Confessions of an Ex-Death-Eater

Saturday 3rd November 2007

For his troubles, Harry had been invited to Malfoy Manor for lunch the following Saturday with Teddy. Not that it had been any trouble, he just took Teddy to school, Apparated straight to the Malfoy grounds and walked up to the Manor and knocked on the door. Then he side-alonged Draco and Scorpius to school before heading back to the university with Draco. The most 'trouble' it had caused him was dealing with the close proximity of Draco as they Apparated. He wasn't quite sure why he felt so uncomfortable. He'd never been bothered about side-along Apparating before.

It needed analysis so Harry decided he needed to go for a run first thing on Saturday morning. He hadn't been running for the best part of seven years, not since he was training to be an Auror but back then he found running helped when he needed space to think. And going for a run was absolutely nothing to do with the sudden urge to be as ripped as he'd been back when he was fighting fit and twenty-years-old and Witch Weekly named most eligible and handsome wizard on earth and he had women throwing themselves at him left, right and centre. As opposed to now when he felt like he'd rather let all that slip away and although he was only twenty-seven-years-old, he felt more like forty-seven. No, it was absolutely nothing to do with the sudden desire to feel he might be attractive again to someone out there who might just, maybe, possibly, hopefully, still be interested, whoever they might be.

He pushed himself for nearly an hour, surprised at his muscle memory and latent fitness from swimming.

He supposed his sudden urge 'to think' stemmed back to when he and Ginny split up for the final time. They managed to maintain their on-and-off relationship for about ten months after the Battle of Hogwarts. It was never quite right and they both knew it but expectations, the familiarity of the whole thing, and apathy kept dragging them back together. Then Gin got offered a place with the Harpies after she graduated from Hogwarts and that was the push they both needed to admit they couldn't continue with the pretence that everything was perfect.

That was when Harry moved into Walpole Street. He needed somewhere that wasn't haunted by the ghosts of Grimmauld Place or loaded with the expectancies of The Burrow. Plus, Andromeda needed help with Teddy, so they mutually benefitted from the arrangement. Teddy was over the moon that his Godfather was there all the time and Harry was equally delighted to be there, especially when he got to see Teddy's first steps and when Teddy started calling him 'Dar'.

He settled down into a comfortable, if not somewhat staid, life for a young man; rarely going out, instead simply going to work and helping with Teddy. He never really bothered with relationships after Gin, he found he just wasn't that fussed, no matter how many women threw themselves at his feet.

Then Confessions hit the bookshops and Harry was sent swirling into turmoil. He shut himself in his bedroom and refused to come out for forty-eight hours, much to Teddy's distress and Andromeda's amusement. She called on reinforcements and Gin and Mione came around. Gin was on a rest between seasons. The two young women sat cautiously on the edge of his bed watching him as he sat hunched against the wall practically tearing out his more-messy-than-usual hair.

'Have you bloody read it?' he kept repeating.

'It's all about me,' he whined.

And that final chapter...' he whinged.

'Fuck, the press are going to have a field day...' he moaned.

'Of course it's all about you,' Mione sighed. 'It always has been.'

'And the press always have a field day with you, at least this will be a new angle for them to run,' grinned Gin.

'The question is, what do you feel about it all?' Mione asked.