Work Text:
“Do you think you’ll stay here?” Ron asked Harry as they lounged in front of the fire, a half-hearted attempt at chess laying between them. “After we move out?”
“What?” Harry asked, surprised.
“Do you think you’ll stay in Grimmauld Place?” Ron repeated, “After we move out?”
“You’re moving out?”
Logically Harry knew that he shouldn’t’ve been as caught off guard as he was. When they’d moved in with one another Harry hadn’t really thought that they’d live with him forever, but it felt rather sudden, the idea of them moving out.
“Well, yeah,” Ron answered casually as if he didn’t at all hear the note of panic in Harry’s voice. “After the wedding and all. We’ve saved up enough to be able to afford it-“
“I didn’t think you were living here because of money,” Harry said stupidly.
Ron gave him a funny look. “I mean, that’s not the only reason. But Hermione and I weren’t even engaged when we moved in.”
“You acted like you were engaged,” Harry said stubbornly. “I don’t see how you getting married will be any different than things are now.”
At a loss for words, Ron merely stared at him. “You don’t think it’d be a bit strange to be living with people who are married?”
It still felt weird to him to think of them as married, engaged, dating even sometimes. They’d spent so long as a trio that the dividing barrier of Ron and Hermione and then Harry felt wrong. The idea that they talked about things like this without him made him feel strangely lonely.
“Harry,” Ron repeated, “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” Harry said, realizing how childish he was sounding. “I suppose I hadn’t given it any thought.”
“You didn’t really think you’d live here forever, did you?” Ron said and he was grinning, clearly trying to get Harry grinning too.
“I suppose not.”
“Ron and Hermione are moving out.” Harry blurted out before they’d even ordered. They rarely got the weekends off together and as this was the last they’d get all summer they’d decided to go away together.
“Well, I should hope so,” Ginny answered, unperturbed and without looking up from the menu. “How hungry are you? Would you be willing to split the bruschetta? I haven’t eaten since breakfast, they had us doing interviews all afternoon and I swear I get chosen twice as often as everyone else combined.”
He stared at her, wondering why she wasn’t taking more concern at this revelation. Why no one else seemed even mildly concerned at the life-altering news that his best friends were going to be moving out. He thought it’d be a discussion, a long one, a parting of ways but everyone else seemed to accept it as the logical next step.
“Are you alright?” she asked at the look on his face.
“It’s just, strange, the idea of them leaving,” Harry said.
Ginny blinked at him, clearly having already forgotten.
“We’re only a couple of years out of school,” he continued and Ginny caught up.
“Well,” Ginny said patiently. “They are getting married.”
“Yes, but they’ve acted married since the moment we moved in with one another,” Harry answered, feeling like she should be more understanding. “I don’t see how putting a title on it changes anything.”
“If I were to get married I don’t think I’d like having a roommate,” Ginny answered him. “Particularly not my brother.”
Harry wanted to continue brooding but he knew that Ginny wouldn’t stand for it very long. They got so few evenings together during her season he didn’t want to ruin the full weekend they’d managed to get alone.
“Oh, and why are you planning on marrying that lives with your brother?” he said sarcastically.
They’d talked about marriage, but always in the abstract. “I’m just not in as big of a hurry,” Ginny told him one even as they walked hand in hand around a park. “I’ve got things I want to do first, I want to be sure in my career and my goals before I make goals with someone else.”
“And if I proposed tomorrow?” he’d teased.
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’d be tempted but only because it’s you.”
“But you wouldn’t?”
“No, because it would prove that you haven’t been listening to me.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, waiting for the food.
“Maybe I’ll go and seduce Hermione and ruin both of your lives,” Ginny said dryly, taking a drink of her wine. It was only when setting it down that she grinned at him and Harry had to smile back and shake his head at her. “Are you going to move out of Grimmauld Place?”
Again he saw the concern in her eyes he’d seen in Ron’s.
“I suppose,” Harry answered. He’d gotten the idea in his head of moving there only because it felt safe. And after that Rowle business, they’d taken refuge there without really asking the question of whether or not it’d be good for any of them to live there again. “I don’t think I’d like to stay in the city though, it’s too noisy.”
“It’s a shame you can’t use silencing charms in muggle areas,” Ginny agreed. “And rent in Diagon Alley is atrocious these days.”
“Money’s not an issue,” he said offhandedly and didn’t miss Ginny’s wince at his casual mention of his wealth. Quickly he added, “Maybe I’ll buy a house.”
“Oh?”
“Something small, so I could have a garden, fresh air.”
“That’d be nice,” Ginny agreed with a smile on her face at the thought. “I don’t think Kreacher would very much like living in a flat anyway.”
“I don’t know that I’d bring him,” Harry confessed. “He didn’t come to the flat. It’d be weird to have him there just with me.”
“Send him to mum’s and you’ll really be her favorite,” Ginny said.
Harry smiled at the thought, feeling better. Ginny’s smile lightened his heart and it occurred to him all at once. Before his brain caught up to his heart he asked impulsively, “Would you want to look with me?”
“Sure, I’d love to help,” she answered, missing his meaning entirely.
He paused, wondering whether to press on or let it be. “No, I mean, would you like to look for a place for the both of us.”
She froze and the bite of food that she’d been bringing to her mouth fell off her fork and into her lap.
“Just when you’re not in season, of course,” he said quickly. “It’d only make sense to keep your flat because it’s so close to the practice fields, and we’re always talking about how we don’t get to see one another, this way on the weekends you wouldn’t feel like you had to ask and-
Harry realized he’d been rambling and felt his face grow hot. Ginny slowly sat down her fork without taking her eyes off of him. He felt like he was under intense scrutiny.
“Alright,” she said to him quietly.
“Alright?” he questioned. There was no way to take it back and things had been going so well for them and Ginny had said-
“I’d like that very much,” she followed up and reached over to grasp his hand. “Of course I’d like to live with you, Harry. I love you.”
“Brilliant.” He smiled at her.
It was only much later after they’d finished dinner and celebration that Harry questioned her reply.
“You don’t have to do it you know,” Harry said to her as they lay cuddled, her head on his chest. “If you don’t want to. I’m happy with the way things are with us.”
“What are you talking about?” Ginny asked, puzzled.
“When I asked you to move in,” he explained. “You froze and I just thought-“
“Oh no,” she said hurriedly. “I want to move in with you Harry, of course, I do, it’s just…”
She paused for a long moment, gathering the words to reply.
“Sometimes none of this feels real.” She explained and it was his turned to look puzzled. “I was sitting there and I swear for a moment I left my body and I was just staring at us wondering how in Merlin’s name we got here. Like, there I am, sitting at dinner with Harry Potter, the man that I’m hopelessly in love with and he’s asking me to move in with him. What you and I have, it’s special and so wonderful that I worry that this isn’t just one big daydream because after everything we went through it doesn’t feel fair to be so happy.”
She looked at him shyly, “Do you ever feel that way?”
Harry nodded and it was his turn to be shocked into silence. Never before had he had it explained so succinctly. He felt strongly better to know that there was someone else that felt that same way, that someone was Ginny.
“I do, want to move in with you,” Ginny assured him, mistaking his silence. “I want to build a life with you, Harry. I want to spend every day as in love and happy as I am right in this moment. I want to have kids, I want to get married, I want it all and I want it to be with you.”