Chapter Text
Pansy rounded the hallway to her office and stopped dead in her tracks.
Lounging in her chair with his feet up on her desk was none other than the Chosen Scarhead himself. He was wearing a simple white oxford and charcoal trousers with dragonhide shoes and that fucking black leather wand holster strapped across his chest. As soon as he saw her, a shit-eating grin spread across his face. “Healer Parkinson.”
“Out of my chair, Potter.”
He dropped his feet but didn’t vacate it. Instead, he rocked back and forth a few times. Merlin, she did not need to think about that man rocking anything.
“This is way nicer than the one at my office,” he mused.
“Well, if you need help putting your haircare fortune to good use, I’m happy to make recommendations for manufacturers but not unless you Get. Out.”
With a roll of his eyes, he finally stood up.
She took the spot, which was weirdly warm, and made sure to run over his foot as she rolled it forward.
“Bloody hell, Sparks,” he said, laughing as he finally stepped out of her personal space and allowed her to breathe fully once more.
She began organizing her paperwork, making sure he hadn’t messed anything up when he’d gone through it. Merlin knew how long he’d been sitting there and the busybody couldn’t mind his own business to save his life. “If you don’t mind, some of us have real jobs that we need to actually get back to.”
He dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk usually reserved for patient consults. “I need help.”
“Wonderful, I’ve had your referral to the Janus Thickey Ward ready for years.”
He grinned again and she cursed whoever in his family tree had made whatever offering to some magical creature to get their progeny forever blessed with those emerald eyes.
“Help with a case,” he said.
She cocked her head. “Why are you working a case?” she asked. “Wasn’t being forced to give up your dream job a condition of your divorce?”
“It wasn’t my dream job and had nothing to do with the divorce.”
“That’s not what I read in Witch Weekly.”
His smirk spread. “So you did read that week’s edition?”
She cursed herself for giving that bit away. He’d been featured on the cover as Britain’s most eligible bachelor, complete with the accompanying articles of questionable validity and another reprint of the shirtless photos of him on the beach in Majorca. She’d read it in order to find things to tease him about and had instead simply kept it. Next to her nightstand.
“I was trapped in a staff meeting,” she said. “It was that or be lectured on how to count sponges. Close call, actually.”
“I’m sure it was,” he said. “In any case, the switch was my decision and I vastly prefer training to field work.”
It certainly beat finding him in emergency with all the bones on the right side of his body shattered.
The only reasons he’d need a healer’s involvement for work now were too idiotic to even consider. “I’m not getting involved in any of your training simulations.”
“Does that apply to any of my stimulations or just the training ones?”
She glanced up with her most irritated glare. His constant attempts to flirt with her were almost enough to get her to finish the job Voldemort couldn’t.
It started the night after his divorce was finalized—since the night of his actual divorce, he was at home taking care of James and Albus so Ginny could go take out her new girlfriend because the man was limp lettuce when it came to her.
Harry had invited Pansy out for drinks on Ginny’s night with the boys. For a moment she’d let herself wonder if it meant something, until she’d shown up at the pub and found Weasel, Thomas, Finnegan, Longbottom, and even Draco and Theo there with him.
Weasel had said something about how he’d thought it was supposed to be a boys night—boys being the operative word for half the table—but Finnegan suggested Harry practice flirting on her.
Despite her adamant refusals to be his practice anything after his divorce, Harry never quite managed to resist the urge to throw in an innuendo whenever he could.
“Anyway, they do ask me to consult on muggle related cases,” he said. “Got an interesting one.”
She pulled over one of the many charts she needed to update and began scrawling her notes. “Well, if it’s not healing related, I’m not sure what I can do for you.”
He shifted. “Apparently, there’s been a string of B&E’s,” he said. “Muggle children have reported a giant rabbit breaking into their homes.”
Pansy’s quill froze for half a heartbeat and she prayed Harry hadn’t caught it.
“It all happens on the same night, in locations all over Britain, so it clearly has to be magically related,” he continued. “We’re just not sure how.”
A tendril of relief went through her. A real case, then. She sat back. “Any injuries?”
“No, the giant rabbit appears to be quite benevolent,” he said. “Leaves the children chocolate eggs.”
She frowned. “What? Eggs? From a bunny? Why?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
A sinking feeling twisted her gut. Did he know? There was no way he knew.
She had gotten very good over the past few years at lying to Harry Potter. So it was easy to meet his gaze dead on without a single tell. “I’m not sure why you think I’d have any insight.”
“You’ve never picked up any idea of how rabbits think anytime you hop by a mirror?”
Fuck. He knew.
She tossed the quill down as he doubled over in laughter.
Groaning, she dropped her face into her hands. “Get out.”
“A bunny?” He could barely speak, he was laughing so hard.
“It’s not a bunny,” she snapped.
“No,” he said, taking off his glasses to wipe away tears. “It’s a flemish giant…” He started laughing so hard he lost the ability to speak.
“Piss off, Potter,” she snapped.
“This is the fourth best day of my life. This tops riding a broomstick for the very first time.”
Two of those had to be the births of his children but she had no idea what the other one was. Surely it wasn’t still his wedding. Not anymore.
“This is why you’ve always pretended you can’t cast a patronus, isn’t it?” he asked. “Is that a bunny too?”
“Rabbit,” she said tightly. And of course it fucking was.
“But not just any rabbit,” he said. “The Flemish giant rabbit. The largest breed of rabbit—”
She sighed. “I am aware, Potter.”
“The only thing giant about you is your personality.” He pulled out a familiar form. “Grey rabbit the size of a—” He started wheeze-laughing again. “The size of a midsize dog.”
“How did you find out?” She’d paid good money to try and avoid this exact situation.
“That’s the best part,” he said. “I was looking through the records to try to find someone with a bunny—”
“Rabbit,” she interjected.
“—animagus and imagine my surprise when I saw that my dear friend has been hiding the fact that she can turn into a bunny.”
“Rabbit,” she said through clenched teeth. “Is that case even real?”
He laughed again. “Kind of,” he said. “It’s a muggle tradition for parents to put out chocolate eggs and gifts for their children the night before Easter and tell their children it’s gifts from the Easter Bunny.”
“What does a bunny have to do with chocolate eggs?” she asked. “That somehow makes less sense than the whole flying reindeer and large man climbing down a chimney thing.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Hermione might.”
Of course the swot would.
“Anyway, I was telling the boys about the tradition and you know how Albus is with his bunny to begin with.”
He hardly let the stuffed animal out of his sight.
“The problem is that he wants to meet the Easter bunny just like he met Santa.”
“Do muggle malls not have that option?”
He handed her a file folder. “Oh, they do.”
She flipped it open and swore. Spread out in front of her were various pictures of the most disturbing humanoid bunny hybrids, with disturbingly large eyes and often wearing a vest with colorful eggs or extra large shoes.
She looked up at Harry. “What the hell is this?”
“The muggle dress up version of the Easter Bunny.”
“Fucking hell,” she muttered. “That’s who you should be arresting.”
“Al’s traumatized by the divorce enough as it is,” he said. “You see why I’m trying to find other options.”
She was not going to let him use his children against her. Shutting the folder, she handed the demented photos back to him. “Transfigure one of his many aunts or uncles into a bunny, then.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, is the Head of Miscast Spells and Improper Use of Transfiguration advocating for me to attempt a full species transfiguration?”
It was not her generally recommended advice, however, he was the Chosen One. “Just don’t fuck it up.”
“Did I mention that Draco and Hermione are bringing Scorp and Lyra?”
She should have known. Any event that was based in muggle tradition always involved Hermione. For once, Draco would have as much to say about poor decision making as his often-hypocritical wife. Considering the number of times those two had been on the receiving end of poorly done transfigurations, however, she supposed they’d earned the right to be cautious.
“A real rabbit, then?”
“Won’t be able to control it,” he said. “Plus, no pets for the children was a condition of the divorce.”
She stared at him. “What? Why?” That seemed absolutely absurd.
“Logistics,” he said. “Moving the pet and all its belongings back and forth from house to house, not to mention what we’d do if our new partner doesn’t like pets, or if one of us has more kids and how the animal would behave around them, all that. We can reevaluate when the boys are older but for now it’s a no.”
She ignored the pang that went through her at the thought of Harry marrying someone else and having more children with her. It didn’t surprise her that he wanted more someday. The thought of him with a baby girl to spoil was enough to melt her knickers.
“Merlin, Potter, you have no idea how to do this right,” she said instead of ruminating on that. “You buy your children an animal that your ex-wife’s new girlfriend hates and pretend to be appalled at your forgetfulness but can’t simply bear to take it away from the children already from a broken home…”
“I like Vicky,” he said. “I hope she and Ginny work out.”
Aside from the first night his children stayed at Ginny’s new place without him, she’d never seen him say or even seem to think anything negative about the dissolution of his marriage, and never about Ginny herself.
It bothered her more than it should have. It wasn’t as if she wanted him to be hung up on his lesbian ex-wife—rather the opposite, in fact—but surely he had to feel something other than the irritatingly well-adjusted facade he presented to the world. She didn’t have any training in mind healing, but she knew he had too much childhood trauma to be this accepting of finding out that the woman he’d been with for ten years, married, and had two children with was leaving him for another woman.
“Anyway, I figured if I could find someone with a rabbit animagus form, I could pull the ‘I’m Harry Potter card’ and get them to agree to cheer up a broken hearted three year old,” he said. “Too bad the only rabbit animagus in Britain is someone who only cares that I’m Harry Potter if a deranged psychopath is looking for me.”
“Ooh, has another one popped up?” she asked. “I’m very good at finding you in a crowd.”
She always had been. Even when she was busy pretending to be in love with Draco, because that’s what was expected of them both, she always somehow knew where Harry Potter was. Even when she thought she hated him.
By the time she realized what she felt wasn’t actually hate, she was about five years too late. He’d already put a rock on another woman’s finger and was expecting their second child.
“Please, Pansy?” Harry asked. “For Albus?”
“Do not use your children to manipulate me,” she snapped. “I’m not a dog and pony show.”
He sighed but didn’t push. “Alright,” he said. “Figured it was worth a try.” He rose from her chair and she felt a lump lodge in her throat.
It fucking hurt, watching him walk away time and time again over the course of their friendship. But there was nothing else for it. He’d been with Ginny at first and even now the ink was barely dry on their divorce.
Her instincts of self-preservation were well documented when it came to Harry Potter. She refused to be his rebound.
He probably wasn’t even interested in that. Not from her.
Harry leaned against her door frame, grinning at her.
Merlin, she hated that smirk. Hated how much he’d grown into himself, his easy confidence and breathless charm. It wasn’t fair for him to be handsome and fit and funny and charming and…
He was still staring at her.
“Goodbye, Potter.”
He winked. Fucking winked at her with his little smirk. “See you, Babs.”
Before she had a chance to throttle him—or pin him to her couch and finally get him to shut up, he was gone.
Dropping her head to her desk, she banged it against the surface.
“Did you have fun playing with Healer Becca today?”
Albus pressed his face into his bunny instead of answering. He didn’t mind the toys, but clammed up anytime the pediatric mind healer tried to ask him about his new living situation.
Harry dragged a hand down his face. Becca kept assuring him that it was all normal and it would just take time but he couldn’t help but feel like a failure.
The divorce had been the right decision for so many reasons. He had to have faith that Albus would someday see it too, but for now…now he would do just about anything to get his son to stop hurting.
Ginny, too. She was taking too much guilt on herself for the whole thing and he didn’t know how to help her let go of it either.
Last time he’d pressed her, she’d told him she’d stop feeling guilty once Harry was happily settled with someone else and Albus went more than a week without crying himself to sleep.
He’d just barely managed to refrain from quipping back that not everyone was as lucky as she was to have their dream witch sitting around waiting for them.
That would have only made Ginny feel worse, however, so he didn’t.
He wanted to owl her mind healer and tell her to have Ginny work on not basing her own emotional well-being on the emotional state of others, but his was having him work on not trying to fix everyone around him so he was trying to refrain for the time being.
Granted, that was something they were always working on, but the fact that he preemptively recognized the impulse was surely a sign of progress.
“What flavor of ice cream do you think you’ll get today?” he asked. “Or do you want to split a whole sundae?”
That got Albus to drop Bunbun a tiny bit. Bribing his child didn’t seem like the strongest parenting move—Merlin forbid his child end up like a young Draco Malfoy—but Becca recommended that Albus spend individual time with both Harry and Ginny once a week. He let Albus pick the activity, and it was always ice cream in Diagon.
The sharp clack of heels made him turn and he almost swallowed his tongue.
She had no fucking right to look that good in lime green robes. It was a joke at the DMLE that the healers chose such an ugly color so they didn’t have lovesick aurors following them around or trying to end up back under a particular healer’s care.
Pansy Parkinson apparently never got that memo.
She looked fucking incredible in them, today even more so with the robes open to show off the tight black dress that stretched to her knees and hugged every curve he wanted to trace with his hands first and then his mouth. She looked fucking incredible in anything, and would probably only look better—
Fuck. He had his kid with him. This was not the place for fantasizing about those lime green robes on his bedroom floor.
Completely ignoring him, Pansy beamed at Albus and crouched down to his level. “Well, if it isn’t one of my two favorite Potters.”
That coaxed a small grin from his smitten son.
“Doing a special day with your dad?”
He nodded against Harry’s leg. “We’re getting ice cream.”
She beamed. “Oh, that sounds delicious.”
Albus tugged Harry’s trousers. “Dad? Can Pansy come to ice cream?”
He beamed at her. “What do you think, Babs?”
Her expression went from pure joy to a hardened scowl.
Albus glanced between them. “Babs?” he asked. “Like Vicky calls Mummy Babs?”
He wished. “Like Babs Bunny or Babbitty Rabbitty,” he said. “Pansy loves bunnies as much as you do.”
Pansy straightened and her scowl deepened. “Who the f—” She cleared her throat with a glance at Albus.
Harry bit his cheek to keep from laughing.
“Who is Babs Bunny?” Pansy asked Albus.
“She’s on cartoons that we watch when we go to Daisy’s house to visit Uncle Dudley,” he said. “She’s in love with Bugs Bunny.”
Harry pressed a hand to his mouth to hold back laughter as she tried to control the look of disgust on her face.
“Do you have a Bunbun too?” Albus asked Pansy, shifting his stuffed bunny higher.
“I don’t, but my patronus is a rabbit so that’s like having one with me anywhere I go.”
His eyes lit up. “Can I see?”
Her eyes darted up to Harry before she pulled out her wand. A few heartbeats later, a silvery blue rabbit was hopping around the deserted corridor.
Albus giggled and Harry felt like his heart was about to burst. Godric, when was the last time he’d heard him let his guard down like that?
He glanced over at Pansy to find her beaming at Albus. His chest squeezed so tight that if he wasn’t already familiar with the feeling from every time he looked at her, he would have checked himself in for having a heart attack.
Her gaze flicked up and something in her eyes softened.
Fuck, he wanted to kiss her. The further and further he got from finally signing paperwork, the harder it was to wait.
Some days he questioned why he’d ever taken Draco’s advice in the first place. What would have happened if he’d chosen a different pub that night or if Draco hadn’t walked in, saw Harry sitting there with a dozen red roses, asked if they were for Pansy and then incinerated them. He’d told Harry it was too soon and that Pansy would think she was nothing more than a rebound. As soon as Theo and Neville showed up to meet Draco, he had them send off patronuses to Ron, Dean, and Seamus so when Pansy finally arrived, it looked like a boys’ night.
Someday he’d be able to give her roses. He had to believe it.
“Will you come for ice cream?” Albus asked Pansy. “Please?”
“I wish I could,” she said, finally breaking eye contact with Harry to look down at him, “but I just finished my lunch break. But we can plan another day and go together, okay?”
He nodded. “Are you coming to our Easter party?” He shuffled his foot along the floor. “I asked if the Easter bunny could come but I’ve been bad this year—”
Fuck, not this again. Not in front of Pansy.
Harry swiftly knelt in front of him. “Albus, look at me.” He put his hands on his tiny little shoulders as his eyes flicked up. “I told you, that’s not true. I know what Uncle Dudley said to Daisy about Santa Claus but Santa brings presents to all little girls and boys, just like the Easter bunny.”
His gaze darted down again.
“The Easter bunny brings the same thing to everyone so they don’t need to ask what you want like Santa did,” he said. “Bunnies are shy and like to hide. That’s the only reason you don’t get to see them this year, okay?”
Despite his words, big fat tears started to slide down his cheeks. “But if I’d been good then Mummy wouldn’t have stopped living with us.”
“Oh, Albus, no, that’s not what happened.” He scooped him up in his arms and rubbed his back as he sobbed into his shoulder.
When he got like this, there was nothing to do but hold him until the crying stopped. It tore his heart to shreds but he rubbed his back, murmuring over and over how much he and Ginny loved him and tried not to cry himself.
A gentle hand touched his shoulder. He nearly jumped, having completely forgotten Pansy was there.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t—”
She shook her head. “I know.” She ran her hand over Albus’s arm as he buried his face in Harry’s shoulder. “Are the boys at yours or Ginny’s tonight?”
“Ginny’s.”
She nodded. “I’ll come by your place when my shift is done.”
“Pansy—”
Her wand lit up, signaling an urgent call. She turned to him with a helpless look.
“Go,” he said. “We’ll be okay.”
“Albus?” she asked, raising her voice. “I have to go back to work now, but everything’s going to be okay, alright? Your daddy and your mummy love you very much. A lot of people do. I’ll see you for Easter, okay?”
He managed to sniffle and nod before his tears came back.
Pansy’s gaze flicked up to Harry’s, her expression torn.
“It’s okay,” he said. “He just needs a bit.”
She finally nodded and turned to run down the hall towards the lifts.
Harry slid down the wall to sit on the floor, holding his sobbing son.
Harry was waiting for her on the couch that faced his floo the moment she appeared.
All of the rage that had slowly been building throughout the afternoon came to a boiling point and she snapped. “Harry James Potter, why the fuck did—”
He was on his feet already. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t tell him to say that or mean for you to see it,” he said. “Right after his mind healing sessions he usually struggles more—”
She gaped at him for a moment. “You think I’m upset because I believed you set that up?!”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uhm…”
Her eyes narrowed.
He immediately started to backtrack. “Can you tell me why you’re upset? Please?”
She jabbed him in the shoulder. “Because you didn’t tell me it was that bad!”
“It’s not, not usually,” he said. “It’s always worse after his sessions and it’s been harder with the holiday coming up but Becca says that’s normal—”
“Harry.”
He froze. She used his first name so rarely it always caught him off guard when she did.
“You undersold how much this mattered to him.”
He looked as helpless as he had when Albus was sobbing in the hallway. “I didn’t want to guilt or manipulate you—”
“I said no because I thought you were mostly giving me shit,” she said. “If I had any idea how much this meant to him do you really think I could have said no?”
“You caught him at a bad time—”
“I know that it was right after his session and I know that this is about a lot more than just seeing some creepy bunny that breaks into homes to give away chocolate eggs but for Salazar’s sake, Harry, he’s three years old!” she snapped. “If he wants to see the Easter bunny that desperately, fine! I will be the fucking Easter bunny!”
He pressed his lips together but she caught the way his shoulders shook.
She reached out to jab him in the shoulder again, but he caught her by the wrist before she could. His fingers wrapped around her wrist and something darkened in his gaze.
He took a step forward. “Pansy…” Her name was a breathy whisper on his lips. Her gaze dropped to them as his tongue darted out to wet them. His head tilted towards hers—
Someone pounded on the door and they both jumped back.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Harry cleared his throat. “I ordered curry.”
She flashed him a flippant smile. “Good, you owe me.”
The corner of his mouth rose.
“We can discuss my conditions over dinner,” she said. “I’ll go set the table.” She swept past him towards the kitchen.
The moment she was alone, she casted a silencing charm and walked over to the icebox. She swung open the door and screamed into it as loud as she could.
With slow, steady inhalations, she breathed in the cold air, trying to cool herself down.
When she felt reasonably calm enough to face him again, she shut the ice box and dropped the silencing charm. By the time Harry returned with their dinner, she was finishing setting their places.
He started unpacking the bag. “I got both green and panang.” Her two favorites. “And spring rolls, don’t worry.”
It took her a moment to decide. “Panang.”
He passed her the container.
“How is Albus now?” She began arranging her plate with the perfect rice to curry ratio.
Harry, on the other hand, started eating directly from the container like an animal. “Fine.” He dug a hand through his hair, mussing it like he used to wear it.
Fuck, she wanted to be the one to do that.
“Same talk as always,” he said. “Just because his mummy and daddy don’t love each other anymore doesn’t mean we won’t always love him. We’ll always be a family, even if we’re in two places. I love him, his mum loves him, we’ll always be there for each other.”
Her motions paused. “That’s not working?”
He shrugged. “Some days it does.” The some hopeless look he’d had that afternoon came back. “And some days he melts down in a hallway outside his mind healer’s office in St. Mungo’s.”
“I’m sorry, Harry.”
“Yeah,” he said. “He’ll get it someday. I hope.”
He would, eventually. She just hoped someone was there to tell him how hard his father worked to make it right, for everyone besides himself sometimes.
“How’s James doing?” she asked. “For real?”
“Great.” He smirked. “Did you know Vicky is a real quidditch player?”
She stared at him for several heartbeats. “What does he think his mother does?”
“Vicky is a seeker and whoever catches the snitch is the most important,” he said, imitating his eldest.
She rolled her eyes. “Does it bother you that your ex-wife replaced you with the female version of you?”
He shot her a rakish grin. “Attractive seeker with messy black hair?”
“Vicky styles her hair that way intentionally.” She waved her fork in his direction. “No one knows what that is.”
She took one bite and then stared at her plate. It was perfect, the salty and sweet balanced with the right amount of spice and tang from lime. And yet…
Glancing up, she watched as Harry speared a piece of chicken. Holding her gaze, he brought it to his mouth to take the bite and then slowly pulled the fork from his lips.
She folded her hands together. “In regards to Easter, I have some conditions,” she said. “Number one—”
Harry laughed and slid the container of green curry towards her and pulled her plate towards himself. “Every single time, Babs.”
“Stop calling me that and it’s not every time.” She summoned his empty plate and began making up a new one for herself. At least he hadn’t taken all the chicken.
“Don’t worry, I left you all the carrots,” he said.
She hit him with a stinging hex in the shin underneath the table.
“Bloody hell, Babs.” He laughed even as he rubbed the spot she got.
“You deserved it.”
He smirked. “Can I owl Ginny to let her know?” he asked. “I was thinking Vicky could tell him and that might help him warm up—”
She slapped the table with her hand. “Absolutely not!”
For once he looked completely taken aback.
“You did this, you get the credit,” she said. “You’re supposed to be sabotaging your ex-wife’s new girlfriend, not plotting to get your children to like her.”
“I do want my kids to like her.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I cannot believe you were a Gryffindor/Slytherin hat split,” she said. “There’s no way you’re not lying and it was actually Hufflepuff.”
He shrugged. “Might have changed once I no longer had a fraction of Voldemort’s soul in my head.”
“Well, we certainly know for a fact it didn’t ever think Ravenclaw.”
He smirked.
She finished assembling her plate and took a bite and grinned. Perfect.
“Finally,” Harry muttered. He pulled the rest of the panang over and dumped it all over the perfectly prepared plate she’d made.
“Why do you always ruin it?”
“Improve it,” he said around a bite.
She studied him as he ate. “Why aren’t you more mad at her?” It had been bothering her since the moment he told her they were getting divorced. “You should hate her and you’re…”
He put his fork down, chewing carefully and swallowing. “I love Ginny.”
Her chest squeezed and her stomach rolled.
“But I haven’t been in love with her for a very long time.”
Her head snapped up.
Harry sighed, running his hands through his hair again. “The early years were good—great, even,” he said. “James was…a surprise.”
He’d never so much as hinted that before. She never would have guessed. That was a mistake made in the heat of the moment. How did that even happen married to a lesbian?
“After he was born, things changed,” he said. “Everything revolved around him. When he was a year old we realized we’d become more like roommates than spouses. That’s when we started marriage counseling.”
Ever since Hermione forced him into mind healing after the war, he’d been the biggest advocate for it.
“It just kind of highlighted all the ways we’d grown apart,” he said. “She was still my best friend and we got along so well but…I think we both knew it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.” He exhaled deeply. “And then Albus happened.”
She stared at him for several heartbeats. “Albus was a surprise too?”
His cheeks darkened. “Maybe.”
A laugh bubbled up from her lips. “Harry! Twice?”
He was now beet red. “We were trying to, uhm, spice things up? And forgot a step?”
His words sparked her anger again, and not just the usual kind at the mention of Harry sleeping with anyone. “And that doesn’t make you angry?” she demanded. “That you were pouring everything into making it work and trying…whatever and she was lying to you the whole time?”
“I don’t know when she realized everything, but I do know that she lied to herself for far longer than she ever lied to me.”
Pansy didn’t have anything to say to that.
“She wanted it to work, and we both tried so hard, but she was my best friend,” he said. “When you love someone that way, you want what’s best for them. And being able to fully live who she truly is and be with who she truly loves is what’s best for Ginny.”
It was almost impossible to believe him sometimes. The big, giant, stupid way he loved so unconditionally, even the people who had hurt him.
“Everything happened so fast,” he said. “We got married when we were eighteen and nineteen, for Godric’s sake. We just did what we thought we were supposed to do. Neither one of us had a chance to figure out who we were or what we wanted.”
She knew he was seeing a mind healer every other week, but beyond that she wondered how long he’d kept all of this bottled up.
“Divorce was the right decision,” he said. “I am truly happy for Ginny. She’s…herself again, in a way I haven’t seen for a long time.”
“And you?” she asked, her voice soft. “Or Albus?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Albus is the only reason I’ve ever doubted or questioned the divorce,” he said. “He and James are why we spent a year in counseling after Ginny came out to me trying to figure it out.”
He pushed the food on his plate around. “But some things as a parent I can’t just say with my words, I need to live them too. And being true to yourself and who you are is one of them. And neither Ginny or I were being true to ourselves in that marriage.”
She wanted to know what he meant by that. How he wasn’t being true to himself.
“Separating now, amicably, and helping him through it is ultimately going to be the best decision for everyone. It’s hard now, but sometimes the hard decision is the right one.”
He would certainly know.
He let out a long breath. “Sorry,” he said. “That was a lot.”
“You’ve never told me most of that before.”
He met her eyes, trapping her in his emerald gaze. “I haven’t told anyone most of that before, aside from Alan.”
That he trusted her as much as his mind healer twisted something in her. This was why she always teased him, buried everything under a layer of sarcasm and taunts. Because when Harry was open, vulnerable like this, all she wanted was to curl up in his lap. To hold him close and tell him how much she loved him.
Never knowing if he wanted her love, if it was going to be enough for him—if she was enough for him—was what held her back.
“Anyway, I don’t know why Albus is so fixated on the Easter Bunny, but…”
She cleared her throat and took a bite of the food that no longer had any taste. “But he has and you need a rabbit animagus for Easter.”
The corner of his mouth rose. “I always need you, Babs.”
She shot him a glare and he grinned.
“You said you had conditions?”
“Who’s coming?”
“Obviously me, Ginny, Vicky, and the boys—”
“There’s nothing obvious about bringing your ex-wife and her new girlfriend to your holiday,” she muttered.
Harry pretended he didn’t hear her. “Draco and Hermione are bringing Scorp and Lyra,” he said. “Ron and Suze are bringing Amelia and Sera. Neville and Theo are bringing Rose.”
“That’s a lower Weasley ratio than I would have expected.” Not that she minded.
“Molly’s not handling the divorce well so for Albus and Vicky’s sakes we asked Bill and Fleur and George and Angelina to plan something for them. Percy and Charlie are joining them.”
“I support that decision for Albus’s sake alone.”
Harry smirked but didn’t argue.
“All of the adults must remain on the patio,” she said. “And none of them may touch me.”
“Not even me?”
“Especially you.”
He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to change his mind and shoveled a giant bite into his mouth instead.
“No one can know that it’s me.”
He frowned and tried to chew his bite faster. “What am I supposed to say to the other parents? Trust your kid with an animal and no supervision?” he asked. “Lyra and Sera can’t walk yet, are they going to have to stay back?”
“I don’t care what you say to them as long as they don’t find out that it’s me.” She was tempted to tell him she was just there for Albus so she didn’t care if the parents held their children back, but she couldn’t do that to Lyra either. “Hermione and Susan are the only ones who can come close but if they touch me they will spend the next month in the Dai Llewellyn Ward.”
It looked like it was taking everything he had not to burst out laughing. “You’re going to bite someone?”
“Only adults and only if they touch me.”
“Do bunnies even bite?”
She glared at him. “Rabbits have very sharp teeth.”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter.
“You are this close—”
He held his hands up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He still had that shit-eating grin on his face.
She decided to ignore it. For Albus. “I will bring the chocolate eggs, which still makes no sense, play with them for a few minutes, and then leave.”
“Will you come back as you?”
“I’ll wait long enough that it’s not suspicious but yes, if you want.”
He looked surprised. “Of course,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t for this you’d be invited. Wouldn’t be the same without you.”
There was a look in his eyes that she couldn’t quite place. She wondered how much longer she could do this. Sit and pretend that he meant nothing to her. The moment he started dating again, the moment he moved on to another woman, it was going to destroy her. But finding a way to let him go before it inevitably happened was going to be impossible.
So, instead, she smiled like being his friend wasn’t slowly killing her. “Then I’ll be there.”