In Our Bedroom After the War
Written for thedark_fest, prompt : Harry Potter, grown up Harry/Ginny, possibly Harry/others, The not-so-happy reality of marrying your childhood sweetheart
In Our Bedroom After The War
What the history books never mention is the aftermath of war, Harry thought. Sure they’re the odd chapter on how the town or country rebuilt itself but not much on what comes next. A touching memorial every few years to the forgotten. What about the ones that survived everyone expected them to just go back to whatever they were doing before the war started and normal life fell apart.
He doesn’t feel like the boy who lived anymore he’s more the man who survived. He has a wife he barely speaks to, friends he either fucks or fucks over. A job he hates, you cannot go from killing one of the most power wizards of all time to being head of a department.
He doesn’t know when it all started to go wrong. It was exciting once him and Ginny , when they were young and hiding it from Ron and everyone. When they were just starting to fall in love and everything was so fragile it was kind of beautiful. When he was running and Ginny was waiting. There was a time they loved it each other so much it hurt. After the war there are a few perfect years. He’s a hero and they are all national treasure. Him and Ginny marry in a lavish ceremony and it’s the wizading event of the year.
On his wedding night he feels like the luckiest man alive. It’s perfect and they promise to love each other forever. They have almost died for each other more than enough times how could anyone love each other more. It could never last though, broken children grow up to be broken adults and all the weddings and awards for bravery cannot take away from that. Fairy tales aren’t real though and there is a reason stories end when they do. Happy ending rarely stick around. She gets dull and old and reminds him to much of Mrs Weasley .Somewhere along the way, around children and work and sex that was unsatisfactory at best, he’d woken up and she was unrecognisable. He didn’t know who this women was next to him but she wasn’t the girl he’d was in love with. That why you were never meant to marry your childhoods love because they grow up.
He fucks around of course, even after all these years there still is a certain appeal of being the chosen one, war groupies he likes to think of them as. It’s not like Ginny’s innocent in this whole equation, he hears her at night when she thinks he’s asleep. Moaning like she never did for him, frantically touching herself and murmuring Tom over and over. That’s worse than anything Harry does he thinks at least he has real life affairs with living breathing women, while his wife gets herself off on a ghost.
It comforting to know he’s not the only one who does it though. He knows what goes on between Ron and Lavender he’s seen them together often enough. Lavender still looks at Ron they way she did when they were sixteen Harry can’t begrudge his best friend that. Hermione knows of course she wasn’t considered the smartest witch for nothing. He doesn’t know what came first Ron sleeping with Lavender or his sleeping with Hermione, probably both around the same time. When nearly everyone he knew realised that this was it and life just wasn’t going to get better.
Hermione’s better than Ginny he thinks, well maybe not better just more enthusiastic. Hermione fucks like she’s dying, it’s violent and if he could last that long she’d want him to fuck her till she bleed he’s pretty sure. He compared it to the last time he screwed Ginny which was hard to remember since it had been a while. She’d just laid still and silently stared at the ceiling. He had to think of Parvati and Padma at the same time just to stay hard.
They talk sometimes while they lay on her and Ron’s bed. It’s good knowing that she feels exactly like he does
“We’ll be famous once we’re dead”.
She tells him once smiling at the idea.
“We’re already famous”.
It’s a pretty obvious fact he thinks. There is no doubt they are something of celebrities in the wizarding world.
She rolls her eyes at him.
“More than this, we won’t be people we will be legends, it will all mean something then”.
It’s not enough Harry thinks. It doesn’t matter that they will be heroes that people will tell stories about them for generations, because they have to live in the now. The history books won’t know how messed up they are, how the fearless generation that fought of Voldermort are barely surviving. No one tells you once there is a war there is no going back.
“Ah the bigger picture and no one will ever get to know that your husband hasn’t made you cum in years and if it doesn’t hurt it doesn’t turn you on”
“Something like that, no one will ever have to know who we really are”
She smiles and he wondered if she’d gone mad . It wouldn’t exactly be shocking Dean Thomas and Hannah Abbot had both gone to Saint Mungo’s in the past few years.
“Do you think it would be different if it would have been you and me?”
He’d asked wondering if anything could have changed the way there were now.
“Of course not”.
“Why?”
“Because you’d hate me as much as you hate your wife”.
He considered lying to her claiming this was just a phase that he didn’t hate Ginny at all they had just grown apart but of course he did love her deep down. But he didn’t there was no point pretending, Hermione was one of his oldest friends if they could still call each other friends. Instead he just stayed silent and climbed on top of her pushing her legs apart.
“Chat over?”
She’d asked smirking
She knew exactly how to provoke him he thought, always had. He put a hand over her mouth and thrust himself into her roughly. He could feel her tighten around him and arch herself into him. When they fucked they were meant to hurt each other. She would bite at his hand and scratch at him; he guessed all of that violence they’d grown inside them had to go somewhere.
He took his hand away and kissed her hard, she bit down on his lip until he could taste the blood. If the daily prophet could see them now he thought laughing to himself. Those brave fearless wizards and witches who fought and the dark lord now trying to tear each other apart.
He doesn’t hang around after he finishes, Hermione’s not into cuddling and he’s grateful for that.
“Same time next week”
She said admiring the bruises that were starting to form across her body.
Harry nodded
“Give Draco my regards”
He said as he apparated out, he was impressed to see she didn’t even blush at the mention of his name. Harry knew he wasn’t the only guy she had and he wasn’t even surprised to find out her and Draco had weekly sessions pretty similar to theirs. It made sense in a way childhood enemy turned fuck buddy although buddy probably wasn’t the right word. Everyone was trying to find links back to when they younger he realised anything to distract them from the meaninglessness that they were living.
It should really be easy he thought. Once the war was over they didn’t have to fight again and could be safe, it was meant to just get better. It was boring though; you cannot go from fighting all the time being on the run to married life, life in the office. The world was perfectly happy to go back to normal but Harry couldn’t everything just seemed so empty. You can’t go from having a goal having a purpose to nothing. Harry felt stuck in a war that had ended years before.
His favourite fuck as much as he enjoyed Hermione had to be Cho. She didn’t cry any more thank god. He’d had someone cry during sex before a random little witch overcome at how grateful she as to him for saving the wizarding world. Tears were not a turn on and there had not been a repeat performance with that one.
Cho was cynical long before he and any other the others were, the girl he’d asked to the Yule ball was long gone. He wondered if she still missed Cedric they never talked about him, it was an unspoken rule.
It wasn’t aggressive like him and Hermione or filled with adoration like him and most of the war groupies he’d been with. It was easy they both needed the other one; it was soft and almost but not quite gentle. In a way in reminded him of how he’d been with Ginny right at the very beginning.
“I could make you happy, you know”
She said to him once. He’d expected the invevitable if you left your wife for me etcetera speech to follow.
“If what?”
“If you could still remember how”
Harry looked down at her. It was to understand how it had all happened how all these children that had started off so bright with so much promise could end up so damaged.
“Its fine it’s not like I remember either”
She said not even sounding sad about it. Harry considered putting his arm around her as she rolled to her side on the bed, but he didn’t. He turned to face the other way and tried to dream of a place when they were still young and had the world before them.