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fics_by_mapleChapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Within You, Without You
Chapter 11 – Don’t Let Me Down
~^~
“Of course, he’s like a brother to me, you know that,” Ron said, beginning to lean more of his weight on the elbow resting on the table. “He means more to me than any one of our brothers, truth be told.” He held up a long, warning finger. “- Just don’t ask me to repeat that in front of the lot of them - but no one knows more than I do, Ginny. Harry’s … broken.”
“Ron,” Ginny scolded, feeling her body temperature rise. She’d been prepared for brotherly warnings or well wishes perhaps, but not criticism of her Harry.
As this conversation was proving, she now realized there was some unclear delineation between her Harry and Ron’s Harry.
Ron waved a hand with a deep, knowing nod, but continued speaking as he refilled their glasses. Just as he had for the last two hours, he filled Firewhisky to the top of his and hers only half-full.
“It’s just that... he’s got hurts and haunts in him, Harry does, that may never get better,” he said, wincing as he swallowed.
“You never let anyone say a word against Harry,” Ginny said. “You almost knocked George flat out over how he treated him. And now you, of all people, are going to warn me about dangers of marrying him?” Ginny was feeling very hot, but considered that it might be from the whisky rather than temper.
“Well, now don’t get me wrong,” he countered defensively, his tongue and manner thoroughly loosened by drink. “Harry’s still my mate. That’ll never change. If he gets it into his head to go battle –things- again, he knows I’ll be there on his right side, without question.” Ron put his glass down and leaned on his arms across the table and lowered his voice. “But when it’s when ya come home, sister, during peace time…” Ron shook his head slowly, glancing at her face, but not quite meeting her eyes. He looked guilty. “A man lets out his real burdens to his wife, you know? When he can’t offload his anger at the bastard grieving him, he takes out his foul temper on his wife, too, cause he knows she’s the one person who’ll still love him even if he acts like an arse once in awhile. And sometimes...” His ears pinkened a bit, which was unlikely from the drink, she thought. “Sometimes he’ll cry his heart out in her arms ‘cause he knows she won’t think he’s less of wizard for doing it.”
Ron dropped his head, looking as though he felt relieved of a burden, and scratched at a groove in the table.
Ginny’s fingers unconsciously pressed over her heart, so tender was her brother’s confession. Seeing Ron, not as just another brother, but as a man himself who was in love.
“Since when did you get so sensitive, Ron?” Ginny said, reaching her other hand to touch his.
His shoulder and the corner of his lip both shrugged upward as he considered the last of the liquid in his glass. “Dad told me.”
“Ha!” Ginny laughed, noticing her feet were beginning to feel heavy under the table. “And here I thought you’d gone all wise without my noticing.”
He sniggered. “Nah – but I have been married myself for awhile, and it does seem to be true. The person you’re married to sees the ugliest part of you – and I’m not talking ‘bout that!” he added when Ginny opened her mouth with a glint in her eye. “Filthy mind,” he muttered good-naturedly. “She’s not the easiest person in the world to be with either, mind. My girl’s got some rough edges that are none too pretty herself. But that’s okay with me, you know?”
Ginny nodded, staring at her brother’s mouth as he spoke.
“What are doing? Stop it,” he said, and only then did she realize that she was silently mouthing every word he said.
“Sorry.” Ginny clamped a hand over her mouth. She was trying to pay close attention, feeling that Ron was saying something of importance, but as she focused on him the left side of his face went blurry. She blinked hard and his face – or her vision, rather, cleared up again.
“Are you listening to me?” he asked, waving a hand in front of her.
“I am! Really, Ron, please continue,” she assured, feeling the strange sensation of her slightly numb tongue, inspiring her to say ‘con tin ue’ a few more times.
“So all tha’ ‘m tryin’ to say, is tha’ you fancy a real messed up bloke. I mean, Ilovehim, but he’s trouble. So wha’ ‘m sayin’ is, is from now on, he’ll be your trouble. Not mine. ‘s all ‘m sayin’. Get it?”
“Get it.” Ginny nodded solemnly. “-Er, got it.”
“k’ now, I think yer talkin’ funny. You mus’ be drunk,” Ron declared, looking at the empty bottle on the table next to them.
“I … am … no … such … thing,” Ginny said with slow and deliberate enunciation.
They looked at each other very seriously.
His nostril flared. Her lip twitched. Together, they burst into hysterics.
~
“What are you doing here?” Hermione asked Harry with accusation as he walked into the kitchen.
Harry glanced behind him before looking back at her.
“Blimey, I know I’ve worn out my welcome, but I do still live here.”
Hermione tutted and smiled at him. “You haven’t worn out your welcome – we’re going to miss you. But Ron left a bit ago with a bottle of Firewhisky and he didn’t change his shirt, so I assumed he was meeting you.”
“Oh! No, he’s meeting Ginny. - He took a bottle of Firewhisky?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if he was meeting me he would have brought two bottles.” Harry winked.
“Hmm. Come here, try this.” She stuffed a wooden spoonful of chocolate in his mouth. “I’m trying something new.”
So Harry found himself enjoying an evening alone with Hermione, knowing that these moments of easy conversation in the kitchen that he’d grown accustomed to since he moved here were nearing an end. He happily ate Hermione’s latest experiments in cooking, which was to melt chocolate and drizzle it over biscuits. It wasn’t proper ‘baking’ as far as Mrs. Weasley was concerned, but Harry disposed of Hermione’s research until his stomach ached.
“I’m not sure what Charlie’s opinion would be,” Hermione was saying as she poured tea, “but I’ve read that rather than striking the dragon with the charm directly, if you aim instead at the-” She was interrupted by the sound of the fireplace erupting into use. “Oh, that’ll be them, then,” she said, and they both turned.
The green flames flickered and swirled for just a moment but then died out with no sign of anyone within.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other in bewilderment.
“Well that was odd,” she said plainly.
“I’ll say.”
There was no need to ponder the empty Floo for long before the hearth blazed again. A tangle of pale freckly arms swirled into view before them. They weren’t standing in place for even a moment before Ron and Ginny swayed and fell head long onto the floor at Harry and Hermione’s feet.
“They’re bloody pissed!” Hermione gasped.
Harry chuckled at her exclamation. “So it seems,” he agreed, looking down at them.
Ginny and Ron were twisted together, wracked in gales of silent laughter, tears streaming down their faces. At last, they reached a breathing point, gasped for air and resigned themselves to their horizontal position on the floor.
“We fell,” Ginny offered, by way of obvious explanation.
“Twice!” Ron added, which set them off into fits again.
“Hell,” Harry said, rubbing his nose. “Is this what Ron and I smelled like when we came home stonked?”
“No. Ginny smells a great deal better than you did.”
Harry knelt beside them, delicately untangling Ginny from her brother’s ridiculously long limbs.
“Haar-ry,” Ginny gasped with an exuberance of affection, cupping Harry’s face in nothing short of moderate slap.
“Hi there, beautiful,” Harry said with a wince, rubbing his cheek and gathered her into his arms. “Have a good day?” he asked casually.
“Harry, we were just talking about you,” she said, nuzzling her face into his chest as he heaved her off the floor.
“Is that so?” he answered her gently, though giving Ron a stern look.
“Nothing but good stuff. I swear!” Ron effused with wide eyes from his place on the floor.
“Yeah, right. You.” Harry pointed an accusing finger at Ron from under his grasp on Ginny’s legs. “Went and got my girl rat-arsed without me.”
Harry was joking with Ron, however serious he sounded.
“Had to get her good and soused to find out wha’ she really though’ of ya. But I only poured her half of wha’ I had maself.”
“Good thing, that. She’d have been pickled otherwise.”
Ginny giggled against Harry’s chest.
“Pickled,” she repeated and dozed against him.
Harry kissed her forehead gently and turned to carry her out. A niggling anxiety pricked down his spine as Ron’s comment sunk in and he turned back.
Ron was peeking down Hermione’s blouse as she leaned over to pull him up. He blinked up at Harry, meeting his questioning eyes.
There was a pause between the two of them before Ron’s face softened into a wide grin.
“Ah,” he said, understanding. “She’s mad abou’ ya, mate. No worries.”
Harry dropped his eyes and cleared his throat to subside the embarrassing concern he’d felt.
“I’ll get her squared away, and come back to help you with him,” Harry told Hermione as he maneuvered through the kitchen, careful not to sweep the chocolate off the counter with Ginny’s feet.
“That’s quite all right, Harry. If I can manage to get the two of you to bed when you’re snockered, I can handle Ron alone.”
As he went up the stairs, he heard Ron make a rude comment about Hermione ‘handling him’ which was followed by a dull ‘thwap.’
Harry gently undressed Ginny down to her slip-dress and deposited her into his bed. Then he dug through his top drawer to find a brown bottle of restorative potion. Turning it over in his hand, he mused that it had been several months since he’d used the tonic himself.
“There now, you’ll feel better soon,” he said after giving her a dose, pulling the blanket up to her shoulders. “But you’ll still need to sleep it off.”
“Hm,” Ginny purred, smiling with eyes closed as she tilted her face into his hand. “Sleep with me?” she asked, pushing the sheet back in invitation, before breaking into an ungraceful yawn.
This time Harry suppressed a reticent chuckle at her double entendre. So tempting. He’d like nothing more than to undress and climb into bed next to her petite body. The warmth of the Firewhisky made her glow. Her lips were deep burgundy as were the peaks of her breasts, which showed through the thin cotton covering her. Her upper thigh was exposed as well, and he felt his body stir at the sight and quickly pressed a hand to his groin to stifle the aching reaction. Not tonight.
“Sure, love, I’ll sleep next to you,” he said softly, brushing her hair back. “But I’ve got to Owl the Burrow first. Don’t want them to worry.”
“Oh-kay,” she sighed, closing her eyes with a faint smile.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asked, knowing quite well himself how sharing a bottle with Ron seemed to set the world right again.
“I really did.”
“That’s good. Are you feeling better now?”
She didn’t answer. Smiling happily, Ginny settled into Harry’s pillow and slept.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, pausing with his lips against her skin, trying to suppress the rush of emotion and excitement welling up in him. “Three more days, love,” he whispered.
~^~
The house loomed large around them. The warm red bricks of the fireplace were accentuated by the rich alder berry mantle piece. The small panels of amber stained glass inlaid in the heavy oak door cast a warm glow on the cream paper lining the walls.
Harry and Ginny both felt very small in the vast space of the unfilled house and sought out the alcove of the living room window-seat. Ginny lay curled into the space next to Harry with her head in his lap. Massaging her scalp, he made tiny circles over the crown of her head, fluffing up her hair. She had a vertical crease between her brows that he began to stroke with his thumb.
“So, is this - ” He indicated with his thumb. “- because of the headache, or because of the house?” Harry asked quietly, to minimize the echo effect of his voice throughout the house.
“Headache. Oh, that feels good.” She looked up at him with a reassuring smile. “The house is beautiful, Harry. Better than I had dreamed. Quite hard to believe that it’s meant to be for us. I haven’t earned this. Oh– but you have,” she added quickly, reaching up to touch his cheek. “You deserve this. It was proper to rebuild what should have been your parents’ home. I’m glad we’ve put back what Godric’s Hollow lost, too.”
Harry cupped the side of her face, and she slid her hand from his cheek into his hair and pulled him down. Folding himself near in two to kiss her, he took his time, enjoying the heat of her mouth and the taste of her. Feeling the subtle movement of her hand into his hair, pulling him imperceptibly closer, and drawing their kiss deeper.
Ginny shifted her head slightly and giggled.
“Sorry,” Harry said softly, sitting up wriggling a bit.
Ginny turned and pressed her face against the firmness in his trousers.
“We haven’t had a moment’s privacy in a week,” she murmured, teasing him by opening her mouth and breathing onto the evidence of his arousal. Her hot moist breath filtered through the material of his thin trousers and he throbbed with the desire to have her mouth on him. “And Ron and Hermione are due any moment.”
“God, I know it,” he moaned and the sound came back to them louder as it ricocheted off the walls. “But it’s just as well. Feels like the house is watching us, doesn’t it?”
Ginny, more accustomed to the reality of such possibilities, looked up at him sharply.
“It doesn’t do that, does it?” she asked.
“No.” He smiled. “Magically sound and fairly well-protected, but no eyes.”
“Oh, good,” she sighed, relieved.
They looked around the house again. Long rays of afternoon sunlight streamed across the shiny, hardwood floor, making the tiny dust particles floating in the light look like pixie dust. The house did feel alive, humming with the energy of a new magical entity not yet awake.
“Hello?” called Hermione’s soft voice tentatively from the front door.
“Come in,” Harry answered quietly, preserving the silence.
Hermione let out a whispered ‘Oh my …’ as she looked around, as impressed with the sight as they were.
“Wicked!” Ron exclaimed loudly, startling everyone out of their quiet reverie.
With a devious chuckle, he charged directly up the stairs, each pounding footstep reverberating off the walls. They winced as they listened to him clomping his way around the second floor, from room to room.
“Bugger me – what do you need two toilets for?” he shouted, sounding far off, but perfectly clear.
Once at the top of the stairs again, he hopped onto the banister and slid all the way down, hands outstretched for balance. Whooping loudly, he landed with a terrific ‘whump.’
“What?” he asked, looking at the three sets of eyes blinking up at him. “Harry, don’t tell me you haven’t tried that yet?” He pointed back at the banister.
“Not … yet,” Harry admitted, thinking that it did look fun, in spite of an annoying grown up part of him that was thinking, if it breaks, I’ll have to fix it.
“Ginny, you can’t possibly still be hung over from last night,” Ron said, noticing her lying on Harry’s lap, and he reached toward a strand of Ginny’s hair. “Ow,” he yelped when Harry smacked Ron’s hand away and he retracted it, sucking his knuckle.
“No, just a vicious headache,” Ginny said with a sigh and sat up. “I thought it was the Pomegranate juice.” She rubbed her forehead. “But now I think it might be the Mugwort.”
“Hermione gets headaches from Mugwort,” Ron observed. “But that’s from-” A comprehension dawned in his eyes and he looked down at the floor. “Ah.”
Harry’s insides twisted with the awkwardness that Ron apparently felt, but the women seemed oblivious of it.
“Try putting a few Queen Anne’s Lace seeds in it, that might help,” Hermione suggested. “Makes it more effective, too.”
Ginny stood, and she and Hermione continued discussing the various ingredients of contraception potion.
The longer Ron stared at his feet, the more Harry felt his face heat up, but he struggled to find his voice. He was determined not to act like a teenager about this; he was about to be a married man, after all. He quietly cleared his throat.
“The potion’s effectiveness hasn’t been tested yet, you know?” Harry muttered. “ … Wedding isn’t for two more days,” he added, trying to make his point.
Ron then raised his head.
“Oh?” He grinned, and shoved Harry’s shoulder. “Oh! Good man! I knew I liked you for a reason.”
Harry ‘harrumphed.’
“What are you talking about?” Ginny asked, looking at them suspiciously.
“Nothing at all, little sister.”
Ron draped an overly proud arm over her shoulder and patted the top of her head, to which she reached up and with exact precision, twisted his nipple, making him shriek.
“How about you two start bringing in the furniture, and we’ll sort out the kitchen?” Hermione suggested, trying to break up the lingering pinching and hair pulling between the siblings.
“Yeah, all right,” Ron said, rubbing his chest as he walked towards the door. Ginny pulled a face at him, still rubbing the crown of her head.
Harry and Ron went into the garden where a great assortment of furniture and boxes, most of which were wedding gifts, had arrived. There had still not been any formal public announcement of the wedding, but their close friends and acquaintances had been made privy to the nuptials, and furniture of all variety had begun appearing that morning. Nothing was new; it was all antiques, as it was good luck in wizarding tradition to give a bride and groom something from the family. Harry assumed this partially explained why everything in the magical world seemed more old-fashioned.
“Guess we won’t see much of you at the house, anymore,” Ron said, levitating a table and carefully maneuvering it through the front door with his wand.
“Yep, you’ll finally be rid of me,” Harry joked.
“’Bout bloody time, too!” Ron smiled.
He followed Ron into the house, levitating the six matching chairs along behind him.
“And Bill still believes that it’s a woman, then?” Hermione was asking.
“Seems so, though Fleur reckons Bill’s a bit put out,” sniggered Ginny, sending a tray of cutlery through the air and into an awaiting drawer.
“About what?” Harry asked.
“About Charlie,” she told him. “His letters have been pretty reticent, and Bill figures Charlie must be keeping quiet because of a woman, and if so, she must be a right nightmare.”
“But why should she be awful? Why shouldn’t Charlie have found someone wonderful?”
Harry chuckled, putting a bracing hand on Hermione’s shoulder as he passed her. She would always be optimistic.
“Well, love,” Ron interjected, “I don’t think you’ve seen the sort of birds Charlie fancies.”
Ron and Harry exchanged a knowing look. They’d gone out to the pubs on more than one occasion with Fred and Charlie since the war ended. Charlie had an inclination to seek out tall, thin, blonde and brainless. Harry supposed the dimmer they were, the easier it was to send them on their way in the morning with too little regret.
“With Charlie’s taste in women, I can just imagine what he’ll bring home. Mum would have a fit.” Ron shrugged.
Hermione seemed mildly indignant on Charlie’s behalf. To her, Charlie had always been a mild flirt, but she respected his caring nature with animals and seemed to sympathize with not being able relate with a lot of folks. She had also been protected from seeing Charlie’s darker, depressed and drunken self.
Ron put his arm around Hermione’s shoulder and squeezed. “I don’t like saying so about my brother. Maybe he’s changed.”
“Well if he’s found a person and not a bloody animal he can actually get on with, then it’s all the better, I say,” Ginny added from behind a stack of copper-bottomed pots she whisked onto a rack above the stove.
“It has happened very quickly in any case. I’ll grant that. Could he have really got to know her well enough to become friends? Love based on friendship is the strongest, I think. Especially when you’re the best of friends.” Hermione looked up from the box she was unloading and stole a glance at Ron.
“I dunno, your best friend, eh?” Ron said, looking skeptically at Harry. Harry blew a kiss at him and waved his fingers making ‘eyes.’
“Not Harry – me, you prat!” Hermione swatted Ron’s arm.
“Like George and Lee too,” Ginny said with a grin, and both girls giggled.
Harry and Ron exchanged a skeptical glance at this but didn’t say anything. They both had promised their support to George, but the whole idea of that was still something they couldn’t quite understand. But as Ginny and Hermione seemed enamored of the new couple, it seemed best not to mention it.
Their conversation moved quickly away from Charlie and onto the more mundane issues of arranging furniture and choosing which cupboard to put the plates and mugs in. Ginny really couldn’t care less and Harry had no opinion either, but he had seen Hermione and Ron have rousing arguments over the most efficient placement of the dishes. Anything for a good, exciting argument apparently.
“Harry,” Ginny whispered in his ear, “I’m sure you’ll know with clarity when I’m upset with you, but I’ll never fuss at you about dishes, I promise.”
They sniggered together and stole a kiss while they could.
“Hey!” Harry grabbed her once more. She turned to him and he pulled her close for another moment, his hand resting on the top of her bum, and nuzzled her ear before whispering, “Only two more days.”
“I know,” she said, kissing him, scrubbing her thumb over the rough stubble that grew on his chin. “I’m counting, too.”
~^~ Continue to Chapter 12
A/N - My continued thanks to my Checkmated beta, BelovedRanger, for working so promptly on this. Many hugs to Quizzical, AlliPotter and Lnalvgd for their help and encouragement. The next chapter is nearly complete and will be published much sooner than these recent updates have been. Thank you so much for reading and leaving comments, which are now over 400 here on CM! It means so much to me!
Within You, Without You
Chapter 11 – Don’t Let Me Down
~^~
“Of course, he’s like a brother to me, you know that,” Ron said, beginning to lean more of his weight on the elbow resting on the table. “He means more to me than any one of our brothers, truth be told.” He held up a long, warning finger. “- Just don’t ask me to repeat that in front of the lot of them - but no one knows more than I do, Ginny. Harry’s … broken.”
“Ron,” Ginny scolded, feeling her body temperature rise. She’d been prepared for brotherly warnings or well wishes perhaps, but not criticism of her Harry.
As this conversation was proving, she now realized there was some unclear delineation between her Harry and Ron’s Harry.
Ron waved a hand with a deep, knowing nod, but continued speaking as he refilled their glasses. Just as he had for the last two hours, he filled Firewhisky to the top of his and hers only half-full.
“It’s just that... he’s got hurts and haunts in him, Harry does, that may never get better,” he said, wincing as he swallowed.
“You never let anyone say a word against Harry,” Ginny said. “You almost knocked George flat out over how he treated him. And now you, of all people, are going to warn me about dangers of marrying him?” Ginny was feeling very hot, but considered that it might be from the whisky rather than temper.
“Well, now don’t get me wrong,” he countered defensively, his tongue and manner thoroughly loosened by drink. “Harry’s still my mate. That’ll never change. If he gets it into his head to go battle –things- again, he knows I’ll be there on his right side, without question.” Ron put his glass down and leaned on his arms across the table and lowered his voice. “But when it’s when ya come home, sister, during peace time…” Ron shook his head slowly, glancing at her face, but not quite meeting her eyes. He looked guilty. “A man lets out his real burdens to his wife, you know? When he can’t offload his anger at the bastard grieving him, he takes out his foul temper on his wife, too, cause he knows she’s the one person who’ll still love him even if he acts like an arse once in awhile. And sometimes...” His ears pinkened a bit, which was unlikely from the drink, she thought. “Sometimes he’ll cry his heart out in her arms ‘cause he knows she won’t think he’s less of wizard for doing it.”
Ron dropped his head, looking as though he felt relieved of a burden, and scratched at a groove in the table.
Ginny’s fingers unconsciously pressed over her heart, so tender was her brother’s confession. Seeing Ron, not as just another brother, but as a man himself who was in love.
“Since when did you get so sensitive, Ron?” Ginny said, reaching her other hand to touch his.
His shoulder and the corner of his lip both shrugged upward as he considered the last of the liquid in his glass. “Dad told me.”
“Ha!” Ginny laughed, noticing her feet were beginning to feel heavy under the table. “And here I thought you’d gone all wise without my noticing.”
He sniggered. “Nah – but I have been married myself for awhile, and it does seem to be true. The person you’re married to sees the ugliest part of you – and I’m not talking ‘bout that!” he added when Ginny opened her mouth with a glint in her eye. “Filthy mind,” he muttered good-naturedly. “She’s not the easiest person in the world to be with either, mind. My girl’s got some rough edges that are none too pretty herself. But that’s okay with me, you know?”
Ginny nodded, staring at her brother’s mouth as he spoke.
“What are doing? Stop it,” he said, and only then did she realize that she was silently mouthing every word he said.
“Sorry.” Ginny clamped a hand over her mouth. She was trying to pay close attention, feeling that Ron was saying something of importance, but as she focused on him the left side of his face went blurry. She blinked hard and his face – or her vision, rather, cleared up again.
“Are you listening to me?” he asked, waving a hand in front of her.
“I am! Really, Ron, please continue,” she assured, feeling the strange sensation of her slightly numb tongue, inspiring her to say ‘con tin ue’ a few more times.
“So all tha’ ‘m tryin’ to say, is tha’ you fancy a real messed up bloke. I mean, Ilovehim, but he’s trouble. So wha’ ‘m sayin’ is, is from now on, he’ll be your trouble. Not mine. ‘s all ‘m sayin’. Get it?”
“Get it.” Ginny nodded solemnly. “-Er, got it.”
“k’ now, I think yer talkin’ funny. You mus’ be drunk,” Ron declared, looking at the empty bottle on the table next to them.
“I … am … no … such … thing,” Ginny said with slow and deliberate enunciation.
They looked at each other very seriously.
His nostril flared. Her lip twitched. Together, they burst into hysterics.
~
“What are you doing here?” Hermione asked Harry with accusation as he walked into the kitchen.
Harry glanced behind him before looking back at her.
“Blimey, I know I’ve worn out my welcome, but I do still live here.”
Hermione tutted and smiled at him. “You haven’t worn out your welcome – we’re going to miss you. But Ron left a bit ago with a bottle of Firewhisky and he didn’t change his shirt, so I assumed he was meeting you.”
“Oh! No, he’s meeting Ginny. - He took a bottle of Firewhisky?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if he was meeting me he would have brought two bottles.” Harry winked.
“Hmm. Come here, try this.” She stuffed a wooden spoonful of chocolate in his mouth. “I’m trying something new.”
So Harry found himself enjoying an evening alone with Hermione, knowing that these moments of easy conversation in the kitchen that he’d grown accustomed to since he moved here were nearing an end. He happily ate Hermione’s latest experiments in cooking, which was to melt chocolate and drizzle it over biscuits. It wasn’t proper ‘baking’ as far as Mrs. Weasley was concerned, but Harry disposed of Hermione’s research until his stomach ached.
“I’m not sure what Charlie’s opinion would be,” Hermione was saying as she poured tea, “but I’ve read that rather than striking the dragon with the charm directly, if you aim instead at the-” She was interrupted by the sound of the fireplace erupting into use. “Oh, that’ll be them, then,” she said, and they both turned.
The green flames flickered and swirled for just a moment but then died out with no sign of anyone within.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other in bewilderment.
“Well that was odd,” she said plainly.
“I’ll say.”
There was no need to ponder the empty Floo for long before the hearth blazed again. A tangle of pale freckly arms swirled into view before them. They weren’t standing in place for even a moment before Ron and Ginny swayed and fell head long onto the floor at Harry and Hermione’s feet.
“They’re bloody pissed!” Hermione gasped.
Harry chuckled at her exclamation. “So it seems,” he agreed, looking down at them.
Ginny and Ron were twisted together, wracked in gales of silent laughter, tears streaming down their faces. At last, they reached a breathing point, gasped for air and resigned themselves to their horizontal position on the floor.
“We fell,” Ginny offered, by way of obvious explanation.
“Twice!” Ron added, which set them off into fits again.
“Hell,” Harry said, rubbing his nose. “Is this what Ron and I smelled like when we came home stonked?”
“No. Ginny smells a great deal better than you did.”
Harry knelt beside them, delicately untangling Ginny from her brother’s ridiculously long limbs.
“Haar-ry,” Ginny gasped with an exuberance of affection, cupping Harry’s face in nothing short of moderate slap.
“Hi there, beautiful,” Harry said with a wince, rubbing his cheek and gathered her into his arms. “Have a good day?” he asked casually.
“Harry, we were just talking about you,” she said, nuzzling her face into his chest as he heaved her off the floor.
“Is that so?” he answered her gently, though giving Ron a stern look.
“Nothing but good stuff. I swear!” Ron effused with wide eyes from his place on the floor.
“Yeah, right. You.” Harry pointed an accusing finger at Ron from under his grasp on Ginny’s legs. “Went and got my girl rat-arsed without me.”
Harry was joking with Ron, however serious he sounded.
“Had to get her good and soused to find out wha’ she really though’ of ya. But I only poured her half of wha’ I had maself.”
“Good thing, that. She’d have been pickled otherwise.”
Ginny giggled against Harry’s chest.
“Pickled,” she repeated and dozed against him.
Harry kissed her forehead gently and turned to carry her out. A niggling anxiety pricked down his spine as Ron’s comment sunk in and he turned back.
Ron was peeking down Hermione’s blouse as she leaned over to pull him up. He blinked up at Harry, meeting his questioning eyes.
There was a pause between the two of them before Ron’s face softened into a wide grin.
“Ah,” he said, understanding. “She’s mad abou’ ya, mate. No worries.”
Harry dropped his eyes and cleared his throat to subside the embarrassing concern he’d felt.
“I’ll get her squared away, and come back to help you with him,” Harry told Hermione as he maneuvered through the kitchen, careful not to sweep the chocolate off the counter with Ginny’s feet.
“That’s quite all right, Harry. If I can manage to get the two of you to bed when you’re snockered, I can handle Ron alone.”
As he went up the stairs, he heard Ron make a rude comment about Hermione ‘handling him’ which was followed by a dull ‘thwap.’
Harry gently undressed Ginny down to her slip-dress and deposited her into his bed. Then he dug through his top drawer to find a brown bottle of restorative potion. Turning it over in his hand, he mused that it had been several months since he’d used the tonic himself.
“There now, you’ll feel better soon,” he said after giving her a dose, pulling the blanket up to her shoulders. “But you’ll still need to sleep it off.”
“Hm,” Ginny purred, smiling with eyes closed as she tilted her face into his hand. “Sleep with me?” she asked, pushing the sheet back in invitation, before breaking into an ungraceful yawn.
This time Harry suppressed a reticent chuckle at her double entendre. So tempting. He’d like nothing more than to undress and climb into bed next to her petite body. The warmth of the Firewhisky made her glow. Her lips were deep burgundy as were the peaks of her breasts, which showed through the thin cotton covering her. Her upper thigh was exposed as well, and he felt his body stir at the sight and quickly pressed a hand to his groin to stifle the aching reaction. Not tonight.
“Sure, love, I’ll sleep next to you,” he said softly, brushing her hair back. “But I’ve got to Owl the Burrow first. Don’t want them to worry.”
“Oh-kay,” she sighed, closing her eyes with a faint smile.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asked, knowing quite well himself how sharing a bottle with Ron seemed to set the world right again.
“I really did.”
“That’s good. Are you feeling better now?”
She didn’t answer. Smiling happily, Ginny settled into Harry’s pillow and slept.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, pausing with his lips against her skin, trying to suppress the rush of emotion and excitement welling up in him. “Three more days, love,” he whispered.
~^~
The house loomed large around them. The warm red bricks of the fireplace were accentuated by the rich alder berry mantle piece. The small panels of amber stained glass inlaid in the heavy oak door cast a warm glow on the cream paper lining the walls.
Harry and Ginny both felt very small in the vast space of the unfilled house and sought out the alcove of the living room window-seat. Ginny lay curled into the space next to Harry with her head in his lap. Massaging her scalp, he made tiny circles over the crown of her head, fluffing up her hair. She had a vertical crease between her brows that he began to stroke with his thumb.
“So, is this - ” He indicated with his thumb. “- because of the headache, or because of the house?” Harry asked quietly, to minimize the echo effect of his voice throughout the house.
“Headache. Oh, that feels good.” She looked up at him with a reassuring smile. “The house is beautiful, Harry. Better than I had dreamed. Quite hard to believe that it’s meant to be for us. I haven’t earned this. Oh– but you have,” she added quickly, reaching up to touch his cheek. “You deserve this. It was proper to rebuild what should have been your parents’ home. I’m glad we’ve put back what Godric’s Hollow lost, too.”
Harry cupped the side of her face, and she slid her hand from his cheek into his hair and pulled him down. Folding himself near in two to kiss her, he took his time, enjoying the heat of her mouth and the taste of her. Feeling the subtle movement of her hand into his hair, pulling him imperceptibly closer, and drawing their kiss deeper.
Ginny shifted her head slightly and giggled.
“Sorry,” Harry said softly, sitting up wriggling a bit.
Ginny turned and pressed her face against the firmness in his trousers.
“We haven’t had a moment’s privacy in a week,” she murmured, teasing him by opening her mouth and breathing onto the evidence of his arousal. Her hot moist breath filtered through the material of his thin trousers and he throbbed with the desire to have her mouth on him. “And Ron and Hermione are due any moment.”
“God, I know it,” he moaned and the sound came back to them louder as it ricocheted off the walls. “But it’s just as well. Feels like the house is watching us, doesn’t it?”
Ginny, more accustomed to the reality of such possibilities, looked up at him sharply.
“It doesn’t do that, does it?” she asked.
“No.” He smiled. “Magically sound and fairly well-protected, but no eyes.”
“Oh, good,” she sighed, relieved.
They looked around the house again. Long rays of afternoon sunlight streamed across the shiny, hardwood floor, making the tiny dust particles floating in the light look like pixie dust. The house did feel alive, humming with the energy of a new magical entity not yet awake.
“Hello?” called Hermione’s soft voice tentatively from the front door.
“Come in,” Harry answered quietly, preserving the silence.
Hermione let out a whispered ‘Oh my …’ as she looked around, as impressed with the sight as they were.
“Wicked!” Ron exclaimed loudly, startling everyone out of their quiet reverie.
With a devious chuckle, he charged directly up the stairs, each pounding footstep reverberating off the walls. They winced as they listened to him clomping his way around the second floor, from room to room.
“Bugger me – what do you need two toilets for?” he shouted, sounding far off, but perfectly clear.
Once at the top of the stairs again, he hopped onto the banister and slid all the way down, hands outstretched for balance. Whooping loudly, he landed with a terrific ‘whump.’
“What?” he asked, looking at the three sets of eyes blinking up at him. “Harry, don’t tell me you haven’t tried that yet?” He pointed back at the banister.
“Not … yet,” Harry admitted, thinking that it did look fun, in spite of an annoying grown up part of him that was thinking, if it breaks, I’ll have to fix it.
“Ginny, you can’t possibly still be hung over from last night,” Ron said, noticing her lying on Harry’s lap, and he reached toward a strand of Ginny’s hair. “Ow,” he yelped when Harry smacked Ron’s hand away and he retracted it, sucking his knuckle.
“No, just a vicious headache,” Ginny said with a sigh and sat up. “I thought it was the Pomegranate juice.” She rubbed her forehead. “But now I think it might be the Mugwort.”
“Hermione gets headaches from Mugwort,” Ron observed. “But that’s from-” A comprehension dawned in his eyes and he looked down at the floor. “Ah.”
Harry’s insides twisted with the awkwardness that Ron apparently felt, but the women seemed oblivious of it.
“Try putting a few Queen Anne’s Lace seeds in it, that might help,” Hermione suggested. “Makes it more effective, too.”
Ginny stood, and she and Hermione continued discussing the various ingredients of contraception potion.
The longer Ron stared at his feet, the more Harry felt his face heat up, but he struggled to find his voice. He was determined not to act like a teenager about this; he was about to be a married man, after all. He quietly cleared his throat.
“The potion’s effectiveness hasn’t been tested yet, you know?” Harry muttered. “ … Wedding isn’t for two more days,” he added, trying to make his point.
Ron then raised his head.
“Oh?” He grinned, and shoved Harry’s shoulder. “Oh! Good man! I knew I liked you for a reason.”
Harry ‘harrumphed.’
“What are you talking about?” Ginny asked, looking at them suspiciously.
“Nothing at all, little sister.”
Ron draped an overly proud arm over her shoulder and patted the top of her head, to which she reached up and with exact precision, twisted his nipple, making him shriek.
“How about you two start bringing in the furniture, and we’ll sort out the kitchen?” Hermione suggested, trying to break up the lingering pinching and hair pulling between the siblings.
“Yeah, all right,” Ron said, rubbing his chest as he walked towards the door. Ginny pulled a face at him, still rubbing the crown of her head.
Harry and Ron went into the garden where a great assortment of furniture and boxes, most of which were wedding gifts, had arrived. There had still not been any formal public announcement of the wedding, but their close friends and acquaintances had been made privy to the nuptials, and furniture of all variety had begun appearing that morning. Nothing was new; it was all antiques, as it was good luck in wizarding tradition to give a bride and groom something from the family. Harry assumed this partially explained why everything in the magical world seemed more old-fashioned.
“Guess we won’t see much of you at the house, anymore,” Ron said, levitating a table and carefully maneuvering it through the front door with his wand.
“Yep, you’ll finally be rid of me,” Harry joked.
“’Bout bloody time, too!” Ron smiled.
He followed Ron into the house, levitating the six matching chairs along behind him.
“And Bill still believes that it’s a woman, then?” Hermione was asking.
“Seems so, though Fleur reckons Bill’s a bit put out,” sniggered Ginny, sending a tray of cutlery through the air and into an awaiting drawer.
“About what?” Harry asked.
“About Charlie,” she told him. “His letters have been pretty reticent, and Bill figures Charlie must be keeping quiet because of a woman, and if so, she must be a right nightmare.”
“But why should she be awful? Why shouldn’t Charlie have found someone wonderful?”
Harry chuckled, putting a bracing hand on Hermione’s shoulder as he passed her. She would always be optimistic.
“Well, love,” Ron interjected, “I don’t think you’ve seen the sort of birds Charlie fancies.”
Ron and Harry exchanged a knowing look. They’d gone out to the pubs on more than one occasion with Fred and Charlie since the war ended. Charlie had an inclination to seek out tall, thin, blonde and brainless. Harry supposed the dimmer they were, the easier it was to send them on their way in the morning with too little regret.
“With Charlie’s taste in women, I can just imagine what he’ll bring home. Mum would have a fit.” Ron shrugged.
Hermione seemed mildly indignant on Charlie’s behalf. To her, Charlie had always been a mild flirt, but she respected his caring nature with animals and seemed to sympathize with not being able relate with a lot of folks. She had also been protected from seeing Charlie’s darker, depressed and drunken self.
Ron put his arm around Hermione’s shoulder and squeezed. “I don’t like saying so about my brother. Maybe he’s changed.”
“Well if he’s found a person and not a bloody animal he can actually get on with, then it’s all the better, I say,” Ginny added from behind a stack of copper-bottomed pots she whisked onto a rack above the stove.
“It has happened very quickly in any case. I’ll grant that. Could he have really got to know her well enough to become friends? Love based on friendship is the strongest, I think. Especially when you’re the best of friends.” Hermione looked up from the box she was unloading and stole a glance at Ron.
“I dunno, your best friend, eh?” Ron said, looking skeptically at Harry. Harry blew a kiss at him and waved his fingers making ‘eyes.’
“Not Harry – me, you prat!” Hermione swatted Ron’s arm.
“Like George and Lee too,” Ginny said with a grin, and both girls giggled.
Harry and Ron exchanged a skeptical glance at this but didn’t say anything. They both had promised their support to George, but the whole idea of that was still something they couldn’t quite understand. But as Ginny and Hermione seemed enamored of the new couple, it seemed best not to mention it.
Their conversation moved quickly away from Charlie and onto the more mundane issues of arranging furniture and choosing which cupboard to put the plates and mugs in. Ginny really couldn’t care less and Harry had no opinion either, but he had seen Hermione and Ron have rousing arguments over the most efficient placement of the dishes. Anything for a good, exciting argument apparently.
“Harry,” Ginny whispered in his ear, “I’m sure you’ll know with clarity when I’m upset with you, but I’ll never fuss at you about dishes, I promise.”
They sniggered together and stole a kiss while they could.
“Hey!” Harry grabbed her once more. She turned to him and he pulled her close for another moment, his hand resting on the top of her bum, and nuzzled her ear before whispering, “Only two more days.”
“I know,” she said, kissing him, scrubbing her thumb over the rough stubble that grew on his chin. “I’m counting, too.”
~^~ Continue to Chapter 12
A/N - My continued thanks to my Checkmated beta, BelovedRanger, for working so promptly on this. Many hugs to Quizzical, AlliPotter and Lnalvgd for their help and encouragement. The next chapter is nearly complete and will be published much sooner than these recent updates have been. Thank you so much for reading and leaving comments, which are now over 400 here on CM! It means so much to me!
