Remembering How To Forget

Ginny stared at the letter laying on the dining room table.

"They need to leave me alone," she muttered, shoving it aside and sitting down to her writing.

She was trying to write a book--a marriage therapy book, ordered by her publishers after her very successful How To Cure An Attitude. Of course, they didn't listen to her when she complained--her own marriage was failing, how was she expected to write a therapy book?

"Fix your marriage," they said. They didn't listen to her when she said that her previous marriage had failed too, they just told her to hurry her pretty ass up and write the damn book.

So she wrote. Pages after pages of tips and ideas, and they were all the same, crap.

She picked up the pencil and a pad of paper. She wrote at the top of the paper:

Begin Happy

She scratched that out. It was too late for that--they had begun high and drunk, and happy had nothing to do with it. When you've known someone for thirteen hours and you marry them, it's hard to be truly happy. If it's true happiness, you'll still feel it in a week, and in a week she was desperate to leave. By two weeks, she was packing her bags, and in three weeks, she was leaving.

A new piece of paper. She scribbled at the top:

Talk Out Your Problems

Oh, hell. That wouldn't work either. If she had talked out her problems with him, she wouldn't be here in the first place. She would be living with him at Number 17 Angle Street, across town from his mother and father and a couple streets down from her brother, Ron, and his wife, Hermione.

But instead she was living on 12 Main Street, Flat #164, next to an American "homey" and his very vocal girlfriend.

If, one and a half years ago, she had said "Dudley, my dear, we need to sit down and talk," they would have been much better off. Raising a child in London's answer to the Bronx was not what most good mothers wished for their children.

When Dudley had found out she was pregnant, he had locked himself in the bedroom and refused to come out for several hours. When he did come out, he told her that he would "do his best."

Apparently, "doing his best" didn't mean anything. Three weeks after the birth of Dudley's first child, Ginny and Gregory were on the streets again, driven out by Dudley's insane ramblings.

What Ginny didn't realize was that a good cook didn't equal a good wife. She had been so intent on keeping him happy, that she didn't realize he just wanted a companion--someone to love. He hadn't had as happy of a life as Harry had been led to believe--ridiculed by the Smeltings lads, having his money run out at age sixteen. Of course, Harry wouldn't have known all that, after running away for the last time in fifth year, and hiding out with Sirius and at Hogwarts. After Sirius was cleared, they moved into a small lodge outside of Hogsmeade. Harry married Padma Patil, and Sirius moved to France to work for the Ministry.

But Dudley and the rest of the Dursleys were left penniless. Grunnings shut down, and despite many efforts by both parents, they were evicted from 4 Privet Drive and left to live with Vernon's parents. Ginny liked to believe that the experience had a humbling effect on Dudley. It did, in some ways, but in others it just made him more arrogant.

Scared.

Ginny knew she should have recognized it at first. She did have a psychology degree from Oxford, and she had been a practicing psychologist for months. It was Colin that first identified it in Dudley--

"Oh, shit. Colin."

Ginny checked the clock. Five o' clock. She was supposed to be there... what was it... fifteen minutes ago. "Crap," she whispered. She grabbed the wand laying on the table and apparated to Colin's house.

The door was open and Trisha, Colin's new wife--sweet girl, even though she was American and far too young for Colin--sat on the porch, playing with her three-year-old. Colin was inside, feeding three babies.

"I still don't see you as the nursery type," Ginny said, tiptoeing in.

"I'm not," Colin whispered. "Shh, Gregory's asleep."

A cry rang out from the next room. "Not anymore," Ginny giggled, stepping into the next room. There were five beds in a row, all different colors, but otherwise, exactly the same. Each had a small letter engraved on the bottom--E for Emma, M for Marcus, F for Frederick, L for Leah and G for Gregory.

All were empty except for the last green one, and in that one a young boy was sucking his thumb. Ginny leaned over the railing and tickled his stomach. He grabbed her hand and replaced his thumb with it.

She removed her hand from his mouth and picked him up. "Isn't he the sweetest?"

"Yes," Colin said, "but don't forget--you have another child. And, frankly, I think you've been ignoring Emma, and spending more time with Gregory then you have ever spent with her.

"What makes you think that?" Ginny asked.

"The way Emma calls you 'my ex-mommy.'"

Ginny laughed. "Do you think she means it? I bet she's just kidding with you."

Colin stared at her. "I don't think so."

The smile on Ginny's face disappeared. "Really? Because, you know, I get her next week and what if she doesn't want to come with me?"

"She will. Just... try to pay attention to her, and not so much Gregory?" Colin looked at his watch. "I have to go, but I will see you later. Can you stay until Megan gets here? She's watching our kids tonight." He winked at her. "It's me and Trisha's anniversary tonight. We're staying at the Nox Hotel, and..." he trailed off. "You know how it goes. Good night."

Ginny sat down in a rocking chair and stared at Trisha as she brought in the four babies and laid them down. "Night, Ginny," she said as she exited.

Right on cue, the four babies began to cry in unison.

"This is going to be a long night," Ginny whispered, tucking Gregory into bed.

~*~

The sun was shining when she awoke the next morning, for the first time in several weeks. Gregory lay on her chest, sucking his thumb, and Dudley was hunched over a chair, his head in his hands--

Wait.

"Dudley?"

Pause. Nothing.

"Dudley?"

"I was talking to Colin last night." He whispered. "Last night you were supposed to drop Gregory by my house, remember? This is my week."

Ginny groaned and rolled over. "I forgot. Sorry."

He sighed, closing his eyes. "It's okay," he said. "He said that Megan told him you had fallen asleep right after she had got there. He told me to sit down, stay for a drink. I did." He looked at Ginny, who was laying on her back staring at the ceiling. "Why didn't you tell me--tell me you were one of them?"

"I didn't think it mattered."

"It doesn't matter, Ginny? I grew up with one of them. They aren't normal, and you tell me it doesn't matter? It matters," he was crying now. "He's going to be one of them."

"Gregory?" Ginny stared Gregory in the eyes. "Yes, Gregory will be an ickle wizard, won't he?" She tickled behind his ear, and turned to Dudley. "Harry isn't a bad person."

"I know." He sighed. "I've always known. When I was little, I was scared of him. I knew he wasn't a bad person, and that's part of why I was so scared."

"From what I've heard, you certainly didn't act scared."

"I didn't. He was Harry, and I was two. When I heard my little cousin was here, I thought--oh, someone to play football with, and be the little brother I never had. But then I saw him. And... there was something different. Something that scared me."

"If you were scared of him, then why did you treat him like you did?"

"Please, Ginny, listen. I thought, because I was bigger than him, I could push him around. And I did. I always have, and I probably always will. I'll try not to, but that urge will always be there," he stood up and picked Gregory up. "I always wanted to be a wizard like Harry. Of course, I never told mum," he laughed. "She'd have had a fit. When those Weasley's came to my house and gave me that tongue... this may sound strange, but I wanted to be one. I wanted to be able to do that to people."

"You admired Harry."

"No. I admired wizards, but not Harry. But he got away from that place, from my mother and father. They only spoiled me while we were rich. When we were poor, temper tantrums got me nowhere. Now, I'm running my own company and I'm raising a child, and I see why I am like that. The temptation to spoil your child is so strong, and I realized I had been spoiled, and I had been brought up with unfair viewpoints about wizards and other people. Ginny?"

"Yeah?" Ginny sat up.

"I want to try again. I want to know what it's really like. I want to raise Gregory right, and not spoil him, and I want you there by my side." He smiled at her. "I want to start over. Will you help me?"

Ginny looked at Gregory, and at Dudley. "There's no way I could do it without you, Dudley."