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SIYE Time:13:53 on 29th March 2024
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Together
By glasscandlegrenades

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Category: Post-DH/AB
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Drama, General, Romance
Warnings: Death, Extreme Language, Intimate Sexual Situations, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Sexual Situations, Violence
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 128
Summary: "I've had enough trouble for a lifetime," Harry Potter tells his friends after the Battle of Hogwarts. Life, however, is not done with Harry. The Wizarding community is left in chaos and it's up to Harry to fix it, and there's the small matter of repairing his relationship with Ginny, strained after months apart. Will Harry ever be able to settle and enjoy a simple life with the ones he loves?
Hitcount: Story Total: 59354; Chapter Total: 3041
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
A/N: Okay, I couldn’t resist doing a back-to-back post, so I apologize if this causes any confusion since I’m updating twice in one day. If you haven’t read Chapter Fifteen, Tender is the Night, yet, please do so before reading this chapter because there is major plot development going on!!! This was the first chapter that I wrote for this fic, and it was so incredible to be able to revisit and edit it today, and I’m beyond excited to share it with you!! I hope I’ve done a decent job of the timeline for this story, but fwiw this chapter takes place in February 2003, two months after Chapter 15. It does get quite sexual, at the end, so proceed with caution, but this version of the chapter has been edited for content and is posted in its fully smutty glory on fanfiction.net. My account there is linked on my author page. The title comes from the Sharon Van Etten song One Day.




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The morning sun streamed from the window onto Harry's face, unusually bright for February in London. He woke with a start at the intrusion. Keeping his eyes shut, he turned away from the light, though still enjoying the warmth emitting from both the glow and his blankets. It was Sunday, and he had hoped to sleep later than this, but he couldn't deny to himself it was nice to be up early on a sunny morning. Harry noted silently that it was coming up on a year since the capture of the Lestrange brothers, a year of life that had been blissfully and refreshingly normal and uncomplicated. "Perhaps," thought Harry blissfully, "Ginny and I can go to Diagon Alley."

However, as he reached out for Ginny, his hand found only mattress. He heard a flush from the bathroom on the other side of the wall, and then the soft sound of Ginny's footsteps trodding into the hall. Burying his face in his pillow, he hazily imagined pulling off her ratty t-shirt and knickers when she returned to bed.

Harry longed for the days when they'd first moved in together, when they would keep tally of which surfaces they had shagged on, managing to cover every surface in the flat within the first few days.

They'd cooled off considerably in the past few weeks, and though Harry had initially chalked up Ginny being so tired and crotchety to the rigors of the current Harpies season, normally Quidditch matches were Ginny's biggest turn-on. He frowned slightly, irrationally beginning to worry they'd never have sex again. Every time he tried to bring it up to her, he received the same cold stare. It was times like these he wished his best mate didn't happen to be his girlfriend's brother, as he really had no one to turn to for advice on making it through this particular dry spell.

Somewhere in the back of his sleepy brain, a quiet thought occurred to him that perhaps this is what happened when you'd been with someone for as long as he and Ginny had been together. They'd been living together in their flat for almost three years now. Maybe she'd gone off him.

He was hit by a jolt of anxiety and felt suddenly awake. "No," he reassured himself. It's not as if the Weasleys were known for keeping their thoughts to themselves. If Ginny didn't want to be with him anymore, he'd be the first to know.

He thought again about the engagement ring, sitting untouched in his nightstand for weeks. Had she found it? Was she withholding sex to punish him for not proposing after they had agreed to consider marriage after the World Cup last summer? Again, Ginny was a fairly frank person, and Harry couldn't imagine her attaining such a level of passive-aggression.

Continuing to press his face into the pillow, Harry noted that though he'd heard the toilet flush at least a minute ago, Ginny still hadn't returned. He could hear her feet moving around in the hall now, and there was a certain urgency to the sound of her steps.

He thought of falling back to sleep, but his unexpected fit of nerves had sufficiently energized him that calming his mind down enough to drift off seemed impossible. He continued to lie on his stomach, contemplating the mountain of paperwork waiting for him at the Ministry tomorrow, wondering what he'd eat for breakfast, and planning exactly how he and Ginny could overcome this sexual drought.

He turned over onto his back, stretching as he wondered again why Ginny seemed to be pacing back and forth in the hallway.

He imagined for a moment of kicking off the duvet and sliding out of his boxers, so that when Ginny reentered the bedroom, she would only need to take a few steps to him. He let this fantasy run for a moment, knowing his mental image of her moving from the doorway to engage in filthy sex with him would never match the morning's reality. If Ginny walked in their room to find him lounging suggestively in the nude, she'd likely take the piss out of him for a moment before crawling back into bed and going back to sleep. It would probably be best to initiate things more subtly. He turned on his side yet again, screwing his eyes closed and willing Ginny to be in a good mood.

Finally, he heard the door open, and Ginny padded into the room. She was making very little noise, but Harry could still detect the same air of discomfort in the way she was moving, almost as though her steps were too deliberate. She walked around to her side of the bed, and Harry felt her crawl over the mattress to him.

Much to his delight, she snaked her arm under his, pulling herself into his chest. He cracked one eye open and smiled down at her, but his expression quickly turned worried when he caught the dismal look on her face.

"Merlin, Ginny, are you alright?" he asked her. In response, she pulled herself closer to him, avoiding his eyes.

"I think I'm about to be sick," she groaned miserably into his shirt.

"Go back to the loo, then. Do you want me to come with you? Did you eat something bad?" he questioned, as he tried to remember their dinner last night.

"It's not food, it's nerves," her voice was so muffled he was having trouble hearing her. Harry breathed a sigh of relief, understanding exactly the issue.

"Look," he said, gently pushing her shoulders away from him so he could see her face. "You know you're the best player on the team, hell, maybe even the best player in the country. You always get a bit tense when you have semi-finals coming up, but just talk to Gwenog about it if you're having problems…."

"Bloody hell, Harry, you're as thick as my brother sometimes. I'm not having nerves about Quidditch, I'm having nerves about what I have to tell you!" Ginny spat, still not meeting his gaze. Harry grimaced at her sudden attack, but frankly, he prefered angry Ginny over sorrowful Ginny anyday. At least the former was more familiar.

"What do you have to tell me?" Harry ventured carefully.

She sighed deeply, and the same anxious look returned to her face.

It was starting to seem like she physically couldn't bring herself to look at him, and for one frenzied moment he wondered if she was, in fact, leaving him.

"I think I'm pregnant," she mumbled.

Harry's breath seemed to leave his lungs at the same moment that his heart fell into his stomach. His eyes widened as he tried to process what she said, and abruptly he felt overcome by the desire to jump out of bed and run about the room. Ginny, however, still had her arms wrapped tightly around his back, so he was forced to settle for yanking both of them into an upright position. His stomach felt hollow and his heart was pounding wildly.

Ginny finally met his eye, attempting to give him her characteristic hard stare, but she could only manage to pull what was possibly the most anxious face Harry had ever seen. She looked on the verge of tears. He thought to say something that might comfort her, but only managed to open and close his mouth several times, in a way that he could only assume made him look like a rather idiotic fish.

This definitely did not help matters, and Ginny looked even closer to succumbing to tears.

"I know," she said quickly. "I've been expecting my period for a few days now and I didn't even think much of it because I've always been rubbish at keeping track so I figured I may have counted wrong and it wasn't even late, but I've been so tired and grumpy, I mean, I've been horrible to you and I feel bloated and haven't wanted to have sex in weeks and I almost fell off my broom at practice on Friday because I felt so faint, and then this morning I went to the loo and was thinking about the last time I had my period, and I realized I didn't get it at all in January, because the last time was at that Weird Sisters concert we went to and that was in December, which means I'm not a few days late, I'm months late, and it just makes no sense to me, because we're always so careful and I just can't believe I didn't realize I didn't have my period for two months..."

"Ginny," Harry finally managed to interrupt, not at all surprised at how weak his voice sounded. His face was uncomfortably hot and his heart was still thudding away, to the point he wondered if Ginny could hear it. "Ginny, if you're not sure, we should find out for certain."

This seemed the most logical thing to do, and it felt important in this situation to have a plan. However, he had no idea how exactly a witch discovered, for certain, if she was going to have a baby.

A baby.

He and Ginny might be having a baby. Despite his terror, and Ginny's tears, he was taken by the urge to give a great laugh, which he fought back, fearing it may upset Ginny further. Instead he drew her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her in a way that he hoped was reassuring, despite the fact that his limbs felt like jelly. She leaned into him, and for a long moment they clung to each other on the bed. Harry's mind was racing. A baby.

"You're right, I'm still not really sure," Ginny finally sighed, in a defeated voice that suggested she actually was quite sure. "We should go to the apothecary."

"The apothecary?" Harry wondered.

Ginny pulled away from him, scooting to the edge of the bed and standing up. "To get the things for the potion. I remember Fleur saying it's relatively easy to make, it's just a bother because you have to pee in it," she said with another sigh, making for the dresser and pulling out a clean pair of jeans and a tee shirt.

"You have to pee in a potion to figure out if you're pregnant?" Harry asked bemusedly from their bed.

Ginny looked at him with narrowed eyes as she pulled up a pant leg. "Why don't we walk to the Leaky Cauldron, and I'll explain it all to you on the way there," she said smartly. "Just wait 'til you hear how a baby gets out of a witch."

Harry couldn't help but feel glad that she had seemed to recover at least some of her sarcasm.



Their discussion on the trip to Diagon Alley was, in fact, minimal. The moment they had stepped into the crisp February air, Ginny fell sullen again, and they walked to the Leaky Cauldron in silence. Harry's heart didn't regain a normal pace during their trip, and his stomach still felt empty. Hannah Abbott greeted them warmly as they entered the pub, and Harry and Ginny could only nod in reply, such a state they were both in.

But, at the apothecary, when Ginny was discussing ingredients with the witch behind the counter, Harry stood next to a display of dragon's blood and let his mind wander. 'A baby,' he thought again. He couldn't decide whether to feel terrified or ecstatic. Ginny seemed so deeply anxious, and he understood why; her career was at its peak, and while he knew little about pregnancy, he was fairly sure dodging bludgers at a hundred miles an hour, while flying seventy-five feet in the air wouldn't be considered safe for an expectant witch.

He also knew that, though they had talked about having a family together, one day, Ginny had never expressed an immediate desire to be a mother. To be fair, he hadn't thought much about being a parent either, despite the Weasleys current preoccupation with producing children.

Now, however, Harry rebellious imagination kept stirring images of Ginny, her stomach bulging under a sweater the way Fleur's once had and Angelina's now did; Ginny, holding a small bundle in their bed, sweaty hair sticking to her face as he looked on proudly; himself, chasing a dark-haired child on a miniature broomstick around the sitting room while Ginny and Teddy watched from the sofa. With each thought the treasonous muscles of his mouth moved outwards, to the point he was having to actively focus on not grinning.

"Are you ready?" Ginny's voice from behind him made him jump, and he quickly rearranged his face to match her own impassive expression.

The journey back to the flat was equally silent as the journey from it. When they arrived in the tiny sitting room, Harry went to the hall closet to fetch the cauldron as Ginny trudged to the bathroom, carrying the parcel from the apothecary under her arm. When Harry reached her, she'd lain all the ingredients on the ground and was sitting in front of them, wearing the same unreadable expression.

Harry picked up the piece of parchment from the witch at the apothecary. "It seems quite simple," he said. "Apparently you just dissolve the Jobberknoll feathers into the castor oil, and then once it's bubbling, add the shrivelfigs. When it's all mixed together, you let it cool, add the - erm - urine, and wait ten minutes. If you're pregnant it turns deep blue. If you're not, it becomes amber."

"Got it," said Ginny, who looked quite ill again.

"Ginny," Harry said softly. "We don't have to do this now. It won't make any difference if we wait until tomorrow."

"No," Ginny shook her head. "I'll just be a disaster until I know one way or another."

"Right," Harry started slowly. "It's just… I'm worried. I mean, er, if this is really happening, are you going to be alright? I mean, Ginny, I'm not... no one is going to force you to have a baby you don't want to have."

Ginny let out a large breath, collapsing back against the side of the tub. "I know that," she said. "I just feel torn in about a hundred different directions. I don't feel like I'm ready to give up my career, and I can't help but think about all the other things we'll have to give up... we'll never be able to shag all Sunday anymore, or go drink ourselves under the table at the Hog's Head just because it would be a laugh. It's not that I didn't want this one day, but things are so good right now. I don't want them to change."

Harry nearly smiled, for she was voicing the exact thoughts he'd had when he'd learned Ron and Hermione were trying to start a family.

Ginny looked at him, and her distress was apparent in her deep brown eyes. "But then I think… it's our baby, Harry. It's this thing that we've made. And even if I have to give everything up, I want it." She gulped. "But what if we sacrifice everything being so good now and it just becomes terrible?"

Harry didn't say anything, and she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

"And," she continued grumpily. "I'm so angry at you, because you're not forced to give anything up at all, even though I know that's not fair, and that you'd leave work if you had to, but I'm upset that it's me that has to - that has to quit my job and be sick and get fat and - ugh!" She swore loudly. "I'm so emotional! I bloody hate this!"

Harry laughed and scooted over towards her on the floor so that they both sat with their backs against the tub. He took her hand and she rested her head on his shoulder. "I think you're right," he said after a moment. "It'll make everything much more difficult. And we probably won't shag as much. I feel bloody terrified, honestly. I think that's normal. But we'll be a family. It's brilliant. I keep thinking of you holding our baby and I feel so happy I think I'm going to vomit."

For the first time today, Ginny looked as though she might smile. "I can't picture myself as a mum, but I can see you as a dad. Funny how that works, isn't it?"

"Yeah," replied Harry, feeling that he'd exhausted his ability to be eloquent for the foreseeable future. "Should we do this?"

Ginny gave a shaky laugh. "Let's get to work, Potter."

They fiddled with the ingredients until everything was happily bubbling in the cauldron; Harry tactfully left the bathroom as Ginny peed in a clear jar.

When he returned, Ginny had just finished pouring the urine into the potion, which had cooled and was letting off wisps of clear steam. Harry rubbed the back of his head.

"Blimey, Ginny, if we've gone through all this and I haven't knocked you up, we're going to really look like a pair of prats. You nearly cried!"

"Oh, shove it," Ginny laughed. Harry sat down next to her, lifted her chin, and pressed a chaste kiss to her mouth.

"I love you," he told her.

She placed a hand on his face and her eyes shone. "I love you," she said brightly. "And I'm not going to apologize for being a right bitch the last few weeks, because it's clearly all your fault."

"It's alright, I'm used to it," Harry smirked

"You know, if I am pregnant, we're probably going to have to get married in the next few weeks," Ginny sighed. "My mum's pretty understanding about us living here, but I can't see her being thrilled about us having a baby without making it official."

Harry felt his ears begin to burn, thinking of the little velvet box in his nightstand.

"I - er - d'you remember when you told me you were ready to starting thinking about marriage? After the World Cup?" Harry said.

Ginny laughed. "I do remember," she said. "I'm actually kind of put out that you've had nearly a year to make your big move and I still don't have a ring."

Harry blushed in full. "Hang on a minute," he said, and left her sitting on the floor of the toilet. He ran into their bedroom and grabbed the box before stumbling back in.

Ginny's eyebrows were raised. "What's that?" she asked.

"Ginny," Harry breathed. "Look, I've been holding onto this since August, waiting for the perfect moment and it just hasn't happened. I don't want you to think that I'm doing this just because you might be pregnant or because I'm afraid of your mum, but because since we kissed in the Common Room I've known that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."

Ginny was staring at him with her mouth slightly open. Harry took a deep breath and continued.

"Will you marry me?"

He opened the box to reveal the opal nestled in fabric, and Ginny's eyes grew wide.

"You've had this for a year?" Ginny asked him.

"I wanted everything to be perfect," Harry admitted. "But I can't plan anything romantic worth a damn."

"It is perfect," Ginny said with a smile. "Of course I'll marry you."

Harry took the ring and placed it gently on her finger. Ginny smiled, admiring it in the light from the window.

"I love you so much," she murmured.

"You have no idea, Ginny," Harry said, kissing her softly. He couldn't believe he'd been putting off proposing for nearly a year only to have them get engaged in the loo.

Ginny smiled. "We will have to do it soon, though," she said.

"We can elope," Harry reasoned. "George and Angelina style."

"Not have my family there?" Ginny wondered aloud. "No… I couldn't do that. I would have to have my brothers, and I couldn't have them without my parents. And Neville and Luna. And Teddy. And Andromeda. And Hagrid. Is that okay?"

"Sounds fine to me," Harry chuckled, always happy with the opportunity to keep things on the small-scale, even if his wife had what felt like the largest family in Britain. "So we're getting married?"

"We're getting married."

"Wow," Harry said, glancing back to the potion. "How long do we have?"

"Three minutes," Ginny said with a smile.

Harry's heart had picked up it's rapid rhythm again. "Maybe they'd gotten themselves all worked up for nothing," he thought to himself. Another voice in his head replied, "At least now we know where we stand." He squeezed Ginny's hand, feeling the ring press into his flesh and thinking that his heart might burst.

It was the longest three minutes of his life, longer than waiting to free Sirius his third year, longer than walking to his supposed death at the hands of Voldemort. This seemed ridiculous; the march toward death could in no way be less difficult than waiting for impending… fatherhood? The word nearly made Harry laugh out loud. He couldn't be anyone's father.

Harry was beginning to wonder if he would ever feel like he was on solid ground again, or if this emptiness in his stomach would stay with him for the rest of his life. Ginny was curled up next to him like a cat, breathing slowly, eyes fixed on the cauldron in front of them, which was full of liquid that was still clear as water. He opened his mouth to tell her again that he loved her when she gave a loud gasp.

Harry's head whipped back toward the cauldron, glad his was sitting already, because his entire body seemed to give out as he stared at its bright blue contents.

Blood thundered in Harry's ears, and his chest felt like it would explode. His mouth, again out of his control, split into a huge smile and he let out a strange sound, a sort of choked laugh. Ginny groaned.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, giving him a panicked look.

"I think we're going to have a baby," Harry replied, feeling like he had just defeated Voldemort a hundred times over. He placed his hand on the side of her face, and looked her in the eye. "If you want to?"

She nodded in spite of herself. "I think I do," she murmured with a small grin, leaning into his hand. "I've got a few months to get used to the idea." Lightly, she placed a hand on her middle, and turned to gaze at her still-flat stomach with a sort of skeptical reverence.

"It's fucking mad, though," she said. Harry nodded, feeling overcome with emotion. Besides the responsibilities and changes that came with a child entering their lives, there was something about a small part of himself taking hold in Ginny's body that was overwhelming in itself. He wasn't sure if the bathroom floor was the best place to contemplate the nature of new life, but he brought her face even closer to his.

"You're brilliant," he beamed.

"I know," she replied, leaning forward so their foreheads touched, and then their lips met, slowly and without urgency, so unlike them. Ginny wrapped her arms around Harry's neck so she could cradle his head, opening her mouth so his tongue could enter. Her usual sly humour was nowhere to be found, and Harry knew now that all she wanted was for them to be close. He drew her into him, so that their legs were wound around each other's backs, and Harry ran his fingers lightly through her hair.

"Harry," she murmured. "Harry, we're going to have a baby."

They words seemed foreign and dreamlike. He couldn't believe it.

"We're going to have a baby," he repeated, feeling her breath hot on his neck.

Harry put his hand on her back, lowering her to the floor beneath him, never taking his mouth from hers, and without saying a word, Ginny wrapped her legs around his waist. He didn't know if it was the upheaval of the day or the knowledge of their child growing between them, but he had never felt more a part of her as he did now, hovering above her on one forearm. He broke his lips from hers and looked at her expectantly. Instead of her characteristic hard, blazing look, she gazed at him tenderly, openly, as if she was trying to pour some part of herself into him through her large brown eyes.

"I love you," she said simply. Today likely marked the a record for how many times they'd proclaimed their adoration for one another, and Harry took this as consent enough. He lifted her shirt over her head and threw it near the base of the sink. He stared in wonder at her breasts, marveling at their sudden change in purpose. Ginny would feed their child with this body. Harry had always understood the mechanics of pregnancy, childbirth, parenting. He had simply never realized how remarkable it actually was.

He placed another small kiss on her mouth before moving to her chin, past his favorite place on her neck, over her collarbone, and down her chest. Ginny gasped in response and her legs tightened suddenly around Harry. He smiled and let his face rest for a moment on her breasts.

Ginny gave another small sigh and Harry set back to work, lifting himself up to remove his own shirt. Normally so frantic, so desperate to reach that wonderful point of intimacy, he still found himself surprised at how slowly they were moving. Once his shirt had joined Ginny's on the bathroom floor, she reached up, brought him into a fierce hug, and placed her lips somewhere near his ear.

"You're always with me," she whispered, and Harry lifted his head to meet her eyes again and nodded in understanding. There was no rush to be inside Ginny; a small part of him would always be inside Ginny now. He kissed her again as he used one hand to push down and pull off first his jeans, and then hers.

They made love slowly. Ginny reached up over his shoulder to run her fingers through his messy hair again. Her mouth hung open slightly, as though she was Stupefied, but she never looked away from him. Harry remembered once thinking that looking at Ginny was like staring directly into the sun. He felt that way now, desperate to break away from the intensity of her gaze, nearly uncomfortable with the range of emotions he was feeling.

He wanted to bury his face in her hair, smelling her sweet floral scent, but he just couldn't bring himself to tear his face from hers. A small tear was welling in the corner of her left eye. Harry focused on this as pleasure rippled through his body.

They finished together, and Harry collapsed onto her as she used her clasped legs to roll them onto their sides. His hands, no longer supporting his weight, made their way to Ginny's hair. He pulled her head into his chest, and was sure she could hear his heart thudding.

"You're so brilliant," he sighed.

"You need to learn some new adjectives," she replied into his chest.
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