An Anchor When in Doubt (Harry)

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It was already ten o'clock at night, and Ginny was beginning to wonder what was taking Harry so long to return home to Godric's Hollow from work. He hadn't said anything to her about needing to work into the night, but she had learned that his hours as an Auror could be extremely unpredictable, even for him. The Triwizard Champions had been announced the night before, and Ginny knew that Harry must have been concerned for the safety of their niece, Anna, who had been one of the selected three.

Although she had changed into her pajamas, Ginny was still up, sitting at their kitchen table with a mug of tea and that morning's edition of the Daily Prophet in front of her. Anna’s photograph, along with photographs of the two other champions, Elias Greyback and Émile Chevalier, looked back at her from the newspaper.

The house was quiet, so she heard immediately when the front door opened. Ginny lifted her head in the direction of the door and set the paper aside. “Harry?” she called, standing up from her chair and pushing it in towards the table with a slight squeal of the chair’s legs against the floor. “Long day again?”

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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Whenever Harry came home from work, he tried to be exceptionally quiet. Godric's Hollow always seemed to be asleep when he came home late; there were lights on in windows, of course, but hardly anyone was outside. He unlocked the door to his home quietly, but apparently not quietly enough. As soon as he was inside, Ginny was calling his name. Harry shut the door behind him and made sure to lock it before wandering to the kitchen, where he had heard Ginny's voice. "Hey, Gin." He greeted her softly. He walked over to her and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head before rummaging through the cabinets for a mug. He wasn't normally a fan of tea, but it had been a long day. "Yeah." He agreed when Ginny asked him about just that. Harry put some water on to boil, setting his mug and tea bags beside the stove so he wouldn't forget he had already gotten them out. "Lots of meetings about Hogwarts security, and then I went to the castle to work a shift and check on some other things..." He trailed off, then mentioned, as casually as possible, "I talked to Albus."

@ginevra

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Ginny smiled at Harry as he kissed the top of her head. She was proven correct in her assumption that Harry's day hadn't been a quiet one, and she listened to her husband as he explained what had taken him so long. He had had some meetings pertaining to Hogwarts' security, and then he had worked a shift there, as well.

“I talked to Albus.”

The last time that Ginny had spoken to Albus had been shortly before he had left his temporary home at the Leaky Cauldron for school. She bit down on her lip, hoping that Harry and Albus had had some sort of reconciliation. “…How was it?” she asked, walking over to Harry and putting her arms around him from behind.

“I could've put the kettle back on for you, you know,” she protested, resting her head gently against his shoulder. It was slightly too late for her to mention it, since Harry had already gone to the trouble of doing it, but she thought that she would offer.

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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There were some things that Harry never got used to, and Ginny Weasley was one of them. Sure, she was Ginny Potter now, but that hardly seemed to matter. He loved her no matter what name she had, and it still baffled him completely that she was able to be so affectionate with him when she didn’t have a single memory of their marriage or their life together. If Harry ever forgot how strong Ginny was, she reminded him daily. “It was…good, I guess.” He answered quietly, enjoying the feeling of her warm body next to his. “We didn’t argue or anything, so I think it could have gone worse.” Harry’s conversations with Albus had a habit of ending in arguments, so it was better just on that count, the content notwithstanding.

Ginny laid her head on his shoulder and reminded Harry that she could have gotten the kettle, and he smiled tiredly, twisting his head over his shoulder so that he could see it. “It’s not a big deal.” He replied. “I may be able to burn practically anything else, but I am a Brit at heart, darling. I know how to make tea.”

@ginevra

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“It was… good, I guess,” Harry answered her, which was much better than hearing that his falling out with Albus had only continued. “We didn’t argue or anything, so I think it could have gone worse.”

Knowing the both of them, Ginny had to nod and pressed a kiss into her husband’s cheek. Maybe some distance from his parents was all that Albus had needed, she thought. “I’m glad there wasn’t a row this time,” she smiled, and she was also proud of them for—apparently—having been able to have a conversation that didn’t end badly. She truly couldn’t remember the last time that that had happened, though that wasn’t indicative of Harry and Albus’s relationship as much as it was of her own memory loss.

Appearing rather unconcerned about the kettle, Harry replied to her that it wasn’t a big deal; although he couldn’t cook much else, he did know how to make himself a proper cup of tea. If he weren’t so stressed all the time, Ginny thought, he probably would have made an excellent cook. He could perform plenty of advanced magic; he didn’t need a Kwikspell course for a few household spells.

“At Christmas,” she teased, pulling her arms from around him to move beside him so that he wouldn’t find out if it were possible for him to burn the tea, “I’m finding my mum’s copy of Charm Your Own Cheese. She must still have it.” Ginny couldn’t say that she could tell one dragon milk cheese from another, but they would learn. “I can’t believe—in all the years we’ve been married—that you’ve never once learned to cook,” she laughed, shaking her head. Thankfully, their children never had been starved for food at Hogwarts.

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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“I have an excuse!” Harry told his wife with a smile and a laugh. “There’s not a lot of time to learn how to cook when you’re trying to defeat a Dark Lord.” That was his excuse for the first seventeen years of his life, at least. Well, he had learned how to cook bacon for Dudley, but did bacon count? And then Harry had taken his turn cooking when they were on the Horcrux hunt, but since the food they were eating was barely palatable anyways, it didn’t matter whether or not he burned the lot. “Besides, why do I need to learn how to cook when your mum sends us lasagna all the time?” Harry had thought that old ladies sending people lasagnas was just a Muggle thing, and an obscure one at that, but apparently Molly Weasley didn’t trust them to be able to cook for themselves. Harry had been tempted a time or two to tell her that she was just enabling his lack of knowledge, but trying to argue with his mother-in-law was something that Harry had learned not to do long before she became his mother-in-law (and thus became exponentially scarier). “Though that does sound good…” Cheese was excellent, and being able to make his own was an attractive prospect. “Why wait til Christmas?” Harry probably wouldn’t find the time to attempt the cheese before then, but it would still be nice to have the book around. “Speaking of Christmas…” Harry began. “The Ministry’s hosting its annual party alongside the students at Hogwarts. A joint party, if you will.” And now Harry was going to do something that he thought to have done over thirty years ago: “Ginny Weasley, will you go to the Yule Ball with me?”

@ginevra

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When he mentioned the fact that the first seventeen years of his life had been spent defeating Lord Voldemort, Ginny couldn’t argue with that point. She had been there and remembered all of it—the years that she could recall without any uncertainty on her part, though they had been filled with ups and downs. And her mother was always sending them—along with the rest of the family—all sorts of dishes and desserts and anything else that could be sent by owl.

Though, Harry admitted, the prospect of being able to charm his own cheese did sound appealing to him, and he asked why they would have to wait until Christmas to get started on that mission. By the time that Christmas came around, anyway, they would be busy trying to get gifts for everyone—a challenge with as many friends and family members as they had, especially when Ginny couldn’t trust herself to pick out things that the recipients would appreciate. She would have to send out a questionnaire, she thought, or otherwise ask Harry to use his Auror skills to play Father Christmas.

That would have to wait, however, as Harry added, “Speaking of Christmas…” Ginny waited, wondering what in the world he was going to suggest. “The Ministry’s” were the first two words that she heard come out of Harry’s mouth, and immediately she worried that they would have to put their plans to visit the Burrow on hold. Fortunately, it wasn’t that: They were hosting their annual Christmas party alongside the students at Hogwarts. “A joint party, if you will.”

“Ginny Weasley, will you go to the Yule Ball with me?”

Ginny grinned, feeling herself blush like a schoolgirl, not sure whether to reply or kiss him first. “Of course I’ll go to the Yule Ball with you!” Selfishly, she wondered if it would help to jog her memory—or at least help to create some new ones.

Going in to kiss him, she thought back to the poem that she had written him for Valentine’s Day in her first year at Hogwarts and wanted to cringe. Remembering that it had been some thirty years before, however, reduced the embarrassment that she felt; Harry was her husband now. Before she closed her eyes to press her lips to his, she saw that his eyes were still as green as a fresh pickled toad, and his hair was still as dark as a blackboard. And, most importantly, he was hers.

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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Ginny said yes, and Harry felt a surge of relief rush through him. Sometimes he swore he was the one who lost his memory, not Ginny, because sometimes he still felt like a teenaged boy around her. His stomach swooped with happiness when he realized that she had actually said yes, and a smile was spreading on his face when she leaned in to kiss him. This was the way things ought to have been. Harry was halfway through the kiss he wanted to have when the tea kettle began to whistle. Harry harrumphed at it, extracting himself from Ginny to turn off the burner. He plopped the tea bag into the mug, running a hand through his hair to attempt to flatten it – as if that had ever worked. “I expect that the kids won’t be home for Christmas because of the Ball.” Harry informed his wife as he poured the boiling water. “I mean, Albus and Lily won’t, and I think James and Nat will be enjoying their first holiday with their own place, so…” Harry trailed off. He was planning on giving his son and his future daughter-in-law (even if that wasn’t official, Harry was pretty sure that was the track they were going down) Grimmauld Place as their own house, if only to get James out of his hair. But the two of them would be alone for Christmas, for the first time in goodness knew how many years. “I was thinking that maybe we could go someplace, just the two of us.” Harry was dropping a lot of bombs tonight, he knew, but they were all good things, so he hoped Ginny would forgive him.

@ginevra

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Until the whistle of the kettle had interrupted them, their kiss had been wonderful, and it felt to Ginny as though sparks could have flown between them. It was as though they had never left the honeymoon phase, even though married life meant having to attend to a cup of tea occasionally.

She stood, watching, as Harry finished preparing his tea. “I expect that the kids won’t be home for Christmas because of the Ball,” he explained, although Ginny couldn't say for certain if Albus would have come home without the Yule Ball as an excuse, either. “I mean, Albus and Lily won’t, and I think James and Nat will be enjoying their first holiday with their own place, so…”

In other words, it wouldn't be a traditional Christmas. Ginny could forgive that. Most of their nieces and nephews were probably going to remain at school over Christmas, too.

Suddenly, Harry gave a suggestion. “I was thinking that maybe we could go someplace, just the two of us.”

“Wait…” To Ginny's recollection, the Yule Ball that they had attended when they were in school had been held on Christmas night. Unless Harry was about to back out of a night of dancing and socializing after the wonderful moment that they had just shared, he was the one who had forgotten something.

“Just for the day, then?” she asked, trying to figure out how Harry planned to make their break from reality a reality.

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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Ginny seemed to have recognized the same flaw in Harry’s plan that he had originally come up against when conceiving the idea. He had thought of a fairly simple way around it, though. “We could go for Christmas Day, Apparate back for the Yule Ball, and then go back until the New Year.” Harry explained. They were wizards, so they ought to make the best use of the tools at their disposal, Apparition included. Of course, that gave them a bit of a limit, seeing as Apparating to a tropical island somewhere probably wasn’t in the cards due to the distance. But a vacation didn’t need to be a tropical getaway to be worthwhile. “I was wondering where you would want to go.” Harry said, taking his cup of tea in hand and moving towards the kitchen. It was a bit warmer than he expected, so he was going to have to wait for the drink to cool down or risk scalding his tongue. As for their vacation destination, Harry couldn’t care less where they went, as long as Ginny was happy, and they were together. It had been too long since they were able to be together, just the two of them, with no other responsibilities. It would be a welcome reprieve from the stress of the world.

@ginevra

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“We could go for Christmas Day, Apparate back for the Yule Ball, and then go back until the New Year.” That wouldn't be too bad. That way, they could go to the ball and enjoy their alone time. Ginny couldn't remember the last time that Harry had had a break from work—literally, she couldn't—and he deserved it.

“I was wondering where you would want to go.”

He left the decision in her hands. Ginny trusted Harry's judgment more than she did her own, and this was no exception. Where hadn't they been? Where was he hoping to go? Ginny didn't care, as long as Harry was there with her. She would have gone anywhere with him.

“A holiday somewhere tropical?” she considered, since they hadn't gone anywhere of the sort that summer. Their children would have enjoyed that, though, too. “Or something a bit more… Christmassy?” That way, it would still feel festive, even if they weren't celebrating with the rest of their family.

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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Harry wasn’t sure if Ginny was fazed by the fact that he had left the decision of where to go up to her, but he was more than willing to give her some guidance when she asked for it. “I think it might be a little strange if we go to the Yule Ball with sunburns.” Harry said with a laugh. Ginny was a redhead, which meant that a burn was all but inevitable, and his skin wasn't much better. There were potions that could heal sunburn, of course, but not quickly enough where they could prepare for the ball and have it gone by the time they were ready. “And it would be nice to go someplace festive.” The thought of going someplace warm made Harry even more grateful for the hot cup of tea in his hands, and he clutched tighter onto it. “Kind of like our first vacation together, all over again.” He added. Harry didn’t remember whether or not Ginny remembered their first vacation together, but even ifs he did, this would be a nice memory to add to the pile.

@ginevra

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“I think it might be a little strange if we go to the Yule Ball with sunburns,” Harry commented with a laugh, and it wasn't as though it was an exaggeration. They were both exceptionally fair-skinned, and Ginny would have preferred for her hair to be the only flaming red thing about her appearance on Christmas Day. “And it would be nice to go someplace festive.”

He added that it would be “kind of like” the first trip that they had taken together, and Ginny smiled at the thought. There was no time like the present to make some new memories with her husband, and it would mean even more to Harry. Once she knew what he was talking about, Ginny knew that it would mean the world to her, too. “Where did we go, Harry?”

Actually recreating that first trip might have been out of the question, but it wasn't impossible. For Harry, that feeling of déjà vu would be a good one, for a change of pace, and Ginny only wished that she could have done her part to pull it off. If she couldn't get Harry to begin reminiscing there in their kitchen, their close friends and family members must have had some recollection of what they had done, and she could plan from there.

Most couples did things behind one another's backs out of spite. Ginny's only motivation was to take some of the burden from her husband's shoulders. It felt slightly rebellious, in the best way possible. She had to be her own person again, and her plan would be a step in the right direction.

HARRY JAMES POTTER

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Ginny asked where they had gone on their first vacation together, and Harry grinned at her. He still remembered it well – not like it was yesterday, of course, but well enough that he hoped he could paint Ginny the picture that she deserved. “The year after you graduated Hogwarts, when I was on break from Auror training, your parents suggested that we ought to go on a trip together, before we got married.” At that point, it was all but a foregone conclusion they would marry, even though Harry didn't recall actually proposing before that point. The Weasleys had offered to pay for the trip, too, which Harry had outright refused. While the Weasley family’s status and riches increased immensely after the end of the war, Harry could not in good conscience accept such a gift, especially when he had more than enough coin of his own to take the same trip a thousand times over. “We went to South Africa.” He said with a smile. “We stayed in Johannesburg for a night, and then went on a safari.” Harry chuckled to himself a little at the memory. “We didn’t see that many animals, in the end. It rained and rained and rained, Gin. You should have seen the pair of us, easily thirty years younger than the rest of the people on the safari, looking like drowned rats.” His smile softened. “We got back to the carport, and I asked you to dance. So while all these Muggles are wrapped in towels grumbling about their lost zebras, you and are I are standing next to a muddy Jeep, singing any song we remember, and dancing in the rain.” They had done other things, of course, but that was the moment that stood out in Harry’s mind. If he hadn’t already decided he was going to marry Ginny Weasley a thousand times over before that day, that would have been when he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

@ginevra

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“The year after you graduated Hogwarts, when I was on break from Auror training, your parents suggested that we ought to go on a trip together, before we got married,” Harry recounted for her. Ginny laughed softly; she should have known that her parents had had something to do with it. Harry had been an honorary part of their family ever since their mother had knitted him his very own Weasley jumper.

“We went to South Africa.”

Ginny fought to keep her mouth from going agape. She knew that they had traveled quite a bit over the years, but South Africa—Had Harry gone absolutely mad? According to him, they had stayed in Johannesburg for a night, before going on safari. As much as she was enjoying hearing about the trip secondhand, Ginny longed to be able to remember it for herself; it sounded marvelous.

“We didn’t see that many animals, in the end,” Harry admitted, though Ginny didn't think that the safari had been her primary focus, anyway. “You should have seen the pair of us, easily thirty years younger than the rest of the people on the safari, looking like drowned rats.”

She laughed out loud at Harry's description and covered her mouth; she hadn't been able to help it, and she wished that they had a Pensieve. “Merlin…” Ginny smiled, knowing that they must have gotten some strange looks from their travel companions.

“We got back to the carport,” Harry remembered, “and I asked you to dance. So while all these Muggles are wrapped in towels grumbling about their lost zebras, you and are I are standing next to a muddy Jeep, singing any song we remember, and dancing in the rain.”

Laughing softly again, Ginny extended her hand out to Harry. “I know there isn't any rain, but you'll need some practice before the Yule Ball.” She offered her husband a teasing grin and began to sing the first song that came to her mind, Celestina Warbeck's ”A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love”. While it was one of her mother's favorite songs, it had never been one of hers, though the lyrics were aptly sentimental.

“I've got a cauldron full of hot, strong love / And it's bubbling for you!” Ginny sang between laughs, motioning for Harry to set his mug aside to join her.

HARRY JAMES POTTER