James Potter and Sirius Black loved each other so much. they were inseparable. they made mirrors because they couldn’t bear to be separated for detentions. James took Sirius in after he ran away. James made Sirius his son’s godfather. He trusted Sirius beyond all his other companions. Sirius broke out of Azkaban to protect his son. Prongs the patronus saved Sirius from the dementors kiss. Harry named his eldest son after both of them so their names would be remembered together.
It took me a while to figure out how to fit seven people in a lineup and make it fun to look at🫡 The ✨ struggles of arting ✨ But! I’m happy with how this turned out! I love the blue and red contrast :)
It was also a lot of fun to draw Harry and the twins again, it’s been a while. I hope you like this one! Until the next one peeps!✏️🏳️🌈💪🏻
In the summer of ’98, Harry Potter falls in love. He tumbles headfast into it, falls recklessly, welcomes it without thought. Falling in love is nothing like he expected; he eases into it the same way he rides a broom. The commitment that comes tagged along doesn’t bother him in the least, in fact, it is strangely liberating. With Ginny, there’s no pretending he doesn’t like to stay in bed later than 8 a.m. ; there’s no need for him to explain to her why he finds coffee outrageously revolting. For the first time in his life, he voices things that annoy him, and no Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia materialize to berate him; in fact, when he reminds Ginny to turn off the tap properly ten days in a row, she looks at him with so much fondness that they end up loving each other on the couch in Grimmauld Place. From the next day, the sink remains dry, and the water remains locked tightly in the tap.
When one night he tells Ginny he used to cook breakfast for the Dursley’s for as long as he can remember, Ginny wakes up early the next day to cook him bacon and eggs. From that day on, she always cooks him breakfast, wakes him up with kisses on his bare shoulders and a steaming cup of tea with no sugar in it. He tells her there’s no need to do it, that he’s more than happy to cook them breakfast. But Ginny cups her jaw and says, “You’ve had your share of cooking breakfast, Harry. Besides, I didn’t spend the summer of my third year just humoring Mum in the kitchen.” When Harry opens his mouth to argue, she silences him with a wet kiss.
*
Autumn rolls out outside with a slowness that seems tiring, bringing with it more love in Harry’s life than he has ever allowed himself to hope for. Ginny learns all his habits and he returns the favour in kind.
They hold hands wherever they go; kiss in alleys that are damp, and empty save for wildflowers that bloom from between the cracks of cobblestones. He takes her out on dates, real ones, where they sip champagne to the pulse of soft music. They dine in darkened restaurants where food is outrageously expensive but appetizing; they go to clubs where he kisses Ginny under neon lights. Once, they go to the museum with Ron and Hermione and end up shagging against a door on the topmost, least frequented floor while Ron and Hermione admire a renaissance painting three floors below them. When they go to parties with friends, Ginny remains by his side, protecting him from the press and witches who carry love potions in their bags for moments such as these. They steal kisses when no one’s looking, more to avoid wolf-whistling and gagging sounds than anything else. They get drunk and play darts, turn almost everything into a competition; together they visit old shops that sell secondhand records and eat pickled olives from the same bowl.
Back home, Harry walks naked down the corridors, an equally naked Ginny tucked under his arm. They make love in the most unusual places – against the umbrella stand in the foyer, on the windowsill with the birds perched on branches as their audience, inside bathtubs and one time on the roof of Grimmauld place under the scant light from the stars studded into the dark canvas that is the sky.
*
Once in thirty trillion light years, they row. Their disagreements are silly, something they laugh about later while they feed each other treacle tart. Around them, people get used to physical displays of affection; one evening Ginny calls a meeting with the entire Weasley Bro Clan, after which the glares that find their way to Harry at the dinner table diminish noticeably. Mrs. Weasley all but calls him “son”; Mr. Weasley never threatens to throttle him because he’s dating his only daughter, only says, “I trust you with Ginny, Harry.”
They laze around all over the place that autumn, in parks and pubs, and when winter finally arrives, they sign their gifts as one. ‘Happy Christmas. Love, Harry and Ginny’, they write on tags and tape them to gifts covered in shiny wrappers. They try baking pies to take to an orphanage on Boxing Day and fail spectacularly, then buy pies from the bakery nearby to take instead. They fall so in love that everything else seems to fade into the background; the world reduces itself to just each other’s name.
They do trivial things for each other, like laundry. When Harry manages to spoil Ginny’s white silk chemise by putting it into the washing machine with his brown pants and grey boxers, she yells at him like mad. Then she all but drags him to a lingerie store, where she pulls him inside the changing room and makes him clasp and unclasp five, ten, fifteen bras before deciding on a lacy black one, which- judging from the bulge in his jeans- Harry heartily approves of.
At the counter, he offers to pay, but Ginny smiles up at him with a mischievous glint in her brown eyes and says, “Only if you let me pay for your underwear”, which leaves the elderly woman behind the counter so embarrassed she forgets to say, ‘Thank you, please visit again’.
All in all, Harry Potter falls in love with Ginny Weasley over and over again, each second, each day, so much so that he barely remembers what it feels like to not love her. When they make love, with Ginny over him, she pants, like she’s been chasing him on foot for so long; in a way it’s true, he reckons, but now there’s no more chasing. Only loving each other to oblivion, to happy forgetfulness, to the point of mutually combusting with it.
He is absolutely the mother/father of the group. Even of his siblings. If anyone’s going to notice when someone is sick or not eating or upset it’s going to be Ron.
Because of that he is driven insane every single fall at the fact that every summer Harry loses all the weight Ron gets him to gain during the school year. Harry knows (and loves) that there will be a minimum of a week of Ron clucking and fussing and shoving food in his hands.
Ron is the stay at home parent. He loves taking care of his kids full time and cooking delicious meals for Hermione when she comes home from work.
NO ONE is more proud of hermione’a accomplishments than Ron is. And he takes every single moment to brag about her.
Because of hermione’s work and the fact that he’s the stay at home parent, most ppl think that Hermione is the dominant in the relationship. And they’d be dead wrong. Ron is the only person Hermione can totally turn her brain off with and he absolutely runs the house. He is her safe space.
Ron is the best at conflict resolution in the whole family. And they all go to him to fix spats.
Ron can find common ground with literally anyone. Even when Hermione takes him out to the muggle world he finds people to talk to.
Healer Gower kept the tip of his wand pressed against Harry’s upper arm, his robe sleeve rolled up, and Harry could feel an increasing squeezing sensation, as though some invisible person was gripping him tightly. Healer Gower was looking at an odd little brass instrument on the table, with a slight frown.
‘Blood pressure’s a bit high, old boy,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ said Harry vaguely.
There was an almighty crash from the corridor outside, and a shriek, followed by a cackle. Both Harry and Healer Gower ignored it.
Your headcanon that Harry is afraid of Mr Blobby is genius! I'm now also imagining the Hogwarts professors being baffled when this strange, terrifying being is suddenly the bogart of almost every muggle born student in the school! 🤣
OK this is the stupidest thing I have ever written and should not be taken seriously. It's also not a return to me doing prompts/requests, I just can't sleep.
And There Was Only One Bed
Cw: swearing, references to alcohol consumption, mild sex references.
They had all had too much mulled wine. And fizz. And eggnog. As a result, the four of them had got rather silly, and were laughing so loudly that Percy, in the room below, kept banging on the ceiling.
Part of the hilarity was how they had been forced to squeeze up in Ron’s old childhood bedroom. With Percy insisting on his old childhood bedroom just for himself and Audrey, Andromeda and Teddy in Ginny’s old room, and Bill and his family in the room that had once belonged to the twins, there hadn’t been much choice. George and Angelina had ended up having to Floo back to their flat rather than crash on the sofas in the living room. Three camp beds had been crammed in alongside Ron’s single bed, their metal frames overlapping awkwardly, stretching wall to wall.
‘Go and sleep on the sofa!’ Ron was insisting passionately, pointing at Harry as Ginny and Hermione shook with breathless, hysterical laughter.
‘No!’ cried Harry, with equal passion. He was face down on the camp bed, having thrown himself upon it in a whoop of familiar delight, clutching the sides lovingly. ‘I’ve missed this campbed! So many happy memories-’
‘We are NOT all sleeping in one big bed-’
‘It’s not one big bed!’ said Ginny. ‘Clearly!’
‘Where are the gaps, Ginny? Where - are - the - gaps?’
‘It doesn’t matter, they’re still separate beds! We still have separate duvets!’
But he was ignoring her, pulling on Harry’s leg in an effort to drag him out of the bed, but Harry had a surprisingly strong grip. ‘Go - down - stairs!’
‘You go downstairs!’
‘I’m not leaving you up here alone with my sister,’ hissed Ron.
‘Oh now we see what it’s all about,’ said Ginny dangerously. ‘We live together, Ron-’
‘Hermione would be with us!’ said Harry. ‘There’s your supervision!’
‘She only enables the pair of you!’
‘Ron,’ said Hermione, still in a fit of giggles, ‘I think you’re going to have to accept it…’
‘Fine,’ said Ron sourly, finally dropping Harry’s foot. ‘But you’re not sleeping in beds next to each other.’
‘Why the fuck not-’ began Ginny.
‘That means you can’t sleep next to Hermione,’ said Harry quickly.
‘Yes it does, if me and Hermione are in the middle and you two are either side - you can be on my side, and Ginny-’
‘No, I’m sleeping in my bed! This is my camp bed!’
‘How in the name of Merlin’s hairy ballsack can you tell? They’re all exactly the same cheap camp beds, Dad probably did a gemini charm on yours, the other two will probably collapse halfway through the night-’
‘This one’s got this little dent in the metal here, see-’
Ron still looked ludicrously grumpy, his arms folded tight, glaring at Harry lying drunkenly on the bed, still pointing out the dent in the metal frame of the fold up bed with a goading grin. ‘Come on, Ron! It’ll be fun! How long’s it been since we shared a room? It’ll be like old times.’
‘We never shared a bed!’ he snapped. ‘Certainly not with Ginny here - Ginny, you go and sleep on the sofa!’
‘Certainly not - Ted has been told a series of very complex lies about Father Christmas, if he sees me in there in the morning, it might all come crashing down. There can’t be any witnesses to Father Christmas, Ron, there just can’t.’
‘That’s not a reason!’ said Ron furiously, as Ginny took the bed next to Harry’s, against the wall. ‘And anyway - maybe Percy’s right, maybe we shouldn’t lie to children-’
‘It’s fine,’ said Harry. ‘My aunt told me all sorts of lies.’
‘Yeah? What other Dursley parenting tips would you recommend?’
‘Oh, you know - knock ‘em about a bit, tell ‘em off for crying, all that character building stuff.’
‘Never did you any harm, did it?’ said Ron sarcastically.
‘I’m the picture of emotional well-adjustment,’ said Harry. ‘Now let me have this particular bed so I can imagine I’m twelve again.’
‘Fine - Ginny, move,’ Ron ordered. ‘You’re not sleeping there.’
‘Fine,’ she said coolly, and then deliberately clambered over Harry with unnecessary closeness to the bed on the other side of him, ignoring Ron’s howl of revulsion and Hermione and Harry’s fresh bouts of laughter. ‘Now Hermione, you can sleep on this side with me, and Ron, you can sleep on the other side of Harry-’
‘Oh, shut up Ginny - maybe we can move one of the beds, if we keep the door open-’
‘While you all squabble, I’m going to go and get into my pyjamas,’ said Hermione, taking her toothbrush and leaving. She squeezed Ron’s arm as she did. ‘I don’t think you’re going to win here.’
By the time she had returned, Harry and Ginny were snorting with laughter on their original beds, and Ron was lying on the other side of Harry, his arms folded, glaring at the ceiling. 'Shut up,' he was repeating in a hissing mantra. 'Shut up, shut up-'
The rest of them took turns to go to the bathroom to change and brush their teeth, and eventually settled into the beds, with Ron's firm instructions that there was to be no funny business.
'What kind of people do you think we are, Ron?' Ginny demanded. 'Having you less than a broomstick length away from me doesn't exactly make me keen to-'
'Yeah, all right,' said Ron sourly. 'I'm just saying - I'll make you swap with Hermione if I hear any… inappropriateness.'
'We won't even hold hands,' Harry promised him.
It was late now, technically Christmas morning, and so Hermione insisted on putting an end to their squabbling and turning out the lights with a swish of her wand. They were silent for a few moments in the darkness, before Harry said, 'I haven't got anywhere to put my glasses.'
'Give them here,' said Hermione, 'I'll put them on the windowsill.'
Harry had to awkwardly lean over Ron to hand them to Hermione's shadowy figure, the camp bed creaking with his movement.
'Oh, Harry, come back,' moaned Ginny mockingly.
'All right, very funny,' said Ron. 'Just go to sleep, the pair of you.'
They fell back into silence, and though it was dark Harry and Ginny were close enough to see each other's expressions in what little moonlight broke through the gap of the curtains, so they grinned at one another, and tried to suppress their laughter.
'Harry, get your foot off my leg,' said Ron sharply.
'My foot's not on your leg!'
'Oh, that's mine, Ron,' said Hermione sleepily.
'Wow!' said Ginny irritably.
'I see, so you two are allowed to cuddle up - this is stunning hypocrisy-'
'Outrageous,' agreed Ginny.
'My feet are cold!' said Hermione.
'No excuse,' said Harry. 'Strictly no touching.'
'It's only a foot,' said Ron.
'Hark who's changed their tune!'
'Oh, just go to sleep.'
'You're having fun,' Harry told him. 'You've missed having me as a dormmate.'
'I haven't. It's nice not to be woken by you muttering and yelling your way through nightmares.'
‘I had a really horrible nightmare the other night,' said Harry conversationally. 'But not about Voldemort.'
'What about?'
'Well…' He propped himself up on his elbow, looking over at the dark form of Hermione on the other side of Ron. 'Hermione, you know that thing we watched at Muggleborn Committee the other week? Dudley always watched it in the summers too, I remember from, must have been summer before third year or something-'
'What thing?'
'That thing with that absolutely horrifying monster - it made awful noises like-' he made a strange wailing, shrieking sort of noise which made them all yelp in laughter in the darkness.
'Harry, what are you talking about?' asked Hermione with bewildered patience.
‘That fat, jaundiced baby that crashes into everything -'
'Do you mean Mr Blobby from Noel's House Party?'
'Yes! He’s evil, how the fuck is he allowed near kids?’
'Why on earth are you thinking about him?'
'I told you - I had a horrible dream about him after we watched him on that thing at Muggleborn Committee. I dreamt that he was trashing my kitchen and I'd never be able to explain it to my aunt.'
Ron and Ginny were in peals of laughter. 'Harry, what the fuck are you on about?' Ginny gasped. 'How much did you drink tonight?'
'I don't know - ask George how much he put in that eggnog. But honestly - you'd understand if you saw it. Great big pink thing with these sinister yellow spots, a face that looks like it's been peeled off the corpse of a troll, a thousand yard stare-'
'They're googly eyes, Harry,' said Hermione.
'They're haunting, Hermione.'
'Well I quite want to see it now,' said Ron. 'Can you get me a guest pass to the next social? I want to see how bad it is.'
'Ron, I would honestly rather do the whole Triwizard Tournament all over again.'
Their laughter was interrupted by the door opening quickly and hitting the base of the campbeds with a loud clang. 'Really!' said Percy irritably, bundled up in a dressing gown in the doorway. 'It is nearly half past two in the morning! At least have the decency to cast a silencing charm!'
They held back their sniggering and apologised, and Hermione cast muffliato as Percy left. 'We really should go to sleep now,' she whispered.
'Yeah,' Harry whispered back. 'But I just - it's really nice us all being in the same room, you know, without it being a tent where we're all starving and sad-'
'Oh, God,' said Ron despairingly. 'He's that stage of drunk-'
'I'm not, I'm just saying, mate, this is like the good old days but better, and I'm really glad you're all-'
'Ginny, I can't believe I'm saying this,' said Ron through gritted teeth, 'but will you hug him or something so he shuts up and goes to sleep?'
Harry shifted closer to Ginny's camp bed, and though the hard metal bar between them was uncomfortable, they were able to hold each other close.
Harry/Ginny, Rated T, 2973 words, domestic fluff and domestic angst
Ginny and Harry finally move into their first flat together, but their new life isn't exactly what Ginny expected. A postwar Hinny slice of life.
i started this as a gift for the lovely @hinnyfied (hbd), but it got a bit out of hand 🫠 read it here (it's long lol) or on AO3 💛🤎🖤
All that was left was Ginny's old canvas school satchel and her overnight bag. She stood next to them in her empty room, chewing her thumbnail. She and Harry had wrestled her old trunk and her cardboard boxes downstairs together by hand, which had earned Harry a snivelly hug from Mum and an equally-snivelly handshake from Dad. Ginny was sure she was in for a whole rainstorm of crying when she showed up downstairs with her bags on her shoulders.
Strange how much bigger her room looked without all her things in it. A spiderweb waved loose in the corner where it had once been attached to her desk lamp. Dark shapes on the walls where pennants and posters had shielded the wallpaper from the sun. Those were all in a box now, rolled into neat cylinders by a charm and a funny whipping motion of the tip of her mum's wand. Mum had tried to teach her how to do it but Ginny had only been half-listening so eventually Mum had done that frustrated little huff of breath through her nose and rolled them all up herself.
The place on the baseboards where Ginny had once, seven years old, scratched I HATE FRED AND GEORGE was still there. She thought about charming it away so her mum and dad wouldn't see it—she even took her wand out—but it felt like erasing a memory. Fred and George had transfigured her Harpies scarf to show a bad word and she'd gone to three errands with mum before anyone noticed. Her mum had been so red that even her dad had seemed alarmed at her fury. She'd sent Ginny and the twins to their rooms, even though Ginny hadn't even known what the word meant (until Fred and George, delighted, had explained it to her over breakfast the next morning).
Harry pushed the door open with a slow creak and Ginny hid her bitten thumb behind her back.
"Ready?" he said. "I've got everything set up outside so we can just grab it and apparate."
He always stood in the hallway unless he was invited, as if they weren't about to be sharing a flat, a bedroom, a bed.
"Yeah." Ginny gave him a faint smile. "Just give me a minute."
He lingered there for a few seconds like he wasn't sure if he should go, then turned and clomped down the stairs.
This was the last minute she'd still live in the house she'd shared with her brothers. The next time she came she'd only be visiting. That felt like it should make her feel something, but all she had were sore arms, the buzz of excitement in her stomach, the prickly emptiness where some deeper feeling should be.
She shouldered her bag and went downstairs to face her mum's stupid tears.
-----
That first night in their little flat, they were too tired to do anything but flump down on their too-hard new mattress and fall asleep. Ginny dreamt she was signing a contract with the Kestrels, big ridiculous ceremonial quill in her hand, the fluff of it tickling in her nose, eyes watering from all the sports-reporter flashbulbs. She touched the quill to the big scroll of parchment and signed her name.
Good evening, my dear, the contract wrote back. It's been such a very long time. Are you still wondering if you'll ever learn to do a Cuban Eight on your broomstick? Is your brother still nasty to you about it? I know—
She woke with a hiss of breath and cramps shooting up her calves. Panic hammered through her veins—dark. I'm hurt—until she remembered where she was and that she'd made about twenty trips up and down the stairs with boxes yesterday, thinking it'd be nice to get a leg workout in before tryouts.
She rolled on her side, rested her head on the crook of her arm, bit down on her middle fingernail and watched the slow swells of Harry's breathing. They hadn't hung the curtains yet and the bare bedroom wall was stained with the swapping colours of the traffic light outside: green, yellow, red. She took a breath and held it to slow her heartbeat. Tonks had taught her how to do that. She crammed that useless thought down into the dark cellar storage inside her, along with the sick lingering unease of the dream.
This view of Harry, the narrow shoulders in silhouette and that mess of black hair against the pillow: she'd seen it before, but today in their flat it was exhilaratingly new. This was going to be her every morning, this was going to be her middles-of-the-night. She was going to get used to it. How absolutely mad.
Later, in the faint blush of sunrise, Harry took a long deep breath and stretched his arms over his head. When he turned to face her, his skinny legs tangling in the sheets and that slow squinty smile spreading across his face, Ginny forgot all about the panic and the cramps and my dear and just climbed on top of him, thinking only this is how it's supposed to be, you and me, every day.
------
Ginny felt silly getting so excited for their first big shop. She was uncomfortable amongst all the muggles in the plasticky brightness of Sainsbury's, but Harry pushed the trolley down the overstimulating gauntlets of every-colour packets and tins with a bored confidence that looked weird on him.
"Yeah," he shrugged. "Aunt Petunia used to drag me along and make me carry the big thing of serviettes that wouldn't fit in the bags."
The muggle snacks were nasty-looking and there weren't even any pumpkin flavours, but Harry grabbed boxes of biscuits and crisps and assured her she'd understand when she tried them. He piled the trolley with fruit and veg, spinach and carrots and apples and bananas.
"You know I can't cook like Mum, right?" Ginny huffed.
"Yeah, I dunno—you've got tryouts and I've got the Auror Academy physical coming up—thought we could try making smoothies or something—you know—grown up, healthy—" He shrugged and ruffled his hair with his hand.
Making smoothies for breakfast with the boy who lived, in their bright little flat that smelled of his cedar trunk and soap. Ginny was stricken, for an instant, by an idea that seemed stupid but dizzyingly true at the same time—that she'd never understood before what it must have been like for Harry to suddenly find out he was a wizard when he was eleven, but maybe it was something like these last few days: the buoying relief of having survived her old life long enough to see her new one, and the unmoored thrill of all the future discoveries unknown, undreamt-of.
She pressed a kiss to the crescent of skin behind his ear as he counted out the strangely-coloured muggle banknotes, and she could feel the warm flush in his skin where her lips touched him.
------
Of course the smoothies never happened.
Harry was in meetings with Minister Shacklebolt and his transition team most days, and Ginny spent afternoons practicing for tryouts with Bill, swooping over the seaside cliffs like starlings and hurling his battered old quaffle over the peaked roof of Shell Cottage.
The spinach wilted in the cupboard and the bananas sat unbothered in the fruit bowl, mottled with brown spots. Harry and Ginny ordered pizza and ate it in knackered silence. All the singing nerves of the day they'd moved in together had subsided under the heavy disappointing drone of the neighbour's telly through the wall. Harry would rub Unknotting Unguent into Ginny's spasming back and then she'd crawl into bed and fall asleep listening to the scratch of his quill as he revised for the Auror Academy exams. It wasn't anything like she'd imagined. It wasn't anything. It was like the time just before winter holidays or her birthday, the dragging, drudging lope of days spent waiting for something exciting—but what? This was it. This was supposed to be it.
Her mum and dad dropped by while Harry was out, and while Molly managed to hold her tongue at the stack of pizza boxes next to the bin and the gnats buzzing round the fruit bowl, Ginny could see on her face that she wasn't impressed. She looked so old, all of a sudden. Arthur did too, but at least his face lit up with a boyish glee when he wandered through the flat flipping all the lightswitches. Ginny pulled the chain of the the ceiling fan for him and he giggled like a little kid.
"Has Angelina been round lately?" Ginny asked them over chipped mugs of tea. She knew better than to ask directly about George.
"She's in Freiburg, actually, consulting with Ellerby and Spudmore," Arthur said. That sounded dead grown-up. Ginny couldn't even imagine. With a cautious glance over at her mum, he added, "I gather they're on a bit of a break. George has been... in one of his moods, I think. We don't hear much."
He was speaking in that hushed, apologetic tone he'd been using ever since all the funerals.
"Oh," Ginny said.
"I've been to the Tonks house this week," her Mum cut in. Her dad pressed his lips together until they went white.
"Did you see Teddy?" Ginny asked, setting down her half-eaten shortbread. She and
Harry hadn't been to visit him in the last few weeks, with the way all their time was eaten by moving out and practice and exams and just everything, every thing.
"He was having a little kip—" Molly started, but then she stopped and took a big slurp of her tea, the way she always did when she was about to deliver hard news.
A brand-new understanding thumped in Ginny's chest: that steadying tea-slurp was her mum's need to soothe herself, the way Ginny would peel off slivers of fingernail with her teeth. Somehow it was both startling and obvious. She'd been watching her mum do it for almost nineteen years.
"He's been having a bit of trouble—er, sleeping and that—" Arthur filled in for Molly with a weak chuckle.
"He won't sleep in his bed," Molly blurted out, "he's afraid something's underneath and trying to get him. Andromeda tried to make him tell her what he thinks is under there—you know, he's barely two—and all he would say was 'Mummy and Daddy'—"
Another slurp of tea. Arthur reached out to stroke Molly's upper arm.
Hours later, when Harry came home, he didn't ask why Ginny was lying on the sofa with her eyes all swollen. He just sat next to her and laid his hand on her cheek. She didn't start crying again, but it was a weird comfort to just lie there and throb with his quiet warmth at her side.
------
The neighbours downstairs had a party so loud Ginny could feel the bass vibrating in the mattress springs. She and Harry cast every muffling and white-noise charm they knew, but the beat pounded through the very frame of the building. It invaded Ginny's head like a commanding voice and made her legs twitch with electric, frustrated rage.
"I'm going to go downstairs, curse the door off the hinges and hex every single one of them and their—their muggle—music box or whatever—"
Harry turned over and squinted at her in the dark.
"You can't get arrested, they'll disqualify you from tryouts," he croaked.
Ginny kicked all her covers off and rolled in a ball on her side, clutching her stomach.
Harry managed to fall asleep with his head sandwiched between two pillows, but Ginny laid there in spiraling despair until the police came to break the party up. The curtains were still in a wrinkled lump on the bedroom floor, so the flashing lights made a red-and-blue lightshow on the bedroom wall. Harry didn't even move. When the music finally shut off, Ginny closed her eyes in exhausted relief, but it seemed like the moment she fell asleep the sun was shining red through her eyelids and the pipes were groaning with Harry's morning shower.
The browning bananas curved like a smirk in the fruit bowl. Ginny blankly spooned Harry's weird muggle cereal into her mouth. Her thoughts were the same slow pointless drip as the broken tap in the kitchen. Harry leaned down to kiss her neck on his way out the door. He followed her gaze to the bananas.
"They're getting almost as freckly as you," he murmured into her ear, smacked another kiss on her cheek, and left. Ginny sat in the abrupt calm of the flat for a moment, blinking, then threw her spoon into the bowl with a clink and flooed over to Bill's, where she slung the quaffle so hard and so wildly it broke the weather vane off the roof and sent it spinning into the kitchen garden. Fleur came running out the back door at the noise, wiping her hands on a tea towel and cursing in French. Bill pulled his broom up alongside pinkfaced, panting Ginny and gripped her shoulder with his big rough hand.
------
Harry sat up in the dead of night with a gasp like he was coming up from underwater and touched his fingertips to his scar.
Ginny sat up too, so fast it made her abs twinge. "What is it? Does it hurt?"
"No," Harry said, "not really. Only in the dream."
He sat there blinking for a moment, red traffic light painting his face, then flopped back on his side and pulled the covers up to his neck. Ginny felt suddenly very alone in their bed.
"I have weird dreams too," she whispered.
She didn't think Harry had heard her at first, but after a moment, muffled by the duvet, he said, "Do you?"
"Yeah."
He turned over to face her. "Like what?"
"I dunno," she said. She didn't know why she'd even said it, because she didn't really want to talk about it now. "Like I made it on a Quidditch team but I don't want to play anymore."
Harry was quiet for so long she thought he must have gone back to sleep, but then he slid over and rested his forehead against her thigh. It had taken him so long, when they'd first begun seeing each other, to start giving her little touches like this. She didn't suppose the Dursleys had been touchers. She wove her fingers into his hair.
"I haven't felt like myself lately," she blurted out. "I mean—not just lately—but especially—I dunno—"
She took a breath and the hitch in it repulsed her.
Harry didn't say anything, but she could feel his eyelashes blinking against her leg. The light from outside turned green and painted the rumpled sheets that pooled around the both of them.
"I just—we never even made smoothies. The bananas are all rotten now. The curtains are still over there on the floor. How long is it going to be like this? How long can I not feel like myself before I have to admit that this is just how I am now?"
She shoved her thumbnail in her mouth. Warm stupid tears were leaking down her face and dripping all the way down her neck to her collarbones. She'd normally have scrubbed them away with the back of her hand and gone somewhere to collect herself, but she wanted them, weirdly, to prove how pathetic this dumb fucked-up feeling was. Mum's coppery hair was coming in white, poor Andromeda had to think about dead Tonks crawling out from under the bed, George was aching alone in his filthy bedsit, Fred was in the ground turning into something unrecognisable, and Ginny was sat here crying like an idiot over some fucking brown bananas.
Harry sat up and looked at her. "The bananas went bad?"
Ginny laughed through her noseful of snot.
"They're nearly black now," she sniffed. "Its so stupid, I just hate to waste—"
Harry suddenly swung his legs out of the bed and walked in his stiff morning way out of the bedroom.
The traffic light was yellow now. Ginny got up and followed him into the kitchen.
Harry was holding the bunch of bananas betwen two fingers. A tenacious fruit fly looped circles around them. He broke one off the bunch with a nasty squishing noise.
"I'll eat them right now," he said. "Zero waste."
He pulled the black peel back from the banana. A fermented smell came off it and stung the back of Ginny's nose. Webby strings of goo stretched between the fruit and the skin, and they caught the light from outside and shone with it like tiny filaments of neon.
"Er—" Harry started, his brow furrowing.
"You don't have to eat it," Ginny said quickly.
Harry stared at her for a moment with such intensity that she thought he might take a bite just to shock her.
Then he turned around and chucked them into the kitchen bin.
"We'll go to Sainsbury's in the morning," he said. Ginny's face was itchy with drying tears. Harry wiped his hands off on the seat of his pyjamas and brushed past her into the bedroom.
"Come on, I'll rub that stuff on your back if you want," he called over his shoulder.
Ginny didn't, but she followed him back to bed. In the morning, she woke to the quiet rustling sounds of Harry putting up the curtains. The flat still reeked of rotting banana. When she sat up, Harry turned around to look at her, grinned, and accidentally bashed the curtain rod into the window frame. Ginny felt a sleepy little flicker inside: this is it. You and me.
Also how do you think ginny and Harry's marital life was? Did they get married early?Did Ginny sometimes resent her husband's profession? As a couple do you think they fought often?
Thanks so much for always replying to all the asks so wonderfully! You're so amazing!!!
I think Harry and Ginny's marital life was happy, of course! I think their marriage was a singular source of stability and renewing joy throughout their adult lives. (can you imagine if I was like... nah, it was garbage, divorce)
Without further ado... here's too many words and thoughts on Harry and Ginny's married life and careers, and some fic recs that have helped shape how I think about it dotted throughout. Come for the twee house descriptions, stay for the rant about neoliberal feminism at the end I guess!
On married life and the Potter household:
I love the idea of the Potters presiding over this ramshackle chaos household in big house near the sea, with a great big garden and treehouse for their kids and the cousins and various pets to maraud about all over the place. I actually think quite a lot about the house they'd be in. I love the idea of them building it from scratch, a big house with modern comforts but rustic, cosy, English country features, more horizontal than vertical (kind of farm/barn conversion vibes). In my mind, their house has lots of light, lots of beams and soft wood furnishings, and then a few quirky features and colours that are all Ginny's idea (Luna paints beautiful murals on each of the kids' walls). I imagine their house has lots of big windows with window seats so the adults can sit out and watch the kids play outside. I think the kitchen/dining room would be the heart of the house. Harry's doing the cooking, Ginny's writing at the table, kids are streaming in and out, it's just a real thoroughfare of teenagers and family friends and grandparents streaming through with the wireless on.
On marrying and having kids young:
I do really think Harry and Ginny got married early and had kids young. As I get older I only get more ok with that as a timescale for them. I think the intensity of their wartime experiences, their very involved role as godparents to Teddy (especially thinking maybe it might be nice for Teddy to have younger god-siblings), and their family reference points (both being from families where marrying young is quite normal, and where babies and toddlers are increasingly around a lot) are all factors that lend themselves to these two locking in in their early twenties. The pieces I love most on their marriage/babies etc are all ones that have a lot of humour and spontaneity and walk this gorgeous line between flippancy and total certainty - acesofdiamond's version of their wedding in Arran, Scotland, is canon to me, and also quickfire by flagpoles, on them having a shotgun wedding, is just so so so good and so them.
On Harry's career:
I think Ginny would understand why Harry chose the career he did, but I think it would be a source of tension for them. I'm thinking a lot about this at the minute for some writing (👀), but I think Harry as an adult would have to confront the fact that he intends to keep choosing to get back in the arena and fight Dark magic, this thing he does it to keep the people he loves safe but that also asks so much of the same loved ones who have to watch him do it. I think Ginny would try to push him to see that, but I don't think those would be easy conversations, and I do think it would be one of the things they argue most about on the occasions when they do, properly, fight. On the day to day, things they bicker over include: whose fault it is that the house is a mess (obviously it's both of them, plus the three messy children those two messy kids created); whose fault it is that the Potters are literally always late to everything (Harry blames Ginny, Ginny says the only reason he was ever on time before was because of Hermione, and he chose not to marry the punctual one so he just has to lump it); and Ginny losing her wand around the house/not keeping her wand on her (it takes Harry a long time to say it, but he's always just thinking of James on the sofa the night he died).
On Ginny's career:
I know this is a bit controversial, but I'm honestly happy with the idea of Ginny quitting playing professional Quidditch young. I think she quits after she has James, or maybe between Albus and Lily, so by the time she's about twenty four, twenty five. This is a bit of a soapbox one for me, and maybe one day I'll write about it in some form, but I think there's quite a lot to be said for freeing yourself from being accountable to career decisions and dreams you once had for yourself when you were seventeen, especially career plans that served as escape hatches from traumatic teen years (for the same reason, I like the idea of Ron quitting the Aurors after a few years). I think, as teenagers, we imagine futures for versions of ourselves we haven't met yet. Renegotiating your hopes and aspirations for yourself can be a real sign of growth; holding yourself hostage to who you thought you'd be can make you very miserable.
Relatedly, I do think Ginny in her mid-twenties might have a different relationship to her playing Quidditch than she has a teen. I think lot of her wanting to play professionally is about her having something to prove (I have also totally adopted the headcanon from this fantastic piece on Ginny wanting to be outdoors and in the air as a rejection of the chamber). It feels right to me that Ginny might reconsider her attitude to physical risk and injury by her mid-twenties, particularly if her children are watching her play an extremely dangerous sport week-in week out. I also think she might reconsider how much time she wants to spend away from her family. I wonder if Ginny would also develop a different relationship to the sport outside of a school context, especially the press scrutiny and the big business of sport on the outside. We know that when she quits playing, it's not the end of her professional life, and I think her writing about the sport, and being a voice in the culture of the sport but also in the Wizarding World at large, makes a ton of sense for her. But I think it's good to change jobs because what you want for yourself changes, and I really think it's not a feminist failing to want to spend time with your family and to look for jobs that are interesting and help give your life meaning but that also let you have a family life. It's boardroom girlboss neoliberal nonsense feminism that says wanting to spend time with your friends and family is less of a route to happiness than climbing up some horrendous hyper-individualist career ladder in pursuit of success (especially, in Ginny's case, in professional sport, where careers only ever end on a downturn).
Thank you anon for wanting to hear me bang on about all of this!
Fics mentioned here include:
dancing on to your heartbeat by aceofdiamonds - H/G wedding fic
quick-fire by flagpoles - H/G proposal and pregnancy fic
Little Sugar Men by dopeythedwarf - H/G, on Ginny and flying
Would you write a little something about Dawlish and James?
James had thought that after a couple of months of being an Auror (albeit a trainee) he might have been doing something more exciting than trawling through old records and ancient editions of the Daily Prophet. Yet here he was, sprawled out across the floor of his cubicle, a halo of carefully laid out papers around him and across his desk, combing through them for details and passing mentions that he couldn’t fathom actually being important.
He yawned loudly, and from his peripheral vision he spotted Hazel throwing him an irritated look. ‘Have you found anything else or are you just planning on having a nap?’ she asked. For Merlin’s sake, he thought sourly. Hodges goes to New York for a couple of weeks and Duarte starts treating like a house elf.
Hi Flo! I feel like one of the sign of a very good story is when you're left wondering about it and daydreaming little, random missing scenes, and of course I find myself imagining missing moments of WFTT ^^ As such, if you're up to it I'd love to know a little more about Harry and Hazel relationship in the future, considering he's not her boss anymore, there's all this trauma they went through (and I'm sure it required a huge team effort to help James, as you showed!), she's the first and only "added" woman to the Potter family (considering Victoire is family already), and of course she's the mother of Harry's beloved grandchildren!
I especially found myself imagining little scenes with Hazel pregnant or with the kids very little ^^ Please tell me that Harry teared up when they told him they were expecting a baby XD
Also, I really hope James remembers the time Hazel accidentally pinched Harry's bum, and that he loves to remind her about it ;)
Thank you so much Isi! This is so so wonderful to hear, I'm delighted that people daydream and think about my characters! I actually have a deleted scene - or what was the beginnings of a chapter I decided not to use because I couldn't get the tone quite right, among a few other considerations/things I wasn't happy with, hence a few abrupt scene changes and the lack of ending. I hope you enjoy it anyway?
For everyone else - this is not me returning to prompts, this is a roughly tidied up deleted scene. There may be more in the future but I'm not writing in response to prompts or suggestions, it just happened that Isi mentioned a few things that reminded me of some writing I had floating around in an old doc.
It had been just a couple of months shy of a year, and golden evening light was falling upon a hamlet perched upon a high hill, surrounded by a patchwork of rolling vineyards, olive groves and forests, dotted with stone farm houses. Narrow streets slipped between tall buildings with terracotta tiles, ancient looking wooden doors and just the right amount of elegant disrepair, with baskets of flowers hanging over the window sills and balconies. It was the kind of place that oozed laziness, that demanded leisurely meals and long evenings, gentle easy conversations and quiet.
This might have been the case, if it were not for the large and noisy family, eating at a long table beneath a vine covered pergola, roaring with laughter.
‘You did,’ Al was insisting, ‘you did say that. A really flashy one, with nice leather seats.’
‘Right, yeah, sounds like me,’ said James dryly.
‘I can’t believe you don’t remember - you said, “Al, to make up for being such a prat my whole life, I’m going to”-’
‘I absolutely did not promise to buy you a car.’
‘He did, didn’t he, Dora?’ said Al, looking down at his niece, who was frowning suspiciously between the two. ‘You remember.’
‘Erm…’
Albus winked at her, and she grinned mischievously, though seemed too kind to outright lie to her godfather. James leaned across the table to look her directly in the eyes. ‘Your uncle Al is a liar, isn’t he, Dot?’
‘I don’t know…’ she said. ‘You do forget a lot of things, Uncle Jim.’
There was renewed laughter, and James grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘Do I?’
‘Yes…’ She looked hesitantly towards her mother. ‘But you’re getting better, Mummy says.’
‘Much better!’ he said bracingly. ‘Go on, test me.’
‘Do you… Do you remember how old I am?’
‘Course I do, you’re three.’
‘No, I’m not!’
‘Pretty sure you are. Look at you, you’re tiny.’
‘I’m not three!’
‘Yeeees you are! Test me again!’
Harry laughed as he watched them, and like the others he threw out occasional easy or joking tests himself. He felt warm. The air was fragrant, the meal had been devoured. Lily had loudly and furiously shouted at him for having red wine, to the amusement of the others and his own secret pride. Beside him, Ginny lovingly caressed his hand under the table. He had worried that the new place, so different to Godric’s Hollow or Devon, would confuse things, would set them back all the progress they had made. And yes, a few times he had spotted his son frowning, clearly thinking hard, but so far, a few days in, James had continued to astound him, continued to work hard, continued to bring him the same joy and overflowing love that he had since the day he had been born.
The evening drew in with a slight but welcome chill, and moths started to dance around the lanterns on the table. Soon, it was the children’s bedtime, though the rest of them stayed up longer, their feet and very bones ached so much from their hike through the Tuscan hills and woods that day, that there were soon murmurs that they were going to bed too. They retired back inside to the large house that they had rented for the week, shouting their goodnights.
‘Early start tomorrow!’ Harry reminded them all at a bellow. ‘Lots of queuing to do to go and look at some paintings-’
There were loud, exaggerated groans from throughout the house as they all plodded to their rooms, except for Lily, the one who had chosen the next day’s activity, who whooped.
‘He seemed all right today, didn’t he?’ whispered Ginny as they got into bed. ‘Seemed pretty clued up. I mean - I did have to remind him where we were this morning, and there was that moment when Ted spotted him wandering off, but after that, he did so well-’
‘I thought so,’ Harry agreed. ‘He came up to me on the walk and started talking about plans for the wedding.’
‘No prompting?’
‘None at all.’
‘What was he talking about?’
‘Oh, God,’ he said despairingly, lying back and grinning, ‘the invite list, he was pretending he was going to invite Dawlish.’
‘He wouldn’t, not even for a joke.’
‘It’s all right, I acted enthusiastically about it until he cottoned on and got bored.’
She kissed him, running her hand over his chest. ‘He’s really starting to be himself again,’ she said. ‘I knew this holiday would be all right - I told you that you were worrying over nothing.’
‘You did.’
‘I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘You always are,’ he said admiringly.
‘I think I promised you that we would have the kind of holiday that we always have, that things would hardly be different…’
‘I think you did, too…’
The sheets were thin and cool against their bodies, their clothes pulled off with well practiced swiftness, he held his wife in close embrace, and he felt himself washed in that happiness. She was softer and curvier than she had been when they were young; he loved to run his hands across her, loved to sink his fingertips into the depths of her hips, feel the cushion of her breasts against his chest, hear her murmur his name in his ear. They knew each other so well now, but the familiarity had never felt boring. She remained his greatest source of comfort, his blazing, beautiful, silver lining.
'Ssh - Harry - the kids -'
'Charm,' he muttered against her collar bone.
He heard her breathless, whispering giggle. 'Dropped my wand - just stay quiet-'
'You stay quiet,' he retorted with a grin, and a new challenge was born, their hands reaching to playfully close over one another's mouths when a giggle or groan escaped.
Afterwards, he dropped into sleep, the ceiling fan whooshing above them, the night peaceful and still.
‘Harry - I think someone’s up in the living room.’
The whisper woke him, and then came the soft yellow glow of the bedside lamp, illuminating Ginny’s worried face, staring at the door. ‘I thought it was someone getting water, but there’s been noises from the living room for ages.’
‘Probably one of the kids,’ he said, though that old paranoia was rising in both of them, and he drew his wand out from beneath his pillow. On the bedside table, the clock showed that it was gone three in the morning. ‘I’ll check.’
‘I’ll-’
‘No, you stay here - if I shout, get the girls out first.’
He grabbed his discarded pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt from the floor and hastily dressed, then, with a grim look to Ginny, left the bedroom. Now that he was out in the high ceilinged hall, he could hear what Ginny had been talking about - a sort of clattering echoing up the staircase. Quiet, but constant movement. He crept silently down the stairs and to the door which led to the large, airy living room.
He could hear heavy breathing, and rapid footsteps. Gripping his wand tightly, he paused at the door and listened, before throwing it open.
Hazel gave a slight gasp, and he threw up a shield charm as a jet of red came towards him.
‘Oh my God, I’m sorry-’
‘It’s all right,’ he said soothingly, lowering his wand. She looked a little frantic, her pyjamas damp with sweat, her hair mussed as though she had been gripping it, and the furniture was a little knocked aside; she had been pacing, he realised. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine,’ she blurted out. ‘Fine - I’m fine - sorry-’
‘Do you want some water?’ he asked calmly.
She nodded rapidly, and he sat her down on the sofa as he conjured up a glass for her. As she drank it, she seemed to steady herself, and she nodded as her breathing slowed, and the vice like grip on her wand slackened.
‘Please don’t tell Auror Hodges,’ she blurted out.
‘I’m not your boss anymore,’ he said gently. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing, I…’ she shook her head helplessly. ‘I don’t know, just out of nowhere…’
‘You weren’t asleep? Bad dream?’
‘I… maybe I was, I just…’ She looked down at her legs. ‘I just had this awful cramp, in my legs, it woke me up…’
‘It reminded you of it,’ he said quietly. She nodded, a dusky pink colouring her cheeks.
‘We did a lot of walking today, I’m sure you didn’t.’
There was a slight noise behind them; he glanced over his shoulder to see Ginny at the door, and held up his hand to reassure here it was all right. She gave a brief nod, and left. Turning back to Hazel, he could see that she was still a little panicked, trembling, her eyes darting around but hardly seeming to see.
‘Sorry,’ she was saying quickly. ‘Sorry, it’s just, the room we’re in - it’s nice, I’m not complaining, I just - when I woke up with the cramping I felt like it was small, the walls were too close so I came in here, I’m sorry I woke you both-’
‘You felt trapped, it’s OK,’ he said, and he pointed his wand at the windows. They opened, and a cool breeze came through.
Hazel audibly sighed, and stared at them for a few moments. ‘Please don’t tell Auror Hodges,’ she said again quietly. ‘I really don’t want to have to have time off-’
‘I think you’re still OK to work,’ he said. ‘I was the same after the war, better to focus on things than sit at home and brood - but you’re still seeing the Mind Healer, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, of course-’
‘Well then. This is fine - to be expected.’
She nodded, and rubbed her hands hard over face and eyes. ‘Is it? When you’re otherwise having a nice time?’
‘It is. I still get moments even now - you must have seen my hand trembling before.’
She gaped at him. ‘That’s because…?’
He nodded, and looked at his wand hand, though at that moment it stayed perfectly still and relaxed. ‘That and constantly rubbing my scar like a… tic.’ He paused. ‘It used to hurt a lot, and sometimes I still think I can feel it burning, but I can’t. It’s just… unwanted memories.’
‘Things last,’ she said vaguely. ‘They attach themselves to the strangest details.’
annaxmalina
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