Summary: Ginny and Harry have settled comfortably into family life. Adulthood brings its own set of challenges, especially when Ginny stumbles onto the biggest story of her career, perhaps biting of more than she can chew. Slice of life combined with a mystery for our power couple to solve. HG, mostly canon compliant.
A/N: I've been a huge Potterhead since I was a little girl. I got into fanfiction a few years ago and now I want to try my hand at writing some of my own. I used to write a lot when I was younger, but I haven't properly written a story in years. Please hit me with all your constructive criticism, I'm here to learn. :)
Ginny woke to the sound of her youngest's dulcet tones. Her bleary eyes opened and searched around the dark room for the alarm clock. An angry red five blinked back at her. Next to her, the messy black head was still pressed into his pillow, snoring away. With a deep groan, she heaved her body out of bed. Her stomach was still swollen from the baby and her limbs felt sore. Damn Harry for being such a deep sleeper. Then she remembered how every creak used to cause him to jump out of bed, wand drawn. She cast a silencing charm on their bedroom and stumbled over to the nursery.
What she found made her halt. The teeny tiny infant was already snuggled in her husband's strong arms. Despite his careful rocking, the baby continued screaming at the top of her lungs.
"She just fed and her nappy's dry," Harry said. "I think she's just cranky."
He looked a little helplessly at her. James and Al had been such easy babies; they slept peacefully after their needs had been met. Little Lily Luna Potter was proving to be a handful.
"Who is in my bed?" Ginny asked through a yawn.
"Jamie woke up before I could place a silencing charm on his room," Harry explained. "He must've crawled in. You go on back to bed, I'll take this one downstairs."
"I'm awake now, I'll keep you company. Tea?"
Ginny remembered the continuous anxiety when she felt the first weeks of James' life. Harry had been on the brink of a panic attack by the third night and Ginny cried at least once a day. By the time Al came around, they thought they knew what to expect. Throwing in a toddler alongside a newborn came with a whole lot of other complications, though. When they brought Lily home, Ginny was prepared for the worst. Instead, everything had been relatively peaceful so far. The baby cried often and loudly, but Harry and Ginny were experts in finding sleep wherever they could. As such, getting up at four in the morning was hardly a big deal.
"I thought I might go into the office on Monday," Harry said when Ginny placed a fresh cuppa in front of him.
"Hermione would like that. She's been dying to talk shop," Ginny said, settling into the cosy
fauteuil that she'd liberated from the Burrow when she moved out. Hermione had only given birth to her little boy two months ago and was now firmly back into the swing of things.
Harry groaned. "She's not exactly subtle about it. Everyone expects me to dump you with the baby and get right back to chasing bad guys."
The Wizarding World had a hard time imagining Harry as a dad. All they knew was his tough and intimidating public image. The Man-Who-Triumphed caught dark wizards and protected their world from evil. He didn't make corny dad jokes and play trucks with his sons. They went to great pains to protect their children from the spotlight.
"But you wouldn't mind?" He asked.
"Sure. I can handle the kids," she reassured him. "James has school and Al likes to help out with the baby. Could you pick up Jamie on your way home?"
"Definitely. Don't hesitate to Owl if you need anything. Or you could ask Molly to come over, she'd like that."
Her mum was never fazed by anything child related. She had reared six boys. Ginny regularly felt overwhelmed with two. She finished her cup and moved over to the couch to snuggle up to Harry and Lily. At three weeks old, she didn't take after either of them yet. Her hair was not quite Weasley red and her eyes were a little off from Potter green. To her parents, she was the most beautiful girl in the world.
The baby had long since cried herself to sleep. Neither of them moved. Ginny's eyelids felt heavy so she closed her eyes, just for a second.
On Monday morning, Harry donned his Auror robes, kissed his wife and children goodbye and Apparated into work. He found his secretary in a frenzy.
"Mr Potter, sir, I wasn't expecting you!" Her eyes were wide and her hands were trembling.
"That's quite alright, Ruby. I'm meeting with Hermione all morning, so there is no need to worry. Perhaps you could fill me in on everything I missed after lunch?"
"Certainly, certainly."
Harry nodded kindly at her and moved to step into his office.
"Mr Potter?"
"Yes?" He turned around. Ruby wasn't usually very chatty.
"I- I was wondering, maybe… How the baby was?" She sounded hesistant.
"Oh she's wonderful," Harry said with a huge grin. "Already a little spitfire, takes after her mum that one. Al is over the moon with his little sister and Jamie is taking his big brother role even more seriously than before. He runs to get Gin whenever the baby makes the smallest sound."
Ruby smiled at him brightly. She was a good secretary and a nice person who respected his privacy. "I'm glad."
Talking about his children always brightened Harry's mood, but today it brought out the worry that was nagging at him. He knew Ginny was perfectly capable of caring for the little monsters but nevertheless he hated leaving her alone with them.
Seeing the huge pile of correspondence on his desk, he turned on his heel and headed towards the fifth floor, where Hermione was waiting for him.
After Ginny pushed Harry out the door, his "Owl if you need me!" echoing after him, she went into power mode. James needed to be washed, fed, clothed and out the door in thirty minutes. Al was asleep in his booster seat and Lily was gurgling in her crib. She dropped James off at school with her two youngest asleep in their pajamas, ignoring the judging looks the other parents send her way.
She rushed back home to let Al have some play time before his morning nap. Only after she had put him down, made sure Lily was content in her crib and prepared lunch for herself and Al, did she let herself calm down. As usual, she had overestimated the amount of work she had to do. Mornings always seemed unsurmountable until she surprised herself by finishing early. Using a handy charm her mother had taught her, the kitchen rag started scrubbing the counter by itself. A quick wave of her wand put the toys away, and some vanishing charms took care of any dust that had accumulated. She didn't know how Muggle parents survived.
Normally Harry and she would take advantage of this rare quiet time by taking a nap, but Ginny was still pumped with adrenaline from her hectic morning. It would take some time to get in the rythmn of daily life again. She put her feet up on the coffee table, intending to simply do nothing until one of the kids woke up and needed her.
Fifteen minutes later, Ginny Potter remembered why she never budgeted for quiet time. She was bored out of her mind. Against her previous intentions, she picked up her laptop from where it had been stored ever since Lily's birth. She was terrified of the Owl mail awaiting her at the office after not working for four months. She'd tried to keep up working from home, but her last trimester had been especially tough. She made a mental note to remind Harry once again that they were done having children.
The laptop was a relatively new addition to her career. When she started at the Quidditch Magazine, Quick Quoting Quills were stil the designated tool for any self respecting journalist. Muggle toys were for amateurs. The mood had shifted when the Department of Muggle things made some marked improvements to text editors.
Ginny Accio'd the Daily Prophet that had been delivered that morning and inspected the Sports section. Her usual spot was taken by a summer column by Oliver Wood, whom she begged to cover for her while she was on leave. She would die before letting one of those vultures at the office come close to her spot. Sadly, Oliver seemed to be a dispirated writer, regardless of his enthousiasm for the sport in real life. Her fingers ached to take back her spot.
She opened a fresh text document, only to have her mind blank. She hadn't kept up with sports news in the least the past three weeks.
She jumped up – ouch, her back still hurt – to stick her head in the fireplace.
"Ronald Weasley!"
"Auntie Ginny?" Her four-year-old niece was the first to spot her. "MUMMY!"
Ginny heard some bonking and then her brother's legs came into view.
"Mummy is at work, Rosie," he told her daughter. "You'll have to make do with me. Oh, hi there, Gin. What do you want?"
"Tell me about Quidditch."
"Huh?"
"I need to know what happened since Lily was born. I haven't kept up at all and now I have no clue what's been going on."
Ron settled on his knees in front of the fireplace. "Man do I have some news for you."
The Holyhead Harpies. Her Harpies. Bankrupt.
"Well, not officially yet. But bloody close, yeah," Ron said. "I bet they'll declare within six months if things don't start looking up."
"How in Merlin's name did this happen in the span of three weeks?"
"Apparently, things haven't been rosy for awhile. All very hush hush, though," Ron said with a shrug.
Ginny grumbled. "And nobody told me. I bloody gave them five years of my life and none of them saw fit to warn me they were going down."
"You had other things on your mind," Ron said gently. Rose had her little arms wrapped around his neck and was listening carefully. That girl had her mother's curiosity. Fatherhood had done her brother good.
"Alright, good talk. I'll see you on Sunday?"
Ron and Rose waved at her before she pulled her head back into her own living room. She barely had time to process the news before it was time for lunch. Al and the baby kept her busy enough to keep her mind occupied until tea time.
"Ginny, dear?" Her mother called from the living room. Ginny was in the kitchen, brewing tea while Al played with his trucks on the floor.
"In here!" She called to her mum. Molly Weasley was ever so predictable. Ginny suspected her mother had been watching the clock until it was the earliest appropriate time to have afternoon tea. They chatted about the children and Molly filled her in on the status of every single one of her grandchildren. Apparently Aubrey and Percy's toddler Lucy was now more into toy brooms than her dolls.
"Mr Potter!"
Striding quickly across the floor towards Hermione's office, Harry pretended not to hear his name being called. He didn't feel like dealing with small talk today.
"Harry!" A woman with wild dark curls jumped into his path. "Focused, aren't ya? I've been trying to get your attention for ten minutes."
"I, um," Harry said intelligently. The woman seemed familiar but he couldn't place her. "What can I do for you?"
"Weeell, as I'm sure you know, I was recently transferred to the Department of Magical Games and Sports. I've been desperately trying to contact Mrs Potter about the possible bankruptcy of her old team. Would you pass on a message for me?" The woman batted her eyelids at him. Suddenly, her name sprang to her mind.
The last time her saw Romilda Vane, she had been covered in sweat, blood and grime after the Battle of Hogwarts. He remembered her as a giggly teenager with questionable morals. In the end, however, she had stood with him when it mattered; in Dumbledore's Army and at the Battle. He found himself smiling warmly at her.
"What on earth does Romilda Vane have to tell me?"
Fortunately, Harry only had to wait for a quarter hour before James's class was let out. He and Ginny had chosen a Muggle primary school on purpose, but for some reason he was still a subject of debate amongst the regulars. When James first started school, they had vaguely described Harry's career as 'involved in law enforcement'. Somehow, this had spiraled into a net of rumors about his extremely succesful career as a spy for the British government. How convenient that super spy hours were flexible enough to allow him to pick up his son from school almost everyday.
When he got home, he found Al and Lily under Molly's loving care, while his wife was surrounded by a mountain of newspapers.
"She works at the Department of Magical Games and Sports now," Harry explained. "She cornered me on the way to Hermione's office."
"Magical Games and Sports? What bumbling fool gave her that job? I remember her try out for the Team," Ginny scoffed. "She couldn't even fly around the pitch."
"That's why she works for the Ministry, not in the field," Harry said with a grin. "Did you know the Harpies are on the brink of collapse?"
Ginny gestured to the pile of papers on the table. "I found out this morning. I can't believe no one told me."
"Romilda is planning a fundraising event. A game with retired professionals, old Harpies versus retirees from all other teams. They want the players to play for free so all proceeds can go to saving the Harpies."
"Since when is she Romilda to us?" Ginny asked. "I don't know if I want to do a favour for the woman who tried to douse you with love potion."
"You wouldn't be doing her a favour, you'd be helping out your old team," Harry said. He added, gently, "Romilda was a child with hero worship, she did something stupid. Haven't we all done stupid things as teenagers? She stood with us when it really mattered."
"You're right, of course," Ginny said with a sigh. "Do you think I should do it?"
"Absolutely not," Molly butted in. "You just gave birth less than a month ago, silly girl."
Ginny's mouth pursed and Harry knew then and there that her mind was made up. Stubborn woman, he thought with immense fondness.