Summary: It’s been more than a year since the downfall of Lord Voldemort, and the wizarding world has begun to try and rebuild what was damaged during the war. Despite this, Harry Potter begins to feel that -- no matter how much repairing and restoring he does for the magical community -- he is unable to patch up what is still broken in his own life. He quickly decides that the only way to do this is to builld himself a house.
Categories: Harry/Ginny Characters: None
Warnings: Mild Profanity
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 8703
Read: 4589
Published: 02/14/09
Updated: 02/14/09
Story Notes:
Written for the Slytherin Valentine's Day Challenge, by Hermione_Rocks and HorcruxHunter14.
1. Hands To Build A House by Hermione_Rocks
Hands To Build A House by Hermione_Rocks
June 1998
Clrickclrrrclrickclrrrclickclrrr.
Slughorn’s wine glass alternated between clicking and humming as he tapped it with his fork. Though not a loud sound by any means, its reverberating pitches managed to fill the Great Hall, and everyone sitting along the table hushed their chatter.
“We are all very aware of why we have gathered here today,” Slughorn began in formal, solemn tones. “We are here because last year “ ” he allowed himself a slow smile “ “ last year, at this time a month ago, an event that will go down in history took place. An event that happened right here at this school, in this very room.
“I should not need to remind you of what this event was. But in case any of you have been living in the mountains with trolls for the past year “ ” and here he paused to allow them to laugh at his feeble joke; a few people gave polite smiles “ “ I shall state the occurrence aloud: on May 2nd, just as the day was dawning, a wizard by the name of Lord Voldemort “ a wizard who had terrorized plenty, both Muggle and magic, creature and human, for many years “ was brought to an end by the hands of the one called Harry Potter.”
A few people let out catcalls and cheers, but Slughorn held up his hands for quiet: He was far from being done speaking, and he was certainly not going to be cut short.
“Though today may not be the anniversary of this momentous occasion “ for, as we all know, we wanted to have our Hogwarts students done with their exams before we held this grand celebration “ it is still the day that we will observe this milestone.”
His voice rang out loud throughout the room, booming and confident; he loved having all eyes on him, and this fact had never shone plainer.
“We will commemorate this event of modern history. We will celebrate the downfall of he who called himself Voldemort. We will honor Harry Potter, the one who returned the light to our days.”
Slughorn paused, making sure that the attention of everyone in the room was captured, before proceeding, his tone a bit softer and more personable, less like he was making a speech and more like he was speaking to close friends.
“Most of all, we will remember. We will remember the pain that was endured, by ourselves and by others; the countless lives that were taken, the agony that the friends and families of those people still carry. We will remember that though the war is won, we must not act as though we have won “ for there is still a long way to go.
“But we will also remember that there is still hope for all of us, always present, always ready, even if there are days when we think it has fled forever. We will remember that there is still hope, and that we can harness this hope with our actions to create a better tomorrow.”
Slughorn turned his attention to Harry, offering him a smile. “I would like to close with a toast to Harry Potter. This is the man who makes it possible for us to sit here in peace and comfort today, without worrying about being attacked. This is also the man who continues to be a beacon of hope for us all.”
Slughorn raised his glass. Everyone in the Great Hall “ at least a thousand people (and more, Harry knew, elsewhere in the world) “ copied him.
“To Harry Potter,” Slughorn said.
“To Harry Potter,” the room echoed, and took sips from their glasses.
“Let the celebrations commence,” Slughorn declared, and instantly the tables filled with food and the surroundings burst with noise, everyone breaking into grins and cheerful talk amongst themselves.
And thus, just as Slughorn said, the celebrations commenced. Harry was, naturally, the star of the whole event. He spent the time being bounced from person to person, talking, bantering, thanking, praising, laughing his way through the afternoon and evening and into the night, smiling all the while.
When he finally returned home in the wee hours of the morning, his smile was long gone, and he found himself wondering strange thoughts as he crawled into bed . . . such as whether he had ever been truly smiling at all in the first place.
July 1998
He wasn’t sure why he had returned to Godric’s Hollow. Even as he stood there, fingers wrapped around the iron bars of the gate, eyes riveted to the remains, he couldn’t reason out in his mind why he had come back.
His brain had not had a part in his coming here, really; his feet had merely carried him here of their own accord (however clichéd such a phrase was, it was true). But ever since that day in June, that celebration, he’d found himself thinking endlessly about . . . well, about everything.
More than a year had passed since he’d last been here. More than a year had gone by since he had hunted Horcruxes. More than a year had gone by since he’d been to his parents’ graves and seen the remains of their house. And now, more than a year had gone by since the defeat of Lord Voldemort. But what had he done since then?
Perhaps most people would say that after killing the most evil wizard to exist for generations, he did not need to achieve much more. He was already world renowned, greatly respected, overwhelmingly adored, written about in more than a dozen history books. What more did he want to achieve in his lifetime?
And no, he had not just been sitting on his ass ever since he’d killed Voldemort. Far from it. Nearly from day one, he’d been running (and Apparating, and fluming, and flying, of course) across the wizarding world all the time, doing everything he could to fix the wreckage, improve the damage, create something new and better. He was almost instantly inducted into the Ministry after Voldemort’s death, and since then had gone about doing all he could to make the wizarding world the place he envisioned it could be. The place that it now was.
He had helped to make it what it was, and he took pride in that.
But there was always some nagging feeling in his gut . . . some persistent thought that hadn’t been exactly identified, but yet never went away. . . . And now, after a year, he believed he had pinpointed it: despite the general craziness of his life, he didn’t feel as though he was entirely living.
It wasn’t depression, he thought. He usually smiled with genuine joy; there were people who loved and supported him; he was spending his life doing what he loved. Still, something was . . . lacking. Insufficient. Perhaps nonexistent. He wanted to fix whatever it was, but didn’t know how; ironic, he mused, that the boy who had supposedly fixed the wizarding world couldn’t fix his own life.
A jerk of his hand forced open the gate; several steps plus another hand jerk, and he had closed said gate and was traversing forward to his former home in Godric’s Hollow. As he moved towards the rubble, he wondered vaguely if what he was doing was legal. This place had been turned into a monument of sorts. Was anyone even allowed to walk on the property?
Well, it didn’t really matter if it was allowed or not at this point. He was already here.
He stepped up to the house and put a hand against one of the ivy-shrouded walls. Most of the house was still intact, save for one section of the house that seemed to have been blasted away when the curse rebounded all those years ago. Keeping his hand on the wall, he walked around the perimeter of the structure until he stood directly underneath the wrecked area. He tipped his head back and stared up at it, as though asking the hole in the house for the answers to his many questions.
“What are you doing here?”
Harry started and looked around. From around the corner of the house emerged the body that owned the stray voice.
“I could ask the same thing of you,” said Harry, after a pause.
“You could ask it,” Ginny Weasley returned, “but I might not answer.”
Several replies ran through his mind “ (well, I also might not answer- and it is your right not to answer- why so cryptic?- do you even have a reason for being here?) “ but he found himself saying none of them aloud.
They stared at each other in silence for a moment.
Then Ginny smiled. “Well, there’s no reason to look like that. After hearing so much about this place, I just wanted to see it for myself, that’s all.”
“Not much to see,” Harry muttered, removing his hand from the wall and waving it loosely at the remains of the structure.
Another silence ascended upon them. It was an all too familiar silence between them, the kind that seeps right through the skin and prickles at the bones, unsettling its victims in every way.
More than a year had passed since he’d been here. Since they’d been here. Shortly after the defeat of Voldemort, Harry had approached Ginny with the subject of their relationship. No longer did he have to worry about putting her in danger by them being together; they were free to do whatever they pleased.
She turned him away.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care about him, she’d said. She did. Just not in the way that she used to. The war had made her realize a lot of things . . . among them, that she didn’t like being treated by a child by someone who was supposed to be her equal. Being in a relationship, to her, was meant to be about sharing, balancing, being the two equivalent pieces of a puzzle.
You treated me like a child, or like some damsel in distress. Maybe that’s what you need “ but it’s not what I need. I can stand on my own two feet, and I need someone who recognizes that.
He had protested, naturally, but it hadn’t made a difference.
How do I know you won’t always need to protect me, Harry? How do I know there won’t always be some lurking danger that you feel the need to try and ‘shield’ me from?
It hadn’t mattered what more he had said or done “ that he didn’t just see her as a child; he knew perfectly well she could stand on her own two feet; he had only broken up with her out of concern; the driving force behind all his actions was love, it wasn’t from seeing her as ‘inferior’ “ but her mind was made up.
That had been last year in May. They had maintained a casual, polite friendship since then, smiling when they chanced upon each other, writing the occasional letter, chatting when there was a gathering at the Burrow. But no more than that.
“Well,” said Ginny, “I’ll be on my way, then. Nice seeing you, Harry.” She began to trump through the knotted weeds and plants lying upon the ground, towards the gate, passing by the house and him, her feet crunching in a strangely final way along the earth.
“Ginny,” Harry found himself calling after her.
She turned around and looked at him; her face was calm, open, but her eyes were guarded. “Yeah?”
There was so much he wanted to say, but nothing that would change anything between them. Nothing that would make her stay with him for longer than a few more fleeting, perfunctory minutes.
“You’re still free the 31st, right? Your mum’s organizing a huge party for me, and we’d all hate for you to miss it.”
She smiled. “I’ll be there.”
“Great,” said Harry. “Well, see you.”
“Bye.” She turned, walked through the gate, and then left, the sun gleaming in her hair as she twisted on her heel to Apparate away.
Harry stole another look at the house, thinking to himself that he should probably be going as well; as always, there was a lot to do at the Ministry.
He stumped towards the gate and wrenched it open.
Then he stopped and whirled back towards the home, eyes narrowed in thought: like lightning, a tirade of new thoughts had just struck him, and now, also like lightning, he was still experiencing the aftershocks, for new thoughts, twisting and turning and overlapping and only half making sense, continued to come. The main thought was this:
He, Harry Potter, had been homeless his whole life.
Not in the literal sense of being homeless, of course. There had always been a real roof above his head.
Godric’s Hollow had been home enough while he was there, but Voldemort had destroyed it when he was a baby; he had lived at the Dursley’s house for most of his life, but had never been welcome or comfortable there; currently, he owned and resided in a tiny flat, but it was really just a place for him to sleep every night. He had always felt at home while at Hogwarts, but at the end of each day, it was still a school. It could never really be his home.
Harry didn’t just want a place to call home. He wanted a place that felt like a home. A place that could be his in both name and feel.
That’s it, he realized. That’s the problem “ that’s been the nagging feeling I haven’t been able to understand. I want a home that’s really mine. I’ve been making new homes “ in the figurative sense, at least “ for a bunch of people for over a year. But I’ve yet to make one for myself.
Now, of course, the question was: how to solve this problem?
But this time, there was no need to hunt for the answer: it was staring him in the face.
“Thank you,” he whispered to his old home at Godric’s Hollow, before closing the gate with a new resolute, determined air.
He was going to build himself a house.
August 1998
Harry grinned.
Were anyone to have walked by him just then, they would have very likely deemed him insane, for the scene he was amidst was very peculiar indeed. He stood on top of a large expanse of flat earth, wearied, dirt-covered, sweat-stained, wearing soiled and worn Muggle clothes, a pile of brand new tools sitting on the ground in front of him.
He couldn’t remember being so excited about something in a long time.
For this house that he was going to construct for himself was not going to be just any ordinary house. Far from it. This was to be a house that was entirely his. He was going to create it, from the bottom up. Every nail, every wood beam, every piece would be put into place by him.
He had also decided not to use any magic in the creation of this house. It wasn’t for any reason that he could put into words. But much in the way that he had simply needed to dig Dobby’s grave without magic “ to feel the blisters on his hands, the sweat on the back of his neck “ so it was with this house. Harry felt that the only way for his new home to ever be truly his was for it to be one that he put everything he had into it.
Every minute of his spare time for the past few weeks had been spent in preparation for this new undertaking: sketching blue prints, purchasing a bare plot of land, shopping for tools, buying supplies, flipping through handbooks on construction. He wanted to be prepared in every way, and now, finally, exhausted but triumphant, he had everything he needed to begin.
His new tools, heaped in a pile on his plot of land, glittered silver under the bright sun.
September 1998
Harry approached the empty plot of land with a feeling of excitement he had felt few times before. His clothes were fresh and clean”this was something he had rarely had until recently. His box was filled with hammers and nails, and was heavy in his hand”the hand that usually carried his wand. He knew that if anyone learned about his plans, they would laugh at him; he had never built anything without a wand before, how could he possibly expect to build a house?
He pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind; they would get him nowhere. And after all he had done, how much trouble could a house be?
As soon as Harry reached the center of the plot, where piles of wood planks and tools were located, he remembered the nice scent they had when he bought them. That scent permeated the air once again. He also remembered the splinters he had gotten that day at the small Muggle hardware store, and breathed a sigh of relief as he rummaged through the tools and discovered that he had remembered to pack his gloves.
He flexed his fingers as he studied the gloves on his hands. They were thick and awkward, but if this was how Muggles did it, this was how he would do it as well. Besides, it was better than the splinters.
He immediately set to work. First he would have to build the foundation, he figured, and pulled several planks of wood from the pile. I’ll build the frame today, he thought, and tomorrow I’ll bring the concrete.
He found his drill and a small box of screws. He positioned two pieces of wood at a ninety degree angle, and held a screw to the end in one hand and his drill in the other. All he had to do was drill some planks together, and he’d be done for the day.
Harry was caught off-guard by the speed and loudness of the drill. He was also surprised that the speed made it harder, rather than easier, to use. The screw kept slipping under the drill, refusing to go into the wood. When Harry tried to push down on it harder, it slipped off the wood altogether and onto the ground.
“Damn it!” Harry cried, dropping down onto his hands and knees to search for the screw.
He eventually gave up on trying to find it, and attempted again with a new screw, but with no luck. His third attempt was successful…in a way. It took several minutes of the screw turning about under the drill for it to finally go into the wood. Then he had to do the same all over again.
Harry never knew for sure what time it was. The thought hardly ever crossed his mind, even, until the sun started setting and he realized that it was time to go.
As he packed up his tools and prepared to leave, he studied his work more carefully. He had very little to show for his long hours of hard work- just a few planks of wood held together by now-crooked screws. It forced him to acknowledge the questions he had tried to ignore all day, hoping they would answer themselves. How would the house have plumbing? Just how big did the foundation have to be? And, most importantly, how could this possibly support an entire house?
It could wait until tomorrow, he decided as he walked back to his current house (if he was going to build the house without magic, he was going to get to and from the house without magic as well). Besides, he had defeated the Dark Lord. How hard could building a house be?
October 1998
Harry didn’t usually notice such things as houses’ appearance, but he had started to when he had decided to build one of his own. Besides, there was no denying that Hermione’s house - simple yet classic, lined with flowers - was beautiful.
He couldn’t help but feel nervous as he walked down the stone pathway that led to her door. It was completely irrational”after all, she had invited him; she wanted him to go”but it had been so long since he had seen Hermione and Ron. They obviously hadn’t forgotten about him, but they must have moved on, they must be doing so much without him now…
Harry knocked on the simple, elegant door and waited impatiently for Hermione to open it. He listened very carefully to the commotion his knocking had caused.
“Is it him? Or just some kid?” So Ron, who was never on time for anything, had arrived before him. Strange.
“I don’t know, I’ll get it!”
“Don’t let our dinner burn!”
“It’ll only be a minute, Ron.”
Finally, she opened the door. Like the outside of her house, the inside had not been decorated for Halloween. Also like the outside, the furnishings were simple: neutral colors upon sleek but comfortable pieces of furniture. It was beautiful.
“Hi, Harry.” They hugged awkwardly, and then Hermione said, “Come in, make yourself comfortable. Dinner will be ready soon.”
Harry sat down next to Ron in the living room, and then quietly said, “Hey.”
“Hey, how’s it been?”
“Okay, I guess. It’s been crazy at the Ministry. You’d think it would be calm now that You-Know-Who’s gone, but they’re trying to pass this law against testing new potions and spells on animals…there’s been a lot of late nights.”
“Ugh…I remember those nights. When all those Death Eaters were trying to say they were innocent, they hardly let us go home! I’m so glad that’s over.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Harry was trying to think of something else to say when Hermione called out from the next room, “Dinner’s ready!”
Harry and Ron ate quietly, only bothering to speak when Hermione asked what they thought about her meal, made completely without magic. She kept pointing out flaws, but it was clear to Harry that she knew it was perfect.
By the end of the meal, Harry and Ron thought that they couldn’t eat any more, but of course, Hermione had prepared desert for them. They ate a small amount, just to be polite, but by then they were more engrossed in their conversations.
Still, Harry couldn’t help but notice that Ron and Hermione had not let go of each others’ hands throughout the meal, except when Hermione left to give candy to the trick-or-treaters. He should have known sooner; he would have, had he actually bothered to send one of them a letter after graduation.
Finally, after talking about Quidditch, their families, and anything else they could think of, Ron blurted out, “So, have you been doing anything interesting besides the Ministry? Or is that keeping you too busy?”
Harry had been trying to avoid the question all night, but there really was not reason to not tell him. They were best friends, or at least they had been: they had seen each other a few times, but the magic of their friendship had faded some after graduation. But still, there was no reason to not tell Ron and Hermione what he was doing.
Before he could regret it, he blurted out, “I’m building a house…without magic.” He decided not to provide them with any other details, including details of his minimal progress.
Ron said nothing, and Harry couldn’t tell by the look on his face whether he was surprised or confused.
Hermione had a completely different reaction. She immediately exclaimed, “That’s wonderful!” She looked at Ron. “We could help him, couldn’t we?”
Before Ron could respond, Harry shook his head and said, “No. I want to do this on my own.” He quickly realized that he was much sterner than he needed to be.
“Oh…ok, that’s fine too.” Hermione was suddenly much more quiet than she had been all night.
After a few long, silent minutes, Harry announced, “Well, I should be going.” He stood up to hug his friends goodbye.
“We need to see each other more often, okay?” Hermione asked.
“Okay,” Harry said, not sure even then if he could keep his promise.
November 1998
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Harry gave the nail a victorious glare as he brought his hammer down to his side. That bloody nail just refused to stay in, and as it happened to play a role in keeping the beam that would eventually be one of the corners of his house upright, it was crucial for it to be secure “ else the entire structure might topple.
Satisfied with his day’s work “ nearly the entire basic frame of the house was completed “ Harry tucked the hammer away in his toolbox and began to pack up for the night.
CRRRFFFTTTHUMPPPP.
Startled, Harry whirled around.
Then he began to swear. Very loudly and fluently.
The nail he had just hammered back in for the millionth time had fallen out. What was more, it had caused the wood beam it held in place to fall “ along with several beams that had been partially supported by that beam.
It was getting late, and Harry was already tired . . . but he didn’t want to leave his house in such a state of disrepair, feeling as though he had accomplished nothing yet again. So, with a sigh, he unpacked his toolbox and set to work fixing the damage.
The cold autumn winds howled and pushed relentlessly against him as he worked, but he would not be deterred. By the end of the day, he was going to have this structure the way it’d been, whether the damn fall weather liked it or not.
Darkness began to descend. As he was hammering away through the hours, he noticed a solitary figure approaching along the sidewalk. It didn’t take him long to recognize the person was Ginny.
“Hey,” she said when she was near enough to be heard over the wind.
“Hey,” he returned, setting down his hammer to give himself a momentary rest.
Ginny cast her eyes over the half-constructed frame of the house. Harry found himself embarrassed as he did likewise: the whole thing looked absolutely pathetic.
“So, this is beginning of your house?” she asked.
“How’d you know that’s what “ ”
“I caught wind of what you were up to,” she answered his unfinished question.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” asked Harry sardonically, as another harsh breeze blew into his face, kicking up a little dust as it went by.
“Ron told me about it,” she elaborated, smiling, and moved nearer to examine his work more closely. “You’ve done well, especially considering you’ve been stubbornly refusing to use magic . . .”
Hearing Ron’s name brought back memories of Halloween, the last time Harry’d seen him. He cringed inwardly at those memories, and how hastily he had turned away his friends’ offers for help. Building a house, as he’d learned since then, was a huge undertaking. Despite originally wanting to do this all by himself “ to have a house that was completely his, that he had created as an entirely solo endeavor “ it wasn’t a realistic goal. He would’ve readily accepted their assistance now, even if it was only an occasional helping hand. But he wasn’t about to go back and ask them for help now. He didn’t want to grovel, nor lose his pride.
There were, of course, other people he could ask for help . . . maybe he should hire a Muggle construction worker to help him out, or at least guide him. But that seemed too easy. Besides, hiring someone would mean that they were calling the shots. Harry wanted help, not dictation. He still wanted to do this his way . . . he just didn’t want to do it alone anymore.
“D’you want to help?” Harry found himself blurting out, with a slightly desperate air, to Ginny.
She had bent over to peer at his poorly crafted foundation, but now she straightened to look at him more directly, her features puzzled. “Sorry?”
“D’you want to help? With building the house, that is.”
“Sorry, no, I can’t,” she said (with only a slight hesitation . . . a hesitation that Harry thought he might’ve imagined anyway). “The Harpies’ve been training rigorously pretty much every day for our upcoming match against the Falcons . . .”
“Oh, that’s right, you made it onto the Holyhead Harpies “ congratulations!”
She grinned. “Thanks.”
Silence. There had been so many between them that they were almost becoming commonplace, normal, losing the awkward element to them. Almost.
“Well “ I’ll see you around, Harry,” she finally said.
“Yeah. Bye,” said Harry, continuing to mask his disappointment that she had turned down his offer; it was only after she had Disapparated that, defeated, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against a wooden beam.
December 1998
Ginny rushed past Harry with a plateful of dishes and told him, “Meet me in the scullery in ten minutes. I have a surprise for you.”
That was the last thing Harry had been expecting. All day, he had been trying to limit his contact with Ginny, more because he was confused than because he didn’t want to see her. He had no idea how Ginny felt about his visit until then. Actually, as he thought about it, he still didn’t know for sure what was going through her head.
He quietly made his way to the scullery as he waited for Ginny, Ron, and Mrs. Weasley to finish washing the dishes. He couldn’t remember ever being in the room before, and became curious as to what was in the large boxes he saw. He had always assumed it was nothing more than a laundry room.
At first, he only saw dust when he opened one of the boxes. He brushed it away, coughing and hoping that he hadn’t caught the attention of everyone outside.
He pulled out a small, brightly-colored box, with the label Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes in huge block letters, and he clearly recognized it as the company’s old labeling. Harry knew that George had been working on some new products, and that Ron even helped him sometimes, so it was surprising for him to see what was left of their old company. In fact, he began regretting ever opening the box.
“I remember those days. The house is so quiet now without both of them.”
Harry jumped and turned around. He hadn’t even heard her enter the small, cramped room.
He watched as she stood on her toes to pull a box off the top shelf. She sat down on the floor and handed him the package.
“Sorry it’s not wrapped. I couldn’t find any paper after my mum’s gift frenzy last week.” She laughed.
She watched intently but said nothing as Harry pulled an omnioculuars out of the box. But as soon as he started studying it, turning the item around in his hands, she asked, “Do you like it? I thought it would useful if you wanted to go to a game again someday.”
“It’s great, Ginny, thanks!” He smiled at her, but neither of them moved. Ginny was looking down. They sat in silence, and as Harry looked at every detail of it from every angle, it finally occurred to him to ask, “Do you like playing for the Harpies?”
Ginny grinned. “Yeah, it’s awesome.” For a second Harry thought she was going to say more, but she didn’t. Clearly Harry was going to have to ask himself.
“Would it be alright if I went to one of your games sometime? I’d love to see you play.”
Ginny looked up again, then said softly, “Yeah, that would be great.”
January 1999
The arrival of the new year usually fills one with renewed spirits. It rejuvenates their previously crushed or limited cheer, hope, and optimism. Whether they decide that this is the year they will stick to that diet they’ve been struggling with for the past five years, perfect their curveball, learn a new language, or be a better person, the new year symbolizes a new start, and thus gives many souls that extra push to give something a fresh beginning, to resolve that this year will be different.
Not even Harry could escape these feelings. Though he generally didn’t have such a mindset, the dawn of this new year made him realize that all things must, eventually, come to an end. And with ends, naturally, came beginnings.
It was a simple concept, and perhaps a trite one at that, but it comforted him, and it provided him with a replenished sense of hope. Yes, building a house was hard. It was much more challenging, difficult, perplexing, frustrating, complex, time consuming, lonely, stressful, and wearying than he had originally thought. But why should that stop him from doing it? If he was determined to build a house, then the obstacles shouldn’t matter. Countless others before him had done it, so why couldn’t he? Besides, he had certainly done more difficult things in his lifetime. Building a house should be a cinch compared to tracking down and destroying seven Horcruxes, one of which had resided in the body of one of the most evil wizards to ever walk the damn Earth.
He had to smile a little at that thought.
And so it was with a heartened spirit “ and a resolution to accomplish at least one thing on his house each week, whether it be adding several more rooms, painting a wall, or merely dealing with one stubborn nail “ that Harry went back to work on his house that month.
February 1999
Harry stood back at the end of a long, cold day to study his work: the final nails, screws, and planks he had put in that went into the structure of the house. He had been so proud of himself; he kept to his resolution and accomplished something on the house each week, and this week he had accomplished more than ever. However, seeing the structure in its entirety immediately diminished all his feelings of pride.
The planks were uneven in many places, and the most stubborn nails were crooked. He didn’t know how he would ever manage to live in such a place once it was done, if it ever did get finished. Yet it was more of a home than he had ever had, and he had grown to love this mess he had created.
He had a home; now it was time to act like he did. Harry still wasn’t ready to call a cupboard under the stairs “home,” even if it probably was the more comfortable place to stay. He had hardly been able to do anything in there.
So what did people with a normal, comfortable living space do in their free time?
They probably did just what he did, he figured, remembering the long hours of reading and writing letters that filled his dull days. His first thought was to write a letter, but there was no quill or parchment in sight. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how nice it would be to tell Ron and Hermione that he was sorry about what had happened at the dinner party. There wasn’t all that much to be sorry for, really, but it would be nice to talk to them again, and maybe see if they were still interested in helping him with his project…
A quiet cough from behind him broke Harry’s train of thought. He turned around quickly to face Ginny, who did not respond. She just walked past him and started pacing around the house, pausing occasionally to inspect a certain part of it.
“How’ve you been doing?” she finally asked while studying the far left corner of the house. Even her delicate touch tilted it slightly.
“Fine,” he said, looking down at his filthy jeans and hands. “You?”
“Well, nothing new going on really,” she said lightly. “Just the usual training. It’s intense though.”
“I can imagine,” he responded, almost automatically. He knelt down to dig through his supplies on the floor and eventually found the screws he was looking for.
Ginny backed away as he neared her. She watched his noisy attempt to make the frame sturdier. After a few minutes, he gave up and rose again.
“Sorry about that.” He brushed some dirt off his knees.
“Do you need help with that?” Ginny asked, her voice monotone.
Harry pushed the corner gently. “Nah, I think it’s about as sturdy as it’s gonna get.”
“I mean for the whole house, Harry. This thing’s a mess.” She smiled slowly, hesitantly.
Harry chuckled and agreed, “Yeah, it definitely is.” Then, several seconds later, he handed her the drill. “I need all the help I can get.”
March 1999
And thus, their work together began.
It was strange, having Ginny around to help him build his house. It had been a solitary project for so long that he just wasn’t used to having company. In fact, ever since he’d finished hunting Horcruxes, he’d been doing most of his ‘projects’ “ various doings with the Ministry and whatnot “ by himself. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to work as a team.
In some ways, the job went much faster than before. With two people doing what one had been doing before, that was only natural. They could both work on different things simultaneously, or the same thing in unison . . . however they divided it, minor goals and parts were accomplished much faster.
Yet, at the same time, things also went oddly slower. For in adding another person to help, Harry had not only gotten an extra set of hands, but an extra mind. A mind that did not always have thoughts and opinions that matched with his.
“Why on earth do you need three bathrooms?” Ginny demanded to know one day in the middle of March, waving Harry’s latest blue prints in his face.
This was not, by any means, their first argument over the house “ and nor, Harry thought with a sigh, will it be the last.
“Why is that such a problem?” he asked her just as forcefully.
“It’s only you living in the house. You’re not going to sit on three toilets at once, are you?”
“Of course not, don’t be daft “ but what if I have company? Or get a roommate? I’ll need more than one bathroom.”
“Okay, so you’ll need two bathrooms in those situations. Not three.”
“I could have a roommate and company over at the same time. Then I’d need three bathrooms.”
“Oh, and you all have the need to pee at the exact same time, do you?” Ginny questioned sarcastically.
“Why does this bother you so much?” Harry threw at her, becoming annoyed. “It’s my house, not yours!”
“Because I don’t want you making stupid decisions that you’ll regret later,” said Ginny flatly.
“Why would I regret having three bathrooms? It’s perfectly normal for a house to have an extra bloody toilet!”
“It’s an unnecessary use of time, space, and money,” Ginny returned. “Two bathrooms is plenty.”
“My time, my space, my money,” Harry shot back. “My judgments, my choices, my decisions. My house.”
She scowled. “You, you, you!”
“It’s my house! Mine! I’m going to live here! Me!” he reiterated staunchly.
“I-me-me-me-I-mine-mine-mine,” she said, mimicking him.
“Look, I’m not changing my plans, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“Are you the only thing that you ever think about?”
“Of course not, but this is “ again, just so we’re clear on this point “ my house!” He threw up his hands. “Alright, so what is this argument really about? Do you not want to help me anymore? Do you want to be paid?”
“No, I don’t want either of those things “ I just want you to stop being such an idiot.”
Harry clenched his jaw. “I’m not changing my mind.”
Ginny made a noise between a growl and a hiss as she snapped her head impatiently. “Fine, then, I don’t care “ be an idiot.”
“Fine, I will,” Harry snapped, before realizing he’d just made a rather stupid agreement.
Silence. Faces red, teeth gnashing, bodies stanced in stubborn attitudes, they glared at each other. Then Harry found himself grinning; he tried to stop, feeling stupid, telling himself he was too angry to be smiling “ but then Ginny was grinning too. She glanced towards the subject of their argument: the house “ its foundation and frame at last completed “ gazed back stoically at her.
“Fine,” she said again, determined as always to have the last word, though she was still smiling.
April 1999
Harry dragged himself through the door leading into the office he had seen too many times in the past few months. Just one more task, he told himself, and then he would be done.
He sat down at the desk and waited for a stern-looking man to look up from his writings. Harry stared down at the papers in his hands, too tired to concentrate any longer. He just watched his papers, his hands, anything that didn’t involve lifting his head.
“Yes?” the man asked impatiently.
Harry had to force himself to lift his head. He probably spoke more loudly than he should have when he handed the man his papers.
“Here’s the report you wanted. About the animal rights laws?”
The man studied them through small glasses for a moment, then placed them on his desk. Though he looked stern, he sounded kinder as he said, “Thank you, Harry. Have a nice weekend.”
“Thanks, you too,” Harry said as he stood up and headed for the door.
Harry might have run out of the building if he had had the energy. But once he was a safe distance from it, he Apparated to the front of his home.
He knocked timidly at the door, not wanting to chip the fresh paint or dirty it in any way. It was perfect just the way it was.
Ginny opened the door, revealing an even more beautiful house. The smell of corned beef permeated the air, and Harry suddenly realized that he hadn’t eaten all day.
“Hi,” Ginny said with a smile on her face. “How was your day?”
“Harry! Will you get me the hammer?”
Harry snapped out of his trance, startled. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about leaving his comfortable place inside the home. But the more he helped Ginny, who was working outside in the rain, the faster he would be able to live his fantasy of having a safe, warm home to go home to every day, no matter how stressful work had been.
He found the hammer and handed it to Ginny. He headed back towards where he had been sitting, but then decided against it and approached Ginny again.
They were both silent at first, Ginny diligently working and Harry wondering what to say. He found himself worrying less and less about what he would say in front of her, but it was still so unlike their time at Hogwarts…
He said the first thing that came to mind (which had actually been on his mind for a while). “I was thinking…we’ll be needing to buy furniture soon. And wallpaper and paint, and all those other things to decorate it. Where do you wanna go to shop for that?”
Ginny looked up from the floor she had been working on, and her eyes began wandering around the room. “Are you kidding me? We’ve still got a few weeks to go before we can start decorating. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
Harry looked around as well, and had to admit that she was right. The floor was a mess and the walls didn’t look much better. They still had a long way to go.
But when Harry imagined himself and Ginny living comfortably in their new home, he could imagine what it looked like. He knew what color the paint or wallpaper would be and he knew what type of floors he wanted. He even had some ideas about what furniture he wanted, but he wanted Ginny to have some input on that too…
She told him not to get ahead of himself. Harry couldn’t help but wonder if she was really just talking about the furniture.
May 1999
Harry had never liked shopping much, and never would have thought of himself as the type of person who would look forward to shopping for home supplies. Yet, he could hardly contain his excitement as he walked to the front of a furniture store.
He and Ginny were supposed to meet right where he was, but not for another ten minutes. He had nothing to do to pass the time; he wondered what other people thought of him as he peered through the glass doors, but didn’t go inside them.
A few minutes later Ginny appeared, looking more clean and well-rested than she had in the past few months. With the house almost completed, they had been making a point of getting more sleep and not letting the project take over their lives like they had not too long before.
“Hey, you look good,” Harry said as she approached him and they both entered the store.
“Thanks. It’s so nice to finally get a good night’s sleep again,” she said, smiling.
Harry and Ginny had never been inside a Muggle furniture store before, and really had no idea what to expect. They were clueless where to go first once they entered the cold, huge store.
“So…do you want to split up,” Ginny suggested, “and meet back here in an hour or so?”
Harry gazed around the room another moment, then said, “No. I’d rather stay together. I’m gonna need your help.”
They strolled through the store for a while, Ginny carefully looking at the furniture, Harry still intimidated by everything he saw. Would they really have to look at all the pieces that day? The excitement he had felt just minutes before vanished.
Finally Ginny stopped to look at a sofa more carefully.
“This is nice,” she said. “What do you think, Harry?”
Harry looked at the sofa. It would probably be very comfortable, but…it was green. He couldn’t imagine it fitting in with whatever else they might be buying that day.
“Will it fit in with the other stuff? I mean, green would be hard to match…”
“Really? I think it would be okay. What were you imagining?”
Harry was silent. It was much harder to explain his plans than it was to visualize them or think about them. Actually, he had given very little thought to the colors of the furniture. And what did he know about color, anyway?
“Do you want to do this on your own? I can go look around a while, like you were talking about earlier.”
Ginny thought about this for a moment. “Sure, if you want to. Meet me in the front when you’re ready, okay?”
“Okay,” he responded as he wandered off towards the far corner of the store. He tried to look at the furniture some, but it all started to look the same very quickly: chairs, sofas, dressers, more chairs, cribs…
Harry stopped, took two large steps back and walked towards the crib in the corner of the room. He would admit to not knowing much about decoration, but this crib was beautiful: he knew it would fit in his house, no matter what.
He looked back and saw Ginny studying a small bookshelf. She had no idea.
June 1999
He ran a hand along the exterior wall, traced his fingers across each panel and siding, as though trying to imprint every crevice, every curve, every paint lump in his mind. He touched the front and back doors with his fingertips, outlined the paved steps, brushed every window. He needed to reaffirm that it was real. That it was there. That he had built a house.
“You’re going to soil up your brand new home with your dirty hands,” Ginny called out to him from where she leaned against the frame of the front door.
He grinned and walked over to join her on the front steps. “I’m not that filthy.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Thanks for all your help,” he said, losing his joking tone. “I seriously don’t know what sort of shambles it’d be in right now if you hadn’t pitched in.”
“Glad to help,” she said.
There fell another silence between them. This one, however, unlike the silences between them previously, was not for a lack of things to say, nor for a lack of words. Their work here was done. The house was finished.
Working on what is already completed is (it goes without saying) a pointless task. When something is done, it is done. It was time for them to part ways again, to go back to being casual passing friends; time, in short, to say good-bye.
He’d known this was inevitable: that yet again, she would eventually walk away. He had considered trying to end their partnership early, knowing that the longer he spent with her, the more he would be hurt when it was over. But he never had been able to stand the idea of dismissing her, and then coming to work on the house the next day without her at his side; so, he had let their work together continue on.
Now, though, there was nothing else to keep her here.
They had worked together so tirelessly for the past few months that, in some way, he’d almost started to allow himself to think that it could be like this even after the house was built. Inadvertently, the house had switched in his mind from being thought of as my house to their house. But he knew that was foolish. She had come back into his life only to carve her way out again just when he’d begun to think that she might stay. They had learned to work as a team, as equals, just as she said she needed when in a relationship . . . but it was too late now. The work was done.
Yet she still hadn’t left.
It was too late for anything he said or did to change anything between them, her mind had been made up for over a year, and yet . . . she was still there. Here.
He wasn’t sure if she was waiting for something in particular, or merely enjoying the view. He decided it didn’t matter. Hadn’t he learned, after all the relentless and tiring months he’d spent creating his house, that just because the structure kept collapsing didn’t mean it would never hold steady and upright?
“D’you want to come in?” he asked her.
Her eyes looked over and caught his. A smile that promised no guarantees but a willingness for second (and possibly third) chances at re-hammering lit up her face as she stepped over the threshold.
~Fin
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.