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It had never been the plan. That should surprise nobody who had ever met him – Harry never was one for plans. Things had simply escalated, from the most innocent of beginnings. He had never intended it to be sinister, nor, no matter what Hermione said, for it to be some kind of sugar arrangement.
The phrase “sugar daddy” was too awful to even contemplate and besides, they were practically the same age.
The thing was that he had money. He had been poor enough growing up – not the Dursleys themselves but personally. No pocket money for sweets from the corner shop like other kids had; no new clothes; no extra hobbies. No spontaneity, in fact. His life had been necessity only. So he knew what it was like when money first came into your life. He had been giddy with it, back when he was eleven and all that gold was in his hands for the first time. He had wanted to spend every bit of it. He had wanted to hold it to him and never let so much as a knut slip between his fingers.
But the Weasleys were a different kind of poor. Their poverty was not the abuse and restriction of his childhood. It was cheerful and functional, full of darned sweaters and mended bookbags. Not a scrap was wasted. Mrs Weasley had figured out, ever since they were babies, that one set of clothes might be passed down the line and, over time, do nearly all of her children before it fell apart completely.
Ron saw a lot of that. Everything he owned was not just second-hand but fourth or fifth. If it was bought new, it was bought for Bill or Charlie. By the time it reached him, either Percy or one of the twins had used it too. But Ron had never been interested in Harry’s money.
That wasn’t strictly true. He was interested. But he stood on his pride and refused any offer of help, except in the case of extravagant birthday presents, and that was something they had both learned to work with. Ron’s resentment for his poverty was matched only by his fierce refusal to condemn his family’s efforts, at least publicly.
But Ginny….Ginny was a whole other matter.
For a start, it’s one thing to be the sixth son and wear your older brother’s clothes. It’s quite another to be the only daughter in the house and trying to look presentable in shirts that have been worked threadbare by Bill, George, and Ron before you. Being the youngest of them all, she never saw anything new. If it couldn’t be inherited from a brother, it could be brought in from a cousin, or adapted from her own mother’s belongings.
That was where it began. Ginny was going to Hogwarts and she needed new things. When old Lockhart gave Harry his books for free, the only obvious thing to do was to pass them on to Ginny. That was a normal thing, even with the Weasleys’ firm refusal to accept the money of a child to help their family.
“We couldn’t, dear,” Molly had said, somewhat tearfully, when Harry offered to pay for the new robes the older boys needed. “You’re so young yourself – we couldn’t take advantage of you.”
He had accepted that. Grown-ups, his twelve-year-old self had reasoned, were like that. But there was no reason why Ginny shouldn’t have new books.
Well, she’d had a horrible year, they all had, and afterwards they had been closer than ever. Ginny had always been shy, a little ditzy round the edges, but she had changed now. She had matured fast – not the rapidity of adolescence but the sharp jolt of trauma, kickstarting adulthood long before its time. There wasn’t a lot of child left in her. She was serious, quick to temper, often frowning. She spoke to Harry openly now, didn’t hide, but her conversation was abrupt.
He hadn’t understood it then. He was thirteen and he didn’t understand anything at all. It was grief, people had explained later. It was pain. It was fear. It was anger, expressing itself the only way it knew, and terror building defences wherever it could to keep the darkness out.
There should have been grief counsellors at Hogwarts. There should have been therapists. There should have been somebody to support people like her, people like him.
They had ended up in Diagon Alley together, separated from Ron and Hermione. They weren’t supposed to be wandering off but these things happen. They were talking, and that clipped tone to her voice, the roughness with which she carried herself – half shrunken in like submission, half puffed and squared like a cat spitting defiance – was doing something painful to Harry’s heart that he was also too young to understand.
Ginny was only twelve. Harry didn’t understand other people very well but he knew that being a twelve-year-old girl and having nothing to wear but misshapen sweaters and your brothers’ baggy jeans was not ideal. The self-consciousness of puberty was edging in, and all at once it was too much to bear. Ginny had never been afraid of other people before, even if she was shy around him. He had never seen her duck behind something so as not to face her peers before.
So when she gazed longingly at a jacket in a shop window, the idea of not buying it for her was unthinkable. It wasn’t a particularly tasteful jacket, in hindsight. It was quidditch-inspired, though not team strip, with leather padding at the elbows and a crossways zip. The colours were all wrong on her but it was cool. Cooler than anything Ginny had ever owned.
She didn’t ask him to buy it. She looked at it like a child looks at something in a toyshop. It was wishful but not a trace expectant. Somehow, that was what did it. After all, why shouldn’t she have a jacket if she wanted one? It might be expensive but Harry barely noticed the cost. It made no dent in his finances.
She had been giddy with it. She had been the youngest he had seen her since before Tom, and the diary. She had twirled around and around outside the shop, showing it off from every angle. The colours really did clash horribly with her hair but neither of them had noticed – they were too young.
She had hidden it down in her trunk and never worn it at home, where her parents might see and wonder where she got it. But she wore it around Hogwarts, and all at once the new harsh Ginny had started to make sense. There were moments, split-seconds, when she was striding down a corridor in that jacket, where her anger was her confidence.
From there, things simply escalated, a little at a time. If Harry was buying extravagant birthday gifts for Ron, why shouldn’t he get some for Ginny too? After all, they were friends. Why shouldn’t he, in fact, pack her a hamper full of little but lovely things that she wanted but would never ask for?
That was the trick of it – never buying the essentials. If he bought her something she needed, like a school robe, it would all fall down. It only worked if he bought her the things she would gaze at lovingly in a shop, ran her fingers over briefly, stopped to admire, but would never dream of actually purchasing. Frivolities, fripperies, fal-de-lals.
He bought her a set of playing cards with the Holyhead Harpies on them. He bought her chocolates with truffle centres that would make your hair change colour. He bought her a pair of soft leather flying gloves when she first tried out for the team, brushing it off as the act of a considerate teammate.
She never seemed to expect it. Every time, she was gleeful, dizzy with it. She would laugh and hug him, try things on, admire them over and over. It was childlike, perhaps the only childlike thing she ever did after Tom. She was a little kid on Christmas morning, when even the orange at the bottom of your stocking is a marvellous thing.
Harry loved to watch her, as their teenage years progressed. There was nothing sexual in it, not even anything possessive. He just loved how she strutted in those new jeans he bought her (from a muggle store, teaching her how to use muggle money) and how well they fit, the first pair of jeans she had ever worn that were cut for a girl’s body. He loved how she stopped at every reflective surface, almost unconsciously, to admire herself, twisting this way and that, in the blouse with the eyelet lace that she had been so unsure of, because it didn’t suit the role she had cast herself in, of rough-and-tumble sister, of Quidditch fan and sport star. He loved how she loved herself that way.
When the Yule Ball came around and he was busy repressing his complicated feelings, he scarcely even thought about it. He was too hung up on Cho, on Parvati, on the competition itself. But he found her in the common room one afternoon, gazing at the pages of a catalogue somebody had left lying around, full of expensive gowns and jewels for the discerning young witch.
He hadn’t bought her the gown. There were limits, even then, even when he could have easily done so, even when he had her sizing memorised. But he bought her the slide for her hair that she had laughingly sighed over. It was an outrageously lovely thing, flashing with brilliant jewels, and he had it delivered to her by owl, for all the world as though she’d ordered it herself. She had shoved the little box deep into her pocket when she unwrapped it and her eyes had found him across the breakfast table instantly, full of mingled reproach and delight.
She had worn it. Even amongst the horrendous teenage angst of that night, there had been a moment of perfection as he watched her twirl under the lights, sparkling and shining like a diamond come to life.
As the years passed, it became easier and easier. Harry tried to convince himself it was brotherly, that he was just looking out for a girl he felt in some way responsible for. When Hermione got her into muggle fashion, surely it was what a good friend would do? Help her buy combat boots and leather jackets and brocade blazers to her heart’s content? Surely it was caring, nothing more, when he bought her those earrings with the emerald dragons that drew out the green in her eyes and made it blaze?
Throughout it all, the innocence of it never seemed to leave. She would protest from time to time, but they both knew she didn’t really mean it. She never asked for anything, never seemed to be dropping hints. Her delight in pretty things, in new editions of her favourite books, in summer dresses with bold brass buttons, in quidditch memorabilia after the Harpies’ famous victory, never faded.
She grew up. She developed taste. So, to his own surprise, did Harry. He could never have dressed another girl, or even himself, but he knew all about Ginny. He knew about which colours looked best with her hair, and her skin. He knew that blues washed her out and that pinks clashed. He knew what shapes looked best on her frame, which cuts suited a long torso and narrow hips. He knew about her dislike of wool, her love for light cottons, her hatred for anything that restricted her range of movement.
He knew that she loved pretty things but was still embarrassed to say so, because girls like her didn’t ought to love pretty things. He knew that she liked high heels, but only wedged ones, never stilettos. He knew that she loved to wear her hair up and that nothing could be guaranteed to bring her smile back, to banish the shadows in her eyes and make her giddy again, than a carefully chosen pin, clip, or slide.
Harry knew Ginny. He spent hundreds of galleons on her and he never begrudged a single one. He didn’t begrudge her the extra butterbeer at Hogsmeade that she couldn’t budget for, or the ice cream sundae that was really too extravagant for her light purse. He would have given her anything to see that look on her face, that reckless little light, the childlike glee, the hint of puritanical guilt being quickly supressed as she broke the rules, broke the confines of frugality and thrift.
“Hermione knows, you know.”
“Knows what?”
Ginny looked across at him shrewdly. She was sixteen and pretty, all lithe muscle and self-confident grace. She wore soft jeans that hugged every line, a shirt tucked in and half-unbuttoned, as if on the edge of falling off. Her hair was tucked into an olden-days snood, Renaissance-style, sparkling in the light. Hermione had got her into that: taking the wizarding world’s misunderstanding of muggle clothing and making it a fashion statement. If her hair were five shades darker, she would have looked like a new Anne Boleyn.
She looked so beautiful it nearly killed him.
“She knows you buy me all those things.”
“Oh.” Harry hesitated. “Does she mind?”
“She thinks you shouldn’t.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
There was a pause. Harry wondered why he felt so anxious. After all, what would it matter if she did? There was nothing behind it. It was only to make her happy. But making her happy was one of the few joys left in this ugly world and he wasn’t sure he could bear to lose it.
“You don’t have to do it, you know.” Ginny took a deep breath. “I mean, I never meant to make you feel like there was some kind of obligation. Ron would flip if he found out. I don’t…I don’t mention things I like just hoping you will get them for me.”
“I know. I’ve always known that. That’s not what it’s about.”
“What is it about?”
The terrible truth was, in that moment, Harry wasn’t sure. There was just Ginny, the most dazzling beautiful girl in the world, the strongest, the bravest, the woman he would give up anything for, surrender the universe for. All at once, it was so incredibly obvious that the only thing that mattered was Ginny’s happiness. The only thing. The only worth in the world.
“Hermione says I’m going to end up relying on you too much,” Ginny added, with just the slightest waver in her calm façade.
“You don’t rely on me. I’m not, you know, paying your rent or anything weird like that.”
The idea of Ginny being dependent on him made him slightly sick. Ginny should be dependent on nobody. Ginny should answer to nobody.
“So why do you do it?”
“I’ve got lots of money,” Harry managed. “You don’t. We were, you know, practically family. I didn’t see any harm in getting you presents.”
Ginny nodded slowly. “And now? Are we family?”
Harry didn’t know what they were. He didn’t know what he wanted them to be. The world was ending. This wasn’t the time for asking questions.
“You matter to me.”
It wasn’t the right answer, but it was good enough for then.
The war passed. Afterwards, they both needed time to get their lives on track. It would have been easier if they could have fallen straight into each other’s arms but neither of them were ready. Harry wasn’t sure what Ginny felt but all he knew was that she couldn’t be the prize. Loving her couldn’t be a reward for ending the war, for killing Voldemort. It couldn’t happen that way.
They were restrained, dignified, in press conferences and award ceremonies and all the trappings that followed, to which The Boy Who Lived and one of the leaders of Dumbledore’s Army must obviously be invited. They were friendly, but their barriers were up.
They both studied remotely for a while, taking correspondence courses. Harry couldn’t go back to Hogwarts just yet. Ginny swore she never could again, not after their final year. That would change, but not for some years to come. They didn’t write. Harry stayed with Hermione, who needed him and who could be relied upon to maintain enough structure in the day for meals to be on time and studying to be done as intended.
Ron moved in and out. He was restless, roaming around. Ginny was at The Burrow. They didn’t write. Ron said she was unhappy there, that she couldn’t settle down, that she couldn’t be her mother’s little girl again. Tempers were fraying; it was the reason Ron kept visiting them.
On a visit to Diagon Alley, Harry saw a book he thought she would like. It was about forgotten witches, the ones whose great accomplishments and contributions to history had gone unacknowledged. It was a beautiful thing, clothbound in green and gold. He bought it without thinking, had it wrapped up and sent to her.
But that was all. It was normality. Not buying her the book would be acknowledging how much had changed. And who knew? Maybe she would smile. Maybe she could still feel delight like that, that giddy, innocent, gleeful delight, of a child with a beautiful prize.
Nearly a year had passed before Harry saw her again. He had just finished his final exams, officially a Hogwarts graduate despite the high probability that he had failed at least half of them. He stopped by Shell Cottage, to see Fleur. It was the anniversary of Cedric’s death once again and suddenly it seemed important to see her, to see somebody who had been in the competition with them, understood what had happened. Krum was overseas busying himself with his new political career – Harry had found it hard to imagine at first but it seemed that an intimidating man of few words was an excellent deterrent to silver-tongued fascists with nothing but words to share.
Ginny was staying at Shell Cottage. Harry hadn’t realised but she had moved there after her exams. She and Fleur had made peace, their differences and insecurities set aside. So it was that when Harry heard the door to the tiny kitchen open and looked up, he saw her.
She had clearly been flying. Her pinned-up hair was windswept. A slide glittered in it, mermaid-like. Harry had bought it years ago, right back in the early days. It was only glass and silver plate but it looked like a king’s ransom.
“Harry!” She hesitated before she smiled. “I didn’t realise you were visiting.”
“I didn’t know you were either,” Harry admitted. “I can go?”
“Why on earth would you go?” Ginny strode to the stove with a posture he remembered, the harsh quick step, the hunched back, of her at her most defensive, her most damaged. “Any biscuits left, Fleur?”
Later in the day, they had found time to be alone. That is to say, Fleur had forced them out of the door to go for a walk along the beach. They had stopped to lay flowers on Dobby’s grave, and now they simply walked.
“Did you like the book?” he asked, when he could bear the quiet no longer.
“Yes.” Ginny chewed on her lower lip. “I cried.”
“At the book? I didn’t think it would be that sad.”
“Not the book. When the parcel came.”
“Oh.” Harry stopped. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what it was meant for.”
“I know. I just…” Ginny took a deep breath. “It was so normal. So like before. Like the war hadn’t happened. And I remembered when you started, after Tom, and I… Harry, I’ve missed you. And I know that makes it sound like I’ve missed the presents but it isn’t that. You could never give me another thing in all your life – you could make me give them all back, even – and it wouldn’t change the fact that I’ve missed you.”
There was so much to say. So much to explain. So much to express. What Harry managed was:
“You don’t have to give them back.”
Ginny laughed and hastily wiped away a stray tear, glaring at him as if daring him to say anything. “You’re such an idiot, you know that?”
He couldn’t make the move. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t initiate. Things had been too complicated. He had manipulated her too often. She had to decide. She must.
“You know me too well. That book? I’d seen it advertised and I was thinking of getting it, if it ever went on sale. I can’t believe you knew at once. After all these years.”
“I know you.”
“Yes. I think maybe you do.” Ginny took a deep breath. “Do you want to try again? You and me, I mean. If not, I’d really like us to be friends, or…or honorary siblings, or whatever you’ve got, but if you want to then…then can we try again?”
Harry reached out for her hand and, glory be, he didn’t fumble it. His fingers curled closed around hers.
“Let’s start again.”
It was slow-going. It took time. They both had traumas to work through and they were adamant, all the way, that they must not cling to one another. Their relationship must not exist just because their pain matched so conveniently.
And there were presents. Her eyes could still shine like that. Even after all of this, the joy in pretty things was still there. Not status symbols or luxuries – just lovely objects, beautiful words, a softer and gentler world.
Ginny had been right – Ron did not approve. But he had given his blessing to the relationship far enough back and, as Hermione pointed out, a little additional information could hardly make him retract it now. That would be bad manners.
As far as Harry was concerned, Ginny could have everything she ever wanted: the most spectacular wedding ever imagined, with the press stopped at the gate and forced to watch the fireworks from a distance; the finest clothes money could buy, muggle or wizarding; the fastest broomstick ever built; all the care and adoration she could ever ask for.
It wasn’t like they said, the gossip columnists and also, admittedly, Ron. He hadn’t bought her all those years ago. He had earned her, step by step, not with the presents he gave her but in the way he learned to anticipate her wants. Knowing her, that had been the trick. The money was just a means to the end.