Disclaimer: Not mine. Only that which you do not recognize is mine.
At a small coffee shop in a pleasant part of London sat a girl, well, actually a young woman. She was all of twenty years old, though her height and small frame betrayed her age and wisdom gained through a rather eventful life. One would imagine, given her colorful, eventful, and even occasionally tragic past that a day such as this would find her in a cheerful mood. The sun was out, always a minor miracle during autumn in England. She had a perfect cup of her favorite coffee, a mocha with just enough raspberry syrup to satisfy her sweet tooth.
At this moment, however, the object of our examination was anything but fun or cheerful. She glanced again at the pocket watch she had in her small beaded handbag. "That's it! I give up on all men. They either leave you behind, leave you without even showing up, or show up and then ignore you! They don't call, don't write, and don't act like any civilized person should!" All of this was being muttered into her mug of coffee. Luckily the wide-mouthed, burgundy and gold mug was a good listener and had room for her rant. "All men are immature, little boys. Arghhh! I thought perhaps I would find better luck with muggles. But no, they're just the same! What is it with men?"
"My dear girl, to give up on men at such a young age is simply tragic," calmly stated the café's other patron.
A ladylike snort emitted from the young lady as her mature response. "Whether they are muggle or wizards, each man is different from all the others. We all have our moments of supreme idiocy, but we also have our redeeming moments of sheer brilliance. The difficulty is that some have too few of those redeeming moments." The man replied with surprising understanding.
The young lady quirked her eyes at her uninvited guest, not betraying her surprise at either the reference to wizards or his shocking empathy to her situation.
"Now, I am sure you have no idea who I am, but know exactly who you are. Forgive the intrusion, Miss Weasley, but I could not allow you to continue maligning all men, at least without some moral support."
At this Ginerva Weasley was surprised and a bit of it leaked through her well developed mask she normally wore. "Alright, so you have the advantage of knowing who I am, might I have the chance to balance the score?"
"James Michael Weaver at your service, mademoiselle," he said with a flourish.
Ginny looked this James fellow over quite carefully for a moment. After all, her history with men was not that fantastic and she had reason to be distrustful of charmers. Actually, with her history, she had cause to be distrustful of just about anyone that opened their mouth or wrote her a note, the fate of someone too close to the center of the Second Wizarding War.
James Michael Weaver looked misplaced in the heart of London. His home must be on a beach somewhere, Ginny thought. He looks like all the men on those American muggle shows that take place on a beach in California. Golden blonde hair, deep blue eyes, a healthy tan, and, Ginny hated to admit it a toned body.
This Weaver character was well aware that he was being evaluated. "Do I meet with your approval, Miss Weasley?" he asked with a straight face, but a bit of a glint showed in his eyes.
"Considering that I could hex you in to oblivion should you try anything, I would hazard to say that for the moment you are safe," she calmly stated, "Try anything stupid and you are toast." She concluded and sipped her beverage.
"Now, utilize this stranger and consider this therapy. Why are you so tragically giving up on men?" he asked as he sipped from his cup of tea.
Ginny looked at this man again. What harm could it do? He was a complete stranger and from his accent, he was not even from the British Isles. He must be Australian, Ginny concluded.
"Here's the short version, some of which you may or may not be familiar with, depending on how much you know of the past oh, say nine years. Let's begin with the ever famous school girl crush. In my case, this particular malady that all girls go through was a bit more substantial. My crush was literally famous. As you know," here her table partner made a brief nod and continued sipping his tea. "Well, he goes off to war, leaves me home, returns home and ignores me. After a year or so, I figure I need to grow up and try to move on. It seems apparent he has as he never once contacted me. He just casually would say three or four words to me when we were tossed together at a function or a family event. Then there were about four wizards who for various reasons, all complete rubbish, decided they no longer wished to date me." Ginny realize that did not quite come out correctly. "The first one I dated for three months. Then the second lasted a whole six weeks. Bachelor number three made it to four months. Number four said good bye after three months. I decided perhaps to give muggles a try. Many witches and wizards fall in love with muggles, so I figured why not me? Right. Should know better than that. So I follow my best friend's advice and mingle throughout muggle London. Muggle bachelor number one was supposed to meet me here an hour ago. He has not called, yes, I do have a muggle portable phone thing. So here I sit pouring my heart out to a total stranger who will likely follow in the footsteps of those before him and do something to make my life a bit more miserable." She stopped, went to take a sip of her mocha only to find that it had cooled. She sighed.
Her companion took a sip of his quickly cooling tea, regarded this forlorn creature in front of him, and came to a resolution. Putting down his tea cup, he stood up and declared, "We, Miss Weasley, are going for a stroll in the park."
This served two purposes, first, it was as previously stated a gorgeous day and this Mr. Weaver character wished to enjoy it. Secondly, he knew there was work to be done to help this poor young lady rejoin the land of the cheerfully living.
Lucky for this charming young man, Ginny was simply out of energy to either argue or hex him. Thus, she took his offered arm and they left the café. Once they reached the small park that was nearby, Mr. Weaver began speaking.
"First off, I notice you have not addressed me by name. I simply forbid you to call me anything but James. No Mr. Weaver, Jim, Jimmy, and so forth. Secondly, I shall be grotesquely presumptuous yet again and begin calling you Ginerva. As I'm sure this is the beginning of a quality friendship, I shall eventually develop a charming nick name for you, but that will have to wait a bit yet."
"I am all of twenty-seven years old, and have lived just about everywhere were English is spoken and visited quite a few places where it isn't. Born in America, raised there and Australia, and now back here for a couple of years. I am a photographer and my love is to work for publications like National Geographic I do enjoy a good spread for the fashion magazines, especially during the major shows in Parish, Milan, and New York. Never underestimate the healing powers of couture."
Ginny was taking this all in as she sat somewhat slouched on the park bench. James took a quick breath and then followed this up with, "I live in my parents' place, they passed away several years ago." Ginny made to interrupt and say something about her condolences, but he waved her off. "Honey, you of all people should not be offering comfort to me," he said much more softly. They both sat in silence for a few minutes.
"As I was saying, I live in my parents' old place. My sister just got married a bit ago so it is a little empty there." Here was another pause and Ginny was wondering what this singular man would say next. "It is quite a big place for just me and Charles." Ginny looked up.
"I sense that Charles is not your brother?" she asked.
"No, he's not. Once you meet him you'll never have that thought. He's the respectable, quiet, introverted one. He also has brown hair, brown eyes, and due to being the highly respectable lawyer that he is, he has no gorgeous tan like yours truly has!" James declared. "Charles and I have been together now for about five years. We, my dear girl, are gay." He paused again to check her reaction.
Ginny quirked a small smile, "Colour me surprised." Her dry humor snuck out of her depression for a brief moment.
"So I have a proposition for you and no, not that sort of proposition girl! We have a whole floor now vacated by my adoring sister who felt it necessary to go and get married. I think you need a change of scene and a few other little things. What would you say to moving in with Charles and me?"
Here Ginny was genuinely surprised, and tempted. With Fleur living at the Burrow since the death of her two oldest brothers during the war things just were not the same there. Ginny and Fleur were friends, but her childhood home was no longer her refuge. She had been living with Ron and Hermione, but being the third wheel to them in the early years of their marriage was getting a bit fatiguing.
Ginny managed to surprise her self by saying, "Yes, James, I do believe I will take you up on that offer."
With that the two of them walked to his house as they continued getting to know each other.
Author's Note: Yes, I know I have a few other fics brewing and I promise to finish The Laughter and the Love soon, but an idea bit me, along with the flu bug so thus this fic. Be kind in your reviews, I'm a girl whose spent her weekend being ill. Flames accepted, can't be worse than the fever I've got now. (Blame that if none of this makes sense.)