The simplest answer is that I'm just not happy; I haven't been for a long time, but it had never made it to the forefront of my mind before. There were always so many other things that required my attention in my life. Not anymore.
The Wireless buzzed in the background, but I couldn't bear to listen to the Quidditch match and take notes another moment. Sighing, I laid my head against the table in front of me.
It's been three months since Harry and I saw the children off to school from Platform 9 and ¾, and I think that if I can just get through the next three weeks until they come home for the Christmas break, I'll be okay. Twenty-one days. That means twenty-one silent breakfasts, twenty-one awkward dinners and twenty-one nights of doing everything and anything I can think of to avoid going to bed until I'm sure Harry's asleep.
I groaned. Twenty years into a relationship and you'd think a couple were meant to spend their lives together. The day we saw Lily off on the Hogwarts Express with her brothers had been the first time I'd realized that, in our case, that might not be so.
As I waved at the departing train, sniffling loudly and calling out a final "I love you!" to the red-haired girl hanging out a compartment window, Harry dug the handkerchief he'd come prepared with out of his pocket. He handed it over wordlessly.
I blew my nose and, with a final tearful honk, I dropped the sopping bit of cloth in my handbag and turned to my husband. "I can't believe they're all gone," I whispered, tears welling hot and fresh in my eyes.
Patting my shoulder comfortingly, Harry straightened. "Well, love, I know it's rough, but they're growing up. That's how it goes. We did a good job with all three of them." He offered me a smile even as his eyes swept past me to scan the platform. "Besides, Christmas will be here before you know it. Having the house to ourselves will be a nice change, and you could always pick up a hobby."
Looking back, I groaned. Pick up a hobby, indeed. After the moderately-contained chaos I'd reigned over at home for the last fourteen years, I'd need ten hobbies to keep my attention. But in our early years together, things had been vastly different.
I'd hurled a few choice invectives and a rather ingenious hex at my husband the first time Harry had asked me when the last time I had dusted was. Spending his days at the Ministry had skewed Harry's view of what I did all day so badly that sometimes I just wanted to hang out a sign that read, 'I quit!'. Mum was no help, either.
"Of course you'll do their early education at home, Ginny!" my mother had said, a shocked hand on her chest. "I did it with you lot, and you all turned out splendidly." When I had protested that it was really hard being heavily pregnant with my third child as I tried to do housework, prepare meals, keep up on my position as a Quidditch correspondent and chase two small, very active boys around the house, Mum had snorted. "Oh, tell me about it."
"Mum, even if they go to the local primary school for a couple hours a day twice a week, it'd be enough. I just need a break."
"You'll get one when they're grown, dear, and believe it or not, you'll get used to all of this hubbub around here. Someday, you won't know what to do without it."
That day had arrived on the first of September as my last baby waved goodbye as she journeyed to Hogwarts.
I spent the rest of the day holed up in the sitting room with our photo albums, alternately laughing and sobbing over the wonderful turmoil of raising three rambunctious children. Woodenly, when the clock chimed half-three, I rose and went to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner; I had done this for so many years that it had become second nature now.
Once, when Albus was teething and James had the flu, I'd gotten a late start on the evening meal. When Harry had arrived home from work, I told him it would be ready in an hour, and he'd simply nodded.
A few minutes past six, I'd called him down and dished him out a generous serving of roasted beef, vegetables and homemade rolls. He'd simply looked at it, frowned at me and said, "I don't eat after six, Ginny. It gives me indigestion and then I can't sleep."
I'd shot him a harried glance as I corralled James back to the table from where he'd tried to slip off to the television set and adjusted Al's high chair. "Harry, it's only a few minutes past now, and it's been a really long day. If you didn't want to eat, you should have said so when you got home. I spent almost two hours on dinner tonight- the least you could do is eat it."
He'd refused, which prompted a similar response from the sickly and cranky James. Finally sending them both upstairs, I unstrapped Al from his seat and sobbed into his sweet-smelling curls. It was the first time I'd cried since I had married Harry.
Two days after losing Lily to Hogwarts, I pulled myself out of the mini-depression I'd been wallowing in, firmly telling myself that self-pity was a luxury that I didn't need. Once upon a time, I'd been a talented witch with dreams and ambitions that extended beyond having a husband and children and a nice home. With this new resolve, I sat down to breakfast with Harry, blazing with drive.
"I'm going to get back in shape and play in the town Quidditch league," I announced, no small twinge of pride in my voice.
"Mmm," Harry mumbled, his eyes glued to a file opened in front of him as he raised his coffee mug to his lips.
I slapped a hand on the table. "Harry! Did you hear a word I said?"
He covered it well, but I had startled him. "Of course," he replied quickly, but his eyes held far less certainty.
"You're a rotten liar, Harry Potter," I accused, suddenly irate. He never seemed to take more than a cursory interest in the things I told him. "What did I say?"
"Err… something to the tune of-"
"Precisely." I swept my dishes up with a clatter. "I've got to tell you, Harry, what with all this peace and quiet, I'm starting to realize that things around here aren't the way they used to be."
Snapping his file closed and pushing his coffee to the side, he gave me his full attention. "What do you mean, Gin? I know I wasn't paying attention a moment ago, and I'm really sorry, but things have been fine around here."
I stared at my hands. "I've been thinking, Harry, and I've realized that things haven't been fine. They haven't for a long time. When's the last time we went on a date, or had a meaningful conversation that didn't revolve around the kids, or even had sex?"
Harry watched me, mouth agape and hand frozen in mid-air where he reached for his coffee. "We… well, I think we had sex last week, didn't we?"
A mirthless laugh tore from my lips. "I checked the calendar, Harry, because the last time we had sex was the day Lily got fitted for her school robes. That was more than a month ago."
He frowned. "Really? That long ago? Wow, it sure didn't seem that long."
I smiled at him sadly. "I know, and that's what worries me. Neither of us bothers to make the effort anymore, and on the rare occasion we do, it feels like we're just going through the motions- same old position, same foreplay, just trying to reach orgasm so we can go to sleep."
"It sounds really bad when you say it like that." With his eyes glued to me, Harry couldn't hide his fear. "What are you saying?"
I bit my lip, but forged on. These things had to be said before I burst. "I don't know," I admitted. "I just know that I don't feel like we're married anymore- I feel like we're roommates, or partners, or something. We share the house, we share the kids and we discuss the Daily Prophet's lead article. That's about it these days, Harry, and I never noticed until the kids were gone because I was so wrapped up in them."
As the clock chimed eight, Harry sighed apologetically. "I know this is really important, Gin, but can we discuss it when I get home? I've got to get to work." At the doubtful look I shot him, he added, "I promise. We'll really talk tonight."
He came around the table to press a kiss on my lips, and the utter lack of any desire to respond on my part saddened me.
Acknowledging that taking notes on this Quidditch match was a total wash, I stowed the parchment in my desk and wandered over to the window seat. Harry had tried three months ago, he really had, and if I thought in my more bitter moments that it was out of a fear of being alone, well- to some degree, it was probably true.
We had talked, and he'd brought home a book (I'd stake the children on the fact that Hermione had pressed it on him) about relationships for us to read through. He'd instituted Date Night, and I'd indeed joined the local pick-up Quidditch league, but we still sat quietly through meals and made awkward attempts at conversation in front of the fire before bed.
Sex had become an utter disaster. Whereas before it had simply been an infrequent afterthought, now it was desperation-laced and stilted. Harry varied his attentions, and I did my best to be adventurous and try to recreate our old spark, but it was rather like practicing how to snog on your best girl friends- skittishly odd and somehow not quite right. After almost two months of it, we had given up trying, and neither of us initiated a conversation about the disastrous experiment.
Things unraveled rather quickly after that. Date Night became Work Late Night, and just to escape the forty-eight hours (less my two hours of training sessions on Saturdays and my matches on Sundays) of unbearable togetherness that the weekends represented, I joined a gardening club that Neville had mentioned to me often over the years.
The first meeting I attended at Madeleine Pearson's house shocked me to my toes. The group, which I had assumed to be a bunch of grubby-fingered old ladies passing about rhizomes and trumpeting about their rose gardens, included one of the last people I'd ever thought to meet there- Draco Malfoy. And no, he was not grubby-fingered. Ironically enough, he was holding a rhizome, though.
"Mrs. Potter," he said stiffly when Madeleine introduced him.
"You know each other?" the kindly woman asked as she poured a cup of tea for me.
I had the urge to snort, because everyone and their pet toad knew that Draco and Harry were the worst sort of schoolboy rivals- Rita Skeeter's hideous biography saw to that. "Yes, we've met here and there over the years." There- that was far more diplomatic.
He smiled courteously and waited for all of the women to take their seats before he did, and I wanted desperately to corner him and ask quite plainly what he was doing discussing the best ratio of humus to top soil for fanged roses with a bunch of old ladies. This was the boy that had tortured Neville mercilessly for years about his affinity for herbology, wasn't it?
I got my chance when the little meeting broke for biscuits and lemonade in the Pearsons' formal garden. "Draco Malfoy… gardener?" I asked quietly, sidling up to him as he held the door open for everyone to adjourn to the patio. "And you hold doors for old ladies?"
He looked me over coolly. "I do any number of civil things you're not aware of, Mrs. Potter. Maturity has a way of sneaking up on all of us. And yes, I garden."
I was shaking my head in astonishment before I could help myself. "Wow, that's- well, odd. You don't seem the type." I waved a hand at myself. "But then again, neither do I, so I guess I should just shut my gob."
He gave me a minute smile and waved me through the door before rejoining me for the short walk to the garden. "I wasn't the 'type', as you say, but my meddling son decided that I needed something to occupy my time, and I explained to him that I'm far too old to take an entry-level job just so he doesn't have to tell his friends that his father is a degenerate that lays about the house all day."
I returned the smile. "My boys are just as intrusive- I think at this age they all like to practice their 'manly bossing around skills', as my daughter calls them, on their parents. So you took up gardening because of-" I let the sentence dangle uncertainly.
"Scorpius," he supplied.
"-Because of Scorpius nagging at you?"
Pulling out a chair for me, he moved around to the far side of the table so we were face-to-face. "Actually, he was right. And since my mother's arthritis has gotten so bad, her gardens have gone to seed. There's quite a lot of work to be done, and Madeleine and her friends have been instrumental in helping bring me up to the task."
Not knowing what else to do, I nodded politely.
"What about you, Mrs. Potter? It's a bit late in the game to develop an interest in flowers, isn't it?" At my questioning look, he added, "I've seen your home while passing through Godric's Hollow. Your landscaping is rather… mundane."
I smiled widely at that. "Quite an understatement. A line of shrubbery and a storage shed sagging under an overzealous crop of ivy can hardly be called landscaping." Shrugging, I swirled the glass of lemonade he handed me from a tray floating past. "Like you, I suppose, it stemmed a bit from being at loose ends. My youngest, Lily, went up to Hogwarts this year, and I've been a mother hen without a brood. I'm trying out a few things to occupy me."
He leant back in his chair, the high collar of his robes looking like they were a bowl holding his disembodied head. "Why not a job? You certainly have the talent to return to journalism full-time, or even some sort of managing position with one of the premier-level Quidditch teams."
Embarrassing as it is, I admit that I squeaked when he said that. "I… er, well, thank you, but I'm rather rusty to be jumping back into the Quidditch world at the professional level."
"Why not journalism?"
Damned if I know why, but I told him the truth. "Harry really didn't approve of me having a full-time job after we married; he said that being a mother was going to be more than enough to occupy me. Now that they're all at school, he just says that we're wealthy enough for me to stay home and relax and write up the odd match summary when I feel like it."
"Damned boring after awhile, isn't it?" he offered knowingly. "I'll never be Potter's most ardent fan, but surely he's reasonable enough to agree with your returning to work if you're so bored."
I changed the topic, because I couldn't bring myself to tell him that no, Harry was not that reasonable. His defense had been that during Christmas and summer hols, the children would need me around, and I couldn't really argue with that. What would I do, ship my children off to my mother's just so I could spend eight hours a day at a position I took only to get away from my husband and my suddenly-empty life? It wasn't fair to the kids.
"How's your wife doing?" I blurted out, desperate for a safe, neutral subject.
By his expression, I knew I had stepped in it rather badly. I was shocked when he answered.
"She's doing well, but Cass and I separated some time ago," he said flatly. "Thus my son's sudden interest in how I spend my time. I can only assume he thought I was drowning a broken heart in buckets of firewhisky."
I tried desperately to think of a new, safer topic, but before I came up with anything, he gave a soft laugh.
"It's all right, you know. The funny thing about becoming single at my age is that you know what you're missing, and it doesn't bother you all that often. Especially since, in our case, the split was amicable."
The situation at home with Harry was the only excuse I had for my next words. "Are divorces very messy? I never heard a word about your marriage being dissolved."
He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Forgive me if this is too personal, but it sounds like you're asking out of more than concern for my welfare, Mrs. Potter." He added a delicate emphasis to my title, and suddenly it was too much to bear.
"Please, call me Ginny," I said impetuously. "And I'm sorry for my question. It was unforgivably rude."
He waved my apology away even as we both rose to rejoin the others queuing up to go back indoors. "Not at all- Ginny. If there is one thing I've learned from our friends here, it's that sometimes the benefit of others' practical experience can save you a lot of grief."
Strange, but I had never considered Draco Malfoy as a candidate to be a prophet. I was wrong.
Author notes: For those of you that are or have been in a long-term relationship, you know how Ginny feels. We all change, and sometimes your first love isn't the person you're meant to spend the rest of your life with.
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