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Another World, Another Time | ||||||
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Category: Alternate Universe, Post-HBP, Post-Hogwarts Characters:Harry/Ginny, Nymphadora Tonks, Oliver Wood Genres: Angst, Drama, Fluff, General, Romance, Tragedy Warnings: Death, Extreme Language, Sexual Situations Story is Complete Rating: R Reviews: 313 Summary: Life goes on after Voldemort's defeat, even though Harry disappears without a trace. How does Ginny deal with his return four years later, when both of them have become very different people? Hitcount: Story Total: 117423; Chapter Total: 11742 |
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Chapter 8: Reunion Sean was still asleep when Ginny arrived at The Burrow, to her nervous relief. She played with Ollie on the hearthrug and drank some tea, her mind trying to puzzle through what she would say first. An hour later, she sat down to lunch with her mum, and her brain still hadn’t gotten past “Hi, Sean. Glad you’re awake.” Ollie steadfastly ignored the letter blocks Ginny was hovering in front of him with her wand. He rubbed his face, and looked at his mother with watery eyes. He’d barely slept last night. “Naptime, kiddo,” she said, picking him up and patting his back as she climbed the stairs, humming quietly. His eyes were already fluttering closed as she laid him on his back in her old bed, his chest rising and falling steadily. Ginny peeked through the door as she pulled it closed, smiling at her son. He was such a gift. It was hard at moments like this, staring into his peaceful little face, to believe the terrible twos were approaching - “Hi, Ginny.” Ginny jumped. Harry Potter stood just a few steps above her in her brother’s ratty old robe, looking as though he’d just woken from a casual afternoon nap. Ginny's first impulse was to reach out and hug him. She almost did, the warm three-dimensional boy of her dreams standing right there, all sleepy-eyed and messy-haired. She wanted to grab onto him and never let him go; her arms were shaking. But she was somehow frozen, she knew couldn't move a muscle if she tried. So instead of hugging him, she spoke, her voice too loud in the small space. "Harry - Oh, uh, I mean Sean! How are you feeling?" “Could be worse, I guess” he said hoarsely. Ginny watched his adam’s apple jump as he swallowed. The awkwardness in the air was thick and suffocating - Ginny pressed her sweating palms against the wall behind her. She wanted to touch him, she needed to. It was like he wasn't real - a figment of her imagination, maybe. He came down a couple more stairs to stand just across from her. Ginny couldn't speak, she could only look, her eyes devouring every detail as though at any moment he might disappear again. He pushed his messy hair back from his face, a nervous gesture that was both so familiar and so different all at once that Ginny was suddenly breathless. He cleared his throat to speak. “My eyes are burning. Haven’t got any contact lens solution by chance, have you?” He smiled as though he was cracking a joke and Ginny smiled back, laughing weakly. He was talking gibberish - why hadn’t Hermione warned her Harry was as batty as Lockhart? “Sorry, that was a stupid joke.” He smiled crookedly. “This is all going to take some getting used to, I guess.” Ginny just nodded. “You see, I wear contact lenses. They’re really small bits of plastic and we... I mean, uh, the Muggles stick them into their eyes to help them see things better. Instead of wearing glasses.” “Oh, I see.” Ginny replied, feeling stupider by the second. “You have to put this... sort of potion on them every day or your eyes begin to dry out. Muggles buy it at their chemist... it’s made from saline.” “Saline. Like tears?” Ginny finally steeled herself to look up directly into Harry’s green eyes. Sean’s green eyes. Her heart was a stampede. “Yeah, exactly like tears.” Ginny pulled out her wand. “Just close your eyes a moment,” she said quietly. Sean did as she said, his face perfectly trusting. “Oceanus minutus,” she whispered, waving her wand over his eyes with a small flick of her wrist. “Wow...” Sean opened his eyes. They were watering slightly. “Too much?” Ginny asked, her wand at the ready. He didn’t answer for a moment. “Thanks - it's fine... it really did the trick.” He nodded and grinned at her wand, wiping drops of water from his eyelashes. "Amazing. I guess if I’m to catch on to this magic thing, I’ll need to get myself another wand.” “You might want to look into it,” Ginny said cautiously. “If you’re sticking around, that is.” Sean’s cheek twitched a little. “You think I should go back to being a Muggle, huh?” “Only if that’s what you want to do,” she said seriously. She couldn't imagine the pain of him leaving now, it would be unbearable. Her heart would break into a thousand pieces, she would climb into bed and never get back out. But he had that choice. There was the other girl, after all... “Everyone else just assumes I’ll want to stay,” Sean shrugged his shoulders. “What could be better than magic?” “I don’t know. I’ve never known life without it,” Ginny replied honestly, trying to prevent her voice from quaking. Sean sat down on the step and looked up at her. She could see the worry in his eyes. “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?” Ginny was quiet for a moment, staring at her hands. “That’s a hard question. I think I’d likely stay and figure out who I was, then I’d decide what to do. You’re lucky, you know. Most people don’t get to choose who they want to be...” Ginny trailed off nervously. “This is crazy... I still half-believe you’ve all bewitched me or something, that I’m really not the person you think I am -” “But you remember things-” “Oh, I do, I guess. I’ve been having this same dream, you see, for the past few years. I dreamed the same thing almost every bloody night...” he trailed off. “What is it?” Ginny asked. “Well, I’m fighting a man who looks like a zombie, as though he’s half-man, half-snake.” “That’s Voldemort.” “Yeah - I mentioned this to the Aurors, and that’s what they said too. They said the dream could be a memory. In fact, I know now it must be a memory because in the dream, I have a wand. And there are bright lights all around, explosions. It was the worst nightmare ever - so incredibly vivid. I’d wake up shaking. And now I find out this stuff is real... that I really did fight this Voldemort person, and that he was truly evil, and that one of his followers apparently avenged him by destroying my memories.” Sean laughed uncertainly. “It’s like a story from a comic book.” Ginny nodded, trying not to be confused by his reference to this cosmic book thing. She made a mental note to ask Hermione later. “Plus, you’re so familiar to me. Not just your faces and your names, either. Deep down, I feel like I’ve known you forever, the way you know family, maybe. After I woke at the Ministry and I saw Ron, I knew immediately that he was my oldest friend. I knew his middle name, I knew that he hates spiders and loves Quidditch, even though I don’t quite know what Quidditch is. I knew the kind of jokes he would tell.. And I look at you, Ginny, and my brain tells me you like to dance and you're excellent at Charms, and your favorite sweets are Chocolate Frogs...” He trailed off, becoming lost in thought. Ginny watched him carefully, her heart brimming with both hope and worry. Did he remember dating her? Kissing her? Saying he loved her? He looked at her and smiled warmly. It was a friend’s smile, not a lover’s smile. Ginny smiled back. “Did you know you saved my life once?” Ginny said, settling down a stair below him. “At Hogwarts. I was trapped by a Basilisk and you saved me.” “Hogwarts. That’s the boarding school we all went to, right?” “Yeah.” “So what’s this basilisk thing?” “It’s a monster, a snake...” Ginny hesitated. Telling the entire story of his second year at Hogwarts would only confuse him further. It could wait. “Anyways, you can talk to snakes, you know.” “Wizards can talk to animals?” Sean looked impressed. “Well, you can anyways. Only snakes. Parseltongue is an extremely rare talent among wizards.” “Parseltongue, huh? So do I hiss at them or something?” “More or less,” Ginny replied, biting back a grin. Sean laughed and, closing his eyes, held out his arm. “Pinch me. This whole thing’s got to be a dream.” Ginny laughed and lightly pinched his arm. He slowly opened one eye and then the other, looking around, a playful smirk on his face. “You’re still here...” “So are you. No dream, I’m afraid.” Sean grinned, playing with the cuffs of the old bathrobe. They were silent again for a few moments, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable this time. Sean smiled bemusedly. “So, which name suits me better - Sean or Harry?” Ginny wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t know, really. I’d say Harry suits you better, but that’s what I’m used to-” “Do I seem a lot like the old Harry?” he interrupted, his face suddenly serious. “I... I don’t really know how to answer that.” “Answer it honestly.” He looked at her with his piercing green eyes, and Ginny felt a shiver run up her spine. “Yes and no, I suppose...” Ginny began, smoothing her hair nervously, noting that her hands were still shaking. “For one thing, the old Harry probably would never have asked that question.” “Really?” “Yes. And from what I can tell, I mean, it's only been ten minutes and perhaps we're just getting reacquainted, but you seem to talk a lot more than before. I think it used to be quite difficult for you to share what you were thinking. You’d brood a lot, keep everything very secret, until one of us poked and prodded and whinged for you to tell us what was actually going on. You were... sort of mysterious.” “Mysterious, huh?” he grinned. “Yeah, a bit mysterious, at least sometimes...” Ginny paused, taking a deep breath. It was just so easy to talk with him, as easy as it had ever been. She continued, slowly, feeling a little more comfortable. "The verbally expressive parts of you must be very Sean-like. But I can see lot of Harry Potter in the things you do.” “In what way?” “Your mannerisms are the same. Like the way you move your hands when you talk, as though you’d like to be making these grand gestures, but you’re a little too shy. You bite your lower lip when you’re thinking intently about something - you’re doing it now!” she laughed. “And you have this sort of quiet yet serious intensity that is so very Harry-” “We dated, didn’t we?” Sean said abruptly. Ginny’s heart suddenly began to race again, and she felt her face colour. “Uh, yeah... yeah we did.” “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked like that...” Sean’s face began to redden too. “No... not at all.” Ginny bit her lip and tried to breathe normally, asking the first question she could think of. “Um, so Hermione said you remember bits of the time immediately before you were memory charmed, like when Ron was in the hospital...” “Yeah,” Sean’s brow wrinkled. Ginny could see him trying to push his embarassment aside. “I have these little disjointed memories. Being in a hospital makes sense, I suppose. I remember Ron laying in a bed, and there are people wearing strange white robes - doctors. Do all wizards wear robes?” “Sometimes,” Ginny replied, thankful for the change in subject; she didn’t know if they should talk about their romantic history. “For work and for school. Or for more formal occasions.” “Right,” Sean nodded. “Well, I remember the hospital room then, I guess. And I remember sleeping there a couple of nights, I think... the darkness of the room. It’s very foggy.” Ginny remembered laying beside him, her head in his lap. They’d made love for the second time ever in an empty hospital room one night, sad and desperate, trying to quell the pain of her brother's illness for a few fleeting moments. Ginny’s cheeks began to grow red again. Maybe that’s why he had asked if they dated. Maybe one of those foggy memories was that one. “Do you remember details from Sean’s childhood?” Ginny asked, trying desperately to distract herself from her thoughts. What if he remembered? Ginny had a sudden strong urge to pull him back up the stairs and snog him senseless. Would that jog his memory?, she wondered, trying not to grin. “Not well. I have a few memories of my family, about going on a picnic and playing soccer in a field - these memories are hazy too, they always have been, but it’s a different kind of hazy than the memories of Ron and the hospital. It’s like how you remember scenes from a movie - like you're watching them at a distance instead of participating.” Ginny had only seen one Muggle movie, but she nodded, still thinking about kissing, remembering the ways Harry liked to be kissed. She couldn't get it out of her head. “I remember there was a car accident a few years ago, and my parents were killed. I was in the vehicle too - the accident affected my long-term memory, and that’s where the scar of my head came from.” “I see...” “Except none of that really happened, of course. It was a lie someone made up and stuffed in my head to replace Harry Potter’s memories.” He sighed heavily. “I’m like Mr. Nobody.” “Oh, that’s not true!” Ginny scolded. “Really?”’ He raised an eyebrow and looked at her quizzically. “How can either Harry or Sean exist without a past?” “Oh, bollocks to the past! What about the present?” “Exactly. What about it? How do I live between these two worlds? I can’t be this Harry bloke - I know nothing about him, and I can’t go back to my old life, knowing it’s all lies.” Ginny had no answer. She just looked at him, swallowing the lump in her throat. She hoped her face looked friendly, encouraging. He could do it, somehow. “We’ll all going to help you, Sean.” “I know...” he trailed off into silence. Ginny tried to focus, to mentally absorb the things the man beside her had said. She even tried to put herself in his position. What would she do if her life was erased? “I’m missing work back in London today," he quipped. "And somehow, I don’t think my supervisor will believe my excuse." Ginny grinned despite herself. “You should tell him you’ve been skivving off to learn magic because you’re actually a wizard.” “Good idea. Then I won’t have to quit. He'd just can me.” Ginny laughed. "Brilliant." “It would be brilliant. I've wanted to quit for ages. And all my things are at London in my ugly little flat, but I’ve been told Harry owned, I mean, I own some big old house in the city?” “You do.” Ginny said, trying not to grimace when she thought of Grimmauld Place. “What a crazy thought - I’ve never owned anything. Is it a nice place?” “It’s... Well, it’s got a certain charm, I suppose. You can clean it up - we’ll all help you.” “That bad, huh?” he smirked. Ginny laughed. "It'll be okay." He nodded. “I remember The Burrow,” he continued, tracing a finger around a swirl on the old patterned wallpaper that ran the length of the stairs. “Something about this place feels like coming home. All the little details seem as though they belong here.” “It was like your second home,” Ginny replied. “After Hogwarts.” “This was your room, right?” he said, glancing at the door behind them. “It used to be.” “Do you still live here?” “No. I have a house in the Scottish highlands, actually, not far from Hogsmeade.” “I’ve been to Hogsmeade, haven’t I?” “Sure. Loads of times.” “I should go there again - the Aurors said seeing familiar things will help me remember them.” “Hermione and I were discussing that this morning. We’re planning to take you all over the place, to see if you can remember things.” “I’d like that - if you could show me around, take me to places like Hogsmeade and to Hogwarts, when you’re not at work that is..." "We'd love to." "Speaking of work, what is it that you do?” “I play professional Quidditch.” Sean looked at her, impressed. “So you don’t have to look like a big burly footballer to play this Quidditch game, then.” “It’s nothing like football,” Ginny laughed. “You played Quidditch at Hogwarts. You were a Seeker - an extremely good one.” “Really?” “Very good. You could have played professionally too.” “I play football back in London. I’m in a league...” “Lots of running about, I imagine.” Ginny knew a little about football from having dated Dean Thomas briefly in her fifth year. He had explained the rules to her, and told her what teams he thought especially good. She knew that the Muggle footballers had to run all over the pitch for long periods of time, which explained Harry’s lean muscular physique. “I like running about. Sitting at a desk all day gets old pretty quickly.” “Where is it that you work? The job you want to quit so badly?” “I work in an office in London. Data entry, working with computers. I bloody hate it.” “I’ve never used a computer...” “You... uh, we don’t really need them, do we? Witches and wizards have magic instead of technology.” Ginny grinned. “I guess you’re right.” “So what else do you do?” Sean addressed Ginny curiously. “For fun and all that...” “Oh, loads, really.” Ginny replied evasively. Sitting with her mother on Friday nights drinking tea and mending socks didn’t exactly count as ‘fun.’ Neither did potty training... Ginny noticed Sean glance casually at her hand. She no longer wore her wedding band, but she still occasionally wore her engagement ring when she wasn’t playing Quidditch. “So you’re engaged, are you?” “No...” Ginny replied slowly. Something in Sean’s face had just changed, a minute change but a noticeable one. He was relieved, she realized, cold fear creeping up her spine. “I’m widowed,” she blurted out. “Widowed? Oh... bloody hell, I'm sorry - I mean, I didn’t know-” “It’s okay. My husband, his name was Oliver. You knew him - you went to Hogwarts together, played on the same Quidditch team for a bit.” Sean nodded and neither of them spoke for a moment. Ginny felt the blanket of awkwardness re-stretching itself over their conversation. She was about to clear her throat, make a lame joke, something, anything, when he finally spoke again. “Can I ask what happened to him, or is that too personal?” “Oliver played Quidditch too - and there was an accident during a match. He was fatally injured. And I have a son,” she blurted. Sean looked at her, his face closed, unreadable. Ginny bit her lip self consciously and took a breath before she continued talking - the silence, Sean’s face, that face that was so familiar and at the same time so different - she had to keep talking, the silence was just too heavy. “My son’s name is Ollie. He’s incredible. Mum calls him my angel. I really don’t know what I’d have done this past year and a half without him. It probably sounds strange to you, but having a child - even if I’m a single witch and it’s hard sometimes - is a wonderful thing. It’s a much different feeling than you’d ever guess it to be, much bigger. There aren’t words for that kind of love, really...” Ginny stopped talking, realizing that she had been rambling. Sean sat right beside her, their legs almost touching, his bright green eyes studying her in that intimately familiar way that seemed to search her very soul while revealing absolutely nothing about what was happening inside his head. At the same time, Ginny could tell Ollie was waking up - she heard him stirring in her bedroom. “And he's awake from his nap.” Ginny rose to her feet, thankful for the distraction. “I see,” Sean said, rising to his feet. “Do you want to meet him?” Ginny asked, turning the knob to the bedroom door. “Uh, I'd like that.” He followed Ginny into her old bedroom where Ollie lay on his back on top of the patchwork quilt, his little hands rubbing at his eyes. “Hey baby,” Ginny whispered, reaching down and picking up her son, smoothing his bed-head, the red curls in wild disarray. The child stared up at his mother adoringly for a moment before pointing at Sean. “That’s your Uncle Sean, Ollie,” Ginny said with a grin. “Can you say Uncle Sean?” “Uncle?” the child replied, craning his little arms towards Sean. “Uncle Sean...” Ginny repeated. Ollie shook his head stubbornly. It was too hard of a name for him. Or maybe it was too close to Uncle Ron. He gestured insistently at Sean. “Uncle, Ollie wanna up!” Ginny started to pass the toddler over to his newest uncle, who was staring at the child seriously, his eyebrows knit in concentration. His hands were up in front of him as though he were about to catch a Quaffle. Ginny smiled fondly. “You’ve never held a baby before, have you?” “Uh,” Sean said, swallowing heavily. “Not really...” “It’s easy. He’s a big boy - you don’t have to worry too much. Just take him under his arms,” Ginny urged, gently beginning to transfer her eager son into Sean’s shaky hands. “Just like that.” Ginny watched as Sean cautiously adjusted her curious son in his arms; she took his hand in hers for a moment, guiding it to support the squirming child. Touching his hand seemed to light a fire under her skin - some things hadn't changed with time, she thought, looking at the man beside her. Damn you and your unbelievable attractiveness, Harry Potter, she thought, a cheeky grin sliding across her face. “Hello there, Ollie,” Sean said solemnly to the child, who was looking eagerly into the new face in front of him. “Uncle?” Ollie squealed excitedly, his little hand touching the slight stubble on Sean’s cheek. “He likes you,” Ginny said to Sean. “Yeah?” Sean looked shocked. As if in answer, Ollie snuggled his forehead against Sean’s shoulder and sighed contentedly. “Ollie wanna pum’kin pastie, Uncle.” “He’s hungry all the time - a typical Weasley trait.” Ginny said, grinning at the two boys in front of her. “Snack time, Ollie?” “Yep! I wanna down!” Sean placed the wiggly little boy on the ground. However, Ollie immediately grasped his newest uncle's hand and pulled him to the door. “C’mon, Uncle! Grammy has snacks!” Sean looked at her and shrugged, allowing a small smile to sneak across his face as Ollie pulled him towards the door, a grin that was one hundred percent “old Harry.” It made Ginny’s heart leap in her throat again. “I’ll meet you boys downstairs in a second,” Ginny said brightly, turning to neaten the blanket across the bed. Her chest suddenly felt tight, as though warding away tears. The conversation had drained her more than she’d let on. Would he ever remember? Did he even want to - he had a life in London as Sean Collins, a secure life with a girlfriend and a job and a flat of his own. Here, there would be problems: Ginny could already see their shadows lurking in the corners. She walked down the stairs quietly, looking through the kitchen doorway where the boy who used to be Harry Potter held her son gingerly on his knee. Molly Weasley fussed over them both, making a pot of ginger tea and biscuits. It was a perfect tableau of family content. Ginny heart ached. She looked at the group, a single tear falling down her cheek. She couldn’t help but think she was looking at something that could have been, in another world, another time. |
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