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Harry sits in the field hospital tent, stripped to the waist. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and he’s suddenly tired to his bones.
The mediwitch attending to him pokes and prods him with her wand. There’s a nasty slash, right through his robes and down his bicep. It’s deep. Diffindo, he thinks. It takes the witch a while to repair the muscle and close it up. Then there are a few more cuts and grazes, across his knuckles, along his cheekbone. When she’s done with all that, she checks the bruising that wraps around on his abdomen. It stretches over his stomach and obliques on his left hand side, and it’s already darkening rapidly. That one, he’s sure, was Bombarda . He winces as she palpates the soft, tender tissue.
“No internal damage,” she tells him, eventually. “Not much I can do for it I’m afraid.”
She hands him some pain potion, then confirms there’s no broken bones either, so that’s something. Merlin, he hates Skelegro.
“Am I good to go?” he asks. She nods. He puts the shredded, bloodied remains of his shirt and robes back on, thanks his ministering angel, and leaves the tent.
Three weeks, it’s taken. Three weeks to track, infiltrate and dismantle the potions gang. Three weeks of surveillance, disillusionment charms and setting up dummy buys. Three weeks since he’s been home. He misses Ginny and the boys - so much. But it won’t be long now. All he can think about is getting home, getting back to them.
But he isn’t quite done yet, because Robards is lurking outside the tent. Harry isn’t surprised. It’s standard operating procedure - do the debrief ASAP, while everything’s still fresh. He can’t even be pissed off about it, since he’s the one that wrote the standard operating procedures in the first place. At least there’s a mug of coffee for this bit. It’s shit coffee, but it’s hot, and it’s better than nothing.
He walks Robards through the whole thing. They’d got the bastards in the end, but not without one hell of a fight. Intel on the layout of the lab and warehouse facility hadn’t been totally accurate (bloody Dawlish. Harry would be having words), hence the fighting. And the field hospital.
When he’s finished, Robards gives him an appraising look. “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed last month?”
Harry shrugs. He’s been putting off thinking about this, using the excuse of needing to focus on the case. But that isn’t going to wash any more. “When do you need an answer?”
“I can give you to the end of the week. Then I’ll need to offer it to someone else.”
“Noted.” Harry presses his lips together, feeling conflicted. He hopes Ginny will understand why.
They sip their coffee in silence for a moment, then Harry asks Robards whether he has any spare forms for the custody paperwork. Robards takes pity on him. “Ah, get home to your wee lassie. I’ll sort it out for you.”
It’s almost eleven o’clock when he gets home, crunching up the path to the cottage from the apparition point in the dark. Lights on, though - Ginny’s still awake. Warmth spreads through his chest at the thought of seeing her.
He pushes open the door. She’s curled up on the sofa, wearing his old Gryffindor hoody, though it’s miles too big for her. Her legs are bare, hair pulled up into a messy knot on top of her head. She’s conjured a ball of soft yellow light to read by, and it’s hovering just over her shoulder, warming her skin and highlighting the freckles that dust her cheeks. He doesn’t think she’s ever looked better.
As soon as she sees him, she bolts off the sofa and hurls herself at him. “You’re back! Thank Merlin.”
“Yeah.” He breathes in the scent of her, warm and comforting and so familiar. Feels himself relax, letting go of tension he didn’t realise he was carrying. “I missed you. So much.”
She hugs him tighter, and he winces a bit. She feels it, and lets go, looks at him a bit more closely and clocks the blood on his cheek, the damage to his robe. “Oh fuck, Harry! Are you hurt?”
He shrugs. “A bit. But you should see the other guy.” It’s a shit joke, but she laughs anyway. “Seriously, I’m fine. Nothing major,” he reassures her. Not this time, anyway, he adds silently, pretty sure she’s thinking the same.
“Hungry?” she asks. “I could make some toast or something?”
He shakes his head. “I just need a shower. And some sleep.”
She nods, takes his hand and leads him up the stairs. Hands him a towel. He pokes his head into the nursery while she turns the water on for him, watches two little chests slowly rise and fall. It makes his own chest hurt a little. But in a good way.
He takes his time in the shower, scrubbing away dried blood, wondering how much of it is his. He thinks she might join him, but she doesn’t. Instead, she uses the loo and brushes her teeth. When he heads back to their bedroom, hair damp, towel wrapped around his waist, he finds her sitting on the mattress at the foot of the bed, facing the door. Her eyes land on the bruising on his side.
“That looks nasty.”
“Just superficial.”
She’s still wearing his hoody. He wonders what she’s wearing underneath it.
“Well now, Potter. Why don’t you come here and find out?” she suggests, which is when he realises he wondered out loud.
The answer, he soon discovers, as he tugs it up over her head, is a pair of knickers, pink striped cotton, and nothing else. She’s been sleeping like this, she explains. She feels closer to him that way.
“But I’d have made more effort if I knew you were coming home,” she laughs. Just at that moment though, he’s struggling to think of anything sexier, as he takes her hands and pulls her up to meet him craving the contact of her skin against his.
He drops kisses along her collarbone and runs his hands greedily down her back, until his fingertips meet the hem of her knickers, slips them down over her hips, revelling in the way his hands fit so perfectly over the curve of her bum. She sighs with relief, then nudges his chin aside, reaching up to find his lips with hers. Her mouth is soft and open and tastes of mint toothpaste, her tongue dancing against his, their kiss deep and insistent.
Her hands skate down his chest, and his skin feels so much more alive for her touch. She presses herself firmly against him, fingers dropping lower to tug away his towel, and god he’s missed her, missed this, so so much. He’s hard as hell, and she rocks up against him, making him twitch and gasp at the pressure.
He pushes her backwards until her calves make contact with the bed. She falls, sprawling across the blankets, giving him a filthy, lazy smile, eyes dark, daring him to join her. And well, he never could resist a challenge, could he?
He kneels over her, kissing his way up her thighs, feeling her shiver below him. Thinks about taking her over the edge with his mouth, but tonight, he wants to watch her, properly, and lets his fingers settle between her legs. This, he knows how to do, with a practised and familiar ease, and she’s so very ready for him. She breathes in sharply, burying her face into his shoulder as his fingers dance over just the right spot, side to side, with a steady pressure and rhythm. She pushes her head back, eyes closed tight, squirming against him, but he takes his time, bringing her closer and closer. Then he twists his hand so that his thumb is circling her, slipping two fingers inside, finding her slick and hot, and suddenly she’s there, throat and chest flushed red. She bites down a groan in the back of her throat to stop herself crying out, the way she always does since they had the kids, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the fascination of watching her come apart like this.
“Please,” she whispers, and he can’t deny either of them any longer. He shifts his weight so that he’s above her and a moment later, sinks deeply into her, feeling her still pulsing all around him. She clings to him as he rocks back and forth inside her, muttering her name over and over into her ear, losing himself in the feel of her until he’s tumbling, uncontrolled into blissful oblivion. Suddenly, he feels the weight of three long weeks apart lifting. Now he feels whole again. Now he’s home.
Afterwards, they lie quietly together. He should be sleepy, but he isn’t. She’s nestled in against his shoulder, his arm curled around behind her, idly stroking the curve of her breast. They chat for a while about her work - the matches she’s covered, the frustrating office politics, an opinion piece on the new management at Puddlemere that he managed to read while he was on stakeout. She tells him that a glossy magazine wants to commission her for a series on the future of European Quidditch, and he tells her (again) how bloody proud he is of her.
“I wanted to tell you straight away.” She looks at him with a small, sad smile. “I hate it when you’re away.”
“Yeah.” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “What if I wasn’t?”
“Wasn’t what?” she asks, her fingers intertwined with his, playing absentmindedly with his wedding ring.
“Away. Again. In the future I mean.”
She rolls away and props herself up on one elbow so she can look at him. She’s frowning - not in anger, just confusion. “What does that mean?”
He takes a moment, because he knows once the words are out, he can’t take them back. It stops being his problem, and starts being theirs, and he still struggles with what feels like burdening her - anyone, really - with his shit. He looks up at the ceiling.
“Robards offered me a job. A new one. A promotion, actually.”
“Okay. What sort of job?”
And so he tells her - how he’s been badgering Robards for months about hiring more people. Came up with a plan for how to do it and everything. How Robards took it to Kingsley, and Kingsley took it to the Wizengamot. “It’s massive, Gin. Too many people to just train on the job like before. There’s going to be this whole new training academy. And… and Robards needs someone to run it.”
“And that would be you?”
“If I say yes.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Do you want to do it?”
“I… I don’t know.” He searches again for the right words. “I love what I do right now. I love making a difference. Sometimes I think I’d miss it too much - being out there, catching the bad guys. It’s all I’ve ever done.”
“And the other times?”
He doesn’t reply straight away. Thinks about the slash to his arm, the bruising on his torso, Diffindo and Bombarda and shield charms a split second too late. Thinks about the two small boys asleep down the hall, about Ginny, warm and yielding, lying next to him. “I wonder why the fuck I haven’t bitten Robards’s hand off for it yet.”
He feels her laughter on his shoulder, just a puff of air. “I get it,” she tells him.
And then he realises - actually, she really does. He turns to look at her properly. “You miss playing?”
“Every day,” she nods. “But what I don’t miss is the residential training camps, the overseas exhibition match tours, every bit of my body aching, the constant bludger injuries. I certainly wouldn’t swap being here for the boys to go back to it. And also - I love writing as well. If I had to give it up now, I’d miss that too.” She reaches over and runs her hand down his jaw, fingers in his beard. “Different doesn’t have to mean worse, you know.”
And she’s right, isn’t she? Of course she is. She asks him to tell her more about it, so he does - his plans for recruitment, what the trainees should study, his ideas on how to mix practical and theoretical training.
She laughs at him. “Okay, Hermione, time to lay off the polyjuice.” He pretends to pout, but actually, it’s a fair cop. “You actually sound excited about it, you know,” she observes.
“I… I kinda think I am.”
She smiles encouragingly. “Harry, I’m not going to tell you what to do. We’re a team, and I’ll support you whatever you decide. For what it’s worth though - you’re a great teacher. The new recruits would be lucky to have you. And you being here, every night, with me and the boys, all of us together? Isn’t that what we always wanted?”
He’s quiet again. Then he grins at her. “You wouldn’t mind having me around a bit more?”
She laughs at the absurdity of the question. “I’d love it! Of course I would! We all would.”
“Okay then,” he tells her. “I’ll tell Robards tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He laughs, a soft breathy sort of laugh. Draws her back into his arms, knowing it’s all going to be okay. That with them, it always is.