Drarry One Shots

Secret Guilty Pleasures

A/N First, the dates don't work in the slightest with regards to when the story is set (between 1998-2003) versus the dates of when various theatre shows came to the Westend, e.g. Cabaret and Moulin Rouge opened in 2021 and 2022 - I ask you to ignore this inconsistency. Second, there is a one-sentence SPOILER for Moulin Rouge so if you haven't seen the film or stage show and intend to and don't want to know... the sentence carries a warning!

@lottie_marauder_Xx is entirely to blame for this story...

***

The truth is, guys, that after the war, life was really dull for me. In fact, I was pretty unimpressed by it all. Without sounding too blasé about it, there were no mad men trying to kill me, no more arch-nemeses, no more Horcruxes to be hunted, no more adventures to be had. That was it. It was all finished and over with in a snap of the fingers – ish... and that was all I'd known for the past seven years.

And then, on top of it all, there were an awful lot of expectations. Different expectations. Not the saving the world kind. And, to be honest, the quite boring kind. You know everyone expecting me to immediately join the Aurors... and I was supposed to do lots of Ministry based-things... and attend all those bloody press interviews and have my photo taken a lot... and don't take me wrong on this one, but there were the expectations that I would marry Ginny too. And you all know I love Ginny, but just... well, we also know that it's more of brotherly-sisterly kind of thing and yes, it took us long enough to come to that realisation, but there we are. That's how it is and that's definitely not changing now... especially considering...

Anyway, the point is, I didn't really want to do any of those things. Not in my heart of hearts. But nor did I know what I wanted either. I felt, in truth, lost and without any direction.

So yeah, in the September after the war, I went back to Hogwarts with Mione and finished my N.E.W.T.s. Sure, it was under much duress from Mione, and Minnie for that matter, but it made sense at the time. And the Mind Healer helped, so yeah thanks for that too, Mione and Minnie. And yeah, I did well in my N.E.W.T.s, probably mostly to do with that same duress from Mione and Minnie, but also because I had a year of education where I didn't actually have a bloody dark wizard... or Ron... to distract me or generally any death-danger scenarios to be dealing with. And, you know what? I really couldn't do what Ron did. I wasn't ready to join the Aurors immediately, there was too much for me to pick through and unravel. I really get that he'd had enough of studying, not everyone's paths are the same and we've all come out of it alright anyway so it doesn't matter. The worst part, really, about going back to Hogwarts was I spent an awful lot of year eight trying to escape unwanted attention from an awful lot of people, even though it was well publicised that Gin and I were an item. That was pretty hellish. That... and the ghosts of the war... and the nightmares... and the ongoing expectations...

Anyway...

So, as you know, after Hogwarts, I did join the Aurors and I enjoyed my training, for a time. Though, truthfully, I only really enjoyed the physical training and the learning defence spells and practical stuff. Whereas, I really didn't enjoy learning about magical law and rules or more Ministry stuff. Still, for a while, I relaxed into life. A life that even I saw, pretty ruefully, was boringly sensible and expected of me. Then I came to this horrible realisation, and I admit to being slightly bitter about this: I'd turned into one of those archetypical high-school characters in American movies who had been a high-scoring, big-guy jock and then left school to become a policeman. I don't mean anything by that, not really, there's nothing wrong with choosing to serve and uphold the law, it's a commendable job in life... a really commendable job. It was just... well... too expected of me and I didn't feel particularly enthusiastic about it by then. It bored me, if I'm being honest about it. Maybe I'd just had enough of doing that sort of stuff. Besides, there wasn't even half the running around or heroics that I expected, it was mostly talking to old witches about their neighbour's cat.