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Ginny watched with suspicion, the hot and sticky summer air pulled her lightweight shirt heavy against her sweat dampened chest. Ron and Harry pretended to gather the children in the garden. The pair had been whispering conspiratorially together all night and were doing a much better job talking amongst themselves than actually getting the children diverted from their games. Racking her brain, she moved through the yard trying to figure out what they could be hiding from her.
Teddy and James tossed a gnome at George’s head while George ducked and stupefied it midair. Teddy laughed with his entire body causing George to laugh harder, missing the next gnome as he was whacked on his missing ear. Satisfied with James’ aim, Ginny glanced back to Harry to share an unspoken joke about his future as a chaser verse seeker, only to have her suspicions on his parental negligence confirmed. Harry’s eyes were nowhere near the children as he gestured towards the Burrow.
Sighing, Ginny checked on the rest of the children, finding Rose and Al playing hide and seek with Lily and Hugo. The middle two children were being their usual kind, gentle souls, always watching out for the youngest and pretending not to see the tops of their heads sticking out behind the woodshed. Satisfied the risk of a disaster occurring between now and dinner was low and the children could be “minded” by whatever subsequent level of attention Ron and Harry were giving, Ginny returned from the garden and began helping her mum set the table.
Glancing toward the stairwell, Ginny considered checking on Hermione working in the formal office. Her sister-in-law had muttered something in a hurry that morning about needing to finish some legislation review with Percy and Audrey. However, Ginny promptly tuned the three of them out. Somehow helping her mother in the kitchen was a better option than trying to round the rest of adults up for fear of being brought back into the boredom of whatever international crisis was looming now.
“Children!” Molly commanded yelling into the yard. The adults stopped what they were doing, freezing stiller than the stupefied gnome free falling from the sky, but the grandchildren continued on.
“Children!” Ginny called causing the grandchildren to stop and follow over in line.
“Mum, did someone get into a vat of Polyjuice? There seems to be two of you now.” George cracked as he reached the table first.
“Let’s see how well my Bat Bogey differentiates us,” Ginny huffed.
Harry silently snuck over and hugged Ginny from behind, placing a gentle kiss to the top of her head as they swayed in the warm summer breeze from the open door. All previous suspicions momentarily forgotten while he held her tightly in his arms.
“Alright all of you, clean up now and someone grab Uncle Percy, Aunt Audrey and Aunt Hermione” Ginny yelled not leaving her spot with her back against Harry’s warm chest. The kids lined up and made their way into the kitchen to wash up at the sink. James yelled up the stairs for everyone to hurry up and come down to eat. Ginny turned around exasperated to Harry who rolled his eyes. Both knowing they told James a dozen times not to yell at adults.
After the family settled and dug into another one of Molly Weasley’s famous dinners, Ginny turned to watch her husband. It was his birthday, his thirty fourth birthday and once again, he insisted there was nothing he needed except for his family. Ginny had the children present him with handmade gifts that morning: a snitch drawing from Albus, a dreamcatcher to keep away nightmares from Lily and even James and Teddy outdid themselves by cooking a proper traditional fry up for his breakfast in bed. Though despite the festivities, Ginny couldn’t shake the feeling that Harry had been nervous all evening as she watched him fidgeting with his napkin under the table.
“Harry,” Ginny whispered as she passed the first slice of treacle tart “what on Earth are you nervous about?”
In response, Harry employed an incredibly annoying auror trick, steadying his breathing and closing off his expression, appearing calm and stoic to the untrained eye. But Ginny knew his tell; his eyes didn’t crinkle when he laughed. As she watched him, his telltale crowfeet stayed smooth. He was forcing laughs at George and Ron’s banter a little too hard tonight. It was as if the jokes were happening to someone else around him instead of being told in honor of his thirty fourth birthday.
As soon as the treacle tart was cleared from his plate, Harry turned to her. Stone faced Harry began to ramble, “Gin, I need you. I need you right now, to follow me. Um, upstairs. There is something very important I need to show you in the office” Harry fumbled. “Um, Ron? That thing? We spoke about earlier?”
Ron smirked a little too knowingly, “Oi, birthday boy, you don’t have to twist my arm. We can take the rug rats off your hands and return them fully sugared up tomorrow before I need to cook them lunch. Just don’t share any details about what you get up to tonight.”
Harry jumped from his chair. He knocked it backwards, stumbling over the leg as he tried to keep it upright. Gripping Ginny’s hand, he dragged her back into the living room. He tripped on the top step as he hurried her up the stairs.
“Harry, if you wanted a shag, we could just apparate home” she grinned. “I’m more than happy to give you your thirty four birthday spanks while the kids are off with Ron and Hermione tonight.” Ginny giggled as he pulled her into the musty office. While Ginny normally had no issue stealing moments away wherever they were (her parents’ home included) the office had a strange sort of old sterilized parchment smell that reminded her of an odd combination of the restricted section of the library and the hospital wing. It was not at the top of her favorite locations to have a ‘moment’ with her husband.
Any objections she had were immediately lost as she realized the home office was gone. Ginny gasped, taking a step into the room. There were no more bookshelves filled with Percy and Hermione’s references tomes. No more stacks of legislation papers or half-finished notes. Instead, her childhood room stood before her. Untouched, as if frozen in time. It was as if nothing had ever happened. As if, the Death Eaters had never come through all those years ago.
Dumbfounded, she tiptoed around the room taking in the decorations on the walls. Her faded yellow wallpaper. Her Weird Sisters poster that came with their third studio vinyl. The pink quilt of old baby clothes she pretended to despise, but really, felt so much safer under after the nightmares. She walked to the foot of the bed and rubbed the worn satin between her thumb and forefinger. Ginny stopped in front of her original 1995 Gwenog Jones Harpies poster, gently tracing the path of a slight tear in the bottom left corner. The tape ripped it one morning when she felt compelled to move it from one wall to another so the light from the window would cast less of a glare.
The cherry wood desk had been replaced with her worn white wicker one. Her summer transfiguration notes, drafts of quidditch plays, and family pictures all were sitting around exactly the same as they were that summer. She paused staring at the pictures, the ones that had sat charred in their frames when they returned after the Battle. Her with her complete family in Egypt. Both twins, together and whole, standing next to one another grinning from ear to intact ear. A newborn baby picture of her with her Mum rocking her, looking up from her pink covered head towards the camera with an exhausted brilliant smile.
Suddenly, all the notes, pictures and posters in the room transformed and lifted off the walls and desk. They floated around the room as moving pictures from the last seventeen years. Harry and Ginny smiling in front of a sunset the night Harry proposed. Harry and Ginny cuddling clinking hot chocolate mugs in front of a roaring fire sporting matching green jumpers, hers several years older than his and rolled up at the sleeves. Ginny nursing James while sticking her tongue out at the camera. Her shooting a winning goal in a game long forgotten. Another of her flying with all the kids on a broomstick. A giggling Ginny and Lily painting a sleeping Harry’s toes never noticing Harry’s eyes peaking open at their chaos. Her softly singing to Al while he stares at his mobile of Harpies’ colored quaffles, bludgers and snitches.
Ginny felt her pulse quicken pounding in her ears. The smell of wildflowers and warm bread surrounded her. Confused, she turned, “Harry, what is all this?”
Harry started to talk but stopped, the words choking up in his throat. He cleared his voice and continued on.
“So lately, I have been thinking. As of today, I have been hopelessly, madly in love with you for exactly half of my life.” He took her hand as she stared into his glistening emerald eyes.
“I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some quidditch God when you're off doing all the amazing things you're always doing.”
Ginny smiled remembering those dark days when she nervously spit out a similar speech marveling at how far they have come. How the love he felt for her and the love she felt for him, grew deeper and stronger with every touch, every mundane moment, every fight. Her heart slowed as the memories of seventeen hard fought yet glorious years washed over her. She was surrounded by images of the life they built together.
“I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin in the air, to be honest.”
“There's the silver lining I've been looking for,” he whispered.
Then he was kissing her as only he could. Ginny kissed him back, and it was a blissful oblivion, better than fire-whiskey, better than chocolate; he was the only real thing in the world, the feel of him, one hand on the back of his messy hair the other caressing his stubbled cheek. With no Ron to interrupt them this time, they kissed until they were able to say everything they felt. Lose themselves until every unspoken word of love had been expressed. When they finally broke away, if it was minutes, hours, or several sunlit days, she couldn’t tell. Harry put his forehead to hers to hold her as he caught his breath.
“I knew going into the forest, remembering that kiss, that I was in love with you. I wanted to hold onto that moment as hard as I could. I thought, I thought that if it was the last moment of my life, at least it could be one where I was truly alive and happy. But here we are, seventeen wonderful years later. I had no idea leaving Dumbledore at that train station, how much better every moment over the next seventeen years would be.”
Pushing a lock of hair behind Ginny’s ear, Harry gazed into her eyes before placing a kiss on her nose and pulling her deeper into the hug, resting his chin on the crown of her head.
“Thank you for making the second half of my life so wonderful. Happy half of my life - somehow more madly in love and can’t wait to grow old with you-a-versary.” He squeezed her tighter as their wedding song played from the wireless in the yard, the notes wafting through the open window. As the sun set, they swayed together, dancing in the gentle breeze, surrounded by their memories of a life that had just begun.