Proof of Life

Growing Pains



“You look nice,” Ginny observed when Harry dropped by on Thursday evening to spend some time with her. “What are you up to?”



“I\'m taking Marietta out to dinner,” Harry said. He knew it wasn\'t a compliment to his personality that he felt something akin to smug satisfaction when a hint of jealously crossed Ginny\'s face.



“I see,” Ginny said neutrally. “That\'s a new development, I take it?”



“Oh, not at all, I\'ve been fucking her behind your back for the last three years,” Harry said with a smirk.



Ginny laughed quietly and shook her head.



“I rarely know when to take you seriously, and when to wonder,” she said.



“Well, you needn\'t worry,” Harry assured her magnanimously. “My heart is big enough for both of you.”



She snickered under her breath.



“Seriously, it\'s not like that,” Harry said in a more serious tone of voice. “We are just friends. And – if it helps, she doesn\'t see blokes that way.”



“Fine,” Ginny said. “Are you coming with us to search the Forbidden Forest tomorrow?”



“Yes, I booked a day off work,” Harry said. “I wish we had thought of it sooner.”



“Me too,” Ginny said. “By the way, I\'ve been meaning to ask, does Accio work on the Stone?”



“No,” Harry said. “I went to the Forest shortly after everything was over. Tried to summon it, but had no success. I figure there must be anti-summoning charms on it. I thought about looking for it, but then decided against it. Thought maybe it\'d be better if it just remained lost.”



“Why is that?” she asked.



“It just seemed right. Out of the three Deathly Hallows, it\'s the one that could most easily be abused. I mean... It blurs the line between life and death. I don\'t really know how to explain it, but... just a gut feeling, you know?”



“Not really,” Ginny said softly, “but for what it\'s worth, I hope we find it.”



“Me too,” Harry said sincerely. He shut his eyes blissfully, daring to hope that the end of Severus\' misadventures was in sight. Ginny came up to him and planted a tiny kiss on his chin.



“Lily is napping,” she said. “I\'ll go wake her. But I have to warn you, she\'ll want to play Exploding Snap.”



Four games of Exploding Snap later, Harry finally noticed the time, realized he was running late, and made a rushed exit, hugging Lily goodbye, and giving Ginny a parting kiss.



Once he Apparated to Marietta\'s neighborhood, it took him a good ten minutes to find her place, making him worry that she might decide he had changed his mind.



Eventually he located her home, a small two-storey house that seemed to be begging for a new paint job. Harry knocked on the door and waited. A minute later, Marietta came out. She was dressed in casual slacks and a simple tee-shirt, holding a mug of hot chocolate in her hand. A brief shadow of astonishment crossed her face, but she managed to suppress it.



“Hi, Harry,” she said, stepping aside.



“Hi,” Harry said, noticing her comfortable appearance. “You seem surprised to see me.”



“A little,” she said guardedly. “Come in though.”



“Why are you surprised? I\'m only a few minutes late,” Harry said, following her inside. The sitting room of her house was a disarray of papers, books and scrolls, as if she really wasn\'t expecting any company.



“Never thought you were going to show at all,” she said matter-of-factly. “Thought it was just a nice gesture.” It wasn\'t said with any self-pity or accusation, but Harry couldn\'t help but feel taken aback by her nonchalant admission. But he also suspected that making a fuss over her confession would be a mistake.



“Well, I\'m here now,” Harry said lightheartedly. “Do you still want to go out, or do you want to hang out here?”



She thought about it for a few moments. “Let\'s stay here,” she said finally. “Being seen with me in public won\'t do your reputation any good.”



“I don\'t give a fuck about my reputation!” Harry snapped, irritated no end by the fact that it always seemed to come down to that.



“You should,” she said bluntly. “Your reputation, shabby as it is these days, is the only thing that\'s keeping Snape out of Azkaban. You realize if the public opinion turns against you, or if your loyalty is brought into question, the Ministry will take him away from you faster than you can say Imperio?”



Harry scowled at her and grumbled an unintelligible obscenity under his breath, causing Marietta to snicker.



“Don\'t sulk, Harry. Are you hungry?”



“Kind of,” he said, feeling ridiculously happy that he had somehow ceased being Potter to her, and became Harry.



“Me too. I\'m going to make something. Come to the kitchen, keep me company.”



“All right,” Harry agreed, following her inside.



The kitchen sink was filled with dirty dishes. Marietta pulled a frying pan out of the mess, cast a quick Scourgify spell on it, and deposited it on the stove-top.



“Chicken and vegetables all right?” she asked.



“Just great,” Harry said sincerely. “It\'s been a while since someone cooked for me, you know.”



“A month and a half constitutes a while for you?” she inquired with undisguised amusement.



“Try five years,” Harry said with a grin. “Ginny stopped cooking as soon as her Quidditch career took off.”



“Oh dear. No wonder you\'re so...”



“Don\'t say thin,” Harry grumbled.



“I was going to say self-sufficient,” she replied.



Harry snickered. “That\'s me. Completely self-sufficient. Don\'t need anyone else.”



She chuckled quietly. “You miss her, don\'t you?”



“Yes,” Harry whispered. “Mind you, we still see each other almost every day, but...”



“You miss having a partner,” Marietta said gently. “It\'s hard to get used to being alone, after six years of marriage. It\'ll be even harder once Snape moves out,” she added as an afterthought.



“Hmm? What way?” Harry asked, feeling oddly self-conscious.



“Well, then it\'ll be just you and the cat,” she pointed out.



“Unless he takes the cat with him,” Harry said grimly. “What about you? Do you live alone?”



“Live with my mum,” Marietta said. “She\'s away this week on Ministry business, but she\'s home most of the time.”



“What does she do?” Harry asked.



“Some boring stuff for the Department of Public Health. Record-keeping, archiving.”



“Oh. Well, that sucks.”



“She loves it.”



“That\'s good then,” Harry said, feeling a little awkward all of a sudden. “What about your dad? What does he do?”



“Don\'t know, don\'t care,” Marietta said. “Last time I saw him was five years ago.”



“Are they divorced?”



“No, but they might as well be. He\'s been in and out of our lives since I was five. He usually took off when mum got sick, or stressed. He doesn\'t like needy people, or taking care of them,” Marietta said with just a touch of derision in her voice.



“Well, good riddance then,” Harry said, as his mind reeled at Marietta\'s words. For all their fights, he couldn\'t imagine bailing on Ginny while she was sick. That was... simply inconceivable.



He also wondered if that was the reason Marietta was so fiercely protective of her mother.



“Yes. Exactly. Good riddance,” Marietta confirmed with little to no inflection in her voice. She combined the pieces of diced chicken with some sort of bottled sauce, added a dash of spice, and turned the hot-plate on.



Harry watched her quietly for a few minutes, as she deposited the meat into the frying pan, washed her hands thoroughly and dried them. Seeming to be aware of being observed, she ran her hand through her messy hair absently, but made no attempt to gather it up into her usual, sloppy ponytail.



“I like your hair this way,” Harry said, privately wondering if he was overstepping a boundary, or if the statement was going to be taken the wrong way. “I\'m not trying to hit on you,” he added quickly, “but it really looks nice. Frames your face very well. You should wear it like this more often.”



Her back stiffened slightly, and for a moment Harry fully expected her to say something spiteful, but to his surprise, she simply said gently, “What would be the point?”



“What do you mean?” Harry asked. “Mind you, I don\'t have much experience with same-sex dating but... you\'d turn heads.”



“Unlikely,” she murmured. “Not with my history. But thank you for the vote of confidence regardless.”



“Are you telling me you don\'t date... at all?” Harry clarified, slightly stunned.



“Who would I date, Harry?” she intoned softly, turning to face him. “Or more to the point, who would date me? A war hero? Or a defeated Voldemort supporter?”



“There\'ve got to be some ordinary people around,” Harry protested.



“None that would be eager to admit to it,” Marietta said with a wry smile. “But enough about me. You said you don\'t have much experience with same-sex dating, does that mean you have some?”



Harry grinned a little. “I wouldn\'t call it dating, exactly, more like...” he paused a little, unsure what to say without sounding crude.



“Shagging?” she supplied helpfully.



“Mmhmm.” He was sure he was blushing in a dreadful way. “After the war Ginny and I broke up briefly. She wanted a time-out, and I started hanging out with... well, doesn\'t matter who ...”



She was looking at him speculatively. “Do I know him?”



“It was Lee,” Harry said quietly.



“Ah,” she said with a mischievous smile.



Harry grinned as well. “We had a wonderful time. We just went camping for two months, and did absolutely nothing, other than... well, you know.”



“I know,” she agreed. “And...?”



“Well, two months later, we went back to civilization, and it sort of... ended. Like, it seemed that what we had wasn\'t the same anymore, once we came back to normal life. And Ginny was pregnant, and still had feelings for me, and – well, one thing led to another, and everything fell into place.”



For some reason he expected her to make fun of him, but she simply nodded and said quietly, “Makes sense.”



She proceeded to chop up and combine the vegetables with the chicken. Harry made a move to assist her, but she shook her head. “You\'ll just get in the way,” she said. “It\'s really not a big deal.”



Soon enough, the warm aroma of vegetables filled the kitchen and Harry smiled. Done with the cooking for the moment, Marietta turned her attention to Harry once again.



“I heard about Lucius,” she said.



“Yeah.” Harry felt a stab of regret, and banished it as quickly as he could, but not quickly enough.



“I thought you loathed him,” Marietta said, clearly noticing the change in Harry\'s expression.



“I did. I do... but...” Harry shrugged. “I hate the bastard. He nearly got Ginny killed. I don\'t forgive something like that. But still... I had spent six months getting them to overturn his sentence. Not because I cared about him, but... you know, for Narcissa\'s sake, and Draco\'s, and because I just think the Dementor\'s Kiss is a dreadful thing. And now... well, I never cared for him at all, but I still feel like...” Harry shrugged helplessly, obviously unable to find the words for how it had felt to hear the news.



“Like you lost a patient,” Marietta supplied thoughtfully.



“Right,” Harry agreed. “You must know... or do you? I mean, have you ever... lost a patient?”



She smiled without happiness. “Sadly, no,” she said very quietly. “I\'m too clever for my own good, or so I\'ve been told.”



Harry looked at her uncomprehendingly, and noticed that her eyes were moist.



“Mari?” he asked. “What is it?”



She bit her lip and stared down. “Long story,” she whispered. “Very stupid, too.”



“Tell me,” he offered.



“There was a raid on one of the Death Eater compounds,” Marietta said. “One of them... not a Death Eater, but part of the criminal organization, a young one, barely nineteen, had been struck with a hex from an Auror that had burned away at his lungs. It was dreadful to watch... even with the numbing potion, he couldn\'t take a single breath without being in absolute agony. But he couldn\'t just will himself to stop breathing either, you know? My supervisor told me to just let him die... and...”



“And you did?” Harry asked without any accusation in his voice.



“Of course not,” Marietta said bitterly. “See, I decided I was going to save him. I was so angry about it. I fought my supervisor. Threw the book at him and won. And as for the patient... I used complex healing spells to deliver oxygen to his brain and organs, and ... then, I started working on a special potion, loosely based on the Polyjuice formula, something that would allow us to create a brand new set of lungs for him. I took me three weeks to brew it... and then, it worked. Two days after the potion was administered, he could breathe again, on his own. He was alive and stable.” She smiled unhappily. “Ravenclaw to the end, I was so proud that... that he could breathe.”



“That\'s great,” Harry said with conviction. “I mean... better than great, that\'s amazing.”



“Right,” Marietta agreed. “Another day later, they took him to Azkaban. A week later, they sentenced him to be Kissed. And...” she sniffled a little, in an almost childish way. “I suppose I shouldn\'t have, but I went to see him afterwards,” she said. “You probably don\'t know it, but the Dementor\'s Kiss doesn\'t result in exactly the same effect for everyone who is Kissed. Some, who are executed that way, are still able to perform some basic functions, like walk, and feed themselves. Some... can\'t do anything. Can only breathe. Well... that was him. All he could do was breathe. Breathe with the new set of lungs that I had given him. That\'s all he\'ll ever do.”



All Harry could do was stare at her speechlessly.



“My supervisor called me into his office the next day,” Marietta added softly. “I was ready to hand in my resignation. I was so fed up with it all... he just shook his head and said, Mari, I\'ve told you over and over again, you are too clever for your own good.”



“Well, I\'m glad you didn\'t resign,” Harry said awkwardly, and looked away, while she lifted a tea- towel to her face, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. She turned her attention to the food again, stirred several times, and a few minutes later, proclaimed the dinner to be ready.



For a few minutes they ate in a comfortable silence.



“You know,” Harry said finally in a quiet voice, “I could never understand the rationale behind the Dementor\'s Kiss. I mean.... it\'s not just cruel. It makes no sense. It\'s... weird. Why would we do that to anyone?”



“It\'s not weird at all,” Marietta said calmly. “See, for the empty shell that is left in place of the person who used to be, it really doesn\'t matter. The shell doesn\'t know anything. Leaving that shell alive isn\'t meant to punish the criminal. The Ministry would never admit to it, but really it\'s a punishment for the criminal\'s family. There is no closure, no finality, no goodbyes. The family... they watch for years and years, staring at that ghost of someone they used to know, hoping for some sort of reaction, some sort of response... some glimmer of recognition... and eventually their minds start playing tricks on them, and they start projecting their own hopes onto that shell... only to have their hopes dashed, over and over again. See, it makes perfect sense.”



“That\'s horrible,” said Harry.



The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. “Yes, but that\'s the idea. The best, most sure way for the Ministry to control you is to strike at the family.” Her unhappy smile lingered for a moment and then disappeared. “I should know,” she added quietly. “Not that I\'m defending myself...”



“Why did you join Dumbledore\'s Army in the first place?” Harry asked. “I mean... you were so scared for your mum...”



“That was probably the stupidest thing I\'ve done in my entire life,” she whispered. “I fell in love with Cho the same year she fell in love with you. I think she wanted me to join, to prove herself to you, show you that she could bring new members in... she said she couldn\'t be friends with me if I wasn\'t a part of that.” Marietta shrugged indifferently. “I was too scared of losing her friendship... then, when I joined, I was scared for my mother. Not just for her job... I really, really did not want her to end up like Alice Longbottom. And I could be certain that if something happened to her because of me, my father wouldn\'t be there for her. You know?”



Harry nodded absently.



“I know,” Harry agreed, “but I still believe that some things mean more than... even family.”



“Like being on the right side and fighting for good cause?”



“Yes,” Harry said bluntly.



“Really?” Marietta challenged. “Would you have been fighting Voldemort with so much passion, if he hadn\'t killed your parents? Remember how you\'ve always said it was personal because he killed your mum and dad?”



Harry bowed his head. “I suppose,” he admitted reluctantly. “But still... I\'d like to think I would have fought him, even if...”



“Maybe you would have,” Marietta conceded. “You\'ve always been just a little more grown-up than the rest of us.”



Harry smiled a little at that. “What about you? When did you decide to grow up?”



“The summer afterwards was long,” she said. “My mum took me to St. Mungo\'s, then to one private healer after another, to lift the hex. Not that it helped much. Mum was so upset... Then, the next autumn, on the train, Cho was blaming me for you breaking up with her. Then... then, you saw me on the train, with ten layers of makeup on my forehead, and smirked.”



Harry blushed profusely, but Marietta spoke without any accusation. “That\'s when,” she said peacefully, “I finally grew up once and for all.”



Harry glanced at her thoughtfully. “You\'ve turned out all right.”



She stared at him with undisguised amusement. “Well, thank you for that glowing endorsement, Harry Potter.”



She stood up and cleared the table, while Harry watched.



“I guess I should go,” Harry said. “We have a long day tomorrow. You are going to watch Severus while we look for the stone, right?”



“I can,” Marietta agreed, “but why don\'t we bring him along?”



“Huh?” Harry stared at her, slightly dumbfounded.



She shrugged. “He\'ll be safe. I think he can manage it at this point, and we can\'t keep him in a stasis bubble forever, you know? Besides, he probably knows the Forbidden Forest better than all of us put together...”



“I suppose you\'re right,” Harry agreed. “All right. I\'ll ask him.”



“Good.” Marietta smiled as she saw him out. “I suppose I wasn\'t very good company,” Marietta mused ruefully. “I always find some weird stuff to talk about. Death, torture, Dementors...”



“We should do it again,” Harry interrupted her. “I enjoyed it.”



“Did you now?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.



Perhaps enjoyed wasn\'t quite the right word, given the subject matter they ended up discussing, but... it had been great, Harry thought.



“All I\'m saying is, we should hang out more.”



Her lips twitched slightly. “Oh, I suppose I could find it in my heart to pencil you into my overwhelmingly tight social schedule,” she said dryly.



“Brilliant,” Harry said.



To his surprise, she planted a friendly kiss on his cheek. “Good night, Harry.”



To Be Continued...