Days After Death

“Sorry to call you in, I know how busy you are with Becker and those Sight members,” Hermione tells him one evening. She spares a glance at the clock hanging on her wall. “I’m busy too, so I promise I’ll be quick.”

“It’s no worry. I wanted to talk with you too, actually.”

“Sure, sure.”

Harry closes the door to her office. His eyes have been itching all day– he swore when he stepped into her office, there had been two of her. But as he sits down on the chair across from her desk, she reforms again, in perfect outline. The front of her hair is braided to the back, where it poofs into her natural, thick curls. There’s a permanent wrinkle between Hermione’s brows, caused by constantly furrowing them at someone inefficient, or squinting at a piece of parchment, as she’s doing now.

She looks more dressed up today. She’s wearing hints of makeup and her jewellery is eye-catching– chunky ruby earrings and a gold necklace. Harry chalks it up to an important meeting she has with some important person. It usually is.

Hermione waves a belated, dismissive hand at him.

“I figured out the acronym,” she says. “E.A.”

He lifts a brow, “Oh?”

Better to let Hermione get everything out first, only then will she listen to me.

She then lets out a string of rounded sounds that Harry is much too tired to decipher.

“What?” he rubs at his eyes.

She repeats it again, looking excited. Her smile vanishes when she only gets Harry’s blank stare in response, and she holds up a piece of parchment outlined in black ink.

Eigenmächtig Abwesend.

“I think you pronounced that wrong,” Harry comments, and Hermione’s frown twists and deepens as she slams the paper back down.

“I pronounced that perfectly fine, I had Mister Freudenberg from the Department–”

“Hermione, just tell me what it means.”

She straightens in her seat, which is Harry’s only sign to get comfortable.

“Abwesend means absent, so eigenmächtig abwesend refers to a phrase of being absent without authorisation. Similar to how we English folk would use AWOL.” She scowls at the phrase on the parchment then, as if it had deeply offended her. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s too obvious. I mean, I brought in Frueden– well, you don’t care, but I brought in several translators, linguistic specialists, analysts, you name it. I brought them all in, and, well, Freudenberg works in the Centaur Liaison Office as a runner’s boy. He has no relevant experience to this case besides the fact that he’s native to Germany, where the Owls’ HQ happens to be. And I brought him in before anyone else, and he told me exactly what I’m telling you. The standard definition of E.A. And I know it’s too obvious. And it may not work separately to whatever ‘Shattered’ means, but when I ran checks on the interrogation tape Becker had with Seamus, and when I triple-checked the papers he wrote on it, every instance in which Becker uses E.A. seemed compatible with what we would use for AWOL. Perhaps they’re hiding something underneath it, changing the acronym to mean something else to confuse us, or distracting our attention.”

“Perhaps it’s not even important,” Harry says, crossing his arms.

This makes Hermione pause and scrutinise him. Here, finally, she seems to be recognising his sour mood.

“You never would say something small is unimportant,” she teases dryly, not much humour in her voice. “What’s wrong? You want a toffee?”

Harry sighs, shaking his head, but Hermione ignores him and beelines to the jar on the shelf behind her, swiping two sweets from it. She extends a hand out and drops one of the toffees into Harry’s lap, before unwrapping the plastic off the other and stuffing it in her mouth. Harry supposes Hermione just fancied an excuse to steal a sweet, he doesn’t know why she keeps such a dangerous jar here. To test her resolve? It’s clearly not very strong.

“Well, I’m very busy,” she gestures at him, “so tell me, did your team get an idea of what ‘Shattered’ could mean?”

“What?” Harry blinks. “Well– Becker’s not being so helpful.”

Becker’s about to be checked into St Mungos after Civers now. Harry’s team won’t have much power over him after that. Besides, there’s Monrow’s case to deal with now. Such a nuisance.

“Lily thinks it’s a metaphor for– I don’t know, ‘shattering’ the current system,” he says in air quotes. He thinks about how the Death Eaters had voluntarily named themselves as such. “It’s so stupid it might be it.”

Hermione shoots another wayward glance at the clock.

“Shoot,” she says. “I have something on soon, how do I look?”

The two phrases astound Harry somewhat. Hermione’s never really cared much for how she’s looked for meetings. Maybe when she first started in the office, she was (she used to second guess everything behind closed doors), but nowadays she’s got her look down pat. She’s always formal, always dressed in such a way that makes her seem impenetrable. Harry and her are now veterans at the Ministry, not the young upstarts they used to be. It’s not like they have much to fear here.

“What do you have on?” Harry asks, narrowing his eyes. “You said I’d be allowed to talk to you too.”

She blinks owlishly at him.

“I did?”

Harry only frowns in response, and Hermione relaxes back in her chair, gesturing hurriedly at him.

“Okay, okay,” she says, “tell me then.”

“It’s about Civers. I reached out to our Danish embassy a week or so ago about repossession over Civers, and–”

“Doesn’t Civers need to recalibrate remotely?” Hermione interjects. “Away from the case, if I remember the report St Mungos handed–”

“Are you in a rush or not?” Harry snaps at her, and Hermione shuts her mouth. It’s a miracle. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Denmark refuses to hand her back–”

“Doesn’t surprise me!” Hermione exclaims haughtily. “That Danish Minister is some piece of work.”

This time, Harry decides to just glare at her until she catches on. Hermione crosses her arms and frowns at him.

“They’re running their own investigation on ethromorphis victims to understand its effects,” Harry continues sourly. “So it’s not like Civers is re-calibrating as nicely as Mungos thinks she is. But she is still an English citizen. So you can override the hospital and demand for her to come back. Easy.”

Hermione blinks at him, her brows furrowed again as if she’s trying to figure out if he’s serious or genuinely as stupid as he lets on. It’s usually the latter.

“Easy?” she repeats. “I’d have to issue a warrant for her. You want me to take this international. I may even have to organise a meeting with the Prime Minister to get her back.”

“Why? She’s your citizen.”

“I need to mobilise something, Harry. Because if Denmark refused you, they might–”

“But you’re the Minister! Not just some auror.”

Hermione sighs, aggressively swirling the toffee around in her mouth as she shuts her eyes and breathes. Harry knows not to interrupt her lest he get a hex fired his way.

“Why do you want Civers here so bad?” Hermione asks. “You have a drug ring and a murder case on your hands. And yet you want Civers. Why? Because of that tattoo she has?”

Harry purses his lips. They’ve had this disagreement before and it never gets them anywhere. It’s why Harry didn’t want to bring her tattoo up. But now here it is, in the open, and Harry has been so tired recently, he’s not so sure he has the fortitude to lie to Hermione now.

“You haven’t even seen what it looked like,” he grumbles, placing the toffee on his lap back on her desk and crossing his arms.

“I have, actually,” Hermione says. “I had one of the staff take photos of it and send it through to me. That and the Dark Mark are not the same.” Hermione’s face softens into something a little more hurt than before. “You don’t think I take Voldemort seriously? After what I had to go through too? Of course, if I thought there was true cause for concern, I’d look into it. But there’s nothing that bears resemblance to it besides the skull and the snake.”

“And the arm,” Harry adds, voice dangerous and low. “Skull, snake, arm. Seems like enough of the main components for me.”

“It’s troubling you think that.”

“It’s troubling you don’t.”

Before Hermione can say much more, the door bursts open.

It’s not Ron that Harry notices first, it’s the fact that Ron’s wearing a finely pressed suit. Maroon. Tie. Slacks. Everything. His hair is even combe and he looks freshly shaved. One arm is propping the door open, the other is holding a bouquet of flowers. Flowers.

He blinks at Harry as if he’s the one who isn’t supposed to be here.

“Oh, hey Harry,” Ron tries to save himself, clearing his throat. His face is still loose with surprise– usually the cause of such hilarity since Ron could never learn how to control his expressions.

“You look fancy,” Harry says, and perhaps his voice sounds a little too sour because Ron grimaces at that.

He shares some convoluted look with Hermione, one Harry’s too pissed off to dissect, before saying, “You two look busy, so–”

“No,” Harry and Hermione both say for different reasons.

“I think I’m the one intruding,” Harry grumbles, just when Hermione gets up and says, “No, no, I can leave now.”

Ron makes a messy hand gesture between the two of them.

“All I know is that it goes to shit when you two fight, and I’d much rather take an in-depth jog around the offices than be dragged into it.” Ron’s joking, but he’s looking at Hermione quite softly, as if to reassure her. Judging from how she’s standing, hands intertwined together– fidgeting– it looks as if she doesn’t want to let him down. Or she’s extremely nervous. Is she afraid Ron will get mad at her?

Harry snorts at the thought, relating.

“Okay, okay,” Hermione sits back down again. “We’ll be quick. I promise.”

“It’s fine Mione,” Ron says lightly, leaving the bouquet on a side table beside the door and giving Harry a once-over. “Don’t hold my wife hostage too long.”

Harry decidedly doesn’t answer. He turns around, can see Hermione shooting Ron a shrug over his shoulder, and hears Ron leave.

Hermione lets out a sigh.

“I’m not going to entertain the thought of Civers being a Death Eater,” she says.

“Fine,” Harry responds curtly.

“Is there anything else you’d like to–?”

“Rose’s autopsy.”

“Ah. Okay.” Normally this would pique Hermonie, but she looks a little deflated now. Still engaged in conversation, but Harry can tell her mind is on the verge of spinning off. He just doesn’t know if it’s the helpful kind of spinning.

“She found out that Monrow’s wounds were inflicted by magic. The wounds were inflicted at the same time, at the same length, in multiple areas on the lower half of his body. Furthermore, she found that the spell cast on him had attacked his blood cells in the places where he had been bleeding, especially in the lower region, leaving him somewhat disabled. Monrow seemed to have died by bleeding out, meaning it was slow and painful– but when my team ran over the crime scene, we found that he hadn’t moved from his spot near when he was attacked, meaning he either couldn’t or didn’t want to. Obviously, we assume the first.”

“So this murderer has a spell that can violently disable people,” Hermione sighed. “Great. What else?”

“The Danish embassy.”

“Harry–” Hermione started, warningly.

“It’s not about Civers. It’s about the Sight. I got Lily to be in touch with the Danish team in charge of the Owls, and she found they had a victim who had incurred similar wounds as Monrow. Stab-like wounds, disabled, although the aurors got to the victim in time to gather key details before they died. A member of The Sight was arrested as a suspect in the murder, per the victim’s last words.”

Hermione’s eyes widened, “Kelsier’s group?”

Harry nodded, “Yes. From what we know, this Sight member’s a delusional lackey, but–”

The clock on the wall rang very loudly twice, the wooden frame it was in shaking as if the object were alive. Harry flinched, always taken aback by what odd things Hermione held in her office voluntarily. Hermione, of course, was unfazed, though frazzled. She ran a hand over her curly cloud of hair, standing up again.

“Okay, okay,” she said, “I’m really in a rush now. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”

“What?” Harry scowled, opening his hands.

“Just send the rest through to Nero.”

“Hermione, this is more important than you and Ron’s date night,” Harry growled, standing too.

“And I’ll be right back on the case first thing tomorrow,” she says briskly. “Besides, Harry, I think you may need a break too.”

“Excuse me?”

Where did the Minister go off telling him not to overwork himself? He honestly believed Hermione had more of a stomach than everyone else for it, he thought she understood.

These changes– Luna, Dean and Seamus, Hermione and Ron, everything– had been slowly mounting on top of each other, irrational fears shaking a larger monument he had built for himself, and now Hermione was walking over adding a purposeful kick to the fragile pyramid. Not only was it unfair, it was hypocritical.

“Suddenly everything’s fine with you and Ron, you feel the need to go passing judgement on my life,” he says, quite spitefully. He can hear the insecurity in his voice too. It sounded pathetic.

“I’m not passing judgement.” Hermione says it patiently, in a tone he’s seen directed to Rose and Hugo many times in their youth when they tried to rebel. Her ‘talking-to-children’ voice. “It’s an observation, is all. A really obvious one.”

“Why do you suddenly care?”

“Because,” she throws her hands up, gesturing at the door, “you’re right. About Ron and I. We’re fine now, but we haven’t been fine for quite some time.”

Harry squirms in his seat uncomfortably. Despite him being the one to bring the topic up, he doesn’t know if he wants to broach it. It’s already starting to feel like a sore spot, but Hermione doesn’t seem to care what Harry feels. She comes over and leans on her desk, like a mentor to a student. It should have irritated him more than it made him feel small.

“Don’t talk about this with me,” he says, waving her off. He goes to stand. “Go on your date.”

“No– I’ve changed my mind. Sit right there.”

Now she’s using her Minister’s tone on him. It pisses Harry off immensely.

“Hermione–” he grounds out.

“It will be quick. It can go in one ear and out the other. But I must say it at least once.”

Fuck. He’d rather get lectured about paperwork than whatever’s coming.

“I’m not in the mood,” Harry says curtly.

“You’re acting like Seamus,” she says lowly. A heavy pause passes between them. Harry can’t think of something to shoot back with. “Just listen to me this once.”

He waits, still posed to promptly push out of the chair and flee the office if anything sets him off. Once Hermione notices that he’s not going to relax, she simply starts.

“You seem to have the opinion that things just stay as is once you've secured the happy ending. But a happy ending is something you have to continually fight for. There are no checkpoints in life. You just keep trying, over and over, until one day you die– and hopefully it won't matter, because you've looked back on it and been satisfied that it ended in a good spot."

“Jesus Hermione.”

“Maybe a younger me would try and micromanage your relationship with Ginny.” Harry tries to interrupt but Hermione determinedly raises a finger at him. “No! Don't try to deny it! It's obvious, even Ron can see it and he makes efforts to keep his nose out of the two of your business. But now, I don't care what happens between you two. If you want to throw it all to the flames for that badge, then fine. But I won't do that with Ron. We’re not going to end up like Dean and Seamus.”

“What a riveting cautionary tale,” Harry grumbles. The Head Auror badge pinned to his breast feels as if it's burning, and Harry can’t help but feel Hermione’s just smacked him with a meaty wodge of hypocrisy. “Are you quite finished?”

A flash of hurt flitters across Hermione’s face, but she leans back in her chair and says, “Yes.”

But the way she’s looking at him expectantly, like she knows he’s not finished with her… And he’s not. The insults he can throw back at her stack on top of each other, like building pressure behind his eyes.

“You two are going to end up like every one of us miserable bastards,” he spits at her. “It’s already happening in front of you. Do you really think the problem can be fixed with a few nice dinners? That’s why you’re in counselling? You want to talk about the badge I don? You’re worse, Hermione. A hundred times over.”

And we had a deal, he wants to yell at her. An unspoken one, but a deal nonetheless. They were the same. They always hungered for something more. A husband or a wife couldn’t fix it. He thought it would. Did he ever give it a chance?

They weren’t supposed to do this. Bring this up and shove it in each other’s faces. But the most irritating part about Hermione was that she always preferred the view from above. And it was the same thing here, in her fucking office.

She swallows harshly. Then lets out a shaky sigh. Harry makes to leave, but then Hermione says, “I never thought you’d have the wrong idea about us, of all people. But here we are.”

He pauses. He should leave, he knows she’s just trying to bait him, but he can’t help it.

“Excuse me?” he grits.

When he looks back at her, she’s composed again. Legs crossed and hands folded over her lap.

“You think Ron and I being in counselling is a sign that shows our relationship going downhill when it’s not. It’s the opposite. We love each other too much to let our pride ruin us.”

Harry hesitates. He knows being husband and wife means having secrets privy to no one else. He knows that Ron and Hermione have grown to be each other’s best friends rather than his own.

Hermione seems to read his mind. Even after all these years. Even when she probably hates him right now.

“You have Ginny,” she says gently.

Ginny. Of course, it’s always Ginny.

“Ginny hates me,” he says plainly. He doesn’t mean to say it, or throw her his biggest vulnerability like it’s a bone. But it’s true. It’s been so painfully true. He doesn't know when it happened– he doesn’t want to think about it either. If he can ascribe a reason to it, he doesn’t think he can ever move on from it.

“I don’t think so,” Hermione stands too.

“You don’t…” he sucks in a breath. The floor feels a little less steady beneath him. “You don’t… see what we’re like. We don’t see each other anymore.”

We no longer understand.

Hermione, to her credit, doesn't look like she hates Harry for the cruel things he’s spouted. She doesn’t throw the weaknesses he’s let show back through his heart. She leaves the broken shards where they are.

“That’s true, both of you have grown very hard-headed with age.” But then she gives him a small smile. “I don’t think you see her. How she still cares. She wouldn’t be so angry if she didn’t care.”

Harry looks to the ground. He doesn’t want to think about it… and yet.

It’s Hermione. His best friend.

He sighs. Drops back into the chair like he’s knackered. He is.

She leans against the table and crosses her arms.

“I just… I don’t know how it happened,” he says pathetically.

She softens.

“We didn’t know either,” she says quietly. “Or, at least I didn’t. I didn’t know how much I’d lost him because I was never around to see how hurt he was by me not being there. He developed these… these ways of coping that made me believe the man I’d fallen in love with and married had washed away through the years I spent in the office rather than home. He’d– he wasn’t even mean. Just… distant. Closed off.”

Harry raises a brow at that. Fine. Maybe he had been denying his curiosity to prioritise his self-preservation.

“Ron?” he says incredulously. “Closed off?” He’s the most emotional person Harry knows, especially when it comes to Hermione.

“It’s terrifying to think of, right?” Hermione agrees. “And, yes, I know it’s not completely my fault. He was shit at communicating– well, we both were quite bad at where our priorities lay. I was always focused on running the country, him on the kids, which is understandable, it’s fine, it’s what we agreed to at the start of all this, years ago. But, I guess we got too caught up in it. You know us– we’re both so stubborn and prideful, we never like to ask for help. I guess somewhere along the lines all the work we had both done on ourselves had unravelled. It was just too much. And it never calmed down. But I didn’t have to run for Minister again after the first term, nor the second term.

“You know, it was I who pushed to see a counsellor. Ron and I had had this terrible row– I can’t even remember what about– and I had to throw in the option. Only after I blurted it out did I realise how badly I wanted our old relationship back. I hadn’t even realised how much I missed him until then. Yes, he’d always supported and helped me when work got difficult, but I missed his love. The romance of it all, you know. He used to be so romantic. You remember the flowers he would time to be sent on my lunch break during my first term?” She casts a fond look at the flowers on the table. “He stopped when I started skipping my breaks and having them at irregular times. Instead, he’d wait for me to get home, and then surprise me with flowers and dinner because we never had enough time to go out ourselves. And then… Well, at the end of the term there had been those werewolf attacks, and that coupled with campaigning had made it so busy that I… I kept forgetting to go home. I’d sleep in my office, wake up and get right back to work. So the flowers stopped entirely and he stopped waiting up for me. Dinner was kept on a plate in the microwave, and then he stopped setting out a plate for me and kept it in the pot, and then he stopped leaving the food out and stored it in the fridge. And then he’d get used to only making food for three.”

Hermione runs a hand down her face, as if speaking about all of this is physically taxing on her.

Harry looks down at the floor, “You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.”

“I know you’re curious, Harry,” Hermione says flatly, tilting her head. “Rose said you were prying with her.”

Harry felt his cheeks warm, “She told you?”

Suddenly looking sheepish, Hermione shook her head.

“No, she told Ron. Rose doesn’t tell me much– which is something else I need to work on. I know that. Anyway, anyway. I want you to know.” Her voice becomes firm once more. “You’re my best friend. And this whole thing has a happy ending. Because, you know, even though Ron shits on therapy and stuff all the time, and he got very offended the first time I suggested we get some outside help, at the end of the day, he wanted the same thing I did. He wanted for us to be in love again, and so we went to a counsellor. She probed at our weak spots, we both got defensive, we both started to hate her a little, I think. But we never skipped out on a meeting. I was scared because we had started to fight even more. Maybe it wasn’t working? But these fights were different– they always ended in talking. And then they started to end in apologising and then–” Hermione waves a hand. “It doesn’t matter. We slowly stopped, and we’re– we’re going out more.” Here, she gets shy. “I still love him. He still loves me. But if anything has shown me the truth about it, it’s that you can’t just run solely on love in a relationship. There’s constant effort, constant growth, constant stepping on each other’s toes. It’s just how it is. But for Ron, it’s worth it. More than this job, anyway.”

Harry furrows his brows, trying and failing to distance himself from the topic. When it comes to Ron and Hermione, he’ll always care.

“I’m happy for the two of you,” he says. “But your relationship isn’t like Ginny’s and mine’s. I love Ron, but he’s always needed… more from people. But Ginny’s strong.”

“So? That’s not the same as happy.”

He thinks about his wife then, and it shocks him how he’s learned to cut off any thoughts of her at the nape.

He used to think about Ginny all the time when he first started his job. The only thing that ever made him afraid of dying was her– how she’d react to it, how he’d have to leave her, how she’d grow old without him. It was selfish, but the thought of not being around enough to be hers– her man– scared him more than the actual consequence of dying. He’d hold himself back on bigger missions to save himself for her games, to be back in time for curfew. It had gotten him into so much shit with some of his past bosses, that somewhere down the line, she had told him it was okay to go off on his limb, and she’d wait for him when he got back. Maybe the problem was believing her too much, or taking that promise too far.

Ginny was his biggest weakness. Maybe his children were too. But at the end of the day, every cut, every bruise, every late night had only bothered him because of Ginny.

When was the last time he had taken her out? When was the last time he had given her flowers?

His throat closed instantly, and Harry thought, Shit. Is thinking about my wife being happy that heartbreaking?

“I don’t want the two of you to end up like Dean and Seamus,” Hermione said sadly, snapping Harry’s attention back. “They’re still in love, you know. Dean always writes to me to ask how Seamus is doing, because he can’t bear to write to him and ask. Seamus refuses to go home from the office until Dean comes back. Ron caught him in some motel near a Ministry port. They’re a fucking mess.”

Harry’s quiet for a moment.

“Is Dean going to leave him?” he asks finally. He’s obviously not an expert, but rarely has he heard of a reunion after the separation process begins. Hermione looks equally doubtful.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I hope so, but I don’t know. Either way, Dean isn’t my best friend. Neither is Seamus.”

“Okay, okay. I get it,” Harry sighs.

He knew Hermione was right, deep down, like she always is. Perhaps he and she had been enabling each other’s delusions for too long.

But he thinks about Ginny, and he’s known there’d been a problem for a while now. They both have. Why hadn’t either of them tried to do something earlier?

“Neither of us knew,” he says aloud, causing Hermione to nod sagely, misunderstanding.

“They always seemed like such a strong couple. Even since Hogwarts both of them seemed made for each other,” she sighs.

“No– I’m not talking about Dean and Seamus,” Harry says. “Ginny and I– we don’t know how to get back to normal.”

“You could try counselling, but I know it’s not for everyone.”

“Maybe…” Harry trails off, thinking hard. “Maybe I could ask her out?” He blushes. “If she’s not busy. I don’t know, might seem stupid but… I can’t remember the last time the two of us–”

Ron bursts in again and it’s as dramatic as the first time.

He visibly deflates when he sees Harry, saying, “Oh, you’re still here.”

“Nice to see you too.”

“Better mood, I see. Finally greeting me.”

Hermione scoffs, “You two have the worst quarrelling out of all of us. I don’t know where you go pointing fingers at Harry and me.”

“Maybe the worst of us would be the two who are actually married and have been acting like that since they were eleven,” Harry huffs.

“So you and Ron then.”

“Sod off.”

“Oi,” Ron interrupts, grabbing his discarded flowers by the door, “stop hassling my wife. We need to piss off. We’ve got a booking.”

“Wait,” Harry stood up quickly, an idea popping into his mind at the last moment. “Ron, you’re romantic, right? How did you convince Hermione to go out with you again?”

Hermione blanches, and Ron’s red brows shoot up and disappear into the sweep of his hair.

“Wishing you had some of my charms, hey?” The shit-eating grin makes Harry roll his eyes and turn back around in his chair with a huff. Ron jostles the back of his seat teasingly. “They call me the romance Master–”

“‘They’ call you nothing of the sort,” Hermione cuts him off.

She stands up, flicking some imperceivable specks off of her cleanly pressed suit jacket, all very primp. Ron, on the other hand, ambles over to her and throws an arm around her waist. He shoots her a look that has Harry looking at the ground for a moment, suddenly feeling like he’s back at the tail-end of his Hogwarts years.

“She didn’t need much convincing, mate,” he says.

Hermione slaps his arm, making him laugh brightly. He leans down and smacks a clumsy kiss on her cheek, and even though her face is still stern, Harry watches as her body softens, which suddenly makes him feel the teenage urge to gag. More than that, he feels a simmering jealousy that boils at the pit of his stomach, and continues to uncomfortably prod at him well long after Ron and Hermione have left for their date night.

He trudges back to his office, a little miserable, with nothing to show for his meeting with Hermione, and finds there’s almost no one to report back to. Beatrice had the day off. Lily and Harold have both gone home. Harry caught Andy in the hall, slugging on his jacket and shooting Harry a friendly grin and salute.

“See ya tomorrow, boss,” he bids.

When Harry passes the team’s room to pace to his office, he finds the only one still in is Seamus.

They haven’t been talking since Harry had asked about Dean. Seamus hasn’t really been talking much at all. He doesn’t know if he can entirely attribute that to their conversation– Seamus is constantly in the office, working late hours, skipping meals to rife through the multitudes of paperwork. In all honesty, it’s a large part of why the department has been able to get so much done in the past three days.

Harry’s worried for him, but he knows Seamus could give less of a shit how Harry feels.

Looking at him feels different now. And through all the years of working together, Harry can’t say he’s felt more concerned for Seamus than ever before. When he looks at him, head against his folded arms on the desk, face buried between with telling snores escaping through the space, Harry sees a younger version of him. Not an upstart auror, but when he was first given the title of Head Auror. Work had completely swamped him, and he had allowed it, thinking the recent end of Ginny’s Quidditch career could afford him more time in the office and less at home. Somehow, the years have been swindled from him, but he’s managed to sustain his role for three elections.

He tries to imagine Seamus as the new Head Auror, and it’s almost incredible how vivid the image is to him. He could take it from Harry right now, and he’d doubt the department would suffer any major losses.

The thought, despite the truth of it, feels clinically distant. Harry regards it as he would an alluring but common jewel. He turns it over curiously, feeling its coolness seep into the warmth of his palm. Then he discards it. He’s never had an eye for ostentatious things. It’s surprising he’s held on to the title for so long– not having anybody steal it from under his feet, not having the strength to let it go and let himself fall. There’s nowhere to climb once you’ve made it to the top.

Ginny is upstairs in her study and Harry has broken into a cold sweat. He’s got a tight fist around the bouquet of flowers, and he only loosens when he fears crushing the stems.

Ridiculous. He wants to slap himself. She probably won’t even like these.

On the other hand, Harry’s written down dot points on why she should accept going on dates with him. He doesn’t give a shit what Ron says. Hermione may not need to be convinced, but also, Ron doesn’t have a history of continuously trading his family for his job.

Fuck, he’s nervous. He can’t think like that or he’d never work up the courage to go up to her. It was stressful enough trying to buy Ginny flowers without overthinking the entire ordeal. Such a stereotypical gift… The shopkeeper told him that flowers represented sentiment, that that was what women loved so dearly about them, but of course the shopkeeper trying to sell him a product would say that.

He’d gotten her tulips. Because they were the prettiest. And he knows Ginny had a dislike for roses. Overdone and had an overwhelming smell to them, apparently. Harry didn’t care. If she didn’t throw the bouquet back at his face he’d consider it a win.

After he had bought them, Harry had panicked on his walk out and had hurriedly jotted smudged words down on his palm to rebut whatever impending arguments Ginny would fire at him.

sad or in love forever??

Because clearly something had been preventing them from officially snapping it off. Pride maybe? It was more for him. He hoped it was more for her.

i know places.

He was an auror… he was widely travelled. Sure, it was probably a little morally incompetent for him to appreciate a mountainside cafe when pursuing a giant gang or the 50s-style diner beside the drive-in across the dingy apartment where his team had busted a local ring, but no one could sue him.

no kids at home after.

He definitely will not be saying that to her.

we can be fun again.

He sighs and looks away.

He goes up the stairs, telling himself he’s ridiculous for the dramatics. Telling himself he’s absolutely not going to look at his hand when he asks his wife out like he’s reading off a script. Barely a script. Probably would lead him astray more than anything.

“For the last time Mr Dingy, I can’t sell these scripts. Please find a different publication to sell to and stop bothering me anymore! Good day!” Ginny grits out the last part as if she’s putting a generational curse on him.

The Howler seals itself and folds over into a red-printed envelope. Ginny sighs and stamps it with the Daily Prophet’s gold seal.

Harry leans against the doorframe, “Dingy?”

“Don’t ask.” Running a hand down the front of her lined face, she shoots him a once-over but doesn’t seem to catch the flowers, or really care. Her voice is drawn out, and he can tell she’s tired. He wonders if now's the right time. “How was work?”

“Not the best,” he admits. “We still don’t have anything concrete– we know it’s the Owls, we just have no standout suspects–”

He cuts himself off, although Ginny seems to be following along through tired eyes. Murder cases are nothing new to him. Neither is ranting to Ginny about his cases when she asks about it. He has always been more willing to share on his job than she has been.

It makes him recall something she said to him once. Years ago, in her childhood room, but he can’t remember the exact date or the context.

It’s okay if you don’t want to talk, Harry.

It’s okay if you do.

He had always just assumed that maybe she wasn’t the person to talk about much willingly. He had always assumed he was. But being private and being defensive were two different things, he supposes. Still, he’s quite out of practice.

Ginny has both her brows raised at the long pause that drifts through the room after Harry cuts himself off. He clears his throat.

“Um,” his voice cracks, and he almost cringes, but pushes through, “there’s this nice pasta place a little walk away from the department’s mountain base.” He gestures vaguely. “The town’s called Keswick. Really cool to check out. I mean, haven’t done so properly since I was busy chasing poachers when I was there but– would’ve loved to stick around for a bit.”

“Uh-huh,” Ginny says non committedly, glancing at the clock. It’s a bit late, but not drastically so. Yet her eyes are droopy and her shoulders are slouched. “You’ll get to eventually.”

A part of him just wants to agree with her and run away. She really does not seem to be in the mood…

“You remember La Grandezza on the corner of Chapel and Ponsdale Street?” he blurts.

It’s not like him to skirt around a topic so much, not like her to accept dallying, but he doesn’t feel she’ll like the question sprung on her out of nowhere.

Ginny, however, instead of being irritated, looks somewhat surprised. Her eyes snap to the tulips that are half hidden by the doorway, finally taking proper notice of it.

“Our pasta place?” she asks bluntly.

It makes his chest warm a bit, the way she still thinks of it as theirs. La Grandezza closed years ago, but Harry’d take her there before they had children, because Ginny liked the way they made their meatballs. They closed down around the same time Harry was promoted as an Auror, a little after Albus was born. They’d promised to find a replacement joint but… life got busy.

“I heard Keswick has prime meatballs. Maybe not, you know, as convenient as La Grandezza was but– it could be something. Good getaway for a bit. You know.”

Ginny stares at him. At least she seems awake now.

“Do you want to go?” he asks her.

“Yeah,” she says.

“I mean, you want to go with me?”

“Who else would I go with?” she asks.

Now he stares at her.

“Right,” he swallows.

He hates to admit it to himself… hates to think there’s more coming. It’s been difficult with her, they haven’t tuned in to each other for who knows how long. He certainly hadn’t been counting. He’d thought if he just didn’t know it wouldn’t hurt as much.

But could it have been as easy as asking all this time?

Ginny turns back to her desk, shuffling the papers spread across from it into a messy, unorganised stack. Her hair glows like an old fire in the lamplight, and her fingertips are stained with ink when she pulls back.

“Just let me know when you’re free,” she says, in the same tired, nonchalant voice, completely unaware of how he’s sweating bullets. Jeez, he can’t even remember how he summoned up the courage to ask her to marry him.

“The weekend,” he manages to say, and this time, she does look a little shocked.

“This weekend?” she clarifies.

“Unless you’re not free.”

“No– no, I am. I am free.” She averts her eyes, and this time, Harry can see the rosiness on her cheeks. He watches it spread across her jaw, slightly entranced. It’s like a crack in armour, and Ginny never cracks. “Just… don’t you have a murder case on your hands?”

“I can make the time.” It’s the most confident he’s sounded all night. Probably because he is.

I don’t want to keep fighting you and making temporary peace. I don’t want to believe you don’t love me anymore, even though I do. I don’t want to keep convincing myself we’re not important just so I don’t feel like I’m about to blow up any moment. How did I lose your love in the first place? How can I even ask?

So much for that confidence.

Now he turns away– which he shouldn’t, since she’s clearly finding it difficult to believe he’d make time for her.

“Okay, this weekend,” she says, though she’s dubious about it. “If you want I can book for–”

“No need. It’s my date. I’ll organise it.”

He thrusts the tulips at her and she catches it by instinct, if anything. She blinks at the bouquet, the two seconds it takes for her to register them stretching on decades for him as he awaits her verdict.

She hates them, he thinks.

“Well,” she sniffs, “at least they’re not roses.”

Her smile is shy. Instead of responding to her, he all but flees.

He’s been dead before. He’s defeated the evillest, most feared wizard known to mankind. He’s battled basilisks and raced dragons and held secret meetings to his classmates under an organisation he founded.

But asking the woman he’s been married to out on a date is going to kill him for real. Better than any puny killing curse could.

An hour or so later, Lily walks in on him scrubbing the stove clean the Muggle way– sleeves rolled up to his elbows to avoid the grease, fingers aching as he toils away at each charred groove. She frowns, worried. For a moment, they look at each other.

“You act as if she told you to shove your tulips up your arse,” she laughs.

He snorts as she plops herself down on a stool facing the kitchen counter. There’s a familiar smirk on her face.

“Need girl advice?” she asks, ticking off her fingers before he can answer. “Say she’s pretty no matter what she wears the night of. Pay for the date. It doesn’t matter if you two have a joint account now. Don’t talk too much about yourself–”

“Shh! She could hear you!” he frets. He looks up the staircase from where Lily descended, but it’s dark up there. Ginny could’ve gone to sleep, for all he knew, still fuming about Mr Dingy.

Lily rolls her eyes and hops off the stool.

“You sound as if you’re scared you’re gonna jinx it.”

She goes to grab Yakult out of the fridge before traipsing her way upstairs. Harry hears her go, and only when he hears her bedroom door shut does he stop cleaning the stove. He takes a breath. Wonders how Ron and Hermione’s date went. Thinks about how stubborn he was in her office earlier, and how he had loosened as soon as he thought of Seamus again. Sleeping in the office because it was easier than being home.

When he goes upstairs for bed later, he passes by the study. The tulips are already assorted in their own glass vase, watered and sat at the window, waiting for the morning sun to come. Harry stares at it.

Why was that so easy? He can’t get over it. Nothing in his life has ever been freely handed to him without fight and sacrifice. There’s a part of himself that wonders if he earned it.

No, he thinks, but I will.