FIVE
They talk more than they have in years. Rather than writing one another for clandestine trysts, an occasional invite to a gathering, or a personal favor, they write with mundane updates. Harry tells Ginny that he’s arranged to not do any fieldwork the week of her next appointment so he can be there; Ginny tells him that she’s pretty sure she’s experienced her first pregnancy craving. Treacle tart, she writes, as if I needed reminding that it’s your kid. Harry shows up with a whole tart that evening, and though they both agree her mum’s is better, they polish the entire dessert off between the two of them, sticking their forks straight into the kraft bakery box.
They spend the night hopped up on sugar and laughing; after the subsequent crash, Harry tucks her into bed. She invites him to join her. There’s no sex — just sleep — and Ginny is surprised she forgot that Harry’s chest was always her favorite pillow. He holds her hair back when she gets sick in the morning, and she makes a joke about how she isn’t sure if it’s morning sickness or an upset stomach from eating too many sweets. He laughs, and just as it always did, his laughter feels like a gift.
It’s nice, the casual intimacy that comes from them sharing this little secret. And yet with every day that passes with them getting closer, they’re both increasingly aware that its time as a secret is running out. Every so often they bring that up, letting the anxiety of it pierce the bubble that they’ve built around themselves.
It’s Harry who suggests, a bit abashed, that they don’t have to admit they weren’t in a relationship when the baby was conceived. “We can just, er, tell everyone it was new,” he proposes, heat running down his neck. And she can’t say she blames him for being embarrassed and nervous, because no Weasley — not her brothers nor her parents — would be particularly keen to learn just how casual the arrangement that led to Ginny’s pregnancy was. She’s embarrassed and nervous, too.
Still, Ginny raises an eyebrow at that. “Can it be called new if my brother caught us five years ago with your hands up my skirt in the broom shed?” The blush creeps all the way to the tips of his ears and she can’t help it: she finds it impossibly adorable.
“Obviously,” he mumbles, “It would be more of a ‘we got back together’ thing.” It wouldn’t work to try to brush over their long history and Harry knows that. He’s not that oblivious.
“Hm,” Ginny muses. “I suppose pretending we weren’t together in front of them does sound like the kind of kink we’d enjoy,” she jokes. She doesn’t think it’s possible for Harry to get any redder, but if he does, surely smoke will come out of his ears and nose.
“We have shared kinks now, do we?” He asks evenly, despite the hue of his skin giving him away.
“We need to come up with some, if we’re going to convince that lot we’re actually a couple,” Ginny jokes. Making fun of her brothers always lightens the mood. And, besides, Harry and Ginny did always have their shared kinks, like the way they have always teased each other in plain sight until finally one of them found it unbearable not to pounce on the other.
It’s an opening to say that they could , in fact, give actually being a couple a go again, but Harry can’t bring himself to take it. If he had to justify it, he’d say that pursuing his feelings for Ginny is less important than sorting out the pregnancy and baby at the moment; that would be a lie, because deep down it’s really more about him being afraid that Ginny will decide he’s more trouble than he’s worth. Again. “We can do that,” he agrees instead.
They’re sitting on her tiny loveseat again, passing a pint of ice cream back and forth as they discuss it, surrounded by the clutter of Ginny’s living room. “D’you think you’ll need a new flat?” Harry asks her lightly. He’s truthfully been thinking about Ginny’s flat and whether it’s suitable for a baby — a lot, actually. There’s barely enough room for a single adult woman; Harry takes an active part in raising his godson, Teddy, so he knows firsthand how much space babies and their things take up.
“I love my flat,” Ginny shrugs. “How much room does a baby need?” It’s clear she thinks the question is rhetorical. “They’re small,” she adds with a shrug, the clear mark that she is the youngest child of seven — by the time she arrived, the house was cramped and cluttered to begin with, and she never needed to make room for one more.
He doesn’t want to pick a fight just yet, so he says: “I was thinking I could make up a nursery at mine.”
Ginny looks at him curiously, head cocked to the side. Now that she thinks of it, they’ve always met up at her place; he’s never made her come to him. “Where are you even living these days?”
Harry looks at her blankly. “Grimmauld,” he tells her, surprised she didn’t already know. “After Ron and Hermione moved in together, it just seemed silly to have this big house I owned that no one lived in? And Merlin, I couldn’t sell the place — no one would buy it! So I fixed it up and…that’s home now.”
She blinks. “So you have this big house in the middle of London…and you live there alone?” It seems rather sad, almost as sad as the prospect of her child spending part of his or her childhood in that dreary old house.
He presses his lips in a thin line and nods. “Yes,” he confirms, raising an eyebrow. “It’s brighter now,” he promises. “And I finally figured out how to get rid of Mrs. Black’s portrait, so it’s even a rather pleasant place to be.”
“Well, if you want my child—”
“Our child,” Harry corrects.
“— to have a nursery there, I think I should probably come see what you’ve done with the place,” Ginny suggests.
“Tomorrow night,” Harry offers.
“It’s a date,” she confirms.
…
It’s odd, Ginny thinks, being back at Grimmauld Place. The last time she was here, she was just a teenager; she couldn’t apparate onto the front step, like she’s doing now, and she feels nervous as she raises her hand to rap her knuckles against the front door. She’s positive that anxiety has nothing to do with Harry, who is just Harry, after all. He’s just her brother’s best mate, the one who stayed at their house most summers and captained the quidditch team that one year and taught her how to produce a corporeal patronus and led her into battle more than once. The very same boy who once kissed her passionately in front of all of Gryffindor, whose body she explored just as surely as they explored the castle, and who she gave her virginity to in the dark days following the war when all she could think was that he almost died before they could do this, before they could be so close. The same man who was the first (and only) she loved, and the love whose heart she broke because she wasn’t sure he could feel love for her as deeply as he felt hurt for himself. And now, the father of her child.
She expects Harry to open the door, but it’s Kreacher who gets there first, with Harry trailing closely behind, shouting that he has it, and Kreacher can go back to relaxing. Kreacher states that it is not a problem to help his master, and Harry orders him to clean the downstairs toilet instead.
“I can’t get rid of him,” Harry frowns apologetically as he invites Ginny in. “When Teddy was a baby, I sent him to Andromeda for a while to help, but he lives to serve ‘Master Harry,’” he makes air quotes while wrinkling his nose. It’s clear that he accepts the elf’s service but finds it all a bit ridiculous. “I ordered food — hope you’re hungry?”
She offers him a weak smile. “Not much of an appetite today,” she responds wanly. “Still sick a lot.”
“Well I’ve seen you get sick,” Harry shrugs, leading her to the kitchen, where the table is piled high with more pizza than two people could possibly eat. “You can’t skip meals in your condition. I didn’t know what toppings you and the baby would fancy, so I got a few options,” he admits sheepishly. There’s a protectiveness in every single point he makes; it makes her extremities feel tingly, a warmth that pools toward her center.
She plasters on a grin and opens each box carefully, making sure none of the pizzas offend her. A box containing pizza topped with mushrooms and olives — who knew the baby hated olives so much? — gets vanished to the sitting room for the time being once it makes her gag. But, as it turns out, the baby is more than happy to try pepperoni and plain cheese, so she and Harry are munching away on the pizza and chatting idly about how Harry got rid of Mrs. Black’s portrait when the door to the kitchen swings open, revealing Hermione.
Hermione looks a bit frazzled, her hair twice its normal volume, and seems surprised to notice Ginny is in the kitchen, eating pizza with Harry. “Oh,” she blinks, a thousand questions present in her stare. She can’t ask any of them aloud, of course, not without revealing to Harry and Ginny what she knows about the situation on either side. And also because she isn’t alone.
“Hullo,” Harry greets her after swallowing a bite. “I thought we agreed we should owl before showing up at each other’s homes?”
“We did,” Hermione agrees, before she’s interrupted by her boyfriend, following her into the room with a slice of the offensive pizza in his hands.
“I knew we were meant to come tonight,” Ron tells Hermione with his mouth full. “Mate, you left a pizza next to your fireplace,” he says to Harry.
“Believe it or not, I knew that was there,” Harry quips, turning to cast a worried glance at Ginny.
It isn’t until Harry looks that direction that Ron even notices his sister is there. “Gin, didn’t expect to see you here,” he notes with obvious surprise.
No sooner is the statement made before Ginny clamps a hand over her mouth, standing with a start. She looks around the room, suddenly aware that she can’t recall where the loo is in this giant house. The panic she feels at this realization causes her nausea to boil over — she stops at the kitchen sink and retches all of the pizza she just consumed there.
Harry follows her at some point, forgetting that Ron and Hermione are even there to witness, and one cool hand pulls her hair out of her face while the other rubs her shoulder soothingly. When Ginny lifts up, feeling better, he points his wand at the sink to clean up and conjures her a glass of water.
Ron, having finished his slice of pizza, reaches into one of the boxes in the kitchen for another. “It’s about time,” he declares, glancing at Hermione for agreement. His assessment of the scene is simply that Ginny felt ill, and also that his best mate and his sister are a couple again.
Hermione, on the other hand, can’t back him up. All of her questions have been answered by that single interaction, and she’s staring at the scene silently, trying to figure out how she can get Ron out of there before he figures it out.
“What?” Ron asks her, not waiting for a response. “So go on, then. When did it happen?”
Harry looks over at Ginny with wide-eyed confusion, as though he’s wondering how Ron Weasley of all people could have ever figured this particular puzzle out — because it’s clear to him that Ron, somehow, has them all figured out. Then again, Molly Weasley had a lot of babies; she could have told her sons the symptoms. Deciding it’s best to come clean, he clears his throat: “Erm, about nine and a half weeks ago.”
Ron laughs happily, and Harry can’t grasp how his friend is possibly so happy about this. He thought Ron would be throwing a killing curse by now. He decides not to question it, though. He probably won’t survive that particular curse a third time.
“Nine and a half weeks,” Ron repeats, laughing. “I knew you were mad for her, mate. Counting the days.” He turns back to Hermione and declares: “Nine and a half weeks!” He chortles as if this is the funniest thing he’s heard in years. Harry flushes a bit, as if something in the statement has hit home, though he’s clearly still confused. “That’s adorable!”
Ginny understands what’s happening and is going to correct Harry — of course it’s been longer, darling — but Hermione swoops in before she can.
“We should leave them to their date, Ronald,” she tells her boyfriend sternly. “I bet Harry wouldn’t mind if we take the pizza in the sitting room with us?”
“All yours,” Harry agrees, looking at Hermione with a questioning look. “Actually, Ron, if you go ahead with the pizza, Hermione, I have something else for you.”
“The document on the Price case?” Hermione asks, thinking quickly.
“That’s it,” Harry agrees. The Price case does not exist, but Ron needn’t know that.
“I can wait for you,” Ron insists, clueless to the fact that his girlfriend and his best mate are trying to get rid of him.
“Just go home, Ron,” Ginny sighs tiredly, moving to steer her brother toward the sitting room. “You lot need to learn boundaries,” she tells the three of them as she pushes Ron toward the door.
“It’s really only Ron who doesn’t know them,” Harry points out. Hermione immediately rolls her eyes, as if to say this isn’t strictly speaking true — Harry showed up at hers out of the blue to discuss Ginny a few weeks ago, after all.
“Are you feeling better, Gin?” Ron asks, not taking the final step out the door.
“‘Course I am,” she tells him haughtily. “The sight of you eating just really is that disgusting.” She continues to shoo him out the door as Harry and Hermione move to discuss in the pantry.
Ginny watches as her brother disappears into the floo before meeting them there. “You don’t need to make up any stories for her, Harry,” Ginny sighs, leaning tiredly against the pantry door. “She knows.”
Harry’s mouth opens, then closes. He looks as though he’s been caught with his hand in the biscuit box. “How do you know she knows?”
“Know what?” Hermione pipes in, and it really is a valid question; Hermione knows plenty of things she’s sure one or both of them do not.
“You know that I’m pregnant,” Ginny tells her in a tone that carries an implicit duh.
“Right, but how do you know she knows?” Harry repeats.
Ginny cocks her head confusedly. “Because I told her,” she tells him blankly.
“You told her?” Harry responds, looking between the two women, puzzled.
Ginny mistakes his expression for hurt. “Well I needed to talk to someone who had any clue what to do,” she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air. “Who else could have helped me find a muggle ostamagician?”
“Obstetrician,” Hermione corrects quietly.
Harry would concede she has a point, but that leads to another question, this one for Hermione: “So when you and I were talking — you already knew everything?”
“You told her?” Ginny asks, sounding genuinely affronted.
“Well, I had to talk to someone who actually knew what a bloke’s supposed to do in a situation like this,” Harry protests. “It’s not like I could talk to Ron, could I?”
Both Harry and Ginny turn to look at Hermione. Hermione musters her most cheerful smile, worried that if she stays any longer, she’ll end up more in the middle of this than she ever intended to be. “I never told either of you anything the other told me in confidence,” she points out diplomatically. “I was just a supportive sounding board for both of you.”
Harry and Ginny stare at each other as they consider this quietly, gazes hard in a way that makes Hermione uncomfortable: she’s not sure whether they’re about to duel or have sex, and either way, she doesn’t want to watch.
Ginny speaks first. “So obviously my brother is thick and didn’t catch on. That’s good. We should keep it that way.” She turns to Hermione. “Convince him the nine and a half weeks thing was a joke, and it’s actually been four months.”
“Why?” Harry wonders aloud. “He thought we were just talking about when we got back together?”
“So you are back together?” Hermione clarifies.
“No,” Harry and Ginny answer together.
“We’ve got bigger issues to focus on,” Harry points out, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. “Like becoming responsible for a tiny human.”
Ginny doesn’t know if she should read into the fact that he already had a reason for not being together, even though she supposes she’d have the same one. “But we’re going to say we are, to smooth things over when we tell everyone,” she explains.
“So you did decide to keep the baby?” Hermione clarifies. The other two nod.
“Anyway, once they know I’m pregnant, they’ll ask when I’m due. And my mom will count back from May and if Ron says we’ve been together for thirteen and three-fifths of a week or whatever daft thing he comes up with, she’ll assume I got pregnant the moment we got back together. And that defeats the point, Harry, doesn’t it?”
Harry seems to be considering this. Hermione looks between her two friends and decides she doesn’t want to know the details of the tangled, elaborate web of lies they’re building; she can’t be caught in them when they inevitably get knocked down. “Well, you don’t need me anymore, so I’m just going to leave,” she informs them brightly. “Ron will wonder why the Price case is taking so long…”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Harry tells her firmly.
“We need the brightest witch of our age to help us come up with a plan,” Ginny agrees, steering her toward the kitchen table. “You’re in this now.”
Hermione feels, frankly, overqualified for this role. Certainly both Harry and Ginny are skilled and clever enough to pull off a bit of deception. But, obligingly, she sits. She’s never been able to watch two trains move toward each other at full speed without at least trying to stop it.