Courtney Kathrys (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} courtneykathrys) wrote,@ 2004-04-13 02:43:00 |
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The "You Got It" Trilogy (complete)
Name: Courtney Kathrys
Title: Anything You Want
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com
Summery: Crumpets and tea and Mrs. Weasley. Memories and death and abandonment. Strength and Weakness and Family.
Notes: Nearly all the dialogue in here is taken from the movie “Boys on the Side.” Those quotes inspired me to write this… funny enough it is as opposite from the actual movie as humanly possible. One-Shot.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot. Dialogue, most of it at least, from the movie “Boys on the Side.” the actual quote “Never Complain, Never Explain” was said by Katherine Hepburn, as well as in the moie.
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Harry Potter remembered tea and crumpets. He remembered big Yorkshire puddings, and the best toast he’d ever eaten. More importantly, he remembered the aroma in the cozy Weasley kitchen as Mrs. Weasley slaved religiously over her food. She couldn’t give her children much, but they never went hungry – Molly Weasley made sure of that.
So when Harry passed the small café, he paused for a moment. The sight of a woman and her teenage son sitting together, laughing over a cup of tea and a plate of crumpets in a small table for two. Without a second thought he went into the café, and sat himself at a table in the back, ordering the same for himself. While he waited for the food he continued to watch the boy and his mother. There was nothing overly significant about them to jog his memory. It was their food, and their laughter, and the way she filled his tea cup without a thought when it became less than halfway full, and the way he insisted that he couldn’t eat one more crumpet without bursting. The whole scene brought him back to his life in the Burrow.
He hadn’t allowed himself to be back there for a long while. He had cost them too much, taken too much from them. Though they would insist to the contrary, he knew that they would prefer he just left them in peace. He didn’t know why he still thought of them as a them. They were separate entities now. Ginny was grown up, married to a rich French aristocrat and last Harry knew she hadn’t kept in touch with anyone. She wanted to sever herself from England, from Voldemort. Percy was in Azkaban, following the fall of the Dark Lord. Though his turn had been suspected, it hadn’t been prepared for, and it was taken hard. Fred and George had been killed in the Diagon Alley Massacre. Bill in the Gringotts revolt. Charlie in battle. Arthur was in St. Mungo’s, in a coma no one could brake. Ron was also in St. Mungo’s, he shared a room with Neville’s parents. Molly was the only on left. Puttering around the Burrow in her old age, continuing to clean and cook for ten. Though she was the only one who ever came to the table these days, besides maybe Hermione.
Thinking of her now, for the first time in nearly five years, he began to feel guilty. He had stripped her of her family, and he had left her as well. The tea and crumpets were placed in front of him, and slowly he began to eat, mechanically, recalling the last time he had eaten tea and crumpets.
It was a beautiful sunny day. It was always sunny on the days the worst news was delivered. He had come to personally tell her of Percy’s conviction. He had been the last of the children to leave her. She had only nodded, and held the door open to him. Not a request, but a demand, and Harry could refuse her nothing at that point.
She poured him his tea, and buttered his crumpet, and watched him eat. He had been nineteen at the time. Too thin and frail from years of battle, and the powerful magic he was using was beginning to wear him in obvious signs. He had been sick for weeks, witnessing horrors that none would have conceived possible. Voldemort had been defeated a month ago, and the trials were beginning, and Harry could scarcely stand, let alone testify against thousands of prisoners.
“It’s not right, losing your children. Children are supposed to live after you.”
Harry said nothing, and continued to sip his tea, scared he’s break down if he looked up at her. But she hadn’t been talking to him, she had been conversing with the tea pot in her hands.
But after minutes with no more speaking, Harry knew he’d have to talk.
“I’m leaving, Mrs. Weasley. I have to leave here, England, everything. I’m not well and the longer I stay the worse I get.”
He remembered the pot falling from her hands and shattering on the floor. She didn’t apologize for the accident, and quickly repaired it, setting it on the table before her shaking hands could drop it again.
“You too Harry? Must you leave as well?”
He felt his throat tighten, and he continued to avoid her eyes, knowing he’d break down and cry if he saw her mournful look. So he studied his crumpet.
“I’m dying, Mrs. Weasley. If I don’t leave that guess will be a reality.”
She sat opposite him now, cradling a cup of tea in her aging hands. He could hear her stirring it, though he knew it was black.
“I know that you're not well, dear. I don't know what it is and I don't want to know. But I know you'll get better. You were always the strong one. I can't lose you. I can't just lose everybody. I do the best I can, dear. I know it's not enough, and I'm sorry. But that's what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to stick by you and fight for you when everyone else is gone? And it isn't always who you expect. But you just have to make do.”
Harry felt his insides unravel at her words, her voice. The pain and the need and the want. He felt ashamed for being so selfish. Attacked for wanting to get away.
“I’m not complaining Mrs. Weasley.”
He could hear her smile, rather than see it, for he wasn’t looking at her. But he knew her well enough. Knew her in Ron, in Ginny, in Fred and George and all of her other children. He even knew her in himself. He knew when she smiled, what it looked like, and what it meant without ever seeing her. He heard her smile in her voice.
“Never complain, never explain. An old Muggle American said that once, don’t remember where I picked it up from. It’s a good motto isn’t it?”
Harry found himself smiling, despite himself, and nodding. They spoke no more for a long time. Then Harry bid his leave and exited quickly. He hadn’t seen her since. He hadn’t even seen her then.
The crumpets were getting cold and hard, the tea was frigid. Night was beginning to emerge. Slowly, Harry left some money on the table and left the café. He made the long walk back to his flat in silence, not quite wanting to apparate. Wales was cold this time of year, and he cuddled into his cloak a little more. Missing the heat of Italy in the cold he now experienced. The cold was bittersweet, and he relished the pain of it. Missing that as well when he entered his flat.
That night he went to bed with memories on his mind, and a knowledge that he would never be strong enough to go back further than he was now.
________________________________________
Name: Courtney Kathrys
Title: Anything You Need
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com
Summery: Before Harry can make with peace with the closest woman he has to a mother, he needs to seek forgiveness from the one who survived. Do not read until you’ve completed “Anything You Want.”
Notes: This does contain sexual situations, though not nearly as graphic and detailed as some of my other works have been. This one actually requires an imagination.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.
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Memories drive Harry from Wales. He cannot bear to be there so soon, but he cannot bear to abandon all his reserve and retreat to Italy. So he finds himself in France, where the challenge is more dangerous, but easier. Harry has always wanted danger and ease over safety and hardship. He knows that before he can see the aged Mrs. Weasley, he needs to make peace with the estrangement from her loins. To know that if he can be forgiven by her, then maybe he can forgive himself.
Her house is easy to find, her late husband is well known. For a moment he just watches her in the garden. She doesn’t look happy, and he knows that it isn’t because she’s a widow as so may women were these days. She has always been unhappy, she has just learned to coincide with it. She doesn’t look up from her daisies, but he knows that she sees him. He can tell by the way her shoulders tense slightly beneath her light silk robes, and the way she cuts the stem of the flower too short.
She doesn’t greet him, and he her. They had moved past greetings years ago. So he sits beside her as she silently prunes the flowers, waiting for something though he knows not what. She finishes, taking longer than strictly necessary, and the both know that and accept it without comment. She stands and walks to the house, her silent command to follow obeyed.
The house is opulent, tasteful and elegant and he knows she hates the house nearly as much as she hates France. She was masochistic that way, wanting to surround herself with things she abhorred in order to make her unhappiness warranted. She pours herself a glass of white wine, leaving the bottle opened on the counter beside the wine glasses. He pours himself a glass, taking her up on her invitation.
They sip in silence, and he continues to wait. She has the right to speak first, and they both know that, and so she is choosing her words wisely.
“She writes me daily, you know. Every day for seven years she has sent a letter faithfully with one owl or another. I’ve never written back, and I burn the letter once I’ve memorized it.”
He knows she is referring to the woman they have both abandoned. He has never received a letter. Probably for the best, since he knows he does not have the strength to burn the contents as she does. He knows it is his turn now, to continue. H knows that with her choice of opening she intends to make it excruciating for him. He won’t ask how the older lady is faring; he won’t admit he never received an owl, although they both know she knows he hasn’t. He cuts to the chase, not wanting to play games today.
“Forgive me.”
“What ever for?”
He curses himself for his reckless habit of taking the easy and dangerous route. She wanted to play games, she wanted him to squirm, and she wanted for once to hold power over him.
“You’ve done no wrong to me, Harry, so why beg for my forgiveness?”
He hears the slight emphasis on the words wrong, me and my. He knows her meaning.
“Did you want to die as well?”
He has her there for a moment, and she is quiet while she sips her wine. Her hair is still as blood red as he remembers it being. So much darker than all the other family members.
“I’d be better off that way. She would as well, you know. She’d be more at peace with me being dead then estranged.”
“She’d still have to deal with Percy.”
“She’ll always be dealing with Percy, long after he finally dies as well.”
“I won’t kill you.”
“Is that what you want to be forgiven for?”
“Yes.”
They hardly move throughout the exchange. Her hands are steady as she sloshes the wine in the glass. His sits on the counter only half finished. The inflections of their voice remain neutral, casual, and flippant. They could be talking about the weather as far as body language went.
They stay quiet for a long moment, waiting for her reply to his request. She takes her time; enjoying spending the time she has accumulated over the years.
“Do you know why I loved you as a child, Harry?”
”Because you were expected to and because I made you unhappy.”
He wasn’t surprised at the tiny smile which crossed her face, or the fact that he knew her motivations so well didn’t come as a surprise in the least.
“If I love unhappiness, Harry, and still being alive makes me unhappy, why on earth should I forgive you for giving me what I love?”
She had him there, and he had never considered that part. The fact that Ginny was ecstatically pleased with her place since she was so devastatingly unhappy with it. She laughed, low, sarcastic.
“You were always so selfish Harry, did you know that? You wrapped yourself in your righteous anger, knowing the others would care and would follow, and you begged them not to and the more you begged the more they pleaded. You could have thrown off that anger so quickly and everything could have been much different. But you never liked to be safe if it meant going the hard way. You wanted it easy, and angry, and dangerous.”
She was right, and he knew it. He had brewed over that during his entire stay in Italy. He was not shocked that Ginny knew this, or that she touched upon so delicate a subject. Danger and ease had no place in her safe and difficult life.
“Because it makes you happy.”
He saw her harden with his words. Her hand gripped the wine stem a little tighter, the knuckles turned a shade paler. When she looked at him, her cinnamon eyes were hard.
“Touché.”
Harry sighed inwardly, annoyed that he was getting nowhere with her. She wasn’t making this whole process any simpler.
“Look, just tell me what it is you want.”
Her hardened demeanor relaxed, and she leaned her hair back and laughed. The sound was deep and rich and painful. When she turned to him her face was indescribable with its hardened mirth.
“Oh Harry, not everything is so simple and black and white. Not everything can be dealt with so easily.”
“Yes it can. What do you want?”
So she smirked. A knife slice on her pale face.
“If that’s how you want to play it my dear. What I want, Harry… is for this to be as difficult as possible. I want you to work at it. I want nothing of this to be simple and easy. I want it the hard way.”
And in her words he knew exactly what she meant. Every word, every nuance, every inflection that she placed on her words were crystal clear to him. It was the worst she ever could have asked. The hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
At first he just stared at her. At the ordinary and subtle glint in her spice tinted eyes. Then he nodded. Two quick head jerks in quick succession. She made no movement, and he knew every move was to be made entirely by him.
When his hands grabbed her waist she stared at him. When he crushed his mouth to hers she kept her eyes open as she kisses back. When he shoved everything off the countertop she merely watched as the wine glasses shattered and the bottle broke into millions of wine drenched shards of glass. When he shoved her back onto the counter she complied, almost bored. She kept her eyes open and starring at him the entire time they shagged.
He tried to picture her as other women lying in his arms. Her red hair turned to blonde and Lavender was beneath him. Then he heard her voice in his ear. “Ginny.”
The blonde receded and it was her red hair and her smirking eyes, the only girl he knew of to say her own name during the throes of passion. Even if just to remind him that it was her he was on top of. He cleared his mind again. Her eyes became dark and almond shaped. The sparkle that was distinctly Cho appeared. He relaxed. “Ginny.”
He was face to face with her mouth open in laughter. He growled and moved furiously. Her lips became full and soft and pale pink on porcelain skin. Fleur’s soft French began to fill his ears. The pink lips parted as she spoke to him in low whispers. “Ginny.”
Her hands gripped his shoulders and the freckles faded back in and it was her moving under him once more. Her fingers were rough in his back and he knew she knew that he was thinking of all the other women he knew. Her pale freckled arms grew darker and darker until Angelina’s mocha skin slid beneath him. Angelina’s nails curled into his back and he arched further into her. She screamed out “Ginny.”
By now Harry was fully frustrated at the red hair and brown eyes and smirking lips and freckled skin which laughed at his tortured face. She was making it real for him. Forcing him to see that he wasn’t running away from this, and that she wouldn’t let him go out easy. So he closed his eyes and he answered her back with his own “Ginny.”
He saw her smile, and her auburn eyebrows raise and she replied with him by adding her own “Harry.”
It was hearing his own name spill from her lips which sent him over and he became more lost and aggrieved with each thrust. So he continued moaning her name, and she remained inserting his until at last they tumbled over together to the sounds of their own names.
He watched her afterwards; cleaning up her kitchen in the buff, mending her ripped robes. Her long hair provided a make shift barrier of her skin, as it flowed down and around her waist in a haze of blood tinted tresses. She wasn’t beautiful. But she was cold and she was dangerous. And he had always had a passion for danger.
“Forgive me.”
She looked up at him, and she smiled. This time she was devoid of any sarcasm or wit or malice. This time she was genuine.
“Let me see her first, Harry, and all debts will be repaid.”
So he nodded, how could he refuse her the chance of seeing her Mother? She was only postponing his resolve, making it that more difficult to accomplish. But then again she always liked things to be difficult.
________________________________________
Name: Courtney Kathrys
Title: Anything At All
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com
Summery: After ten years of hiding from her, Harry returns to the only Mother he’s ever known, and with her comes all the memories of why he fled. And the most important question: Whatever happened to Hermione?
Notes: Written in a completely different style than the rest of the “You Got It” trilogy. I do hope to write a sequel series, I have so many thoughts on this. The name Trista is Latin for “sorrowful” which I think fits perfectly for her nature in Hermione’s life.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot. And Trista, technically.
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The aging, and increasingly calmer, Pigwidgeon was waiting on Harry’s kitchen table when he awoke in the morning. At first, he kind of stared at the bird, wondering what was written on the small parchment tied to his leg.
After a few moments of staring, Harry finally untied the letter, and unrolled it tentatively. Though only two words were written, he knew immediately what it was pertaining to. Your turn. He needed no other indication of what his morning would consist of. Ginny had done her part, now it was time for him to do his.
He opted to fly to the Burrow, rather than apparate. He needed to gather his thoughts, place everything together. He knew better than to plan a script, because every word would leave him as soon as she opened the door.
He arrived at the house far too soon for his liking. He surveyed the once teat and tidy yard, now overrun with gnomes and weeds. The paint was chipping, and the once cheerful exterior seemed morbid, and almost gloomy. It was to be suspected, he supposed. He could hardly expect the aging Molly Weasley to keep the house perfect all by herself. The Burrow had been created to be filled; it was formed around the people. Now only the matriarch remained in its embrace. The house was forlorn.
With trepidation, Harry approached the house, and knocked lightly. For a moment no one answered, and he felt a mixture of relief and fear. Then slowly, almost hesitantly, an old woman peered around the door before throwing it wide open and embracing him in a warm hug. Harry could hardly believe it was the same Mrs. Weasley. The woman who held him was thin and frail, and all bones and wrinkles and snow white hair. Her eyes were tired and old, the once bright blue faded to a dull steel. Her imposing presence had fled her entirely, and she appeared almost broken. But her smile was still as gentle, and her warmness still Weasley.
“Harry, dear, how lovely for you to visit me. If I had known I would have made something special! Come in, please, I’ll see what I can whip up to put some meat on that skeleton you’re walking around with.”
Harry smiled, not daring to deprive her of this rare chance to mother. She had been missing it for far to long. So he sat demurely at the ancient table as she puttered around the kitchen, conjuring and charming and cooking. She was in her element and Harry was drowning in his regret. He ate her crumpets dutifully, and sipped his tea. She smiled, excited that he would eat whatever she made.
“Hermione comes once a week, to see me and help me keep up on the chores. Mostly she’s preoccupied with Trista.”
Harry’s breath caught at the mention of Hermione. He knew she blamed him for not protecting Ron and her, for leaving her all but widowed, and for the damage done to her daughter while still in the womb. He blamed himself. He remembered the conversation vividly. The images, the colors, the movements were gone, but the words still scarred his dreams.
“How’s Ron Hermione?”
“So now you care?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what, Harry? That you could have killed those bloody Death Eaters right there; that you could have given up your reckless pursuit of Bellatrix to go after Ron and I? Because of some bloody vendetta that you’ve harbored Ron is lying in St. Mungo’s all but dead, Harry, and he’s never coming out of there. Because of some bloody warped revenge you had to see through, my child was born four months too early and she’ll be lucky if she ever learns to walk or talk. Ron and I told you for years Harry that she would get what was coming to her, but you didn’t listen! You and your fucking hero complex weren’t satisfied with just Voldemort, you wanted Sirius’ murderer’s head on a silver platter as well. That wasn’t your fight Harry! Lucius gave you a choice. ‘Revenge your Godfather, or save your friends…which is it?’ Well I’m so honored to be so fucking high on your priority list Harry, so fucking honored!”
“I thought I could do it all Hermione, I was wrong and I will live with that knowledge for the rest of my life!”
“No you won’t Harry because you will stay as far away from me as humanly possible. You will not harm Trista more than you already have. Because of you she has no father, no uncles, one grandparent, an estranged aunt, and nearly none of her brain working. I won’t have you hurt her further. You will get as far away as you can, and you will stay there, and you will leave Molly alone, and me alone, and Trista alone. You have no place in our life anymore, Harry Potter.”
That conversation took place the day after his final visit to Mrs. Weasley. He had listened to Hermione; listened to her for five years before returning no further than Wales. He listened to her for three more years before retreating to France, to Ginny. And he had listened to her for another two years in Wales again before receiving Ginny’s owl. Ten years was too long in his opinion, and not long enough at all. Hermione would murder him if she saw him here. But she wasn’t here now, and he would cross her rickety bridge when it came time.
For now Mrs. Weasley smiled at him and patted his hand. “I have to thank you Harry.” He was stunned. Thank him for what? What had he done for her? “Thank me?”
“For Ginny, dear. She told me that you came to visit her, and that you convinced her to come home. She’s staying at home until she finds a flat close by. She went to Hermione’s for the day. I think they’re going to visit Ron and Arthur.”
Harry’s breath caught in his throat, and he knew that Mrs. Weasley could see his fear and dread and horror, because she smiled once again and enveloped him in her frail arms.
“Oh Harry, don’t blame yourself. I know you had to leave, if not for yourself, but for Hermione as well. For Ron, and Arthur, and Bill, and Charlie, and Fred and George, and Percy, and Ginny, and Trista, and the elder Grangers. For Dumbledore, and the Order. For Lord Voldemort. Oh yes, dear, I can say his name now. There is only so much someone can take from you before you begin to know them on a personnel level. Tom and I are much acquainted now.”
This made sense, and he nodded. Maybe that is why he had always been so flippant to say Voldemort’s name. You could not become more intimately related to someone unless they had stripped you down to your most primal needs. Survival, being one of them.
Mrs. Weasley smiled, glad that she was understood. “Ginny doesn’t get that yet. She still sees him as Tom, that seventeen year old boy trapped in her diary. She’s never called him Voldemort, you know. Always You-Know-Who when she felt she was being judged, and Tom when she was so wrapped up in her memories that she wasn’t thinking of hiding her words. I never flinched when she slipped, I doubt most times she even realized it. He was never Voldemort to her after her first year.”
Harry managed a weak smile, and earned a warm squeeze of his hand by Mrs. Weasley. Awkwardly he cleared his throat. “I can take care of the yard for you, Mrs. Weasley. The gnomes, and weeds, and handy work. I want to.”
She simply nodded at him, not refusing the request. Both because she knew he needed this, to feel as if he had completed a debt he owed, and because he needed to fill his time with something worthwhile. He had always felt guilty killing time. And he had murdered so much of it over the past decade. He smiled fully, and she was relieved to see he still knew how.
She watched him, with the motherly concern that still hadn’t left her after years of mothering no one except Hermione rarely, and her only granddaughter even less. She knew that Hermione still harbored a hatred for Harry, but because her love for Molly was greater she refrained from voicing these opinions. However, she doubted the young woman would be so tactfully British if she were to floo over and see him here. She was glad Ginny was there to keep her occupied. She would break the news gently.
No sooner had she thought this then her fire blazed green and out walked Hermione Weasley in all her terrible wrath. “Molly Weasley how could you?!” For a moment Molly said nothing, just watched her daughter-in-law tremble in fury, and her eyes snap in hot anger. Her signature bushy brown hair was thrown up into a loose knot, tendrils flying out frame her head in a frizzy halo. Molly smiled at her patiently.
“Hermione dear, do you wish to deprive me of all my small joys?”
“How can he be a joy? He has caused you nothing but pain?”
Molly patted the seat beside her. Hermione ignored her and remained standing until the force of Molly’s glare was enough to pacify her grudgingly off of her feet. “Now you listen to me Hermione Weasley. I have considered Harry one of my own since the moment he first set foot into the Burrow. I may not have been the woman to bring him into the world, but that doesn’t mean he was any less my child. He broke my heart when he left as much as my Ginny did, but I understood. Harry has always been one to take the easiest road with the most suffering. I knew he would come back to me. It was he brought my Ginny back, and I knew when she walked through my door yesterday that he would today.
“Now I consider you just as much my child as well. You have been a strength to me, and I doubt I would even still be here if it weren’t for you and Trista. But I want to be a mother again, Hermione dear. Harry and Ginny are still very much children, still hiding from the world. I want my house to have voices in the morning, a reason to wake up and cook. I want Harry doing yard work, and Ginny cleaning the house and singing. I want to see them smile again. I want to see you smile again. You have paid dearly in the war Hermione, but so have I. And so has Ginny. And so has Harry. No, Hermione, don’t interrupt me yet. Yes, Harry has paid extraordinarily. I was left with you and Trista. You were left with Trista and I. Ginny was left with a husband. Harry… he had no one. He has spent the last ten years in an isolated shell.
“Forgiveness is a rocky path, Hermione. I don’t ask you to forgive him just yet. But tolerate him, for my sake, and for Ginny’s. Tolerate him.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, then quickly closed it and stared at her hands. Molly was impossible to refuse. And despite how righteous her anger was, she could deny her nothing if it was in her power. Hermione could only nod. “I will tolerate.”
Molly hugged her soundly, and Hermione even managed a small grin. “I must go home. Ginny’s playing with Trista, but she gets a little frightened if she goes too long without seeing me. I’m lucky Hogwarts is so tolerant, letting her stay with me during the year, and pop in to see her every so often during classes.”
“Well, I would love to see her, it’s been ages. Bring her for dinner one night?”
Hermione’s face hardened for a moment and she glanced over Molly’s shoulder to the yard. “Molly, I will tolerate Potter for your sake, and your sake alone. But I meant what I said about him going nowhere near Trista.”
Molly nodded, sadly, but in understanding. “Alright dear, I can accept that. She is your daughter. But if the opportunity arises, and he leaves for dinner and promises to stay gone, will you bring her?”
Hermione paused at the tone in Molly’s voice. She couldn’t very well deprive her of her only grandchild. She smiled gently. “Of course Molly. As long as he promises to be away from the house, I will bring her. But now I must go.”
The two women kissed cheeks quickly as Hermione brought out her wand to apparate, her rage having subsided enough to give her mind focus to apparate. Molly called out to give her love to Trista, and remind Ginny that dinner was at six before Hermione disappeared with a pop. As soon as she was gone, Harry peeked his head around the corner, not bothering to hide his eavesdropping. Neither cared much either way. Molly place a hand on his cheek and smiled at him. He managed a weak grin back before staring at the spot Hermione had just left. “It’s more than I had hoped for.”
That evening dinner with Ginny was surprisingly easy, and the three managed to talk and laugh. He spent the night in Ginny’s bed, tangled naked between her sheets and legs. Hermione, Ron, and Trista placed far from his mind for the time being.
And in that moment, he finally felt content.</lj-cu>
________________________________________
Name: Courtney Kathrys
Title: Anything You Want
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com
Summery: Crumpets and tea and Mrs. Weasley. Memories and death and abandonment. Strength and Weakness and Family.
Notes: Nearly all the dialogue in here is taken from the movie “Boys on the Side.” Those quotes inspired me to write this… funny enough it is as opposite from the actual movie as humanly possible. One-Shot.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot. Dialogue, most of it at least, from the movie “Boys on the Side.” the actual quote “Never Complain, Never Explain” was said by Katherine Hepburn, as well as in the moie.
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Harry Potter remembered tea and crumpets. He remembered big Yorkshire puddings, and the best toast he’d ever eaten. More importantly, he remembered the aroma in the cozy Weasley kitchen as Mrs. Weasley slaved religiously over her food. She couldn’t give her children much, but they never went hungry – Molly Weasley made sure of that.
So when Harry passed the small café, he paused for a moment. The sight of a woman and her teenage son sitting together, laughing over a cup of tea and a plate of crumpets in a small table for two. Without a second thought he went into the café, and sat himself at a table in the back, ordering the same for himself. While he waited for the food he continued to watch the boy and his mother. There was nothing overly significant about them to jog his memory. It was their food, and their laughter, and the way she filled his tea cup without a thought when it became less than halfway full, and the way he insisted that he couldn’t eat one more crumpet without bursting. The whole scene brought him back to his life in the Burrow.
He hadn’t allowed himself to be back there for a long while. He had cost them too much, taken too much from them. Though they would insist to the contrary, he knew that they would prefer he just left them in peace. He didn’t know why he still thought of them as a them. They were separate entities now. Ginny was grown up, married to a rich French aristocrat and last Harry knew she hadn’t kept in touch with anyone. She wanted to sever herself from England, from Voldemort. Percy was in Azkaban, following the fall of the Dark Lord. Though his turn had been suspected, it hadn’t been prepared for, and it was taken hard. Fred and George had been killed in the Diagon Alley Massacre. Bill in the Gringotts revolt. Charlie in battle. Arthur was in St. Mungo’s, in a coma no one could brake. Ron was also in St. Mungo’s, he shared a room with Neville’s parents. Molly was the only on left. Puttering around the Burrow in her old age, continuing to clean and cook for ten. Though she was the only one who ever came to the table these days, besides maybe Hermione.
Thinking of her now, for the first time in nearly five years, he began to feel guilty. He had stripped her of her family, and he had left her as well. The tea and crumpets were placed in front of him, and slowly he began to eat, mechanically, recalling the last time he had eaten tea and crumpets.
It was a beautiful sunny day. It was always sunny on the days the worst news was delivered. He had come to personally tell her of Percy’s conviction. He had been the last of the children to leave her. She had only nodded, and held the door open to him. Not a request, but a demand, and Harry could refuse her nothing at that point.
She poured him his tea, and buttered his crumpet, and watched him eat. He had been nineteen at the time. Too thin and frail from years of battle, and the powerful magic he was using was beginning to wear him in obvious signs. He had been sick for weeks, witnessing horrors that none would have conceived possible. Voldemort had been defeated a month ago, and the trials were beginning, and Harry could scarcely stand, let alone testify against thousands of prisoners.
“It’s not right, losing your children. Children are supposed to live after you.”
Harry said nothing, and continued to sip his tea, scared he’s break down if he looked up at her. But she hadn’t been talking to him, she had been conversing with the tea pot in her hands.
But after minutes with no more speaking, Harry knew he’d have to talk.
“I’m leaving, Mrs. Weasley. I have to leave here, England, everything. I’m not well and the longer I stay the worse I get.”
He remembered the pot falling from her hands and shattering on the floor. She didn’t apologize for the accident, and quickly repaired it, setting it on the table before her shaking hands could drop it again.
“You too Harry? Must you leave as well?”
He felt his throat tighten, and he continued to avoid her eyes, knowing he’d break down and cry if he saw her mournful look. So he studied his crumpet.
“I’m dying, Mrs. Weasley. If I don’t leave that guess will be a reality.”
She sat opposite him now, cradling a cup of tea in her aging hands. He could hear her stirring it, though he knew it was black.
“I know that you're not well, dear. I don't know what it is and I don't want to know. But I know you'll get better. You were always the strong one. I can't lose you. I can't just lose everybody. I do the best I can, dear. I know it's not enough, and I'm sorry. But that's what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to stick by you and fight for you when everyone else is gone? And it isn't always who you expect. But you just have to make do.”
Harry felt his insides unravel at her words, her voice. The pain and the need and the want. He felt ashamed for being so selfish. Attacked for wanting to get away.
“I’m not complaining Mrs. Weasley.”
He could hear her smile, rather than see it, for he wasn’t looking at her. But he knew her well enough. Knew her in Ron, in Ginny, in Fred and George and all of her other children. He even knew her in himself. He knew when she smiled, what it looked like, and what it meant without ever seeing her. He heard her smile in her voice.
“Never complain, never explain. An old Muggle American said that once, don’t remember where I picked it up from. It’s a good motto isn’t it?”
Harry found himself smiling, despite himself, and nodding. They spoke no more for a long time. Then Harry bid his leave and exited quickly. He hadn’t seen her since. He hadn’t even seen her then.
The crumpets were getting cold and hard, the tea was frigid. Night was beginning to emerge. Slowly, Harry left some money on the table and left the café. He made the long walk back to his flat in silence, not quite wanting to apparate. Wales was cold this time of year, and he cuddled into his cloak a little more. Missing the heat of Italy in the cold he now experienced. The cold was bittersweet, and he relished the pain of it. Missing that as well when he entered his flat.
That night he went to bed with memories on his mind, and a knowledge that he would never be strong enough to go back further than he was now.
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Name: Courtney Kathrys
Title: Anything You Need
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com
Summery: Before Harry can make with peace with the closest woman he has to a mother, he needs to seek forgiveness from the one who survived. Do not read until you’ve completed “Anything You Want.”
Notes: This does contain sexual situations, though not nearly as graphic and detailed as some of my other works have been. This one actually requires an imagination.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot.
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Memories drive Harry from Wales. He cannot bear to be there so soon, but he cannot bear to abandon all his reserve and retreat to Italy. So he finds himself in France, where the challenge is more dangerous, but easier. Harry has always wanted danger and ease over safety and hardship. He knows that before he can see the aged Mrs. Weasley, he needs to make peace with the estrangement from her loins. To know that if he can be forgiven by her, then maybe he can forgive himself.
Her house is easy to find, her late husband is well known. For a moment he just watches her in the garden. She doesn’t look happy, and he knows that it isn’t because she’s a widow as so may women were these days. She has always been unhappy, she has just learned to coincide with it. She doesn’t look up from her daisies, but he knows that she sees him. He can tell by the way her shoulders tense slightly beneath her light silk robes, and the way she cuts the stem of the flower too short.
She doesn’t greet him, and he her. They had moved past greetings years ago. So he sits beside her as she silently prunes the flowers, waiting for something though he knows not what. She finishes, taking longer than strictly necessary, and the both know that and accept it without comment. She stands and walks to the house, her silent command to follow obeyed.
The house is opulent, tasteful and elegant and he knows she hates the house nearly as much as she hates France. She was masochistic that way, wanting to surround herself with things she abhorred in order to make her unhappiness warranted. She pours herself a glass of white wine, leaving the bottle opened on the counter beside the wine glasses. He pours himself a glass, taking her up on her invitation.
They sip in silence, and he continues to wait. She has the right to speak first, and they both know that, and so she is choosing her words wisely.
“She writes me daily, you know. Every day for seven years she has sent a letter faithfully with one owl or another. I’ve never written back, and I burn the letter once I’ve memorized it.”
He knows she is referring to the woman they have both abandoned. He has never received a letter. Probably for the best, since he knows he does not have the strength to burn the contents as she does. He knows it is his turn now, to continue. H knows that with her choice of opening she intends to make it excruciating for him. He won’t ask how the older lady is faring; he won’t admit he never received an owl, although they both know she knows he hasn’t. He cuts to the chase, not wanting to play games today.
“Forgive me.”
“What ever for?”
He curses himself for his reckless habit of taking the easy and dangerous route. She wanted to play games, she wanted him to squirm, and she wanted for once to hold power over him.
“You’ve done no wrong to me, Harry, so why beg for my forgiveness?”
He hears the slight emphasis on the words wrong, me and my. He knows her meaning.
“Did you want to die as well?”
He has her there for a moment, and she is quiet while she sips her wine. Her hair is still as blood red as he remembers it being. So much darker than all the other family members.
“I’d be better off that way. She would as well, you know. She’d be more at peace with me being dead then estranged.”
“She’d still have to deal with Percy.”
“She’ll always be dealing with Percy, long after he finally dies as well.”
“I won’t kill you.”
“Is that what you want to be forgiven for?”
“Yes.”
They hardly move throughout the exchange. Her hands are steady as she sloshes the wine in the glass. His sits on the counter only half finished. The inflections of their voice remain neutral, casual, and flippant. They could be talking about the weather as far as body language went.
They stay quiet for a long moment, waiting for her reply to his request. She takes her time; enjoying spending the time she has accumulated over the years.
“Do you know why I loved you as a child, Harry?”
”Because you were expected to and because I made you unhappy.”
He wasn’t surprised at the tiny smile which crossed her face, or the fact that he knew her motivations so well didn’t come as a surprise in the least.
“If I love unhappiness, Harry, and still being alive makes me unhappy, why on earth should I forgive you for giving me what I love?”
She had him there, and he had never considered that part. The fact that Ginny was ecstatically pleased with her place since she was so devastatingly unhappy with it. She laughed, low, sarcastic.
“You were always so selfish Harry, did you know that? You wrapped yourself in your righteous anger, knowing the others would care and would follow, and you begged them not to and the more you begged the more they pleaded. You could have thrown off that anger so quickly and everything could have been much different. But you never liked to be safe if it meant going the hard way. You wanted it easy, and angry, and dangerous.”
She was right, and he knew it. He had brewed over that during his entire stay in Italy. He was not shocked that Ginny knew this, or that she touched upon so delicate a subject. Danger and ease had no place in her safe and difficult life.
“Because it makes you happy.”
He saw her harden with his words. Her hand gripped the wine stem a little tighter, the knuckles turned a shade paler. When she looked at him, her cinnamon eyes were hard.
“Touché.”
Harry sighed inwardly, annoyed that he was getting nowhere with her. She wasn’t making this whole process any simpler.
“Look, just tell me what it is you want.”
Her hardened demeanor relaxed, and she leaned her hair back and laughed. The sound was deep and rich and painful. When she turned to him her face was indescribable with its hardened mirth.
“Oh Harry, not everything is so simple and black and white. Not everything can be dealt with so easily.”
“Yes it can. What do you want?”
So she smirked. A knife slice on her pale face.
“If that’s how you want to play it my dear. What I want, Harry… is for this to be as difficult as possible. I want you to work at it. I want nothing of this to be simple and easy. I want it the hard way.”
And in her words he knew exactly what she meant. Every word, every nuance, every inflection that she placed on her words were crystal clear to him. It was the worst she ever could have asked. The hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
At first he just stared at her. At the ordinary and subtle glint in her spice tinted eyes. Then he nodded. Two quick head jerks in quick succession. She made no movement, and he knew every move was to be made entirely by him.
When his hands grabbed her waist she stared at him. When he crushed his mouth to hers she kept her eyes open as she kisses back. When he shoved everything off the countertop she merely watched as the wine glasses shattered and the bottle broke into millions of wine drenched shards of glass. When he shoved her back onto the counter she complied, almost bored. She kept her eyes open and starring at him the entire time they shagged.
He tried to picture her as other women lying in his arms. Her red hair turned to blonde and Lavender was beneath him. Then he heard her voice in his ear. “Ginny.”
The blonde receded and it was her red hair and her smirking eyes, the only girl he knew of to say her own name during the throes of passion. Even if just to remind him that it was her he was on top of. He cleared his mind again. Her eyes became dark and almond shaped. The sparkle that was distinctly Cho appeared. He relaxed. “Ginny.”
He was face to face with her mouth open in laughter. He growled and moved furiously. Her lips became full and soft and pale pink on porcelain skin. Fleur’s soft French began to fill his ears. The pink lips parted as she spoke to him in low whispers. “Ginny.”
Her hands gripped his shoulders and the freckles faded back in and it was her moving under him once more. Her fingers were rough in his back and he knew she knew that he was thinking of all the other women he knew. Her pale freckled arms grew darker and darker until Angelina’s mocha skin slid beneath him. Angelina’s nails curled into his back and he arched further into her. She screamed out “Ginny.”
By now Harry was fully frustrated at the red hair and brown eyes and smirking lips and freckled skin which laughed at his tortured face. She was making it real for him. Forcing him to see that he wasn’t running away from this, and that she wouldn’t let him go out easy. So he closed his eyes and he answered her back with his own “Ginny.”
He saw her smile, and her auburn eyebrows raise and she replied with him by adding her own “Harry.”
It was hearing his own name spill from her lips which sent him over and he became more lost and aggrieved with each thrust. So he continued moaning her name, and she remained inserting his until at last they tumbled over together to the sounds of their own names.
He watched her afterwards; cleaning up her kitchen in the buff, mending her ripped robes. Her long hair provided a make shift barrier of her skin, as it flowed down and around her waist in a haze of blood tinted tresses. She wasn’t beautiful. But she was cold and she was dangerous. And he had always had a passion for danger.
“Forgive me.”
She looked up at him, and she smiled. This time she was devoid of any sarcasm or wit or malice. This time she was genuine.
“Let me see her first, Harry, and all debts will be repaid.”
So he nodded, how could he refuse her the chance of seeing her Mother? She was only postponing his resolve, making it that more difficult to accomplish. But then again she always liked things to be difficult.
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Name: Courtney Kathrys
Title: Anything At All
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com
Summery: After ten years of hiding from her, Harry returns to the only Mother he’s ever known, and with her comes all the memories of why he fled. And the most important question: Whatever happened to Hermione?
Notes: Written in a completely different style than the rest of the “You Got It” trilogy. I do hope to write a sequel series, I have so many thoughts on this. The name Trista is Latin for “sorrowful” which I think fits perfectly for her nature in Hermione’s life.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot. And Trista, technically.
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The aging, and increasingly calmer, Pigwidgeon was waiting on Harry’s kitchen table when he awoke in the morning. At first, he kind of stared at the bird, wondering what was written on the small parchment tied to his leg.
After a few moments of staring, Harry finally untied the letter, and unrolled it tentatively. Though only two words were written, he knew immediately what it was pertaining to. Your turn. He needed no other indication of what his morning would consist of. Ginny had done her part, now it was time for him to do his.
He opted to fly to the Burrow, rather than apparate. He needed to gather his thoughts, place everything together. He knew better than to plan a script, because every word would leave him as soon as she opened the door.
He arrived at the house far too soon for his liking. He surveyed the once teat and tidy yard, now overrun with gnomes and weeds. The paint was chipping, and the once cheerful exterior seemed morbid, and almost gloomy. It was to be suspected, he supposed. He could hardly expect the aging Molly Weasley to keep the house perfect all by herself. The Burrow had been created to be filled; it was formed around the people. Now only the matriarch remained in its embrace. The house was forlorn.
With trepidation, Harry approached the house, and knocked lightly. For a moment no one answered, and he felt a mixture of relief and fear. Then slowly, almost hesitantly, an old woman peered around the door before throwing it wide open and embracing him in a warm hug. Harry could hardly believe it was the same Mrs. Weasley. The woman who held him was thin and frail, and all bones and wrinkles and snow white hair. Her eyes were tired and old, the once bright blue faded to a dull steel. Her imposing presence had fled her entirely, and she appeared almost broken. But her smile was still as gentle, and her warmness still Weasley.
“Harry, dear, how lovely for you to visit me. If I had known I would have made something special! Come in, please, I’ll see what I can whip up to put some meat on that skeleton you’re walking around with.”
Harry smiled, not daring to deprive her of this rare chance to mother. She had been missing it for far to long. So he sat demurely at the ancient table as she puttered around the kitchen, conjuring and charming and cooking. She was in her element and Harry was drowning in his regret. He ate her crumpets dutifully, and sipped his tea. She smiled, excited that he would eat whatever she made.
“Hermione comes once a week, to see me and help me keep up on the chores. Mostly she’s preoccupied with Trista.”
Harry’s breath caught at the mention of Hermione. He knew she blamed him for not protecting Ron and her, for leaving her all but widowed, and for the damage done to her daughter while still in the womb. He blamed himself. He remembered the conversation vividly. The images, the colors, the movements were gone, but the words still scarred his dreams.
“How’s Ron Hermione?”
“So now you care?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what, Harry? That you could have killed those bloody Death Eaters right there; that you could have given up your reckless pursuit of Bellatrix to go after Ron and I? Because of some bloody vendetta that you’ve harbored Ron is lying in St. Mungo’s all but dead, Harry, and he’s never coming out of there. Because of some bloody warped revenge you had to see through, my child was born four months too early and she’ll be lucky if she ever learns to walk or talk. Ron and I told you for years Harry that she would get what was coming to her, but you didn’t listen! You and your fucking hero complex weren’t satisfied with just Voldemort, you wanted Sirius’ murderer’s head on a silver platter as well. That wasn’t your fight Harry! Lucius gave you a choice. ‘Revenge your Godfather, or save your friends…which is it?’ Well I’m so honored to be so fucking high on your priority list Harry, so fucking honored!”
“I thought I could do it all Hermione, I was wrong and I will live with that knowledge for the rest of my life!”
“No you won’t Harry because you will stay as far away from me as humanly possible. You will not harm Trista more than you already have. Because of you she has no father, no uncles, one grandparent, an estranged aunt, and nearly none of her brain working. I won’t have you hurt her further. You will get as far away as you can, and you will stay there, and you will leave Molly alone, and me alone, and Trista alone. You have no place in our life anymore, Harry Potter.”
That conversation took place the day after his final visit to Mrs. Weasley. He had listened to Hermione; listened to her for five years before returning no further than Wales. He listened to her for three more years before retreating to France, to Ginny. And he had listened to her for another two years in Wales again before receiving Ginny’s owl. Ten years was too long in his opinion, and not long enough at all. Hermione would murder him if she saw him here. But she wasn’t here now, and he would cross her rickety bridge when it came time.
For now Mrs. Weasley smiled at him and patted his hand. “I have to thank you Harry.” He was stunned. Thank him for what? What had he done for her? “Thank me?”
“For Ginny, dear. She told me that you came to visit her, and that you convinced her to come home. She’s staying at home until she finds a flat close by. She went to Hermione’s for the day. I think they’re going to visit Ron and Arthur.”
Harry’s breath caught in his throat, and he knew that Mrs. Weasley could see his fear and dread and horror, because she smiled once again and enveloped him in her frail arms.
“Oh Harry, don’t blame yourself. I know you had to leave, if not for yourself, but for Hermione as well. For Ron, and Arthur, and Bill, and Charlie, and Fred and George, and Percy, and Ginny, and Trista, and the elder Grangers. For Dumbledore, and the Order. For Lord Voldemort. Oh yes, dear, I can say his name now. There is only so much someone can take from you before you begin to know them on a personnel level. Tom and I are much acquainted now.”
This made sense, and he nodded. Maybe that is why he had always been so flippant to say Voldemort’s name. You could not become more intimately related to someone unless they had stripped you down to your most primal needs. Survival, being one of them.
Mrs. Weasley smiled, glad that she was understood. “Ginny doesn’t get that yet. She still sees him as Tom, that seventeen year old boy trapped in her diary. She’s never called him Voldemort, you know. Always You-Know-Who when she felt she was being judged, and Tom when she was so wrapped up in her memories that she wasn’t thinking of hiding her words. I never flinched when she slipped, I doubt most times she even realized it. He was never Voldemort to her after her first year.”
Harry managed a weak smile, and earned a warm squeeze of his hand by Mrs. Weasley. Awkwardly he cleared his throat. “I can take care of the yard for you, Mrs. Weasley. The gnomes, and weeds, and handy work. I want to.”
She simply nodded at him, not refusing the request. Both because she knew he needed this, to feel as if he had completed a debt he owed, and because he needed to fill his time with something worthwhile. He had always felt guilty killing time. And he had murdered so much of it over the past decade. He smiled fully, and she was relieved to see he still knew how.
She watched him, with the motherly concern that still hadn’t left her after years of mothering no one except Hermione rarely, and her only granddaughter even less. She knew that Hermione still harbored a hatred for Harry, but because her love for Molly was greater she refrained from voicing these opinions. However, she doubted the young woman would be so tactfully British if she were to floo over and see him here. She was glad Ginny was there to keep her occupied. She would break the news gently.
No sooner had she thought this then her fire blazed green and out walked Hermione Weasley in all her terrible wrath. “Molly Weasley how could you?!” For a moment Molly said nothing, just watched her daughter-in-law tremble in fury, and her eyes snap in hot anger. Her signature bushy brown hair was thrown up into a loose knot, tendrils flying out frame her head in a frizzy halo. Molly smiled at her patiently.
“Hermione dear, do you wish to deprive me of all my small joys?”
“How can he be a joy? He has caused you nothing but pain?”
Molly patted the seat beside her. Hermione ignored her and remained standing until the force of Molly’s glare was enough to pacify her grudgingly off of her feet. “Now you listen to me Hermione Weasley. I have considered Harry one of my own since the moment he first set foot into the Burrow. I may not have been the woman to bring him into the world, but that doesn’t mean he was any less my child. He broke my heart when he left as much as my Ginny did, but I understood. Harry has always been one to take the easiest road with the most suffering. I knew he would come back to me. It was he brought my Ginny back, and I knew when she walked through my door yesterday that he would today.
“Now I consider you just as much my child as well. You have been a strength to me, and I doubt I would even still be here if it weren’t for you and Trista. But I want to be a mother again, Hermione dear. Harry and Ginny are still very much children, still hiding from the world. I want my house to have voices in the morning, a reason to wake up and cook. I want Harry doing yard work, and Ginny cleaning the house and singing. I want to see them smile again. I want to see you smile again. You have paid dearly in the war Hermione, but so have I. And so has Ginny. And so has Harry. No, Hermione, don’t interrupt me yet. Yes, Harry has paid extraordinarily. I was left with you and Trista. You were left with Trista and I. Ginny was left with a husband. Harry… he had no one. He has spent the last ten years in an isolated shell.
“Forgiveness is a rocky path, Hermione. I don’t ask you to forgive him just yet. But tolerate him, for my sake, and for Ginny’s. Tolerate him.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, then quickly closed it and stared at her hands. Molly was impossible to refuse. And despite how righteous her anger was, she could deny her nothing if it was in her power. Hermione could only nod. “I will tolerate.”
Molly hugged her soundly, and Hermione even managed a small grin. “I must go home. Ginny’s playing with Trista, but she gets a little frightened if she goes too long without seeing me. I’m lucky Hogwarts is so tolerant, letting her stay with me during the year, and pop in to see her every so often during classes.”
“Well, I would love to see her, it’s been ages. Bring her for dinner one night?”
Hermione’s face hardened for a moment and she glanced over Molly’s shoulder to the yard. “Molly, I will tolerate Potter for your sake, and your sake alone. But I meant what I said about him going nowhere near Trista.”
Molly nodded, sadly, but in understanding. “Alright dear, I can accept that. She is your daughter. But if the opportunity arises, and he leaves for dinner and promises to stay gone, will you bring her?”
Hermione paused at the tone in Molly’s voice. She couldn’t very well deprive her of her only grandchild. She smiled gently. “Of course Molly. As long as he promises to be away from the house, I will bring her. But now I must go.”
The two women kissed cheeks quickly as Hermione brought out her wand to apparate, her rage having subsided enough to give her mind focus to apparate. Molly called out to give her love to Trista, and remind Ginny that dinner was at six before Hermione disappeared with a pop. As soon as she was gone, Harry peeked his head around the corner, not bothering to hide his eavesdropping. Neither cared much either way. Molly place a hand on his cheek and smiled at him. He managed a weak grin back before staring at the spot Hermione had just left. “It’s more than I had hoped for.”
That evening dinner with Ginny was surprisingly easy, and the three managed to talk and laugh. He spent the night in Ginny’s bed, tangled naked between her sheets and legs. Hermione, Ron, and Trista placed far from his mind for the time being.
And in that moment, he finally felt content.</lj-cu>
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