Here we go again! I'm sorry, that was a dumb way to start this A/N. Bit of a Holiday had such a good response, and so many expressed interest into seeing what happened after the story ended, I decided I wanted to know, too. I'm afraid that if you haven't read the first story, this one's really not going to make much sense. Or you'll just think I'm an idiot who doesn't explain things.
I'm working on chapter four, so, again, suggestions are welcome. I'm also working on another story, so even if you don't see your ideas in this story, it could be in the other. Oh, darn this way you'll have to read all my work...Mwahaha...
And it'd be really insanely awesome if somehow this story got the same type of response that Holiday did, but I don't wanna be too (blatantly) selfish...
You really know how to mess things up, don't you? Ginny's mind chided, As soon as things start getting good, you do something like this.
She had finally gotten her life into something that resembled order. As a birthday gift to her Mum, she had agreed to leave the tattoos hidden, but not erased, she still liked them, and to keep the lip ring out most of the time. It was the only way she could shut her mother up over the horrific idea of Ginny moving out of the Burrow into her own flat.
And what a flat it was. Full kitchen, one and a half baths, two bedrooms, everything she shouldn't be able to afford if it weren't for the rebellious, yet profitable, life she had already led. The second bedroom served as an office, the walls covered in pictures of shoes that were yet to be, reminders of the work that was constantly needed to be done. Owning an Italian shoe company was more work than one would anticipate. There was also a very large perch for her very large bird, Lei, who never seemed to stay in the flat. Julio, the adorable yet slightly deranged kitten, was constantly darting from room to room, completely perturbed by his new surroundings.
"Julio!" Ginny hollered at the kitten, as he ran into her ankles for the ninth time that morning. "I cannot handle this right now! Do you not realize what is happening?"
"Mew!"
"You're getting bold, little kitty. A bit too bold. Get out of my bathroom! This is the master bathroom, and I am the master of this home, and you are merely a kitten! I am completely in control, I am stable and can hold down a good job, a home owner--renter person, and I--I am arguing with a kitten. A kitten who has left, great." Ginny let out a heavy sigh, she was just about to crack. This little incident she was having was exactly the kind of thing that could make a stable, normal person into Ginny, and turn Ginny into, well, who knows? Nothing good.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Gin! I'm here!"
Ginny rolled her eyes at this, he did this every time. Every stinkin' time.
"Why bother knocking if you're just going to walk right in?" she asked, completely exasperated.
"To let you know I'm here, you know, you really should lock your door."
"You'll just unlock it."
"I don't have a key."
"You have a wand."
"Muggles live in your building."
"Like that's ever stopped you."
Harry and Ginny stared each other down for a moment. After dating for the last three months, the two of them were often described as being in love once again, but they were never described as liking each other.
"Are you ready yet?"
"Do I look ready?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"I don't have any make up on!"
"How am I supposed to know that?"
"I don't know, by looking at me?"
"You're a complete mess sometimes, you do realize that don't you?"
"That's not what you said about me last night."
"Oh, real mature, Gin."
"I never claimed to be mature."
Abandoning the banter, Ginny went back into her bathroom to put on make up, and put in her lip ring as she was feeling spiteful. Sitting on her counter, probably a bad place for it, was the decider of her fate. The little thing that completely changed her world. A little muggle device that reduced women to tears and made boys into men. The one thing that Ginny was dreading the most.
"Are you almost done in here?" Harry's words made Ginny jump a bit higher than she would if she was just nervous, and she whipped herself around, blocking the counter as much as she could from Harry's view. "What's with you?"
"What? Nothing!"
"Then why are you so jumpy?"
"I'm always jumpy, you tell me so constantly. You're always all, 'Ginny, you're too jumpy,' and 'Gin, you're always nervous.' Really, can't a girl just be high strung?"
"You're up to something."
"Am not!"
"You are, you're always up to something. You plot more than Voldermort."
"Honestly, he didn't really plot all that much when you think about it, his main plan was really just to kill you. And despite the many variations on that, he essentially stuck with it."
"He wanted to control the wizarding world."
"And he was convinced that killing you would get him there, so I win."
"This wasn't an argument! And if it was, I would win because I knew the guy better than you did!"
"Right, you two were best friends, right up until that whole last battle spat you had."
"I will never understand how you do that."
"Do what?"
"Twist normal conversation into some bizarre little story that only you understand the plot of."
"Yes, it is a gift of mine."
Harry just rolled his eyes at her, completely over her and the bizarre conversation they seemed to always have. Besides that, it was a Friday night, and they had planned on going out for the evening before ending it at the Burrow for dessert. Not having kids, they didn't look at the night as an escape the way those with children did.
And it wasn't like Ginny enjoyed acting as if she her relationship with Harry was completely hunk-dory. Of course, despite the fact that they were together, he wasn't quite over Hilary. Big eyed blondes were often ignored or muttered about, and H-names were not spoken to at all. Hannah Abbott-Longbottom was not pleased.
And he was constantly on the watch to make sure she wasn't any where near alcohol. It was a bit annoying, and by annoying, it was frustrating as hell. That had resulted in quite a few little spats. Which really means all out brawls.
They had turned into Ron and Hermione. More specifically, school Ron and Hermione, the times where everyone was wanting to push them together, but the couple just wouldn't listen. The difference was Harry and Ginny were already together, but it didn't make much difference from their younger version of their counterparts, minus the whole shagging each other constantly thing Ginny and Harry seemed to have down.
When it all started, when they met over coffee, things had been fine, nice even. Ginny told some parts of what Harry wanted to here from her journeys, Harry told what he was allowed to about his work as an Auror.
In fact, things had gone so nicely, that afternoon delight wasn't a sandwich, but something completely different…
And things hadn't really changed ever since. Well, minus the conversation being more like bickering.
Now, at another dinner that had nothing but good intentions, the conversation boiled down to the this:
"Are you okay, Gin?"
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
"You just seem--I don't know, off."
"Off? Do explain how I am off, Harry."
"I don't know, you just don't seem okay."
"You've established that."
"Do you even want to go see your family tonight?"
"Does it matter?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You look forward to this all week! Dinner with me, dessert with the whole brood."
"Does that mean you don't want to go?"
"Harry, I'm not saying anything like that!"
"Then what are you saying?"
"How can you figure out how to stop a guy who calls himself the Dark Lord but what I want to do on a Friday night is a mystery?"
"Uh, I'm really sorry to interrupt Mr. Potter, and uh, ma'am, but some of the other customers are a bit disturbed…"
"Fine, just give us the check."
"Ginny, there's no need to snap!"
"I didn't, and you just snapped at me! Hypocrite!"
"I'll just bring you the check before the reporters arrive…again…"
Grumbling, the pair left the restaurant, after paying the bill like responsible adults that they appeared to be, and after Harry muttered about a pair of blondes who were coming in as they left, they popped over to the Burrow.
Everyone else was already there, and the two of them were arguing so much on the doorstep that Mr. Weasley opened the front door before they had knocked.
"I'm just saying that I'm sick of not being able to go out of my flat without some reporter trying to get a question in about you!" Ginny fumed, sick of her general complaints being taken as personal attacks.
"What do you want me to do, Gin? Tell them all to just leave you alone? That'd go over real well!" Harry shot back.
The Weasley clan all rolled their eyes, this wasn't exactly a surprise. They had all been convinced, convinced, that the two of them were going to make each other feel better, but never count your chickens before they hatch. Or couples before they're together.
Evidently, to the pair, feeling better was another way of saying distracting each other. And what's a better distraction than fighting?
"Victoire," Molly schemed to her granddaughter, leaning across a very pregnant and very disgruntled Fleur, "go over and say hello to your Aunt Ginny."
Victoire of course obliged, and even as Ginny hugged her niece, the arguing continued.
"Maybe if you didn't hide away in your muggle building things wouldn't seem so suspicious!" Harry was insisting as Victoire scuttled back, defeated.
"I like my flat! And I wouldn't have to live in a muggle flat if you didn't have reporters after me all the time!"
"I don't have them after you, they're after you because they want another story before you disappear again! You did this to yourself!"
"Dominique, your turn." Molly sighed, realizing that she was playing with fire.
"Aunt Ginny," Dominique started, an evil glint in her eye that only a child could muster, "you look fat."
Instinctively, Billy moved himself between his daughter and his sister as the room tensed up, waiting for the inevitable attack that Ginny would release on the girl.
Ginny took a deep breath, her face reddening before bursting into tears. The room shifted from tense to confused.
"Harry," Mrs. Weasley ordered, "do something!"
"I don't know what to do!" Harry responded, "She never cries! I didn't know she was capable of it." He had to raise his voice as Ginny's sobs only grew.
"George, hug your sister!" Angelina gave her husband a gentle push towards his sister, looking a bit nervous.
"I can't!" he hissed back.
"Why not?"
"I'm frightened! I don't know this is real or a ruse."
"I am not that evil!" Ginny wailed, her hands grasping her face.
"Harry, make her feel better." Mrs. Weasley ordered again.
"How?" Harry asked in desperation, placing his hands on Ginny's shaking shoulders rather nervously.
"I don't know, take her in the back and shag her like you usually do." Molly sighed, exasperated.
That was when the sobbing stopped, the breathing stopped, and everyone snapped into a very uncomfortable reality.
"Molly," Arthur sighed, "that was not the best thing to say at this moment."
"What's it mean to shag?" Dominique asked, with pure, unadulterated, childlike wonder.
"It's something boys talk you into doing, saying you'll both enjoy it, but then," Ginny responded, now turning her attention to Harry, "it ruins your life!" she finished in a hiss, and Harry had chills.
"Sweet, Merlin," George breathed out, "I hope Harry just gave you an STD."
