part i: The thing was, that Ginny Weasley had always been — pretty. This was an undisputed fact, in Harry’s eyes. A known truth. But seeing her like this; ripples of laughter falling from her lips, fair yet sunkissed skin, collecting more freckles by the day, all curves and long legs — was different, was staggering.
(Or, the one where Harry and Ginny become more than friends).
CanonCompliant, Set in and around HBP, Missing Scenes, Harry/Ginny
I'm pretty obsessed with the concept of a Jily lives (everyone lives) AU where Harry grows up being friends with the Weasleys and him and Ginny are "boyfriend and girlfriend" and have a fake wedding that they take very seriously and everything.
It stops when they are like 9 but they get forever teased about it up until the moment where they actually start dating for real again and eventually get actually married. And they make a joke like this is our fifth wedding.
I've been thinking a lot about old WIP that I never finished or just lost the motivation to write. Brumous and Arcane mostly. People have been asking about both of them recently, hence the thinking.
Anyway, I started to write the next chapter of Arcane before I moved on to Vestige. It was going to be an interlude to show various birthdays of Harry's through James' POV. Anyway, here's the first 3k words of the next chapter. Note, this is a rough first draft. There are definitely parts that I would expand upon and beats I'd hold on for longer. So, this would DEFINITELY change if I ever finished it.
31 July 1981
James hadn’t slept. Not for the past several weeks. Ever since Lily had been arrested, James had been running on empty. Sirius and Marlene had basically taken Harry in for a few weeks while James dealt with shoving forged paperwork under the noses of the Wizengamot and screaming at the Aurors to let him see his wife. The day she stood trial, James had been sick that entire day. Just watching Lily tremble, chained to a table, and listen to her sob out some manufactured story about her grandparents attending Ilvermorny had him wanting to slaughter everyone in the fucking courtroom. He probably would have too if she hadn’t been declared a half-blood. James knew he would have gone out in a blaze of glory to help his wife escape. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Lily.
The week she had been home wasn’t a happy reunion either. Lily could barely get out of bed, nightmares from her short stint in Azkaban traumatizing her. James did what he could. He brought her food, helped her bathe, brushed her hair, gave her a lopsided plait. Andromeda had been kind enough to bring her potions. Some were anti-depressant potions. Others were cheering potions. Sometimes, she brought her dreamless sleep draughts in hopes that long rests would help her mind recover.
James felt helpless. Useless. All he could do was hold her during the night when she’d wake from a nightmare sobbing, her fingers digging into his skin as though he was the only thing grounding her to reality. When she’d finally sleep, James would continue to lay in bed. The lamp light on the bedside table, the one Lily insisted keeping on all night because Azkaban had been so dark, provided him enough light to stare at the ink that marred his skin. A snake slithering from a skull’s mouth.
It had been James’ idea to join Voldemort. He thought they could rise in the ranks quickly, help Muggleborns escape, uncover where the Horcruxes were. With Sirius by his side, well, James didn’t think there was anything the two of them couldn’t do with a bit of determination and pure grit. Perhaps, the damn mark was the only thing that kept Lily alive. Voldemort liked that he collected James. A Potter. A family known for their bravery and always toeing the moral line. It no doubt made Voldemort look good to the purebloods that weren’t his biggest fans.
Harry started calling at seven in the morning. James snuck out of bed, careful not to wake Lily. He closed the bedroom door behind him, casting a privacy charm so she wouldn’t hear them walking about. Padding across the hall, he made his way to the door with a little plaque hanging on it. Harry’s name was stamped in red with little Golden Snitches that flew around his name. It had been James’ design but Lily had charmed it just a couple of days before Harry was born.
James entered the room. Harry stood up in his cot, his body bouncing in excitement upon seeing him. James smiled at him, making his way across the room. He slipped his hands under Harry’s armpits, lifting him out of his cot and settling him on his hip. Harry melted into him, his head resting on James’ shoulder.
“Morning, birthday boy,” James murmured as he brushed Harry’s hair off his forehead. “You hungry? No cake yet though. We may have to wait until tomorrow, because you technically aren’t one yet,” he teased as he laid Harry down to change his nappy. “You know, your grandparents would only give me cake at six minutes to nine in the evening. I’d blow out the candles at the exact time I was born. I didn’t do that this year though. Guess it just made me sad knowing they weren’t there for it, you know?”
Harry chewed on his fingers, still sleepy as he allowed James to change his nappy without any fuss. As James fastened the sides, Harry slapped his palm against the Dark Mark that marred his skin. James winced, hating the bloody thing more than he could accurately put into words.
“But you were born seven minutes until midnight,” James continued as vanished the dirty nappy. “I’m not sure we’ll ever do that tradition for you. That’s so bloody late. Who wants cake at nearly midnight? Your mum, well, your mum doesn’t even like birthday cake. She’s all about making whatever your favorite dessert is and having it after dinner. That’s nice too. I like that.”
James finished changing Harry before lifting him off the changing pad. They made their way downstairs as James listened to Harry babble, slowly waking up more and more. While James had no idea what his son was talking about, he nodded and encouraged him to keep going. It continued as James cut up some fruit and made some porridge.
Lily stayed in bed. James didn’t know whether or not to even try to drag her from the comfort she sought between the sheets. Sometimes, she lit up when she saw Harry. Other times she sobbed uncontrollably. Her emotions were always all over the place. Not that James could blame her. In fact, he wanted to destroy every single Dementor that had so much as looked at his wife wrong. It would be the first thing he’d advocate for once Voldemort was out of power.
James decided to give Lily until the afternoon before he went up with Harry. Sirius and Marlene stopped by, showering Harry with affection and gifts. James cuddled Maia to his chest, gazing down at his tiny three-month-old goddaughter. He knew he and Lily wouldn’t have more kids until Voldemort’s regime was over. They couldn’t bring more children into this horrific world, especially not when there was some awful prophecy connecting Harry to a psychopath. It was a shame, because he and Lily craved to have a big family.
31 July 1982
James soaked in the cave before him. The water crashed against the rock, spraying a fine mist into his face. It seemed like forever ago when Sirius appeared at his doorstep to tell him his childhood house-elf was dead and Regulus wanted to defect. Neither one of them had believed him at first. Why would they? He was the bloke who had a shrine in his room of Voldemort. Hero-worshipped him. But love of a family member meant more to him. Kreacher had been Regulus’ favorite person his entire life. More than a servant or a house-elf. No, Regulus viewed Kreacher as his best friend.
It took years to piece together the clues of Kreacher’s dying last words, especially at first when they didn’t know the significance of the locket. It had been Dumbledore to ultimately deduced where the cave was located. It was a comment from Walburga to Regulus and Sirius that made them realize just how fucked they were. A Horcrux. Horcruxes actually. James knew they wouldn’t topple Voldemort’s regime anytime soon. In fact, as soon as he heard the fucking word… James wished he could go back in time and tell his younger self not to be a spy. They should have run before the country went on lockdown but now a Portkey out was impossible to obtain. He was stuck a in a viper’s den with no light to be seen.
Sirius sliced his palm with a slow slash of his wand. The bloody palm pressed against the cave. Of course, Voldemort would want a blood sacrifice to enter his chamber. James looked around Sirius to see Regulus standing next to him with his arms crossed and a look of determination settled on his features. James didn’t know Regulus well. What he did know didn’t make him like him at all. Sirius didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. James agreed with his best mate.
When entering the cave, they entered into pitch blackness. They lit their wands, bringing a small bit of light into the otherwise dark abyss. James noticed the still black water. A chill ran up James’ spine as he glanced at the little rock in the center of the lake. There stood a basin and James knew it wouldn’t be a simple task of snagging a locket and running. No, James knew there was more than met the eye.
“Do we swim?” Regulus asked, his voice bouncing off the walls in the small chamber.
Sirius snorted. “If you want hyperthermia,” he muttered, squinting around the cave. “There has to be a way across,” he mused as he took a step towards the water.
The water rippled suddenly. Something slow rising to the surface. James realized it was a boat, a very small boat that could only fit on person. It rocked gently against the shore. Without hesitating, James stepped forward and climbed inside.
“You want to discuss this first?” Sirius snapped.
James glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s just get this done. I’ll send it back over. We can go one by one,” he promised as the boat started across the black water.
The basin in the middle of the cavern cast a green glow around it. James peered into the dark water, seeing a bit of faint green light illuminating the murky water. A pearly white object bopped just beneath the surface, but James couldn’t tell what it was.
“Yes, let’s send Potter across a lake in some cursed cave alone,” Regulus huffed from the shore. “You do understand Kreacher died a horrible death, don’t you? We came here as a team!”
Sirius sighed. “Would you shut up? He’ll send the boat back.”
A few minutes later, the boat hit the rock. James stood and stepped out of the boat. The boat didn’t move or float back to the shore. James tried to push it but it wouldn’t move. Perhaps someone had to be in the boat for it to work.
“It won’t budge!” James hollered across the lake.
“Come back and we’ll form a plan!” Sirius shouted.
James shook his head. “If this is what we think it is, we can’t leave it!”
Sirius shot him a dismayed look, but James merely shrugged before he turned around. He approached the basin filled with what appeared to be water. At the very bottom was a locket. James noted the goblet sitting on the rim of the basin menacingly. Regulus had said Kreacher had been hysterical when he arrived. Incoherent and mumbling about death before he ultimately died in his arms.
Swallowing, James picked up the goblet with a shaky hand. He scooped it down, trying to fish up the locket but it couldn’t. Only the liquid filled his cup, sloshing over the edge. James understood even if he didn’t want to. He had to drink the potion to obtain the locket. His heart thrashed in his chest as he brought the goblet to his lips. He only had one thought before he tipped the liquid in his mouth: Harry.
The potion burned. Not like a hot fire but rather something colder. It spread through his veins like ice. James sucked in a sharp breath against the rim of the goblet, his hand tightening around the stem as the last drops of liquid slid down his throat.
For a moment, nothing happened. James pulled the goblet away from his mouth, readying himself for another cup, when the world tilted. The cavern dimmed around the edges, the green glow of the basin stretching and warping. James swayed, his hand shooting out to grip the stone basin. Nausea rolled through him, a dry heave rising in his throat.
“James?” Sirius’ voice echoed, sounding as though it were floating through a thick haze.
James swallowed, forcing himself to stand upright. Breathing heavily, he scooped more liquid into his goblet. He could do this. Had to. His hand shook, the liquid spilling over his fingers as he raised the goblet to his lips once more. He didn’t hesitate because Harry meant more to him than whatever was going to happen to him in this forsaken cave.
He drank. The burn came on faster this time, ten times worse than the first cupful. A rough, tearing gurgle sounded from the back of his throat. His fingers spasmed around the goblet, his knuckles going numb as something twisted deep within his chest.
A laugh echoed in the cave. Bright and childish. James froze. The cave blurred. James stumbled away from the basin, sunlight bursting from the rock at his feet. He turned. The light engulfed him.
“Dada!”
James whipped around. A tiny figure darted towards him, his stuffed dog tucked underneath his arm. Harry beamed at him, his wild hair bouncing on top of his head. James’ breath hitched as he fell to his knees, the goblet still clutched in his hand. He reached out a shaky hand instinctively. Instead of Harry’s warm body, his palm only pressed against the cold stone of the basin. A suffocating chill filled his lungs.
“No,” James croaked.
He screwed his eyes shut. Harry wasn’t here. It wasn’t real. He reached up, gripping the lip of the basin and pulled himself back up into a standing position. Chest heaving, James filled the goblet for a third time.
This time, the liquid broke him. The world didn’t tilt around him. It didn’t blur around the edges. It was crystal clear. Harry stood on the other side of the basin, but something was wrong. There was no light. No cheerful laugh. Harry’s face was pale, his clothes ripped. His wide green eyes were wide with fright.
“Dada?” he cried, his body shaking.
A shadow moved behind him. Tall and looming. A slender object pulled from the shadow’s pocket and trained it directly at the back of Harry’s head. James’ heart stopped.
“No–”
“Avada Kedavra!” a high, cold voice bellowed.
Green light engulfed Harry.
“NO!” James screamed, his throat ripping apart. “HARRY!”
James rounded the basin, his legs shaky beneath his weight. The goblet slipped from his fingers, clanking against the stone. A cold laughter filled the space around him as James fell to the ground next to Harry’s dead body.
“Please,” he gasped, his hands reaching for his son.
Except, he couldn’t scoop Harry up in his arms. His body disappeared from the stone floor. James pressed his palms where Harry’s body had been, his chest lowering to the ground to try to feel some remnant of Harry that had been left behind. His beautiful boy. His brave boy. What had James done?
“You chose this,” a cold familiar voice sounded beside him.
James turned his head, his cheek scraping against the stone. Lily stood before him, eyes blazing.
“You thought yourself clever,” Lily hissed. “Look what you did!”
James rose up on his hands and knees, his body quaking violently. “No, Lily, I, I–”
Her form flickered. In a blink of the eye, Lily was gone. Now, Harry stood before him. He was no longer two years old but older now. A teenager. He looked like a carbon copy of James at that age, but with Lily’s eyes and a light splash of faint freckles sprinkled across his cheeks.
“You’re one of them,” Harry said, his fists curling at his side.
The words hit harder than any curse. James recoiled as though Harry had struck him.
“No, no, Harry, you don’t understand,” James said in a rush, pushing himself up onto his knees.
“You chose him,” Harry said flatly.
“I didn’t–”
“You chose him over me,” Harry whispered, hurt clinging to the words.
“No, no, Harry, I didn’t. I, I wanted to protect you!” James cried.
Harry’s form flickered. A beat later, he was gone. James spluttered out a sob, his glasses fogging up in the corners. His entire body trembled, his breaths heaving out fast and shallow as the cave spun around him.
“Make it stop,” James choked out, pleading to no one.
James turned, the basin gleaming in green light. The only way to end this was to drink. His hand reached blindly for the goblet. His fingers wrapped around the cool metal. He scraped it against the stone floor. He rose on shaky legs, swaying forward. James dunked the goblet into the liquid once more.
The liquid sloshed violently over the rim, spilling across his skin and sending a chill through his entire body. He brought the goblet to his lips, preparing himself for the burn. This time, the burn didn’t come. The liquid slid down his throat, his entire body going numb with cold.
“JAMES!”
Sirius. The voice echoed across the cavern, warped and distant, clawing desperately to reach him. James shook his head, the walls of the cave disappearing into darkness. The floor was swallowed as well. It was just James and the basin now, surrounded by darkness. Out of the darkness came Harry. He was still a teenager, looking so frightening like James.
“What do you even think you’ll accomplish?” Harry hissed, his green eyes flashing.
The words twisted deep in his chest.
James flinched, his grip slick on the stem of the goblet. “I just want you to live,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just want you to live.”
“You don’t,” Harry snapped. “You only care about saving your own skin.”
James shook his head, the back of his hand wiping across his mouth. “No, that’s not–”
“You can’t kill people for him and think you can fix things at the same time!” Harry roared. “You’re nothing more than his obedient servant!”
He turned towards the basin and filled his cup again for… Merlin, he didn’t even know anymore. He had to finish this. Harry would see. He would understand one day.
James drank. The potion hit like he had been cursed from behind. His throat started to close. James gagged violently, doubling over as something clawed at his chest. His free hand flew to his throat, nails digging into his skin to try to help him to breath.
“Help,” he choked out.
The basin flickered, illuminating the cave once more. The black water sloshed against the rock. James’ knees slammed into the stone, the goblet slipping from his hand. Both hands now clawed at his throat, trying to alleviate the building pressure. He gasped for air as his vision started doting.
“You’re pathetic,” Lily’s voice echoed in his dead. “You were a fool to think you could save our son!”
James’ body tilted and his side slammed against the stone floor. His gaze locked with the lifeless body of his two-year-old son, his dead eyes staring right through James.
“NO!” James screeched, his hand weakly flailing towards Harry’s body.
No, no, no, no. Harry wasn’t dead. Couldn’t be dead. Merlin, he needed Harry to be all right. He’d give anything. Do anything. A choking sob crawled up his throat, his lips spluttering.
A dark figure rose from the lake beyond Harry. James blinked, lifting his head weakly off the floor. No, Voldemort wouldn’t take his son from him. He weakly patted his robes to find his wand. The figure approached him, a wand tugging from his pocket. Light burst around the figure, showcasing his dark hair and drenched clothes.
“–rius?” James slurred.
But something behind Sirius caught James’ eye. Shadows moved towards them in a jerky fashion. Tens of them. James’ lips parted, but brain struggling to comprehend what he was seeing. More continued to crawl out of the lake. Hundreds now. The figures grabbed Sirius from behind and jerked him back. They fell backward, as though in slow motion, until they splashed into the water. The water churned violently, more shadows rising from the depths. James squinted. Their hollow, skeletal bodies lurched forward.
Ginny Weasley spent thirteen years in France attempting to heal after the Chamber of Secrets. Upon returning to England for a clinical fellowship in Dark Magic Trauma, she found Harry Potter again and discovered a man who had survived Voldemort, survived a war, but somehow never learned how to survive himself.
Because I legit have very little self-control. This sprung from my obsession with The Pitt. While I'd love to write me some Kingdom, I think I'd miss my Hinny babies too much.
A LOT has changed from canon, so be patient as all the facts of what went down since the Weasleys moved to France unravel.
Can you write a Healer Ginny and Injured auror Harry fic?
The first thing Ginny knew about Harry Potter, she knew from the chart.
Auror, thirty. Multiple contact points, unidentified curse residue. Vitals unstable — spiking, then flat, then spiking again, like his body couldn't decide what it was reacting to. Healer Ogden had scrawled a question mark next to the diagnosis line and left it at that, which told her more than anything else in the file. Ogden didn't do question marks. Ogden did answers, fast, or referred out.
She'd been paged in from the Janus Thickey overflow ward at half eleven at night, still in yesterday's robes, and by the time she got to bay four there were already four other Healers standing around the bed not touching him, which was its own kind of diagnosis.
"Someone want to tell me what I'm looking at?" she said, shouldering past.
"Contact curse, unregistered," said one of the junior Healers, too fast, relieved to hand it off. "Hit him and two others on the raid. The others are stable. He's not."
Ginny looked down at the bed.
She'd expected — she wasn't sure what she'd expected. Not this. Not a man lying very still and very awake, jaw tight, sweat at his hairline, watching the ceiling like if he looked at it hard enough it would tell him what was wrong with him too. His right forearm was wrapped in silver-threaded gauze that was supposed to contain magical bleed and clearly wasn't doing a brilliant job of it, going by the way it kept flickering, faint and wrong, like a candle in wind.
"Mr. Potter." She picked up his wrist without asking permission, two fingers pressed to the pulse point. Too fast. Then, three seconds later, too slow. "I'm Healer Weasley. I'm going to be looking after you."
"Wonderful," he said, in the flat voice of a man who had said that word to mean the opposite of itself many times before. "Does that mean you know what's wrong with me, or does that mean you're fourth in line to tell me you don't?"
"Bit of both." She didn't look up from his pulse. "Give me a minute before you decide to be difficult about it."
That got something out of him — not quite a laugh, more the ghost of the shape one would take. "No promises."
She noted it anyway: patient responsive, oriented, uncooperative baseline personality, unrelated to injury. Then she got to work.
***
It took forty minutes to stabilize him enough to stop actively worrying about him dying, and another six days to admit she had no idea what had actually hit him.
"It's not cursefire," she told the diagnostic team, Thursday morning, chart spread across the table like a crime scene. "Cursefire burns outward, this is burning in. It's not a hex residue either, the signature doesn't match anything registered, and before anyone suggests it — no, it's not Dark Arts. I checked against every catalogued curse from the last war. Nothing fits."
"So what's your working theory?" asked Ogden, arms crossed.
"That somebody built something new."
The silence that got her was the kind she'd learned, in three years as a Healer, to take as agreement rather than dismissal.
"Keep him another week," Ogden said. "Monitor, don't guess. And Weasley — keep him calm. Whatever it is, it's responding to something. Exertion, stress, I don't know yet. But every time his heart rate spikes, so does the residue."
Which was how Ginny ended up, that afternoon, standing at the foot of Harry Potter's bed with her arms crossed, informing him he could not, in fact, discharge himself to go "check on the case."
"I'm fine," he said.
"You're not fine. You're a man whose arm was actively smoking two days ago."
"It's not smoking now."
"Because I've had you flat on your back for forty-eight hours. That's not a cure, that's a ceasefire." She flipped his chart shut. "You so much as raise your heart rate past a brisk walk and I want to know about it. Ogden thinks whatever hit you is reactive to stress. So you're going to lie there and be boring, Mr. Potter, and if that offends you, I genuinely do not care."
He looked at her for a long moment — assessing, she realized, the way she imagined he must look at a room before deciding where the exits were.
"You're very sure of yourself," he said. Not unkindly.
"I'm very sure of the chart. There's a difference, but it usually amounts to the same thing."
Something flickered over his face, there and gone, that she'd later learn to recognize as the first crack in the wall he'd built the moment they wheeled him in.
"Fine," he said. "Boring. I can do boring."
"Somehow," she said, already turning for the door, "I don't believe you."
He didn't manage it, as it turned out. Not even close.
***
By the second week, she'd stopped bothering to knock.
"You're doing the thing again," she said, without looking up from his chart, where she'd caught the telltale uptick in his readings the moment she'd walked onto the ward.
"What thing."
"The thing where you think about work and your body decides that's a five-alarm emergency." She came around the privacy curtain to find him sitting up, jaw set, a folder of case notes open on the blanket that absolutely should not have been there. "Where did you even get this?"
"Robards sent it."
"Robards is going to answer for that." She held her hand out. "Give it here."
"It's just background reading."
"Your pulse says otherwise." She wiggled her fingers. "Hand it over, or I'll have it confiscated and I'll make sure you know it was me who did it."
He handed it over. Reluctantly, and with the specific, wounded dignity of a man who'd clearly never had to defer to anyone about his own case files in his life.
"You know," he said, watching her tuck the folder under her arm like contraband, "most people are slightly more deferential. Given who I am."
"I've noticed. It's very tedious, watching people tiptoe around you." She sat on the edge of the visitor's chair, which she'd started doing without quite registering the decision to. "I'm not going to do it. You're not the badass Auror in here. You're bay four, and bay four is being a nightmare patient."
He almost smiled at that — she was getting better at cataloguing the almosts, the flickers before he caught himself and reeled them back in.
"You're the only one who talks to me like that."
"Good. Someone should." She checked the readings on his arm — the flicker had gone down, marginally, now that the folder was out of reach. "See? Better already. Turns out irritation lowers your heart rate faster than case files raise it. Interesting."
"Are you saying I should be irritated more often?"
"I'm saying it's diagnostically useful information and I intend to use it liberally."
"That's concerning."
"You'll live," she said, and only realized after she'd said it how much weight the words were carrying, in a room like this one, for a man like him. He seemed to realize it too. Neither of them said anything about it.
***
The mystery cracked open in week three, not because of anything Ginny did in the lab, but because of something Harry said, half-asleep, at two in the morning, when she was doing rounds and he was supposed to be unconscious.
"Antler," he mumbled.
She stopped in the doorway. "Sorry?"
His eyes were still closed. "The bloke. Runic thing on his ring. Antler shape." A pause. Then, clearer, like he was surfacing: "Wasn't a curse he cast. It was in the ring."
Ginny was at his bedside in four steps. "Harry. Say that again. Slowly."
He blinked up at her, disoriented, and it took him a second to catch up to what he'd said. "The ring. On the bloke we raided. I grabbed his wrist to cuff him and — that's when it hit. It wasn't a spell he cast at me. It came off the object."
"You're sure."
"I'm an Auror. I notice things even when I'm being cursed by them." A ghost of his old dryness, worn thin by exhaustion, but there.
She didn't sleep that night. By morning she had Robards' team pulling every confiscated item from the raid, and by that afternoon they had it: a signet ring, unregistered, radiating a magical signature that didn't match anything in the catalogue because it wasn't a spell at all. It was a vessel. Something built to store and discharge curse-energy on contact, cobbled together from experimental theory that had no business existing outside a research lab, let alone a black market stall.
"It's not actively cursing you," she told him, that evening, laying it out with the kind of relief that came from finally, finally understanding the shape of a problem. "It transferred a payload. A stored charge. Which means it's finite — it's not sustaining itself, it's depleting. Every spike you've had, every flare — that's the charge working itself out of your system. You're not getting worse, Harry. You're emptying."
He looked at her for a long moment. "So I'll be all right."
"You'll be all right." She said it firmly, because she believed it, and because some part of her had needed to say it out loud as much as he'd needed to hear it. "It'll take time. Weeks, maybe. But it has an end point. It's not indefinite."
Something in his shoulders came down that she hadn't fully registered was up until it wasn't.
"Thank you," he said. Quietly. Not performed, not for an audience of Healers or reporters or anyone but her. "For not giving up on figuring it out."
"It's my job."
"It's not, actually. Your job was to keep me stable. Figuring out what it was — that was you being stubborn about a question nobody else could answer." He looked at her properly then, in a way that made the room feel smaller than it had a moment ago. "I noticed."
Ginny found, for possibly the first time in three weeks, that she didn't have a quick answer ready.
"Well," she said, eventually. "I'm told I'm very sure of myself."
"You mentioned."
***
He was discharged in the fifth week, on a grey Tuesday morning, arm fully healed, readings clean for the first time since bay four. Ginny signed the last of his paperwork at the nurses' station, and told herself the strange, hollow feeling in her chest was just the natural comedown of a case finally closing.
He found her there, coat already on, looking distinctly like a man who didn't know how to end this particular conversation.
"So," he said. "That's it, then. Clean bill of health."
"That's it." She capped her quill. "You're free to go be reckless again. Try to space it out more than every fortnight, if you can manage it."
"No promises," he said, and it landed the same way it had five weeks ago, except nothing about it felt the same at all.
He didn't leave. She didn't tell him to.
"I don't actually know how this works," he admitted, after a moment. "The — after. There isn't really a protocol for what you're supposed to say to the Healer who spent five weeks keeping you alive and figuring out you weren't dying after all."
"There isn't a protocol on my end either," Ginny said. "Patients don't usually stick around to ask."
"I'm not most patients."
"No," she agreed. "You were significantly worse."
That got the real laugh out of him, the one she'd been chasing for weeks without quite admitting that's what she'd been doing. It changed his whole face when it was unguarded like that — she filed the observation away with the same clinical precision she'd given his pulse readings, and knew, even as she did it, that this particular chart entry had nothing to do with medicine at all.
"Have dinner with me," he said. Plainly, like he'd decided somewhere in the last five weeks that plain was the only way he knew how to do this anymore. "Not as a patient. I'd like that very much to be clear, actually — that I'm not a patient anymore, and you don't work for the Ministry's insurance about what you say to me."
"I don't work for anyone's insurance," Ginny said. "I do actually have opinions."
"I noticed that too."
She considered him — the sling gone, the color back, the wall he'd built in bay four mostly, finally, undone.
"One condition," she said.
"Anything."
"If your heart rate spikes during dinner, I reserve the right to say I told you so."
"Healer Weasley," he said, and it was the first time her name had sounded like that in his mouth — not a title, not a formality, something closer to a promise, "I would expect nothing less."
Ginny Weasley spent thirteen years in France attempting to heal after the Chamber of Secrets. Upon returning to England for a clinical fellowship in Dark Magic Trauma, she found Harry Potter again and discovered a man who had survived Voldemort, survived a war, but somehow never learned how to survive himself.
Because I legit have very little self-control. This sprung from my obsession with The Pitt. While I'd love to write me some Kingdom, I think I'd miss my Hinny babies too much.
A LOT has changed from canon, so be patient as all the facts of what went down since the Weasleys moved to France unravel.
Harry had been on the way to the kitchen to start on dinner after changing out of his work clothes when he paused at the sight in the living room.
Ginny was on the carpet with their son, who was waving his little baby hands around. She was cooing at him, encouraging him to move and make noises.
She was still smiling when she looked up. It took him just a second to lay down beside her on his stomach to coo at James too. He admired his son but he couldn't help but glance over him and make sure he was okay. Harry held James' foot gently, looking it over and made it all the way to his son's dark hair.
"I never know what you're looking for when you do that," Ginny whispered, her gaze now on him instead of James.
He smilled at James, wriggling around against Harry's hand that protectively at his son's side. "To be honest, I don't know either."
When he glanced up, Ginny was still looking at him quietly. There wasn't judgement in her eyes, but an understanding.
"If it's any comfort, every time I do he has my complete approval."
Ginny nodded at the baby excitedly. "Of course you do! You are our baby and you are wonderful." She bent over and kissed James' tummy. "He is just the best."
Can you write a Healer Ginny and Injured auror Harry fic?
The first thing Ginny knew about Harry Potter, she knew from the chart.
Auror, thirty. Multiple contact points, unidentified curse residue. Vitals unstable — spiking, then flat, then spiking again, like his body couldn't decide what it was reacting to. Healer Ogden had scrawled a question mark next to the diagnosis line and left it at that, which told her more than anything else in the file. Ogden didn't do question marks. Ogden did answers, fast, or referred out.
She'd been paged in from the Janus Thickey overflow ward at half eleven at night, still in yesterday's robes, and by the time she got to bay four there were already four other Healers standing around the bed not touching him, which was its own kind of diagnosis.
"Someone want to tell me what I'm looking at?" she said, shouldering past.
"Contact curse, unregistered," said one of the junior Healers, too fast, relieved to hand it off. "Hit him and two others on the raid. The others are stable. He's not."
Ginny looked down at the bed.
She'd expected — she wasn't sure what she'd expected. Not this. Not a man lying very still and very awake, jaw tight, sweat at his hairline, watching the ceiling like if he looked at it hard enough it would tell him what was wrong with him too. His right forearm was wrapped in silver-threaded gauze that was supposed to contain magical bleed and clearly wasn't doing a brilliant job of it, going by the way it kept flickering, faint and wrong, like a candle in wind.
"Mr. Potter." She picked up his wrist without asking permission, two fingers pressed to the pulse point. Too fast. Then, three seconds later, too slow. "I'm Healer Weasley. I'm going to be looking after you."
"Wonderful," he said, in the flat voice of a man who had said that word to mean the opposite of itself many times before. "Does that mean you know what's wrong with me, or does that mean you're fourth in line to tell me you don't?"
"Bit of both." She didn't look up from his pulse. "Give me a minute before you decide to be difficult about it."
That got something out of him — not quite a laugh, more the ghost of the shape one would take. "No promises."
She noted it anyway: patient responsive, oriented, uncooperative baseline personality, unrelated to injury. Then she got to work.
***
It took forty minutes to stabilize him enough to stop actively worrying about him dying, and another six days to admit she had no idea what had actually hit him.
"It's not cursefire," she told the diagnostic team, Thursday morning, chart spread across the table like a crime scene. "Cursefire burns outward, this is burning in. It's not a hex residue either, the signature doesn't match anything registered, and before anyone suggests it — no, it's not Dark Arts. I checked against every catalogued curse from the last war. Nothing fits."
"So what's your working theory?" asked Ogden, arms crossed.
"That somebody built something new."
The silence that got her was the kind she'd learned, in three years as a Healer, to take as agreement rather than dismissal.
"Keep him another week," Ogden said. "Monitor, don't guess. And Weasley — keep him calm. Whatever it is, it's responding to something. Exertion, stress, I don't know yet. But every time his heart rate spikes, so does the residue."
Which was how Ginny ended up, that afternoon, standing at the foot of Harry Potter's bed with her arms crossed, informing him he could not, in fact, discharge himself to go "check on the case."
"I'm fine," he said.
"You're not fine. You're a man whose arm was actively smoking two days ago."
"It's not smoking now."
"Because I've had you flat on your back for forty-eight hours. That's not a cure, that's a ceasefire." She flipped his chart shut. "You so much as raise your heart rate past a brisk walk and I want to know about it. Ogden thinks whatever hit you is reactive to stress. So you're going to lie there and be boring, Mr. Potter, and if that offends you, I genuinely do not care."
He looked at her for a long moment — assessing, she realized, the way she imagined he must look at a room before deciding where the exits were.
"You're very sure of yourself," he said. Not unkindly.
"I'm very sure of the chart. There's a difference, but it usually amounts to the same thing."
Something flickered over his face, there and gone, that she'd later learn to recognize as the first crack in the wall he'd built the moment they wheeled him in.
"Fine," he said. "Boring. I can do boring."
"Somehow," she said, already turning for the door, "I don't believe you."
He didn't manage it, as it turned out. Not even close.
***
By the second week, she'd stopped bothering to knock.
"You're doing the thing again," she said, without looking up from his chart, where she'd caught the telltale uptick in his readings the moment she'd walked onto the ward.
"What thing."
"The thing where you think about work and your body decides that's a five-alarm emergency." She came around the privacy curtain to find him sitting up, jaw set, a folder of case notes open on the blanket that absolutely should not have been there. "Where did you even get this?"
"Robards sent it."
"Robards is going to answer for that." She held her hand out. "Give it here."
"It's just background reading."
"Your pulse says otherwise." She wiggled her fingers. "Hand it over, or I'll have it confiscated and I'll make sure you know it was me who did it."
He handed it over. Reluctantly, and with the specific, wounded dignity of a man who'd clearly never had to defer to anyone about his own case files in his life.
"You know," he said, watching her tuck the folder under her arm like contraband, "most people are slightly more deferential. Given who I am."
"I've noticed. It's very tedious, watching people tiptoe around you." She sat on the edge of the visitor's chair, which she'd started doing without quite registering the decision to. "I'm not going to do it. You're not the badass Auror in here. You're bay four, and bay four is being a nightmare patient."
He almost smiled at that — she was getting better at cataloguing the almosts, the flickers before he caught himself and reeled them back in.
"You're the only one who talks to me like that."
"Good. Someone should." She checked the readings on his arm — the flicker had gone down, marginally, now that the folder was out of reach. "See? Better already. Turns out irritation lowers your heart rate faster than case files raise it. Interesting."
"Are you saying I should be irritated more often?"
"I'm saying it's diagnostically useful information and I intend to use it liberally."
"That's concerning."
"You'll live," she said, and only realized after she'd said it how much weight the words were carrying, in a room like this one, for a man like him. He seemed to realize it too. Neither of them said anything about it.
***
The mystery cracked open in week three, not because of anything Ginny did in the lab, but because of something Harry said, half-asleep, at two in the morning, when she was doing rounds and he was supposed to be unconscious.
"Antler," he mumbled.
She stopped in the doorway. "Sorry?"
His eyes were still closed. "The bloke. Runic thing on his ring. Antler shape." A pause. Then, clearer, like he was surfacing: "Wasn't a curse he cast. It was in the ring."
Ginny was at his bedside in four steps. "Harry. Say that again. Slowly."
He blinked up at her, disoriented, and it took him a second to catch up to what he'd said. "The ring. On the bloke we raided. I grabbed his wrist to cuff him and — that's when it hit. It wasn't a spell he cast at me. It came off the object."
"You're sure."
"I'm an Auror. I notice things even when I'm being cursed by them." A ghost of his old dryness, worn thin by exhaustion, but there.
She didn't sleep that night. By morning she had Robards' team pulling every confiscated item from the raid, and by that afternoon they had it: a signet ring, unregistered, radiating a magical signature that didn't match anything in the catalogue because it wasn't a spell at all. It was a vessel. Something built to store and discharge curse-energy on contact, cobbled together from experimental theory that had no business existing outside a research lab, let alone a black market stall.
"It's not actively cursing you," she told him, that evening, laying it out with the kind of relief that came from finally, finally understanding the shape of a problem. "It transferred a payload. A stored charge. Which means it's finite — it's not sustaining itself, it's depleting. Every spike you've had, every flare — that's the charge working itself out of your system. You're not getting worse, Harry. You're emptying."
He looked at her for a long moment. "So I'll be all right."
"You'll be all right." She said it firmly, because she believed it, and because some part of her had needed to say it out loud as much as he'd needed to hear it. "It'll take time. Weeks, maybe. But it has an end point. It's not indefinite."
Something in his shoulders came down that she hadn't fully registered was up until it wasn't.
"Thank you," he said. Quietly. Not performed, not for an audience of Healers or reporters or anyone but her. "For not giving up on figuring it out."
"It's my job."
"It's not, actually. Your job was to keep me stable. Figuring out what it was — that was you being stubborn about a question nobody else could answer." He looked at her properly then, in a way that made the room feel smaller than it had a moment ago. "I noticed."
Ginny found, for possibly the first time in three weeks, that she didn't have a quick answer ready.
"Well," she said, eventually. "I'm told I'm very sure of myself."
"You mentioned."
***
He was discharged in the fifth week, on a grey Tuesday morning, arm fully healed, readings clean for the first time since bay four. Ginny signed the last of his paperwork at the nurses' station, and told herself the strange, hollow feeling in her chest was just the natural comedown of a case finally closing.
He found her there, coat already on, looking distinctly like a man who didn't know how to end this particular conversation.
"So," he said. "That's it, then. Clean bill of health."
"That's it." She capped her quill. "You're free to go be reckless again. Try to space it out more than every fortnight, if you can manage it."
"No promises," he said, and it landed the same way it had five weeks ago, except nothing about it felt the same at all.
He didn't leave. She didn't tell him to.
"I don't actually know how this works," he admitted, after a moment. "The — after. There isn't really a protocol for what you're supposed to say to the Healer who spent five weeks keeping you alive and figuring out you weren't dying after all."
"There isn't a protocol on my end either," Ginny said. "Patients don't usually stick around to ask."
"I'm not most patients."
"No," she agreed. "You were significantly worse."
That got the real laugh out of him, the one she'd been chasing for weeks without quite admitting that's what she'd been doing. It changed his whole face when it was unguarded like that — she filed the observation away with the same clinical precision she'd given his pulse readings, and knew, even as she did it, that this particular chart entry had nothing to do with medicine at all.
"Have dinner with me," he said. Plainly, like he'd decided somewhere in the last five weeks that plain was the only way he knew how to do this anymore. "Not as a patient. I'd like that very much to be clear, actually — that I'm not a patient anymore, and you don't work for the Ministry's insurance about what you say to me."
"I don't work for anyone's insurance," Ginny said. "I do actually have opinions."
"I noticed that too."
She considered him — the sling gone, the color back, the wall he'd built in bay four mostly, finally, undone.
"One condition," she said.
"Anything."
"If your heart rate spikes during dinner, I reserve the right to say I told you so."
"Healer Weasley," he said, and it was the first time her name had sounded like that in his mouth — not a title, not a formality, something closer to a promise, "I would expect nothing less."
sirius complaining to remus about his boyfriend (remus) because they’re just besties like that
Stop this is so cute and silly. This is pure silly wolfstar fluff, everybody cheer;
Sirius starting the conversation with "oh my god, you'll never believe what my boyfriend did."
Remus loves when sirius does this, yes sirius is complaining about him but how can he care about that part when sirius is so cute and charming about it? Also you best believe he's taking notes.
Remus responds with "what did this guy do this time?" And listen while sirius goes on some tirade about how he left for work without a giving sirius a kiss goodbye, then didnt even put a hearts in his text messages, and then got home late and didn't immediately ravish him. So obviously he doesnt even love sirius anymore.
Remus is in full gossip mode, nodding with complete sincerity and chiming in with appropriately timed "no way"s and "he didn't"s.
And yes maybe sirius adds some embellishments to the stories, so what if his boyfriend didn't actually say "I'm far too busy for you sirius. You know I care about my job far more then I could ever care about you." It adds to the atmosphere and drives his point home.
This is usually when remus breaks character with an "I did not say/do that!" And sirius defends "well maybe not in so many words but I can tell thats what you meant."
And remus starts kissing him obviously, how could he not when sirius is scowling at him and acting all righteous?
He says between kisses "I did give you a kiss this morning, you were asleep, and I didnt want to wake you and get bitten" sirius rolls his eyes and mumbles something about only biting when its deserved.
Then he brings up the "heartless, loveless texts I received though out the day?" Remus apologises for his lacklustre texts and solemnly promises to do better.
Then sirius says "and the most unforgivable crime of all, being late and not immediately throwing me on the bed and having you way with me?" To which Remus says "can I make it up to you now? Please, sweetheart?" and he's looking at sirius with those big brown puppy eyes, so really sirius had no choice but to forgive him and fuck right there on the sofa.
Ahhh I love writing sickeningly disgustingly sweet sappy wolfstar!! Hope you like <3
A really underrated aspect of Harry and Ginny's relationship is Harry having as one of the main reasons for falling for Ginny thinking she is incredibly funny.
Men tend to have this--very rooted in misogyny-- bias about women not being funny (because to laugh with someone and not at them, you actually need to respect them).
But Harry Potter, one of the most famous main characters of all time, thinks his wife is the funniest person on earth. Which makes the fact that they were never adapted correctly on screen a tragedy. I truly think it would have really made a difference for a lot of young boys to have Harry's view of Ginny as a reference.
"When a Muggle postman had delivered the invitation, Harry had been convinced there had been some mistake. Surely the man had mixed up the houses. Who on earth would send him a Muggle post?
It turned out to be a wedding invitation.
The wedding of Dudley Dursley.
Harry and Ginny attend Dudley's wedding."
read it on ao3!!!
____
“Harry, honestly, we can stay home.”
“But we RSVP’d.”
Harry sat on the edge of the bed, trying to tie his tie blindly while nervously tapping his foot against the floor.
He still wasn’t entirely sure how he had ended up in this situation.
He and Ginny were getting ready to attend a wedding.
Dudley’s wedding.
When a Muggle postman had delivered the invitation a few months earlier, Harry had been convinced there had been some mistake. Surely the man had mixed up the houses. Who on earth would send him a Muggle post?
It turned out to be a wedding invitation.
The marriage of Dudley Dursley and Cecilia Glasscock.
Needless to say, when he and Ginny read the bride’s name, they laughed so hard they could barely breathe. The invitation spent the next few hours being passed back and forth while they dissolved into fresh fits of giggles every time one of them glanced at it.
Then the shock finally sank in. Dudley was getting married and somehow Harry had been invited.
His immediate response had been to throw the invitation straight into the rubbish bin, only for Ginny to fish it out moments later.
“I want to show Dad a Muggle wedding invitation,” she’d explained. “It’s so boring, Dad will love it!”
Why on earth would Dudley invite him?
They hadn’t seen each other since saying goodbye on Privet Drive eight years earlier.
They hadn’t written, visited or spoken at all.
And honestly, Harry had been perfectly happy with that arrangement.
They brought the invitation to the Burrow, where everyone laughed at it for another hour. Later that evening, after several drinks with Ron, Harry unexpectedly found himself considering the possibility of attending.
“If I were you, I’d go,” Ron said, nursing a glass of Firewhisky.
“Are you mad?”
“Maybe. But if I were you, I’d love to show those arseholes exactly how wrong they were about me.”
Harry snorted.
“I’m serious,” Ron continued. “They spent your entire childhood treating you like dirt. I’d want them to see what you’ve got now.”
That gave Harry pause. His eyes drifted across the room to where Ginny sat laughing with her father and Hermione, little James bouncing happily on her knee. Every so often she would look up and smile at him.
Maybe Ron had a point. He had plenty to show off. He had the most beautiful wife in the world, the sweetest little son and a family who loved him.
A home and life. Everything he had spent most of his life believing he would never have.
“Maybe you’re right,” Harry admitted.
Ron raised his glass. “Cheers.”
Harry changed his mind every few days after that.
“We’re not going,” he announced one evening while helping Ginny clean the kitchen.
As he wiped down the counter, he found himself thinking about all the years he'd spent scrubbing and polishing Number Four Privet Drive because he was ordered to.
Funny how different it felt now.
Cleaning with Ginny wasn't a punishment. It was simply part of sharing a life together. They talked, laughed, occasionally splashed each other with soapy water, and somehow even chores became enjoyable.
“Okay,” Ginny said, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Whatever you want.”
And the matter was dropped. For nearly a week. Then Harry changed his mind again.
“No. We should go.”
Ginny looked up from the Quidditch Times.
“I’m listening.”
“I want to see their faces,” Harry said. “I’m fairly certain they expected me to end up dead. What if I turn up just to disappoint them?”
Ginny stared at him in horror.
“Whatever you want. If you go, I’ll be there to support you. If you don’t, we’ll stay home. But once I buy a Muggle dress for this wedding, there’s no backing out.”
As always, she was remarkably patient with him.
Which was why, standing in their bedroom on the morning of the wedding, Harry was surprised to hear her suggesting they stay home.
“Harry, you’re clearly stressed,” she said gently. “Maybe there really is no point in putting yourself through this.”
She paused before adding mischievously,
“Besides, not showing up after accepting the invitation would be a brilliant prank.”
Ginny stood in front of the mirror fastening her earrings. Her long hair cascaded down her back in carefully prepared waves. The moment she noticed Harry struggling with his tie, she crossed the room and took over.
Her fingers brushed his collar and, just like magic, some of the tension eased from his shoulders.
“No,” Harry said after a deep breath. “I think we should go.”
“Good.” She kissed him briefly. “Because this is probably my last chance to fit into this dress. Soon I'll be far too big for it, and I happen to think it's very pretty.”
Harry grinned.
She was right. The dress was beautiful. Soft gold fabric flowed around her figure, skimming her curves perfectly without being overly revealing. Her baby bump was still barely noticeable to anyone else, but Harry knew it was there, and every glimpse of it made him smile.
Besides, gold had always suited Ginny.
Not that the dress was the most beautiful thing in the room.
Ginny herself seemed to glow. Everyone kept insisting it was the pregnancy, but Harry knew better.
Ginny had always glowed. Long before they had married, long before James and long before this baby.
“Well,” he said, offering her his arm. “Let's do this.”
Together they finished getting ready, gave Ron and Hermione the last instructions of how to put their fussy baby to sleep and a moment later, with one final glance at their son, they Disapparated.
The grand country estate where the wedding was being held appeared around them, all white stone, manicured gardens, and expensive-looking fountains.
Harry felt himself sweating as soon as they arrived. His hands wouldn't stay still. He shoved them into his pockets, only to pull them out again a moment later.
He was stressed.
Ginny slipped her arm through his and squeezed gently.
“It’ll be alright,” she said. “Just say the word and we’ll leave.”
“Right.” Harry nodded.
They followed a stream of guests toward the gardens behind the estate, where rows of white chairs had been arranged beneath a large floral arch. Soft music drifted from the speakers.
To Harry's immense relief, nobody seemed to notice them. Not that he knew many people here.
Most guests were busy chatting amongst themselves, greeting relatives, or trying to find their seats. Harry kept his head down and followed Ginny toward the very back.
“Last row?” she whispered.
“Definitely the last row.”
They slipped into two empty seats at the end of the final row just as the music changed.
The ceremony began.
Dudley stood at the front beside the officiant, dressed in a dark suit that looked painfully tight. He shifted from foot to foot every few seconds and kept tugging at his collar.
He hadn't changed much.
He was still broad, heavyset, and pink-faced, looking more like Uncle Vernon than ever.
Oddly enough, Harry found it comforting.
His own life had changed beyond recognition. Looking at Dudley was like looking at a photograph that survived untouched by time.
“Looks like he's about to be executed,” Ginny murmured.
Harry snorted. Several heads turned and Ginny immediately pressed her lips together, fighting a smile.
Then the music changed.
A collective murmur swept through the guests as Cecilia Glasscock appeared at the end of the aisle on her father's arm.
Harry suddenly understood why Dudley had looked so terrified.
For a second, he genuinely thought a gigantic wedding cake was moving toward them. The dress was enormous. Layers upon layers of white fabric billowed around Cecilia like clouds. Harry was fairly certain the thing occupied more space than a Quidditch pitch.
Beside him, Ginny made a choking sound.
“Don't,” Harry whispered.
“I didn't say anything.”
Harry bit the inside of his cheek.
Once he managed to focus on the bride rather than the dress, he had to admit she wasn't unattractive.
She was very tall and slender, with short blonde hair. Unfortunately, she also bore an unsettling resemblance to Aunt Petunia. Not an exact resemblance, thankfully.
She lacked the permanent expression of someone smelling something unpleasant. Still, the similarity was enough to make Harry feel deeply disturbed.
He glanced back at Dudley whose entire face changed, now.
He looked at his blushing bride as though he had forgotten every other person in existence.
Harry had never seen his cousin look at anything that way before.
Not even food.
The ceremony itself passed without incident.
Vows were exchanged, rings were placed on fingers. The officiant pronounced them husband and wife, and the guests erupted into applause as the newlyweds kissed.
A string quartet began playing while everyone rose from their seats.
At once the orderly rows dissolved into a sea of moving guests, conversations, and congratulations.
Harry thought that they should go and congratulate the newlyweds, but there were so many people that Harry decided to drag it in time as much as possible.
“Right,” Ginny said, standing. “Phase one completed.”
Harry glanced around. So far, nobody had looked their way.
“Excellent.”
Together they followed the crowd toward the reception marquee set up on the estate grounds. Waiters circulated with trays of champagne. A band was tuning their instruments near a polished dance floor.
The wedding reception had officially begun.
Unfortunately, there was only so long one could attend a wedding without congratulating the bride and groom.
Ginny eventually nudged him.
“We have to go.”
Harry took a deep breath, bottomed a glass of champagne at once and took Ginny’s hand to lead her towards the newlyweds.
A receiving line had formed near the newlyweds' table. Guests stepped forward, offered congratulations, shook hands, hugged Cecilia, and moved along.
Harry immediately considered turning around.
“Too late now,” Ginny said cheerfully, steering him forward.
As they drew closer, Harry finally saw them.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were sitting at a nearby table, close enough to the receiving line to greet guests as they passed.
His stomach dropped.
Aunt Petunia looked older than he remembered. Her blonde hair was streaked with grey now, and there were fine lines around her mouth and eyes. Uncle Vernon looked much the same, only redder and heavier.
For a moment Harry was eleven years old again. Standing in the kitchen and waiting to be told what he'd done wrong. He quickly looked away.
“Harry?” Ginny squeezed his hand.
“I'm fine.” He wasn't.
The line moved forward and then suddenly they were next.
Dudley was smiling politely at an elderly aunt when his eyes drifted past her shoulder and landed on Harry.
The smile vanished and they stared at each other.
“Er,” Harry said.
“Er,” Dudley replied.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You came.”
“Yes. We accepted the invitation.”
“Right.”
“You knew that, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
An agonising silence followed.
Then he heard a sharp intake of breath. Aunt Petunia must’ve spotted him.
Against his better judgement, Harry glanced in her direction. She was staring at him, her face had gone pale.
The moment their eyes met, she quickly looked away. Harry immediately wished he hadn't looked.
“Congratulations!” Ginny said brightly after several more painful seconds.
Bless Ginny.
She stepped forward and shook Dudley's hand.
“Thank you,” Dudley said, surprised.
“It was a lovely ceremony.”
“Er, thanks.”
“You looked beautiful.” Ginny turned to the bride and shook her hand as well.
“Oh, thank you!” Cecilia beamed.
Harry still hadn't managed to contribute anything useful to the conversation.
“Diddy, darling,” Cecilia said, slipping her arm through his, “aren't you going to introduce me to our lovely guests?”
“Oh. Right. Yes.” Dudley cleared his throat.
“This is Harry. My cousin.”
“Hello,” Harry said, shaking her hand. “And this is my wife, Ginny.”
“It's lovely to meet you both,” Cecilia said warmly. Unlike Dudley, she appeared completely at ease. Possibly because she had no idea why everyone else looked so tense.
“We're very happy for you,” Ginny said.
“Oh, I'm so glad you came,” Cecilia replied. “I told Dudley he should invite you.”
Harry looked at Dudley.
“I just think family should stick together,” Cecilia continued.
Harry stared at her with his brows raised. He was sure that Dudley had somehow forgotten to mention how much of a bully he was towards his own closest family member.
Harry risked another glance toward Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Uncle Vernon appeared deeply interested in his champagne. Aunt Petunia was still avoiding Harry's eyes.
It was as though they were all participating in an elaborate social experiment.
“That's... very kind of you,” Harry managed.
“We have to talk later, Harry. I can't wait to hear all the stories about little Dudley growing up.” Cecilia giggled and looked adoringly at her husband. Dudley looked horrified.
“Oh, Cecilia,” Harry said pleasantly, “we'll definitely talk.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny shoot him a warning look.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” Cecilia said. “You can take whatever seats are free at this table. It’s reserved for the closest family.”
She pointed, and Harry followed her finger. His heart immediately sank.
“Oh no.”
Not only were they seated at the table with the Dursleys, but Aunt Marge was there too, clutching a large glass of wine and looking exactly as Harry remembered her.
Thankfully, there was no sign of Ripper.
“Soon we'll have our first dance!” Cecilia chirped. “Diddy, are you ready?”
They stepped aside to allow the last guests through the receiving line. The moment they were out of earshot, Harry groaned.
“Shit.”
Ginny followed his gaze.
“They sat us with the Dursleys. All of them.”
Harry watched Aunt Marge throw back the rest of her wine and wave for a refill. His chances of surviving the evening appeared to be shrinking by the second.
For a brief moment he seriously considered whether Apparating back home at this point would be a good idea.
“Closest family! Can you imagine that?” He whispered frantically.
“Come on,” Ginny said, slipping her arm through his. “Let's go meet your aunt and uncle.”
“You say that like it's a pleasant activity.”
“I'll charm them. You'll see.”
Harry laughed.
“Good luck with that.”
“I can be very charming.”
“I know you can, love. But if you mention the word charming anywhere near Uncle Vernon, we'll probably end up attending a funeral as well as a wedding.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “So what's the plan?”
“We only talk to them if they talk to us.”
“That should be easy,then.”
“Exactly.”
“Phase Two, then.”
“What's Phase Two?”
“Finding food.”
“Excellent plan.” Harry nodded solemnly.
Fortunately, there were two empty seats at the very end of the table, as far away from the Dursleys as physically possible while still technically sitting with them.
Between Harry and Aunt Petunia sat three elderly ladies from Cecilia's side of the family, all wearing impressive hats decorated with enough feathers to frighten small birds.
Harry was perfectly satisfied with that arrangement.
The first course arrived and Harry had absolutely no idea what it was.
He poked cautiously at a tiny stack of vegetables balanced beneath an equally tiny piece of meat.
“Is it supposed to be this small?” Ginny whispered.
“Maybe Diddykins is still on his diet.”
Across the table, Aunt Marge snorted loudly before attacking her meal. Uncle Vernon had already finished half his plate. Aunt Petunia, meanwhile, barely touched hers. She seemed very lost in thought.
Every few minutes Harry caught her glancing at him. Each time their eyes met, she quickly looked away.
“So, Wilbur, long time no see.” Said the elderly lady next to Harry. At first he didn’t realize she was talking to him.
“Excuse me?” Harry asked surprised, Ginny giggled beside him.
“Since when are you wearing glasses? And what’s that on your forehead?” She pointed at his scar, his fringe must’ve moved then. “You’ve been in some fight again, no doubt. I told you not to move to Manchester.”
Harry could feel Ginny having a silent fit of giggles and he was in complete shock. Before Harry could think of a suitable reply, someone tapped a spoon against a champagne glass.
The conversations around the marquee gradually faded.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced the master of ceremonies. “If you'd all make your way to the dance floor, the bride and groom are about to share their first dance.”
Guests rose from their chairs, carrying drinks toward the polished wooden floor. Harry gladly stood.
“Come on, Wilbur.” Ginny slipped her hand into his. She was still laughing.
Together they joined the crowd gathering around the dance floor, relieved to escape the table for a while.
Across the room, Dudley stood waiting for Cecilia, visibly counting under his breath.
“One... two... three...”
Harry nudged Ginny.
Sure enough, as the music began, Dudley whispered another, “One... two... three,” before leading Cecilia onto the floor with intense concentration.
Harry would never have imagined he’d see Dudley dancing.
The first dance was followed by a round of enthusiastic applause, and then Dudley danced with his mother, while Cecilia danced with her father. Cecilia’s father looked like a very pleasant man, and Harry was sure that the Dursleys must’ve hated their new extended family.
Harry could see Aunt Petunia whispering something frantically into worried Dudley’s ear. Dudley shot him a glance. They must’ve been talking about him. Aunt Petunia must’ve been furious that he had come, and Harry felt a sudden rush of extreme satisfaction.
Then the band struck up a lively swing tune, and the dance floor quickly filled with guests of all ages.
“Well,” Ginny said, finishing the last sip of her wine, “shall we?”
“Do we have to?” Harry looked around hopefully.
“Yes.”
“I was hoping to observe.”
“You've observed enough. You should relax a bit.” She held out her hand.
“Yeah, because dancing was always so relaxing for me,” he said, but smiled and took Ginny’s little hand.
Just as they were about to step onto the dance floor, a frail hand suddenly grabbed Harry's sleeve.
“Wilbur!” an elderly lady beside them exclaimed. “There you are!”
“I'm sorry?” Harry blinked at her.
“I've been looking everywhere for you.” She patted his cheek affectionately. “Come along, dance with your Auntie. I haven’t seen you in years.”
Harry looked helplessly at Ginny.
Ginny folded her arms. This was clearly far too entertaining for her to intervene.
“I think you've mistaken me for someone else,” Harry said carefully.
“Nonsense.” The old lady peered at him over enormous spectacles. Her giant feathered hat shook on her head.
Honestly, Ginny and he were the most normal-looking people at this wedding. All the older ladies would fit perfectly into a wizarding wedding with their attire.
“You've gotten thinner.”
“That's because I'm not Wilbur.”
“Oh, don't be ridiculous.”
She attempted to pull Harry toward the dance floor with determination.
Harry, who had fought Death Eaters on a daily basis, found himself being dragged across a wedding marquee by an at least eighty-year-old woman.
She might’ve been worse than Auntie Muriel.
“A little help here?” Harry said to Ginny.
“And who's this hussy that you brought with you? You’re divorced again?” She eyed Ginny from head to toe, and Harry could feel anger building up inside him.
“Listen, lady…” he began, but she completely ignored him.
“I must say, this one is the prettiest of all your hussies, Wilbur.”
“Why, thank you very much.” Ginny smiled at her. Harry could tell she’d never let him forget this for the rest of their lives.
“Let’s dance, darling,” Ginny said sweetly to him and took him by the hand, leading him onto the dance floor.
He couldn’t believe that dancing had actually saved him. He wondered for how long.
A slow song was playing this time, and Ginny rested her head on Harry’s shoulder. At first he found it sweet, but it turned out she had only done it to muffle her laughter.
“It’s not funny! She called you a hussy.” Harry frowned.
“And she called you Wilbur.” Ginny laughed into his ear, and he couldn’t help but smile too.
It was pretty funny.
“Honestly, I prefer you as Wilbur to Cousin Barney,” she said and kissed him quickly and gently. He pulled her closer.
He had to admit that, over the years, he had grown used to dancing—but only with Ginny. He’d do anything for Ginny.
He’d never admit that to Ron, though.
They swayed and laughed for a long moment, and over Ginny’s head he caught a glimpse of Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Marge standing together with their arms crossed. They were watching them.
Good, Harry thought.
He wanted them to see how happy he was.
After the dance, Ginny wanted a little break, so they stepped off the dance floor. Harry grabbed himself a glass of champagne.
Despite the annoying old lady, Harry had to admit that the evening was going surprisingly smoothly. The Dursleys ignored him, and he felt oddly proud to be standing beside his beautiful wife as she leaned against him, gently swaying to the music. The champagne helped a lot, too.
“Oh no... it's her again,” Harry muttered as he spotted the elderly lady making her way towards them.
“Wilbur! Where's my dance?”
“Harry! Ginny! There you are!” Cecilia approached them with a bright smile, Dudley following a few steps behind.
“Cecilia, I didn't know you invited Wilbur to your wedding.”
“Granny, why don't you go and talk to Uncle Bob?” She gently turned the old lady around and steered her in the direction of, presumably, Uncle Bob.
Harry felt a sudden rush of affection towards her.
“Was Granny bothering you? We actually have no idea who Wilbur is.” She shrugged, then smiled at them again. “You look so cute together! Tell me everything about yourselves! I want to know everything. Dudley is so secretive sometimes—he never tells me anything.” She shot Dudley an accusing look. Dudley seemed to shrink under her gaze.
“Oh! Ginny, you don't have a drink!” Cecilia snatched a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and handed it to her.
“Thank you, Cecilia, but I don't drink.” Ginny smiled politely.
“Oh! You're abstinent?” Cecilia asked a little too loudly.
Harry had the distinct impression that she adored gossip. He couldn't help wondering what Aunt Petunia thought of her. Surely they'd found at least one shared interest.
“Well... not exactly,” Ginny said with a laugh, resting a hand on her stomach. “I'm just not drinking at the moment.”
“Oh!” Cecilia's eyes widened. “You're pregnant!” She practically shouted it.
Dudley looked as though he wanted the floor to swallow him whole, but looked at Harry with, what he thought was, an attempt to smile.
Almost immediately, Aunt Petunia hurried over.
“Cecilia, dear...” she said in a hushed, horrified voice. “What are you saying? You're surely not...”
She lowered her voice even further at the word pregnant, apparently not noticing Harry and Ginny at first.
“Oh, no, no!” Cecilia laughed. “Ginny is!”
Aunt Petunia turned to Ginny, and then to Harry, and then she gasped inaudibly.
For a brief second Harry felt awkward, but then he straightened proudly, slipped an arm around Ginny's waist, and met Aunt Petunia's gaze without looking away.
“But surely you've met Ginny by now?” Cecilia asked her mother-in-law.
“Er... no. I didn't have the... pleasure.” Aunt Petunia said stiffly and looked Ginny up and down with what Harry could only describe as intense curiosity.
Harry flinched at the sound of her voice, but forced himself to speak.
“This is Ginny. My wife.”
“Hello,” Ginny said warmly, holding out her hand. Aunt Petunia hesitated before shaking it rather stiffly.
Ginny never stopped smiling, and Harry loved her for that.
“It's so good to finally meet you,” Ginny said in the sweetest voice Harry had ever heard.
It was wonderfully polite and unmistakably fake. Harry almost laughed.
“Harry has told me so much about you.”
Ginny was smiling from ear to ear, but Harry could hear the faintest hint of menace beneath the honeyed sweetness of her voice.
“So, Ginny,” Cecilia asked brightly, pointing at her stomach, “how far along are you?”
“We only found out recently.”
“That's so exciting!”
Apparently, to Cecilia, everything was exciting.
“Congratulations!”
“Thank you,” Harry said proudly, deliberately glancing at Aunt Petunia.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind them.
“Petunia, there you are... YOU!” Uncle Vernon stopped dead the moment he spotted Harry.
“Dad,” Cecilia said cheerfully, “have you met Ginny? Harry's wife?”
“Ginny... Harry's... what?”
“Wife,” Harry repeated, perhaps a little more clearly than necessary.
“Er... hang on a moment...” Uncle Vernon squinted at Ginny's hair.
“Aren't you one of those crazy red-headed lot who destroyed my living room?”
“Unfortunately, I couldn't be there that day,” Ginny replied sweetly, “but if you mean the Weasleys, then yes.”
She held out her hand to Vernon as well. He stared at it, but he did not shake it.
Dudley looked as though he wanted to disappear. Cecilia, however, appeared to find nothing unusual about her father-in-law's behaviour.
“You’ll have to tell me this story. It sounds so funny! So,” she continued happily, “are you excited to become parents?”
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia both stared at Harry and Ginny.
“Very much,” Ginny said, leaning a little closer to Harry. He tightened his arm around her waist.
“We already are parents,” Harry added proudly. “Our older son is staying with family today.” He put pressure on the word family.
He watched Uncle Vernon's mouth slowly fall open. Aunt Petunia's expression was harder to read.
“How wonderful!” Cecilia clasped her hands together. “What's his name? How old is he?”
“He's a year and a half,” Ginny said with a smile.
“His name is James,” Harry said clearly, looking directly at his aunt and uncle.
“We named him after Harry’s father.” Ginny added sweetly, looking at Aunt Petunia and Harry was sure he couldn’t love her more at that moment.
He saw both of their faces change.
Aunt Petunia's fingers tightened around her handbag. She looked at Harry for the briefest moment before lowering her gaze. Her lips parted as though she meant to say something. Instead, she said nothing at all.
“Why didn't you bring him?” Cecilia asked. “We love babies, don't we, Diddy? We'd love to have one of our own someday.”
“Er... yes,” Dudley answered uncertainly, turning redder than he already was. Harry caught the briefest flicker of panic crossing his cousin's face. Cecilia, however, didn't notice. She smiled dreamily.
“Tell me something about yourselves. What do you do?”
“I’m an Aur—” Harry caught himself. “Er... a kind of policeman,” he replied quickly.
He saw Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon exchange uneasy glances. If he let slip that he was one of the freaks...
“Ginny, you must feel so safe around your husband.”
“You've no idea.” Ginny smiled and looked affectionately at Harry.
“How about you, Ginny?”
“Oh, I'm... into sports.”
“What kind of sports?”
“It’s very... niche. A foreign sport. Hardly anyone's heard of it in England. I don't want to bore you, really.”
“Cecilia, dear,” Aunt Petunia interrupted quickly, apparently eager to stop the conversation before it drifted anywhere unusual. “Marge wanted to speak to you.”
“Oh! Right. See you later! Have fun!”
Cecilia hurried after her mother-in-law, who shot Harry one last look he couldn't quite decipher. He could hear Uncle Vernon swearing under his nose as he walked away.
Dudley lingered behind, clearly trying to think of something to say.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stepped awkwardly from one foot to the other.
“Congratulations,” he finally managed. “About... the babies. And... everything.” He clapped a thoroughly startled Harry on the shoulder before shaking Ginny's hand. “It was nice of you to come, Harry.”
“Thanks.”
Then he hurried away before Harry could answer. Harry watched him disappear into the crowd, shocked but pleasantly surprised.
“Phase Three completed,” Ginny said.
“That was quite a performance, Gin.” Harry slipped both arms around her waist and smiled down at her.
“That wasn't a performance,” she replied, smiling. “Everything was true.”
She kissed him and Harry kissed her back.
He rather hoped the Dursleys were watching.
“Thank you,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “You're the best.”
“I love you so much.” He hugged her tightly.
“I love you too.” She wrapped her arms around him. “They really are horrible people, Harry.” She sighed.
“I wish I could get properly hammered tonight. It would've made this whole evening much easier.”
They both laughed.
“I'm sorry,” Harry said.
“Well...” Ginny smiled, placing a hand over her stomach. “I'm not that sorry.”
Harry covered her hand with his.
Neither of them noticed Aunt Marge approaching until a bark-like voice interrupted the moment.
“You! Boy!”
Harry groaned.
“So you really are here.” Aunt Marge planted herself in front of them, arms folded. “So you've finally got out of prison, have you? Or are you on parole?”
Harry stared at her.
“What’s all this I hear about you and your family?” she demanded, as though accusing him of a crime.
Ginny slowly turned towards her. There was a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. Then she smiled mischievously.
What Harry didn't know was that Ginny had quietly smuggled her wand into the hidden pocket of her dress.
And, judging by that smile she was very tempted to use it.
Harry: Ginny, I—
Ginny: There is no “I” in this relationship, Harry, only “we”.
Harry: Alright then, Ginny, “we” are bisexual.
Ginny: Damn right we are.
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