A MATTER OF TIME
By monkeymouse
Rated R for explicit sexual descriptions, so don't say you weren't warned
A/N: This fic takes place in the same Alternate Potterverse as my stories "While Strolling Through the Park One Day" and "Old Friends".
xxx
Cho Chang didn't get mad easily. She wasn't raised to be openly emotional, and—apart from the years after the murder of Cedric Diggory—she rarely wore her heart on her sleeve. But she was livid now.
She had circled the date on the calendar in the kitchen of her home; her home above the herb shop in Diagon Alley formerly run by her parents. Cho ran it now, and lived in the flat with her lover Ginny Weasley and Ginny's daughter Rose. They had been living with Cho for six months now.
And Ginny, on this most important day, was gone, whereabouts unknown.
She'd taken to vanishing once or twice a week in the afternoons; never telling Cho where she was going and coming back, sometimes at dinnertime, sometimes much later, as if everything was quite all right and that nobody need concern themselves with her comings and goings.
It's that last time all over again, Cho thought.
That last time was Cho's Seventh Year at Hogwarts; some eight years ago now. She was still moping about the halls of the castle, seeing in each brick, board, banner and ghost the image of Cedric Diggory, the first love of her life, murdered by Lord Voldemort during the Triwizard Tournament. During the Sixth Year her class marks were off (although some of the blame could be laid at the tiny feet of Professor Umbridge). Her Quidditch was lackluster, and the season culminated in her letting the Snitch (and the House Quidditch Cup) be taken by Ginny Weasley, who had never played Seeker before that year. Cho thought about quitting the team, but not for long. She didn't think about much of anything for long after Cedric was killed.
So it was a complete surprise to Cho when, in her final year, Ginny first befriended, then seduced, Cho. Neither had ever had a lesbian love affair, but they embraced their union eagerly; Cho because she felt loved for the first time since the Triwizard Tournament, and Ginny—as it turned out—because she wanted the experience. Six months after the affair began, Ginny cut it off, telling Cho that she was searching for someone more demanding and more exciting than the Ravenclaw Seeker, and no hard feelings.
But Cho had been riding clouds with Ginny, and this news sent her crashing back to earth. If the Mines of Moria really existed, she thought one night in the Ravenclaw Common Room as she picked up a book only to cast it aside at once, I'd go there to live—no, to die. Still, the war against Voldemort and her all-important NEWTs carried Cho through the end of the term, when she realized something with a start.
The day before the Hogwarts Express was due to take everyone back to London, Cho went looking for Ginny. Cho found her behind Greenhouse Number Four, where few chose to go because of the highly dangerous plants inside, and their tendency to try to break through the glass and escape. Cho looked on a spectacle that would have violently upset her a few months before, even a few days before: Ginny kneeling, with one hand working rapidly between her legs, while the other helped her administer a blow job to a well-endowed Dean Thomas. They didn't even notice Cho was there as Ginny swallowed Dean's full eight inches, burying her nose in his ebony pubic hair as she caressed his balls with her free hand. Her other hand worked her red-haired pussy, flickering faster than fairy wings, releasing a juicy scent into the air that Cho knew all too well. It made her dizzy, and almost made her lose her resolve.
But Cho waited until Dean tossed his head back and moaned, and Ginny first grabbed Dean's arse, pulling herself even further onto his pole, then abruptly slid back, letting the beautiful black cock slide out of her mouth. She caught his final spurts on her face, then used the still- swollen head to rub the cum around her face, licking and kissing the knob when it passed by her lips.
"Take good care of that until September," she told Dean; then she turned to Cho. "Something you wanted to say?"
Cho didn't say anything; instead she grasped Ginny by the wrist and pulled her around the corner of the greenhouse. She looked at Ginny, who watched her with amused eyes and a face shiny with Dean's juices. It wasn't the way she'd rehearsed this scene in her mind, but the scene still needed to be played out.
"If you think that performance shocked me," Cho began, "it doesn't. That's just the way you are. It's the way you were in September when we first made love, and it's the way you were when you dropped me. I know that now, and I forgive you."
The way Ginny's eyes widened, these were the last words she was expecting. "I wouldn't give up a minute of our time together," Cho went on. "You helped me cope with Cedric, and I'll always love you for that. If you can't love me for more than six months at a go, that's you, too. I hope we meet again someday; even if there's no room in your heart for me, I'll always love you for caring about me." Cho kissed Ginny on the lips, ignoring the slimy coating left by Dean Thomas, then turned and ran back to Hogwarts, determined not to let Ginny see her cry.
xxx
That was the last time they saw each other—until that spring, when they met by chance in Hyde Park. Ginny had the infant Rose on her back, and was looking for a place to stay; she had been thrown out of the Burrow, the Weasley home, when it was learned that Rose's father was one of the Weasley twins, the result of a drunken orgiastic weekend. Cho had opened her home to Ginny and Rose, and opened her heart again, for the first time in years.
And now THIS!
From up in the nursery, she could hear the thump of the kitchen door closing. She rushed downstairs, and there was Ginny, acting as if nothing was amiss.
"What?" Ginny asked, perplexed by Cho's slow burn. Cho simply pointed to the calendar, with that day circled in thick purple pen-strokes. "Did I forget something, then?"
"You forgot about Rose," Cho said coldly. "I drew that circle because she took her first steps today. I thought you might like to know."
"SHE DID?!" Ginny turned as if Cho wasn't even there and dashed up to the nursery. She scooped her baby up out of the crib and into her arms. "Aren't you the little wonder, then?" Cho watched from the nursery doorway, still fuming.
"So big and so clever," Ginny cooed, "and—OUCH! All right, I get the message! Stop pulling!" Rose had grabbed a handful of Ginny's shirt, and the nipple beneath, and tugged. Ginny held Rose under one arm while she pulled her Pride of Portee t-shirt off with the other. Naked from the waist up, she offered one breast to Rose, who began sucking at once.
"Room for one more," she smiled at Cho; it was a standing joke between them, and much of the time Cho would oblige, sucking milk from the other nipple, so changed from the way it was eight years before. But Cho didn't make a move this time.
"Where were you?"
"Why do you have to know?"
"Because I want to know if this is my Seventh Year all over again! You're going off on mysterious appointments, not telling me where you are or when you'll get back."
"Look, if it's because you feel you're stuck here with Rose . . ."
"Stop right there; that broom won't fly. I love Rose just as much as you do; she's no bother at all. But I know where she is. It's you I'm concerned about. Where were you today?"
Ginny bit her lower lip, then sighed. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"It's not like that! I've been taking drawing lessons."
"DRAWING LESSONS?"
"Don't shout! At some small Muggle school."
"But you're a fine artist already!"
"A fine amateur, you mean. I wanted to do better. I wanted to do up a really good drawing of the three of us."
Cho's face reddened. "Oh Gin, I'm so sorry. I should have known it was something like that." She gave Ginny a quick peck on the lips. "But, these things cost money, don't they?"
"Don't worry," Ginny smiled. "I worked something out."
"Such as?"
"I model for the class. Nude, of course."
The knot in Cho's stomach, which had vanished when Ginny explained about the art school, came rushing back. Not even the sight of Ginny's breasts, even partially blocked by little Rose, could stop the knot.
xxx
Ginny didn't change her schedule, but at least Cho knew better than to let it bother her. She'd disappear some afternoons and be gone for hours at a time. Since the surprise was spoiled, Ginny could now bring her portfolio home with her instead of leaving it at the school. Cho still found herself doing most of the housework, because now Ginny, on days when she was home, would spend an hour or more just sitting by Rose's crib, sketching and chatting happily with her daughter.
A few days before Halloween, Cho was preparing dinner in the kitchen, with Rose in a playpen on the floor, when Ginny came in. However, rather than say anything, she rushed upstairs to their bedroom and shut the door.
This wasn't normal. Making sure that Rose was safe in her playpen and that the food wouldn't burn, Cho went upstairs, and tried the door; it was locked.
"Ginny!"
"Leave me alone!" came the voice from the bedroom. "I have to think!"
"You could have stayed away to think. What do you want?"
"I want to be alone for a little while!"
"So you come back here to me and Rose to be alone?"
"Fine! I'm not a Ravenclaw! I'm just—really confused right now. Leave me alone."
"I want to help."
Cho pulled out her wand, hoping that Ginny hadn't put a spell on the lock. "Alohomora." The door opened. Ginny lay on their bed, playing with a loose thread in the comforter. Cho sat next to her, putting a hand on Ginny's shoulder. "What's wrong, love?"
Ginny was silent for a minute. Finally, she spoke in a soft, slow voice: "Today was one of my modeling days, you know. I go in, I strip down and sit in the chair. Everybody's looking at me, and I don't think a thing of it. This was hardly the first time.
"Well, when the class was dismissed, the teacher asked me to hang back a bit. I had on this short bathrobe that the models use for breaks and such. The teacher; well, she's this short wiry woman with short dirty blonde hair. Has a dagger tattooed on one arm. She may as well have 'dyke' tattooed on the other arm, she's that obvious about it. But she never said or did anything to me in that line. Well," and Ginny started to turn as red in the face as her hair, "she starts chatting me up about my drawings, and how I do the modeling without complaint. Then she asks if I'm busy tonight. And she grabs my arse."
Cho felt the lead weight return to her stomach. Was this Ginny's way of saying she was leaving her alone again?
"I won't lie to you, Cho. I might have taken her up on it, even a month ago, if I thought I could have some fun. It wouldn't have meant a thing to me, except the thrill of the moment, the excitement of someone new. And I would have gone back to our bed afterwards without a second thought."
Ginny shook her head, a sad smile on her face. "Listen to that; our bed. I never used to think like that. I was like a leaf in the wind, not settling any one place, and I was proud of that. Even with Rose on my back, I didn't think for more than a second where we'd land or how we'd live. But, now-- Cho, what I'm trying to face, and this is so strange for me, is that it isn't just a matter of finding someplace secure for Rose. I mean, I could have dumped her on you and left without a second thought."
Ginny fell silent. Cho reached out to take Ginny's hand in her own.
"You want to know something?" Ginny suddenly asked. "You want to know why I cheated on you at Hogwarts? Why I never stayed with anybody for long? Because I thought that I had to. I thought that there'd always be some sort of problem, some sort of argument to spoil things. All I wanted was sex and good feelings, and a lot of the boys at Hogwarts were happy to oblige me. They could walk away, or I could walk away. I guess what I was really doing was running away.
"But tonight, when she tried to pick me up, I didn't think about her being someone new and interesting. I thought about you, and us, and I got the hell out of there. I'd never done that before. Scared me for a minute, until I realized there was no denying it." Ginny looked unblinking into Cho's eyes. "Cho, I love you. Not just being with you now; I want to wake up tomorrow in the same bed with you, and the day after that and the day after that. If I had all the money in Gringott's, I couldn't be happier."
After Cedric Diggory was murdered, tears used to well up in Cho's eyes without cause, and without stopping. That stopped during Cho's affair with Ginny. Now, the tears were starting again, but Cho smiled. "I was wondering how long it would take you to notice."
Cho's mouth swooped down to Ginny's, and they kissed deep and hard for more than a minute, as if they could not be united unless they swallowed each other. Then they broke for air and, at a wordless signal, Ginny pulled off her t-shirt and Cho pulled off her blouse. Then they dipped their mouths to each other's breasts. Ginny took only a second to gaze, as if for the first time, on Cho, whose still-boyish body had no aureoles at all around the rubbery, olive-colored nipples. Cho, meanwhile, didn't try to draw milk from Ginny; she drummed Ginny's bright red nipple—so much larger after Rose—with the tip of her tongue, she squeezed it between firm lips, she took tiny, delicately painful love-bites around the base. It was one of their games to orally work on each other's breasts until one or the other was so mad with ecstasy that she had to stop and cry out.
This time it was Ginny who spoke first: "Yes yes like that yes God Cho my love yes!" Ginny tensed up, arching her back in a high-pitched keen of joy. Cho stopped her work just long enough to glance at the crotch of Ginny's slacks, where a dark wet spot was already growing. Cho's eyes, still wet with the happy tears of a few minutes before, sparkled now as she thought ahead to the next game . . .
"OH GOD! CHO!!"
That was a cry of surprise; Cho looked up; Ginny was pointing to the open bedroom door that looked on the stairs. Rose Weasley was in her playpen, and the playpen was levitating up the stairs, with Rose inside, gurgling happily.
The lovers stared at the infant witch. They watched as the playpen set itself down gently in the doorway.
"I have never," Cho said in a voice that was slow and soft and full of wonder, "heard of a baby showing such strong signs of magic at such an age. Have you?"
Ginny shook her head. "You know what this means, don't you? It means that, if my parents want a daughter, they can just go shag themselves a new one! Throwing us out, calling Rose a freak and a monster; look at her, Cho! She's beautiful! She's talented!"
"Yes," Cho sighed. "It's just that, sometimes, I wish she were mine."
Ginny pulled back. "Don't you dare say she isn't! What do you think I was just talking about? No matter what anybody says, Rose is ours, and I am yours, and only yours, until death do us part. How do you like that?"
Cho moved a stray lock of hair from in front of Ginny's eyes. "I like," Cho smiled, "I like very much."
By monkeymouse
Rated R for explicit sexual descriptions, so don't say you weren't warned
A/N: This fic takes place in the same Alternate Potterverse as my stories "While Strolling Through the Park One Day" and "Old Friends".
xxx
Cho Chang didn't get mad easily. She wasn't raised to be openly emotional, and—apart from the years after the murder of Cedric Diggory—she rarely wore her heart on her sleeve. But she was livid now.
She had circled the date on the calendar in the kitchen of her home; her home above the herb shop in Diagon Alley formerly run by her parents. Cho ran it now, and lived in the flat with her lover Ginny Weasley and Ginny's daughter Rose. They had been living with Cho for six months now.
And Ginny, on this most important day, was gone, whereabouts unknown.
She'd taken to vanishing once or twice a week in the afternoons; never telling Cho where she was going and coming back, sometimes at dinnertime, sometimes much later, as if everything was quite all right and that nobody need concern themselves with her comings and goings.
It's that last time all over again, Cho thought.
That last time was Cho's Seventh Year at Hogwarts; some eight years ago now. She was still moping about the halls of the castle, seeing in each brick, board, banner and ghost the image of Cedric Diggory, the first love of her life, murdered by Lord Voldemort during the Triwizard Tournament. During the Sixth Year her class marks were off (although some of the blame could be laid at the tiny feet of Professor Umbridge). Her Quidditch was lackluster, and the season culminated in her letting the Snitch (and the House Quidditch Cup) be taken by Ginny Weasley, who had never played Seeker before that year. Cho thought about quitting the team, but not for long. She didn't think about much of anything for long after Cedric was killed.
So it was a complete surprise to Cho when, in her final year, Ginny first befriended, then seduced, Cho. Neither had ever had a lesbian love affair, but they embraced their union eagerly; Cho because she felt loved for the first time since the Triwizard Tournament, and Ginny—as it turned out—because she wanted the experience. Six months after the affair began, Ginny cut it off, telling Cho that she was searching for someone more demanding and more exciting than the Ravenclaw Seeker, and no hard feelings.
But Cho had been riding clouds with Ginny, and this news sent her crashing back to earth. If the Mines of Moria really existed, she thought one night in the Ravenclaw Common Room as she picked up a book only to cast it aside at once, I'd go there to live—no, to die. Still, the war against Voldemort and her all-important NEWTs carried Cho through the end of the term, when she realized something with a start.
The day before the Hogwarts Express was due to take everyone back to London, Cho went looking for Ginny. Cho found her behind Greenhouse Number Four, where few chose to go because of the highly dangerous plants inside, and their tendency to try to break through the glass and escape. Cho looked on a spectacle that would have violently upset her a few months before, even a few days before: Ginny kneeling, with one hand working rapidly between her legs, while the other helped her administer a blow job to a well-endowed Dean Thomas. They didn't even notice Cho was there as Ginny swallowed Dean's full eight inches, burying her nose in his ebony pubic hair as she caressed his balls with her free hand. Her other hand worked her red-haired pussy, flickering faster than fairy wings, releasing a juicy scent into the air that Cho knew all too well. It made her dizzy, and almost made her lose her resolve.
But Cho waited until Dean tossed his head back and moaned, and Ginny first grabbed Dean's arse, pulling herself even further onto his pole, then abruptly slid back, letting the beautiful black cock slide out of her mouth. She caught his final spurts on her face, then used the still- swollen head to rub the cum around her face, licking and kissing the knob when it passed by her lips.
"Take good care of that until September," she told Dean; then she turned to Cho. "Something you wanted to say?"
Cho didn't say anything; instead she grasped Ginny by the wrist and pulled her around the corner of the greenhouse. She looked at Ginny, who watched her with amused eyes and a face shiny with Dean's juices. It wasn't the way she'd rehearsed this scene in her mind, but the scene still needed to be played out.
"If you think that performance shocked me," Cho began, "it doesn't. That's just the way you are. It's the way you were in September when we first made love, and it's the way you were when you dropped me. I know that now, and I forgive you."
The way Ginny's eyes widened, these were the last words she was expecting. "I wouldn't give up a minute of our time together," Cho went on. "You helped me cope with Cedric, and I'll always love you for that. If you can't love me for more than six months at a go, that's you, too. I hope we meet again someday; even if there's no room in your heart for me, I'll always love you for caring about me." Cho kissed Ginny on the lips, ignoring the slimy coating left by Dean Thomas, then turned and ran back to Hogwarts, determined not to let Ginny see her cry.
xxx
That was the last time they saw each other—until that spring, when they met by chance in Hyde Park. Ginny had the infant Rose on her back, and was looking for a place to stay; she had been thrown out of the Burrow, the Weasley home, when it was learned that Rose's father was one of the Weasley twins, the result of a drunken orgiastic weekend. Cho had opened her home to Ginny and Rose, and opened her heart again, for the first time in years.
And now THIS!
From up in the nursery, she could hear the thump of the kitchen door closing. She rushed downstairs, and there was Ginny, acting as if nothing was amiss.
"What?" Ginny asked, perplexed by Cho's slow burn. Cho simply pointed to the calendar, with that day circled in thick purple pen-strokes. "Did I forget something, then?"
"You forgot about Rose," Cho said coldly. "I drew that circle because she took her first steps today. I thought you might like to know."
"SHE DID?!" Ginny turned as if Cho wasn't even there and dashed up to the nursery. She scooped her baby up out of the crib and into her arms. "Aren't you the little wonder, then?" Cho watched from the nursery doorway, still fuming.
"So big and so clever," Ginny cooed, "and—OUCH! All right, I get the message! Stop pulling!" Rose had grabbed a handful of Ginny's shirt, and the nipple beneath, and tugged. Ginny held Rose under one arm while she pulled her Pride of Portee t-shirt off with the other. Naked from the waist up, she offered one breast to Rose, who began sucking at once.
"Room for one more," she smiled at Cho; it was a standing joke between them, and much of the time Cho would oblige, sucking milk from the other nipple, so changed from the way it was eight years before. But Cho didn't make a move this time.
"Where were you?"
"Why do you have to know?"
"Because I want to know if this is my Seventh Year all over again! You're going off on mysterious appointments, not telling me where you are or when you'll get back."
"Look, if it's because you feel you're stuck here with Rose . . ."
"Stop right there; that broom won't fly. I love Rose just as much as you do; she's no bother at all. But I know where she is. It's you I'm concerned about. Where were you today?"
Ginny bit her lower lip, then sighed. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"It's not like that! I've been taking drawing lessons."
"DRAWING LESSONS?"
"Don't shout! At some small Muggle school."
"But you're a fine artist already!"
"A fine amateur, you mean. I wanted to do better. I wanted to do up a really good drawing of the three of us."
Cho's face reddened. "Oh Gin, I'm so sorry. I should have known it was something like that." She gave Ginny a quick peck on the lips. "But, these things cost money, don't they?"
"Don't worry," Ginny smiled. "I worked something out."
"Such as?"
"I model for the class. Nude, of course."
The knot in Cho's stomach, which had vanished when Ginny explained about the art school, came rushing back. Not even the sight of Ginny's breasts, even partially blocked by little Rose, could stop the knot.
xxx
Ginny didn't change her schedule, but at least Cho knew better than to let it bother her. She'd disappear some afternoons and be gone for hours at a time. Since the surprise was spoiled, Ginny could now bring her portfolio home with her instead of leaving it at the school. Cho still found herself doing most of the housework, because now Ginny, on days when she was home, would spend an hour or more just sitting by Rose's crib, sketching and chatting happily with her daughter.
A few days before Halloween, Cho was preparing dinner in the kitchen, with Rose in a playpen on the floor, when Ginny came in. However, rather than say anything, she rushed upstairs to their bedroom and shut the door.
This wasn't normal. Making sure that Rose was safe in her playpen and that the food wouldn't burn, Cho went upstairs, and tried the door; it was locked.
"Ginny!"
"Leave me alone!" came the voice from the bedroom. "I have to think!"
"You could have stayed away to think. What do you want?"
"I want to be alone for a little while!"
"So you come back here to me and Rose to be alone?"
"Fine! I'm not a Ravenclaw! I'm just—really confused right now. Leave me alone."
"I want to help."
Cho pulled out her wand, hoping that Ginny hadn't put a spell on the lock. "Alohomora." The door opened. Ginny lay on their bed, playing with a loose thread in the comforter. Cho sat next to her, putting a hand on Ginny's shoulder. "What's wrong, love?"
Ginny was silent for a minute. Finally, she spoke in a soft, slow voice: "Today was one of my modeling days, you know. I go in, I strip down and sit in the chair. Everybody's looking at me, and I don't think a thing of it. This was hardly the first time.
"Well, when the class was dismissed, the teacher asked me to hang back a bit. I had on this short bathrobe that the models use for breaks and such. The teacher; well, she's this short wiry woman with short dirty blonde hair. Has a dagger tattooed on one arm. She may as well have 'dyke' tattooed on the other arm, she's that obvious about it. But she never said or did anything to me in that line. Well," and Ginny started to turn as red in the face as her hair, "she starts chatting me up about my drawings, and how I do the modeling without complaint. Then she asks if I'm busy tonight. And she grabs my arse."
Cho felt the lead weight return to her stomach. Was this Ginny's way of saying she was leaving her alone again?
"I won't lie to you, Cho. I might have taken her up on it, even a month ago, if I thought I could have some fun. It wouldn't have meant a thing to me, except the thrill of the moment, the excitement of someone new. And I would have gone back to our bed afterwards without a second thought."
Ginny shook her head, a sad smile on her face. "Listen to that; our bed. I never used to think like that. I was like a leaf in the wind, not settling any one place, and I was proud of that. Even with Rose on my back, I didn't think for more than a second where we'd land or how we'd live. But, now-- Cho, what I'm trying to face, and this is so strange for me, is that it isn't just a matter of finding someplace secure for Rose. I mean, I could have dumped her on you and left without a second thought."
Ginny fell silent. Cho reached out to take Ginny's hand in her own.
"You want to know something?" Ginny suddenly asked. "You want to know why I cheated on you at Hogwarts? Why I never stayed with anybody for long? Because I thought that I had to. I thought that there'd always be some sort of problem, some sort of argument to spoil things. All I wanted was sex and good feelings, and a lot of the boys at Hogwarts were happy to oblige me. They could walk away, or I could walk away. I guess what I was really doing was running away.
"But tonight, when she tried to pick me up, I didn't think about her being someone new and interesting. I thought about you, and us, and I got the hell out of there. I'd never done that before. Scared me for a minute, until I realized there was no denying it." Ginny looked unblinking into Cho's eyes. "Cho, I love you. Not just being with you now; I want to wake up tomorrow in the same bed with you, and the day after that and the day after that. If I had all the money in Gringott's, I couldn't be happier."
After Cedric Diggory was murdered, tears used to well up in Cho's eyes without cause, and without stopping. That stopped during Cho's affair with Ginny. Now, the tears were starting again, but Cho smiled. "I was wondering how long it would take you to notice."
Cho's mouth swooped down to Ginny's, and they kissed deep and hard for more than a minute, as if they could not be united unless they swallowed each other. Then they broke for air and, at a wordless signal, Ginny pulled off her t-shirt and Cho pulled off her blouse. Then they dipped their mouths to each other's breasts. Ginny took only a second to gaze, as if for the first time, on Cho, whose still-boyish body had no aureoles at all around the rubbery, olive-colored nipples. Cho, meanwhile, didn't try to draw milk from Ginny; she drummed Ginny's bright red nipple—so much larger after Rose—with the tip of her tongue, she squeezed it between firm lips, she took tiny, delicately painful love-bites around the base. It was one of their games to orally work on each other's breasts until one or the other was so mad with ecstasy that she had to stop and cry out.
This time it was Ginny who spoke first: "Yes yes like that yes God Cho my love yes!" Ginny tensed up, arching her back in a high-pitched keen of joy. Cho stopped her work just long enough to glance at the crotch of Ginny's slacks, where a dark wet spot was already growing. Cho's eyes, still wet with the happy tears of a few minutes before, sparkled now as she thought ahead to the next game . . .
"OH GOD! CHO!!"
That was a cry of surprise; Cho looked up; Ginny was pointing to the open bedroom door that looked on the stairs. Rose Weasley was in her playpen, and the playpen was levitating up the stairs, with Rose inside, gurgling happily.
The lovers stared at the infant witch. They watched as the playpen set itself down gently in the doorway.
"I have never," Cho said in a voice that was slow and soft and full of wonder, "heard of a baby showing such strong signs of magic at such an age. Have you?"
Ginny shook her head. "You know what this means, don't you? It means that, if my parents want a daughter, they can just go shag themselves a new one! Throwing us out, calling Rose a freak and a monster; look at her, Cho! She's beautiful! She's talented!"
"Yes," Cho sighed. "It's just that, sometimes, I wish she were mine."
Ginny pulled back. "Don't you dare say she isn't! What do you think I was just talking about? No matter what anybody says, Rose is ours, and I am yours, and only yours, until death do us part. How do you like that?"
Cho moved a stray lock of hair from in front of Ginny's eyes. "I like," Cho smiled, "I like very much."