Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Summers always were the equivalent of the extraction of a tooth without anesthesia. It was always like that, until it wasn’t. Then it became something else. Then it became all about her. 

It was safe to say that for Harry, any given day in Private Drive felt like a test he couldn’t give more of a damn to pass or not, he could settle with surviving it. The “special days” as Aunt Petunia called them were entirely another kind of hell. As fate would have it, this one would have Harry being grateful for coming along at the end.

  “Boy! Come down!” roared Uncle Vernon from below the stairs.

Harry walked down with the enthusiasm of a snail. The house had been in a halt all day because of the novelty present that day and Harry made his best to not be a casualty of what that usually entails. With The Dursleys keeping at bay wasn’t a matter of effort it was in the hands of luck. When Harry gets to the end of the stairs to meet his overly overwhelmed uncle, Harry knows his luck has left the house. Not that it has ever stayed for long, anyway.  

“You need a haircut. A proper one.” says Uncle Vernon.”We have...” 

“Important visit, tonight.” Interrupts Harry parroting the same thing Aunt Petunia has been nagging all week.

“Exactly. So you shall..”

“Eat my dinner in silence, do my best to pretend I don’t exist and excuse myself to my room as soon as possible, politely feigning indigestion.”

“Good. Good. Now I mean it boy, make sure you get a hold of your freakness for another night. I don’t wanna hear anything about flying cars or nothing of the sort.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll keep the flying car parked in my room.” 

Uncle Vernon glared but didn’t say anything else about it.

“The hair. Handle it.” 

Outwardly Harry nodded obediently, inwardly he was snorting. If he could handle his hair, then he would do it. He can’t. It has come to a point where Harry has decided to just let it be and ask Hagrid what to feed it as soon as he went back to school. Still he gave it some effort by combing it as neatly as possible for an entire hour before the new neighbors appeared in the doorway. He had no idea who they were or what they did to deserve a dinner with the Dursley, all Harry knows is that he has never seen Aunt Petunia scrub the kitchen with that much dedication before or Dudley spent that much time ahead of anything choosing a shirt to wear. Even Uncle Vernon was neatly trimming his mustache with the precision of a surgeon. Whoever these people were, they meant something for The Dursley and for the first time in weeks Harry was genuinely curious about something. Being liked by his uncles has never meant any merit  but being admired like this felt an entire different ballpark.  

“Boy! Didn’t I tell you to make something decent of your hair?” Said Uncle Vernon when they were all gathered in the front door. 

“Vernon, they are almost here.” Said Aunt Petunia, frantically, peeking through the window with poor demureness.

Uncle Vernon dedicated one last glare to Harry, before clearing his throat and fixing his bow tie. Dudley was preoccupied with the mirror, fixating on his hair. At this point Harry expected nothing less than royalty to walk through the door and when the visit finally arrived it felt like they were just that. They certainly looked the part. 

Aunt Petunia opened the door a split of a second after the doorbell rang and when she did she revealed the most beautiful and yet casually put together people Harry had ever met. 

They were three people crowding the doorway. One very tall and handsome man with a grin that reminded Harry of a child, a very beautiful and classy looking woman and the prettiest girl Harry had ever seen, photos of veelas included. Clearly, the whole reason for Dudley’s necessity to wear an entire bottle of cologne.

“John!” Says Uncle Vernon, as chummy as Harry ever saw him. He shakes the John's guy hand like the winner of the price is right while Aunt Petunia is pretty much rolling the red carpet for the two females.  

“You look so beautiful and elegant!” She says.”Don’t they look marvelous, Duddy?”

Dudley takes a second to effusively nod, Harry thinks it has to do with the way he is gaping at the girl clearly forcing her smile to him. Harry is impressed. Her smile is almost believable if it wasn’t for the clear stiffness in the way she freezes her expression.

“You are too kind Petunia. You look beautiful as well.” says the elegant woman.

Harry makes a mental note of sending an owl to Hermione and ask if she knows anything of people transforming into puddles because perhaps Aunt Petunia was more magically inclined than they thought. 

It takes a couple of minutes of greetings and pleasantries but eventually The Dursley allows the visit to enter the house and settle in the living room. Harry does as told and tries his best to blend with the background. John Digger, as Harry learns is the name of the tall man, doesn’t make it easy. 

“So Harry.. How come we haven’t seen you around much?”

Harry could hear Uncle Vernon’s heart actually stop. He delays his answer, purposely enjoying it.

“I don’t go to school here. I go abroad to a boarding school. I just got here for summer, sir.”

Alma Digger, the wife, makes an excited and yet elegant gasp.

“Abroad! How exciting Harry! Jenny has been thinking about a couple schools away too.”

Harry looks at the girl, Jenny, who is looking at him like no other girl has before, certainly not in Private Drive. He has no chance to swallow the sheepish smile under the kind and curious way she looks at him, as if he has all the answers to all the questions she has.

“I am still set on giving a fight.” Says John, in an overkill expression of solemness.

“Dad..” whines Jenny, with her cheeks pink.

“ Baby girls shouldn’t leave their papa’s until they are in their twenties and even then it is only a discussion.”

Jenny’s cheeks only get more pink and her expression more embarrassed. Harry can’t help the grin this paints on his face.  

“How far you said your school is?” Asks Jenny directly at Harry.

Mr. Digger makes a pained groan and his wife makes an art of laughing without losing her grace.

“Maybe you should ask your questions to Harry, darling. He has first hand experience after all.” Says Mrs Digger, to her daughter. Jenny looks at Harry and for the first time he notices her eyes. They are the most light brown he has ever seen, it’s like liquid gold in her pupils and look particularly pretty when they look at him with curiosity.

“Do you like it? The boarding school?” She asks, with sweetness in her tone.

Harry can’t decide if it’s the tone or the question what makes him smile back as wide as he can.

“I love it.” He says.

They look at each other for a moment, smiling.

“ Oh Harry, come on mate. I thought we were friends.” Said Mr Digger with a childish whine, making Harry laugh.

“ Dudley goes to Smeltings!” Says Aunt Petunia in a frantic voice.

Everyone looks at her, stunned for the sudden outburst. There is a moment of silence that Mrs Digger breaks.

“ Yes, of course. That is a good school. Isn’t it John?”

“Sure.”

The adults continue with the conversation but all Harry cares about is the pretty girl stealing glances of him every few minutes.

It’s usually not that hard for him but that night it takes a lot to force himself away from the dining table. He does it because he knows it will be worse if he doesn’t go through but no one expects The Digger’s reaction. 

“ Are you sure it’s nothing more serious, Harry? Petunia, why don’t we boil some mint tea for him?”

“ Maybe we should take the boy to the clinic, Vernon.” Says John.

Even Jenny looks worried. It warms him and makes the idea of witnessing his Aunt boiling tea for him while trying not to have her brain melt far too enticing but Harry decides to quit while he was ahead. 

“Don’t worry Mrs. Digger, Mr Digger. I am fine. I just need to sleep it off.”

Harry genuinely smiles at them.

“It was really great to meet you.” he says and means it.

He looks at Jenny and does his best not to look dumb while smiling at her. It doesn’t help that she smiles back.

“ It was nice to meet you too, kid. You need to come over to the house. My wife will make that tummy of yours indestructible after a couple of her soups.” 

“John!” Says her wife, lightly hitting his arm.

Harry laughs and nods.

“That’ll be great.”

Harry takes a last look at Jenny knowing it was probably the last time he would get to see her. The Dursleys are probably giving putting bars in his window another try after this. He tries to enjoy Dudley looking like he is ready for suicide watch as a quiet revenge. He smiles one last time and walks away before he starts begging these people to take him with them. He has never felt that comfortable with anyone,  but maybe just The Weasleys. He toys with the idea of writing a letter to Ron about it but what is he supposed to say? 

Hey mate, met the prettiest girl in all Europe. I’m serious, she makes Angelina Johnson look like a lazy eye, mandrake.

Nop, if he sends that, he is not hearing the end of it. Ron is publishing the whole thing in the Prophet or worse. Telling the twins.

-0-0-

A couple of days go by after that and eventually Harry does decide to write to Ron. He is in Egypt visiting his curse breaker brother with his family. There are no plans to name anything about the odd dinner with the marvel family but he does tell him about The Dursleys acting weirdly agreeable. Maybe that was a stretch but at the very least he hasn’t been punished and was comfortably being ignored. Aunt Petunia hasn’t even used him as a cleaning house elf. Mentioning that in the letter seemed like a way to ensure Ron could relax on his holiday. Harry is aware his home situation is a point of worry for him. 

The best place to write his letters is always the park two blocks from The Dursleys home. It’s always deserted of Dudley at midday because of the sun. Harry makes use of his thigh for support while he writes the letter in the swings. That’s where she finds him. 

“That’s odd. I haven’t seen anyone write with a quill before.” Says Jenny.

Harry jolts and looks beside him to find her sitting in a swing. She laughs at his reaction.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” She says.

Harry shakes his head and has a hard time voicing anything else. She looks too pretty in her flowery dress and her long, chestnut hair in one of her shoulders. Harry only had seen girls like her in magazines or on the telly. When she smiles like she is doing right then Harry thinks that he maybe has never really seen something like her before.

“ Can I know what you are writing with a quill?” She asks, with pleading eyes and a sweet voice. Harry nods and wonders if anyone has ever denied her anything before when she asks anything with that tone. He forgets to keep talking though. Jenny lifts her eyebrow eventually and Harry decides to gather some of the courage he is supposedly known for.

“It’s a letter. Uhmm for a school friend.”

Jenny tilts her head, curious.

“Wouldn't it be easier to call?”

Harry clears his throat.

“It’s sort of..like a school thing. The quill is part of it.”

Her eyes shine with understanding, and she nods with a smile. 

“Your school sounds weird.” She says.

“You have no idea.” Admits Harry with an unconscious grin.

“But you love it.” 

Harry nods, keeping the smile.

“I do.”

“That is also odd.” 

Jenny looks at him like she is trying to decipher something about him and it makes Harry nervous but it also makes him stay still. He feels like he wants her to see what he can’t tell and then he shakes his head because that sounds dumb not to mention, illegal ,in Ministry of Magic standards. He decides to deflect.

“You don’t like yours?”

She immediately scrunches her tiny nose in a cute gesture and Harry chuckles at it.

“I suppose that’s my answer.” He says.

“It’s not that bad. People are nice,... in their own way.”

“I suppose that’s one word for it.”

She looks at him for a moment, looking like she is holding her laughter. They both end up cracking in cackles. 

“It’s just... It’s different from my last home.” she explains.

Harry nods.

“Where was that?”

“ Leicester. Have you ever been?”

Harry shakes his head. 

“Is it beautiful?”

“Almost as much as its people.”

Looking at her Harry doesn’t hold a doubt about it.

“There are a lot of different kinds of people in there, with different kinds of faces and experiences to tell anyone who listens. It’s silly but it’s almost magical the way it feels.”

Harry smiles, and looks at her trying to convey what he can’t say.

“I don’t think it’s silly at all.”

He watches with awe the way her cheeks turn pink for him. She looks away and puts a strand of hair behind her ear.

“ I miss it.” She says.” I’m happy for my Dad. He loves his new job but here..Well it feels like everyone is the same, with the same way of thinking, with the same wants and the same ideas of what is right. I guess..I’m kinda bored.”

Harry has never wished more to be able to use a broom before. The kind of longing that paints in her face, he wants to erase it, he wants to take her to this magical place she describes, maybe show her one or two he knows too.

“You don’t feel like that.” She says.

Harry looks at her, curious.

“You don’t feel like someone who thinks like everyone else.”

He doesn’t know exactly why but he feels his cheeks get warm and a sheepish smile shows up in his face. He is the one looking away then. 

“So I am weird, it’s what you are saying?” Harry manages to say.

She chuckles.

“My favorite kind of weird if it makes you feel better.”

It doesn’t only make him feel better. It makes him feel like the lottery winner that wouldn’t change himself for anyone. They smile at each other and then she sends a look to his lap where his half written letter still sits. 

“So your friend.. It’s he as weird as you?”

Harry immediately shakes his head.

“God no. I’m the weirdest lad in my whole school.”

Jenny laughs.

“I believe it.”

                                                                                     -0-0-0-

Harry can’t believe it. He honestly can’t. How did he go from counting the days to going back to Hogwarts to not even thinking about it? The fact that The Dursleys go back to normal and start treating him like a leper again barely means anything. He does everything Aunt Petunia asks and makes sure to do it well and in record time, he makes sure Dudley has open road to get distracted with his mates and goes far and beyond ensuring his Uncle has nothing to complain about. All just to have every free afternoon in the park with the pretty girl that lives in his neighborhood. The most amazing thing is that they never really do something particularly extraordinary. He is always waiting for the day he is going to get there, wait for an hour (probably more) ,only to discover she found something better to do with her afternoons than just lie on the grass or walk around with him while they talk. It never happens. She is always there before him. Sometimes Harry buys her an ice cream with the money he  won playing explosive snaps with The Twins and Hermione did him the favor to change to muggle coin. It’s amusing how she takes it.  

“Today is my turn, Harry.” She says with a cute, playful, glare directed at him after the fourth day he invites her.

“I don’t really mind. It’s only an ice cream and you always ask for the same boring popsicle that doesn't cost anything.”

“It’s Summer. You can’t enjoy a lime popsicle the same any other time of the year.” She says like she is ready to go to bat for her precious dessert. Harry grins at her, amused, and that somehow always softens her.

“Come on. I’m an equal opportunity kind of girl. Let me treat you this time while you tell me all about your friend Hagrid again. He seems great.”

It’s hard for him to deny her anything so he lets her buy him the chocolate fudge he likes so much and tells her what he can about Hagrid, Hermione, Ron and The Weasleys. It’s hard because he wants to tell her everything and he doesn’t want to lie to her in any way. She doesn’t push and he likes her even more for that.

“I like Hermione. I admire smart people.” she says when he tells her about Hermione being first in class.

Harry nods with a smile thinking that Hermione would definitely love her. Hermione likes kind people and Jenny was smart on her own right too. Harry could tell when she talked about all the things she loves and enjoys doing. She was especially clever about people and Harry felt like she could see things in them that no one he knows, magical or not, can. In a weird way she reminded him of Dumbledore. There was a twinkle in her eye, insightful and profound, when she talked about the people she loved like her parents and the friends she left in her hometown but she didn’t lose any of it when she talked about people she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with. 

“Dudley is just a child.” she says, one afternoon they are eating Mrs Diggers sandwiches that she sent with Jenny for both to eat.

“He is our same age.” Says Harry, mouth full, trying not to sound like a child in a tantrum. Jenny’s giggle doesn’t give him much hope of pulling it off. 

“ Yes, but.. Maturity doesn’t have much to do with age don’t you think? I mean look at you. You are young and sometimes you act and talk like you have lived a thousand lifetimes. It’s one of the things I like the most about you.”

Harry swallows and grins, feeling his cheeks get warm and enjoying the same color present in Jenny while she looks aways, sheepish.

“And then you smile like a child that got the candy before his cousin and I remember that you are a silly boy too.” Says Jenny, with a mocking tone. It doesn’t offend Harry, it only makes him chuckle.

“My point is..” Jenny continues while taking the empty wrapping of the sandwiches from Harry’s hands and putting them in a bag to throw in the trash later.” Dudley has had no reason to grow up. Something tells me you have had plenty.”

Harry looks at her and he has to ball his hands in fists to not touch her pretty face looking at him like that. Like if somehow she doesn’t need a word out of him to know every important thing about him.

“I know your cousin is probably not the easiest person to like. And between us he makes me nervous, the way he sees me...” She shudders.

Harry chuckles and doesn’t question the triumphant feeling that comment gives him. He is pretty sure it is not an argument in favor of his maturity.

“But he is just a big kid, Harry. That’s all Dudley is. One day he will be forced to grow up and he will look at the way he treats you differently. If he doesn’t then believe me, he will be the one missing out.”

Harry nods, smiles while marveling at the smarts of the girl in front of him and notices for the first time that they are way closer than they have been before. They stare at each other for a moment until a ruffle in the bushes makes them look away.  

“It must be the dog..” says Jenny.

“The dog?”

She beams at him.

“Yes, there is a big, black dog in the neighborhood. Yesterday was my turn to put the trash out and he was looking for something to eat. I gave him some fresh food and was going to let him sleep in the garage but he bolted away as soon as he finished eating. He was sweet though.”

Harry wonders how that much kindness and beauty can fit inside a person. No matter how much time he spends with her, he is always marveled by that, by the way she spreads all that light inside her like a Lumos without a wand and reaches even further than any magic could manage. For the first time in Harry’s life Private Drive becomes something resembling a home to him, only because she is a block away at all times. It makes him happy and even The Dursleys have a hard time ruining it for him. It’s not an impossible task for Vernon’s sister, Aunt Marjorie though. It’s almost impressive the way she manages to make Harry ruin everything considering that the day before that it’s a good day, the happiest Harry has ever had in that neighborhood. Jenny invites him to her house for brunch and Harry manages all his chores before eleven so Aunt Petunia has nothing to say when he is walking through the doorway. He later learns that is not that she had nothing to say, she was just fixating on the preparations for the visit that’s coming for dinner the next day. The details calling the impending threat escapes him because of the excitement of where he is going. The Digger’s house is the biggest in the neighborhood. Mr Digger is an engineer that often oversees construction work, he specializes in making structures conscious of the environment. He is a direct supervisor of Uncle Vernon’s supervisor and that tells Harry why the dinner in The Dursley’s house was so important. It also explains why their house looks like a castle in the forest. Jenny acts far too casual about it when Harry gets to the porch. Luckily he doesn’t have to find the courage to ring the doorbell, Jenny opens up with an excited grin after a couple of seconds of him staring at the front door and drags him inside with a quick greeting.  

“You are late!” She says with a mocking grin.

“I am?” He says, worried.

“For a minute and a few seconds, darling.” Says Mrs Digger with a soft smile, appearing into vision.” Nothing worth fretting for or something Jenny should be using against you.”

Jenny giggles, mischievous and Harry smiles, unable to ignore the fact Jenny hasn’t let go of his hand. 

“Come on in, John is not a patient one when he is hungry.”says Mrs Digger with a welcoming tone. Jenny drags him to the enormous back yard where John is already waiting, reading the newspaper in front of a table  filled with food that rivaled Hogwart’s breakfast spread. John Digger grins like a kid when he sees Harry being towed by her daughter. 

“Harry! How you doing, kid?” 

“Good morning Mr. Digger.”

Harry is shy at first about eating but Mrs Digger fills his plate as soon as he finishes.

“ My wife is not gonna rest until she takes you as far away as she can manage from that skinny frame of yours. Might as well surrender.”

“John!” says his wife in reprimand.

Harry smiles and takes another pancake to his full plate. Mrs Digger smiles at him, pleased.

“See...” whispers Mr. Digger, accomplice. 

Harry and Jenny laugh when Mrs Digger glares, playfully at her husband and he steals a kiss from her.

Harry has the best time with the Diggers while they eat. Mr Digger makes them laugh with his impression of his boss and Mrs Digger is attentive to Harry, asks him questions about his school and Harry answers the best he can without committing a crime against the Ministry of Magic or lying to the woman feeding him. He learns she was a teacher and was about to start a new job in the town’s nursery. Harry has no problem imagining her reading to small children. She had a soothing disposition. Clearly where Jenny got it from. Eventually she shoosh them away and Jenny takes him through a tour of the house. She shows him a library that would make Hermione swoon and a big green grass space deep in her backyard that would make Ron beg for the chance to play quidditch on it. Harry’s favorite is her room. It’s all her. He also enjoys how nervous she is about it. She looks cute when embarrassed.

“Is that you?” He asks, pointing at a photo sitting on a wooden desk in the corner of her room, where she claims she does all her homework. She is five and dressed in some kind of ballet costume. Jenny sighs and hums in affirmation, her cheeks as pink as he has seen them. Harry grins and his hands tickle for the chance to steal the photo for himself.

“You were always pretty.” He says looking at the photo and then it’s his turn to be embarrassed because it dawns on him he said it aloud. He dares to look at her and he finds her grinning at him.

“You have to show me one of yours. It’s only fair.”

Harry has never been more relieved by the lack of photos of his awkward childhood.

“Thankfully, there is none for me to do that.”

Jenny frowns at that.

“None?”

“No even one.” He says.

“Why not?”

He shrugs.

“I guess the camera’s film was always at capacity with Dudley’s.”

Jenny hesitates but she inevitably asks anyway.

“You.. Have you always lived with your uncles?”

Harry nods, looking at all the books in her shelf, trying to memorize the titles because clearly they are her favorites.

“My parents passed away when I was barely a year old.”

Harry tries to be casual about it, to not make a big deal of the fact that he is a universe away from being deserving of something like her, to not show he has nothing of worth to offer her. Nothing like what she is sharing with him. He is so focused in the books it surprises him, the weight of her hand in his. When people hear him talk about his parents it’s usually a pity fest what follows. When he turns to look at Jenny there is no pity in her but she does look at him as if his pain is hers and that feels entirely too different. Harry suddenly is aware of how lonely he has felt all his life and how that goes away when she looks at him like she is willing to go back in time and fix his world for him. Like she cares more about his happiness than anything else.

“I’m sorry Harry.”

Harry just nods, shrugs and tries to shake off the warmth of her. He doesn’t want to get used to it in case it’s taken away. She refuses to let him and hugs him. He shoves his face in her neck and memorizes her smell. For some reason he wants to cry and has to concentrate not to do it. They stay like that for what feels like several minutes and eventually Jenny lets him go. She stays close and Harry smiles seeing her face that close.

“What?” She asks with a grin of her own.

“Do you still dance ballet?”

As expected she gets pink and annoyed at him.

“Yes, you got a problem with that?” She says with a glare.

 Harry laughs. The only problem he has is how to convince her to do a routine for him. The rest of the day is filled with them doing all kinds of stuff Harry never gets the chance to do, like playing cards and caring for her plants in a part of her house she calls the solar. It’s a bright place full of windows and a view of her backyard. Harry learns she doesn’t only have a quidditch court in there but her own forest. Hagrid would be delighted. She drags him there when he tells her he has never climbed a tree before. 

“It should be illegal, Harry.” She claims in outrage.

He can’t help but agree when he is at the top of a big oak after climbing trees all afternoon, with all Private Drive to see and from above Harry can for the first time call it beautiful. Almost but not quite as much as the girl who is watching the sun set, sitting with him in a branch of that tree. By that point Harry feels like the day has been an embarrassment of the riches. There is no way anything can top it but then he opens his mouth and mentions Hedwig.  

“I have to meet her, Harry.” Jenny demands, firmly walking to his house with Harry anxiously following her behind.

“I promise to bring her to you tomorrow.” he pleads.

“There is no way I can wait that long.”

“Jenny...”

Jenny stops and turns around with her best puppy eyes, directed at him.

“Come on Harry. I have to go back home soon. My curfew got shortened because of that man that got out of jail and has everyone in a twist. I promise to be silent if your uncles are the problem.”

Harry looks at her big eyes, pleading and makes a promise of finding some spine with this girl, someday in this lifetime. Maybe. Probably not.

“Dudley cannot see you either or I won't hear the end of it.”

Jenny grins at him and the kiss she gives him in his cheek makes being a tosser worth it.

Harry enters his room almost fifteen minutes after. Aunt Petunia makes him clean the dinner dishes and sends him to his room without dinner unbeknown Harry already ate enough for the next two days at The Diggers. Uncle Vernon berates him for being a no show all day and Harry takes it quietly, concentrating on doing the dishes well. He wastes no time running to the window once he gets to his room. He peeks outside and Jenny is down there looking at him with a grin. She climbs to him with impressive agility and Harry makes room to let her in. He is suddenly aware of his mess when she is in there, in his room, looking around like he did with hers. He tries to subtly kick some socks and dirty shoes below the bed. She looks at him with a grin.

“More proof that you are a boy?”

“I didn’t think this through.” He says nervously scratching his neck.

“I’m glad.” She says with an amused glint in her eyes.

She seems like there is nothing more she would rather do than watch him squirm of embarrassment until Hedwig makes a noise in her cage.

“It’s that..?”

“Yeap. That’s Hedwig.”

Harry unveils the cage and like she knows she is meant to perform Hedwig shows off for Jenny. Jenny gasps in amazement. 

“She is beautiful.”

Harry smiles watching at Jenny gape like a little girl at Hedwig. 

“You want to feed her?” Asks Harry.

Jenny effusively nods. Hedwig takes a liking to Jenny surprisingly fast. She lets herself be petted and even lets Jenny hold her in her arm.

“Well I’m jealous.” Teases Harry.” It took me a month for her to let me hold her like that without threatening to take one of my fingers.”

Jenny grins at him.

“We girls understand each other.”

Harry is not really upset. He likes the sight of Jenny in his space, sitting in his bed, fussing over his pet. It takes some convincing and a reminder of her curfew but eventually Hedwig and Jenny part ways. Harry can’t decide who looks more dejected about it. 

They both climb down his window and Harry walks Jenny back home. They are in a comfortable silence all the way and it doesn’t go over his head how they are not in a hurry. It takes them twice as long to get to her front door and when they do get there Harry feels his palms sweat. He is not sure why but he feels something is supposed to happen. Jenny seems to think so too, looking at her feet, his cheeks pink and playing with her hands. 

“Do you..”

“Are you..”

They both speak at the same time and then break into chuckles.

“Tomorrow I’m going to see my grandparents so I’ll be home late,”she says.

Harry feels his chest hurt at the concept of an afternoon without her but he nods.

“Maybe we can see each other the day after that. In the park. I definitely want to see Hedwig again.”

Harry grins, amused. 

“Sure I can drop Hedwig off for you to spend the afternoon with her. Pick her up later.”

Jenny chuckles.

“Great. Sounds like a plan.” 

“Ouch.” Says Harry feigning offense. Jenny sighs, overdramatic.

“I guess you can stick around too.”

Harry laughs and nods.

“Thank you.” He says with a smile and without an ounce of irony. He means it. He means it for the best day he has had in a long time, maybe since he got his letter to Hogwarts. She nodded like she got it. 

“See you later then?”

Harry nods.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

                                                                                   -0-0-0-0-

He missed it. 

He doesn’t get to say goodbye. At the beginning he blames it all on Uncle’s Vernon horrid sister, in the way she offends his parents and pushes him to defend them but as the days go by after the incident where he inflates Aunt Marjorie like a balloon, he knows the real offender is him. Him and his poor temper management, him and the weird things that happen around him at all times, him and all the reasons why he doesn’t belong anywhere close to something like her. Third year goes by with many lows and some ups. He learns many things about his parents, about who they were, about the people they had around them when they were alive. He learns his biggest fear is fear itself and he learns that courage is not the lack of it but walking through it holding on to the pieces of happiness this life has to give. The first time he manages a Patronus he thinks of his parents but the second  time, when he is saving himself and his godfather from the kiss of a dementor, he thinks of her. Of her climbing trees, eating ice cream, laughing with her family, loving his owl enough to forgo his mess, and looking at him like he is something more than just a scar and a tragedy. Nobody knows except maybe Sirius.

“You are just like your father.” He says when they managed to save him from the cell they put him in and they were saying their goodbyes.” Except..”

“For the eyes.” Finishes Harry with a bittersweet smile.” They are my mothers.”

Sirius smiles.

“Yes. Your mama is in your eyes but that heart of yours is all James Potter. You two have the same taste in women.”

Harry frowns and questions his godfather with his gaze.

“Your neighbor.” says Sirius with a knowing grin.

Harry can’t believe he can’t keep it together about Jenny Digger in a time like this. He has spent all year trying and failing at not thinking about her. At least it makes Sirius laugh. 

“You have good taste lad. She is shaping up to be a real beauty. Sweet too. Kept me fed while I got a look of you back in Private Drive.”

The memory dawns on Harry.

“There is a big black dog in the neighborhood.” Had said Jenny, months ago.

Harry smiles. What were the chances?

“She is great..” manages to say Harry.

“Oh boy. Already trouble in paradise? Aren’t you two too young to make it harder than it needs to be? Then again it never mattered for your parents either.”

“She is not...She doesn’t like me like that.”

Sirius smiles, amused. 

“I swear..It’s like traveling back in time.” says Sirius more to himself than to Harry.

“What you mean?”

“I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told your father the day he came to me with the same whining about Lily.” Says Sirius, like if nothing gives him more pleasure than to repeat the following words.” So what if she doesn’t fancy you right now? She will. Once she sees what you are really made of she wont have another choice. I’m pretty sure I should have given Divination a true chance when I was your age. That was a prophecy by all intends and  purposes. I felt it then and I feel it now.”

Harry chuckles and then scratches his neck.

“I think she is mad at me.” He admits. 

Sirius cackles.

“Lad, they are always mad at us. Get used to it. The real art is in asking for mercy with style.” 

Sirius winks at him and his words stay with Harry for many days after. It’s the base of his courage the day he goes back to Private Drive and he stands in front of her house. Now, how is he supposed to explain that his godfather is a dog she fed once?

Chapter Text

Chapter 2
It wasn’t his best idea but in the end, it hadn’t been his worst either. It did the trick and that was all that mattered. It took him almost half an hour to gather the courage to decide, twenty minutes of procrastination while he chose the right bundle of pebbles and then ten more making sure he had the right window. Overall is an hour of him acting insane around Jenny’s house until he had the guts to just act and throw pebbles in her window, praying she would come out and let him see her.
“Harry?” She said in a whisper, looking at him from her window, with shock in her expression.
The only coherent thought he had when he saw her with sleepy eyes, wearing her pajamas and her hair messy was that his memory really didn’t do her any justice. She was a thousand times more beautiful than he remembered. Harry stared at her, trying to come up with something decent to say while she looked at him like he was a ghost.
“Hi..” he said, eventually. It was his best shot and at first she didn’t look impressed by it but then she started climbing down her window.
“Wait.” Said Harry in an alarmed whisper.” Be careful.”
She dropped to the ground in front of him like a fuzzy cat with a glare. Harry squirmed under her stare but didn’t dare to move. She came closer, inspecting him and Harry felt his spine become rigid. She punched his arm.
“Ouch!” He said as quietly as possible. How did she have that much power in her tiny fist?
“Do you have any idea how scared I was?” she demands.
Harry isn’t sure what he expected. That wasn’t it.
“Scared?”
“Yes you dumb boy. Terrified. You just disappear out of nowhere. When I asked Dudley he just said you ran away and then your Uncles started saying you had to go back to your school early.”
“You asked Dudley and my Uncles?” he said surprised. She went that far to have news of him?
“What else was I supposed to do? You didn’t leave a letter, or a message. Nothing! And with the news of that criminal loose.. I thought the worst.”
Harry watched with marvel her eyes get glazed and her expression soften.
“I was really scared.” She says
He took her hand and dragged her for a hug.She immediately dove her face in his neck and he brushed the strands of her hair. He had missed her, he really did. He didn’t know how much until that moment.
“I am fine, Jenny. Really, I am.”
“Why didn’t you call or write with your weird quill?” she asked with a strained voice. He hugged her tighter and smiled. He thought about it everyday he was away from her.
“I didn’t.. I didn’t think you would want to hear from me.”
She pinches him.
“Ouch. Can you stop hitting me?” If he is honest he didn’t mind. She could have used him like a beater to a Bludger for all he cared.
“Are you gonna stop being dumb?” She asked, moody, tearing herself away from him to glare with her pretty eyes.”Of course I wanted to hear from you. Even now, after you spent an entire school year without reaching out and has the nerve to show up in my house past midnight to wake me up and not even apologize... I still want to hear from you. I think I am always going to want to hear from you.”
Harry grinned, not believing his luck. She punched him again on his chest.
“Take that dumb smile out of your face Potter and promise me you are not doing that again. Promise me next time you are letting me know you are fine and that you are coming back.”
He doesn’t know from where he pulls the courage to take a strand of hair out of her face and use the excuse to caress her cheek.
“I promise and if it means something..I’m sorry.”
She tried not to but a smile muscled its way in her face and he stared at it like the sun rising after a long night. She hugged him again and whispered in his ear:
“I missed you Harry.”
“I missed you too Jenny.”
Harry treasures everything about that moment but the smile he felt against his neck was his favorite. That and the way she becomes embarrassed moments later because it dawns on her she has nothing more than a big shirt and shorts to cover herself. Harry helped her climb up to her bedroom and almost pawned his soul promising he will see her the next day in the park.
“Swear it.” She said from her window.
“I solemnly do.” He said with a grin and his hand in the air.
She grins at him and hesitates to close the window. Harry had been in no hurry either, looking at her smile, her pretty eyes, her doll face, all of it focused on him.
“Good night.”
Yes it is, he thought watching her finally close her window. He practically skipped back to the Dursleys.
-0-0-0-0-
In a lot of ways everything is the same as last summer and in other things have changed. Before Harry felt like he was always tiptoeing his way around her, always bracing himself for the day she would walk away. This summer he feels like that day is not coming soon, sometimes he can even manage the faith to think that that day is never showing up. It makes him share things with her that are not a good idea to share but he can’t help it. It’s part of him, an important part and he wants her to know all those pieces as skewed he is in the ways he offers them.
“You met your godfather? How?” She asked, with surprise and curiosity in her face.
“Uhmm.. He showed up at my school for a bit of a reunion with his own schoolmates. Kinda.”
Thankfully she doesn’t push it, she just nods and puts a cookie in her mouth with wide, happy eyes. They are eating pastries and drinking tea that Mrs Digger prepared for them in her solar. Mrs Digger had been happy to see him and also sweetly scolded him for disappearing without a word. Instead of deflating him Mrs Digger’s scolding makes him feel warm and cared for. Mr Digger just pats him in the back and with a grin hands him some advice.
“Here’s for you to live a long, happy life, son. Don’t make the women of your life fret. They will make you pay for it a thousand times longer than what it takes to make a phone call. Trust me, it cost me blood learning that one.”
Harry thinks Mr Digger and Sirius would get along real well. He says as much to Jenny. She giggles.
“He sounds great, Harry. He told you things about your parents?”
“We didn’t get much time to talk but he shared some..” Harry clears his throat and feels his cheeks get warm looking at Jenny.” ..advice he gave my Dad too.”
“So he knew him well, then.” She says with a sweet smile.
“They were best friends. He says I look like him and...”
Harry hesitates.
“And...?” Encourages Jenny, going for a cookie.
“Uhmm.. He said we had the same taste about ..things.”
Jenny tilts her head like she always does when she is not sure about something he said. She giggles and smiles.
“I guess that happens. My dad and I like the same weird foods.” She says going for the peanut butter, jelly and cucumber mini sandwich Mrs Digger made for her.
Harry giggles and scratches his neck.
“Yes. Something like that.” he says with a smile, watching her eat her sandwich with gusto.
He tells her Sirius wants him to live with him but that he is... unavailable at the moment for that. He watches her eyes soften for a moment and then forces herself into a smile.
“That’s great.” She says.
“Hey.. What is it?” he asks when they are sitting in the highest part of the tree as close as they can to each other and he brings it up. They are sitting like that for security reasons he tells himself as to not make his hopes run wild. He has a full view of her looking at him guiltily before sighing.
“ I am really happy you met your god father. I swear that I am Harry. Solemnly, like you always say.” She says looking at her hands.
“I know you are.” Says Harry. He does. He has no doubt his happiness makes her happy too. She has shown as much.
“The thing is.. I only have two months a year with you. That’s all I get and then you are shipped back to your weird school with weird quills to be the weirdest lad in there.”
Harry smiles, making his cheeks hurt from how much he is doing it and tries to reign in the euphoric feeling he is feeling in his chest, just by the suspicion of what she is saying means.
“If you go away with your god father..”
“If I go away with my godfather I’m still coming back to see you. Maybe you can come to us too. Sirius would love that. He..I’m pretty sure he would like you.”
Jenny looks at him, unsure.
“You mean it?”
Harry nods.
“I do. I really do.”
The way her face beams... He doesn’t feel like he deserves it. Once again she does the impossible and makes Private Drive a home to him. Everyday is all about seeing her, about enduring his aunt’s demands, uncle’s nagging and Dudley’s bullying only to earn himself the warmth she provides to him. Nothing else matters, only making sure he is there where he promise he will be, playing cards with her and her Dad, climbing trees with Hedwig loose in her backyard, buying her as many lime popsicles as he can manage, helping her mother with her garden, watching movies he never got to see and she enjoys showing to him.
“You have never seen Tarzan?” Says Jenny in outrage.
“We need to fix this. This is preposterous.” Says Mr Digger in equal state. He begins giving orders like he is a general in the middle of an attack.”Woman, prepare an emergency movie night feast. Jenny, you and Harry bring down the projector. I’ll be preparing the back yard.”
Harry has a blast that night and he gets an earful from The Dursleys because he misses curfew which leads to him spending the next day cleaning the chimney and polishing the crockery but it is worth it. Every minute with Jenny is worth it. Even when he gets late to where they decided to meet and she acts fussy about it. He doesn’t want to tell her that he had to do everyone’s laundry and Dudley’s rugby uniform requires him to use heavy chemicals to clean or that he had to clean the entire garage with just a bucket and a cleaning brush. He rather just parade himself behind her, groveling for forgiveness and making a fool of himself to earn himself a smile from her and then she is all sweetness for him again. It’s almost the bare minimum he should do to deserve her because in return she takes away all the darkness and fears away from his mind. For a second he tells himself that she managed that forever and then the nightmares start. It’s always the same one with a man that dies, Wormtail talking to a bundle he knows is pure evil wrapped in a blanket and a man he doesn’t know swearing to not fail in his mission. He always wakes up in sweats and he always has to work hard to move away from it. After a particularly vivid round of that Jenny notices it.
“Harry?”she says.
They are in her backyard. Harry is writing a letter to Sirius explaining the nightmares and Jenny is doing her summer homework. He must have looked frantic or disturbed because when he looks up she is frowning at him.
“Yeap?” He says trying to sound casual.
“What’s going on?”
She looks worried. He hates when he is the reason for her to get unsettled.
“What do you mean?”
She surprises him, leaning to him and brushing his under eyes with her fingertips.
“You are not sleeping.” she says, sounding as worried as she looks.
He sighs and tries to smile.
“Sometimes I have bad dreams.” He tries to explain.
“You want to tell me about them?”
He wants to but how is he suppose to do that? Even if it wasn’t illegal, how does he come clean about all the dark things he is, the evil ones coming after him and not lose her? He refuses to lie. Not to her. Not about himself.
“I don’t know how to.” He says in an embarrassed whisper.
“That’s okay.” She says and comes closer to him for a hug. Harry hugs her back and she scratches the back of his neck soothingly.
“I’m here Harry and I promise I will protect you. No matter what it is.” She says.
It’s irrational. She can’t protect him from what prowls for him. He doesn’t want her to anyway. He wants her as far away from the darkness he has coming for him as possible. If he was stronger, more selfless he would tear himself from her, walk away and never say a word in her direction ever again. That day, in her arms, he can’t. He cowardly accepts the haven she offers and somehow is enough to keep the nightmares at bay that night. And the nights after, when they come back to haunt him, all he has to do is remember her and they dissipate into oblivion like if the memory of her is more powerful than any Patronus. He sleeps right after every time without disturbance. It shouldn’t be like that. In a way it was cruel.
Despite all the weird dreams and anxious feelings, summer is one of his favorites by her side. The days go by and he welcomes them all with her company until the day of Ron’s letter inviting him to the Quidditch’s World Cup comes. It comes one afternoon but he only notices the envelope that night after dinner at The Diggers. He spends all night staring at the note, trying to decide what to do. In a different universe that note would mean the world for him. An escape from his uncles and more time with his best friends watching the sport he loves. In this universe he is torn between that and a girl he likes. And the worst part was that the girl was winning. He decides to write to Ron and explain he can’t come, invent an issue just to spend the rest of his Summer drinking tea with Jenny and watching her read. He is just doing that but the next day Jenny is sipping her sweet tea and reading under a tree in her backyard while Harry is lying in the grass, watching the sun hit right in her chestnut hair making it look almost blonde.
“Harry..” she says without looking away from her book. He hums in response.
“I can hear you thinking. Might as well share what’s inside that head of yours before it explodes.” She says and then looks at him from behind her book. He grins. He likes that she knows him that much.
“Come on Potter. Out with it.” She says putting down her book. He stubbornly tries to keep it to himself, he already made his choice and was at peace with it. Besides, he is pretty too when she gets inpatient with him.
“Harry!” She says with a childish whine. He chuckles. It's adorable. She crawls to him with the intention to pinch him or punch him. He grabs her hand before she gets to him and their almost wrestling ends with her pinned to the grass and Harry laughing almost on top of her.
“Dumb boy.”says Jenny, pouting with a glare. Harry laughs.
“It’s nothing, silly girl.”
“If it’s nothing then why don't you just say it.”
Harry looks at her well and he knows that look she has on her. She is not stopping until he tells her something believable as an answer. He sighs and moves from above her. She sits on her knees in front of him with a smug smile that tells him she knows she won. He huffs.
“Don’t be a sore loser and come out with it.” She says and it’s kinda sad in an objective way how easy it is for her to put him at her disposal just by the quick but sweet brush of her fingers in his cheeks. He sighs. It’s inevitable.
“Okay. You are scaring me. Am I gonna be that mad?”she says.
His answer comes out of his mouth before his brain has time to review it.
“I kinda want you to be mad.” He says and then looks at her lift her eyebrow. He wants to punch himself badly but he decides that coming clean is gonna be enough punishment.
“I..A school mate invited me to his house for the last couple of days of summer before we go back to school together.” He says.
Jenny’s expression is blank at first and then is confused.
“You want me to be mad for that?” She asks.
“I thought you knew I was a dumb boy. Sometimes I say dumb things.” He says with what he hopes is a charming smile. If it is, it doesn’t work with her.
“Harry.. Do you want to go to your friend’s house?”
He looks at her for a moment. She is always beautiful but under the sun Harry always can notice something that he can’t always do. She has some freckles in her nose but they are so clear you have to look at them to see them, her eyes have green on them, that’s why they look so light. She is pale but the afternoons under the sun has put some color in her skin.
“I want to go with my friend but I want to stay with you more.”
Her cheeks look a bolder pink when she blushes under the sun. Her smile is more beautiful too even when is sheepish.
“I suppose him coming here to you is not an option right?”
Harry shakes his head. Ron is never speaking to him if he ever inflicts The Dursleys on him.Not that they would allow it anyway. Jenny smiles.
“It was worth the try.” She says.
“You want to meet Ron?”
She grins.
“I want to meet all your friends. Especially Hermione. I don’t have many girl friends but I think she and I would get along if you ever want to introduce us.”
“I would..” he says immediately.” I want to.”
Jenny beams at him, looks at her hands and nods.
“Is she going to be in your mate’s house?”
Harry nods.
“It’s..kinda like a friend reunion before school. They are going to a.. sports event. I don’t think Hermione is too thrilled about it but she will like the..cultural effect around it.”
Jenny giggles.
“Yeah.. She sounds like my kind of girl.”
Harry can also see it. Maybe one day he can try and arrange something. Hermione is muggle born after all. She won't have a problem keeping Jenny safe or have a problem connecting.
“You have to go, Harry.”
“What?”
He didn’t expect that. He didn’t expect any reaction she has had until now.
“ I don’t know what kind of friendship you think you and I have but I don’t want you to ever sacrifice anything you want to do just for me.”
“I’m not..”
“Yes you are Harry. You sacrifice. You always do. Even if it is the last piece of cookie or a fun time with your friends just to be with me. I..like it. Maybe a little bit more than just that.” She says with a timid smile.” But I want you to have experiences more. Happy ones. That way the next time we see each other you can tell me all about it.”
Right then, Harry lets himself accept it. Right then, with his heart about to explode he has no choice but to do it. He loves her like he has loved few things in his short life. He takes her hand and drags her between his legs for a hug.
“You’ll come back, right?” She asks against his neck.
“Always. I will always come back for you.”
Jenny makes sure he writes his confirmation letter to Ron in front of her and she tries to drag him to the post office too. He has to swear in his life and Hedwig’s life that he will do it later for sure in order for her to let it go. He does send the letter with Hedwig as soon as he gets inside his room. That and a letter to Hermione asking for something else he needs to fulfill another promise he makes to Jenny in her backyard.
“I know you have a hard time using the phone in school but maybe you will have a less of a hard time writing to me.” she says when he lets her go from the hug. She doesn’t leave the space between his legs.
“You want me to write to you?” He asks excitedly.
“Of course.” She says with a grin.”Just tell me where to post them and I’ll write back for every letter you send my way.”
He pretty much runs home to send Hedwig flying to Hermione with a letter begging for the post location her muggle parents send her letters to when she is in Hogwarts. Because she is a saint Hermione replies quickly with the information, a quick summary of the wizards working in the muggle postal office and a direct question of why he needs the information to begin with. Harry promises himself to tell Hermione all about Jenny. He is pretty sure he is gonna have to anyway. She is gonna notice him writing to her all the time.
-0-0-0-
“I love her Harry. I really do.” Says Hermione, with an excited smile.
Harry knows she does. Like Jenny, Hermione also seems to have a hard time with female friendships. With each other the exception seems to be born. Ron spends much of that year angry with Harry. Because of the whole TriWizard Championship thing but also because he doesn’t let him write to Jenny like he does with Hermione. Hermione spends all the free time she has away from keeping Harry alive and school, raving about Jenny or directly writing to her. It’s hard to say if Ron is more jealous or annoyed.
“You are not a muggle Ron. You could put Jenny in danger just by writing the wrong thing in a letter.” explains Harry.
Ron just sullenly glares at him.
“How am I supposed to thank her for the amazing cookies and chocolate cake Harry? What if she thinks I am an ungrateful git and stops sending them?” he says like a panicked child.
Jenny was taking baking lessons and actually sent an entire batch of cookies and a whole cake for Harry and Hermione to taste. Harry almost goes to fists with Ron when he ate almost the entire thing in one sitting. When he complained about it in a letter to Jenny she just sent another batch and a separate one for Ron. Suffice to say she was golden on the Weasley’s list.
“Ronald, both Harry and I have dedicated entire paragraphs in our letters, explaining that you are beyond grateful with her. Stop the whining.” tells Hermione for the thousandth time.
Ron huffs.
“Are we really pretending this is not about Harry being a protective prat of his girlfriend? I get it mate. She is yours. I just want to get along with my best mate’s girl. Blimey…”
Harry had foreseen those accusations and had practiced his aloof, matured, rational response. When the time came he just sputtered, became a red, embarrassed mess, and denied the whole thing like a child caught stealing candy.
“She is not.. She is just.. We are just friends.” says Harry in a stutter.
Hermione giggles. Ron rolls his eyes.
“Whatever. Can you tell her to send more double chocolate and less pistachio?”says Ron, completely unfazed by Harry’s denial.
“No! I love the pistachio ones.” says Hermione.
Harry listens to his friends fight over Jenny’s goods and tries to erase the smile that his friends thinking of Jenny as his girlfriend paints on his face. Those days everyone acts like that is the only true or an inevitable canonic event that was just waiting to happen. Even Sirius. It’s the last thing he says to him through the fire after they talk of nightmares and fears in rush whispers.
“Keep your friends close to Harry, especially that girlfriend of yours. She will give you strength.”
Harry works hard to remember Jenny is not his girlfriend. It’s not an easy endeavor because she does give him strength. Hermione being the genius that she is, builds Harry some kind of alibi that permits him to share with Jenny a lot of what happens with the TriWizard Championship without sharing too much details that could backfire. Hermione tells her he is in some kind of important competition and that he got caught in that by mistake. She tells her about people turning away from him and hating him. She tells her about his fight with Ron and how anxious and scared he is. Jenny writes almost four letters a week and becomes his pillar and haven even from afar. He thinks of her when he is fighting the dragons, she is the reason he can’t leave the little girl in the water because Gabrielle Delacour looks like a the photo of a child Jenny in her ballet outfit. When The Yule Ball comes all he can think is that he would have loved the chance to take her as his date. He would have danced for her and wont care of her laughing for his complete ability to do it well. He would have loved to see her dance with Hermione and even would have allowed Ron to steal a dance with her only because he knows she would return to him. He doesn’t get that but he does get a letter from her that makes him grin like an idiot.

“ Dear Harry:
Mione told me you are having some kind of dance soon. She is really nervous so please be kind and patient with her. Dances are important for a girl. I have complete certainty she is going to look beautiful. We have been planning her dress all month. I hope it gets on time, I mailed it yesterday.
She also mentioned you haven’t gotten a date yet but you are leaning into inviting a girl named Cho Chang. I have my own feelings about that but I am trying to be mature about it. I think you should ask her and a big part of me hopes she is dumb enough to reject you. There is a small part that hopes you have a good time with her. I know it has been a hard year Harry so take this chance to have some fun. I mean it. Even if it is with Cho Chang.”

Harry wants to frame that letter and put it beside his bed to read every morning before starting the day. He wants to take his broom, fly back to Private Drive and beg her to come with him to the Ball. He wants to hug Hermione and buy her an entire library for staging the letter that would bring this amount of joy to him. It doesn’t matter that Cho Chang does reject him. Nothing matters because...He grins like an idiot just thinking about it. She was jealous.
Harry’s high carries him all the way to the last challenge in the labyrinth and then..And then he comes back to earth and remembers. He not only doesn't deserve her but he is an active danger to her. The quicksand has started and it’s a matter of time before all he knows crumbles and all he cares dies like it always does.
“Harry..” says Hermione uncertainly, when he explains his decision after Cedric’s funeral.
“No Hermione. I won't play with her life. She deserves better from me. After all she has done for me.. I can’t just.. It’s my decision.”
Hermione and Ron share a look but Harry barely had the strength to acknowledge it. He has decided to let Jenny Digger go, to not look for her, to keep her safe from every sadness, pain and darkness he has coming his way. He loves her and that’s what people do for the people they love. They die protecting it from the green flash.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3
In retrospect he probably should have known better. Harry was well aware of Jenny’s stubbornness and his complete inability to deny her anything on a strong day. Those weren’t strong days. To be honest he went way further than anyone including himself thought he could pull off. The day he stepped foot in Private Drive he went straight to his room and caged himself there not caring for Aunt Petunia’s nagging and Uncle Vernon’s glares. They probably knew that wasn’t the day to cross him. The way he felt was what he imagined an inmate being tossed in Azkaban to feed the Dementors felt. The only thing he had left was the freedom of not caring about anything anymore. They could scream, nag, punish and hate him all they want, without Jenny there was no difference. He could stay all Summer in his room, eating Dudley’s scraps for all he cared. He is not sure how many days he stayed in his room but he knows Hedwig has been tossing letters of Hermione and Ron for enough time that it makes a decent deck when piled together. Aunt Petunia drags him out of bed with her nagging and Harry obliges only to have something to distract himself instead of drowning in the waves of longing and heartache. All he wants to do is run to Jenny’s house and beg for her to open her door for him. Maybe hug her and buy her the entire truck of lime popsicles. He scrubs the kitchen’s floor frantically thinking about that, praying for Uncle Vernon to put on the news and maybe track Voldemort’s whereabouts through the muggle’s news cycle. That seems all he has left to look forward to. Aunt Petunia tells him he has to shower or he has no dinner and he does it only because he can smell himself. Later he is really grateful he decided on that. He forgot his clothes so he travels to his room with only a towel to cover his lower body. It takes him two steps inside his room after closing the door to notice her. She is feeding Hedwig and scratching her chin. He has no idea how she managed it but somehow she got even more beautiful in the months they haven’t seen each other. She was a bit taller and she is...fuller.. in some places. She made it easy to appreciate that with the short frisky dress she was wearing while she was frozen in her place beside Hedwig’s cage, staring at him like deer in headlights. She immediately becomes red beet and looks away.
“Isn't it a bit too late in the day for you to just shower?” She asks her eyes, hyper focus on Hedwig.
Harry takes one minute for his brain to reboot. As soon as his brain goes back into function it is like he is getting dressed at wand point in his head. He does it frantically and talks while he does it.
“I..Uhmm..Yes! I’m sorry. I.. I was helping my aunt...” he tries to explain while putting a shirt on. She looks at him from the corner of her eyes and discovers him decent enough to fully look at him. She does that with a glare.
“Is that why you haven’t come to see me?” She asks, fulminating him with her beautiful eyes. Harry scratches his neck, trying to come up with something to get out of this one, something that helps him put her safe, to have her walk away from him with his heart. He looks at his feet and that is why he didn’t notice when she came closer to him. It’s not until she has her hand on his cheek that he looks up and finds her eyes looking at him with sadness. The sadness he wants to take away from her is already swirling in her pupils and he hates himself because he is already failing at what he said he would do for her.
“I’m sorry Harry.” She says in a whisper.
“Why? You haven’t done anything wrong.” He says holding on to every shred of willpower he possesses to not bend to her warmth, to her smell, the haven she represents to him.
“I know about your classmate. Cedric.. I know you were there when it happened. Mione told me. I’m sorry you had to go through that but please don’t shut me out.” She says it all in a whisper that Harry feels in his lips. He loves the feeling but hates the begging in her tone.
“You promised. You said that no matter what you will always come back to me.” She says with a strained voice, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. He cracks and he shows it by whimpering like a hurt dog and putting his forehead against hers. He feels the tears he has refused to shed falling against his cheek and the soft pecks of her lips erasing them from his eyelids.
“I’m here Harry. It’s okay. I’m here now.” She says and that only makes him cry more. It’s bittersweet and almost painful how much that is enough. He cries in her arms for the rest of the afternoon. They just lie in his bed, with her letting him bury his face in the nook of her neck while she scratches the nape of his neck soothingly and kissing the top of his head. It takes what feels like hours but he eventually stops sobbing like a child and manages to peek at her face from the nook of her neck. She is smiling, sweetly for him and he feels his heart skip a throb in his chest.
“ Feel better?”
He doesn’t have the words to answer her because better feels like an insult. What he is when he is around her defies all logic and rationality. It shouldn’t be allowed. He should be stronger and just let her go but with her lying in his bed, kissing the tip of his nose and caressing his cheek he has no strength. His selfishness is the only thing he has and he is powerless against it. He wants her and he wants all the pieces of her he is going to be allowed in this life, maybe even try to steal more than that. Those thoughts drown him and he has no choice but to surrender. He tells himself it is just for the summer, just a couple more months of happiness and he will tear himself away from her no matter what. It’s delusion that helps him to pretend that it's going to be easy because it’s obvious that summer, things have changed again and it’s...more than he can take. Jenny has always been beautiful but somehow her teenage years have only accentuated the obvious in her. He gets to notice in various scenarios. He goes back to the Digger’s house and he is received with love and care by Mr and Mrs Digger. They invite him for dinner three times a week and he never misses one invitation. He learns Mrs Digger is a busy woman these days. She decided to go back to school for a children psychology degree and Mr Digger is doing just fine too. He decided to open up his own engineering company and business was soaring for him. Jenny is really happy for their success. Harry can tell that she loves seeing the people she loves the most doing things that bring them joy. Harry also notices that it means a lot of alone time for her too. She has wide eyes in surprise when he points it out sitting in their tree. They are as close as they can get again and from that distance Jenny can’t hide anything from him. She smiles and looks like he just found out her secret.
“It is a bit lonely but only sometimes. Every time I felt like that over this year I just wrote to you or Mione and things got better. I got to go back to dancing more seriously and I am painting now. I am also learning French and Chinese.”
Harry smiled hearing her talk about all the things she filled her time with and he internally sighed in relief because she actually looked happy about all the things she got to do and learn. The alone time extended to the summer for her which meant Harry and Jenny were alone. A lot. Most of the time. Which meant Harry had plenty of time to appreciate how beautiful Jenny looked in her new dresses, how she wasn’t a skinny frilly little thing anymore but more meat had come to her body in all the right places. That becomes a crystal clear thing the day they were tasked by Mrs Digger to tend to her garden and he got to see her frolicking around in a bathing suit while they played and laughed with a hose, getting each other wet.
“Harry!” Squealed Jenny when he threw the full power of the water hose on her. He cackled and didn’t notice when she stole the hose from him and it was his turn to receive the water. It was odd and wonderful. They were still the same children playing together they have been for two summers but they were also something more now. Something else. Harry closes the hose and when he turns around Jenny throws mud to his face and a war begins. Harry ends up on top of her while she laughs and muddies him. He had the sense to take his shirt off so all the mud she was putting on him was on direct skin and it felt..different from any touch she has ever given him. Their laughter dies and all he can see is her eyes shining, her soft looking lips. He can’t tell if it is his heart or hers the one drumming, all he knows is that he could stay all his life on top of her, just watching her. He feels her lift an arm and then shoving a bunch of mud in his face. Her laughter helps her turn the tables and get on top of him easily.
“Dirty player.” he says looking at her with a smile. She is smiling in a way he hasn’t seen before but he likes it. It’s daring and mocking and it..excites him.
“It’s a mud fight, Potter. It’s the only way to win.”
He has no doubt is his heart the one drumming, looking at her smile at him in that particular way while sitting on top of him with barely any clothe to cover her.
They have a lot of dinners alone. Her parents give them money to call for a pizza but Jenny is such a good cook that it feels like a waste. Harry always tries to help with the cooking. He is rubbish at it but Jenny doesn’t mind. Not even when he cuts himself slicing some tomatoes.
“Ouch.” He says. It’s barely a scratch in his index’s fingertip that draws very little blood but Jenny still insists on examining it. Harry it’s already blushing from the embarrassment of his carelessness but he reaches new heights when Jenny, in what looked like an unconscious act, puts his finger in her mouth and swirls her tongue in the tip. He spends ten minutes in the bathroom after that trying to summon as much brain function as he could gather and away from… other parts of his body. When he comes out Jenny is pink and focused on the pasta she is cooking for them. They go back to normal quickly but that night when Harry is alone in his room he stares at the ceiling, thinking of Jenny's mouth on his finger over and over again. It’s a long, particularly hot, night. Harry is not complaining though. They feel different but not in a bad way. They are even closer in some ways. Jenny is not as careful of his personal space as she used to. Sometimes they watch movies and she has no issue using him as a pillow. One time he even had the courage to set her between his legs so she could use his chest as her head rest. She mentions interesting things about his body because of it. At first it had been an unconscious comment and he had to work hard to draw more out of her.
“Come on! Tell me. What did you mean by it?” Asks Harry while she hides her red warm face in his neck in embarrassment.
“It was nothing. Just an observation.” she says, in a strained embarrassed tone. Harry knows he looks like a maniac with the way he is smiling.
“Say the observation again, then.” He pleads. Jenny sighs in his neck and it tickles him. She mumbles the words against his skin and it’s barely unintelligible but he gets it anyway. Doesn’t let her know though.
“What was that?” He says feigning ignorance.
“You have muscles now, you smug dumb boy!” She says more clearly.
Harry couldn’t care less of the name calling, all that is important to him is that she notices him. He seriously doubts she does that in the detail level he does with her. At this point he could draw his face to perfection and he is getting there with...other areas of her body, to his shame. It’s comforting anyway that even if she is not near to his devotion she is in the neighborhood. She is not the only one taking liberties. Harry also has blurry lines about her and because of the stress of his inner life, the worries and the usual fatal challenges that entail being him, means he has poor judgment about how to deal with it. Sirius says he would be rubbish at it anyway.
“It’s in your blood, lad. Your father was also a bugger when he was jealous.” Sirius writes when Harry in a poor lapse of judgment decides to confide in his godfather. He tells him all. How Jenny has a block that she claims is only her friend showing up in her house to invite her for ice cream with him and go to the mall to watch movies in a theater and buy her things. Because Harry is an idiot who actually thought he could stay away from her he didn’t change money that summer in Hogsmade before coming back to Private Drive, so he had no money to take Jenny out for good ice cream and theater dates. He doesn’t face that reality with maturity.
“Potter. You are acting like a real prat!” she screams in his face when they are fighting about it in the park.
“I’m sure your friend Gideon is a prince!” He screams back just as close to her pretty face.
“His name is Gregory.” She sneers at him, his eyes as mad as he has seen them. “And he is a good guy. You would know that if you had the social skill to act like a human being and not a child in a tantrum.”
“I have no desire to know how good of a guy Gideon is!”
“Gregory!”
Her defending him just makes him revert more to a child. Actually he doesn’t remember being this much of a git when he was a child, which can only mean it's her fault. Before her he was a normal, equilibrated human. For some reason he hears Ron’s laughter in his head when he thinks that.
“Whatever.” He says, glaring at her.
“You know what? I’m done. Come find me when you have got some maturity and ability to communicate without coming across as an irrational mongrel.”
She stumps away and Harry glares at her until she disappears from his vision. He goes back to the house, glares at Aunt Petunia in a way that advises her against nagging him for whatever she was going to nag him for, and starts writing to Sirius. He then spends the rest of the afternoon glaring at the ceiling. Maybe this was his way out. Maybe this is the chance he should take to never speak to her again. He could feel his heart and soul shattering just by the idea. She will leave anyway. Once she knows what you are, she will shut you out on her own. Says a voice sneering in his head. He closes his eyes shut trying to keep at bay the voices. The idea of losing her feels unbearable and almost impossible. To let her go felt like asking his body to stop breathing. You have to. She will die and suffer if you don’t. Said the voice. Everything you love dies. His heart rings with pain and panic and then a knock in his window takes him out of it. It was Hedwig with a letter from Sirius. For the most part Sirius’s letter makes fun of him, reiterates that being an idiot to the girl he loves is a family trait and lends one useful piece of advice.
“Harry, you need to live your life as if there is no tomorrow because none of it it’s secure for any of us. You want the girl, then fight for the girl. Let her know you want her. Or leave in regret for the rest of your life. No one can escape that jail. Trust me. “
Harry thinks about it and then something terrible comes into mind. What if something happens and he never lets her know? What if he dies and she never knows she is everything to him? He doesn’t think, just does it after that. He doesn’t notice that it’s almost midnight or that she was probably still fuming with anger. He just throws himself out of his window and runs to her house. He doesn’t bother with the pebbles; he just climbs her wall and knocks on her window. Thankfully she is not sleeping, she is writing in her bed, wearing a shirt as a pajama. Doesn’t seem like she is wearing much else. He swallows when she opens her window and glares at him with her pretty eyes.
“What?” She whispers with an angry tone.
“I don’t like to fight with you.” He says. She glares at him for a moment and then softens her expression.
“I don’t like you fighting with me either. You are terrible at it.”she says still with a bad mood in her tone but a smile in the corner of her lips.
He smiles, looking at her. God she is so beautiful, he thinks. He is still out barely managing to keep balance in the windowsill below but she doesn’t seem to care. She does sighs like she is surrendering.
“Harry.. Gregory is..”
He is supposed to try and be mature but he can’t hold back the annoyed huff. She glares again.
“What is your problem? Are you jealous?” She says, angry again.
“Yes!” Whispers Harry, harshly, coming closer to her face with an angry glare of his own. He feels like he is showing an ugly side of him but he can’t help it. It’s her fault it exists and he can’t hide it from her anymore. ” I am jealous. I hate Gregory or Gideon or whatever is his bloody name. He has you all the time, he has all the money to take you out, he has all the chances and all the opportunities to be with you. I don’t. Of course I hate the bloody bloke.”
He is breathing heavily when he ends and he has her face as close from his as you could get without kissing. All he has to do is erase the few inches between them and then he has her lips for him. He wants it. There is nothing in this world he wants more. For a second she looks at him like she wants him to do it too. She is wide eyed, pink in her cheeks and lips parted. Her nose is almost too close to his, if he moves just a bit he will caress her nose with his. Harry is just about to send everything to hell and just go for it when a noise behind her spooks them apart.
“It’s my mom! Be quiet.” She says in a panic. Harry lowers himself a bit after Jenny shuts the window close and hangs in there for a couple of minutes. He lifts himself a bit and peeks to see Jenny pretending to be asleep and Mrs Digger kissing her forehead. She goes away and as soon as Mrs Digger closes the door Jenny runs to open the window again.
“Are you okay?” She asks.
Harry nods and grins at her.
“I think the muscles are more useful than I thought.”
She giggles and her cheeks get pink. She looks at him biting her lip. He gets to see that up close because she comes close to him again and he takes a breath of her smell.
“I’m sorry. I’m acting like a prat.” He admits.
She nods and looks at him amused.
“Harry..”
“Yeah?”
“Gregory is gay.”
Sirius pretty much told him he had to put his trousers in the trash. He laughed so hard he peed himself. On the bright side, Gregory is a great bloke and Harry gets to hang out with him for a couple of afternoons. He likes that Jenny has a good friend in her school to keep her company.
“You are exhausting.” she says to him with an amused grin when he is raving about Gregory.
Jenny becomes an expert in managing his mood all that summer. She is patient when he needs to, she is understanding when it’s granted and tells him he is acting like an obstinate dog when he deserves it. He has a hard time keeping his mood in check when some blocks look at her in a certain way in the park or approach her to invite her to places when he comes along with her when she is doing grocery shopping but she always knows how to sooth him in those instances. She tells them she already has plans and takes his hand to drag him away. And when she feels the eyes of strangers on her she does something intimate like put his arm around her and shove her face in his neck. Sometimes she even kisses his cheek. In some ways Harry feels he is killing himself in little shares at a time. In others he feels like he is just where he is supposed to be. With who he is supposed to be with. It feeds his paranoia of losing her, instead of him taking the decision to walk away, he starts believing the voices saying something is coming to take away his happiness and love away from him. Something ends up coming and it changes everything forever.
Harry has always known that Dudley seethes with envy because of his friendship with Jenny. Not so secretly he has always enjoyed it. This summer is different. This summer is pretty obvious Dudley’s proper crush in Jenny has morphed into something much more crass and violent. Harry hates the way he sees her, the way his eyes leer in her body when she is not watching. Harry has lived with the guy all their lives and he knows for a fact Dudley has never known the word no, has never known restraint. He learned that what he wanted was his for the taken. Dudley sees Jenny like she is there for the taking and Harry is the only thing in the way. It makes him rattled and vicious. More than usual. And Harry is in no mood those days. Those days the only self control he possesses makes an act of entrance when Jenny is in the vicinity and even with her he loses control sometimes. She just knows how to deal with him, how to love him through it all and accept his apologies. Some amused part of Harry thinks she enjoys the groveling too. Dudley doesn’t own that kind of consideration and it’s far from being entitled with half of the patience Harry has left inside him. That is how it begins. Harry is waiting for Jenny in the park, sitting in the swings. She is late but it was his fault. She always tells him it takes her a while to send cookies to Hermione and Ron. She is sending both of them fresh batches through Hermione so Hermione sends Ron’s ones to him. He is not sure how Hermione manages that without her questioning anything but it works. Harry usually offers to do it himself and gives it to Hedwig to handle but that morning he loses track of time listening to the news without his uncles noticing. It annoys them how obsessed he is at listening to it. Right now it feels like the only source of news he has of any of Voldemort’s moves. Every letter of his friends is elusive and it only gets him in a worst mood. When he takes account of the hour he raises from below the window where he was hiding and runs to Jenny’s house only to discover she already was in the post office. She left a note stuck on the door telling him to rehearse his groveling in the swings and she would find him as soon as she finished with the errand. “Be good and behave, Harry.” She wrote at the end of the note. It made him smile so he couldn’t help but put the note in his pocket before walking to the park and do what she told him to do. At least until Dudley finds him. He looked like he was pleased to find him without Jenny. He says as much too.
“What happened, Potter? She finally got in her senses and dumped your arse?” Says Dursley. His minions laugh as if Dudley was the biggest comedian doing his half hour special.
“Is that wishful thinking, Big D?” says Harry, almost bored.
She told him to behave but at this point she should know him better than that. Especially when it came to Dudley. The big boy glares at Harry with hate.
“She will wake up one day and find out you are nothing for her. Just a freak orphan, settling to be her charity case.”
“More than you will ever have.” Says Harry feigning calmness. Inside he wants to launch himself to his cousin and wipe his face one punch at the time. It’s the next comment what has Harry acting up.
“She must be as dumb as a truck if she insists on having you around.”
Harry doesn’t even think about it. He pulls out his wand from his pocket and points it to Dudley's throat. His friends explode in laughter but Dudley knows better. He looks at Harry wide eyed, knowing what it means. Of course that’s when Jenny appears.
“Harry?”
She is looking at him confused, her eyes bouncing between him, Dudley and his wand.
”What is that?”
Harry never knows what he was going to do next, how he was going to explain what it was happening. A lot of things happen at the same time. The sky becomes dark and cloudy suddenly and the wind starts to blow furiously. Dudley’s friend flee but Dudley just looks at him panicking.
“What are you doing?” Says the big boy.
“I’m not doing anything.” Says Harry.
The rain starts pouring and Harry starts feeling a known desolation and sadness. The kind that he only knows one creature can bring. He starts moving immediately.
“Let’s go!” He says to Dudley and walks to grab Jenny’s hand and drag her away.
“Harry! What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later, just run.”
She does, as well as Dudley. The three of them run through the streets until they get through a walking tunnel. For a moment Harry thinks they are safe until he sees them. Two clothed creatures built to suck the life and joy of every living thing. He lets go of Jenny’s hand charging against them.
“ Dudley, grab Jenny and go. Now!”
His cousin freezes for a moment but then Harry gets lifted and pinned to a wall by a dementor.
“ Harry!” screams Jenny.
“Now Dudley!” manages Harry against the wall. To his credit Dudley tries. He grabs Jenny and drags her against her will to the other end but he falls and Harry sees the other dementor taking the opportunity to take them. Dudley earns himself a piece of Harry’s respect because even if he clearly can’t see it Dudley puts his body between the dementor and Jenny, protecting her. That is all Harry can take before he pulls his wand out and calls his Patronus, first on the dementor holding him and then on the one sucking on Dudley. The dementor flees and Harry runs to Jenny’s side. She hugs him frantically and Harry is torn between being mad she has been dragged into this situation and grateful with life for not taking her from him.
“What is happening Harry?” She says with a shaky voice. Harry caresses her cheek with no words to give her. That is when Mrs Finch appears, lets him know Dumbledore has always had an eye on him all his life through her and walks with Jenny and him while they drag Dudley back to Private Drive. Harry looks at Jenny before getting inside The Dursley’s house and wonders what right he has to ask her anything anymore. It’s for the best, he thinks.
“Jenny, I need you to go back to your house. I’ll be there in a second.”
He loves her. He loves when she is happy with him, when she is sweet and attending. When she is telling him off and when she is being moody. He loves her fuming with him and sending him to hell. But he never loves her more than when she is being an unflinching, stubborn pain in the arse like she is when she answers me.
“You are out of your mind Potter. I am coming with you whether you like it or not.”
He smiles. Despite everything he smiles because she is scared, confused and just learned she potentially knows nothing real about him and she is still looking at him like she knows him, like she doesn’t need more than what she already knows to care and hopefully love him. He manages to convince her to wait for him in his bedroom while he drops Dudley off. His Uncles dissolve in puddles of worry for their Dudders, as they should and lose no time taking him to the hospital. Harry learns Hogwarts is done with him but he barely has the head to swallow that news. All he can think is that Jenny is waiting for him upstairs and he has no idea what to tell her. Should he go? Should he just walk away and leave everything he loves in his room in Private Drive? He could become an outlaw like Sirius. Just walk away and leaving her with all her questions unanswered, become a weird memory for her, a boy she used to know. That is the notion that has him running up stairs while he thinks he is a selfish piece of garbage, stretching the inevitable for a couple minutes more of her warmth. When he opens his door he finds her too casual for what just happened. She is drying her hair with his towel and she is swimming in his clothes. She even becomes pink when she sees me.
“Sorry I took your clothes without permission. I just..”
“Don’t. Don’t apologize. Of course you can take anything you want.” He says, trying to carve her in his memory just like that. Wearing his clothes, smelling like him, running to hide in his arms. He hugs her back from her waist, her arms swinging in his shoulders.
“Is Dudley going to be okay?” She asks in a whisper.
Harry sighs, hating himself for the pang of jealousy that showers him for a moment.
“Yes. He is going to be sad for a couple of days but he will be fine eventually.”
Jenny sighs and separates herself just enough to see him. Her hands grab his face in each cheek.
“Are you okay?”
Harry nods.
“But that doesn’t matter Jenny. All I care is that you are okay.”
“Those horrible things. One had you against the wall.” She says shuddering, tears in her eyes. For a moment he can only think in her sadness and then it dawns on him.
“You could see them?”he asks, stunned.
“Of course I could see them. They were horrible. What were they and why did you know how to drag them away? How did you do it? What is that stick you did it with?”
Harry smiles softly. He has never seen her ramble before.
“Harry James Potter, are you seriously taking this time to make fun of me in your head?”
Harry chuckles and drags her back in his arms.
“I’m not making fun of you. I am just.. grateful you are fine.”
What he says makes her relax against him and take her hands behind his neck to scratch. He relaxes his head against her touch. She takes a deep breath in his neck.
“I am grateful too. That you are fine.” She says. They stay like that for a minute and Harry wonders if the Minister would let her keep this memory when they erase her memory. Probably not. Probably they are erasing everything about him.
“Tell me Harry.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
He sighs. There was no point in telling her but there was also no point in not telling her.
“I’m a wizard.”
She punches his arm.
“I’m serious, dumb boy.”
He smiles and from his pocket he pulls out the note he collected from her door, he folds it in the shape of a bird and then with his wand he makes it come alive. He even makes it sound like it’s real. Jenny looks at it with wide eyes while the bird sways around them.
“You are...”
“A wizard.” He says.”The school I go to is to teach me how to control it and learn all there is to learn about it. Hermione and Ron, they are learning with me. I couldn’t tell you because it’s forbidden unless.. It doesn’t matter. I’m not supposed to do magic outside of the school and now that I have done it I am expelled and the ministry of magic might come to..”
“To..?” she says, anxious.
“To erase me from you.”
Her eyes immediately filled with tears.
“They can do that?”
Harry nods, feeling the tears in his eyes too.
“I won't say anything. I promise I’ll keep it a secret.” She says putting her forehead against his chest and sobbing.
“I wish they cared.” he says, his own tears falling in his cheeks.
Jenny sobs in his chest and Harry just holds her, silently crying too.
“Jenny, look at me.” he says after a while. He is sitting in his bed with her in his lap. She does it with red eyes and a puffy nose. He caresses her cheek.
“You are the bravest girl I have ever known and I loved meeting you. You are the best thing..”
“Stop..” she says with another sob trying to come out again.“Stop saying goodbye Harry. I refuse to surrender. I’ll make them listen to me. I’ll fight. I’ll run away if I have to.”
“Your family..”
“Will understand if they get to know one day. They know what you mean to me.” She says, stubborn.
“Jenny, can you imagine your Mom scared because you disappeared? Your father? How can you say it doesn’t matter?!”
“It doesn’t. They will be fine. I’ll find a way to tell them I am fine. You are a wizard, you have to know one spell to help me with that.”
Harry hates how endearing she sounds saying all that nonsense.
“Jenny..”
“I am not forgetting you Harry. They can’t erase you from me. I won't let them. No matter what I have to sacrifice.”
“Why? Why go through that just for me?”
She kisses him.
Later he spends many hours thinking about it. Remembering her taste, her smell, the way her soft lips felt against his and how despite being the first time they do it it feels like they had done it before, like if they have done it in every life they’ve been together. It’s one hell of a first kiss that is not contained in a chaste exchange. Jenny twirls in his lap and Harry grabs her face with devotion while she tastes him like she loves how he feels as much he loves her tongue dancing with his. Eventually they come out for air but he doesn’t let her get far, her forehead still against his.
“I was hoping for you to be the one to do that first.” She says in a whisper, with a smile.
“I can’t tell you how many times I almost did.” He admits.
“Why didn’t you?” She says nuzzling her nose with his.
“I’m a dumb boy, remember?” he says with a grin.
She laughs and kisses him again. His whole life just imploded, he virtually has nothing to fall back in. Why is he the happiest he has ever been? Because she is there, choosing him, claiming she loves him enough to leave it all behind just to remember him. He loves her, more than he has ever loved something before since perhaps his parents. And they are dead, he remembers. He separates himself from her.
“We need to stop Jenny. I need to put you safe.”
Jenny steals another kiss from him.
“I already told you I don’t care about safe. I care about you.”
He is the one kissing her then. He does it quickly because he doesn’t trust the Ministry won't have to use a spell to tear him away from her mouth.
“If you care about me then you will do as I say. You will let me walk you home, get inside and let me handle things, I will write to you as soon as I can. If we want a shot of you having everything, your parents, me, a life, then you have to trust me. You have to give me that because that is all I want.”
Jenny frowns and he can see how she hates it, how she is shattered with the idea of not seeing him again. He gets it because he feels the same way about her. Probably even more.
“Swear to me Harry. Swear to me you are not letting them take you away from me. Swear to me you will come back to me again.”
Harry kisses her and against her lips he swears to her.
“I solemnly do.”
-0-0-0-
Harry can’t believe it but somehow he managed to keep it together for a bit more time. The Ministry questions him about Dudley but they never bring Jenny up. In her deposition Mrs Figg only talks about Dudley and when he thanks her she says:
“Thank your girlfriend. She is the one that came to me and begged not to say anything. She is a sweet thing. You two deserve each other.”She said with a smile.
Harry lets himself enjoy the fuzzy feeling because for all he cares Jenny IS his girlfriend. Not only Mrs Figg uses that name to refer to her. Hermione too, she is also thrilled she doesn’t have to hide from her best friend anymore and Ron is doubly thrilled they get to correspond now.
“Your girlfriend is funny, mate. And I love the cartoons she sends me. They don’t move but they are entertaining.” Says Ron waving the letter and a comic Jenny sent him.
Hermione has to send a letter to Jenny pleading to not send more comics until Ron finishes his OWL’s. Harry and Jenny write to each other daily. She is amazed and overjoyed about getting to see Hedwig in her window every day now, picking up her letters and delivering Harry’s. She is less endeared about learning Harry’s whole situation. Hermione and Harry had a talk and they agreed that Jenny should hear from him as soon as possible all the details but that it would be good for Jenny to have another outlet to unburden all her feelings about it that is not Harry and that it would be best if that is Hermione.
Harry frantically paces from one side of the common room to the other waiting for Hedwig to bring her response to the letter he wrote explaining his parent’s death and the psychopath that murdered them and it’s currently trying to do the same to him and all he loves.
“It’s good, right? I mean if she doesn’t answer it means she is safe. She got into her senses and she is going to move on and find someone less of a bloody train wreck waiting to happen.” He says with a maniac laugh.” Great. Right?”
Hermione doesn’t even have the decency of looking up from her book. Ron is offensively eating Jenny’s cookies while he reads his comics, not even pretending to pay attention to him.
Hermione sighs like he is a hamster than she is bored to watch run in its wheel.
“Harry..” She says flipping the page, completely untouched by Harry’s breakdown.” That’s not going to happen. Breath.”
“How do you know that!?” Says Harry in the peak of unhinged.
Hermione just rolls her eyes, calm as a yoga teacher in the middle of a bloody retreat. How can she be this calm? She is the one always losing it over every single thing. He is always sympathetic. Why can she be that with him? At the end Hermione is not sympathetic but she does say the thing that calms him down.
“I know Jenny too Harry and she is in love with you. She already knew you had it harder than most, this is just going to clear up things for her.”
Harry never loves Hermione more than just right there, using her know-it-all, matter-of-fact tone while saying his biggest dream like it’s written in the stars and he is an idiot for doubting it. And then she talks again, flipping another page of her book:
“She is not going to dump you even if she clearly could do better.”
“Thank Merlin for us.” Says Ron with his mouth full of cookies, eyes in his stupid comic.
Harry hates them. He also loves them with all his heart, for giving him strength and hope when he is on the edge of insanity but also for enduring him when he is at a high that could only be achieved with heavy drugs in any other circumstance. For Harry it only takes Jenny’s response. Jenny says many things in her letter. Some are painful to read for Harry. He hates being a burden to her, having her carrying his pain and he can tell she is doing just that by the tone of her written words. But the good parts are enough to feed his selfish side and have him walking in cloud nine.
“I am proud and grateful of you for surviving. Can’t wait to see you again to prove it. Until then please know that I love you, cling to it if it helps. It helps me.”
As always he does as she asks and just clings to her saying she loves him, day dreams of the moment he gets to see her again and doesn’t stop regardless of all the dark times in that year. The only thing that takes him out of it is Mr Weasley being attacked by a snake. He being the snake, he hurting someone he loves and cares for. What if one day that happens again and is Jenny who he is breaking and tearing apart. He loses it and Dumbledore sends him with the only person capable of making it worse. In the end it’s a blessing.
“You truly are weak, aren’t you Potter?” Says Severus Snape after their third lesson in Legeremens. He does his best but Snape crosses his barriers and in a fit of anger Harry fights back. It becomes an exchange. Harry sees a memory, a personal one with a redheaded girl, a boy that looks just like him and a Snape that is closer to a child than the scary adult he knows. In return Snape sees one of his with Jenny. They both end up silently staring at each other after their respective experiences. For once Snape’s glare is not menacing and hateful is just.. assessing. Harry just looks at him from his seat with maybe the same expression trying to come to terms with what he saw. Snape is the first to crack. He sighs before talking.
“Do you love her Potter?” says Snape.
“You were in my head. What do you think?”
“I think you are an arrogant brat. Just like your father.”
That shuts Harry up because he saw Snape’s memory and saw the worst of his father when he was alive. Arrogant brat doesn’t seem like a stretch.
“I do.” Says Harry in a better tone.”More than anything.”
“You tried to leave her.”
Snape looks almost impressed by that. Harry sighs. Trying is not enough for him.
“ Well I suppose if someone can understand how much not of a catch I am it’s you, Professor. Just trying to spare her.”
For the first time since he met him Snape draws the closest thing to a smile on his face.
“ Memories are a skewed thing.” Says Snape, almost as if he doesn’t want to say the words.” Magical beings. We remember things as they happened but we can’t help to flourish them with our feelings. The way you remember her...”
For a moment, Harry can see longing in the man’s expression and he has his suspicions of who inspires them. Naturally he doesn’t love it but he can’t help but understand. He knows the feeling in his own flesh.
“Yeah..” says Harry.
“You have a direct line with Voldemort, Potter. He can and will get in your head if you let it. What do you think he will do when he finds her in your head?”
Harry doesn’t hide the misery from his eyes.
“I know. That’s why I tried to leave.”
“So your solution to the problem is to let Voldemort win from the get go?”
Harry looks at Snape and finds him looking at him with compassion.
“You are a child Potter but you don’t love like one. Sometimes that happens.” Says Snape with memories in his eyes.
“She is a Muggle. If Voldemort wins, then she will be enslaved just for being who she is regardless of you leaving her or not.”
“What do I do?” Says Harry begging for answers.
Snape takes a deep breath looking at him.
“You stop being an arrogant brat and learn. Learn to understand your mind and master it. Don’t give up love just because you are scared you can’t protect it or.. because you think you don’t deserve it. That’s how he gets to you, that’s how he convinces you, you belong with him and not with her.”
Harry feels his heart become soothed by those words. They don’t only make sense, they give him hope. He smiles, nods and looks at Snape with gratitude.
“Professor.”
“Yes Potter.”
“Please, teach me.”
Snape doesn’t make it easy but every time Harry wants to throw him from the Astronomy Tower and surrender he thinks of Jenny, on the world where he gets to be with her without having to worry about the darkness lurking in the corner and he just bows his head to Snape and tries again. He goes to Grimmauld Place for the holidays and gets to see Mr Weasley is mending with his own eyes. He also gets the best gift someone has ever given him. It’s a group effort from Sirius, Hermione and Ron. Sirius is incredibly good at not hinting anything about it until he just blurts it out.
“Should I get worried you are becoming mates with Snivellus?” Says Sirius after dinner. They are talking beside the chimney and Sirius is childishly glaring at Snape who is ignoring him in favor of talking to Kingsley in a corner of the room.
“He is helping me with Legeremens.” explains Harry.
Sirius seems surprised and doesn’t look away from Snape.
“He is?”
Harry nods.
“I’m actually getting decent at it.”
Sirius looks at him and then he looks back at Snape.
“Well would you look at that. People do change.”
Harry is not sure of what to make of the odd look Sirius sends in Snape direction or the pause they take to stare at each other for a moment.
“Sirius..” says Harry, confused.
“Don’t interrupt me lad. I am trying to secure me some entertainment for later. You already have your girlfriend here for that.”
Harry feels his heart skip a beat.
“What?”
Sirius grins at him and looks at the clock on top of the chimney.
“Granger should be here with her any second now.”
And just like he appeared her himself, Hermione walks in the room.
“Harry we have a surprise..”
Harry doesn’t let her finish, he runs past her and finds her with her curious eyes, looking at the moving portraits in the walls. She looks at him and smiles. They never know who launches to who first.
He couldn’t care less about everyone’s teasing eyes and the twin’s unsubtle jabs. Harry makes sure Jenny is sitting as close as he can from him without being on his lap, their hands intertwined. He doesn’t even care about everyone’s efforts to embarrass him in front of her.
“ So this condition you have that makes you be into blind, trouble magnet, tossers..?” Says Fred in an overkilled serious tone.”Have you always had it?”
“Don’t worry sweetie.” Says George in the same tone.” We will find a cure.”
Harry tries to be offended when she giggles but he can’t. He is too happy. He can barely believe it and has a pact with himself of killing anyone who wakes him up if it’s a dream. The way he can feel the warmth of her hand in his gives him hope is not. She is really here. She laughs at The Twins' jokes, she hugs Ron and receives his gratitude for every dessert she has ever sent his way and promises to send more, she animatedly talks with Hermione in a way that makes them look like they have been together all their lives. She even meets Snape.
Mrs Weasley is enchanted with Jenny. She is endeared by her sweetness and desire to help serve cake to everyone. Harry volunteers as well. Instead Molly sends him to retreat the eggnog from the cabinet in the kitchen with Ron. Harry acts like it physically pains him to tear himself from her.
“For the love of Merlin’s beard, mate!” Says Ron pushing him to the kitchen.”It’s a room away. Get it together.”
When they come back Sirius is in a fit of laughter and Snape is practically smiling. Jenny is pleased with herself in the middle of both of them. Whatever happened it makes Snape go to Harry before he goes away for the night.
“Your memory does her justice Potter. Well done.” He says in his dry tone before walking away. Harry grins while watching Jenny giggle in Sirius arms while he twirls her around dancing. Mrs Weasley sends everyone to bed and Hermione immediately declares Jenny is bunking with her. Harry has enough patience to buy him twenty minutes of staring at his ceiling in the room he is sharing with Ron before starting digging in his trunk for the invisible cloak.
“ You know I used to think you were exaggerating. But now that I met her in the flesh..” says Ron
Harry looks back at his friend, sitting in his bed, looking at him amused. Harry smiles back.
“Yeah. I know.”
It’s all Harry has to say. That and the obvious.” I would clean the bed of cookie crumbs if I were you. I’m going to try to convince Hermione to bunk with you.”
Ron becomes a house elf almost immediately.
Harry knew it was childish but he wanted to show off for her. That is why he didn’t knock, he just entered the room as quietly as possible and found her and Hermione doing girly stuff. Harry found it funny that they were brushing each other’s hair.
“I told you the conditioner would work,”said Jenny, carefully tending to Hermione’s locks. Now that he thinks about it Hermione’s hair has been looking tamed all year. Ron was always talking about it but he never paid much attention.
“Yes, it’s even better and easier than straightening potion.”
Harry smiled watching Jenny bite her lip as to not question Hermione every single thing about the potion she just mentioned. He imagines she does that often.
“Can I... Can you ever do that potion for me someday?” She says sweetly. If Hermione says no Harry is doing it himself. She looks so cute asking for things like a little girl with a dream toy in her mind. Hermione nods and looks back at her with a smile.
“Of course but you don’t need it, Jen.”
Harry takes that as his cue. He comes closer to where Jenny is standing behind Hermione.
“Sometimes my hair gets frizzy.”
Hermione looks back at Jenny with the beginning of an unimpressed look but then her eyes go wide.
“Jenny..”
Hermione points at Jenny’s hair in her shoulder and Jenny finds a lock bouncing.
“Are you doing that?” Says Jenny, funnily between excited and curious.
Hermione glares.
“No but your boyfriend is. Very funny Harry.”
Harry chuckles unveiling himself and hugging Jenny from behind. She squeals in surprise and laughter in his arms.
“ You are a child, Potter.” Says Hermione, trying to fight her grin.
Harry doesn’t care. Jenny has turned around letting him hug her from her waist while she has her arms around his neck. She is beaming at him.
Hermione groans, annoyed.
“If I knew you two were going to be this annoyingly cute I would have thought twice about it.”
“You don’t mean that Mione.” Says Jenny from his arms, nuzzling his neck. Harry holds her tighter against him.
“I guess I have a better chance at not throwing up in my sleep if I bunk with Ronald.”
“That sounds like a sacrifice..”says Jenny with double meaning.
Hermione blushes but tries to look annoyed. She stands up and walks to the door glaring at Harry.
“You are lucky we already had our girl’s night in my house Harry. Now if you excuse me I’m going to sleep. Wake up early so we can switch before Mrs Weasley has a heart attack.”
“Yes ma’m.” Says Harry with a grateful smile at her. Hermione smiles at them before disappearing behind the door. Harry immediately looks at Jenny as soon as they are alone. She is already looking at him, mischief in her eyes. He caresses her cheek. How is she so beautiful?
“ Have you always been able to walk around invisible?” she says getting in her tip toes and bumping her forehead with his.
“Nope. That only started being an option when I got the invisibility cloak.”
She grins.
“Can I touch it?”
With that smile, she can keep it. Harry shows her the cloak and she touches it with delicate hands.
“It’s soft, like water.” She says marveled.
“You wanna put it on?” Asks Harry.
Jenny nods, excited. Harry chuckles and helps her putting it on, watching her eyes shine with amazement when she sees her body disappear. Harry laughs and even if he should he doesn’t expect her to put her head under the cloak and disappear completely.
“ Jenny..?” he calls for her.
He is not sure how he does it, how he knows she has moved to his right, that she is watching him. He knows as a fact not a suspicion. He turns his head and with a hesitating hand he reaches for her. His hand drags her to him but doesn’t take the cloak away.
“I thought that you couldn’t see me.” She says in a whisper.
“I can always see you.” Says Harry before leaning and kissing her through the cloak. She giggles.
“That’s my nose.”
Harry grins and takes the cloak away, revealing her grinning at him, beautiful and mischievous.
“My bad..” he says before kissing her on the lips this time. She grabs him by the neck and drags him closer to her letting him explore her mouth. His hands are firmly set in her hips, caressing the naked skin between her top and bottom of her pajamas. He draws a circle in there and she scratches his neck making him lift her from her feet to put her closer to his height and kiss her better. She smiles amused against his mouth.
“What?” He asks in a whisper, against her lips.
“You got taller.” She says, amused.
He grins and pecks her.
“The muscles are also getting bigger. Quidditch is helping with that.”
She gasps while holding him tighter from his shoulders, her feet in the air.
“Is that the sport with the broom you told me?” she says, excited.
“That’s the one.” He says with a smile. He loves how excited she is about his world and he feels guilt. How could he have confused her with someone who would hold any prejudice? All she is, is love and happiness and warmth and joy for everything around her. They barely sleep that night, they just lie in the bed while Jenny tells him how she spent days waiting for someone to appear out of nowhere and erase her memory, how happy she was when he finally wrote to her and how she managed to convince Mrs Figg to help in his audience.
“It wasn’t hard. She likes you.” She said while Harry caressed her cheek and wondered how he got so lucky. Not only with her but with Sirius who made the trip in dog form to meet her and Hermione who made it safe for her to be here with him.
“Almost gave me a heart attack when he transformed into your ex-convict godfather.” She said laughing.” But he was very nice, told me you were fine and invited me to the Holidays here. At first he said things about floo network and my chimney. Ron sent a letter saying that his Dad could help with that but then a letter from Hermione came and she said to come to her house and from there we would get here. That was easier to explain to my parents. I’m kinda curious about the whole floo thing though.”
Harry smiles and drags her face to him for a peck.
“I promise to show you one day.”
“Really?” She asks, coming close to him, nose to nose.
“Really.” He says, nuzzling slightly.
She puts her hand on his cheek and caresses it.
“I love you Harry.”
“I solemnly swear that I love you more Jenny.”
She kisses him.
That’s all he thinks about and is what saves him. Him and the people he loves. Just like Sirius said it was what made him stronger and just like Severus said is what made him smarter. Voldemort tries to trick him with Sirius but Snape’s lessons pay off and he sees through it in time to call for the Order. He ends up in the Department of Secrets defending the prophecy from Death Eaters with Dumbledore’s Army and the Order anyway but he is glad because he gets to save Sirius from Bellatrix’s green flash, he gets to confront Voldemort and show him the power of love through their connection. He flees but is too late. The world knows he is back and that is all that matters for now.
Dumbledore is vindicated as well as Harry and they use their leverage to make Sirius a free man and put a warrant for Wormtail. That year drained Harry in heart and soul but also showed him what it was all about, what really is at stake and what it takes to defend it.
“You did very well, Harry.” Says Dumbledore when they are talking at the end of the year in his office.
“ He fled. Voldemort. He was almost..”
“Scared?”
Harry nods.
“Voldemort doesn’t know or respect the idea of love Harry and I suspect that it only takes a small piece of what you profess for your pretty neighbor to break someone as soulless as Tom Riddle.”
Harry nods with a smile. He tried his best not to think about her in Voldemort’s presence but when the confrontation in their minds happened the feeling of Jenny with him slipped through the cracks and Voldemort fled like sting by fire.
“She is a curious one. Mrs Digger.” Says Dumbledore with pensive eyes. Harry hesitates but he thinks it’s best to confide in his Headmaster.
“She can see dementors and Mr Weasley told me the Ministry’s detector didn’t acknowledge her as a Muggle.”
A twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes spark and he smiles, knowingly.
“There is magic in all of us, dear boy. Muggles and Wizard, we are all the same. She has enough in her to see even if she can’t wield. Some would say it’s a shame I would lean more into thinking she is perfect spreading her magic just as she does. Don’t you think so?”
Harry smiles. He agrees right then in Dumbledore’s office and agrees in King’s Cross when she is waiting for him in the Platform 9 and 3/4 with Sirius and the Order beside her, ready to launch herself to him as soon as he puts foot out of the train.
“She is perfect, Professor.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 4
By much more than far, Harry’s favorite summer is the one between his fifth year and sixth year. For a lot of reasons but mostly..
“Harry.” Gasps Jennys while he is kissing her neck. He has her pinned against a tree in her backyard, her legs trapping him by the waist. He feels like he is always having her pinned against some surface or the other, except for the moments is her pinning him. He doesn’t really have a favorite. He loves both in equal measure because both mean he is tasting her. Right now he is loving the taste of her neck and shoulder skin. She put on some of that fruity flavored lotion Hermione gifted her and Harry can almost taste the sweetness in her skin. He bites her softly and it makes her gasp more.
“Don’t leave a mark, Harry. I mean it this time.” She says with heavy breath. Harry grins against her skin with mischief. He knows she likes it when he bites, he can tell by the way she shakes in his arms when he does it. She just doesn’t like to explain the mark to other people which is a shame because..
“But I love to do it.” He says pecking right in the spot he wants to sink his teeth in and he knows she wants as much.
“No.” She gasps.”We have dinner with my parents tonight.”
Harry huffs. He does want to keep a good impression with his in-laws. Not only because he cares for their opinion but because he wants to feed the trust that has them leaving them alone in the house for him to fondle their daughter on every surface she lets him.
“Fine.” He says with frustration.”Let me do it somewhere they can’t see. Somewhere only I have the right to see.”
Jenny smiles, mischievous now.
“Where do you propose that is, Mr. Potter? A gentleman like you surely has only considered decent parts of my body for such a thing.”
Harry huffs. She knows he is no gentleman. He is closer to a dog in heat when he is with her. She giggles and kisses him in a way that has him opening his mouth for her to steal his breath.
“Let me do it.” He says against her mouth.
“No one will see?” She says teasing his mouth with hers.
“I’ll kill the one who tries.”
She grins and kisses him again. He wonders if she knows how serious he is about it. Time has only made him more possessive and viciously protective of her. He suspects she loves it. He hopes she does.
“Go on, then.” She says, painting a grin on his face.
He loves it more. He loves how she lets him kiss her neck arching to give him access, how she trembles when gets to the beginning of her cleavage. Lately that part of her is looking more than enticing and he suspects the trip she took with Hermione to the lingerie department in the mall, has something to do with how he is always feeling lace and her breast looks perky and beautiful for him to kiss through the fabric. He hears her moan like music to his ears and he gets distracted for a moment kissing her through her thin top and her underwear. Eventually he remembers the original task and puts her down in the grass to make going lower easier. He kisses her ribs and lifts her top enough to kiss her belly button. Her hands grab a fist of his hair and scratches just the way he likes it. It makes him softly drag his teeth through her skin in her abdomen in a light bite and he is rewarded with another moan. His mouth goes lower and he is kneeling in front of her just like he always should be and takes her hips with both hands. He caresses her hip bone with his thumb in one hand and with the other shaky one he unbuttons her jeans just enough for a piece of her underwear to show. He kisses the fabric he is allowed of that part of her and his hair gets a good tug. He hears her moan with a smile. He chooses which side and when he does he unveils the right space he was looking for. It’s just below her hip bone, inches away from the place her underwear is covering. He nuzzles his nose against it and she moans his name in a way that he will recall every morning after, when he is touching himself with her in mind.
“You really going to let me do this darling?” says Harry. His heart is breaking if she denies him then but she doesn’t. She never does.
“Yes. I want you to.” She says, unleashing Harry to do what he dreams to do. With reverence he kisses her first right in the spot of her hip, he licks it a bit, tasting the flesh and then without restrain he starts biting her and sucking the way he would love to do other parts of her. He dreams about it almost every night. He dreams of doing all the things they do and he imagines doing them without layers to separate them. He is not satisfied until her hip is purple and swelling, making sure she will remember him like this every time she sees the mark on herself when she is naked, feels him at all times of the day like he feels her just by the swelling of the mark. He looks at his handy work and kisses it knowing he did good.
“Satisfied, you mongrel?” she says with a sardonic tone but sweet daze in her eyes. He smiles up at her knowing he put it there. She goes back to trapping him by the waist with her legs when he lifts her again against the tree.
“Completely.” Says Harry against her lips.
“Completely?” she says escaping his mouth for a kiss but teasing him with it anyway.”I think I want some of that.”
“How you plan to get it?”
She grins against him.
“Same is fair, isn’t it?”
She is mean but he can’t complain.No when he gets the visual of her pinning him to the tree and feeling her kissing all her way down to his hip bone, gifting him a twin mark of hers in there.
Harry is happy. Maybe even something more than just that. And it’s a hassle to not hate himself for it. The world is burning. Every morning Harry picks up the newspaper before his uncle asks for it and he knows things are getting bad. It’s already spilling in the Muggle world. Bridges are falling without explanation, people are dying or disappearing with no trail of what took them out. The storm is starting to pour and Harry can feel it in his bones. So what right does he have of being so unbearably happy as he is? How dare he, of all people, the one who has more responsibility be granted so much joy in the arms of a beautiful girl? The first days he is always split in half with guilt and joy tugging at each side of him with vengeance. In her presence he is swept away from his worries and anxieties and he becomes a puddle in her hands that can’t think of anything but her. It distracts him and tricks him into believing that convincing her to stay with him, to never leave him, is the only real problem in life he has. At some point they have to say goodbye to each other at least until the next day and it’s when he is alone that Harry lets the shame find him. He starts plotting in how to get out of her life before something happens and she is hurt or something worse than that happens to her, before she finds out how much of a selfish arsehole he is that is only thinking in wrangle her to her room to kiss her madly for the entire afternoon, when people are dying and suffering. It drains him and she notices it. They are lying in the grass of her backyard when she brings it up. Or Harry is. Jenny is lying on top of him, giving little pecks to his face and neck, kissing him too.
“Harry...” she whispers against his lips.
He hums enjoying her touch, a lock of her hair lazily twirling in his finger.
“I am not magic, sweetheart. I can’t read minds. You have to tell me what you are thinking.” she says.
He smiles like the fool he is for her, loving the pet name. It sounds so amazing in her lips. Like something she will call him for a long time, for the rest of their lives if he has his say.
“I am thinking of you being the most beautiful girl in the world.” He says and laughs when she huffs, annoyed.
“I am serious.” He maintains.
“Okay. What is the other thing you are thinking, then?”
Harry smiles looking at her. Why doesn’t she understand that she is all he thinks? The rest is just muffled noise and segways that lead to her anyway.
“Harry...” she says with worried eyes.”I know how you look when you are torturing yourself with your own thoughts. Tell them to me, I will let you know if they are real or just silly worries for the things you can’t control.”
He sighs and leans to peck her in the lips.
“It’s not the things I can’t control that are bothering me. It’s the things that are on my hands and I am not doing anything about it that is eating me alive.”
“Like what?”
Like putting you safe. Like dragging you away from my world in shambles, until it’s safe again.
He doesn’t say it but like always it feels like she can see it anyway.
“I am not going anywhere Harry. Stop acting like that is your decision.”
Harry sighs, caressing her cheek.
“Do you feel..” she hesitates.”Do you feel that I make you weak?”
Harry hears the question and almost wants to laugh. She is the only reason he has to keep moving forward. Without her he would have been lost in depression, in mistakes that would have cost him greatly. She is the opposite of his weakness, she is all his strength. He wants to tell her but wouldn’t that only tie her more to him?
“It’s that why you want me away so bad?” She says with sadness in her eyes.
He can’t take it and drags her to him to kiss her right.
“Jenny. I don’t want you away. I want you as close as possible all the time. I don’t think I’ve been subtle about that.”
Jenny beams and Harry knows he will hate himself for how happy that makes him. He forces himself to say the truth.
“I don’t want you away but I do want you as safe as possible. If something happens to you..”
“ Then so be it.” She says and Harry gets mad.
“Don’t.” He says harshly, glaring at her. She moves away from him but doesn't stand. She just glares at him while straddling him, looking amazing while she does it. It says a lot that Harry stays mad at her for insinuating that her getting hurt is nothing.
“How do you think I feel when I hear about all the stories of your adventures Harry?” she says with a frustrated tone.
“That’s different.”
“Yes it is. I don’t run in search of basilisks or put myself between murderers and magic stones. I don’t ride Hippogriffs to go help my convicted god father escape the magic police or form a clandestine organization to overthrow my psychotic headmaster. And I certainly don’t run away from school to go fight in a battle with a cult of fascists with so much of a call to the responsible, much more experienced adults just to let them know you are on the way to danger.”
Harry stares at her mildly impressed for over a second.
“This is not fair. You are too well informed. Hermione over did it.”
She just keeps glaring at him and rolls her eyes.
“Actually Ron did most of the telling. I think Hermione sugarcoats your lack of self preservation a bit too much.”
Harry puts in his mental to-do list to send a letter to Ron and explain his feelings about his oversharing tendencies with his girlfriend in detail. Maybe throw a threat of cutting off his dessert provider completely.
“My point is Harry.” She says, still glaring at him.” That you are the one always in danger, you are the one potentially always about to die and you don’t do anything more than help the odds tip in that direction. How do you think I feel about it?”
Harry stares at her, internally frustrated and impressed. She has a point.
“Jenny..” he tries.
“Shut up.” She says and leans closer to him. He has her face as close he wants her again and his fingers brushes her cheek, grateful she is there.
“I love you Harry and I know why you did all of that,why you keep doing it. It’s one of the things I love the most about you. You care and you are unable to not do it. The day will come when you are going to have to do your part in all of this and I am not going to lie and tell you I am not scared sweetheart, because I am terrified. I could lose you twice as likely that you could lose me. How do you think that makes me feel on top having you push me away too?”
Harry shuts his eyes and bumps his forehead with hers.
“All we have is today, Harry. Tomorrow will come, rest assured. So please, just for today, stay with me. Be happy with me.”
Harry can’t give her much of anything worth anything, not even a future. But he can give her that. He can give her this summer. Sirius thinks it’s not only a good idea but essential. Harry writes to tell him about the conversation he had with Jenny. He needed to tell him, to let go of it in the hands of someone else. He doesn’t trust himself with Jenny. He loves her too much, wants her with too much need and is not sure he can even see the right thing to do. Sirius points north to him and lets him know that thankfully he picked someone way smarter than him.
“Good job, lad. Dummies like us, we have to choose smart cookies to keep us alive. She is right Harry and I thank Merlin, Circe and every god looking, for giving her the strength to tell you.
Dark times are coming. Everyone can feel it and all there is left to endure them and survive them, is fill ourselves with as much love as we can manage. It will be what makes us keep going when nothing seems certain.”
Harry takes that letter from Sirius not as an advice but an order to enjoy his time with Jenny like there is no tomorrow. And that is what he does. Harry spends the summer silencing his conciseness and loving the girl of his dreams. They act like they are two normal teenagers in love. Harry takes her to the movies and to eat pizza in holes in the walls parts of town that she likes, buys her flowers and wins her stuffed animals in fairs. She is impressed with his aim. He fails at playing it cool for her.
“ You should see what I can do on a broom. If I wasn’t so good as a seeker I would try for a chaser.”
She just rolls her eyes but kisses his cheek anyway.
“Who would have thought you would become such an annoying meat head?” She says, shaking her head feigning disappointment. He sweeps her off her feet suddenly and she squeals in surprise, laughing.
“Who are you calling a meathead?” He says, childishly swirling her around in his arms in the middle of the fair. She laughs.
They also act as any other teenagers would in annoying ways. Harry is jealous. Jenny already knew that. She learns the depths of it that summer. Harry feels he is always climbing the wall to her window to beg for forgiveness. He knocks softly on the glass, Jenny takes her time opening the window but as soon as she does Harry is already throwing his best kicked puppy face at her. She always makes him work for it more than just that even if he can always see her start to soften.
“What do you want dumb boy? Shouldn’t you be doing your favorite thing? Throwing fists with other dumb boys in the park.” she says with her best try at cold indifference.
“That’s not my favorite thing.” He says trying to sell the green eyes.
“What is it then?” She says leaning in the window coming closer to him.
“Well I don’t have a particularly favorite place to do it but I gotta say today in the solar.. That puts the place up there.” He says daring to grin at her.
She blushes and Harry knows she is remembering this afternoon when Harry lifted her, sat her in the table where they usually have tea and then they proceeded to kiss and touch each other so madly Harry ended up without a shirt and his hand spent almost all the time under her top. They should have stayed there all day but they promised Dudley to have an ice cream with him. Harry came back to Private Drive to find a changed man in Dudley. The Dementor’s experience had been the thing that made him grow up and now he and Harry were in a good place. They could almost consider themselves mates. Harry is cautious even if Dudley asked him to help him out with a girl he goes to school with.
“Mate I don’t really know much about women.” Admitted Harry.
“You know something Harry. Look who you managed to snatch.”
Harry didn’t have the heart to tell him that it had been pure and unadulterated luck. His assessment on him being a charity case for Jenny didn’t feel like a bad one if Harry thinks about it. The idea is to meet in the park so Jenny explains how Harry performed the miracle. She volunteered to go get the first round of ice cream and when she came back Harry and Dudley were teaming up, brawling with some guys that looked at Jenny the wrong way while she walked to the truck and one even had the gall to say something crass about her to Harry.
Harry didn’t tell her that, he would die before he let some idiot get her uncomfortable or offended over his stupid mouth. Dudley commended him after Jenny sent him to hell and stumped her way to her house.
“That was pretty noble, mate.” Said Dudley eating the double chocolate Harry buys him avoiding to touch his busted lip with the cold ice cream.
“You mean stupid?” Said Harry with a shiner, eating his double fudge.
“Yeah, that too. Jenny would have been all over you if she knew what the fight was over.”
“The only thing about women I know, Dudley, is that they love nothing more than us begging for their forgiveness.”
“This should give you plenty material to spoil her then.” Said Dudley.
Both cousins grinned at each other and broke into cackles. That’s how Harry ends up hanging in Jenny’s window, begging for her forgiveness this time. She does it like she always does but punishes him with gusto first.
“If you are tough enough to get in a fight you are tough enough to get the cuts clean Potter.” She says sitting in his lap while she cleans his injuries from the fight with rubbing alcohol.
“Ouch! Jenny! Blow a little at least.” He whines.
“Nope. I’m still mad.”
She kisses him senseless later anyway.
Harry being jealous and an idiot at controlling it is old news but Jenny not being better than him, is. Harry is pretty sure he doesn’t deserve it. Extremely grateful anyways. Jenny’s reaction when she is jealous is not to fight with the cashier flirting with Harry in the grocery store or being unpleasant with the girls watching him join Dudley’s rugby friends for a match. Actually, he is unaware she has any reaction about that until she drags him to her room and then he learns all about her feelings in a magnificent way. There is one time that Harry is particularly fond of.
“Jenny..” he moaned against her mouth.
She sat him down in her bed as soon as they got in the room and then straddled him. He was wearing Dudley’s old sport shorts made of very thin material and Jenny was wearing a dress, so only underwear in the lower part of her body. That fact would have made him insane anyway but having her kiss him senseless while she started to rub herself against him with only that separating them was..delicious. He was delirious, feeling her move against him, her hips dancing in his hands while she grind against him with poor restraint.
“Darling..” he says, kissing her neck as she silently orders him to do so by arching for him. “If you don’t stop..”
“What are you going to do if I don’t stop? Those bitches ogled you all day and now it’s my turn to remind you to who you belong.”
Harry had no doubt who he belonged to but he also wasn’t insane. He wasn’t about to stop her from whatever point she was trying to make. Because she is cruel she stops moving on her own accord. Harry actually whimpers and lifts his hip desperate for her to resume. She lifts her hips putting away her warm center from his dick.
“Lift your arms.” She orders and Harry obliges immediately. She helps him take his shirt away and pushes him until he is lying completely in the bed. He watches her kneeling with him between her legs and he is insane with want for her. He feels like he is going to explode at any moment. For a moment he wants to cry because it looks like she is moving away from being on top of him but she was just getting a scarf she keeps in the bed backrest.
“Lift your head.”
Harry obliges again and even if he doesn’t have any idea of why she is doing it he helps her cover his eyes with the scarf. He is blind when she goes back at kissing him and biting his lip in a way that he enjoys.
“You don’t get to move unless I tell you Harry. Okay?”
Harry nods, desperate. He feels Jenny sitting in his dick again and slowly star moving again.
“If you do, I am stopping, sweetheart. Do you want that?”
Harry shakes his head, emphatically, holding to the cover of the bed to avoid moving his hands to her and making her stop. He feels her leans to him and licks his lips making him moan, loudly with the next grind she gifts him.
“ I love you, my good boy.” She says against his lips.” Do you love me or do you love those idiot girls watching you show off?”
“Only you Jenny. I only love you, darling.” Says Harry with difficulty.” Let me see you please.”
He wants to see her ride his dick even if it is with bloody layers of fabric between them. She answers his request, grinding harder and making him moan louder.
“Nope.” She says with a heavy breath.” You don’t get to see me sweetheart. You don’t think I didn’t see you enjoy it? All of them fawning over you.”
“I was enjoying you watching me.”
That wins him another lick and a few more delicious grinds.
“Good answer Potter.” She says against his mouth.”You don’t get to see but you get to touch now.”
Jenny starts grinding faster and Harry manages to hear some ruffling between the waves of pleasure that assaults him. Seconds later he learns Jenny took off her dress and her bra. He knows it because she takes his hand and takes it to her mouth first where she kisses it before she travels it to her neck and then to his full breasts.
“Let me see. Please darling.” He begs while Jenny starts riding him mercilessly and letting him cup her naked breast.
“No but you can kiss them if you want.” She says with heavy breath. She didn’t have to say it twice. Harry sits up and starts to kiss Jenny’s naked full tits. It had been the first thing to grow when she hit puberty and he has had vivid dreams about what he would like to do with them for far too long. He tastes the nipples and hears Jenny’s whimpers of pleasure with triumph in his chest.
“You are so fucking beautiful darling.” He says giving a languid lick to her nipple while he cups the other.
Jenny giggles amid moans.
“You can’t see me.” She says with a smile before he lifts his hips and a moan escapes her.
“I can always see you, darling.”
She tears his face away from her chest and kisses him senseless, licking and biting, her hips rubbing deliciously against his groin about to make him reach climax.
“You are mine Harry. Say it. Say you are mine.”
“I am yours, Jenny. No one else’s.”
Jenny picks up the pace with her hips and Harry panics for a moment.
“Darling I’m gonna come. I want you to come too. Tell me what to do.”
“Give me your hand.”
Harry obliges and Jenny takes his index to her mouth and licks it wet. He then feels her take his hand inside her underwear and teaches him where her clit is.”
“You are so warm and wet.” Says Harry without thinking.
Jenny sounds speechless while she rides his dick and teaches her to touch her like that.
“You..you feel amazing, Harry. All of you.” she says with difficulty.
Harry dreams that one day she will let him inside her and she will tell him the same thing. He promises himself that one day he will achieve that.
They both come with their mouths sloppily kissing each other, Harry feeling Jenny’s naked chest against his, his free hand greedily grabbing her ass. They stay lying in bed for a few more minutes after coming, Jenny on top doing figures in his chest with her finger and Harry caressing her hair lazily.
“I think I like your way of dealing with jealousy better.”says Harry.
Jenny breaks into laughter and Harry helps her to take away the scarf from his eyes. She is still not wearing anything to cover herself when he sees her again but he can’t see anything with her lying on top of him. He immediately starts plotting for ways to change that. She says the only possible thing that has the power to stop him.
“ Harry..” she says, kissing his chin.
“Yeap?” He says caressing her bare back.
“Have you ever had sex?”
He freezes. It felt like a test. It’s curious because there is only one real answer for that but he feels like if he doesn’t tell the truth in a specific way then the moment is over and then he is groveling for the rest of the night. His silence gets poorly translated.
“Potter.” She says with menace in her voice.
“I haven’t. Of course I haven’t”
“Then why are you hesitating?”
“Because my head went blank Jenny. When a naked girl asks you that kind of thing in bed that tends to happen.”
Her glare softens.
“Oh..” she says with a sweet smile and a blush on her cheeks.
“I can put a shirt on..”
“I didn’t say it bothered me.” Says Harry immediately and Jenny pecks him while giggling. Harry has to focus after he feels her tits brush his chest.
“Why do you ask?” He says after a deep breath, trying to gather some brain function.” If I can.. If you want... It’s okay if it’s not but it’s also okay if it is...I’m just saying that I am game for whatever you want. That’s all that matters.”
Jenny laughs at his rambling.
“Harry.”
“Yeah?” he says embarrassed.
“I want to have sex with you.”
Harry has to focus really hard to not scream it over the rooftops. For the entire three hours after he walks away from Jenny’s house to let her have some family time with her parents he feels like the king of the world. He literally skips to The Dursleys. It’s until he gets to his room that it dawns on him that he doesn’t know shit about how to do that, sex, properly. He is really out of his depth here. What if he hurts her? For a long second he considers writing a letter to Hermione but he is pretty sure that is the line his girl best friend is drawing in the sand. She is probably obliviating herself if he writes that letter, after he tells him to jump a building without a wand. Ron...Something tells him Ron is in the same boat and there is no need to make things awkward with his best friend for nothing. He only has one option. Harry pulls out a piece of parchment and starts writing. Help comes to him, that night after midnight. He is completely gone to the realm of dreams when suddenly someone wakes him up suddenly with a slap.
“What the fuck, Potter? “ says Sirius in outrage.
“You came!” says Harry excited but sleepy and rubbing the place in his arm Sirius hit him.
“Yes you little prat. When you write S.O.S to me and nothing else, all I can think of is that a Death Eater is Crucio-ing the living shit out of you. Imagine my surprise when I find you sleeping soundly and peacefully in this shack. Do you have any idea how close I was to call in the Order?”
“Im sorry, I panicked. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Well next time think of someone else. What is this about, anyway? I thought we sorted the pricks you are related to at the beginning of summer.”
Sirius fought with teeth and claws for Harry to live with him after his vindication but Dumbledore didn’t hear any of it. He was set on the best place for Harry to be was in Private Drive, close to Lily’s blood. Harry was disappointed but it also meant having 24/7 access to Jenny so he let it go. Sirius also accepted under the promise that he would get to visit Harry as much as he wanted. After brief negotiations Sirius agreed with The Dursleys to an every quarter visit that Sirius spent with The Diggers anyway. As predicted, he and John Digger became fast friends easily and Alma seemed to like him too. The only thing Sirius asked of the Dursleys, or much more likely, demanded with a psychopath stare was that they didn’t abuse Harry in any way ever again or use him as a maid.
“Every plate he didn’t dirty up himself that he cleans will be one that I shove right up..” said Sirius.
Suffice to say the Dursley’s never ask anything from Harry anymore. Sirius had his quarter visit last week and he spent it getting drunk with John Digger on fire whiskey. Alma had some of it too. Harry remembers helping Jenny nurse everyone’s hangover with a smile the next day. He took the opportunity to borrow Sirius’s new motorcycle and take Jenny for a ride. All good memories but it meant Sirius technically had no business in Private Drive.
“Out with it, lad! What is going on? Who do I need to stupefy? Let’s get over it quickly.”
“Jeez. If you are not careful Sirius, I’m going to start to think you are not happy to see me.”says Harry with a glare.
“ This might come as a surprise brat, but when a man spends twelve years in a Dementor filled cage and two on the run with a big bird as company he tends to be very precious about the new opportunities life gives him to... blow off steam. You happened to interrupt one of those moments, one that I have been staging since last year’s Holiday, maybe even longer if you think about it, for what appears to be not a single life threatening event. So I am sorry if I am a tad touchy.”
Harry stares in silence at his god father for a moment refusing to confront many things about his speech. His mouth betrays him.
“When you say blow off steam do you mean..”
“Fuck, Potter. That is precisely what I mean.”
Harry immediately covers his ears and makes a face of disgust.
“With who? No! Wait! Don’t tell me. Eww.”
Sirius looks like he is about to have an embolism.
“I have no desire to tell you anything you little shit! That is the point! What the fuck am I doing here?!?”
They make so much noise Uncle Vernon comes to his room with outrage and is sent away by Sirius at wand point. After the casting of a silencing spell in the room and a couple of minutes of them regaining control Sirius speaks again.
“Okay lad, let’s try this again. Precisely and concisely would you mind exposing for what you need my assistance, you precious child?”
Harry is not sure if at this point his reasoning is valid but he is also pretty sure Sirius is going back to Azkaban for killing him if he doesn’t say anything.
“Well.. the thing is..Jenny and I..”
“If you say that you got the girl pregnant I am going to throw you to Voldemort myself.”
“No! That is... That is actually not.. a possibility right now.”
Sirius seems surprised.
“You two haven’t..?”
Harry shakes his head like a dog with fleas, feeling his face in flames.
“That is...surprising. Last time I saw you two it looked like you were filming a porno in every room of that big house of hers. Why do you think I got the in-laws drunk?”
“Because you have no shame or decorum?”
“Because I thought you two would want the distraction to shag, you ungrateful git. Blimey, you are the same as your father. You mean to tell me all you did with my motorcycle was ride it normally?”
“Yes, Sirius. That’s all we did.” says Harry, alarmed by the suggestion.
Actually they also made out against it but it doesn’t seem relevant to bring that up now.
“What a waste.” Says Sirius like it offends him.
“Would you mind helping me? That way you can go back to blowing your mist or whatever.”
Sirius pinches his nose and takes a deep breath like he is gathering patience.
“ You have a hot girlfriend and you are a virgin. It’s all very tragic but doesn’t seem like something I can fix without throwing the Imperious spell on the girl. Not doing it. I respect and thoroughly support her having second thoughts about you.”
“She is not having second thoughts about me. She actually wants to have sex with me!”blurts Harry.
“Okay..” Says Sirius, assessing the new information.” That is great! Well done, lad. You made it. What’s the problem then?”
Harry glares at his god father for making him say it.
“The problem is that I have never had sex before.”
“Oh?” Says Sirius confused, like it he doesn’t understand why that information is relevant. And then it hits him like lightning.” Oh! You want me to..”
“Advice..?” says Harry with hope.
“Right! Yes! Of course. That is my job as your godfather. Yes it is. To be honest I am excited. This is my area of expertise. Your father and I talked many times about the day we will get to give you the talk. Your mom wasn’t as excited. She very pointedly promised to bombarda my balls if I tried. Joke’s on her now, huh?”
Harry smiles at that.
“Really?”
He loves when Sirius talks about his parents. It’s always a little piece he gets to add to the picture he has of them in his mind.
“Really.” Says Sirius with a smile.” I’m sorry they are not here to help you out lad.”
Harry shrugs, smiling back.
“It’s alright. You are here.”
Sirius nods.
“Yes, I am and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
It means a lot to Harry and Sirius is actually helpful after that. He listens to Harry talk about how much he loves Jenny, how much he wishes to do right by her, how afraid he is of hurting her or doing something wrong. Sirius calms him down and tells him that first times even when you are not a virgin are awkward. That all that matters is that the other person wants to be there with you.
“You gotta be real careful the first time with her. It’s going to hurt her no matter what you do so just go slow. Practice that every morning when you are attending yourself until the big day. When is that by the way?”
Harry tries to swallow his overwhelming embarrassment at Sirius' casual way of bringing up his masturbation practices. He clears his throat.
“Uhmm.. We didn’t..We thought it was better not to plan it, to avoid anxiety about it. She told me to buy all the things needed to be ..cautious. She is already on the pill too. Muggle contraception.”
Sirius beams.
“Thank god she has brains.”says his godfather with pride.
Harry smiles too, agreeing, still feeling his face warm.
“Well you are all set, lad. Now all that is left is for you to have fun.”
Harry feels uncertain, and apparently he shows it.
“What is it Harry?” Says Sirius with an amused smile. Harry sighs. He is potentially going to hate himself for admitting this to Sirius.
“It’s just..I..This is important. It almost doesn’t matter that I enjoy it. All that matters..”
“Is that she does.”
Harry nods, with fervor. Sirius laughs.
“I understand lad. And I commend you. Anyone else only would get the advice to surrender to patience and learn to please her with time.”
Sirius lifts a hand and with a crack sound a book shows up in his hand out of nowhere. He hands it to Harry.
“You are not like anyone else. You have me.”
That book will become the reason Harry starts sending to Sirius the Muggle junk food he loves so much weekly and his favorite liquor every month. He also sends cigarettes and even gets his hands on strong grass through Dudley. Harry all but lifts a monument on the man because of that gift. Thanks to that book Harry feels as confident as he is going forward with Jenny and he is prepared. Ready. Completely focus on the task. The problem is that as always, the universe doesn’t care to help him run things smoothly. For some reason that escapes Harry, it feels like the days after they decide they are ready to have sex Harry and Jenny never find a minute alone. At first it’s fine because it’s only Hermione who comes to visit Jenny again and Harry understands because Jenny loves Hermione and never gets to see her. Harry also loves to see his best friend. Jenny spends a lot of time doing girly stuff with Hermione and talking and giggling around. Harry takes them for ice cream and the mall. Jenny bathes his face in kisses after they use him as a burden beast for their shopping bags.
“Oh my god! He will live, Jenny. Isn’t he always bragging about his muscles since you point them out?”
Jenny giggles, burying her face in Harry’s neck while Harry hugs her by the waist and very maturely shows his tongue to Hermione. Harry thinks the window is coming when Hermione goes back home but Jenny’s parent ruin that for him. They invite Harry to meet Jenny’s grandparents and after careful consideration of the Order and the condition he takes Ron with him so they can monitor his wellbeing with the clock in The Burrow he is allowed to go. Harry likes Jenny’s grandparents, he loves having Ron around and is amused at the ability his friend has to be amazed at the simples of things.
“Is that a sprinkler Harry?” Says Ron, running to Jenny’s grandparents backyard to play with the rain produced by the sprinkler.”Dad is going to flip when I tell him I saw one of these.”
It doesn’t help either that he and Mr Digger are into the same comics and Mrs Digger finally has the bottomless pit of hunger she always dreamt of to feed her heart’s content.
“Did you read the last Punisher?!” Said Mr Digger like an excited child.
“No.” Whines Ron with his mouth full of the massive piece cake Mrs Digger just put in his plate.” Jenny hasn’t sent it yet.”
Mr Digger actually glares at his daughter.
“It has been out for a week. What kind of monster did I raise?”
Jenny just rolls her eyes with a smile from her position, lying in the coach with Harry’s arms around her, who is trying to swallow the chuckle.
“He was already coming here. I didn’t see the point.”
Ron and Mr Digger groan like children.
Harry loves how easy Ron fits in his Muggle home and he loves to spend time with him. He always does. He loves that he brought brooms with him and he gets to take Jenny flying for the first time at night.
“Hold on tight, darling” he says to her when they are up in the air, looking down to the countryside of England.
Jenny holds on for dear life at first but then he feels her relaxed and he gets to see her get marveled at taking the night from the sky. She kisses him up there, with the stars as close as he can get them to her and the best view he can offer of the mountains of England below them. She leans her forehead against his.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” she says, sweetly.
“Thank you.” He says immediately, because it’s him who gets everything with her and won't have her thinking differently. The moment is perfect, even with Ron flying at flash speed beside them, spooking them.
“Come on mate! Let’s show the rookie real flying!” He says.
Harry laughs and they do that all night. Harry is happy to see Ron, he really is. But he is also happy to see him go away when they go back to Private Drive because finally there is space again for him and Jenny to.. do absolutely nothing. Something is always on the way. If it’s not her parents inviting them to impromptu activities, it’s Dudley begging for a favor to get himself a girlfriend or Gregory stealing Jenny for a boyfriend emergency. Harry made the mistake to tag alone once in one of those, thinking he could accelerate the process. He didn’t even get close. Apparently Gregory was into very toxic relationships.
“Men are disgusting! The bane of humanity! All of them should be put on death row immediately!”
Harry just nodded emphatically and looked to Jenny for permission to flee. He spent that afternoon watching Dudley grovel himself a date from the new girl he liked that worked in the flower shop, missing his girlfriend.
After two weeks of Harry not having more than a couple of kisses from Jenny a day he had enough. You couldn’t even call it bravery, it was more close to..frustration. They haven’t had sex but Harry had come accustomed to a certain level of..intimacy. Either was Jenny touching him or her letting him touch her and..releasing in his pants. It was sad but it was all he had and now he didn’t even have that. The world has decided to ruin it for him and he refuses to let it. Not without a fight. There is no reason to not use the door but Harry is so unhinged that he just throws himself through his window. He doesn’t even care that it’s pouring outside. Jenny was supposed to be in her dance lessons and after she is supposed to pick up something Hermione sent for her in the mail and after... Harry doesn’t even care what she has after because she is missing it. He is kidnapping her and doing his best so she can only think of pleasure while he kisses her for the rest of day. He climbs to her window and it’s the first lucky thing that happens to him for a long time when he notices that it’s slightly open, enough for him to open it himself. He does it and climbs inside. It’s empty of Jenny but it has the lights on which is odd. Jenny never leaves lights on as conscious as she is of energy. He has been there many times before but he never gets tired of the place. She was everywhere there. Every painting in the wall, every book in the shelf, all the stuffed animals he got for her and the ones from her childhood she put them in the little sofa in the corner, all the photos and little notes decorating the place, even the magic fish Hermione gifted her, all of it was hers, and all of it was her home. She was his home, which meant this place was too. Standing in there he wonders what it would be to build a home with her, how would they decide the colors of their walls and the way their furniture would get set up. His wonders become day dreaming and he is smiling for the first time in the day until the light goes off. It seems like the storm was stronger than he thought. He doesn’t get to think on what to do next, Jenny walks through the door wearing only a towel to cover herself. She stops in her tracks when she sees him.
“Harry..?”
Harry takes some time to think straight again and he only manages a few of his neurons to respond. Jenny looks... he has no words..Even in the darkness, she is just too much watching him, with her pretty golden eyes, her wet hair and barely anything to cover herself. He clears his throat doing his best not to stare at her chest.
“Uhmm... Hi.. I am sorry to barge in.”
“Are you okay? Did something happen?” She says worried for a moment.
Harry shakes his head still slow at responding.
“I just wanted to see you. I feel like we barely do that. I mean.. I know we see each other. We just saw each other this morning for breakfast with your family, what I mean..”
She smiles.
“I know what you mean.” She says with her sweet voice. Harry sighs, relief.
“You do?”
She nods. It’s dark but he wonders if she is blushing. If she is he hates he is missing it.
“I can put on some lights if you want.” he says suddenly, looking in his pocket.
“You can?”
“Yeap. The Twins sent me some stuff they have been working on and one of them is fireflies in a lighter.”
“Fireflies in a lighter?”
He doesn’t explain, he just shows her. He shakes the lighter with caution this time. The first time he did it the fireflies came out angry. They don’t this time. This time the moment he opens the lighter they just come out softly, almost rhythmically and start spreading around the room. It’s not enough to brighten the place but he can see her better now. She was blushing and now she was thrilled holding a firefly with her finger. She is so beautiful, he thinks watching her. She lets go of the firefly and watches him beaming.
“It’s beautiful.” She says.
He shakes his head, smiling sheepish.
“You are the beautiful one.” He says with his whole heart in every word.
She walks closer to him and he shoves his hands in his pockets afraid he is going to do something dumb with them, especially when she starts touching his face, his lips.
“It’s been a while since you have smiled at me like that.”
He looks at her smiling but curious.
“How?” he asks.
“Shy. Timid. I used to think you were the sweetest boy in the world when you looked at me with that smile back when we just met.”
Harry smiles.
“I used to think you were the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” He says, remembering the nervous mess he was back then.”I still do.”
Jenny smiles, gets on her tippy toes and kisses him. His hands grab her waist immediately. It’s impossible to miss how that is the only thing separating him from her naked flesh. Jenny pushes her tongue inside his mouth and when Harry tastes her he knows he is at breaking point. Any rational decision has to be made quickly before there is nothing left of that in his mind.
“Jenny.” He sighs in her mouth, hating himself for bringing it up.” Your parents..”
“They are not here.” She says between kisses.”The storm is going to keep them out until late. I was going to ring you..”
That is all Harry needed to hear. He lifts her immediately and Jenny puts her legs around his waist, helping him take his hoodie and shirt away. He sets her in the middle of her bed with him on top and kisses her like he has been desperately yearning to do for weeks.
“I love you Jenny.” He says against her mouth.
“I solemnly swear I love you more Harry.” She says back with a smile.
He kisses her with a smile too and then starts kissing her neck and down. He gets to where the towel is covering and he looks at her asking one last time for permission. She nods with blush in her cheeks and he takes away the towel with shaky hands. He had dreamt about her but nothing compares to watching her naked, lying in bed, just for him.
“Harry..” she says embarrassed.
“I’m sorry for staring. You are just too beautiful Jenny. It’s.. I don’t deserve it. I’m gonna take it anyway but I don’t deserve you, darling.” He says before he starts kissing and licking her nipples with hunger. He enjoys the taste of her but he enjoys the whimpers and moans coming out of Jenny. He starts to kiss downward, kissing her ribs, her belly button, the hip bone he once marked her in and then he gets to the part of her he has been studying hard to please, to know how to properly touch. At first Jenny is tense but then he kisses her inner thigh with devotion and then she loosens up, opening up for him. He paces himself like the book explained, slowly pecking the lips between her legs. Jenny moans and whimpers, and Harry takes it as permission to be bolder with his kisses. Jenny opens up wider and moans louder and Harry decides it’s time to fulfill his dream and lick her the way he has always wanted to do it. He finds her clit with his tongue and then he has no restriction. He knew he would enjoy it but the way Jenny grabs a fist of his hair and starts to moan while pushing his face closer to her center was something beyond anything he could dream of. She comes with his face buried between her legs and when he comes out to watch her, he licks his lips, shamelessly. She looks amazing after coming for me, looking at him drunk from pleasure. He makes his way to her and she wastes no time to taste herself in his lips, kissing him with hunger, just the way he likes her.
“Harry..” she moans in his mouth.”Take your pants off, sweetheart.”
Harry does it and he thinks it’s impressive he does it without stopping kissing her. His pants are discarded to a place in the room he doesn’t care right now but when he gets to his briefs, Jenny moves his hands away.
“Let me.” She says with a daring tone, while she manages to flip them over. Harry is the one lying now while she kisses him, her hand dragging down his underwear off him and then grabbing his dick with her hands. It’s Harry’s turn to moan, while she moves her hand up and down with deliverance while she kisses him, his neck, his chest.
“Jenny...” He says, with frustration. He doesn’t want to come yet. She stops and he can’t help but buck against her hand. She smiles and lightly bites his chest before looking at him with her wide, golden eyes.
“Do you want to..Are you ready..?” she says and he nods, almost dislocating his neck. She giggles and kisses him. She goes to her bedside table and produces from there a tube of some kind of lotion. She was completely naked, kneeling in front of him and yet the little bottle seemed to be the thing that embarrassed her.
“I.. This is.. Uhmm.” She stammers. Harry takes the bottle from her hands and he learns it is a lubricant. He gets more red than he already was.
“It’s supposed to help so it doesn’t ..hurt as much. Not that I mind anyway.”
“I mind.” Says Harry, immediately. She looks at him with a smile. Harry sits in front of her and clears his throat.
“You know.. Do you know how to put it on?”
She nods, biting her lip.
“It’s supposed to be best if we put it on you...Uhmm..Can I.. Can I do it?”
Harry swallows and nods. He tries to help by putting the jelly thing in Jenny’s hand and he ends up putting more than needed.
“Sorry.” He says. Jenny smiles at him, and puts herself closer between his legs to kiss him easier.
“It’s perfect. You are perfect.” She says, nuzzling his nose.
“Jenny..I forgot the condoms.”he says with a burning desire to punch himself. She just giggles and kisses him again.
“We don’t need it. I’m on the pill and.. Hermione gave me a potion just in case. We are covered.”
He can’t help the grin against her lips.
“God bless her.”
Jenny laughs.
“Yeah..I was always hoping you forgot anyway.”
She says her hand, getting close to his dick again.
“You were?” He said kissing her neck while she arched for him.
“Yeah..” she says in a sigh.” I don’t want more layers between us Harry.”
“No more layers.” He repeats against her neck before biting her. She touches his dick tentatively with her slippery hand, covering him with the jell and swinging her other hand in his shoulder.
“Sounds perfect.” He says in a moan.
She does that for a couple more strokes and then she looks at him.
“I think..” she says, receiving his sloppy kiss.”I think you are ready.”
“Are you?”
She nods, kissing him.
Harry looks at her just to make sure his desire wasn’t clouding him and didn’t seem like it. She caressed his cheek while she lifted her hips and he helped her straddle him.
“I love you my sweet boy.”
Harry remembers many things about the first time he got to be inside her. He remembers the fireflies flying around making her skin glow beautifully, he remembers the way she trembled when she assured him she was in no pain and started bucking against him, he remembers the pleasure, the feeling of being indestructible while moving inside her, her moans proving she was prey of pleasure as much as he was, he remembers the promises of always loving each other and meaning them with his entire soul and heart but the thing he remembers the most was after it happened, when all was said and done and Harry was lying in bed with her spread on top of him, sleeping, all he could think was in how grateful he was about everything. Every obstacle, every pain, every loss and hardship he had endured because it all brought him to her, right there, in that moment.
“I love you more, my Jenny.”
-0-0-0-0-0-
Sixth year was mild in comparison to other years but for Harry is the hardest in some ways. He misses Jenny with aching pain and writing to her feels like the only thing that keeps him alive. He tries to keep it to himself and does his best to fill his time with as many school activities as he can to try and not think that his heart is far away in Private Drive, wide open for an attack or anything else to happen to her.The Order assured him every precaution was being taking place and that they were keeping an eye on The Diggers with the same if not more care than The Dursleys. He puts focus on Quidditch from day one and puts Ron in enough shape to whip McLaggen’s ass in the try-outs. Ron calls him a tyrant or a..
“Psycho! That is all you are, mate.” Says Ron dragging himself to the Great Hall and finally have something to eat after Harry wrings him hard in a training.
He takes to his studies with frantic energy and even Hermione tells him to slow down. It doesn’t help that he found a strange book of Potion that has him being first in class for Hermione’s annoyance.
“How do you do it?” Demands Hermione with a vicious tone when Harry also surpasses her in other subjects.
Easy, thinks Harry. Just dive your nose in books and magic to avoid confronting you have no idea how to exist without the love of your life anymore. Cake.
Then there is also Dumbledore’s private lessons now, where they discuss Horocruxes and Harry’s imminent task of looking for them and erase them from the face of the planet before he erases Voldemort so he can resume his life. Hopefully keeping all his limbs. That takes a big portion of his thinking time and he likes to think it doesn’t get leaked how terrified he is of failing and losing all he loves.
In his mind Harry feels he is a well oiled machine functioning to perfection despite it all. Outside of his mind he comes across as a psychotic, future resident of San Mungo that should be sedated as soon as possible. It’s plain as day when everyone sends Snape to notify him that if he doesn’t keep it together Snape has full permission to drug him with a potion.
“Even Dumbledore?” Asks Harry with mild curiosity, sitting in Snape’s office while they drink tea together.
“That one was surprising. He has always been the biggest champion of sympathy for you.” Says Snape in his usual dry tone, sipping his tea with no emotion.
Harry sighs and drops his head back.
“Let me guess. You thought you were hiding it well.” says Snape, almost amused.
“I am straight Outstandings in all my subjects, we are on a perfect trajectory to become quidditch champions this year and Slughorn is one compliment away from giving me the memory Dumbledore needs so badly to confirm all his theories. To be honest I am more concerned on how to get out of his suffocating good graces after this. I am that good. I am killing it. Everyone needs to mellow the fuck down.”
Says Harry drinking the remaining of his tea and stretching his arm to Snape in a silent demand for more.
Snape stares at him for a long second, takes a deep breath like gathering for patience and looks at the pot sitting on the table in the middle of them. That’s enough order for it to fly to Harry’s cup and fill it.
“Potter.”
“Professor.”
“I thought we agreed there was no point in lying to each other since we are... similar.. in our ways of affection.”
Harry looks at Snape with a childish glare for a moment and then he sighs, surrendering. He is exhausted.
“ I am gonna lose her.” he says with misery drowning his voice.
“I thought we already sorted this issue out.”
Harry shakes his head.
“This is not about me wondering if I am able to protect her or not. I can’t. It’s impossible for me to protect anyone around me.. Every session with Dumbledore.. The more I know the more is obvious..I am..I might not come out of this one alive and if it wasn’t for her I would be at peace with that.”
None of them say anything for a moment until Harry looks up at him with shame in his eyes.
“Can I tell you a terrible idea I keep having everyday?”
Snape smiles, sardonic.
“If it scares me I’ll give you an Exceeds without you even having to take the test.”
Harry smiles.
“It’s a really shameful, disgusting one.” warns Harry.
“Do your worst Potter.”
“That is what it is.” Says Harry with a smile in his lips but misery in his eyes,”The worst of me.”
Harry puts a hand on his chest like if Jenny is inside him and he is afraid someone is going to take her away any minute.
“That’s why I do it. Why I don't let a single second of free time for me to think of her. Because the moment I do all I think is in grabbing a broom, all I own, present myself in her home and beg her to run away with me. And the worst part?..She would do it. She would take my hand and leave her parents, her home, everything she loves, just for me. You know how much it takes for me to not just do it?”
Harry grabs a fist of his shirt just on top of his he
art.
“Everything.” He hears Snape say.
“Everything.” Harry echoes.
“Why don’t you?”
Harry looks at his Professor, and sighs.
“For the same reason I want to do it. I love her too much and you die for the people you love. You don’t tell them to sacrifice everything for you.”
Snape looks at him, pulls out his wand and commands a bottle of fire whiskey from his cabinet to his hand. He serves himself some in his cup and then offers it to Harry. Harry takes it.
“You just reminded me of your mother. Those would be her exact words.”
“She is the one who taught it to me.” Says Harry, filling his cup with whiskey.
“So what is the plan then?” Asks the older one.
“The plan has always been the same. Love her all I can for as much as I can and then let her go.” Says the younger one, drinking his full cup in one go.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

This is the most annoyed he has ever been to Jenny and she couldn’t care less. She even has the gall to giggle. He huffs. It says something, the fact they are both lying in Harry’s bed in Private Drive, both naked, her on top of him kissing his face while giggling and he is still very much in a fit of anger.

“Sweetheart..” she say with a smile while kissing a trail of kisses to his neck and then bite softly the skin over his pulse. He hates that he starts to soften up. He wants to be mad at her more or at least make her work harder than that. She just laughs in his neck.” You are too stubborn. I don’t understand why you just don’t admit it.”

Harry glares at her.

“Say it again and..”

“And what?” She says daring him, with a smile on her face.

“No more sex. I am officially on strike.”

She actually cackles in his face for that.

“I am serious!”he says.

Jenny just kisses him, hungrily, sloppily, just the way he likes it. He can feel himself get excited just by that and when her hand starts trailing to his groin he sighs in her mouth. She stops suddenly, looking at him amused.

“Shortest strike in history.” She says with a too pleased with herself smile for his liking. He huffs, annoyed. 

“You are the devil, did you know that?”

She pecks him.

“And you are a child, Potter. A child and incredibly irrational.”

“Irrational? Darling, Draco Malfoy is helping my Aunt Petunia with her gardenias as we speak. That is irrational, not me. I am being the most patient man on the entire planet right now.”

Jenny tries to hold her snicker. She fails.

“It’s not funny. And it is your fault, you know?” 

It was. It was her fault and maybe Snape’s too. He knew it was too good to be true and even if he doesn’t have proof he is almost sure Snape planned this. Maybe not exactly like this but what other explanation is there for him to do something nice for him? They got along well enough but it’s not like the man wasn’t a raging arsehole to him anyway. When he sat him in his office and offered him to find a safe way to bring Jenny to Hogwarts for Slughorn’s Holiday party he almost made the man a pure gold statue. He even considered throwing the Quidditch match against Slytherin to show his gratitude. Ron told him to sod off but he tried. Harry took all precautions to be there for her arrival but he still missed it by mistake. A terrible one that resulted in the worst possible scenario he could find himself in..

SEVEN MONTHS AGO

“You are an unbelievable idiot Potter.” says Malfoy, glaring at him.

“I told you to move, you stupid prick. This is on you.” says Harry, doing the same.

It all starts because girls were being a bit of a nightmare trying to trap Harry under mistletoe so he had to be very careful moving through the castle to avoid them. That’s how he found Malfoy who was back at acting like a demented emotional mess. Malfoy spent most of sixth year like that and Harry being on a spiral of his own couldn’t not see it. He went through a bit of an obsessive phase over Malfoy’s attitude until it resulted in a magic duel that ended with Malfoy bleeding in the third floor bathroom.  After the whole Sectumsepra debacle Harry promised Snape to keep clear from Malfoy and let him deal with it. For the most part he kept his promise until that day. It was probably because of the awareness Jenny’s presence put him in, Harry was hyper-focus on making everything perfect for her. There was something very much not perfect about the way Malfoy was dragging himself through the castle like he was praying for someone to Avada Kedabra him. He had been acting like that all year and Harry almost preferred the pretentious prick he usually was than the depressed version he had been during those months. Jenny had her opinions about that.

“It’s because you are the sweetest boy in the world even to the people you find annoying.” she wrote in the letter she responded to the one he sent explaining all that happened.

Harry didn’t find Draco Malfoy annoying. He found him the most despicable git to ever be allowed to live. Jenny suggesting he had sympathy for the guy he had professed deep seeded hatred for six years felt absurd. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been scared out of his wits when they dueled and Harry spit the spell that had Malfoy cut in pieces, because he was. Harry had no desire to become a monster and worked real hard in his life to consider himself a good guy. He helped Snape take Draco to the infirmary, donated blood to patch up the guy together under his mother’s glare and accepted every detention hour and withdrawal of Hogsmeade outing it was put on him as punishment, without as much as a peep. But from that to sympathy there was a continent. Harry deserved all the punishments put in place for him after the duel but he really didn’t deserve what followed. 

“You were following me.” Says Malfoy with the dark circle under his eyes making his glare more pronounced.” Again. And now this? Are there any feelings that you want to share with me, Potter?” 

“Now that you mention it Malfoy yes. I feel like you are a pretentious prick and you should get sterilized.” 

“Yes. You are the one that decides to stand beside me under a mistletoe but I am the prick that should be sterilized. That is so rich you stupid dimwit! 

Malfoy got him there. In his defense Harry did it by mistake, by impulse and he even had a logical, rational explanation of why he didn’t just walk away when he figured Malfoy wasn’t up to something bad. When Harry found Malfoy, he was crying. He was sobbing in a corner of the castle that nobody walked through. Not even the ghosts. When he saw him, he couldn’t just turn away. The desolation, the misery painted in Malfoy eyes, Harry knew it all too well. He has suffered it in his own flesh. So despite his better judgement he went to stand in front of the corner Malfoy was sitting with his arms hugging his legs like if he wanted to make himself small, like if wanted to disappear. Malfoy stood up immediately, spooked by the new presence, looking ready to bolt away, but it was too late. Harry had the excuse but didn’t bring it up and when they noticed the mistletoe both of them got distracted sending each other to hell and it actually slipped his mind. They were about to kill each other, Muggle style until Ron and Hermione finally found them using the Marauder’s Map. It took Ron ten minutes to stop laughing. Hermione had a hard time hiding her smile too. 

“ Okay, enough Weasel. You are going to ruin your pants if you keep howling like that and everyone knows you only have the two pairs.”

It took fifteen minutes to convince Ron not to punch Malfoy. 

“Hermione, please tell me you have a plan here.” Begged Harry.

“Well the obvious, easiest, route is..”

“Impossible!” Says Harry and Malfoy, agreeing on something for the first time. 

“Right..” says Hermione trying to swallow her smile.”Well there is also the problem of Jenny, Harry. Snape is going to wonder why you are not in his office to collect her. You threaten to camp outside his office before he threaten to drown you in the Great Lake.

 “Shame he didn’t go through with it.” Mumbles Malfoy.

“Okay..” Says Harry, ignoring Malfoy and trying to think fast.“Ron, go get Jenny. Tell Snape I am working on something for her. Hermione, take me out of this one with the ability to live with myself please.” 

His friends do as they are told or at least Ron does but Hermione is still sitting feet away from them with Hogwart’s History in her lap, trying to decipher something that could help them minutes before Jenny is supposed to get there with Ron. 

“ For the love of Circe Granger, just Bombarda the stupid mistletoe.” screams Malfoy and Harry was desperate enough to agree with him.

“If I do that then the whole castle is coming to see what happened and there is no guarantee it takes off the spell. Want me to try anyway?”

Malfoy didn’t answer but it was clear as water Bombarda stopped being an option. 

“I think there is only one way..”

“Find another Granger!”

“Don’t scream at me Malfoy!”

That’s how Jenny finds them. Malfoy and Hermione about to have a duel of their own and Harry looking at the window beside them, dreaming of throwing himself over it with longing.

“Uhmm.. Harry?” She said.

Harry’s heart immediately skips a beat at the sight of her. She looked beautiful with her new short hair that barely got to her shoulder and her new dress she had no business looking so good on. 

“Hi..” says Harry in a sigh.

“Uhh.. I’m sorry but who the hell is this?!” Demands Malfoy.

“Be careful with your tone with her Malfoy!” Said Harry, immediately menacing at the Slytherin.

“Oh I get it..” said Malfoy with actual surprise in his voice.” Is this your girlfriend Potter? Did you Imperius her?”

“Shut up, ferret!” 

“You must be on some strong hallucinogens New Girl, to be able to stomach scar face here. You are decent looking, you know, you can do better than Saint Potter, right?”  

Jenny’s face beams with recognition.

“You are Draco Malfoy!” She says.

Malfoy looks at Harry with a weirded out look.

“You talk to your girlfriend about me, Potter? What kind of sodding idiot are you?”

A very big one. That’s all Harry can think when Hermione is explaining to Jenny how mistletoes works in Hogwarts, why they can’t move and the only thing they know that could take them out of the problem.  

“Why don’t you just kiss, then?” says Jenny, innocently looking and tilting her head like when she was younger. Harry wants to kiss her.

Malfoy actually gasps with outrage. 

“Potter, control your woman.” Says Malfoy, looking away like he can’t even bear the idea of watching Jenny right now. Harry can’t believe it but he agrees with the outrage part.

“Darling..” tries Harry, feeling the storm of Jenny’s stubbornness coming.

“Oh my god! How old do you two say you are? It’s just a kiss.” says Jenny. 

“I’ll be very suspicious of her nonchalance about kissing, Potter.” Says Malfoy, still looking away.

“Yes! Thank you Malfoy. That is a good point. Is there anyone that you are just kissing that I should know Jenny?” says Harry, letting the green envy monster show his ugly face. 

“Probably a ton of blocks trapping her under mistletoes in her own school like Romilda Vane did with you.” 

“Excuse me?” Says Jenny with a cold tone and a glare. Harry looks at Malfoy like a psychopath.

“Thank you Malfoy, you mind butting out now?” he says with a freeze expression.

“No. I think he can talk all he wants.” Says Jenny in a sneer. 

“That’s right Potter, listen to your girlfriend.”

That was another twenty minutes of Harry and Jenny fighting with Malfoy butting in every now and then. Ron and Hermione sit in a corner, Hermione still focused on her book and Ron watching the fight like it is a Quidditch game. 

“Oh I don’t know Harry , maybe Romilda Vane can come, kiss you and take you out of this mess. She clearly would love the opportunity.”

“Yes, yes she probably would enjoy it..” says Malfoy with an evil smile. 

“Well you know what I don’t think you would care since it’s just kissing. Right Jenny?”

“It was very casual the way she brought it up.” says Malfoy with rehearsed sympathy for Harry.

“That’s it!” Says Hermione.” I got it. You are a genius Jen!”

Everyone looks at her.

“We just need a switch spit spell. Like the one The Twins do for their switching candies. You know you put one on your mouth and then it switches to another from the bag. That’s why you have to kiss the package to open it. The bag has to recognize the spit of the buyer, it doesn’t work for the ones that didn’t kiss the bag.”

“But Hermione..” says Ron looking at her like is doing difficult math in his head.”The bag doesn’t just respond to one kisser?”

“ Yes..” Says  Hermione, looking between Harry and Jenny with apprehension. 

Malfoy loses it in a fit of laughter, clearly being the first one to get it. 

“What?” Says Harry.”I don’t get it.”

“Of course you don't, you dim witted idiot, but please let me be the one to explain it to you. Granger wants to switch you with your girlfriend because your spit is already in her mouth and then..”

Harry didn’t mean to take it that far but he also not not enjoy it. To his credit after Harry launches his fist to Malfoy’s eye before he could finish saying that he was going to kiss his girlfriend, Draco launches one to his nose. If you think about it, it was fair. Jenny doesn’t think the same about it. Harry and Draco end up sitting like berated children one beside the other, one with a shiner and the other with a broken nose. 

“You two are the most childish, irrational dumb boys I have ever met.” Says Jenny standing in front of them, commanding enough authority to even have Malfoy put his head down.

“He started it!” They both say, probing Jenny’s point.

“I don’t care,” says Jenny with a glare.” And now all that you have managed is for me to not want to help you.”

“Wait..” tries Malfoy.

“Zip it Malfoy. I am dying before I let you kiss my girlfriend.”

“You know what the other option is, right Potter?”

“Yes, and I'd rather..” Harry shudders.” That. Before I let you anywhere near her.”

Malfoy looks at Jenny pleading. She shakes her head.

“I will beg,”says Draco.

“Can I ask you something?”

Draco nods, effusively.

“ Why do you hate Harry so much?”

“Because he is talentless, righteous, git that everyone is always praising for no good reason.” says Malfoy, like if he rehearses that answer everyday in front of the mirror.

Harry huffs.

“Well you are an arrogant, self important prick, that would go through anyone to get what you want, no matter what is right.”

“You mean a winner, Potter?”

Harry glares at him. Jenny interrupts Harry’s next retort.

“Okay.. I think I know what we are going to do. Hermione, Ron and I are going to take a long walk through this castle, maybe open up the cookies I brought them.”

Ron perks up at the plan, already loving it.

“Seeing the library Mione is always talking about..” 

Hermione is gone. Harry knows it, everybody does.

“And when we are finished we are going to come back and see if you have grown up enough to take yourselves out of this mess, if not then I guess we can camp here all night. If I were you, which I am profusely thanking God I am not, I would deal with this in privacy to save my so-called important masculinity. Bye boys, be good.”  

And then Jenny starts leaving with Hermione and Ron in tow.

“Jenny!” Calls Harry in desperation.

“Yes, sweetheart?”says Jenny looking back at Harry from over her shoulder. Harry knows that look and it’s pure stubbornness mixed with something else that he can recognize. All these years and he still is terrible at not giving her what she wants. She doesn’t even have to voice it anymore. Harry sighs and nods. She beams at him and he feels the corners of his lips tugging already. 

“I love you sweetheart.”

“I love you too, darling.” Says Harry deflated.

Jennys walks away and Draco points at where she left with childish devastation.

“What the hell are you doing Potter? She is leaving.”

“There is no point, Malfoy. Jenny is the most stubborn person when she gets something in her head. Beside..” Says Harry with a bittersweet smile on his face.” I don’t wanna let her down.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Says Malfoy.” Don’t drag me into the weird dealings of your relationship.”  

“Shut the hell up and start talking, Malfoy. Why were you crying?”says Harry, trying to look at Malfoy with something resembling understanding. 

Draco almost looks offended.

“You are more stupid than I thought if you think I am going to have a heart to heart with you here. I don’t need therapy from you of all people, Potter.”

“I’m not offering therapy Malfoy. There is not enough money in the world. I’m offering for you to say whatever is  eating you inside and I swear on my life that it won't come out of here.”

Malfoy looks at him with anger.

“What are you trying to do, Potter? Impress your girlfriend with how good of a guy you are?”

“I already told you I’m not telling anyone, that includes her. So spit it out. It will make you feel better and then you can keep being a pretentious prick again after we are done here.”

Malfoy looks at him like he is trying to decipher what is the trick.

“There isn’t any.” Says Harry with certainty in his eyes.  ”What you see is what you get.”

“What do you win with this?”says Malfoy, with assessing eyes.

“You don’t have to always win, Malfoy.”

“That’s easy for you to say Potter. All your life has been a piece of cake.”

“Are you on drugs? What part of my life has been easy?”

“ You have everything, you’ve always had everything. You have friends that don’t care about your status, don’t mind being seen with you, are not afraid to come close because..because it might go to the wrong ears and then they will be punished too. You have always had them and you don’t wonder if they will flip on you the moment things don’t go your way. You even have a girl willing to come from afar to your school just to see you.”

Harry looks at Malfoy looking at his feet with a shameful look in his eyes and it’s such a contrary image from the one he has of him in his head that Harry looks away to look forward and avoid how uncomfortable it is.  

“He is just a child.” Says a voice in Harry’s head, eerily similar to Jenny’s. He smiles.

“It wasn’t always like that.” Says Harry.” Before I knew about the magic world, before I came to Hogwarts.. I didn’t had anything. Not one friend, no family to love me, nothing. I know what it is not to have anything Malfoy. I know the pain and loneliness that comes with that.” 

Harry doesn’t look but he can feel Malfoy nodding slightly, like he can tell Harry is saying the truth by his tone. They stay in silence for a moment until Harry talks again.

“You can have it too, you know. You can have the kind of friends I have too.” 

Malfoy hesitates but eventually he asks.

“ How?”

“First, you can’t expect for people to be willing to love you and trust you if you act like you are willing to sell out everyone at the first chance to save your own skin.”

“I’m not a Gryffindor.”

“I have no idea what that got to do with anything.”

“I am not...good Potter. I don’t do the right, perfect thing. I don’t even know how to.”

“Me neither.” Says Harry.

That’s when Draco looks at him. Harry looks back.

“ I don’t ,Malfoy.” Reassures Harry.” You know how many times I have done the wrong thing, said the wrong thing? All I do is put the people I love in danger.”

Harry can see the hesitance in Draco’s eyes and then he sighs.

“What do you do then?”

“ I ask for forgiveness and then I do better next time.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

Harry smiles, thinking of Jenny.

“With some people..it’s a pleasure. When you do it for the right one you feel like you can do it for the rest of your life. You want to do it.”

There is a moment of silence where they share a meaningful look and then Draco snorts.

“ I'd still rather get eaten by the basilisk than kiss you Potter.”

Harry laughs.

“Ditto Malfoy. Sadly I already killed the thing.”  

“I always wanted to ask you.. Don’t you speak parcel? Wasn’t it easier to just put her to sleep again? Seems like a waste to kill her. You could have just stopped it from petrifying Mudbloods and let her keep existing.”

“ Muggleborns Malfoy and I am not a Slytherin. I didn’t think that ahead.” 

“Maybe you didn’t have the right friend to give you perspective.”

When Harry looks at Draco again he is looking away and all Harry can see is his ears red from embarrassment. He didn’t mean to say the last thing aloud. Harry smiles.

“Yeah. I probably didn’t.” says Harry.

When Jenny, Ron and Hermione come back they come with company. Ginny Weasley is with them and she smiles at Harry when she sees him. 

“Hi Harry.”

”Hey Ginny.”

He always liked Ron’s little sister. She has always been sweet to him. 

“Great, more audience for the spectacle. It’s little red here to take the picture?” Says Malfoy.

“Actually ferret..” says Ron.

“Ronald.” warns Hermione. Ron keeps quiet and just glares at Malfoy. Jenny giggles and looks at Harry.

“Well?”

Harry nods and she beams. She looks at Ginny.

“So I just kiss him?”

Ginny nods with a sweet smile to Jenny. Harry remembers a time Ginny was cold to Jenny until Jenny did her magic on her and now she was the big sister Ginny always wanted. 

“Yeap, it worked for me and Dean when he got stuck with Seamus.” says Ginny.

“Wait. That means..” Harry doesn’t finish. Jenny quiets him with a kiss that he deepens, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her in his arms. She smiles in his mouth and he can’t help but do the same.

“I missed you.” She says.

“Miss doesn’t begin to explain it, darling.” says Harry.

“Yes, what a bloody Greek tragedy! Would you mind moving Potter to see if we can get out of this situation with dignity?”  

Harry takes a step forward with Jenny still hanging in his arms and he beams.

“It works!” announces Harry.

“Then why the hell I can’t move?” Says Malfoy.

“Because someone has to kiss you, Malfoy. It just doesn’t have to be Harry.” explains Hermione. 

Draco looks at Jenny in Harry’s arms.

“Sod off Malfoy.” menacingly glaring again.

“You hypocrite! Are you going to leave me here after..”

“I didn’t say I will leave you here. I'm just not going to let you kiss my girlfriend, prick!”

“Fine, whatever! Granger.”

“You are out of your mind if you think I’m gonna let that happen, Malfoy.”says Ron, red with fury.

“Weasel you are  the one out of your mind if you think I’m gonna kiss you!”

Ron splutters, indignant. Words are not even getting out of his mouth.

“Oh for the love of Merlin!” Says Ginny before planting herself in front of Malfoy and kisses him. It’s not a long kiss but it’s enough to leave Malfoy looking like he got hit with a bat in the head.  

“There you go, Malfoy. You can move now!” Says Ginny completely unfazed by what she just did.

“Ginny!” Says Ron.

“Oh shut up Ron. I just need this to end quickly. Jenny, Hermione and I have to go get ready for Slughorn’s.”

Ginny starts dragging Hermione by the hand and manages to tear Jenny from Harry after a last big kiss and a promise they will see each other in a few hours. 

“You are mine for the rest of the night!” announces Harry while Ginny is dragging away a beaming Jenny and an exasperated Hermione.” You hear me Mione. No stealing her more!”

“Yeah, yeah..” says Hermione with a roll of eyes.

Harry watches Jenny go with his chest drumming. She is here, he thinks.

“Does he always act like this much of an idiot for that girl?” asks Malfoy.

“This is him holding back.” says Ron.

“Blimey..” 

Harry didn’t know that would be only the first of many times Ron and Draco, as he would come to call him later, would team up to give him grief for how stupidly in love he was with Jenny. He didn’t know that night while he was dancing and laughing with Jenny in Slughorn’s party the Malfoy heir would send a letter to his parents announcing he is defecting the Death Eaters, renouncing to his privilege as a pure blood and urging them to run and hide before presenting himself in front of Dumbledore to come clean about the order’s that he was given by Voldemort himself of killing him, to soon after promise his loyalty to the Order of Phoenix. Harry didn’t know Draco Malfoy would have to leave the Slytherin dormitory because he had many attempts against his life by other Death Eater’s sons and move to a spare room in Snape’s quarters. He didn’t know he and Ron would spend many nights there studying for final exams with him, sometimes with Hermione and Ginny  and also secretly helping him to sleep because he still had nightmares of the nights spent enduring the Cruciatus curse by the wand of Voldemort.       

“I know the prophecy says you are the one that has to kill him, Potter but if I get to him first... I am not holding back, I am going for the head.” Says Malfoy one night when Harry and him are talking about it while Ron snores. “I don’t really care what he did to me but what he did to my mom...” 

Harry didn’t know Draco Malfoy would become one of his best friends and one of the bravest people he would come to meet in his life, he didn’t know they would come to understand each other as much as they did and share as much as they come to share. That night when he is showing Jenny his dormitory after bribing his roommates to disappear for the night he can only think in her, in how beautiful she looks in her dress, in how amazing she looks out of it and how he is going to think of all the things they do in his bed for the reminder of the school year. The fact that in seven months he is going back to Private Drive with Draco Malfoy in tow escapes him completely. 

SEVEN MONTHS LATER. BACK IN PRIVATE DRIVE.

“Stop laughing, I mean it.” Says Harry like an annoyed child. Jenny couldn’t care less. She at least kisses him.

“You are so adorable when you are jealous.” She says against his lips.

“I am not..”

 Jenny kisses him again.

“You are. You are jealous Draco is better at getting along with your uncles..”

“It’s not surprising, the three of them are a pretentious lot!” Says Harry, refusing to pout. Jenny laughs and kisses him again.

“And also because he has Dudley in the palm of his hand.” Says Jenny, biting his ear.

Harry sighs more than huffing like he intended.

“He has practice with dumb, big guys.” says Harry with trouble while Jenny is tugging his earlobe. She giggles against his neck.

“And you loath how good he is with my parents too.” Jenny says, kissing him. That one does have Harry red for more than just the brush of her tits against his chest. Jenny laughs and lifts herself a little bit to look at him better. Harry glares at her but sighs.

“I hate it.” He admits. Jenny rewards his honesty with a bite in his lips.

“I know sweetheart but he is also nice to you.”

“How?!” Says Harry insulted by the notion.” How is that prick nice to me?”

Jenny giggles and then leans to lick his mouth in a way that doesn't let him stay mad. She arches her neck asking for his attention there.

“Are you saying the silencing spell he threw in here with his new ability to do magic outside of school is not being appreciated?”

“Is the least he can do.” Says Harry stubbornly but kissing Jenny’s neck with hunger.

“Are we not making use of the many hours he spends distracting everybody?” Says Jenny in a silky voice, pleasure flooding every word.

“I guess it’s not all bad.” Says Harry putting her nipple in his mouth, having her moan as loudly as he wouldn’t be able without the silencing spell.”Are you also happy he is here, darling? Do I have to be jealous of you too?”

Harry bites gently her nipple and she moans and lifts herself dragging them both in a sitting position. She arches more in his arms giving him full access to her breast. He licks the other nipple and bites it too, her hands making their way behind his neck to tug his hair. 

“Harry..” she moans.

“Answer me darling.” He says, breathing in her perky nipples. 

“Of course not. All I think is you.” she says with frustration, pushing her chest up more.

“Prove it.” Says Harry without giving her what she wants.

“Tell me how you want me.”

That does it. He licks her nipples again and her moans get louder when he manages a hand between them and he starts rubbing her clit.

“Can I be rough?” he says.

Jenny can’t talk, she just nods in a daze.

“I promise to make it good for you, darling.” He says while she grinds against his finger.

“Yes..” says Jenny in a moan. Harry watches her whimper and her eyes become almost angry when he takes his hand away from her center. He doesn’t let her have more reaction than that and flips her from facing him to be a vision in all fours just for him. He kisses the cheeks of her ass, to the spine of her back until he is hovering on top of her and he is able to kiss the base of her neck . He takes his finger and puts it against her lips. 

“Lick it.”

Jenny obliges, taking his finger whole in his mouth reminding him of when he does that with his dick. He has to concentrate not to enter her right there looking for relief for his stiffness. He kisses her behind her ear.

“You are fucking perfect .” He says while her tongue swirled in the tip of his dick in a known well.”Even when you are torturing me.”

She smiles against his finger. 

“But guess now is my turn.” Says Harry with an evil grin against her ear. He takes his finger and goes back to rubbing her clit slowly, frustratingly so. 

“Harry..”whines Jenny, pushing her butt against his groin.

“What is darling? You don’t like it?” Says Harry with viciousness.

“I want more.. please.” Say Jenny.

Harry just puts another finger but keeps the pace. Jenny whines more.

“Not what you meant?”

Jenny shakes her head and tries to grind against his fingers.

“Try that again and I will stop.”

Jenny is shaking, keeping herself still.

Harry grins against her neck.

“I love it when you are obedient to me. It makes me feel like you would do anything to have my dick inside you.”

Jenny nods with heavy breath.

“Anything?”

Jenny nods, and she moans languidly when Harry picks up the pace of his fingers.

“Say it. Say you want it.”

“I want you Harry. I want your dick inside me.” Says Jenny with difficulty.

Harry takes his fingers out of her, grabs Jenny by the hips to lift her and then he enters her with vigor. Jenny’s moans and his becomes one while he is losing himself, pounding inside her with poor restraint. 

“You feel so good, sweetheart.” She says and Harry gets more hungry for her pleasure. Lately he is always like that, he is always thinking of all the ways there are to tattoo his soul on her skin, how to hide in the corners of her mind so he can live with her regardless of anything, how to leave parts of him in exchange for the parts he is taking with him. The day he is going to have to leave her is coming. He can feel it, it’s like an army of inferi charging against him and he can’t move. All he can do is rub her clit while he fucks her, and drown the voices announcing the death of his heart with her moans. 

-0-0-0-

This summer would’ve felt different regardless of Malfoy being there or not. At first he didn’t have any particular feelings about it.  

“The ferret can come with me to The Burrow.” Said Ron, pretending is not a big deal when they are in Dumbledore’s office.

Draco had been eagerly ready to accept until Snape shut it down. Harry seconded the motion. Apparently Ron was the only person in the entire castle unaware of Draco’s Malfoy new fascination with Ginny Weasley and Harry was hoping for the whole thing to unravel after the war. By then he is either dead or with much more head space to deal with Ron trying to kill Draco for the harassment the man inflicts on Ginny. Ginny dealt with it like a pro barely giving Malfoy the time of day but Harry could see her starting to crack and he doesn’t need Ron and Draco at each other’s throats on top of everything else he has to deal with. Snape took advantage of that.

“Great. Thank you for offering to take in Draco, Potter.”

“Wait what?”

He didn’t essentially mind but he just had one concern. The Dursleys.

“Wouldn't it be better to dump him with Sirius?” Tried Harry.

“Sirius is cousins with Narcissa and Bellatrix. Too many portraits in common that could let loose about Draco’s presence with Sirius. That is also why we don’t run meetings on Grimmauld Place anymore.” Explained Snape.  

And that is how Harry ended up bunking with Draco Malfoy in his room in Private Drive. That and a meeting between Dumbledore, Snape and The Dursley that Harry has no idea how they manage to convince them but Uncle Vernon comes out that meeting red with outrage, Snape looks like he is ready to empty an entire bottle of Fire Whiskey on his own, Dumbledore happy and Petunia confused. 

“How.. quaint..” said Malfoy when he saw the small room they had to share now. 

“What? Not up to your standards, prince?”

Malfoy has the gall to pass a finger in the bedside table Aunt Petunia puts for him, like he is looking for dust. 

“It will do, peasant.”

After that Malfoy proceeded to unveil the reach of his Slytherin talents. By the end of the first week he was calling his uncles by their first names.

“What a delicious feast Petunia.” Said the sly ferret, putting a napkin in his lap while Aunt Petunia served him food in a fit of giggles.

“How did you manage to snatch such a precious woman, Vernon? You must have been a silver tongue devil.” 

The way Uncle Vernon peacocked after that comment about his younger days will hunt Harry for the rest of his days. Harry can’t escape it. Malfoy is always around, making everyone love him. Dudley’s friends put him in arms when he figured out Rugby. 

“It’s mild compared to Quidditch.” says Draco with a sufficient smile.

He has a herd of girls chasing him around that he tries to direct to Dudley who deems him his best mate for that. John Digger and Alma act like he is the politest boy they have ever met and they urge Harry to bring him to the movie nights, the dinners, the trips to the countryside and all the family activities. Harry is annoyed. Jenny found it the funniest thing to ever happen. 

“It’s like you are a kid again, when you are with him. A spoiled, jealous, sweet kid.” She says kissing Harry’s lips and his stubborn frown.

Harry takes his time softening to the idea but eventually it’s almost fun. He learns it means something to Draco. He says as much when Harry is reading a letter from Sirius explaining that Summer he won't be able to see him because of precautions put by the Order but promising he will forego them if he sends him an S.O.S. to him. Draco distracts him from writing his response.

“Potter…” 

Harry hums while looking for a parchment in the mess of his bedside table. Jenny is always in his back, telling him to clean it up but he always forgets the tedious work.

“Thank you.” says Malfoy.

Harry looks at him and finds him lying with his back to him.

“For what?” asks Harry.

“For sharing this place.. I know I don’t.. I know it matters to you, that is sacred and I ..don’t fully deserve it.”

Harry stares at Draco’s back with surprise expression before sighing and smiling.

“ Not bad for Mudblood existence huh?” says Harry sardonic.

“Muggles Potter. It’s Muggles. Have some respect.”

Harry smiles.

“You are right, Malfoy. And that is a first.”

It’s ironic, Harry thinks. His Muggle home never has been a home to him but just for Jenny. For Draco, Private Drive becomes a home in full, for all the pieces that Harry never could make work. 

Jenny couldn’t stop laughing when the three of them were lying in her backyard and they tell her about how Aunt Petunia knitted Malfoy a sweater in the middle of July for him to use in the winter. Harry hasn’t gotten one mitten from the woman. Jenny’s laugh is the only thing that separates him from punching Malfoy who is just eating the fruit salad Alma Digger put together for him.

“Stop looking at me like that Potter. It’s not my fault that you have the charm of an Hippogriff’s ass. What do you see on him, dollface?” He says looking at Jenny who is carefully wrapped by Harry’s arms.

Harry aims a kick to him that he skips with almost bored effort.

“Call her dollface again. See what happens” 

Draco just snorts and puts a piece of melon in his mouth like a Roman emperor.

“ Didn’t you get laid this morning, Potter? I remember covering your ass for hours so Jenny could do the charity work that entails.” 

“That’s none of your business.” Say Harry while Jenny just keeps laughing. Harry looks at her with a softer expression.”And you.. stop encouraging him.”

“Sure, sweetheart.” She says dragging Harry’s face to hers for an upside kiss.

“ If all you were going to do this summer was suck face and gape at your far over your league girlfriend Potter, why didn’t you just let me go with the weasel? I could be trying to earn myself something similar as we speak.”

Jenny smiles at Harry.

“He is right.”she says

Harry huffs.

“Darling I know you are new at this but you need to remember. Malfoy is never right.”

Jenny giggles and kisses his nose.

“I’m gonna go find a table game we can play. Something tells me with you boys I am in for a laugh.”

Harry doesn’t miss a moment of her walking away from him. He then looks at Draco and launches another kick that is also easily eluded.

“Why are you such a jealous prick?” Says Harry.” It’s not my fault Snape decided to save your life from getting killed by Ron. I would have left you to feed the The Burrow’s backyard for all I care.”

Draco snorts but smiles.

“Leave me alone Potter. I miss her.” Says Draco, looking at the sky with longing eyes.

“What do you miss? Ginny sending you to hell every five minutes?”

“Yeah.. That and trying to do better after.” Says Malfoy, still looking at the sky. Harry looks at the guy lying in front of him and tries to reconcile him with the boy he use to know. He can barely remember that little prick anymore. Harry looks up to the sky too and sees how the sun is getting covered by dark heavy clouds.

“Summer is coming to an end.” Says Draco.

“Yeah..” says Harry with his chest drowning in misery.

“She doesn’t know we are going away soon, Potter.”

“She doesn’t.” Says Harry as a matter of fact.

“She doesn’t know either The Dursley’s are packing to move away, or about the Horocruxes quest Dumbledore left you to do before he died.”

“Nothing of that has anything to do with her.”

“You mean..” says Draco, not bringing himself to say it.

“Yes.” It’s all Harry says.

Draco sighs.

“You already knew this but until today I used to envy you Potter. Until this moment..I wanted my own version of all you had for yourself.”

“Yeah..I know Draco. Until this moment, I loved every moment of it.”

-0-0-0-0-

Hermione looks at him with tears in her eyes while Harry is holding her hand. They are sitting in his room on Private Drive. Harry is in his bed, Hermione on Draco’s. 

“Maybe there is another way.” Says Hermione with a sob. “It’s just not fair Harry.”

“I wished I had the strength to do it myself Mione but..”

Hermione shakes his head and squeezes Harry’s hand.

“ I barely managed myself. The way you love her.. I wouldn’t... You will break Harry. If you do it there will be nothing left of you to fight what’s coming.”

Harry feels the misery in his heart show in his face.

“There is barely anything left now with me walking away from her.”

Hermione seems miserable looking at him and Harry wonders if he looks as in pain as he feels.

“Let me.. Let me try..” 

“No. It’s not about you trying Hermione. It’s about me only having one thing left untouched by fucking Voldemort and I wont risk it. I wont compromise. It’s all of her, just as she is or nothing.”

“What if we win and I can get all of it back inside her?”

“Then I will live a happy life knowing she is alive, living her life in a world no one will enslave her light.”

Hermione sobs and Harry kneels in front of her and puts her head against what is by all intents and purposes his sister’s shoulder.

“I beg you Hermione. I know you love her too. I beg you to just help me.”

Harry and Hermione cry in each other's arms.

“I’ll do it.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

“Where is he?” Asks Ron with difficulty while he runs.

“He can’t be far behind.” Says Draco.

Ron looks back and all he sees is Greyback charging for them.

“Fuck!” He says and picks up the pace, throwing a spell in front of them to clear the space to run . Draco looks back and sends an attack spell aiming at the werewolf. Greyback eludes it by inches and charges for them with more viciousness. It’s a close race through the Forest of Dean, Ron and Draco running with Greyback in their tale until an explosive spell is cast and Ron and Draco are sent flying. Draco looks disoriented and Ron’s forehead is bleeding when Greyback grabs them by their collar and lifts them to sniff. A group of snatchers led by Dolohov appears behind him, Dolohov clearly the one who cast the spell that got them. 

“Two blood traitors in one hit. What do you think Greyback? You think you have the stomach for both?”

Greyback grins with a ghoulish air around him, showing his teeth with feral hunger. Draco glares at him but then something behind takes his attention. He starts laughing. Ron smirks too. Dolohov looks at Malfoy, insulted.

“What are you laughing at Malfoy? You are not getting off easy. Whatever Greyback leaves of you will be left for The Dark Lord’s pet to swallow. He ordered it himself.”

Draco just arrogantly grins at Dolohov.

“You are the one that is going to need to be scraped off the dirt with a spoon after he is done with you, Dolohov. Today he is in a mood and you're in the way.”

“Who are..”

Dolohov doesn’t get to finish. Harry is barely visible. All Draco and Ron see is a blurb on a broom tackle Dolohov, taking him to the skies and then hearing Dolohov scream while he falls to the ground. Greyback looks at Ron and Draco with wide eyes. 

“I would put us down if I were you, dog.” Says Ron.

“I don’t know Ron. I kinda wanna see what Potter does with him.”

Greyback growls like an animal, ready to bite them but before he can manage Harry appears behind him, burying the sword of Gryffindor inside Greyback’s shoulder. Draco and Ron drop to the floor and immediately begin battle with the rest of the snatchers. Harry is taking two at the time and when a third one tries to attack him from behind. Harry has no mercy.  

“Sectumsepra!”

Harry casts the spell on the snatcher attacking him from behind, kills another one with Gryffindor’s sword and settles with robbing the remaining one of his wand with an Expelliarmus leaving him with his hands up surrendering. Ron and Draco have no problem dealing with the snatchers left, all of them either unconscious or dead on the floor of the forest.

“Malfoy.” Says Harry.

“What do you want, show off?” Says Malfoy, making Greyback howl with a kick in his ribs.

“For you to stop playing and come to work.”

Draco walks to Harry with aloof air.

“I was working. You were the one that was late.”

Harry takes an empty, destroyed, locket from his breast pocket and shows it. 

“I was busy,” says Harry.

Draco takes the destroyed locket in his hand and looks back at Ron to share his amazement. Ron is smiling, relief in his face.

“I guess as excuses go this one is not terrible.” Malfoy says, looking at Harry. He is not smiling. He actually has no emotion in his face, only focusing on pointing at the remaining Snatcher with his wand. Draco look at him with a vicious smile and the snatcher squirms.

“What do you want to do with him?” 

“You know him?”

Draco nods.

“He is a Lestrange. An unimportant one, if I remember correctly.” Says Draco.

“Which means no one paid attention to him.” Says Ron while he is pick-pocketing, the fallen snatchers.  

“Which means he heard many useful things.” says Draco. 

Harry nods.

“Take care of it, would you Malfoy?”

“With pleasure Potter.” Draco points his wand at the Lestrange man shaking and with a swift movement petrifies him to start the Legeremens process on his mind. 

Harry walks back to where Greyback is pinned to the floor by the sword of Gryffindor. His eyes are numb at the man howling from pain when he steps on his shoulder, drawing more blood.

“What do you want to do with him, Harry?” Asks Ron, trying to look nonchalant while Harry just blankly stares at Greyback begging for mercy.

“Send a message.”

-0-0-0-

It’s not a nightmare, it’s a memory and it’s always the same one. After a while he doesn’t mind it. He welcomes it each time he has no option but to sleep. It’s the only way he gets to see her anymore. It’s all he wants while at the same time it’s all that can hurt him now. The only thing that makes him feel. Hermione usually brews him sleep potion to help him do it. She also drags him to put his head in her lap while he waits the few minutes it takes to kick in, doesn’t say anything that he insists on obsessively keep reading Snape’s Potion book.    

“And to think you wanted to get rid of it.” Says Draco, sitting on the opposite side at the entrance of the tent. They have a view of the sunset . Ron is eating stew beside Hermione.  

“He wanted to burn it.” He says with his mouth full.

Draco snorts.

“A war was coming and he wanted to throw away knowledge to fight. How dimwitted..”

“He wasn’t ready to control it yet.”  Says Hermione, soothingly caressing his hair.

“You just didn’t like that he was using it to be better than you in Potions.”

Hermione giggles and puts her head on Ron's shoulder.

“That too.” She says and Harry can feel Ron leaning to kiss her cheek.”But I am happy he didn’t. I am happy you convinced him to keep it Draco. He has a better chance thanks to it.”

Harry knows what they are doing. It’s all they do. Every hour of the day he can feel their eyes, waiting for him to snap, waiting for him to cry, to break. He wants to tell them their soothing is appreciated but meaningless. He wants to show them. He wants to rip open his chest and show the proof. You cannot break what is already broken, what lives shattered and Harry has been living with heart in pieces since the day he told Jenny about the Horocruxes. He remembers everything about that moment. They were in The Dursley’s house, it was empty. He and Dudley had already had an emotional goodbye where they promised to see each other again. 

“You have to win this one Harry. You have to.”

“I’ll do my best big D.”

Aunt Petunia, grabbed his shoulder and Harry saw her eyes glaze.

“Did I ever tell you that you have your mother’s eyes?”

She asked before going away.

“Good bye boy.” Was all Uncle Vernon said.

All that there was left was the shell of the house. Harry told Jenny Ron and Hermione were helping Draco pack his stuff while he showed her, while he told her. 

“So is Dumbledore really dead?” she asked, taking in all the information.

Harry nodded.

“He had a curse in his hand, it expanded to his heart. He left his wand to me and a snitch.”

Jenny sighed and lost no time hiding in his arms. Harry held her tight, taking her smell like he wanted to memorize her. He already had.

“I’m sorry Harry.” She said.”He loved you. I could tell he did.”

Harry kissed the top of her head.

“He left something more for me to do. Something important.” 

Jenny separated a bit from their hug and looked at him. He remembered her eyes, innocent and pure, looking at him with all the curiosity in the world swirling in her pupil. He remembers caressing her face and taking a hair away from her face to see it all without obstruction. He thought she was going to ask about it but as always she surprised him. 

“We have to go, don’t we Harry?” She says, putting a hand on his cheek. He felt his heart burst in his chest. How did he manage it? How is that he got so lucky? It made him be selfish with her one last time.

“Would you do it?” He asked. “Would you leave it all behind and come with me?”

She smiled and bumped her forehead with his.

“Of course. You are my life Harry, you are my love. Where you go, I go.”

He doesn’t know how he did it, how he didn’t just stay kissing her, loving her, existing in her arms that are his home. He put his lips against hers and he could feel the tears in his cheeks.

“Why are you crying, sweetheart?” She said against his lips.

“Because I don’t deserve you. I never did. Because loving you has been the privilege of my life Jenny and saying goodbye to you is the hardest thing I will ever do.” 

“What..”

He doesn’t let her stop. He kisses her again and pushes her back until she bumps against Ron’s chest who immediately restrains her.

“Ron? What..” 

Harry remembers her confused eyes, the sadness beginning to dawn on her eyes.

“What is happening Harry?” She said looking at him with panic flooding her eyes. Harry grabbed her face while she tried to fight Ron’s hold.

“That I love you. That I can’t lose you Jenny.”

Jenny looked to her right and Harry knew she could see Hermione with her wand. Despite his eyes being only focused on Jenny Harry knew she was there, he could tell by the tears that started overflowing out of her eyes and the despair setting on them.

“Please, don’t do it Harry. Please. I love you sweetheart. Don’t do this to me, please. I won't be a problem. I’ll make myself useful. Anything you need. Just don’t take you away from me.” begged Jenny.

Harry shushes her against her lips and gives her a last peck.

“You are my strength Jenny. You are my everything.” He said while Hermione’s wand set on Jenny’s temple, dragging away every moment they ever had together, every laugh, every kiss, every time they made love and told each other how much they meant to each other. Harry sees her eyes close knowing her mind is empty of him. Ron let Jenny go and Harry immediately grabbed her to hold while he cried. The moments after are always a blur. Those he doesn’t remember as much because all he knows is that he doesn’t want to live. Hermione tells him later Draco did as he asked and dragged him away from Jenny despite him fighting tooth and nail when Hermione puts the invisible cloak over her and levitates her to her house to obliviate her family too. Draco never says what it took to restrain him but he remembers Draco’s face with a huge, swollen shiner in his face that took time to heal after that. Harry had a broken rib and cuts in his face too. Nothing hurts more than life without her after that but he keeps going. Every decision he makes is in her name. He does everything, no compromise, no holding back, no guilt or second guessing. He tears apart every Death Eater they encounter including Wormtail, has no issue throwing the Imperius in the Goblin they find in the lair he was hiding and rides the dragon outside of Gringotts with not an ounce of fear in him. All of it because he is winning this war for her even if it kills him. He might never see her again but he will leave this world a more secure place for her and no one is more powerful than him for that. Not even Lord Voldemort. But then he reaches the end.   

-0-0-0-

“Did you know?” Screams Sirius. I don’t think I have ever seen him that mad, thinks Harry with aloof almost bored demureness. Not even to Snape.

“ Answer me, Severeus! Did you know?” demands Sirius with a wand in Snape’s throat while he pins him against a wall in the headmaster’s office.

“Sirius..” tries Harry.

“He hasn’t answer the fucking question!” Says Sirius, eyes refusing to look at him.

“What does it matter if Severus knew all this time or not. Things are what they are.”

Sirius and Snape have a charged exchange with their eyes but eventually Sirius looks back at Harry.

“I’ll go with you,”says his godfather to Harry. Harry smiles at him.

“No, Sirius.”

“I’m not asking you bloody brat! I am coming with you and that’s the end of that.”

“I need you here Sirius.”

Harry is calm in the way he talks. To be honest he is almost not paying attention. He has no interest in being in that room where Hermione is quietly sobbing in a corner with Ron looking miserable while hugging her, Draco is sitting in a sofa by the window with his head in his hands, McGonagall, the pillar of strength she is crumbled and defeated, Severus Snape is calm and numb, like he has practice hating himself and this is just another miserable day in a miserable life. Sirius looks at him like he is ready to go to fist with him for the misguided honor of accompany to his death. Harry doesn’t want to be there. He wants to be in Jenny’s backyard, lying in the grass with her on top of him, kissing him. He wonders what she is doing right now. He sighs and forces himself to be in the room.

“I need you to survive Sirius.” Says Harry, looking at his miserably looking godfather.

“For what? What the fuck do I have left if you are gone?” Says Sirius.

Harry smiles and walks to him to hug.

“I’m leaving a piece of me here. I need you to protect her, to make sure she is happy. If you love me as you say you do, you will do as I say.” Says Harry in Sirius' ear.

Sirius holds on to Harry while sobbing. Harry holds him back while staring at Snape dead in the eye from over Sirius’s shoulder.

“ I expect the same from you, Severus. I expect you to care for all I love. Including yourself.” says Harry with meaning in his eyes.” You owe me that much.”

Severus swallows hard looking at him and nods curtly. Sirius refuses to let Harry go so with one last pleading look Harry looks at Draco who nods with a grim expression before start  tearing Sirius away from Harry. It takes both Snape and Draco to restrain him. Harry hugs Ron and Hermione one last time.

“Kill the snake. That's all there is left,” he says, giving Ron the sword of Gryffindor. Ron nods and looks at Harry with tears in his eyes. Harry smiles at him. At both of them.

“I’m really happy you are together. Try not to kill each other.”

Ron smiles.

“I’ll keep her safe. Both of them.” Says Ron.

Harry feels his heart shatter a bit, thinking of Jenny. 

“Thank you brother.” Says Harry with a thread of voice.”It means..”

“I know, I know.” Says Ron hugging him one last time like he can’t bear to hear Harry talk. Hermione and Harry don’t say anything to each other. Harry knows she is the smartest witch of her generation and she loves him. She knows what to do and he can trust she will do it. He  takes Hermione's hand and kisses it and lastly he steps away from the exit when he stops to look over his shoulder. 

“Hey Malfoy!” 

“What the fuck do you want Potter?” Struggling to restrain Sirius.

“See you in the next one, brother.” Says Harry with a grin.

“Looking forward to it, brother. I’ll be the one telling you  you are a dimwitted idiot.”

“I’ll be the one telling you you are a stupid prick.”

They smile at each other and Harry walks away.

-0-0-0-

The walk through the forest with his parents is almost pleasant. He gets to tell them about Jenny, about how in love he is of her, how much they would love her.

“We already do, love.” Says Lily with tears in her eyes. 

“We are grateful and in debt with her,”says James.

Voldemort doesn’t hold in the theatrics but he is quick to cast the green flash and Harry dies with a smile. This is what he was meant to do all his life. This and love a girl with all his heart.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7

“I still think you are an inconsiderate plonker Snape!” Says Sirius, shirtless, mid putting his trousers. Snape sighs while he is putting on his black pants. 

“Dumbledore said..”he tries.

“I don’t give a fuck what that senile, arsehole said.” Says Sirius, dropping himself in the sofa Snape had in the corner of his quarters not bothering with the shirt.”All I care is that you knew my godson had to die in the hands of your psychotic boss and much more important that he was coming back to life, and decided to not tell me. You promised to tell me everything about your double agent job!” 

Snape sits beside Sirius to start putting on his shoes. 

“It wasn’t gossip about Mulciber having an affair with Lestrange, Black.”

“I deserved to know!” says Sirius, ripping Snape’s shirt from his hands and tossing it away to avoid him putting it on.”That was juicy by the way. Do we know how that ended? Did Bellatrix end up finding out? 

Snape sighs again and decides to just put his head in the sofa’s backrest.

“I took the executive decision of keeping you in the dark Sirius.”says Snape ignoring Sirius’s poor segue.

“And as always you chose wrong.” Says Sirius, crossing his arms.

“Are you insinuating you could have kept your dumb mouth shut about this? He had to make the sacrifice for it to work.”

Sirius looks forward with a frown but doesn’t say anything.

“Exactly.” says Snape, looking at him with a smile.

Sirius sighs and relaxes his posture looking at Severus.

“I thought I had lost him, Severus. I thought I had failed again at keeping what I love, save.”

“Yes, he is all you have. You left it clear when you screamed it at the boy.”

Sirius leans to steal a kiss from Snape and grins.

“I was mad at you. I thought you have been lying to me all this time and only using me for my body.”

Snape snorts.

“May I remind you, you were the one that sexually harassed me for months?”

“Only because I knew you would never give the first move with all the repressing, and the black clothes and the “I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.” sign on your big forehead.” 

Sirius looks at Snape chuckle with a smile, knowing only he is gifted with the sight of Severus Snape, laughing like any other mortal. He lifts a hand to the Slytherin’s cheek and brushes it with his fingertips. Snape looks at him and Sirius can almost remember the lanky, awkward kid he used to be.

“You carried with it for a long time, didn’t you?”asks Sirius in a whisper, putting himself close to Snape’s face. Snape just nods.

“Knowing he could choose to come back was all that kept me going.”

Sirius smiles.

“Should I be jealous you are displaying this amount of affection for someone other than me, Severus?”

Snape doesn’t let himself be swayed by Sirius’s jokes. 

“Should I be about your affections for him?”

“ Are you off your trolley? He is a child, and he is my godson. My son for all intents and purposes.” 

“He looks like him. Exactly like him.” Says Severus, letting go of his insecurities. Sirius is speechless for a moment.

“Except for his eyes, don’t you think? He is her mother in his eyes.”says Sirius with the same serious tone.

Both men look at each other in a mental confrontation. Sirius is the one to break.

“We are too old for this.”

Snape nods. 

“We are.”

“You loved her as much and in the same way that I loved him, Severus. But they are dead and you and I are alive.” Says Sirius in a whisper, trying to make him understand.” When I look back I have no regrets. They belong to each other and now I am here with you. I don’t know if it matters to you..”

“It does.” says Snape with complete certainty. They look at each other with meaning and Sirius grins.

“Then stop saying nonsense. All I see when I see Harry is my family. Besides I have suffered enough and Merlin knows it. Can you imagine getting in the way of that boy and his Jenny? Look at Voldemort. One non descriptive threat to her and Harry barely left anything for Finch to scrub off on the school’s front.”

“I taught him that spell, you know.”says Snape, like if he is sharing a curiosity.

“Well I told the Malfoy lad the one he used against Bellatrix and you don’t see me bragging about it.”

“You screamed it as he casted it.”

“It was very impressive. I only had to explain it to him once. God I wish there was a way to know if she killed Rodolph in bed with Mulciber.” Says Sirius with longing.

“ With a bit of luck that spell will help Draco defend himself from the Weasley’s Clan when they figure he is serious about the little of the litter.” says Snape, refusing to acknowledge Sirius's childishness.

“He will figure it out. Harry will help with that, you know, once he has gotten his girl back first. Can you believe he wanted to appear in Private Drive with Voldemort’s insides all over him?”

Snape shakes his head, with disbelief and a smile.

“He needs to heal his wounds first.”

“Tell you what, let’s shag again and then you go and help McGonagall restrain him in the infirmary.”

“I’m in with the shagging but babysitting the World’s Savior...I’m done with that.”

Sirius smiles against Snape’s lips.

“I think it’s more than fair, love.” He says before stealing Snape’s breath in a kiss and pushing him back.

-0-0-0-

Hermione is sitting in Ron’s lap while they both look at Harry sleep in the infirmary gurney, sedated with heavy sleeping potion. Hermione has her eyes on her friend until she feels Ron brush a cut in her cheekbone with his fingertips. She looks at him and brushes her lips with his.

“It’s just a cut..”

Ron kisses it.

“I still hate it’s there.”he says in her ear, making her giggle. She loves it when he is sweet with her.

“I know. I hate yours too.” She says kissing the cut in the bridge of his broken nose. He is putting off  fixing it like a child afraid of the alcohol in his cuts. 

“We survived Mione. All of us. I can’t believe it.” Says Ron, shoving his face in Hermione’s neck. She puts a hand on his chest and soothingly massages there.

“Yes we did. The worst is gone.”

Ron groans, making her giggle with the tickle it gives. 

“What is it?” She says amused.

“You always use that tone when you are worried and even if I live in fear that you are going to use this against me later..I must accept you are never worried for nothing.”says Ron deflated, taking his head out of her neck to push it against Hermione’s forehead.”And you are always right. It’s the most annoying thing about you.”

Hermione grins and kisses Ron. Ron smiles after it, dopey looking and then sighs to a more serious face.

“How bad is it?”

Hermione looks at Harry again and bites her lips like Ron knows she always does when she is facing a difficult test or question.  

“You were there Ron. You saw him get lost in rage and sorrow. How many times did you and Draco have to get into fights with him when he was not five minutes alone with the locket and the darkness clouded him enough to threaten to go find her? How many times did I have to soothe him after he woke up in screams and sweats, dreaming over and over again of the day he had to let Jenny go? The things he did to win this war. The pieces he gave of himself so all of us could live.. I don’t think he expected to survive Ron and now that he did..”

It is clear Ron has a question on the tip of his tongue, it is also clear he is not sure he wants the answer.

“You are not sure you can make her remember again? ” Asks Ron with apprehension. 

Hermione sighs and looks at Ron with fear. 

“That is not the problem.”

-0-0-0-

Draco Malfoy is sitting beside his mother’s gurney. McGonagall decided to leave the infirmary as Harry’s personal Hospital Wing to give a good cushion for driving away the admirers and people devoid of common sense trying to get to him. Hagrid was tasked with the job of sitting in the hall and be the first line of defense against such people. A task he was only too happy to accept. It was decided to make use of classrooms to put the rest of the wounded and Draco was grateful his mother had been given much more comfort and dignity than many of the Death Eaters and Voldemort followers that are thrown in the dungeons to wait for the Order of Phoenix, the interim Auror’s Head Department until the Ministry is weeded out of corruption, takes the necessary decisions with them.

“The war is over, son.”said McGonagall, putting a hand on his shoulder when he thanked her for his Mother’s accommodations and the warm covers put on her.” And the cover wasn’t me. That was Ginny Weasley.” 

Draco felt his ears get warm when he heard that. He was already in debt with her. Hours before the Battle of Hogwarts began and all the houses raised their loyalty for Harry Potter, a Slytherin, Pansy Parkinson ironically, pointed to Draco and called him an undercover Death Eater. Many in Hufflepuffs, some Ravenclaws and almost all Gryffindor roared for his capture. He felt Harry,Ron and Hermione perking to his defense but the one that ended up voicing it was Ginny. 

“You will touch him over my dead body.” She said with authority.” Draco Malfoy is a member of The Order of Phoenix and he has sacrificed his entire life for the life of my brother, my sister in law and Harry Potter. He has been fighting this war far longer than any of us and with much more to lose. Whoever threatens to hurt him will have to deal with me before dealing with him.”

She said all of this shielding his body with hers. The entire Great Hall became immediately quiet. Apparently, on their time away Ginny had been gaining herself a bit of a reputation for being an excellent duelist. They all still looked at Potter for the final saying.

“ Whoever survives Ginny.” Said Potter demonstrating the first traces of humor in months while flanking Malfoy at his right.” will have me to deal with next.”

“And me.” Said Ron at his left.

“I believe that paints the picture.” Said Hermione having his back in every way possible.

Draco barely had the strength to stop looking at Ginny after the people started dissipating and his alliances were made clear. She didn’t say much to him, she just smiled and winked.

“Be a dear and try not to die, Malfoy. It would be a waste.” She said before running to Nymphadora to find out the best place for her to be in battle. He was left to look after her like an idiot, feeling Ron’s grip in his shoulder.

“When this is all done” said Ron in a cold tone.” You and I are going to have a talk, ferret.”

“As long as you want it, weasel.” Promised Draco.

He meant it but sitting in his mother’s bedside, it’s not Ron who he ends up having the talk with him. It’s Arthur Weasley.

“Is your mother comfortable?” He asks kindly.

Draco stands up immediately and nods effusively.

“Yes sir. Thank you for asking.”

Arthur looks spooked and even confused by the reaction. He looks at the flushed boy before him and smiles.

“I’m glad.” he says, taking a glowing circle from his pocket and handing it out for him. Draco takes it sitting beside him, not sure if he should just stay standing. Arthur seems more comfortable when he sits.

“Its a warming artifact.” Says Arthur.” My sons made it based on a muggle invention. It’s made so it picks on the temperature in the room and becomes a warmer for the one in need. My wife wants you to keep it in your mother’s covers for when the night comes.”

Draco nods and sheepishly smiles at the ginger man.

“Please tell your wife thank you and you too sir.”

“It’s me who should be thankful. My son told me what you gave out to help him and Harry, who is like a son to me too. This is the least my wife and I can do.”

Draco feels his ears become warm while stealing looks from the father of the girl he is in love with. Would this up his chances of earning his acceptance? Usually he would use this to ensure it, he would feed this man’s gratitude for him and use it as leverage for his bidding. He mentally curses Potter and his friends for changing him this much.

“I can’t accept your gratitude sir. I don’t believe it is right to be praised for simply doing what is right. I gave out an old belief system that never worked for something that I knew was more valuable. That is all I did and the only privileged by that was me.”   

Malfoy only looks at Arthur until he hears him huff.

“Blimey boy. The apple has really fallen as far as it could from the tree. I mean no disrespect to your father. You are aware of our differences but I never..” Arthur clears his throat like it pains him to keep talking.” I was sad to hear how he ended his life. 

Draco feels a pang of grieve in his chest, only consoling on the fact his pain is gone as well as his hungry ambition. The way he died was his redemption in Draco’s eyes. Offering himself as a sacrifice saving his wife’s life. 

“I’m sure it weighs on you son and I hope someone has told you that is fine. He was your father after all.” 

Draco nods, unable to look at the man beside him.

“Thank you sir.”

“You're welcome.” Says Arthur before sighing.”Well this is a relief. I was really worried Ginny had decided to set her eye on a problem but you are a truly remarkable young man, Draco. If you don’t mind calling you that..”

“Of course not. You can call me..” Draco whips his head to Arthur immediately.” Wait, what?”

Arthur cackles and point to where Ginny is helping patch up her Twin brother, who is sending a nasty glare identical to his twin at him even without an eye. Another ginger, massive looking man that Draco recognizes as Charlie, Ron’s dragon tamer brother, is also glaring at him. And Bill who he knows from The Order is just sizing him up.

“Don’t be off putted lad. They are more scared of their sister than suspicious of you. I believe that as long as you don’t wrong her we won't have a problem.” 

Draco takes that as his welcoming to the Weasley family. He wonders if his mother is better off sleeping for a couple more days.

=0-0-0-0-

“Malfoy this is stupid.” Says Ron.

“You are stupid Ron.” Says Harry in a childish tone while he is pacing around where Ron and Draco are huddled.

“It’s happening sooner or later. I found him last week with yellow pages, calling all the Jenny’s in the country.” 

“That is right! Tell him Draco. This is why you are the best of mates.” Says Harry, practically skipping on a side step around his friends. They are in Clapham Park, plenty of places to do dumb stuff without getting noticed but still some kids look at them like the weird people that they are. 

“Yellow pages?” Asks Ron.

“It’s a huge yellow book, where all the numbers of every Muggle in England is written down.”

“Blimey, it must be enormous.”

“It is sizable.” Says Draco.

“We should get one to get to Dad. Look at you, pureblood with all that Muggle knowledge.

Malfoy smiles, pleased with the compliment.

“Yes it’s a fucking marvel. Draco Malfoy knows Muggle stuff. Can we go back to you two, idiots telling me where she is?”says Harry, stopping to glare at them. 

Ron sighs. 

“Listen mate..”

“No. Fuck that Ron. Fuck whatever is the you were going to say. Tell me.”

“Hermione says..”tries Ron.

“Are you listening to yourself? What would little Ron think of grown up Ron beginning a sentence with Hermione says, huh?” Says Harry, with an edge of insanity in his eyes.

“He would fist bump me because he would know he has a girlfriend now.”

Draco snorts and laughs.

“That’s actually clever and I will respect it.” says Draco fist bumping Ron.

“You two are the biggest idiots I have ever come into contact with, including Crabb and Goyle.” says Harry, indignant.

“How are they doing by the way?” Asks Ron to Malfoy.

“Last I heard Goyle is looking for a couple more years in Azkaban but Crabbe is getting out in an Imperious technicality.”

“Good for him.” Says Ron.

“I will fucking Stupefy you two! I swear!”screams Harry, making the kids in the swing stand up and leave afraid of him.

“Potter, you need to calm down.” Says Draco.” We are telling you.”

“It’s a bad idea..” sings Ron.

“It’s a matter of time. He already knows she is in London. Let’s rip the bandage.”

Ron looks at Harry who has defected his psychotic ways for pleading with a puppy face.

Ron sighs.

“Fine but if Mione asks this is your fault Malfoy.”

Harry tackles Ron in a hug.

It only takes ten minutes and a ride in the tall, red buses because Ron can picture it enough to aparate close to the place. Ron and Draco enjoy it like tourists.

“Take a picture Ron. Ginny is gonna love this.” Says Malfoy wearing a ridiculous top hat with England’s colors. He then takes one of Ron’s. Harry has no problem pretending he doesn’t know them. His whole focus is in  the fact he is about to see Jenny after a year and three months.

“You say she works in this cafe?” asks Harry when they get to the destination. He can picture it. It was a tiny but charming place filled with books and different kinds of people. Exactly the place she would choose to spend her time in.  

“Yes, Mione said she took a holiday year between her last year of school and her higher education. She is taking classes in the city and working here and in a library. Doing some kind of volunteering too.”

Harry smiles. All of that was so Jenny. He immediately starts playing with his hair, nervously, trying to make it more presentable. Should he change his clothes? He did it three times before he settled for the green shirt he had on. She always said it was the kind of thing that brought out his eyes. 

“Is he having some kind of meltdown?” Asks Malfoy.

“I have no idea.” Says Ron.”Listen mate, we don’t have to do this right now. We can go talk with Mione, plan it out better.

“I just want to see her, Ron. Introduce myself. Even if she can’t remember me I want her to know I am around, that I exist.”

“About that..”

Ron doesn’t get to say anything. Jenny comes out of the cafe, looking gorgeous in her uniform. She is delivering an order for clients and a smile that makes Harry’s heart skip and all the noise around him get muffled. All he cares about is that at the other side of the cafe is his Jenny, he just has to cross the street and he could touch her, he could smell her again. Every shattered piece in his chest shakes because it’s close to the only magic able to put it back together again. He is not sure when but his feet start walking and just when he is about to get to her, she turns around and gets inside the cafe. 

“Why don’t we sit down?”suggests Malfoy after Harry just freezes in his spot, sad she disappeared from his sight. Harry nods but Ron is already dragging him to a table.

Immediately a waitress that is not Jenny comes to their table. Ron has the sense of answering before Harry. 

“It’s okay, we are waiting for our friend?”

“Oh Jenny?” Says the waitress.”I’ll tell her you are here.”

Harry’s eyes are focused on the door waiting for the moment she is coming back through it while constantly playing with his hair. 

“ Stop that. You look like an idiot.” says Malfoy.

“Shut up. She is coming.” says Harry, panicked.

Jenny comes out with a smile and when her eyes set on Harry, he is sure his chest bursts. It’s her, it’s the same eyes he knows and loves with all his heart. He mentally blocks the moment he suddenly stands up. All he remembers is her walking to him and standing in front of him. He takes a deep breath of her and can feel the ends of his mouth tugging high immediately. He is home.

“Hi I am..” 

Harry doesn’t get to say anything else. Jenny slaps him in such a way it’s heard in the whole cafe, the street and probably the other block to then proceed to glare at him in such a way it would have made first year Snape proud. She then looks at Ron and Draco with a much more sweet expression on her face.

“Hi Ron. Draco.” She says with a smile.”You want the usual?”

“Sure.” Says Ron,” Double chocolate this time. I came without supervision today.”

She giggles.

“Give a kiss to Mione for me, would ya?”

“You know it.”

Jenny grins at him writing in the little notebook she writes the client’s orders and then looks at Draco.

“How about you, hot stuff?” Says Jenny, looking at Malfoy.

“Dollface, with that pretty face of yours you can give me poison if you want.”

Jenny laughs.

“I think you'll enjoy our fruit salad and club sandwich better.” 

“That is what I want then.” Says Draco winking at her.

“I’ll send someone else with your order. I am at the end of my shift. See you later boys.”

And then she walks away without so much as a look in Harry’s direction who is still frozen in his spot, with a perfect red mark of Jenny’s hand printed in his face. It takes him a couple of seconds but he eventually sits. 

“So..”says Ron.”That is what I was trying to tell you. Mione didn’t obliviate her. She just slept her down, made a Fidelio’s charm in her home as her as the protector and left a letter explaining everything. When the war ended Mione wrote to her and told her all that happened. She wrote back that she was happy and relieved and..” 

Ron looks at Draco who has no problem saying it.

“She said that she hated your stupid guts and didn’t want to see you for the rest of her life.”

Harry looks like a fish out of the water, his mouth closing and opening.

“Are you two idiots trying to tell me that she never forgot me?”

“Yeap.” Says Ron receiving his double chocolate pancakes from a confused waitress and not hesitation to start shoving it in his mouth making him talk with full mouth.”She remembers everything. All the good times, all the bad times..”

“Including the time you tried to brainwash her  from ever knowing you.” Says Malfoy cutting his sandwich with cutlery like an arsehole.”Fun times, right?”

Harry looks at both his friends and then to where Jenny just left. She was mad at him. She was mad at him because of what he tried to do. But she didn’t forget about him. She knows him. He can’t help the grin that appears in his lips.

Draco snorts.

“Told you it would mean shit for this dimwitted idiot.” Says Malfoy.

“I know, I know.” says Ron with amusement.

-0-0-0

THREE WEEKS LATER

“Jenny!” Says Margie, her supervisor, torn between amused and annoyed.”He is back.”

Jenny throws her head back, annoyed. Jill, her shift mate giggles from where she is sitting in the bar.

“I’ll take care of it.” says Jenny, in a bad mood.

“Why don’t you just give the lad a chance? He is not bad looking if you know what I mean?” says Jill, throwing a meaningful look.

Jenny huffs.

“Really? I think he is too much of a prat for my taste.” 

“Uff Careful sweetie. That’s how you end up married and pregnant,”says Margie.

“I think I'd rather get eaten by a giant squid in a lake.” Says Jenny with a roll of her eyes.

“Are there any squids in lakes?” Jenny hears Jill ask Margie before she walks through the door and finds Harry Potter for the seventh time that week, cheerfully seating in her section. He always came in low tide hour to make sure the cafe was empty and he had all her attention.

“What do you want?” She says with a glare.

“Hi darling. You look gorgeous today.” he says, completely unfazed by her bad mood. 

“You are scaring my boss, Potter. Leave.” Says Jenny.

“Margie? She loves me, always puts double foam in my capuccino, just like I like it.”

“You mean after I spit on it?”

“So that’s why it tastes so good.” Says Harry, shamelessly grinning at her. Jenny can hear Jill giggling from here.

She sighs.

“Tell me what you want, so I can tell you no and we can all move on.” 

Harry smiles and looks at her in a way that reminds her of her backyard, of the way he used to pin her against trees and kiss her madly for hours. She has to clench her thighs together while she curses her body.

“Are you okay?” He asks, almost worried for a moment. Jenny hates the way that reminds him of the both of them in the swings, just talking.

“I’ll be as soon as we are done here.”

“That’s going to take a while.” Says Harry with a fake worried face.

“How much?” She asks harshly.

“My entire life.” He says angry for the first time, since she saw him again. 

“I’m sorry, darling.” He says after a moment of them staring at each other.”But you know it bothers me when you doubt it.” 

“Doubt what?” She asks despite her better judgement.

He smiles.

“That I'll be here as long as it takes.”

It takes her more effort to keep the glare at him.

“I don’t want or need you to do this Harry.” She sighs and sits in the chair in front of him trying to ignore how he looks like a happy puppy moving his tail for it.

“I get it and I forgave you a long time ago.” She says, looking at him dead in the eye so he can know she is being honest.”You thought you were going to die and you were trying to do what you thought was best for me.” 

“Exactly.” Says Harry in a sigh and a smile that beams his entire face. She has to concentrate to not fall for it. It takes for her to remember the pain of those first weeks without him to manage.

“You were wrong,” she says with more coldness than she initially meant. Harry frowns, confused.” But you were trying your best.” 

“My best?” Says Harry almost insulted.” Jenny, that wasn’t my best. That was all I had. Every piece of me it’s what it took to let you go. I loved you so..”

“You didn’t.” interrupts Jenny feeling her heart, running in her chest.” You didn’t love me. You cared for me but you didn’t love me.”

Harry looks at her, eyes darkened by his fury. She expected it.

“Why are you doing this?”he asks with a cold voice.

“I tried to avoid this. You are the one that keeps showing up here like I owe you something.” Says Jenny, defensive. She takes a deep breath, trying to regain patience.”We were each other’s firsts, that means something and it will always mean something. I am happy you figured all the things that haunted you and you found justice for you and your family Harry. I really am.” 

“But you don’t love me anymore. Is that what you are saying?” says Harry, almost numb.

Jenny can feel something inside her tear.

“I’m sorry Harry.” She says before trying to leave. She is almost on her feet when Harry takes her hand and drags her back on her chair.

“Look me in the eye and say it.” He says.

“What?”

“You heard me.” He says with feral energy all over him. It used to excite her when he had that look when they were intimate. Her body still reacts the same way to him and, she has to swallow the feeling to not drag him to her and..

“Say it Jenny.” He says, coming closer to her.” Say I don’t mean shit to you, that all those summers, all those times we said I love you, every time you let me inside you and made you what you are. Mine. Are nothing more than something of the past. Look me in the eye and fucking say it.”

Jenny feels her chest go up and down while Harry’s eyes prowl on her like he wants to eat her whole. That’s the moment Jenny understands Harry Potter changed. Whatever happened to him during his war brought out a different man out of him and Jenny is sad to say she can’t say she doesn’t like it, she can’t say she doesn’t see herself falling for this version too. It feels like he knows when he smiles, with that arrogant, smug smile he has now. He lets her go, stands up and looks at her while he puts his jacket on and then some. 

“I loved you. Like a clinically insane person. I still do.” He says with certainty in every word.” And all I did then, it’s the same I do now. It’s all for and because of you Jenny. If you tell me today that you fell in love with another block and you want me to leave you alone I would do it. I would go insane, but I would do it. That’s how much I love you and you don’t get to come here and try to convince me that what you and I had was nothing more than a string of summer flings. You either have the guts to look me in the eye and say you are really done with me or..”

Harry looks at her in silence for a few more seconds.

“Or what?” She says in a thread of voice, pretending she has any control.

“Or I will see you tomorrow.”

Jenny stares at him, without saying anything for a full minute.

“Very well.” Says Harry, pleased with her silence. He puts money on the table and looks at the window with a view to the inside of the cafe.

“See you tomorrow Margie! Jill!” And then he goes away, into the rain outside the cafe’s ceiling.

Jenny is left with her heart racing and her thighs together wondering when her will power had left her. When she enters the cafe Jill and Margie are pretending to do inventory.

“Can I just say, sweetie.. and it’s just for you to be prepared.” Says Margie.”I think Jill and I are pregnant just by witnessing what just happened outside, from afar.”

Jenny huffs a smile at the joke but then she feels the tears in her eyes starting to fall. She can’t say it. After all this time she can’t say she doesn’t love him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

“Harry James Potter Evans!” screams Hermione from the balcony.

Sirius snickers, while he keeps lying in one of the many benches of The Potter Manor’s backyard, tanning like a king on holiday.

“Told you she will hit below the belt too after you dumped that last shit on her.” Says Sirius. 

Harry huffs and continues his job of chopping wood. He expected Hermione an hour ago. He knew Jenny would send her. 

After the war Harry had much more time to explore his finances and figure out his parents account and the one Sirius was putting for his disposal as his heir. It was taking him time. There was not only the monetary aspect of it all but the real state too. Turns out the house of his grandparents was his by birth right. Sirius had been ecstatic to learn that. 

“I was practically raised here, lad.” Said Sirius with joy.  ”At least the parts I care to remember.”

Harry offered it for himself but Sirius took it like a selfless act of Harry when he asked him if he wanted to leave Grimmauld Place and live in the Potter’s Manor. 

“Too much space for me Sirius. I’m not ready for a house that big.” He said amused while Sirius hugged him and asked him if he was sure like he was going to bawl if Harry changed his mind.” Tell Severus to bring his stuff too. I’m sure there is a dark place in the Manor where he can install his lair.” 

Godfather and godson laughed imagining that.

“I’ll do my very best convincing him.”

Harry had no desire to imagine what that entailed. 

“I just have one condition. Two actually.” said Sirius.

Sirius gave his ancestral home to Harry in its entirety. For the first time in over a century, Number 12 of Grimmauld Place, stopped being the home of the Black Dynasty.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Burn it, sell it, live in it, make it a brothel for all I care. I don’t want to set foot in that place for the rest of my life, which brings me to my second condition.” Said Sirius.

Harry had to promise to come visit Sirius at least three times a month, and stay overnight at least once. He did it once a week, sometimes more and always stayed the night. For Grimmauld place, he didn’t have any specific vision so he just had it tear down of all decor. Since the name Black wasn’t on the deed anymore all the spells became invalid. He was considered with Kreacher’s feelings who had become a friend after Regulus’s story was unveiled but the apartment pretty much ended up being a maze of white walls and empty rooms. The elf went away to live with his original master in the Potter Manor.

“I’m not much of an expert Potter.” Said Severus with his usual monotone tone. Harry was helping him gather the things he had in Sirius’s house and move it to the Potter’s Manor. Snape didn’t want to accept it but by the amount of things it looked like he was pretty much living with Sirius.” But I believe this is a bachelor pad, now. A very ostentatious one. Very fitting for your age. I know you have lived much more than what your years normally call for but perhaps you should remember you are only eighteen.” 

Harry smiled at Severus and nodded. That’s how Ron and Draco ended up moving in. 

“It’s my room weasel!” said Draco, fighting for the only big room with a bathroom included beside Harry’s.

“Shut up ferret! I got here before you!” said Ron.

“Harry!” Said both of them calling for Harry’s final decision, making him laugh.

The idea was for Hermione to come live with them too but that was before Harry found out she was a traitor.

“You are living with her?!” Said Harry when he found out.

“Yes Harry. She is my best friend.” Said Hermione like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“I was your best friend first.”

“I lived with you in a castle for six years and one in a tent. It’s time to let go.” Said Hermione mercilessly.

“Fine! Whatever.”

Secretly Harry was kinda pleased with that arrangement. That way it was harder for Jenny to elude him. He was still going to her work everyday but he was done kissing her ass after the last conversation they had where she insulted pretty much everything sacred to him. Until the rage for that left him he was showing up at her job with the sole intention of annoying her. He was pretty good at it.  

“ Excuse me miss!” Said Harry with his best grin directed at a fussy Jenny.

“What?” She said with a vicious glare that made Harry think of when.. she was frustrated.

“ Could you please give me another cup of coffee? This one is too hot.”

“Your cup of coffee is too hot?” Said Jenny incredulous.

“Yeap.” said Harry with a grin.

“Why don’t you wait for it to get cold?”

“Because then it would be cold.”

“You know what, why don’t you go..”

Jill or Margie usually intervene before she finishes that sentence or any of the variations of her sending him to recover his balls in the trash when he is taking the piss out of her. Sometimes, Harry plays with fire and he knows he 's being an arsehole for it but he just likes to see it in her face. The proof she is still his and she still thinks of him as hers. 

“Dublin, really? I hear it is beautiful this time of year.” Says Harry when he decides to sit with a ditzy pair of blonde, Irish girls, giggling at everything he says. Jenny puts their order of ice tea in the middle of the table with much more force than needed. 

“Here!”  says Jenny glaring at everyone in the table and making her leave with a known stump. Harry drinks his ice tea joyfully, not even listening to whatever the Irish girls say. He also makes use of his magic. That one he uses for himself more than to annoy her. Most of the time she has her back to him when he is swiftly throwing hot cups of coffee in the lap of tossers leering at her or making them trip in front of her when they are crass or rude.

“Stop it.” She demands when she picks on it.

“No.” He says his mouth full of cake. He could see the corner of her lips wanting to tug high.

“They are clients, they are part of my job.”

“And you are doing it beautifully, darling. No reason for them to gape at your tits while you are at it.”

Jenny huffs and leans close to him with the excuse to take away his empty plate, giving him a peek of said tits.

“Are you going to punish yourself too for looking Potter, or are you just going to sit there and be a hypocrite?” She says in a whisper to him.

He lets her win that one with his eyes glued to her hide when she walks away.  

Harry is all good spending his afternoon asking Jenny for things he doesn’t need, flirting with girls he doesn’t care for, and taking the piss of every man looking the wrong way to her. He much rather be kissing and fucking the shit out of her but he can do prolong foreplay. He doesn’t mind. Or so he thinks. Reality comes in a good day and for a moment Harry thinks he has made a step forward. It all comes to be because Hermione is trying for him to lay back in the annoying her.

“Harry..”

“No Hermione. This is between her and I. She knows what she has to do for me to leave her alone.”

“Do you think that is fair?”

Harry looks at her surprised.

“She told you.”

Hermione glares at him, deciding to tell him or not. 

“Yes. She came home crying the day you told her your conditions to let her go.”

“ She did?”. 

“ What did you expect? It was a harsh thing to ask anyone let alone someone you had an intense relationship like the one you two had.”

“She looked me in the eye and told me she thinks I didn’t love her. What was I supposed to do?” 

“Oh I don’t know Harry, maybe ask her why she thinks that way instead of emotionally torture her.”

Sometimes Harry feels like Hermione ruins all the fun with her all-knowing ways. He spends the day like a lion in a cage until he just goes for it.

He doesn’t show up in the cafe as a customer all day but instead waits for her in the back of the place for her to end her shift. She looks surprised when she finds him leaning in the opposite wall of the alley.

“What are you doing here Harry?”

Harry scratches his neck. All day thinking about it and he is still not sure he has the right to do this after the way he has been acting with her.

“I came to beg you to let me walk you home,”he says.

“Harry..” she says. 

“It’s late Jenny. I don’t want you walking around alone at this hour.” Says Margie, coming from behind Jenny to throw the garbage. 

Harry smiles at her, grateful.

“Go on. Don’t let the boy wait.” she says winking at Jenny who just sighs, annoyed with him. Harry lifts his arms.

“I promise to behave.” He says.

Jenny snorts.

“Somehow I believe that is impossible for you.” She says and starts walking away. Margie clears her throat, ordering him to go after her with a nod of her head. Harry obliges with a grin. She doesn’t look at him while he walks with her but doesn’t stop him either. They get in her bus, Harry paying for both their fees, he enjoys sitting close beside her and only looks away from her when she tries to look back at him.He then pretends to be interested in what the window shows. He could have sworn he saw her smile about it. Because of Ron Harry knows they are close to her place and when he decides to stop. Miraculously she stops too.

“What?” She says looking at him.

“I have a question.”

“I thought you said you were going to behave.”

“It’s one question darling.” he says with big, green eyes.

She bites her lip, seems like she is thinking about it and then she looks at him.

“One condition.” she declares.

“Anything.” he says immediately.

“Wait until I say it.”

“I’m giving you everything you want darling.”

“You can’t call me that anymore.”

There is a moment of silence, where Harry feels rocks in his chest. 

“For how long?” Asks Harry, trying to not leak how much it hurts him her request.

“Forever.”

“A day.” offers Harry.

The smile that escapes her, gives him hope.

“A month.”

“Three days.”

“A week.”

“Four days.”

“You can’t spend a week?” says Jenny, almost amused.

“I have no idea how I’m gonna manage for four days.” he responds. 

She bites her lip again and Harry hides his hands in his pockets to avoid doing something stupid with them.

“You don’t like it anymore? Me calling you darling.” He asks with fear.

“Is that your question?” She asks without looking at him.

“No.”

“Say it then.”

Harry wonders how he rode a dragon with no problem but now he is sweating at the idea of asking her this.

“You said I didn’t love you.”

“That is not a question.” She says almost in a whisper, her eyes becoming sad.

“Why do you think that? What did I do for you to tell that to yourself?”

Jenny looks at him for a moment and then looks at the sky like she is swallowing tears.

“You left.” says Jenny, looking at him.

“You know why I did it.”

“Do I?”

Harry looks at the sadness in her eyes and he wants to punish himself, he wants to tear away skin, pull out his wand and crucio himself for putting that in her eye.

“Can I ask you something now?” She says.

He nods.

“What would you have done if things were the other way around?” She says with genuine curiosity in her eyes.”If It would have been me the one who left you, who tried to take every memory, every kiss, every time we made love, everything away from you?”

Harry feels his eyes sting and his heart shatter for her.

“I would have been furious with you.” Says Harry, making Jenny nod with sad eyes.” But I also would have been pretty clear on the fact that you loved me more than you loved yourself.”

“That’s how we see things differently, Harry. If you had loved me, you would have had faith in me. You would have given me the opportunity to face things with you, instead of tossing me away like I was dead weight for you.”

Harry smiles, bittersweetly and looks at her. Dead weight? She was the only reason he survived with something resembling sanity.

“I have another question for you and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. Pretty sure your silence will do it anyway.”

She nods.

“If this were the other way around and a demented, psycho lived in your head daily, promising to kill me every day of your teenage years, showing you vividly all the way they can make you pray for death and the only way you can protect me is erasing yourself from me, would you do it?”

Jenny looks at him, like she did the first time he told her about his parents. She looks at him with the same ability to make him feel less alone in his pain. But then she looks away.

“It wasn’t like that Harry. Hermione made another decision. She trusted me.”

“Hermione gambled with your life and the only reason she and I can sit at the same table and still be family is because you are alive. If a Death Eater would have touched a hair of your head..”

Harry has to take a deep breath and remind himself the War is over.

“I love her for not erasing your memory like I asked her to do, for keeping all those pieces of me inside you Jenny but Hermione is not part of my question. Tell me your answer. Did you love me like I love you? Would you have rather me never remembering you again than seeing me be torn apart to hurt you?“

“Of course, I wouldn’t have wanted that.” Says Jenny, with hoarse pain.

“You see?” He says.”You want me to apologize, you know I live for that. I’ll do it. I’ll get on my knees right now and beg you for forgiveness. But I won't pretend I’m sorry I tried to protect you Jenny. You were.. You are my life.” 

She is working hard not to cry. He can see it and he can’t help coming closer to her. He doesn’t touch her but he can feel her warmth all over his body and doesn’t dare to look away despite her only looking at his chest.  

“I love you Jenny. I will always love you.” He says in a whisper.

They are so close she has to face her pretty eyes up to look him in the eyes.

“Do you still love me?” He asks greedily.

She gasps for air and tears start coming out of her eyes. He wants to lick them away.

“You know I do.” She says, making him let the air he was holding in go and his chest flutter with joy and relief for a moment.”But that doesn’t matter, Harry.”

He frowns.

“What is that supposed to mean? That's all that matters.” He says, trying to reign in his anger. She tortures him with her silence for what feels like an eternity, crying in front of him with sorrow in her eyes.

“It means that you still defend what you did and I am not going to live my life in fear of you trying again. I treasure it too much, Harry. Even if we are not together and..”

She looks away again to his chest.

“And we never come back to each other, I want to keep those pieces inside me. All the things we lived through, all the things we said and did to each other. They are mine and I will protect them. Even from you.”

He doesn’t understand. He can’t see what it has to be one and the other. They are in the same team, he also wants to protect all those pieces of him inside her. Why is she acting like he is the enemy?

“Jenny, look at me.”

She lifts her beautiful sad eyes to him immediately and he only has to move a few inches to kiss her. Maybe he should. Maybe he shouldn’t tell her he is hers, and that he would rather die than hurt her. Maybe he should just show her.

“Don’t.” She says, with color in her cheeks.

“Don’t what?” He asks with a smile.

She huffs and he feels the warmth of her breath in his face.

“You still have the same dumb boy face when you are about to do something impulsive.”

His smile becomes a grin.

“You still are bad at pretending you don’t like it when I do some of those.” He says.

She gives him her smile and he can feel his heart flutter again, beat with proof that there is hope.

“Just one.” He tries.

Jenny laughs.

“I don’t think we have ever had just one kiss.” She says.

“This will be that time. I swear.”

“See. You are lying.” She says.

He laughs and takes the chance to come a bit more closer to her.

“How did you know?” He asks, caressing the tip of her nose with his.

“Because when you mean it you do it solemnly.”she says in a whisper he feels in his lips.

“I love you Jenny. I solemnly swear that I do.” He says.

They are inches apart and he should have done it. He should have just dragged her to him and kissed her like it was his right. She was his with almost no possessiveness, just a factual concept of nature. She was like the sky was blue and the grass was green. He doesn’t because he wants her to be the one to remember that, for her to be the one to accept it. Life punishes him for his greed.

“Jenny!” Says a voice behind them. 

They looked back and running to them there was a block. The kind of block that would make Draco Malfoy drag Ginny Weasley to his side and glare with suspicion and envy. Harry regrets not doing that with Jenny.

“Hey Jace.” She says sweetly to the new bloke.

“I was going to your house.” Says the guy, completely ignoring Harry, his eyes shining on Jenny.” You forgot this in my house.” 

Jenny actually beams to the block with relief.

“Thank you. I have a test tomorrow.” she says.

“Pretty sure you could ace it without it, anyway.” says the Jace guy.

Jenny giggles. The Jace guy looks like he got hit with a bat in the head and then finally takes notice of Harry.

“How you doing mate?” he says.

It’s her reaction that does it. Like she just remembered he was there too.

“Oh! Right. Uhmm this is..a friend.” She has the gall to say referring to Harry.

He is not proud of what he does next but he is also very understanding of himself. Hermione is way less.

“Are you insane?!?” She says the following day when she finally finds him hiding from her in Sirius’s house.

“She called me a friend, Hermione!” He said while he was chopping wood with much more force than needed.”In front of that idiot!”

Hermione just glared at him from her position a few steps away from him. 

“He is a classmate, Harry. That is all he is.” Says Hermione with patience.

“And what the fuck is she doing going in his house?”

“She had a project to do with him and other people. She has a life, she talks and coexists with humans, some of them happen to be males.”

Harry tosses the pieces of wood to the pile at his side and goes for another.

“That is not the problem.” He says with a frustrated look at the new piece of wood he wants to cut.

“No.” Says Hermione with a snort.” The problem is that you lift Jenny, put her on your shoulder, threaten to pave the street with her friend’s face if he ever looks her way and then walked away like it was your right to do all of that.”

Sirius had lost it in a fit of laughter when he heard like he is losing it now too.

“Classic Potter move.” Says Sirius.

“Can you stop encouraging him?” pleads Hermione.

“Sweetheart, if there was a cure for what inflicts Harry I would have used it in my teens. Take it from a veteran. Sit, relax, breathe and enjoy the show.”

“I can’t enjoy the show.” Says Hermione frustrated.” My roommate is plotting a homicide as we speak and the future victim is acting like a medieval man. Axe included.”

Harry snorts.

“Like if she could pull it off.” He mumbles under his breath.

Hermione takes a deep breath, gathering patience.

“Harry, sweetie..?” tries Hermione in a sweeter tone.

Harry hums in response, choosing another log.

“Do you want a girlfriend and do you want it to be Jenny?”

Harry takes the log, puts it in the spot and wields the axe to cut it.

“No Hermione. Girlfriend wont do anymore.”

There’s a beat of silence when the information is being processed. Hermione frowns. Sirius stands from the bench in almost panic. Sirius and Hermione share a look.

“What do you mean by that, lad?” says Sirius cautious.

Harry wipes his forehead and looks at the sky.

“It means that I am done.”

-0-0-0-0-

ONE WEEK LATER.

“Jenny!” Says Margie.

Jenny looks up immediately.

“Yes?” she says with almost hope.

“Table six is ordering black tea. You mind brewing me some love?”

Jenny obliges, trying to not show her disappointment. She has no right to feel that. It’s not like she didn’t tell him repeatedly to leave and not come back for the better part of a month and a half. At the beginning she was too mad to care about his absence. She is still mad. How dare he behave like that in front of a friend? Jace has never been nothing but respectful to her.   

“He wants to fuck you!” Screamed Harry at her face, when he finally dropped her on the sidewalk in front of her apartment.

“Oh because that is the only thing boys want with me, right Harry? A good time for a couple of months and then brain me out of ever knowing them!” She threw back.

“That is not the same and you know it!”

“I think you are judging Jace with your own conscience."

Looking back she was probably secretly enjoying him being jealous a bit too much and was pushing him to show her more. Not her fairest act but he had always brought out the irrational in her.

“Do you like him?” He asked with his prowling gaze on her. She felt her body react almost immediately.

“What?” She said dumbly. Feeling him coming closer to her.

“Do. You. Like. Him?”

Jenny never really considered Jace much before. She never considers any block, seriously. Her heart beats for one and she had made peace with the fact it would take her years to try and trick herself to consider someone else. She heard her friends in the language class they took together always swoon for him so she is aware Jace is objectively handsome. But beyond that she doesn’t think much of him.

“He is a friend.” She said.

“Like I am your friend?” he said with fury.

She huffed at that.

“I was being generous with that.”

“You were being cruel,” he said.

It took all from her not to kiss him right there. He looked sad and angry and alive. It made her remember of the night she spent praying to please for him to survive, to come back to her alive.

“You have no right to be jealous, Harry. We are not..”

“Yes. I know. Don’t repeat it.” He says with an almost feral growl. They look at each other for a moment, her trying to be daring but secretly marveled at him and honestly turned on. And him with a look she can only picture hungry lions that hold back to eat their prey.

“I’m gonna go.” He announces.

“What a surprise.” She says choosing anger over the sadness it gives her what he just said.

He turns around and starts walking away but almost immediately he turns away to her.

“Fuck it.” it’s all he said before he lifted her in his arms and kissed her. She would have liked to say that she resisted but the moment she felt his mouth on hers she was gone. He tasted the same but the way she moved his tongue was different. He used to be shy or careful. Even in the midst of passion he always treated her with reverence. That was gone and all there was left was him kissing her like he couldn’t care less if he breaks her eating her up. The details of when he separates from her are fuzzy. It feels like he stopped little by little, stealing little kisses from her mouth until he finally found it in him to let her go. When he did, he did it suddenly.

“Okay. Cool. Bye,” He said, dropping her on the floor and walking away again. He had already disappeared by the time she regained full brain function.

“Potter!” She screamed at the air.

She thought she would see him again at the cafe, the next day. She didn’t. She didn’t see him the day after either or after. It’s been a week and he has been a no show. It feels like her dignity chips a little bit when she cracks and asks Hermione.

“Where the hell is he?” She says, shoving a spoon of ice cream she was sharing with Hermione, who has the gall of looking at her with an amused smile when they are both sitting in their coach in their pajamas.

“You two are made for each other.” Says Mione. Jenny huffs.

“I’m just asking as a curiosity. I would love to hear he is lying in a ditch.” says Jenny trying to save some credibility.

Hermione laughs.

“Jen, aren’t you tired of pretending you are not going back with him?”

Jenny looks at her traitorous best friend and punishes by stealing the caramel side that she knows she likes. Hermione just laughs more.

“We don’t know if I am going back to that neanderthal. I might grow some sense yet. Besides, it looks like he gave up. He stopped coming by to the cafe.”says Jenny, trying to sound casual but with her heart in her throat, afraid she is right.

“Gave up? Do you even know Harry Potter?” Says Hermione, feeding the fire of hope.

Jenny looks at her best friend and sighs, surrendering.

“Where is he then?” She says with the whiny tone she actually means. She hates him for making her this ridiculous. At least it makes Mione laugh.

“Have I ever told you about Gringotts?” Says Hermione when she is done mocking her.

Jenny nods.

“The Magic Bank.”

“Exactly.” Says Hermione.” Harry's parents left everything they owned in a vault in there for him. I don’t know if you know this but Harry is..comfortable. His parents made sure of it.”

Jenny had some idea. Harry wasn’t one to brag about that kind of stuff and with everything he lived through it became almost meaningless to him. You know you are in trouble when a fortune doesn’t mean anything to fix it.

“It’s a large, complicated monetary state that only gets more complicated because Harry is the heir not only to his parents but to his grandparents who also left their state to him. And then there is Sirius’s state too. The goblins that work in Gringotts have been working hard to marry those states into Harry’s name. It wasn’t something that concerned Harry until he got it in his head that he needed something from his parent’s vault. He has been practically living down there for the last week, looking for it with the Goblins.” 

Jenny was impressed. She knew Harry was probably doing well in the money department. He practically left her an entire minimum wage salary as a tip every time he went to the cafe and then to Jill too, without even blinking. This was way more than she expected.

“What is he looking for?”

“To the dismay of the Goblins put to the task, something small.” 

It takes another week but she gets to find out. When she does, her world changes.

-0-0-0-

He finds it on a Friday afternoon. He is waiting for her outside the back of the cafe that same night. No more waiting, he explains to Sirius who practically throws a tantrum when he is deprived from plotting a party. Severus glared at him for it too.

“You hate parties.” defended himself Harry.

“I hate Sirius in a mood more.” announced Snape.

“Leave him alone. He just doesn’t want an audience if it explodes in his face,”said Draco accurately.

“It won't,” said Ron with a confident smile.

Harry smiles remembering and prays for Ron to be right.

“Well, well. Look who is back.” Says Margie with a smile.

“Hi Margie.” He says with a grin.

“She is mad at you, lad.” she warns with amusement.

“Isn’t she a beauty mad, though?”

Margie cackles walking inside the cafe.

“Oh to be young and in love again.”

Jenny doesn’t look mad when she comes to  him. She is surprised and he smiles recognizing the relief in her expression too.

“Hi..” he says with his heart fluttering. It only makes him happier when she smiles at him too.

“Hi..” she says. He watches her hesitate and play with the string of her backpack.”You were gone..”

He grins at her.

“You missed me?”

She huffs but doesn’t say anything, just looks away with color in her cheeks. He laughs, comes closer to her and makes an intimate act of taking her backpack from her to carry it himself.

“You ready?” He says, offering his hand for her. She hesitates but takes it. They walk hand in hand through the streets of London, they don’t let go when they are in the bus or when they are walking to her apartment. Harry is even doing circles with his thumb like he used to. He used to spend hours looking at her hand in his, amazed she let him hold her, that she deemed him worthy enough for that.

“Harry..” she asks while they are walking.

He hums avoiding looking at her and give himself away.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” She asks in a sweet shy whisper. He grins like a fool and can’t hold from looking at her.

“I did.”

She is biting her lip and he knows she is holding back for asking more about it. He chuckles and stops walking. He looks around and he knows this place is as good as any.

“I need to ask you for a favor.” He says.

Jenny nods immediately and that’s how he knows something changed in her during the weeks it took him to find it. It hits him the knowledge she probably considered he was gone for good. He takes her hand to his lips and kisses it with reverence. No more making her suffer, he promises to himself. He takes the smile she gives him as permission to drag her to him and as close from her face as he can begs her. 

“Come with me, please. Disappear with me for a moment.” He says, caressing her nose with his, holding the small of her back and keeping her hand in his chest, just on top of his heart.

She looks at him with her beautiful eyes sparkling for him and nods. He smiles like she is just giving him the world. She might as well just have.

“It’s going to feel weird darling.”

“What..?”

They disappear in crack  before she has the time to understand. The next second he gets to see her eyes; they are already in Private Drive. It takes her less than a minute to recover and when Jenny looks around the known park they are in she smiles, marveled. 

“We are..” She says looking at him, amazed.

“Yeap.” He confirms.

She smiles at him and Harry hates that he can't see her well with the darkness of the night around them. He pulls a lighter from his pocket.

“Is that..?”

Harry nods and laughs.

“You want to open it this time?”

And she grins like an adorable little girl, nodding. He takes her hand to kiss again before putting the lighter in her hand and helping her shake it the right amount.

“ Go ahead, darling.”

She opens it and immediately the fireflies fly away, lighting up the place beautifully. She giggles and Harry feels his heart about to burst in his chest.

“It’s beautiful.” She says.

“You are the beautiful one.”

She looks at him and he knows she remembers. She remembers the night he climbed to her room and he showed her the fireflies for the first time. She remembers what they did after.

“Harry..” she says in a sigh and he has to take a deep breath to not kiss her right there. Everything about her was telling him to do it. He has to promise himself he would do it as soon as he says what he has to say.

“I know we didn’t meet here but I think I fell in love with you in those swings.” He says pointing where the old swings still were sitting proud. Jenny smiles, sheepish to him, her cheeks blushing.”It’s hard to say because I can’t remember a moment when I wasn’t just completely crazy for you darling. For all I know you crossed the threshold of The Dursleys and I was gone. I thought about doing this in there but Dudley couldn’t find his spare keys to send to me and then I...” 

He is rambling and it makes her laugh before he can feel embarrassed about it.

“I like it here.” She says.” I think I fell for you in those swings too..” she says with a grin. 

He doesn’t think. He just leans and steals a kiss keeping it quick or he is losing his grip. She is clearly torn between amused and confused about his behavior.

“Sweetheart what's going on?” She says with a chuckle.

He sighs.

“I want you to call me that again.” He says putting his forehead against hers.

“What? Sweetheart? That’s what you are, Harry. That’s what you have always been to me. The sweetest heart I have ever met..”

He smiles like a fool for her.

“You know why I call your darling?” 

She shakes her head against his.

“The Dursley’s left me with Ms Figg most of the time when they were gone away for Holidays.” Harry smiles, feeling the frown in Jenny’s forehead.” She liked this program on the telly, it was about a married couple, in love with each other. They fought and they quarreled but they loved each other so much. He called her Darling. Every time he came home the husband called the wife darling. That’s who you have always been to me Jenny. You have never been a fleeting thought, I always knew that regardless of anything that happened, you were forever.” 

Harry separates from her a bit and from his breast pocket pulls a golden ring with a clear diamond. Jenny gasps looking at it and then to Harry with an emotional expression.

“It was my mother’s. Took me a second to find it in the family vault.” Says Harry with a nervous smile.

“It’s beautiful.” She says in a breathless voice.

Harry leans down and takes her chin to drag her to look at him.

“I’m sorry.” He says and tries to convey his regret in his eyes.”I thought about it during every moment looking for this ring. You were right darling. I was being selfish.” 

Jenny’s eyes fill with tears.

“I was only thinking in my pain, in what I had to lose and forgot to think that you loved me too. To be honest that has always felt like a miracle to me so believing has always been hard.”

Jenny huffs with teary eyes and with a sob she says: 

“Dumb boy.”

Harry chuckles and nods.

“Yeah..That’s all I am darling. A dumb boy insane with love for you.”

Harry feels the tears gather in his eyes and with a deep breath he takes a knee in front of her. Jenny puts her hands in her mouth and gasps.

“Jenny, I solemnly swear that if you accept to marry me you will go where I go from now on, my fights will be yours and yours will be mine. I will never try to take that away from you again. I’ll be yours in full with all the bad and all the good forever.”

Jenny is a mess of sobs and tears but Harry has never seen a more beautiful woman in his entire life. 

“Will you marry me darling?”says Harry.

Chapter Text

She was right. He changed.

Sometimes it would show in small little ways. Things she is pretty sure only she could notice. Harry has always been patient with most things unrelated to jealousy. Draco used to be the only thing that did the trick, sometimes Severus would pull some temper out too. Other than that it always took something special to rattle him. Time goes on and she learns he became something more than just patient. It's an endearing curiosity to see it and also breaks a little bit of her heart.

All of them would be in Mione and hers flat and Ron and Draco would get in spirited arguments, most of the time about the validity of Ron's favorite team as a respectable one in their broom sport and Harry would just lean in the sofa with her in his lap, drink his hot chocolate and smile watching his friends fight.

"Potter, knock some sense in the weasel! It's sad he is going around spluttering nonsense." Says Draco.

"Shut up ferret. Harry is a Chuddley's supporter and has been since second year when I introduced him to them."

"This is exactly what I meant about choosing the right alliances Potter. But it's okay mate, I am here now and we will make you right." Says Draco in a dramatic delivery.

No matter how much they would pressure him to choose a side or nag him to join the argument Harry would just laugh. She could see the enjoyment in his face, the almost serenity in the pulse of his heart and the gratefulness in his eyes for the opportunity to be there with his friends.

Sirius sometimes would come to the flat looking for Harry and after trap Jenny in a hug, bath her face with kisses, and claim eternal gratefulness for settling for his godson he would plow in one of the tall chairs of her tiny kitchen and then spend the afternoon complaining about the new lover's quarrel he got in with Severus while Harry patiently prepared him sandwiches.

"I am not a needy person! Do I look like a needy person to you, lad?! Of course not. I am internationally renowned for being an independent, self-sufficient human. People need me, not the other way around! How dare he force me to make a scene in his stupid work for a fucking hour of his attention?!" Says Sirius in outrage with his mouth full.

Harry always hears the complaints of his god father about the man he is clearly in love with with an amused smile. It's like he can't think of a better place to be than there, hearing Sirius be in love and chaotic about it.

Mione would get a piece of it too. She would be in a ramble about all the preparations she had to get done for her to go back to school and Harry wouldn't only listen to her but would be excellent at helping her through it in his own way.

" This is a disaster. I haven't had time to get my books yet! I knew taking classes in the city would distract me."says Hermione pacing in the flat while frantically reviewing her to-do list. Jenny could feel Harry's amusement while he lay on the couch, Croonkshanks in his chest playing with his fingers and his green eyes stealing gazes of her on the table doing her Classic's homework.

"Already taken care of. They are all in your room." Says Harry with her eyes on her. She could feel him while she smiles and pretended to ignore him.

"They are?" Says Mione, still pacing, frowning at her list."Well I still have to make sure I get everything for my potions class and I need my.."

"Arithmancy tools. Packed in your table along with the potion's necessities."

Hermione crosses it off the list with a frown and humming." There is still Ron's visit schedule.."

"He is commuting with Draco through Sirius's floo network every weekend. Severus agreed to let them go through his office. He already knows he is forbidden from letting McGonagall see him or bother at all during EXTASIS season."

Hermione glares at her list and then finally to Harry. He just grins.

"I didn't pack your trunk. I know how much you enjoy color code and labeling your underwear." Says Harry.

Hermione blushes, balls her list and throws it at his face.

" It's called being neat, hooligan. And explain to your fiancee how you found that out by being a nosey jerk, helping Ronald look for my correspondence with my FRIEND Viktor! "

Harry laughs and would poke Hermione for her compulsive tendencies until she is completely relaxed again and acting like a little sister quarreling with her brother. Jenny could watch him like that for hours and always enjoy how Harry is just happy, at peace. Always holding her closer in his lap with Ron and Draco fighting for his support, hugging her from behind while she eventually would take the task of making Sirius's sandwiches to take to Severus and finally reconcile, laughing while hiding behind her from a childish Hermione. She knows he is happy and she loves how reverent and grateful he is of the people he loves and considers his family. She also knows what it took to get him there, how much it cost. She can see it in the not so small ways he changed too.

They would be eating dinner with Draco and Ginny in one of the elegant restaurants Draco enjoys and suddenly a waiter would drop a tray of dishes. Harry would have the same reaction he always has when an unexpected situation would occur. In the span of a second his hand would find her with frantic force and his other hand would find his wand. She could always feel his pulse spike in their connected hands and even if he would be exceptional at laughing it off and becoming normal almost immediately she would never miss the silent conversation he and Draco would have across the table, the way Ginny and her would look at each other in a version of the same acknowledging Draco also had an odd sudden reaction and his hand would never leave hers until hours later. That's what leaks the big way he changed. She expected their time away would change him. Even in the uncertain days she knew and never cared. All she wanted back then regardless of her anger toward him was for him to come back alive and with enough pieces of himself that she could still see the boy she fell in love with. She got her wish but she also had to mourn some parts that never made it back. He used to be clumsy in the way he existed. With her he was almost bumbling. She used to love the way he rambled when he was nervous, the way his hands would shake when he wasn't sure if he should touch her, the way he would look at her almost asking for permission and always amaze when she gave it to him. It would take to drag him to the midst of passion for him to not think and meet his confidence with her. That's almost completely gone. This days Harry Potter is as secure of himself as any man that has gone through the depths of hell and survived it. He survived but all insecurity has died and all there is left is the intensity of certainty, of knowing what he wants and having no problem paying the price to get it. She felt it the night he asked her for marriage and she accepted.

A lifetime ago she had been in Grimmauld Place. She already had been in love with him back then and they had shared a bed in innocent ways before that time. They were kids and the simple novelty of holding hands was enough to make her giddy. That night they do much more than that in the room Harry and her slept many years ago.

"It's different." She says smiling at the magic photo of her and Harry from that Christmas, that he had displayed on a shelf in his room.

"I had it torn down from all Black's family heirlooms. This room was the only one I was sad to see change."

She looked at him. He was casually spread in a single couch that garnished a corner of the room, his chin resting in his hand. The way he looked at her made her feel like she was already naked. She bites her lip, thinking herself silly for thinking him attractive in that pose, caressing her with his eyes, as if he has never seen anything more attractive than her in her cafe uniform.

"You remember?" He says with a silky voice that makes her blush. She couldn't help the shy smile that was drawn in her mouth.

"I do."

He looked at her with those green eyes, intensely gazing at her and then he took his chin from his hand and flex his index while pretty much ordering:

"Come closer darling."

She didn't even thought in denying him. All she could manage was walking slowly and that somehow became more tortuous for her than for him, feeling his eyes pass through her body with intention. By the time she was standing between his legs her body felt completely aware of him and electric for his touch. To that point they have spent two months dancing around each other in sexual frustration. He pursued her for weeks after weeks and she denied him despite all she wanted was to drag him to the bathroom and have him fuck her in the stalls. She expected him to be the impatient rabid dog he became when she pushed him like that in the past but when she brought her to his home he let her explore without overwhelming her or even touch her. It was her who asked to see his room and when they got there he just sat and stared at her every move. She didn't know how much that frustrated her until he was brushing his fingertips in the fabric of her work skirt.

"Is it me or this one got shorter the more I visited your workplace darling?" he says leaning to kiss her hip bone right in a nostalgic spot it was known for both of them. She sighed just for that. It loosened her tongue.

"I had to compete with the Irish idiots trying to steal you." She says, feeling his laughter against the skin of her abdomen where Harry was kissing her bellybutton. His hands started playing with the zipper of her skirt and he kissed through the fabric a bit lower from her hip bone making her sigh again and her hand go for his head and dive her fingers in his hair.

"There was no competition, Jenny. And you know it." He says kissing her again and slowly unzipping the skirt.

"Do I?" she says immediately biting her lip and grabbing a fist of his hair while he started kissing the skin and the fabric of the underwear he revealed while dragging down her skirt.

"You are all I thought while I talk to them darling. All I could see was how gorgeous you look when you are jealous." he said before licking her through the fabric of her underwear. She moaned, loosely wondering if they were alone in that big apartment of his." How I wanted to kiss you, to fuck you just the way you like it, so you remember I am yours and no one else's."

Jenny never decided if she moaned for his words or for the way he dragged her closer to him with his hands in her hips and bit the skin the front part of her underwear was covering, softly in a way that it would almost brush in her clit.

"Harry.." she moaned.

She helped him take her skirt all the way and then she followed his lead straddling him on the sofa. He kissed a trail from her chin to her ear and biting her earlobe he ordered her again.

"Don't move."

He laughed at the frustrated huffing she let loose.

"You will have your time to ride my dick if you want to. It's my turn first to do what I want." He says giving a gentle peck to her neck, that had her trembling along with the promise of having him inside her again.

"Don't you want me to do that now?" She tries moving her hips just the way she knows he likes. She moans but he just huffed and held her waist before biting her lip.

"Behave or I won't give you what you want." He says kissing her chin and her neck making her arched to give her more access. He bites her just the way he used to do and she loves and her hands go back to his neck to scratch.

"And what is it that you think that I want?" She says, trying to sound more in control than what she was. He smiles against her cleavage and she finds out her shirt is unbuttoned and he has access to her breasts through her bra.

"I have always loved how sensitive you are in your tits. Have I ever told you that?" He asks while licking a circle through the lace of his bra. She didn't know this was going to happen but she is grateful she unconsciously chose the laciest of her bras to wear. She could almost feel his tongue against her nipple.

"Harry.." she moans while unconsciously grinding with her hips. Harry immediately stops and she whines.

"I told you to not move," he says, grinning against her covered breasts.

"Sweetheart. Please." she begs. Harry feels solid under her. It doesn't feel like he is something more than amused while she is shaking with desire.

"Are you going to behave?" He asks pecking her cleavage. She nods without thinking about it.

"Good girl." He says tearing off her bra from her back, showing the first sign of poor restraint. She doesn't know where her bra got tossed because immediately he feels his tongue doing circles in her nipple, taking turns between each breast. She had to concentrate to not move her hips.

"God I missed them." He says before putting as much of her tit inside his mouth making her notice she has been loudly moaning.

"Harry.." she says in a languid moan she doesn't even care if it's heard by the entire block. He holds her and impressively lifts her a little bit. Her hands went to his arms making her notice in a daze for the first time how much bigger his biceps were. She looks down and finds Harry taking off his trouser but leaving his underwear. He was almost completely clothed while she was almost butt naked. She has no time to complain because he sets her right on top of his covered dick before kissing her.

"Do as you please." He says between wet kisses that barely gives her time to think. She much rather take his underwear off but she took what she was offered and started riding his dick, imagining him inside her. Harry opened his mouth in a moan and she took the chance to taste him again thinking how this was real. His hand was on her hip, griping while she waved in his lap. How many times did she dream of this? How many times all she could think was on having him in her arms, fucking her, proving her he was alive and as promised he came back to her?

"Sweetheart, take off your underwear. I want you inside me." She said, frantic for the chance to just be one again.

"You want me inside you?" Asked Harry, lifting his hip to meet hers in the grind.

"Yes.." she said in a loud moan."Please sweetheart."

"Are you ever going to torture me again like you did for the last two months?" He asks and aligns her head to his to watch her in the eye while his hand in her hip forbids her from dry-humping him. He looked at her almost as gone from passion as she was but he was different. Almost on a mission. The way he held her, the way he kissed her, all of it had a purpose. Jenny understands he was punishing her.

"I have missed you, and wait for you and dream of you for what feels like a lifetime. I would have done that torture for my entire life and even more if you have decided so. I don't think you understand the power you have in me. How if you are not with me, dreaming you is my home and having you is all I think of." He says with heavy breath."I am done waiting, I am done missing and I sure as fuck done dreaming you. This is all the warning that you get Jenny. If you have second thoughts about me, if you are still resenting me for my mistakes..That all becomes meaningless to me after I get inside you. Leaving you is the only thing I will never do for you again, not even if you ask me to.."

She kisses him and drags his hand away from her hip to continue her job of torturing him, of making him understand who he is dealing with, He moans in her mouth and she greedily swallows that moan..

"It's you who left Harry." She says biting his lip with no restriction, almost drawing blood, punishing him. Reminding him she is the one fucking pissed here. She felt him trying to talk but she kissed him again, stealing his breath.

" You know what happened after you did that?" She says between kisses."You want to know about the days I spent in bed without a will to live? How when I finally managed some it was only to go find you? The months I spent praying to any God listening to get you back to me, to give me a way to know where you were."

She felt breathless from pain just remembering. The sorrow and the pleasure mixing, the joy and the sadness swirling together inside her while she looks into his beautiful green eyes.

"I am the one that is done Harry and I solemnly swear that the next time you try to leave me I am going to kill you. So stop saying stupid shit and take off your bloody briefs."

He changed but she also did. She is not the same. They were kids when they met and it's hard to say if they knew. None of them can tell if they fell in love little by little, piece by piece or if they were doomed from the first moment they lay eyes on each other. In the end Jenny doesn't care. They found profound light in each other but they also found the darkness buried inside them and they were each other's key to drag it out. The first time they fuck that day it got nothing to do with the way they used to spend hours kissing each other with devotion like they had all the time in the world, it's not him saying goodbye with her being clueless of it, there is no more uncertainties and pedestals to put each other on, she doesn't have to take his hand to guide him to passion so he can feel free to take her and he doesn't waste time groveling for her touch. She loved all those versions of him but this one feels different. This one feels permanent. He takes what he wants now and she falls for him all over again for it. It's rough the way he lifts her from his lap, helps her take off his clothe with franticness and takes her to the tall mirror in the corner of his room where he has her bending for him and fucks her while they watch their reflection, his eyes, shining bright while he pounded inside her hitting just in the right spot, his strong hands leaving marks in her hips and his mouth biting her pulse with no restraint. She was sure the entire city could hear her moan his name and the marks of her hands would never leave the mirror. They calmed down over time but it took a long season to readjust to each other. Harry was patient with the world but he was clouded franticness for her.

"I love you too much." He says the afternoon they spent hours fighting because he went to pick her up to her classes and Jace hugged her as goodbye. Jenny had to put herself between him and Jace because Harry got lost in a fit of anger and jealousy.

"Is that your excuse?" she says, glaring at him. He looks at her almost sad and she has to take a deep breath to avoid succumbing before him. It didn't help that she was only wearing his shirt and Harry was only wearing his briefs. In those days fighting and having sex came hand in hand. It was like they needed to reassure each other that despite being mad they will not leave, they will stick together, they will figure it out. Jealousy was hard for Harry to give away in the beginning and even with the sex he sometimes had doubts.

"It's not an excuse Jenny. It's a fact." He says, leaning on the kitchen table, looking at it like he hates it for putting itself between them. She grips the other end of the table, finding the strength to keep it there, to not indulge and placate his pain with her need to make him happy. She couldn't, not by surrendering to his demons.

"Harry, look at me." She says, almost pleading. He does, looking the closest he got from the insecure boy he used to be."I love you and nothing or no one can come between that. You have to trust me sweetheart. If you don't do it we.."

"Don't say it." He says with terror in his eyes."Please never say we won't be together."

It takes her breath away the way his face would become somber and her world would immediately feel like when those clothed figures attacked them and Duddley many years ago. Dementors, she learned, were their name.

"I was going to say that we were going to kill each other or that you were going to end up in Magic Prison for killing a random man for brushing my elbow." She said with a small smile, catching his attention." I mean, sex with a convict seems interesting. Severus looks happy."

That makes him laugh and she walks around the table to kiss him. He lifts her to sit on the surface and explores her mouth with devotion. She puts her forehead against his when he lets her take a breath.

"I meant it when I said it ,Potter. You leave me and I kill you." She said against his smiling lips."There is no world where we both exist and we don't end right here with each other."

She felt him let go of the air in his lungs and relax his muscles.

"Have I ever told you how hot you are when you go psycho on me?" He says with a grin making her chuckle.

"If you are trying for me to say that you also look hot when you are an animal growling at all men that come near me you are wasting time."

He chuckled before diving his face in her neck to growl and playfully bite her making her squeal.

It takes him time but little by little she sees him walk away from the franticness and understand himself. She learns to understand him along the way too.

"I think life is what I don't trust." He says with his mouth full of cake while they were talking and trying cake samples for their wedding in Ron's favorite muggle cake shop. If you want a good cake you trust a Weasley. Everybody knows that.

"That's understandable." She says cleaning the corner of his lips with a napkin and caressing his cheek."Life hasn't given you much reason to trust."

She prepares herself to say what she wants to say next. During her life she never manages to bring it up without at least some soreness in her chest to spring out.

"You died Harry." She says with sorrow and almost terror in her voice.

He kisses her cheek immediately and drags her chair closer to his to wrap her in his arms. It took time but she eventually learns to be grateful for the decisions that she used to judge him for. She hears the story from Draco, one night she finds him without being able to sleep in Harry's apartment when she woke up for a glass of water. He explains to her while she warms him hot chocolate that he sometimes has nightmares, that during the war he became the enforcer of the things Ron and Hermione didn't have the stomach to do and the things they were afraid only would push Harry more into darkness.

"He lost it." Said Draco."Without you, it was like he was just a body without a soul. I have never seen an Inferi but him in those days is what I think when I picture it."

Jenny didn't know what an Inferi was either but she understood the concept of empty flesh moving though life in muscle memory.

"I think the happiest I saw him back then was when he learned he was going to die. I think he saw it as freedom from the pain of not having you around."

Jenny heard Draco talk about that moment, about Harry's peace with it, about him saying goodbye to each of his loved ones and walking away to sacrifice himself for them.

"The worst was when Severus told us it needed to happen. There was no fight to give, no spell to learn, not evil to kill, nothing. After everything we went through the only thing we could do was let it happen."

Jenny knew at that moment she would have died getting in the way of Harry's sacrifice and if she didn't she would have tried day after day to follow him if he didn't survive. She would have lost her mind and only made an impossible situation more painful.

That day in the cake shop she frees him from her judgement.

"You died protecting everything you love, including me." She says looking at him with meaning."Life owes you now. I do."

He kisses her cheek and holds her face with both hands.

"It's me who owes life for giving me another chance with you. I guess it is time I stop fighting it and just be grateful for all the gifts it gives me,"he says.

They grin at each other and almost get kicked out of the shop for indecency.

He is not the only one with shortcomings. She also has a learning curve in many things and it doesn't help that he doesn't acknowledge her flaws as such. They are in the living room of her apartment and he doesn't even look annoyed with her despite her spoiled attitude.

"Jenny.."

"No. You promised." She says sitting in his lap, arms crossed and shamelessly accepting she is acting like a little girl in a tantrum.

"It's going to be an afternoon at best. I'll be back before you know it."

He drags her face to him and steals a kiss. She kisses him back but doesn't give in. He chuckles.

"Draco needs me." He tries,amused.

"And I'm not saying to not go. I'm saying to take me with you like you promised you would do."

Harry sighs.

"It's going to be uncomfortable."

"I've been uncomfortable before Potter." she says glaring. Harry just takes a hair out of her face and kisses her again.

"Darling, Draco's family is..complicated. They have.."

"Prejudices. I know. Hermione is coming along anyway, isn't she?"

Harry nods with an amused smile.

"Then what is the problem?"

She knows that look in his eyes. Is the one where he has a good reason but doesn't want to hurt her feelings with it. She glares more pointedly. He kisses her nose.

"Just say it!" She squeals, making him cackle.

"Dragons." He says with an amused grin.

"Dragons?"

"Yes. It's a family tradition. Malfoy's ashes are put to rest in the land of Dragons. As you can guess you can't just aparate in that kind of place for safety reasons. You can only access it by.."

"Riding a dragon?" Says Jenny, with terror in her face.

"Yeap." Says Harry trying to not lose it in a fit of laughter.

"You are telling me that Hermione Granger, the girl we know gets sick in the back of a car.. she is getting on a dragon too?"

"It wouldn't be her first time but she is only a little bit more excited at the prospect than you are if it makes you feel better." Harry's smile melts to a more solemn look in his eyes." She is going through with it because we promised. We heard about Draco's dad when we were in the run and we promised him that if..that when the war ended we would all go with him to Rumania and throw his ashes like it was custom. I didn't thought I would get to do it with them."

Her biggest sin with him is her greed. He makes her so unbearably happy that she is afraid of missing him for even a second. She wants all his time, all his attention, all his love just for her and he is so good at giving, at sacrificing without asking nothing in return, she forgets other people are entitled to a piece of him too. He loves them too and she owes them for loving him the way they do, for doing their part in bringing him back to her.

"You have to go, Harry." She says, with no little annoyance. She can feel his amused smile. "Just promise me you'll be careful and you will be in my bed that same night. If you can't, you are sending your glowy stag to tell me and let me know you are fine."

He grins at her and caresses her cheek..

"You are not pushing to come?" He asks amused.

"I'm tempted but I think boy time plus Mione is healthy for you." She says and making him laugh. She drags him to her for a kiss."I'm going to be on the way."

"You are not.."

She interrupts him with another kiss.

"I know you would strap me on that big lizard, fire proof me and become a dragon tamer in two days just to make me feel included, sweetheart." She says feeling his whole body rumble with his cackle." I know you. I'm saying there is no need. I have faith you are coming back in enough pieces to still get married in a month."

He puts his forehead in her temple and sighs.

"Is it still that far?" He says with an almost whiny voice.

It's her turn to laugh.

They don't have a long engagement. Only a little bit over a month and a week. If it was for them it would have been the length of him proposing, the two days it took them to get out of his room and the afternoon they took to notify her parents who embraced Harry like if it was the canonical event they were waiting to happen since Jenny mentioned she bumped into him in London.

"What was the story you told them again?" Harry asked, mildly nervous while she put together his tie for their brunch. Jenny laughed. She loves the little glimpses of nervous Harry she gets.

"Your uncles had to move suddenly for Vernon's work and we broke up instead of trying long distance."

"And John and Alma believed I didn't try to steal you away or knock you up?"

Jenny laughed and kissed him.

"Well clearly they are believing the magic thing with more ease. Back then all I had in me was to say that you had family business to take care of. You and I never talked about it but.." Jenny hesitates playing with his collar." You know how my mom was a teacher and has a child psychology degree? Well, she always knew you had trauma on you and she suspected your uncles weren't making it easier. When I said you had personal family business she understood. My dad might resent you a bit more."

"John? Why?"

"You weren't the only one that took the separation with poor restraint. To be honest you might have been more brave and sane than I was. It was hard for him to see me like that. I think the whole prophecy of the one, mass murderer trying to kill you, war between wizards is barely a good excuse for him after watching me drag myself for months with no desire to live."

Harry dragged her by the waist to kiss her and she smiled against him.

"Never again.." she said.

"Never again." He said back.

Harry put his best foot forward to win over her dad again but in the end it was Sirius who actually smooth things over. They always got along great but when Harry and Jenny propose to save the money and just elope both men became a solid, impenetrable wall of camaraderie.

"Absolutely not." Says John.

"I refuse to hear another word of this nonsense,"says Sirius.

"It's offensive,"says John.

"I have never been more insulted in my life and my boyfriend is an asshole." Says Sirius.

"I heard about it. Congratulations. Totally called you weren't dying alone like you were claiming." Says John.

"Thank you mate. Listen, it was a hard, grueling journey, but after careful consideration I decided to give him a chance."

Jenny is pretty sure Severus doesn't leave the table because of her mom's charm, ability to deescalate any situation and her offer of topping his glass with whiskey even if it's only past eleven. Harry and Jenny become amused about the clear bonding those two build on the back of their eccentric partners unbeknown of how they would forge a relationship of their own too. There will come a time when Severus will enjoy teaching Alma harmless potions while he talk to her about his past, about Sirius, about what it took to keep moving forward.

"I think she reminds him of my mom." Would say Harry when they talk about it months later." I'm glad he has a best friend again."

Jenny never knew about her mom having a best friend other than her dad. She had friendships but the way she would come to always be corresponding with Sev, as she calls him, spends hours talking while having tea in her solar and even going as far as calling her son in law for an under the table favor and help her install floo network in her chimney so she could visit him at his work and/or home is definitely new.

"Yes, put the floo thing! Sirius invited me to his house to teach me the broom sport." will claim John.

The floo network is put in place after long negotiations about the safety hazards of putting a muggle man in a broom with only an ex convict as an instructor and the crossing of illegal boundaries of a muggle woman in a magic school drinking tea with an ex double agent of a fascist cult. Those discussions are slightly less complicated than convincing Sirius and John of not delaying their wedding more than it was needed.

"We don't need a big bash Sirius." Says Harry nonchalant, his hand lazily playing with hers. She loves the way he says it, with no room for argument, with confidence in every word. He wanted this as much as her, Sirius is not as charmed.

"I do. I really need it, lad." Says Sirius." Your parents would kill me if I let you marry in peace time like they had to do in time of war. They fought for you to have everything and you fought to enjoy it too. I won't let you rush this without a fight."

Harry wasn't as easily dissuaded as he had been in the past. When they were getting ready for that brunch she could see the decision in his eyes that he was just letting her parents and Sirius and Severus know as a courtesy.

"If I may.." said John Digger, as serious as Jenny has ever seen him.." I have known you since you were a kid, Harry. You came with surprises but I have always liked you and the only reason I don't oppose to this despite my reservations about your age and the rushed way you are dealing with things is because I understand. I was in love and in a rush too when I met Alma.."

Jenny's heart swells with tenderness watching her parents share the look of love they have always shared. She always loved to see it but now that she has her own love she understands more profoundly what it means.

"I understand, kid. I really do. But what you have in your hands is my daughter. If you are lucky you'll have one too one day."

Harry turns her head to look at her and Jenny feels her cheeks blush, watching his eyes shine with promises in his pupil. They never have talk about kids but Jenny can feel he wants them and she is already in love with anything her and Harry make.

"You are not taking away the moment of me walking her to the aisle and having a dance with her anymore than you would want it away from you if it was your daughter. Aren't you Harry?" says John with a knowing grin.

Harry huffs and smiles.

"I can't deny you anything John. You are being way more reasonable than I would be." Says Harry with a mischievous grin." If it was my daughter I'll be kicking the tosser out."

John and Sirius howl in laughter, Severus smirks despite himself, Alma giggles.

"There is still time. You're already making my daughter cry."

Harry looks at her and immediately starts fussing over her, kissing her and asking what happened to make her sad. He immediately cancels any plans of a big party and promises her if she wants they would elope immediately. Sirius and her dad protest and she laughs. She feels silly tearing up and laughing like a crazy girl but she is just too happy. She is happy Sirius and her dad pushed them to do a right party for their wedding, that her dad loves her enough to fight for that, she is happy her mom and her get to go buy a dress together, she is happy Severus agrees to stand beside Harry representing Lily Potter.

"It's only fair Severus. Sirius is my dad as much as James Potter would be and.."

"Potter if you are about to say I am your mother..." says Severus with a grim expression.

"I am not thrilled about it either but things are what they are." says Harry like a sardonic teenager tone he knows used to irk Snape.

The table explodes in laughter and despite trying his best Severus Snape lets a smirk show in his face and a curt nod, seals his agreement.

She is happy Hermione gets to plan her bachelorette party and she and Ginny take her dancing in the clubs of London, Paris, Amsterdam and even smuggle her to wizard's pubs, all in one night of girl fun. She is tipsy when she gets back to the Potter Manor. Sirius lent them a full wing of his home for what he called the bride island. The girls are waiting for her to finish in the loo and put her pajamas on so they could start the sleepover part of the party but she gets distracted with a known sound of pebble clashing with the window glass in her assigned room. She runs to open it and even if she doesn't see anything outside more than the massive beautiful backyard she can feel him. She grins and lifts half her body outside the window. Her lips touch the watery fabric of the invisibility cloak. Harry chuckles.

"That's my eye." He says.

She unveils him and she finds him floating in his broom, grinning at her.

"My bad." She says and drags him for a kiss. She can taste his night in his mouth, the liquor he has been drinking, the laughter and joy with his friends, all the trouble and mischief they have been indulging, the way he looked around in his happiness and decided she was all that was missing. She can tell because it happened the same to her.

"Only nine more hours." He says against her mouth." I can't wait for you to be my wife."

She smiles and makes him laugh when with no restrain, she jumps him in his broom to kiss him closer to her. He has no problem catching her and indulging.

"Hey Potter! If you are going to steal her, get on with it! Such a rookie.." says Draco with Ginny in his arms in the middle of the green space.

Ron is holding Hermione from behind while they are looking up, grinning.

" Maybe she is having cold feet Malfoy. He must be pleading his case to the girl."

Jenny laughs in Harry's neck.

"We understand, dollface." Says Draco.

"Say the word and we will help you away!" says Ron.

It feels like a fun blur the way Harry flies them down, puts her safely in the ground and then tackles a laughing Draco, lifting him in the air. Ron manages to join by grabbing Draco by the ankle and then Harry is making use of his muscles to dangle them around like children.

"What you say assholes?! You are taking my wife away?"

Jenny laughs hysterically with Ginny and Hermione laughing and hugging her while the boys play around like little kids, climbing their way to Harry and dragging him down to the ground to wrestle. They would later join when from the balcony Severus and Sirius would cast a raining spell and Ron would take the chance to throw mud to Hermione.

"Ronald!" She squealed, before grabbing mud of her own to chase her boyfriend." You are going down!"

Ginny would tackle Draco to bury him in the dirt and he would just let her.

"I think I found your best look babe." Says laughing Ginny, painting in his face with mud. Draco would just look at her like he is the luckiest man in the world and grin.

Harry and Jenny would just kiss in the middle of the chaos, under the rain. Just happy to be there, together with everything they love and cherish. They would do that until their friends dragged them away and started to bury them in mud.

The wedding was a blur for her. She remembers her father crying before, during and after, calling her beautiful as often. She remembers Sirius with red eyes, holding the hand of a more demure but equally moved Severus's standing steps away from Harry while she walked to the aisle. She remembers Hermione and Ginny wiping a few rogue tears looking gorgeous in their bridesmaid's dresses, Draco and Ron looking dashing each of them squeezing a shoulder of the most handsome man she has ever seen in her life, looking at her like she was a vision, something sacred he was too afraid to touch, too afraid of not deserve. She doesn't remember much but she remembers feeling like she gets the parts of Harry she thought dead and buried. The nervous, bumbling boy she had the courage to go sit beside in a swing without knowing he was the love of her life. She could see him in the way he holds her hand when her father gives her away and he can see him in the way he looks at her almost asking permission to do it, like if he would understand if she turns around and decides she doesn't want him anymore. She remembers those ideas evaporate from his eyes like they always did when she holds his hand. She remembers his vows.

"Jenny, I solemnly swear to love you like I have always done everyday since I met you and perhaps if it's possible a little bit more and little bit better every day for the rest of my life. Probably more. Loving you is and will continue to be the privilege of my live and there is nothing I have done or ever do that would make this life better than loving you."

He changed. She also did. But at the end, they didn't. At the end they were just two kids that met and fell in love.