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Hobby | ||||
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Category: Cursed Child and beyond, Post-DH/PM Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Comedy, Fluff, Humor, Romance Warnings: Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations Story is Complete Rating: R Reviews: 4 Summary: What they do on their days off. It was supposed to be a bloody day off, dammit. Hitcount: Story Total: 1931 Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights ? J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work. Author's Notes: "Hobby" - a tumblr microfic that didn't want to be micro. Prompt "hobby" - Cross-posted on Ao3 in the one-shot compilation "Tiny Bubbles" |
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Ankles crossed in front of him, Harry leaned with deceptive informality against the exposed brick wall. Though the steam from his piping cup of coffee fogged his glasses, his professional gaze remained focused on the prisoner as he took a measured sip. “Depriving me of caffeine is cruel and unusual.” The prisoner eyed his beverage, her hands curling around the bars separating them. “You going to share that?” "Against the rules,” he drawled. Enjoying the view more than the crappy coffee, his eyes drifted over her firm arms, down to the toned legs dappled with golden freckles. “You,” she purred, “have never struck me as a rule-follower. What happened to you?” He hid his smile in his coffee. “Twenty-odd years in law enforcement.” She rattled the barred jail door, the clang echoing through the pen. “Is this really necessary, Harry?” “You Bat Bogey hexed the Minister of Magic.” “No,” Ginny objected, jabbing a finger at him through the bars. “I Bat Bogey hexed our best friend.” “Who is the Minister of Magic.” “She wasn’t involved in any Ministering at the time!” Ginny protested. “It was her day off!” “Oddly enough, her security detail does not recognize days off.” The slap of feet on the stairs cut their conversation short as one of the department’s junior aurors barreled into the room, juggling a stack of photos piled in his arms. “Another batch, sir! May… um… can she, um… she’s really popular.” Harry nodded. With a nervous smile, the auror handed Ginny the photos and a quill through the bars. “The list of names is on the top, ma’am-“ Ginny glanced up from the photos with a raised brow. “Ma’am?” “Um… uh, not ma’am. I didn’t mean ‘ma’am.’” The auror blushed. “Mrs. Potter, uh, when I was a kid-“ “You’re still a kid,” she drawled, with just enough glint that he blushed harder. He gulped. “Big fan of the Harpies. Me. I was.” Harry cleared his throat in warning. She was about to make the kid hyperventilate and Harry didn’t need any more paperwork. With a snort of amusement, Ginny began signing the photographs, making sure she addressed them and wrote a little message to each name on the list. “Where the hell are all these old Quidditch photos coming from, anyway?” “Your son is upstairs selling them in the lobby.” “Bloody hell,” Harry’s composure slipped a fraction. “Wasn’t he on duty?” “He traded for Jones’s double-shift tomorrow, sir. Didn’t want to miss the commerce opportunity “ they’re going for a galleon apiece right now.” “Wonderful,” Harry muttered. Despite the less-than-desirable setting, Ginny’s husky snicker managed to invoke the same reaction it always did in Harry’s abdomen. His body shifted into a heightened state of alertness, tightening far more than his muscles as blood flowed straight to his cock. Ginny knew exactly what she was doing to him. She shot him a knowing look that wasn’t discrete at all as it flickered down to his trousers, her mouth quirking into a wicked grin. However, the young auror was oblivious to the undercurrents. “The minister,” he explained. “While well-respected for her policies, has uh, gone through assistants and undersecretaries with a brisk kind of turnover. Also, she scares people. So, um, Mrs. Potter, is er, sort of a legend right now with people who have ever, at any point in their careers, felt maybetheymighthavewantedtohextheminister . Just a little bit.” “You don’t say,” Ginny smirked, though her eyes were back on Harry. As if she weren’t going to languish in a holding cell for who knew how long, Ginny blithely scribbled her name on several photos, as the twenty-year-old version of her winked from the glossy sheet. They weren’t twenty anymore, Harry knew. Didn’t seem to matter, though. Ginny Potter was far more devastating in her forties than she’d been at twenty. She still blazed, she still stunned, but in the last five years she had cultivated what she referred to as a prime “been-there, done-that” look. A stupid man might assume been-there, done-that meant jaded and tired. Given the nature of the glances she received on a regular basis, Harry was discovering the wizarding world had far fewer stupid men than he thought. Ginny’s been-there done-that air held an “I’d do again in a heartbeat” subtext. It made other men wonder just what the hell “that” had been to put the smirk on her face and devilish twinkle in her eyes. His cock twitched again, because he had been there - most enthusiastically - for most of her thats. Though, incarceration was a first. An unexamined life might not be worth living, but there weren’t enough fucking galleons in England to make him analyze why the sight of his wife behind bars was doing it for him. Like most everything, he’d chalk it up to “middle age.” Sometimes, a person just had to go with it and not question the hows, whys, or what-the-hell-does-that-say-about-hims. Speaking of which, that damned blushing infant who thought he was an auror was beginning to irritate him. “Is this stack the last of them?” Harry asked, in a professional tone that nonetheless made Ginny snicker again. “Oh, no sir,” the auror gulped. “The, uh, line for them stretched past the fountain halfway to the floo rows, sir.” “See? “ Ginny’s eyes danced in merriment. “People appreciate other people who speak truth to power.” “You didn’t speak truth to power. You Bat Bogey-ed it,” Harry pointed out. “Well,” Ginny’s wicked grin returned, full force. “Everyone needs a hobby.” With the easy skill of a Quidditch veteran, Ginny simultaneously signed autographs, gestured and lectured. Jabbing her quill with emphasis, she added, “I will state for the record-“ “One of the reasons I’m here is to make sure you don’t state anything for the record. Love you, don’t want to have to break you out of Azkaban.” “She’s had that Bat Bogey Hex coming for years,” Ginny muttered, dotting an ‘I’ with a poke. “You know it, I know it, even Ron knows it- though don’t think I haven’t noticed his absence.” “Pretty sure he’s talking her down. Hermione sends you to Azkaban, Ron can kiss your Mum’s Shepard Pie Sundays goodbye. His absence is in both your best interests.” “Decades!” Ginny said emphatically, punctuating the statement with a flourish of her quill. “We’ve been dealing with this shite for twenty years, Harry. I love her, but it’s her fault we’ve spent the last twenty years trying to find a hobby that ‘all four of us can enjoy together’.” The junior auror -Edgers, Harry thought his name was - raised his hand, “Wait, you’re here because of hobbies?” “Years.” Ginny ignored the question. “Remember when we had to spend the weekend looking at those tiny little portraits through the glasses?” “Stamps,” Harry said, sipping his coffee again. Hermione’s efforts to ‘broaden their interests’ away from the Quidditch the other three loved had been challenging over the years, true. “Muggles use them for post. The tiny portraits are called stamps.” “They’re called, ‘so fucking boring made me want to chew my hair.’” His gaze flickered to her lips. It didn’t need to, he had memorized the curves, their shape, the feel of them decades ago. He could sketch them in his mind, recall the searing sizzle as they brushed and branded across his- He forced himself to remain professional. “She’s still Minister of Magic and you can’t hex her for boring hobby suggestions.” “Then there was that awful arse card game with all the complicated rules that had nothing to do with bridges at all.” “The cards, sadly, didn’t explode.” “Turnabout should be fair play! Yet, would she even consider my muggle-friendly suggestion where we all jump out of the arrowplanes with the ‘poof up on the way down’ balloons on our backs?” “We did get to drink wine and paint that one time.” That had been his favorite of Hermione’s hobby suggestions, but only because Ginny had managed to hide eleven penises in her painting of the Eiffel tower, without Hermione ever being the wiser. Ron had caught sight of them though, spit his wine out all over the owner and they were banned from coming back. “Finally,” Ginny continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, shoving the finished stack of photos back to Edgers. “Finally she comes up with one that sounds pretty damned good.” Ginny was pacing in her cell, her eyes suddenly big and entreating. Dangerous. Gorgeous. Those damned bars were in the way. “And I was excited, Harry,” Ginny pleaded, her fingers gripping the bars again in treaty. “I was actually excited. But you need to pick a side here. She may be our friend, but she’s also a politician. It was a classic bait and switch, she lied. It was justifiable Bat Bogeying.” “Ginny.” “She tricked us!” “A misunderstanding.” “You.” She pointed at Edgers, who jumped, and blushed deeper. “Maybe you can explain to me why the hell would anybody call it pickleball, if there aren’t any fucking pickles involved?” “You’re under no obligation to answer that, Edgers,” Harry drawled, putting aside his coffee on the small table. “In fact, you can go now.” Edgers, grateful for the escape option, scrambled up the stairs, as Ginny challenged Harry. “It’s inherent in the name. Where were the fucking pickles? The name implies pickles. How long is she going to keep me here anyway?” “She has another thirty-six hours to press charges, or until you “ and I quote “ ‘grow up’.” Ginny’s head fell against the bars. An unwilling, resigned, laugh tickled up from her chest. “Fuck, she’s going to keep me here for another thirty-six hours.” “Probably." Harry tried not to laugh in response, he really did. “Unless she presses charges and you go to Azkaban.” “I suppose,” Ginny said, her demeanor shifting as her eyes lifted back to his and flashed with a wicked sort of playfulness. “This is our opportunity to discover if Rita’s been printing secret truth all these years.” His body hardened in response to the tone that suggested rumpled sheets and open-mouthed kisses and the lazy weekends they had reclaimed once all the kids had moved off to school. She bit her lip as her hand slowly slid up one of the bars separating them. Fuck it. Harry refused to be embarrassed by his reaction. His unapologetic gaze drifted over her again. “You mean, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter’s first heartbreak, sentences love triangle competition to Azkaban?” Ginny yanked his gaze back up with a twist of her hand as it descended down the bar. Their eyes caught. Two could play that game. That game was their preferred hobby, at this point. Harry stepped closer to the bars, letting his gaze drift from her ear to her mouth. Before he could decide, he found his hand cupping her cheek and his thumb tracing the arc of her eyebrow before it moved to press a gentle caress on her bottom lip. “If you get sentenced to Azkaban,” he growled softly, “I’ll break you out.” “Hot,” Ginny breathed, with a wrinkle of her nose. Still, she narrowed her eyes at him, suspiciously. “But you’re Harry Potter. Paragon of moral fiber. Would Harry Potter break his felon wife out of jail?” “Yes.” He curled his own hands over hers, leaning into the space between the bars. She tilted her head, peering up at him beneath thick lashes. Slowly rising to her tiptoes, she brushed her lips across the stubble on his chin. “Because you love me?” She purred, pressing her fit body to the bars, one foot stroking up the side of his ankle. Unable to resist, his face tilted down. Now able to reach his lips, she whispered against his mouth. “Or because you think I’m going to run the place within a month?” “Both,” he murmured, teasing her soft lips with his. “Life of a fugitive doesn’t sound so bad. We’ll hide out, retire in Majorca.” “ONE HUNDRED!” Edgers came racing down the stairs again, his arms once again overflowing with glossies and a list. “Word has gotten out, and there’s now a line at the visitor phone booth on the street!” Harry reluctantly drew back, “I’m going to go talk to her. Sign your autographs and stay out of trouble?” “I’ll try.” With a wink, Ginny took the stacks and plopped herself down on the bench, shaking the self-inking quill to prime it. “But Majorca sounds nice. We could raise orphaned alpacas. Too bad she didn’t suggest that for our hobby.” |
| Reviews 4 |
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