Written for Cheeky Slytherin Lass's 'Quotes for All Occasions' competition with the quote, 'Turn your face to the Sun and the shadows fall behind you.' (by Charlotte Whitton).
Author's Notes: Okay, this is almost fully based on the Quidditch World Cup. The last match – the one mentioned in the start of the story – was Japan 330 – USA 120 and the teams going to the finals are Bulgaria and Brazil (Bulgaria is my home country, so there will be some patriotism). I suppose you've all read the new short story by now.
Also, I haven't used the quote directly, but used it as inspiration instead, so I hope you catch where its meaning lies.
Otherwise, this is the first Harry Potter fic I've written in a while and also the first ever for that era, so I'd be glad to hear what you think.
Once the hype from the last match had died down – and it had been quite the hype, considering the fact that it had been a rather short, but brutal match – Harry used the first portkey he could get to get to London and therefore to the Daily Prophet's main office where Ginny had been sent to write her article mere hours ago. He'd left Al and James with Ron and Hermione for the time being, mostly because he was in a hurry but also because he knew that they enjoyed the time in the camp. There wasn't all that much left of their summer vacation and he wanted it to be everything they could wish for.
The office was in chaos, of course. Everyone was trying to get everything done until the next day and Harry realised – not without a small amount of wry amusement – that the disorder was even bigger than the one in his own house. He got greeted with several nods from here and there and hastily given directions from the receptionist when he asked about Ginny's whereabouts, but otherwise, no one paid too much attention to him and that was the way he liked it, especially after Rita Skeeter's last article. He didn't suppose that the people who worked for the Daily Prophet trusted her on anything (after all, they probably had to deal with her on daily basis) and yet it was nice not to hear her name around himself every time he set foot on Diagon Alley.
As soon as he opened the office door, there was an exclamation of "Harry!" and a red-haired hurricane hit him as Ginny wrapped her arms around his neck. He returned the embrace happily, pressing her closer to himself and drinking in the scent of ink and parchment that radiated from her every time she spent time here writing about the latest game.
She pulled back and Harry searched her face for any signs of tiredness (after all, she had dealt with the Quidditch column since the beginning of the World Cup) and, as usual, found none. Everyone he knew had changed at some point – they had grown up, morphed into more adult versions of themselves, and yet Ginny hadn't changed one bit. The same seemingly endless source of energy that had fuelled her before kept going now and he could see in her smile that she was enjoying every minute of her rather tough job – her eyes were twinkling, her face was open and full of that endless curiosity and eagerness to understand the whole world that he had first fallen in love with.
Ginny touched his temple, a small frown replacing her smile. "She was right about the wound, mind. What happened?"
Harry didn't need for the she to be specified. In Rita Skeeter's latest article – the one about Harry, Ron and Hermione's appearance on the World Cup – even his most recent scar had been mentioned, with several snide remarks about its possible origins (one of them being Ginny possibly cursing him). Harry grimaced.
"Never mind that. Just a witch that has never been told that resisting arrest only makes things worse. Nothing to worry about, though. How are things going here?"
Ginny's face lit up again and Harry smiled in return almost subconsciously – her enthusiasm was almost always contagious.
"Great! The final is still a bit of a trouble when it comes to foreshadowing, I have no idea what's going to happen. I'll be cheering for Bulgaria, of course, but the fan mail is getting a bit difficult."
"Fan mail?" Harry asked with laughter on his lips, which quickly died under the glare she gave him. "Does that go through you?"
She made a face and he leaned in to kiss the frown away spontaneously, which made her chuckle. "Some of it, yeah. The fan mail that's personally to me – you'd be surprised, but there's quite a few of these–"
"Not surprised at all, actually."
"– and also the one that doesn't exactly pass as fan mail," she continued as if he hadn't even interrupted her. "You know, the presents and the questions and the letters and all that jazz. I try to pass them to the teams and answer to as much as I can, but it's still overwhelming."
"I could help," Harry offered. He wasn't very keen on answering fan mail addressed to his wife – he'd got enough fan mail directed to himself to know that he wouldn't really like the content of it – but he wanted to spend more time with her.
"No, it's fine. I've already written the article for today so that leaves us with Bulgaria and Brazil tomorrow. Then I can finally come home."
"Lily misses you," Harry said, arms wrapping around her waist to bring them closer together. Al and James miss you too. And I wish you could watch with us. It would have been nice for a change and people won't think you've attacked me once we were out of the public eye."
Ginny laughed heartily at this, and he wasn't surprised – she usually found a way to see the good side of nearly everything. "So that's what it's all about. You know that no one believes her, right? It's all just gossips. Don't let them get to you."
Harry scoffed. "I'm not; Merlin knows I'm used to this sort of thing, but... I just don't like seeing it. Even if I know that it's made up."
Ginny smiled gently and her fingers caressed his cheek briefly before she stepped back from him. "I know, but it doesn't matter. As long as we know the truth, everything is going to be just fine."
And, Harry thought as he leaned in to kiss her, his eyes closing as his lips found hers, that exact truth was something he was never going to forget.