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The Oath | ||||||
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Category: Alternate Universe Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Comedy, General, Humor, Romance Warnings: Extreme Language, Intimate Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use Story is Complete Rating: R Reviews: 231 Summary: Things are looking up for Harry Potter. He’s engaged to Ginny, he has some good friends and he’s finally learning how to have fun. But what adventures must he go through before he can finally recite his wedding oath? Sequel to my previous story ‘The List’. I suggest you read that one first or much of this will be confusing. Hitcount: Story Total: 91115; Chapter Total: 11708 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: At the bottom, as per usual. |
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Chapter 2 — Sad, lonely men It was a slow day in the Auror Department at the Ministry of Magic. To be fair, every day for the last three months had been a slow day as well. The Wizarding world seemed to be in an unusual period of tranquillity, and the Aurors had little to do. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were long gone, and for once no tyrannical, dark wizard had appeared to try to take his place. Even the regular criminals seemed to have decided to take extended holidays. Faced with a lack of work for the highly trained Auror teams, the Ministry fell back onto the last refuge of all Government departments put in such situations: training courses and paperwork. Harry sat at his desk reading the report file on a case which had been closed marked ‘unsolved’ three years ago. He wasn’t surprised the case hadn’t been solved; he was fairly certain that the wizard who had died had blown himself up. Unfortunately, the explosion had been so large that little evidence remained. That was always the trouble with trying to investigate cases involving wizards and witches; magic could be so unpredictable and destructive that frequently an investigator would have absolutely no hope of figuring out what had happened. Harry sighed and sipped his tea, wishing he hadn’t finished the last of his chocolate digestives that morning. He glanced around at his team, all of whom looked as bored as he was. Robbie and Suzie were both going through closed case files just as he was, while Malcolm was reading a training manual in preparation for a refresher course he was to attend the next day. None of them looked as if they were putting much effort into their tasks. It had been a good three weeks since they had been assigned a decent case, a spate of break-ins in Diagon Alley. Unfortunately, the culprit was apprehended very quickly, leaving the team twiddling their thumbs again. Harry’s mind wandered back to busier, if not necessarily better, times. “So, Harry, have you set a date for the wedding yet?” Suzie asked out the blue, waking him from his musings. Harry looked over at the small, blond witch. He had always had an excellent working relationship with her, but lately things had been a little uncomfortable between them. When Suzie had found out he was dating a professional Quidditch player, she had pulled him aside and warned him that such a girl might not be the best choice for him. She had even hinted that she would be a more appropriate match. Harry had responded to this advice by immediately asking his Quidditch playing girlfriend to marry him. Things between him and Suzie had been somewhat strained ever since. “We haven’t set a firm date yet, Suzie,” Harry replied carefully, “but we are planning for some time in the early autumn.” “Fantastic! Stag do, ahoy!” chipped in Robbie, rubbing his hands in glee. Suzie rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t think Harry would stoop to the sort of debauched, sordid event that you have in mind,” she snapped at Robbie, who looked unrepentant. “I think, my prim and proper little friend, that the tone of the event will all be down to the efforts of the best man. So, who’s that going to be, Harry? I’m available if you need me,” Robbie added, turning to him. Harry shuddered at the thought of the sort of stag do that Robbie would organise. That would definitely not be happening. It did occur to him, however, that he had given no thought at all to who would be his best man. All the people he would have liked most at his side on his wedding day had died years ago. Although he had many acquaintances, he had very few close friends. Of all the people he had been close to during the war, only Kingsley Shacklebolt remained as a friend, but the thought of asking the Minister for Magic to be his best man seemed ridiculous. Simon, with whom he normally watched the Harpies play, was an option, but he really didn’t know the man that well yet. Maybe his fellow team member Malcolm would be a good choice? Harry looked up at the desk towards the man in question who immediately held up his hands defensively. “Don’t look at me, Harry,” Malcolm said. “I mean, I’m honoured you would even think of me, but best man duties are not something I’m really suited for. Besides, you know my wife is pregnant and she’ll be due in September, so I won’t have a lot of time spare then.” Harry nodded in defeat. Malcolm and his wife had been trying for children for ages and everybody had been delighted when they announced a few months ago that a baby was on its way. Knowing Malcolm, he would want to be involved in the pregnancy at every stage and would be thinking of little else for some time. “Err, I’m available, Harry,” Robbie said again. “Yeah, I heard, thanks,” Harry replied absently. Robbie scowled, causing Suzie to start giggling at him. Harry shoved the report he had been reading across his desk in disgust. Had he really got so few friends that he had no-one he could ask to be his best man? He briefly thought he should make more effort to make more acquaintances, but where would he find the time? He was happy with things as they were, with all of his spare time spent with Ginny or her family. Great, he thought. One more thing to worry about. HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP Ginn y roughly shoved aside an old set of dress robes that were hanging in the built-in wardrobe in Harry’s bedroom. From the size and age of them, she guessed that they would last have fit him when he was about twelve. Merlin knows why he had kept them. Harry and Ginny had recently decided that after the wedding, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place would be their marital home. It was a no-brainer, really. Ginny loved the house, and they were hardly going to move into her rented one bedroom flat. In fact, Ginny practically lived here already, and her flat was now used as little more than storage space for her things. With the formal decision that she would be moving in permanently after the wedding, Ginny had started moving more of her possessions to the house. That was the reason why she was rooting around in the closet, making space for her clothing. Harry was currently downstairs finishing off a report for work that should have been completed the previous night, but had been delayed when the pair of them found more interesting things to do with their time. Ginny scowled as she looked about her. She didn’t think that Harry was a hoarder, but clearly he could never be bothered throwing anything old away. The wardrobe was filled with clothes of which, she estimated, around only five per cent Harry actually ever wore. The rest were either way too small for him or looked like they had been attacked by a herd of ravenous goats. She sighed as she scooped up an armful of used clothes and dumped them on the floor for disposal later. Harry had made clear she was welcome to bin anything she wanted, as long as she didn’t touch the relatively small collection of clothes that hung on the extreme right of the wardrobe. Ginny wasn’t a seer, but she could predict a large shopping trip in Harry’s future, whether he wanted it or not. Throwing more stuff over her shoulder, she bent down to pick up a rather ratty blanket which was covering something at the back of the closet. She removed the blanket and threw it on the ‘to be burnt immediately’ pile before turning to examine what it had been covering. There were two cardboard boxes, both sealed with Spellotape, sat on the floor before her. Using her nails, she slit the first one open and discovered a collection of old school books, all of which appeared to be in reasonable condition. Thinking these could be donated to charity, she moved the box to her ‘to be given away’ pile before moving to the other box. Once again, she neatly split open the box and peered inside. Observing the contents, Ginny became confused. The box contained a number of small plastic objects, about eight inches long and four inches wide. Picking one up, she noticed that along one edge of the object was some sort of flap which wouldn’t open when she tried to lift it. Turning it over, she saw two white plastic spools. The thing looked vaguely familiar, but she was struggling to remember what it was used for. Suddenly, it came to her. Harry and Ginny spent a lot of their time in the Muggle world where they could avoid the attention of fans and the press. She recalled there was a shop that sold these objects near one of their favourite curry houses. What were these things called again? Vidoes? No, videos! That was it. In one of the smaller rooms upstairs, Harry kept a collection of Muggle machines that had once belonged to his godfather, Sirius Black. Sirius was a big fan of Muggle entertainments and had worked out how to power these machines magically. You still had to be very careful with them, however, and if these devices were used more than once a week, they had a tendency to melt or explode. One of these machines was a black box which, if you put one of these video things into it, would show whatever had been recorded onto a television screen. Normally, this was a film, but she remembered Harry telling her that if you had a special type of camera, you could record whatever you wanted onto it. Turning the video…tape, was it called? Yes, that was it, a video tape. Turning the tape over, she noticed a white label on the front which, she guessed, would tell her what had been recorded onto it. Looking at it she read the words ‘Naughty Nymphos’ on it. Ginny frowned. What in the name of Merlin was a ‘Naughty Nympho’? She remembered that little Teddy’s mother had been called Nymphadora, was this something to do with her? Taking another tape from the box she read the label on that one…and suddenly was in no doubt what was recorded onto the tapes. For a second Ginny was stunned. She couldn’t believe Harry had these things. When she thought about it, however, prior to them getting together Harry had been a lonely, single man for a long time. The tapes had also been sealed up in a box and hidden away in the back of a wardrobe, so maybe he felt he didn’t need to watch them any more? An evil grin came onto her face. She could have some fun with these things. Taking the tape in hand, she left the bedroom and went down the stairs to the next floor where Harry had his study. The door was half open so she poked her head round, being careful to keep the tape hidden behind her back. “Hi, Harry. How are you doing with that report?” she asked her boyfriend, who was sat at a desk studying a stack of papers. “Oh, hi, Gin,” he replied, looking up. “I’m pretty much finished. I’m just going over it one last time to make sure I haven’t made any stupid mistakes. I really should have someone more intelligent than me read through it and correct all my errors. How’s the mass clear-out going?” “Pretty well, considering you seem to have kept every single item of clothing you ever owned. Are you keeping them for sentimental reasons or something?” Harry laughed. “No, I’m keeping them for ‘I’m too bloody lazy to throw them out’ reasons. Please feel free to get rid of anything you like.” “Ah, right, because I wanted to ask you about some things up there, to see if you wanted them kept,” Ginny smiled. “There were a load of old school books. As they looked in reasonable condition, I thought we could give them away. I think Hogwarts has a donation scheme we could give them to.” “Yeah, that would be great,” Harry beamed at her. “Excellent. And there were these other things up there as well,” Ginny took the tape from behind her back and began to turn it over in her hands, as if she didn’t know what it was. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Harry suddenly go very pale. Ah ha! They were his tapes. For a while she had wondered if they had belonged to Sirius, but the guilt written all over her fiancé’s face told her otherwise. “I’m not really sure what these things are, Harry, but there was a box full of them. What do they do?” she asked innocently. “Err…they…um. I’m not sure, Ginny. I don’t think they work, anyway,” Harry stuttered. “Oh, you’ve tried to get them working then?” she asked. “What? Oh, I…um…well, I think they are what Muggles call video tapes. I think I’ve mentioned them to you before. Sirius used to have a video player for them, but I don’t think it works any more.” Harry sounded a bit more confident, as if he had worked out a cover story, she guessed. You’re not getting away with things that easily, Mr Potter, she thought. “The video player? But that was working when you demonstrated it about a month ago. Have you tried these tapes since then?” Ginny challenged sweetly. She was delighted to see panic in Harry’s eyes. “No!” he nearly shouted. “I mean, err…I tried to watch a film last week and it wasn’t working then. Too much magic, I guess. It always makes Muggle machines break down.” Ginny nodded. “So, what actually are these tapes, then? They have these little labels on them, but the titles confuse me,” she asked. Years of hiding pranks from her mother allowed her to keep a perfectly straight face when she said this, while inside she was screaming with laughter at Harry’s discomfort. “Well, they are…um, education videos,” he said lamely, as if even he didn’t believe he would get away with saying it. “Really?” Ginny said with mock amazement. “So what exactly did you learn watching a video called ‘Bonking Bimbos Volume Two’ then?” “I…err…I…um…” Harry was by now so red in the face Ginny was tempted to try and use him to make some toast. She bit the inside of her mouth for a second to stop herself from roaring with laughter before adopting her most disappointed look. “Oh, Harry. Have you been watching dirty videos?” she asked mournfully. Harry put his head in his hands and said nothing. Leaving a suitable amount of time to let him stew, she resumed the attack. “Tell me, Harry, why do you feel the need to watch these things?” she asked, trying to sound a little hurt. Harry’s head shot up. “I haven’t! Not for ages!” He protested. “I swear that I haven’t watched one of those tapes since I met you. That’s why they were all boxed up and shoved at the back of the closet, because I didn’t need them any more.” “You didn’t need them any more?” Ginny repeated. “What, exactly, did you ‘need’ these tapes for?” If Harry had been red before, he now was vibrant. Ginny was worried he was giving off so much heat that he might melt the video tape in her hand. “I…um…I was…lonely. I, err…I mean, all men have…needs,” he mumbled. “Oh, Harry,” Ginny sighed tragically, “what have you been doing while you’ve been watching these tapes?” It was the stricken look on Harry’s face that did it. Ginny had nearly managed to keep her face expressionless, but a slight twitch of her lips gave her away. At once, Harry’s eyes grew wide as it suddenly dawned on him that she was winding him up. Embarrassment turned to anger in a second, which was the signal for Ginny to burst out laughing. “You minx!” Harry shouted. “You bloody minx! I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!” Ginny just howled at him. “Your face, Harry! Oh, it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” It took her several minutes before she had calmed down enough to speak again. Taking deep breaths, she waved the tape she was still holding at Harry. “So, is this thing any good? Is it worth us watching it together?” she asked seductively. In response, Harry stood and walked over to her. Taking the tape from her hands he threw it roughly over his shoulder. It hit the wall and smashed down onto the floor. Ginny was slightly taken aback by the way his eyes had darkened and the strange look on his face. “Nah, Ginny. There’s a reason why I don’t watch those tapes any more,” he said, looming over her. “Really?” she replied a little nervously. She was beginning to wonder if she had pushed him a bit too far. “Yeah. It’s because the real thing is so much better.” Then without warning, Harry grabbed Ginny around her backside and picked her up. Turning, he carried her over to his desk onto which he deposited her. “Let me demonstrate,” he growled. Ginny suddenly found her neck being attacked by Harry’s lips and her clothes vanishing rapidly. The last thing that went through her head before she gave herself over to pleasure was that her bare backside was currently crumpling up Harry’s completed report, and that he would probably end up having to redo the whole thing. Oh, well. HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP There really were better ways to spend a Thursday afternoon, thought Harry. He was currently crouched behind a stone wall, up to his ankles in mud, at least he hoped it was mud, listening to a drunken Welsh farmer yell abuse at him. He’d had a bad feeling about the whole thing from the start. A call had come through that afternoon that a team from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had run into trouble, and Harry’s team had been sent to assist them. They had been directed to a small farm a few miles from Haverfordwest in southwest Wales. The DMLE team had been on site to deal with an eviction. The farmer in question had borrowed heavily from Gringotts, but unfortunately had fallen far behind with his payments. It was a written rule that the Goblins didn’t get directly involved repossessing property; past results when they had got involved had ended rather badly for the wizards involved. Eviction orders were dealt with by the DMLE, therefore. Initially, Harry had been very reluctant to get involved. As much as he respected the Goblins, the idea of having to throw some hard working farmer off his land disturbed him greatly. Upon arriving at the farm, his opinion changed somewhat. To put it mildly, the whole place looked like a rubbish tip. Bits of broken farm machinery and general rubbish were scattered everywhere. Some of the smaller buildings were actually falling down, and sheets of rusted corrugated iron lay all over the place. Worse still, he had spotted several dead animals lying in the surrounding fields. It looked like they had been there some time. The farmer himself, a man called Morys Jones, inspired little sympathy. He looked the part, at least: green Wellington boots, jeans that looked like they had last been washed sometime in 1986 and checked shirt. Unfortunately, he was also drunk as a lord and extremely aggressive. The DMLE team leader, a middle-aged man who identified himself as Evan Thomas, informed him that on their arrival Jones had started swearing at them at the top of his voice before grabbing his wand and trying to hex them. As the angry farmer was so drunk, the results were a bit unpredictable. But after the man blew out a section of wall near to where the team had been standing, they had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and legged it. As Evan stated, DMLE staff were just not paid enough to deal with this sort of crap. Worse still, in Evan’s opinion, was that Jones had a Muggle shogun. Harry was initially confused as to why a Welsh farmer would seek the aid of a feudal Japanese military commander, before it dawned on him what the man meant. “A shotgun, Evan,” Harry corrected. “It’s called a shotgun.” “Whatever the bloody thing's called, the sodding thing nearly took my head off!” The man retorted. The Aurors and the DMLE team were currently crouched behind the wall, while Harry decided the best way to proceed. While he didn’t think the farmer was much of a threat with his wand, the shotgun was another matter and the last thing he wanted was to see anyone injured in these circumstances. Maybe just lettering the bloke work out his anger for a while would be a good idea? Unfortunately, it was looking like that might take a long time. Morys Jones was currently alternating between firing his shotgun into the air, taking long swigs from an unidentified bottle and casting various spells badly. At one point the man conjured an extremely surprised looking black cat which took one look around and ran as fast as its paws could take it into a field of oilseed rape. Harry was fairly sure that spell was not the one the drunken farmer had intended to cast. With no sign that Jones was calming down, Harry knew he had to take action. Motioning for everyone else to stay down, he slowly stood with one arm raised in what he hoped was a peaceful gesture. He kept his wand ready in his other hand, however. “Mr Jones,” he called. “This is the Auror Department. Please drop your wand and the gun, and slowly make your way towards me with your hands raised.” Jones, who had been taking a long pull from his bottle at that moment, looked up suddenly at the sound of Harry’s voice. He turned on Harry with his face red with anger. “You bloody bugger!” the farmer shouted. “Rather grovel to those bloody goblins than stand by your own kind, you would. You bloody git! I’ll fix you!” With surprising speed the man levelled his wand at Harry. As Jones still carried his shotgun in the crook of his arm, Harry was reluctant to stun him in case the weapon went off as the man fell. Jones had no such reluctance to cast spells, however. “Reducer…um, no that’s not it,” the man mumbled, looking confused. “Wait, I’ve got it…Reducto!” Harry’s eyes widened as he realised what the farmer was trying to do. He just had time to yell ‘duck’ and throw himself down behind the wall before a thunderous explosion sounded. For a second the blast echoed around the Welsh valley. Looking up, Harry was relieved to see all his team and the DMLE staff all unharmed, still crouching behind the intact wall. A second later a green Wellington boot sailed through the air and landed a few meters beyond where Harry knelt. He stared at it in disbelief. Movement to his left caught his eye and he turned in time to see Robbie peer over the top of the wall. He winced and laid a restraining hand on Suzie’s shoulder as she attempted to look as well. “I wouldn’t, Suzie,” he said shaking his head. “I just really wouldn’t.” Suzie decided to take his advice and knelt back down. One of the DMLE team chose not to heed his warning, however. The man took one look before he darted to the opposite side of the lane and was violently sick. Evan Thomas stood and walked up to Harry with a neutral expression on his face. “Sorry, lad,” he apologised, “but you’re doing the paperwork on this one.” Bugger, thought Harry. Author’s notes I really am using these stories to work out my frustrations, aren’t I? Just because I happen to work for a firm that deals with agricultural mortgages and my patch happens to include Wales doesn’t mean I sit at my desk fantasising about Welsh farmers exploding all day. Well, not very often anyway. No more than twice a day, tops. Harry’s naughty video collection idea came from a throw-away line I put in ‘The List’ about finding a shop that stocked such things when he was chasing vampires round Camden. It’s also a tribute to another great fantasy hero of mine, Mr Fox Mulder of X-Files fame. I see a lot of parallels between Harry and Fox; both tortured, idealistic heroes who end up marrying short, feisty red-heads. Come to think of it, Luke Skywalker was always my favourite character in Star Wars and he falls into that category as well. I see a strange pattern forming! I’m not sure Luke had a porn collection, though. Who will Harry have as his best man? Well, that little problem won’t be sorted out for quite a few chapters yet. Please feel free to speculate. As always, big thanks to MinistryMalcontent for correcting my (numerous) errors. How do American’s spell ‘tranquillity’ then? |
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