Here is a side project I started back after I published the Prologue of the Jimmy Dean series and was stuck on writing the first chapter. Basically, I was having trouble characterizing my characters, and I looked back on WHY I wanted to write a Harry Potter fic anyway- I WAS NOT SATISFIED WITH HARRY POTTER'S CHARACTER AS A WHOLE!

Think about it for a second. He is always dark, moody, whiny, or a prissy goody-two shoes. The "extreme troublemaking" he got in to wasn't that extreme(other than the stuff at the end of each book, of course) so I wanted to explore how to improve him as a character in my eyes. What better ground to cover than the time AFTER the war, starting immediately after?

What did the family(Weasley's plus her Hermione, and especially Ginny) feel about him acting dead?

I've always seen Ginny as a bit of a firebird, and not because she has red hair. She grew up in a household of boys, all older than her. She was shy, and clumsy. She wants to get out of her shell and shine, so she forgets about Harry for a while and blazes he own trail and BLAM! Harry takes notice.

The overall, two major inspirations for this was the not so old TV show called "8 Simple Rules to Dating My Teenage Daughter" and Final Fantasy 10. If you can't figure out what was inspired by FFX, then just ask! I'll tell you next chapter!

In any case, I'm rambling, so I'll let you read this for yourselves, and let you see what you think of my polishing job on... characterization.

ENJOI

Eight Simple Rules to Living with Ginny Weasley

Pilot

The scratching of quill and ink on paper was the only thing heard around the halls and rooms of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Early rays of light come in through newly replaced windows as the sun slowly rose in the sky.

In his study, Harry James Potter sat hunched over his desk, writing quickly and decisively across the blank pages of a browned leather-back journal. He paused every once in a while to dip his favorite, vibrantly colored peacock feather quill into a pallet of ink. His fiancé, Ginny, bought the quill for him, which, despite the hardships they'd been having, made him cherish it as if it wasn't just a brightly colored everyday object.

With a sigh, he raises his head and stretches his arms and feels his shoulders pop. Closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation of freshly loosened muscles, he is slow to bring his attention back to the diary, but when he does, he begins reading over what he wrote.

20 April, 2002

Well, this is it. The day I am to be wed to the woman of my dreams (Not that I ever really dreamt of one.) It's been a whole four years since that fateful night back in 1998, and a full three and a half since I started writing everything down in a journal. My psychiatrist thought the diary was a good idea, really. I think its pure rubbish; I mean, what will writing down my thoughts and what I did during a day or week do to help my cope with the sense of loss? Or help cope the daily grind of being an Auror?

Pausing for a moment, Harry looks up from the book, shakes his head and laughs, as he remembers what the Psychiatric Healer at St. Mungo's had told him during their first session.

"Harry, sometimes people like you have things they can't or won't say to another person. Keeping secrets is all nice and good, but some things just can't be bottled up. Those things will begin to grow or be added upon, and the pressure will build. Your mental foundation will crack. You have to let some of it go, to have a release. That's why a journal is so perfect; the pages will not judge you or tell you to go vent on someone else. They listen."

Harry shakes his head again and writes that down as well. Then he plows on, writing more to his diary.

To be honest, I don't feel it making me better, or worse. But hey, even if they don't make me feel better, then at least they can be used to write a more accurate biography of me when I'm dead. That counts for something, right?

But I digress. I'm a little off topic for today, it would seem. Today. Marriage. Beautiful woman.

Ginevra Molly Weasley. Ginny Potter. Let me write that again. Ginevra. Molly. Potter.

I LOVE the sound of that.

Over the years of going out, hanging out, and just in general being with Ginny Weasley, I've learned that there are certain things you have to do or never do with her. "Rules," if you will. And, well, I figured since I'm getting married to her today, That I'll write them down, so that I can refer to them, or at least laugh atmyself for writing them down later, or something.

Rule Number One- Never pretend to be dead, even if it's to save the world.

Because saving the world ALWAYS comes second to Ginny Weasley's feelings.

"Good morning, Harry."

Harry scrambled from the sheets of his bed and nearly fell through the curtains surrounding it screaming.

"OhmygodRonHermionetheyfoundustheDeatheatersfoundusandaregonna-"

"Harry! It's me, Ginny! Calm down!"

"Wha- Gin- Wait, what? Ginny? Where am I? Why are you here?" Harry's groggy eyes peered through leaden eye lids, confused as to how Ginny could possibly have left Hogwarts and found him without causing a ruckus.

"You're at Hogwarts. You've been sleeping for two whole days," Ginny spoke softly. Her face was relaxed, sad even. Her flame red hair fell down from the crown of her head and into her warm brown eyes. "You kinda disappeared after the battle."

"Battle? What- oh. Yeah, he's gone now isn't he?"

"Yeah," Ginny sighed. She looked upset, angry even

"So how long have I been out?"

"Ever since the morning after the battle. Ron and Hermione and mum are worried sick. I'm worried sick."

"I'm sorry-"

"You BETTER BLOODY WELL BE SORRY HARRY JAMES POTTER!" Ginny exploded. In the span of a split second her face went from a melancholy look to a visage of pure rage. "What in Merlin's dead mind were you thinking, scaring me like that!? I thought you were dead! Gone! The love of my life lying dead in Hagrid's arms! You prat, you git you, you…" her voice trailed off as tears fell from her eyes. Her lower lip quivered as she fought back a sob, and all Harry wanted to do was kiss her.

"I'm sorry-"

"No, you're not! You had to save the bloody world, and you could care less how it would feel for me and mum and all of us to see you dead, as long as it meant that you could fulfill your damn destiny!"

Those words cut deep. I caused her pain because I had to do what I had to do to keep her safe-the very thing I vowed I would never do. What had I become? At that very moment I wanted nothing more than to just take her in my arms, kiss her tears away, and tell her everything. Too bad my head had a different idea…

About eighteen years of mostly withheld emotions got the better of me, again, and I unleashed them before I even realized that I had felt them.

"Have you any idea what I've been through?" Harry hissed quietly.

"What? That's not the-"

Harry cut her off. "Oh, that is most definitely the point, Ginny. I've been through hell and back to save the very world that turned its back on me time and time again. And for what? So that I could be with you. I did it for you," he spat the word "you" as if at that point and time he would rather have done it for someone else, anyone else. "And all I hear is 'You know what you have done to me?' Are you that really selfish?! I ran through fire and smoke, burned in water, drowned in flames, put my neck on a chopping block time after time so that I could have a life with you! So that I could be happy! So that you could be happy!"

The look of shock on her face from his uncharacteristically selfish explosion dissolved almost immediately. "How dare you! I've waited for you for so long, lived through you breaking up with me, lived with the thoughts that you, Ron, and 'Mione were out there, lying dead in a puddle of mud in some forest without so much as a letter from you telling me you're okay!"

"You know that I couldn't have you connected to me that way!I couldn't leave you in dnger! You know I couldn't contact you! It would give me away! It would HAVE PUT YOU IN EVEN MORE DANGER! IF THE CARROWS KNEW YOU WERE WRITING TO ME, THEY WOULD HAVE KILLED YOU TRYING TO FIND ME!"

"I'M NOT A LITTLE GIRL HARRY! I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!"

"YEAH, YOU'RE ALL GROWN UP, AREN'T YOU, GINNY WEASLEY! YOU CAN'T LISTEN TO WHAT OTHER PEOPLE WANT OR NEED YOU TO DO! YOU CAN'T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS IF IT WOULD KEEP YOU FROM DIEING! DID YOU EVER STOP TO THINK THAT MAYBE I COULD NOT LIVE WITH SEEING YOU DEAD EITHER!?" Harry started pacing back and forth as he screamed, clenching and unclenching his fists as he waved his arms. "I'M SORRY IF I CAUSED YOU A LITTLE PAIN IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT WE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE A FUTURE TOGETHER!" Harry clenched his fists and then couldn't believe what bhe was about to say. Quieting his voice, he continued.

"I guess I'm also sorry to say that if you can't get past this, we don't need to be seeing each other."

"WHAT!?"

To this day, I regret those words. It was MY fault that she was in pain. I don't care what anybody else has to say, everything that happened was my fault. Fred's death, Remus and Tonk's deaths, Mad-Eye, Colin Creevey, Cedric, George getting his ear blown off, all of it is on me. If I was smarter, faster, more in control, or more knowledgeable, none of those tragedies would have ever happened. Hell, if I was never born, none of this would have happened…

I know, I know, it's all Voldemort's fault. But how can I honestly and shamelessly put all the blame on the dead?

I know, that sounds stupid and unreasonable, but that's how I feel.

All I can say is that that day was biggest regret of my life.

She choked on a sob and ran from the room. And all Harry could do was stand there and watch as the best thing that ever happened to him run away as if he was a leper.

Later that day, I took a walk around the Black Lake. Acting Headmistress McGonagall had told me earlier that an en masse memorial service was going to be held in Hogsmeade, and that Acting Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt expected me to make a speech while there. Apparently the entire town had partitioned off an entire park to make into a large memorial and graveyard for the fallen defenders of Hogwarts.

But I couldn't think about anything that moment except how I had hurt Ginny. Yet again.

"I don't deserve her," Harry mumbled to himself. "She was hurting because of something I did, and here I go, throwing that in her face…"

He kicked a pebble into the placid waters of the lake. The giant squid flicked one its tentacles and the small stone flew back from the water and clocked him on the forehead. The irony was not lost on him, either.

"Yeah, I know. I'm an idiot," he whispered. He rubbed the spot where the smooth stone hit him and sighed.

It seemed like even the wildlife knew that I was a prat.

Harry continued his trek across the lake shore, no longer oblivious to the great weather. It really was a beautiful spring day, but it seemed dull and gray without Ginny by his side. The golden sun was high in the sky with large, fluffy clouds rolling slowly through the sky. For the first time in a long time the weather wasn't frigid from the mass breeding of Dementors, and the grass had retaken its green color remarkably fast. The trees swayed in a gentle, cool breeze as birds flew down from the large boughs. It seemed as if the wildlife had returned to the Hogwarts grounds overnight, ignorant of the ruins that made up the remains of the castle. But to Harry, it was all colored in shades of gray.

Halfway around the lake a certain tree came into Harry's line of sight.

It was the oak tree that Gin and I spent so much time together under back in sixth year. Pulled by something I couldn't quite understand (though it almost felt like a Dumbledore type sense of manipulation,) I made my way to the tall, strong tree. If I had known that for the second time that day my life would be changed forever, I would have tried to fruitlessly tame my wild hair.

I remember Mrs. Weasley mention something about a hair cut as soon as we got to the Burrow. I should have asked for one right then and there.

As he neared the trees vicinity, he heard a sniffle and a cough. "What did I do wrong, Luna? I swore I wasn't going to go off, and I did, and now…" and then he saw that both Ginny and Luna Lovegood sat at the base of the trunk, Ginny curled into Luna's arms bawling her eyes out.

Luna's soft, smooth voice answered with the trademark dreamy tone that had made Luna… well, Luna.

"You've both been through a lot, and Harry has been known to have a temper. Give him time. Give both you and him time."

"He's had two days!"

"Two days full of nightmare-ridden, restless sleep, as I hear from Ron. And he's only had five hours since your argument."

At that moment I remembered the pictures Loony put up in her room of all of us, and that surge of affection I felt for her then came roaring back. Only Luna Lovegood could comfort you and defend the person who forced you to need to comfort at the same time.

"I- that's-… you're right. You are right. What I did was wrong and selfish and I'm going to go apologize to right now at this moment," Ginny said, a tone of decisiveness in her voice. Her body language, however, said she wanted to do nothing of the sort, and she ended up sobbing into her best friends arms all over again.

"He hates me!"

"Harry has just finished a half a year long quest to stop the most dangerous Dark Lord the world has ever seen, has just now stopped living life on the run, and now has about a million things to think about, his and your relationship being one of the few at the top," Luna soothed as she ran her fingers through Ginny's long red hair.

"Oh, Merlin's Beard! How can I be thinking about nothing but how I felt when I saw him playing dead when he has been through so much?!"

"You're right, I have been through a lot."

"Wha- oh, Harry, I- um.. I'll just be-"Ginny stammered, acting less like the woman she'd grown into and more like the girl she used to be.

I was flattered; I still had that effect on her? It literally made me weak in the knees.

"I'll just be leaving you two alone, see you in the hall for dinner, Harry?"

"Sure thing, Luna."

"Excellent. And be sure to stay away from the fountains," she intoned suggestively, looking at Ginny's face. "Their full of wrackspurts, if you know what I mean." With that, she put on her signature dreamy smile and skipped back to the castle, hopping girlishly over the rocks along the shore.

"So…" Harry said jokingly, feigning arrogance.

"What?" Ginny asked tersely, obviously feeling uncomfortable.

I love how she looks when she's flustered. Her eyes narrow and they shift nervously, and she has a habit of playing with that beautiful red hair. It adds to her homey charm.

"I love you," Harry spouted, quickly, confidently, and self-assuredly. Looking her dead in the eye, he said it again. "I love you more than you'll ever know. I'll never play dead in front of you ever again."

Wiping her tears away, he proceeded to grip her face in his fingertips and kissed her.

After what seemed to be about a million years that really only lasted about thirty seconds, he pulled back slowly and looked her in the eyes again, fearful and nervous again.

"I'll accept your apology if you accept mine, she whispered raggedly, caught up in the moment.

Harry smiled a goofy, crooked smile and pulled her into his lap happily. "There's the silver lining I was looking for," he mimicked jokingly.

Ginny laughed and slapped his arm before wrapping hers around his neck, blinking seductively.

"Shut up and kiss me, Hero-Boy."

Needless to say, I didn't see Luna in the Great Hall that night.

Coming up…

Rule Number2: Never try to take Ginny Weasley's significant other.

I learned that early on in our relationship. Or rather, Cho Chang did…