Facing Backwards

Chapter Ten--Respiration

When Harry and Ginny had recovered sufficiently to retreat from the Pensieve, they sat, side by side on the battered couch, staring at the ceiling.

"Well," said Ginny, her nose red from having been blown so often.

"Well," said Harry. "What the hell do we do now?"

"What?" Ginny gasped. "Now?" Then she smiled and slid closer to Harry on the couch. "Well, I'm not exactly a vision of loveliness at the moment, Mr. Potter, but..."

Harry spluttered, "You mean, you want to, you know, go through with this?"

Leaning back, Ginny peered at him quizzically. "Harry, we almost went through with it before Hermy and Neville decided to play matchmaker. So why wouldn't we?..."

"Because it's under false pretenses!" Harry said, rather more emphatically than he had intended.

"False?..." Ginny goggled at him. "What the hell are you on about?"

Resting his head in his hands, Harry stared down at the peculiar orange stain. "They think this is about you wanting to have a bloody baby, Ginny."

She simply stared at him.

"It isn't, is it?" he asked

The stare melted into an inward scowl. "I think it is, a bit, yeah. What, you thought it was all about your animal magnetism? I mean," she said, touching his arm, "it's that too. But watching Luna this year, and getting to see Siria every day, yeah, I've had this little voice in my head whispering 'I want one of those.'"

"So," Harry said, trying hard not to sound hurt, "like your husband, you think of me as good breeding stock."

Ginny's face, which had been laughter-mottled, now turned a gleaming, uniform crimson. "Harry, that's... You know what I think of you." She smiled shyly. "Besides, you are terrific breeding stock. I mean, look at all of your kids. They're amazing...."

Harry stared back down at the spot. "If they're mine."

He could hear Ginny choke in surprise. "Merlin, Harry, you don't... Oh, you have been badly bit, haven't you."

"I know it's ridiculous, Ginny, I know I'm just spilling my own guilt onto Hermione. But I can't help thinking about it. Can't help wondering. I mean, Siria's got to be mine, with that hair and those eyes. But Minnie? Albie?"

Ginny took a breath, decided better of whatever she was going to say, and let it out again. "So, you think that has something to do with?..."

Harry nodded. "I think that's why Hermione made the bloody suggestion. That's why I found it so bloody hilarious. I think she's trying to, you know, expiate her own guilt."

When Harry looked up at Ginny again, her face had gone back to being mottled. "Harry, I love you. As a man, you know. And as a friend. But that is the biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard in my whole life."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." She smiled at him, and he found himself smiling back. "You need to talk to Hermione, luv."

"I know. I just..." He shivered. "I don't want to do it over the Floo. You know she's coming up on Tuesday?"

"Yeah, I was in the class when you announced that it was a secret."

"Right." The mere thought of that morning made Harry's already knotted stomach churn.

She pushed at his shoulder. "It's all right. Ron had already told me. No one but Percy takes the whole secrecy thing terribly seriously." She laid the hand on his shoulder. "But Harry, what are you going to do? About this, I mean?" She acknowledged the Pensieve and the letter next to it with a nod.

"Oh," said Harry. "I suppose if Hermione doesn't rip my throat out for suspecting her wrongly and I haven't thrown myself into the lake for suspecting correctly... I'll, uh, talk to her about it." Harry turned towards her, trying to find the bottoms of those dark eyes, and ran his fingers absent-mindedly through her hair. "Do you really? Want babies? I mean, they eat your heart. They make you old."

She smiled, leaned forward, and kissed him on the lips--very gently. Harry found himself leaning into the kiss just as she backed away. "Whose bloody daughter do you think I am? Of course I want a brat or eight of my own. So I expect you to work hard."

She stood. "And do they really make you old? Or do they just remind you that time is passing?"

Sadly, he smiled. "Both. Mostly the second, though."

"You know, Harry," Ginny said thoughtfully from the doorway, "I think next time I'm just going to tie you down to the bed and have my way with you. You think too bloody much."

* * *

As he was trying to clear that image from his head, Harry heard a pop, and saw his fireplace blaze into green flame, Hermione's face poised right in the middle. "Hullo, darling," he said.

"Hullo, darling. Tried to call a half-hour ago, but you weren't here."

"Sorry. Late dinner."

"Hmm. The Floo Network could learn a thing or two from Muggle telephones. Answering machines, for example. I've been talking to some of my old friends down on the ninth floor, trying to get them to look in to it."

They smiled, and for a moment, everything seemed almost normal. Then both smiles faded.

Hermione broke the silence. "I got an owl from Angelina about an hour ago. She tells me you've been playing the hero again. Did you really?..."

"Get young Harry off of an out-of-control broom, yeah. Of course, he still managed to get a nasty whack on his head when we landed."

"Even so, Harry." She smiled again. "The life debt that clan owes you is becoming a bit steep."

Harry could only scratch his head and shrug.

"Harry," Hermione said quietly, "did Fawkes bring Ginny my letter?"

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding.

"Did she let you read it?" Hermione asked, pursing her lips as she did when she was most nervous.

"As a matter of fact... Yeah, she just brought it over here." He pointed to the letter where it sat on the table, next to the Pensieve.

"Ah."

"Hermione, I need to talk to you, and I can't do it like this. Come here. Or I'll Floo there..."

She shook her head definitively. "No, Harry. I think I need some time." Suddenly her tone became brisk again, though her face remained sad. "Well, you won't be able to reach us by Floo, tomorrow. I'll be visiting Mum with the children."

"Oh," Harry said. "Give her my love."

"I will." Hermione's eyes were glistening green through the firelight. "She'll be bringing them to school on Monday and then Celestine will be picking them up on Tuesday, once I've had the chance... Once I'm on my way up to Hogwarts with Undersecretary Eaglerock."

"But... I thought..." Harry got the impression from the way that Hermione's shoulders were working that she was wringing her hands. "I see."

"Yes, things have gotten quite busy. But I'll be with them again at Wednesday dinner." They stared at each other, each considering what not to say. "Good bye, Harry."

"Good bye, Hermione."

As the Floo snuffed out, she began to cry. Her face in the fireplace was the older image of the one the Boggart had shown him the previous Monday.

* * *

It took Harry some time to drain the Pensieve; he reviewed each of the memories, trying to find that sense of calm elation he had felt so briefly after dinner. When that failed, he decided to go for a walk.

His feet directed themselves while his mind wandered. Wander it did, and so did his feet, leading him to the door to the Hospital Wing. Sidi was just leaving.

"Hullo, Daddy," she said, eyes down.

"Hullo, Sid. How's he doing?"

"Oh, he's fine. He's, um, wonderful." She gave him a shy, wild grin through her hair. "His mum's in with him--she and Uncle Fred just got here. Madam Skepples says he should be able to leave tomorrow, but she wanted to watch him overnight, because of the bump on his head."

"Makes sense."

"She gave him a sleeping draught. Told me it was time to head back to the dormitory."

"Which it is." Harry ran a hand through her unruly curls. "How are you?"

She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed moistly. Harry put his arms around her. "We talked. Like you said."

"Good." They rested there in silence, Harry providing the only protection he could devise against the sense of vulnerability he knew she must be feeling: the circle of his arms. No longer a circle wide enough to carry her entire, but a ward nonetheless. He didn't expect her to share the conversation with him. He'd be just as happy if she didn't.

"Daddy," she asked, "how do you know?"

"Know what, sweetie?"

"You and Mum, you were friends for so long... How can you tell if what you feel is real... you know?"

"Oh, Sid..." Harry felt his throat constrict, felt himself want to cry and vomit. "You can't ever know. You just... trust. And see. It isn't just the feelings, you see. But in any case, you'll see how you treat each other. And that'll let you know what's happening."

Harry could feel his daughter frown against his chest. "But... he's so stupid sometimes. I just want to shout at him."

"I didn't say you always have to be sweet and happy. But if you can treat each other well even when you're angry with each other, then maybe you've got something."

"Like you and Mum."

"What?"

"You and Mum. Even when you're really angry with each other you never really yell."

"Oh, sweetie," Harry muttered, feeling the tears win out over the nausea, "we've given each other hell properly once or twice before now. We just save it for later, you know."

"I don't." She pulled away from him slightly and looked up. "Daddy... what's wrong?"

"Sid... It's nothing. You're mother's having a bit of a rough patch, and I'm not being very helpful."

"Is it about Opa Granger?"

"Yeah, it's your grandfather. And some other things as well." Harry shook his head. Once again, as on the day before at the feet of Uric's statue, he felt all the worse for telling her something that was almost the truth. "She's doing fine. Though I know she's very excited to see you on Tuesday. Now, sweetie, time for you to get back to the Gryffindor tower."

She kissed him on the cheek and waved as she retreated down the hallway.

Harry was standing, listening to the fading sound of her shoes on the heavy stone stairs, when he heard the door open again behind him. He turned to discover a dark-skinned witch with steel-grey hair and a web of laugh lines radiating from each eye. "Angelina," Harry said.

He would have said more, but for the third time in an hour, Harry found himself being kissed. It was not an unpleasant experience, in spite of the fact that she had never shown the slightest interest in him as anything except a Seeker and her husband's friend, and in spite of the fact that her once-voluptuous figure had rather evened out over the years.

"Wow," Harry said when she finally let him loose. "I should land young Harry in the Hospital Wing more often."

"Harry, don't be thick. We both know you saved my son's life."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't played the nervous dad last week, he probably wouldn't have pulled a stunt like that..."

Angelina looked at him levelly. "Look, your Siria told me all about that, while Harry was falling asleep." She crossed her arms. "You know my son better than that, Potter. And you've, you've seen them together. They're so damned sweet it almost makes me want to puke. He would have pulled some idiot stunt or other, and it could have been infinitely worse."

"Yeah, I suppose," Harry sighed.

"I'm angry at myself. What Fred and I thought, buying him that broom for his birthday..." She glowered.

Now it was Harry's turn to smile. "It must have seemed like a good idea at the time."

Angelina gave a loud, dismissive snort. "I need a drink. Fred's getting us set up at the Broomsticks. Let us at least buy you a pint or two."

"Sounds great," Harry said, though he was mostly looking forward to the chance to get outside of the castle for a few hours.

Once they had grabbed Harry a cloak from his room, they left through the Entry Hall and began the walk down to Hogsmeade, a walk Harry had never made at nighttime--at least, not above ground. The stars seemed to be fluttering just overhead like bemused moths, hovering around the white disk of the moon.

"So how's little Josephine?" Harry asked, trying not to think about Remus as they strode down the way.

"Fabulous. We left her with my mum as soon as I got the owl." Angelina's eyes searched upward towards the moon.

The image of Hermione, Albie and Minnie heading down to his mother-in-law's house trickled into Harry's head. What was that all about? "Thanks for sending Hermione the note, by the way."

"No problem." Angelina smiled and linked her arm in his. It struck Harry that the two of them had never been alone for so extended a period of time--that in almost three decades of knowing each other, he and Angelina had never been together without teammates, friends or spouses.

"Um, Angelina," Harry said as they strode through the gates, "can I ask you a ridiculously personal question?"

She glanced at him without turning her head. "Well, I suppose..." When Harry was unable to formulate the question into a package that he wasn't certain would be offensive, she said, "It's about Alicia, is it?"

"Yeah," sighed Harry. "After a fashion."

Now Angelina was silent for nearly a minute as they passed out of a grove of ancient oaks. The railway station was visible in the bright moonlight, and Harry could just hear the hubbub from the village's two pubs. "You can ask, Harry, because it's you, so long as you understand that what Ali, Fred, George and I do with our lives is no one's business but our own."

"Absolutely," he promised. "I'm not at all interested in what you do..."

"Yeah, right," she snorted.

"Really. What I want to know is... I don't know." He watched his breath float up towards the stars. "I guess I'm trying to figure out how you can love more than one person. How you can make that work."

"Ah." She gave him the close, calculating look again and then said, "Harry, did you love Sidi any less when Minnie was born, or little Albus?"

"Well, no, of course not. But it wasn't easy for Sidi, or for Minnie, having to learn to share us...."

"There you are," Angelina said. "I've always had to share Fred with George, just like he's always had to share me with Alicia. Any woman that married Fred or George would have been walking in to something every bit as intimate as a marriage. And no, I don't mean sexually, Harry, don't get all nauseated on me. But that's why Katie..." Her face seemed to melt inwards.

"Katie?"

Angelina sighed. "You should ask Fred. But do you understand? It's been part of our relationship from the beginning."

"I see." Harry did see. Unfortunately, the answer had not helped Harry at all.

They had arrived at the Three Broomsticks, which was packed as usual on a Saturday night. Fred was waving energetically from a table at one side of the room, and Harry had begun to follow Angelina through the loud, merry throng when he was enveloped in a warm, soft embrace and the scent of cloves and whiskey. "Harry Potter!" crooned the patroness loudly into his ear.

"Hullo, Rosie," said Harry once she had loosened her grip enough to allow him to breath. "You're looking wonderful!" It was true--grey-haired and smile-lined as she was, she still looked just as happy and playful as she had in the days when she had supplied most of the Hogwarts boys with wet dreams.

"Bless you for a liar, Harry!" she grinned. "Now what's this I hear that you've been up at t'castle for over a week and not come and visited?"

Harry grinned sadly. "Severus keeps me busy, Rosmerta, what can I say? I'll come down again, I promise, and catch up."

"That's a promise I'll hold you to," Rosmerta said with a wink and a yelp-inducing goose on the bum. With a rolling laugh, she walked back behind the bar.

"That woman's been an inspiration to generations of Hogwarts lads!" laughed Fred as Harry sat gingerly.

"And quite a few Hogwarts lasses too," said Angelina.

"Hullo, Fred," Harry laughed.

"Listen, Harry, I've been in debt to you my whole adult life--we've all been in debt to you, the whole wizarding world. But you saved my idiot son's life today. If there's anything I can do... Anything." Fred's red-faced sincerity let Harry know that he had gotten a head start on the drinking.

"Forget it," Harry muttered.

"We're not going to forget it," said Angelina, "so give it up."

"Fine," Harry said, and lifted a tankard of ale.

Fred and Angelina exchanged glances; Fred leaned forward across the table. "Harry, Angie tells me you were interested in our, er, arrangement."

"Uh, not really," Harry said, staring down into his beer. "Mostly, I was just trying to understand..." He struggled to find a reasonable way of broaching so odd and personal a topic.

"You were asking about loving more than one person," Angelina said.

"Yeah, I suppose that's it. It's just..." Harry back and forth between them.

"You planning on having it on with our Ginny?" Fred said, so seriously he didn't even seem to be trying to keep a straight face.

"I, er," Harry said, "no, not exactly. It's rather more complicated than that."

"Well," Fred said, "complicated we understand. Only advice we can give is be honest, even to yourself."

Angelina sighed, "Especially to yourself." Fred reached out and took Angelina's hand.

"What... what do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Was Katie's problem, wa'nnit," Fred said, and his sigh echoed Angelina's. "She was the fifth wheel, the one who went back and forth among the other four of us. Problem was, she didn't want to."

"It was Fred, you see, that she was in love with," Angelina said, looking her husband straight in the eye. "It ate her up that she'd never really have him--or any of us--to herself. When she stayed on, after our last year at school, she just sort of, I dunno, drew back. Stopped answering our owls."

Fred squeezed Angelina's hand. "She's happy now."

"You've heard from her?" Harry said with a start. "We were all wondering what had happened to Katie. Your younger brother was quite smitten with her, once upon a time."

"Ron?" Fred said with a smile. "That's a laugh. She'd had her fill of Weasleys by then. But yeah, she's happily married."

"In fact," Angelina said with a smirk, "we were at her wedding."

Harry looked back and forth between them--he could tell that there was some punch line coming, and each was waiting for the other to drop it. "What? When?"

"Well," Fred said, the familiar lopsided grin twisting his face, "you remember when we couldn't make it to your party last fall? " Harry nodded. "Well, we said we were in Japan--and we did head over there, but actually, that weekend we were at Katie's wedding. In Argentina."

That couldn't be the joke, Harry thought. "Who did she marry?"

Angelina and Fred stared at each other, and Angelina broke first, giving a loud laugh. "Malfoy!"

Harry was stunned. "What, Draco?"

"Yeah, poor bugger's been bouncing around South America for the last twenty years, trying to find people who give a rat's arse that he's a pureblood. Fortune gone, looks gone. He's potions master at a rundown wizarding school down there, a knock-off Snape. Katie had him absolutely whipped in about two days," Fred sniggered, his face reddening both with amusement and with inebriation.

"He sees the sun and the moon in Katie, and she's happy," said Anglina, glaring. "And that's all that Ali or I--or the boys--care about. Right, Fred?" She whacked him on elbow, and Fred began to howl uproariously, and soon enough Angelina and Harry both joined him.

"Listen, Harry," Fred said some time later, once the alcohol and the hour had left them too tired for laughter, "I'll tell my idiot of a son to treat your daughter right."

"She's a keeper," Angelina slurred in agreement.

"Not nesh... neceshh... You don't have to do that," Harry said, shaking his head. "He's a good kid, even if he is your son."

"But Harry..." Fred whinged.

A sudden clarity broke over Harry like cold morning sunlight. He took out his wand and held it up between him and the Weasleys. "From all debts, indentures, entails, assigns and obligations, whether magical or material, I hereby release you and yours. Go free and go in peace."

Then he scribed a circle of flame in the air between them and, with a puff of breath, blew it away, smoke making Angelina and Fred blink. He leaned across the table and hugged them both while they sat there, stupefied. He stood, and--with a wave to Rosmerta--stumbled out of the pub and into the moonbright night.