Chapter 1
December 1998
It’s almost Christmas when Harry receives the letter. It’s waiting for him on his desk when he arrives at work.
He stamps the grey slush of London’s streets from the soles of his shoes, leaving an icy puddle by the door to the department. It snowed in the night. Now, winter melts as the city wakes.
Harry sets his scalding coffee - from the greasy spoon around the corner - on his desk and eyes the letter as he unwinds his scarf. He hangs it, with his thick black coat, on the empty coat stand. Most of his colleagues have finished for the holidays. Not Harry, though. He can’t take a break, can’t be alone with his thoughts.
The office is warm and Harry has to wipe the steam from his glasses as he sits down. The radiator behind him rattles against the wall as a train runs past outside. Gremlins in the pipes, Ron always says.
Harry stares down at his desk and the letter stares up at him. A single sheet of parchment, folded neatly in two. He already knows what it says.
He is about to open it when someone appears in front of him and clears their throat. It’s Robards, his boss.
Of course, Harry thinks. He’s the only other early riser in the office. A late finisher too. Harry wonders if he ever goes home.
‘Harry,’ Robards says.
Harry stands hastily, almost knocking his chair to the floor. ‘Mr Robards,’ he replies.
The Head of the Auror Office smiles at him, though his smile is more of a grimace after so many years seeing the worst of the world. He is wearing a small sprig of holly in his lapel.
‘Gawain,’ he insists.
‘Sorry, Sir - er - Gawain,’ Harry mumbles.
Sometimes, he feels like he can’t get anything right. Ginny says that he needs to go easy on himself. That he’s only been in post six months. But Harry can’t go easy on himself. If he stops, if he slacks, the whole world might tumble down again.
No, he can't go easy on himself.
‘So, Harry, are you certain that you want to do this?’ Mr Robards - Gawain - asks him.
Harry’s eyes drift to the letter and back to his boss.
He nods. ‘Yes. Definitely.’
He needs this.
*
‘Azkaban?’
‘Yes,’ Harry says.
Ginny is staring at him, her features caught somewhere between disbelief and disappointment. She is holding a Christmas ornament in one hand. A gold and crimson bauble that glitters in the light of the fire. In the other, she is holding the letter.
Confirmation of his posting to Azkaban.
‘Azkaban,’ she repeats quietly. It's less of a question this time.
Harry nods.
‘Can’t you say no?’ Ginny asks, sinking down into the Weasley’s tired looking sofa. She is still clutching the bauble and it scatters diamonds of festive light across the bridge of her nose. ‘You’ve done so much, given so much already,’ she says. ‘How can they send you there?’ Her tone is different now. Disapproving.
Harry turns to face the fireplace. The heat of the flames is stifling but he can’t bear to look at Ginny when he almost lies to her.
‘I can’t say no.’
Almost a lie. He can’t say no, because he asked for this. He can’t say no, because he wants this.
‘Surely there’s something -’
‘It’s fine,’ he says. He wants to reassure her. ‘It’s temporary, and I’ll be back every weekend.'
Back every weekend to the Burrow. Harry has been living here for six months. It’s the Weasley’s home, and it is wonderful. Marked by the sadness of the war, yes, but still full of noise and life and warmth. Everything that Harry has never had, and always wanted. Except now he has it, and it still doesn’t feel like home.
The fire crackles and snaps and Ginny sighs behind him.
‘It just feels so heartless,’ she murmurs.
Harry turns away from the fire. He thinks about reaching out towards her. It’s instinctive, habitual. They were one another’s comfort during the war. But now the war is over, and they aren’t together.
Harry remembers the day he moved into the Burrow. The day they broke up. It just didn’t feel right. Living together, trying to love one another in the wake of the war. It was all too much, and not enough at the same time.
‘It just doesn't feel right, ’ Harry had said.
He still feels guilty about it. Ginny had lost her brother. He should have been there for her. But he could barely be there for himself.
Ginny had simply nodded and taken her broom outside to fly. She always found solace in the skies. Harry supposed that she was already too sad, too grief stricken, for him to break her any further.
He had offered to leave, of course, but Molly wouldn't hear of it. She is too kind and too headstrong, just like Ginny.
So they live together. It is awkward, uncomfortable sometimes, and yet comforting. Ginny is like the family he never had. They all are.
Now, she stands and passes the letter back to him.
‘Let’s finish,’ she says, and nods at the Christmas tree that fills the corner beside the hearth.
It’s leaning to one side under the weight of mismatched ornaments, and it twinkles with warm yellow lights.
Harry takes the bauble gently from Ginny’s hand and finds a space for it on the tree.
Outside, it begins to snow again.
*
Christmas with the Weasleys is joyous, and hard.
Molly is baking in the kitchen and the heady aroma of gingerbread and cinnamon mingles in the air. A saucepan of mulled wine simmers on the stove, and orange peel and cloves hang in garlands over the snow dusted window. A Christmas carol plays on the wireless as Arthur tinkers with the kitchen tap - it's leaking again - and enchanted snowmen doff their hats at him from the flour-stained countertop.
The Weasley children are gathered around the fireplace, sprawled across the sofa, on frayed armchairs and worn cushions. Arguing, singing, laughing. All except Fred, of course.
Christmas is hard because Fred isn't here. Because their friends are dead.
So many are dead.
It's their first Christmas since the war and Harry feels guilty. Could he have done more? Could he have saved them all?
Hermione seems to sense his disquiet. She touches him gently on the shoulder. As if to say, we're here. We survived. We're together.
But all Harry can think about is those that didn't make it.
‘Here, Harry,’ Ginny says then, and offers him a mince pie.
Harry wonders how she stays so strong, all of the time.
‘Thanks,’ he says, and lifts one from the plate. Not because he is hungry, but because he doesn't want to talk.
Every time someone speaks to him, he takes a bite.
Later, after they pull wizard crackers and feast on turkey with all the trimmings, Arthur makes a toast to Fred. Tears fall from George’s eyes and glisten in the light of the fire. Molly sniffles and dabs the corner of her apron to her wet, rosy cheeks.
‘To Fred,’ they chorus, as they lift their glasses.
‘Harry,’ Ron says as they clear the table. ‘What’s this about Azkaban?’
Not now, Harry thinks. Please not now. But Harry realises there’ll never be a ‘right’ moment. He will never have the ‘right’ words to explain how he is feeling.
Ron gathers up the cutlery and it clinks together in his grasp. They use their hands, not their wands. There is something soothing about the mundaneness of it.
‘Ginny thinks you can’t turn it down. You can. You know that.’
Harry glances towards the living room, where Ginny is squeezed into a brown armchair with Charlie. Its arms are threadbare and faded where countless hands have rested over the years. They are still wearing their flimsy paper crowns from their wizard crackers, and are flicking through an almanac together, as George levitates mince pies over their heads.
‘I know,’ Harry sighs.
He places a pile of dirty plates in the kitchen sink and the leaky tap drips onto them. When he turns around, Ron is looking at him with a puzzled expression.
‘So?’ he says. ‘Are you going to turn it down?’
Harry shakes his head. ‘I asked for it, Ron.’
‘What?’
‘I asked for the posting, I asked to go.’ Harry doesn’t have the energy to lie, or to make up an excuse. Ron works for the Auror Office too. He’d find out, eventually.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Ron says. His voice has dropped to a whisper. ‘Why would you want to go there?’
Harry shrugs. ‘I just - I feel like I need to.’
He doesn’t know how to explain it. Not really. He just doesn’t want to be here .
‘But they’re all there,’ Ron says. ‘The Death Eaters.’ His eyes harden with anger. ‘How can you stand to be near them?’
They still don’t know who killed Fred. They’ll probably never know, and Harry knows that it eats away at Ron.
‘Keep your enemies close, and all that,’ Harry says quietly.
Ron stares at him, incredulous.
‘Just, don’t tell Ginny,’ Harry adds, glancing back at the living room. ‘That I wanted it.’
They are picking presents from beneath the tree now, and a tipsy Molly is waving them over. ‘Come on boys!’ she calls.
‘Please,’ Harry says. ‘I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to explain it.’
He doesn’t want Ginny to think that he’s running from her. But perhaps he is. He’s running from lots of things.
Ron snorts. ‘You haven’t even explained it to me, mate.’
Harry eyes him hard and Ron shrugs. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Okay.’
They walk together to the living room, and Molly thrusts a present into his hands. It’s squishy and wrapped in deep blue paper enchanted with tiny silver stars. He already knows that it's a sweater - it’s always a sweater - and he couldn’t be more grateful. The Weasleys are kind and generous, despite having so little to share, and they treat him as one of their own. They make him feel loved, so loved.
So why can't he fill this void in his heart?