The Inadequate Life

Harry stepped out of Cho’s room, laughing. “But if you’d just told me—”

“I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally,” Cho retorted, but she was smiling as well. “You know, I don’t even like coffee much. I only suggested that we go there because it’s where all the couples from Hogwarts went.”

“It would have been more fun to go to Zonko’s or something,” Harry chided her.

“Well, I didn’t know what you would like!” Cho said defensively. “And it’s not like you made any suggestions!”

“Well I’d never been out with a girl before,” Harry pointed out. “And I was nervous, so I was trying to, I don’t know, be a gentleman…” He trailed off when he saw that Cho was no longer paying attention to him. She was looking over his shoulder, and her face had gone chalk-white. Turning, Harry wasn’t entirely surprised to see Ginny standing by the door to the room they shared. Nor was he surprised to see that she was apparently holding in an enraged outburst by sheer force of will. “Cho, I’ll see you later,” he muttered over his shoulder.

Cho squeaked and darted back into her room, slamming the door.

Harry just stood there for a minute. When Ginny didn’t move he said “Ginny, you know it wasn’t anything, right? I was talking to Cho about the list of Healing potions I asked her for. Cho even said that she was happy for you and me, and told me that she and I should never have tried to date since we’re obviously all wrong for each other.”

Ginny stared for a second longer before slumping slightly and dropping her eyes. All the anger seemed to drain out of her, and she looked very weary. “Come on, Harry,” she said dully, opening the door to their room. “I really need to talk to you.”

Harry was startled by Ginny’s abrupt change of behavior—her moroseness worried him far more than her anger. Anxious to make things right between them, as he’d badly wanted to earlier, Harry hurried into their room after Ginny and pulled the door shut behind them.

Ginny was stripping off her heavier outer robes, so Harry did the same, until they were both in jeans and t-shirts: one of Harry’s favorite things about magic was that even in the dead of winter, with Christmas less than a month away, the home of a wizard was always as warm as he liked it.

Ginny tossed her robes aside and kicked off her shoes, and climbed up on their bed. She looked up at Harry, who was standing almost halfway across the room, and smiled slightly. “I’m not going to bite your head off, Harry. Come over here.”

Harry joined Ginny on the bed, so they were seated facing each other, with Harry leaning against the backboard. “Ginny—”

“Don’t,” Ginny interrupted. “I need you to listen for now, Harry—not talk. Please?”

Harry nodded, not sure what Ginny intended but willing to do what it took to clear the air between them. “Okay,” he said.

Ginny hesitated, and then crawled across the bed until she was inches from Harry. She reversed herself and snuggled up to Harry, who shifted to accommodate her, until Ginny was seated between Harry’s outstretched legs with her back against his chest. Harry hesitantly put his arms around her since it felt like the thing to do, and was pleased when Ginny covered his hands with her own and gave them a gentle squeeze.

They sat like that in silence for a while. Harry wasn’t in a hurry, nor did he want to break the peaceful moment between them. He was vaguely aware that he had things he was supposed to be doing for the D.A., but he didn’t care. Nothing he could have been doing was more important than what he was doing right at that moment.

“Harry,” Ginny said eventually, “did you hear that I went to the Burrow earlier today? That’s where I disappeared to?”

“Yeah, Luna told me when I went looking for you,” Harry said.

Ginny nodded. “I’m sorry I just vanished. I just… I really had to talk to mum. I know I had D.A. responsibilities—”

“I know you wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t important,” Harry replied. Ginny nodded vaguely. “What did you need to talk to your mum about?”

“About you,” Ginny replied softly. “About us. About the magical binding that comes with marriage. I asked her to describe what it had been like for her when she and dad got married.”

Harry thought about that for a bit. “That must have been awkward,” he said finally.

“It was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life,” Ginny agreed with a slight chuckle. “And probably for Mum, too. She wasn’t expecting it, that’s for sure. And when I told her about Luna… it was like she’d been hit by a Bamboozlement Hex. Dad was lucky he was at work, or I’d have asked him about it too, and that might have been worse.”

Harry waited, and after another pause Ginny continued. “I had to ask Mum because—because our binding has been affecting me so strongly recently that it’s started to make everything horrible. I had to know if what I’ve been feeling, and how I’ve been reacting to everything you do, was—well, normal.”

“Er… you mean getting angry a lot?” Harry ventured.

“Not angry,” Ginny corrected. “Jealous. I’m jealous of everything to do with you, Harry. Out in the hall a minute ago I was ready to hex Cho, and make whatever I did permanent. Earlier today, when you told me you had to talk to Hermione about something private, I was furious—not because you didn’t tell me, but because I was sure you were cheating on me with her.”

Harry had half-expected that, but hearing Ginny say it still stung. “You—”

“Harry, just listen, okay?” Ginny interrupted. Harry nodded reluctantly—he’d promised, after all. “I know you never would,” she said softly. “And I know Hermione never would. I know it, but I fear it anyway. Even though I know that you’re about the most honorable man I’ve ever met, I’m s-still afraid that… that in the end, I won’t be enough for you.”

Harry kept himself from answering—barely—and Ginny went on. “I wish I could say that Hermione and Cho were the only ones who I’ve been afraid would—catch your eye. But every time I’ve seen you talking with any girl—and hell, with Seamus and Dean, too—it’s been in the back of my mind. I tell myself that I’m crazy for even thinking it, but the thought won’t go away.”

“That’s why I went and got my name changed to Potter,” she told him, her voice shaking slightly. “I was hoping that—that it would bring peace of mind, that because of the way the magical binding made us feel about each other, completing the binding would create a feeling of certainty in me that you were mine and only mine. But it just made everything worse—I started seeing things that I know weren’t there, like some kind of s-spark between you and Hermione, and I know it’s stupid b-but I just can’t s-stop thinking it—”

“Ginny, stop!” Harry said sharply. “Stop it!” When Ginny fell silent, he wasn’t sure how to continue. “Is—is that why you had to talk to your mum, then?” he offered. “Because you thought that maybe she could tell you that the magical binding created those fears in her too, about your dad?”

Harry felt something on his arm, and it took him a second to realize it was wet. Ginny was crying. “Y-yes,” Ginny replied in a thick voice. “B-but I was wrong!”

“You mean… your mum didn’t have the same reactions?” Harry asked.

“She did,” Ginny said, “b-but only because she’d had them before. The binding can’t create new feelings—it only enhances what’s already there! The truth is that every reaction I’ve had comes from the same fears I’ve had since I met you—that there’s someone out there who’s s-smarter, or c-cuter, or j-just better suited to you, and every time I see you even look in another girl’s direction, I’m sure that it’ll be the time that you s-see what’s not there for you in me—”

Ginny trailed off, and Harry could feel her shaking as she cried, although she never made a sound. Harry pulled her tighter against him; he couldn’t think of how to say what he felt, so he stayed quiet and tried to convey through his body language how much he loved her, how he would never hold something like this against her.

Eventually Ginny managed to get herself back under control, and her tears tapered off. “Ginny,” Harry murmured in her ear, “The—the suspicions you’ve had about me… they’ve been building since we met?”

“Yes,” Ginny admitted with shame. “I—I wasn’t exactly confident when we met, you know. I was sure that I wouldn’t—wouldn’t catch your eye. It made me... awkward around you.”

“Elbow in the butter dish kind of awkward, you mean?” Harry asked, attempting to lighten the mood.

“Oh, Merlin—I didn’t think you’d seen that!” Ginny groaned.

“I was too much of a gentleman to say anything,” Harry answered.

“So you’re less of a gentleman now than you were then?”

“I guess so.”

“Well… at least you’re not a complete disaster at it,” Ginny offered. She hesitated before continuing. “Part of the reason that I reacted so strongly to finding out about your secret meeting with Hermione was that I suspected there was something between you two from the first moment I ever saw you together, getting off the train with Ron at the start of summer following your first year. You looked so… close. I—my first year at Hogwarts was filled with other things, obviously,” she said darkly, and Harry nodded, knowing that she was thinking of Tom Riddle’s diary, “but at the start of my second year is when I first befriended Hermione. And the only reason I became friends with her was to figure out a way to make her less appealing so you’d break off with her and go out with me. I’d gotten as far as forging Professor Lupin’s signature on a note for a book from the Restricted Section that had a spell to make a person appear hideously ugly to one other person. The spell had no cure. I was on the verge of casting it when Hermione started pestering me with endless questions about Ron, and it became obvious that her attention wasn’t on you.”

Harry was a bit alarmed to hear that Hermione had almost suffered even worse than she already had as a result of being his friend. “I’m glad you didn’t do it,” he muttered.

“So am I. After I realized that she had designs on Ron and not you, Hermione became a real friend. If I’d found out after I’d already hexed her it would have been horrible.”

“So you’ve had these suspicions for years now,” Harry said, “and the feeling’s kept building all this time?”

“When—when you finally kissed me in the common room that day the feeling faded to almost nothing,” Ginny said. “While we were together at Hogwarts those few weeks I had a few little moments, but they were nothing… I was just so happy that what I’d wanted for so long had finally happened.”

“But—I mean, you never said—I never even saw any indication of it until really recently.”

“Of course not,” Ginny snapped. “Because I knew it was just my imagination!”

“But today you did. You let me see your fear. What changed? What made you say something?”

Harry felt Ginny tense up suddenly, all over her body. He waited, but she didn’t answer for a long time. At last, her voice barely above a whisper, she said; “Ever since I took your name, I’ve seen it everywhere, Harry. I can’t get through a single day without thinking terrible things about the people closest to me. Hermione is my best friend, and today when you—” She cut herself off, and Harry could tell that she was trying to build up the courage to continue. “But it wasn’t that,” she said wretchedly. “It was what I did later, and what I felt.”

“What was that?” Harry asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

“When I left you I went and found Lavender and Parvati in their rooms,” Ginny told him. “They were—they were shagging. And it was so arousing… and then right after, I dragged Susan and Hannah to the greenhouse and ordered them to get over their stupid fight and help Neville. And the tension between Neville and Susan was so palpable that—well, afterwards I wanted nothing more than to find you and fuck you and leave jealousy for another day.”

“But you had just gone into your meeting with Angelina, Alicia and Katie, and I was so horny, so I came back here to our room and began—playing with myself,” she continued, and Harry thought she was blushing a little. “But it just—it didn’t do anything for me. I wanted you there. At least, I thought I did.”

Harry’s heart tightened when the implication of what Ginny was saying sunk in. “Y-you mean… you mean you didn’t want me there?” he asked tightly, trying to keep the pain out of his voice. “You don’t want that from me any more?”

“NO!” Ginny yelped, twisting so she could see Harry. She looked shocked, and guilty, and horrified. “No, that’s not what I meant!”

“What, then?” Harry asked, almost limp with relief.

Ginny shifted so she was facing Harry properly, so she could look him in the eye. “I was thinking about you,” she said, “and how much I wanted you to be there, and then Luna showed up.”

“Luna?”

“Yeah… she came to ask me about our schedule, and she walked in and found me—” Ginny didn’t finish, but Harry understood what had happened. “And Luna confessed that she prefers someone to be there too, and she offered to… help.”

“Help,” Harry repeated.

Ginny flushed. “She, um… you know how her tongue is, she…”

“She got you off,” Harry stated flatly. “And you got her off. You shagged Luna—without me there.”

Ginny nodded wretchedly. “I was so frustrated, I just went along with it,” she muttered. “I trust Luna, and she was really… considerate, and I started to—”

“To what?”

Ginny hung her head, new tears forming in her eyes. “I started to realize that I was feeling for Luna… the way I feel about you.”

Harry was slightly surprised at the rush of anger and jealousy he felt. “Now I get it,” he said coldly. “All this time you’ve been jealous of me, and you’ve been falling in love with Luna!”

“That—that’s what I thought,” Ginny whispered.

Harry didn’t know what to think. He’d been so worried that Ginny would wonder if he was falling for Luna, he’d never considered that Ginny would fall that way instead. He liked Luna, but he didn’t love her—he loved Ginny. Only Ginny. “So now what?” Harry asked harshly. “You want to be with Luna too? What about George? For Merlin’s sake, what about me?”

“No, that’s not what I want!” Ginny insisted. “That’s—Harry, I’m sorry, I’m making a mess of explaining. I don’t want to be with Luna, or anyone else but you. I told Luna after we—I told her that we couldn’t ever shag again, not her and me, not the three of us. I don’t ever want to be with anyone but you, ever again.”

Harry opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of what to say. “I—I don’t understand,” he said finally.

Ginny smiled ruefully. “I really am making a mess of this,” she said. “Harry… when I realized that I was feeling the way I was about Luna, I also realized that I wasn’t jealous of her. Even though I’d seen you shagging her, I wasn’t even slightly upset by the thought that you and she might have… done what she and I did.”

“I never would have!” Harry exclaimed.

“I know, Harry!” Ginny assured him. “It’s just like those other jealous things I imagined—I know you wouldn’t do it. That’s not the point, though. The point is, it was… strange that I didn’t get jealous at the thought.”

“So you… went to talk to your mum?” Harry asked.

“I wanted to understand,” Ginny explained. “And after talking to Mum, I think I’ve figured out what’s been going on. Harry, I’ve been feeling the way I have about Luna because… because I’m seeing her the way I see you. Hermione had a word for it—projecting, I think.”

Harry remembered the term, and gasped when he finally realized what Ginny was saying. “You mean—you mean you’ve been projecting your feelings for me onto Luna?”

Ginny nodded emphatically. “It’s why I thought I felt the same about her that I do for you. It’s why I wasn’t jealous of her—because in my mind she was you, in a way.”

“But—but—”

“Harry,” Ginny said, taking his hand, “I think that it started back when we got married. The magical binding started then, and I didn’t notice because it happened gradually, and I wouldn’t have had anything to compare it to anyway. But my love for you grew, and it grew so much that I think I just didn’t know what to do with it, so some of it ended up being passed to Luna. It only got worse when I took your name, because I still didn’t understand—I only saw my jealousy grow. But now that I see what’s happening, I know that I don’t want Luna, and I never fell in love with her—I just fell in love with you more.”

Harry could barely speak around the lump in his throat. “I knew that whole thing with Luna was a bad idea,” he mumbled.

Ginny’s eyes lit up. “You mean—you don’t mind not doing anything with Luna any more?”

“Are you kidding? I only did it in the first place because I thought you wanted it!” Harry exclaimed happily. “I mean, sure it was kind of fun, and Luna may be a good shag, but everything I want—and I mean everything—I already have in you.”

“Do—do you mean it?” Ginny stammered, her jaw quivering. “I’ve made such a m-mess of everything…”

“A mess? You figured out that you love me more than ever, and don’t want to be with anyone else—how is that a mess?” Harry took Ginny’s face in his hands and used his thumb to brush away a stray tear. “I think I’m finally starting to understand how the magical binding has been affecting you,” he said softly. “Because I think I’m feeling it too, now. When you said what you’d been feeling for Luna I got insanely jealous—and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more in love with you than I do right now.”

Ginny sniffled. “You—you sound like Ron probably does when he’s alone with Hermione,” she teased.

“Yeah, well, you cry like Lavender did when Ron broke up with her,” Harry retorted.

“I do not!” Ginny yelped indignantly, slapping Harry’s hands away.

Harry chuckled. “I wonder if my mum and dad were ever like this. After all, everyone keeps telling us that we remind them of my parents.”

“So long as no one ever, ever compares us to my parents,” Ginny said with a shudder. She glanced up shyly at Harry. “You—you’re really okay with all this?” she asked hesitantly. “I really went kind of nutters…”

Harry’s throat was dry as he took in the almost seductive look Ginny was giving him. He knew she didn’t mean it that way, but the way her deep brown eyes were staring at him through her lashes made his pulse accelerate. Lunging forward, Harry tackled Ginny to the bed, capturing her mouth in a deep, loving kiss.

Ginny wrapped her arms and legs around Harry, kissing him with all the pent-up passion that Harry suspected she’d been holding back for so long for fear of overwhelming him. He returned her passion in kind, touching her everywhere, passing his message to her through his lips and his fingertips.

Their bodies pressed and rocked together, and Harry’s erection pressing against Ginny through their clothes made her whimper into his mouth. Without breaking the kiss, Ginny reached between them and started tugging sharply at Harry’s jeans, getting them undone in seconds and shoving them off his hips along with his boxers. He managed to undo her jeans with one hand, and she shoved them down as well, kicking them and her knickers aside. Pulling him in again with her legs, Ginny grasped Harry’s aching cock and guided it to her entrance, thrusting up so he buried inside her in one swift motion.

Reluctantly, Harry tried to pull back, but Ginny’s legs gripped him like a vice. “Ginny—” he gasped, “the charm!”

“No,” Ginny moaned, urging him even deeper. Her eyes were streaming tears as she looked up at him pleadingly. “Don’t—I don’t care, Harry, please. Please don’t leave me, not now…”

Strangely, Harry understood. As close as they’d become over the last year, Ginny had never allowed herself to be as vulnerable as she just had. She wanted Harry to back up his words with his actions—she needed him to give her this reassurance.

He’d pulled slightly out of her, so Harry thrust in as hard as he could, capturing her gasp in his mouth. One of her hands clenched his hair, the other twisting his shirt, as she rocked her hips to meet his. Harry kissed Ginny’s nose, her eyes, her salty cheeks, as he slowly moved inside her. “Love you,” he whispered when he bent down to kiss her ear. “Always.” Kiss.” “Want you.” Kiss. “Just you. No one else.”

Ginny’s lip quivered even as she shuddered at the feeling of being filled. “No more—trysts with Luna?” she asked hesitantly.

“Never again,” Harry assured her. “Everything’s—about you anyway.”

“What—” Ginny gasped as Harry bore his weight down on her, penetrating her even deeper. “What does that mean?”

Harry pushed himself up so he could look at Ginny properly. “I mean everything I do now, it’s with you in mind,” he said quietly. “You’re my motivation, Ginny. Do you really think I’d have had the nerve to do all this, lead the D.A. against Voldemort, if I didn’t have a future with you to live for? My life is my time with you, and the times in between when I’m with you.”

Ginny began to cry again, and Harry kissed the tears away, driving her joy to overshadow her shame. He built her overwhelming need to a pinnacle, and then gave her what she needed.

After all, she had already given him exactly what he needed.