t-shirts, and stuff toys, or sometimes really cheesy stuff he could think of. Her gifts still go through the Ministry, through Ron, in fact, and it was very easy for him to slip in his own gifts to her.
“Ginny?” Mrs. Weasley’s voice echoed a floor below. “I heard voices. Is someone with you up there?”
“It’s Harry, mum!” Ginny called out.
Soon they heard hurried footsteps drawing nearer and Mrs. Weasley emerged from inside the room, which was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s own bedroom. “Harry! Where did you come from? I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Ehrm, I just arrived now,” Harry said, feeling guilty at having been caught alone with Ginny, though they were not doing anything wrong.
“He flew,” Ginny said proudly, beaming up at Harry.
“Flew?” Mrs. Weasley said, confused, and then the realization caught up with her. “Oh,” she said, rather disappointed. She herself had seldom seen Harry Transfigure into anything, but her children had all raved about it.
“Have you eaten?” Ginny asked, turning to Harry.
“No,” Harry said truthfully. “You?”
Ginny shook her head no. “I was waiting for you.”
“But you don’t know if I’m coming over!” Harry said appalled. “What if I was held up? Or I couldn’t come?”
“You won’t. I just know.”
“Are you hungry?” Harry asked her in turn.
“I said to mum just a minute ago that I wasn’t. But now that you’re here, I am.”
“You should have told me!” Mrs. Weasley chastised. “It’s bad for the baby!” And she left and hurried down the stairs to prepare dinner.
Harry shook his head at Ginny. “You’re as bad as Freddie, you know? C’mon,” he said, taking Ginny’s arm to follow Mrs. Weasley down the stairs. But Ginny refused to move.
“Can’t we fly down?” she said.
“What? On a broom?” Harry asked confusedly but still made to Summon a broomstick from the shed, but Ginny held his arm back.
“Can’t you do one of your special magic?” she said, almost in a whisper.
Harry stared at her hopeful face. Many people had seen him perform incredible feats of magic, but not Ginny. He stood for a while, thinking. What he did, often he did in the course of his work. He’d never really performed unusual magic on a mere whim. He tried to think what magic he could do. Lately, he’d been practicing turning parts of his body into fire, hoping he could change into a fireball as Fr. Lockefeer had done. So far, he’d been successful only in changing his fingers. But Harry didn’t think it would serve his purpose now.
Then an idea came to him. He grinned down at her then placed an arm behind her back, hooked the other under her knees, and lifted her in one smooth movement. Ginny wrapped her arms around his neck and looked up his face, waiting patiently. Then huge white wings started emerging behind Harry’s back. He looked like a dark-haired, green-eyed angel, Ginny’s own private angel. Ginny was smiling fully now. Harry flapped his wings tentatively and slowly lifted the two of them up, folding his wings easily as he carried himself and Ginny both through the open balcony out into the open air. Ginny still had on the fur cloak; she would not be cold. They made one lap around the Burrow and then he slowly flew them down.
They landed lightly right in front of the kitchen door. Mrs. Weasley was standing in front of a cooking pot, stirring a stew. She kept looking anxiously up at the ceiling, but her eyes seemed to be looking up the further up through the floors.
Harry laid Ginny gently down and the movement caught Mrs. Weasley’s attention. She turned to them, surprised.
“How did you get there?” she asked worriedly as she opened the door to them, looking reproachfully at Harry. “Ginny can’t Apparate anywhere, Harry. She’s not even allowed to use a Portkey.”
“We flew down, mum,” Ginny said.
“Flew, how?” and then as she searched for a broomstick in Harry’s hands, she saw the two peaks of white wings behind Harry’s back that he hadn’t yet removed.
“Harry, what are those?” as she watched the wings shrink and disappear behind Harry’s back.
“They’re called wings, mum,” Ginny said with a smirk. She tugged Harry’s hand, “C’mon Harry, I’m famished.” Harry followed her inside the kitchen sheepishly.
Ginny sat Harry down as Mrs. Weasley prepared to set the table. She had just retrieved a stack of plates from the cupboard when she turned around and saw Ginny sitting on Harry’s lap.
“Ginny!” she cried, almost dropping the plates. “The Spell!”
Harry almost threw Ginny off his lap as well as he too remembered the Père Presumptive spell but caught Ginny round the waist just in time. He had not completely forgotten, but he wasn’t fully certain of the rules, what could and could not be done.
Ginny however began to glower. “I’ve heard Bill,” she said angrily. “He said if the bond between a man and a woman is particularly strong, then the Spell would work quickly. Following that logic, then I have decades, even centuries before the Spell could take effect.”
“Ginny, this is no joking matter!”
“Who says I’m joking? I want Harry!”
Mrs. Weasley closed her eyes as she tried to calm herself. When she opened them again, there were tears unfallen. She looked imploringly at her willful daughter. “Ginny, please, for once just try and stay alive for us, will you?”
That quietened Ginny at once; she and Harry felt as if they were both slapped in the face. It was easy to be young and carefree with no thought to the consequences of one’s actions. Harry, in particular, felt the guilt acutely. He was supposed to be the man, he should be strong enough to curb Ginny’s passionate streak, especially when it was hers and her unborn child’s life on the line.
No one spoke about the matter anymore after that. It was thus a subdued dinner table that Mr. Weasley came upon when he arrived home from work, with Harry and Ginny formally seated across each other from the table. The topic at dinner was limited to Harry’s work, where he was constrained to answer no matter how awkward and awful he felt. Ginny kept her silence.
After dinner however, they were allowed to go into the front porch to talk. For some time Harry and Ginny just sat quietly on the bench outside, with the sounds of nocturnal animals singing their courtship songs in seeming mockery of them.
Annoyed, Ginny spoke. “The Healer said I won’t have to come every three days for my check-ups. But he still wants me to come in every week.”
“Does he know about the necklace?” Harry said, grateful for the safe topic.
“Yes. Hermione bound him with a wizards’ oath. She actually threatened him that she’ll set him on you if word leaks out about the necklace. But she didn’t need to. He’s been mum’s Healer for years. He even vouched for Ron’s supposed illness in the war, you know, spattergroit. So he had to go underground when the Death Eaters found out Ron was actually with you. Still, Hermione wanted to make sure. I’m too dependent on the necklace now.”
As often happened when the war was mentioned, Harry fell silent. There were simply too many memories, too painful and guilt-ridden that she knew haunted him even to this day. Ginny realized her mistake too late and she turned her face towards Harry, watching for his reaction. And with the meager light coming from inside the house, she saw him return her gaze with a small, sad smile.
Ginny could not say sorry aloud. Harry simply did not talk about the war. So she expressed her remorse the only way she knew how. She slowly inched her way closer to Harry. “Gin,” he pleaded. But Ginny only snuggled further into him. He sighed helplessly.
They then spent the rest of the night just talking. Ginny understood why Harry had to hide his feelings for her while Voldemort was still alive. But when they got to talking about the time after the war and she learned of the many missed opportunities they had had to be together, both of them acting at cross-purposes with each other, Ginny hung her head low and cried silently, regretting the lost years.
She cried for a long time. Harry wanted to give her comfort, but a simple touch or a simple kiss had now become, too, an illicit joy too dangerous for them to even try.
After a while, Ginny quietened down. She looked out towards the borders of the Burrow, where the clear, starlit autumn sky kissed the dark skyline of trees. “Do you think we’re fighting fate by being together?” she said, and her voice was as far away as her gaze. “That if it took us this long to be together, that perhaps we shouldn’t?”
Harry was definite. “Three months ago, I would have thought so, Ginny, but not anymore.” Ginny turned back to him and saw the firm look on his face. She moved even closer now, and then leaned her head back on his shoulder. Harry did not protest but instead caressed her hair back. “But things can’t always be perfect,” he said, after a while. “They never are. We’ll just have to pass through this.”
“It’s not guaranteed, you know - a happy ending,” Ginny said.
Harry did not immediately reply. He would seriously be resentful if, after all of his sacrifices, he ended up with nothing. And he had a very specific definition of nothing in this case – Ginny absent from his life. “I don’t think I came back from the Forbidden Forest to end up without you,” he said.
Ginny looked up to him and Harry returned her gaze with a steady look.
“We fight fate, then,” said Ginny, after a while.
“We fight,” Harry affirmed.
And since then, Harry dropped by the Burrow almost every day. Often he would join Ginny and Mrs. Weasley at lunch, at night if he couldn’t make it. The other members of the family would often join them as well; Harry rather suspected they were doing so to make sure that he and Ginny did not misbehave.
The elder Weasleys were equally torn between apprehension and joy at Harry’s constant visits to the Burrow. But Ginny had set her foot down on the matter: if Harry would not be allowed to visit her at the Burrow, then she’d pack up her bags and move into Grimmauld and sleep in Harry’s bed. After that, there were no more protests against Harry’s visits.
Though louder by his silence it seemed to everyone how Harry had nothing to say on the subject of Ginny sleeping with him in his bed.
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