Socks by YelloWitchGrl



Summary: Harry thinks his jumper belongs to him. His wife has other ideas...

Flashes forward to when Al is at Hogwarts.
Rating: PG starstarstarstarhalf-star
Categories: Post-DH/AB
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: Connections
Published: 2013.11.19
Updated: 2013.11.19


Socks by YelloWitchGrl
Chapter 1: Socks
Author's Notes:

2004
“Mine.”

Harry froze in the act of pulling on his jumper to stare at his wife, her finger pointing at his chest. “Excuse me?”

“Mine!” She said again, flicking her finger in a dismissive gesture. “Take it off, Potter. That one is mine.”

He glanced down, wondering what exactly she was referring to. “Uhm…”

“The sweater, Harry! It’s mine.” She crossed her arms and began tapping her toe on the hardwood floor of their bedroom.

Harry needed to tread carefully. She’d been in a foul mood for days and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of another tongue-thrashing. “Your mum gave this to me for Christmas a year or two ago.”

“Six years, Harry. She gave it to you six years ago. It doesn’t fit you anymore, not since you started working out.” She smirked in a way that told him she appreciated the work outs and he relaxed. She was in a good mood right now and taking the mickey. He had gotten used to her occasional mood shifts over the years of their marriage, but the last few days had been more than a little disconcerting.

He thought back to what she’d said. Had it really been six years already? “It goes on all right.”

“It’s too tight, hand it over.”

“Ginny…”

She sighed in exasperation clearly telling him she thought he was being dense and she was only humoring him. “I knicked that one fair and square a while ago. But, even if I hadn’t knicked it, which I did, and it did fit properly, which is doesn’t, it still looks better on me. Therefore it’s mine!”

Well, it was only a sweater... He pulled it off and handed it over. He watched in amusement as she slid it over her head and began to roll the sleeves back several times. It looked almost like a dress on her. “It’s too big for you,” he stated flatly.

Ginny raised an eyebrow and a secret, almost shy smile flitted over her face. “It won’t be for long.”

Completely wrong-footed by the comment he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You’d have to stuff yourself for years to even come close. Quidditch keeps you in great shape.”

She took a deep breath and walked over to him. She reached up and cupped his cheeks before whispering, “Can’t you think of any other reason that I might start to fill out this jumper… especially right here,” she took his left hand with her right and guided it to her lower abdomen.

Harry felt his heart lodge painfully in his throat. Did she really mean… “Really?” he breathed it out, barely more than a whisper. “I thought… you know, wow,” he let out another hard breath, staring into her eyes which were studying him closely. “You’re pregnant?”

Ginny nodded.

He closed his eyes and all of his feelings rushed in on him until he had to pull her into his arms, his anchor and strength through many years, through the good times and the bad. A baby… a baby… he almost couldn’t wrap his mind around it. They were going to wait another year or two, but he’d wanted kids. The longing had only intensified the more now that Teddy was getting older. “Are you happy?” he asked. She seemed happy, but…

“I am,” Ginny replied; her whisper nearly lost against the cotton of his shirt where her head nestled. Her arms tightened slightly. “Are you happy?”

He was terrified. He was elated. He was… too many things to name. “I’m overwhelmed, but in a really good way.” Harry leaned down to nuzzle her neck, right at the collar of his jumper. “That’s going down at the most creative way of telling a bloke that he’s going to be a dad.”

“I didn’t plan it that way,” Ginny admitted with a giggle. “It just sort of came out.”

Harry found her mouth and began a slow kiss that quickly heated up to more. “Merlin I love you.”

“I love you too,” she assured him.

More kissing followed, but was halted when Harry had a vision of all of his clothing quickly disappearing from his dresser as her belly rounded with their growing child and her justifying why she needed them and him ending up walking around starkers all the time. His heart constricted and immense joy flooded him. However… “You leave my socks alone. There is no way you can argue that you need my socks.”

“I make no promises. It’s true love when a girl steals your clothes. Didn't you know that?”

Harry sighed before laughing. To hell with it, he thought. She was so damn beautiful that everything he owned really did look better on her than it ever would on him.


2022
Thunk Al cracked an eye open for a moment, but there wasn’t any light peeking through the tower windows, just the howling, raging wind. Not time to get up… no Quidditch today... blizzard… and even James, in his final year at Hogwarts and Quidditch mad, couldn’t argue that the Quidditch cup was worth playing in 10 feet of snow Whatever that noise was, it was wasn’t worth waking up for.

“Where is it…” a soft female whisper came from the end of his bed.

All right, maybe it was worth waking up for… Especially since this was the 6th year boys dorm room. He raised his head up a bit and squinted through sleep caked eyes. He’d been up most of the night reviewing for a potions exam and didn’t want to be awake. A tiny crack of light illuminated a familiar strawberry blonde head which was currently digging through the trunk at the foot of his bed.

“Got it!” Natalie whispered triumphantly, pulling out one of his old Weasley sweaters. She yanked it over her head and looked up, noticing him staring blurrily at her. It looked ludicrous on her tiny frame, almost like she was being engulfed by a large navy blue bear. In fact, if he squinted one eye… “Go back to bed, Al. It’s early.” She snatched something off the floor, turned and walked softly from the room, closing the door behind her with almost no sound.

Al let his head thump back onto his pillow, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen and deciding it didn’t really matter.

“Al?” Scorpius muttered. “Did Nat just come in and knick one of your sweaters?”

“Uhhuh,” Al said, rolling onto his side.

Scorpius sighed. “All right, I’m not hallucinating.” There was a long moment of silence before he drawled, “Do you have any idea why?”

Al snorted. "Nope."

“Right, stupid question,” Scorpius said, yawning hugely. “If you ever get a girlfriend you're not going to have any clothes left.”

Realizing that sleep wasn't going to come back now, Al stretched and sat up. “It doesn't come close to fitting her. I’m more than a head taller than she is and at least 5 stones heavier.”

“Girls never make sense,” Scorpius agreed.

A light cracked into the room from the stairs as the door swung over again. “Oh,” Nat began. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep.”

Al gave her a bland stare as he scraped his hands over his cheeks, trying to rub off the last vestiges of sleep. “Why’d ya knick my sweater?”

“I’m cold,” she said, giving him an odd look as if that should explain everything. She moved back over to his trunk.

“What’s wrong with your sweaters?”

“I have one of mine on, Al. I wanted to layer them so I needed a bigger one.” She began rummaging through his trunk again. “There’s a blizzard out there and it’s freezing in the common room even with the fire blazing.”

Al stood and walked over to look at what she was doing, noting with a shiver that she was right. It was wickedly cold out of his warm bed. “Now what?”

She stood, triumphantly holding up a pair of his thick, woolen socks. “Found them,” she said happily, quietly closing the lid to sit and pull them on over her other socks. They went all the way up to her knees, before she pulled her pants back over them. “Much better,” Nat said happily, wiggling her feet. “You two getting up then?”

“Nat,” Al began and then gave up with a sigh. She was so cute, swamped as she was in his clothes. Who really cared if she took them? “Yeah, we’re getting up. Now get out so I can get dressed.”

“No stealing any of my clothes!” Scorpius called from his pillow, waving a hand at her.

“Too late,” Nat said as she walked towards the door. “I raided your trunk earlier for Rose before going through Al’s.” The door clicked shut. Scorpius groaned.

Al grinned and looked over at Scorpius who rolled his eyes before asking, “Why are we friends with them again?”

Al shrugged and started to dig out what was left of his warm clothing. “They don’t smell bad if they forget to shower and they never eat the last piece of bacon.”

His best mate snorted. “Right, as long as we’ve got good reasons.”

Al grinned and headed for the bathroom. “Only the best.”

Five minutes later Al and Scorpius trudged down into the common room and towards the fires where Rose and Nat sat studying. “It’s not even 7am!” Al grumbled as he flopped into the seat next to Nat, while Scorpius sat with Rose across from them.

“This is a big test,” Rose reminded them. “We need the study time.”

Al shivered as a large gust of wind shook the tower and spewed in cold air. He crossed his arms over his chest. He turned at a noise from the stairs and saw his sister, her shoulders hunched, about to head up the boys stairs. “Oy! What are you doing?”

Lily gave him a dirty look. She’d never been a morning person. “I’m going to get a sweater from your trunk.”

“What is it with you girls?” Scorpius asked incredulously.

“Nat already raided my trunk,” Al informed her staring pointedly at Nat. She studiously ignored him.

Lily yawned and went up the stairs. “No problem, I’ll get one from James.”

Al turned back to the group and the thought of a memory flashed in his head. “You know, that’s how my mum told my dad she was pregnant with James.”

“Come again?” Nat finally looked up at him.

“I remember that story!” Rose piped in with a laugh. “See, Uncle Harry started to put on one of his old sweaters…”

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at http://www.siye.co.uk/siye/viewstory.php?sid=129770