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After the ecstasy is gone – after every member of the Weasley family has hugged them at least a dozen times, and after they've shared a thousand incredulous, glowing smiles, and after they've had messy, blissful sex twelve times in three days – when the thrill of it all finally quiets down, and Harry's cheeks have stopped hurting from smiling so much – what it leaves behind feels like a small hole at the very pit of his stomach.
“Fuck’s sake, she’s hard on you”, Ron tells him six days after – referring to Head Auror Chadwick – as soon as he’s closed the door to their joint office.
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
Head Auror Chadwick – only their supervisor and one of Ron’s favourite people to complain about – just handed Harry a thick stack of new files, though Ron’s complaints are louder than Harry’s.
“You were supposed to be spending this weekend getting absolutely shitfaced with us! You know, celebrating!”
Harry doesn’t have the heart to tell him he asked for the extra assignments. There aren’t any words that can explain it, anyway.
“But we’ll do it, promise, and you’re gonna have the time of your life. There’s no way we’re not celebrating.”
And Harry smiles. He shoves the files into his bag, joins Ron in complaining about the ruined weekend, and smiles, and smiles, and smiles, while the hole inside him quietly grows.
At some point after him and Ginny first broke the news, the shocked faces and cheers and congratulations turned into making plans. Discussing how to juggle it all. Advice from Bill and Fleur and Molly and Arthur. Advice from Hermione, not because she has any qualifying experience at all, but because she's Hermione, and of course she picked up a book on the subject immediately after they told everyone.
Harry is there for all of it. He watches Molly gush, and Hermione babble. He watches Ginny glow. He’s there for every dinner conversation and every clap on the back, every anecdote shared and every single time Ginny secretly rolls her eyes at her fretting mother. He is there – so why does he feel so goddamn far away from it all? All the smiling is making a balloon blow up inside the hole of him: one that’s empty and sickening and, worst of all, a lie.
And so, two weeks after, he sits in his office at home, more hole than person, and pretends he‘s absorbing any of the information on the papers before him. Maps and Death Eater files and incomplete stakeout plans clutter his desk, and it‘s all urgent, it always is. But he keeps catching himself staring out of the dark window that reflects his desk lamp, and his thoughts run in a thousand directions at once. He can make out vague shapes of the neighbourhood in the dark, and the top of the apple tree in their garden. Godric's Hollow's rooftops shine in the pale moonlight. Harry knows what direction the primary school is, because they always walk past it on their way to the grocery store.
But it’s useless, he tells himself, as he struggles not to acknowledge the anxious hands that seem to have gotten hold of him, digging their fingernails into his insides and closing around his throat until he feels like he’s being choked. He takes off his glasses, rubs his tired eyes, and forces himself to breathe against the emptiness in his chest.
“You’re still up?”
Harry turns around in his chair. Ginny is leaning against the door frame, already in her pyjamas, and though Harry can't make out her face in the dim light, he can hear a smile in her voice. He half-nods, half-shrugs, and turns back to his desk.
Ginny is having none of it.
“You’ve been weird this week”, she says. Because she’s Ginny, it’s not an accusation: She merely observes.
Harry listens to her footsteps on the wooden floor when she comes closer, putting her hands on his shoulders before easily wrapping them around his chest. Harry can feel her stomach rest against the back of his head and wonders what the fuck is wrong with him.
“Sorry”, he says flatly.
Ginny strokes the top of his head, and Harry lets it soothe him, even if he doesn’t think he deserves it.
“We can go to bed, if you want”, she says, “or you can tell me what’s going on.”
And the truth is, of course, that Ginny has watched him fuck up many, many times in the few years they’ve been together. She's been witness as he's forgotten things, and failed to show up, and broken promises he meant to keep when he made them. She was there when he didn't understand what bothered her so much when it was him that bought the house, and when he told her it was just money. She didn't turn around and leave, every time he tried to protect her and ended up hurting her instead. She was there and looked at him when he yelled and cried and pushed her away and said things he didn't mean.
And two weeks ago, when she told him she's pregnant, she was there when his face lit up, and when he kissed her like he's never kissed her before, and when he smiled so much his cheeks still hurt the next day.
So Harry decides to confess, not because he likes it, or because that makes it easier, or because he's any less ashamed. But because he knows that Ginny has already seen the worst of him, and that she won't think any less of him.
Even if Harry does.
"I'm not excited anymore", he says with a tight throat.
The silence that that sentence leaves rings in his ears. Even now, Harry knows that no judgement awaits him – no tantrum is coming. She’s not going to fight him. But she's going to be there and watch, unflinchingly, as he falls deeper and deeper into the dark hole he’s turning into, and he is so fucking sick of it.
"Okay", she says simply.
"It's not okay, Ginny, it's really, really fucking not –“
"Babe, you're spiralling."
She rubs his shoulders and takes long, steady breaths that Harry can synch his too. When he's stopped gasping like he's drowning overwater, Ginny reaches for his hand, and together they sit on the carpet by the couch, where Harry and Ron usually sit when they spend their weekends working on cases together.
“Alright”, she says quietly. “Talk to me.”
Harry fixes his blurry eyes on their entangled hands, but Ginny doesn’t. It’s the one favour she never does him: she never looks away.
“I’m supposed to be really fucking happy right now”, he says hoarsely. “And – I don’t think I am anymore, and I don’t even know why.”
Ginny is silent for a few moments while she takes this in.
“To be fair”, she says softly, “I was a bit surprised about how excited you were. It’s not like we were planning for it to happen so soon.”
“But I was”, Harry insists. If there’s nothing else he can do to make it better, he needs to make sure this part, at least, he gets across. “I promise I was excited, Gin, I was – it’s just … everyone’s making all these plans, and thinking about how we’re going to manage it with work and everything …”
He trails off.
„I know they’re a handful“, she says, smiling faintly. „And we can tell them to tone it down, if you want … but I don’t think that’s what’s going on.“
Harry looks around his office, searching for a way to say it that doesn’t sting.
“I started thinking about what things are going to be like when the baby is actually here, and … I just have a bad feeling.”
When he glances up at her, he can see her jaw clench: she's silently pressing her lips together, and Harry wants nothing more than to shove what’s left of him into the hole he’s become.
“Well”, she says quietly, “do you wish I wasn’t pregnant?”
Silence.
“I don’t know”, he mutters. “No…”
Ginny quietly lets out a breath. “Okay. But something’s wrong.”
Harry bites his lip, willing it to stop trembling. There are no words for the feeling that’s filling him up like cement – the stirring and shifting of heavy dread that consumes him. But there are words he is thinking – words he desperately needs to ask, so someone, anyone, can reassure him, and yet, words he cannot let himself say, for fear of speaking it into existence.
“What if I’ll be shit at it?”, he whispers. “What if this baby grows up and fucking despises me? And what if I’ll despise the baby, too?”
What follows is their heaviest silence yet. Her grip on his hands has loosened, though she hasn’t let go. When he glances up at her, something in her face shifts, and Harry knows they’ve fallen into their usual routine.
“That’s not going to happen, Harry.”
“You don’t know that.”
He falls: deeper and deeper into this most recent hole he’s carved out for himself, until him and the hole are one and the same thing. She finds him at the bottom and looks at the mess he’s made.
He deals Ginny the blow, and she takes it.
“I do know that”, she says fiercely. Her eyes are red. “Because I know you. And you’re not your relatives, Harry.”
There's a small, stinging silence.
“That's what it is”, she asks, “isn’t it?”
And Harry shrugs, and nods, and stares at the empty wall across from them. “I guess.”
Ginny rubs his hands while she sniffs. “Okay. I get that. But it’s not going to be like that, Harry. You’re not like that.”
Harry closes his eyes. “And what if that’s the only thing I’ll know to do?”
“I know for a fact”, she says, “that you’re better than that. I wish you could look at yourself sometimes, Harry … you wouldn’t be worried.”
Harry doesn’t bother to tell her that the very last thing he wants to do right now is look at himself. “What are you talking about?”
“Teddy”, she says simply. “I wish you could see yourself when you’re with him. The way you treat him … you are so full of love for this kid. And Teddy’s as good as your son – this won’t be different.”
Harry hasn’t thought about it like that.
“And you would never want him to feel the way you did”, she continues, after a brief moment of hesitation – with that quiet thunder in her voice that only ever breaks through when they’re talking about the Dursleys. “Because you remember the feeling, don’t you?” When he looks up, her eyes are wet and fiery, but she battles her way through the next sentence anyway, a strangled whisper, nothing more. “You’d make damn sure your own kids never know it.”
There is no point in pretending anymore: Harry lets hot, salty tears slip down his cheeks and drip off his chin. “Yeah, I would”, he whispers.
“That’s all I care about”, she says. “If anything, it’s going to make you a better Dad, Harry, not a worse one.”
She untangles her crossed legs with a sigh and slips onto his lap, and Harry holds her there. Once she’s comfortably sitting on his leg with one arm wrapped around his shoulders, he buries his face in the crook of her neck, and there they are, crying on his office floor like teenagers.
“Look, if it’s any consolation”, she says, “I’m pretty scared, too.”
"You'll be great", Harry mumbles, and he knows it to be true without question.
Ginny plays with his hair. “Why am I supposed to be such a natural at it?”, she asks quietly.
“I just know.” Harry lets himself put his head on her shoulder – there is no feeling quite like the weightlessness that comes with leaning on her. “And you’ve got your parents to look to …”
“I figured that was part of it.” Harry doesn’t respond – he doesn’t need to. “And that’s what scares me, funnily enough.”
She doesn’t quite meet his eye when he looks up. “Which is why I’d actually appreciate it if we could ask them to back off a little, if that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah – what’s going on?”
“Everyone’s so damn convinced I’ll be amazing at it.” Pause. Then – “Even you.”
Again, it is not an accusation.
“And I get it”, she says. “Because my Mum did such a fantastic job, how could I possibly be different?”
Quiet sarcasm has slipped into her voice. Harry doesn’t miss it.
“Well, I’m not my Mum. And – she’s great and all that, but I don’t want to be my Mum. I wish they’d all shut up for a minute and stop acting like I exited the womb ready to be a mother. Merlin, I’m twenty-one, and now I’m pregnant, there’s no way I’ve got it all figured out right now.”
“I didn’t realise”, he mutters. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t want you to worry about me. You had enough on your mind … I could tell.”
“I do think you’ll be great”, he says – desperate to offer anything at all.
“And you will, too”, she says with complete certainty. Something he finds oddly soothing, even if he can’t believe it, not yet. “We don’t have to know it all today. We’ll figure it out.”
Harry looks away. “I just … wish I was still excited.”
Ginny strokes his cheek. „Me, too“, she says softly, and Harry’s chest hums and aches at those words. “But I was there when you found out, you know. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this – stupidly happy. That was real. I thought it was, anyway.”
And that last bit somehow hurts even more than the fact that Harry never wanted to fall into this hole. He wanted so desperately for this to be okay.
“It was”, he says. “I promise.”
Ginny waits for him to continue, and when he doesn’t, she blinks away her tears and says: “You’re acting like it’s all ruined, and it’s not, Harry. That baby isn’t even the size of a Snitch yet. Nothing’s lost, okay?”
“Okay”, he says finally. The hole inside of him hasn’t gone anywhere, but the urge to throw himself into the abyss has lessened slightly.
She smiles.
“I’d like to point out”, she says and sniffs, “that all these tears are entirely hormonal, because I’m pregnant, but I’m still cool and intimidating and all that.”
“You are cool”, Harry says and looks up at her. “I – thank you. For not losing sight of me.”