NOW
The first mistake was telling Hermione that he had a golden weekend, Harry decides as he pulls a dark grey cashmere jumper over his pressed oxford shirt. If he’d never let it slip to his best friend that he has both Saturday and Sunday off, he could be enjoying a beer in front of his television in a pair of sweats, having just put his daughter to bed in her room. Instead, though, Rowan is sleeping at his parents’ and he has to go meet everyone — Hermione, her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s friends, Ginny — at Hyacinth House.
Despite the fact that Harry grew up in a privileged, wealthy wizarding family, the private clubs of London have never been his scene. He finds them stuffy, their oak-paneled dining rooms and bars devoid of character, and their dress codes unnecessary. In the before times — before Ron died, that is, or even before Rowan was born — a night out with friends would have been at a pub, preferably a muggle one. But at some point in the last four years, Hermione decided she was ready to have a boyfriend again, and the bloke who landed the job just so happened to be a member of no fewer than three private clubs frequented by the who’s who of Wizarding England. So as they get older, more and more of their (rare) nights out look like this . Truth be told, it sort of makes Harry resent formerly-merry the act of drinking with his friends.
He arrives at Hyacinth House fashionably late, although he isn’t tardy just for the sake of looking cooler than he is. He’s late because he wanted to spend time with his daughter before leaving her with her grandparents, and then still had to change in order to meet this place’s incredibly strict dress requirements. What he’d give to wear a pair of bloody jeans.
Because he’s there nearly an hour behind schedule, he expects the gathering to be in full swing by the time he arrives. Instead, when the maitre d’ brings him to the cozy back room that is generally reserved for these nights, he finds that the table is still sparsely populated — at least, with the people Harry actually cares to see. It’s just Hermione, her boyfriend, and some of his friends.
“Harry!” Hermione grins, spotting Harry in the doorway and jumping to her feet to quickly pull him into a hug. As she releases him from her embrace, she clasps a hand to his shoulder and gently but firmly guides him to the table.
At the table, Harry extends a hand toward Hermione’s boyfriend and maintains the neutral expression he’s perfected through his five years of specialty training. “Malfoy,” he greets the man in front of him with a courteous nod as they shake hands.
“Potter,” Draco Malfoy acknowledges politely. It’s still a bit awkward, this being friendly instead of just cordial toward one another. For the first three or four years they were at Hogwarts, the Slytherin boy had more or less been Harry’s nemesis. By the end of their time at school, they’d both matured enough to bury the hatchet and act civil: Draco had learned to think critically, and in doing so, came up with more nuanced, progressive views on class, blood, and wizarding society than the ones his father had passed down to him; for his part, Harry chilled out a bit, and no longer felt the need to jump on every single sentence he disagreed with, learning the valuable lesson that correcting people who are already inclined to agree with you if given time often makes them less likely to come around to it. So their rivalry faded and was replaced with a begrudging sort of respect. Still, it’s not like they’d ever hang out like this — with Harry coming to Draco’s member’s club, no less — if it hadn’t been for Hermione deciding that if bygones were bygones, she may as well date the posh pureblood prat.
“Potter,” a voice calls from across the table. Harry turns his head in the direction of the sound and finds himself facing two of the Slytherins from his year at Hogwarts, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini. The voice belonged to Zabini, Harry deduces, but based on the curious expression he’s sporting, it seems that Theo is the one with the question.
Harry nods toward the two men in greeting, but doesn’t bother with hi or hello or even what’s up . “Yeah?”
Theo pats the leather of the bench next to him, inviting Harry to come sit. “Join us for a minute, will you? I’ve got an interesting bit of information I’d like to run by you.”
Curious, Harry shoots Hermione a questioning look; when she merely responds with a shrug, he makes his way over to the booth where Blaise and Theo are huddled. “What kind of information?” He raises a single dark eyebrow in an attempt to show his intrigue without sounding overly interested. Instinctively, Harry understands that the act of hanging out with this kind of person changes based on how you posture and position yourself, and he’s quick to adapt. It’s why Sirius was worried Harry could end up in Slytherin himself. Hermione and Malfoy lean across the table to involve themselves in the conversation now.
“Oh, you know,” Theo waves his hand vaguely. “A little bird told me that a certain witch by the name of Gemma Oakley has returned to the UK.” He smirks, raising an eyebrow invitingly.
Hermione’s eyes widen, tipping Harry off to the fact that Theo and Blaise did not mention that they knew of Gemma’s repatriation before Harry arrived. The truth is that Harry probably would have told Hermione himself, if he’s spared a second thought to his interaction with his ex-girlfriend at all. But he didn’t. As soon as he left his parents’ home the day after it happened, it was out of sight and out of mind.
Knowing it’s wise for him to appear unaffected in front of this particular crowd, Harry shrugs, cool and unruffled. “What bird would that be?” He matches Theo’s raised eyebrow with one of his own.
“Robin French,” Blaise responds, and he and Theo share a satisfied look. Harry can only assume they’re pleased at their clever pun, calling a girl named Robin a ‘little bird’. “I’ve been seeing her occasionally, and apparently, she and Gemma hadn’t spoken in years before Gemma reached out a couple of weeks ago to say she had moved back home.”
Harry considers this in the context of his own conversation with Gemma. Robin French was one of her best friends when they were in school, it was true, but it made sense that the two of them had fallen out of touch over time after Gemma moved to Canada. It would explain how Gemma knew about Ron, but not about Ginny or Rowan. “Hm,” he hums, tone emotionless. He’s intentionally not saying anything that the men at the table — or Hermione, for that matter — could latch onto. He’d very much like to stop talking about Gemma Oakley when Ginny Weasley — the actual love of his life — could arrive at any moment. He still hasn’t had a chance to tell her about his run-in with Gemma, and based on the fact that she hasn’t confronted him about it, Rowan hasn’t either. Still, since his ex-girlfriend met their daughter, it does unfortunately warrant a discussion with Ginny.
The look Theo shoots in Harry’s direction implies that he doesn’t believe Harry’s indifference, but he doesn’t have a chance to push for more. As if summoned specifically to save Harry from having to talk about Gemma-bloody-Oakley, Ginny finally arrives. Harry nearly leaps from his spot on the bench to greet her — an action that Hermione takes note of immediately. For his part, Harry is oblivious to Hermione’s observation, and doesn’t have time to dread the point in the near future when his friend will confront him about his eagerness and excitement at seeing the mother of his daughter.
“Hey Gin.” As Harry wraps her in a tight hug, Ginny can’t help but laugh. After all, she saw him only a few hours earlier, when Ginny brought Rowan to his parents’ house.
“Long time no see,” she smirks, squeezing him tightly in return. It doesn’t matter that they’d only just seen each other, after all; nothing feels better, safer, or more natural than being held against the plane of Harry’s chest. With great effort, she extricates herself from the embrace a few beats later.
Making her way over to Hermione, Ginny pulls her friend — the woman she once assumed would be her sister-in-law — into her side for a sort of half-hug. “Now you,” Ginny grins as she clutches Hermione to her, “I really haven’t seen in ages.”
“I know,” Hermione sighs, wistful and apologetic. “I was at that symposium in Tokyo and it doesn’t make much sense to go to Japan for anything less than ten days, even with magic.”
“Likely story,” Ginny smirks, before offering a more polite hug to Draco, who winces as he accepts it. Hermione’s paramour has come quite a long way from their school days, but some habits — such as discomfort with affectionate greetings involving physical contact — die hard. “Good to see you as well, Malfoy. Although I must say, I usually expect you to throw more of a party. Seems a pity to waste a private room on me and Harry and these two.” She gestures at Theo and Blaise across the table.
As Theo clutches his chest in a performance of something like outrage (“I thought we had a bond , Ginevra!”), Draco shrugs. “I expect more people will be arriving soon enough. Those two just don’t have anything better to do with their time.”
“Are you implying that I also have nothing better to do with my time than hang out with you and your two most annoying friends?” Ginny raises a copper eyebrow, gingerly sliding onto the bench next to Theo and taking his glass without asking.
“No,” Draco snorts. “But you and Potter usually both arrive and leave early. Having spawn has made you boring.”
“You didn’t even know me before I had spawn,” Ginny retorts. It’s a valid point: Hermione started dating Draco Malfoy when Rowan was an infant — no more than three months old — and he therefore has little concept of who Ginny was or how she acted before she was a mum. But what he does have a concept of the difference between Ginny during and after her relationship with Harry. And if he said she became boring after Harry? He wouldn‘t be wrong.
“Oi! Can we please not call her spawn?” Harry interjects, less annoyed that Malfoy used the crude word — it’s just his linguistic style and sense of humor — than he is at Ginny for not correcting him. To Harry, spawn sounds like something alien, something not quite human; he takes offense to using such a word to describe his perfect and very human child.
“Offspring, progeny,” Draco enumerates, waving off Harry’s objection. “Can you sit down, Potter?” Malfoy gestures to the seat next to him demonstratively. “If you wear a hole in the floor with your shuffling, I have to pay for it.”
Harry rolls his eyes, but pulls the chair out and takes a seat. If nothing else, this seat is directly across from Ginny, who he thinks looks particularly gorgeous tonight. She’s got her copper hair curled, half of it pulled off her face in a barrette; he loves when she wears her hair like that, because it highlights her stunning brown eyes, like melted chocolate flecked with golden caramel. She’s wearing a tartan miniskirt with tights and a black turtleneck, and even though nearly every inch of her skin is covered, Harry can’t help but think she’s accented her muscular legs and arse, and her perfect, perky breasts. Maybe sitting next to Malfoy isn’t ideal, but he’s got the best view in all of Hyacinth House — and possibly all of London, or all of England. Maybe all of the world. Later, he’ll need to mentally slap himself across the face for allowing his imagination to run away from him (how is he allowed to have people’s lives in his hands when this is his inner monologue?), but he can’t be bothered to care at this exact moment.
“Ooh, we should use progeny,” Theo interjects excitedly. “That’s a nice bit of consonance there, isn’t it? She’s the Potter Progeny.”
“Potter-Weasley, thank you very much,” Ginny glares at him. Harry can’t help but laugh; in that moment, Ginny is making a face that Rowan absolutely inherited and using a vocal intonation that the child mimics when she corrects others about her age. He loves seeing the ways they mirror each other. It makes him love each of them more. “Think that’s funny, Potter?” He snaps out of his reverie to find Ginny staring at him, eyebrow raised.
And he can’t resist the chance to spar verbally with her, so he retorts: “Only insofar as her last name is Potter and not Potter-Weasley.” It’s only after he says it that he’s aware of how loaded the subject is. After all, they’d discussed hyphenating Rowan’s name at length while Ginny was pregnant, and it was Ginny who ultimately decided not to. We’ll all eventually be Potter anyway, she’d said. Not for the first time, Harry feels like the biggest piece of shit in the world.
“I could never hate my own child enough to make them write a hyphenated last name on every single test they take or essay they write for the rest of their life,” Ginny counters, not missing a beat. She remembers the discussion about what Rowan’s name should be just as well as Harry does.
“See?” Draco turned to Hermione, a clear expression of triumph and vindication on his face. “It’s not just me who thinks hyphenated last names are a cruel thing to do to an innocent child!”
“But just giving the father’s last name is patriarchal,” Hermione retorts, sounding annoyed, as though they’ve had this exact back and forth many times before. Her tone is clear: this is more than a philosophical debate about the modern naming of children.
Sitting across from one another, Harry catches Ginny’s eyes and raises an eyebrow. Ginny shrugs as if to say that his guess is as good as hers. They notice Blaise and Theo sharing a similar nonverbal communication, everyone wondering at what point discussions about the surname of Hermione and Draco’s children became so commonplace they thought nothing of having them in public. While none of them should necessarily be surprised — in your late twenties, a four year relationship is around the point where you should be breaking up if you’re not discussing things like marriage and children — it’s still strange to witness the conversation happening in real time, in a public venue. With witnesses.
“It’s not patriarchal,” Draco protests, somewhat petulantly. “It’s traditional.”
“And, love, what have I taught you if not that most if not all traditions are based in patriarchy?” Hermione raises an eyebrow, knowing she’s gotten him where she wants him: in a place where he can’t disagree with her, at least not with other people around.
“I mean, it’s one thing to have a discussion where you evaluate all the options and land on the father’s name,” Harry interjects, wanting very much for the conversation to move away from the specifics of his best friend’s relationship with the posh boy who bullied her for having frizzy hair and buck teeth when they were eleven. “It’s another thing entirely to assume it will be one way.”
Hermione tilts her chin toward Harry, smirking as she looks directly at Malfoy: “See? Harry has a child who has his name, and he still agrees with me.”
“Well, of course he says that,” Malfoy retorts vaguely. There are plenty of ways he could finish that thought. He could, for example, point out that Rowan’s mum is sitting across the table and he needs to save her feminist credibility if not his own; he could also postulate that Harry never had to seriously consider the question, and only offered to give the child Ginny’s name because he knew Ginny would decline.
He doesn’t have a chance to say anything that could potentially harm the relationship Hermione has carefully brokered between her significant other and her friends, however. Because as he’s gearing up to say whatever it might be, yet another woman is brought to the room by the maitre d’.
It’s so like Pansy Parkinson to arrive alone, nearly ninety minutes after the gathering officially started, acting as though her lateness isn’t rude, but other people having the nerve to drink without her is. She slides onto the bench, taking the seat next to Blaise not occupied by Theo. She glances around the table, not once bothering with greetings or platitudes, assessing the inebriation of the group, as is her habit. When she notices Hermione’s drink is only about half-finished, the former Slytherin men are running low, and neither Harry nor Ginny have been served anything at all, she must reasonably deduce that everyone is very sober.
“Honestly, Draco,” she scoffs. “You pay for a private room here every third time you want to entertain your friends and they can’t even be bothered to take orders more than once?”
Malfoy raises an eyebrow, and finishes the last of his drink demonstratively. “All anyone needed to do was ask for service.” He clears his throat and calls: “Crispian!”
“The waiters here are always so slow,” Pansy laments as they wait. “It’s a pity you can’t just call the elves directly.” When Hermione shoots a glare her way, Pansy is unaffected. “What? They pay them, you know.”
It’s only a minute or two later that a posh-looking butler type appears, brandishing a cocktail menu. “What can I get for you?”
No one takes the menu from him; they’ve all been to this club enough times to know more or less what they want to order. Ginny orders the gin and earl grey cocktail she almost always starts with; Pansy orders a firewhiskey neat with a glass of red on the side; Harry resists the urge to stick to water and orders the one that’s infused with about five kinds of liquor and some beverage that, in effect, acts similarly to pepper up potion. The part of his brain that’s a healer knows it’s probably terrible for him, but the last vestiges of his youth insist that he’s only got one life to live and he may as well enjoy it.
After they order, Pansy looks directly at Harry. Without preamble, she tells him: “You look well, Potter.”
“Er, thanks,” Harry narrows his eyes, confusion and suspicion running through his mind in equal parts. He doesn’t think he looks particularly well, actually, and that Pansy is saying so is more than a bit suspect. After all, she’d usually be the first to state — though they are little more than acquaintances — that Harry looks terrible.
She then looks to Malfoy and Hermione. Hitching her thumb toward Blaise and Theo, she asks: “So these two didn’t tell him?”
“Tell him what?” Before anyone else can respond, Ginny’s leaning across the table, cheeks tinged pink as she stares at the woman two seats away from her. Harry recognizes the expression, though it’s not one he’s seen directed toward him in a long while: Ginny is feeling protective . He files this piece of information away for analysis at some point in the future.
“We were getting there,” Blaise responds to Pansy, blatantly attempting to mollify her.
“You can’t just drop something like this into conversation,” Theo adds. “You need to ease into it!”
Pansy simply rolls her eyes and looks back at Harry. It’s obvious that she doesn’t feel that whatever news needs to be shared should be handled particularly gently. “Blaise invited Robin French tonight, and Robin asked if she could bring Gemma Oakley with her. So, fair warning, you’ll be spending tonight with not one, but two, of your ex-girlfriends.”
“But only one that he has a child with, so that’s a relief,” Theo quips unhelpfully.
“That we know of,” Blaise smirks. Harry merely glares across the table.
“Gemma Oakley?” Ginny repeats, the pink that tinged her cheeks only moments ago fading fast. Harry feels his stomach drop — confusingly, at the same time his heart soars, knowing that she’s anxious at the appearance of his long-forgotten school girlfriend — because he’d been planning to pull her aside to talk about Gemma’s reappearance tonight. It’s so like Malfoy’s crowd to foil his most carefully considered plans like this.
“She’s moved back to London,” Pansy responds, sounding bored even though Harry uncharitably believes she feels nothing but untempered glee at the idea of such a situation about to play out in front of her very eyes.
Ginny looks to Harry, trying to assess his surprise — or lack thereof — at hearing this news. She supposes it shouldn’t surprise her, the fact that his expression is blank with the slightest tinge of annoyance. He works hard not to betray any emotion in situations like this, especially where the Slytherins are concerned. It’s a good thing, she reasons, that his underlying reaction isn’t one of excitement or curiosity, though she refuses to examine why good is the word that immediately springs to mind.
Across the table, four pairs of eyes — including Ginny’s — are trained on Harry, waiting to see how he’ll respond to the news of having to encounter his adolescent love interest at any moment. And while seeing Gemma tonight is not Harry’s first choice of an activity — or even his tenth or twentieth — he’s not exactly lying as he shrugs and says: “Don’t make this bigger than it is. We broke up more than a decade ago. Which was when we were still teenagers, in case you forgot how old we are. It’s only weird if you make it weird.” He turns back to Ginny and attempts to send her, specifically, an apologetic and comforting smile. The one she returns is weak.
Pansy sighs, whether in frustration or disbelief, as Blaise cuts in: “I don’t even know if she’ll come, to be honest. Robin only asked if it was okay to invite her.”
Harry shrugs easily. He’s quite certain Zabini urged Robin to bring Gemma, actually, given the excitement the trio of them are barely concealing. “It makes no difference to me either way.”
It’s one thing to say he has no strong feelings about the situation, especially because he believes it to be true. It’s another thing entirely to be in the situation.
He has the best of intentions to pull Ginny aside before Robin and Gemma have the chance to arrive. He even thinks of the perfect place to take her, where he can throw up a muffliato charm and tell her calmly that he’d already run into Gemma, actually, and she should know that Rowan was with him when he did. Chill. Not a big deal. Definitely not something he was inexplicably afraid of her finding out.
So it would figure that he’s asking Ginny if she wouldn’t mind getting some air with him on the terrace — or, at the very least, he’s said, “Hey, Gin?” which is the precursor to asking her — when Gemma and Robin arrive. The group is starting to fill out, with more former schoolmates, some of Hermione’s law colleagues, and some people Malfoy refers to as “associates”, which is particularly confusing because no one seems clear on what it is Draco Malfoy does professionally. And, if Harry’s timing or placement were ever right, it would have been easy to have gotten Ginny outside before he even noticed Gemma’s arrival — or, indeed, before his old flame noticed his presence. But, instead, the pair of them were standing toward the entry to the room, to provide an easy exit to the terrace, and thus, he is the first person Gemma sees upon arrival.
“Harry,” Gemma greets with a confident wave.
Harry manages a strained, anxious smile in return. He feels as though he might throw up, as he glances back to Ginny, completely panicked. Ginny takes no notice of his care toward her, however; she is too busy feeling a complex set of emotions toward Gemma.
Years ago, Ginny felt confident in comparison to Gemma Oakley. And why wouldn’t she? Gemma was in the past, and Harry had been devoted only to Ginny then. It had been easy for Ginny to write Gemma off as being for Harry what Andy Rogers was for her: a first relationship that was firmly in the past. It was easier to feel secure in that when Gemma was safely across the pond in Canada, however. Now that she’s physically sharing space with the older witch, Gemma feels very much like a present threat to something. But Ginny isn’t sure why, exactly, she feels alarmed. Because she accepts that Harry isn’t hers anymore. Doesn’t she?
“Ginny!” Gemma squeals, pulling Ginny from her thoughts. Harry’s ex wraps her arms around Ginny — who has to remind herself that she, too, is Harry’s ex — and offers a warm hug. It was always difficult to hate her, but Ginny knows she can manage it. She starts by deciding it was rude of Gemma to envelop her in a hug she gave no indication of consenting to. “It’s so good to see you!”
For Ginny’s part, she offers a smile that is equal parts polite and annoyed. Aside from the fact that she had been friends with Harry while he and Gemma were dating, the two women hardly have a relationship at all. They certainly don’t know each other well enough for it to be so good to see each other again.
“It’s been such a whirlwind these last few weeks,” Gemma continues, rambling on. Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry can spot Robin heading off to join Blaise. He wishes Gemma would go with her. “Being home again,” she elaborates when no one fills the space with words of their own.
“Mm, I can imagine,” Ginny nods, hoping she sounds bored. She wants Gemma to feel uninteresting and dull; living in Canada for nearly a decade isn’t an exotic experience, and she doesn’t feel like being goaded into a conversation where they discuss the differences between there and here. She flits her eyes over to Harry in time to see his Adam’s apple bob with discomfort.
“I’ve so rarely been home, especially in the last few years, and I lost touch with most people from school,” Gemma continues, clearly oblivious to Harry’s discomfort and Ginny’s hostility. “I was honestly so surprised Robin invited me along tonight. I’d been such a rotten friend, I didn’t even think she’d respond to my owl! But she told me it was the Slytherins from our year hosting — I didn’t realize you’d both be here.”
“Well, Hermione’s dating Malfoy now,” Harry responds, voice tight. “They’re quite serious.”
“Ah,” Gemma responds knowingly. “I never would have predicted that, but it does weirdly make a certain sense, don’t you think?”
Harry and Ginny both shrug in unison, and everything they’re not saying hangs heavy in the air. No one would have ever predicted it because, of all the couples in their year, Hermione and Ron were the ones who were supposed to get married. Hermione and Malfoy do make a certain sense, yes, because they are both high-achievers, academically-motivated, and driven to a fault; but Hermione and Ron made more sense, in part because they each made up for what the other lacked. And neither Harry nor Ginny wants to get into the Ron thing right now, so it’s much easier to drop the subject entirely.
“Anyway, I should go mingle,” Gemma grins. “Aside from when I saw you, Harry, this is the first I’ve seen anyone since moving back.”
Ginny is positively taken aback by this. Her heart pummels toward her abdomen while her stomach jumps to her throat. She could choke. “You’ve seen each other?” She clarifies before Gemma has the chance to go. It sounds like an accusation — because it is an accusation.
“We ran into each other, briefly,” Harry explains, taking on a soothing, placating tone, quite without realizing he’s done it. “At a coffee shop.”
“Rowan spilled water on my bag,” Gemma supplies with a laugh. “Otherwise, we may never have even realized we were at adjacent tables.” She flashes a megawatt grin once more before laying a familiar hand on Harry’s arm and waving goodbye. Harry winces at the contact.
With Gemma out of earshot and view, Ginny narrows her eyes. “You mean to tell me that your ex-girlfriend has met our daughter and you didn’t once think to mention it?”
“I was actually about to tell you.” Harry screws up his face as though he’s just tasted something foul. “That’s what I wanted to tell you about and —”
“Well, if you ran into her when you had Rowan at a cafe, that would be a week ago, wouldn’t it?” Ginny raises a pale eyebrow, daring Harry to challenge her. But he’d never do it. He can’t lie to her. He’s never been able to manage that. “So you had a whole bloody week to tell me and you haven’t. Do I have that correct?”
“Well, yes,” Harry stammers. “Sure. But I only saw you with Rowan and I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of Rowan because, truthfully, it wasn’t a big deal and—”
“So you couldn’t have asked to have a word with me alone?” Ginny scoffs, incredulous. “Rowan is perfectly fine to quietly play with her dolls while we go somewhere private to speak, Harry.”
Harry throws up his hand, an obvious surrender. “Fine, okay. I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
Ginny simply stares at him for a minute, tapping the leather toe of her boot rhythmically as she considers her next move. She looks around, expecting everyone to be looking at them, but no one has even taken note of their bickering. The room has filled out, people are drinking and mingling, and not a single person is paying them much attention at all. “What did you tell Rowan about her?”
Harry blinks rapidly. Not for the first time, Ginny thinks that Harry might be the most brilliant person she’s ever met — but he’s an idiot as well. “What do you mean?”
“I mean did you tell her: This is Gemma, she could have been your mummy if she hadn’t moved to Canada —”
“Well, first of all, that’s not how reproduction works, because Rowan exists as Rowan because she’s equal parts both of us —”
“Harry James,” Ginny seethes. “Stop being pedantic! You know that’s not the point.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “If you must know, Ginevra, I told Rowan that Gemma is an old friend from school and her first question was whether Gemma knows her mummy, too.”
Well, Ginny certainly can’t nitpick on that. She was hoping Harry would have said something inappropriate so that she could continue being rightfully angry at him; now, she just feels neglected, petty, and a bit jealous. “And she didn’t ask anything else?”
Harry shakes his head. “Gemma told her she was in Canada becoming a healer for kids, Rowan asked where Canada was, and that was more or less the conversation,” Harry replies truthfully.
“Did you make any plans with Gemma?” Vaguely, Ginny is aware that this question is irrelevant to her. Harry is an adult, and if he wants to see his school girlfriend — platonically or sexually — that’s not really any of her business. Harry has studiously pretended not to know when Ginny dated in the three years since their relationship ended; he knew he didn’t have the right to intervene, if nothing involved their child. Ginny tells herself this would be different; when you reunite with an ex, things would naturally be more serious faster, wouldn’t they?
“Of course not,” Harry shakes his head. “Honestly, I probably would have avoided her outside of a professional context if she wasn’t here tonight.” He’s being truthful — painfully so. He has no interest in seeing Gemma again if he doesn’t absolutely have to. Ginny may not consider herself jealous, but she’s always been a bit possessive of him; if he’s honest, he finds it dead sexy, but it’s also not a wrath he wants to tempt, given that he’s not secure in their relationship with one another at the moment.
“You’re telling me you have no interest in seeing her again?” Ginny raises an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving.
“No,” Harry blinks. “Not in a friendly context, and certainly not in a romantic one.” His memory flicks over to his parents’ house the week before, hearing his mum saying either he has to fight for Ginny or choose to move on. He decides he can be a bit bold. “Ginny, you and I both know there’s only one person I’m interested in romantically. Hasn’t that been clear for years?”
Ginny’s heart catches in her throat. She can’t believe — or trust — what she’s hearing. “Years?” She repeats. Her throat feels dry. She takes a sip of her cocktail only to find that she’s hit the ice. The single drop of liquid that hits her tongue only makes her feel thirstier than before.
“Six or so, I reckon.” As he looks at her meaningfully, he can feel his heart pounding against his tightening chest. He’s regretting everything that’s led to this moment — his pining, traitorous heart, Ginny’s jealousy, not telling her about Gemma earlier, listening to his mum — in the seconds as he waits for her response.
And it’s everything Ginny hasn’t admitted she’s wanted to hear. So why is she filled with dread? Is it because she knows she’s going to act on it, and she doesn’t know how to close the door again once she opens it? “Is Rowan sleeping at your parents’ tonight?” Even as she says it, she’s hoping he’ll say no, or that he’s sleeping at his parents’ as well. If he does, then she doesn’t have to reflect on any of her own faults or shortcomings, as they relate to him.
“Yes,” he agrees. His eyes have gotten that glassy, randy look she knows so well; he’s wearing a cocky, boyish half-smirk. Fuck. They’re on the same page, and Merlin save them both. “My mum thought I should have fun tonight and a lie in tomorrow…” He trails off, considering Ginny’s face. Then, there’s a spark behind his emerald eyes and she knows she’s beyond help. “But I can think of things that are more fun than sleeping.”
“I’m thinking I’ll head out,” Ginny says, though she’s only had one drink. If Harry’s offering his feelings to her on a silver platter, she can’t stay angry at him. So she wants to take the other side of her anger and give in to arousal. This is his last chance to do the smart thing and bid her farewell; she no longer has the willpower to do it herself.
Harry drains the last of his drink and places the glass on a table; he grabs hers and places it beside his. “Fancy a nightcap at mine?”
“Sure,” Ginny agrees. “Should we say goodbye to Hermione?”
Harry turns back to the main group, where his best friend is wildly gesticulating, deep in conversation with one of Malfoy’s many business associates. In an instant, he decides it’s better if she doesn’t suspect he’s leaving with Ginny. He doesn’t need anyone else involved in this.
“Nah,” he shrugs. “She’ll just try to convince us to stay.”
“So true,” Ginny agrees. And since there’s no one else at the party worth bidding adieu, she wraps an elegant hand around Harry’s bicep. An involuntary shiver runs down her spine touching the fine, soft material of his jumper; she’s forgotten how it feels to be touching Harry so intimately and with such anticipation. “Lead the way.”
…
Perhaps it should be awkward, after all this time apart. But it isn’t.
They don’t hazard more contact than side along apparition before they enter Harry’s flat, but the second the door latches, his mouth is on hers and he’s kissing her like he’s never kissed her before. He’s a man starved, and she’s his feast. He tries to imbue every emotion he has, every word he wants to say into the motion of his lips on hers. I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner. And I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. And this is so right, Gin, you must feel it too.
They don’t even break apart as they move toward the master bedroom — the bedroom they once shared — undressing each other all the way. It’s amazing how easily it comes back, Ginny’s muscle memory of the place. This path was once well-trodden, that first year they were doing this. Back before Ginny got pregnant and before her abdomen swelled so much they couldn’t reliably move like this. Even so, it comes as a surprise when she’s stripped down to her bra and knickers and Harry lowers her onto his bed. Only then do they part, and Ginny quickly takes in the room around her.
She hasn’t actually seen the inside of this particular room since she moved out of the place, despite spending plenty of time here. When she visits nowadays, there’s no real reason for her to be anywhere but the common areas and Rowan’s room. She finds that little has changed. The sheets are a darker shade of blue than what she would have chosen — a man’s choice, for sure — but otherwise, the furniture is the same and it’s all arranged as it was three years earlier. She doesn’t look beyond that before Harry has kicked off his trousers and is crawling next to her.
No one’s had more than a single cocktail, but Harry and Ginny feel intoxicated nevertheless. They’ve always been thrill seekers, the pair of them; between this artificial barrier between them finally being broken and the rapture of kissing each other once more, neither of them can point to a time in recent history where they’ve felt more alive. It’s sloppy, a mess of teeth and tongues; their desire is too intense, too consuming, for them to bother making it neater. It doesn’t matter, really. It only serves to make things hotter.
After a furious snog accompanied by fervent, eager touching, Harry begins kissing his way down Ginny’s body. He relishes every inch of creamy, freckled skin, the parts of her she’d kept hidden from him for so very long; he treats each beauty mark with reverence. It’s been years that he’s been starving, he realizes, and he’s finally gotten the only meal he’d ever really cared for. And still, he can’t trust that it won’t be taken from him at any moment; at some point, surely, Ginny will realize this violates every rule they have and put an end to it. Because the rules were always hers, while he merely honored them; he could never stop unless she made him. His willpower, while strong, is not unlimited.
When his lips reach her pelvic bone — and the boundary of her lace knickers — he presses fluttering, devout kisses to her skin and moves to roll the fabric down. Harry is, unfortunately, out of practice and a bit nervous; though his hands are remarkably steady when he works through the worst emergencies, he's shaking enough that it takes him an embarrassingly long amount of time to get a decent hold of the gauzy material and Ginny does need to wriggle out of the blasted garment herself by the end. But at least she’s laughing and gazing at him fondly. He hasn’t felt so at home in, oh, roughly three years.
As he moves to put his mouth on her, she places two fingers beneath his angular chin and tilts it up toward her. He’s suddenly certain: she’s having second thoughts. She’s about to end this. And he has no one but himself to blame, for letting impulse take over and for letting this go too far. He should have shown restraint, should’ve reined it in, should’ve stopped it before it started. It would save him the sinking feeling of his heart falling into his stomach, even if he thinks the past half hour was more fun than he’s had in ages.
But she doesn’t stop him. Instead, Ginny breathily pants: “No time for that.”
“No time for that?” Harry repeats dumbly. That was something both of them thoroughly enjoyed. They always made time for it.
She shakes her head. Urgently, she presses: “I need you, Harry.”
He doesn’t need to hear more than that. He rushes to position himself over her. Only then does his mind start racing again: it’s been three years since he’s had sex — by far the longest drought since he lost his virginity — and he’s so incredibly excited that he worries this will be embarrassingly short. There’s also one other thing they’re forgetting: “Hold that thought. I need my wand.”
Ginny giggles, wrapping her warm, soft hand around his cock before he can move away. “Nope,” she tells him. “I’ve got the only wand you need right here.”
With even the lightest touch of her hand and the shortest laugh, he’s so close to finishing. He slams his eyes shut and wills himself to focus on anything else until the feeling that he’s about to go over the edge passes. “No.” The single word requires great effort for him to say. “Charm,” he manages.
“I have an implant now,” she offers. “No room for human error!”
But Harry’s a healer, and he’s run the numbers thousands of times since Ginny fell pregnant with Rowan. Yes, the implant is 99% effective — a higher efficacy rating than the potion she’d been taking when Rowan was conceived — but there’s still a 1% chance of something going wrong. Given that they’ve already had one child quite by accident, he can’t convince himself that it’s worth the risk.
“I’m still going to do the charm,” he tells her. And then she releases him — which is both a disappointment and a relief — and he jumps off. After rifling through the pile of clothes on the floor, he locates the handle of his wand, and mutters the spell. He feels the tingling sensation that indicates that it took, and then positions himself back over Ginny. “Where were we?”
She looks at him a bit funny, as though she’s considering something important about what he just did. But before he can analyze it, she pulls his face back down to hers and captures his lips with her. Pulling back, she mutters against his lips: “I think we were here .” And then she’s wrapping her hand around his erection again, and positioning against her opening.
“You’re sure?” Harry can’t help but ask the question: he needs to know beyond any shadow of doubt that she wants this, given the signals she’s sent to the contrary for the last three years. If she hesitates even a little bit, he has to stop, remiss as he’d be to do it.
But there’s no pause, no equivocation. Only Ginny’s warm eyes, dancing up at him, her dazzling smile, the shadows of the streetlights through the window cast on her skin. “Yeah, Harry. I’m sure.”
He presses forward into her, and nothing could compare. He’d have thought it was easy to forget what she felt like, what they felt like together , but bodies have memories, too. And his body could never forget what it felt like to be inside of hers, even if his brain did. It’s familiar and natural and so, so right.
He manages to last five minutes or so, which feels to him like a near-olympic feat all things considered. Ginny’s a bit disappointed, though, despite the fact that she knows it’s uncharitable. It’s not like she could have expected anything different: she knows that while she’s had some spare moments for dating in the last three years, he certainly hasn’t. And so, her disappointment almost turns to pity.
Almost.
Because she barely has time to register the thought before his mouth is on her, making it up to her. And it’s as if no time has passed at all, because he seems to remember everything she likes: where she wants him to flick his tongue, the exact amount of pressure she wants applied, the exact right moment to insert a finger, the right rhythm to help her get to the apex.
Her body has memories, too. And it knows exactly how to respond to Harry Potter’s skilled mouth.
It would have made for a great story if they spent all night getting reacquainted with one another, stayed up late going again and again like they might have in the early days of their relationship. But life — work, Rowan, socialization — had caught up with them in the intervening years, and they are exhausted with the effort of the day.
Wordlessly, Harry opens his arms and pulls her to him so she can rest her head on the plane of his chest. The anxieties that would have normally haunted them are quiet for once. And yet, as they fall asleep, Ginny has a sinking feeling in her stomach that the respite wouldn’t last. Glancing up at Harry, she notices a peaceful expression, a slight smile, and decides that if he could sleep, she should too. Anything else was Tomorrow Ginny’s problem.