Chapter Text
“Merlin, Harry. I can’t believe I ran into you here!”
A tug on his elbow pulled Harry back and into a warm hug. If he hadn’t recognized her voice, he would’ve known Ginny by the scent that was always hers—cool, crisp air; grass freshly mown for the last time this season; and just a hint of Fleetwood’s broom handle polish.
“It’s not really a surprise,” Harry said into Ginny’s shoulder. He hugged her and then struggled free. “I check the Owl Post Office every afternoon at 1.”
Harry stepped back and pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. Ginny looked every inch the professional athlete. Tall, slender, but Harry had felt the muscles in her grasp. There was a reason she’d gone first in her draft year, and the records she set for the Holyhead Harpies would be hard for anyone to break.
And then a year ago, for no logical reason, the Harpies traded her to Puddlemere, who in turn (at the end of last season) traded her and Blaise Zabini in a package deal to the Chudley Cannons for the first-round draft picks for the next five years. Ginny was still amazing, but like the editorial in the The Wizard Sporting News said, “A gem in a pile of shit is still a gem, only now it’s covered in shit.”
Not that Harry studied the British and Irish Quidditch League in The Wizard Sporting News every day during the season. Over his morning coffee at the little Muggle coffee house in Islington, where they called him Harry and thought his scar was cool, and he was just the bloke who ordered scrambled eggs on toast and a bowl of porridge with bananas and chocolate chips (hold the bananas). He carried his copy of The WSN folded and tucked under his arm so the title was hidden and performed a discreet spell so the people in the photographs didn’t move.
If he’d gone there every day for breakfast.
Okay, he did. So what?
After the chaos of his time in Hogwarts, the uncertainty of what any day would bring, and living with the knowledge that there might not be a tomorrow, Harry Potter liked routine. He had the same breakfast at the same coffee house at 9 am every day (except Sunday when they opened at 10, but he’d never seriously considered changing the other days to 10. Not really. Much.) And he checked his mailbox at the Owl Post Office at one o’clock.
Whatever.
“For real? I didn’t—” Ginny’s face was bright as she pretended to be surprised. But Harry knew her bullshit, knew she needed something.
“Ginny.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “I’ve checked my mail at 1:00 for years. During most of which we were dating. What do you want?”
She deflated a little, slumped her shoulders and said, “Look. I have a proposition, and—hear me out. Can we go somewhere and sit? Just give me five minutes. Maybe ten. And just--listen?”
Merlin help him, he had no idea why he’d agree. He already knew it was going to be bad. Bad with a capital B. And he was going to say yes to whatever she asked because that’s just what he did.
“Fine, but we’re going to the Leaky, and you’re buying lunch,” Harry grumbled, shaking his head. Because he knew that, halfway through lunch, she’d remember an interview that she had to give, and she’d Floo off to Scotland, or Bulgaria, or Norway or some other exotic place.
“Brilliant. You’re going to love this!” Ginny grinned, and for a sliver of a second, Harry felt his heart warm, plonk out one extra beat in tepid interest. Ginny turned toward the Leaky, her hair catching the noon sun’s rays, and it reminded Harry of bonfires at the Burrow and kissing her when no one was watching.
It’s not like Harry envied her life. Jumping from city to city, living out of a suitcase, being the center of attention with people studying every move you make, detailing who you’re dating and what you’re doing.
He’d hated that. People had poked into his privacy. He’d been in the spotlight all the time.
“Yeah,” he said out loud in response to no one as he followed Ginny up Diagon Alley toward the Leaky. “That was hell.”
Harry nodded resolutely to punctuate his words.
And didn’t feel wistful at all.
Much.