Don't own any of the characters, JKR does, of course
Chapter 1: The New Number 12
The car revved as it was turned on by its owner. Its dark scarlet gleamed in the light provided by the street lamps; their dim golden glow illuminating the car. The driver slowly pushed down on the accelerator further and further until the car was well breaking the small town's set speed limit. It sliced through the fallen leaves that were on the road, throwing them in the air in its wake.
His green eyes were scanning the people on the streets, looking specifically at their heads. Black hair, brown hair, dark brown, dirty blonde, none of them the person he was looking for. He saw a person with long swaying vibrant red hair, but quickly realized it was a male teenager. After a circling the small town square, he noticed that he was in the wrong place. Further down a dim road, he felt a natural pull. He could feel a distinct trace of Apparition. He made a quick ninety degree angle turn down the road and raced about 2 blocks and suddenly stopped.
There, in front of the car was a red headed young woman, with very well developed curves. She was wearing dark, right jeans, with a scarlet sweater that matched the car, only the sweater had a wide yellow strip going vertical in the middle of the sweater. She gave the driver a look as if to ask if speeding up so fast and stopping so quickly in front of her was really all that necessary. The driver grinned and motioned her to the passenger seat. She nodded and headed for the door, which opened for her before she could even touch the handle.
"Hello, Harry" said the young red headed woman, "'Bout time you showed up," Harry Potter gave a slight, wry smile.
"Hey, Ginny, how have you been?" but his returned greeting was greeted with a slap in the face. With his right cheek temporarily tattooed with a red hand print, he gave her an infuriated look. "What was that for?" he asked, very irritated.
"You know damn well," Ginny started off, her eyes were light with a fire more vibrant than her hair, "You don't send me an owl, you don't tell anyone to at least say 'hi' to me for you, and you don't tell me where you are for God knows how many months, and you ask me how I am?" Harry at this point was very mad; he thought that he had made it clear why this was to be at the end of their last school year.
"Like I've told you before, it's hard for me to see you or make contact with you without worrying to death about what will happen to you!"
"Well, that didn't do much good, now did it? You basically completely dumped me to 'protect me,'" she raised her finders and made the quotation sign to show emphasis or protect me, "but here you are, picking my up in your fancy Muggle car, to take me to Number 12 to protect me!"
"I thought that's what you said you liked about me so much? That I do that kind of stuff?" Harry had to raise an eyebrow while asking the question.
"Well…" Ginny was so exasperated that she was at lose for words, "let's go…" Harry just shook his head and mouthed the word 'unbelievable' before putting the car back in gear and driving off.
About thirty minutes of silence, they had arrived at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Ginny had a bit of a wide eyed look, the house seemed to not look as bad as described to her, and it actually seemed pretty nice.
"I fixed it up," Harry said, as if he just read her mind.
"I can see," Ginny said in an almost admiring tone, but a strange thing came to her mind. She remembered Ron telling her something about a Secret-Keeper, and now that Dumbledore was gone, no one but his invitees could enter, "Harry-" but she was cut off.
"I've taken care of it. When Dumbledore died, he found a way to make me the new Secret-Keeper, don't know how he did it, but he did…" Harry stopped for a second to think about how he did that, but shrugged it off.
When the two went inside the house, Ginny was shocked by how much Harry had done. He really mad it a cozy place to be, with warm woodwork all finished and varnished, nice oak floors, and in the distance she could hear the crackling of a fire. The rooms were not 'lavishly' furnished, but seemed to be comfortably set up.
"Harry, how did you find the time to do all this?"
"Just a little bit at a time, that's all, are you hungry?" Harry immediately changed the subject. He'd rather think that this was a new house than Sirius' old one.
"Sure, what is there to eat?" Ginny followed when Harry waved his hand to do so. He led her to a lovely kitchen with beautiful wood tops, and gleaming metal appliances.
"You ok with grilled chicken?" Harry asked as he pulled a bag of chicken breast from the sink that he had defrosted.
"Sure, that sounds great," Ginny watched as Harry made the meal in a completely Muggle fashion. He put ground pepper and salt on the chicken as he light the stove, put a frying pan on it and oiled it by melting butter on it. Before putting the chicken on, Harry added Worcestershire sauce onto the chicken before putting it in the hot frying pan. The chicken made a sizzling sound as it hit the pan and released a wonderful odor that reminded Ginny of her mother's home cooking.
When Harry was done grilling the chicken, he put it on a white plate and set in on the island in the chicken, along with two eating size plates, two sets of silverware, and two drinks.
"Wow, Harry, it smells amazing, when did you learn to cook?"
"Dursleys," was all Harry said as he passed Ginny a small salad and but her some chicken and put some potatoes on her plate and his.
"Hey, where is everyone else?" asked Ginny in the middle of the meal, realizing they were completely uninterrupted this whole time.
"Out," answered Harry, taking a bite of his chicken, "Hermione and Ron went to pick up supplies, Moody is out looking for a couple of Death Eaters we're after, and Tonks and Lupin said they were checking up on a lead about a Death Eater safe house outside Knockturn Alley."
"So we are completely alone?" Ginny gave Harry a very mischievous look; she wanted to be alone with Harry for so long, she had missed him very much and not more than a second went by when he wasn't on her mind.
"Yeah," Harry said in a rather dry tone, a tone he had for a better part of the night, a tone Ginny did not particularly enjoy.
"Well, maybe we should take advantage," Ginny slipped his hand in his, "of this opportunity," Ginny did indeed wanted to take advantage of being alone with Harry, but apparently the feeling was not mutual.
"Not now, I'm very tired," Harry pulled his hand away as he started clearing the island, "Long day." This upset Ginny very much, she gave a very hurt look, she had just invited him for a nice long drawn out snogging session, and maybe a little more and he said no? Harry did not pay much attention to her, and after he was done clearing he left the kitchen and her alone in it.
Ginny sat there, replaying what just happened in her head. Why did he turn her head down like that? Did he not like her anymore? Had he found someone else? Well, Ginny Weasley was not a girl who would wonder about such things, she would have to find out for herself. She set off for the living room, to see if he was there. No. The study, but no sign at all. When she was in the bedroom hallway she noticed little droplets of scarlet on the floor leading to the bathroom. Ginny immediately became rather worried and opened the bathroom door. There she saw Harry, topless, sitting on the toilet, and bandaging his wounds. He had multiple buts on his well developed chest, arms, and legs. He had not looked up at her until he finished bandaging a cut on his left forearm.
"I'm busy," was all he said in a cold, dry tone.
"Oh, Harry," Ginny was not mad, but upset. Upset that he did not tell her that he needed to tend to such wounds, "Let me help you," Ginny took out her wand, dropped to his side, and started performing nonverbal spells to heal his wounds.
"Knew I should have learned a couple of those," Harry had mumbled under his voice.
"Harry, why did you not tell me what was wrong?" Ginny looked up at him with a sad but curious look.
"I...I don't know," Harry looked away from Ginny, he could not stand looking at her with that look on her face, it killed her.
"Harry," Ginny reached out her soft, delicate hand and turned Harry's face back to her, "We have once chance, to get everything right,"
"My friends, my habits, my families mean so much to me, I don't want to loose them," Ginny gave a slight smile.
"You don't," Ginny leaned up and kissed Harry.