All the Time in the World.

Hermione and Ginny leave to return to Hogwarts on the fifteenth of September, and less than a week later, Ron and Harry begin their first day of Auror training.

For a while, Harry had been toying with the idea of leaving the Burrow and moving into Grimmauld Place. No matter how much Molly insisted that he wasn’t a burden in the slightest, Harry felt badly for hanging around for so long, especially now that Hermione and Ginny were gone.

He doesn’t act on his idea until the middle of October after a trip with Ron to Hogsmeade to meet Ginny and Hermione.

Ginny tells him about the new Hogwarts, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, this year’s Gryffindor Quidditch team that she’s the captain of, and how a first year girl had overheard her talking to Hermione about Harry and now wouldn’t leave her alone.

Harry tells her about Auror training, how there are still a handful of Death Eaters that are hidden very well, the way his fellow trainees – aside from Ron and Neville – all treat him as though they worship him, and his idea of moving to Grimmauld Place.

“Just temporarily, maybe a year at most, until I find somewhere else,” he explains.

“It must be tiring working with Ron and then going home with him, too,” Ginny jokes. “But really, if you want to, I think you should go for it.”

*

Grimmauld Place is just as gloomy as Harry remembers it and exactly the way that he, Ron, and Hermione left it when they were there last. He finds the Daily Prophet from the first of September the year before announcing “Severus Snape Confirmed as Hogwarts Headmaster” and instead of throwing it out with the rest of the old newspapers, he simply folds it up and places it off to the side.

Auror training keeps him so busy that Harry barely even spends any time at Grimmauld Place except to sleep. On his few days off, he prefers to spend time with Teddy, or if it falls on a Hogsmeade trip day, with Ginny.

When Christmas rolls around, Harry finds himself spending most of his time back at the Burrow once again. The entire Weasley family is there for the holiday, but Fred’s absence hangs heavy over all of their heads. George, who had made so much progress in the past few months and had even recently began creating new Wizard Wheezes products, seems shut off once again as if Fred’s death has happened all over again.

The day after Christmas, during breakfast, Ginny makes a casual comment about wanting to go to Grimmauld Place to see what it’s like now that Harry’s living there. Just as Harry is about to tell her that it’s not much different, she shoots him a look that clearly tells him that the house itself is not what interests her about going there.

“Oh. Yeah, I’d love to show you,” he tells her, nodding, loving the idea of spending more than just a few moments alone with Ginny. But Ron seems to sense the underlying intentions of going to Grimmauld Place because he looks between the two and then says,

“Alone? Ouch, Hermione, don’t kick me!”

“Ron has a point,” Mr. Weasley says, peering at Harry over his plate of eggs. “Maybe you shouldn’t go alone.”

“Excuse me? I’m seventeen years old. I can go alone wherever I’d please and with whoever I’d like,” Ginny argues.

“Sure, as long as that ‘whoever’ is not your boyfriend,” George adds. Harry sits there, feeling suddenly like an outsider, realizing that the Weasley family seemed to like him much more as Harry, Ron’s friend rather than Harry, Ginny’s boyfriend.

“Ron can be alone with Hermione,” Ginny points out.

“I’m older than you.”

“You were nearly the same age as I am when you went to Australia together…alone.”

“Yeah, well…,” Ron starts, but doesn’t seem to know where to go from that point and falls silent.

“Will all of you just stop it?” Mrs. Weasley says as she clears the empty plates off of the table with the flick of her wand. “Ginny, of course you can go with Harry.”

“But Molly, she—”

“Is seventeen years old,” she cuts Arthur off. “And we trust her. Not to mention that her boyfriend happens to be Harry who we know very well and also trust very much.”

“Thank you, Mum.”

When they go to Grimmauld Place, they barely even waste any time pretending that they’re there to do anything that they could do at the Burrow, in front of Ginny’s family. Their bodies are immediately entwined as they kiss fiercely, Ginny’s hands on either side of Harry’s face, Harry’s arms around her waist. They’re right there in the hallway in front of all of the elf heads, kissing in a heated way that they haven’t done since before Ginny went back to Hogwarts.

“I love you,” Ginny whispers as Harry trails kisses from her mouth down to her neck. “Do you… want to…?”

Harry pulls away from her and looks at her. Her cheeks are slightly flushed, but she smiles, waiting for him to answer the unfinished question.

“I…don’t know. Do you?”

“I…think so. But only if you want. We don’t have to.”

“No, I. I want to. But should we?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.

“Ron and Hermione did it when they went to Australia. She told me. We’ve been together much longer than they were then.”

“You’ve convinced me,” Harry says, and Ginny grins, reaching down to grab his hand.

“So, which way is your bedroom?”

*

Harry avoids looking at Ginny as he puts his clothes back on and Ginny avoids looking at Harry as she does the same. He had always imagined his first time going a lot better than it just did, and he can’t seem to quite figure out what they did wrong – other than the fact that neither of them had a clue what they were doing. And just when Harry thought he had figured it out, it was over.

“Well,” Ginny says, breaking the silence between them. “That was…um.”

“Yeah,” Harry nods, finally looking over at her, and she looks beautiful with her hair ruffled and sticking up in the back. He feels ashamed for being suck a disappointment for her. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.

“What are you sorry for?”

“For being so awful!”

“You weren’t awful. I was awful.”

“You were perfectly fine,” Ginny insists. “If I hadn’t kept making you stop, I’m sure it would have been…satisfactory.”

“If you hadn’t kept making me stop, it would have been over even faster than it was,” Harry says, and then Ginny laughs, reaching over to him and pulling him towards her.

“Perhaps we just need some practice.”

“I’d say so, yeah.”

“We can try again.”

“Now?”

“No! I mean, nothing to do with you, I promise. It just… it still really hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, hating the fact that he’s caused her any sort of pain.

“Don’t be,” she says, leaning in towards him and placing a small kiss on his lips.

“I love you,” he tells her, pushing her hair away from her eyes so that he can peer directly into them.

“I love you, too,” she says, and then she closes the gap between them once more and kisses him.

*

Harry wishes that he had somebody to talk to about sex. He can’t talk to Ron about it, seeing as how it is his sister that he’s sleeping with. He imagines that the best person for this type of conversation would have been Sirius. But as he’s not there, Harry is left to try and figure things out on his own.

He and Ginny don’t get another chance to try it again before she leaves to go back to Hogwarts, so Harry tries to stop worrying about it, knowing that it will be a while before they have time alone together again

Auror training makes time seem to fly by at an alarmingly fast rate and it’s April before Harry even realizes it. He spends the entire day with Teddy on his first birthday and brings him far too many presents. Harry remembers how just a year ago, Lupin had come to Shell Cottage announcing Teddy’s birth and telling Harry that he was to be his godfather, and how Harry wasn’t sure if he would ever even get to meet Teddy. He’s incredibly happy that he did, but he longs for Lupin and Tonks to be here to celebrate their son’s first birthday as well.

The one-year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort’s downfall feels like a normal day, but it’s really anything but normal.

Ginny soon becomes the first Weasley since Percy to finish her seventh year at Hogwarts and Harry is there to meet her off of the Hogwarts Express. He greets Hermione first while Ron greets Ginny with hugs, and then Ginny is in his arms, and they’re kissing, and Harry barely even cares that nearly half of the people on the platform are staring at them.

Most evenings after Auror training, Harry and Ron return to the Burrow for dinner. With Ginny home, Harry spends more time at the Burrow after dinner than he did while she was gone.

One particular evening, when Ron and Harry arrive at the Burrow after a long day of training, Ginny greets Harry more enthusiastically than usually and Ron shoots her an odd look.

“Because you haven’t seen each other in such a long time,” he says sarcastically.

“Don’t be grumpy at us just because Hermione’s at her parents’ for the next few weeks,” Ginny tells him. “Besides, I have exciting news.”

“What is it?” Harry asks curiously.

“I’ll tell you in a bit. Come into the kitchen. Dinner is nearly ready.”

Ginny leads them both into the kitchen where the table is set up for five people. The Weasley house had become increasingly empty. George spends most of his time at the shop, Charlie is abroad once again, Percy stays at his own place, although he comes over for dinner about once a week, and Bill and Fleur do the same.

“Have you told them yet, dear?” Mrs. Weasley asks as Ginny, Harry, and Ron come into the kitchen.

“Not yet, no,” Ginny says, sitting down at the table.

“Told us what? What’s going on?” Ron demands, looking at the smiling faces of his sister and both of his parents.

“I got a letter today,” Ginny says, seeming to enjoy drawing the explanation out as long as possible, keeping Harry and Ron in suspense.

“And?” Harry urges.

“What kind of letter?” Ron asks.

“And,” she smiles, “I’ve been asked to play for the Holyhead Harpies.”

“What?! No way!” Ron exclaims.

“That’s fantastic!” Harry grins.

“My sister, a professional Quidditch player!”

“We’re all so proud,” Mr. Weasley says.

“You’ll be brilliant!” Harry tells her, and Ginny beams at them, grinning from ear to ear.

*

“Training begins at the end of July,” Ginny says when she and Harry are alone, sitting in her bedroom, not daring to do much, with Ron and her parents so close by.

“You’re going to be wonderful, Ginny.”

“Right, but what I’m saying is that…training starts…the same day as your birthday.”

“Oh,” Harry says, frowning slightly. “But that’s okay; you can just be here after training.”

“No, actually…. The first two weeks of training is almost like a camp. The whole team stays together and we sleep in dorms. It’s supposed to be like…team-building or something.”

“Well, that’s fine. So you won’t be here for one of my birthdays, no big deal. There will be plenty of other birthdays,” Harry tells her.

“I feel bad, though,” she admits.

“Ginny, you’re going to play for a professional Quidditch team; my birthday is nothing compared to that!”

“I knew you would understand,” she grins, pulling him in for a kiss.

*

Harry and Ginny spend time at Grimmauld Place whenever they can. They eventually perfect their now-favourite way to spend their alone time together, and in the days leading up to Ginny’s departure for two weeks, they don’t do much else.

*

When Hermione gets a job at the Ministry, it almost feels like old times again with the three of them going to work together and then hanging out together afterwards, with Ginny occasionally joining them in the evenings. The familiarity of it is comfortable, in a way.

*

Ginny’s first game with the Harpies against the Appleby Arrows happens towards the middle of October. Harry, Hermione, and the entire Weasley family go to support her. The Harpies win by twenty points and when he meets her after the game, Harry plants a congratulatory kiss on her lips right in front of her entire family and team. He hears whistles and catcalls coming from the directions of the other Harpies and Ginny laughs, burying her face in Harry’s neck.

“This situation seems vaguely familiar,” Ginny whispers to him, and he can’t help but laugh, thinking about their similar first kiss in the Gryffindor common room.

*

“I thought you were only going to stay at Grimmauld Place for a year at most. Hasn’t It been about a year?”

“Around a year, yeah,” Harry nods, his hand wrapped tightly around the much-smaller hand of Teddy. Ginny is on Teddy’s other side, holding onto his other hand as the three of them walk down the Muggle street leading them to the entrance of Diagon Alley. After more than two years, Harry decided that it was finally time to get a new owl, although he’s convinced that he will never find another owl as perfect as Hedwig was.

“Do you think you’ll be there longer, then?” Ginny asks. Harry shrugs.

“I haven’t really thought about it much.”

“I was only wondering because I… well, I’ve been wanting to move out of my parents’ house and I thought that if you wanted to live somewhere else, too, then… maybe would could….”

“Live together?” Harry finishes for her, looking over at her with a curious expression.

“Yeah, maybe,” she smiles.

“You think your parents would like the idea of us living together?”

“Lately, Mum’s been in such a good mood thanks to Bill and Fleur’s baby news that she’d probably let anything slide.”

Harry’s mind is flooded with images of Ginny and himself living in their very own house, eating dinner together in their very own kitchen, going to sleep in their very own bedroom. He can see himself coming home from work to Ginny, and Ginny crawling into bed with him after a long night of Quidditch practice run late. The scenes of domestic bliss cause Harry to grin and he looks over at her to tell her that he would love nothing more than to share a home with her. Before he can speak, though, he’s interrupted by an old Muggle woman who stops right before she passes them on the street.

“Oh, your son is absolutely adorable!” she coos, looking at Teddy who grins up at her, his hair a pleasantly normal shade of dark brown today.

“Oh, he’s not—” Harry begins to correct her, but Ginny cuts him off.

“Thank you!” she smiles.

“How old is he?” the woman asks.

“A year and a half,” Harry tells her.

“What a precious little family you three make,” she says. Harry and Ginny both thank her, and then she continues on her way, leaving Ginny looking as though she’s trying very hard not to laugh.

“What a nice lady,” she comments, and Harry can’t help but burst into laughter.

*

“Mum deemed it untraditional and inappropriate for an unmarried couple to live together,” Ginny sighs, falling down next to Harry on the couch at Grimmauld Place. “Not that she can really forbid me or anything, but she doesn’t approve.”

“Maybe she’ll change her mind,” Harry suggests.

“I don’t really see why she would.”

“Yeah, me either,” he says, watching her as she stretches out her limbs and then leans against Harry, letting out a yawn.

“Either way, I’ll probably bring it up with her again in a month or so.”

*

Harry discovers that sometimes, when Ginny laughs too hard, she’ll occasionally snort, which will make her laugh even harder, but mostly, she ends up gasping for air and clutching her stomach. He finds out that it only takes two Butterbeers for her to start giggling more often and more loudly than usual. When she falls asleep when she’s really tired, she tends to snore, and she almost always drools. He finds that she’s extremely ticklish on the back of her neck down to right between her shoulder blades and he uses this to his advantage whenever he can. He notices a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon near her bellybutton and another that looks like a rabbit on the inside of her left thigh. He learns that when she chews her bottom lip and when creases appear on her forehead that he shouldn’t cross her, and when she does lash out at him, all he has to do is make a stupid joke or lightly sarcastic remark and she’ll tell him that it’s not funny, even though he can always see her fighting back a smile.

Harry enjoys watching her do the simplest of tasks, from brushing her hair to helping her mother set the table for dinner. He especially loves watching her with Teddy, how he’ll run towards her when he sees her and she’ll scoop him up into a hug and won’t let go until he demands to be let down, and how she’ll tickle him and blow raspberries on his stomach until he’s shrieking with laughter.

Sometimes he worries that he tells her that he loves her too much and that he’s getting annoying, but she assures him that she could hear it a million more times and she still wouldn’t get tired of it, and he feels the same way about her.

*

“How would you feel if I asked your sister to marry me?” Harry asks Ron one day during their lunch break, and Ron nearly chokes on his ham sandwich. Harry hands him his drink, but Ron waves it away, coughing for a few moments, and then grabbing for the drink. When he finishes, he looks at Harry with watery eyes.

“Blimey, Harry,” he says. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he nods, waiting for a reaction that he can actually understand.

“You would really be a part of the family!” he exclaims, breaking out into a grin. “Harry, we’re going to be brothers!”

“So you think it’s a good idea then?” Harry smiles.

“I think it’s brilliant! I mean, I know I’ve been a bit hard on you when it comes to dating my sister, but marrying her! It’s brilliant! How soon are you going to do it?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he says, and just then, Hermione bustles into the small café where the three of them usually all meet for lunch.

“Sorry I’m late,” she tells them. “I had to finish up a report that’d been buried under things on my desk for the past week and I can’t believe I forgot about it, but it didn’t take too long to—why are you both smiling so much? Have I missed something?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Ron says as he pushes Hermione’s usual salad order in front of her. “Harry’s only just been telling me about his plan to propose to Ginny.”

Hermione’s excited shriek rings throughout the tiny restaurant, but she doesn’t seem to mind that the two other diners and the workers all turn to stare at her as she practically runs over to Harry to hug him.

“When?! How are you going to do it? Have you gotten a ring?”

“For the love of Merlin, Hermione, sit down. You’re causing a scene!” Ron says, but he’s smiling.

“I don’t know when or how and no, I haven’t gotten a ring,” Harry answers her, laughing.

“Oh, Harry!” she exclaims.

“Are you tearing up?” Ron asks with a laugh, and Hermione simply swats his arm lightly.

“Oh, hush. It’s one of us getting married!”

“Getting possibly engaged, actually,” Harry says. “She still has to say yes.”

“Of course she’ll say yes,” Hermione assures him.

“She’s only been in love with you since she was ten years old; she’d be an idiot to say no,” Ron says. Harry grins and his happiness is reflected back at him on the faces of his two best friends.

*

Harry goes to every single one of Ginny’s Quidditch games, occasionally hurrying through work as fast as possible to leave the Auror office exactly on time. In mid-November, before a game against Puddlemere United, Harry gathers at the Burrow with Ron, Hermione, and George, who brings along Angelina Johnson, both of them anxious to see Ginny face off against their old Gryffindor Quidditch captain, Oliver Wood’s team.

While most of them are gathered in the sitting room, Harry notices Molly go into the kitchen, and then he spots Arthur not too far from him.

“Mr. Weasley?” Harry asks, coming close to him. “Could I have a quick word with you in the kitchen?”

“Of course, Harry,” he nods, looking slightly worried. Before he proposes to Ginny, he desperately wants the approval of her parents, and he figures that now, while she’s not there is one of the best opportunities that he’s going to get. When they step into the kitchen, Molly looks at them.

“Do you need anything?” she asks.

“No, dear, Harry just wanted a word.”

“Oh, should I leave you two alone?”

“No,” Harry says. “I actually wanted to speak to both of you.”

“What is it, Harry?” Arthur asks him and Harry suddenly feels incredibly nervous. Earlier, the idea of letting Mr. and Mrs. Weasley know about his plan to propose seemed easy, but now it seems incredibly difficult. What if they don’t approve?

“Um. I wanted to talk to you about, er. I wanted to ask you… I mean, tell you, no, ask you, well, get your opinion, I guess….”

“Harry, dear, what is it?” Molly asks, smiling kindly at him, and for a fleeting second, Harry gets a feeling that she already might have a clue as to what he’s about to say.

“I want to ask Ginny to marry me.”

Molly starts crying. Arthur claps a hand over his shoulder and beams at him.

“You’re already a part of this family, Harry, and it would be an honour for me to call you my son-in-law,” he tells him. Molly nods in agreement, rushing forward to pull Harry into a tight hug.

“You’re both still so young, though,” she says, despite her happy demeanor.

“I know,” Harry nods, understanding her worries. “But I’ve known for years that I wanted to marry her and I know that she’s the only one I’ll ever want to marry. We’ve known each other for so long and I…want her to be my wife. Whether it happens tomorrow or ten years from now, it doesn’t matter. I just want to be with her forever.”

“Oh, Harry,” she says, pulling him into another hug. “There’s nobody I’d rather see my daughter marry.”

*

Harry buys a ring, but he refuses to let Ron or Hermione see it until it’s on Ginny’s finger. He imagines different scenarios of how he could propose to her, ruling almost all of them out immediately as too cheesy. He wants it to be absolutely perfect, but he can’t help but think of all of the different ways in which it can go wrong.

“Tie the ring to Humphrey’s leg and have him bring it to her,” Ron suggests, referring to Harry’s new owl, but Harry shakes his head.

“Just put it on her finger while she’s asleep and then see how long it takes her to notice it after she wakes up,” Neville says, having joined the other three for lunch.

“How romantic,” Hermione laughs. “Take her out to dinner, get down on one knee, and do it.”

“That’s so…used, though.”

“Challenge her to one-on-one Quidditch, put the ring on the Snitch somehow, and then let her win!” Ron exclaims, sounding very proud of his idea.

“No way I would ever let her win,” Harry jokes.

“Okay, fine. But seriously, get on it, Harry. Just do it already because I hate carrying around this secret. I’m scared I’m going to let something slip and then the whole thing will be ruined!”

“It’s not that easy, you know! I don’t know how much experience you have when it comes to proposing marriage to girls, but I have none and it’s not the easiest thing to just pick up,” Harry says, frowning slightly.

“It’s amazing to me that you can defeat the darkest wizard in the world, but when it comes to something like this, you’re hopeless,” Hermione laughs.

“Yes, it is hilarious, isn’t it?” Harry grumbles, but he can’t help but laugh.

*

“Ten points,” Ginny grumbles, pacing back in forth in the sitting room at Grimmauld Place. “Ten little points, and we were so close! If only I could have held off catching the damn Snitch until we scored another couple times, but I really had no choice…. We’d been doing so well, too! But there goes our winning streak because of ten points!”

Harry sits on the couch, watching her pace, and he can’t help but admire the way her cheeks are flushed and how her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, still looking windblown from the game.

“You played great, though,” Harry says. “The way you caught up to the other seeker and stole the Snitch right out from under his nose… it was amazing.”

“Thanks,” she sighs, slumping down on the couch, next to him. “I’m still upset, though.”

“Will you marry me?”

The words fall out of Harry’s mouth before his brain decides to alert him that right now, right here is probably not the best or most romantic moment to be proposing. But something about the moment seemed perfect in an unconventional way. And Ginny looks at him, all traces of upset feelings gone from her face and replaced with mild shock.

“What?” she asks.

“Shit, hold on, I have a…,” he mutters, searching his pockets, but then realizing that he doesn’t have the ring on him, seeing as how he did not exactly plan to do this right at this exact time. Instead, he grabs his wand and says, “Accio ring!”

The little box comes zooming towards him from his bedroom while Ginny continues to stare at Harry, looking amazed and surprised. He catches the ring and then, in an attempt to make his proposal somewhat normal, he moves to kneel in front of Ginny.

“Ginny—”

“Yes!” she exclaims, suddenly grinning. “Yes, yes, of course!”

And then her arms are around him and they’re kissing and Harry can’t remember ever feeling happier than he does in this moment.