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He goes to sleep alone, after the war, bee-lining for the bed in the Gryffindor dorm. Despite how bone-soul tired he is, it’s difficult to fall asleep, tossing and turning for at least an hour. He hasn’t slept in a room alone since Grimmauld Place, before the Ministry. He wonders where Dean and Seamus and Neville are, looks out at their empty beds. Ron, he muses, is probably with Hermione. He wonders if he should be with Ginny. He isn’t sure if he wants to be, right now.
He wakes up, after the war, eighteen hours later and only then it’s because of a particularly loud snore from Ron right in his ear.
Harry opens his eyes. Ron is lying on his back, head lolled, arm thrown around Hermione who rests on his chest. She’s awake, too, blinking groggily. When she makes eye contact with Harry, she smiles sleepily. He smiles, too; yawns, and feels the dehydration in his throat, feels the emptiness in his stomach.
“Would you hate me if I called Kreacher?” he asks, lowly. Hermione shakes her head, jabs her thumb over her shoulder. On the bedside table is a stack of sandwiches. They’re all stale. “When are these from?”
“About twelve hours ago.”
“Great.” He contemplates throwing it back on the plate but in the past year, he’s eaten more fungus than he can count and food is food so he wolfs it down. Ron snores again. Hermione rolls her eyes.
“Idiot,” she says, but she smiles.
It makes Harry remember the kiss earlier, between the two of them, and his stomach jolts. “Your idiot?” he says, trying to be playful.
“Don’t lump him all on me,” she says.
“Oi,” Ron grunts. “Shut up. M’sleeping.”
Hermione giggles. Harry swallows the rest of his stale sandwich. “Come back to bed,” she says, softly. They look at each other and in this past year, he thinks they’ve developed a new form of legillimancy, a two-way occlumency.
He knows what she means, when she says this.
“Okay,” he says.
“Ron will just take up the rest of the mattress, if you’re not there.”
“Won’t,” mumbles Ron, but his other arm is slung out across.
After the war, it’s so easy, the three of them. It’s easier than not being like this, really. They go back to the burrow, and nobody mentions it. Fred is dead. So many people are gone. Nobody bothers to count how many people sleep in Ron’s bed.
There is the problem of Ginny. Harry pulls her aside, in between funerals, and explains. Or, rather, explains that he doesn’t know how to explain. He just. Has to be with them. Ginny is wonderful, Ginny is beautiful, but Ginny is heat. Ginny is explosions and adrenaline. Ginny is for wartime. And it is after the war, now.
“You three have always been weird,” she says, not unkindly. “And Ron’s always swung both ways.”
“He has?”
Ginny raises an eyebrow. “Viktor Krum?” she says, which makes Harry laugh, and she smiles. She reaches on her toes, kisses him for the last time. “I guess I’d rather have my brother get my sloppy seconds than the other way around.”
Harry shoves her a little. “I’m not sloppy.”
“You kind of are, Harry Potter,” she says.
Rita Skeeter is a constant presence at the funerals she deems important enough. At Remus and Tonks’s funeral, she asks about Teddy, asks how involved Harry in his upbringing, if he’s ready for it, is he worried Teddy will be marked forever as Harry Potter’s godson, is Harry going to join the Aurors, is he going back to school, how does it feel to be the savior of the Wizarding World, twice, people are praying to him, across the country, what is that like—
Ron switches out her quill for a spell-correcting one, and her next articles are too nonsense to publish.
After the war, they don’t talk about what next. They spend the days playing Quidditch in the backyard while Hermione reads: the only thing anyone’s sure of is that she is going back to school. Sometimes they go down to the Muggle village. Kreacher comes to help Molly on the days she can’t get out of bed. They spend the nights fucking, bodies on bodies, replacing battle bruises with suck marks. Harry learns things that don’t feel new. Hermione loves words so of course she likes dirty talk. Ron likes it when they tell him how good he is, how beautiful he looks, when they make him know he’s doing something right so he can glow with the praise; of course he does. Harry, apparently, likes to be a martyr so he’s the one to get on his knees, spending hours, days, years between thighs, drawing them close. Of course he does.
Sometimes, with Ginny, they go into a neighbouring field and practice jinxes. Luna comes over from her house and joins them. They learned a lot while the three of them were away.
Arthur fixes the Ford Anglia because he doesn’t know what else to do. After the war, the three of them pile in and drive to Sydney. Mr and Mrs Granger prefer to fly Qantas back. The three of them get their teeth cleaned for free.
Four months after the war, Hermione goes back to school. Ron and Harry rent the flat above Honeydukes, the one with the passage through to the castle so they can be near her. On weekends—only on weekends, because Hermione has to study—they sneak onto the castle grounds late at night. Sometimes they have hot chocolate with Hagrid. He doesn’t care if they wake him up, even though he reminds them that they are welcome at a reasonable hour. Sometimes they fuck under the stars by the lake. Always, Harry counts his blessings.
Six months after the war, Fleur is pregnant. They have a party and for one night Molly is her old self. Luna is invited. Ginny holds her hand. Charlie laughs.
“I guess in a family of seven kids at least two of ‘em have to be queer.”
“Six,” George says.
One year after the war, after Hermione graduates, they leave Hogsmede and move to Godric’s Hollow. The house where the Potters died is torn down and they build a new cottage without a cupboard under the stairs. Kreacher has his own granny flat in the back. Phineas Nigellus hangs in the study. There is a bedroom for Teddy, who knows how to walk now and is trouble. Harry spends a fortune baby-proofing the house, installing gates and softening corners of tables. He buys a toy broomstick for him. He buys all the toys he can see; flying plush hippogriffs, baby mobiles that shift with the stars, building blocks that patiently explain why they are in the wrong order. Hermione brings all her old books from her old house, all forty Oz books and an illustrated Chronicles of Narnia that Teddy will learn to read on. Ron tosses Teddy in the air and sneaks him chocolate until he’s sick. Teddy toddles on stumpy legs after Crookshanks, who is too slow now to escape his grasp and is petted violently until he can squirm his way free.
One year and three months after the war, Ron goes to work with George. “Pranking,” he says, “shouldn’t be done alone.” The house becomes littered with experiments. Hermione’s books refuse to open. Teddy sucks on a lollipop that makes him hang in the air like a balloon, and Harry has to hold him by the ankle while he does the chores. He gardens a lot, now. He’s never liked Herbology, and keeping the Dursley’s backyard neat was never an enjoyable task, but here, when either Ron or Hermione can sneak up behind him, sliding arms around his waist and kissing him behind the ear, it’s good. Besides, he’s the logical one to take care of it. He isn’t afraid of the snakes.
Two years after the war, Bill stays for a drink after coming to pick up Victoire. Hermione’s working late at the Ministry, Ron’s with George in the workshop on Diagon Alley.
The two of them watch the children play in the living room. There are two Victoires, now, but Harry knows which one is Teddy. When Teddy shifts, his tongue hangs out to rest on his lower lip.
Bill appraises Harry over his Butterbeer. “Everyone at work tonight?”
Harry sighs. “Yeah.” He knows what’s coming. Molly has been sicking each Weasley on him one by one.
“Do you think you’ll—?”
Harry shrugs. If he’s honest, he could be a stay-at-home godparent the rest of his life. “I don’t need money.”
Bill just continues to eye him. Harry takes another swig. “Don’t confuse stagnancy with satisfaction.”
Harry tries to think of something to counter but just keeps drinking.
Two and a half years after the war, the nightmares aren’t gone.
There are routines. Hermione tosses in her sleep, and her mouth hangs open. She sweats quickly, and her legs jerk, starting herself awake with a pant and peeling herself from the sheets. She will go downstairs and make a cup of tea and take a book to re-read.
Ron will go still. His snores will stop and his breathing will quicken. Sometimes he will reach for the nearest body before waking with a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper. He will take very long showers, standing under the hot stream and staring at the glass with his eyes hazy.
Harry will yell. This is most inconvenient, because he nightmares the most. He will toss, like Hermione, so that if they both have a bad night Ron will sometimes sleep at the foot of the bed. He will shout himself awake and vomit most of the time. He will go downstairs and sit in the garden.
On a night where all three are struck, they sit around the kitchen table and Kreacher makes them tea.
Hermione says, tentatively, “I’ve been reading.”
“For a change of pace,” Harry says.
Hermione doesn’t smile. “About Mind-Healers.”
Ron gawks. “Those people? No way. They’re for nutters.”
She shrugs. “Only reading.”
The next day, Harry goes into town with Ginny and Luna. He’s tired, he hasn’t slept.
“What’s wrong?” Luna asks. “You’ve got about a dozen Wrackspurts in your hair.”
“Do I?” says Harry, tiredly.
Ginny’s mouth quirks for a second before she dashes it. “Are you having nightmares again?”
They sit on the street outside a Muggle café. “Yeah. Most nights. But you two get them too, I suppose.”
“I don’t,” supplies Luna. “I sleep very well.”
“Sometimes I do,” says Ginny. “But less and less, now. I get them more on days off.”
“Yeah.” Their drinks come. Harry stirs his cappuccino aimlessly. “What’s a Mind-Healer?”
Ginny steals the biscuit that comes with Luna’s hot chocolate. “It’s like… well, it’s like a Healer for your mind, I guess.”
“I did get that far.”
“I’ve been to one,” Luna says. “After mum died. It was good, you talk to them for a bit and then they do some legillimancy on you, and sometimes you put your memories in a pensieve and they look through.”
“What, like Occlumency?” Harry says, sharply, thinking of Snape. “No way, then.”
“It’s different,” Luna says. Her voice is stronger, less dreamy than usual. “The Death Eaters did that to me when I was at the Manor, to see where you were, you know. But it was different. You let them in, not try to close them off.” She sips her hot chocolate while Harry gnaws at his thumb. Then, she leans over the table and swats at his hair.
“Wrackspurts?” Ginny smiles.
“Oh, yes,” she says, dreamily again.
Three years after the war, Andromeda dies. A Muggle accident. Car crash.
Teddy, obviously, moves in with them. Because Harry’s his godfather. Because this is what is meant to happen when your family dies.
Teddy’s slept over at the house many, many times before, but suddenly Harry is terrified. There is nobody to fix his mistakes. He stays awake for days, watching Teddy breathe, skin and hair and mouth and nose shifting through dreams. Harry has never prayed before. He has never thought it believable, necessary. In the cupboard, nothing seemed to exist above the stairs. At Hogwarts, magic was real, and Dumbledore was his god, and he didn’t need anything else.
Now, he thinks it might be best to cover all his bases.
He is sitting in the rocking chair in the corner across from Teddy’s bed. Tonight, he swore to Ron and Hermione he’d spend the night in their room, but he snuck out after they’d fallen asleep. He thinks about this house, the curse, he thinks about the death of a baby that was supposed to happen in this room twenty years ago. It’s a mistake, he panics. They need to move.
The door creaks open and Harry jumps to his feet, pulls his wand out. But it’s Ron, obviously, it’s Ron. “Hey,” he says quietly, as Harry lowers his wand. “Relax.”
Harry sits back in the chair. Ron kneels beside him. “You’re driving yourself crazy,” he says, lowly.
“Shut up,” Harry mutters.
“You think staring at him all night is going to protect him more than if you’re awake during the day to be with him?”
Harry doesn’t reply.
“Harry,” Ron says, impatiently, “this place is more protected than the bloody tent. You made sure of that. I don’t know what—“
“I don’t want to be like them,” Harry says, suddenly, and he is crying. Ron tugs him from the chair to the floor and Harry presses his face into his neck.
“You’re not,” Ron says, “you won’t be.”
“I don’t want to,” Harry says again, and he doesn’t know if he means like the Dursleys, with screaming and hitting and spitting or, because he is selfish, dead like his parents. He doesn’t want to die.
Teddy stirs. Harry can’t afford this anymore.
“Is she asleep?” Harry whispers into Ron’s skin.
“Nah, don’t be stupid,” he says. “She’s made tea.”
Three years and two months after the war, Harry goes to a Mind-Healer. Her name is Theodora. She smiles when he tells her his godson is named Teddy.
She gives him some potions. He has trouble with sex, he can’t cry, he feels tired all the time.
But the nightmares are gone, and he will take that.
Four years after the war, Rita Skeeter sends Harry a letter, via the Burrow because she doesn’t know his new address. She asks him if he will let her write his memoir, or at least be interviewed. She would like him to speak on what has driven him to become a recluse.
He shreds the letter and tosses it into the fire.
Four years and six months after the war, Molly takes Teddy for the day while Harry travels to Hogwarts.
Minerva does not look surprised when he walks into the Headmistress’s office, even though they haven’t seen each other since the procession of funerals. The gargoyles parted for him without the password.
“Potter,” she says, opening her desk drawer and filing away a stack of parchment.
“Prof—Minerva,” he says. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.”
Minerva might smile, but it’s gone before he can register it. “I was wondering, Potter, if you’d ever ask.”
Four months and eight months after the war, Harry starts at Hogwarts. He’s scared to be away from Ron and Hermione, scared to be away from Teddy. But there’s a floo in his office so he can go home, and he sees Hagrid every single day. One weekend, he takes Teddy to school and chases him through the halls. He has to stop Hagrid from feeding Teddy rock cakes.
“Maybe we could take him out to see Grawp,” Hagrid asks hopefully. Hastily, Harry makes an excuse. When they get home, Teddy is covered in Fang’s slobber.
And the classes. He has a hundred Teddys he will die for, now. He tracks their progress and whoops with their first Patronuses and after a session with the Boggart he brings lots of chocolate and Butterbeer.
Sometimes the older kids will ask about their siblings or parents, if Harry knew them in the war. Harry will tell the youngest Creevey about Colin and Daedalus Diggles’ granddaughter about him bowing to Harryon the street when he was so young.
Hermione starts to see a Mind-Healer. Ron tells Harry how she comes home crying, but she’s taking the potion and some nights are better.
Some nights get better.
Six years after the war, Harry receives a Christmas card from Dudley Dursley. The letter comes by small, tawny owl.
He thinks about throwing it into the fire. Ron swears up and down he’ll deck the bastard if he ever sees him; Hermione says normally violence isn’t her thing but yes, she will deck him, too, and Ron says what do you mean violence isn’t your thing, we were in a war, and Hermione says yes but that doesn’t mean I like violence—
Harry goes alone. The house is in a suburb almost identical to Little Whinging; he could probably find his way around even without having been here before.
Dudley is home alone, and he serves Harry leftover Christmas cake.
“My wife made it,” he says, “it’s been out a couple days, so sorry if it isn’t the best—I’ve got ice cream in the freezer if you want that—“
“Your house has a cupboard,” Harry says. “Under the stairs.”
“Yeah, we—oh,” Dudley says. He fidgets. “We only use it for, you know, vacuums and stuff. Not…”
“Kids?”
Dudley’s quiet. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I really didn’t know. I mean, I knew that hitting you and stuff was wrong. That’s obvious. But I didn’t think about—I guess I thought it was funny, or—“
“It’s okay,” Harry says, regretting his curtness a little. Dudley looks at his lap. “So, you got married?”
“Yeah,” Dudley says, his eyes brightening. “Yeah, a year ago. I’m sorry I didn’t invite you. I thought—well, I thought you wouldn’t come.”
“I probably wouldn’t have,” he agrees. “What about… Vernon? And Petunia?”
“What d’you mean?”
Harry doesn’t know what he means. “Do they like your wife?”
“Oh. Well. I dunno. I don’t… I mean they were at the wedding, obviously, but I don’t… see them much.”
There is silence. Harry pushes his plate away from him. “Why did you invite me here, Dudley?”
Dudley looks feeble. “I just… I wanted to say sorry. Also… she’s a witch? Miranda. She’s a witch. And she’s pregnant. And I don’t—“ He has this dopey, helpless look on his face. “Are chocolates supposed to jump?”
Harry bursts out laughing. “Congratulations,” he says.
Seven years after the war, Teddy breaks his first bone. Harry is at Hogwarts when it happens, Teddy at Luna and Ginny’s for the day. Hermione picks him up. She sends an owl immediately.
Teddy is taken to Madam Pomfrey instead of St Mungos. The entire Weasley clan clamber in. The matron doesn’t bother telling them there’s too many people. They all stand around the bed, watching as Madam Pomfrey casts exactly one spell to mend Teddy’s leg, which is healed instantly.
Eight years and five months after the war, Ron goes to a Mind-Healer. Harry switches potions for three days; one that makes him so tired he can barely get up. His Mind-Healer finds him another one.
Teddy, who is as old as the aftermath is, starts to shift more of his body more and more often. Sometimes they wake a girl for school. Neither Ron, Hermione, nor Harry would mind, just that when an entirely different child shows up in Teddy’s school uniform for class, things get strange. Set playtime for shifting is after dinner, if Teddy has eaten everything.
Luna and Ginny get married. It’s the second Weasley wedding after the war, after Percy. Their garden is filled with hanging garlic and written enchantments to keep various creatures out, creatures Hermione is still sure don’t exist. Luna wears weeds plaited in her hair and bracelets of fishing wire. Ginny's teammates swig Firewhisky.
After the ceremony, the three of them watch the couple dance. “Should we get married?” Harry asks.
“It isn’t possible,” Hermione sighs. “Wizarding marriage laws mimic Muggle ones, in this case. Or perhaps the other way around, I don’t know.”
“You work in Law Enforcement,” Ron says. “Can’t you do something?”
“We’re still focusing on finding all the lost Muggleborn letters,” she says. “Also, prosecuting former Death Eaters.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ron says. He sips his Firewhisky. Then he chortles. “This git,” he says, jabbing his thumb at Harry. “Should we get married. Stupidest proposal I ever heard.”
Eleven years after the war, Teddy gets his letter. Ron and Hermione cry and Harry is selfishly glad he will be living with Teddy during the school year again.
Harry takes him to Diagon Alley. They sit outside Fortescue’s with complimentary huge sundaes That Hermione’s parents would balk at. Harry lets him spend hours in the menagerie, choosing an animal. They leave with a slinky grey kitten; “another bloody cat,” Ron swears, when they come home.
Teddy gets Hufflepuff. Harry tells him he’s like his mother. That night, there is a knock on Harry’s office door. When he opens it, Teddy stands there in his pajamas, purple stuck up hair.
“You’re not supposed to be out of bed,” Harry says, fully feeling the irony of this.
“Can I sleep with you?” he asks, quietly.
Harry’s heart breaks a little inside him and he says yes, but only tonight, because, Ted, you gotta sleep with the others.
Harry watches the little body rise and fall with his breath. Sometimes, it will hit him like this, a wave of something violent. A love so furious he feels like he’ll die. He never used to understand what the prophecy meant, love as power, but he knows now.
Thirteen years after the war, George kills himself on his birthday.
Ron doesn’t get out of bed for two weeks. The nightmares start worse than ever. He stops making appointments with his Mind-Healer.
Harry feels guilty. He’s been so busy focusing on his own life, his godson, not one but two partners, his job, that he hasn’t been letting much else in. He should have been—talking to George, making sure he was okay. It’s his fault Fred is dead, after all. He tries not to think about it.
At the funeral, Teddy wears red hair and freckles, which makes Molly Weasley cry more.
“He was doing so well,” Arthur says, bewildered. “Angelina… the baby…”
“It was the Nargles,” Luna says.
“Honestly,” Hermione scoffs, loudly. But Harry looks at Luna. He wants something to blame.
“Fucking Nargles,” he agrees.
Thirteen years and four months after the war, the lease ends on the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes storefront. Then the workshop. Nobody renews it. Ron has not left the house.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I even liked it,” he mumbles to them in bed one night. “I just… wanted to keep him company and then it… kept happening.”
Hermione kisses his cheek, softly. Harry slips his fingers through Ron’s. “Take your time,” Harry whispers. “Merlin knows I did.”
Fourteen years after the war, Ron gets a job with the Auror office. “Didn’t even have to take the test,” he says, amazed. “They just let me in!”
“Ron,” Hermione says, exasperated and smiling, “You did save the world.”
Ron turns pink. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I did!”
Fifteen years after the war, Teddy brings home a girl for the holidays. Her name is Liesel, and she has dark hair and blue eyes. When they see her, the three look at each other. Teddy’s been shifting themselves to look like that for months. Ron nearly says something before Hermione steps on his foot.
Seventeen years after the war, Teddy graduates from Hogwarts. All three of them cry.
Teddy takes Harry aside. “Harry,” they say. “I just…” Their nose twitches, flickers for a moment like some parts of their body do when they get nervous. Harry is patient. “I don’t remember ever growing up anywhere but at home, and… could I call you Dad?”
Harry blinks. “What will you call Ron?”
Teddy shrugs. “I don’t know. Ron-Dad. And Hermione will just be Mum, I guess.” They look at Harry. Teddy’s taller, today. “Can I? I mean it just seems so—you are—“
“Yeah,” Harry says. “’Course you can.”
If he ever needs to cast a Patronus, this is the memory he will use.
Nineteen years after the war, Harry has an appointment with Theodora.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
Absently, he touches the scar on his forehead. “All’s well, I suppose,” he says.