Chapter Text
Ginny was able to Flo over to Hogwarts and watch with pride alongside Harry as their son, Albus Severus Potter, was sorted into Slytherin.
For one fleeting moment, Albus’s eyes flitted back to the teachers’ table with a panicked expression, only to find his parents, Lupin, McGonagall, the Longbottoms, Hagrid, Charity Burbage, and Severus Burbage, the faces he’d grown up knowing and loving, all beaming back at him, applauding loudly. Among the students, his brother, his cousins, and all the children of his parents’ friends were cheering him on, and none louder than Scorpius Malfoy, who had been deathly afraid of being isolated from all of his friends in Slytherin.
By the time Albus made it to the Slytherin table, he was blushing scarlet, but beaming all the same. He and Scorpius embraced like brothers and immediately began chatting excitedly.
The next day, when Harry took the Flo network home from work, he told Ginny that Albus had been positively bombarded by owls bearing letters from his grandparents, every single one of his many aunts and uncles, Kingsley, Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, Madame Maxime, Viktor, Susan, the Grangers, Dudley, Gabrielle, the Dursleys, Dobby, Winky, Kreacher, Katie, and an especially long letter from Draco, all congratulating Albus on getting sorted. Harry had the sense that Draco’s letter, in particular, had meant the world to Albus.
Ginny, privately thought it would be good for Albus to have a degree of separation from James. Albus and James’s relationship always became rocky when they were forced to be in close proximity, and having different Houses might give both of them the space they needed.
That weekend, Ginny and Lily came to visit Harry at work. And although they’d told their sons there was no obligation to join them, both James and Albus came to see their mother and sister, accompanied by Scorpius. Together they all walked down to the lake, while Albus, James, and Scorpius told them all about their first week at Hogwarts. Albus told them Professor McGonagall had held Albus after class to let him know she was very jealous of Professor Severus, who himself had stopped by the Slytherin common room, as was his custom, to greet all the incoming first-years, giving Albus and Scorpius quick hugs of greeting before he spoke. The Longbottoms and Hagrid had both invited Scorpius and Albus to tea the next week, and all of their peers had been incredibly impressed when the Headmaster greeted them both by name in the hallway.
Albus and Scorpius had barely spent any time in their own common room, visiting their friends in all the other Houses, and meeting up in the common areas more often than not. Harry spread out a blanket, then he and Ginny sat with their backs against the tree, under which his father had sat all those years ago, watching James, Albus, and Lily chatter away as they built a sandcastle by the lake.
“Kind of amazing,” Harry was saying. “Lily was so upset, Albus was so scared, and they’ve been over to visit me here countless times.”
“Well, Lily gets lonely,” Ginny said, resting her head on his shoulder, “and it’s pretty intimidating getting taught by The Harry Potter.”
Harry nudged her playfully. Ginny drew herself closer to him. He rested his chin on her head.
“Do you remember that night in the Chamber of Secrets?” he asked.
“Was it that time you slayed a Basilisk, fought Tom Riddle, and destroyed his first Horcrux?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“I remember.”
“You told me once it was the first time you saw me,” Harry said. “The real me, not the hero you’d built up in your head.”
“It was. I’ll never forget that night.”
“It was the first time I saw you too,” Harry told her. “The real you, not just Ron’s shy little sister. I was so scared you’d died, and I’d never gotten to know you. I was just holding you, and you weren’t moving. And I kept thinking about you standing up to Draco, that glimpse of another side of you. And I kept wondering ‘how hard would it have been to give her the time of day.’ Then you opened your eyes… and it was like I could see there was a whole world behind those eyes. And it had almost been snuffed out. And you looked just as scared and weary as I felt... I don’t know if I actually just said what I meant to say.”
She gave wrapped her fingers in his and they were silent for a while.
“It’s pretty wild,” Ginny said at last. “That moment: two people seeing each other for the first tie, led to this.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, “I guess that’s what I was trying to say: I’m so glad we found each other, Ginny.”
Ginny kissed his cheek, causing all three of their children to moan.
They’d fought so hard for each other since then. And now their children had never known the same fear they’d felt on that cold night.
The wizarding world was coming up upon twenty years of peace. They were calling it the Golden Age of Wizardry.
Her family was safe and happy.
All was well.