Chapter Text
The fluorescent lights blink down from the Tesco ceiling, over-bright. Harry squints his eyes against the glare as their halogen whine modulates to match the pulsing tempo of the headache that has settled behind his left eye.
He’s standing stock-still in front of the organic produce cooler, between the kale and the chard to be precise, completely at a loss as to what he’s looking for. He’d stopped in the store for a bottle of wine on his way home—in and out, two minutes—but here he is, at least twenty minutes later, teetering precariously over the aubergines. He has the neck of the wine bottle in question grasped tightly in one hand, a pack of chocolate biscuits he pulled absently from a shelf tucked under the same arm, and for some reason, a sack of lemons dangling from his other hand.
As he hesitates, the little spigot at the far end of the coolers sputters to life, then the next, and so on until the little spigot just above Harry’s forehead announces itself with a wheeze and a gentle spit of fine mist. He shivers as a gust of cool air rolls over him.
Just a bottle of red. Don’t be late this time. Marco and Emelia were insistent that we both be here, Neil had texted him that afternoon in reply to Harry’s message asking what he could bring back for dinner. He doesn’t know if he’s projecting the exasperated tone onto Neil’s words, or if he’s meant to pick up on what’s actually there. He suspects a little bit of both.
He tilts his wrist to glance at his watch, a gift from Arthur after receiving his Muggle architect's license two years ago. The face and hands are absent, exposing all the tiny gears inside. It soothes Harry, being able to see the mechanisms by which time is moved and measured. Even without the hands, even without magic, he can always read the hour and minute. Right now, he is reading that he is nearly fifteen minutes late.
He calculates quickly: if he pays for his weird assortment of groceries in the next three minutes and cuts through the back alley behind the shop instead of sticking to the pavements, he can make it through the park and to Neil’s front door in ten.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He shifts the lemons over to the hand with the wine, and shimmies a little to nestle the biscuit package more firmly into the crook of his elbow. Instead of reaching into his pocket to read whatever passive-aggressive question Neil has sent, he reaches out to straighten the courgettes, one-by-one.
When he pulls back, the soft, dark hairs on the top of his wrist and hand glisten with dewdrops, like a spider’s web after a light rain. He doesn’t bother shaking them off. He takes one, two deep breaths of the sterile grocery store air before finally willing his feet to move.
“I asked you not to be late. What’s with the lemons?” Neil asks, definitely exasperated, when Harry steps through the door thirteen minutes later. He presses his cheek to Harry’s in lieu of any sort of real kiss.
Harry just shrugs, feeling no need to say anything since Neil has already turned and walked away toward the dining room.
“Harry, the man of the hour!” Marco booms, throwing his hands in the air excitedly, when Harry ducks through the dining room door.
Emelia rises from her chair to pull Harry into a tight hug. “For me? You shouldn’t have,” she whispers teasingly into his ear as she slides the bottle of wine out of his hand and turns to find the bottle opener.
Harry actually likes Marco and Emelia, which is more than he can say for any of Neil’s other friends. For one, they’re age appropriate.
Neil has a weird, and in Harry’s mind bad, habit of primarily associating with the gaggle of barely-legal twinks he somehow befriended at the gym. They’re always trying to cajole Harry into going dancing with them. From what he’s gathered, that involves putting on as little clothing as is legally allowed, getting sloppy drunk on neon-colored shots with multisyllabic names, and doing an absolutely mind-blowing amount of poppers in the middle of the dance floor while grinding against one another.
He’d acquiesced a couple of times, when he’d just started seeing Neil and they were both trying to take the measure of each other—aggressively in Neil’s case, and cautiously in Harry’s. It only took a couple of days-long hangovers following messy, drunken, unsatisfying blowjobs in the club loos to put Harry off of the whole affair.
“Harry, Neil tells us you’re late because you were in a meeting with a very important client! Tell me all about it, immediately,” Marco says.
“Oh, is that what he told you?” Harry mutters, cutting his eyes to Neil, who cocks a thickly-penciled eyebrow over his pursed lips.
“Um, well, yeah actually—we’ve just been commissioned to do the design for the new council housing development in Becontree. Had a meeting with the city commissioners this mor—er, this afternoon. Lots of bureaucracy and red tape, working with the city. It’s the first time in over fifty years that they’ve brought in a new architect to renovate the units, though. I’m excited to take a crack at it.”
“Is that a good gig? Working for the city. I mean, do they pay well?” Emelia asks goodnaturedly, throwing one slender arm around Marco’s broad shoulders and sipping her wine.
“Oh, Harry wouldn’t know. He’s allergic to compensation,” Neil says, seemingly trying for a teasing tone, but it falls flat.
Harry, to his credit he thinks, doesn’t roll his eyes. “I do all my public projects pro bono. In exchange for waiving my fee the city has agreed to let me bring on a sustainability consultant and a landscape architect who specializes in public parks and gardens,” he says, pushing his shaggy hair back from his forehead and clasping it in a ponytail for a moment, before letting it flop back down. “I don’t know if you’ve been ‘round that way much, but those developments were built more for survival than living. Loads of families with kids, virtually no safe places for them to play. No reason they can’t be homes as well as houses.”
“You’re too good for us, Harry,” Emelia says, reaching across the table to take his hand in her small, warm palm.
“He’s something, that’s for sure!” Neil chirps to the hob as he dishes up couscous and roasted vegetables.
Harry ignores Neil, distracted instead by the flashing, silver band on Emelia’s ring finger.
“Oi, what’s this, now?” he asks, a smile in his voice, eyes flitting back and forth from Emelia’s now-blushing face to Marco’s beaming one.
“Oh, shoot—-I forgot I still had it on, honestly,” Emelia says, quietly.
“No you didn’t, you big sap, you’re a horrible liar,” Marco teases, taking both of her hands in his and turning to face her.
“I s’pose the cat’s out of the bag now, hm? We’re engaged!”
“Oh…congratulations!” Harry enthuses, rising from his chair to pull Emelia up for another big hug. Marco laughs loudly and envelopes them both in his big bear arms.
“Ugh,” comes Neil’s attitude-laden grunt from somewhere behind their huddle.
“Oh, come on, Neil! You love weddings, all that free booze,” Emelia teases, her eyebrows waggling.
“Yeah, when it’s someone else’s wedding,” he whines. “Not my bloody best mate! I can’t believe this. You’re just giving up? Throwing in the towel? I mean—come on, Mee—the same dick for the rest of your life? Are you kidding? What happened to the fun party girl who could stay out all night and pull seven days a week?”
Emelia rolls her eyes at the familiar, old refrain. “She grew up, Neil! And got bloody tired!”
“And met the man of her dreams,” Marco teases, kissing Emelia’s forehead.
“Neil…” Harry starts, reaching out a hand to subdue his tetchy boyfriend. Neil rolls his eyes and pushes Harry’s entreating hand away.
“No. What’s next, Mee? Going to have a baby? Then you’ll really be no fun, there won't be any point in seeing you! I’m going to lose you forever! Fuck!”
Harry’s frozen to the spot, unsure whether to try and calm Neil down from his strop, comfort Emelia whose eyes have started to shine with unshed tears, or cast a wandless Wingardium on the dining room table to distract everyone, International Statute be damned.
“Neil, that’s enough. We thought… We hoped you would be happy for us,” Marco says, voice low and steady.
“Yeah, well. I’m not, am I? Marriage. So selfish—it’s all about you, isn’t it?”
“Right. Fuck you, Neil. I should have expected this.” Emelia’s voice wavers as she walks quickly from the room and down the hall toward the front door, Marco close on her heels.
Harry looks fleetingly at Neil, whose wide, incredulous eyes are trained on Harry with his palms upturned as if to say What? Am I wrong? Harry jogs from the room to catch Emelia and Marco before they can leave.
“I’m…I’m so sorry, you two. I…congratulations, really. I know—he didn’t mean it. He’ll come around. You know how he is.”
Marco regards him quietly for a moment as he slides into his jacket. “Yes, Harry, he did mean it. You know that as well as we do. Listen, we love Neil. We really do. But—I don’t mean this unkindly—why the fuck are you with him? You’re so…and he’s…anyway—thanks, Harry. See you around, maybe?”
“Yeah…”
Harry closes the door gently behind them and lets his forehead thunk against it. When he re-enters the kitchen, he finds that Neil has dumped the rest of their dinner into the bin and is sitting at the dining room table, pouting and drinking wine straight from the bottle.
“Right. Not like I was hungry, or anything,” Harry mutters under his breath.
“Order in some of that horrendous curry you like so much. I can’t even look at food right now, my appetite is ruined.”
“Neil, your best friends just shared some really exciting news with you. They want to celebrate with you because they love you. You couldn’t even pretend to be happy for them?”
Neil scoffs, taking another big swig of wine and examining his cuticles. “Sorry, love, but you know I’m basically allergic to hypocrisy. I can’t pretend to endorse something so selfish and stupid.”
“Marriage isn’t selfish, Neil. They’re so in love, I think it’s a beautiful commitment—”
“Ugh. Don’t say that word in my house.”
“First of all, our house. Secondly, what word, love?!”
“No, commitment…” Neil snarls, rising from the table and moving plates and bowls around without aim.
“What are you talking about? We’ve been in a bloody committed relationship for nearly a year and a half!”
The clattering of dishware ceases, but Neil neither turns to face Harry nor says anything.
Suddenly, a picture comes into focus in Harry’s mind, like one of those Magic Eye posters. Order emerging from the chaos of blurry signs and symbols the further back he stands from it all.
All the nights that Neil didn’t come home until sunrise, the scents of other people that always seem to follow him into their bed, all the mouth-shaped bruises on his throat that Harry knows he didn’t put there, clumsily covered with half-assed concealer. More than once when Harry had been doing the laundry, he’d come across a pair of briefs or a t-shirt that didn’t belong to either of them. He’d just fold them neatly and tuck them into Neil’s dresser drawer along with the rest.
If he’s honest, part of him always knew Neil was sleeping around. That he had been since they’d first started dating, really. Ending things, only to have to start all over again, always seemed harder than just looking the other way and telling himself he was happy. But now, he can’t possibly ignore it any longer and cling to the remaining shreds of his dignity.
“Fuck, Neil,” he says quietly, dropping into one of the vacated dining room chairs. He’s surprised to find that he isn’t angry. He isn’t even terribly sad. He’s just a bit disappointed in himself.
When Neil finally turns toward him, his face is streaked with mascara-flecked tears. Harry’s self-pity morphs into something uglier, something more like disdain.
“What, feeling guilty all of a sudden? Or just upset that we can no longer pretend you aren’t fucking every greasy piece of shit who puts his hands on your cock on at the club?” he snarls.
“Harry, please, don’t be mean,” Neil whines, settling himself precariously onto Harry’s lap and trying to plant wet kisses on Harry’s forehead and temples, knocking his glasses askew.
Harry looks into Neil’s watery brown eyes and lets himself really see him for a moment. He’s beautiful—so beautiful Harry had done a literal double-take the first time he saw him across the posh, French restaurant where he works. Harry had taken a new client to lunch to talk over some blueprints and there he’d been—handsome in his neat, black trousers, carefully pressed white shirt, and blue-striped apron. He would have blended into the bustle of other servers if not for the brilliant swipes of red eyeshadow rimming his large eyes, the deep purple lipstick on his full lips, and the perfect peak in his carefully-coiffed blond hair.
He’s so bright and shiny, always on and always prepared with a new, scandalous story that sends everyone in the room into hysterics. Harry loved being around his energy at first. He’d grown so used to the somber predictability of his own life, and meeting Neil was like grabbing hold of a lightning bolt and hanging on for dear life. Electric, Harry had told him the first time they slept together. You’re electric, I feel so alive when I’m with you.
Lately, all Harry feels is exhausted. He’s tired of pretending that he can fit into Neil’s lifestyle. Tired of pretending that he wants to.
“No, you’re right, I’m sorry.” He sighs, taking Neil’s tear-stained face into his hands. He wipes away the lingering tears and feels one last satisfying twinge of contempt as trails of smudged, black makeup mar Neil’s porcelain skin.
“I can’t give you what you need—” Neil shakes his head violently in protest, “No, Neil, It’s not an accusation, it’s just a fact. I can’t give you everything you need and you can’t give me what I need. You should feel free to be with whoever you want, whenever you want, but not like this. Not with me like this.”
Neil snuffles and nods, his tears subsiding.
“You can’t keep hiding it and lying to me and expect me to just…let it happen. The fact that you never felt you could be honest with me about what you need speaks volumes. I think our… Our expectations for a relationship just don’t match. I want…I need commitment. Real commitment, Neil. That means open communication and respect.”
“What are you saying, Harry?” Neil whines, his face twisting into a frown.
“I’m saying I don’t think marriage is selfish, Neil. It’s something I’d like for myself one day, very much, and a family. I’m saying that I understand and respect that you don’t feel similarly. I’m saying that I’m finally doing something I should have done a long time ago.”
“You're breaking up with me?” Neil says thickly around a new wave of tears.
“Yes, love. I am. I’m sorry if that makes you sad now, but I…I can’t keep doing this.”
*
Harry shivers as the familiar magic of Grimmauld Place rushes through him. He stands in the foyer with his eyes closed for a long moment, breathing in the musty smell of rooms long uninhabited. He thought he’d feel more dread at the prospect of moving back in, but what he feels instead, is relief.
He’s forgotten what it feels like to be cradled by magic. Like sliding off his stiff blazer at the end of a long workday and pulling on an old Weasley jumper instead. They both fit, he likes the way he looks and feels in both of them, but one is just more comfortable and familiar. More intimate.
He can hear the creak and groan of the walls and floorboards, as though the house is inhaling him in return. If he focuses carefully, he can hear the hum of generations of ancient magic woven into the very foundations of the building, layers upon layers of charms and incantations that form what Harry has come to think of as the soul of the place. The home within the house. It used to take him a long time to tune his magical core to that resonant frequency, but he’s built enough wixen homes at this point that it’s almost become a sixth sense.
He opens his mouth to call out for Kreacher, eager for a glass or two of Firewhisky, before remembering that the old elf no longer lives there. He’d sent him to live with Andromeda and Teddy instead, when he moved in with Neil. The house feels even more empty with this sudden realization.
Harry trails aimlessly down the front hall, through the sitting room with its forlorn-looking couches and cold, dusty fireplace, and into the kitchen.
Open communication and respect, he’d told Neil. What a load of shit. Guilt twists his stomach as he flaps open bare cupboard after bare cupboard. In light of all the things Harry had kept secret, Neil’s chronic infidelity seems like nothing, almost laughably insignificant. Harry should have broken it off ages ago, if only he weren’t so selfishly desperate for the simplicity and anonymity that comes with dating a Muggle, with living in the Muggle world.
Now, sitting here in this house again, he wonders if he wasn’t seeking respite so much as a hiding place. At the time, he had thought himself rather brave to be leaving behind the blinding glow of notoriety and the conflicting ability to open doors and skirt rules wherever he went. When he opened his little wixen architecture firm on Diagon Alley he’d had to hire an extra secretary whose only job was to turn people away. Now, he has to court the most soul-draining potential clients—uber-wealthy Muggle couples looking to build their fourth vacation home or career politicians renovating the posh apartments they bought for their mistresses—in order to fund the kind of work he really loves.
It strikes him that it wasn’t just dread at having to start from square one with a new relationship that kept him hanging on for so long. Deep down, he feels that if he had admitted that his relationship with Neil had failed, that would mean the rest of his new life had also failed: that he hadn’t been strong, or clever, or good enough to make it work. That Harry Potter, the person, isn’t special or worthwhile at all, that the only worthwhile parts of him are those that the wixen World sees fit to mythologize and worship—the parts that aren’t even real to begin with.
He pops the stopper out of a crystal decanter of unidentifiable brown liquor so caked with dust that it looks like it hasn’t been opened in decades and pours himself several fingers, which he downs in one gulp. It’s been a long time since he was at such a loose end.
So, he does what he always does when the chaos of the world feels too overwhelming: he goes to work.
*
The late hour means that Diagon is practically deserted. The familiar ripple of the wards on his studio’s front door send a wave of warmth through Harry’s belly. The studio, converted from a storage space into an open-plan office, sits right above a small storefront that over the years has been an apothecary, a haberdashery, a chip shop, and is now some sort of holistic magical healing clinic.
He can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth at the delicate sound of the little bell as he pushes open the door. It had been more of a nostalgic touch than a practical one. When he installed it, Harry thought the bell made the place feel more neighborly. His secretaries hated it—they could see clients coming through the large front windows and didn’t need the tinkling pronouncement.
Ron and Arthur had made most of the furniture for him by hand out of lightweight, honey-colored wood: a broad, sectioned work surface levitates in the middle of the main room, charmed to fold and tilt precisely according to the pressure of Harry’s hand so he can display sketches and blueprints to clients, the secretaries’ desks on either side of the front door wired for electric and magical currents, a small, comfortable table and chairs nestled into the galley kitchen in the back corner, a gorgeous, built-in flat file cabinet that magically sorts and preserves his blueprints for him.
His drafting table, though, had been a gift from Hermione. It’s the nicest and most precious thing he owns. Per usual, she’d done her research and found the most state-of-the-art table she could, then enhanced it with her own modifications. The writing surface is made of a single, large pane of transparent glass charmed to illuminate itself as the natural light shifts across the studio. It also keeps a thorough record of all of Harry’s mark-making—he only needs to utter the right incantation to pull up a version-history of whatever sketch he’s working on. It saves him hours of re-work and means he wastes far less bond paper. It had even been charmed to recognize his artistic signature over time—eventually, whenever he sat down to start a new sketch the table would fill in all his usual scale marks and other stylistic notes before he even picked up a pencil.
He trails one hand around the edge of the table, letting the pad of his thumb catch on each perfect corner, feeling the cool metal warm under his touch. There’s an apology lingering on his lips for staying away too long and leaving the table neglected. It’s silly, but he feels like it meets him again as an old friend—without judgment and brimming with happiness to see him. He can’t help but hope the rest of his friends will welcome him back so easily… Whenever, if ever, he reaches out to them.
He settles himself onto the little stool and taps a finger on the glass to wake it up, blinking until its bright gleam settles to a gentle, golden glow. He pulls down a fresh sheet of paper and asks the table to pull up the outline of the last sketch he was working on before he abandoned the studio completely.
It’s a small structure, smaller than he’s used to after the previous two years at such a large firm. Straight, precise lines intersect at sharp corners; the doors and windows are roughed-in with soft graphite; the bird’s-eye view reveals a large kitchen, a cozy sitting room, two spacious bedrooms and a smaller one, and a detached studio.
It’s a house—a home. His home. Or, it was supposed to be, in some aborted future.
The web of marks—hashed lines for dimension, phantom lines for sliding doors and windows, break lines suggesting depth—brings Harry’s scattered mind into order. The legend in the lower-left corner is a geometric guide to all of Harry’s former hopes and dreams, but its minimalism—its sterility—brings no definition to Harry’s swirling emotions.
He trails his hand over the list of spells and charms he’d started ages ago. They’re mostly the typical spells any wixen family asks to have woven into the foundations of a new home: wards for protection, climate charms to keep the house warm or cool, assorted charms for domestic tasks like cleaning and laundry. He laughs sadly to himself as his fingers trail over the last few, added in a fit of sentimentality: a baby-monitoring charm, a laundry charm specifically designed to sort clean clothes by owner, a charm for the entryway that recognizes each family member’s magical signature and announces their arrival.
An insistent tapping sound interrupts his melancholy reminiscing. His brow furrows as he identifies the source: a large, official-looking owl perched on the ledge of one of the front windows with a thick letter tied to one of its legs. He’s momentarily stunned, no one knew he’d be in the studio that night. Anyone who matters anymore knows he hasn’t been there in a long time. When he lets the bird in and detaches the envelope, he sees that it’s sealed with the Minister’s own sigil.
TO: Mr. Harry J. Potter
FROM: The Office of the Minister for Magic
RE: Architectural Consult
Mr. Potter,
Head Auror, Gawain Robards, under direction from the Minister for Magic, Alain Clarke, requests your presence at a meeting in the Minister’s office on Friday morning next at 10am sharp. The Ministry is interested in contracting your services for a project of utmost urgency and importance. Send your response along post-haste.
We look forward to working with you,
Jeanette LaRue, Secretary
Office of the Minister