Mistake after mistake—they'd been piling up since his days as a student. Harry had amassed his failures into a massive, thick tome—perhaps more than one. But he knew exactly what he'd call this daft biography of his life: The Boy Who Lived and Cocked It All Up.

Or maybe The Man Who Shat Himself.

You'd always been the other woman, even though he was your first kiss, your first tangle of sheets—and you were his. But something had always stood between you: first the war, then Ginny, his career as the Head of the Auror Office, his marriage, his children.

But even he knew—it was all lies. He needed only one thing: you.

Six months ago, after the divorce, he came back to you—drunk, desperate, starving for you. And then, in a pathetic attempt at self-preservation, he disappeared again. Like in every clichéd drama, it turns out you're pregnant. He cannot come up with anything better than to blurt out that you should get rid of it. He didn't even say the word baby—just it. As if you need another wound. Perhaps he's trying to fool you, or maybe he's just fooling himself. He doesn't want you to walk away from his life, but he cannot bring himself to stay either.

Maybe you're drunk too—desperate to hold on to some piece of Harry because you're so burnt out—tired of loving him, tired of hating him.

“Hi,” the man says, his voice uncertain. “How are you?”

You nearly bump into his chest as you step out of your house.

His emerald eyes, framed by those same round glasses, bluntly dart down to your now-rounded belly. He has no right to be here, yet he cannot look away. Harry rubs his beard and runs a hand over his face. He wants to be somewhere else. Someone else. But at the same time, for Merlin's sake, he wants to be here. With you.

“I don't know if you understand,” Harry begins, then stops short. “I can't—”

Leave? Lie? Or come back to you again only when his life is falling apart? Idiot.

“Look, please,” he takes a step closer. “I know I screw things up—like no one else ever has. But I love you. I need you.”