[From Litha to Lammas]: A Game of Honesty, H/D, H/G, R, 7/7
Part Six.
Title: A Game of Honesty (7/7)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny, Ginny/Astoria, Draco/Astoria
Content Notes: Heavy angst, open marriage, consensual infidelity, manipulation, undernegotiated polyamory, epilogue marriages but no epilogue children
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 6100
Summary: Harry had agreed to an open marriage because he loved Ginny too much to lose her. But he struggled every day with jealousy of Ginny’s bond to Astoria Greengrass. He knew that Ginny was the opposite, and had encouraged him to find a lover of his own, but Harry only wanted his wife. At least, he thought so until Draco Malfoy offered an arrangement of their own that would have the advantage of making their wives pay more attention to them, and suddenly Harry is feeling, and watching everyone else feel, emotions of an intensity he never knew existed.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas fics” being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year, and one of the longest. It will be posted in seven parts. Also, please look at the content notes; the majority of this fic is an angsty mess.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seven-Liberation
“Mr. Potter. What are you doing here?”
Harry twisted around and managed to give the Headmistress a wan smile. When he’d Apparated from Malfoy Manor, he’d chosen to come to Hogwarts. There were wards in place to prevent unauthorized visitors, but apparently the special access he’d received all those years ago as a returning “eighth-year” student was still active. He’d come straight to the Astronomy Tower and spent most of the night looking towards the Forest, thinking.
“Are you all right, Mr. Potter?” Minerva added, and Harry blinked. He must look as awful as he had when he Apparated.
Or maybe not as awful, or Minerva might have tried to insist that he go to St. Mungo’s or get investigated by Madam Pomfrey. Now, Harry managed a wan smile and a shake of his head. “Not the best, but-I needed a quiet place to think. Is it all right if I stay here?’
“There are Astronomy classes tonight.”
“I promise I’ll be done by then, Headmistress. I just need this right now.”
“I told you before to call me Minerva. That still stands.” After a long moment when Minerva seemed to consider whether she ought to do something else, she reached out and gave his shoulder a cautious pat. “If you need something, Harry, I will be in my office.”
Harry gave her a grateful smile, and after a moment, Minerva turned and left him alone. Harry went back to gazing out over the Forest.
His thoughts had tumbled so much during the night that he would have said he hadn’t made any progress in organizing them, but it seemed the brief conversation with Minerva had been good for him. He could indeed think now, and his breathing had steadied.
Yes. All right. He had been a fool in many ways. He hadn’t told Ginny he was unhappy soon enough. He had ignored the doubts he had about Malfoy and let the man influence him too much. He had run away from hard conversations that he needed to have.
But now...
Now he could think. And certain things that would have been literally unthinkable a week ago were now running through his head. They seemed no longer as terrifying nor as final as they had a week ago.
He had resisted the idea of divorce with all his might, even though he thought now that it might have been what Ginny was aiming for, because he had said that he loved her. That he couldn’t think of a life without her. That he would rather do things that went against every principle he had than lose her.
And now he knew that wasn’t true.
He had given Malfoy a huge, detailed list of things he loved about Ginny on their first “date.” But the last few months had eroded that list as if it had never been. How deep did his “love” actually go? How long had it been since he did something for Ginny just because he wanted to, just because he loved her, instead of enduring it with gritted teeth because she had asked it of him?
Their marriage had become a game of fairness, of Harry telling himself that he’d have the right to demand something of her if he just fulfilled this obligation or gave her this concession or kept that promise.
And that wasn’t a marriage at all. That wasn’t the way Bill and Fleur loved each other, or Ron and Hermione, or Molly and Arthur.
Was it the way Draco loved you?
Harry grimaced and shook his head. He still didn’t like thinking about that “love.” It seemed hollow and sad to him. If Draco had known Harry as well as he claimed, he would have known without asking that the surest way to lose Harry was to lie to him about something that important.
Draco was part of this mess, too, Draco and the weird revelations he’d brought about. Harry did have to acknowledge that he wasn’t straight as he’d thought he was.
He had to acknowledge it, but he didn’t have to act on it. If he wanted to take a male lover, that was his business. But he shouldn’t have let himself be pushed into it.
He should have straight up confronted Ginny about the things that were making him uneasy.
He should have done lots of things. But in the end, the past was dead and he was dealing with its corpse. The thing that mattered a lot more was what he was going to do in the future.
Harry took a deep breath and clutched at one of the battlements for a moment as the wind whistled past him. He had already made his decision. It was only voicing it that was hard.
So, for the moment, he kept it in his head and only voiced it to himself.
I have to leave.
He and Ginny had to divorce. Harry was willing to be the one to speak with a solicitor first, if he had to. He was willing to be the “bad” one and bear the brunt of the blame. There was no way to pretend that they could just heal this wound and go on.
If she didn’t want him to explain to her parents that she was polyamorous, then Harry wouldn’t. He would say, and he would repeat until even Molly got tired of asking, that things hadn’t worked out, and that they weren’t in love anymore.
It still hurt how true that last part was, but, well. If there was one thing Harry couldn’t do anything about, it was that amount of pain.
Harry couldn’t stay with Draco, either. He couldn’t trust him. Draco had lied to him about who he was in love with-and even if Harry thought he could forgive him for that, Draco had also, Harry was certain now, taken actions designed to break up Harry and Ginny’s marriage.
Harry’s hand tightened on the stone as he thought about the way that Draco had taken him to see Ginny and Astoria lying in bed together, and then told him about Ginny’s confession to Astoria that sex with Harry was a duty for her. Why do that? What did it have to do with Draco’s stated goal to get Astoria to pay more attention to him?
Nothing, that was what. Another thing that he should have questioned before this.
“You can’t change the past,” Harry whispered to himself. He looked up and studied the edge of the Forbidden Forest for a moment. A few thestrals were soaring above it, winging lazily in circles and now and then diving as though they wanted to see how close they could come to skimming the tops of the trees with their hooves.
No, it was only the future he could change.
He knew it was possible that Ron and Hermione would side with Ginny. Ron was her brother, after all. And neither of them had wanted to hear any details about the “arrangement,” at all. Harry shook his head. He should have pushed on that, too. He could have told them the truth without getting into the sexual details Ron was so afraid of.
He suspected, although he didn’t know for certain, that Ginny had been going and talking to them, after all. There was no other reason that she would have sent Ron to find Harry in his office a few nights ago.
That was another reason he hadn’t wanted to divorce Ginny, although he hadn’t voiced it to himself like that at the time. He hadn’t wanted to lose the Weasleys, and he assumed he probably would.
If that happens...
Harry took a deep breath. If it did, then he had really misjudged both his friends and the Weasleys. He didn’t think they were the kind of people who would hate him forever because he stopped being married to Ginny.
If they were, if he’d been mistaken about that, too, he’d deal with it.
He had kept running away, too, just like Ginny had. He’d thought that he needed a private place to think, and he’d come here. One thing the divorce would at least do was force him to find his own place, where there weren’t shared memories of Ginny waiting around every corner to ambush him, and actually think in some detail about what he wanted from life.
Maybe he would end up married to someone else someday. Maybe he would end up dating a man.
But for now...
For now, being alone sounded wonderful.
Harry smiled and stood up, feeling as fresh as the spring growth around him, despite the fact that he’d been awake all night.
Wonderful enough that he couldn’t wait to get started.
*
“What are these?”
Ginny’s voice was low and hostile. It had incredibly little effect on Harry, at least if he had thought about how it would affect him a week ago. He pushed the papers a little closer to Ginny across the kitchen table and said calmly, “Divorce papers. I’m going to fill them out. I’d like you to do it, too. I’d like this to be relatively amicable-”
“Do you know what this is going to do to me? I told you! Mum is going to keep pushing and pushing for a reason-”
“And you can tell her it was my fault.” Harry raised his eyebrows a little when Ginny glared at him. “That’s what you wanted to tell her anyway, isn’t it?”
Ginny folded her arms. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Harry shook his head. “Gin, when you talk about reasons we shouldn’t getting divorced, you aren’t saying ‘Because I love you.’ You’re not even talking about how it’s going to affect me. You only talk about yourself. I don’t know why you want to stay married to me, other than because it would keep your mum quiet. And that’s a pathetic reason.”
Ginny stared at the floor. “I could have been happy with someone who respected me,” she whispered.
“And I could have been the same. But in this case, we didn’t respect each other. And I don’t even know why it started, but I don’t know it’s going to end.” Harry nodded at the divorce papers.
Ginny lifted her chin. “I’m going to keep dating Astoria.”
“That’s fine. You can.”
“Are you going to keep dating Malfoy?”
“No. I found out he lied to me about something very important, and that’s not something I can tolerate.”
Ginny actually took a step backwards from him. “I thought-I thought you were going to divorce me because you wanted to be with him!”
“No-”
“Then why are you divorcing me?”
“Because,” Harry said, and he made it as gentle as he could, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
Ginny’s face flushed a violent red. She leaned on the table now, hands braced on the top. “You should be so lucky as to find someone like me! Where else are you going to find someone who doesn’t care about your fame and who doesn’t care if you sleep with someone else?”
“But the thing is, I do want someone who cares. I should never have agreed to this arrangement in the first place. I got jealous when you slept with other people-”
“That’s a petty, immature-”
“And that’s another reason this divorce is going to be good for both of us,” Harry cut her off. “You can find someone to be with who can accept you and love you the way you are, Ginny. I can find the same. Eventually. I don’t think I’ll date someone for at least a few years. I need time to get my head together and remember what I’m worth.”
Silence reigned in the kitchen. Ginny’s eyes were wide and Harry couldn’t tell anything she was feeling except surprise. Then she frowned and asked, “Will that person be a man?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have to answer that question, anyway.” Harry nodded at the divorce papers. “Will you be signing those?”
Ginny turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Harry shook his head. At this point, he couldn’t even say that he was surprised. It would have been easier if she’d just signed them, but he could still get a divorce even if she didn’t want to. He picked up the papers and turned to the Floo. He had an appointment with his solicitor at eleven.
*
Harry looked around the small flat that he’d rented with a faint smile. For once, he’d taken advantage of his fame. He hadn’t bothered to hide his scar when he walked into the office of the witch who did most of the renting around Diagon Alley, and she had gabbled that of course she had a flat that was available, one she’d been planning to sell, but if Harry Potter wanted to rent it...
The walls were bare, blank white. The floor was made of scuffed wood and would need rugs to cover it up and make it warmer. The couch he’d brought with him from his house would need to be Transfigured into a bed, and he’d need sheets, a table, food to fill the open cabinets, all sorts of things.
But it was his. And he’d be alone here.
Harry turned and performed his first Transfiguration.
*
“I’m sorry to hear what’s been happening.” Bill had been standing on Harry’s front step when he got home from work that day. “Can I come in? We can talk about it?”
Harry gave Bill a measured look as he nodded and unlocked the door. “As long as you’re not trying to persuade me to stay married to Ginny. It wouldn’t be the best thing for either one of us.”
Bill sighed as Harry ushered him over to the small table, which he’d Transfigured from a boulder he’d found in a field last week. “I know. Mum’s upset and Ginny won’t tell her anything, which I think is the first time I’ve ever seen Ginny refuse to do that. But Fleur and I knew it probably had something to do with your arrangement not working.” He watched, brooding, as Harry got them both cups of tea. “You’re okay?”
Harry nodded and glanced over his shoulder. “I realized that I’d fallen out of love with her. Maybe a long time ago. I told her she could make me out to be the one in the wrong all she liked, because she doesn’t want to tell your mum about the arrangement.”
“And the-the arrangement?”
Harry shook his head as he handed Bill the cup of tea. “I need someone who’s focused on me. Maybe that’s selfish, maybe it’s less mature than what people like you and Fleur and Ginny have. I don’t know. But I need just one partner.”
Bill nodded, quiet for a long moment before he began to speak. “You sound pretty decided about that. Why did you agree to the arrangement with Ginny in the first place?”
“Because she said that she needed to love more than one person. I thought she’d divorce me if I didn’t give her what she wanted.”
Bill whistled. “I can’t even tell you how long Fleur and I talked about it before we chose other partners. And that’s with both of us wanting to do it. We still had to set rules. You and Ginny didn’t set rules?”
“We did. We both broke them. I should have told her a long time ago that I didn’t want this, but-I was afraid. I didn’t want things to change. I think it’s the same way with her now, because I don’t think she loves me anymore.”
Bill shook his head. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s for the best that you’re divorcing her. And it’s not less mature to just need one person. It’s one way of doing things. Fleur and I have another way. There’re probably as many different ways of doing it as there are marriages.”
“Thanks, Bill. I know this is probably the last time I’ll see you for a while, so.” Harry swallowed a gulp of his tea. “Thanks for coming by.”
“Why would it be the last time?”
“Because Ginny’s going to need her family around her during the divorce, and I don’t want you to have to choose between us.”
Bill snorted. “If my sister thinks that seeing and talking to you sometimes is a betrayal, then she can think that. And we’ve never been as close as we were before I married Fleur. I made certain choices and Ginny didn’t like them.”
Harry paused, then nodded. He wanted to ask about those in more detail, but on the other hand, considering the way he had seen Ginny call Fleur Phlegm, he thought he might know. “Then I have something else to ask you.”
“Yes?” Bill focused on him.
“It-seems weird that I fell out of love with Ginny so fast after being in love with her for years. Can you check me for curses? Or other spells?”
Bill gave him a thoughtful look as he took his wand out. “I will, Harry, but I think you already know that it’s not that strange. I think it’s more a matter of admitting the truth to yourself than suddenly falling out of love.”
Harry nodded and closed his eyes as Bill waved his wand gently in front of his face, then down from the top of his head, then in a circle around his waist. Bill stepped back and spoke a soft incantation under his breath, then said, “No. You’re clean.”
“Thanks.” Harry opened his eyes. “And you’re right. I wasn’t very good at discussing or admitting my feelings before this, and it cost me.”
Bill nodded back to him. “I think you need to concentrate on what’s going to come, not what might have happened if you’d spoken up earlier.”
Harry grinned. “Thanks.” Inwardly, he resolved to talk to Bill and Fleur more often. They could apparently read him better than he could read himself.
*
An owl had come from Draco two days ago. Harry had put the letter aside, shooed the bird out, and ignored it. He wanted to read it, but honestly, not right now.
After a shortened evening of work where the Head Auror had sent Harry home because he “looked peaky,” Harry made himself a huge cup of tea, sat down, and opened the letter.
I know that you’re going to blame me, but I really didn’t lie to you. I told you that I was in love and I never expected to fall in love when I married my wife. You were the one who interpreted that to mean Astoria.
Harry rolled his eyes. If the rest of the letter was like this, he wouldn’t bother writing back. Draco knew exactly why Harry had been upset and he just wanted to justify himself.
I do know exactly as much of you as I need to. Newspapers aren’t a bad way to get to know a person when you can back that up by looking into the Auror files and confirming that the newspapers told the truth.
Harry stared at the ceiling. So bribery of other people was also involved.
And I want you back.
The letter ended there, except for a scrawl that probably had the initials DM in it somewhere. Harry settled back and regarded it thoughtfully. Shorter than he thought, but also more self-justifying than he’d thought.
In the end, he decided he wouldn’t answer it tonight. He had to think about it and decide whether he wanted to invite that kind of chaos back into his life yet, or whether being wanted and loved (if he believed Draco) was worth giving up his quiet life at the moment.
*
“You haven’t come and seen us since you filed for divorce.”
Harry ushered Ron and Hermione into his flat and shut the door behind them. “You made no effort to see me, either,” he replied quietly. “That made me believe you were probably siding with Ginny.”
Hermione faced him. “Harry, how did our friendship fall this far apart?”
Harry answered at once, the way he wouldn’t have a few weeks ago when he was still too worried about losing their friendship to say anything. “You decided that you didn’t want to hear anything about my feelings when it came to a very important subject.”
“We just didn’t ask for details,” Ron interjected quickly.
Harry rolled his eyes. “But that meant I couldn’t talk about anything. It didn’t have to be about sex. It would have helped if I could have just discussed how it felt to be falling out of love with Ginny, or if I was, or whether I should date someone else, or how hurt I was feeling over Ginny neglecting me for Astoria.”
“I would still have to imagine my little sister having sex, though.”
Harry stared at Ron for a long moment in silence, until Ron looked at him. Then he said quietly, “Grow up, Ron.”
“We were trying to be as neutral as we could,” Hermione said, maybe because she could see Ron’s face turning red. “We didn’t want to take sides.”
Harry shrugged. “And maybe that would even have worked, if Ron didn’t do things like turn into Ginny’s errand boy because she asked him to.”
“She’s my sister, mate!”
“So you’ll take her side in this and not mine?” Harry nodded. Honestly, he didn’t feel as much as he’d anticipated. Maybe it was because their friendship already had fallen to a pretty low point before this. “Then get out.”
“Wait, Harry.” Hermione’s eyes sparkled with tears as she held out a hand to him. “We don’t want you to be alone! We just don’t want to take sides.”
“What does that mean, Hermione? I can’t talk to you about it? You’re not going to talk to her about it? What?”
“I mean-Ginny’s staying at the Burrow, so we sort of have to talk to her about it when we see her, since she can’t tell Molly and Arthur the truth...”
“Then you’re taking sides.”
Hermione buried her face in her hands. “We just want to be neutral,” she whispered.
“You fucking can’t.” Harry wasn’t even as angry as he’d thought he would be. “Get out.”
“I-we want to still be your friends.” Hermione wiped tears from her face with the back of her arm. “Can we do that and not talk about you getting back together with Ginny or why you’re divorcing or any of it?”
“It depends. Are you talking to her about those things?”
“She-she needs someone else to talk to about that, Harry. We all know the truth, but her parents don’t.”
Harry snorted. “I’ve had enough of hearing about how Ginny ‘needs’ things, Hermione. She justified lying to me and hurting me and breaking all the rules we set up because that was what she bloody needed. Meanwhile, I apparently needed nothing and was a stone statue. Go away,” he added when he saw Hermione’s mouth opening. “I hope we can be friends again someday, but it’ll probably have to wait until the divorce is done with and you can stop telling me how helpless and fragile and needy Ginny is.”
Hermione touched his arm gently and then walked out the door. Ron lingered behind for a second. “You know,” he said, while looking at the floor, “if you hated Ginny dating other people so much, you shouldn’t have agreed to that arrangement in the first place.”
“I know that.”
Ron looked up so fast that Harry winced to imagine how it probably hurt his neck. “Then-”
“And she should have told me if she needed things changed, not just assumed that I would go along with her spending every single evening with her girlfriend and she could chat about how lovely her girlfriend was in bed.”
“I hate you for making me imagine that,” Ron said, and covered his eyes with his arm.
Harry smiled slightly. They weren’t okay right now, but the tone and the words made him imagine that someday they would be. “Bye, Ron.”
*
“Ginny and Astoria broke up.”
Harry halted and sighed at the sight of Draco standing next to his door. “Does the fact that I didn’t answer your letter mean nothing to you?”
“Hear me out,” Draco said, standing and holding out his hands as if he was going to clasp Harry’s. Harry deftly avoided that on his way to the door.
“Fine,” he agreed, sliding the key into the lock and stepping into the flat. “But then you’re going to leave.”
“Does that mean that you’ll never come back to me?”
“It’s so fucking early to think about that,” Harry said, and rolled his eyes, and sat down at the kitchen table with his gaze fixed on Draco. “You wanted me to hear you out. What’s your case?”
Draco looked startled, but then straightened up and gave Harry his best melting-eyed glance. Harry calmly returned it. Draco blinked, shuffled, cleared his throat, nodded, and began to speak.
“I know that you think I tricked you because I didn’t tell you the truth. But I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t accept it then. And not because you wouldn’t really believe me. You wouldn’t have believed me about anyone loving you then. You didn’t think you were lovable.”
“None of those explains bribing people to see the files of my cases.”
“I never said-”
“The general public can’t waltz into the Ministry and ask for files like that,” Harry said flatly. “Give me some credit for general intelligence, Draco. And stop saying that because you lied by omission, you didn’t lie.”
Draco took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. But I do love you. I noticed you because you seemed so unhappy, and I tried to figure out why. And then I found out about your arrangement with your wife because she started dating Astoria, and I thought there must be some secret reason Weasley wanted to leave you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I started digging trying to find things I could use for gossip. I admit that. But-I honestly do admire you and love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, Harry. I was trying my best to make that happen. It’s unfortunate that you overheard that conversation between Ginny and Astoria before you fell in love with me back.”
“Uh-huh.”
Draco paused. “You don’t sound as if you believe me,” he whispered.
“That’s what happens when someone lies to me. I have a hard time believing them the next time.”
Draco took an unsteady breath. “Does that mean you hate me? That you-you’ll never come back to me?”
Harry stared at Draco in silence, and remembered the morning they’d woken up in bed together, the way Draco had touched him in the massage, the dates Draco had arranged, the hungry and admiring looks that came his way on a regular basis when he was with Draco. That was the main draw, he could admit to himself. Ginny hadn’t looked at him like that in years.
Hell, he still didn’t know if he’d ever want to date a man other than Draco. He was bisexual, a little, but could he date a man who wasn’t already in love with him?
And who hadn’t told him.
Harry sighed and finally answered, “I don’t know. Draco, I need time by myself to straighten my head out. And that’s pure honesty.”
“You’re perfectly sane. Don’t believe whatever that b-”
Harry stared at him, and Draco paused. “Fine. Don’t believe whoever implied that you weren’t sane.”
“That’s not it. I’m talking for myself, Draco. Now I look back and think that it was mental of me to spend so long with Ginny when I probably wasn’t even in love with her by then. Then I jumped straight into an affair with you. Then I broke it off. I put up with things until I didn’t, and I was unhappy until I decided to spend time by myself. Since then I’ve been really happy. I need to understand why. I need to think. Not dive right back into a relationship that’s complicated enough already.” Harry paused. “Are you even divorcing Astoria?”
“It’s complicated-”
“Ah.”
“No, I just mean, it’s really complicated! Legally and financially. We both signed a contract. Untangling that is going to take a lot of time. Then I’ll come back to you, Harry, I swear it.”
Harry shook his head a little. “I need time, Draco. Lots of it. Not a few weeks or months. It’s been so good to breathe and have my own flat that I think-I think I wanted that for a long time before I left Ginny. Not another lover.”
Draco closed his eyes. “So you’re giving up on what we could have together?”
“That is a manipulation tactic,” Harry sad sharply enough that Draco opened his eyes again. “I can’t blame you, because it’s the kind I would have fallen for. And I don’t think you even did it consciously. But that’s another reason we need to spend some time apart, Draco. It’s going to be good for both of us, not just me.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“How much of that was the fact that I was forbidden fruit? How much of it is my looks and the things you think you know?”
Draco was silent for a moment, staring off into a corner. “I don’t think I’m ever going to stop loving you.”
“If that’s true, then it’ll wait a while.” Harry softened his voice, not so much because he didn’t think he was telling the truth as because Draco looked devastated. “If this is real, and I decide to come back to you, I’ll come back to you with a clear head, ready to love you with my whole being, not just because my marriage is unhappy or I’m punishing Ginny. Don’t you want that? For me to be yours?”
“I want it more than anything else,” Draco said, and Harry was sure he wasn’t lying. He just wished Draco had told him the truth from the beginning.
He nodded and said, “All right. I’ll keep that in mind. Please leave now.”
Draco walked towards the door, but then lingered there. “Do you love me, too, Harry?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. That was the absolute truth, the only thing he felt qualified to say.
Draco lowered his head, and then nodded, and left quickly.
*
Harry stared at the door with the name outlined in gold in front of him, and let out a sigh. He had hoped this could be avoided, but now that he’d thought about it, he had to admit he needed someone like this. He raised his hand and knocked.
“Please come in, Mr. Potter.”
The voice was neither eager nor condescending, Harry noted as he opened the door and stepped into a large, book-lined office. At least that was a good sign.
The woman who sat behind the desk glanced up with a slight smile. She had a long braid of brown hair that was coiled up around the back of her neck, and dark eyes. Maybe it was childish of him, but Harry had deliberately searched for a Mind-Healer who didn’t have blonde or red hair.
“Sit down, Mr. Potter.” She gestured to the two-seat couch in front of her desk, and watched as he did. “You’d prefer the oaths of secrecy before we discuss any details, I assume?”
“Please.” Harry had also chosen this particular Mind-Healer, Aubade Jezen, because she used oaths to guarantee her clients’ privacy.
Jezen raised her wand without a pause and said, “I, Mind-Healer Aubade Jezen, swear to betray no knowledge of Harry Potter’s secrets intentionally or willingly, by word or writing or gesture, and to secure every note I take in his case behind the strongest legal wards.”
Harry sighed as he felt the oath settle, and saw the slight jerk of Jezen’s head that was typical of vows like that; he knew it felt like a collar tightening around someone’s throat. “And you’re an Occlumens?”
“I am, Mr. Potter. While not being a Legilimens.” Jezen laid her wand aside. “What end result are you looking for?”
“An outside perspective, as unbiased as possible, on the mess my marriage was,” Harry said bluntly. “And learning some more about myself and the way I react to things.”
Jezen tilted her head. “You didn’t say, advice.”
“If you have any, you can offer it. But I already know that I don’t want to stay married or have a relationship right now. I need someone to listen as I unpack my head.”
Jezen smiled a little. “That I can do, Mr. Potter. Where would you like to begin?”
*
I was thinking of you today.
That was all Draco’s owl said. Harry hesitated. He did almost want to write back, but, well. He was still working through the fact that Draco had stalked him and lied to him when Harry had been absolutely sure that he was being absolutely honest.
In the end, Harry wrote two letters. One was the one that Draco’s owl carried back to him, which said, I was thinking of you, too. But I need more time.
The other one spilled out emotions that Harry didn’t know if he would even have felt comfortable talking about to his Mind-Healer.
Dear Draco,
I think this is the most confusing thing to come out of this mess. I know a little bit more now about how I fell in love with Ginny and fell out of it. And I know that I want to be alone now, and that I despise your wife (not that that was really ever my business to begin with). But I don’t know how I feel about you.
You loved me-you didn’t tell me. You let me think you were in love with someone else, someone I would have started thinking was unfit for you pretty soon, the way you always thought Ginny was for me. You stalked me. You broke into the Ministry and bribed people. That’s unacceptable. You said that the newspaper articles are accurate sometimes, when they only are when they stumble on something by accident. You don’t know how tired I am of people assuming they know me because they’ve seen some photographs and articles.
But you also gave me the best dates of my life. You made me feel loved and cherished and wonderful, like I finally mattered to someone. I don’t think that you fell in love with me for my fame or because I rescued you from the Fiendfyre or because of my looks. That’s rare and precious. If you hadn’t lied, I think we would be together now.
I need some distance because I need to get away from all the lies, the ones other people were telling me and the ones I was telling myself. I thought I was weak for needing love and comfort. That’s not true. Then I thought I was in control of everything, cool and mature and outside my former weakness. That wasn’t true, either.
I can’t be with you because I can’t even be honest with myself, right now. I promise that when I can, I’ll see you again. I don’t know what I’ll say then, whether it’s good-bye or hello. But for all I know, you won’t wait for me, and will want to move on. Which would also be right and reasonable.
I realized recently that I’d never lived by myself. I lived with my relatives as a child, other Gryffindors at Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione on the run, the Weasleys during the summer before my NEWTS, Ron for a while during Auror training, Ginny when we got back together and when we were dating and married. I think I need this. I need to be by myself and learn who Harry Potter is when he’s honest.
Thank you for helping lead me part of the way there. I don’t know yet if we can walk any further on this path together. I have to walk it alone for a while and see.
Harry folded up the letter when he was finished with it and glanced at the fire. Then he turned and sealed it in a drawer of his desk.
He didn’t know if he would ever send it. Not yet.
But at the moment, “not yet” were the most honest words he could speak to himself. About everything.
The End.
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